Code S started with Group A, with a total of three oGs players in it: the ace, the coach, and the upcoming superstar from Code A. In the best-case scenario for oGs, two of their players would advance out of the group. There's no doubt that everyone was expecting MC and Supernova to make it through easily, but the stars did not align for the oGs team that day.

The group began with a teamkill between oGs' ace player and oGs' coach, starting with cross-position on Metalopolis. MC opened gateway into forge, and upon seeing a hatch first from TheWind, made three pylons to block off a cannon behind the natural minerals. Knowing that he had no way to stop it, TheWind canceled the hatchery only to have MC continue the cannon rush on the high ground. Guarded by two zealots, the cannon went up and did a considerable amount of damage before getting destroyed by a spine crawler. TheWind responded with an all-in baneling bust that got repelled by forcefields. With such a huge advantage, MC built up a huge phoenix force and forces TheWind into submission in an extremely one-sided fashion.

The following match was on Terminus RE, with Polt and SuperNova spawning at 9 and 6. Polt did a standard 1rax FE and teched to starport while SuperNova stays on one base and does an all-in with marines, tanks, and scv's. Without siege mode, Polt had no way of stopping it and the game was over.

Polt's next match was against MC on one of the newer maps, Xel'Naga Fortress. Thie game theoretically should've been a walkover for MC, but the gods weren't looking over the Kratos Toss today. MC opened with a blind 15nexus that Polt scouted first. MC completely misread Polt's build after seeing only a barracks with a reactor on it, and tech to robo with only one gateway. The incoming 3rax push with concussive shell hit while MC had two stalkers and a zealot, and Polt walked over MC.

The next match featured another oGs duel between TheWind and SuperNova on Tal'Darim Altar. Both players expanded before anything else, and cross-positions meant that the game would go on for a while. SuperNova went straight for the standard TvZ push on this map with siege tanks sieging the natural base. TheWind attempted to save the hatchery before it was razed, but he mistimed a flank that cost him the expansion. TheWind already had a third base up at this point, and his muta transition allowed for him to take some map control to stop incoming drops. SuperNova went home with his army to allow his third to go up safely, and reinforced his army to attack TheWind's third. The attack was wiped out handily, but SuperNova was stubborn and kept attacking with small armies that didn't die cost-effectively. TheWind completely stops droning at 45 workers and this spelled his doom, as he never made any more for the rest of the game. SuperNova turtled on his better economy and just held everything that Thewind could throw at him, and the resulting counterpush won this long drawn-out game.

Next up, the final match of the group, was a rematch between MC and Polt on Xel'Naga Caverns. MC does the same exact build as he did in their previous encounter, and once again, Polt punished it with 2rax pressure and ended up killing the expansion for free. With a light contain on MC, Polt took the opportunity to expand and pulled back with his army soon after. Polt noticed the robo bay going up and went for a timing attack before the first colossus came out. Utilizing drops to do two-pronged attacks, Polt ended up sniping the natural nexus again in MC's panic. Polt ended the game shortly after with a huge army advantage and MC gg's.

SuperNoVa - B+
SuperNova made it out of the group easily in two walkover wins. Like many fans have come to know him by, he executed his builds extremely well and was able to come out ahead as a result. He did overextend himself a bit against TheWind as a result of cockiness, but he was already too ahead at that point for it to matter. Overall, solid play, nothing too outstanding.
Polt - B
Polt's games were ironic in that he lost because he was too greedy, and he won because his opponent was too greedy. I don't have much to say about the games because of that, but his decision-making has definitely improved since his last televised games.
MC - B-
How could this happen? MC getting knocked out of the group because of two PvT's? It seems that MC is slowly losing his luster in MCvT, even in foreign tournaments. Whether it's just a coincidence or an actual problem with MC will remain to be seen in the future. However, these two losses were definitely a result of MC being too greedy and getting punished for it.
TheWinD - C
TheWind fell to the younger blood on his team, and his lack of practice was evident in both games. A baneling bust against a Protoss with sentries and a 20-minute all-in against a Terran aren't exactly the best ways to win a game. Not to discredit his skill or anything, he's still a solid Zerg, but his decision-making in these two games wasn't the best.

In the olden days of BroodWar, fans would shake their heads at a group full of Terran players as it meant that the games would be boring and last for hours on end. Luckily for SC2 fans, TvT hasn't evolved into that sort of matchup, yet. This particular group featured three Terran players who came from Code A, and a Code S veteran.

The first TvT commenced betwen sC and Rainbow on Metalopolis. Rainbow tried to pressure sC's early command center with a marine drop in the main followed by blue flame hellions waltzing up the ramp, but sC was all too prepared for an attack like that and there was no damage at all. The resulting counter-push by sC killed Rainbow's newly made command center, and extra reinforcements won him the game. Off to a good start with the game length, right?

This next match was a fated rematch between the two finalists of GSL January Code A, Byun and TOP. TOP barely inched out a win in game 7 of that finals, so seeing how much they've developed since then was a treat. Both players opted for a 1rax FE on cross-positions, although TOP's came a bit earlier since he cut marines. Both players dropped eachother at just about the same time, causing some economic damage to both of them. TOP set up a siege tank at the xel'naga tower outside Byun's natural, but Byun broke through it easily after amassing enough tanks. Up to this point, the game looks pretty much even in terms of scv count, bases, and even senor tower placement. A long drawn-out war of attrition took place in the middle of the map, both players slowly trying to eke out that extra inch of siege tank placement. When it finally seemed like Byun had a slight positional over TOP, TOP reveals his fleet of banshees and vikings that he had been amassing, and is able to use his air control to win the positional battle. Byun himself tried to go for a battlecruiser tech switch, but TOP attacked at a perfect timing and not even one battlecruiser got to see the light of day.

Right after that long game, Byun was thrown into the next TvT against sC on Xel'Naga Fortress. Once again, both players opened with early command centers and transition out of it differently. sC went for a heavy marine opening to harass Byun with drops and the added mobility allowed him to take early map control at the xel'naga tower. Byun broke the position with a huge flank and did a counter that, in turn, got flanked by sC. That one battle allowed sC to take over the tower again and this position lasted for the rest of the game, with the majority of damage being done by drops from both players. sC was able to out-maneuver Byun's army and deny any expansion attempt, and starved out Byun to win the game.

In his second game of the group, Rainbow spawned in the same position on Metalopolis as his previous game, but this time he opted to expand safely first instead of applying early pressure. Both players met with their ground army at a xel'naga tower, and TOP came out ahead with better unit control. This allowed him to siege Rainbow's main from the low-ground. While Rainbow did repel it, constant dropping from TOP allowed him to get a huge economic lead. As a result, TOP was able to use his army advantage to siege Rainbow's third while sieging up the natural at the same time. Rainbow was forced to gg losing his whole army.

With two players tied at 2-0 and two players tied at 0-2, the group entered the tiebreakers to determine seeding. Rainbow was able to start off with a small advantage, after forcing Byun to turtle by faking a blue flame hellion drop. Rainbow used an interesting mid-game unit composition of MMM and blue flame hellions and used the mobility to gain some position over Byun. The first battle in the middle went suprisingly well for Rainbow since a sizeable portion of Byun's ground army was dropping Rainbow's main. Rainbow was able to deny Byun's second attempt at a contain, but he was down 30 scv's at that point because of Byun's constant dropping. The economic advantage snowballed for Byun and his army rolled over Rainbow's.

Finally, the last match of the group, and surprise, another TvT. In somewhat of a strange twist of build orders, TOP opened banshees while faking cloak by upgrading Caduceus Reactor, and sC opened banshees with real cloak. sC canceled his cloak to make a raven after seeing TOP banshee, while TOP made a raven thinking that sC's banshee had cloak. Aside from the huge mind games that went on, both players made siege tanks while expanding to their naturals. sC was able to sneak into Tasteless' secret hallway and get a good position on TOP's natural, but the attack was cleaned up handily. TOP took the momentary army advantage to set up a contain at sC's gold minerals. sC snuck two medivacs of marines and dropped TOP's main, and while the drop did get cleaned up, sC took the opportunity to break TOP's contain in an extremely one-sided fashion. The resulting counter on TOP's gold base killed a large amount of scv's. This position denied mining at TOP's gold while TOP set up his own contain to deny sC's gold base. TOP made a huge mistake of overextending his position and he lost his contain on sC's gold base. After being shelled for practically the whole game, TOP's gold base goes down and with no army or economy, he gg's.

sC - A-
sC showed some dominating TvT's in this group, and understand of the match-up really shined in his positional play. Whenever he was in a disadvantageous position, he was easily able to turn it around and beat his opponent in the positional game. Hopefully his other matchups have improved as well, as he can't ride on winning TvT's for the rest of this GSL.
TOP - B+
I want to say that TOP's skill in TvT is a result of Nada being on his team, as the banshee switch against Byun was very reminiscent of wraith switches in BroodWar TvT. While his positional play isn't as strong as other terrans, as shown in his games against sC and Byun, he has strategies and macro to back it up.
Byun - B
Once again, Byun seemed to barely lose out to TOP in their series and in this group's standings. It was just a bit unfortunate that he had to play sC after losing to TOP, since he is definitely a close competitor to those two in terms of their TvT.
RainBOw - C-
For a player that everyone expects so much out of, Rainbow definitely underperformed in this group. The only thing I can give him credit for was his interesting mid-game against Byun that incorporated blue-flame hellions instead of tanks. Rainbow would've won that game had he defended Byun's drops better, but alas, he didn't. It's saddening to say, but I think Rainbow might have some trouble in the up-and-down matches considering his recent performance.

It's safe to say that Losira was the favorite for making it out of this group, making it into Code S easily and pulling off an all-kill in the team league. The other three players, however, haven't done much of anything since the last season of Code S, so their results were left to the imagination.

The first PvZ started on Terminus RE, and Hongun went for a nexus first and walled off his expansion with several cannons to protect the wall. In response to this, Kyrix took his third base relatively quickly before lair. Both players macro'd off of three bases until the first engagement at the 11-minute mark, where Kyrix completely ran over HongUn with roachling. With a late colossus and not much of an army, Hongun fell to the continual roach reinforcements from Kyrix.

On the following map, Xel'Naga Fortress, both players opened with very safe fast expansions. Losira sneakily hid his infestation pit at the 6 o'clock main which Genius, like a genius, scouted with a hallucinated phoenix. Both players remained passive, especially Genius, as the map structure doesn't lend itself to an easy third. Once Losira's creep highway extended toward the xel'naga tower, he rooted all his spine crawlers to protect his potential fourth base, which triggered a reaction from Genius to attack. In came Losira's army equipped with 40+ banelings and infestors. Although things looked grim for Genius, Losira didn't have enough of an army aside from the infestors to kill Genius' army. A similar scenario repeat itself outside of Losira's natural, and Genius was able to win the game handily.

Thus, the group led into a ZvZ between Kyrix and Losira on Metalopolis. While Losira opened with a hatchery first, Kyrix did a 10pool and pulled all his drones in an attempt to cheese his way to victory. Losira was able to hold off a lot of the army with his sheer drone numbers and with his canceled hatchery, had enough money to continuously make more zerglings as opposed to Kyrix with no economy. After a little cat-and-mouse chase to delay for more larva, Losira was able to overrun Kyrix's zerglings and win the game.

Next game, PvP, Terminus RE, 4gate? Probably. Hongun doesn't like 4gate in this matchup as was evident after watching his last PvP series against MC. There isn't much to say about this game, as it was Genius' 4gate against Hongun's 3gate. Not much to say at all.

Once again, Kyrix and Losira opened with the same exact builds in their last match, and a similar situation occured. However, Kyrix opted to target down Losira's spawning pool this time, which allowed Losira to pick off more than he should have with his drones. Kyrix really wanted that spawning pool, even to the point of losing his whole army to the broodlings that popped out.

Genius - B
The player grades in this group are going to be a bit vague, but it's a result of the games being completely one-sided/whacky. Genius' game against Losira was moreso Losira's loss than Genius' win, and the game against Hongun was just a walkover. Regardless, his play was still solid in both matches.
LosirA - B
Everyone's favorite did end up making it out of the group, with two very intriguing wins and a loss. His ZvP style against Genius seemed very interesting and it definitely does have potential, but the execution was a bit off and it cost Losira the game. The following two games of early pool defense against Kyrix were pretty much moot.
Kyrix - D+
Kyrix was a bit of a disappointment in this group. I feel like both of his cheeses against Losira were an attempt to metagame Losira's hatch first, but his decision making still cost him the game when it seemed like Losira had no chance. The first game against Hongun was solid, however. Although I don't want to admit it, Kyrix is an extremely cheesy player who doesn't fare well in the later stages of the game.
HongUn - D-
Hongun also disappointed me in this group. The extremely late tech in his PvZ yielded a loss to masses of roaches and his stubborn style of PvP costs him many a game as a result of him not wanting to 4gate. He really needs to get his game together to stay in Code S.

Group D was full of amazing names and full of storylines.Will the Genius Terran be able to win his first GSL? Will MarineKing continue the Kong line? Will Alicia replace Boxer this GSL being the only Code S player from SlayerS? Will Zenio finally make it out of the group stages? You probably already know the answers to these questions, but pretend you don't.

For anyone who remembers Nada and MarineKing's last series together, they had some of the funkiest TvT matches to date because of their clashing styles. Their match began on Tal'Darim at 11 and 7, and keeping to his namesake, MarineKing opened double barracks marine pressure. After the dust settled, both players got their expansions up and Nada was down 11 workers. You would think this huge early game advantage would snowball out of control, but MarineKing's style lends itself to a lot of cost-inefficient battles. MarineKing stuck with MMM against Nada's standard marinetank composition and after their first engagement, they were tied in supply at 150. Nada tried to take position at the middle of the map to defend his expansion at 6, and although MarineKing broke through it, Nada's marine reinforcements and following counterattack march straight into MarineKing's main. What Nada didn't know is that MarineKing was beginning to rebuild his main on the topright side of the map, with 4bases to boot. MarineKing delayed Nada with countedrops to rebuild his infrastructure, but it proved to be nil as Nada was way too ahead to be stopped.

Next up was Zenio against Alicia on Xel'Naga Fortress. Zenio hid an extremely early third base at the 6 o'clock main. Alicia's first void ray killed a drone who looked like it was on his way to making a third base, and upon killing the drone, Alicia was content on sitting back and macro'ing up. His phoenixes scout the hidden base shortly after. Alicia was stuck in a situation in which if he decided to attack the hidden base, he would leave himself prone to a counterattack. After outmaneuvering Zenio's army, he was able to kill off most of the drones at 6 with a few stalkers and counter-push Zenio's fourth base. Zenio was forced to all-in at that point, and upon defending the attack, Alicia took the win.

The previous results forced Nada and Zenio to play against eachother in a fight to the death between two teammates. Nada spawned at 7 on Xel'Naga Caverns and proxies the first barracks at 9. This first marine was made specifically to snipe Zenio's first overlord, and it did succeed while allowing Nada a safe expansion. Nada transitioned to the common blue-flame hellion pressure which he only used to shark Zenio. Once Nada reached a sufficient army composition of factory units and marines, he pushed towards Zenio's gold base and killed it, and shortly afterwards, Zenio's fourth base at 3 o'clock fell to the same fate. Nada, once again, pushed towards Zenio's newly made gold base, but Zenio smartly sacrificed it in order to counter Nada's natural and kill a bunch of scv's. Nada does get his gold base while being 30 workers down, however. Although Zenio looked like was in a commanding lead, even blowing up Nada's gold base with banelings, Nada kept dropping around the map to prevent Zenio's expansions from mining and used his army advantage to win the game. What a comeback.

MarineKing was then pit against the PvT monster, Alicia. Alicia's early voidray pressure forced Marineking to make a total of 5 barracks after his early command center. Alicia abuses the natural of Xel'Naga Caverns to pressure MarineKing's expansion and even forced a liftoff. With a better economy and tech, Alicia destroyed MarineKing when he moved out to take a gold base with storms aplenty.

The group entered the seeding stage, and first up was MarineKing against Zenio. MarineKing took a page out of the beta days and lifted his command center to the gold base to start off. Zenio discovered this way too late, and baneling nest was late as a result. The first marine/scv attack was able to kill the natural hatchery, and with the great splitting that we've come to know and love from MarineKing, baneling damage was nullified. Zenio ended up falling to MarineKing's constant pressure and great micro to leave the group 0-3.

For the final match of the group, we had Alicia face off against Nada on Metalopolis. The initial DT rush from Alicia came the exact second when Nada landed a MULE, and his natural expansion was denied. To get back into the game, Nada tried to drop against Alicia's great defense, and ended up losing two medivacs full of units without much damage. In a similar fashion to his game against MarineKing, Alicia attacked right when Nada took his third base and killed the command center. Nada all-ins with his army but Alicia ripped apart Nada's army with ease.

Alicia - A-
PvT is Alicia's best matchup currently, even knocking MVP down to Code A at the end of last season. With two terrans in this group, it was almost guaranteed that he would make it out. It's difficult to point out any flaws in all three of his games, as they were won in an absolutely dominating fashion from Alicia. Great play overall.
NaDa - A-
Our beloved Genius Terran made it out of the group after beating MarineKing and Zenio, both games in which he made huge comebacks.The only thing I can fault him for is getting into that position to begin with, but he was able to win regardless. He was very patient in his games and he only attacked at the appropriate times to gain an extra edge.
MarineKing - B
My prediction of MarineKing winning this GSL fell to shreds unfortunately. With Nestea and MC in the up-and-down matches and MVP in Code A, I almost thought for sure this was going to be his GSL. Regrettably, he wasn't able to snowball his advantage against Nada and got completely dominated by Alicia, and he falls to the up-and-down matches along with some previous GSL winners.
Zenio - C
Zenio was completely outclassed in all of his games. The players grew keen to his style of constant counter-attacks and he wasn't able to muster up a win with that. Had Zenio been in a different group, he might've had a better chance to advance, but alas, Zenio got knocked out in the group stages once again.

One of our TL terran heros is up against a PvT beast in san on this massive map for the first game of the night. However, Jinro takes full advantage of the last letter of RTS in his initial game pulling out a relatively unseen strategy. After both players throw down their expansions and builds are some what assumed Jinro cranks out THREE starports. If you thought one or two cloaked banshees were bad try a dozen, it doesn’t help san that his scouting is very delayed because of Jinro’s turret placement. Before he has any time to prepare the glimmering fleet from above rains down it’s brimstone all over San’s army and natural. San is eventually able to get up some cannons and hold this off once the banshees run out of energy but the damage is almost insurmountable. Jinro, not a man to waste his structures transitions in 3 port BC, supporting these with a ground army he a-moves through San.

Self-claimed best player in the universe Clide takes on fan-claimed best zerg to determine if self-hype is the best kind in the next match. In this game Clide is a master of pressure, never letting Nestea breath because of tactics such as early bunker pushes and blue flame hellions melting control groups of zerglings. Clide also demonstrates how well he can time a push, hitting Nestea with his mech-bio push (including thors!) before bane speed finishes. Watching slow banes die to tank fire is a sad sight indeed, Clide takes this game making it look almost easy to beat Nestea. Self-hype it is.

After taming the little monster that was San, Jinro has to face up against another staggering opponent in Nestea. Early on the game seems to be going well as Jinro gets his macro on, while getting in some valuable scouting and harass with blue flame hellions. Once the mutas get out for Nestea, the game swings slowly into his favour. Initially they are just maintaining his map control, but as soon as Jinro decides it’s time for a push Nestea begins to raze the main. With no real defense to speak of in his main Jinro makes the decision, albeit hesitantly, to try for a base trade; a late siege is all it takes to allow Nestea to hold off the push and take the game convincingly.
1.5 stars

The best player in the world aims to come out of this group undefeated, yet again putting San’s PvT skills to the ultimate test. San does what anyone does when faced against such an intimidating opponent, he techs to DTs. Clide researches some invisible units of his own, amongst the poking and proding of these cloaked demons both players manage to do crippling damage to the third base of the other with guerilla tactics. The only difference is Clide does this twice, the second time with a clever scan decoy. Having lost his third twice and all of his DT’s, San can’t hold off against the best terran kiting on the planet. Clide advances 2-0.

In their rematch Jinro attempts to avoid the macro game with Nestea, or at the very least severly weaken his stake in it. Attempting a proxy barracks near the natural of the zerg, Jinro hopes for some strong early pressure. Nestea spots the construction very early and manages to kill BOTH of the initial SCVs which were meant for building it, basically neutralizing the rush. Much like last game Jinro makes great use of his blue flame hellions, burning everything from drones to banelings. Instead of trying to break him earlier as in the previous game, Jinro now tries to play the macro game along with Nestea. We’re shown exactly why this is a bad idea; Nestea techs quickly to hive spreading his bases all over the map. Once Jinro realizes what’s going on he tries to put a stop to it, but Nestea employs the same tactic as last game backstabbing the main of Jinro. Forcing the terran army back, Nestea has ample time to produce his broodlords and roll over the army of Jinro with their support.

San - B-
San is still a good, strong PvT player, he was unfortunately paired against the innovative strategy of Jinro as well as the best player in the world. There's is little any player can do in this situation regardless of skill in the match up.
Jinro - B+
Jinro showed us an amazing strategy, pulling something off like that in a televized game deserves its praise. Though his games against Nestea were not the best we've ever seen from Jinro, let's be realistic it's Nestea, most people aren't beating him in any match up.
Clide - A
I think the self-proclaimed title of best player in the world speaks for itself here, normally he would receive an A+ by default but I don't believe he was given an opportunity to truly showcase his skills to us
NesTea - A-
Other than losing to the best player in the world Nestea had a good showing here.

Lyn starts off the group with a wonderfully deceptive strategy, showing his opponent a typical quick command center supported by a few barracks with the potential for a two base timing attack. In actuality Lyn places a CC on the fringes of the gold base and uses every available mule to mine from that for a quick economical boost. Fruit dealer does eventually find this, attempting to expand there himself, but not before Lyn more than gets his money’s worth out of the base. Angered by Fruitdealer prematurely stopping his plundering of the gold, Lyn moves out and destroys the hatchery here. From this point on, Lyn makes some poor decisions with his units and succumbs to the superior control of fruit dealer. A shame Lyn couldn’t win with such a cute strategy.

In the next game Killer attempts to cripple Check with some early DT usage, but Check senses this right on time and has an overseer out just as the DTs arrive. Taking minimal damage from the DT harass check techs to mutalisks, an unusual choice for this map as blink stalkers can deal with them quite well here. Naturally Killer goes for just that, using them to parry the muta harass as well as shut down Check’s third base, twice. Once Check gets nothing done with his mutas and loses his expansion again, Killer a-moves him with his blink stalkers.

In the only mirror match up of the group, both Fruitdealer and Check tech to banelings before any real engagement occurs. Check attempts a move from the beta, trying to morph two banes in Fruitdealer’s base while the army is gone. Fruitdealer ends up stopping this easily while destroying Check’s nat. Fruitdear simply outclasses Check in every aspect of this game, showcasing superior control, macro, and decision making.

The final two games between Killer and Lyn brings the pressure on either player to decide his future in the GSL. In the first game Killer actually busts Lyn’s siege expand with a sentry heavy force just after his natural was secured. Both players then fell into passive macro mode until killer tries again to break Lyn’s sieged natural except this time there’s a few too many tanks. Using the momentum from this strange decision of Killer’s, Lyn counters the protoss natural crushing through the forces with a little help from landed vikings. The final game gives us a bit of a longer macro match, with Lyn and Killer both producing frightening armies. The key difference is that Killer actually techs while Lyn attempts to rely on the ridiculous power of the marauder. The power he was so reliant on is extremely mitigated when players go behind gateway units however, and Killer defeats Lyn with his vastly superior tech advantage.

Lyn - C
While Lyn showed promise in some of his games, he has a long way to go before he can really compete with any contenders in code S. I will be surprised if he manages to survive his up and down matches, he's long overdue for a trip to code A.
FruitDealer - B+
Fruitdealer didn't exactly have the most difficult competition in this group, but he showed us why he's a former GSL champion winning the group.
Check - C+
Check made some strange choices in these games, and overall his play wasn't up to the level in the previous GSL. I really like him as a player and it was a shame he got thrashed around so badly in these games.
Killer - B-
Lets be honest here Sangho lucked out by getting to play Lyn twice, there is no way he's going beyond the next round unless his amazing luck continues.

Unlike many of the other groups in the GSL opening round, Group G really had no ace player, making it one of the weakest groups in the Ro32. There were some players of interest however, including the awful GSL March semi-finalist anypro, perennial disappointments TesteR and Ensnare, and decent up-and-commer Virus. Hey, somebody had to win, right?

Somewhat predictably, this group delivered a slate of games ranging from bad to ridiculous. The first game between anypro and Virus was a member of the former catagory, as Virus went for a one rax expand, then added a bunch of barracks and attacked with pure marine. anypro meanwhile had also taken a quick expansion, but was caught teching to robo and died pretty much instantly to Virus's marine army with scv meatshields. In the second game, TesteR and Ensnare played a boring game of half-attacks on Xel'Naga fortress, which ended decisively for TesteR as he diced the terran bio ball with force fields in the second, and largest fight of the game.

The third game was similarly unspectacular. In a TvT on Tal'Darim, both Virus and Ensnare made terrible drop decisions, but an early decision to go banshee did not pay off well for Ensnare, as Virus deflected the harass and retained his tech and economic advantage until the end of the game. Ensnare's multi-task in particular was horribly exposed as Virus parlayed a minor drop into a game ending positional advantage at the base of Ensnare's natural. Had Ensnare been able to both defend and readjust his position he would've been fine, but instead he was quickly swamped after reacting late. Virus then advanced atop the group.

The final two games were played between TesteR and Anypro, and while not being particularly entertaining, still cleared the low bar set by the previous three sets. In the first PvP on Metalopolis, anypro blindly went defensive four gate, when, had he attacked he may have just killed his opponent. It didn't matter though because TesteR went three gate robo, got a fast warp prism and then sent it directly into anypro's stalkers. GG. Hilariously, anypro must have been as surprised to see the warp prism as TesteR was the stalkers. In fact, in warping in a proxy pylon within anypro's sight range, TesteR had led anypro's army to exactly the right position.

In the rematch, both players defensively four gated before going blink. TesteR got it faster, but at the expense of falling several probes behind. Anypro then went robo for immortals as TesteR had telegraphed his build, while TesteR was forced to get a forge and expand, having no idea what Anypro had built. TesteR also attempted to get DT's, but Anypro was all over this, and while the DT's would eventually get reverse the econ lead, they would not prove economically smart. Anypro eventually attacked with a vastly superior army, as TesteR had not enough time to mass up chargelots. However, TesteR sniped anypro's lone observer—anypro's observer control and decision making this game was terrible—and held the attack off with DTs. Anypro slowly got his act together though, and won the next fight with observer support, to take the final place in the group.

ST_Virus - B+
It wasn't a spectacular performance from Virus, but then again, he didn't have a lot to do. There are few terran players world-wide who could not defeat anypro in a TvP, and Virus easily moved past the first game. In the second game, Virus played solidly, and made bad decisions to get into bad situations in which he made good decisions. I'm not sure what that means, but he was able to catch Ensnare asleep at the wheel and take the game comfortably as well. I'm curious as to how Virus will play in the elimination round, where the competition will be much somewhat tougher.
anyproPrime.WE - C+
Anypro played one awful game, one good game, and received a bye in the other game. That's worthy of a C, with the + coming from smart group selection. It's hard to find another group in this Code S tournament in which anypro would even have a chance to win a game. In the elimination rounds, he's drawn July. Don't bet on his chances.
TSL_TesteR - B-
This was a really disappointing way for TesteR to go out as he made one terrific mistake to send the set to a fifth game, then lost a PvP after making mostly the right decisions. A moment of silence is needed however, to remember just how absurd the error of losing the warp prism was in the first game. A slightly too-slow reaction time, greedy pylon placement; it's all enough to get you kicked out of the GSL.
oGsEnsnare - C-
Ensnare once had excellent TvP, which might have been enough to get him out of this group. But he couldn't pull it off this time around, and might never get it right at this rate. Against TesteR he was lethargic and imprecise. Against Virus he was lethargic and bad. The insult to injury moment was a misclick in which he focused down his own undamaged supply depot while going after a drop of Virus. But that wasn't game ending. Virus was outplayed in both games on multiple levels. He's not good enough.

The last group of the Round of 32, H was also one of the most talented and intriguing, with two GSL finalists, HuK, and PvP master InCa. In terms of variety, Group H delivered, even if there was only one game really worth watching.

The group play began with a silly game between Rain and Rain's dark side, in which the dark side won. What exactly possessed Rain to marauder/hellion/scv all-in against July—a player comfortable with low economy, unit-heavy situations—we may never know. The results, however, speak to it having been a terrible idea, as July ate the attack and Rain gg'd immediately. The second of the opening matches featured a PvP between our hero, HuK, and InCa, who has an 80% record in the match-up. While Tasteless and Artosis talked about how four gates were ruining PvP, neither player chose that strategy, with HuK opting for a quick dt and InCa going three gate robo. Things looked extremely promising for HuK as InCa's obs was halfway across the map when the dts came up his ramp, but InCa dialed up one of the most clutch force fields in GSL history to shut down HuK's attack at the last possible second. HuK reasonably choose to expand and get charge, but InCa arrived with two immortals and a colossi just a few minutes after the expansion finished and won the battle to take the game.

HuK was immediately thrown into the next game against July on Peaks of Baekdu Crossfire. He surprised July with a hidden five gate attack after an expand, and did damage, but less than he seemed to have hoped. July responded with a roach/ling counter-attack a few minutes later as HuK was away pressuring the zerg natural, and did damage to the protoss economy, although probably not as much as he had hoped either. July transitioned into mutalisk play, while HuK massed up a stalker immortal army. After some fairly successful harass, July parked an army to the side of HuK's natural, and waited for him to move out. HuK scouted the impending counter-attack, and a tense series of maneuvers occurred as HuK tries to sandwich the zerg army and July continued to try to preserve the threat. Eventually HuK succeeded and trapped the zerg force, but July burrowed some of the army away and his threat remained. Down a base for a significant amount of time, HuK needed to make a move and he choose to try to kill July. July naturally countered and a base trade began. HuK simply had too much ground to cover, however, and July's massed spine crawlers wore down the stalker mob and force the GG at the zerg third.

The final two games were a ridiculous series between InCa and Rain in which both players competed for who could blow a larger advantage. In the first game on Crevasse, InCa took a FE and then massed ten void rays with a large ground force. Yet despite being completely in the dark for the whole game, Rain gets a glimpse of the void rays shortly before the attack comes. InCa then engages on a move command, gets everything EMP'd on Rain's ramp, and just dies. However, like the true champion that he is, Rain could not take such a tremendous level of incompetence sitting down, and in the final game on Terminus SE he gained a decisive advantage with tank marine, despite being too cautious and insufficiently reinforcing his first army in the field. Inexcusably, he allows InCa to escape with a large amount of probes. Even more absurdly, he allows his entire SCV force to be killed by a DT, then lets one of his two command centers to be killed by a stalker. Consider this for value. Rain killed InCa's base with a ton of marines and several tanks. InCa killed Rain's base with one DT, a stalker and a zealot. Yet Rain had many scans saved up, and a huge army in the field.

How does that even happen?

Having blundered away his lead in the most absurd of ways, Rain then wasted TWO calldown supplies on depots that are under fire, yet he never reached the amount of supply needed to build a raven, after which he could lift up all his buildings and win the game. Suddenly, Rain's three scvs need to replace his supply, and Rain still needed scans to defend against DTs. The game ended with InCa repowering a lot of unkilled gateways to get a handful of chargelots and hts, with which he killed the unchanged army that Rain had ten minutes previously. Rain went to Up/Down, InCa advanced, and Huk went into the booth to congratulate him, when he probably had cause to break his hand punching a wall.

STJuly - A
July once again proved himself the king of scrappy, resourceful zerg play. In both games, he adeptly handled early aggression, and his doggedness against HuK proved that he has the patience to win as well. He was the group favorite, and he delivered. With the winners and runners-up of the last three GSL's all out, July smells blood, this is his GSL to lose.
oGsInCa - C
InCa played brilliantly in the PvP. But his games against Rain featured some of the most appalling PvT play we've seen in history. He was extremely lucky to not face July in this group, and shouldn't have even gotten past Rain. One flash of brilliance in his FF against HuK was the only redeeming thing InCa did in this series, and unfortunately due to the GSL's absurd group format, it was enough.
TLAF-Liquid'HuK - B-
HuK should be angry after these games. Despite being clearly the second best player in the group, he will now only have one chance in the up/down matches. It's important to recognize that he could've made things easier for himself; the game against July was winnable, and better force fields in the beginning, or a better placed observer when July's roaches escaped his sandwich, and HuK may have pulled the upset. But there is no way InCa (0-4 PvZ) could've done better, and Rain's attempt was laughable. That HuK never got to play Rain, and that InCa advanced having played him twice is evidence enough that the GSL should rework its group system to a more equitable format. The results in this group were a joke.
TSL_Rain - C-
Speaking of jokes, I've largely defended Rain throughout his career, and I've long thought that he is a marginal Code S player with the potential to be a good one. He did not do anything to deserve that confidence in this Group. His play against InCa was unacceptably gun-shy. His game against July was stupid stupid stupid. Rain has shown good play in the past, but today he showed he could not manage crisis situations, could not make good reads on his opponents, and could not stop himself from all-inning in tremendously dumb ways. In what has been overall a good GSL so far for TSL, Rain's performance is a huge black mark.

Player Grades
MMA - B+
TopClass - C
Hyperdub - C
Line - D-
GanZi - C
Nuts - C+
Jjun - D+
Bomber - B-

Player Grades
Leenock - C
Creator - C+
RevivaL - C-
Ryung - C
BoxeR - B-
Avenge - C
aLive - B
Finale - D+

The first game between Violet and Ace ends up being rather lack luster. Both players fast expand, and Violet times some ling pressure well picking off most of Ace’s sentries. From here on out Violet cranks out better macro and when Ace tries to attack his army gets crushed, game over.
For the second game Violet does the ever-loved 5 pool, but Ace has fortune on his side and scouts the zerg first giving him time to defend with a cannon in his mineral line. Both players recover from this and expand, however Ace expands too soon and Violet takes advantage of this by breaking the natural with a legion of lings. Ace tries to hold on, but the never ending stream and eventually banes overwhelm the protoss base.

Ace - D
For someone who previously had such strong showings, ace was steam rolled all too easily by violet.
viOlet - B
Violet made ace hardly look like a challenge, his play was fairly solid and the games hardly allowed for any opportunities to showcase high levels of talent.

A fine haired duelist is pitted against my favourite month for the second match of the day. In the first game August pushes out from his 2 bases with a bio ball supported by siege tanks. Yugioh opts for the macro hatch in his natural in order to produce a massive ling count. Both players go for a base trade, and despite an excellent marine spread the banes wipe out the bio leaving the lings to clean up the tanks. Score one for the egyptian prodigy.
August stars the second game off in a very similar way, on this time his factory tech is blue flame hellions. His control of these units is nothing short of abysmal. Yugioh counters him much like last game, except this time it’s not a base trade scenario. Breaking into the main killing more than enough SCVs and freshly produced units; supplementing the attack with another macro hatch at his natural for an endless stream of units. The terran tries a desperation push with the standing army remaining, though this force is enough to initially win the battle, Yugioh actually having an economy ends up winning the war. When mutas pop and there’s no anti air in sight, two very distinct keys come to mind.

August - C-
August showed us he can spread his marines, and that he knows how to do a certain push. Outside of this his ingame decision making just isnt good enough
YuGiOh - B-
This new zerg demonstrated some pretty decent micro and macro, being able to just pull out victories and keep intelligent production strategies. We'll have to see if he can evolve beyond the macro hatch in later games

Best starts this game off with a hellion drop, only doing minor damage. While Min gets a macro hatch in his main, Best expands off of siege tanks. Both players try unsuccessfully to harass the other, losing their units in the process. Eventually Best rolls out a marine tank push into Min’s natural, Min waits until JUST before bane speed finishes to attempt his break out. Needless to say this is a terrible decision causing him to lose drones defending. Following this up he places his infestation pit in the most exposed location possible, naturally Best’s second push destroys this and leaves Min defenseless to the terran bulldozer.

In the second game Best tries for another marine tank push, but Min shows us that he actually does have some macro and a-moves all over this with his roaches to save his third. With the attack broken Min takes two more bases and throws up his hive; he’s actually getting out of control. While Best makes an effort to harass and keep the base count down it’s too little far too late. Mins eventual broodlords are treated to a completely undefended tank line, when the bio attempts to rescue this weak location Min throws fungal all over this. He completely smashed Best this game, clearly Min favours the longer game.

In the third game Best is again the person trying for the early pressure with his hellions. In the midst of this he embarrassingly leaves his depot wall down and lets a platoon of zerglings into his base losing a large portion of his SCVs. Realizing the econonmy deficit is too large, and flashing back to last game, Best goes for an all-in. However Min learned from the first game, and demonstrates patience waiting until the hellions are out of position and busts up the tank line with zerglings. Holding this attack off by the skin of his teeth, Min takes the game.

TheBest - C-
Best seems to be getting progressively worse every season
Min - B
If not for the first game Min would have looked amazingly solid in this series. The last two games showed that he was either able to adapt on the fly or calm his nerves under pressure. Either way his macro and decision making in the last two games were really excellent.

No points for predicting the favourite in this series, even though both players may have MVP in their id, the original will show what happens to those who trifle with his legacy. The 16 year old Luer defends an almost suicidal marine attack by MVP, following it up with a double expansion. However, MVP shows the kid why you can’t double expand against someone good when he throws away a few marines. Using his game genie abilities, MVP assaults the main and third of Luer simultaneously, destroying one nexus and nearly the other; while taking the gold for himself. Luer realizing his disadvantage decides he has to counter attack, but having an army consisting almost entirely of sentries is not exactly potent against the MMM combo.

Much like the last game MVP suicides a group of marines early; an offering for good luck or a tactic to keep army count low on sentries? Only MVP can know. Luer tries again to keep his macro up going for a fast third but MVP scouts this immediately, engaging in multi-pronged harass much like the previous game. He then goes on to take a 3rd and 4th of his own, and the harass doesn’t stop all game long with a drop shop always somewhere in Luer’s base. When Luer tries to push out MVP snipes all of the colossi with Viking volleys, causing the protoss retreat. Returning later with a massive army, Luer catches MVP unprepared and what ensues is a nail biting base trade. MVP eventually takes advantage of some less than optimal forcefields while using his drops to wipe out all remaining protoss bases. His remaining planetary makes him unbreakable and with nothing left Luer has to submit

MVP - B
While not the best competition for MVP he nearly lost that second game to Luer, if he has this much problem with an unknown protoss he may actually struggle in the latter rounds. However I have faith
Lure - C+
Luer put up a great fight against one of the best terrans today, while he may not be in the same league as MVP he's shown he can put up a good fight even if he can't seal the deal.

Two virtually new players to the GSL face off in a PvP that will demonstrate if either one has promise for the future.
In game 1 Brown starts off with an unusually fast gas, but within all of the excitement gets two of his stalkers carelessly trapped in Vanvanth’s base thanks to a forcefield. Brown utilizes his early gas for a fast robo to pump out one of each immortal and colossus. Vanvanth follows his tech tree to blink stalkers, attemping a push into the heart of Brown’s base but forcefields make this impossible. With map control on his side Vanvanth secures his natural and gains a large economic lead. As so often players are, Brown is forced to attack before he falls any further behind. With some nice blink stalker micro to snipe colossi, Vanvanth holds off the attack and takes the game.

Browns opens the second game with FIVE cannons at his ramp, teching to a phoenix producing stargate and then expanding. Vanvanth answers this with an expansion of his own, but this ends up becoming a liability. Brown swoops in with his phoenix fleet killing virtually everything at the protoss natural, Vanvanth doesn’t even attempt to defend. In the reverse of last game Vanvanth attacks knowing this lone push must win him the game, unfortunately for him Brown continues to make excellent use of his phoenixes sniping colossi and lifting stalkers.

The final game is a simple 4 warp gate rush by Vanvanth. Brown demonstrates some terrible micro and is unable to hold the assault.

Vanvanth - C+
Well he won, that last game wasn't particularily spectacular but it was nice to see him recover from a creative strategy by brute forcing it.

Brown - D
Outside of his phoenix usage Brown's control was terrible, losing units needlessly and showing us he really can't handle the pressure yet. Maybe next time

Well yeah yeah this is a game and some stuff happens. The players expand, one of them gets DTs and the other a trio of bunkers. The DTs are repelled and more expanding follows, and people try some pressure and what not. Let’s get to the real point of this game




The last game is hardly worth mentioning as Choya goes for nexus first while keen gets 3 rax and all ins with some scvs end the game easily.

Choya - F
Dear god Choya got manhandled by Keen in this series, he let a nuke go off from an ghost that wasn't even cloaked
Keen - A
Yes I gave him an A because he executed a successful nuke and for no other reason.

Squirtle begins his game off with a nexus first, and while Coca gets a fast pool this isn’t a build order win. Squirtle’s build is very tight and fends off any potential from early ling pressure with ease, though none occurs. However, he ends up pushing out a very weird time and losing his entire army without doing any real damage at all. Then, Coca’s economy kicks in and he simply roach-hydra a-moves him.

Same initial builds as last time, except in this second game Squirtle proxies a stargate and Coca comes within inches of scouting it. The voidrays that come out of this proxy annihilate every living thing in Coca’s main, fortunately he has two other bases and continues to pump drones while teching to hydras. Once again Squirtles timing window is off and Coca defends his ground army, counter acting and catching the protoss army out of position AGAIN and ends the game easily

CoCa - B
I really liked CoCa's play here, it wasn't the most amazing but he took very good advantage of the opportunities he had. Constantly being on the move allowed him to catch his opponents army out o fposition multiple times.
Squirtle - D
I used to think Squirtle was a good player, like really potentially very good. After these games I need to seriously reevaluate that assumption. Maybe it was nerves or he was just having a bad day, either way his performance here was wayyy below where it normally is

This series was one of interesting moments involving terrible play and or decision making. In the first game Noblesse does a proxy rax + bunker at ramp, Tassadar holds it off but ends upgets contained. Tassadar counters this with a ton of blink stalkers that blink into the main up the cliff and end the game

Following that Tassadar expands quickly while teching to dts, while Noblesse gets a quick harassment unit of his own in the form of a banshee. Both of these harass strategies do no damage, Tassadar in particular losing both dts to one scan. But noblesse pushes before tassadars expansion can give him any kind of unit production after the failed tech, easy win.

In the final game Tassadar opts for a fast hidden stargate and noblesses gets a quick banshee again. Tassadar loses all 3 of his voidrays with terrible control, noblesse just a-moves tassadar in response because he couldn’t get any useful tech out in time to stop the push supported by siege tanks. Simple.

Noblesse - C-
Beating a terrible player does not make one good, Noblesse showed some really sloppy play in these games and I will be very surprised if he survives the next round
Tassadar - F-
Wow