Leenock > Tassadar

This was one of the most passive PvZ games in recent memory, and not even on a macro map at that! There were no major confrontations until both players maxed out at 200/200 and were on four bases a piece. The passivity lasted so long that the players even had time to cycle food-eating roaches and zealots out of their armies to further refine their compositions.

Yet, Tassadar still failed to assemble a sufficient counter-army against Leenock's broodlord - roach - baneling bomb attack. He had a little bit of everything, from stalkers to high templars to colossi, but not in the correct ratios to fight Leenock. The brood lords in particular were the most troublesome as Tassadar did not have the stalker count to blink in and remove them swiftly.

It ended up being a very one sided 200/200 battle, with Leenock completely destroying Tassadar's army and bases in one sweeping blow.

Leenock: 3.5/5
Put together a really effective 200/200 army.

Tassadar: 1/5
I've never seen Protoss lose a max-out fight so badly.

Tassadar > Leenock

Tassadar opened with a terrific DT -> three archon attack build that set Leenock severely back by destroying his natural expansion hatchery. It looked like it would be a boring macro-steamroll for Tassadar as long as he played it safe, but a few dramatic twists and turns made sure that it was FAR from it.

First, Tassadar stayed aggressive for far too long, trying to finish press into Leenock's heavily spine crawlered natural to no avail. By wasting troops, he allowed Leenock to eventually move beyond his natural and take more bases.

After losing his big lead, Tassadar reverted to passive attitude of the first game. Eventually, the game moved to a stage where all of Tassadar's early game tactics might not have even happened, as both players sat on huge armies and multiple bases once more.

The final complication occurred as two maxed out armies ventured out to wreak havoc on their opponents... and missed each other complete. The 200/200, four versus four base trade was on.

Both players rushed to demolish the opponent's structures as fast as they could, but it soon became clear one player had the huge advantage in a pure base trade. Tassadar's army consisted of mostly stalkers: highly mobile units with fairly good anti-building DPS. At the same time, as a Protoss player, he had multiple production buildings as well as pylons, meaning he had several tens of thousands more building HP than his hatchery based Zerg opponent.

On the other hand, Leenock's firepower was in his brood lords - some of the slowest fighting units in the game. He also had the misfortune to have 20 of his population tied up in one-attack-only banelings, further hampering his ability to destroy buildings. Even worse, Tassadar had the foresight (or luck) to save a large number of probes and resources for the rebuilding phase, while Leenock was left with six drones and barely enough money for a hatchery when the demolition phase ended.

And while all factors pointed to a crushing victory for Tassadar, it ended up being nerve-rackingly close.

Leenock came awfully close to being revealed and eliminated, but got down an emergency hatchery just in time (but nowhere near minerals). Tassadar tried to set up a few new bases, but he was absolutely terrified of showing down with Leenock's army and immediately abandoned bases that were challenged. If Leenock could force Tassadar into a battle, it looked like he just might crush the Protoss army and then mop up the remaining buildings.

However, cowardice and cunning proved to be the winning course of action as is often the case in RTS games. Tassadar had sent out a detachment of blink stalkers to search for hidden buildings, which swiftly focused down the last remaining hatchery when Leenock was out attempting to remove Tassadar's new mining base. This immediately revealed Leenock's sole surviving building (an extractor), which Tassadar deftly killed to secure the elimination victory (Leenock actually GG'd out just beforehand, but it was elimination in spirit).

Leenock: 3/5
Played really well to come back from his early game deficit. I'm sure he realized the base trade was a bad idea the second he committed to it, but you can never back out of that scenario, especially when you have a slower army.

Tassadar: 3.5/5
Great opener to take the lead, then almost blew said lead, then played the base-trade situation brilliantly to regain the lead and take the game.

Tassadar > Leenock

After a forge FE, Tassadar caught Leenock napping with a cute void ray + phoenix + in-base warp in strategy. Leenock could be forgiven for losing a few drones while he pumped out a few extra rounds of lings, but the total disaster that followed was unexpected.

Apparently he missed a ton of injects as he dealt with the attack, and he ended up doing a lot of fighting-zealots-with-drones which is rarely beneficial. Long story short, a three base zerg lost over twenty drones to nine zealots and some flyers. Tassadar then macroed and attack moved to win the game.

Leenock: 1/5
Lost so much to so little.

Tassadar: 3/5
Cute strategy with the high-ground warp in.

Tassadar > Leenock

The two players played yet another long macro game, but this time it wasn't due to their passivity. There was plenty of aggression between the two, but starting at diagonal positions on Tal'Darim Altar ensured the game would go long.

For all his great hive-zerg play in the previous sets, Leenock faltered greatly in the deciding game. A mass roach (without burrow) vs mass stalker fight ended predictably, with the stalkers efficiently smashing the zerg army with blink micro. That much was alright, as roaches are semi-expendable resource in ZvP. Leenock's real mistake was that he started morphing brood lords after the fight - in an unprotected position just outside his base!

Tassadar tripped on cluster of dormant cocoons as his stalkers moved forward to attack, and must have been shocked that his opponent would simply gift him eight brood lords like that. With the roaches and unborn broodlords gone, Leenock was forced to GG.

Leenock: 1/5
Fatal mistake.

Tassadar: 3/5
Stumbled into a victory.

Tassadar won 3-1

Puzzle > Happy

For reasons unknown, Happy went for a TvT marine-hellion-banshee into mech build order against a Protoss opponent. Puzzle simply made gateway units + immortals and killed Happy straight-up during a wide open window where he was transitioning to siege tanks.

Puzzle: 3/5
Wasn't fazed at all by his opponent's bizarre play and took an easy win.

Happy: ?/5
No idea what he was doing.

Puzzle > Happy

Happy went for a two barracks all-in rush, but did not show the best control as he let his SCV-Marine forces get surrounded by Puzzle's probes. With a good stalker + probe defense, Puzzle came out far ahead, and was able to easily overpower Happy a few minutes later.

Puzzle: 3.5/5
Good defense with just stalkers and probes.

Happy: 1.5/5

Puzzle > Happy

Happy went for 1 rax expand and died to light three gate pressure. Really, that's all.

Puzzle: 3/5

Happy: 0.5/5
It was really strange how poorly he played this series compared to his previous Code-A games. Maybe TvP is his weakness?

Puzzle won 3-0

Puzzle won 3-0

Nestea > Ensnare

Ensnare opened with a cute three barracks follow up to an expand, designed to hit right before Nestea's zergling speed was complete. Nestea held convincingly, using his mystical powers to spawn only one set of zerglings more than was need to hold the push. After the failed push, Nestea was able to drone and tech to infestors freely.

It looked like things were making a turn for the worst, after a big double marine drop hit his naked natural expansion, but Nestea managed to hold with infesters popping out just in time. After he took out many of Top's units cost efficiently afterward, he was back in the driver's seat.

Ensnare was never able to pressure Nestea after that, allowing Nestea to tech up to brood lords and take the game.

Nestea: 4/5 did exactly what he had to do to win, nothing more, nothing less.

Ensnare: 2/5

Nestea > Ensnare

Ensnare went a for one barracks fast expand into two factory blue flame hellions - not a bad decision against Nestea considering luck could win you the game. Nestea held with some brilliant positioning and micro, losing almost nothing while killing 10 hellions. Nestea did a nice job holding Ensnare's two base follow up push, not even needing his entire army to crush Ensare's and take the game

Nestea: 3/5

Ensnare: 1.5/5 - all-ining was really his only option, he was clearly outclassed.

Nestea won 2-0.

Coca > Genius

Genius went for a proxy stargate and hit just before Coca was prepared with enough queens to effectively defend it to do some minor damage. Coca got out hydralisks for defense, and then secured his gold base with a large hydralisk zergling army to give himself a small economic edge.

In the major battle that ensued, Coca was able to get perfect baneling drops off on Genius' army and took the game with his deadly composition of roach, hydra, corrupter, baneling.

Coca: 3/5

Genius: 2/5

Coca > Genius

Coca secured a very fast gold base just like in the last game with a big roach hydra army. He really shows how zerg can balance making drones and units safely. Genius managed to hold a similar ground + baneling bomb attack from the last game, but made a huge blunder by losing a ton of probes in a transfer through the middle of a battle. With half the economy of his opponent, he was was unable to keep up in production and was forced to GG..

Genius: 2/5
Lost due to forgetting he was transferring probes

Coca: 2/5

Coca won 2-0.

Trickster > Clide

Well, this one started interestingly, Clide opening with a cloaked ghost rush, and getting 15 kills before his ghost ran out of energy. Even so, Tester's one gate expand opening meant that he was only slightly economically behind after all that trouble.

After both players uneventfully got up to three bases, Clide enganged Trickster with a big force of infantry and vikings that killed all of Trickster's colossi, but not his ground army. Clide then transitioned into trying a lot of cute nuke tactics with all sorts of lures, but it ended up being a massive waste of time and resources while Trickster took free expansions at other places on the map.

Trickster shrugged off Clide's cute tricks, and crushed him with templar and storm as Clide never had many ghosts for EMPing, for all of his nuke centric tactics.

Clide: 2/5 - While it was cool to see a cloak ghost rush into a nuke tactics, it would have been much better if it was executed as well in practice as it had been in theory.

Trickster: 3/5

Clide > Trickster

For game two, Clide used marine positioning to fake a fast expand while teching to cloak banshee. The banshee got 11 kills before running out of energy. Clide followed up with the marine tank banshee all in, which is hard to hold anyways, nevermind after losing units and probes to a cloaked banshee.

Clide: 1/5

Trickster: 1/5

Trickster > Clide

When Trickster scouted Clide's supply depot wall in, he followed up with a three gate stargate timing attack. After containing Clide, Trickster was able to expand safely himself and even tech to colossus. Clide realized that he was behind and expanded to the gold base. However, Trickster's phoenix follow up was able to effectively shut down mining there.

Clide managed to snipe Tricksters third base twice during the mid-game, once with a MMM run by, and later with some great nuke positioning. Despite that large macro advantage, Clide allowed Trickster too much freedom, in the end allowing him to have a larger economy and take the game.

Clide: 3/5 - Poor Clide

Trickster: 3/5

Losira > Top

Game one was almost an exhibition match for Losira, where he really got to show off his extremely good mechanics.

TOP opened with hellions into cloaked banshees, but Losira's defense was absolutely impeccable. This gave Losira a massive economic lead as he had pumped drones and lost nearly none, while TOP was desperately trying to catch up from his failed tech opener.

Losira dominated TOP with almost perfect macro and micro off multiple bases, never faltering in production while dividing his muta-ling forces to harass TOP at multiple locations. He terrorized TOP non-stop with the muta-ling, all the while seamlessly teching up to brood lords to land the finishing blow.

Losira: 4/5
Perfect way to build on an early lead.

TOP: 2/5
Did what he could, can't really blame him.

TOP > Losira

TOP used an intriguing build that took advantage of the easily walled Tal'Darim choke, going for supply-CC-gas-rax. It allowed him to do a very fast reactor-hellion pressure while fast expanding, and then quickly transitioned into a double-medivac stimpak-marine drop.

Losira held against the hellions well, but didn't expect the medivac follow-up to come so quickly. Though he defended remarkably well given the fact that he was unprepared, Losira ended up losing his spire and any ability to pressure Terran for a fair amount of time.

The game went to three base vs three base with TOP constantly pressuring Losira with more and more marine-tank while Losira did his best to defend. Losira should have been in a lot more danger, but TOP was extremely sloppy with his micro and allowed Losira to hold him off multiple times with smaller forces. However, for all his poor micro, TOP continued to macro very well. Being on even bases, Losira had no room to slip up if he wanted to stay alive. Though he played very well to hold off several terran waves, eventually he made a mistake and was crushed by TOP's never-ending army.

Losira: 2.5/5

TOP: 3.5/5
The perfect macro + endless pressure style of TvZ isn't the most glamorous, but it sure is effective.

Losira > TOP

Game three was like a strange mirror-world version of game two, where TOP went for a very similar FE into hellion into fast 2 medivac drop, except that in this world, Losira had mutalisks out before the drop.

Destroying two dropships and their cargo with only minor scratches made this game the complete opposite of game two, with TOP trying desperately to defend while Losira had free reign to keep macroing and attacking.

Losira's micro and tactics were tip-top, so TOP couldn't drag the game out before being forced to GG.

Losira: 3.5/5

TOP: 1.5/5

Byun > Nada

Byun went for a regular gasless expand into infantry while Nada went for a fast blue flame-hellion drop into expansion into mech. Though Nada's build might sound a bit convoluted, it actually fits a very standard TvT build pattern of "random tech stuff into mech."

Nada lost a ton of time to Byun's light infantry containment, especially after his three blue-flame hellion drop failed miserably. Even so, he kept the game even by sneaking in a gold base and mining it for a decent amount of time before Byun caught it and forced a lift.

All said and done, it went to a marine-marauder-tank vs pure mech type of game without anyone having a clear lead, pitting the two players in an interesting mid-game duel.

Becuase of Dual Sight's multiple paths and huge distances between expansions, Byun was able to exploit the mobility of his composition beautifully. Nada was forced to endure all sorts of counter-attacks and backdoor assaults, and even an extremely solid player such as he couldn't help but slip up now and then (how many times will we see someone attack move three tanks into a dropship and four marauders?).

Nada eventually built up a large tank force that could commit to a dangerous push, but didn't have the required accompaniment of vikings. Byun used medivacs and infantry to cause terrible friendly splash damage to Nada's force, softening it up considerably. Combined with the multitude of expansions he had taken while Nada was preoccupied, Byun was able to slowly chip away at Nada's force and eventually overwhelm it for the GG.

Byun: 3.5/5
Good use of mobility
Nada: 2/5

Byun > Nada

One game down, Nada decided to go for the popular TvP build in the 2/1/1 all-in with marines, banshees, and tanks. Byun had gone for blue flame hellions and a fast second orbital, and was ill equipped to deal with Nada's attack. He was forced to pull a lot of SCVs in defense, which Nada was content to kill off before retreating and expanding himself.

In a reversal from the previous game, Nada went for bio with the slight lead while Byun went mech to dig himself out of his hole. However, as the game played out, we would see that both players used their armies in wildly different manners from the previous.

Nada set up a containment line outside of Byun's base and took more bases for himself, but didn't attempt to use drops or multi-pronged attacks to exploit the fact that Byun was forced to keep most of his tanks in one location.

On the other hand, Byun didn't overextend himself at all, and just focused on doing one of the safest, slowest, methodical tank pushes ever seen. With vikings providing air superiority he creeped forward like a glacier: slow, massive, and unstoppable. Even though Nada remained a few bases ahead, it didn't seem like a big deal as both players neared max populations and Byun's position was unassailable as ever.

Gradually, Byun pushed Nada's containment line over the half-way mark on the map, effectively swapping the roles of the contained and the container. Nada avoided being immediately squeezed to death by doing a surprise viking + cloak banshee transition, but that only brought him a small amount of time before even more vikings and thors were on the field for Byun.

Nada was able to play a bit better as Byun's forward progress had come at the cost of stretching his defenses thin, but it was too late for Nada's minor harassment to affect the game. Byun's core force was just too strong, and he was able to plug all his gaps and then suffocate Nada to death.

Byun: 4/5
Some of the most solid mech TvT play ever seen in GSL.

Nada: 2.5/5
Wasted too much time and money trying to 'contain' Byun, when he was just getting pushed back at his opponent's leisure.

Byun won 2-0

MC > Huk

Huk went for a gate-robo-gate-gate opener, while MC went for three gates into fast blink. Huk gained a nice advantage early on by slipping in a late scouting probe after luring MC away from his choke, receiving complete knowledge of his opponent's build. MC would have to wait until he poked in and noticed Huk's immortal to find out his opponent's strategy.

MC decided that he could squeeze in an expand while Huk was catching up on blink research, setting up a dangerous defensive situation for him in the future.

Huk came rolling in with his blink stalkers and an immortal, but took too many hits trying to focus down the Nexus as his first priority target. This put him down slightly behind in stalker count, which was pretty much fatal as escaping from blink stalkers is near impossible.

MC just re-expanded on top of his troop lead, and soon had a big force Huk couldn't hold against.

Huk: 2/5

MC: 3.5/5

MC > Huk

The first 4 gate vs 4 gate PvP we've seen in a while! What a surprise!

MC took an early advantage by using better micro to take a one stalker lead in the pre-warpgate phase, and then put together five stalkers to attack Huk after warpgate research completed.

Huk used his hidden proxy pylon to warp in three stalkers near MC's base, but it wasn't enough to do any damage in MC's main. It just ended up splitting his stalkers into two groups, neither able to achieve much on either end of the map.

MC was able to overpower the Huk's three attacking stalkers with new warp-ins on defense, while his five attacking stalkers also defeated Huk's three on the other end of the map. Huk found himself with no offense or defense and was forced to GG.

Huk: 1.5/5

MC: 3.5/5

MC won 2-0

Bomber > Optimus

There was quite a bit of cool play in this game, such as Bomber using the Raven-mech style that IMHappy introduced to us in Code-A, which employs PDD's to great effect against marauders and vikings. Or Polt's great tactics using infantry drops and flanks to devastate big tank armies.

There were also quite a few momentum shifts as well; this was a game where no one stayed in the lead for too long.

The problem was that the game went on for long enough - and each player got enough bases - that it progressed into the least exciting phase of TvT: Standoff while everyone masses viking-battlecruiser. Honestly, TvT could really benefit from a ground-based strong counter to air (like goliaths), because ground units lose a lot of relative importance past a certain point in the game.

Anyway, the game had one of the worst endings in long TvT. With both players sitting on a ton of bases, vikings, and starting to slowly accumulate BCs, Optimus made the horrible, horrible mistake of letting half his viking fleet engage with Bomber's 100% strength viking force. Then he donated the OTHER half that hadn't been fighting at the outset, the end result being zero vikings for Optimus and twenty plus for Bomber (and they had started on fairly terms).

With nothing to shoot down Bomber's BCs, Optimus was forced to GG. A snoozefest or a nerve-racking game, depending on who you ask.

Optimus: 3/5
Played very well until he blew the final viking battle.

Bomber: 4/5
Played very well and then won the final viking battle.

Bomber > Optimus

Cloaked banshees from Optimus, blue flame hellion drop from Bomber. Bomber got a turret and held off the banshees, Optimus let all of his SCVs get roasted.

Optimus: 1.5/5

Bomber: 3/5

Bomber beat Optimus 2-0.

HongUn > Zenio

HongUn, unable to overcome his love for unconventional play, opened with a one gate fast expand into dark templar. Zenio held, taking almost no damage.

Zenio got over excited going for multi pronged attacks instead of teching or droning as fast as he needed to, and threw away many units trying to backdoor. Once HongUn held off Zenio's attacks, he counter-attacked and killed Zenio's hive at his natural expansion. After HongUn took his gold base his economic and tech advantage was too great, winning him the game.

HongUn: 3/5

Zenio: 2/5

HongUn > Zenio

HongUn took an early lead, going for a fast expand into stargate play and actually killied Zenio's third base. HongUn followed up with a fast third of his own, using superior positioning and tech to hold Zenio's desperate attack.. HongUn made a good decision to follow Zenio in his retreat and killed a ton of banelings with a single storm. HongUn kept Zenio on the backfoot for the rest of the game, where Zenio just barely stayed alive. Eventually HongUn's tech was just too superior for Zenio to deal with with such a delayed hive and he was forced to gg.

Zenio: 2/5

HongUn: 3/5

HongUn won 2-0.