EPTGroup A:
Kingdom (P)
Oversky (Z)
Stork (P)
Clon (Z)
Group B:
Yellow (Z)
Boxer (T)
Hoony (P)
Doggi (T)
Group C:
GGPlay (Z)
Sync (T)
Nada (T)
Pusan (P)
Group D:
Iloveoov (T)
Yooi (T)
Zergman (Z)
Midas (T)
Group E:
Reach (P)
JiHyun (Z)
Iris (T)
Nal_Rock (P)
Group F:
OSL 4th (T or Z)
Chojja (Z)
Jju (Z)
Rage (P)
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Group A results (no VODs available T_T):
Kingdom > Oversky on Requiem
Stork > Clon on Requiem
Stork > Kingdom on Ride of Valkyries
Oversky > Clon on Luna the Final
Oversky > Kingdom on Forte
It’s the first big surprise in this round, with Kingdom being sent back to the next ODL. After beating Oversky on Requiem, no one thought he could lose in his alleged best matchup against the unexperienced Stork. Bleh... just like Nal_rA, he’ll be missing in the next OSL for sure. This being said, you’ve gotta give props to Stork for being one of the most dominant Protoss players in OGN since the last Challenge League (although yeah, it’s not like they’re that many anyway).
As for Oversky... hmm honestly he’s never impressed me, and I bet he’ll probably get knocked out pretty soon in the next OSL, once again... but hey, who knows.
--
Alright, now for the arguably most anticipated group in this round, the group B. Like in the last edition, both Boxer and Yellow are in (which is, depending on your tastes, either a fluke or... not). In the CYON Dual Tourney, Boxer and Yellow both lost their first game (vs resp. Foru and Oversky) and had to play a decisive game on Guillotine. After successfully defending against Boxer’s now-trademark 8-rax rush, Yellow had come out on top, sending Boxer back to the Challenge League prelims.
Fact is, most top players have a very hard time coming back to the ODL round 2 after being sent there (one good recent example would be Nal_rA =/). That didn’t seem to bother Boxer a bit though, as he went 6-1 in the prelims, and then 2-0 in ODL round 1, coming back – pretty much as if nothing had happened – to exactly where he was when Yellow defeated him... and yeah, exactly where Yellow is right now, too.
Game 1: Boxer (T) vs Yellow (Z) on Neo Requiem
Boxer vs Yellow... what a dream match to start this group. Probably the most intense rivalry known in the progaming scene, always providing great games, and if not, at least some unusual controversy. Although Boxer seems to win most of the time when it comes to important games, their record is still close and no one can predict who will win when the map is as balanced as Requiem TvZ.
Pretty nice and relaxed atmosphere anyway, both player smiling and laughing during the pre-game chat. Boxer has a chewing-gum in his mouth, following a trend which seemed to start a little time ago.
Boxer starts at 12, Yellow at 9. The question everyone sure wonders is, will Boxer attempt a 8-rax rush again? Yellow is definitely expecting it anyway, as he uses the 2 drones trick to get through his nat mineral line, expanding where Boxer could not possibly hit him that early. The answer to the above question would actually be “yes and no”: Boxer does go 8 rax but, maybe because he scouted and saw Yellow didn’t take his nat, only sends 1 SCV along with the marines (plus the scouting one), without much conviction. Yellow, who’s made a creep colony in his main, starts morphing a sunken as soon as he sees the first 2 marines, and that plus his whole drone army are way enough to convince him to pull back. Who wanted to see another 3 minutes rape anyway?
So did Boxer make such an agressive build for nothing? Not really. The emperor decides to make a bunker just outside of Yellow’s ramp, puts the marines inside and builds a factory, planning to contain his opponent and then slowly push with siege tanks. He even adds a second barracks there, showing that he’s pretty confident in his strategy. Yes, confident in his strategy, but probably unaware of Yellow’s secret fast expo, as the Storm Zerg is planning to sandwitch him with about ~25 speedlings from his two bases. Boxer only has one (full) bunker and can’t do shit against that many zerglings, losing the bunker, all of the marines, and forced to cancel the second rax.
Yellow kills the factory’s addon and then heads towards Boxer’s main. It looks like Boxer can do absolutely nothing against that. What does he have? One firebat. Yeah, one single firebat against like 20 zerglings... doesn’t sound like a very good deal, does it? But that firebat is at the perfect position: Boxer had made a wall-in with rax/depot and placed it just in between. As a result, only one zergling can attack it at a time. Yellow uses 2 zerglings to get rid of it, and right when he’s about to go through... another firebat is ready. Same story again, 2 zerglings to kill it. That time, Boxer sends some SCVs in “gather mode” and uses them in combination with another firebat to finish off the remaining ones... Weeeeell, that was pretty damn close...
It’s a little miracle Boxer survived that, but it still isn’t looking good at all for him. He lost 7-8 SCVs and his whole containment force, including some buildings. The factory he built at Yellow’s nat is still alive though, and he now starts teching to vessels. Pretty good sense as Yellow is building a spire and starts gathering gas from his expo. Boxer makes 2 vultures with the proxy-fac (before lifting it up back to his base) and uses them to scout and kill a few drones in Yellow’s main. Split seconds later, Yellow’s spire is up and he starts his first mutalisks. Boxer sends a wraith to harrass a bit before they’re out and manages to kill 2 more drones before pulling back.
Yellow’s mutas go for the harrass thing, but Boxer has scouted the spire and already has turrets and M&M patrolling, preventing him to deal any damage. The emperor uses 2 wraiths to finally discover Yellow’s secret expo and kill one or two more drones, before mutas/scourges chase them back. Looks like Yellow really wants to kill the wraiths as he goes through like 4 turrets just to kill one of them, losing a few mutas in the process. The harrassing hasn’t done much so far but finally pays off a bit as Yellow kills one turret plus the wall-in supply depot. Anyway, the Storm Zerg is totally (and logically) in control now and Boxer can’t possibly attack with so few M&M and mutas wandering around his base. This leaves 2 main options to Yellow: going hive and maintaining the pressure until Boxer concedes, or just mass expand and overrun him. Yellow has never been a sauron-type Zerg and choses the first option. Let’s see if it was the right choice. ; )
Boxer now has one vessel, a decent group of M&M and turrets everywhere and is about to expand. Yellow, who still has only 2 bases, has just got his hive up and is starting a greater spire while keeping the mutas pressure. He also starts a defiler mound and morphs 7 guardians behind Boxer’s nat mineral line, ordering them to attack the SCVs. Boxer maynard-transfers them back to his main and sends his sole wraith in, but Yellow has scourges and is morphing a devourer, freaking it out. Guardians kill a few turrets and Boxer is forced to lift up, and it’s looking once again pretty bad for the emperor.
That’s ignoring Boxer’s defense skills. With awesome micro, including defensive matrix on wraiths, wraiths’ micro against scourges and irradiate, the emperor gets rid of all the guardians without much damage and sends his SCVs back to work. He now definitely seems to have a chance, as his decent-sized M&M army and 2 vessels go out and start camping in the center. Yellow has lurkers and defilers, but still only 2 bases. He finally starts another expo at 3, on top of the gas, so that Boxer may miss it when scouting.
Boxer keeps producing vessels and M&M, and irradiates defilers here and there. Yellow finally takes his nat, but Boxer immediately wipes it out after a sweet battle in the center, where he went round some burrowed lurkers and trashed like 30 lings and a defiler. It’s starting to look bad for Yellow: his eco is not so good, Boxer has lost like nothing since his initial containment was broken and the vessel number keeps increasing. And as if it was not enough, some Boxer’s marines scout Yellow’s expo at 3 and take it out. Yellow attempts guardians/scourges at Boxer’s nat again: he may have lots of vessels but he’s also using a lot of energy to irradiate lurkers and defilers and his main is totally mined out, making it a good opportunity to totally shut off his income.
But hey, Boxer has way too many vessels already, and even though Yellow manages to prevent him from mining for like one minute, it will be very hard to stop him now. Boxer starts an expo at 3, puts most of his troops in the center and starts fucking around with his vessels, including irradiating defilers, self-irradiate over drones, self-irradiate over lings and self-defensive-matrix against scourges. Yellow loses tons of ground troops, and after failing a last desperate mass lings attack on Boxer’s d-matrixed army, taps out.
Boxer > Yellow
Game Time: ~30 minutes
A pretty great comeback from Boxer. Yellow was in total control and would have probably made a better choice switching to macro-play after breaking the initial contain. Instead he just played a kind of game Boxer absolutely masters: a low supply, micro-oriented one.
VOD:
http://teamliquid.net/tracker/details.php?info_hash=8da6a8996f1324ce97c0e76292f4813ce8dc793c
or
http://www.yaoyuan.com/show.php?SID=36683
Game 2: Doggi (T) vs Hoony (P) on Neo Requiem
After the probably most anticipated game of the whole tourney, now for the least one. Seriously, who’s anticipating Hoony vs Doggi? Doggi always has such a desperate face during games, like he’s gonna lose no matter what, plus his play style is just plain unimpressive. Hoony’s pretty much a newcomer and, despite showing good PvZ skills (or at least rushing skills), hasn’t been nearly as promising as Stork. Hmm, now you probably don’t want to read my report at all I guess, ahah. Well, although I don’t particularly like the players, the game was pretty cool and intense I must say, which is most important. ; )
Doggi starts at 12, Hoony at 6. Hoony goes 2 gates goon while Doggi opts for early 1 tank/few marines fake push into fast expo. Hoony takes his nat too and keeps pumping goons, and when he has quite a few, goes in when his opponent’s nat eco still hasn’t really kicked in, resulting in about 10 goons vs 2 siege tanks, one vult and a few marines at Doggi’s nat. This is looking pretty good for Hoony who kills lots of stuff, but Doggi has tons of SCVs already and just surrounds the goons while new tanks emerge and help with siege.
Next minutes consist in Doggi harrassing pretty successfully with vultures while building up out of 5/6 facs, and Hoony expanding at 3. Few minutes later, Doggi goes out with a pretty big metal army. Some constant battles occur in the center, both players continuously reinforcing, and Doggi finally coming out on top. The 3-terran then proceeds to attack Hoony’s expo at 3 (ah ah, 3-terran, 3, yeah...) but his force gets wiped out before he can finish the nexus. That doesn’t matter much though, as another large army is already showing itself in the center, and heads straight to 3 again, that time finishing it off. After a final battle in the center, Hoony concedes the game.
Doggi > Hoony
Game Time: ~18 minutes
A pretty classical but fun game to watch, with 100% action and good harrassing from Doggi.
VOD:
http://teamliquid.net/tracker/details.php?info_hash=79783d1cdba1420adfc61a56615d4534395d5081
or
http://www.yaoyuan.com/show.php?SID=36683
Game 3: Boxer vs Doggi on Ride of Valkyries
Last time these two played against each other was one of the most one-sided rapes I’ve ever watched (first round of IOPS OSL, on Requiem). TvT has been Boxer’s best and more consistent matchup since the first Ever OSL and facing Doggi in the winners’ game definitely sounds like a very good opportunity for the emperor.
Boxer starts at bottom left, Doggi at bottom right. Lim goes 1 fac 1 port and soon scouts Doggi’s 2 fac build with a wraith. Doggi has already set some kind of containment in front of Boxer’s (still empty) nat, but the emperor slowly clears it off as the vod is showing first-person view of his screen. Boxer had made a CC in his main in the meantime and chose to bring it to the middle island, while building a third one. With all those minerals spent in CCs, Doggi can push in with superior troop count (the vod is now showing him) and Boxer is forced to lift up his nat CC (the third one, that is) and transfer his SCVs back to his main.
Doggi is still unaware of Boxer’s secret island expo, and although Boxer looks contained in his main, he has the economic advantage right now. Doggi sieges up some tanks on low ground (with ebay giving view of Boxer’s base) and kills a few supply. He then unsieges, advance a bit further, sieges again and... gets crushed. Yeah, very bad decision as Boxer has like 3 siege tanks on high ground sniping the tanks and the few goliaths. More goliaths come to help and kill two of Boxer’s tanks but it’s too late, Boxer’s superior eco is becoming obvious as he easily cleans things up and takes his nat back.
Doggi also took his nat in the meantime but still has no clue about the island expo. Boxer makes sure his opponent doesn’t have one secret expo himself, wandering in the top right corner with 2 full dropships. Doggi is also making some dropships while setting up a containment force in the middle of the map. The 3-terran finally scans Boxer’s island expo and proceeds to “3-dropship” it, taking it out. Boxer probably could have defended it by counter-dropping but instead (easily) breaks the center containment, and then heads straight to Doggi’s nat. It’s 3 base eco vs 2 base eco and with clearly inferior forces, Doggi is forced to lift up. Boxer now has an heavy containment force waiting for him outside his main, and still the one base advantage.
Doggi’s main is mined out soon after and siege tanks are hitting his buildings from low ground. Boxer slowly drops units into his main, and Doggi finally gives up after failing a last desperate drop on Boxer’s well defended main.
Boxer > Doggi
Game Time: ~20 minutes
Boxer is officially qualified for the next OSL. That’s a 10-1 record since the Challenge League prelims (excluding the ODL 1st round finals but that didn’t count anyway ;p). The emperor is back, now Yellow needs to win his two next games and everyone will he happy.
VOD:
http://teamliquid.net/tracker/details.php?info_hash=3f7e9fc7ce20408cdc553ec590d918bb0c261cbd
or
http://www.yaoyuan.com/show.php?SID=36683
Game 4: Yellow vs Hoony on Luna
Yellow bottom left, Hoony top right. Yellow goes pool/extractor first while Hoony fast techs to Stargate, then attempts to expand early. Some lings go past Hoony’s nat and manage to kill a few probes in main. A few seconds later, same story again, another bunch of speedlings infiltrate, killing some more probes and checking Hoony’s main defense as he’ll soon have mutas ready.
Mutas are now out and heading straight towards Hoony’s main. And... it’s over. Hoony has 2 canons, one goon and one sair against 8-9 mutas which just shift-rape everything. Hoony GG.
Yellow > Hoony
Game time: ~10 minutes
Hoony’s build was pretty much suicidal: fast tech to sairs into fast expo. Mutas caught him off guard but I’d say anything else would have crushed him too. He was probably expecting a more macro/lategame oriented game from Yellow, but he sould know that’s not like him at all. Hoony is sent back to the Challenge League prelims.
VOD:
http://teamliquid.net/tracker/details.php?info_hash=e1c0e4a2a79f05da063b33842b7215cca9bfe63f
or
http://www.yaoyuan.com/show.php?SID=36683
Game 5: Yellow vs Doggi on Forte
Yellow bottom left, Doggi top right. Yellow opts for the standard 3 hatch (first at choke, second at nat) Forte build, while Doggi goes for the no less standard 2-rax acad opening. Doggi soon goes out with an early handful of M&M&F like 98,5% TvZ on Forte. Yellow has sunkens at choke but Doggi just gets past them and go for Yellow’s nat. Only 4 marines survive and kill like 2 drones before some lings take care of them. Quite a good deal for the Storm Zerg there.
Yellow now has quite a few speedlings and go harrass a bit. With perfect surrounding, most of Doggi’s newly made little army gets trashed and Yellow discovers Doggi’s intention to expand, killing the CC-building SCV at Doggi’s nat. Yellow was teching to spire in the meantime but when the first mutas are out, Doggi already has turrets protecting both his mineral lines. Like in game 1, Yellow now is in “harrassing with mutas while teching to hive” mode, but this time he also expands twice, at 4 and 7.
Doggi is powering up off his 2 bases though, and his army is starting to look scary. He has been pumping M&M and tanks from 2 facs for quite a time now, and after bunkering his choke, logically proceeds to go out before Yellow’s hive tech kicks in. Having spent all his gas on tanks instead of vessels, he quickly heads towards Yellow’s nat while scanning a few times on his way. 5 tanks surrounded by mass M&M are soon hitting Yellow’s sunkens, but Yellow has an even scarier army of mass mutaling in the center, and after waiting a bit, totally crushes Doggi’s whole army.
It’s looking pretty good for Yellow now as he can resume the mutas harrass while slowly preparing a strong hive tech force. He now has 3 expoes to Doggi’s one, a handful of mutas, some lurkers hatching and some lings. But that doesn’t sound that much with such an eco and Doggi isn’t going to wait for an obvious death without doing anything: his only chance is to go out again right now, and that’s what he does. His army is looking as scary as his first one, while Yellow’s is not. Someone explain me... Yellow must have lots of unused minerals or something?
Anyway, it’s looking quite bad for the Stormy Zerg as Doggi’s army catches him off guard, killing a few lurkers in the center before Yellow pulls back. Doggi is more agressive this time, and after raping 4-5 more lurkers with siege tanks, just goes in with his mass M&M, losing a few in the process. Yellow’s choke hatch is dead. Doggi then splits his army in two. Tanks are heading towards Yellow’s expo at 7 while the M&M go for his main, in which guardians are morphing. Another group of M&M is even attacking Yellow’s bottom right expo.
As a result:
- at Yellow’s main, guardians are up in time and defend ;
- at 7, Yellow’s expo is killed by tanks ;
- at 4, Yellow’s sunkens are enough to protect the expo.
Guardians take care of the tanks at 7 and with 2 expos remaining and a guardian army, things are looking definitely better for Yellow. But oh wait, a rapid look at Doggi’s base shows he’s now building mass wraiths! There’s no scourges in sight and both guardians and wraiths meet in the center. Yellow tries to spread his guardians a bit but there’s just too many wraiths.Yellow’s face is looking really nervous as all guards but 2 get slaughtered. Doggi has also expanded to his mineral only, and wraiths are now raping Yellow’s newly made expo at bottom right nat.
Wraiths keep harrassing everywhere, killing drones at Yellow’s nat and lings in the center. He has spider mines, mass M&M and some bunkers to defend, and definitely looks in control. Yellow is massing ultralings and some hydras/defilers in the meantime ; his next attack is probably gonna be decisive. After cleaning up the spider mines with hydras/OLs, Yellow’s whole fource pours down into Doggi’s last expo and basically obliterates everything on his way, with absolutely lovely dark swarms. And yeah, if you're thinking "what the fuck" now, that's exactly what happened to me when I watched the game live. :D
Doggi loses his only mining expo and basically all of his units and is forced to give up with a big “oh shit I had it” look on his face.
Yellow > Doggi
Game time: ~22 minutes
Yellow joins Boxer in the next OSL. Honestly, I watched that Yellow vs Doggi game live and I was pretty damn sure Doggi had it after those guardians were killed. His nat still wasn’t mined out, he just took his min only and wraiths were doing a great job everywhere. But Yellow was still mining from 3 bases and since Doggi had spent most of his gas on wraith, pure M&M just weren’t enough to defeat so many ultras and lings under such perfect dark swarm. A great game anyway.
VOD:
http://teamliquid.net/tracker/details.php?info_hash=3ccca76aee5e90f4785a2c17b11d744a6dafd687
or
http://www.yaoyuan.com/show.php?SID=36683
--
Well, that’s it for today. Group C and D reports coming soon. : )
