EPTCode S RO8, Day Two in Review
By: Waxangel
Game One –
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With two players who hailed from the heyday of the 4-gate facing off, only one looked to the past for a free win. Genius faked a double gas build, only to cancel an assimilator and go for a 4-gate build. MC, going for a 2-gate 3-stalker rush, was completely fooled by Genius and went for extra stalkers instead of the sentries that might have saved his life. MC GG'd out of the game, putting Genius up 1 – 0.
Winner: Genius
Game Two –
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MC opened up with a 3-gate pressure build, while Genius went 2-gates with both a robotics facility and a twilight council. This build order mix-up ended up favoring MC, as his early pressure forced Genius to cancel his robotics and build sentries. On the other hand, MC was taking a fast expansion behind this fake attack, giving him an economic lead. Genius followed up with his own nexus, but only after MC's was complete.
Instead of using his faster expand to build a big economic advantage, MC decided to cut probes at thirty to go for 5-gate, blink stalker timing. As MC neared Genius' base, there appeared to be a window where he could impulsively blink in and try to finish the game, but he played over-cautiously and allowed Genius to force-field off the paths. This gave Genius the time to build enough units to defend comfortably, and MC was forced to back off. That left Genius with the advantage instead, as he had been cranking probes out and teching the entire time, whereas MC had stopped on thirty probes and pumped pure stalkers for a period.
It was not an advantage Genius decided to capitalize on immediately, but it was one that carried on into the late game. As both players turtled up on three bases and started to mass colossi, Genius retained three more immortals due to his faster robotics bay, as well as a one-level upgrade advantage from his faster forge.
These were things that mattered when both players maxed out, and MC decided to initiate a game ending battle at Genius' base. The two players were tied at six colossi, but Genius had more immortals while MC had more of the less useful stalkers. Additionally, MC attacked while both players had two colossi queued up at their robotics facilities – but due to his initiating combat at Genius' natural, Genius was able to add those two to his army during the middle of the battle.
All these things together led to a decisive victory for Genius, where he came out standing with three more immortals and colossi than MC. This was a strong enough core for Genius to immediately counter attack with, and as it turned out, enough to finish the game as well.
Winner: Genius
Game Three –
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Genius tried to trick MC again, showing him a second assimilator to mask another four-gate build. However, MC would not be fooled again, and some timely sentries and forcefields allowed him to stop the attack, even though he was cutting it close with his 3-gate + phoenix build.
Though he stopped Genius' 4-gate, MC was unable to find a way to capitalize. Genius followed his four-gate by going for a robotics and simply massed units off one base, and MC was dissuaded from attacking once he saw the number of units Genius had made. This put MC in a tough spot where his phoenix were becoming less and less valuable as the army sizes grew larger, and Genius added powerful robotics tech units to his army.
Instead of taking a risk to change his situation, MC decided try and ride it out. It turned out to be a poor decision, though perhaps there was not much he could do after he missed his initial attack timing with phoenixes. Even worse for MC, his phoenixes were out patrolling the map when Genius came knocking at his door. Genius barreled through MC's defenses to finish the sweep.
Winner: Genius
Game Four –
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Game Five –
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MVPDongRaeGu vs 
ST_PartingGame One –
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After the usual FE opens on both sides, Parting showed his first prepared strategy in double stargates. However, for whatever reason, he decided to show DRG each and every one of his three void rays, far before they were even close to reaching DRG's base. Who knows what Parting expected to happen? Perhaps he was just that confident in his micro. But the obvious result was that DRG simply made a lot of queens and a few spores to kill off the void rays without much trouble at all.
Parting shrugged off this early failure and proceeded to take his third relatively quickly. DongRaeGu reared up and struck with a large amount of speedlings, roaches, and corruptors, but Parting held off this attack without taking too much damage. Despite failing on his early risk, Parting seemed to be in a not-so-terrible spot, having successfully secured three bases.
However, it was more of a deceptive security, as DRG had been able to take whatever bases he wanted on the map, as well as tech with impunity. Brood lords emerged as a threat before Parting was equipped to deal with them, and he was forced to GG out after zergling, brood lords, and mutalisks ran rampant over his army.
Winner: DongRaeGu
Game Two –
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Parting had another bit of trickery prepared on this map, faking a four into seven gate all-in timing, but actually going for a fast third base instead. DongRaeGu was fooled for long enough for Parting to get all the simcity complete at his third base, and it looked like he would be pretty much impervious with good force fields.
Unfortunately for Parting, he had some rather bad force fields, which too late to stop DRG from flooding in with a huge roach and speedling attack. Though Parting had enough left to survive, he lost his vital sentries and took a big blow to his unit count, making it so he couldn't effectively defend all three bases at once. This was a huge invitation for DRG to exercise his specialty through relentless, multi-pronged attacks, and DRG went at it with gusto.
To Parting's credit, he defended much better than one would have expected, managing to protect his probes from mutalisks, kept his nexuses alive, and actually managed to slowly amass a fairly large core of stalkers. However, he could not save his gas units at all, as DRG prioritized killing templars, sentries, and archons. This left him incredibly weak once DRG decide to land a killing blow with mass banelings, which in conjunction with mutalisks, finished Parting off for good.
Winner: DongRaeGu
Game Three –
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Parting opened with a very safe 2-gate, stargate expansion, looking to face DRG in a straight up battle on Crossfire.
Haha, just kidding. Parting faked the above build, and went for a four-gate all-in with a single void ray to provide fire support. In response, DRG plopped down a gazillion spine crawlers and prayed that he might hold.
The battle was very close, with Parting able to trap a lot of DRG's zerglings in his main with force fields while his army cleared up the crawlers. It looked like Parting had done it once he killed the last crawler, but at that moment he did not have mana for just one more force-field, and the zerglings flooded down from the main to surround the weakened Protoss forces and finish them off.
With his all-in stopped, Parting knew he was dead, but facing elimination from Code S, he decided to give it one last go. He attacked with a hopeless, last ditch force, and gave the GG after that force died.
Winner: DongRaeGu
Game Four –
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Game Five –
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RO8 Day Two, Notes and Comments
By: Waxangel
Living up to the Name
Genius admitted it a few weeks ago, after topping DRG and sC to make it through to the RO32: he had been coasting for a while. He was happy to keep his Code S seed (he didn't mention the guaranteed $1,300 for RO32 finishes, but I think we can read between the lines), and he wasn't motivated to go much further.
For whatever reason, Genius got his fire back, and we've all been beneficiaries. Not only do Protoss players have someone to carry their banner, but fans of good Starcraft have one more player to put their support behind. Genius plans out smart strategies, plays for the late-game when possible, and makes great decisions to win his games. It's a bit subdued, and it's usually not that flashy. But it's a brand of Protoss that's rare to see, and it's fantastically entertaining for how much sense it makes. MC's showmanship will always be popular, as will HerO's tightrope walking and flamboyant plays, but personally, watching Genius is just more fun.
By the way, doesn't this make Genius the present best Protoss player in the world? It feels a bit weird, and maybe a bit underwhelming, but it seems to fall into place. He beat a bunch of very tough opponents in his Code S run, and he's the last Protoss standing. It's a bit hard to wrap your head around it if you've been used to Genius being incredible mediocre for the last year or so, but I think it's fair to say that for the next ten days or so, no one's going to take that title of best Protoss from him.
Clinging to the Bandwagon
Speaking of Protoss players, the Parting wagon is tilting at a dangerous angle, but it's yet to be derailed. His PvZ hasn't looked nearly as good as his PvT, which is a shame. But even if he becomes a one match-up player, it will be hard not to be a fan if his PvT can continue to be as awesome as it was against Jjakji. Those epic games vs Jjakji will keep me on board the bandwagon until MLG Winter Arena at least, where we can see how he performs in a completely new environment, against some completely new faces.
One Goal
DongRaeGu's in that unfortunate place where winning vs your average player doesn't do much for him anymore. Heck, beating one of the fastest rising stars in Parting didn't get him any credit, nor did busting through this tournament's group of death. The second he GG'd out of game seven of the Blizzard Cup finals, every goal ceased to be relevant for DRG, save one: Win a GSL championship.
![[image loading]](/staff/fishuu/muleQueen2.png)
"Manner Mule" by Fishuu
Writer: Waxangel.
Graphics and Art: Meko and Pony Tales (disciple and Lip the Pencilboy).
Editor: Waxangel
