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Daily Recap: More of the Same

For the most part, the players we saw performing well in groups yesterday continued to exert their will on the open bracket qualifiers. The two most impressive players from day one, NesTea and MarineKing, continued to roll, and only one player who wasn't seeded directly into the open bracket managed to make his way into the championship bracket. On a day that allowed for movement, what we saw instead was stratification between the good enough and the great.

In the first two groups, NesTea and MarineKing dominated just as they had the day before. MarineKing dropped a game in each series, but his play in both IPL and later in GSTL showed he is probably the favorite to win the whole tournament. People might take games off him, but they'd be hard-pressed to put together enough to finish off the series. NestTea, meanwhile, reinforced that he's not yet washed up, losing a game only to the same lack of scouting that almost did him in against TAiLS. It's safe to say he'll be checking that corner in all his Daybreak games tomorrow.

In the group this writer yesterday pointed out as a good opportunity for open bracket players, Squirtle utilized some nifty PvP on stream and worked magic off stream to become the only Open Bracket player to reach the Championship Bracket. MMA and Bomber advanced comfortably in group D, but neither looked dominant enough to be a serious threat for the title unless they make significant strides overnight.

As it stands, the IPL4 championship is MarineKing's to take. It's well within any of the remaining players' capabilities to take him out though, so you won't want to miss tomorrow's proceedings.

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22:35 GMT (+00:00): NesTea 2-1 GanZi. Catching GanZi with a proxy 2rax and only CC in the main, NesTea sent a task force into the main to try to cause some economic damage. GanZi continued his marine aggression undeterred, and NesTea pulled drones from his nat in order to ensure the marine surround. As GanZi worked towards blue flames and combat shield, NesTea prepared for a huge baneling/speedling bust at GanZi's natural. Superb control by GanZi let him defend the bust without losing much of anything at all - barely any SCVs and no more structures than the wall. GanZi then ran blue flame hellions into NesTea's main where it was his turn to kill almost no workers. Seeing GanZi's emphasis on hellions, NeTea rushed for mutas, hatching nine as soon as his spire finished. GanZi had time to get 2 thors up but built no turrets, but NesTea didn't get quite enough mutas to take out the marine-supported thors. NesTea tried another invasion with lings but didn't do a ton, and GanZi turned around to take down NesTea's fourth before retreating, but not fast enough to escape NesTea's chasing baneling army. NesTea sent another few attacks to GanZi's bases, and with GanZi never getting his tank count back up, NesTea took the series.

22:30 GMT (+00:00): MMA 2-0 Jjakji. JjakJi used very nice positioning to set up shop outside MMA's natural, trying to contain him in, but MMA simply circumvented it with 4 medivacs full of marines to take out Jjakji's whole natural, forcing the NSHS player to retreat back to his own base to retake the natural, leaving him a base behind. With his economic disadvantage, Jjakji tried to make something happen by pushing MMA's base, but another great drop in Jjakji's main sealed the game and the series for MMA.

22:14 GMT (+00:00): MMA 1-0 Jjakji. After falling well behind in the midgame thanks to nice siege engagements by MMA, Jjakji was forced into a base race scenario. Despite some big mistakes by MMA, the advantage he built early on with upgrades and drops was enough that Jjakji had to GG once he couldn't break MMA's natural.

22:11 GMT (+00:00): NesTea 1-1 GanZi. NesTea's surprise zerglings did great damage early game, ravaging all of GanZi's bases and killing a huge amount of SCVs. GanZi tried a double drop in NesTea's main, but infestors popped out at the exact right time to halt that in its tracks. Off the back of that defense, NesTea double expanded and teched to hive before sending burrowed infestors to every Terran base, ravaging the Terran economy. GanZi tried another attack at NesTea's third, and NesTea took a page out of IdrA's book by going for the backstab, where his zerglings along with the infestors still there did a good amount of damage. Tired of defending, GanZi, attacked into Nestea's base, taking down the greater spire and the hive. NesTea continued to produce infestors, using them to barely end GanZi's raid. With GanZi only producing from his main and mining at his third, NesTea continued to send burrowed infestors to wreak havoc. GanzZi chose banshees as his trump card, but they weren't enough.

Live Update Log
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Group Stage games today split between streams

Group A

FnaticRC aLive, IMNesTea, MvPTAiLS, coL_GanZi, StarTale.PartinG





aLive vs GanZi - 19:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: aLive made the unusual choice of cloakless banshee into blue flame, while GanZi went for cloak. Neither did much damage with their banshees though, as aLive had a great scan in time to pick off Ganzi's first banshee despite the cloak. aLive's blue flame drop did a little bit more damage as he worked towards a mech+viking army to go up against GanZi's bio+medivacs. The vikings gave him a great window for a second blue flame drop, which this time did a ton of damage. Back at home, aLive did lose a small amount of workers and units to a banshee+drop in his natural. At that point, aLive moved out across the map with his massive tank army, and looked to be in a great position, but Ganzi's air control let a banshee do some crucial defense. Still, aLive had a huge economic advantage and once he defended a drop in his own main, it was GG.
  
• Game Two: aLive once again chose cloakless banshee, this time somewhat more successful against GanZi's CC first. Even so, it mostly killed marines instead of doing economic damage. Ganzi tried for a combat shields push, which actually ended up turning around as aLive's siege tanks chased him back across the field, sieging the natural once his tech arrived. aLive sent a double drop to aLive's main, which killed a ton of SCVs. GanZi chose to completely abandon his natural in favor of the third. aLive countered with his own drop, doing a bit of damage before picking up and leaving to the third to take down a couple mules. aLive's tank-marine army was simply too much for GanZi's sandwich, forcing the GG.
  
• aLive 2 - 0 GanZi

GanZi vs NesTea - 21:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: GanZi clearly watched NesTea's VoD from the previous day. He placed a Barracks in the same exact spot as TAiLS's pylon on Daybreak against NesTea, and once again NesTea didn't scout it. GanZi was able to take down the spawning pool and a ton of zerglings, but NesTea calmly droned heavily at his natural and didn't take nearly as much damage as it looked like he might. GanZi followed up with blue flame hellions and tanks with a smattering of marines, and NesTea didn't have enough roaches to hold off the attack. The first wave of reinforcements from GanZi was enough to finish the game.
  
• Game Two: NesTea's surprise zerglings did great damage early game, ravaging all of GanZi's bases and killing a huge amount of SCVs. GanZi tried a double drop in NesTea's main, but infestors popped out at the exact right time to halt that in its tracks. Off the back of that defense, NesTea double expanded and teched to hive before sending burrowed infestors to every Terran base, ravaging the Terran economy. GanZi tried another attack at NesTea's third, and NesTea took a page out of IdrA's book by going for the backstab, where his zerglings along with the infestors still there did a good amount of damage. Tired of defending, GanZi, attacked into Nestea's base, taking down the greater spire and the hive. NesTea continued to produce infestors, using them to barely end GanZi's raid. With GanZi only producing from his main and mining at his third, NesTea continued to send burrowed infestors to wreak havoc. GanzZi chose banshees as his trump card, but they weren't enough.
  
• Game Three: Catching GanZi with a proxy 2rax and only CC in the main, NesTea sent a task force into the main to try to cause some economic damage. GanZi continued his marine aggression undeterred, and NesTea pulled drones from his nat in order to ensure the marine surround. As GanZi worked towards blue flames and combat shield, NesTea prepared for a huge baneling/speedling bust at GanZi's natural. Superb control by GanZi let him defend the bust without losing much of anything at all - barely any SCVs and no more structures than the wall. GanZi then ran blue flame hellions into NesTea's main where it was his turn to kill almost no workers. Seeing GanZi's emphasis on hellions, NeTea rushed for mutas, hatching nine as soon as his spire finished. GanZi had time to get 2 thors up but built no turrets, but NesTea didn't get quite enough mutas to take out the marine-supported thors. NesTea tried another invasion with lings but didn't do a ton, and GanZi turned around to take down NesTea's fourth before retreating, but not fast enough to escape NesTea's chasing baneling army. NesTea sent another few attacks to GanZi's bases, and with GanZi never getting his tank count back up, NesTea took the series.
  
• GanZi 1 - 2 NesTea

PartinG vs aLive - 21:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: On Daybreak, Parting initially entended for an 8gate and changed to robo and a third when it was scouted, which worked out perfectly since aLive was trying cloaked banshees. Parting used that robo to churn out observers to give him great map vision, up to eight at one point. aLive stayed in a bio army, never needing to add vikings since alive didn't have any colossi. aLive had a ton of ghosts, but Parting's templar positioning was truly stellar and his storms were way more effectual than aLive's EMPs. He built a couple colossus, and as the armies danced around looking for the advantage in templar-ghost wars, PartinG took advantage of his great vision to shut down aLive's economy for long stretches. Both players were maxed, and in a huge battle aLive destroyed PartinG's army. It turned out that PartinG's superior economy gave him much better reinforcements than aLive's, and as aLive ran out of resources and then army, he was forced to GG.
  
• Game Two: aLive started his marauder-based aggression early, and never really stopped, sending wave after wave out to PartinG's bases. Gradually adding more tech, upgrades, and supporting units to those marauders, aLive was able to eventually wear down PartinG, finishing him off with a nifty storm dodge.
  
• Game Three: aLive chose early aggression once again, bunkering the natural and then moving into the main, sealing his victore when he completed a bunker there too. PartinG never got enough units to pose a threat, and was forced to GG.
  
• PartinG 1 - 2 aLive

Group B

MarineKingPrime, Mill.Stephano, Tt.White-Ra, EGJYP, StarTale.Curious





Stephano vs JYP - 17:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: As Stephano droned hard, JYP ineffectually did some warp prism harassment. JYP built up a sentry/immortal-heavy army at home, and when he finally moved out, Stephano simply had too much army, dancing back and forth until there were no more force fields, at which point the zerg just rolled JYP over. With his attack fully fended off, JYP was forced to GG when Stephano's roaches busted through his natural.
  
• Game Two: Unable to do much early damage due to excellent pylon hunting by Stephano, JYP was forced to use his quick voidrays largely in defense of his relatively early third. It ended up working out well for him when Stephano's aggression did no damage to the third and only took out the forge at the natural, putting JYP in the lead. Stephano's 2nd round of aggression was more successful, taking out the forge again and killing a lot of probes at both the third and the main. JYP's blink stalkers gave him great midgame presence, and his templars and colossi were out early enough that Stephano couldn't build up enough of an army to go with his fresh new brood lords. JYP waited for the mothership vortex to deal the killing blow, tying the series.
  
• Game Three: Stephano once again had nice early-game scouting, letting him know exactly what JYP was doing. This time he sat back and macroed up, and when JYP's army, similar to that in game 1, moved out, he found Stephano with too much so turned around and came home to wait for the warp prism. Stephano caught JYP's army in a sandwich outside the protoss natural, almost completely eliminating the threat of forcefields for JYP's main push, which was easily shut down. Unable to ever take a third base despite some nice warp prism harass, JYP was forced to cede the game.
  
• Stephano 2 - 1 JYP

MarineKing vs JYP - 20:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: After a somewhat back and forth midgame, MarineKing impatiently pushed across the map and attempted to take on JYP's army at the protoss natural. In that engagement, he wasn't able to do significant damage ,losing most of his vikings, and both players ended up just taking their thirds and largely backing off. JYP tried a bizarre attack into MarineKing's third with only a few zealots and a single colossus, which really didn't do anything. Knowing that time was running out, MarineKing attacked into a choke and JYP's splash was too much for him.
  
• Game Two: MarineKing once again played a relatively aggressive MMM game, but this time he had the favorable engagements, taking out the colossi before losing his main force and using that to clean up JYP's gateway units, forcing the GG and sending the series to a third game.
  
• Game Three: Anticipating a nexus first from JYP, MarineKing went for the polt-esque reactor+techlab barracks build, rallying his marines and conc shell marauders across the map to try some aggression. As he brought forward a big chunk of SCVs, JYP retreated to his main. MarineKing walked around a lot without actually killing much, before building a bunker at the natural. JYP pulled probes of his own to try to stop the push, but there were too many barracks units rallying across the map as the bunker completed, and the nexus went down. MarineKing built his own expansion and teched up some as he camped the protoss natural. JYP was able to break out just before MarineKing completed a second bunker , and continued across the map to MarineKing's own natural, here most of his army met its demise. Marineking attacked back, and once stim finished he finished the game when the DTs were too little too late.
  
• MarineKing 2 - 1 JYP

SK_MC, TSLPolt, EG.PuMa, StarTale.Squirtle, CreatorPrime





Creator vs PuMa - 18:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: With an early upgrade advantage, PuMa's MMM looked to be in a good spot. Creator defended well enough to utilize his gas, teching up to colossi, chargelots, immortals, and his own upgrades. PuMa's 4-medivac drop in the main did decent damage, buying him time to work on ghosts and upgraded vikings. Creator then completely collapsed, losing his whole main base to a pair of full medivacs and donating his army to a well-defended ramp of PuMa's. With that huge advantage, PuMa charged forward and slaughtered Creator's army before DTs or storm could arrive.
  
• Game Two: In a back and forth game, both players lost their naturals, first Creator, then PuMa. PuMa's macro and multitasking proved too much when Creator attempted to hit too many tech paths at once. PuMa continued to utilize drops and nicely positioned vikings to snipe crucial buildings and units from Creator. Once Creator got his upgrades, though, he was able to defend well enough to max out on a nice composition. Thanks to some nice EMPs and great micro, PuMa got a lot more out of his bio army than expected in the next major battle. In fact, he seemingly won most of the subsequent battles, but Creator was able to run away long enough that his economic advantage gave him too much of an edge.
  
• Game Three: Creator's early aggression contained PuMa to his natural, letting him set up his own third relatively easily. PuMa stayed on top of his macro, keeping up with supply count and upgrades and building a huge fleet of medivacs before switching to vikings and ghosts once Colossi and templar tech were on their way. With the help of a planetary, PuMa's army was just enough to hold Creator's main attack. The next engagement below Creator's third went the other way, as PuMa didn't have enough infantry to hold his position.Creator continually tried to assault PuMa's planetary at the fourth, but after so many failures he had wasted too much gas and was eventually unable to hold off PuMa's infantry.
  
• Creator 1 - 2 PuMa

MC vs Squirtle - 20:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: Initially it was MC on the offensive, as Squrtle rushed for 1base blink. After chasing MC off, he teched for immortal and went for a nexus, while MC built a warp prism and teched to blink of his own. With only 1 base, MC was forced to try to break Squirtle's natural, but was unsuccessful. Squirtle sent some zealots to MC's main to compound his economic advantage, and MC's last-gasp blink into the main didn't do enough for him to come back.
  
• Game Two: MC rushed DTs as Squirtle went for phoenixes into robo. dropping the robotics when the Dark Shrine was halfway complete then scouting it, ensuring that he'd have an observer out in time. Then the stream died. Somehow MC won, it is a mystery.
  
• Game Three: Both players chose warp prism play-immortal play, but Squirtle's defense was much better than MC's. Rather than going in for the killing blow, Squirtle chose to expand and continue massing colossus. MC, still on one base, attacked in to Squirtle. The colossus disparity was simply too great for MC to overcome, and Squirtle took the series.
  
• MC 1 - 2 Squirtle

Group D

ST_Bomber, EG.IdrA, SlayerS_MMA, GhostKingPrime, NSHS.Jjakji





MMA vs GhostKing - 17:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: MMA took an early third and used those added resources to build up a mech army, giving him a big lead over GhostKing. MMA didn't do a ton of damage with blue flame drops, but they worked sufficiently as distractions to let him get his main army into a good enough position to win the game. GhostKing tried a number of drops to pull himself back in the game, but they weren't nearly enough.
  
• Game Two: In a fun game, both players went for reapers and cloaked banshees. GhostKing's first banshee was enormously successful, getting 20 kills. MMA held off the second and third banshees and managed to get his natural up with turrets ready. Somehow GhostKing found himself wholly unprepared for MMA's banshees in his single base, taking heavy damage. GhostKing executed a huge tank attack, and oncce again did significant damage, with MMA's banshees eventually barely defending. The economic damage was too much, and GhostKing's next wave of units gave him the game.
  
• Game Three: As GhostKing went for cloaked banshees, MMA went for 5 rax marines. Caught off guard, GhostKing abandoned his natural, then was supply blocked. GhostKing's first banshee did minimal damage, but as MMA retreated the bulk of his army, he managed to snipe that banshee. MMA then maneuvered to the bottom of GhostKing's base, elevatoring in some troops to pick off a couple units and buildings. With free reign of the map and great mobility, MMA dropped everywhere and GhostKing was unable to sufficiently defend. With almost double the harvesters, MMA then switched into tanks to deal the killing blow.
  
• MMA 2 - 1 GhostKing

JjakJi vs IdrA - 18:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: Accompanied by the audio feed from Lani's roaming camera stream, IdrA tried some early aggression while Jjakji teched straight for cloaked banshees off one base. Despite taking an early third, Idra had enough to both defend the banshees with ease and prevent JjakJi from taking his own natural for quite some time. After building up a tank-banshee-marine-medivac army, JjakJi moved out to try to take down any of IdrA's bases, but was unsuccessful. IdrA was delayed in getting his fourth base and was unable to successfully backstab as he had the previous day, but eventually he built up enough of a swarm to overrun the Terran army for an insurmountable advantage, even winning with ultralisks.
  
• Game Two: As IdrA rushed for mutas, JjakJi brought some MMM to below IdrA'ss natural on Tal'Darim altar, taking advantage of the geography to snipe an evolution chamber and temporarily halt mining before being chased off. Once supplemented with tanks, JjakJi continued to push forward, halting IdrA's creep spread and maintaining map control. IdrA tried to take that force out with a muta-ling-bane-infestor mix, but JjakJi's marine splits were just too good and IdrA was forced out.
  
• Game Three: Idra held off the early hellions fairly well, but in the mid-game made an unfavorable trade as JjakJi had a simcity well prepared for IdrA's backstab while taking out the Zerg third himself. JjakJi continued to mass tanks as IdrA amassed infestors. In the deciding battle, Idra had some good fungals but the infestors were all lost before their fungals could tick through the terran forces, leaving him with not enough to defend his third base. He had double spire, but neither the upgrades nor units were soon enough and he soon surrendered.
  
• JJakJi 2 - 1 IdrA

MMA vs Jjakji - 22:00 GMT (+00:00)

• Game One: After falling well behind in the midgame thanks to nice siege engagements by MMA, Jjakji was forced into a base race scenario. Despite some big mistakes by MMA, the advantage he built early on with upgrades and drops was enough that Jjakji had to GG once he couldn't break MMA's natural.
  
• Game Two: JjakJi used very nice positioning to set up shop outside MMA's natural, trying to contain him in, but MMA simply circumvented it with 4 medivacs full of marines to take out Jjakji's whole natural, forcing the NSHS player to retreat back to his own base to retake the natural, leaving him a base behind. With his economic disadvantage, Jjakji tried to make something happen by pushing MMA's base, but another great drop in Jjakji's main sealed the game and the series for MMA.
  
• Jjakji 0 - 2 MMA

Notable off-stream results