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I get by with a little help from my friends

KeeN on Code S

As another player competing for the title of 'most inconsistent,' MVP.KeeN put in one of those shifts that reminded you why he was once a Code S regular. Keen sprinted ahead with three straight victories, dismantling asd, Shine, and PartinG with style. The first victory came easily, with FXOasd falling to a banshee rush followed by a marine-tank push.

In the next two games, Keen channeled the spirit of two other Terrans. Again TSL_Shine, Keen made sure former teammate sC's spirit lived on despite his departure to League of Legends, battering Shine down with great macro and a constant stream of troops rallied to the Zerg base. Going up against ST_PartinG on Entombed Valley, Keen emulated Brood War legend Flash, following a greedy command center-first opener with a surprise marine-SCV rush to take a game winning lead within the first few minutes.

With Keen's 3 – 0 start giving him a very high probability to advance, he had a chance to 100% clinch his Code S spot in his fourth match against STX_Trap. Keen opted to remind the world that he could pull out a cheese at any moment, going for a proxy barracks all-in. Unfortunately, Trap's micro was excellent while Keen's was not, handing him his first loss of the night. At the same time, events also worked out so that Keen would still have to play the fifteenth and final match of the night against ByuN, as PartinG, Shine and ByuN had fought their way to a standstill.

My Little PartinG: Friendship is Magic

Leading up to the final match, ByuNPrime, TSLShine and ST_PartinG had contrasting paths through the group. Byun had started his night out strong, crushing PartinG's speculative phoenix build easily to win his first game. While he lost his next game in a protracted marine-tank war with asd, he threw himself right back in the mix by taking down Trap on Whirlwind (a bizarre, comical game where Byun nearly allowed Trap to make a comeback after defending a 4-gate rush). In Shine's case, he also started off well by defeating asd and Trap with good hive play, but losing to Keen meant he was not in the best place if it came down to head-to-head tiebreakers.

As for PartinG, he looked to be in trouble initially, losing twice in his most famous match-up of PvT to Byun and Keen. Good late-game PvP management allowed him to take a game off Trap, but losses to ByuN and Keen meant that he could not win a tie-breaker against either player, and he needed the help of other players in addition to winning the rest of his matches in order to stand a chance.

Fortunately for PartinG, lady luck was inclined to help him out on the night, as long as took care of business on his end. PartinG took down asd in a macro game to bring his score up to 2 – 2, which was followed by Shine barely triumphing over Byun in an all out war on Abyssal City, bringing the Prime Terran down to 2 – 2 while Shine went up to 3 – 1. PartinG then took out Shine with his signature move – a two base immortal all-in – to end the group tied with Shine at 3 – 2, but holding the head-to-head advantage over the TSL Zerg.

When all the convoluted head-to-head rules were taken into consideration, it meant everything would come down to the final match between Byun and Keen. A win for Keen would allow himself and PartinG to advance, while a win for ByuN would result in four players tied at 3 – 2 with no head-to-head advantage, for a marathon four-way tie-break session (with the possibility of a three-way tie-tie-break).

The match was closely contested, but in the end, KeeN was able to defeat Byun and win a Code S spot for himself and his friend, and allow everyone to go home at a reasonable time. The game played out as a marine-tank war on Ohana, with both players managing to take three bases and mass huge armies without any significant disruption. Keen took the advantage in the first few key engagements, which he used to set up a contain on ByuN while taking an expansion advantage. Unable to coax any mistakes out of Keen, ByuN had no choice but to go for a last-ditch, all-out attack on Keen's containment position, but his army met a predictable end at the hands of Keen's well set forces. With the final GG, Byun was left gazing dejected at the replay, while a laughing PartinG burst into the Keen's booth to celebrate with his friend.

*Actually Season Five

Round robin, top two advance to Code S.

5. mTw.SuperNova

Nestea Award Score: 9/10

Oh SuperNova. You have been around Code S for-seemingly-ever. You often looked like a legitimate contender for a title in the early stages. You have thrilled us in all three match-ups. And yet it comes down to this. Getting picked to finish last in your Up and Downs when the Nestea Award is on the line. And while Mvp will have more chances to clinch his stylish G5L title, this is your only shot. Fail here, and not only are you starting out in Code A, but you will have to live through nine more consecutive seasons of Code S after making it back up to even be in the same position.

Put it bluntly, out of all players in the group, SuperNova has not only had the worst results as of late, he has simply looked the worst. He got lucky to be in a group with Nestea to make sure he did not fall out of the GSL completely; no doubt the StarCraft gods thought it would be amusing to put the ailing Nestea up against the player vying for an award named after himself.

Here, SuperNoVa faces challenges akin to ones he is used to facing. However, it is hard to retain much faith in the mTw Korean. He looked terrible last season. At the start of season five, there is little to make anyone believe that this has changed. His TvT, once rather formidable, has steadily declined since early aggression and heavy two base play has started to be figured out and disappear from normal gameplay. Of course, he could show that last season was in no way an indication of current strength and steamroll the group. But all metrics (and possibly a magic eight ball) suggest that some dreams are not to be and some awards will stay belonging solely to Nestea.


4. FXOSirius

Looking Like a Duck Out of Water Score: 10/10

Sirius has just about no name recognition compared to the rest of the group. Oh, some devoted StarCraft fans might remember him from cult classics such as Losing a really tight series in the preliminaries where HerO made it to Code A or On the cusp of Code A: A serious propensity towards not quite making it, possibly even The day FXO fielded a Zerg not named Lucky or Leenock (and its many direct-to-DVD sequels).

Last season's Code A was a shocking turnaround for Sirius, as he almost made it all the way. Of course, he beat an even more anonymous player in Salmosa, and an MMA that was clearly not in the right frame of mind, so it might not be the clearest indication that Sirius is a real contender for Code S. It is however quite fortunate that he landed in a three-Terran, five-man group. He has a solid bag of tricks, full of roach pressure, roach/bling all-ins and a macro game that holds up to Code A quality at least. He'll have to face one non-Terran in Seed in the final match of the day, and depending on how he plays his cards, that match might not matter.


3. Still_SlayerS_Ryung

Current Drama Score: 3/10

It is never good to have circumstances external to the actual competition affect one’s mindset. This was perhaps the case with SlayerS players for a very long time, and would go some way to explain while their players, once GSL juggernauts, almost all fell into mediocrity or worse. During the initial MMA-demotion debacle earlier this year, Ryung stepped up as SlayerS' ace player and only realistic hope for a consistent presence in Code S. Nowadays, Ryung has managed escaped the worst of the drama. Jessica spared him her wrath, and he has reportedly already found a future home at Axiom.

GSL Season Four was not particularly nice for Ryung. He fell out of his group in rather predictable fashion, though his loss to YoDa was not as expected as the one to HerO. He then defeated Ragnarok before being doomed to the Up and Downs by RorO. Coupled with another mediocre MLG performance, it seems reasonable to see the plight of Ryung continue. His peak skill is still high and he has a fantastic TvT and more than reasonable TvZ, but he has shown little in terms of killer instinct and making his own good fortune.

This group is by no means the worst for him. In fact, having two other Terran is about the best he could hope for and Sirius is a Zerg he will beat most of the time. However, the other side of the coin is that he will be unlikely to even come close to taking Seed out and he can lose to either Flash or SuperNova on any given day.


2. KT_Flash

Elephant Score: 11/10

When the thought of KeSPA players entering the professional StarCraft II scene was a mere hypothesis, a rather large number of people pointed to the *TBLS as the ones who would dominate after a transition. This has substantially failed to materialize so far, but at least Flash is holding up his part of the bargain and beginning to look like the real deal. Unfortunately, he's still a way off from becoming The Man Called God in Starcraft II as well as Brood War, with his strong early runs in both the GSL and OSL fizzling out. But if any player can be expected to learn at a genius pace and look stronger each time he plays, it would be Flash.

In terms of what he is facing, he has been granted a favorable map against Seed and a reasonable one against Sirius. That leaves two Terran players, which just happens to be a rather persistent thorn in Flash’s side. He looked to have very exploitable weaknesses against Last, and one can expect improvement in his play after suffering that embarrassing reverse-sweep. Ryung is strong in TvT, and SuperNova is unpredictable, so it's hard to have complete faith.

*TaekBaengLeeSsang, or Flash, Stork, Jaedong, and Bisu.


1. LG-IM_Seed

Ownership of GSL Championships in the Group Score: 1/1

The honeybee Protoss got a taste of a Symbol last season, but it turned out to be poisoned as he was knocked out in the Ro8. Then he performed reasonably but not up to his old standards in WCS Asia, followed by an elimination at the hands of sOs in Code A. That is not quite reminiscent of the Seed that would somehow squeeze out comebacks to win and get stronger with each opponent he defeated during his Code S championship. It is almost as if IM Protosses exist on a flavor of the month basis and that YongHwa is the current 'it' kid.

On the other hand, it is hard to see how Seed could have been happier with an Up and Down group. No PvP, a very manageable Zerg and three Terran sounds about as ideal as it gets. He will almost certainly have challenges in this group, but overall his recent caliber of play far outstrips that of all his opponents. It is not unimaginable that he fails to make it back up, but it would be a surprise and perhaps a clue that his recent losses have been of a more serious nature than we had thought.