Results from Live Report Thread by opterown.
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Late to the Party
– CreatorPrime tops group A, reaching the Ro8 for the first time.

For CreatorPrime, it was always going to be a matter of when, not if, he could make a splash in the GSL. At the vanguard of the StarCraft II generation-change movement alongside Life and TaeJa, Creator was the quickest to realize his potential and become noticed, but the slowest to become a presence in the GSL, the world's most prestigious league.

Monday night was an important step from Creator, as he went from GSTL workhorse, TSL4 champion, and WCS Korea champion, into something that might be even more valuable in his mind: Code S title contender. With consecutive victories over strong Zerg players MVP.DongRaeGu and ST_Curious, Creator has reached the Ro8 elimination bracket, and is just a hop, skip, and step away from the live finals in Las Vegas.

Oddly enough, it was far from Creator's best performance. It was a night of strange games where no one seemed to play all that well (except AX.Ryung, who we'll get to later), with Creator making of plenty of mistakes alongside his more experienced Code S groupmates. While he was 2 – 0 in series, Creator dropped a single map in each series on seemingly silly mistakes – warping in stalkers instead of dark templars or sentries against DongRaeGu's clearly visible roach-ling counter attack, and allowing a zergling runby within the opening minutes against Curious.

At the end of the day, more of Creator's strengths showed through than his weaknesses. He came with yet another version of the low-risk, three-base timing attacks which are his trademark, and widely copied by other Protoss players. This time it was Creator who took a page out of another player's book, crediting FXO's Tear for the surprisingly effective phoenix-warp prism harass into colossi-chargelot timings that defeated both DRG and Curious. On Entombed Valley, Creator was able to display his other signature trait of solid defense, fending off different all-ins from the two Zergs who both declined to play a macro game against Creator on one of his best maps.

Though Creator does not yet look to be capable of harnessing 100% of his capabilities in the GSL booth, he was still resourceful enough to defeat two of Code S's most established veterans in series. Going into the Ro8, Creator will be happy to have a high chance of facing a Terran opponent, as PvT is the match-up where he has looked the most comfortable.

– AX.Ryung returns to the Ro8 with a gutsy second place performance.

To no one's surprise, AX.Ryung's best Code S performance was in 2011's Code S August, during the height of GomTvT. There, he reached the round of eight before being narrowly eliminated by JulyZerg in a 2 – 3 loss. Now, over a year later, in the days of Code Z, Ryung has finally made his way back.

It was not so much that Ryung managed to bring his game to a new level between seasons, than it was a case of things actually going right for Ryung. After spending most of 2012 grouped with rising stars or resurgent veterans, Ryung finally got to play in a group where everyone played worse than they were initially billed, and he capitalized on it by keeping steady and bringing the solid TvZ performances he is known for.

Things did start out grim, as Ryung was crushed in his initial series against ST_Curious. While Ryung only lost by a close 1 – 2 scoreline, the manner in which he lost game three made things look all but hopeless. With Curious going up brood lords and infestors, Ryung successfully transitioned to ravens and engaged Curious in a theorcraft-perfect engagement that saw hunter seeker missiles and fanned out vikings decimate the Zerg air-force. Curious response was to casually press his finger down on the "U" key and crush Ryung with eighteen ultralisks. Ryung held out remarkably well against the tech-switch, but after his transition to a tank based force, he was helpless to fight back when Curious reverted back to an air-based composition.


It was one of those games that made it hard for anyone to be objective, and while reason for Curious' victory – Zerg's larva based production mechanic – was largely unrelated to the "infestors OP" rallying-cry of the moment, it served as a depressing moment for anyone rooting for the Terran player in the booth.

Yet, Ryung rallied back from that 1 – 2 start, taking four straight victories to advance in second place. While Ryung brought the same kind of smart, Marine-Tank play he had been doing for months, neither DongRaeGu, nor Curious on his second go-around, seemed to be able to deal with it at all. Far from looking rock solid, they allowed themselves to be outmaneuvered and run ragged by Ryung's drops and troop movements. This was particularly pronounced on the expansive map Whirlwind, where in an extreme case of role-reversal, Ryung seemed much more comfortable exploiting the long distances and wide open spaces than his Zerg opponents.

There's no denying that DongRaeGu seemed off his game (botching one crucial engagement by running his infestors into tank fire before the actual battle), and that Curious was playing visibly poorly due to his famous mental block in the Ro16. But at the same time, Ryung showed great consistency throughout the night, and if he managed to keep his cool when his opponents could not, then he deserves all the credit.

– The future of Code Z?

Curious: Bomber lost in a final, and Curious played below his potential in the Code S Ro16. All in all, it was a typical day for Startale.

DongRaeGu: Speaking of inconsistent players, DongRaeGu is making a good case for entry to into the exclusive club of inconsistent players who can only guarantee you an emotional roller-coaster ride as a reward for your support. Alongside club president Bomber, treasurer Oz, and secretary MC, there should be space for DongRaeGu as well.

Group B: MarineKingPrime, ST_Hack, LG-IM_YoDa, TSL_HyuN

The headliner for this group tonight is MarineKingPrime. Coming into this group MarineKing’s play has been well...it wasn’t inspiring. It wasn’t dominating. It was actually ugly and kind of outdated. But it wasn’t TvT. MKP got his wish and has two Terrans in his group alongside an unavoidable Zerg in Hyun. This is an extremely fortuitous event when you consider that MKP's TvZ win rate has been hovering dangerously around 50% since the queen patch. He keeps playing 2011 TvZ in a world where queens have 5 range, creep spreads faster than nutella, and infestors reign supreme in ZvT strategy. With that being the case, Hyun poses the biggest problem for him in this group.

MKP’s TvT on the other hand has been very consistent throughout the year. In the GSL, he has only lost games to MVP (his personal demon) and TaeJa at his very hottest. On the other hand, he hasn’t played a TvT recently since his match with Polt a month ago in GSTL so it’s hard to judge exactly where he is at in the match-up. But there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe he won't be strong as usual, capable of playing any style at all, and always capable of ending the game with one well-timed marine attack.

Oh ST_Hack, you were so close to taking the spot of number one Terran on your team with Bomber dropping to Code A while you made it to the Ro16. Unfortunately for him, 2012 Bomber died and was reincarnated as 2011 Raleigh Bomber doing extremely well on his American Tour in Texas while still being unable to escape his KongTale destiny. Team Startale is the deepest team in SC2 and if Hack wants anyone to notice him he will need to pull a great performance in this group. While he didn’t 2 - 0 out of his group like MKP, he was in some ways more impressive in his victory. He was the only player to have stopped a Zerg from advancing to the Ro16. While Roro did a fatal mistake of leaving 6 ultras in the nydus for the deciding battles of the game, Hack showed a lot of persistence and intelligence in making a comeback win against Roro and showed us the best TvZ from this season’s GSL.

Hack’s TvT is solid overall. He can play both mech and bio with equal skill. He knows when to pull out a strong cheese to punish a pattern in a player like he did against Happy in ro32. While not a TvT sniper, Hack has shown he is Code S level taking down players like Alive, MMA, and Happy. Even with that, he is still a slight underdog to the other two Terrans in this group in terms of TvT.

LG-IM_YoDa rounds out the three Terrans as a player somewhere between Hack and MKP, not a wide-eyed newcomer, but as player with some experience but no huge success. Yoda has changed his style from the beginning of his career to be a much more solid player. Before, he was known more for doing ghosts rushes, reaper openings and bunker capacity all-in attacks. Now he’s much more well known for being a solid standard Terran with good decision making and smart builds. Among the IM interviews, he’s touted as a practice bonjwa in the IM house, but hasn’t been able to show it in televised matches. When he made it into Code A, he seemed to fulfill the hype going undefeated. But once he got into Code S, he got inflicted by Curious fever, dropping out in the group stages and then making it back up for the next season.

Now is his chance to make a statement. He is now the last IM player in Code S. MVP has been struck down by either his injuries or runner-up curse or both, Seed is slowly becoming Jjakji, and Happy had the honor of playing the single worst 2-rax ever played since MKP failed in proxy positions on metalopolis against Nestea 2 years ago. This group is great for Yoda as his TvT has been excellent in his recent runs through Code A and Code S beating players like Ryung, Bomber (pre-reincarnation) and Gumiho. He played extremely well in his games against Gumiho never letting an early advantage slip out of his hands. On top of that, Yoda’s first opponent is someone he has already beaten. Yoda should feel confident as Hyun hasn’t shown his beast form outside of online play and Yoda has and will take complete advantage of this.

For our last player of the group, it's the same, familiar old story. IGN_TSL_HyuN is an online monster who seems almost unstoppable, especially in the IPL Fight Club. He now has thirteen wins and at this point should be given a title sponsor by IPL for making Fight Club a household name. In fact, we'll just unofficially stick one on him until it catches on. No one doubts his actual skill, but everyone doubts his nerves. Even in his ro32 group with a walkover against by.Rain, he still barely came out of it despite having a free win the bag. There is no question that Hyun playing at his best would destroy this group. The real question here is if a nervous Hyun is still strong enough to beat all of the Terrans in this group.


Overall Outlook and Prediction

This is a surprisingly close group all things considered. While Hyun is easily the most skilled player here, his nerves put him on the same playing field as the three others.

This is a very hard group to predict. MKP left me cold with his performance in the last round. Hack played well last round, but hasn’t quite shown the same level of play as the others in this group. Yoda beat Hyun last time, but Hyun seems like he should be the stronger player. In the end I’m going with Yoda and Hyun. Yoda’s TvT style matches well with MKP and he already has a small mental edge over Hyun with his last victory. So long as Hyun gets it together, he should be fine against anyone in this group.

MKP > Hack
Yoda > Hyun
Yoda > MKP
Hyun > Hack
Hyun > MKP

Yoda and Hyun advance.