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Success is the progressive realization of a worthwhile goal.
– MarineKingPrime wins two straight matches to make his second straight Code S top eight.

There are times where the only topic to discuss is the slump, the downfall, or the inconsistency of a player. Then there are days where one discusses the rapid ascendancy, the domination and the sheer class of a champion. MarineKingPrime has been on both sides, in fact he might even exemplify the extremes used to categorize and define players. Having been through both, he has become a rather intriguing character; he is typically stereotyped as unpredictable, inconsistent in terms of what type of game play he brings on a given day, fleetingly brilliant and always dangerous. It seems inevitable that when a player has swung between both sides of the hyperbole so many times, he would eventually be known as a mix of the two.

However, the real story is that MarineKing has found an inner strength that has never really been attributed to him. At his peak, he was a perennial favorite to reach GSL finals. However, he had a sharp decline, a period where he simply could not perform to previous levels. It has been seen before, where a player has had intangible strengths but faled to stay consistent. As such, it is easy to expect such a player to fade away or in rare cases, regain that magic to return to his old self. However, the Prime favorite has done the opposite. Instead of either going away or bouncing back with a flash, he has carved out a long path back to his throne. After returning to Code S in GSL October, he has consistently made progress towards another finals appearance. Last season, after three round of sixteen exits in a row, he finally made another top eight. Yesterday, he made it two consecutive round of eights.

But while his results in Code S say one thing that might not be apparent by looking by his games, the way he advanced was sublimely MKP’esque. Against both ST_Hack and TSL_HyuN, he split the two first maps in strange and non-standard games only to win the deciding game with convincing macro play. Against Hack, it looked like he would pick up an easy ticket to the winner’s match punishing the Startale Terran’s greedier opening and bad decision making in defense with ease. However game two MKP looked like the inferior player, being completely out-strategized on Abyssal City and losing his early lead. However, once Daybreak was put in front of the players and standard play finally emerged, there could be no doubt. MarineKing was superior in just about every measurable aspect; making his play in game two look even more puzzling.

Against Hyun he lost the game where his command center first build was countered by the TSL Zerg’s 10 pool. He then won the Entombed game with a predictable double proxy rax of the 12/13 variety, Hyun failing to build a Spinecrawler in a safe location and was overrun by marines and scvs. Then, just as with the final game of the previous group, the winner would be decided by a TvZ on Whirlwind. The map has built up a reputation as the Zerg’s stronghold, but just as Ryung was able to best Curious to secure his advancement, MKP was on the day. Facing fast mutalisk play interrupting his mech transition, MKP held it off with excellent turret placement, continuous marine production and early vikings. It was the kind of opener that has broken meching Terran in the past, but MKP showed that he was eminently able to safely transition. As Hyun was able to correctly identify that thors would be some ways off, he invested heavily into his air play, going for carapace upgrades to fight the vikings and vanilla marines. However, MKP was satisfied to take losses where he had to, expand extremely aggressively and make up for any economy loss by continuously making four or five scvs at a time. His defense was spread extremely thin for a long time during the follow-up roach/ling aggression, barely holding off several waves before finally amassing the amounts of thors, tanks and hellions to be able to take fights. While Hyun did finally tech up to hive, it was far too late and MKP was not to be denied another shot at making it to his fourth finals.

Just as he did in the round of 32, MKP did not look like a shining star in advancing. However, it is impressive that he again was able to take two victories in the last game of a match after splitting the previous two in rather unorthodox or silly ways. What is even better is that he was winning those final games convincingly and with standard play with that special touch of MKP flair. MarineKing remains ever quirky; he certainly is a crowd favorite both for his play and how his personality shows both in the booth and in the game. This season he will not be facing one of the favorites to win the tournament in the round of eight either, so it might be time to take the next step.

A TSL_HyuN in sheep’s clothing.
– 70-26 in IPL Fight Club, 8-6 in Code S, and in the round of eight.

TSL_HyuN is becoming a stranger spectacle to behold by the day. He is the player everyone knows should be a contender for a championship. As much as online play can be scoffed at for proving true merit, it would be extremely foolish to discard his performances and accolades in that area without being impressed by the dominance and consistence contained. On the other hand, he simply does not look that way while playing in the GSL. He has been made to look silly multiple times in Code A and in Up and Downs, things that would rarely happen elsewhere. He has also failed to impress substantially in his inaugural Code S season. He was supposed to be what Life was last season, brilliant and looking like the best player in the tournament. So far those expectations have failed to materialize. However, he is now in the round of eight. It is almost infuriating to behold, a spectacle of a player underperforming yet advancing by the slimmest of margins.

The day started well enough; facing standard, defensive mech play by LG-IM_YoDa, Hyun was able to take rather easy victories twice by teching aggressively, harassing and always staying ahead. Against MKP he looked set to secure an easy advancement after taking a cheesy win, but fell for the same in game two then lost the final game while committing what typified him for a very long time before he started winning everything online and making breaking into the GSL; staying on lair tech for way too long. Against both Protoss and Terran, that was clearly an error in his play early on after transitioning to SC2 and it might still be an issue at times.

Against Hack, things were looking disastrous as he misjudged the Startale Terran’s build completely, messed up his upgrades and got overrun by the three base timing push. However, the last two games we got to once again see the Hyun that is easily able to defeat Terran everywhere, never really looking threatened but rather almost arrogantly amused and able to win at his own leisure.

Hyun was clearly lucky in advancing to this group stage at all. As Rain opted to forfeit his spot, it may be impossible to truly tell what would have transpired, but on paper the group changed from a potential nightmare to what should have been a walk in the park. Last night, fortune again favored the TSL Zerg as the group was easily the worst of the bunch, both in terms of accolades and in terms of relative skill. Both times he passed by the skin of his teeth. The ability to do so is of course a blessing, but his game play will likely have to improve to progress further in his royal road aspirations.

The anti-Bomber and the anti-Mvp’s
– Hack and YoDa fall to Code A round of 24 in two very different ways.

Hack has to feel proud of this season of Code S, though he will obviously be frustrated with being 1-0 up in match five and still falling down. However, he was not expected to make it that far by anyone and he looked good doing it. Known for timing attacks, a decent to good TvP and for being largely underwhelming, he was able to put together a string of results that almost launched him into the top eight of the hardest tournament in the world. He is almost the opposite of his Terran teammate, who everyone expects to at some point finally show that he is in fact the best Terran in the world but consistently underperforming. This was what is on paper a performance beyond actual skills, but it also revealed that there might be more to Hack than initially thought.

Meanwhile, YoDa was the disappointment in the group. He looked solid but eventually outclassed by Hyun, not quite good enough to overpower through standard play, not quite tactically aware enough to figure out how to exploit the opponent’s build and not savage enough to keep the Zerg in check. But the games against Hack were the true kicker. He lost to a double proxy barracks play first, but when he decided to return the favor in game two we got to see once again exactly why YoDa, like Happy, are definitely understudies to Mvp and not actually vying for top spot. Just like Happy botched an all-in against RorO who went three hatch before pool, YoDa again looked absolutely lost when it came to executing the push. While Mvp has made a name for himself for his ruthless play, his understudies have this season done the same for botching their interpretations of it.

Group C: ST_PartinG, TSL_Polt, STX_Innovation, MVP.Sniper

ST_PartinG - The Governor of the Soul Party

In the wild race known as the Protoss Presidential election, we have a clear favorite in the Elephant Party's Rain, holding the WCS Asia and OSL championship, but there are still some candidates who can make up some group as the final major tournaments of the year come to ahead in the next five weeks. With old president MC out of Code S, not at the World Championships, and absent from Dreamhack Winter, his place as the head of Aiur seems to be all but gone. We are left with three parties vying for the seat in the High Templar House.

Creator, Parting, and Rain all are standing in at least one of the big four tournaments happening in the next few weeks. While Rain has the most accomplishments between the three, he only has one shot at the World Championships to make his final plea to the fans to name him President. Creator, already advanced to the quarter-finals of this season's Code S, will have the most opportunities, as he can challenge for championships at WCS and IPL5 if his GSL campaign goes awry.

Parting, since making his true debut in the scene at the start of 2012, has always been one of the more popular players in the community. With his bravado, after game celebrations, and humorous victory interviews, he was a player that you always wanted to watch to see what would happen after the match. Along with a play style that has shown us some of the best games this year, particularly in PvT, he's been a favorite to at least make a final in 2012. Unluckily for him, he got eliminated in his royal road season by eventual champion DRG, was taken out the next season by eventual champion Mvp in the semifinals, and has, been put into group of death after group of death ever since.

With Squirtle falling off, Parting is Startale's best chance at a Protoss winning a championship in 2012. After being put into one of the toughest groups in the Ro32, Parting got the opportunity to be the head of his group and pick his opening opponent. While picking Polt, one of the best TvP players in the world when on form, might have not been the easy choice, he was still able to defeat him 2-1 in the Ro32, and the group didn't end up as deadly as it could have been.

While all three players behind Parting in this group are very good, and it wouldn't be a surprise if any of them did make it to Las Vegas for the semifinals, the Protoss should be the favorite and get out of this group in first. He hasn't played this well since the first two seasons, and he is finally backing up his talk with strong enough play to warrant it. Having two Terrans and probably one of the weaker Ro16 Zergs in his group, the Soul Party candidate should make a strong response to Creator's 1st place showing two nights ago.


TSL_Polt - The Traveler Terran

It's impossible to predict how Polt will be playing tonight. Two weeks ago when he played Parting in a close 2-1 series, wrecked Taeja 2-0, and then held on against an aggressive finale to make it out of his group, Polt looked like a player who could challenge for a title as long as he could avoid defending champion Life. Then he went to Texas for MLG Dallas and Lone Star Clash 2, and he came back with disappointing results.

Coming out of the open bracket at MLG and getting 9~12th place isn't the worst thing in the world, but Polt should have done more from his side of the bracket. Going up against Heart, and then Hwangsin next in line, Polt was looking at least a top six finish if he didn't mess up against the good-but-not-great Terran from Complexity. Polt ended up being stomped in the TvT and looked out of sorts as he was not able to keep up with Heart's marine timings and quirky openings. Falling out 0 - 2 and not getting into the top six wasn't the worst thing in the world, but Lone Star Clash 2 was what really made the foreign trip a disaster.

In a line-up of players where Polt was one of the heavy favorites to win it all, he didn't even make it into the top four. He began the tournament with a shaky 2 - 0 victory over qxc, and was quickly got thrown into the losers bracket with a loss to Ganzi. From there, he had a solid but not dominating performance over EG's Thorzain, and then went up against BabyKnight, a player he 2-0'ed at MLG Dallas in the championship bracket. This time things went terribly for Polt, the Danish player outplaying the Korean Terran and sending him out of the tournament with a 2 - 0 sweep.

For the first time in his career, Polt entered a foreign offline tournament and went home with nothing. Usually at least winning $1,000 at every tournament he traveled to, Polt ended up with nothing but regret in the tournament with possibly the easiest player field he had faced in the past year. To make things worse, he had only two days to practice for Code S after arriving back in Korea, which means he will be in questionable condition for this group.

If Polt plays like he did at Lone Star Clash 2, he will not get out of this group. BabyKnight, Heart and Ganzi are strong players, and all three of his groupmates here are on a higher level. Parting is one of the best Protosses in the world, Innovation's timing attacks have been almost impossible for even Code S players to stop, and Sniper is challenging DongRaeGu for the spot of MVP's ace player. If Polt plays as well as he did in the Ro32, he might reach the Ro8 for the first time since August of 2011, but it's anyone's guess as to which Polt will show up.


STX_Innovation - The New Timing Attacker

The 3 Rules of Innovation:

1. If you survive the first 10 minutes, you have a good chance of winning.

2. Oh ****, he has marines and SCV's in your base.

3. You're dead.

Innovation (formerly known as Bogus) has pretty much laid out how he's going to play for everyone to see, but only Leenock has been able to stop him so far in the GSL. With his very own innovative strategies, Leenock swept Innovation and made the KeSPA player win two straight series to make it into the Ro16. With double proxy rax against Squirtle, and a strong timing attack against Keen, Innovation made it to the second stage of Code S with his brilliant decision making when it comes to finding and exploiting weaknesses, taking his opponents down before they know what hit them.

He's a scary player to play against. While we haven't seen much of his late game play, who knows how good he really is when he gets into a 20 minute+ TvT? As the best player on the ladder for the last few seasons along with Life, both having an insane winning percentage of over 65%, Innovation is someone you cannot take lightly just because he seems to only have one card up his sleeve. While it's possible he won all those games on the ladder with his brilliant timing attacks, he must have some sort of late game that was able to keep him so high in the ladder. Life might do early aggression and go for a 6 pool once every eight games, but he knows how to beat you in a variety of ways.

Innovation is the wild card of not only this group, but the entire season. We have the least information about him out of the sixteen players in the Ro16. Soulkey has been two MLG two times, in the WCS Korea tournament, and has more games from which we can gauge how good he really is. With Innovation, all we really know is that he likes to kill you fast and easy, and the only way to stop him so far has been to kill him even more quickly and creatively. No score from him would be too shocking on the night. 4-0, 0-4, 5-2, whatever, hopefully we will get to see if he's truly one of the best Terran in the world, or nothing but a one trick pony.


MVP.Sniper - The Ace of MVP (?)

The kid who killed Slayers. The boy who made Eve cry. The clone that is coming closer and closer to overtaking the real thing. With DongRaeGu failing at getting out of the Ro16 two times in a row, Sniper has been given the opportunity to wrestle the ace role from his teammate. Already being played as the anchor and having carried the load for MVP throughout the second half of 2012 in offline and online team tournaments, Sniper only really needs to add a few a strong singles performance to be called the best player on MVP.

Known mostly as a ZvZ and ZvP specialist, this group is one of the hardest Sniper could have asked for. Sniper has shown weakness to early game aggression, and Innovation might be the worst possible opponent he could have asked for in the Ro16. Looking beyond that match-up, Polt and Parting are probably the two players with the best all-ins against Zerg left in the tournament; Parting with his soul train immortal/sentry all-in, and Polt with his marauder/hellion all-in that spelled doom for DongRaeGu in last season's Ro16. What may be an easier group for the the three other players in the group, might just be Sniper's hell if he doesn't shore up his weak early game.


Overall thoughts and prediction:

Parting is the only player that you can put confidence in coming into this group. Polt is coming off a bizarre week in Texas, Sniper is in a group that plays against all his weaknesses, and you have to wonder if Innovation can really get into the quarterfinals with the timing-attacks-only approach. Parting is in the best form of the four players, the only one to get 1st in his Ro32 group, and he is confident in his PvZ and PvT. He should get out first and await his Zerg opponent in the Ro8 next week.

The second spot should go to the winner of a tough dog fight. Polt would have been considered the heavy favorite to join Parting a week ago, but with weak games at LSC2 and not having as much time to prepare as everyone else, he might be in a lot of trouble. Sniper, with how well Zerg is doing, and how strong he is in the late game, is probably the best bet to make it out in second place, but it all depends on if his defense in the first ten minutes is strong enough against three players who are masters of killing players early.


Parting > Polt
Sniper > Innovation
Parting > Sniper
Polt > Innovation
Sniper > Polt

PartinG and Sniper advance. But really, you can flip a three sided coin to pick second.