GomTvT hints a return, Mvp wins his Nestea award

Some days you see young up-and-comers tear down the Code-S upper class and make a name for themselves. On other days, the Code S nobility stomps the rebellion into the ground, wagging their fingers at the notion of class mobility. It was a case of the latter for TSL_Polt and LG-IM_Mvp, as they triumphed over their newer opponents in dominating fashion. CJ_Bbyong did manage to take the first set against Polt with a build order advantage, as Polt’s triple cc build wasn’t up to snuff defending against a mass hellion banshee attack. However, Polt quickly adjusted to Bbyong’s hellion-centric mech play from there on, and smashed Bbyong in the next two games with solid bio-tank play.

After defeating Flying a few days ago, LG-IM_Mvp took out another Woongjin Protoss in sOs to make it into his tenth straight Code S season and win his Nestea award. The first map was easy to take, as an early marine attack crippled sOs. From there, sOs tried a colossus all-in off two bases, but was easily stopped. The second game was much more scrappy as both MVp and sOs would trade turns trying to kill each other. After the dust was settled, sOs was able to barely get away with taking a greedy third and going for double forge upgrades. MVP tried a desperate SCV pull bio attack, but it was too late as the upgrades and charge upgrade were enough for sOs to eventually hold off the push and take the game. With everything on the line, sOs closed his eyes and prayed to Aiur to give him strength to beat the King. All he got was a vision of Hongun and like a man possessed, sOs did a blink stalker observer all-in. It was easily thwarted by MVP and much like his blink stalker ancestor, sOs was summarily executed by a bunch of marauders with medivacs.

The third Terran to make it out last night was 8th_BaBy, 2 - 0'ing TSL_Symbol to make it a 100% advancement rate for Terran on the night. While disappointing in his first appearance in Code S, Baby has been very impressive in his Code A matches. He has now taken out Brain, Flash and Symbol in convincing games. The first set against Symbol was a scrappy one, with the game starting off with both players hurting each other's economy with hellions and roaches respectively. It got even weirder as Symbol tried to do a hail-mary nydus strategy with mass queen roach, only to get mauled by siege tanks and cloaked banshees. Despite the setback, Symbol started to play well again as he transitioned into an infestor broodlord army, but then threw away his army trying to break a PF. While Symbol wasted time trying to kill the heavily fortified position, Baby went for constant drops to destroy Symbol's main and attempts at further bases. With no tech and no economy left, Symbol had to give up the game. Symbol seemed to remain punch-drunk all throughout game two, as Baby easily out multi-taskeded him, causing massive amounts of economic damage with hellions and drops. This setup an unstoppable mech push later, forcing Symbol to GG out.


LG, Life is Good.

At the beginning of this season, LG-IM_YongHwa was a player that everyone was pointing to as the next Protoss to watch out for. And why not? At the time he had gotten a double all-kill in GSTL, won WCG Korea over MKP and had finally broken his way into Code A. However, things started to go downhill in a hurry. He was little more than a bystander as LG-IM dropped out of the GSTL, and then he embarrassingly dropped out of the group stage at WCG as well.

But his Code A play was still strong as he won a PvP over both Mini and Squirtle, leaving him just one best of 3 away from reaching the promised land, Code S. So one could hardly blame him when he decided to do a proxy 2 gate in game 1 and try to take a fast win. Unfortunately for him, weird early game scenarios in ZvP seem to be Life’s specialty as Life himself was going for a proxy hatch. Life would easily deflect the proxy 2 gate with great defensive micro, taking an early 1 - 0 lead. The second game didn’t go much better for Yonghwa, as he was enticed into cannon rushing Life’s hatch-before-pool build. It killed Life’s hatchery, but with three cannons and two pylons expended, the game still stabilized into a normal PvZ. Yonghwa tried a phoenix into immortal-sentry all-in, but the timing was too late as Life was able to get infestors and roaches in time to kill the push with ease. From there Life would take the game and prove the LG motto true, Life is Good.

MVP.KeeN vs MVP.Vampire

Keen vs Vampire is the second team MVP team-kill in three days, coming on the tail of DRG vs. Noblesse. That match yielded a somewhat unexpected result, with the rising Noblesse taking a Code S spot over DongRaeGu, whose troubles in the GSL continued.

This time around it looks to be a more even match on paper, with both Keen and Vampire finishing Ro32 in Code S last season, and both of them having been regular fixtures on MVP's GSTL runner-up team. In their current form, neither player seems likely to impact the championship picture, but they'd both make solid additions to the Code S roster.

The swing factor here appears to be the TvP match-up. Vampire has largely failed to impress in PvT, having recently gone 1 – 4 to Ryung, while barely defeating Baby and TheBest in some ugly games. In contrast, Keen last few TvP matches have been quite impressive, with a convincing win over Squirtle and PartinG to his name. Even in a fruitless WCG Korea campaign where he lost to Parting and Yonghwa, he looked like a much improved macro player compared to the Keen who was relying on cheeses in the summer.

In the end, I decided to side with Keen. There's already eight Terrans qualified for Code S, and momentum seems to have returned to their side. After spending so much time being dominated by Terrans in 2011, one final installment of GomTvT would be a fitting end for GomTV's Wings of Libery run.

Keen 2 – 1 Vampire


LG-IM_First vs FXOGuMiho

After getting overshadowed by Seed and Yonghwa, it might finally be First's time to shine. The ex-BW pro was one of the surprises of the summer, qualifying for TSL4 and making a surprise second place run at MLG Raleigh. Consecutive first round eliminations in Code A caused him to lose a lot of steam and attention, but in his third try, he's finally knocking at the door of Code S (by the way, that means he beat three Code B qualifier brackets in a row, no mean feat).

First's road has been a mixture of blessings and curses. On one hand, he's managed to avoid PvZ – his Achilles heel match-up – the entire way. However, the Terrans and Protosses he faced happened to be very tough: SuperNoVa and HerO in the first two rounds, and now Gumiho in the final round.

After his breakout semi-final run early this year, nothing has been going right for Gumiho in Code S, but he's been killing it everywhere else. He's 8 – 0 in GSTL finals, all-killing SlayerS and three-killing MVP on his way to winning FXOpen two GSTL championships. He's also been a beast in Code A and Up/Downs with an 18 – 7 record, never falling out of Code S this year. One way or another, Gumiho is going to make it back into Code S – the question is whether he'll go straight through First, or take a detour through the Up/Downs.

First has shown strong PvT in the past, and despite his lesser reputation, should be very close in skill to Gumiho. However, he's shown some problems with consistency, and from what we've seen so far, doesn't seem to really perform that well in pressure situations (a monumental collapse against Leenock at the MLG finals comes to mind). Gumiho might have trouble in Code S, but he rules Code A and Up/downs with an iron fist.

Gumiho 2 – 0 First



SKT_Fantasy vs Samsung_RorO

There was a lot of initial over-hype for former Brood War champions, but now, at the end of 2012, we've mostly figured out what realistic expectations are. Jaedong is a work in progress, Bisu is a huge work in progress, ForGG's destiny is to mug Europeans and steal their wallets, and Flash is very good player with some TvT issues.

However, there's one player who has still managed to hold on to some of his Brood War mystique, and can whir Brood War elitists into a frenzy: Fantasy. This is largely due to the fact that he hasn't played that many games yet, and thus, people are free imagine whatever they would like about him. To be fair, he has looked rather brilliant in his Code A run, stomping over Sparta and finale in stylish fashion. Though he hasn't played a meaningful TvZ in months, that hasn't stopped people from thinking he can win his next match and go straight into Code S.

Which all bodes very well for Roro, a player whose god-given purpose in pro-gaming is to destroy the expectations of the masses. During his lengthy Brood War career, Roro always found ways to squeeze out wins when he was underrated, and drop the ball miserably when people were actually starting to get on his bandwagon. This has carried over exactly in StarCraft II, with Roro beating out his more famous colleagues to become one of the best KeSPA players in the early SC2 transition. Of course, he followed that by botching his Code S run by forgetting he had six ultralisks in a Nydus canal, handing Hack a free win in their deciding Ro32 game.

Fantasy's hype has gone a little overboard, and it's time for the hype-killer to strike. Don't worry, though, Fantasy fans. Once RorO's built up some hype for himself, he's going to kill that as well.

Roro 2 – 0 Fantasy


Genius vs ST_Curious

Oh, this is a tricky one. Curious, the ultimate gatekeeper into Code S, against Genius, a player who has the weirdest knack for qualifying for Code S. While they're not consecutive, Genius has played in ten Code S tournaments in his career, for which GomTV should give him the 'Diet Nestea' award. Now, if we're going by strict definitions, Genius should be the one to win the match. His shtick is to make it into Code S, while Curious' is to keep the undeserving players out – there's nothing that says Curious himself has to make it into Code S.

Of course, if we ignore the GSL lore, then obviously Curious is the favored player. Genius' last PvZ win came when he all-in'd hyvaa three times in a row, winning more on the back of worse micro from hyvaa, than particularly good micro of his own. Curious' nervousness problems cause him to play horribly once he reaches the Code S Ro16, but he's a confident, cold-blooded killer in other environments. In fact, he hasn't lost a single GSL series in the Code Ro32 or lower since June.

Ignoring GSL lore can be dangerous – how many times has the community scoffed at the GSL runner-up curse only to be burned? But in this case, the actual results are too strongly on Curious' side.

Curious 2 – 0 Genius