GSL 2013 Season 1

Code S Ro16: Group C Recap
MC, Curious, Gumiho, Losira

Code S Ro16: Group D Preview
Life, PartinG, BboongBboong, RoRo


Brackets and results at Liquipedia

by: Zealously

Results from Live Report Thread by Shellshock1122
+ Show Spoiler [Results] +

You are Code not-as-good-as-me!
ST_Curious advances in first place, reaching the Round of 8 for the first time

Everyone knows that ST_Curious is pretty good at StarCraft II. He has shown dozens of times that he has what it takes to hang with the best in the world, with insane performances in team leagues, online and Round of 32's. His famous mental block – the Round of 16, has been the bane of his existence since he made it through to Code S for the first time, and with the last Wings of Liberty GSL upon us, what better time was there for Curious to finally break his curse?

SK.MC was the clear favorite in the first match of the night as he went up against the elder Zerg on StarTale. Curious’ reading skills shone through, however, as he beat the two-time GSL champion in a brutal one-sided stomp.

The first game was all about MC going for an immortal/sentry attack in a tribute to his past ”Beware my all-ins”. But Curious knew something that MC might not have been aware of – immortals don't do so well against air. Smartly rushing to mutas, he barreled down on MC's bases and killed everything while utilizing spines at home, then completely destroyed the Protoss army, forcing a quick GG.

Game two saw MC take it to the late game instead, hoping to find some weakness to exploit there. It was not to be, though, as Curious deflected MC's attempts at harassment and eventually strangled him with a slow, safe broodlord/infestor/spinecrawler push across the map that eventually forced the SK Protoss to tap out.

Having already demolished a Protoss, Curious next opponent was the group's only Terran, the Towel Terran FXOGuMiho, just coming off the longest Best of 3 of all time against LG-IM_LosirA.
Curious was quick to initiate the process of reading Gumiho's Code, as he essentially blind-countered Gumiho's hellion opening with quick roaches, busting into Gumiho's base by the seven minute mark. While Gumiho managed to hold on for longer in game two, Curious form was never in question. Though Gumiho made a few attempts to move out and inflict damage, Curious was on top of his aggression and deflected it every time without serious losses.
Eventually, Curious' hive-based army proved too much for Gumiho to handle, and he delivered a swift ”You are Code A!” declaration to a fatigued Gumiho as he moved on to the Round of 8.


An Eternity Later
FXOGuMihoand LG-IM_LosirA play an excellent 156-minute series but both fall to Code A


Imagine the longest game you've ever watched. Now, add twenty minutes. Then add two games, each about 35 minutes long. The end result would be similar to the second match of the night, with FXOGuMiho going up against LG-IM_LosirA.
Both Gumiho and Losira have shown in the past that they are excellent players, with both of them displaying aggressive tendencies. In Gumiho's case, it's his trademark crazy multitasking and all-over-the-map aggression. For Losira, it's the reluctance to use the more immobile though powerful broodlord/infestor, instead favoring ultralisks and banelings. When two players whose styles clash like that meet, you're either in for a treat or a completely one-sided stomp.

Their first clash was on Daybreak, with standard openings evolving into a rather normal mid-game. Losira went up to 4 hatches and got his 12-minute hive with the desired upgrades for his lings, whereas Gumiho tried to keep up in both bases and upgrades. As Losira spread creep across the map, Gumiho did his best to stop him wherever he could. Despite Gumiho's best efforts, Losira went up to the ultimate broodlord/infestor ball and crawled across the map. At that point, EMP's and nukes became Gumiho's saving grace. In a nail-biting battle, Gumiho's stunning control took out Losira's army while his nukes incinerated drones on the other side of the map, forcing the GG.

Game two took place on Losira's map of choice Cloud Kingdom, and saw Losira step it up a notch as he utilized quick Neural Parasites for some interesting plays, most notably controlling medivacs to heal his ultralisks in battle. Though both players started out similarly to game one, Gumiho elected to go into a more tank-heavy composition whereas Losira stayed on ultra/infestor. This time, it was Losira's ling/baneling attacks that had Gumiho on the back foot for a few moments as multiple worker lines were ravaged. Good moves across the board from both players evened the game out several times before well-placed fungals on top of Gumiho's starved army forced him to tap out against the IM Zerg's superior forces.

Game three was... long. What started out with a 12-14 rax from Gumiho quickly turned into a standard macro game by their standard, with the two of them once again electing to macro up to their desired set of units, bases and upgrades – Losira went into Ultralisks and Gumiho into a bio-centric composition. With the success Gumiho had been having with his ghosts earlier in the series, he decided to get another set of relatively quick ghosts. Though Gumiho made aggressive moves around the 20-minute mark, trying to pick off whatever he could, Losira was on top of him every time and managed to save his spellcasters without serious losses. When he realized he could not pick off free units, Gumiho turned his eyes to the creep that was constantly spreading across the map. When the big engagement finally came, Gumiho's ghosts proved invaluable as EMP's and snipes immediately turned the fight in his favor. With neither player having taken enough damage to warrant a GG, they both went back into safe mode as they finished up all upgrades and made yet more bases. Another engagement came ten minutes later with both of them tied around 100 supply, but the result was the same as last time with both players disengaging before taking potentially crippling damage.

At this point, resources were becoming hard to come by, and so Losira brought his overlords onto the map to spread creep so he could bring his twenty spine crawlers along with him. The players clashed more times, but as every unit became more and more valuable, the engagements became more careful. With Gumiho's air army gone, Losira’s corruptors were more or less useless and kept around only for corruption on marines. Gumiho had a few spare resources left in his base that he eventually managed into a few units, but as his reaper(s) were taken out the game once again became a game of stamina as the two circled each other without ever committing to another attack. Gumiho took out a few spines with his tank/marauder army every now and then. At this point, the most interesting part about the game was Tastosis' mental breakdown. At long last, Gumiho had managed to outlast Losira, sniping most of the spine crawlers around the map, and at 86 minutes, Losira went for an ill-advised engagement, only to die a bloody death a minute later.

Please note that this recap does not nearly cover all the events of this match, as there were far too many moves – both brilliant and stupid, to mention all of them. Watch the game.


Fatigue + Code S = Code A
Gumiho and Losira commit double GSL suicide and both fall to Code A


There wasn't really much to say about Losira vs. MC. ZvP was always Losira's weakest match-up and has at times been MC's strongest, and coming off the back of a 150-minute series, it's not hard to see why Losira looked even worse in this series. He ended up being stomped 0-2 and sent to Code A by the Boss Toss, who eventually moved on to beat Gumiho in the Final Match as well, where the FXO Terran showed similar signs of fatigue. One might have hoped that the rest of the matches would have been postponed to another day to let Losira and Gumiho recover from their beyond-intense clash that was about as long as the rest of the day combined, but that was obviously not an option. In the end both of them gave us the best series so far this year but ultimately, were crushed under its weight.

Writers: Zealously.
Graphics: Meko.
Editor: Heyoka.