EPT
.So yesterday(6/8), we had two best of three matches for what we can call the Loser's bracket, but not quite. Since the new MSL format has been changed, here's a link for further explanation on the league's new format.
All of these games were very important because the winner would move on to the next stage and the loser would go back home with the tail between his legs.
First Bo3 : Kingdom(P) vs SlayerS_`BoxeR`(T)
Game 1
Kingdom(P) vs SlayerS_`BoxeR`(T) @ Arcadia
BoxeR lands at the 11 o'clock position and Kingdom warps at 7. Kingdom did the standard 2 gate goon PvT build into Reaver tech. BoxeR went for a 14 Command Center into 2 Factories Tanks.
Kingdom started by doing some minor damage to BoxeR's expo with a Zealot. He then applied more pressure on BoxeR with some Dragoons forcing BoxeR to defend with SCVs. BoxeR finally took care of the Protoss threat and established a stronger defence.
Kingdom then proceeded to do some reaver harass. While picking off SCVs and some tanks, he was able to safely expand to his mineral only expansion. Meanwhile, BoxeR also took his mineral only with only 2 factories! The Devil Toss had to delay BoxeR even more. He managed to kill BoxeR's flying Barracks, which greatly delayed his mass factories.
With both players having their mineral only, Kingdom techs to 2 stargates Carriers. With his incredible sense of timing, BoxeR was able to scan Kingdom's carriers and he built an armory shortly after. With 3 bases, BoxeR moves out with his army as Kingdom expands to the 5 o'clock main.
Unfortunately for Kingdom, he managed to lose 2 Carriers, while he wasn't looking, to BoxeR's goliaths. He then managed to buy some time by faking attacks and eventually countering BoxeR's main with his goon only army forcing BoxeR to fall back to defend from this threat.
Kingdom bought enough time to get a cute amount of Carriers. Arcadia has a lot of cliffs and with such an high number of Carriers, he was able to kill BoxeR's goliaths while his vultures were attacking the newly warped nexus at 1 o'clock's main and his tanks killing the 5 o'clock main expansion.
Kingdom sacrificed his expansions to counter BoxeR's with a large Carriers/Dragoon/Zealot army. BoxeR loses his main and will now try to kill Kingdom's Carriers with wraiths out of 5 Starports at his only remaining expansion, the 1 o'clock main he just killed. As soon as he lost his wraiths to an overwhelming army straight from Aiur, BoxeR GG's.
Kingdom(P) 1-0 SlayerS_`BoxeR(T)
Even if Kingdom temporarely lost the advantage when BoxeR easily killed two Carriers, Kingdom was able to delay BoxeR's push to buy enough time to get more Carriers out of his 3 stargates. BoxeR seemed to be behind the entire game.
Game 2
Kingdom(P) vs SlayerS_`BoxeR`(T) @ Rush Hour 3
BoxeR is at 11, Kingdom at 7 on Rush Hour 3. This map's TvP stats are incredibly imbalanced. 9-2 in favor of Terrans before this game. No one really believed in Kingdom's chance but let's see if he can overcome the obvious map imbalance.
I hadn't seen BoxeR do a safe build in a while, but he decides to do so on this map and does a FD Terran start. At this point, Kingdom was surely expecting a fast push from BoxeR as he went 3 gates goons, observers and 2 shuttles. Yep, this is not a typo, Kingdom really did 2 shuttles to break BoxeR's fast push.
But oh, he's expanding and turreting his natural. Seeing that, Kingdom tried to do as much damage as he could but BoxeR's defensive skills were too great and Kingdom had to fall back and get an expansion of his own at his natural while unsuccessfuly reaver droping BoxeR's main.
"Poutpoutpout, Pshhhhhou" said the Siege tanks 2 minutes after Kingdom's failed Hang Bang rush. For those of you who didn't know, it's the sound of about 8 un-sieging tanks!
Anyway, seeing that Kingdom expanded to the 5 o'clock mineral only expansion, BoxeR decided to go for a timing push with a lot of tanks and vultures. With a vulture harrassing Kingdom's 3rd base and tons of units rolling across the middle of Rush Hour, Kingdom had no way to defend his mineral only expansion and just massed units out of 2 bases.
Basically what happened it that Kingdom was so slow to attack BoxeR's overwhelming army that the Terran Emperor took the top of the map. Surprisingly, Kingdom finally goes out he kills BoxeR's army with MANY goons and some zealot bombs but lost almost everything.
BoxeR then went into cheater mode, got about 40 vultures and 4 tanks and simply rolled over a poor Kingdom with only 1 minning base. Kingdom GG's.
Kingdom(P) 1-1 SlayerS_`BoxeR(T)
During this game, I'm pretty sure Kingdom wanted to hide two gateways on the 9 o'clock mineral only cliff and put a lot of pressure on BoxeR (he did it versus Midas.) BoxeR was lucky enough to scout Kingdom's base just as his probe went out, forcing Kingdom to completely change his plan and eventually collapse to zillions of vultures.
Game 3
Kingdom(P) vs SlayerS_`BoxeR`(T) @ The Eye
Kingdom warps at the 5 o'clock position and BoxeR lands at 7. Horizontal positions on this cliff map looks kind of good for the Emperor. Earlier, I said that I hadn't seen BoxeR go for a standard build, and he sure didn't in this game.
Kingdom scouted BoxeR on first try, allowing him to steal BoxeR's gas and harass some SCVs, but nothing major. BoxeR acted like the gas really meant a lot to him by sending no less than 4 SCVs to kill the evil assimilator. Kingdom built a zealot before his initial dragoon, but he didn't harrass with it.
Wait, what is this big trail of color on the mini map? Yea you guessed it, it's BoxeR sending a lot of SCVs in stack mode to Kingdom's main, supported with 4 marines. Kingdom had 2 goons and 1 zealot to defend but in an absolutely genious move, he clicked on his natural's mineral patch and stacked some probes of his own to COMPLETELY annihilate BoxeR's rines, leaving the SCVs helpless.
A brief look at BoxeR's base and you can tell he's really in a bad position. However, The Emperor somehow managed to delay Kingdom's counter long enough for his first tank to come. With amazing SCV micro, he was able to kill Kingdom's counter without losing a single tank!
BoxeR then threw in two factories and went for a push with 5 tanks and some vultures. Unfortunately for him, he forgot to research mines and it gave Kingdom just enough time to build more dragoons.
With mines finally researched, BoxeR went on Kingdom's choke, which is a cliff with 5 tanks and about 6 vultures. I really thought Kingdom was screwed at this point, but he did the impossible. He killed 4 tanks, supported with a decent mine field with 7 goons at a very narrow place. With tanks taken out, it was only a matter of time before Kingdom gets more Dragoons and clears the mine field.
He then countered BoxeR who didn't even get an expansion. BoxeR tried some desperate vulture harassment but Kingdom was already in his undefended base with his goons. BoxeR GG's.
Kingdom(P) 2 > 1 SlayerS_`BoxeR(T)
I heard that both player didn't like the last map. You could see that they weren't really adapted to it but Kingdom came on top in a very intense low-eco game.
Second Bo3 : Savior(Z) vs Yooi(T)
Game 1
Savior(Z) vs Yooi(T) @ 815 lll
Yooi and Savior already crossed swords not so long ago on the very same map. Last time, Yooi did a very good build order and basically denied every single expansion Savior tried to take. Savior definately wanted revenge!
Yooi lands at 11 while Savior spawns at 1. Savior went for a 12 hatchery fast expo build while Yooi walled in and took his gas. Savior got a pretty fast Lair and once it completely morphed, he immidiately threw in a Spire. His western Terran opponent went for a fast drop build. Once the Dropship poped out of the Starport, Yooi loaded 6 Marines, a Firebat and a Medic and headed towards Savior's base.
With a nicely placed zergling on Yooi's tiny ramp, Savior was able to see the incoming dropship, giving him more time to get another sunken at his main. Meanwhile, Savior's spire was completed and he immediatly morphed his 6 eggs into mutalisks. Due to a lousy spire placement, Yooi was able to easily take it out before Savior's Sunken even morphed. But Savior's mission was done, he stoped the first drop without losing too much.
Meanwhile, Savior morphed a den at his natural and expanded at the 5 o'clock main expansion. Yooi then tried to harass with Wraiths as he already built another Starport. He killed some overlords but nothing too dangerous for Savior as he already had an Evolution Chamber with Spores at his expansions.
Yooi then tried various mass dropping on Savior's main but he got badly owned every single time by upgraded Hydralisks. God, he even forgot to load up some Medics in one of his drops. As Yooi's attempt at dropping Savior failed everytime, Savior safely expanded to the 5 o'clock natural, 3 and 6 o'clock island expansions.
At this point, Yooi really had to deal major damage to his opponent because Savior already had 2-1 upgrades on his Hydralisks/Lurkers. Yooi decided to go all-in with about 8 Tanks and around 50 m&ms along with a Science Vessel. Both armies met at the center of the map. Savior had so much Hydras and Lurkers that it took less than 4 seconds before we heard the "bip bip" sound. Yea that's right, Yooi GG'd right after his attack failed because the only expansion he had was his natural.
Savior(Z) 1-0 Yooi(T)
That was a very very strange game. Yooi played really really bad. His scanning was off. His timing was off and Savior had luck on his side. This was the most one-sided ZvT on 815 lll I've ever seen.
Game 2
Savior(Z) vs Yooi(T) @ Arcadia
Savior spawns at 5 while Yooi lands at 7. Quickly, Yooi went for a 2 proxy Barracks cheese rush. Savior went for 12 hatch and seemed to really be in trouble. However, Yooi took a lot of time to scout Savior, giving him time to desperately get a sunken as he was suspecting something.
Yooi went in with about 8 rines and some SCVs. He tried to bunker rush Savior but with a nice drone-drill, Savior was able to defend his sunken and kill Yooi's rush with ease. Yooi simply GG'd as there were no way he could comeback in this game.
Savior(Z) 2-0 Yooi(T)
Nothing more to add to this game. Yooi simply gave Savior too much time to prepare for a rush attack and he paid for it.
Long story short :
Kingdom(P) 2 > 1 SlayerS_`BoxeR`
Kingdom(P) > SlayerS_`BoxeR`(T) @ Arcadia
Kingdom(P) < SlayerS_`BoxeR`(T) @ Rush Hour 3
Kingdom(P) > SlayerS_`BoxeR`(T) @ The Eye
Savior[gm](Z) 2 > 0 Yooi(T)
Savior(Z) > Yooi(T) @ 815 lll
Savior(Z) > Yooi(T) @ Arcadia
I hope you all enjoyed
OctoPuSs
.
But I like kingdom so not all bad, still a reason for me to follow this msl 
