WCS Korea Season II

Ro32 - Final Day Recap
SuperNoVa, PartinG, Rain, and Bomber advance

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Twitch

by Pigscanfly

OnGameNet has dashed through the Ro32 in two weeks, and now we finally have our top sixteen players. The Ro16 groups have been drawn, and the round-robin phase of the tournament will begin starting next week. Here are the groups:

Group A: Soulkey, Symbol, soO, PartinG
Group B: Bomber, Bbyong, Flash, INnoVation
Group C: First, FanTaSy, Rain, hyvaa
Group D: Maru, Trap, SuperNova, KangHo

But before we move on to the Ro16, here's a detailed recap of the final night of Ro32 games.

Group G: SuperNoVa and Parting Advance

Match 1: PartinG > YongHwa

SKT_PartinG started off by showing us exactly why he has a 73% PvP win-rate in HotS. Parting’s play has become even more precise, refined and technical than it was during WoL, and such attributes are vital in a match up where grinding out every little advantage is essential to victory. Perhaps this newfound stability is a result of joining SKT and the famous KeSPAtraining regime, allowing him to refine his builds against the likes of Rain and Bisu. By no means did LG-IM_Yonghwa play badly – it just seemed that Parting was a step ahead every step of the way.

For example, when Yonghwa was preparing a two pronged attack in the form of an immortal drop to draw Parting’s units back while his main army postured near his third nexus, Yonghwa was the one who found himself out of position as Parting sniped his third nexus and recalled away. Yonghwa never recovered from that point and Parting steamrollered him soon after with a greatly superior unit count. His only consolation was that he lost to one of the best Protosses in the world and that he GGed out before Parting had time to throw down his manner nexus.

Match 2: SuperNoVa > Squirtle

Parting's old teammate, LG-IM_Squirtle took an early lead against I-almost-had-a-Nestea-award Azubu.SuperNova as his chronoboosted zealot/stalker/MSC army killed 6 scvs and a couple of marines for the cost of the zealot. However, Supernova somehow managed to sneak a squad of marines around Squirtle’s stalkers and into the Protoss natural, picking off the MSC, a sentry and a probe before hightailing it out with the majority of his marines surviving.

Supernova then transitioned into the sort of harass so common in TvP. He killed 15 probes through a combination of Widow Mine/bio drops and stimming his army into the natural, though he lost a small handful of units in the process. Crucially, one of his drops managed to snipe the robo, leaving Squirtle with a single colossus while he was trying to tech to Templars. Supernova chose this moment to strike, baiting out some storms in the middle of the map and pulling a large number of SCVs for an attack. With almost no storms remaining, Squirtle was forced to gg out.

Winners' Match: Supernova > Parting

Both players opened up conventionally, with Supernova going reaper expand against PartinG’s gateway expand. Supernova’s Hellbat drops did minimum damage as Parting seemed to have the timings down to a T. Having defended, Parting went for colossus pressure while expanding behind it. However, Parting overstayed his welcome, not retreating even after his sentries had run out of forcefield energy. Although Supernova had lost his Vikings, he targeted down Parting’s colossus with his bio, allowing him to come out ahead. Supernova proceeded to bait Parting out of position with drops in his main, allowing him to snipe Parting’s third. The economic advantage gleaned from this allowed Supernova to pretty much stim a-move over Parting’s army, despite Parting’s stellar unit control – with perfect timewarps and storms sending much of the bio in the red, only to see them healed up by Supernova’s medivac fleet.


Losers' Match: Squirtle > Yonghwa.

Squirtle and Yonghwa opened identically, with both players rushing DTs. However, Yonghwa used his MSC to scout and recalled it to safety, giving him an advantage as he had detection while Squirtle did not. However, Squirtle kept Yonghwa’s DT’s out of his base via forcefields on the ramp until he had his own detection and the game normalised – despite the loss of 6 probes Squirtle was only 2 probes behind Yonghwa. Meanwhile, Yonghwa prepared an immortal drop, and he killed off 17 probes by keeping most of Squirtle’s units at his front while sending the immortals in the back. Both players took their thirds, and Squirtle decided to go mass colossus even in the face of Yonghwa’s tempests. As Squirtle postured near Yonghwa’s third, Yonghwa made the fatal decision to recall to his main to deal with some harass.


Squirtle immediately sniped his nexus and recalled out, just ahead of Yonghwa’s forces that have recalled back in. Both players went up to 4 bases, and Squirtle set up a massive Zealot backstab near Yongha’s third, which he unleashed when his Colo/Archon/Stalker army clashed with Yonghwa’s Tempest/Archon/Immortal army. Unsurprisingly Yonghwa's composition won the battle, but Squirtle had taken the economic lead through his zealot attack. Yonghwa overextended, attacking into Squirtle despite not having enough units to provide cover for his Tempests, allowing Squirtle to clean up his army and win the game.

Final Match: Parting > Squirtle

The game looked normal for about a minute, but soon swung heavily in Parting’s favor – Squirtle mis-scouted and failed to correctly ascertain Parting’s nexus on the bottom right despite going to the right base straight away.


Bizarrely, this worked in Squirtle’s favour as the MSC he sent out in the wrong direction scouted Parting’s proxy stargate.


Parting managed to squeeze out 1 oracle despite losing several pylons and a probe, and even at this point Squirtle still thought Parting was on the top left, and sent units in the wrong direction.

Squirtle’s tech choice of blink stalkers failed to stop the oracle getting more kills and behind this, Parting expanded and started building up immortals. This allowed him to hold his natural nexus against Squirtle’s blink stalkers. Having expanded behind his opponent, Squirtle decided to switch tech to try to catch up with Parting, choosing to go double stargate in an attempt to catch Parting off guard. However, Parting, who was really on point with his scouting throughout all his series, soon spotted this with a hallucinated phoenix. Squirtle responded by tech switching yet again after cranking out just two phoenix, having scouted Parting’s Templar archives and deciding against making more Stargate units.

However, Squirtle’s double robo colossus transition was spotted yet again by Parting’s diligent scouting, and Parting responded by going double stargate tempest. Squirtle’s blink into the main via the potential third base (a unique feature on Whirlwind) did some minor damage, and allowed him to spot Parting’s tempests. However, instead of responding with void rays, Squirtle chose to try to match Parting with tempests of his own. Both players continued to expand and mass up, with both of them taking their fourth bases. However, Parting got the better position between Squirtle’s third and fourth bases and took out Squirtle’s fourth. Having spotted Squirtle’s Tempests, Parting responded with more of his own. With 8 tempests to Squirtle’s 4, Parting crushed through Squirtle’s army as the tempests 1 shot Squirtle’s colossi, rapidly reducing them to piles of smouldering wreckage. With the backbone of his army broken, the rest of it was rapidly cleaned up and Squirtle gged out.

Player Ratings:

Supernova: A−
Although Supernova went into this group somewhat of an underdog, he emerged unscathed and in first place. Supernova showed good micro, macro and excellent multitasking, forcing his opponents into bad positions with his harass and then sniping an important structure. He also showed an innate understanding of the game and knew what to do to win – pulling SCVs might annoy lots of people but Supernova knew when he was ahead and wasn’t afraid to take advantage by killing his opponents with timing attacks.

Parting: B+
A single over extension against Supernova cost him first place in the group, and Parting is experienced enough that he should not be making such mistakes.

Squirtle: C
Squirtle played well enough but seemed to fall apart at crucial moments, getting caught out of position by both Parting and Supernova. His mis-scout in his game against Parting would have cost him the game immediately if not for his stroke of good fortune in scouting the proxy stargate, yet he still lost the game anyway. He can do better.

Yonghwa: C−
For such a hyped up player, ending the day in last place seems like a great failure. However, Yonghwa didn’t play badly, but he was still outclassed by the superior PvP of Parting and Squirtle, both of whom have much more experience than him.

Group H: Rain and Bomber Advance

Match 1: Bomber > Hurricane

Both ST_Bomber and FXO_Hurricane opened up in a standard macro style and looked to rapidly build up both tech and units. Hurricane tried to get an early advantage by dropping 4 sentries and warping in zealots on Bomber’s high ground via a warp prism. However, Bomber’s units were in place and his forcefield on the ramp thus accomplished little, and Hurricane lost two valuable sentries in the process. As happened many times in the previous group, Hurricane’s army was drawn out of position by a drop and Bomber stimmed into the natural and took down the nexus. Meanwhile, Hurricane snuck DTs into Bomber’s main, netting a decent number of SCV kills before Bomber arrived to defend. Despite this, the economies remained relatively even as Bomber had not taken his third base. While Hurricane attempted to take his third, Bomber stayed on two bases, pulled SCV’s and went for a two-base timing. Although Hurricane sent more DT’s to Bomber’s natural, which he sloppily left unguarded, Bomber’s army smashed through Hurricane’s with ease, forcing a gg.

Match 2: Rain > Keen

SKT_Rain has always shown us a stable, safe, macro-oriented style of PvT. Although both players opened up with fast expansions, MVP_Keen soon put on the aggression with double drops in Rain’s main and natural. However, Rain was perfectly prepared as always and took out most of the troops and one medivac while only losing 3 probes. Rain, having deflected Keen’s attack, went for a standard colossus pressure in the knowledge that Keen, having made medivacs (and lost some of them during his drops) would struggle to get out the right number of Vikings. Having anticipated this, Keen went double starport Vikings and managed to crank out just enough Vikings to usher Rain away. Keen then took his third base way before Rain does and pulled ahead by a healthy 40 supply as a result.

However, frequent Rain watchers would not be worried as this is simply a function of Rain’s PvT style – he does not take his third base till he is absolutely secure and well on his way to a Templar transition. Because he is economically behind because of how late his third base is, Rain often sends in expendable zealots to harass his opponents. This was the case against Keen as well, as he simultaneously sent zealots to all 3 of Keen’s bases, helping him to narrow the economic deficit. As Rain attempted to take his third base, Keen tried to pull him apart with multi-pronged drops and harassment, but Rain’s rock solid defence meant that Keen bled units while accomplishing little. Rain, having achieved a solid composition with a healthy mix of Templars, colossus, and gateway units proceeded to pressure Keen. Although Keen appeared to have enough Vikings and Ghosts to hold, Rain’s unit control was far superior.


He targeted down each Viking in turn while blanketing Keen’s army in psionic storms. Despite just managing to hold Rain off, Keen’s army was in shambles Rain was soon up by more than 60 supply. Keen was soon forced to gg in the face of Rain’s near maxed protoss deathball bearing down on him.

Winners' Match: Rain > Bomber

As was the case for most of this group, both players opened up with slightly greedy macro openings. While Bomber teched towards an armoury and hellbat drops, Rain went for a Robo and a Twilight Council. Bomber snuck in a third that remained unscouted for quite a while, and simultaneously defended against Rain’s initial DT drops. However, Rain’s harass continued and a combination of DT/Zealot drops, runbys and warpins allowed him to kill 16 workers. As Bomber moved out to attack, he failed to notice yet another of these Zealot runbys and lost a further 10 workers before he manages to deal with the threat. At this point, Bomber was down nearly 30 workers, despite being on 3 bases to Rain’s 2. Deciding there was no time to catch-up, Bomber halted SCV production and effectively went 'all-in' off three bases, sending a constant stream of units to Rain’s third in an attempt to deny it. However, clutch storms, warp ins, and a failure on Bomber’s part to repair his medivacs despite adding SCV’s to his army lead Bomber to GG once he failed to break Rain’s defenses.

Losers' Match: Keen > Hurricane

Keen and Hurricane, the two underdogs in this group battled it out in the losers match to avoid being eliminated. Although Keen scouted perfectly and initially deflected Hurricane's Oracle harass, Hurricane kept it his Oracles alive and constantly harassed Keen, picking off stray SCV’s and even forced a cancel on his third CC. Hurricane’s observer allowed him to almost pick off 2 medivacs filled with units, but Keen noticed just in time to save them. However, Hurricane’s attempt to snipe the medivacs has drew his units out of position (a common theme in the night's games), and another pair of medivacs dropped in the natural to kill the nexus. As Hurricane scrambles to respond, the two red life medivacs sauntered into the main, killing the nexus there as well.

Knowing that he had traded much of his army for economic damage, Keen bunkered up at his natural and cranked out Vikings in an attempt to hold off the inevitable counter attack of colossi and gateway units, being able to make just enough to defend himself. Unfortuantely for Hurricane, his attack just left him open again for yet ANOTHER drop, which killed his warping nexus, a robo, forge AND the templar archives, sending hurricane back into the stone age. Soon after, Keen just walked in with his superior army, forcing Hurricane out of the group.



Final Match: Bomber > Keen

In what was perhaps the most exciting (or terrible) game of the day, Bomber came back from a large SCV deficit to hellbatter Keen into submission. The early game posturing between the two saw Keen’s hellion-bio army come up against Bomber’s hellbat army. Keen made good use of his mobility to run 6 hellions into Bomber’s natural. Bomber failed to respond adequately and lost nearly 15 SCV’s in the process. Simultaneously, Keen had dropped Bomber’s main with some MMM and taken out even more SCVs. At this point, Bomber was at a 20 supply deficit and seemed to be in a bad position.

Then, hellbats happened. Bomber constantly cranked out hellbats and medivacs, and while he did not seem to get much done at first, he slowly whittled away at the SCV and army numbers, showing excellent micro to drop hellbats right on top of Keen’s army or fleeing SCV’s before picking them up and repeating the process. Eventually, the DPS of the medivac supported hellbat army shined through and Bomber blazed his way to a 100 to 60 supply lead.


Bomber meanwhile had gone up to 5 ccs and 4 bases, rapidly adding on production for his mech army. With +2 weapons nearly complete, he moved out around the 160 mark with hellbat and tanks supported by a small fleet of Vikings and medivacs. However, Keen had anticipated this and teched accordingly his medium sized bio force was supplemented by a much larger fleet of +1 vikings and banshees, and Bomber’s army was absolutely destroyed by Keen’s air superiority.

However, Bomber’s macro had kicked in by this point and despite taking out the occasional base, Keen’s economy proved too stunted to catch up. Bomber massed up yet another army and destroyed Keen’s second and third, while Keen’s own counter attack failed as Bomber evacuated his third and holed up in his natural. Keen clung on to the end, showing off his incredible Fantasy-like gg timing, but eventually had to tap out.



Player Ratings:

Rain: A
Rain did what Rain does – win. He showed off his impressive macro, stellar unit control and rock solid defence. A class above the other player’s in his group.

Bomber: B
Outclassed by Rain and close to losing to Keen in the deciding game, Bomber showed his crisis management, fortitude and the power of hellbats in grinding his way back from a severe deficit. His macro remains a force to be feared. The only question remains: when will Bomber's law kick in?

Keen: B−
Came within an inch of advancing then got hellbatted back to Challenger League. Showed classy TvP and great multitasking against Hurricane, and showed his understanding of TvT against Bomber with his air transition. Performed fairly well despite his failure to advance.

Hurricane: D
Outclassed by the Terrans in his group, Hurricane’s positioning let him down as he lost economy and tech to drops that could have been prevented. Has a lot to learn about defence from the likes of Rain and Parting if he wants to hang with the big boys.


Theme of the day: Losing your nexus

Today is Lose Your Nexus day! Today's competitors include every Protoss player not named Rain! Finally, today's Lose Your Nexus Award goes to Hurricane, who managed to lose both his main and his natural to Keen within 30 seconds, even managing to lose his (still warping in main) a second time!!! (see recap above) Congratulations to Hurricane!!!