WCS Korea Season II

Ro16 - Day Four Recap
Soulkey, Bomber clinch Ro8 berths, Flash and PartinG eliminated

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

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by Waxangel

Soulkey, Bomber and Maru clinch quarter-final spots with victories; PartinG and Flash eliminated after losses

Two-thirds of the way through the Starleague Ro16, four players have already confirmed their advancement to the quarter-finals. ST_Bomber and MaruPrime earned their passage by winning their matches on Thursday night, while STX_INnoVation and Woongjin_Soulkey secured their Ro8 spots without playing due to lucky results from other matches in their groups.

On the other hand, another four players had to face the disappointment of elimination. Most notably, two members from last season's group of death in SKT_PartinG and KT_Flash were eliminated after losing their matches to Symbol and Bomber respectively. With 0 - 2 records, CJ_Bbyong and LG-IM_KangHo were holding out for results that might keep the chance of a tiebreaker alive, but instead they could only watch from a distance as Bomber and Maru's wins 100% confirmed their eliminations.

Group A
1.	Soulkey	2 - 0
2.	soO	1 - 1
3.	Symbol	1 - 1
4.	PartinG	0 - 2

Group B
1.	INnoVation	2 - 0
1.	Bomber	2 - 0
3.	Flash	0 - 2
3.	Bbyong	0 - 2

Group C
1.	First	2 - 0
2.	Rain	1 - 1
3.	hyvaa	1 - 1
4.	FanTaSy	0 - 2

Group D
1.	Maru	2 - 0
2.	SuperNova	1 - 1
3.	Trap	1 - 1
4.	KangHo	0 - 1

Detailed results from Live Report Thread by Shellshock1122.
+ Show Spoiler [Click for detailed results] +

Azubu.Symbol (2 - 1) SKT_PartinG

PartinG's string of miserable PvZ results continued as he dropped yet another series to Azubu's Symbol. Not only did he see his PvZ record fall to 7 - 17 since May, but the loss also confirmed his elimination from the Starleague. Due to the Starleague ignoring map score and only taking head-to-head into account for tie-breakers, Symbol's win advanced Soulkey, eliminated PartinG, and now leaves Symbol and soO to fight for the last remaining spot.

Swarm hosts and brood lords were the key to Symbol's victory in a series that saw PartinG decline to use any of his famous all-ins. Game one saw PartinG play standard, going up to three bases with colossi while bracing to hold against Symbol's roach-hydra-corruptor timing. While PartinG managed to survive the attack, he couldn't make any headway against Symbol's smooth swarm host transition. After being held back by waves of locusts, PartinG was forced to tap out once brood lords emerged to to complete a deadly air & ground free unit combo.

Game two played out in a similar pattern at first, with PartinG taking his third and Symbol trying to overwhelm him with roach-hydra-corruptor. However, unlike game one, Symbol decided not to transition to swarm hosts and continued with the same unit composition. Unfortunately for Symbol he ended up getting roped into a poor base trade against mass blink stalkers and sentries, which PartinG used to easily wipe out Symbol's bases and army.

With the series on the line, Symbol went back to what had worked for him in game one, transitioning into swarm hosts out of a roach-hydra mid game. While PartinG's risky double-robo colossi strategy nearly caught him off guard, Symbol was able to successfully stall with swarm hosts until he had brood lords again, forcing PartinG to surrender the series.


ST_Bomber (2 - 0) KT_Flash

Though Bomber claimed he had been practicing the wrong strategies after being misinformed about the time of the new hellbat patch, it didn't stop him from beating a hellbat-using Flash nonetheless. In fact, he executed a more or less perfect counter build against Flash's hellbat-drop expand in game one. By going vikings and mass hellions, Bomber was able to easily neutralize Flash's drop and then launch an unstoppable counter-attack with his hellions. With his economy devastated by hellions, Flash had no choice but to give a quick GG.

The second game saw a bit of role-reversal as it was Flash who looked to take advantage of the speedy hellions. Opening up the backdoor rocks on Anaconda, Flash snuck in several blue flame hellions to kill off dozens of Bomber's SCVs. However, the sacrifice of the hellions opened him up to a dangerous counter attack from Bomber's mech army. To make matters worse, Flash got caught out of position, with his army split into two halves fighting the wrong parts of Bomber's army. Bomber's vikings took care of the tanks stuck on one side, while hellbats and thors took care of the rest. With his army wiped out, Flash had to concede defeat and drop out of the Ro16 for the second straight season.


STX_hyvaa (2 - 1) SKT_FanTaSy

Bomber wasn't the only player to complain about being misinformed about patch time, only to go on and defeat his opponent anyway. All-ins were a core part of Hyvaa's run through Challenger League and into the Starleague, and he wasn't afraid to pull them out again he needed effective strategies on short notice. The first game—a failed 6-pool rush—didn't go Hyvaa's way, but two more all-ins in the following games were enough to give him the come from behind victory against Fantasy.

Game two saw hyvaa go for the Symbol special with a nydus worm attack off two bases, which worked perfectly as Fantasy carelessly left corners of his base unscouted. After that, Hyvaa finished Fantasy off with a more common all-in in game three, using roach-bane to pierce Fantasy's defenses and force the last GG.

Unlike the other groups, Group C is still totally up in the air going into the final week of the Ro16. While First and Fantasy are 2 - 0 and 0 - 2 respectively, the head-to-head situation means that the possibility of tiebreakers remains. If Fantasy goes 0 - 3 and the other players end at 2 - 1, then there will be a three-way tiebreaker at the top. Also, if First goes 3 - 0 and the remaining players go 1 - 2, then there would be a three-way tiebreak at the bottom.


MaruPrime (2 - 1) Azubu.SuperNova

What promised to be the last great Hellbat war of the era ended up failing to live up to such expectations. Instead, both Maru and SuperNoVa seemed to be already looking ahead to the next patch, as cloaked banshees figured heavily into their game plans. From the very first game, both players went banshee and counter banshee, which ended up being a wash on both sides. After that their game plans diverged, with SuperNoVa going for the newly emerging TvT standard of mech, while Maru decided to stick with the older standby of pure bio. Detecting a weakness in SuperNoVa's positioning, Maru launched a daring headlong assault into SuperNoVa's defenses, a risk that paid off as he was able to smash through and take game one (if this sounds like a WoL game, then you're right).

Someone did get ahead with drops in game two, but it turned out to be regular old hellion drops and not hellbat drops as SuperNoVa managed to slip in to roast some SCVs. The game played out without any further complications, SuperNoVa was able to ride his early lead to a comfortable win.

The final game of the series ended up being a near repeat of game one, as both players went for some early harassment before settling down into a bio vs. mech battle. Once again, Maru was able to get an excellent engagement against SuperNoVa's mech army, winning a decisive victory and forcing the GG.

The win sent Maru through to the quarter-finals while KangHo has been eliminated. The last spot in the group will now go to whoever wins between Trap and SuperNova.