WCS Korea Season II

Ro16 - Day Five Preview
The Final Week

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Twitch

by WaxAngel

The penultimate day of the Ro16 saw one group finalize its standings while another one took another step toward tiebreakers. With his victory over STX_Trap in Group D, Azubu.SuperNova booked his ticket to the Ro8 while eliminating Trap in the process. With Maru confirmed for first place with a head to head advantage against SuperNoVa, the final standings in Group D have been determined and the Maru vs. Losira match on Thursday will be little more than a formality.

Meanwhile in Group C, the red hot LG-IM_First showed that PvZ might be his Achilles' heel as he dropped a series to the crafty STX_hyvaa. While a win would have put First through in first place, he must now contend with the possibility of a three way tie-breaker at 2 - 1 should Rain defeat Fantasy next week.

The tiebreaker seems all the more likely as Fantasy has already been eliminated and has nothing to play for, while Rain still has everything to gain. On top of that, Rain and Fantasy are teammates on SK Telecom T1, begging the question of why OnGameNet did not schedule their match as the first match of the group so both players would have full motivation to win. While professionalism and the spectre of the 2010 match-fixing scandal would certainly prevent a transparently low-effort game from Fantasy, the stakes are undeniably lower for him in this situation. It is an unfortunate situation for all the players involved, with First and Hyvaa relying on a player with no stake to send them through, while Fantasy is in a no-win situation whether he should win or lose his match.

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

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

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

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

Details results from Live Report Thread by Yello.
+ Show Spoiler [Detailed results] +

SKT_PartinG vs Woongjin_Soulkey (no effect on group)

Even with his elimination confirmed and only pride to play for, PartinG couldn't find a way to get out of his recent PvZ rut. In a short 2 - 0 series, Soulkey comprehensively picked PartinG to pieces, leaving the Soul Protoss to wonder how everything had gone so wrong in HotS.

The first game saw Soulkey show that he had PartinG's number in a macro game, going for the frustrating swarm host - brood lord composition to push PartinG back with a wall of free units. While PartinG played fairly well and managed to secure a strong four base economy, he failed to transition to a high tech army in time and was overwhelmed by Soulkey's far more efficient units.

Soulkey then finished PartinG off in a short game as well, going for a gas-pool-hatch speedling expand to exploit PartinG's tendency of gateway expanding without a probe scout. PartinG was caught totally off guard by the attack, suffering crippling early damage that saw him die after several minutes of futile resistance.

CJ_Bbyong vs. KT_Flash (no effect on group)

In another match where there were nothing but pride to play for, Flash rolled over Bbyong in a distinctly post-hellbat era TvT series. Banshee vs. counter-banshee was the name of the game, and Flash came ahead of Bbyong twice in a 2 - 0 victory. In game one he countered Bbyong's cloaked banshee attack with a raven and viking before returning the favor with a cloaked banshee of his own. Bbyong took too much damage from the counter-banshees and ended up not having the economy to deal with eventual Flash's frontal attack.

In game two, Flash went for mine drops into cloak banshees off of one base while Bbyong went for a quick CC into cloaked banshees as well. Flash managed to strike before Bbyong had proper defenses in place, with his unseen unit pairing dealing a huge blow to Bbyong's economy. Once again, Bbyong was left with too weak an economy to deal with Flash's follow-up attack and GG'd out.

STX_hyvaa vs. LG-IM_First

After First made surprisingly short work of Rain and Fantasy in Group C, many viewers figured he would crush hyvaa as well to top his group with a 3 - 0 score. However, it was not to be as the crafty STX Zerg came through with a surprising 2 - 0 victory. Perhaps it should not have been so surprising, as hyvaa was the player who had handed First his last PvZ series loss, cheesing him to death in a Challenger League series.

Game one saw hyvaa look for an opportunity to catch First off guard, going for the same gas-pool-hatch speedling build that Soulkey had used to take a free win against PartinG earlier in the night. While First went for a gateway build as PartinG had, he also decided to probe scout and was forewarned to hyvaa's plans. First was able to adjust accordingly, hearkening back to the early days of WoL by going for a 3-gate expand against his opponent's early speedling threat.

The situation seemed to favor First after hyvaa's relatively low econ opener, but hyvaa was able to exploit some sloppy play from First to execute speedling runbys and roach surrounds on isolated units, pulling him back into the game. After that, with hyvaa transitioning to mutas and First gathering his troops for a big two base attack, there was no way for the game to go but into a base trade scenario. Unfortunately for First, he lacked the wherewithal to sneak out a probe in time to make hidden buildings and lost the game after his last pylon fell.

Game two saw hyvaa try to gain a build order advantage once more, as he went for a 6 pool rush in hopes that First would do something greedy. hyvaa ended up guessing right as First went for a risky nexus first opener. After a disastrous attempt at a probe defense, First had no choice but to surrender.

STX_Trap vs. Azubu.SuperNova (winners advances, loser eliminated)

The stakes for the final match of the night were clear cut: The winner would advance to the Ro8, and the loser was out of the OSL. Besides being an elimination match, it may also have held special meaning for SuperNoVa as his loss to Trap in Code A several seasons ago was what began his fall from Code S and led to his failure to attain the coveted Nestea award. In the rematch, SuperNoVa booked his spot in the OSL Ro8 as well as gaining some long overdue revenge.

SuperNoVa continued along with his aggressive tendencies despite the hellbat nerf, opening with a proxy reaper and proxy factory in game one. However, it wasn't any all-in measure for SuperNoVa, as he simply applied early pressure while transitioning into a normal game. SuperNoVa's actual kill timing came much later, with an SCV-pulled MMM attack off three bases. Catching Trap at the critical juncture between colossi and templars, SuperNoVa was able to overpower his opponent and go up 1 - 0.

SuperNoVa tried to work hellbats into his game plan in game two, but things didn't work out quite as planned. Trap's decision to go for late robo and rush to templar tech paid off big, and he was able to easily take the game with a frontal attack.

In the game deciding set SuperNoVa went back to what had worked for him in game one, building up on three bases before pulling his SCVs for another big all-in attack. Once more Trap didn't have the defenses he needed in time and GG'd out of the series.