Last week my GOM article compared July to the Mighty Casey of Mudville in Ernest Lawrence Thayer's classic sports poem Casey at the Bat-- I should've saved the comparison for this week as it would've made a better fit. C'est la vie. I had no idea Iris had it in him to so completely dominate EffOrt. As a result of last week's semi-finals, EffOrt will face July on August 2nd to determine third place, and Iris will face Flash in the finals on August 16th.
Iris walls in and techs mech with a fast starport at 11 o'clock and EffOrt three hat hydra into lurker at 3 o'clock. EffOrt manages to glitch a zergling into Iris's main and scouts Iris' starport before Iris can kill the zergling. Iris produces 1 wraith and kills two overlords with it, but doesn't seem too interested in harassing/scouting diligently.
The reason for his lazy wraith is revealed when he builds a dropship and drops 4 vultures into EffOrt's main. The first wraith was a decoy for his intentions, and a very successful one. EffOrt had very little to deal with the vultures and loses more than 10 drones before he can recover. In the meantime, Iris switched his tech to produce marines and medics.
The map littered with spidermines, EffOrt sends his Lurkers toward Iris' poorly defended natural. Unfortunately, there are no overlords to spot the mines, nor hydra to snipe the mines even if there were, and EffOrt's first three lurkers die to mines. EffOrt then sent a couple lurkers to Iris' temples, and tore them down in order to stab at Iris' buildings. Iris placed a bunker on the highground, however, and EffOrt is only able to force a cancelled upgrade on an engineering bay.
Iris moves out at 100 supply and takes the middle of the map, threatening EffOrt's expansion at 5 o'clock, which he's eventually able to do after a long battle for position in the middle of the map. Iris leaves a large force of plagued marines/medic at 5 o'clock and concentrates on using fresh units to fight EffOrt. Both players worked to exhaust one another's economies, preventing eachother's expansion, but eventually Iris remembers he has an army at 5 o'clock and adds them to his remaining forces which secures him the win.
EffOrt lost this game when Iris successfully dropped vultures into his main, but almost made a comeback out of the game.
EffOrt spawns at 5 o'clock and Iris starts above him at 1 o'clock. EffOrt drone scouts and steals Iris gas until he's sure Iris has dedicated to barracks play. Iris was going 1 rax expand anyway so the gas steal doesn't affect him negatively.
Iris builds up a timing push with 9 marines and two medics. Iris successfully takes out two sunkens and all of EffOrt's natural drones before EffOrt's mutalisks hatch to save the hatchery. EffOrt's muta harass isn't overwhelming and Iris is able to casually defend against them while he builds up his tank numbers.
Iris then pushes out with a couple control groups of MnM and 3 tanks, then sets up a contain outside EffOrt's natural. Iris successfully sets up 3 bunkers and several turrets. Unable to remove the terran presence after several attempts, EffOrt conceded.
Iris' timings in this game were simply perfectly matched for EffOrt's build. Once the contain was set-up, EffOrt had very little chance.
EffOrt spawns in the north, attempting a 2 hat muta build. Iris starts in the south and opened with mech, mined out EffOrt's mineral ramp, then sent vultures up into EffOrt's natural. Concerned about Iris' potential to send vultures through his backdoor, EffOrt gives the natural to the weak Vultures, confident they'll be unable to kill the hatchery. Iris intelligently ignores the hatchery, however, and simply kills EffOrt's larva. When EffOrt's speedy muta hatch, there are only three of them... and they're easily handled by the few goliath Iris makes. EffOrt is unable to recover from the early larva murders and Iris coasts to victory.
Iris' build was simply a direct counter to the build EffOrt had dedicated himself to.
In the past year, July has only played 15 ZvZs and he's lost all but 3 of them. EffOrt, on the other hand, has played 37 ZvZs in the last year and he's won 67.6% of them, including a recent sweep of Jaedong in GOM. For a third place match, the situation could hardly be more lop-sided. Despite EffOrt's recent weakness to Calm in the MSL, expect him to handle July with ease.
Effort having to carry CJ earlier that day i think was a bit tiring (Iris also played but 1 game not 3). Still, very impressive from Iris, he must have trained hard for this win so well earned. gogo TvT!!! (my favorite matchup)
On August 01 2009 01:04 Jawa~ wrote: I know it's whiny of me, but that's a pretty big spoiler on the front page ><
gom was last played 5 days ago... come on
On the other hand, unless you're a premium payer you can't watch the VODs until a few days later, so the unspoiled window of time is a lot smaller than five days. (Two days?)
" Despite EffOrt's recent weakness to Calm in the MSL, expect him to handle July with ease."
Uh..spoiler?
The result isn't revealed. Just said EffOrt showed weakness in his MSL games vs Calm. If that's a spoiler, you guys are too sensitive. Or I'm too insensitive. I never did understand squeamishness over spoilers... especially in news articles. If someone tells you there was an excellent game, knowing the result, for me, rarely ruins a fresh viewing of the game... and if someone tells you the game was crap, you can avoid wasting 5 to 60 minutes watching it. That's how I feel about spoilers, anyway. I know I'm in the vocal minority so I try to respect TL's spoiler tradition but in this case, unless a mod thinks I'm stepping over the line, I'm leaving it in the open.
Iris v Flash was actually probably the final I most wanted out of the possible ones. They have such opposite approaches to TvT that it makes for great games.
On August 01 2009 00:23 Garnet wrote: The lack of so many teams allowed Iris to go this far. But this is it. Flash will get his 2nd gold.
Yes the lack of 1 team(SKT1) allowed him to go so far, bullshit. MBC. OGN, and eStro havent played since the GSI, so thats a very moot point. Only real threats on SKT are fantasy and Bisu(whom Iris is currently 1-0 vs in their MSL series) and I guess Best..
On August 01 2009 01:04 Jawa~ wrote: I know it's whiny of me, but that's a pretty big spoiler on the front page ><
The matches were five days ago, if you haven't watched yet you're either not worried about spoilers or don't really care enough.
I wasn't "spoiled" because I had already seen the matches, but there are plenty of times where I don't get a chance to watch games for a week or so, and avoid the threads like plague until I get up to date on the games I care about. Like I said, it was a minor whine but apparently 5 days is a long time to TL
On August 01 2009 01:04 Jawa~ wrote: I know it's whiny of me, but that's a pretty big spoiler on the front page ><
The matches were five days ago, if you haven't watched yet you're either not worried about spoilers or don't really care enough.
I wasn't "spoiled" because I had already seen the matches, but there are plenty of times where I don't get a chance to watch games for a week or so, and avoid the threads like plague until I get up to date on the games I care about. Like I said, it was a minor whine but apparently 5 days is a long time to TL
TL's spoiler policy is incredibly generous. The busy are pampered here, but in typical sports news 5 hours is an eternity. 5 days is so late it's retarded. If SC2 e-sports gets big in the west I predict the spoiler policy to go out the window simply so we can compete with other websites. As a news writer that hypes upcoming events and wants to justify his opinions, it's annoying to accommodate the spoiler-sensitive (more than half my articles tends to be in spoilers already, and people still complain about spoilers often).
Spoilers made a lot of sense back when there were no streams for western viewers and everyone had to wait for youtube vods or battle reports to find out what happened. These days, when livestreams abound and vods are available to anyone very quickly, it's something of a relic policy that serves little purpose, imo, except to satisfy traditional expectations. The majority of staff still supports TL's spoiler policy, which is why people still get banned for particularly egregious violations, but personally it's very stifling thorn in my side, especially when the policy isn't explicitly outlined. People use personal opinion to decide what is and isn't a spoiler and that generates tons more complaining.
Effort vs July won't be that favourable for Effort. In fact, I think there's a high chance he'll lose. + Show Spoiler +
I thought he was joking when he implied he was practising only for PL, but he really seems to be just turning up for his individual leagues, losing ASAP and then going back to practice for PL.
As for Iris's win, I didn't watch the games, but form the write up it seems that Iris's experience really helped him. Hoepfully he'll help CJ formulate more of those brilliant builds for PL.
On August 01 2009 02:07 Tadzio wrote: [...] If someone tells you there was an excellent game, knowing the result, for me, rarely ruins a fresh viewing of the game... and if someone tells you the game was crap, you can avoid wasting 5 to 60 minutes watching it. That's how I feel about spoilers, anyway. I know I'm in the vocal minority so I try to respect TL's spoiler tradition but in this case, unless a mod thinks I'm stepping over the line, I'm leaving it in the open.
As in a good tragedy, the interesting stuff is not as much the outcome of a game, as the string of events that eventually led to it. I would go even further and say that knowing the end in advance can actually enhance the experience. But anyway.
I would usually root for CJ, but I'm kind of pissed after what Effort said about Iris before their series, so I'll be a dick and hope he'll get denied a title again and grow even more frustrated than he obviously is right now. Flash is more talented than him in my book and and still needs a confidence boost so let's go LYH!
On August 01 2009 00:38 dekuschrub wrote: haha yeah and if this counts it would really be his 3rd gold because he won GSI soooo
flash get your ass back in the OSL after you win this plz
GSI definitely doesn't count as a league because it was an invitational. I think GSL should count though.
GSI was intended to invite the best players, which would (logically, not saying it did) produce the best competition... making it more of an achievement. The GSL's didn't even have all the teams participating nor did the players play as many high-quality opponents as there were a ton of upsets.
On August 01 2009 00:38 dekuschrub wrote: haha yeah and if this counts it would really be his 3rd gold because he won GSI soooo
flash get your ass back in the OSL after you win this plz
GSI definitely doesn't count as a league because it was an invitational. I think GSL should count though.
GSI was intended to invite the best players, which would (logically, not saying it did) produce the best competition... making it more of an achievement. The GSL's didn't even have all the teams participating nor did the players play as many high-quality opponents as there were a ton of upsets.
The point isn't whether it's more of an achievement. The point is that it is invite, which makes it the same as All-stars and Superfight.
EPT![[image loading]](/staff/Tadzio/GOMS3/aiclassic3w.png)
Berserker vs 
EffOrt![[image loading]](/staff/Tadzio/GOMS3/GOMbracketsemi.png)
, he must have trained hard for this win so well earned. gogo TvT!!! (my favorite matchup
