WCS Korea Season 3
GSL Code S

Ro16 - Group A Recap
Dear and Soulkey advance, Sleep and DRG eliminated


Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

Dear and Soulkey advance at the cost of DRG and Sleep

by Waxangel

Alas, for the resurgent MVP.DongRaeGu, a trip to Blizzcon was not to be. Hopes were high for the one-time Code S champion as he headed into the Ro16, having defeated INnoVation in the Ro32 while looking to be in his best form in months. Unfortunately, he ended up being the first one eliminated from his Ro16 group. Though DongRaeGu was one of the biggest stars of 2012, his elimination from Code S confirmed his absence from 2013's biggest tournament: the WCS global Finals.

Instead, it was Soul_Dear who grabbed the spotlight. Though his GSTL performances had suffered on the Innovation-less Soul team, he continued his impressive solo run through Code S by taking first place in the group with wins over DongRaeGu and Azubu.Sleep. And to the surprise of few, Woongjin's Soulkey followed Dear through in second place, reaching his fifth consecutive quarter-finals.


The night began with a ZvZ match between Soulkey and his hand-picked opponent Sleep. The mostly anonymous Sleep may have seemed like a good pick to Soulkey during the group selections, but that quickly came to bite Soulkey in the behind. Looking comfortable in straight-up games, Sleep was able to use his pure roach compositions to barrel over Soulkey for a 2 -1 victory, exploiting Soulkey's weakness when he transitioned to infestors.

Oh, Dear!

On the others side of the bracket, Dear proved he was more than a match for the former champion DongRaeGu. The two traded a game a piece to start, with Dear taking game one on the strength of a scorching laser-toss composition, while DongRaeGu took game two with hydralisk aggression followed by a powerful mutalisk switch. Dear then decided to throw DongRaeGu a curveball on the third map, going for an immortal-sentry all-in. DRG took a unique approach for defending against the infamous Soul Train, going for a low-tech combo of roaches, speedlings, and banelings. While his baneling backdoor managed to damage Dear's economy, he was unable to properly deal with Dear's main force and GG'd out.

The initial matches set up a winner's match that few would have predicted, as Sleep and Dear went head-to-head for the first slot in the Ro8. Sleep look outmatched in game one as he fell to a phoenix + gateway units all-in, but he was able to better show off his skills in game two. Securing enough bases to play a swarm-host based style, Sleep looked like he was on the verge of choking out Dear in a game of attrition after he added brood-lords to his composition. However, the duo of free units was not enough to clinch the victory for Sleep, as he was unable to prevent Dear from taking a fifth or take a fifth base for himself. It ended up being Dear who was able to slowly whittle away at Sleep's army until he surrendered.

With the two players in the winner's match being so unexpected, it naturally followed that the loser's match had an equally unexpected card with two former Code S champions facing off. The first two games saw DongRaeGu and Soulkey trade blows in the early stages of the game, winning on the back of fast attacks. The tone changed in the third and final game, and it almost seemed as if the players had reached a gentlemen's agreement to play a straight-up muta-ling-bane macro game. Though DRG took a small advantage early on, Soulkey managed to flip things around with superior ling-bane play as both players tried to take and hold their thirds. Soulkey refused to let go of his lead once he had it, and finished DRG off with his superior muta count.

Sleep No More

The final match of the night was a rematch of the first, with Soulkey going up against Sleep once more. Though Soulkey managed to win by a 2 - 1 scoreline, the games were so close that Soulkey may have regretted his selection of Sleep despite his victory. At the very least, Sleep should have earned Soulkey's respect.

Soulkey took game one with early roach-bane attacks, after which game two appeared to be playing out as a fairly standard 3-base vs 3-base ground war. Soulkey had learned his lesson from the earlier series by going for roach-hydra instead of risking yet another hasty infestor-switch, but he was caught off guard by Sleep and his play of the night: mass roach-bane ZvZ. Soulkey clearly did not expect the burst firepower of such a composition, and GG'd out after banelings liquefied a giant portion of his army.

Despite his stylish play in game two, Sleep wouldn't be able to repeat his earlier upset. In the final match of the series, Soulkey correctly scouted and gambled on a fast mutalisk build as Sleep attempted to go for a passive roach strategy. A roach attack by Sleep meant as a time-buying diversion ended up being more of a game-ending suicide, and Soulkey immediately sent a crushing counter-attack to end Sleep's underdog run once and for all.

PartinG Notes

Dear: The key to Dear's success? Apparently, it's practicing during the biggest national holiday. While many players took a day or two off during Korea's biggest holiday of Chuseok, Dear claimed he was practicing the entire time. Aside from that, he thanked PartinG and Trap for their help—not bad PvZ advisers to have!

Soulkey: With his win over Sleep, Soulkey reached his fifth consecutive Code S/OSL quarter-final. You have to give it to the man: that is a truly incredible display of consistency, especially when you consider his Ro8 runs spanned over two different expansions and several strategic shifts.

Sleep: After being largely unknown for most of his career, Sleep finally had his break-out tournament. Though he seemed like a one-MU wonder in the challenger league, he had some quality ZvT wins in the Ro32 and looked decent in defeat against Dear as well. Look, can we just say he's at least as good as soO?

DongRaeGu:

Writers: Waxangel
Graphics: wo1fwood.
Editor: Waxangel.