WCS Korea Season 3
GSL Code S

Ro16 - Group C Recap
Jjakji and soO advance.


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Jjakji and soO advance to Ro16, INnoVation and Super eliminated

by stuchiu

First in the line of one-and-done GSL champions, mYi.jjakji was the target of much skepticism when he finally made it back into Code S after over a year in Code A exile. Well, doubt no more. Jjakji returned into full form last night as he played the best Starcraft he had shown since his championship run in November of 2011. While it remains to be seen whether or not jjakji is a championship caliber player, he showed he is certainly an excellent on. Sniper and Seed, please take note.

However, the unexpected revival of one championship winning Terran came at the cost of the equally surprising collapse of another. Acer.INnoVation, considered by far the favorite to advance from the group beforehand, fell to both jjakji and SKT_soO to be eliminated from the tournament.


Call it a Comeback

Jjakji started off the night by facing the maddeningly consistent SKT_soO. An extremely well-executed 8-8-8 build caught soO off guard, giving jjakji a quick 1 - 0 lead.

In a drastic change of pace, the second game on Frost allowed both Jjakji and Soo to show off their late-game abilities as both players bashed heads in the middle of the map over and over again. Though Jjakji seemed to get the upper-hand in engagements, Soo found a way to just barely defend and force a constant state of deadlock. In the process, both players continually expanded outward on the map until it was nearly a split map situation.

As the game dragged on Jjakji was finally able to get a decisive edge over soO with his better management in late-game TvZ. With Soo transitioning into ultra-muta-ling-bane, Jjakji took advantage of Soo’s less mobile units to continually drop harass all over the map, all the while clearing the creep out of the center and setting up a well-entrenched position. This culminated in a desperate attempt by Soo to bust through the center, trying to break Jjakji's ever tightening grip on the game. However, Jjakji was able to easily hold off the attack, and with even more crippling drop harass left soO no choice but to surrender the series.

The winner's match against INnoVation was rougher for Jjakji, but he emerged victorious nonetheless. He began the series by getting the worse end of an accidental base trade, leaving him down one game early on.

However, Jjakji rallied back by beating Innovation twice with better positional play to win the series. In the second game, Jjakji distracted all of INnovation’s anti-air defenses with a banshee, using the diversion to break the natural with an autoturret-marine-tank push. The last game saw Jjakji scare Innovation with a frontal assault on Akilon Wastes which turned into a slow siege from the natural. From there Jjakji slowly chipped away until he forced an overaggressive tank hop-step from a frustrated INnoVation. Jjakji quickly rushed in and killed the tanks with his marines, wiping out the backbone of INnoVation's defenses to win the game.

SoO Good

Down in the losers match, soO was joined by MVP.Super, who had failed to survive INnoVation's marine-marauder-medivac barrage in his initial series.

In the first set, Soo got the upper hand in getting to the late game with a stronger economy, and used a muta transition to catch Super off guard. However, Super was able to balance offense and defense perfectly, marching a portion of his army across the map while he held off the mutas at home with reinforcing blink stalkers and phoenixes. soO was unable to deal with this perfect division of forces, and GG'd out of game one.

After learning from his mistakes in the first game, Soo opted for a fast ling speed into double upgrades for games two and three. Both times he got ahead of Super in economy and tech, winning late with one big engagement to end it all. In the second game he swarmed over Super with mutas, ultras and lings. In the third game it was with a large broodlord-corruptor-queen-ultra army that gave soO the win.

Soo then went onto the final match, where he made himself the third Zerg this month to break Innovation in the TvZ matchup. DRG had out-mechaniched Innovation in straight up macro games. Curious had outsmarted and out-strategized Innovation in the IEM qualifiers. In soO's case, he brought back the roach bane all in to punish Innovation for his greed on game one. In the second game he went head to head with Innovation in a macro game, and while it looked good for Innovation as he started to rev up his endless 3 base parade push, Soo caught him slipping with one bad engagement and chased him all the way back to his base. With half his units on a move rally across the map, Innovation was cut down by Soo’s army that did massive damage to the medivac count and SCV line. From there Soo transitioned into ultralisks and dealt the final blow to Innovation’s once vaunted TvZ.

PartinG Notes

INnoVation, the false idol? — Once considered the heir to the Terran throne after Mvp’s voluntary exile to WCS EU, INnoVation has yet to fill the hole that Mvp left behind. Yes, he was the best player in the world for a while and even now he still belongs to the top tier. But the marked difference between the two is that Mvp had those mysterious intangibles, while INnoVation is hopelessly predictable. Innovation won because he was mechanically superior to everyone else. Mvp won because he was Mvp.

INnoVation's play is now starting to show cracks. With his loss to Jjakji, he has gone 7-22 in his last 29 TvT matches since the Hellbat patch. His TvZ is still the best in the world, but it is no longer untouchable. His PvT has become so predictable that Panic (who?) beat him the other night in GSTL with 9 cannons just waiting for his SCV pull. Innovation is still one of the strongest Terrans out there, but he is no longer at the head of the pack. He is just one of the many who dared to briefly sit on the throne that Mvp left behind.

Quick hit on Super — What was that PvT build against Innovation? Two colossi into immortals into third base? What does that even beat?

Writers: stuchiu.
Graphics: wo1fwood.
Editor: Waxangel.