It was a good day for fans of Flash as he advanced to the round of 16 for the first time in nearly a year. Solar was the second man to advance, and despite having a rocky road there, dropping maps to both Dark and Avenge, in the end he proved himself the better player and joined Flash as the last player in one of the most stacked Ro16's the GSL has ever seen.
The first game of the day was certainly the strangest with Solar facing off against Avenge on Catallena. Avenge opted for a 7 gate phoenix attack that Solar held effortlessly with a force of roach hydra. With his back against the wall, Avenge decided to hide a 3rd while teching to colossus void ray. It looked good initially as he was able to break the contain holding him back and also harass Solar's economy with DT's. Solar's counter, a switch into muta corruptor and basetrade mode, caught Avenge off-guard and seemed to tilt him somewhat. Avenge decided to play along and went for a counter-attack, however he lost too much of his army by having it split off, and was unable to knock down extractors as fast as Solar was putting them up. On Deadwing Avenge decided to go old school with a 3 gate off one base. The Samsung Zerg held well initially but was caught completely off guard by the dark templar transition. Solar counter-attacked but was unable to deal significant damage and had to tap out as DTs were ravaging his main. Down to the wire, Avenge and Solar went for safer, standard openers on Overgrowth. Avenge chose to put on the heat with a 4 gate off two bases. It looked like Avenge was on the verge of breaking Solar, but when it became clear that the Samsung Zerg had stabilized, he transitioned into macro play with a third base and a forge. Avenge would still commit the fatal mistake of overstaying his welcome, losing half of his army. From there, Avenge would struggle to hold his 3rd for the rest of the game and, despite pulling some slick moves with a void ray snipe of Solar's gold base and a mass DT defense it was simply not enough as Solar took both the game and the series.
Flash and Dark faced off on King Sejong in the second series of the day. Flash decided to cash in on his reputation as a compulsive macro player by going for cheese in the first game. While his double proxy rax wasn't scouted initially, good overlord placement spotted one of the building bunkers and allowed the SKT Zerg some reaction time. Dark canceled his gas and tried to overwhelm the rush with masses of lings, but he wasn't able to get a single bunker and tapped out immediately afterwards. Down but not out Dark picked Overgrowth as his next map. The second time around Dark tried to take the initiative, first by trying to slow down the construction of Flash's CC with a 6 ling runby, and later on by transitioning into a big 1/1 roach attack. But with diligent scouting, Flash was able to preempt Dark by preparing perfectly, getting a siege tank on the back of triple CCs and double engineering bay macro. Dark quickly realized he couldn't break Flash, attempting to secure a late 3rd and transitioning into hydras and 2/2. Both players traded in the middle of the map a couple of times, however as Flash overextends and loses a big chunk of his army, Dark is allowed an opening to counter attack and gut the SCV line at the 3rd base. That is, without actually destroying the CC. With this blunder, Flash was given enough time to finish 3/3 and take a much better fight. Crushing the army of Dark outside his 4th base and then proceeds to destroy the reinforcing army and deny the gold base. Battered and broken Dark GG'd, sending Flash into the winner's match.
Solar and Flash kicked off the winner's match first game on Nimbus. Flash once again opened the series with aggression, mounting a scary marine/hellion attack backed by a medivac. To his credit, Solar did manage to hold the attack well enough to take a small lead due to Flash delaying his 3rd to make the attack work. However, the true capitalization on this advantage never really came, as both players were allowed to power up in peace, with Flash getting his 3rd and Solar his 4th. Soon enough, the players began trading in the middle of the map, where Flash's greater cost efficiency and unit retention trumped the 86 drone economy of Solar and allowed him to break the 4th of the Samsung Zerg. Solar tried to counter-attack with his mutalisks to force Flash back and allow his 5th to get up safely, but it was not to be. Flash once again traded brilliantly while slowly whittling down the muta count. Once the mutalisks were gone, he simply pushed to force the GG. On Overgrowth Flash opted for another double proxy rax strategy (E/N: returning to the very roots of his success in Brood War with great results). However, his rax placement ended up squarely in the middle of of Solar's overlord scout. The Zerg, despite going for the direct counter, made the grave mistake of overextending with his lings before his speed could finish, allowing Flash to not only deny the nat but even setup a hard contain. Solar realized the situation he was in and GG'd out allowing Flash to advance to the round of 16 in first place.
Avenge went up against Dark in the loser's match, with the first game being on Nimbus. Dark decided to gamble and went for a early pool, however Avenge went forge expand and had a wall off in time, denying any damage. Realizing how behind he had fallen, Dark opted to go for swarm hosts and win the war of attrition via cost efficiency. This prompted Avenge to turn up the heat and he struck down Dark with a relentless flurry of zealot and dark templar runbys. After crippling the economy of his opponent Avenge simply weathered the storm as he maxed out and went for the finishing blow. Dark picked Overgrowth as the next map. Avenge decided that he wanted to end the game early and loaded up his Soul Train. To his credit, Avenge did his best to sell the idea of him expanding, but Parting's teammate Dark had seen it all and prepared for the push. Avenge postured continuously in Dark's territory, trying to force a mistake out of Dark but to no avail. This prompted Avenge to retreat, get a 3rd base and continue teching while adding more units. Dark, despite being up in tech, maxed out on a useless roach army, against Avenge's perfect anti-roach composition. His hand forced, Dark went for two massive burrowed roach attacks, managing to score several probe kills as well as destroy the 3rd of Avenge, buying himself enough time to transition into a better unit composition, at which point Avenge repaid the favor with harassment of his own. Before Dark's imminent and hidden BL switch could destroy him, Avenge caught on and started his signature DT harassment, sowing chaos in Dark's ranks and buying enough time for himself to barely get out the proper units to defend the ensuing attack. One miraculous hold and a strong counterattack put Avenge in the lead, only for him to squander it by misreading the situation and overpreparing for ultralisks while Dark in fact supplementing them with BLs. Avenge's final defense was valiant but, despite holding on for some time, not enough.
With everything on the line Avenge chose Deadwing to lull Dark into a false sense of security while proxying two gateways to take advantage of it. With composure born of practice a hundred Protoss teammates, Dark reacted perfectly. Hiding the morphing of three defensive spinecrawlers, buying time with his drones while also sending lings across the map to deny the mining in Avenge's main. Without any mining Avenge could only all-in and commit, but with the defense already set up he was unable to break the spine defense and had to tap out.
The final match between Solar vs Dark started in explosive fashion on Deadwing, with Dark opting for a speedling bane attack against Solar's hatch first. Despite scouting it late Solar mounted the perfect defense, building two spines and 5 queens to hold off the flood of lings. Realizing how far behind he was, Dark feigned a transition into a macro game while pooling lings and preparing to go for a bigger bust. Solar caught wind of this attack just in time for him to reatreat to his newly built defensive wall. With all his banes detonated on the wall and roaches pouring out Dark's attack fell flat. Down again a game once again, Dark took the series to his favorite map, Overgrowth. Despite differing openings, nothing eventful would happen until both players decided to take their 3rds. Solar opted for the gold while Dark went for the regular 3rd. Dark knew that he could hit a powerful timing by skipping some upgrades and striking before the gold could really kick in for Solar. Managing to get a superior concave in the eventual engagement, Dark could easily trash Solar's roaches and tie the series. Down the the wire, Solar decided to change things up by taking a page out of Dark's book and going for a ling/bane attack on Nimbus. Solar manages to punish the hatch first of Dark by destroying the expansion but was pushed back just before he could end the game. Still far ahead, Solar used his momentum to take his own natural while droning heavily. Sitting firmly in the driver's seat, Solar never once dropped the pressure, constantly staying one step ahead of Dark in economy, tech and map control until he had a large enough lead that his attack simply crushed Dark and allowed him passage into the round of 16.
As far as individual leagues go this past year had not been kind for the man called God, as he had no good results in foreign tournaments and had struggled just to reach Code S up until 2014's final season. However, the month of August bore witness to the resurgence of Flash. He started out his crusade by successfully leading KT to victory over SKT, crushing PartinG and thus getting revenge on his Protoss rival. Afterwards Flash mounted one of the most impressive qualifier runs to date, defeating Reality, GuMiho, Dear and Maru in the Korean qualifier of IEM Toronto and slaying soO, Sorry, Classic, herO and Pigbaby, only dropping a series to his teammate, Zest in the final Asian qualifier. Flash continued his crusade for glory in the KeSPA Cup qualifiers, defeating Dream, Zoun and EffOrt without dropping a single map before also slaying his old rival Soulkey. As he headed into this GSL group fans were eager, but cautious. Would Flash's recent online success translate successfully to the offline stage? The answer was, perhaps long overdue, a resounding yes.
Important to note is that the popular GSL Group Selections will be returning for this season's Ro16, to air tomorrow on the normal timeslot.
This group of 16 is great. My favorite players of all races. Great race distribution. The return of Innovation and DongRaeGu. The expectations to Flash (is this the time he will reach a finals or top 4?). And so different styles from the protoss players. I am really looking forward to this ! :D
OMG... Effort, Soulkey, Flash, Rain, Maru, Innovation and Solar in Ro16! All players are really good like every group is group of Death. This is going to be insane! Only need Jaedong to fullfill my dream lineup.
On August 22 2014 06:38 jyisvip wrote: Just realized 14/16 in GSL ro16 are Kespa players.
Go Innovation and DRG!
I must admit, this Ro16 is probably the best there has ever been. I honestly think every group (except for maybe 1) will end up looking like a Group of Death. It's a shame Innovation hasn't been playing up to par recently. Fortunately Flash has really stepped up his game and is playing absolutely phenomenal. Would love to see Flash do well, because we all know he should!
Flash played so well today. Makes me really glad to see.
I think the only one who disliked the group selections was Mr Chae. I wonder if he secretely wished that Parting hadn't advanced, so there wouldn't be an insane group of death again...
Also wonder what made him return the group selection system.
On August 22 2014 06:38 jyisvip wrote: Just realized 14/16 in GSL ro16 are Kespa players.
Are you counting Maru or Innovation? I'm assuming Inno but I ask because DRG and Maru are the only guys that were around before the switch (non-elephants)
On August 22 2014 06:38 jyisvip wrote: Just realized 14/16 in GSL ro16 are Kespa players.
Are you counting Maru or Innovation? I'm assuming Inno but I ask because DRG and Maru are the only guys that were around before the switch (non-elephants)
On August 22 2014 06:38 jyisvip wrote: Just realized 14/16 in GSL ro16 are Kespa players.
Are you counting Maru or Innovation? I'm assuming Inno but I ask because DRG and Maru are the only guys that were around before the switch (non-elephants)
poor Parting :p . Would be surprised if Kespa would have less spots. The organization controlling Korea with maybe around 80% of Korea Koreans under their flag should get those spots or they would be doing something wrong.
On August 22 2014 06:38 jyisvip wrote: Just realized 14/16 in GSL ro16 are Kespa players.
Are you counting Maru or Innovation? I'm assuming Inno but I ask because DRG and Maru are the only guys that were around before the switch (non-elephants)
Edit: nvm forgot parting lol
Yeah that's true.. I was referring to Kespa players RIGHT now, so I was counting out DRG and Inno, but Inno is from STX while parting and maru werent' kespa before the switch. So I guess 3 non-Kespa with DRG.
God is back with a vengeance. Great balance too. Nice to not read the usual endless Code S posts complaining about the lack of Terran and how Protoss is OP.
Trying to be realistic in my expectations of Flash, but failing pretty hard. Although I'm annoyed he beat Parting, in Proleague, I really hope he wins Code S. Just such an amazing Broodwar player and often incredible in SC2 as well.
What I'm seeing is a Flash that's learning how to dictate the metagame, which was arguably his scariest trait in Brood War days. From now on every zerg he faces is going be thinking "What if he's 2raxing?"
On August 22 2014 12:09 Gaskal wrote: What I'm seeing is a Flash that's learning how to dictate the metagame, which was arguably his scariest trait in Brood War days. From now on every zerg he faces is going be thinking "What if he's 2raxing?"
Maru cheeses zerg, protoss, terran and always come out ahead.
The last so balanced Code S was almost 2 years ago, when Life became champion, this is a good news again for the whole society. It's almost the middle of the season, but I'm already missing it, cause it's the last for this year.
Not the strongest group in this round but Flash made it through in 1st place. I have to say, despite losses and disappointments over the last couple years, this guy really is one of the best in the world. I know he still doesn't have a major win and he's nowhere near his dominant BW form but Flash is one player that I'm continually impressed with. I can't help but to be like the fanboys anticipating his first GSL championship. (never was a fan honestly) I don't know if he'll ever get it done but you can't help to keep your eye on him.
On August 22 2014 06:38 jyisvip wrote: Just realized 14/16 in GSL ro16 are Kespa players.
The distinction is pretty irrelevant at this point, IMO.
It's still relevant IMO. Because when the big bw to sc2 switch happened nobody could really say if the bw players would actually taking over the top level sc2 scene (even if of course quite some expected it).
And slowly but surely we are witnessing that before the big switch we may haven't seen the highest stacked skill of sc2 so far.
PS: to the question 'who is not a kespa player' (meaning: who was commited to sc2 before the big switch) --> only DRG, PartinG & Maru afaik
Maru commited to sc2 what a surprise :p u want korean pple to strat playing at pro level before 13 years old? DRG was a bw player but just not a good one I remember more the war w3/bw players(grubbbyyy!!)
So glad that God has now time for wcs, final maru vs flash ?
On August 22 2014 23:48 Cazimirbzh wrote: Maru commited to sc2 what a surprise :p u want korean pple to strat playing at pro level before 13 years old? DRG was a bw player but just not a good one I remember more the war w3/bw players(grubbbyyy!!)
So glad that God has now time for wcs, final maru vs flash ?
Well... but how many of the current Top KeSPA-players were really top class BW-players? Serious question, because I didn't really follow the BW scene and only know the really famous players. And players like Cure seem rather young to be a former top class BW-player. :-P
On August 22 2014 06:38 jyisvip wrote: Just realized 14/16 in GSL ro16 are Kespa players.
The distinction is pretty irrelevant at this point, IMO.
It's still relevant IMO. Because when the big bw to sc2 switch happened nobody could really say if the bw players would actually taking over the top level sc2 scene (even if of course quite some expected it).
And slowly but surely we are witnessing that before the big switch we may haven't seen the highest stacked skill of sc2 so far.
PS: to the question 'who is not a kespa player' (meaning: who was commited to sc2 before the big switch) --> only DRG, PartinG & Maru afaik
It's not a fair comparison because the non-Kespa Korean teams are broke. Late WoL and early HoTs were more appropriate to compare to the sides and they were somewhat equal.
I'll be honest, I haven't been keeping up with SC2 lately, but given Flash's hot streak, I plan to at least watch this GSL. Yes, I'm an avid Flash fan = O Anyway, I have a couple questions, if anyone would mind entertaining them...
Is SC2 progressing or regressing? Is the skill cap being raised? What basis is blizzard making balance changes on?
Is it worth getting started on the ladder this late? I didn't feel that the game was rewarding in 2011, last I played.
In regards to the interview, what kind of bashing is Parting participating in? At face value, I find it absurd that some average pro is shitting on flash, the best RTS player of all time.
That's a metric frick-ton-bunch of players I'd love to follow. Should be an incredible Code S. O.O
On August 23 2014 04:08 beachbeachy wrote: Is it worth getting started on the ladder this late? I didn't feel that the game was rewarding in 2011, last I played.
I'm getting back onto Ladder lately. Never a dull moment on Ladder.
It depends completely on your interest in the game. Don't think about "rewards" via Ladder; play for pure fun. :-D
Nothing wrong with ladder, that is the only comment you made that was a bit silly. It's a good way to get yourself started and learn the ropes and meet people, if you don't already have RL friends who play.
Additionally ladder is in fact good for practice if you don't have an established group to play with. Also very good for new players to play on, if ladder was totally useless no pro would ever get on it.
there are plenty of pple that can help you to pratice "adopt a noob" for example, a lot of of fun teams can be contacted trough bliizzard forum and i dont even count the numerous fanclub when u can meet tons of pple or even here :p
if you want to be good at sc2, you need first to have strong BO. If as a terran, you cannot keep scv production and are supplyblock often there is really no point in ladder^^ scrapbook / custom trainers(tl trainer :p ) are good tools. take 4m BO Now that you have a strong BO and you can understand why do you're doing what you're doing (reaper vs cheesy, helion vs creep/ovepoprlings, mines and marines split to engage), u'll be able to adapt your BO according to the situation and what you scout, (produce tank vs roach 1A/speed, build ebay before racks if u scout late gas from zerg. and that for every MU^^ “Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.” LDV
My point is the only way to have a strong BO is to spam it. "perfection is approachable through repetition" IAM
On ladder, u'll meet different races so every time you will drastically disrupt your mechanics and so your skills/mechanics will increase very slowly compared to what you can achieve by having to find only 3 pple (1 zerg 1 terran 1 protoss) and spend time to play with them and perhaps become friends.
But of course the choice is all yours
ps: NA is dead and KR is not the place where you'll meet the korean pros.
EPT
Flash as he advanced to the round of 16 for the first time in nearly a year. 
Solar was the second man to advance, and despite having a rocky road there, dropping maps to both Dark and Avenge, in the end he proved himself the better player and joined Flash as the last player in one of the most stacked Ro16's the GSL has ever seen.![[image loading]](/staff/Zealously/GSL_2014_Group_H.jpg)
Avenge on Catallena. Avenge opted for a 7 gate phoenix attack that Solar held effortlessly with a force of roach hydra. With his back against the wall, Avenge decided to hide a 3rd while teching to colossus void ray. It looked good initially as he was able to break the contain holding him back and also harass Solar's economy with DT's. Solar's counter, a switch into muta corruptor and basetrade mode, caught Avenge off-guard and seemed to tilt him somewhat. Avenge decided to play along and went for a counter-attack, however he lost too much of his army by having it split off, and was unable to knock down extractors as fast as Solar was putting them up.
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