GSL Season Three
Code S

Group D Recap
soO and DRG advance, Flash falls

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by stuchiu

Everything was looking good for Flash. He was 65-17 from July to the end of August. 79.27% in win rate against some of the best in the world. The current map pool has some of the best maps Terrans have had since the release of HotS. He then won Proleague Finals. He won IEM Toronto. He got into the easiest group in the ro16 after bribing Innovation with a meal. He even had a few days of rest from getting back from Toronto before he had to play his ro16 against all Zerg players: TRUE, soO, and DRG. On top of that Flash had only lost one series to Zerg in the past two months (to Action). All told everything was going right for Flash. Just the sheer momentum alone should have easily carried Flash to the quarterfinals. Should have.

The fans, the spectators, the players, the casters all expected Flash to just crush this group. In his first series of the day he built on those expectations by smashing TRUE, crushing him into the ground with a 11/11 and an early hellbat marine banshee timing. He had all of the hype in the world following him into that winner’s match, and the Winners' Match seemed like a formality.

The man in the other booth was the complete opposite. soO had no hype. He wasn’t one of the greats of SC2, he wasn’t called God and he hadn’t won an IEM just five days earlier. He had no legacy (E/N: beyond his uncanny ability to lose to Protoss Royal Roaders), no greatness attached to his name except the one he made for himself by cutting his way to the finals three times in the hardest tournament on earth. Yet even after 3 consecutive GSL Finals, soO still can’t drum up a fraction of the hype Flash got for winning IEM. But this was all old hat for soO. Not being the fan favorite, not expected to win, always expected to lose in the finals. None of that matters because this was the fourth season in a row it has happened to soO. So when it came down to soO vs Flash in the winners match, soO forced Flash and the rest of the world to recognize one fact: you don’t get to 3 consecutive GSL Finals by just collecting bottle caps.

Down to 29 drones after an extremely strong opening from Flash, soO should have been done. And if he had been any other Zerg he probably would have been. But soO fought back and Flash stayed on the creep for exactly one second before being bum rushed and forced out by soO. From there soO abused Flash’s weakness to counter attack style muta ling/bling play and was able to crush Flash’s economy. With no choice left, Flash went for the all-in, but even up 40 supply he was unable to crack soO’s impenetrable defense.

Game 2 was arguably went even worse for soO. While he didn’t lose 29 drones, he lost his fourth base easily on Merry Go Round and was forced to stay on lair tech on 3 bases against the 4 of Flash. Yet time after time after time, soO kept holding and holding and holding until he was actually up on bases. Despite that insane defense, soO overcommitted too deeply off creep and was caught out and crushed.

Game 3 was the real test. Flash was unable to do any real damage to soO early on and both went to the late macro game. But Flash stepped onto the creep for a small period of time and was instantly crushed as soO won the engagement in a landslide and rode it all the way back to Flash’s production instantly killing Flash.

soO proved that Flash wasn’t infallible in the late game. He proved that he wasn’t untouchable in the macro game, an idea that has seems to have taken root in a lot of players of late. He proved that in a battle of pure mechanics, soO was easily a match. soO let Flash play his best game in his best style, and he beat him. But if if soO beat Flash mechanically, then DRG - traditionally the poster boy of mechanics - beat Flash strategically.

In the last match of the day DRG and Flash took it to a macro game on Overgrowth where DRG used a very foreign style of ZvT as he went muta ling/bling into Swarmhosts. Because of that Flash was able to get around him and do massive damage to DRG’s natural and eventually put DRG in economic checkmate. Game two was theoretically interesting*, but it ultimately came down to DRG abusing Flash for having bad simcity.

If games one and two were worrying for Flash fans, game three was where DRG completely outdid Flash for playing like a robot. DRG opened with fast speed on one base because he knew that Flash would not scout with his reaper, and was able to punish Flash for playing blindly. Unfortunately for DRG, he overmade lings allowing the game to be mostly even. DRG then closed out the game with a strong counter attack to Flash’s third and Flash in typical Flash fashion responded to the aggression by attacking himself but was easily held off by DRG’s superior defense.

Born on a Monday.
Won Proleague on a Tuesday.
Won GSL ro32 on a Wednesday.
Flew to Toronto on a Thursday.
Won IEM Toronto on a Friday
Killed by soO on a Saturday
Buried by DRG on a Sunday

Other notes:

• DRG used two very different strategies in game 1 and game 3. Game 2 was even stranger when you consider that Zergs favor Deadwing in ZvT, yet DRG chose Catellina. DRG may have had a pre-prepared build, but upon seeing the terrible wall at Flash’s natural may have decided to change his plans altogether. DRG scouted the problem in Flash’s wall at 8:01 when the cc first starts building. By 8:40 he had speedlings just outside the vision range of the wall just waiting. He does not move in until the vikings scouts the overlord over the natural at 10:00. At the same time Flash’s units are at the furthest point possible away from the natural harassing DRG’s third. At this point he move commands his lings past the wall ( confirming he knew about the weakness in the wall since the beginning). Given Flash’s tendencies to attack when being attacked, DRG then spawns and rallies his lings to behind his natural, moves his drones out the third and moves his mass queen force and spine crawler to the third creating the perfect form of offense and defense.
  
  
• ZvZ went exactly as the match history indicates. soO > DRG (now 6-0) and DRG > TRUE (now 4-0).
  
  
• Despite the fans hyping Flash as possibly the best player in SC2 throughout multiple points in HotS, he has yet to make it out of the ro16. This is eerily reminiscent of when Artosis hyped Clide as the very best in early WoL and yet Clide was never able to break past the ro16. To make this even stranger, Clide was hired by KT to be their coach from 2012-2013.

Writers: stuchiu
Graphics: Meru.
Photo: GOMeXP.
Editor: Zealously.