The first match of the day featured soO, the last zerg in GSL, and TY, fresh off his WESG victory.
In game 1 soO went for a ravager all-in off one base on Whirlwind. Despite getting the late scout TY was able to quash the attack with cyclones, marines and an scv pull.
Game 2 kicked off with a 3 rax marine proxy from TY that destroyed soO’s natural. soO countered with a small ravager force, but failed to do any damage. With the game stabilized, soO went for a roach/ravager composition that struggled against TY’s drop play. When soO finally moved out with brood lords, TY’s massive concave was more than enough to take the game.
Echo was the setting for game 3 as soO sought to avoid elimination. He correctly predicted TY’s mech strategy by immediately opting for roaches and upgrades. TY postured but never attacked allowing soO to sculpt an army centered around swarm hosts and brood lords that gave soO his first win.
In game 4 soO once more went for the ravager rush he used in the first game. This time it was successful, however, and thus the series became tied up at 2-2.
Game 5 fittingly took place on Newkirk Precinct, a map famous for macro games. As if to honor the tradition soO and TY decided on ling/bane/muta vs bio. soO powered up onto 4 bases while defending TY’s harassment, putting him on solid economic footing. One favorable engagement after another for soO would snowball into an unstoppable ultralisk based army that completed the reverse all kill and made soO the first semifinalist. He will face either sOs or herO.
Match 2
The second match which featured INnoVation and Stats started off on Cactus Valley. After a passive start in which Stats went for colossi and INnoVation opted for tanks, the game got turned on its head. INnoVation attacked Stats’ third and natural while Stats brought INnoVation down to 25 workers. The follow up from INnoVation was enough, however, and he took a 1-0 lead.
Newkirk Precinct was Stats’ map choice and predictably he had something planned. His pylon rush was damaging but not crippling, as INnoVation managed to save his unfinished natural CC, and so the game moved on. INnoVation took a huge supply lead through superior macro, leading to a completely one sided fight that put him one game away from moving on.
Clinging on for dear life, Stats went for a phoenix/adept competition on Daybreak. He deliberately picked INnoVation apart, before catching the terran army out on the map. After a few moments spent absorbing the loss, INnoVation conceded the game.
In game 4 INnoVation expertly repelled Stats’ stargate play, leveraging his defense into a massive army advantage. Stats held strong against the counter attack, however, and while he had a worker disadvantage it was his adept based army that was suddenly larger. A shade into the natural and a warp prism in the main rendered INnoVation’s liberator harass irrelevant and gave Stats his second straight win.
Whirlwind was the setting for the second ace match of the day. Stats returned to the 2 base colossus build which led into an immaculate defense of INnoVation’s drop play. Finally moving across the map, Stats charged into INnoVation’s natural while his third was gutted. The damage done by that harass was inconsequential as Stats demolished INnoVation’s army completing the reverse all kill, meaning Stats will await the winner of Ryung vs Maru.
Join us on Saturday for our second pair of quarterfinals
He played just perfect in game 5 imo. He held of the agression so well and transitioned smoothly into Tier 3, spending all his money all the time. When he killed TY that was the perfect timing too with the right amount of ultras and 3-3 upgrades finished. In a longer game he would've been in trouble on that map imo, since TY was already building Ghosts and 4 Liberators at a time.
sOs with his recent form was expected to lose even before the RO16. Then, one victory against KeeN pushed him through to RO8. He is unable to win against any other good player with two exceptions: 1. he can always beat herO 2. he can beat any Zerg Don't tell me, the final can be sOs vs. Maru.
lol u serious? how can u say terran needs a buff? they casted gsl continuosly saying toss is weak against terran (and it was clear why). either they reduce the liberator aoe or no way toss can pass those walls of libs and mines.
Let's be serious for a moment, today's games were amazing. Both series ending up in a 3-2 score is the closest result you can get, don't bring balance into this..
On February 23 2017 02:50 Snarosc wrote: ^ Trigerred terrans.
Let's be serious for a moment, today's games were amazing. Both series ending up in a 3-2 score is the closest result you can get, don't bring balance into this..
The results may have been amazing but the games were terrible. Except the last ones in each match, those were decent.
another great "night" of SC2. the GSL has been great this year. all the pissing moaning and whining in the weekly updates threads just make me wonder what games these guys are watching.
On February 23 2017 02:39 starkiller123 wrote: Terran clearly needs buffs, zerg and protoss both imba
there are less than 8 terrans in the quarterfinals. Time to buff the Tank, Cyclone and Thor to make Mech viable.
Really happy for soO and Stats, even if it means we lose two brilliant players in the process. soO can make it to another finals and I'll cheer for Maru to at last win GSL. Although with today's results, I'll be very worried about mischievous Ryung ^^
On February 23 2017 02:32 SCHWARZENEGGER wrote: 1base ravager allins, adept phoenix spam - lotv in a nutshell
Yeah, because other expansions didn't have stupid shit like this.
nothing in wol and hots was so stupidly abusive like tier1 ravagers, pylon rush, mass adepts and carriers, the worst thing is that blizz wants the game to be like that, it's so fckd up that they even don't know how to nerf carriers after they recognized that it's broken, instead of it they will just buff corruptors more. I'm random rn btw.
On February 23 2017 02:32 SCHWARZENEGGER wrote: 1base ravager allins, adept phoenix spam - lotv in a nutshell
Yeah, because other expansions didn't have stupid shit like this.
nothing in wol and hots was so stupidly abusive like tier1 ravagers, pylon rush, mass adepts and carriers, the worst thing is that blizz wants the game to be like that, it's so fckd up that they even don't know how to nerf carriers after they recognized that it's broken, instead of it they will just buff corruptors more. I'm random rn btw.
Aha! So the endless bunker patches, WOL Reaper Shit, 4-Gate, Broodlord Infestor, 1-1-1, Soul Train, blink stalker did never happen? What is more abusive about ravagers, pylons and carriers?
Nooooo Inno! You were supose to take out Stats and give Maru a better chance to go to the finals!
You were 2-0, one more game and the series were yours, you were ahead in game 3 but you decided to doom drop to a phoenix army.... What have you done? Do you hate Maru that much?
If Soo can't win this GSL, he will never win any. His patch to the trophy is wide open with no scary player left. I mean the remaining players are good but nowhere as scary as Inno, TY, ByuN or Dark. He lost last 4 finals vs the best or second best at that moment. But now I would say Soo is the favorite.
On February 23 2017 05:15 rrrzzz wrote: Not a good day to be terran fan!
well if you play as Terran this might be good news. if 3 of the 4 semi-finalists were Terran and it ended up as a TvT finals there might be some Terran nerfs under consideration.
Bloody amazing night of SC2!! SoO overcoming TY and then Stats overcoming Inno, wowowoow! The games were nail biting and it was def a rollercoaster ride. The Phoenix Adept/oracle play by stats was amazing, loved how he started to transition out of it, adding blink stalkers and then going into Robo. SoO's engagements were absurdly well timed and positioned, every fight he took I thought TY had the edge but SoO chose the battlegrounds prefectly.
To the butt hurt cryers: if you didnt enjoy these matches - you got issues...not the game.
Actually I think TY and InnO threw that. Why ? They felt themselves superior to Soo and Stats (obviously). And with very fast 2-0, they might have thought "ok i had this, lets just play with them" . Then they lost 3 games in a row just as quick as the first 2 ones. . I'm not taking away anything from Soo and Stats but the 2 Terrans clearly underestimated their opponents way too much. They might be arrogant after the easy ro16 and thought they're already in ro4 considering their opponents are easiest as possible (TY avoided Dark and Inno just 4-0ed Stats at IEM) . If TY and Inno played with their best, I dont think they would ever lose 3 games a row, it's impossible, especially in their strongest MU.
Whats with the same-day spoilers posted on TL these days? Every time a round completes I come on here and there's a big headline like "SOO AND STATS IN SEMIFINALS"
The vods aren't even up on youtube yet. They just posted the first half 2 hours ago.
Too funny, all the Innovation D-riders are now silenced. Congrats to both players that advanced, simply amazing play from SoO, I thought he was done for after the first two games.
Cool to see Soo win, I didn't expect that. In game 3 I was surprised that TY didn't push or atleast poked, instead TY clears some creep and backs up back home, anyone have a good explanation as to why?
I will always cheer for toss because i am playing the race mysef. But i must say, that i cant see a better fairytale endling than SoO winning this. I predicted he would win his match, but after the first two games i lost faith. SoO made a awesome comeback that truely deserves more attention that he is getting. Especially with his history of 2nd places..
Soo winning GSL would be one of the greatest moments of sc2 history and resurrect the game. ok maybe not resurrect the game, but wow it would be an inspirational story
it would be a dream if soO wins GSL. But he can still face sOs and imbacarriers or any other random protoss bullshit. I'm hoping for a Ryung soO final with soO winning it. Fat chance i know Hopefully Classic and Innovation will help soO to finally get his title.
On February 23 2017 16:53 muppet70 wrote: Cool to see Soo win, I didn't expect that. In game 3 I was surprised that TY didn't push or atleast poked, instead TY clears some creep and backs up back home, anyone have a good explanation as to why?
soO said that it's a really weird timing and TY has no way of knowing how many roaches soO is building. Too few and TY wins the game. Too many and TY loses his whole army and it's over. TY did the safer thing, thinking he would have the advantage in the late game.
On February 23 2017 16:53 muppet70 wrote: Cool to see Soo win, I didn't expect that. In game 3 I was surprised that TY didn't push or atleast poked, instead TY clears some creep and backs up back home, anyone have a good explanation as to why?
I thought the same. All I can think is he was being cautious and thought there was a possibility that soO had more units and didn't want to get caught on creep.
On February 23 2017 23:20 shadymmj wrote: LotV games are very bad recently. IIRC most of the games ended with the game timer under 10 mins. Who wants to watch that when downtime is 5 minutes?
WoL and HotS games weren't significantly longer than 10 mins on average but the game clock was higher because the game clock ran 40% faster than real life and in LotV that was changed to make the game clock the same as real seconds and minutes. When the game clock in WoL/HotS reads 15:00, the same amount of time has passed as when the clock in LotV reads 10:52. Plus LotV gets into the action faster because players start with six more workers. There was more in-game downtime in WoL/HotS. And the actual downtime between GSL games reaches five minutes only during the one longer break that happens after the third game and in between matches.
On February 23 2017 23:20 shadymmj wrote: There is no buildup, everything is poke poke poke, big army all in. IMO 2011-2012 WoL was better.
You just described the buildup? The players are making a ton of choices on build order and unit composition and economic investment, and then with the pressure and harass they're playing tactically and handling unit positions and splitting armies. The decision to make a strong push that may put the player out of position to defend further harass is calculated based on everything that has happened up to the point, not some pre-determined part of the strategy. If you choose to be ignorant of everything that's going on and you don't enjoy it, it makes no sense to come to a forum of hardcore fans and complain that your casual approach isn't satisfying the depth you want to see. No sense at all. It's there if you want it.
I have to say, most of the games were not very enjoyable to watch as a hardcore SC2 viewer. I am however satisfied that both TY and INno have been eliminated - just because Maru can now claim his rightful throne as the king!
Sigh. The "no spoilers" feature on TL doesn't work when the subject titles spoil everything. It's starting to feel like I can't visit TL at all anymore unless I've watched every VOD in the last 24 hours. The Ro8 VOD was posted Weds! It's not realistic to expect most people to watch every tournament live.
I appreciate everyone's hard work of course, I just wish I could come to TL more often without being spoiled. At least give us 4 or 5 days, please...The articles will still be just as relevant.
On February 24 2017 18:44 stevethemacguy wrote: Sigh. The "no spoilers" feature on TL doesn't work when the subject titles spoil everything. It's starting to feel like I can't visit TL at all anymore unless I've watched every VOD in the last 24 hours. The Ro8 VOD was posted Weds! It's not realistic to expect most people to watch every tournament live.
I appreciate everyone's hard work of course, I just wish I could come to TL more often without being spoiled. At least give us 4 or 5 days, please...The articles will still be just as relevant.
Yea, kinda agree. i could watch the soO vs TY vod a bit later, but despite using spoiler filter, it didnt really work
On February 24 2017 23:31 Sakat wrote: This is a StarCaft 2 pro-gaming NEWS SITE and people are complaining about spoilers...
I don't see how it would be so much more complicated to use some less revealing titles like "gsl quarterfinals start off with a bang" though. You know the article is there and you just have to click to know the results. This would be a bit less annoying for people who don't necessarily have time to watch everything live.
EPT
soO, the last zerg in GSL, and 
TY, fresh off his WESG victory.
sOs or 
.
. I'm not taking away anything from Soo and Stats but the 2 Terrans clearly underestimated their opponents way too much. They might be arrogant after the easy ro16 and thought they're already in ro4 considering their opponents are easiest as possible (TY avoided Dark and Inno just 4-0ed Stats at IEM) 
Hopefully Classic and Innovation will help soO to finally get his title.
