With only four spots yet to be determined in the GSL Season 2 Round of 16, Classic, Scarlett, Stats and KeeN met to determine who two of those final four would be.
After a quick loss in game one, Scarlett evened the series with patient ling/bane/hydra play. Scarlett got off to a great start in game three by deflecting Stats’ immortal aggression, but Stats recovered and teched into a storm heavy army. She sniped Stats' fourth with swarm hosts, but was unable to summon enough on defense and fell 2-1.
Game one of the second series went KeeN's way. He won in the late game after capitalizing on Classic's indecisive response to a doom drop. The next two games were eerily similar, however, with Classic gaining an early advantage before closing them out with colossus based armies.
The winner's match was defined by one unit; carriers. Classic and Stats were unable to make much headway with ground units so they moved into carrier tech. Classic won the series 2-0 by assembling skytoss compositions better suited for the extreme late game than his opponent.
After winning the first game of the losers' match with bio/mine play, KeeN closed out the match with a hard fought victory on Newkirk Precinct. Both he and Scarlett reached tier three tech, but after a number of trades and a devastating nuke, Keen’s surviving ghosts were able to overcome the remains of Scarlett’s brood lord/infestor/ultralisk army.
The final match of the day saw Stats take out KeeN 2-0 and join Classic in the Round of 16. The first game was tight until a massive warp in KeeN’s main in tandem with phoenixes undid the Terran. Stats favored a more straightforward gateway army and prism harass on Abyssal Reef, eventually wiping KeeN out in a fight on open ground.
The highlight of the day was what is undeniably one of the most effective nukes in professional StarCraft 2 history.
On May 11 2017 05:24 ilikeredheads wrote: Scarlett opting to play the game without sounds was such a big gamble... sigh
I've played without sounds for years (that includes thousands of games) and have never gotten nuked like that. People who never played without sounds are making a bigger deal out of this than it should be because they don't have a clue what they're talking about.
I've brought this up before, but a simple low tech solution to spoilers is to have a generic title: GSL RO16 Results
It takes no additional time to do and is guaranteed to work 100% of the time. why they still don't do something so simple is beyond me, as people complain about spoilers every single time. Me I don't care but its funny how they still keep having spoilers in the titles when such a non technical simple solution exists.
on topic: foreigner lost to korean is this really surprising? the only time foreigners could consistently beat koreans was during the gglord winfestor era when all of a sudden foreign zergs could magically beat korean terrans. aside from a few huge upsets during blizzcon and neeb going god mode, its to be expected in the current day.
On May 11 2017 03:54 Charoisaur wrote: Can't wait to watch those games, sounds really interesting. Well... maybe not the pvp
The most boring two professional games I have seen in a very long time. Definitely would not recommend unless you love watching a Protoss macro contest.
And while it is mildly regrettable that Scarlett didn't make it out of the group (would be a good storyline) I doubt many people are genuinely surprised that Stats+Classic advanced. Personally, I'm glad to see foreigners swiftly eliminated from a Korean tournament, almost as early as Koreans are "eliminated" from foreign ones.
On May 11 2017 05:24 ilikeredheads wrote: Scarlett opting to play the game without sounds was such a big gamble... sigh
I've played without sounds for years (that includes thousands of games) and have never gotten nuked like that. People who never played without sounds are making a bigger deal out of this than it should be because they don't have a clue what they're talking about.
The thing is though Scarlett hasn't played without sound for years, and Keen played into that perfectly
On May 11 2017 02:48 ruypture wrote: scarlett did not play her best at all.... made me really sad because she easily could have taken game 3 against stats
Totally agree. Feels like she really tilted quickly while playing Stats. Gotta work on that confidence. That nuke though in the losers match was rough. Sucks they have to have those crazy headphones that were so bad she didn't bother with the sound. If they had booths that prevented some of the sound, maybe the headphones wouldn't need to be so loud and she could use sound. Overall though she really seemed to lose because she wasn't playing her best. It felt more like she was trying to survive than win most of the time. One compliment is that her creep spread was on point.
On May 11 2017 02:48 ruypture wrote: scarlett did not play her best at all.... made me really sad because she easily could have taken game 3 against stats
Totally agree. Feels like she really tilted quickly while playing Stats. Gotta work on that confidence. That nuke though in the losers match was rough. Sucks they have to have those crazy headphones that were so bad she didn't bother with the sound. If they had booths that prevented some of the sound, maybe the headphones wouldn't need to be so loud and she could use sound. Overall though she really seemed to lose because she wasn't playing her best. It felt more like she was trying to survive than win most of the time. One compliment is that her creep spread was on point.
The sound/no-sound thing is mostly an issue of familiarity though. I mean, all the Koreans have to deal with the same exact problem and afaik all of them just use earbuds under their headphones. Booths aren't the solution either, just go back and watch the old vods and you'll see the players sitting in booths, with the same big white-noise headphones as they use now.
Might be an obstacle, but it's a fair one that affects all the players. Also, do they not use these headphones in foreign tournaments? Seems like they do to me, what's the difference?
Went back and double-checked to be certain, and yes, at IEM Katowice, DH Austin, etc, all the players there (both foreign and Korean) are wearing the usual headphone-over-earbud setup just like they do in GSL. Scarlett has played in many tournaments before, what's so special about GSL's noise-cancelling headphones that Scarlett has not encountered before?
EPT
Classic, 
Scarlett, 
KeeN met to determine who two of those final four would be.
