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The first day of GSL's Super Tournament featured four different match-ups, with the first two especially highly anticipated.
2018 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 1Ro16 Match 1: Maru 3 - 1 soO
- Game 1: Maru's 2/1/1 traded very well against soO's ling/queen defense on Acid Plant and, most importantly, his continued pressure kept soO off a fourth base for an eternity. soO opted for hydralisks and began to defend against Maru's marine/mine attacks, but with a fourth base already established for Maru and double upgrades running, soO felt he needed a big move. A basetrade ensued as soO's hydralisks cleaned up all of Maru's bases and shoved into the natural, but Maru's forces on the other side of the map did even more. Unable to break the defensive position in Maru's main, soO tapped out.
- Game 2: Blackpink saw very similar openings from both, but soO this time took only minimal damage to Maru's 2/1/1. What ensued was a game of constant fights between soO's ling/bane/hydra and Maru's mass bio army. Eventually soO ran out of steam as he never transitioned to hive and Maru's 3/3 upgrades proved too cost effective in the constant fights. With liberators and mines added into his army, he eventually broke soO.
- Game 3: soO held off Maru's proxy 2rax very easily, and a counterattack with roaches caught Maru with barely anything to defend and quickly forced a fourth game.
- Game 4: soO again scouted and held Maru's 2rax easily, but instead of forcing the issue again, he played a standard game. Maru went into mech and soO, figuring it out quite early, made a huge round of swarmhosts. It looked as though he was in a dominant spot, with resources beginning to bank up for him, but his large army advantage didn't accomplish much, as the swarmhosts especially proved very ineffective. Maru thus reached the lategame stage of TvZ, where ghosts, vikings, ravens and about 20 CCs allowed him him suffocate soO. The game crashed, but soO didn't bother to reconnect, calling the game and sending Maru to the quarterfinals.
Match 2: sOs 2 - 3 Classic
- Game 1: sOs opened with sentry/stalker, only to then commit to a 4gate all-in. Unfortunately for him, Classic had opened with a proxied Dark Shrine. Invisible units were met with no detection and Classic led the series.
- Game 2: sOs turned to a proxy build on Catalyst, with a stargate for oracles. Classic looked to have a good read on it, as he opened with his own stargate for phoenix, but sOs' oracles still found damage. While taking a nexus, Classic made the questionable decision to move out with a phoenix and a few units. Only the phoenix escaped, and Classic was forced to cancel his nexus. sOs simply followed up with blink from there. Classic's desperation DTs this time ran into an observer and sOs' blink stalkers finished the game on the other side of the map.
- Game 3: Classic chose an aggressive 3gate build on Blackpink, but sOs read it well, setting up three shield batteries in his natural in advance. With a nexus not even started, Classic chronoboosted a warp prism while warping in three sentries aggressively. He dropped the sentries into sOs' main and began killing probes and warping in units as sOs was forced to watch. Even the forge died before Classic was finally done, but by the time sOs got across the map to counterattack Classic was more than ready and sOs tapped out.
- Game 4: Classic proxied a robotics facility on Backwater, while sOs chose the same 4gate build from g1. What looked to be a good spot for Classic quickly turned sour as sOs caught his stalkers in the middle of the map and then went straight for Classic's base, where he killed all the probes and recalled. Classic's army wasn't strong enough to kill sOs, forcing him to concede the game.
- Game 5: Both players finally opted for more conservative expansion builds on Eastwatch, with Classic choosing the robotics followup against sOs' blink. Even though sOs expanded earlier and looked to be in a good spot on all fronts, Classic had a decisive mindgame up his sleeve: when sOs' stalkers poked into Classic's third, they saw double gas being taken, indicating further tech from Classic, who had only made additional gateways though. As soon as they left, however, Classic cancelled his assimilators and moved across the map for an attack. With an immortal advantage from the early game and equal upgrades, Classic smashed the army of sOs to take the game and the series.
Ro12 Match 3: Dark 3 - 0 aLive
- Game 1: Both players chose standard openings on Eastwatch. A small hellion/cyclone/raven poke by aLive got nothing done, but he saved all the units. aLive was able to kill Dark's fourth base as his mutalisks were across the map, but Dark still traded his army well enough to continue. Both players built up towards the next fight, which Dark this time won decisively. Ultralisks, banelings and corruptors wrecked all of aLive's bases shortly after.
- Game 2: An early speedling build from Dark cancelled aLive's low ground CC. aLive's 2/1/1 build managed to kill a lot of queens, but Dark's economy remained largely untouched as he rushed towards ultralisks on ling/bane only. aLive was forced to essentially all-in with his 2/2 timing and for a second it looked as if he could break through Dark, but a handful of queens and an ultralisk held on long enough for Dark to push him back. The game was always Dark's after that and ultras, vipers and queens made sure of it.
- Game 3: After standard openings from both players, Dark's muta/ling/bane composition deflected everything aLive had. Dark found himself with an 80 supply lead as he crashed into aLive's newly established fourth base and banelings blew up not only the base and all of aLive's units, but also his hopes of winning this tournament.
Ro12 Match 4: TRUE 3 - 2 Trust
- Game 1: Trust's adepts and oracles killed 18 drones in the early game. He followed up with a standard archon drop and third base, disrupting TRUE's mining even more. TRUE got zerglings into Trust's natural and killed a lot of probes, but it was in vain as Trust already barreled down his third base and kept rolling into his natural to take the game.
- Game 2: TRUE's proxy hatch did very little, and Trust chose an archon drop as his opening build. What looked like a good position for him in one second became a lost game the next: after warping in three stalkers to add pressure, Trust's prism almost died and he had to abandon his two archons and the stalkers. He tried to make up for the loss with a double archon drop, but TRUE was happy to sit at home and mass roaches to defend—and eventually kill Trust with them.
- Game 3: TRUE took the gold base on Eastwatch. Trust, after opening oracle again, hid a gateway for an adept timing with glaives. TRUE initially looked to hold with ling/bane, losing only nine drones while cancelling Trust's third base. The adepts kept coming though, and Trust eventually did whittle down TRUE's drone count. Trust's gold base went unscouted for a while, and TRUE misread the game. When he finally found it, Trust was ready to defend it and did so easily. A counter-swing with archons, adepts and sentries was enough to finish the game.
- Game 4: TRUE's speedling all-in broke the wall and killed a few probes, but didn't end the game. His followup roach/ravager all-in did.
- Game 5: Trust fell back on his stargate into archon drop opener. Behind it, Trust took a third base but stopped probe production. TRUE identified the attack quite late, but still easily had enough hydras and lings to hold it. Down 50 supply, Trust turtled to storm and immortals, only to have mutalisks show up in his base. They essentially put an end to the game, with TRUE simultaneously taking two hidden bases. Trust's desperate all-in was met by lurkers and spines and he conceded the series.
Maru, Classic, Dark and TRUE advance to the quarterfinals.
GSL's Super Tournament returns with its other four Ro16 matches tomorrow, April 4th, at 08:00 GMT (+00:00).
