After a one week break for the Group Nominations, GSL Code S resumed with the first of its round-of-sixteen groups. Reigning champion GSL Maru headlined the proceedings, continuing his quest to win back-to-back titles by advancing from his group in first place. Zest advanced in second place from the group, reaching the quarterfinals in consecutive seasons.
Maru went into the group as the overwhelming favorite to advance, but faced more resistance than expected from his hand-picked first opponent in Patience. Though his peers called him the weakest RO16 player during the group nominations, Patience showed why no RO16 player should be overlooked by taking a map off of Maru with a powerful Glaive-Adept and Immortal attack. Maru had an easier time of things in the winners' match, taking out Solar 2-0 with his signature TvZ one-two punch: defensive late-game play, followed by a proxy-barracks bunker rush.
Zest's PvZ has been his Achilles heel in 2018, and it looked to be the cause of his downfall once more as he fell 0-2 to Solar in his initial match. Zest took out Patience in the losers' match, earning another short at Solar with a quarterfinal spot on the line. Despite his PvZ woes, Zest was able to pull through with a clutch win the decider match, defeating Solar with a mass-Phoenix into Chargelot-Immortal-Archon attack in game one, and a powerful deathball army in game two.
GSL Code S continues on Saturday, May 26 4:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) with Group B of the RO16, featuring soO, Dear, INnoVation, and Rogue.
The level of TvP Maru showed in his series versus Patience would have him lose to any Protoss he'd run into in the playoffs with the possible exception of Dear.
On May 24 2018 08:25 Boggyb wrote: The level of TvP Maru showed in his series versus Patience would have him lose to any Protoss he'd run into in the playoffs with the possible exception of Dear.
how about instead of saying the terran player played poorly, you acknowledge that patience played better than expected?
On May 24 2018 08:25 Boggyb wrote: The level of TvP Maru showed in his series versus Patience would have him lose to any Protoss he'd run into in the playoffs with the possible exception of Dear.
how about instead of saying the terran player played poorly, you acknowledge that patience played better than expected?
Well, there were the small matters of rallying 4 immortals to the top left corner of the map to die alone (lolwut), and then having half his army destroyed by a nuke. I seriously almost thought he was throwing on purpose until he started really trying to win after that.
On May 24 2018 08:25 Boggyb wrote: The level of TvP Maru showed in his series versus Patience would have him lose to any Protoss he'd run into in the playoffs with the possible exception of Dear.
how about instead of saying the terran player played poorly, you acknowledge that patience played better than expected?
I would but that's not what I feel like happened. I saw a lot of unforced mistakes from both players. If you covered the names and told me that series was played between DoKyung and Ryung in the elimination match of the ro32, I'd believe you.
Kudos to Patience for making the ro16. I hope he does well in the future as I love his crazy blinks. Nothing in that series gave me hope going forward though.
On May 24 2018 08:25 Boggyb wrote: The level of TvP Maru showed in his series versus Patience would have him lose to any Protoss he'd run into in the playoffs with the possible exception of Dear.
You could say the same about his TvZ against Zanster. But he can clearly play better than that so it's possible he just wasn't taking them seriously as opponents.
On May 24 2018 08:25 Boggyb wrote: The level of TvP Maru showed in his series versus Patience would have him lose to any Protoss he'd run into in the playoffs with the possible exception of Dear.
You could say the same about his TvZ against Zanster. But he can clearly play better than that so it's possible he just wasn't taking them seriously as opponents.
Or maybe Patience came really well prepared and did something Maru wasn't expecting. The first game was more or less decided when he lured Maru into the statis ward which was an awesome move. The fact Maru won doesn't change the throw of Patience 2nd game Maru didn't scout and Patience did a push which decided the game. In the 3rd game Maru remembered that and scouted with a medevac the whole base structure. (both game #2 a #3 Maru scouted with Reaper properly so I am ignoring this )
On May 24 2018 08:25 Boggyb wrote: The level of TvP Maru showed in his series versus Patience would have him lose to any Protoss he'd run into in the playoffs with the possible exception of Dear.
You could say the same about his TvZ against Zanster. But he can clearly play better than that so it's possible he just wasn't taking them seriously as opponents.
Maru didn't practice TvZ for that group which is understandable since Zanster was the only Zerg player and is easily 3+ tiers below Maru as a player.
If Patience were the only Protoss player in the group, Maru spending less or even no focused time on that match up makes sense, but with Zest as a possibility in the winner's match, it would be awful foolish to just focus on TvZ.
Solar was the favorite, but Zest is also top-notch. Although I am pretty sure Zest will be dismantled by whoever finishes in Group B in the first place
Based on the first series, I would have definitely expected Solar to advance over Zest. It was cool to see Zest clutch and come in second, hope to see him back in form asap.
Maru vs Patience? As Artosis would say, if you covered up the name tags, I would not say it would be Patience playing. Maru lost his first map in this GSL to Patience; I feel like that should've been a much easier series for Maru, although he showed some great Starcraft as usual.
GGs to Maru and Zest for advancing, now onto the group of death!
On May 24 2018 18:13 imre wrote: Zest playing decent PvZ was unexpected and welcome
His PvZ has been really good online, but the fools in our writing staff won't believe me when I say that online performance more often than not actually means something.
I'd have liked to see Maru play against Zest. He definitely looked very vulnerable against Protoss - in fact Patience should have 2-0d him, but threw the first game hard. Zest's PvT is easily better than Patience's, so would have been cool to see where they both stand.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Waxangel/GSL/2018/GSL_Code_S_Banner_v2.jpg)
Maru headlined the proceedings, continuing his quest to win back-to-back titles by advancing from his group in first place. 
2nd game Maru didn't scout and Patience did a push which decided the game. In the 3rd game Maru remembered that and scouted with a medevac the whole base structure. (both game #2 a #3 Maru scouted with Reaper properly so I am ignoring this 
)
