The Code S Grand Finals are all set, as Maru took a very convincing 4-1 over Classic to secure his second GSL final in a row. The series began with a slugfest of mass widow mine drops against lethal oracle harassment, with Classic coming out on top. That was the only game he would take in the series, though, as Maru looked stronger at every stage of the remaining games while Classic made uncharacteristic mistakes.
GSL Code S concludes on Saturday, Jun 23 8:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) with the Grand Finals between Maru and Zest.
While Classic did make some mistakes (so did Maru) I feel Classic played well with few mistakes. Maru played out of his mind though, the way he flawlessly controlled an army of MMM, ghost and liberators with beatiful splits and concaves to boot looked almost impossible to pull off. Classics strategy of going templars every game was questionable but I wonder what mistakes you allude to besides his Oracles getting caught a few times but only once sloppily.
Edit: Just personal opinion and genuinely curious.
On June 16 2018 19:44 DubiousC2 wrote: Why do people keep defending Classic? He played horribly.
I think it would be rather unfair to call his overall play horrible. He made more mistakes then before, sure, but I think his loss to Maru in game 3 really tilted him, the failed cheese and all. Maru just made less mistakes and his mistakes were less impactful then Classics.
On June 16 2018 19:15 Shuffleblade wrote: While Classic did make some mistakes (so did Maru) I feel Classic played well with few mistakes. Maru played out of his mind though, the way he flawlessly controlled an army of MMM, ghost and liberators with beatiful splits and concaves to boot looked almost impossible to pull off. Classics strategy of going templars every game was questionable but I wonder what mistakes you allude to besides his Oracles getting caught a few times but only once sloppily.
Edit: Just personal opinion and genuinely curious.
Well the attack on Acid Plant was very sloppy. First he did some weird hold position micro while eating liberator shots then when he wanted to charge in his Zealots were stuck behind the stalkers and he also got clumps of templars EMP'ed. Maru microed well but that engagement should've gone way better for Classic
On June 16 2018 22:08 KappaKingPrime wrote: Didn't expect such slaughter, Maru is GOD! That being said, it's going to be another one sided finals.
Maru is definitely favoured on paper but Zest is one of those players you can never count out when you give him time to prepare. Also he's generally really strong in finals with his only loss there to Flash at IEM Toronto.
On June 16 2018 22:08 KappaKingPrime wrote: Didn't expect such slaughter, Maru is GOD! That being said, it's going to be another one sided finals.
Maru is definitely favoured on paper but Zest is one of those players you can never count out when you give him time to prepare. Also he's generally really strong in finals with his only loss there to Flash at IEM Toronto.
I think he also matches up better stylistically against Maru than Classic does. Plays very different openers, with a few quite nasty all-ins of his own creation mixed in. Robo first, phoenix/charge for example are styles that Zest mixes in that I think could do very well against Maru. Also something like his immortal/prism all in.
On June 16 2018 19:15 Shuffleblade wrote: While Classic did make some mistakes (so did Maru) I feel Classic played well with few mistakes. Maru played out of his mind though, the way he flawlessly controlled an army of MMM, ghost and liberators with beatiful splits and concaves to boot looked almost impossible to pull off. Classics strategy of going templars every game was questionable but I wonder what mistakes you allude to besides his Oracles getting caught a few times but only once sloppily.
Edit: Just personal opinion and genuinely curious.
Yeah, honestly Classic played really well and Maru just played better. I think he did screw up game two though.
Maru is the first player since Mvp in 2011 to make it to the finals as the reigning champion. Thus far only NesTea has won back to back Code S championships, but after last night I really think Maru is going to join him with that record.
I think the story of the match was Classic going for the exact same style 4 out of 5 games, and that style gets shut down by Cyclones and Marauders pretty hard. Classic's triple Oracle start does absolutely nothing against a few Cyclones and he stayed on pure gateway tech way too long to handle mass Marauder. That style might work well against opponents that he outclasses but that wasn't the case today.
On June 16 2018 19:15 Shuffleblade wrote: While Classic did make some mistakes (so did Maru) I feel Classic played well with few mistakes. Maru played out of his mind though, the way he flawlessly controlled an army of MMM, ghost and liberators with beatiful splits and concaves to boot looked almost impossible to pull off. Classics strategy of going templars every game was questionable but I wonder what mistakes you allude to besides his Oracles getting caught a few times but only once sloppily.
Edit: Just personal opinion and genuinely curious.
In game 2 classic did take a lot of damage to the early harass. Then, after the first big push from maru he's pretty poorly macroed, floating tons of gas. I feel like if he had the macro to spend those resources on 3-5 more HT throughout the fights (and especually before he slightly overcommits) he could have stablized, even though he took a lot of damage early on.
Game 3 was just a failed cheese. Maru somehow got 8 probes with his reaper because hes a literal god.
In game 4 I felt like classic got pretty far ahead in the opening BO. Marus drops seemed to be an equalizing opportunity but then classic kills two medivacs. After that I swore maru was dead, but good decision making (skipping 2-2) allowed maru to get even in army and then three incredible engagements allowed maru to somehow close out the game.
Game 5 was classic overreacting to that 'cheese', and then being a bit too predictable with the amount of oracles he made throughout the series. I feel like if you make a few phoenix you'll just counter these cyclone pushes. Instead classic made oracles which are pretty bad against cyclones.
I don't think Classic played horribly at all. No. He played very well. I just think Classic's decision making could have been better, but Maru being Maru. He was better in everything. Split's army and ghost's micro were on the top.
Also, in my opinion... Zest has a weak chin at macro games.
If Maru wins this GSL it will be one of the most difficult runs ever imo. He'll have beaten the best ZvTer (rogue) and the best PvTer (zest). Too bad TY didn't make it or he'll have to beat the best TvTer beside himself.
On June 16 2018 22:08 KappaKingPrime wrote: Didn't expect such slaughter, Maru is GOD! That being said, it's going to be another one sided finals.
Maru is definitely favoured on paper but Zest is one of those players you can never count out when you give him time to prepare. Also he's generally really strong in finals with his only loss there to Flash at IEM Toronto.
I think he also matches up better stylistically against Maru than Classic does. Plays very different openers, with a few quite nasty all-ins of his own creation mixed in. Robo first, phoenix/charge for example are styles that Zest mixes in that I think could do very well against Maru. Also something like his immortal/prism all in.
Should be a good match!
Zest is capable of great things and we all know it. He's also been on the uptick and he'll obviously be working hard to find any weaknesses in Maru's play. Historically, he's had a very clean style that can shut down players like Maru who historically thrived on good micro and making things a bit crazy. There are definitely some reasons to have hope that Zest will make it a close series.
But seeing the way Maru shut down Classic, I'd consider a Zest victory to be a huge upset. If Zest can take more than 1 game off Maru and make any other games look close, I'd consider that a surprising show of strength on Zest's part. Coming into Maru-Classic, the ONLY thing I thought I could predict about the outcome was that if Maru won, it would be a close series and really hard-fought.
My predictions this season have been pretty off at times. We might see a really close series, or maybe Zest will just sweep Maru 4-0 for all I know, but my guess is that Maru will completely mop the floor with him.
I was thinking Classic would kill Maru 4-1 because he had so perfect stats against terran and Maru too. Imo Classic and SoS are the most impredictable and hard to play protoss in the PVT match ups
But Maru showed us he is really good and at the moment he is even better than TY and INnovation who are so great players.
I don't want to make a full thread until the finals are over because I don't want to count Zest out, but I think Maru has been playing the best SC2 I've ever seen from the past GSL through now. I've been watching since Nestea vs. Inca in the finals, and this is as good as it gets. Early-game, mid-game, late-game, micro, macro, decision-making, build orders, he's just on the highest possible level. Better than MVP, better than Inno, better than Life, better than anyone. They just nerfed the raven because of him! And he's still winning everything! Amazing.
I didn't really like Classic's play much in those matches. I think going with a lot of gates vs. Maru and his control with those marauders is a bad idea and would have liked to see classic go pheonixes into robo tech. Consistently making all of those oracles and having them not do much at all and like everything Maru made and did was very cost efficient and did good work, whereas like chargelots were lucky to get 2 hits off on Maru. Maru 2 good!
On June 18 2018 05:39 ScrappyRabbit wrote: I don't want to make a full thread until the finals are over because I don't want to count Zest out, but I think Maru has been playing the best SC2 I've ever seen from the past GSL through now. I've been watching since Nestea vs. Inca in the finals, and this is as good as it gets. Early-game, mid-game, late-game, micro, macro, decision-making, build orders, he's just on the highest possible level. Better than MVP, better than Inno, better than Life, better than anyone. They just nerfed the raven because of him! And he's still winning everything! Amazing.
I think you can definitely predict some crazy stuff out of Zest to try to beat Maru. Chances are some of it will work. I imagine he will play with TY a lot too, which is the best partner he could have. Should be a good series!
On June 18 2018 14:30 zealotstim wrote: I think you can definitely predict some crazy stuff out of Zest to try to beat Maru. Chances are some of it will work. I imagine he will play with TY a lot too, which is the best partner he could have. Should be a good series!
Maru will be practicing with sOs, the guy who wrote the book on crazy stuff.
On June 18 2018 05:39 ScrappyRabbit wrote: I don't want to make a full thread until the finals are over because I don't want to count Zest out, but I think Maru has been playing the best SC2 I've ever seen from the past GSL through now. I've been watching since Nestea vs. Inca in the finals, and this is as good as it gets. Early-game, mid-game, late-game, micro, macro, decision-making, build orders, he's just on the highest possible level. Better than MVP, better than Inno, better than Life, better than anyone. They just nerfed the raven because of him! And he's still winning everything! Amazing.
They didn't nerf the Raven because of him. The nerfed the Raven because in its previous iteration it was a unit that led to absolutely unpleasant games both to watch and to play. That was not a decision of balance but of design and that has nothing to do with Maru. We have seen other players do the same thing before he did and while certainly to a less successful extent, definitely not to a less extreme.
You can go ahead and make fanboy thread after the finals in case he dominates that one.
On June 18 2018 05:39 ScrappyRabbit wrote: I don't want to make a full thread until the finals are over because I don't want to count Zest out, but I think Maru has been playing the best SC2 I've ever seen from the past GSL through now. I've been watching since Nestea vs. Inca in the finals, and this is as good as it gets. Early-game, mid-game, late-game, micro, macro, decision-making, build orders, he's just on the highest possible level. Better than MVP, better than Inno, better than Life, better than anyone. They just nerfed the raven because of him! And he's still winning everything! Amazing.
They didn't nerf the Raven because of him. The nerfed the Raven because in its previous iteration it was a unit that led to absolutely unpleasant games both to watch and to play. That was not a decision of balance but of design and that has nothing to do with Maru. We have seen other players do the same thing before he did and while certainly to a less successful extent, definitely not to a less extreme.
You can go ahead and make fanboy thread after the finals in case he dominates that one.
Maru was certainly the first player to do anything special with mass ravens though. On the big stage that is. His lategame was almost unbeaten before the nerf.
Where are those butt-munchers posting "congrats to Classic for his new GSL title"?, he was absolutely destroyed. Can we make it official and say that Maru is the best player in the world?.
The game needs someone like Maru to dominate everyone to create excitement and bring in more fans to the game. If Maru loses to Zest in the finals and fizzes out for the rest of the year, then it'll just be business as usual and the game will continue to bleed what fans it has left.
I think Artosis was TOTALLY wrong to downplay Maru in his commentary to hype the GSL Finals. He was trying HARD to fabricate exactly what he said he wasn't doing... to play up the ONE match that is the GSL Finals. Granted it IS an important match, but the game will be much better served to play up just how dominant Maru's abilities and skills are compared to the rest of the field. We need to hope Maru becomes the next Tiger Woods, Federer (or Flash!) to keep SC2 going!
On June 17 2018 09:38 dummy1 wrote: I don't think Classic played horribly at all. No. He played very well. I just think Classic's decision making could have been better, but Maru being Maru. He was better in everything. Split's army and ghost's micro were on the top.
Also, in my opinion... Zest has a weak chin at macro games.
They say that so it becomes very clear that Maru won even though T is obviously the worse and underpowered race and Maru still won. Still won!
On June 19 2018 06:58 KaiserCommander wrote: Where are those butt-munchers posting "congrats to Classic for his new GSL title"?, he was absolutely destroyed. Can we make it official and say that Maru is the best player in the world?.
(read above again why this was written)
Sure, just together with all the other terrran players like MvP, Innovation, flash, teaja.
I mean it is obvious that anyone that doesn't play terran could never legitimately become best player of the world. Lets see which terran becomes next best player of the world. Very curious myself.
Terran has a along history of best players of the world, while it is the most UP race ever, and while no player of any other race has ever become best player of the world. Makes sense!
Lets look back a bit:
While T was very UP in the beginning, and players like fruitdealer, nestea or some protosses won GSLs out of race superiority, MVP was the best player in the world - obvious is obvious.
Later on when life abused his race to death, Innovation + Taeja became best players of the world to stop him from gaining that title. When SOS or any other non terran won anything, it was luck and all-in and only $0$-money driven, but not well played and not at all best player of the world.
Lately Innovation stayed best player of the world, even though he didn't show it, everyone knew he still is best player of the world.
Until now that luckily Maru takes over and is best player of the world.
Ohh and flash - while all dat - he ofc was best player of the world all the time anyway, was just misunderstood.
Dudes, this sounds funny, but it is for real what 70%+ of TL staff and +/-100% of terran players on TL believe for real. For real.
And whenever there is a phase of the game when anyone else could scratch to get that title, they release articles like ZvP craft, put them into bad light and explain in detail why and how they could win without having any skill at all and it is not likely to be repeated.
Ohhhhh lets not forget about polt_prime, best foreigner ever. As noone that is anything but terran player can ever be best player and noone of the foreign scene was able to get that title, they unceremoniously made polt a foreigner, so that a terran could be best foreigner.
On June 17 2018 09:38 dummy1 wrote: I don't think Classic played horribly at all. No. He played very well. I just think Classic's decision making could have been better, but Maru being Maru. He was better in everything. Split's army and ghost's micro were on the top.
Also, in my opinion... Zest has a weak chin at macro games.
They say that so it becomes very clear that Maru won even though T is obviously the worse and underpowered race and Maru still won. Still won!
On June 19 2018 06:58 KaiserCommander wrote: Where are those butt-munchers posting "congrats to Classic for his new GSL title"?, he was absolutely destroyed. Can we make it official and say that Maru is the best player in the world?.
(read above again why this was written)
Sure, just together with all the other terrran players like MvP, Innovation, flash, teaja.
I mean it is obvious that anyone that doesn't play terran could never legitimately become best player of the world. Lets see which terran becomes next best player of the world. Very curious myself.
Terran has a along history of best players of the world, while it is the most UP race ever, and while no player of any other race has ever become best player of the world. Makes sense!
Lets look back a bit:
While T was very UP in the beginning, and players like fruitdealer, nestea or some protosses won GSLs out of race superiority, MVP was the best player in the world - obvious is obvious.
Later on when life abused his race to death, Innovation + Taeja became best players of the world to stop him from gaining that title. When SOS or any other non terran won anything, it was luck and all-in and only $0$-money driven, but not well played and not at all best player of the world.
Lately Innovation stayed best player of the world, even though he didn't show it, everyone knew he still is best player of the world.
Until now that luckily Maru takes over and is best player of the world.
Ohh and flash - while all dat - he ofc was best player of the world all the time anyway, was just misunderstood.
Dudes, this sounds funny, but it is for real what 70%+ of TL staff and +/-100% of terran players on TL believe for real. For real.
And whenever there is a phase of the game when anyone else could scratch to get that title, they release articles like ZvP craft, put them into bad light and explain in detail why and how they could win without having any skill at all.
Ohhhhh lets not forget about polt_prime, best foreigner ever. As noone that is anything but terran player can ever be best player and noone of the foreign scene was able to get that title, they unceremoniously made polt a foreigner, so that a terran could be best foreigner.
Shame on me. How can I make up for that in a human lifetime?
Would you accept a few articles written by me during hours of humility about terran = best race of the world?
Fuck, you got that already, I am ashamed to admit that I cannot offer anything to you tha you need and have to live forever with the crime that I have committed.
I don`t even want to start this.. but we never really had a best foreigner terran contender. We had the spoon terran for a little period and Jinro, that is all, but I think it was always P or Z in non korea region. Think: Idra, Huk, Stephano, Naniwa, Neeb (who switched from Terran), Scarllet, Serral. <- not that many terrans. Also you (LSN) sound angry, but for example Life was up there as the best foreign player durring his peek. Flash never was best SC2 player, only Terrans who can touch that title so far are MVP, Innovation and maybe Maru if he will continue winning more stuff this year.
Only players who were uncontested best players so far were imo Mvp, Inno, Zest, Life, Rogue and now Maru. Maybe also MC, NesTea, Dear, Dark or Byun (not 100% sure about them. That's 4T 4Z and 3P.
It depends what you count as best in the world. Plenty of players have been considered the #1 for relatively short periods of time (Stats, Classic, sOs, ByuN, Rogue, Dear being examples).
Mvp, NesTea, Zest, Inno, Maru, Life seem like the obvious GOATs but a lot of them still had competition.
I'd still argue soO is the closest thing to a bonjwa we've had in sc2.
On June 20 2018 23:12 Fango wrote: It depends what you count as best in the world. Plenty of players have been considered the #1 for relatively short periods of time (Stats, Classic, sOs, ByuN, Rogue, Dear being examples).
Mvp, NesTea, Zest, Inno, Maru, Life seem like the obvious GOATs but a lot of them still had competition.
I'd still argue soO is the closest thing to a bonjwa we've had in sc2.
Just a consensus in the community that the player is the clear #1 without it being really arguable. I don't think that was ever the case for sOs due to his inconsistency. Classic had a sick winrate early this year but it didn't translate into any tournament wins so I don't think you could call him the definitive 1. But you're right with Stats, when he won his GSL he really was on top of the world.
EPT
Maru took a very convincing 4-1 over 
Classic to secure his second GSL final in a row. The series began with a slugfest of mass widow mine drops against lethal oracle harassment, with Classic coming out on top. That was the only game he would take in the series, though, as Maru looked stronger at every stage of the remaining games while Classic made uncharacteristic mistakes. 
