Maru took a major stride on his quest for a third consecutive Code S title, sweeping GuMiho 3-0 and clinching a spot in the semifinals. Maru had avoided facing Terran opponents in the previous two Code S playoffs, and his one-sided victory over GuMiho largely dispelled any doubts his TvT prowess.
In the last quarterfinal, Zest narrowly defeated Stats 3-2 in a match between PvP masters. Zest's victory sets up a rematch of previous GSL Code S finals, where Maru needed barely 34 minutes of in-game to defeat Zest by 4-0 scoreline. Code S continues on September 5th with the first semifinal: Neeb vs TY.
Neeb vs TY: Wednesday, Sep 05 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)
Maru vs Zest: Saturday, Sep 08 4:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)
Hoping for a Maru vs TY finals. My two favourite players. For the first time ever I'll be happy whoever wins--Maru making history with three back to back GSL victories or TY finally clinching a GSL trophy. I was very sad when he lost the finals 4-2 against Zest back in 2014! Edit: 2016
On September 02 2018 19:30 col_jung wrote: Hoping for a Maru vs TY finals. My two favourite players. For the first time ever I'll be happy whoever wins--Maru making history with three back to back GSL victories or TY finally clinching a GSL trophy. I was very sad when he lost the finals 4-2 against Zest back in 2014!
On September 02 2018 19:30 col_jung wrote: Hoping for a Maru vs TY finals. My two favourite players. For the first time ever I'll be happy whoever wins--Maru making history with three back to back GSL victories or TY finally clinching a GSL trophy. I was very sad when he lost the finals 4-2 against Zest back in 2014!
Maru has to be considered the overwhelming favourite for this tournament after his showing vs Gumiho. Only one who might have a good chance against him is TY. But I mean... Probably not. And he should absolutely crush Zest.
On September 02 2018 21:47 freelifeffs wrote: when will zerg finally get the well deserved buffs? revert the last Hydra nerf ffs
Maybe zergs are weak in the GSL, but I swear on any ladder (I play on both KR and NA) I can't for the life of me beat zergs consistently. The ling-bane-hydra mid game is just so tough to crack.
On September 02 2018 21:52 neutralrobot wrote: Maru has to be considered the overwhelming favourite for this tournament after his showing vs Gumiho. Only one who might have a good chance against him is TY. But I mean... Probably not. And he should absolutely crush Zest.
Maru has spent 2 seasons saying TY is the player he wants to avoid the most out of anyone in the Ro16. Imagine he 4-0's him in the finals. That'd be weird.
On September 02 2018 21:52 neutralrobot wrote: Maru has to be considered the overwhelming favourite for this tournament after his showing vs Gumiho. Only one who might have a good chance against him is TY. But I mean... Probably not. And he should absolutely crush Zest.
Maru has spent 2 seasons saying TY is the player he wants to avoid the most out of anyone in the Ro16. Imagine he 4-0's him in the finals. That'd be weird.
And we might get a Code S finals TvT!! It's been a hell of a long time since we've had one of those if I recall. (GSL vs The World isn't the same as Code S finals imo).
Really nice PvP series. Highest level PvP I've seen in quite a while, they both played really well.
Really enjoyed the stasis ward play from Stats in G3, one of the best ways I've seen anyone deal with these super popular and really strong glaive adept attacks. I think he would've been dead 100% if not for those wards. Was close even with them.
Hope Zest has learned from the finals defeat. I think he's much better now than he was then, but Maru is still better.
On September 02 2018 21:52 neutralrobot wrote: Maru has to be considered the overwhelming favourite for this tournament after his showing vs Gumiho. Only one who might have a good chance against him is TY. But I mean... Probably not. And he should absolutely crush Zest.
Maru has spent 2 seasons saying TY is the player he wants to avoid the most out of anyone in the Ro16. Imagine he 4-0's him in the finals. That'd be weird.
lately he mentioned more that he has no confidence in his TvZ. Et voila... no zerg in sight. dispite playing immaculate, a lot of things going his way this year.
On September 02 2018 21:52 neutralrobot wrote: Maru has to be considered the overwhelming favourite for this tournament after his showing vs Gumiho. Only one who might have a good chance against him is TY. But I mean... Probably not. And he should absolutely crush Zest.
Maru has spent 2 seasons saying TY is the player he wants to avoid the most out of anyone in the Ro16. Imagine he 4-0's him in the finals. That'd be weird.
lately he mentioned more that he has no confidence in his TvZ. Et voila... no zerg in sight. dispite playing immaculate, a lot of things going his way this year.
all the great Korean players tended to be excessively humble, except for like MC D:
On September 02 2018 21:52 neutralrobot wrote: Maru has to be considered the overwhelming favourite for this tournament after his showing vs Gumiho. Only one who might have a good chance against him is TY. But I mean... Probably not. And he should absolutely crush Zest.
Maru has spent 2 seasons saying TY is the player he wants to avoid the most out of anyone in the Ro16. Imagine he 4-0's him in the finals. That'd be weird.
lately he mentioned more that he has no confidence in his TvZ. Et voila... no zerg in sight. dispite playing immaculate, a lot of things going his way this year.
all the great Korean players tended to be excessively humble, except for like MC D:
This Maru vs GuMiho series really made me reconsider what I thought of Maru... GuMiho's TvT has always been good, Maru was away for mutiple days in the Asian Games (which hardly counts as practice), AND he's always saying he doesn't like TvT.
On September 02 2018 21:52 neutralrobot wrote: Maru has to be considered the overwhelming favourite for this tournament after his showing vs Gumiho. Only one who might have a good chance against him is TY. But I mean... Probably not. And he should absolutely crush Zest.
Maru has spent 2 seasons saying TY is the player he wants to avoid the most out of anyone in the Ro16. Imagine he 4-0's him in the finals. That'd be weird.
lately he mentioned more that he has no confidence in his TvZ. Et voila... no zerg in sight. dispite playing immaculate, a lot of things going his way this year.
all the great Korean players tended to be excessively humble, except for like MC D:
On September 02 2018 21:52 neutralrobot wrote: Maru has to be considered the overwhelming favourite for this tournament after his showing vs Gumiho. Only one who might have a good chance against him is TY. But I mean... Probably not. And he should absolutely crush Zest.
Maru has spent 2 seasons saying TY is the player he wants to avoid the most out of anyone in the Ro16. Imagine he 4-0's him in the finals. That'd be weird.
lately he mentioned more that he has no confidence in his TvZ. Et voila... no zerg in sight. dispite playing immaculate, a lot of things going his way this year.
all the great Korean players tended to be excessively humble, except for like MC D:
On September 02 2018 19:30 col_jung wrote: Hoping for a Maru vs TY finals. My two favourite players. For the first time ever I'll be happy whoever wins--Maru making history with three back to back GSL victories or TY finally clinching a GSL trophy. I was very sad when he lost the finals 4-2 against Zest back in 2014!
On September 02 2018 23:58 Olli wrote: Really nice PvP series. Highest level PvP I've seen in quite a while, they both played really well.
Really enjoyed the stasis ward play from Stats in G3, one of the best ways I've seen anyone deal with these super popular and really strong glaive adept attacks. I think he would've been dead 100% if not for those wards. Was close even with them.
I'll second that. Phenomenal Stasis play.
On September 03 2018 03:19 Kurao wrote: I would love a TY vs Maru TvT finals! Discounting the GSL vs the World in 2017, there hasn't been a TvT finals in a GSL since Mvp vs MMA in 2011.
Yikes.
Eh, there just haven't been that many mirrors in the finals at all, outside of Brood Lord/Infestor and GomTvT.
On September 03 2018 00:28 Fran_ wrote: Zest is better than Stats for Maru.
Really? How so? Because Stats has actually manated to beat Maru recently at the GSL vs World tournament. Last time Zest played Maru he got bopped. I love Zest too, but he's not in his peak form to beat a Maru that has been just crushing everyone.
On September 03 2018 00:28 Fran_ wrote: Zest is better than Stats for Maru.
Really? How so? Because Stats has actually manated to beat Maru recently at the GSL vs World tournament. Last time Zest played Maru he got bopped. I love Zest too, but he's not in his peak form to beat a Maru that has been just crushing everyone.
On September 03 2018 03:19 Kurao wrote: I would love a TY vs Maru TvT finals! Discounting the GSL vs the World in 2017, there hasn't been a TvT finals in a GSL since Mvp vs MMA in 2011.
Yikes.
This saddens me deeply.
OT: I was surprised that Zest beat Stats, but fair play to the lad. I think Neeb has a shot at beating TY, not so sure about Maru though.
So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
Maru is so arrogant for a sweet kid.
Maru was ahead economically indeed but by a small margin as Gumi was on 4 bases as well. Maru's midgame right around the time he took his 4th revolved around defending everywhere with his tanks and retain air superiority. It was a well thought out strategy because Gumi was not prepared for getting pushed back so hard and so fast since he was expecting a full mech comp.
Due to the complete switch Maru would be able to take fights at his will since he was at 2-2-2-2 while Gumi must have been trying to get more air and marauders to counter mech which would totally not work against Maru's army.
At that level nobody would go out of their way to just humiliate or style on an opponent THAT impulsively.
I am pretty sure this is not the first time we have seen this. As I quoted earlier, Fantasy played this against Life for the first time in proleague and had revealed this to have been Oov's idea in an interview. This style was done by Maru as well following Fantasy in the proleague but didn't win that match.
On September 03 2018 18:22 [F_]aths wrote: Zest had a shaky win versus Stats, but he won nonetheless. I need him to be mentally prepared for the Maru rematch.
Hard to be mentally prepared for a crushing defeat, but I think Zest can find a way to survive the humiliation.
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
Maru is so arrogant for a sweet kid.
At that level nobody would go out of their way to just humiliate or style on an opponent THAT impulsively.
Maru is the kind of player that would, and has done in the past. But I don't see why he would try to humiliate Gumi here, I think the bio switch was well planned.
On September 03 2018 18:22 [F_]aths wrote: Zest had a shaky win versus Stats, but he won nonetheless. I need him to be mentally prepared for the Maru rematch.
Wouldn't call it shaky. It was a top level PvP between two of the very best. Stats played a great series and nobody could've had any complaints had he won it. Small margins made all the difference.
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
Maru is so arrogant for a sweet kid.
No idea why people think he's a sweet kid, he's a real piece of shit
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
Maru is so arrogant for a sweet kid.
No idea why people think he's a sweet kid, he's a real piece of shit
Beautiful world of starcraft 2 community and TL forum. Very nice.
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
Maru is so arrogant for a sweet kid.
No idea why people think he's a sweet kid, he's a real piece of shit
Beautiful world of starcraft 2 community and TL forum. Very nice.
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
Maru is so arrogant for a sweet kid.
No idea why people think he's a sweet kid, he's a real piece of shit
User was warned for this post.
Scumbag made his teammate and best friend Creator cry.
On September 03 2018 17:48 sneakyfox wrote: So does anyone actually think it was a clever strategic move for Maru to add 7 rax and double bio upgrades midway through the final game? To me it just looked like he was so far ahead he could do whatever he pleased and decided to add some extra weight to the humiliation.
Maru is so arrogant for a sweet kid.
At that level nobody would go out of their way to just humiliate or style on an opponent THAT impulsively.
Maru is the kind of player that would, and has done in the past. But I don't see why he would try to humiliate Gumi here, I think the bio switch was well planned.
yeah I mean, any argument as to whether it was strategic vs. showing off should be answered by the fact that having loads of marines helped him a lot. they negate a lot of what gumiho would be thinking he needed in that moment - marauders and vikings.
and I am sure he has "styled" in the past but I'm not sure we've ever seen maru do something that required that much investment in game that we could say was pure style and not smart strategically. it's a bigger decision than dropping mules on an opponent or something, and the game wasn't over yet so it's not similar to times he may have built CCs across the map (I think this happened at least once in a tvp maru had dominated)
This was like 2 YEARS AGO, and this is a TvZ, SKY MECH, into bio.
He ends up killing Solar before the bio even comes into play....
Two years later, and he pulls it on a GSL champion Terran, who is the BEST mech-er?
If people weren't so invested in the same damn meta game plays, if the players actually experimented instead of just everyone stealing the same builds mindlessly over and over, the game COULD be a lot more dynamic.
Baffled me watching the cast listening to Artosis, " I've never seen this before.." I'm like dude, you do this shit for a living, lol.
I actually really believe Maru when he said he didn't really practice, and I believe Rouge when he says he often wondered JUST HOW GOOD Maru could be if he actually DID practice...
On September 04 2018 15:36 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: This was like 2 YEARS AGO, and this is a TvZ, SKY MECH, into bio.
He ends up killing Solar before the bio even comes into play....
Two years later, and he pulls it on a GSL champion Terran, who is the BEST mech-er?
If people weren't so invested in the same damn meta game plays, if the players actually experimented instead of just everyone stealing the same builds mindlessly over and over, the game COULD be a lot more dynamic.
Baffled me watching the cast listening to Artosis, " I've never seen this before.." I'm like dude, you do this shit for a living, lol.
This is the game I think this was done for the first time....
My point is it's not done more because of the " IDEA" that you can't, or it's the wrong way to play, or its bad, or all this other shit imagined by people who aren't actually that good at the game.
Like I said, that match was TWO years ago, how many times you think Maru tried it in practice? There's only so many times he can try it vs Cure in practice... Gumiho is better than Cure.....
Like his proxy builds, Maru has been doing MACRO proxy two rax builds since HOTS. Facts. How many times you think he pulls it in practice?
His mass widow mine builds, he was the first I saw do the speed banshee build, the FIRST Terran to figure out the new Raven... It's clear the guy really gets the game on a level the other Terrans, save for TY don't.......
I guess I'm saying, you shouldn't look at that game, and assume that wasn't a legit strategy that Maru mapped out, because he's been doing it AT LEAST for TWO years..... Vs at least Terran and Zerg....
Not televised, but this TvT strategy had showed up on the Korean ladder a bit prior to Maru's match, so it has been in circulation. It looks very strong, the bio switch adds a lot of punishment tools that mech usually lacks.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSL/2018/gsls3banner738px.jpg)
Maru took a major stride on his quest for a third consecutive Code S title, sweeping ![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSL/2018/gsls3bracket1_3.png)
