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Code S RO16: Dark, Dear advance to the RO8

Forum Index > SC2 General
11 CommentsPost a Reply
TL.net ESPORTS
Profile Joined July 2011
4 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-05-16 22:28:51
May 07 2020 07:59 GMT
#1
[image loading]2020 Global StarCraft II League: Code S Season 1


The round of sixteen kicked off with Dark and Dear advancing from Group A at the expense of Scarlett and TaeJa. Quite the predictable result, one might think. However, the way the group arrived at that conclusion was anything but expected.

Dark, despite having hand-picked TaeJa as his first opponent during the group selections, barely survived by the skin of his teeth in their opening match. The first game saw Dark try to force an unorthodox Hydra-Roach-Lurker-Viper army, which TaeJa responded to by gleefully exploiting the composition's lack of mobility. TaeJa was basically able to play exclusively on Dark's half of the map, expanding at will while Dark vainly tried to put out fires the Terran army was setting everywhere. Eventually, Dark ran out of steam, giving TaeJa a previously unthinkable macro-game win against the BlizzCon champion.

Realizing the weakness of his previous army, Dark changed things up in game two by going for Muta-Ling-Bane (Dark later said that he had wanted to present a new meta in game one, but trashed the idea instantly after seeing its shortcomings). Things went just barely better for Dark in the mid-game this time around, but it was enough for him weather TaeJa's constant attacks and pull out a late-game victory with Ultralisks.




Game three was tightly contested as well. This time around, Dark's army was a retro Ravager-Bane-Ling composition, which was barely able to keep TaeJa's Marines and Tanks from running him over. Dark was constantly forced to abandon bases while re-expanding elsewhere, trying to scrounge together enough money for upgrades and Hive units.

The winning move for Dark ended up being constant backdoor attacks. TaeJa had been less than diligent on defense in game two, which might have been the reason Dark tunnel-visioned on sending swarms Zerglings to attack TaeJa's under-defended expansions (that, or the fact that a hasty fight against the Terran main army could have turned into an instant loss). In any case, Dark's backdoor attacks slowly turned the tables, making it so TaeJa was the player slowly losing economy and army over time. Perhaps a bit shaken by the previous two games, Dark played one of the strangest, most patient ending sequences we've seen from him. He continued to eschew big battles while constantly chipping away at the unguarded parts of Terran territory. Slowly, but surely, TaeJa saw his army and economy erode away until he had no choice but to surrender.

Scarlett pulled off an upset against Dear in the other opening match, although one might say we should have seen it coming. After getting dissected by Dear's Oracles and Adepts in game one, Scarlett decided it was time to swap to the all-in heavy approach that allowed her to upset Rogue in the RO24. In game two, Scarlett used a Bly-esque proxy-Hatchery Ravager all-in to punch through Dear's defenses. In game three, Dear sensed something was up—unfortunately for him, it was a Ling-Bane all-in, and not the Roach-Ravager all-in he was expecting.

That set up a winners match between Dark and Scarlett, with Scarlett being yet another one of the players that Dark had singled out as a desirable opponent. Yet again, Dark had to eat crow in game one—surprisingly enough, Scarlett didn't need to cheese, winning in a more or less straight-up game. Ironically, things went downhill for Scarlett once she started to use her shadier tactics. In game two, a fast +1 melee-upgraded ling "timing" fell apart before it even got off the ground, and Dark cleaned up with Ravager-Zergling. In game three, Scarlett went for her trusty ace in the hole: the 12-pool offensive spine crawler all-in. However, Dark scouted it in time to rally his defenses and take the series, advancing to the quarterfinals in first place.

The train of cheeses didn't stop there, as TaeJa went old-school in the losers match against Dear. Three times in a row, TaeJa proxied all of his army production buildings in a nook of the map, trying to cheese down Dear with a mixed-tech army reminiscent of the 1-1-1 from Wings of Liberty. The first time around, it worked beautifully, catching Dear off-guard as intended. The second time around, Dear had things figured out. He sent a small detachment of units to camp the proxied buildings, putting TaeJa in an impossible position of having to both attack but also defend his proxied production buildings. The third time around, Dear decided he wasn't even going to waste his time with cute tactics. He hunted the proxy early, killing two SCV's sent to build the first Barracks and preventing its completion. This effectively ended the game before the two-minute mark, though TaeJa waited until 4:28 to actually GG.

That set up a rematch between Dear and Scarlett with the second quarterfinal spot on the line. Scarlett tried to be tricky again in game one, going for some off-tempo Speedlings to cancel Dear's third base alongside an Overlord drop. Unfortunately for Scarlett, there was no third base to counter, and she was runover by Dear's bizarre Disruptor drop into Disruptor-Colossus attack off two-bases (perhaps the most creative strategy of the night). The series ended on an anticlimactic note in game two, with Dear getting an early economic advantage with Glaive-upgraded Adepts. Scarlett tried to play out a normal macro game from there, but couldn't stop a player of Dear's caliber from snowballing his advantage into a straight-forward win.

Recommended games: The initial series between TaeJa and Dark should be a delight for nostalgic fans, or supporters of the Team Liquid squad in general. It might not be the greatest viewing for Zerg fans, however, who might wonder if #TerranPatch is actually giving Terrans free units.

Coming up: The Code S RO16 will resume on Saturday, May 09 4:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) with TY, Solar, Stats, and Cure competing in Group B.
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TL+ Member
Slydie
Profile Joined August 2013
1923 Posts
May 07 2020 08:17 GMT
#2
Isn't it #terranmaps rather than #terranpatch?
Buff the siegetank
col_jung
Profile Joined October 2017
139 Posts
May 07 2020 08:21 GMT
#3
Taeja was bloody amazing. His multi-pronged attacks reminded me of Maru's play in the last couple of games vs Dark in the Super Tournament Grand Finals.

Ps wrong group results in the post
TheOneAboveU
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Germany3367 Posts
May 07 2020 08:33 GMT
#4
"Dark was constantly forced to abandon bases while re-expanding elsewhere, trying to scrounge together enough money for upgrades and Hive units."

This sounds just like my ZvTs...
Moderatoralias TripleM | @TL_TripleM | Big Dark Energy!
Fango
Profile Joined July 2016
United Kingdom8987 Posts
May 07 2020 09:43 GMT
#5
Nice to see the hype trains come to a dead stop where they belong
Zest, sOs, PartinG, Dark, and Maru are the real champs. ROOT_herO is overrated. Snute, Serral, and Scarlett are the foreigner GOATs
Vindicare605
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United States16071 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-05-07 10:17:06
May 07 2020 10:12 GMT
#6
Should be mentioned that Dark said after the games in his winner's interview that he woke up with his wrist bothering him. He also did take a break mid match with Taeja grasping his wrist as he did. That might explain why he looked so much weaker than he normally does. So going forward we should expect to see stronger performances than what we got in this group from him.

He still advanced in first place, but this group looked way more competitive than it maybe should have if he's not lying about his wrist pain.
aka: KTVindicare the Geeky Bartender
BisuDagger
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Bisutopia19257 Posts
May 07 2020 12:23 GMT
#7
On May 07 2020 19:12 Vindicare605 wrote:
Should be mentioned that Dark said after the games in his winner's interview that he woke up with his wrist bothering him. He also did take a break mid match with Taeja grasping his wrist as he did. That might explain why he looked so much weaker than he normally does. So going forward we should expect to see stronger performances than what we got in this group from him.

He still advanced in first place, but this group looked way more competitive than it maybe should have if he's not lying about his wrist pain.

I missed that part. Wrist pain sucks, so I hope it doesn't bother him in the next round. As for the group looking competitive, it actually looked completely noncompetitive. After the first phenomenal series, it was just a bunch of cheeses/rush strats in more then 50% of the games. I hope group B goes better then this one.
ModeratorFormer Afreeca Starleague Caster: http://afreeca.tv/ASL2ENG2
yubo56
Profile Joined May 2014
688 Posts
May 07 2020 14:07 GMT
#8
Anybody know why Dark chose a Ro16 match to find out that his "new meta" was unviable? Seems like it should have been pretty obvious from running it on ladder even once or twice, it seems like most of the top tier Terrans would have been able to exploit it handily (though maybe not at Taeja's level).

I'm told Solar made a similar comp almost work vs Maru, so maybe I'm missing something, or maybe Dark is
Jung Yoon Jong fighting, even after retirement! Feel better soon.
darklycid
Profile Joined May 2014
3512 Posts
May 07 2020 14:08 GMT
#9
On May 07 2020 23:07 yubo56 wrote:
Anybody know why Dark chose a Ro16 match to find out that his "new meta" was unviable? Seems like it should have been pretty obvious from running it on ladder even once or twice, it seems like most of the top tier Terrans would have been able to exploit it handily (though maybe not at Taeja's level).

I'm told Solar made a similar comp almost work vs Maru, so maybe I'm missing something, or maybe Dark is

He also said he had a bad day, so maybe it worked on ladder when he was more crisp.
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
May 07 2020 15:27 GMT
#10
On May 07 2020 17:17 Slydie wrote:
Isn't it #terranmaps rather than #terranpatch?


It's not just the maps. The map pool is quite good for terran obviously with Purity and Industry being simply broken in TvZ and Nightshade being very good.

But every single map has been steadily swinging in terran's favour as time goes on. Simulacrum was pretty decent for zerg last season but terran has been winning more and more recently (and the alterations it got are only part of it).

Ever Dream is your textbook zerg favoured map, basically a less imba version of World of Sleepers, but terran is now at fifty percent in TvZ on it and winning more and more.

At this point terran is at least a slight favourite in TvZ on ever single ladder map, and it would probably take another World of Sleepers to get another zerg favoured map.

That being said the meta does shift and it's obviously possible for zergs to figure stuff out and swing the winrates back without balance changes, but as things are #terranpatch holds true and a decently terran favoured map pool (which it still is) doesn't explain everything.
Lorning *
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Belgica34432 Posts
May 07 2020 22:43 GMT
#11
Sorry but wat was TaeJa thinking...
Community News
TL+ Member
Fango
Profile Joined July 2016
United Kingdom8987 Posts
May 07 2020 23:50 GMT
#12
On May 08 2020 07:43 Lorning wrote:
Sorry but wat was TaeJa thinking...

He was thinking his best bet was to to all out on one matchup and just prepare one cheese for the other
Zest, sOs, PartinG, Dark, and Maru are the real champs. ROOT_herO is overrated. Snute, Serral, and Scarlett are the foreigner GOATs
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