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2021 Global StarCraft II League: Super Tournament 2Super Tournament #2 got off to an explosive start, with the underdogs triumphing in three out of four matches on day one.
This wave of upsets couldn't have come at a worse time for TY, whose imminent military service made Super Tournament #2 his unofficial farewell tour. If TY had any dreams of going out in a blaze of glory, they were promptly extinguished by sOs, who won in brutal 3-0 sweep. In fact, the series would have made more sense as a tribute match for sOs, who took the first two games in typically cheesy fashion with proxy Void Ray strategies.
Though TY wasn't able to salvage a map point in his final GSL series, maybe he'll find some solace in the fact that he showed the fans one of the most thrilling games of the entire year. TY pulled out out his signature mech vs Protoss strategy in game three, using it to pull ahead to a massive mid-game lead. It seemed like TY could simply unsiege all his Tanks and A-move his way to victory, but instead he decided to play extremely passively and prepared a switch to mass Battlecruisers. This gave sOs a free pass to expand all over the map, leading to a chaotic and action-packed late-game where sOs tried to counter the firepower of TY's Battlecruisers with the mobility of Zealot-Stalker. The game came down to what could be described as a 20 minute long basetrade, with sOs just barely eking out a victory in the end. While it may not have been a fitting sendoff for one of the great GSL players of LotV, it was certainly a wildly entertaining one.
While sOs taking down TY could have been considered a mild upset (going by their head-to-head record, some fans may have even seen sOs as the favorite), there were far bigger surprises on the day one card. TY's old student SpeCial did him proud, defying his 2-8 all-time record against INnoVation to take a 3-2 victory. While SpeCial is well-known as a clever buildsmith, it was his all around game-sense in macro games that shined in his triumph over the machine.
Even with that result in mind, the biggest upset of the night may have been Zoun taking his second ever victory over Dark (his first in major tournaments), coming back from a 0-2 to deficit to score a shocking 3-2 reverse sweep. Zoun looked like toast after the first two games, where his Glaive-Adept openers were scouted and completely shut down. However, Zoun's switch to Stargate openers for the remaining three games changed his fortunes. Seeing Stargate units seemed to goad Dark into going for early-mid game busts, all of which failed miserably. From there, Zoun was more than competent enough to snowball his leads into victories, patiently assembling high-tech Protoss armies that Dark couldn't handle.
The only match that went chalk was the first one, where Rogue scored a clinical 3-1 victory over Solar. After the matches, Rogue did a complete 180 on his previous comments that he'd be taking it easy for the Super Tournament, talking about how he was enjoying StarCraft II lately and how he wanted to win the entire tournament.
Super Tournament #2 will continue on Thursday, May 20 8:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) with day two of the RO16, featuring Dream vs Armani, Bunny vs ByuN, Trap vs Cure, and RagnaroK vs Maru.
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