EPT
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Zerg success was the theme at IEM Katowice, the conclusion to the 2021/22 ESL Pro Tour. That story continued as the 2022/23 cycle of professional StarCraft II kicked off, with Dark and DongRaeGu advancing from the opening group of Code S Season 1. Unfortunately for Protoss and Terran fans, Classic and Dream were eliminated and will have to bide their time until next season. Dark and DRG will move on to the newly formed round-robin group stage of the tournament, which is one of the most significant new additions to GSL Code S (read about the details here).
While Dark said he was worried about his tough group in his post-match interview, it didn't quite align with the dominating quality of his matches. Dark took down both Classic and DRG by 2-0 scorelines, hardly looking to be in any danger of losing in his four games.
DongRaeGu had a rockier path to advancement. While he defeated Dream handily in his initial match with strong defense against proxy-Barracks cheeses, he was beat down by Dark in the winners' match as mentioned above. A rather shocking brain-fart put him down 0-1 in the decider match against Classic, as he literally forgot about the recent nerf to Queen-transfuse off Creep (admitted in his post-match interview). DongRaeGu was reminded the hard way when he tried to counter Classic's proxy-Tempest build with slow Queens off Creep.
Fortunately for DRG, he didn't pay the ultimate price for such a comical mistake. He gathered himself in the following two games, and overwhelmed Classic with a Mutalisk-heavy style to secure his advancement to the RO10.
Code S will continue on Thursday, Mar 24 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00) with Group B of the RO20, featuring Zest, Ryung, Armani, and Maru.
Match Recaps
Initial Match #1: Dark [2 - 0] Classic
Game 1 - Hardwire: Despite the Void Ray nerfs, Classic played a 2 Stargate Void Ray opener to start. On the other hand, Dark went for a very fast Nydus-Queen-Zergling all-in off three bases. Dark's extremely quick timing hit before Classic really thought about scouting for all-ins (his Oracle and Void Ray were picking at stuff at the edges of Zerg territory, not going in for deep scouts), and a sneaky Overseer gave him easy vision into the Protoss main. It was all over once the Nydus Worms started spewing Zerg units into the Protoss main.
Game 2 - Glittering Ashes: Classic played 2 Stargate Void Rays yet again, while Dark seemed to play normal at first before going into a significantly slower Nydus than in game one. This meant that Classic had plenty of time to scout and prepare for the Worms, but it might just have been a mind-game from Dark as he quickly pivoted to Mutalisks without committing much to his Nydus attacks.
Dark's Mutalisks caught Classic somewhat off-guard, doing enough damage to keep Classic on the back foot. He then decided to play very aggressively with Muta-Corruptor-Zergling, and was able to take advantage of Classic's slow reactions on defense to keep him pinned in with constant attacks. While Dark didn't get the best trades, and thought he couldn't stop the Protoss deathball from slowly growing, he did manage to limit Protoss expansions while swallowing up the rest of the map himself. This meant that even though Classic managed to take a few decent trades with his high-tech Skytoss + support units armies, he didn't really have the income to sustain a prolonged fight against Dark. Classic tried to fight on for as long as he could, but he was eventually forced to GG out against a Brood Lord tech switch.
Initial Match #2: Dream [0 - 2] DongRaeGu
Game 1 - Hardwire: Dream decided to go for a triple Barracks all-in, and he lucked out by picking a spot that dodged DRG's first Overlord and completed all three Barracks without Drone interference. However, DongRaeGu's second Overlord did see the proxy in time to let him prepare his defenses, and he used his Drones to pull off a great hold (losing 4 Drones compared to 3 Bunker-building SCV's from Dream). Dream tried to fake an expansion follow-up before pulling all his SCV's for a last-ditch all-in, but DongRaeGu was ready for that too with Spine Crawlers and sealed his victory.
Game 2 - Roughneck: Undaunted by DRG's defense in game one, Dream went for another proxy-build in game two—this time a 2-Barracks version. Despite the rather conservative placement of the Barracks in an unlikely spot (Dream barely proxied at the halfway point on the map), DRG's diligent (and lucky) Drone scouting still uncovered the plot. Caught so early and not even placed particularly close, Dream's strat was unsurprisingly a failure. DRG said in his interview that he guessed Dream might go for an all-in due to mind games he tried to play in the green room, telling him that roughneck was really good for macro play in TvZ.
In any case, starting from such a good position, DRG was able to get into his favored Muta-Ling-Bane swarming-mode with ease. Dream got absolutely brutalized in the mid-game, but somehow managed to survive and establish turtle-mode. DRG reminded us of why he struggles against turtling Terrans with some wasteful attacks as he tried to finish Dream off, but his resource advantage let him overwhelm the Terran without too much trouble in the end.
Winners' Match: Dark [2 - 0] DongRaeGu
Game 1 - Hardwire: What seemed like a normal 3-base vs 3-base scenario was upended by Dark, who surprised DongRaeGu with some faster Zergling aggression than usual. It didn't do any catastrophic damage, so DRG just retook his third and resumed trying to play standard. Dark feigned as if he was playing standard as well, but skipped his Lair to go for a +1 armor attack with Roaches and Banelings. Dark managed to hit the perfect window where DRG was the weakest, sweeping over him with Roaches to force the GG.
Game 2 - Glittering Ashes: After another 3-base vs 3-base start, the two Zergs engaged in protracted Zergling-Baneling knife-fighting in the early game. Dark seemed to come out slightly ahead as things settled down and the two players transitioned into the mid-game. However, the brief calm was broken by a second wave of Ling-Bane aggression from Dark, which completely discombobulated a surprised DRG and put him enormously behind. A simple Roach attack from Dark was enough to finish the 2-0 and clinch him a RO10 berth.
Losers' Match: Classic [2 - 1] Dream
Game 1 - Hardwire: Dream opened up with some mundane Reaper-Bunker harassment in Classic's natural, but it somehow ended up hampering Classic's Zealot-Adept opener a bit more than expected. Also, Dream got away with a relatively greedy opener against Classic's defensive Phoenixes, which meant he went into the mid-game in a very good position.
Despite being in a disadvantageous spot, Classic shrugged it off and decided to go for Carrier tech off three bases anyway (this seemed like a desperation gamble at the time, but it turned out it was just his stubborn PvT gameplan). Unfortunately for Classic, he didn't really have the Colossus-Phoenix count to survive the onslaught of bio in the mid-game. While he did barely squeeze some Carriers out, he had already taken heavy damage by that time. Continued attacks from Dream forced Classic to surrender.
Game 2 - Curious Minds: Classic went for basically the same strategy as the previous game, opening with defensive Phoenix and going into fast Carriers off three bases. But this time, things went really well for him in the early game, as Dream's blind Marine poke up Classic's ramp ended in disaster against the waiting Adepts.
Classic still opted to play things on the safe side with a lot of Batteries and even Cannons (perhaps fearing some kind of SCV-pull timing from Dream), but in any case he was able to assemble his Carrier deathball relatively undisturbed. Dream followed Classic into the late-game and did a decent job of abusing the slow Carriers with hit-and-run attacks, but was eventually sucked into an awful fight as he tried to take out a Protoss expansion. The Carrier-Disruptor-random stuff army completely annihilated the Terran force, prompting a GG from Dream.
Game 3 - Glittering Ashes: Classic played defensive Phoenix-Colossus into Carriers for the third game in a row, and this time Dream responded by playing greedy himself with a very fast Engineering bay and a quick third base. Classic's good scouting allowed him to realize he could afford to be greedier in turn, and ultimately, it ended up looking like Dream had not really 'countered' Classic at all.
Again, the game headed into the late game with Classic assembling his Skytoss deathball without much hassle. Dream used his mobility to his advantage with a couple of maneuvers, but really didn't have any answer to the looming threat of the deathball. Eventually, the Tempest-Carrier force burned a path of destruction through Terran territory, forcing another surrender.
Decider Match: Classic [1 - 2] DongRaeGu
Game 1 - Roughneck: Classic went for a fast proxy-Stargate, failing to get much damage done with his initial Oracle but continuing into 2-Stargate Tempests. DongRaeGu gathered a big early-game force of Queens, Zerglings, and Banelings to try and break the proxy position before too many Tempests were warped in, but somehow forgot that Queens can no longer Transfuse off of creep. Without the healing power of Transfuse, 2 Tempests and some assorted ground units were able to hold off the Zerg forces and prompt DRG to surrender.
Game 2 - Hardwire: Similar to his games against Dark, Classic went for 2 Stargate Voids with an eye to transition quickly into a Carrier-based composition. DongRaeGu went for a fake Queen-walk (which Classic probably overreacted to considering the nerfs) while actually plotting to go for Mutas. Some cute mind games played out when Classic scouted the Spire—DongRaeGu didn't make Mutas right away, nor did Classic make any Phoenixes because he predicted DRG would move off of Mutas. However, DRG countered by making a delayed round of 24 Mutalisks all at once, catching Classic off guard and doing quite a bit of damage in conjunction with a Baneling runby.
Having seized the initiative, DongRaeGu continued to crank out Muta-Ling-Bane-Corruptor for continued attacks into Protoss territory. Though he couldn't finish Classic off directly, he did enough economic damage to force a last-ditch attack from Classic that fell short in the end.
Game 3 - Blackburn: After playing 2 Stargate Voids in most of his matches, Classic finally gave things a twist by opening 1-Stargate and pivoting into fast Chargelots. However, this mind-game wasn't clever enough to fool DongRaeGu, who later said he deduced Classic's intent by using his Zergling scouts to keep tabs on Gateway production at the front. DongRaeGu was completely prepared for the Chargelot harassment Classic had planned, and went into the mid-game with a huge economic advantage.
Classic decided to go for broke and force a quick tech switch to mass Carriers, but it proved to be the wrong move against DongRaeGu's Mutalisk tech. DongRaeGu's flock arrived at an almost completely naked Protoss base, precipitating a series of fierce attacks that ended in Classic's defeat.
Global StarCraft II League/2022/Season 1
