EPT
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After a duo of Zergs advanced from Group A on Monday, it was Terran's time to shine in Group B. Maru advanced in first place as many fans expected, but there was a surprise in the race for the second place spot as Ryung upset Zest to claim a round-of-10 spot. The deciding game between Ryung and Zest was especially dramatic, with Ryung recovering from a devastating cannon-rush to win a miracle victory. Though Zest has been able to delay his military service for longer than many fans have expected, it may unfortunately be the case that this was truly his last Code S tournament.
Last place player Armani didn't make much of an impact on the group as he went out in last place without a win, but he did manage to push Maru to the brink of defeat on Pride of Altaris before blowing his lead with an Ultralisk tech-switch. Still, Armani has reason to be pleased outside of the GSL—in a video package, he revealed that Ryung gifted him an undisclosed amount of money as thanks for "giving" him the replacement spot at IEM Katowice that led to a deep RO12 run.
There were a few patch-specific twists that were worth pointing out. First, there was Zest's 3-base Glaive-Adept into mass Void Rays against Armani. Zest was able to sacrifice a lot of Adepts in early game harassment and still safely transition into mass Void Rays because he didn't fear a Queen-walk counter-attack. Armani tried this counter-attack anyway, but without transfuse, he couldn't get past the Void Rays. Another cute strategy was Armani's Ravager + Queen + drop-Overlord all-in against Maru. While this failed because he seemed to misread Maru's strategy, it was a fun example of how players might try to use the Overlord spread-Creep ability to enable new all-ins.
Code S will continue on Monday, Mar 28 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00) with Group C of the RO20, featuring Rogue, NightMare, ByuN, and Zoun.
Match Recaps
Initial Match #1: Zest [0 - 2] Ryung
Game 1 - Glittering Ashes: Zest opened with an Oracle into Blink-Stalkers, looking to play a mass Gateway unit style with basically no splash-damage at all. On the other hand, Ryung was content to play very safe and passive, staying on three bases for a long time and refusing to spread himself thin by taking his fourth base too quickly. This worked out quite well for Ryung as Zest couldn't really find any opening to do damage, even after adding Blink-DT's to his army.
Once Ryung was nearly maxed out and had Ghosts in his army, he moved out and started establishing map control. Zest tried to get in some Zealot run-by's to create chaos, but Ryung kept troops back on defense and didn't let things get out of control. Not surprisingly, most of the skirmishes and trades went Ryung's way, but he wasn't in any hurry to finish Zest off (refusing to give him an opening to basetrade). In a rather anticlimactic conclusion, Zest just GG'd out without a final battle after determining he didn't have much of a chance to win (158 vs 193 supply at the time of the GG).
Game 2 - Roughneck: Zest opened with a defensive Blink build, and this time teched up quickly to Storm. Meanwhile, Ryung played similarly to game one, playing it safe and looking to build up as big an army as possible on three bases before making any major moves. Zest didn't do anything immediately with his fast Storm, but eventually put together a force of Zealot-Stalker-Templar for an attack. While Ryung was able to hold on defense, the trades were good for Zest and he was able to establish key expansions and prepare his tech switch to Disruptors and Carriers.
It didn't seem like Ryung had much of a window to attack with his maxed-out army before Carriers finished warping in, but somehow he found a perfect, game-winning attack. Zest had much of his supply tied up in warping Carriers and in a big squad of Zealots looking for a backdoor attack, leaving him relying heavily on four Disruptors to deter any Terran offensive. Ryung caught these Disruptors slightly out of position and went for a daring charge, gunning the Disruptors down before they could use their Novas. With the splash-damage backbone of his army gone, Zest had no means to stop the massive bio force and had to GG.
Initial Match #2: Armani [0 - 2] Maru
Game 1 - Pride of Altaris: Maru went for a CC-first opener into bio play, while Armani looked to play a Muta-Ling-Bane style with a high Drone count. Armani set himself up quite nicely for his plan, stopping Maru's Hellion-Banshee harassment and early-game Tank push without taking significant losses. He proved to be quite good at the swarming Muta-Ling-Bane style, slamming Maru with constant attacks and even taking out his fourth base at a critical juncture.
It really seemed like Armani might achieve an impressive victory where Maru barely threatened him at all, but one poor Ultralisk tech-switch was enough to end his dream of an upset. Despite getting pummeled all game, Maru had still been able to amass a deadly army of bio with Thor and Ghost support for a last-ditch attack. Ultralisks were maybe the worst possible unit to confront this deadly force with, and Armani was unfortunately forced to surrender after playing very well for 90% of the game.
Game 2 - Berlingrad: Maru played a more standard Banshee-Hellion opener, while Armani went for a creative all-in with Zerglings, Ravagers, and Queens flying in a drop-upgraded Overlord (using its Generate Creep ability to enable Transfuse). While the idea behind the strategy was clever, it seemed like Armani made a bad read—perhaps getting fooled by Maru faking Cloak research and canceling it—as he ran into way more Marines than he could possibly break through. The all-in was easily shut down by Maru, and after the GG, the camera showed Armani looking quite perplexed as he went over the replay.
Winners' Match: Ryung [0 - 2] Maru
Game 1 - Curious Minds: Maru opened up with some 1 Medivac-1 Cyclone harassment, using his micro pin down Ryung despite throwing away his first two Reapers in a micro mistake. This pressure let Maru set up a Tank line outside Ryung's natural, which in turn let him establish a much faster third base. Ryung was patient, waiting to break out with a Tank and Raven-heavy army. Maru's Tank line was smashed in this breakout attack, and it looked like he was in a dangerous position as he was seriously behind in high-tech units.
However, Maru had been much quicker about transitioning to Marine-Medivac and even had 1/1 upgrades. He made the best move possible in that situation: he countered Ryung's advancing Tanks with a basetrade. It was that awkward phase of the game where Marines with stim can push much faster than a mid-size army of tanks, and he ended up running circles around Ryung in the ensuing demolition derby.
Game 2 - Hardwire: This time around both players went for very passive build-ups in the early and mid-games, massing similar Marine-Tank-Viking armies. Ryung made the first big aggressive move after the twelve minute mark, bringing his main army to lay siege to one of Maru's outlying bases. Ryung had the upper hand in army composition—predicting the race to the late game, he had discarded many of his Marines and had a higher proportion of Tanks and Vikings in his army. Still, giving up on a single base at this stage wasn't a big deal for Maru, and he adapted to the situation by going Viking-heavy himself. Maru forced Ryung into a major Viking vs Viking battle in the skies, and with superior numbers and better Raven use, Maru was able to crush Ryung's force and establish air superiority.
In typical Maru fashion, he played his air advantage very slowly and methodically, first securing more expansions on his half of the map before finally pushing into Ryung's territory and taking down some outlying expansions. Instead of pressing on too hard or going for the kill, Maru decided to use his significant advantages to transition into Battlecruisers. This little period where much supply was being eaten up by constructing BC's actually gave Ryung a chance to counter-attack, and he did enough economic damage to Maru to give himself a foothold in the game. However, without the ability to realistically field Vikings (due to Maru's control of the air), Ryung was ultimately doomed in the end. Marine-Tank was woefully insufficient to fight against Maru's fleet once the BC-count started to balloon out of control, and Ryung eventually had GG out.
After the match, Maru talked about how his unexpected late-game TvT loss to Dream at IEM Katowice had been a learning experience, and that he had since shored up his weaknesses.
Losers' Match: Armani [0 - 2] Zest
Game 1 - Pride of Altaris: Armani went for a fast gold expansion as is popular on Pride of Altaris, while Zest opened by going for an Oracle into Glaive Adepts. Zest's follow-up here was rather unusual, taking a fast third base and while not getting a Robotics at all. This seemed to confuse Armani, and he took a significant amount of Drone damage against an Adept 'timing' that wasn't particularly fast or involve all that many units.
After belatedly cleaning up the Adepts with Roaches, Armani decided he would counter with a big all-in of Queens, Roaches, and Ravagers. However, in the meanwhile, Zest had added more Stargates and started on mass Void Ray production. At first glance, Zest seemed incredibly vulnerable after losing his Adepts, but thanks to the Transfuse nerf, he actually didn't really need that many Void Rays in order to hold off Armani's all-in and force the GG.
Game 2 - Glittering Ashes: Zest opted for a 2 Stargate strategy in game two, following up some Oracles and Voids with a very fast transition to 3-Stargate Carriers with barely any ground defense. It seemed like he might pay the price when Armani went for Nydus Worms, but great patrolling with Oracles and Void Rays managed to catch and kill the first Worm before it could complete. Armani made a few more attempts to get Nyduses up, but transitioned into Spire knowing he had missed the opportunity to really hurt Zest with a ground attack.
Once he had six Carriers and plenty of Void Ray-Archon-Zealot support, Zest pushed into Armani's territory to go for the kill. Armani managed to barely survive by spamming out mass Corruptors on defense, but that left him with an awkward and imbalanced army composition. Zest switched to a much more ground-focused army with Archons and Templars, and finished Armani off with his next attack.
Decider Match: Zest [1 - 2] Ryung
Game 1 - Roughneck: Ryung went for a mild mine-drop build with just two Widow Mines, while Zest opened up with his own drop of Dark Templars. The exchange went way better for Zest, as he killed 10 SCVs while losing just a single Probe to Mines. Off this advantage, Zest played what was probably his most conventional follow-up yet, getting both Storm and Disruptor tech while preparing a safe transition to Carriers. Ryung was probably going to play defensively off three bases no matter what happened, but his poor start didn't give him much of a choice but to turtle until he had a near-max army.
In a callback to the previous game the two players had on Roughneck, Ryung yet again found a gap in Zest's defenses before Carriers were out, and again jumped on four Disruptors that were out of position. However, Zest had more units backing him up this time, and he only lost a single expansion for his mistake—not the entire game. Things got very rough for Ryung once Carriers were out as they were supported by Templars and Archons on the ground. Ryung took heavy losses in his first big fight against the fully assembled Protoss force, and it looked like Zest could easily snowball his way into a victory. However, Zest managed to throw the game in a sequence of two awful fights. First, he tried to fight bio when his Templar weren't there, which forced him to make a hasty retreat. Then, when he tried to fight again with his supporting Templars in a Prism, he let the Prism fly too far forward and it got shot out of the sky. And, just like that, Zest lost a game that had looked like a certain victory.
Game 2 - Glittering Ashes: Zest opened with a committed 4-Gate Blink-Stalker build off two bases and found good return on his investment by picking off several Terran units and SCVs. Having done significant damage, Zest felt comfortable taking his third base, teching up to Colossus and Chargelots, and preparing for his next assault. Another attack with two Colossus was enough to break Ryung's defenses completely, tying the series 1-1.
Game 3 - Hardwire: Zest gambled on a Cannon rush below the Terran ramp, and it paid off big as Ryung discovered it quite late. Zest managed to chain further Cannons along and even get some in range of the Command Center, forcing a lift off and long-distance mining from Ryung. Still, Ryung managed to avoid losing the game outright, halting the further advance of cannons with a Bunker and then squeezing out two Cyclones to start the slow process of removing the cannons from his main.
Zest had expanded behind all this, and despite being a bit behind in tech, he was pretty far ahead overall. Again, Ryung played very conservatively and defensively as he tried to claw his way back into the game, and Zest took advantage of this by cutting corners and expanding aggressively, assuming there would be no all-in from Ryung.
Ryung had trouble even taking his third base, running into a deadly group of Gateway units and Templars. Still, he managed to establish a third base eventually, and he stuck to the game plan of turtling and building up a maxed-out bio army. It still seemed like a hopeless venture, as Zest had a great economy and used it to build a deathball of Carriers supported by every single Protoss splash-damage unit. He demonstrated the might of this force when Ryung tried to take his fourth base, smashing the bio with his overabundance of AOE damage.
However, that ended up being the last good fight Zest would take in the whole game. Perhaps Zest was overconfident—he engaged in a series of wasteful attacks through narrow choke points into spread out Terran forces, taking heavy damage each time. Even with so many failed attacks, Zest's advantage was so large that it seemed impossible that he'd actually lose… …but eventually he worked his way through his considerable bank and was left with a final army centered around mass Archons. EMP's made short work of that army, leaving Zest no choice but to GG out for possibly his last time in GSL Code S.
