EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSL/2023/codes2/ro8grouparesults.jpg)
The round-of-eight kicked off with
GuMiho advancing in first place from Group A, a result that may not exactly qualify as an upset. GuMiho had already defeated Maru and Solar on his way to a runner-up finish in June's ESL Masters Summer, and he made a strong case that it wasn't a fluke by once again vanquishing the ONSYDE Gaming duo.One caveat is that GuMiho's matches were played under unusual circumstances as he was given an emergency exception to play online. Living over 300km away from Seoul in the city of Mokpo, GuMiho found himself facing unexpected train cancellations due to the recent bout of heavy rain afflicting Korea. After the matches, GuMiho was apologetic to his opponents, acknowledging that playing from home gave him an advantage.
After losing to GuMiho in his initial match,
Maru went through an unfortunate team-kill gauntlet to claim second place. First, he took down old PRIME teammate and friend ByuN, and then defeated current ONSYDE Gaming teammate Solar to lock in his RO4 spot.Code S will resume on Thursday, Jul 20 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00) with Dark, TY, herO, and Cure playing in Group B.
Match Recaps
Initial Match #1: Solar [2-1] ByuN
Game One - Babylon (ByuN win): ByuN went ahead with his usual 2-Barracks Reaper style, this time playing a variant with little early pressure and a fast build up to 3 bases. He proceeded to move out once he had his first two Tanks, setting up a siege at Solar's fourth base. The Tank-friendly terrain worked to ByuN's advantage, as he mauled Solar's attempt to dislodge the forces with Ling-Bane.
While ByuN didn't kill the fourth base, he caused all sorts of havoc and put himself firmly ahead. Follow-up Marine-Tank attacks ended the game at just over the 11:00 mark.
Game Two - Gresvan (Solar win): ByuN got off to another 2-Barracks start, again playing a version that was more mid-game oriented. In fact, ByuN only put on light pressure off of three bases, waiting until he had established four bases to go for an all-out Marine-Tank attack.
Solar attempted to hold the line with Ling-Bane-Hydra, slowly teching up to Lurkers and Vipers behind it. ByuN's unrelenting attacks chipped away at Solar's defenses, and he gradually got the Zerg down to just four bases.
With his back up against the wall, Solar made the decisive move of giving up one of his four remaining bases and sending a huge Ling-Bane force on a backdoor attack. This proved to be the pivotal action of the game, with Solar severely damaging ByuN's economy and stalling his offense.
Since ByuN had gone for a 4-base, 'all-in' he was committed to trying to end the game with whatever infrastructure he had left. Solar continued to buy time against ByuN's depleted economy, and eventually forced him to GG with a large Viper-Lurker force.
Game Three - Royal Blood (Solar win): ByuN finally mixed up his openers by going for a CC-first build. He didn't go for a third Command Center afterward, instead going all-in with a Marine-Tank push off of two bases. Unfortunately for ByuN, Solar's initial defense was spectacular, as he easily stalled the push while launching a painful Ling-Bane backdoor to ravage the two-base Terran economy.
Yet, ByuN somehow still managed to execute a strong push, which actually seemed like it might have game-ending firepower. But, in the end, Solar's defense was sturdy enough to see him through this quasi-crisis, and ByuN had to concede defeat.
Initial Match #2: GuMiho [2-0] Maru
Game One - Ancient Cistern (GuMiho win): Maru opened with 2-Barracks Reapers from his main, while GuMiho opened with a Barracks-Factory-CC opener. After applying some light pressure with Reapers, Maru greedily built a third CC and double Engineering Bays.
This proved to be far too ambitious for even a defensive master like Maru, as he had no hope of stopping GuMiho's fast push with Tanks, Liberators, and two Ravens. GuMiho blasted through Maru's defenses with ease, forcing a sub-10-minute GG.
Game Two - NeoHumanity (GuMiho win): GuMiho started off with a unusual early harassment sequence, starting with a single proxy Barracks for Reapers, followed by two Cyclones with fast Mag-field upgrade, followed by a proxy-Starport Liberator. While this resulted in some fairly effective early harassment for GuMiho, ultimately it was just a footnote as the two players completely bypassed the mid-game to get into an all-out Sky Terran war.
After splitting the map and engaging in a bunch of non-consequential Battlecruiser harassment, the two players finally arrived at the pivotal, game-ending sequence at around the 20 minute mark.
The deciding factor was in the two Terrans' unit compositions. Maru played it more conventionally, supporting a large BC fleet with Vikings and some Ravens. On the other hand, GuMiho took advantage of the fact that Maru had discarded nearly all of his ground units, pushing forward with 5 Tanks escorted by a huge Viking Fleet and SCVs on the ground to make Turrets and repair. Due to GuMiho's range advantage, Maru was eventually forced to attack GuMiho head on to try and get rid of the Tanks.
GuMiho's superior Viking count, his many SCV's repairing from below, and the relative ineffectiveness of Maru's BC's in air-to-air combat allowed GuMiho to take a crushing victory in the skies and overtake Maru's main. Maru had enough money in the bank to actually rebuild a new main at one of his expansions, but he had no choice but to GG against GuMiho's continued air superiority in the end.
Winners' Match: GuMiho [2-1] Solar
Game One - Royal Blood (Solar win): GuMiho went for a fast 3-CC start, after which he went straight into Banshee-Cyclone-Hellion mech. Solar scouted out GuMiho's intentions early and formulated a plan of attack. First, he went for a Ling-Ravager-Queen push aided by a drop-Overlord, which he then followed up with a Nydus + Swarm Host combo.
Neither of these attacks went as cleanly as Solar would have hoped, and he actually found himself struggling due to his lack of anti-air against Banshees. Also the supply invested in Swarm Hosts left him lacking combat troops on defense, making it hard to deal with GuMiho's harassment.
Still, Solar got enough done on offense to keep GuMiho in a largely defensive stance, unable to assemble a critical mass of mech. Eventually, Solar added Brood Lords to his army, which gave him a commanding lead against the ground-heavy GuMiho. The belated addition of Thors didn't make a difference, and GuMiho had to concede game one.
Game Two - Gresvan (GuMiho win): GuMiho switched to bio play in game two, giving it a minor twist by going up to two Factories to boost his Marine-Tank push in the mid-game. While GuMiho's frontal attack made limited progress, it served as a nice distraction for his drop play which destroyed some key tech and slowed Solar's economy. All the while, GuMiho prepared to transition into late-game play, securing more bases while changing his army composition to focus on Ghost and Tanks.
Going for Ghosts backfired on GuMiho at first, as he ended up taking some awful trades against Solar's Hydra-Ling-Bane army. GuMiho wasn't stubborn, however, as he swiftly changed back into a Marine and Marauder focused army. This was a key adjustment for GuMiho, as he was able to take better fights against Solar and also start doing damage with drops again.
Even so, Solar seemed to be winning in the big scheme of things, crossing over the 50/50 line and expanding on the Terran side of the map. However, the situation for Solar was more precarious than it initially seemed, as things fell apart for him in a matter of moments. Solar launched an ill-advised attack into the teeth of the Terran defense, which coincided with GuMiho sending troops to deny two key expansions. The combination of throwing his troops into a meatgrinder AND losing half of his income almost instantly put Solar into an irrecoverable situation, and he had to GG out not long after.
Game Three - Babylon (GuMiho win): GuMiho started with CC-first, teching up quickly into 2/1/1 bio play. While you expect drop play from a 2/1/1 start, GuMiho was unusually focused on Medivacs in a way that seemed to disorient Solar. Even his frontal Marine-Tank push was hastily turned into a drop into Solar's main, which was severely lacking in anti-air defense.
With Solar looking wobbly on his feet, GuMiho kept up the high-tempo play with attacks from all directions. Solar simply couldn't keep pace with GuMiho and GG'd out after getting battered on multiple fronts.
Losers' Match: Maru [2-0] ByuN
Game One - Gresvan (Maru win): ByuN opened 2-Rax Reapers from his main against Maru's Rax-Factory start, leading to some intense Reaper-Hellion skirmishing in the early game. Maru came out ahead in these exchanges, capitalizing on ByuN's reckless Reaper jump into the main. Maru then used his early army lead to launch a quick attack, which ByuN had to sacrifice many SCVs to hold off.
With his situation worsening by the moment, ByuN gambled on a big four Medivac drop into Maru's main to try and start a comeback. However, Maru anticipated such a move and had defenders ready in his main, turning ByuN's drop into a suicide mission. Maru then rallied his troops for a counterattack and forced the GG out of a heavily outnumbered ByuN.
Game Two - Dragon Scales (Maru win): ByuN went for another 2-Barracks Reaper opener, this time proxying one of his Barracks out on the map. Maru went for Rax-Fact-CC once more, and again won the early Reaper-Hellion skirmishes.
With the lead in hand, Maru built a faster third CC and plopped down two fast Engineering Bays to play his preferred bio style. ByuN also stayed true to his style, staying on two bases to focus on offense.
ByuN's first big drop was a success, as he killed off several SCV's and flew back out. However, it wasn't enough to put him on par with Maru, and he found himself needing to deal more damage. Unfortunately for ByuN, his second big attack was a disaster, and he suffered severe casualties. Maru's 1/1 upgrades finished up around this time, and he immediately went on the counter offensive. Down in both army size and upgrades, ByuN had no choice but to bow out of the tournament.
Decider Match: Maru [2-0] Solar
Game One - Babylon (Maru win): Maru brought out a peculiar opener to start, going for a Cloaked Banshee into a fast two-Medivac Marine drop. Both of these moves caught Solar off-guard, inflicting enough damage to give Maru a commanding lead.
From there, Maru was able to play the rest of the game on the Zerg half of the map—in particular, he kept a group of Tanks and Marines almost permanently entrenched at Solar's triangle-third. A determined Solar stayed in the game to try and find a comeback, but Maru eventually wore him down with continued Marine-Tank attacks.
Game Two - Royal Blood (Maru win): Maru kept things weird in game two, opening Barracks-CC into 4-Barracks mass Marine. Maru's big Marine timing was close to being a game ender, but Solar's Banelings came out just in time to stop it. Still, Maru took efficient enough trades against Solar's Queens and Zerglings to come out in a good position.
Maru continued to stay aggressive, adding Tanks and Medivacs to his army. He took full advantage of the terrain on Royal Blood, pushing deep into the areas where Solar was trying to establish a fourth base. In the end, after spending most of the game barely hanging in there, Solar's defenses gave out and he had to GG.
