EPT
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Code S Season 3 started with perhaps the biggest upset in tournament history as seven-time champion
Maru was eliminated in Group A of the RO16. Maru lost his initial series to Scarlett after his aggressive strategies failed to pierce the Canadian Zerg's defense, and he was then eliminated by Solar in the losers' match after making a series of uncharacteristic errors.While Maru gave a dismal performance,
Creator had one of his best match-days in months by advancing in first place. Solid PvZ play was the key to his success, with neither Scarlett nor Solar able to stop him from amassing unstoppable armies. The second place spot went to Solar, who prevailed in a sub 10-minute decider match where both of Scarlett's early gambles misfired.After Group A produced such outlandish results, Group B went according to expectations with
Cure and Bunny advancing at the expense of underdogs NightMare and Stats. Cure looked especially strong in the group, going 4-0 in one-sided games. With Maru out of the mix, he may be the #1 title contender left in the tournament.Code S will resume on Tuesday, Oct 17 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00) with Dark, ByuN, Astrea, and DongRaeGu playing in Group C.
Match Recaps
Group A
Initial Match #1: Scarlett [2-0] Maru
Game One - Alcyone (Scarlett win): The game began with the early/middle stages going smoothly for Scarlett, as she held off Maru's 2-Rax Reaper opener and subsequent harassment with barely any damage taken. Back on the Terran side of the map, Maru geared up for a 3-Base, 8-Barracks 'all-in' in the mid-game.
Thanks to her strong economy, Scarlett was able to squeeze out enough Hydra-Ling-Bane to stop Maru's Marine-Tank pushes (though not without some difficulty). Having stopped at 3 bases and 2/2 upgrades, Maru was forced into a difficult late-game transition once it was clear he wouldn't break through the Zerg defenses. But, by then, the Zerg economy and tech advantage was too great, and Scarlett rolled over Maru to take game one.
Game Two - Site Delta (Scarlett win): Maru decided it was time for drastic measures, opening with Barracks-CC followed by a 4-Barracks Marine all-in with SCV's in tow. Scarlett seemed to be in danger as she had gone up to 50 Drones, but she was able to squeeze out enough Zerglings to stop the all-in and complete the shocking 2-0 upset.
Initial Match #2: Creator [2-0] Solar
Game One - Alcyone (Creator win): Game one saw everything go right for Creator from start to finish. His Oracle opener managed to inflict moderate damage, allowing him to passively build up his economy at an equal pace to Solar. By the time Solar was cranking out Ravager-Ling-Bane off of 90 Drones, Creator had more than enough ground troops to hold off the Zerg forces while also transitioning to Carriers. Solar then made his own transition to late-game units, but he was a half-beat behind Creator. He just didn't have enough anti-air when Creator came knocking with 11 Carriers backed by Archons, Templar, and Disruptors, and he GG'd out after a one-sided battle.
Game Two - Hecate (Creator win): Creator changed up his opener in game two, going for Disruptor-drop harassment. Rather than a quick all-in follow-up, Creator played out a macro style focused on amassing a massive ground army. As for Solar, his approach was somewhat similar to game one, going up to 80+ Drones and cranking out mass Ravager-Ling-Bane.
Solar's attacks didn't bear much fruit, and he eventually found himself staring down a near-max Protoss army with Colossus, Disruptor, and Archon support. Finding a decent angle, Solar went for a huge, two-directional attack to try and wipe out the Protoss force. However, despite some solid Baneling hits, the high-tech core of Creator's army survived and continued to press forward. While Solar had the resources to reconstitute his army a few times, he couldn't stop the slow march of the Protoss army and had to GG out.
Winners' Match: Creator [2-1] Scarlett
Game One - Oceanborn (Scarlett win): Creator opened with a 4-Gate Glaive-Adept strategy, which killed a moderate number of Drones at the cost of heavy Adept losses. Scarlett didn't counterattack right away, instead going up to around 60 Drones and maxing out on Roach-Ravager-Bane. This proved to be a winning move, as Creator was still sorely lacking in troops at the time of the attack and was easily defeated.
Game Two - Alcyone (Creator win): Creator went for a Stargate-macro opener as he did against Solar on Alcyone, and this time he got off to an even better start thanks to solid Adept-Oracle harass. Creator gave things a twist by assembling a high-value ground army instead of transitioning in the Carriers, while Scarlett tried to counter with Ultralisks and Hive tech.
Creator hampered Scarlett's plans with a timely Zealot warp-in that destroyed her Ultralisk Cavern, but ultimately it may not have mattered. His ultimate A-move army of Colossus, Archons, Immortals and assorted Gateway units was far too powerful for Scarlett to handle, and it forced the GG.
Game Three - Hecate (Creator win): Creator rinsed and repeated his successful opener from the previous games, again inflicting early damage with his Oracle-Adept harass. This time, however, he didn't just passively macro up in the aftermath—he sensed an opening to venture into Zerg territory with a motley assortment of Protoss units. His instincts were indeed correct, as Scarlett was caught Droning too heavily when a small Protoss strike force arrived. While she managed to fend the attack off, it came at significant cost in terms of Drones and expansions. Scarlett survived for longer than expected due to Creator's sloppy close out, but eventually he earned his well-deserved passage into the RO8.
Losers' Match: Solar [2-1] Maru
Game One - Site Delta (Maru win): Maru showed us a recent 2-Barracks Reaper variant to start, going up to five Reapers (instead of the usual three) while double expanding. This worked out swimmingly for Maru, as he forced a cancel on Solar's third Hatchery while establishing a strong economy.
The strategy transitioned seamlessly into heavy Marine-Cyclone pressure, which allowed Maru to remain on Solar's side of the map and take good trades against Queen-Ling. Solar never found a real moment of peace, always facing down a growing Terran army. Eventually, Maru's army snowballed to critical mass and forced Solar's surrender.
Game Two - Alcyone (Solar win): Maru played another 2-Barracks Reaper variant in game two, proxying one of his Barracks out on the map. However, Solar dealt with the three Reaper attack handily, taking little damage and killing all three intruders.
The game still might have been playable for Maru if not for a walling error that was likely due to his unfamiliarity with the new map. Speedlings flooded in through his natural wall, setting him back at the critical juncture where he was looking to build up his economy. Maru gambled on super-greedy play to try and make a comeback, but quickly GG'd out to follow-up Roaches from Solar.
Game Three - Oceanborn (Solar win): Maru went back to his successful build from game one, making five early Reapers and going 3-CC behind it. Solar had a response planned, delaying his third Hatchery and only placing it when he knew what he was going up against. However, the more important factor in the match was a huge blunder from Maru, where a presumed hotkey error caused him to cancel his nearly completed third CC. On top of that, Maru's Reaper and Cyclone pressure wasn't especially effective, helping Solar go into the mid-game in great position.
To Maru's credit, his last ditch Marine-Tank push was far more threatening than it had any right to be. However, Solar's economy let him keep producing Hydra-Ling-Bane until Maru had no choice but to bow out of the tournament.
Decider Match: Solar [2-0] Scarlett
Game One - Alcyone (Solar win): Scarlett took an early risk by expanding directly to a gold mineral base while Solar took his expansion at the usual spot. Upon scouting Scarlett's gold base (or perhaps sensing it even before due to the lack of natural Hatchery), Solar stopped Drones at 22 and went for a Roach all-in. Scarlett didn't have enough Roaches in time to stop the attack and surrendered a sub 5-minute GG.
Game Two - Solaris (Solar win): Scarlett pulled out another unusual build in game two, going Pool-Hatch into fast +1 melee upgrade without a Baneling Nest. Unfortunately for Scarlett, Solar did not go directly into Roaches as she probably anticipated, instead playing regular Ling-Bane in the early game. This gave Scarlett no chance of defending when Solar attacked, resulting in another sub 5-minute loss.
Group B
Initial Match #1: Cure [2-0] Stats
Game One - Goldenaura (Cure win): Cure attempted some proxy shenanigans to start, but he was denied by a nosey scouting Probe and forced to play from behind. Still, Stats wasn't quite back to being the rock-solid defensive player he was in the past, and Cure harassed his way back to even footing with Medivac drops.
The two players were headed to a high-econ late-game scenario, but their respective armies ended up moving through different paths and into a massive basetrade. Stats seemed to get the better of the exchange at first, but the efficiency of bio (and maybe Stats's hesitancy to pull the trigger on a mass recall) allowed Cure to ultimately come out with the edge. Cure clobbered Stats in the engagement between remaining forces and received the GG from Stats.
Game Two - Oceanborn (Cure win): Cure tried to test Stats early with Hellion and Mine drop harassment, but the Shield of Aiur fended it off without much trouble. Unfortunately, we only got the throwback Stats-defense experience for a few minutes, as he was caught with his units in terrible position when Cure came in with a Raven timing. Cure gunned down Stats' two key Colossus almost instantly, bringing a hasty end to the game and series.
Initial Match #2: Bunny [2-0] NightMare
Game One - Oceanborn (Bunny win): Bunny opened the series with a barrage of Armory & Drilling Claws-equipped Mine drops, looking to keep dropping until NightMare stopped him. The trades ultimately favored Bunny (one of those 'lost mining time outweighs lost materiel' moments), and he started his mid-game Infantry pressure from a strong position.
While NightMare got High Templars out on the field, they weren't enough to keep Bunny at bay. The Terran forces danced forward and baited Storms out until the Templars ran dry, and then charged ahead to victory.
Game Two - Solaris (Bunny win): NightMare took the initiative in game two, opening with a two-Gate pressure build off of one base (one Gateway proxied near the Terran). However, the five SCV kills he got against Bunny's Rax-CC build weren't enough to make the investment worth it, and Bunny came out ahead when the dust settled in the early game.
NightMare tried to follow-up with 4-Gate Blink Stalkers, but well placed tanks from Bunny prevented them from doing any meaningful damage. Eventually, NightMare was forced into a do-or-die Blink deep into the Terran main, and the coin came on the 'death' side.
Winners' Match: Cure [2-0] Bunny
Game One - Hard Lead (Cure win): Both Terrans opened Rax-Fact-CC, but diverged quickly as Cure initially reactored out Cyclones while Bunny used his Reactor for Marine production. Cure's four Cyclones skirmished favorably against Bunny, and he used his advantage to keep up the pressure with Ravens and Tanks.
Lurking around Bunny's natural and third base, Cure found openings to take good engagements and get pickoffs against Tanks with his vision advantage. Cure found himself with a five to zero Tank advantage in no time, and he marched forward to take a fairly quick victory.
Game Two - Oceanborn (Cure win): Cure went for Rax-Fact-CC once more while Bunny opted for a Rax-CC opener. Cure leveraged his tech advantage to set up a fast Tank-Raven push, which he used simply to delay Bunny from taking his third base while his own third started mining back at home. Bunny gave chase when Cure retreated his forces, leading to the deciding confrontation between Marine-Tank-Raven forces. For some reason, Bunny was very trigger-shy with his Ravens while Cure quickly cast Interference Matrix on the opponent's Tanks. This gave Cure a decisive victory in the field, putting him on the path to a macro snowball victory. Bunny tried to turn things around with backdoor attacks, but Cure wasn't having any of it and cinched the victory.
Losers' Match: NightMare [2-1] Stats
Game One - Solaris (NightMare win): The PvP started peacefully as both players went for 2-Gate into fast expansions, but Stats erred in thinking the peace would last a while longer. NightMare went for heavy Blink-Stalker play, which he used to shut down two of Stats' attempts to take a third base (even killing an uncancelled Nexus). All the while, NightMare got his own third base running, and the economic gap soon manifested in a big army size difference. NightMare won a one-sided engagement between Stalker armies and took the first map of the series.
Game Two - Alcyone (Stats win): Stats opened 2-Gate into Nexus once more while NightMare delayed his expansion slightly for a Stargate. The situation swung in Stats' favor when NightMare lost his Oracle without doing any damage, but NightMare's hidden Gold Mineral base brought things back to almost dead even.
The two players faced off in the mid-game with nearly identical supplies worth of Zealot-Stalker, but NightMare had the disadvantage of having a very exposed third base. When Stats moved forward aggressively, NightMare sent a detachment of Zealots on a backdoor attack in order to buy time. While this maneuver seemed to work at first, NightMare couldn't really afford the loss of Zealots at such a delicate juncture. Stats overpowered NightMare in the field with his bigger army (some unfortunate positioning from NightMare also contributed to this) and took the tying point.
Game Three - Goldenaura (NightMare win): The two Protoss players passively built up during the early phase of the game, going up to three bases a piece while teching to Blink. All hell broke loose once Blink Stalkers were on the field, with Stalker skirmishes and Adept harassment erupting all around the map. Somehow, neither side took a meaningful advantage amidst the chaos, so the two combatants took a breather to secure fourth bases and add Zealot-Archon to their army compositions.
After Stats and NightMare hit +2 attack upgrades, their main armies collided for the deciding battle in the field. NightMare's advantage of one single Archon might have made the difference, as he won the battle in convincing fashion to finish the series.
Decider Match: Bunny [2-0] NightMare
Game One - Alcyone (Bunny win): Having won with Armory + Drilling Claw Mine drops in his initial series against NightMare, Bunny gave it another try in the rematch. He was even more successful this time around, devastating NightMare's economy with big detonations. NightMare knew the game was over when the Probe death count went over thirty, and he GG'd without a final engagement.
Game Two - Solaris (Bunny win): NightMare decided to go for 4-Gate Blink Stalkers once more on Solaris, only this time skipping the initial 2-Gate pressure. Unfortunately, the result was largely the same, as he couldn't deal much damage against Bunny's well placed tanks.
NightMare got a slight reprieve when Bunny tried to counterattack too early, with the Marine-Tank force getting swallowed up by Zealot-Archon. However, Bunny was still running away with the game on the basis of his economy, and the next wave of Terran infantry with Ghost support closed out the series.
