EPT
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Commencing just days after the conclusion of DreamHack Dallas, the Code S Round-of-12 added to the chaotic, unpredictable atmosphere swirling through the SC2 scene after the Texas event.
Group A saw
Solar preserve his momentum from DreamHack with a first place finish, but also saw last season's Code S runner-up Cure crash and burn with a RO12 elimination. New Team Vitality signing Zoun clinched the second place spot, narrowly besting Creator 2-1 in the decider match.In Group B,
SHIN's 3-1 upset over Clem in Dallas was made to look rather meaningless as he finished last place in a three-Terran group. Instead, first place went to Bunny, who unveiled an aggressive 2-base mech strategy that crushed both GuMiho and ByuN in TvT. The second place spot went to GuMiho, who also made good use of mech throughout the group (in a slower, more macro-based style). Code S Season 2 will take a one week break for the upcoming BGE Stara Zagora tournament (June 4-7), and resume with RO8 play on Wednesday, Jun 11 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00).
Group A Results
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Initial Match #1: Zoun [2-0] Cure - (VOD)
Game 1 - Persephone (Zoun win): Cure opened aggressive by playing Reactor Reapers into drop harassment, but Zoun defended quite adroitly off his Blink-Stalker start.
Cure opted to play out a macro game rather than go for the all-ins that defined his play in the previous season, but Zoun proved to have no trouble matching him in this department. Zoun slowly built an advantage with defensive play and opportunistic Zealot backdoors, setting the snowball rolling toward an economic victory.
It looked like Cure might still have a chance to win if he could take a great engagement with his maxed-out army, but Zoun bypassed that threat with a clever basetrade when the Terran forces moved out. Eventually, the resource advantage became overwhelming for Zoun and Cure GG'd.
Game 2 - Ley Lines (Zoun win): Zoun pressured early with Zealot-Adept-Stalker, delaying Cure's CC being built on the low ground. He followed-up with defensive Phoenix play, which completely negated the Cyclone-drop that Cure attempted.
Despite this poor start, Cure recovered fairly well to establish a decent three-base foundation, and was able to move out to threaten Zoun with a big bio + Ghosts timing. However, even though Cure managed to strike before Zoun transitioned from Templar to Robotics, he couldn't find the juicy EMP's needed to make his attack work and was forced to pull back.
Once Colossus were out on the field, Zoun went on the counterattack and set about consolidating his lead. Cure struggled to even establish a fourth base against his opponent's more complete composition, and eventually GG'd out against neverending warp-ins of reinforcements.
Initial Match #2: Solar [2-0] Creator - (VOD)
Game 1 - Persephone (Solar win): Creator opened up with the usual Oracles in PvZ, and then followed-up with an attempt at Glaive-Adepts. However, Solar didn't cut any corners and was completely ready for the shifty raiders, taking no meaningful damage at all.
Creator's heavy investment in obsolete early-game units set Solar up to counterattack with a big Roach-Ravager + Queen-drop timing of 62 Drones. While Creator managed to just barely hold off the first wave of attackers, the second wave of Zerg units was too much for him to withstand.
Game 2 - Ultralove (Solar win): Creator gave Glaive Adepts another shot, this time playing the OG Twilight-first variation we rarely see these days. Solar made a perfect read and prepared accordingly, once again totally negating the Adepts (he later joked that Protoss players lacked intelligence in his post-match interview).
Solar chose to punish Creator with yet another Roach-Ravager + Queen-drop counterattack, which once again smashed the Protoss defenses to give him the 2-0 series win.
Winners' Match - Solar [2-1] Zoun - (VOD)
Game 1 - Persephone (Zoun win): The two players seemed to be playing a typical macro game for the first few minutes, but Solar gave things a twist by plopping down a fast Spire. Zoun was almost caught off-guard by this ploy, but a scouting Oracle caught the first batch of Mutalisks as they hatched.
Instead of just making a handful of Mutas to harass and keep the Protoss briefly pinned down, Solar decided to play a full-commit, mass Muta-Ling-Corruptor style. The plan seemed to go reasonably well for Solar, as he kept Zoun tied up on four bases while he freely expanded back at home. However, things went awry when Solar got greedy and lingered in Protoss territory for too long with low-health Mutalisks. Storm blanketed the Mutas, wiping out over fifteen of them in an instant. Zoun proceeded to immediately counterattack and extract the GG from Solar.
Game 2 - Ultralove (Solar win): Zoun gave Solar his second look at Oracles-into-Glaive-Adepts that evening, and once again, Solar read it perfectly and defended with no meaningful losses.
Just as in the Creator series, Solar responded by counterattacking with a Roach-Ravager-Ling + Queen-drop timing, and yet again, it fatally punished the failed early gambit from Protoss.
Game 3 - Incorporeal (Solar win): Zoun mixed up his openers by opening Void Ray, but rather than try anything sneaky behind it, he opted to play a normal macro game. Solar seemed to briefly consider another Roach-Ravager + Queen-drop timing, but instead opted to tech-up to Hive and go for standard Lurker play.
The window for Lurkers to be useful is often very short in the current ZvP meta, but Solar managed to get S+ tier value out of his subterranean strikers. A siege at the vital Protoss fourth base goaded Zoun into some horrendous trades, which gave Solar the opportunity to simply end Zoun with direct, brute-force Hydra-Lurker attacks.
Elimination Match - Creator [2-1] Cure - (VOD)
Game 1 - Pylon (Creator win): Stargate openers are going out of fashion in PvT these days, but Creator showed us how convenient they can be by totally shutting down Cure's Cyclone-drop opener with Phoenixes.
Rather than use his advantage to start a slow economic snowball, Creator looked to hit an unusual mass Chargelot-Archon timing off of three bases. This attack did devastating damage against Cure's low-tech and Marine-high army, setting Creator up for an easy win.
Game 2 - Magannatha (Cure win): Both sides played to the style of the macro-friendly Magannatha, taking bases and building up their max supply armies (interrupted by a few cursory skirmishes).
Creator seemed to take the lead in the mid-game, with his army movements making it difficult for Cure to establish a vital fourth base. However, Cure turned the game around by taking a decisive win in a battle between main armies, allowing him to cross over onto the Protoss half of the map and put the resource situation in a more workable state. Creator failed to recover from the momentum swing, bleeding out units to Cure's kiting infantry before getting sucked into a final, losing engagement.
Game 3 - Ley Lines (Creator win): The two players concluded their desperate elimination match with an exciting bout on Ley Lines. Once again, the two players went for a macro build-up without much meaningful early/mid-game aggression, and we soon arrived at a stand-off between maxed out armies. Neither player seemed to think the game was going to be decided on the ground, leading to Creator going up to Carrier-Tempest while Cure added Liberator tech.
While such scenarios can devolve into boring staring matches, the dynamics of the game forced continuous clashes. Neither player had much success securing expansions along the horizontal axis of Ley Lines, and thus much of the action was funneled into the middle corridor of the map with its central expansions. Several rounds of offense and defense commenced, but neither side could take a decisive lead.
The deadlock broke in the 22nd minute, when Cure noticed Creator was a little too spread out in trying to cover multiple bases. Cure isolated and wiped out a significant portion of Creator's army, and marched forward to capitalize on his gains. However, Cure ended up pushing too deep into well-defended territory, with Storms inflicting major damage on his army. Crucially, his critical mass of Vikings was broken, and the advantage swung back in Creator's favor. Creator was excellent about leveraging his temporary advantage in the air, and built up a solid lead by the time Cure had a threatening Viking count again.
Cure managed to drag the game out with defensive play, but Creator's excellent Tempest siegecraft eventually pierced the turtling Terran's shell at the 35-minute mark.
Decider match - Zoun [2-1] Creator - (VOD)
Game 1 - Persephone (Creator win): Unlike some of the more aggressive PvP's we've seen lately, game one followed the passive build-up -> one big fight pattern. In this case, Zoun ended up fighting in a way where his Zealots were instantly evaporated by Archons, giving Creator the win.
Game 2 - Tokamak (Zoun win): Game two went in an entirely different direction, with Zoun opening 2-Gate expand against Creator's 1-base proxy-Robo all-in. Unfortunately for Creator, his all-in fell apart before it could even start, as Zoun simply walked his first four Stalkers into Creator's empty main (all his troops being out on the map to try and begin their own attack).
Creator never fully recovered from the heavy Probe damage he took against the Stalkers, and he GG'd after a few failed attempts to bust the enemy natural.
Game 3 - Ley Lines (Zoun win): It seemed like we were back to the pattern from game one, with both players going up to three bases without incident. However, Zoun threw Creator a curveball by going for a Blink timing off of three bases, whereas Creator was under the impression that they were headed to a longer game. Creator failed to catch the deception in time and was forced to GG out against the unexpected Stalker strike.
Group B Results
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Initial Match #1: Bunny [2-1] GuMiho - (VOD)
Game 1 - Ley Lines (GuMiho win): Bunny opened with proxy 2-Barracks Marauders, while GuMiho went for a much less drastic 1-Barracks Reaper proxy with a Factory in his main. The double-proxy resulted in both players wiping each other's mineral lines out, but GuMiho cleverly hid a Starport and saved money for a Viking and Banshee. With the Viking hitting his floating buildings and Banshee firing down on Marauders with impunity, Bunny had no choice but to GG.
Game 2 - Ultralove (Bunny win): In what must have been a shock for GuMiho, he found himself losing game two to someone else's creative mech play.
While GuMiho went for a 'normal' mech macro build (or whatever passes for one), Bunny brought out a carefully crafted 2-base mech timing. GuMiho's greedy play was no match for the 3-Factory Cyclone + Tank timing with Raven support, and Bunny sliced through the defenses to take an easy win.
Game 3 - Tokamak (Bunny win): Game three followed a very similar pattern as the previous one, although GuMiho tried to adjust by scouting and not playing quite as greedily against Bunny's aggressive opener.
However, GuMiho only succeeded at not dying outright to the push, and Bunny set up an oppressive containment line while macroing up back at home. Bunny consolidated his lead ruthlessly from there, and easily took a game winning fight when GuMiho desperately tried to secure a new expansion.
Initial Match #2: ByuN [2-0] SHIN - (VOD)
Game 1 - Tokamak (ByuN win): ByuN brought out a CC-first opener to start, but instead of playing maximum greedy with a fast third CC, he teched up to Banshees while quickly ramping up Marine production.
Everything went wrong for SHIN, as he wasted money on a Roach poke that fell flat against the Banshees, and he even lost precious Drones to a Hellion runby he failed to catch. After that, he was caught completely flat-footed by ByuN's push with just a handful of Marines and a single Tank, which was still strong enough to mow through 0/0 slow Roaches and take the GG.
Game 2 - Ley Lines (ByuN win): The game opened with a cute interaction at SHIN's third base, with ByuN referencing last season's GuMiho vs Reynor game and executing a belated Bunker rush. However, SHIN had an Overlord in position to detect ByuN's machinations, and nothing came from that bit of deviousness.
In any case, the two players went into a macro game from there, with SHIN playing Roach-Ravager-Hydra into Hive. Of course, the safety Infestors that shined so brightly against Clem in Dallas came into play as well, helping shut down one of ByuN's first big pushes.
It seemed as if SHIN would have no problem getting up to Hive tech on five bases, but instead, he abruptly fell apart against a multi-directional barrage from ByuN. Losing his concentration against some rudimentary two-prong movements, SHIN lost his 2/2, his natural hatchery, AND his fourth base. SHIN brought a very short reprieve for himself with Lurker tech, but it wasn't long before ByuN overran him through sheer force of numbers.
Winners' Match: Bunny [2-0] ByuN - (VOD)
Game 1 - Ley Lines (Bunny win): ByuN opened with 2-Barracks Reapers from his main, while Bunny went for a typical Rax-Fact-CC start. Bunny's defensive positioning and micro were excellent, and he fended off the Reapers to gain a nice early lead.
What does one do with an early lead? Of course, you use it to make your 2-base mech-timing even more powerful! Bunny adapted his composition against ByuN's bio play, cutting out the Cyclones and going heavy on Tank-Viking-Hellbat.
ByuN tried to deal with the push by backdooring with 2 dropships while stalling at home, but two defensive Tanks in Bunny's main made short work of the drop. Bunny was then free to set up a containment line outside ByuN's natural and grind him down into inevitable defeat.
Game 2 - Persephone (Bunny win): ByuN committed even harder to 2-Barracks Reapers, this time proxying his Barracks out on the map. But once again, Bunny's cheese defense proved to be elite, and he came out of the early game with another big lead.
Bunny didn't make things unnecessarily complicated for himself, and took this as an invitation to roll his opponent over with his 2-base mech push for the fourth time that night.
Elimination Match: GuMiho [2-0] SHIN - (VOD)
Game 1 - Magannatha (GuMiho win): Mech continued to be the story of the night, but now with a GuMiho twist.
GuMiho brought out his battlemech on Magannatha, and the large map proved to be a perfect battlefield for his mobile composition. SHIN's Hydra-Roach swarm just couldn't find any kind of favorable flank or fight, and any move off of creep meant getting kited into oblivion. GuMiho didn't even need to deploy his Battlecruiser finisher, receiving the frustration GG from SHIN at the 13:40 mark.
Game 2 - Tokamak (GuMiho win): GuMiho brought out mech again, and this time SHIN tried to counter with a Queen-drop + Roach timing. However, SHIN didn't seem to have a good feel for GuMiho's build at all, and attacked when there were more than enough troops to repel the Zerg forces.
Still, the game was far from over for SHIN, who adjusted his composition and played Roach-Ravager-Ling. This actually allowed him to get a big win against one of GuMiho's committed pushes, after which he rushed across the map for a counterattack. However, SHIN didn't have quite enough troops left over to deal major damage, and GuMiho showed his mech was surprisingly resilient by recovering quickly from the blow.
SHIN decided Brood Lords might be the answer this time around, but unfortunately he was mistaken. GuMiho exploited the immobility of the siege flyers to pick off Zerg expansions with his Cyclones, buying more than enough time to add Thors to his army as well. The Thors eventually cleared the Brood Lords from the sky, and an impoverished SHIN GG'd out.
Decider Match: GuMiho [2-1] ByuN - (VOD)
Game 1 - Ley Lines (GuMiho win): It looked like we could be off to a very cheesy start, with both players sending SCV's out on the map for proxy Barracks. However, both players discovered each others' proxies early, forcing them to improvise. ByuN ended up misplaying the game of SCV chicken and was forced to cancel his initial proxy-Barracks while GuMiho's went up unopposed.
While ByuN's backup Barracks was fast enough for him to avoid taking damage against Reapers, the real threat was in GuMiho's far faster tech. Indeed, GuMiho took advantage of the situation by rushing the Mag-Field Accelerator upgrade, allowing him to apply very heavy Cyclone pressure early on. The game never got out of the low unit count phase where Cyclones excel, and GuMiho took an easy win with his hyper-efficient units.
Game 2 - Tokamak (ByuN win): The series continued with the best game of the RO12, with the two Terrans engaging in a split-map, mech vs bio war on Tokamak. Initially, it didn't seem like GuMiho would even survive the early game, with his proxy Liberator-Banshee-BC build being more akin to wishful thinking than a coherent strategy. Yet, GuMiho somehow managed to pivot into 2-Starport BC's without dying, thanks to one of ByuN's signature overaggressive drops into the main.
From there, the game developed into a split map situation between mech and bio, setting the table for a hectic game-ending sequence. As is often the case in a GuMiho game, the game ended up spiralling out of control into a basetrade with expansions falling left and right. ByuN was slightly better at keeping his wits about him amidst the chaos, isolating and wiping out a small portion of GuMiho's army that contained crucial Thors and Cyclones. The removal of the enemy's surface-to-air capabilities allowed ByuN's Vikings to finally hunt down GuMiho's BC's, effectively deciding the game.
Game 3 - Magannatha (GuMiho win): The two Terrans finished the series with another mech vs bio showdown, although with a more conventional buildup this time around. Once both sides established themselves on three bases, the match quickly swung when ByuN moved out to try and exert pressure on the map.
With GuMiho holding both watchtowers, ByuN blasted down the rocks in the central pathway to open up a new route. However, GuMiho knew that was the only other passage ByuN could possibly move through, and had his troops deployed ahead of time. ByuN blindly moved into fog, and lost two of his key Ravens before he realized GuMiho was already in perfect position.
The Ravens had played a huge role in terms of deterrence, and GuMiho quickly capitalized by pushing forward with his Tank-Viking army. ByuN couldn't deal with the overpowering mech-ball and GG'd out.
