Group D: 11/10/10 - 19:30 KST and 11/12/10 - 19:30 KST
sKyHigh
Modesty ►Advances to Round of 16
      Pure

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Group E: 11/10/10 - 19:30 KST and 11/12/10 - 19:30 KST
Baby
MIsO
      Kal ►Advances to Round of 16

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Group F: 11/10/10 - 19:30 KST and 11/12/10 - 19:30 KST
HyuN
Horang2
      Fantasy ►Advances to Round of 16

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Skyhigh went for a fast two port build, and judging from Modesty’s three hatch + hydra den response, it seems to be a standard and expected TvZ build on the map. Modesty played defense fairly well, making as many drones as he could while minimizing his defense expenditures. Skyhigh did an okay job with his wraiths, but overall Modesty came out ahead considering how many drones he by the time Skyhigh expanded and transitioned to bio.

Modesty found a window of opportunity to attack Skyhigh with hydra-lurker as Skyhigh expanded, very nearly forcing a CC lift by striking when Terran was low on tanks. He followed this up with an excellent drop in Skyhigh’s main after all of the defenders had been drawn to the front, which ended the game.

Match Rating: 6/10
Modesty was sloppy with his micro at times, but his overall game-plan against a two port terran was great.

Skyhigh went for a wall-off fast expand, while Modesty went for a fast lair off two hatcheries. Having scouted his opponent, Skyhigh responded in an interesting way by making just two marines and going straight to two factories (with an academy for scan). Goliaths and turrets prevented any early mutalisks harass from Modesty, but Skyhigh’s inability to pressure gave up a fast third gas to zerg.

Skyhigh switched it up again, making mass barracks for a bio transition after he had around a control group of goliaths to defend with. He was going for a powerful combined mech+bio rush, but was also allowing Modesty a significant amount of time to freely produce drones.

Modesty looked like he had powered too hard when Skyhigh moved out with an army of M&M, tanks, and goliaths, but he smartly countered with mutalisks just as Skyhigh moved out. This bought him enough time to make a large amount of lurkers, which he used together with his mutalisks to crush Skyhigh’s force (Modesty’s battle micro was excellent). Modesty tried to ice the game right there, but lost many of his surviving lurkers to Skyhigh’s mines as he tried to advance. In the meanwhile, Skyhigh had transitioned again into full mech.

For some reason Skyhigh refused to make any science vessels, allowing Modesty to briefly contain him with a single defiler and a handful of lurkers. Modesty could have sealed Skyhigh in completely if he had wished to, but he refused to take advantage of the deadly swarm+lurker combination. Instead, he made mass hydralisks and a few defilers, which allowed Skyhigh to slowly push to a couple of new expansions before his main and nat ran out.

Even though Modesty’s unit composition had been less than ideal, he had total freedom to mass expand and power during Skyhigh’s excruciatingly slow push and mech transition. With enough money to kill Skyhigh in any way he chose, Modesty went for the crowd pleaser by going hydra + broodling.

Match Rating: 4/10
The game was effectively over when Skyhigh’s big bio+mech attack failed, as he was unable to threaten Zerg’s expansions after that point. Modesty could have finished the game a lot faster, but he dawdled for a bit.

Modesty won 2-0.

Miso displayed the best defense yet in the three hatch versus 2 port paradigm that we have seen frequently on pathfinder. With excellent hydralisk and overlord placement, he Baby barely touched him with his wraiths.

Circumventing Baby’s disadvantageous start, however, was a hidden command center at one of the mineral-only expansions. Miso must have felt great watching Terran barely taking his natural while he was going up to hive and three bases, and then perplexed when Baby moved out way more troops than expected.

Baby was in no rush to cash in on his advantageous resource situation, and was happy to simply deny any more zerg expansions while taking more for himself. This was a perfect situation for Baby, a multi-tasking monster who is completely capable of macroing off five bases while irradiating lurkers, dropping zerg bases, sending small marine forces by ground, and every other click intensive task possible. Without any decisive confrontations, Baby casually accrued a 190 to 70 food advantage.

With Baby cruelly refusing to finish him off, Miso awkwardly GG’d out.

Match Rating: 5/10
A TvZ macro clinic from 407 average APM Baby against a completely outclassed opponent.

Miso attempted to execute the crazy-zerg strategy, which is going mutalisks, skipping lurkers, and going for very fast ultralisks. Intentionally or otherwise (Baby scouted out the fast evolution chamber which is a hallmark of crazy-zerg), Baby performed the perfect counter strategy by going five rax +1 marines with late tech.

As one might expect, mass +1 bio beats Zerg without lurkers. Baby only had to put slightly more effort than just attack-moving to win the game.

Match Rating: 2/10
Miso ate a very hard build-order counter. He needed some amazing mutalisk micro to make the game close, which he did not come close to pulling off.

Baby won 2-0.

Both players attempted to take advantage of the short aerial distances on Pathfinder, with Horang2 going for sair-reaver while Hyun went for a mutalisk heavy build. In a smart and deservedly game winning move, Hyun masked his plan from Horang2 very well. Instead of attacking with his first batch of mutalisks, he hid and massed them as he fended off corsair scouts with scourge.

Hyun’s plan worked perfectly, even prompting the venerable announcer Mr. Uhm to quote the internet meme “You just activated my trap card” when Horang2 tried a foolish corsair + reaver attack into Hyun’s base. Not only did Hyun have sufficient mutalisks and scourge to completely nullify the attack, but he had burrow researched finished as well to save his drones.

Horang2 sent suicide zealots to buy time against the surprise mutalisk force but it was to no avail. After he was done cleaning up the zealots, Hyun sent his mass mutalisks and scourge in to attack and received the GG.

Match Rating: 6/10
Clever play from Hyun though Horang2 was too naïve.

With mutalisks having served him so well in the previous game, Hyun went for a similar strategy. This time however, Horang2 mixed up his tactics by going for a rarely seen fast 3 gate speed zealot rush. By forgoing the +1 attack upgrade and the blatantly spinning forge usually associated with such rushes, Horang2 fooled Hyun into easing up on his defense.

His speed zealots tore through the third base Zerg players normally take for granted, with the added benefit of forcing Hyun to reveal his mutalisks during the hasty defense. While mutalisks chased zealots around the map, Horang2 easily transitioned into 2 stargate corsairs with +1 attack upgrades.

With his critical third expansion down, Hyun was forced to take drastic measures. He used all of his larva to create a large mutalisk and scourge force, hoping to swing the game in one decisive battle. Given the gravity of the situation, his micro was sub-par. Hyun made the critical mistake of sending in his scourge before his mutalisks, allowing the weak kamizake flyers to be destroyed before they could find their targets. It was a disappointing micro mistake from Hyun, as he actually could have won the battle and clawed his way back in the game.

With that failed last-ditch attempt, the game went into the clean up phase for Horang2. With archons, corsairs, zealots, and reavers, he was easily able to defeat Hyun’s terribly outmatched mutaling defenses.

Match Rating: 2/10
Few redeeming factors.

For the third consecutive game, Hyun came out with mass mutalisks. It would have been interesting to see what Horang2’s original plan was, but we did not get the chance. Hyun prefaced his mutalisk strategy with a very risky speedling break against a one-cannon protoss wall. The solitary cannon tempted Hyun into attempting such an attack, but the very tight nature of the wall made it a nerve-wracking affair.

Although Hyun invested quite a bit of money into speedlings, he managed to kill Horang2’s forge and break into the main with a handful of zerglings. These zerglings went on to kill the single pylon powering Horang2’s stargate, decimating Protoss’s anti-air capacity.

Horang2 did what he could to buy time with the dark templars and the few corsairs he had managed to make, but he had already fallen far behind in air defenses. Hyun’s mutalisks swept through and Horang2 GG’d out.

Match Rating: 3/10
One sided match, but Hyun gets credit for being so brave (or reckless) in that situation.

In these BRs, I try to briefly explain what each player did, and why one of the players won while the other one lost. For this game… I can pretty much say Pure did nothing, Modesty made units, and attack moved to win. Despite having become something of a PvP and PvT wildcard, Pure never really shored up his PvZ skills.

There were a few details like a couple of lings running by Pure’s wall, or Pure trying bad zealot pressure, but in the end it just seemed like Modesty just made hydras out of 6 hatcheries and Pure simply didn’t have anything to defend with.

Match Rating: 1/10
Pure playing PvZ is the low point of professional Brood War.

In a similar story to game 1, Pure apparently did nothing while Modesty made mutalisks, and then hydralisks to win the game.

Match Rating: 1/10
Pure playing PvZ is the low point of professional Brood War

Modesty won 2-0.

Good scouting might not guarantee a win, but it will never lose you a game, one might think. Unfortunately for Baby, his devotion to solid fundamentals cost him in a rare type of loss.

Kal went for a dangerous reaver drop into DT drop build to take advantage of Pathfinder’s short air distance. Expecting such a move, Baby went for a fast expansion with a quick wraith to defend against Kal’s famous drop tactics.

The reaver drop defense went just as Baby wanted, with Kal managing to kill only a few SCVs before his shuttle and reaver went down. Baby then sent his wraith over to Kal’s base to see what Kal’s follow-up would be after his failed drop.

In a pivotal moment, Baby saw a newly produced shuttle, ordered his wraith to shoot at it a few times, and then ignored it to try and scout more deeply into Kal’s base. Two DTs from Kal warped at that moment to board the shuttle and fly off to Baby’s base. Just seconds later, Baby discovered the templar archives hidden the corner of the Protoss base, but it was too late. Pathfinder’s close air distance meant the DT drop was already beyond the reach of a hastily returning wraith, and there was no detection to be found in Baby’s main. A victim of a rare circumstance, Baby GG’d.

Match Rating: 7/10
Personally, I’m very entertained by the fact that five seconds of extra scouting lost Baby the game. In the end though, it was a straight up loss to DTs with no detection. Your mileage may vary.

The second game began with both players allowing each other to play as they pleased. Baby went for a rax-CC with a very late SCV scout, while Kal opened 12 nexus and didn’t even bother to scout until his first zealot. By the time they became mutually aware of their fast expansion strategies, the game was already well under way.

Before progressing to an inevitable large scale ground war, both players made room for drop tactics. The initial drops on both sides did very little, but with not much invested it was not a significant factor.

The major turning point came when Baby combined his dropship with the mobility of vultures. Upon taking his third base, Kal tried to cut corners and skipped the vulture-proof pylon wall. This ended up turning the expansion into an absolute dragon horror show, as vultures slipped up the ramp to take a holding position while tanks dropped behind them. Kal tried to force them out with sheer numbers using dragoons and a reaver+ shuttle, but the durability of high ground vultures made Kal lose far more units than he needed to.

With Kal’s main dragoon group tied up and taking losses trying to take care of a tiny portion of the Terran army, Baby made a quick push across the map before Kal could get back into position to defend. He made it just one step outside of an immediate danger position, just a screen away from being able to put a bombard Kal’s natural. To Kal’s credit, he snuck in a far away expansion at another main during the chaos.

Kal approached the puzzle in an unorthodox way, determining that gradual zealot bombs would be a better way to clear the containment than a single all-out attack. In retrospect, it’s not clear if Kal made the right call. He eventually did manage to clear out all the tanks with his zealot bombs, but it was not terribly efficient. Since a head-on attack would have been costly as well, it’s hard to say which would have been a better choice.

Either way, Kal would have been in a difficult position. Baby was not content to sit on his lead and he went out of his way to make life difficult for Kal. He constantly used his dropship in effective attacks, such as a surprise 1 tank 2 vulture drop in Kal’s main and a four vulture drop to finish off the expansion damaged earlier. In what was a near finishing blow, Baby used the dropship and vulture combination again to attack Kal’s hidden base, drawing dragoons into yet another bloodbath.

It soon became apparent that there would be no grand finale to end this game, as Kal would not be able to muster the forces to put up a respectable final resistance. With his accumulated advantage, Baby went in for the steamroll.

Match Rating: 8/10
Beautifully played game from Baby, and well played by Kal as well. When Baby is hot, his multitasking is surpassed by none, not even the vaunted Flash (Proof? Watch Baby out-Flash Flash himself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_2gPd9i78). Too bad he’s ice cold half the time.

With everything on the line, Kal showed some guts and went for a proxy reaver rush. And on the other end of the table, Baby sniffed it out with impressive ease. A quick FD push forced Kal to bring his first two dragoons to the middle of the map, and a scouting SCV nonchalantly surveyed Kal’s empty main before a third dragoon could plug the ramp. Another scout quickly went to the proxy robotics’ precise location to reveal Kal’s plan.

As Baby prepared defenses around his main and natural, Kal wisely decided to keep his reaver and shuttle alive rather than try a suicide drop. It turned out that it was merely low-fat cheese Kal was attempting, as he followed up with a slightly later expansion of his own while adding another reaver to help against any quick pushes without anti-air units.

Perhaps unveiling Kal’s early game tricks gave Baby a false sense of security, as he was in no hurry at all to scout any further. He started a third command center before his academy, which was going to be trouble indeed against Kal’s carrier rush.

Yes, Kal was indeed going for the famous “Nal_Rock” build of 2 reavers into 2 base into 2 stargate carriers. Rock’s inability to win with his namesake build made many of us question its worth (with so many 2’s involved, a loss is almost inevitable), but Stork’s successes with the very same strategy last season made us rethink whether it was the strategy itself or the player that it was named after that was actually bad.

As it turned out, Baby’s scouting had been far too late as he was just starting to get anti air defenses when three carriers struck his third base. Baby acted very decisively despite being caught off guard, quickly realizing that he could fend off three carriers with arriving reinforcements before they could kill his CC. He sent his ground forces forward on a big push, so he might force a retreat from Kal or take down a base if he had skimped on defenses.

Though the decision might have been good, things did not work out for Baby. His forces were stopped at one of Aztec’s narrow ramps, forcing him to settle for containment. However, there were already too many carriers out, which easily picked off the tanks at the blockade and allowed dragoons to clean up everything else.

Kal went on to make Baby’s life miserable with reaver-carrier harass, and watched him over-commit to goliaths and aerial defenses. Kal then smartly transitioned back to a mainly gateway based force, upon seeing which Baby GG’d.

Match Rating: 5/10
Amusing to see both over-scouting and a lack of scouting become the cause of defeat in a series.

Fantasy broke the wraith rush streak on Pathfinder, going instead for a normal rax FE. Hyun on the other hand, kept with the air focused trend on the map, going for a 2 hatch mutalisk build.

Even with the short air distances, Fantasy decided that a good offense was the best defense and went out aggressively with his marines around the time Hyun’s spire finished. This tied up Hyun’s mutalisks in defense and forced him to spend money on sunken colonies and zerglings.

Hyun managed to secure a third base but was struggling with a very weak economy. Fantasy had forgone tech for an e-bay and many barracks, constantly pressuring Hyun with his M&M. This forced Hyun to continue to make mutalisks to keep Fantasy away, leaving almost no money left over for drones, hatcheries, or lurker tech.

Hyun’s balancing of troops, tech, and drones was fairly good under such duress, but the game was slowly but surely going downhill for him. By the time he had transitioned into lurkers, Fantasy had tanks, vessels, and a serious upgrade advantage with 1/1 infantry. When Fantasy finally decided to commit to a battle after some lengthy pressure, his upgrades carried the day as he crushed Hyun’s army.

Match Rating: 6/10
While he did not face the most difficult opponent, Fantasy played some very impressive bio TvZ. His M&M use was excellent all around, exploiting its mobility and firepower while overcoming its fragility in the way the best TvZ players do.

In a near repeat of game one, rax FE clashed against two hatch mutalisks. Fantasy was magnificent once again, bossing Hyun around with his aggressive M&M use. Hyun did slightly better this time around by getting himself to hive and three bases, but it was as if Fantasy was being kind enough to allow him that much.

With map dominance, Fantasy simply expanded at will while limiting Hyun to three bases. Defilers and lurkers delayed Fantasy from beating Hyun outright, but an ever growing vessel cloud spelled certain doom in the future. Hyun found his excuse to GG out when Fantasy started knocking at his door with battlecruisers.

Match Rating: 6/10
Fantasy’s bio looked damn good for two games in a row. I don’t know if it’s indicative of his improving skill, or just that Hyun is a poor player.

Fantasy won 2-0.