T11 IMMVP | oGsHyperdub T5

MVP skips his gas and begins his second CC before his orbital even finishes, while Hyperdub decides to rather proceed more normally with a factory. MVP grabs both gases but is unable to chase out the scouting SCV. While Hyperdub prepares for a blue flame hellion drop, MVP circles around the back with his SCV, bypassing the on-guard marines and is able to scout out Hyperdub's plans. Hyperdub pushes the natural with 4 hellions and a medivac full of marines. MVP's bunker is unable to defend his mineral line, forcing MVP to withdraw all his SCVs. A bad angle completely puts Hyperdub at a disadvantage and he is forced to retreat with a single marine leftover.

Hyperdub expands while moving in with a cloak banshee, looking to do more damage. MVP had already started an engineering bay and with 3 scans saved up, the banshee picks up a mere 4 kills before it is taken out. Hyperdub drops 2 more starports and continuously pumps out hellions, a strong resemblance of iEchoic's 2fact2port build. Hyperdub drops the main with four hellions, and the SCVs line up just right for Hyperdub and a quick splash puts in the lead, with 52 SCVs to MVP's 37. MVP pushes out with his army, and the battle happens right outside of Hyperdub's natural. While winning the air battle, the massive number of marines forces Hyperdub to pull back for the time being and halt all mining at his natural. MVP's tanks push in and destroy Hyperdub's structures, and after losing several buildings, Hyperdub is finally able to clean up the attack.

A second attack comes as MVP makes a CC at the 9'o clock expansion, this time carefully sieging below Hyperdub's natural. While it seems that Hyperdub had more vikings at the start, the viking war swings into MVP's favor with relentless macro, and Hyperdub's inability to multitask costs him a handful of SCVs. With the defender's advantage, Hyperdub takes out MVP's flying vision of the high ground and MVP pulls back for now, with only marines left to tell the tale. MVP happily saturates his third while Artosis reminds us of Jinro's generosity. MVP spreads his marines as if banelings were present in this TvT, reducing the splash damage done by Hyperdub's hellions. Hyperdub does not have enough hellions to deal with the marines. During his full out retreat, MVP's marines run faster than flying jets and Hyperdub’s fleeting sky army is slowly picked off.

MVP double expands as the map is now his, but Hyperdub manages to sneak in an expansion at the 3'o clock position. Once again sieging below the natural, this time MVP's superior Viking count enables his tanks to clear out Hyperdub's mineral line. After dealing enough damage there, MVP moves his army to take out the 3'o clock expansion. MVP begins battlecruiser production, and with the food count at 186-89 in MVP's favor, the game immediately ends as MVP pushes into Hyperdub's base. [26:25]

P7 oGsMC | ST_July Z1

July opens speedlings, but drops his hatchery before speed even gets started. MC is already mining from both of his gases before the core gets finished, and walls in with a zealot. After getting an adequate amount of zealots and sentries from three gates, MC safely expands behind it and drops a forge and a stargate. MC reveals his void ray and July quickly makes a hydralisk den, and adds an additional hatch at his natural. July is behind in workers, but is first to take a third. He tries his luck to take down MC’s third, but an observer warns MC of a possible snipe and MC shaves off a few roaches from July’s army. July loads up five overlords full of banelings, and has a maxed army mostly composed of hydras and corruptors. MC's force fields shut off July's ground army completely, and as the overlords come in for baneling bombs, MC calmly blinks back and forth to render the drops useless. Another set of force fields cuts July's army in half. July tries to catch MC's colossus out of position, but overcommits himself and gets prisoned in a narrow choke while his army is being carpet stormed. The stalkers move up and surround July's reinforcing roaches, and July taps out. [20:51]

T7 IMMVP | ST_July Z11

July opens hatch first, while MVP decides to be more careful, making a factory with tech lab before making his own command center. Researching blue flame, MVP halts on marine production, having just two and a wall off to prevent his plans from being figured out. July's aggressiveness is not limited by any map, as drone production is ceased as zergling speed, a baneling's nest, and a larva round of zerglings are already on the way. As July is morphing in his banelings right outside MVP's base, MVP sends out his hellions and immediately realizes that his expansion will not be able to go up unchallenged. Killing off a reasonable amount of zerglings, MVP's wall is extremely fragile, as the supply depots can be topple with just a handful of banelings. The banelings bust down the first depot, and heads to the mineral line of MVP. MVP splits his SCVs in two directions, losing none to banelings and plays ring around the rosy with hellions and zerglings. The SCVs get back to mining, and MVP sends out hellions to take map control. As he gets his expansion going, MVP deflects a zergling runby, and attempts to push back with hellions and marines. The weakened marines are finished off by newly hatched mutas, and the mutas make their way over to MVP's base before any sort of air defense gets up, and MVP's marines are completely out of position. With an overwhelming amount of mutas and banelings, MVP could not hold without siege mode and MVP is forced to gg. [16:40]

P7 oGsMC | oGsHyperdub T1

Both players open standard, with Hyperdub looking to do some MM pressure with 2 barracks before making his factory, and MC goes for 2gate robo expand. Hyperdub cannot push up the ramps with the amount of sentries that MC has, and pulls back, for now. Hyperdub makes another barracks and adds on a starport, looking to do a serious one base timing push. MC's expansion goes up unscathed, and as he's mining away, Hyperdub adds cloaked banshees into his army. Hyperdub tries to poke with his banshees, but observers are spread out perfectly all over the map, costing Hyperdub a banshee. Hyperdub takes his time and makes a second starport, and MC's supply lead is increasing by the second. The banshees try to pick off MC's units one by one, but there is an absurd amount of stalkers in MC's army. With colossus and stargate units coming out, Hyperdub's time is running out. MC impatiently pushes up the ramp, but with a better concave, MC loses out on the battle although he clearly has a superior army. MC produces phoenixes to deal with the banshees, and simply a-move his way to the RO16. [18:37]

T2 IMMVP | ST_July Z12

Scouting with the overlord and knowing it isn't closed positions, July hatches first and even though MVP hasn’t found July just yet, 2 rax opening is his choice. MVP continuously rallies marines to the watchtower, and as they met up with July's zerglings, MVP begins making his way towards July's base. MVP builds a command center behind his push, but July is actually the one setting up for aggressive play, with his baneling's nest halfway done. MVP decides not to attack and pulls all his marines back to his base. The banelings almost made it in due to MVP lifting his barracks, but in the end one was sacrificed onto the tech lab. The banelings try their best to chase down marines while the zerglings begin working on the mineral line. With the banelings taking out the bunker and the marines, the zerglings chew through MVP's structures and sends our defending champion to the up and down matches. [7:20]

MVP - C
While his first game was quite entertaining and we were able to see how well he dealt with an unfamiliar build, his performance against July was subpar and he was totally unaware of how aggressive his opponent can be. A disappointing exit for our champion.

Hyperdub - D
Typical Hyperdub. hasn't shown any improvement and will forever stagnate if he cannot climb over this plateau. Horrible gameplan vs. oGsMC that really had no excuse.

July - C+
Caught MVP off-guard both times and luckily pulled through. A good read on MVP's style although his aggresiveness would not be as effective against those who are fully aware of his tactics.

MC - B
Showed beautiful control and execution vs. July, and Hyperdub pretty much handed him the win.

Z3 oGsZenio | ZeNEXByun T9

Byun builds his first barracks far below his main, looking to wall in after making a quick 2nd command center. Seeing that his opponent had gone hatch first, Byun continues to only pump marines out of one barracks and makes an extremely quick third command center, followed by 2 gases at the main. Zenio scouts Byun’s third with his overlord, and makes a third of his own. Byun looks to go for marine/siege tank with medivacs and Zenio is trying his best to catch up economically while investing in melee upgrades. Zenio grabs his fourth rather slow, and with a decently sized army, Byun does not falter to any sort of mutalisk harass. As Byun pushes out, Zenio continuously flies in with his mutas, picking off a building or two and leave, while making additional hatcheries.

Zenio sneaks a nydus into Byun's main, and the banelings and zerglings do a decent amount of damage before they get shut down by tanks. However, Zenio’s miscontrol leads his flock of mutas straight into marines, losing a handful while gaining absolutely nothing. Zenio makes up for that mistake immediately with a nice fungal into baneling explosion, wiping out a huge clump of marines. Byun makes orbitals to utilize the MULEs in order to make his army larger, while also maxing his upgrades and making ghosts. Zenio gets ready for brood lords.

The match begins to get scrappy as Byun begins moving up his siege line in order to take out Zenio's fourth, while dropping the fifth. The brood lords come in to break the siege line, but unfortunately Zenio loses his fourth. A huge EMP lands on the infestors, rendering them useless. Fungal and brood lords kills all of Byun's marines and forces his tanks to fall back. Zenio tech switches to ultra, and tries to break the siege line. Byun lands another crucial EMP, and the marines are free to roam and Zenio does not have any brute force to break the line. Zenio keeps on making ultras, but some are wasted due to his bad control. Nevertheless, once critical mass of ultras was ready, Zenio had no problem pushing Byun back into his choke.

Byun careful siege hop in order to take a new base, and Zenio could not push forward. Byun splits his MMM ball to snipe all three of Zenio's remaining bases. Byun prematurely taunts with MULEs, seconds before a massive fungal lands on his army and ultras proceed to chew through the MMM ball. Zenio then takes out Byun's only mining base, and at the other end, so does Byun. Byun floats one of his orbitals over to a new base, and with more MULEs, can effectively mine even though his SCV count is absurdly low. Zenio does not have the income to remax his army, while filling 200 food with marines is quite the trivial task with MULEs for Byun. Byun tries to snipe a hatchery at 6 o' clock, but his marines were wiped out with 22 HP remaining. Byun relentlessly drops at every possible hatchery, and Zenio's patience wore thin.

Zenio loses units left and right as Byun picks off scattered forces, and Zenio's army is slowly diminishing. Zenio tries his best to stay in the game by expanding at all the northern expos, but he barely has half of Byun's supply. Byun EMPs the infestors, snipes the retreating ultralisks and once the last of his ultras was dead, Zenio types out gg after an epic TvZ. [43:00]

Z12 oGsZenio | TSL_Clide T2

Zenio hatch first, and Clide also makes a second command center after 1 reaper. Seeing the CC, Zenio drops a roach warren. Zenio cancels the roach warren when it is scouted by the reaper, and he sacs an overlord to see that two additional barracks are on the way behind the CC. Thanks to the early tech lab, Clide was able to get stim extremely early and he pushes with a few marines and a reaper. Zenio saw it coming and made zerglings to clean up the push, but losing a queen in the process. Zenio brings his zerglings to the front of Clide's base but does not engage, and quietly takes a third. Clide off of one gas is pumping out blue flamed hellions, and makes his way over, timing it with the completion of pre-igniter upgrade. Zenio promptly makes spine crawlers and banelings, but they do not finish in time for the hellions. The hellions are unable to deal damage, and Clide is making thors in anticipation of mutalisks. Clide runs the hellions around the map to scout and looks to do some damage to the third, but miscontrolled his hellions.

Clide looks poised to take a third, and his army consists of mostly mech with a lot of marines. Zenio leapfrogs his tanks to take the gold as his third, and a large chunk of Zenio’s banelings get blown up due to bad control grouping. Zenio does force Clide to lift his natural, but the dent it made to his army was much more detrimental than the economic damage he dished out. Clide counter push along the northern pathway, carefully siege hopping his tanks. Zenio tries to ambush from behind, but a huge tank shot dissipates all fear of baneling explosions. Left with nothing but mutas, Zenio taps out as his natural falls. [19:51]

T5 TSL_Clide | ZeNEXByun T11

Both players do not try any shenanigans, going completely standard 1/1/1 while constantly producing marines. Their paths differ as Clide's tech lab is attached to the factory and he is making blue flame hellions, while Byun prefers cloaked banshees. Clide elevators his marines and hellions into Byun’s main, but Byun reacts quickly and pulls all SCVs and turns his banshee around. While the tank does sufficient defense for Byun, Clide's real targets are the SCVs and he manages to bring Byun down to 14 SCVs. Byun's banshee does no damage, and Clide continuously annoys Byun with his hellions. Clide starts producing cloaked banshees of his own, but Byun is more than ready with his raven. Clide prepares 2 medivacs, one serving as a decoy but Byun reacts swiftly and minimizes SCVs lost. Clide attempts to push up the front, but his inferior viking count allows Byun's tanks free reign, and he has retreats for now. Seeing that his opponent is getting a third base, Byun tries his luck as well. Byun moves his army out to get in position to defend both of his expansions but Clide perfectly darts in with his overwhelming amount of units and take an easy win. [18:29]

Byun - C+
Played very well vs. Zenio, although seemed a bit too overconfident at times. Completely ill-prepared for Clide's hellions and although he did not make another major mistake, the damage was already done.

Zenio - D+
Pretty similar to his teammate Hyperdub, failed to impress, although performed a bit better in general. Made bad calls and paid for it.

Clide - B-
Did not seem to have much problem of disposing Zenio and his opening pretty much won him the game vs. Byun.

For a detailed look at jinro’s games check out the foreigner special

In our first non Jinro game of the group we have Check against RainBow. Check utilizes the size of the map, in the sense of distance and expansiveness for zerg. Despite rainbows strong timing attempts, check was able to flank all of his pushes and crush the attacks with amazing unit spread. All the while expanding all over the place so despite rainbows non stop drops, Check simply ended up having too much of too much. Overall an extremely solid game from check, and despite a few mistakes, he still showed us he can be a very powerful force

From here on out Polt and Check square off to show us who is the master of the Prime clan in this group. Game 1, Polt went for an early push with marines and tanks and banshees (oh my?). But it was much earlier than the normal timing, and we can see why that’s bad. He didn’t have enough cost efficient units, or stuff, and was stopped easily by check. Unfortunately polt manages to win the game with a single banshee shot (well okay it shot more than once). Check broke the second attack of a similar composition, but just a little too late and lost his hatch. There was nothing short of constant mistakes from both players, mis-microing their units more times than I cared to count. This game was made entertaining only by the fact that both players screwed up in succession to each other.

Game 2 was time for Check to prove that without lucky banshee shots, he’s the man of the house here. Polt tried for some early hellion harass but check defended it with plenty of time. Using this extra information he was able to drone up and gain an economy advantage. Putting his gas to good use he went roach baneling. When polt tried his first push to break check’s 3rd it simply failed because our ferocious zerg’s economy had kicked in too much at that point. Check then just flooded in units with his eco advantage until polt left. Nothing spectacular in this game, just check getting his revenge for losing that last game

Overall Jinro took this group out as planned. He had some good games but didn’t look like he ran into any real opposition so far, I’m excited to see him tested in further rounds. I expected Check to take 2nd in this group because it seemed about time for him to play up to his caliber, as well with a little help from the maps he was able to do just that. Unfortunately Polt just isn't at the same level for this group and I feel he is doomed to demotion code A. Rainbow I think just got unlucky with his draw; given a different group, he surely could have advanced.

Jinro - A
Check - B+
Polt - B-
RainBOw - B

Despite the bests…best attempts at harassing, nada showed his usual excellent micro in this game. He didn’t stop just there in the excellence category either. Even though thebest’s unit composition was working extremely well for him, nada was just about to macro much much better than him. Tactically relocating his base while losing his main, and taking base after base while producing enough units that were well designed to wipe out thebests composition.
If you want to see how to expo as protoss into a million bajillion warpgates and end the terran in 10 minutes then watch Hongun vs TOP. Really, that’s it. In his games Hongun takes some gambles, and happens to have them pay off in his game against TheBest. Managing to get a very fast expansion, he starts popping those colossuses out rather quickly. Despite TheBest trying to break him early before he can get too big, Hongun holds off the pressures and achieves an unstoppable death ball at that point. For his next game Hongun pulls out another great build, but nada shows us why he’s good and why you cant go mothership. A solid effort by hongun to try something new against an amazing player, any game with a mothership instantly gains some entertainment points
Both oGs members showed excellent macro in their game, but one showed up with superior micro. Nada managed to just keep winning the tank exchanges while taking the map. Even though TOP was able to keep up in supply with his “top” notch production abilities; Nada did indeed have ‘many tank yes’ and rolled TOP over without much trouble. When TOP then gets paired up against TheBest he is set with defending proxy hellion drop but conveniently TheBest executes before blue flame finishes (UH OH). He then transitions from this into cloaked banshees. This just doesn’t end up doing enough damage and TOP rolls out and roflstomps thebest

Nada did as Nada does, and played extremely solid and consistent throughout his matches. He demonstrated he was clearly the strongest player in his group, and managed to take games of some strongly skilled opponents. HongUn again did not fail to entertain us, he's able to follow up his creative ideas with solid play. Fun, but not the lame kind of fun that involves some drones and a spawning pool. TOP definitely under performed today, he was able to show glimpses of his true potential but I feel he is certainly capable of much more. As for thebest...well he's probably going to code A.

Nada - A-
HongUn - B+
TheBest - B-
TOP - B

Despite this group of Terran pain we manage to have a protoss advance alongside Nada, an entertaining one at that. Both groups showed the similar theme of being terran dominated, with terrans being the seeming favourites to advance in most situations from both groups. Yet each group had some interesting outcomes, making our race distributions in the ro16 just a little bit better.

With a GSL champion and a Ro8 finisher in this group, it almost seemed like it was obvious who was going to advance. However, somewhere out there, the stars aligned and the Starcraft gods decided to completely turn everyone's predictions upside down. In the pregame interviews, Nestea even said "I never lost to a Protoss." Ultimately, San made him eat his words (and Artosis, a sword).

On Shakuras Plateau, San went for an aggressive gateway unit attack after doing a forge expand, and Nestea was completely caught off-guard by this as he was droning the whole time. He pumps roaches but they get picked off in small groups as they come out of the three hatcheries that Nestea has. It was Nestea's game to lose from that point on, but San's passivity allowed Nestea to fight on for another half hour. With great tech changes by Nestea, he inched his way towards a comeback that was ultimately shutdown by San's surprisingly good lategame. If at all, watch this game to see how San deals with lategame hive tech without the fabled colossus/void ray deathball.

The second set of the game involved our beloved emperor, but with an elevator of marines and blue flame hellions, Ensnare roasted my dreams of the emperor making it out of the group 2-0. It was only made worse by the fact that Boxer did a 1rax FE and was teching to banshees at the same time.

At that point, there was no way for Boxer and Nestea to make it out of the group together, with both of them at 0-1. The following games only cemented that reality. The third set was just an utter disappointment, with Boxer keeling over after the first major battle to San's colossus/phoenix army.

Ensnare showed some top-notch mindgames against Nestea, walling off his FE with a starport and a techlab addon while upgrading Caduceus Reactor to fake cloaked banshees. Though Nestea didn't fall for it, Ensnare followed up with great drop harass that Nestea had trouble shutting down because he made roaches before mutas. Nestea counters after losing his fourth a second time and makes a horrible misclick which resulted in 15 or so banelings rolling past a bio ball on move command. Nestea is never able to make a comeback and the game ends with Ensnare having a total of six bases to Nestea's mined out three.

Boxer and Nestea finally duke it out, but rather than for seeding placement in the Ro16, they're fighting for the Up & Down matches. Boxer "fakes" a no gas FE but instead goes for a 4rax marine all-in. Being the great detective that Nestea is, eight roaches come out just in time to meet the army and vomit all over them. With another lackadaisical performance and no way to come back, Boxer finishes the group 0-3.

In the final set of the game, San went for a high templar-based army while Ensnare went for ghosts. Back and forth fights ensued while both players transitioned to adding colossus and vikings to their armies. With no clear winner in sight, Ensnare nukes multiple expansions, getting about 20 probes total over the course of the game. Despite nuking all those probes to oblivion, San is still able to outexpand Ensnare and the mix of storms and colossus is just too much for Ensnare's bioball to handle.

San completely took this group by storm with an amazing show of skill, making up for all his past failures in televised games. He is no longer the failure that can't make it past a 10-minute game, but is being hailed as the new protoss hero with incredible lategame. Ensnare's best game in this group was against Nestea, showing a solid macro style with heavy harassment that many Terrans have been trying to emulate this season. Nestea's dominating aura wasn't apparent in any of his games today, but rather he exhibited lack of focus in his games with mistakes aplenty. I'm at a loss of words for Boxer, so I'll let this emote express my feelings: ಠ_ಠ

San - A
Ensnare- B+
NesTea - C+
BoxeR - D

This group was destined to be lackluster, but the results are interesting to a degree. With ample smacktalking prior to the matches, the drama was intensifying as the Protoss players claimed that the maps favored them and that TheWind would be an easy opponent. Boy, was that wrong.

In the first set, choya and Lyn macro off of just two bases in fear of losing to an attack when taking their third. This resulted in a very passive game, and as expected, the first major battle occurred when both players were setting up their thirds. choya ended up coming out ahead with superior upgrades and army size.

Few words can be said about the game that followed, as it was a short game. TheWind took his revenge against Banbanssu by faking an expand, only to cancel it and roach all-in against the protoss forge expand. With only one cannon and one sentry, it was an easy sweep for the zerg army.

In a matchup that is seemingly dominated by 4gates, both players did as expected, and 4gated eachother. BanBanssu was the aggressor and with slightly quicker warpgate, was able to bust up choya's ramp while warping in a quicker extra round of units that allowed his army advantage to snowball.

Lyn played against TheWind on Tal'Darim Altar and both players opened with early expansions. Contrary to how Terran normally transition from a 1rax FE, Lyn transitioned into a 4rax marine timing attack that completely caught TheWind off-guard before his baneling nest was up and he loses his natural hatchery. Lyn is able to keep his advantage, macroing while dropping at the same time, and moved out with a sizeable army of marines and tanks. From this point on, Lyn constantly reinforced his army with a handful of marines and tanks that didn't allow TheWind any breathing room, and ultimately won with unrelenting aggression.

For the first time this season, the whole group was in a four-way tie, meaning the next two games decided who would advance.

choya blocked TheWind's natural hatchery with a cybernetics core that finishes, which leaves even Tastosis confused. Short of 250 minerals, choya decided to make dark templars off of one base which TheWind was completely prepared for. With such a huge economical advantage, TheWind was able to amass a huge mutalisk army, without any pressure, that kept choya confined to his base. Mutaling caught choya's huge stalker ball out of position, wiping most of them out. With so much muta-retention, TheWind was able to constantly harass choya's main and does major damage. Knowing he can't survive if the game goes on any longer, choya ditches his main and aims to kill TheWind's 4th/5th base. With broodlords killing his main and ultralisks/mutas killing his army, choya loses everything but his 4th base, which TheWind runs over in the end.

The final game of the series was similar to the first, in that both players were passive off two bases for a while. BansBanssu made a huge mistake of engaging up Lyn's ramp and having all his units choked, losing much more than he should've. They both take their thirds and BanBanssu transitions into colossus/phoenix, and Lyn responds by patiently waiting until his viking force is big enough to handle it. Once both armies are maxed, Lyn comes out considerably ahead in the battle and is able to roll over the rest of BanBanssu's reinforcements.

Despite the maps being "Protoss favored", ironically neither of the advancing players are Protoss. TheWind definitely proved to everyone that despite being a coach, his own game sense has not suffered as a result. Lyn is on his way to building up his SC2 reputation as was his goal since the beginning, and I'm really happy to see him improving so much.

oGsTheWinD - B
FOXLyn - B+
NSHoSeo.Banbanssu - C-
choyafOu - C+

This was TSL's group to win, and it started out brilliantly, with TesteR and Fruitdealer taking the first three games in less than half an hour of playing time. These were beatdowns of the ruthlessly efficient quality; TesteR's no-nonsense four gate rolled all over an unprepared anypro, Fruitdealer nydus rushed a careless FE from Genius, and then TesteR secured his advancement in a comically easy mirror build win against Genius. All that was left was for Fruitdealer to take out the chronically inept anypro.

And then it all fell apart. Fruitdealer's two games against anypro were a microcosm of the desperation zergs are currently facing in the ZvP match-up. Fruitdealer has always been a creative and aggressive player, but this tendency worked wholly against him against the cautious and unimaginative anypro. In the first of their series on Xel'Naga, Fruitdealer took damage early as anypro opened with a standard two gate phoenix build. This seemed to do more than set the zerg back economically however, as Fruitdealer played the rest of the game as though he was grievously behind. His response was a two base mass of roaches and hydras which played well into anypro's colossus timing. Reminiscent of the futility of pressing across the dual bridges on the BW map Destination; Fruitdealer's heedless assault on anypro's natural was so decimated by force-fields that the zerg GG'd immediately after it failed. In many ways it was painful to watch, as Fruitdealer wasn't all-in, but against the protoss he might as well have been. After the way in which Fruitdealer had cooly dispatched Genius just minutes before, it was jarring to see him at such unease against a player with so little in his toolbox as anypro.

The second game of the series was decided by something relatively more simple; as Fruitdealer gambled on a race to ultralisks and could not delay long enough to achieve a critical mass of cattle on the field. There might've been something to that choice; anypro was stalker-heavy and had a significant number of colossus but no immortals. It was not a confident choice, however, instead a more apt comparison is to a hail mary pass. Fruitdealer had a hope and a prayer that anypro would be too cautious to act, and he was very nearly correct. Ultimately, however, the indignity of losing with almost 3000 minerals, 2000 gas, and innumerable larva banked must frustrate Fruitdealer. Anypro did decently in the second game to secure his third base and max-up, but Fruitdealer's defense was less than a minute wanting.

I was eagerly looking forward to this group because I anticipated that it could tell us a substantial bit about the state of ZvP and PvP; two of the matches that seem in the most trouble at the moment. Instead, it revealed little, with aggression still proving paramount in the mirror and the greater lessons of ZvP having been learned in earlier matches. Ultimately this group told us little about the players as well. Anypro showed some improved game sense, but he also dodged PvT. Fruitdealer remains maddeningly inconsistent. Genius is still being punished for greedy play. And TesteR again looks like a strong opponent, but not necessarily a title contender.

This week in the Round of 16, TesteR will face sCfOu, a match that will present difficulties for the protoss. anypro's opponent is Kyrix, during which the very fabric of the universe will rebel against the idea that anypro is a Ro8 calibre player and Kyrix will smite him back to the group stage where he belongs.

Trickster - A
anypro - B
Genius - C
FruitDealer - B-

Closing out the first round, Group H proved to be one of the more fun and evenly matched groups in Code S. Many, including this writer, thought that MarineKing was the surest thing in this group, but the reigning runner-up was narrowly beaten, completing the train of upsets that has characterized this GSL. Of eight GSL finalists, one began the season in Code A, and six lost in the group stages. Only MC survived this round. Of the eight seeds in this season, only three overcame their handpicked groups, including just one of the semi-finalists. Ouch.

Everything started swimmingly for MarineKing however, as he got away with a CC-first on Terminus against Kyrix and following up with a five factory push that turned out to be essentially unstoppable. Kyrix played well by any measure; repeatedly defending against the brutal assault until MarineKing had expanded to every position on the map and was calling down rainshowers of mules to repair. Ultimately however, Kyrix was doomed to a repeat game on Terminus while MarineKing sat in the drivers seat for qualification.

The second game of the series went to sC after the terran gambled on three-rax pressure and found that InCa had risked a one-gate expand. InCa held on long enough to make a final counter-attack, but was easily beaten back. The third and fourth games flip the group on its head however, as InCa scares MarineKing into being conservative after a dt opening, then grabs a heavy macro lead and destroys an ill-advised marine-tank composition with storms. MarineKing's name and playstyle has become a recognizable brand in TvT and TvZ, but his TvP appeared lacking against InCa. The fourth game featured aggressive pressure from sC matched by aggressive defense from Kyrix. sC's mentality for a TvZ on Terminus should be questioned here; while other terrans have abused the size of the map and the free third base to turtle through the midgame and race towards a late game composition, sC attempted to play Terminus like Steppes of War. His early two rax rush was effective, but not deadly, and his later pushes were not potent enough because both players were on even economy. Perhaps better marine splitting would've saved sC, but Kyrix was in a groove, his droning and unit cycles were well timed to sC's pushes.

With all the players tied after the first round, each player went into a one and done situation against the player they had not yet faced in the group. MarineKing faced sC on Tal'Darim, while Kyrix and InCa faced off on Shakuras.

In the TvT, MarineKing opened with uninspired banshee play and a messy frontal attack with hellions and marines, which sC deftly deflected. MarineKing expanded afterwords, and sC pressed an attack with sieged tanks which basically killed MKP off. In the last few minutes of the game, MarineKing made a pretty excellent last stand, but his good unit control after the game was lost was a stark contrast to the sloppy control he exhibited when he was still in the hunt. The ZvP was equally perplexing, with InCa playing unnecessarily cautiously off of two bases. The protoss took the first battle, but couldn't do much with it, despite Kyrix over-producing corruptors and not storm dodging at all. At some point, InCa appeared to simply have forgotten to build units, and completely fell apart before waves of roaches and hydras. Broodlords were the final touch, and Kyrix advanced from his group in first place, with sC second.

In their next matches, Kyrix will take on anypro, which is a close call only because anypro is protoss. sC faces TesteR next and has a solid chance, but should probably lose. One gets the sense that sC would not have survived in this season's Code A, but due to his advancement, he will likely remain in Code S for a while. He is not a spectacular player, but he can compete.

Kyrix - B+
sC - B+
MarineKing - B
Inca - B