EPTGroup D in Review
By: WaxAngel
Group D: 
FXO_z, 
ST_Curious, 
ST_Bomber, oGsInCa
Match One: Oz vs Curious
Game One –
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Oz performed an unorthodox Forge + 2 Gateway FE to apply a little Zealot pressure, but Curious responded well by playing slightly conservatively off two bases, only taking his third after he felt he was safe. However, he didn't read Oz's follow-up correctly, and was forced to sacrifice that base when Oz came knocking with a mass Gateway, +2 Blink Stalker timing. Oz pushed into Curious' natural where a fierce battle ensued, and Curious was only able to fend off the attack after losing a considerable amount of Drones. In the meanwhile, Oz kept building troops back at home while taking a third base.
Realizing that he would be unable to keep up with the Protoss economy, Curious rallied all his troops for an attack into Oz's third. However, the Protoss army was just too big, and Curious GG'd out after his attack was repelled.
Winner: Oz
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Oz once again opened with the 2 Gate FE, but decided not to pressure too hard and transitioned into a relatively quick third base instead. Curious was glad to go along with the plan, taking his own third while plopping down a Hatchery at a fourth base as well.
Before either side had fully realized their economic potential, they moved out with mid-size armies to apply pressure. The two forces ended up missing each other, and an oddly small-army base trade situation occurred.
Oz had a bit more firepower, and after it was all said and done, he was left with a slightly better economy and standing army with both players reduced to one mining base. Oz also retained a much bigger portion of his infrastructure, allowing him to pump out troops and re-take his bases more quickly. Curious fought until the end, but he just couldn't win after such an imbalanced reset.
Winner: Oz
Game Three –
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Match Two: Bomber vs Inca
Game One –
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Bomber decided to FE and play almost totally blind, which played pretty well into Inca's plan to double expand, tech straight up to Templars, and go double Forge upgrades off a skeleton army. For all his macro prowess, Bomber wasn't able to fight a Protoss who had been allowed to do literally everything he wanted without any interference. By virtue of his flawless production and good battle micro, Bomber stayed alive for far longer than he should have, but he inevitably fell to the infinitely regenerating deathball.
Winner: Inca
Game Two –
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After safe FEs for both players, the cloak tactics inevitably came. Bomber made a late cloaked Banshee which did a little bit of damage, but was woefully unprepared for a predictable DT drop from Inca. While he caused chaos in Bomber's base, Inca took a quick third and teched up to Colossi as well.
Bomber tried to counter-attack after cleaning up the DTs, but Inca's trademark units had bought him enough time to secure his bases and get out enough troops defend himself. With his opponent on three bases and both Colossus and Templar tech, Bomber was in serious catch-up mode. In the end, the Protoss death-ball proved to be just too strong for the second time.
Winner: Inca
Game Three –
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Winner's Match:
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Game One –
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Oz opened with a three Stalker, two Sentry FE, while Inca went for four Gate blink + Observer off one base. Interestingly enough, Oz decided the best defense for his risky build was a good offense. He timed an attack with an Immortal and a handful of Gateway units before Inca's blink upgrade completed, which actually forced Inca back to his main to defend. At the same time, Oz also used a Pylon and Observer to warp in a few Zealots into Inca's main, damaging his economy and further delaying his attack. Though he lost a decent amount of troops with these tactics, it was actually worth it for Oz as it bought him a lot of time for his economy to kick in so he could build even more troops in the future.
With Inca already hard pressed to win with his one base all-in, Oz even managed to snipe off the Observer Inca could have used to blink up walls and perform harassment with. This left only the front door for Inca to go through, and that route was barricaded by several Immortals. Inca's attack failed as expected, and Oz picked up the first game.
Winner: Oz
Game Two –
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Oz tried to beat Inca's four gate with a three gate, but let a Probe build Pylons in his main.
Winner: Inca
Game Three –
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Inca went for a proxy two-Gate, but Oz scouted it just in time to catch up with a slightly later two-Gate build. There were a series of really intense Zealot vs Zealot micro battles that can't really be described in words, except to say that Oz was just slightly better and ended up winning the game.
Winner: Oz
Loser's Match:
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Game One –
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Besides some completely non-committal Roach+Speedling pressure from Curious, the game progressed very smoothly to the macro up and fight with 200/200 armies phase. Bomber was able to max-out before Curious could hit Hive tech, forcing at least one fight of pure Muta-Bane-Ling against Marine-Tank-Medivac.
Despite having the entire Terran army on creep, Curious couldn't get off a good flank at all, and was thoroughly thrashed by Bomber's forces. Bomber just reinforced his army and rolled in for the win (it didn't help that Curious had rallied all his Overlords to a position where Marines could easily pick them off).
Winner: Bomber
Game Two –
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It was an ugly slugfest of a game, defined by Bomber macroing and attacking while Curious reacted with backdoors attacks or head-on fights that achieved mixed success. The results for Curious were usually just "okay," as he was unable to decisively beat Bomber in battles or deal game-swinging amounts of damage with his backdoor attacks. On one occasion he back-doored when he could have just killed the Terran army, and sacrificed a three to two base advantage for no real reason. Still, Curious still accumulated more advantages than disadvantages over time, and was able to overpower Bomber after repeated battles.
Winner: Curious
Game Three –
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Curious caught Bomber trying to build a proxy Barracks, so he thwarted it by simply killing the building SCV with Drones. When Bomber sent more SCVs to try and complete the Barracks, Curious killed those, too. Then he sent some Zerglings to a poorly defended Terran main and killed some SCVs and Marines.
That put Bomber massively down just five minutes into the game, and there was no chance of coming back. Curious finished him off with a Baneling attack and progressed to the final series of the day.
Winner: Curious
Final Match:
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Game One –
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It was a brutal ZvP evisceration that we expected from Curious, though he had not delivered one in the GSL for a long time. Once Inca dared to be inattentive enough to allow the first batch of Zerglings into his main, his torment never ended. Curious abused the mobility of Mutalisks and Zerglings in the most frustrating of ways, and picked Inca apart little by little until there was nothing left.
Winner: Curious
Game Two –
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Game two was a general repeat of game one, with Curious making Inca look silly with Mutalisks. However, with Inca on the ropes, Curious got sloppy and lost a giant chunk of his Mutalisks army to Stalkers and storm. Curious spent two minutes pretending he was in danger before he popped out a ton of Ultralisks to finish the game.
Winner: Curious
Game Three –
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Bombs Away
There a was a brief window of time last year, around May or June, where people thought Bomber might be the best Terran player in the world. This was just before the Macro-Terran wave started to dominate the GSL, back when Mvp was still the only Terran player who had achieved success based on being greedy and making way more stuff than his opponent. Right as Mvp got knocked down to Code A (the only blemish on a sparkling resume), a much hyped Bomber managed to qualify for the first time, riding in on a giant wave of online notoriety.
As the two players rampaged through their respect sides of the bracket with ease, the comparisons became inevitable. Just like Mvp, Bomber strolled to victories where he made more stuff than his opponent, microed that stuff better, and just made himself look totally invincible on the whole. As if it were fated, the two players ended up facing each other in the finals, one of the first "old versus new" moments in Starcraft II's young history. Mvp did what he could to protect his pride, but Bomber looked like the better player on that day. He won 4-2, booked a spot in Code S, and became the figurehead of the new generation.
Now, Bomber is back in the same place, at the bottom rung of Code A, trying to prove himself. The latter two words have been all too familiar to Bomber over the last seven months.
On the tail of that Code A victory, we wanted him to prove that he could be a champion. You might say that's an absurd thing to expect from a player, but those who are blessed with incredible talent are inevitably cursed with incredible expectations. Bomber truly looked that good in his prime.
The first of his troubles seemed like a speed bump. He went out 0 – 2 to Nestea in the Super Tournament, but it was no great shame to lose to the greatest Zerg player in the world. However, his next two tournament eliminations were road blocks. Bomber was eliminated from DreamHack Summer 2010 by Moon, a Warcraft III legend but a Code S nobody. Not long after, he dropped from his very first Code S tournament after suffering a 2 – 3 loss to ZeNEXByun – a shock loss after he had gone up 2 – 0 in the series with some of the best TvT play ever seen in the GSL.
Tumultuous days followed. There was a three day stretch where he demolished everyone at MLG Raleigh to claim the championship. There was also an elimination from MLG Orlando at the hands of IdrA and SaSe, and early eliminations from the next two Code S tournaments. At the same time, the greedy, mass-production style of Terran became a staple of the race, capable of being emulated by every competent player.
With the advent of the new Code S system, Bomber was found himself busy proving that he belonged in Code S, much less proving that he was a title contender. Bomber was not a favorite against DongRaeGu or Gumiho in his Code S November group, and it showed in his quick 0 – 2 elimination. He dominated his Up-Down group to earn another shot at Code S, only falter once more.
For a player who carried so many hopes, time might be running out. Names like ForGG, Taeja and Happy have appeared to make Bomber's once transcendent mechanics look much more commonplace. Players who were once behind Bomber, such as Leenock, DongRaeGu, and MMA are now stars who headline the GSL. For a player who needed to make up lost ground, falling even more behind was a painful disappointment.
Art by Fishuu
Writer: Waxangel.
Graphics and Art: Meko and Pony Tales (disciple and Lip the Pencilboy).
Editor: WaxAngel
