[GOM] ro16 - The Crucible

Banner thanks to Pachi

A foreword: I apologise for the length of this weeks reports. Those of you who have already seen the July-Goojila games will understand, hopefully those who have not will want to after reading this. Last Sunday was definitely a day for excellent games, I recommend watching all of them. This was a combined effort between Tadzio and KwarK.

This Sunday's games begin with an epic clash, at least by the somewhat dull standards of TvT. On one side we have (T)

BaBy, the latest Terran in the WeMade FOX dynasty that begins with (T)

NaDa and produced the Starleague winner (T)

Mind. On the other side we have CJ's new top man, all Killer in the Winner's League finals and a definite contender for best Terran right now, (T)

sKyHigh. Against JangBi BaBy showed some tremendous and innovative play, beating one of the top PrOtoss players around in his best matchup. Definitely a player to watch, BaBy is producing some phenomenal play right now. sKyHigh had a somewhat easier road to the ro16 with GGPlay being his only real challenge but has dismissed each of his opponents with ease. Statistically, BaBy is at 5-6 TvT whereas sKyHigh is at 10-8 but that sample is too small to really draw any firm conclusions.

The second set of the night featured PvZ masters (and teammates), Goojila and July. Expectations for the match's outcome were varied. Some were convinced that July's lack of recent proleague appearances was an indication that he was well past his prime and that these games would demonstrate just how far he's slipped. Others were certain that July's perennial ZvP would carry him through the vulnerable looking Goojila (he'd gone 4-8 in the 12 PvZs prior to meeting July) and on into round of 8. Fortunately for fans, a little bit of both predictions were true.
So, let the games begin.

Results
Ro16 - Day 1
(T)

sKyHigh vs (T)

BaBy
+ Show Spoiler [results] +

sKyHigh > BaBy
sKyHigh > BaBy

July vs

Goojila
+ Show Spoiler [results] +

Goojila > July
July > Goojila
July > Goojila

Recommended Game
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July vs

Goojila on Outsider

sKyHigh vs BaBy Game 1

Garden of God. BaBy, bottom right, red. sKyHigh, top left, white.
Both players opted for a safe 1 rax, factory, expo build while scouting simultaneously and both taking 2 scvs off gas after building the factory. The builds varied slightly with BaBy opting for the faster tank with his building CC at the top of the ramp whereas sKyHigh built a fast vulture while expanding directly to his nat. BaBy successfully microed against the vulture and took no losses but as they sparred with their first tanks in the middle of the map took a little more damage than he gave.
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sKyHigh brought scvs out to repair his mech whereas BaBy didn't and when BaBy next attempted to push he quickly found himself several tanks down and forced into a stalemate. holding only because of mines.
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BaBy moved into vultures with mines and mined the centre whereas sKyHigh concentrated on building up his tank count and, using his floating rax to scout the middle, sent his tanks around the side to contain BaBy. As BaBy set up position near sKyHigh's natural, within range of half of the mineral blocks, sKyHigh contained BaBy, stopping the mining.
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However their response was different, sKyHigh gave up on mining and rushed to a wraith to break the contain whereas BaBy made a third factory and attempted to push sKyHigh's tanks back, losing 2 tanks and many scvs pointlessly. When the dust settled sKyHigh was ahead by a few scvs and proceeded to expand while harassing with his wraiths. BaBy attempted to counter expand but was shut down by a dropship.
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The supply counts at this point were 84 BaBy to 101 sKyHigh with the difference being almost all scvs. This allowed sKyHigh to produce from more factories than BaBy, while also producing dropships,
BaBy attempted to contain and won a small skirmish against sKyHigh, sniping lone tanks and holding off an drop but ultimately he couldn't do any more than contain whereas sKyHigh was able to hold his own front line while making aggressive drops. Both players dropped each others natural behind the main, sKyHigh with his greater dropship count securing BaBy's cliff while BaBy reinforced his tanks on sKyHigh's with more tanks on the low ground.
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sKyHigh gathered his dropships and attempted to retake the high ground behind his natural but BaBy's tanks on the low ground and rapid reinforcement prevented him from getting anywhere.
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While BaBy continued to get tank kills with some excellent micro sKyHigh's economy was simply stronger and his greater dropship count allowed him to safely take a hidden expansion.
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The difference in factory count, BaBy on 4 to sKyHigh's 7, was eventually too great and despite some excellent Control by BaBy sKyHigh was able to push forwards and overwhelm him.
GG

sKyHigh vs BaBy Game 2

Game 2 was on Heartbreak Ridge. BaBy spawned at the right hand side in YellOw whereas sKyHigh spawned on the left in purple.
sKyHigh opened by scouting for possible proxies and upon realising he was safe he built his own Barracks in the middle to use for scouting. Because of the possibility of a proxy barracks BaBy was forced to make more marines and took his natural slightly slower than sKyHigh. However rather than accepting a loss in the economic race BaBy decided to exploit the situation and immediately rushed.
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sKyHigh opted for vultures with 3 fast factories to defend his building expansion, giving him more unit production than BaBy but little time. Hitting before mines were complete, BaBy successfully build a bunker near sKyHigh's choke and although sKyHigh was able to kill BaBy's first tank, doing so cost him his army and a scv difference of eleven.
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sKyHigh placed his barracks on the expansion site of BaBy, delaying it momentarily, and then started harassing the bunker with his first tank. BaBy mistakenly engaged 7 vultures and a tank with 5 vultures in an attempt to save his bunker, losing his army to the swarm of units pumped out of sKyHigh's three factories.
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Still very behind on scvs sKyHigh went allin with an immediate attack and was able to take BaBy's natural.
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By swamping units in and placing huge amounts of mines sKyHigh was able to hold onto BaBy's natural for long enough to gain a big economic advantage. He moved in to take the kill.
GG

BaBy was outplayed game 1 although he showed an extremely solid performance. Game 2 he should have won but rather than consolidate his early economic advantage and play defensively he overstretched and wasted an army he could not afford to lose. The unit counting station showed that sKyHigh wasn't even trying to recover his economy by making scvs but was instead going allin. BaBy didn't change his game to adapt to that.

July vs Goojila Game 1

With thanks to Tadzio for game 1 and 2 of the July-Kal series.

Game 1 began on God's Garden with Goojila's orange nexus warping in at 10 o'clock, and July's teal hatchery sprouted at 4 o'clock. July opened with a 12 pool, 12 hatchery, 15 hatchery while Goojila began with pylon, gateway, nexus while blocking his ramp with zealots. Goojila scouted July first and began harassing July's mining drones, but failed to show any interest in blocking either of July's expansions.

After chasing away Goojila's scouting probe, July placed a fourth hatchery within his main and builds a hydralisk den at his natural. Goojila techs toward corsair/templar, sending three zealots around the map into July's natural shortly after the hydralisk den is placed. July is unprepared for this move, but successfully uses his drones and three zerglings to chase the zealots away while he waits for more zerglings to hatch. Goojila adds a Dragoon to his frontmost forces and attacks July's newly hatched zerglings. Although hopelessly outnumbered, Goojila's forces are so well controlled so that nearly all of July's zerglings are killed and the remaining forces are not numerous enough to secure map control. + Show Spoiler +

Meanwhile, Goojila's first corsair manages to kill an overlord before July's hydralisk can hatch and chase the corsair away. Moments later, Goojila sends a dark templar toward July's natural and expands behind it, but before the dark templar is halfway there July catches Goojila's corsair in a bad spot, eliminating both the threat to his overlords and the threat of the dark templar.

With 21 hydralisk, July launches a timing attack to erase Goojila's natural, rallying reinforcements as he goes. Goojila has the same idea, and moves out to meet July's hydralisk with 11 zealots and 6 high templar.
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Seeing this, July decides to drop in plain sight of Goojila's army. He hits Goojila's rear natural with 12 hydralisk but there are three cannons and a high templar for defense and half of July's drop is killed by psionic storm immediately and the remaining hydra are killed by dragoons before they can do any permanent damage to Goojila's economy.
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July follows by dropping lurkers around the minerals of Goojila's rear natural, but while he does so his hydralisk lose a battle with zealots in the middle of the map, and then Goojila clears the lurkers with storm and dragoon fire. Weakened and with his harass having almost no success, July takes a massive risk to catch up and loads 10 overlords with hydralisk and drops Goojila's main while sending a smaller group of 8 hydralisks to Goojila's natural. Goojila is prepared for the attack, however, and crushes the large hydralisk army in his main as it is dropped, and erases the smaller force at his natural with a single storm, Goojila loses only 2 cannons and perhaps 2-3 dragoons in the process.
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Understanding that July is in a bad spot, Goojila counters immediately. July attempts to prevent this with a hastily assembled lurker contain, but once Goojila's observers catch up with his army, he rolls over July.
GG

July vs Goojila Game 2

With a poor performance in Game 1, July would have to improve his game dramatically to avoid being eliminated on Heartbreak Ridge, a map that is very difficult for Zerg to secure a fourth gas on. July starts as yellow at 9 o'clock and Goojila as teal at 3 o'clock. July opts for 9 pool and sends a drone out to mine Goojila's mineral-block (at 1 o'clock) while Goojila places his pylon in preperation for a fast expansion.

July uses the extractor trick to give himself another drone (and mask what he's doing), but Goojila seems to notice that something's off about July's overlord timing and scouts the minerals at 1 o'clock, discovering July's attempt. Knowing about it and doing something about it are two different things, however, and as July takes his natural, he kills Goojila's scout, sends his 6 zerglings to 1 o'clock and then makes six more zerglings to keep Goojila's second scout busy (and unaware that July is slipping 6 zerglings behind his natural).

July's build was brilliantly deceptive, and it was only slightly spoiled by Goojila's well placed cannons killing half of July's speedless zerglings on their way inside Goojila's main. Having successfully gotten 3 zerglings inside his opponent's main, July expands to 7 o'clock and begins the process of slowing Goojila's economy down while building up his own. July kills 4 probes before the combination of a cannon in the mineral line and a zealot eliminates the pesky infiltrators. July's remaining 6 zerglings, meanwhile, continue to kill Goojila's scouting probes, one after another (for a total of 4 additional probe kills).
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While July's midgame has switched to spire & hydralisk den at the same time (for scourge/hydralurk), Goojila's midgame mimics his successful play in game 1, with three zealots, a dragoon and corsair with templar tech. This time, however, Goojila's dragoon gets seperated from his zealots and July's zerglings single it out and destroy it, giving July map control until Goojila's dark templar get on the map.

July's overlord coverage and scourge to protect them from corsair effectively halt any potential dark templar harassment and so, safe in his base, July sends two lurkers behind Goojila's natural, using the opening at 1 o'clock he created at the beginning of the game to gain access to the cliffs behind the natural. Goojila had left a probe up on the cliff and sees the lurkers coming, so he loses a total of 0 probes to the harass. Lacking observers, however, Goojila's mineral intake is cut in half until he can remove the threat with psionic storm. He starts a robotics facility when he sees the lurkers but loses a lot of mining time.
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As with game 1, Goojila and July's push timings coincide and both armies meet at the 6 o'clock ridge. Still lacking observers, Goojila's zealot/templar/archon army stands little chance against July's hydra/lurk army, and he's forced to back off. July uses the opportunity to take 5 o'clock.

Moments later, and armed with the addition of dragoons and an observer, Goojila moves out again to destroy 5 o'clock, which, after a brief scuffle with a few lurkers, he's able to do with ease. He rewards himself with an expansion at 1 o'clock.
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For the next few minutes, both players' armies jockey for map position, feignting here, patrolling there, until Goojila drops 4 zealots into July's main. July clears out the zealots with zerglings and sends two groups of his 111 zerglings to 12 o'clock where they meet Goojila's army and are killed.+ Show Spoiler +

As if the death of those zerglings were a call for action, July loads up a doom drop of 8 overlords full of lurkers and zerglings and readies himself to cause massive destruction. As July positions his drop, he expands to 4 o'clock and just then Goojila drops a high templar and 3 zealots into July's main, storming 9 of July's drones. Meanwhile, Goojila's army heads toward 6 o'clock where they meet a decent sized group of zerglings and lurkers. To protect his newest expansion attempt, July burrows his lurkers and fights the army at the ridge-choke. A few storms make short work of the zerglings, and some zealots and archons finish off the lurkers, but it seems July's done enough to discourage Goojila from attacking his newest expansion, as Goojila is slow about approaching it. July uses his teammate's hesitation to his advantage and doom drops Goojila's main. With only newly made high templar and cannons for defense, July runs rampant, disabling Goojila's production gateways and destroying much of his tech, including his templar archives.
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During the doom drop, Goojila busied himself by destroying 4 o'clock, expanding to 11 o'clock, and storming July's natural drones, killing all but 3.

Hurting, but still well in the game, July uses lurker/darkswarm to remove Goojila's expansion at 11 o'clock shortly after it finishes warping in.

With both players' economies running ragged, July begins pumping an ultra/zergling army and works to protect an expansion attempt at 4 o'clock. Goojila also takes his time to re-expand to 11 o'clock, and for a few minutes both players leave eachother alone.
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With 15 ultralisk, 60 zerglings and three defilers saved up, July finally moves out, almost immediately decimating Goojila's dragoons, then destroying 11 o'clock and finally moving into and destroying 1 o'clock before Goojila can stop him. With Goojila limited to a few archons and high templar, and no income, July rewards himself by taking 5 o'clock before sending his reinforcements into Goojila's natural and ending the game.
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GG

Goojila lost game 2 because he was too damaged by the drop, despite having destroyed July's economy and new expansions. He was only making high templar when it hit and rather than switch to dark templar he attempted to fight a swarm of lings with templar, each of which only had 66 energy. He should have made reavers a lot earlier too, especially considering his robotics was one of the only tech buildings he didn't lose.

July vs Goojila Game 3

Game 3 was on Outsider. Goojila spawned in teal at 11 while July got orange at 5. July opted for an overpool without speed into expo. With base sites this close overpool forces the Protoss player to make cannons before expanding. Feeling that July wasn't going to rush in without speed Goojila made just 1 cannon before expanding and was rewarded with a faster gateway. His scout probe stayed alive and managed to scout the 2 hat lair rush build, rendering it impotent unless July changed his mind.

July did exactly that, walling his ramp to prevent the probe scouting further and massing speedlings. Goojila sensed something was up and attempted to scout it with a zealot, realising that 2 hat hydra rushes, 2 hat muta rushes, fast lurker drops and speedling allins were too diverse to all be countered. However July successfully surrounded and killed his first zealot while a second group of zerglings attacked and killed the lone cannon at Goojila's natural.
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The speedlings ran through into the main where they killed several probes and the assimilator while continued pressure at the natural forced probes off mining to defend and made Goojila make 5 cannons. However the pressure was coming from July's 2 hatchery spire which completed and spawned 6 mutalisks. Goojila's cannons were out of position to defend the natural mineral line and there were more probe casualities, leaving barely any mining at the natural and July significantly ahead in supply.
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After much sparring and retreating in the air between corsairs and mutalisks and scourges July realised that his planned attack against the natural was not going to work and started pumping drones to fill his 3 undersaturated bases. However he still maintained sufficient air control to deny Goojila's corsairs any scouting information or overlord kills while he teched towards hydralisks.

Forced to overcompensate in corsairs by the mutalisks and having lost significant amounts of gas income by the harassment and early loss of an assimilator Goojila moved reavers and corsairs. He upgraded them and used the blob offensively but couldn't prevent July sniping more and more probes with his mutalisks before running away from the vengeful corsairs. However the reaver was too late to stop hydralisks harassing and breaking his vulnerable walling buildings at his natural.
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July dropped a group of hydralisks at the 2nd natural to Goojila and attempted to attack his main but was scouted by a well placed pylon and had his attack shut down by reavers. However some dreadful micro by Goojila gave him 2 reaver kills so his attack wasn't a complete waste, by killing the reavers he delayed Goojila's harassment which had not yet begun even further. However when July tried the exact same trick again Goojila remembered not to lose reavers and shut it down without loss, following up with a drop. July scouted the drop and attempted to intercept it with mutalisks and scourge but the shuttle retreated behind the corsairs which easily cleaned it up.

Goojila's first reaver drop did little damage, killing a few mutalisks and hydralisks sent to block it but not getting any drones. The second succeeded in killing 4 drones but lost 5 corsairs to some very nicely cloned scourge.
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Without corsair support the shuttle and reavers died, although not without costing July some mining time and killing some drones. While Goojila was up to 3 bases, having taken his 2nd natural, and quickly remassed some more corsairs to escort his shuttles July was on +2 air armour and was controlling the air with a 'gaggle' of mutalisks. As Goojila again tried to get some corsair reaver offensive going his corsair fleet was destroyed by mutalisks and more well cloned scourges, clearing the air for July's drop. However the rapidly deployed reavers made quick work of the drop.
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Goojila continued to harass with limited success while attempting to secure a fourth base but suffered a huge setback when July, probably accidentally, dropped his rally point. Goojila was attempting to make the transition into a ground army with which to challenge July's hydralisks at the heart of the map and had 2 unloaded reavers and 3 stormless high templar there which were quickly reinforced by an empty shuttle. He lost every one of them which combined with his continual loss of harassment reavers gave him no real army to push with.
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Quickly countering with a dark drop of his own which sent darks to 3 of July's bases killing 14 drones Goojila desperately tried to prevent July from obtaining an unassailable economic advantage from his base superiority. However his reaver harassment continued to be ineffectual against bases with hydralisks and sunkens in defence. However two things simultaneously went in Goojila's favour, suddenly throwing him back into a game that he had been dominated in from the offset. Using his fledgling ground army as a decoy Goojila hit July's 9 o clock main with 4 reavers and disruption web support, wiping out the hydralisks defending it and killing the hatchery. Seconds later July loaded up his main army into overlords in plain view of Goojila and found them ambushed by corsairs with no air support and zealots waiting beneath them. His strongest expansion and the core of his army were simultaneously destroyed with very few losses to Goojila, finally giving him a window to attempt to win.
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Despite being given a chance to get back into the game Goojila risked his 4 reavers in shuttles to attack July's next expansion, choosing a location which had hydralisks above a cliff firing down upon his reavers and then choosing to split his reavers and get them killed individually by hydralisks.
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Exploiting the map to it's fullest extent (I don't remember when island maps were still played but if they were anything like this they were P>>>Z) Goojila attempted to take and cannon another expansion at the top left while launching a vicious and extremely effective storm drop. However his expansion was swiftly shut down by a drop of 8 hydralisks.
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July made the mistake of grouping all his hydralisks at his natural expansion while attempting to harass Goojila's expansion at 12 with a drop. However that drop was shut down by a solid reaver and cannon defence and sensing weakness Goojila launched a group of zealots across the map in a suicide gank of one of July's only two bases with any real minerals left at them. July sent his hydralisks immediately but was too late to save the hatchery, the price of his arrogant assumption of map control. At the same time Goojila expanded to the 3 o clock base site and although July tried to shut it down a well placed storm and some cannons gave him a bloody nose.
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The game calmed down for a minute or two, both players attempting to secure and power their economy on their new bases. Goojila kept the pressure on the vulnerable mineral lines like July's natural but July simply didn't mine those, concentrating his drones and his units on the well defended and new expansions on the left hand side, deep in his side of the map. Having finally mined their way to a new front line, with Goojila's latest expansion on the top left corner being a natural of July's key expansion at the 9 o clock main site, the two players faced off against each other. Goojila concentrated his mobile harassment forces of corsairs, high templar and reavers with his main ground forces and attempted to slowly push up the ramp, well aware of the 70 hydralisks willing to die to keep him from reaching the top. Armed with 10 reavers and countless storms but battling not only against hydralisks but the bad combination of reaver ai with a ramp he webbed the top of the ramp before the battle. Then, as he loaded his shuttles, he let his attention slip for a second and lost 4 reavers and 3 shuttles to scourge, as well as the mobility of his army which relied on shuttles for reinforcements. It completely ended Goojila's hopes of pushing the 9 main base, as well as the remains of his army which were dropped on shortly after.
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July attempted a huge drop at the top left expansion which was stormed on repeatedly and narrowly held off. However without the need to keep his hydralisks spread out in constant defence against shuttles he was able to continually mass produce them and drop as he pleased all over the map while Goojila was no longer able to instantly reinforce attacked areas with reavers. July continued to drop and Goojila was unable to prevent him from overwhelming his main and winning the game.
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GG

Although Goojila was often sloppy with his units, sometimes wasting them carelessly, the mistakes weren't game-deciding until the end. In the beginning of game three he had the luxury to lose 2 reavers at a time without any major ill-effects. Only towards the end, when he lost 6 reavers and a shuttle fleet all at once, was July finally able to punish Goojila for his lack of attention. Game 3 was an excellent game! July certainly earned the win but Goojila nearly clawed his way back from the brink of defeat to win himself. Goojila's style was truly impressive!

Upcoming
Ro16 - Day 2
June 14, PDT 02:00
(T)

Flash vs

HoeJJa

Shuttle vs (T)

Hwasin

Should've saved the "Dangerous Allies" title for this week's coverage, since that's what we'll be seeing this Sunday. Both sets will have teammates playing one another. First up is KT MagicNs' Flash vs HoeJJa.

It seems a little bizarre introducing Flash to a community of starcraft fans. If you don't know who he is: Hi! Welcome to Teamliquid, I hope you dig South Korean Progaming!

Flash is the Little Monster. The Ultimate Weapon. The 16 year old prodigy God-Terran. He's an all-around solid player who relies heavily on his mechanics to get and stay ahead of his opponents. He's basically the auto-favorite against any of his opponents save Bisu or Jaedong. Yeah. He's pretty good.

His opponent this Sunday may be someone you're less familiar with: HoeJJa. HoeJJa's been an active progamer for about a year now, and he's yet to earn any nicknames that I'm aware of. He beat Calm and sAviOr to advance to the round of 16, proving that he isn't completely useless in ZvZ (a fact that was, frankly, in doubt prior to those games). His best match up is ZvP, but his ZvT record is marginally better owing to the fact that he plays better Protoss than Terrans.

Practically any modern player would look insignificant if forced to compare their achievements to Flash's and HoeJJa is no different in this regard. Tasteless may say that "GOM is the tournament of upsets. Anything can happen." But with regards to this set, we have to argue, "not this time."

Next is STX SouL's Shuttle vs Hwasin.

Shuttle is one of the few progamers who owes his reputation to the GOM Classic, so it's only fitting that he's progressed this far into GOM's third season. He's had an easy time of it this season, too. Beating fOrGG and ZergBong on his way into the round of 16. His best matchup is easily PvP (6-2 vs quality opponents), and although he's only 13-18 in PvT, he's 6-4 in GOM PvTs, which seems more relevant, somehow. It's as though he gains superpowers whenever he plays GOM games.

Hwasin used to be a pretty scary Terran, and in TvZ he still is, but over the last two years, he's been losing his grasp on the TvP match up. He barely ever plays TvP in proleague anymore, and when he does he's more likely to screw up and lose to a mediocre Protoss than he is to help his team to victory.

It's hard to say Hwasin's the underdog in this set, but I think I have to. Hwasin definitely has the edge in experience, but so did Xellos and fOrGG both whom Shuttle eliminated in GOM season 1, which just goes to show that experience doesn't mean much when your grasp on the metagame is slipping.

See you in the Live report thread!

[GOM] ro16 - The Crucible

[GOM] ro16 - The Crucible

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