GSL 2011 S1 CodeS Groups A-D

Blistering Sands

      Nestea gets his hatchery first. Polt threatens with two scvs and a bunker, which is forced to cancel due to drones. Polt expands to his natural and techs up to siege tanks. Nestea upgrades his zerglings' attack and speed as he gets a lair, a baneling nest, and a spire. Nestea expands to his gold as he pressures Polt's back door. Polt builds two engineering bays for upgrades. At around twelve minutes, Polt moves across the map with marine/tank/medivac to Nestea's gold. A standoff ensues after Polt sieges up on the cliff. Banelings and zerglings eventually overrun Polt's position, though, wiping out his army. Polt, realizing he is in trouble, stims a bunch of marines down to his gold base to clear out the rocks. Nestea foils his plans to expand with a huge swarm of zerglings as he expands to his own forth. From there, x-lings stream into Polt's main and make him gg.

Nerves seemed to get to Polt here. He was stimming packs of marines all around the map for no reason. Nestea's play was interesting in how long he stuck with zerglings, even after getting mutaliks. Polt did not put up much of a fight.

Nestea wins.

Standings:
Nestea 1-0
Maka 0-0
TheBest 0-0
Polt 0-1

Metalopolis, close positions

      Maka starts with three barracks and a second command center. TheBest gets an earlier factory. TheBest sends out five marines and a hellion that catch a few of Maka's marines off guard. This allows him to pin Maka into his base for a bit. Maka' extra orbital sits in his main. TheBest makes more hellions as he techs up to cloaked banshees. Maka brings his barracks count up to four, producing exclusively marines.
      Maka picks off the first cloaked banshee easily and goes on the offensive with his marines after finally getting his second orbital command to his natural. However, siege mode has finished for TheBest, so Maka is forced to retreat. TheBest moves out with four tanks and a bunch of marines to Maka's natural. Maka has to give it up, as stim and combat shields are not yet done, and only two marauders are out for the tanks. After taking his own natural, TheBest uses his medivacs to gain vision for his siege tanks, and there is nothing for Maka to do except concede.

A fairly unexpected result for TheBest. That early disruption of Maka's economy by blocking the natural really did him in. All it took from there was teching up and moving out.

TheBest wins

Nestea 1-0
TheBest 1-0
Maka 0-1
Polt 0-1

MakaPrime.WE v IMNestea

Blistering Sands

      Maka walls in at the bottom of his ramp and builds a makarax in the middle of the map. Nestea gets his pool first, followed by zergling speed. Both players expand soon after. Maka techs to starport for medivacs. Nestea gets roaches, banelings, and a lair. Nestea goes for a big baneling/roach bust at Maka's front. It doesn't work very well due to Maka's sieged tanks. Nestea responds by expanding to his gold and morphing a spire.
      Maka tears down his own back rocks and bunkers up outside his natural as he tries to expand to his third instead of his gold. A batch of mutalisks that pop out for Nestea put an end to a couple pesky drops, and delay Maka's third from going up. By the time Maka secures it, Nestea takes his forth. As Nestea's mutalisks fly around and harass, Maka keeps all of his marines in one giant ball, stimming and restimming them to little effect. Maka desperately tries to put up enough turrets, but there are too many mutalisks at this point, and Maka's army just can't get around fast enough. Nestea uses his economic advantage to save up a huge amount as both players hit max. Nestea makes an absurd number (97) of banelings and runs over Maka's base with wave after wave of zerglings and eventually ultralisks. Maka makes a valiant last stand at his ill-advised third, but eventually just looks silly for not gg-ing earlier.

Nestea looked really good transitioning from mutalisk into ultralisk/xling. Maka made some of his trademark wonky choices, and Nestea punished him for it.

Nestea wins

Nestea 2-0
TheBest 1-0
Polt 0-1
Maka 0-2

TheBestfOu v PoltPrime.WE

Xel'Naga Caverns

      Both players go for a quick factory, TheBest getting his only after getting a reactor on his barracks. Both players also get a starport. TheBest uses his starport for a raven. Polt gets a banshee and cloak. Polt kills pretty much all of TheBest's scvs with a cloaked banshee after TheBest refuses to return home with his army and defend. TheBest instead tries to muscle his way up Polt's ramp, but siege mode finishes and the push is repelled. Polt quickly cleans up TheBest's base.

Pretty awkward mistake by TheBest. He could have been way ahead after Polt committed so much into two banshees and cloak.

Polt wins

Nestea 2-0
TheBest 1-1
Polt 1-1
Maka 0-2

TheBestfOu v PoltPrime.WE

Metalopolis, close positions

      TheBest again goes for a quick marine hellion poke that kills some scvs and marines. TheBest follows it up with a raven and some vikings. Polt pushes out with marine/tank/medivac, but it is fended off with a clever auto-turret. TheBest pushes back and sets up a contain at the bottom of Polt's ramp. TheBest uses the advantage to expand. TheBest kind of bizarrely suicides some banshees into Polt's base. Polt edges out of his base with tank/viking and some medivac ferrying. Polt breaks the contain, and ends up with a bigger army, but some of the mineral patches in his main are already getting low by the time he can take his expansion.
      TheBest tries to drop a big chunk of his army into Polt's base, but it goes terribly, as Polt has started producing marauders, which take out the tanks quickly. Polt attacks a little later into TheBest's sieged tanks and loses his army. With his superior economy and bigger army, TheBest wins the game and moves on to the second group stage.

The story of this game was foolhardy aggression. Polt's was somewhat understandable, since he was so behind after getting such a late expansion, but TheBest could have rode that advantage to a win much more smoothly.

The Best Wins

Nestea 2-0
TheBest 2-1
Polt 1-2
Maka 0-2

Nestea is TheBest drink. Better than Polt, which Maka me crazy.
Nestea 2-0
TheBest 2-1
Polt 1-2
Maka 0-2

Metalopolis, close positions

      FruitDealer hatches first. Mvp double barracks. Mvp initial pressure is thwarted. But FruitDealer builds a poorly placed spine crawler that lets marines right up his ramp, which costs him the game.

Whoops.

Mvp wins

Mvp 1-0
Zenio 0-0
Jookto
Fruit 0-1

Scrap Station

      Both players go pool first. Jookto diverges first with a baneling nest, which is immediately scouted. Zenio builds a spine crawler, and then his own baneling nest. Zenio techs to infestor quickly thereafter- Jookto to spire a bit later. Both players expand. When Jookto sees the infestors, he cancels his spire and goes roaches instead, followed by a hydralisk den. Jookto upgrades roach speed and hydra range. Zenio get double evolution chamber as he starts massing roaches. Jookto gets both his hive and spire. Zenio expands to his third as he tears down the middle rocks.
      Zenio decides to attack with roach/infestor into roach/hydra. The infestors get out some good fungal growths, and then spit out a lot of infested terrans. Jookto's leftover banelings from the early game quickly kill the infested terrans, and his concave cleans up the rest of Zenio's forces. Jookto counter-attacks, but runs into the same concave problem Zenio did and is forced to retreat. Zenio expands to his gold as Jookto's greater spire finishes. Zenio counter-counter-attacks, and meets the same fate as before. Jookto gets four brood lords out and attacks. There is a big confrontation in Zenio's main. But corruptors take out the brood lords just in time, and Zenio's better-upgraded army holds with plenty to spare. Zenio didn't lose any tech in the raid, and, being up four bases to two, macros up a bit, and moves in for the win.

That middle passage on Scrap is such a problem. Both players made the mistake of attacking from poor positions out of there. Aside from that, Zenio's aggressive economy won him the game.

Zenio wins

Mvp 1-0
Zenio 1-0
Jookto 0-1
Fruit 0-1

IMMvp v oGsjookto

Xel'Naga Caverns

      Jookto hatches first. Mvp goes for reactored hellions. Mvp catches an overlord in a far corner of the map. Mvp expands as his harasses with his hellions. Jookto responds to the hellions by making a roach warren. But Mvp has already made a lot of marauders. Mvp attacks with a big marauder/hellion army and destroys Jookto's soul.

Jookto got completely rolled this game. One bizarre thing he did was to take all of his gases to make... roaches and zerglings- before being even remotely saturated. A very strange reaction to a fairly standard build by Mvp.

Mvp wins.

Mvp 2-0
Zenio 1-0
Fruit 0-1
Jookto 0-2

TSL_FruitDealer v oGsZenio

Xel'Naga Caverns

      Both players open with spawning pools first. Zenio gets a quick spire- Fruit gets a roach warren then a spire. Zenio gets infestors followed by roaches of his own. Fruit nyduses into Zenio's natural and attacks the front with roaches. There is some computer monitor misfortune, but apparently Zenio's infestors just fungal the roaches at he bottom of the ramp, so spine crawlers can hit the roaches, but they can't hit back. Fruit backs off a little after losing a lot and tries to set up a contain. But Zenio breaks out easily. Both players expand. Fruit tries to do some fancy roach borrow micro, but infestors tear it up. Zenio has killed so many of Fruit's roaches by this point, that he just attacks for the win.

And our first champion gets sent down to fight for his Code S status.

Zenio wins

Mvp 2-0
Zenio 2-0
Fruit 0-2
Jookto 0-2

IMMvp v oGsZenio

Lost Temple, close by air

      Zenio hatches first. Mvp double barracks, followed by an expansion. Zenio loses a lot of zerglings to Mvps clever troop movements. Zenio gets a lair, spire, and baneling nest. Mvp stays on four barracks (TTxx) as stim/shields research. Zenio starts to harass with mutas, but Mvp just counter-attacks and strips Zenio's expansion of all its probes, also killing Zenio's army in the process. Mvp expands again and techs up to starport for medivacs. Mvp stays on pure marine/medivacs as his food steadily climbs further and further above Zenio's. Zenio tries harassing with his mutas to stay alive, but a two-base zerg just can't do much against a three-base terran.

Mvp 3-0s out of his group in impressive fashion. His play is just very tight and wasteless. Zenio teched a bit too quickly against four barracks, and when his expansion lost all its drones, he had essentially already lost the game.

Mvp wins

Mvp 3-0
Zenio 2-1
Fruit 0-2
Jookto 0-2

TSL_FruitDealer v oGsjookto

Xel'Naga Caverns

      Both players go for early zergling speed followed by roach warrens. Fruit goes for a lair, but Jookto masses roach/ling and attacks. It looks bad for FruitDealer for a bit, but he cancels his lair and manages to hold it off. Fruit expands and restarts his lair. Jookto gets his spire and starts his expansion significantly after Fruit's expansion is saturated. Fruit gets his hydralisk den. After massing units for a while, Fruit moves out with a sizable roach/hyrda army. At the start of the battle, Fruit is up by 30ish food, and easily forces Jookto out of the game.

Jookto seemed to just barely miss a really good timing there. Maybe one more production cycle while Fruit drone, and he might have won.

Fruit wins

Mvp 3-0
Zenio 2-1
Fruit 1-2
Jookto 0-3

Xel'Naga Caverns

      TheWind Hatches first. HongUn goes for a crazy 15-nexus before forge. TheWind doesn't scout at all, and starts his expansion almost after HongUn's finishes. TheWind gets his lair and then a hydralisk den. HongUn makes only stalkers and gets blink. TheWind gets an in base third hatchery and expands to the gold. HongUn forces a cancel on the gold. TheWind responds with an infestation pit. HongUn techs to colossus and expands to his third. TheWind attacks HongUn's natural with a big hydra/zergling army. But HongUn's colossus eat through TheWind's forces. TheWind gets his gold up, but so does HongUn, keeping him ahead in bases. When HongUn kills TheWind's gold, and TheWind's corruptors fall to blink stalkers, TheWind gg's out.

TheWind made a huge mistake in not scouting his opponent, but, to be fair, fifteen nexus is pretty rare. Not much a zerg can do against a protoss that is up a base the while game.

HongUn wins

HongUn 1-0
Boxer 0-0
Hyperdub 0-0
TheWind 0-1

Shakuras Plateau, cross positions.

      Both players expand off of one barracks and tech up to starport. Boxer uses his starport for cloaked banshees, whereas Hyperdub sticks with tank/viking. Boxer uncharacteristically loses his first two banshees to poor micro. As both players start to mass marine/tank, Boxer expands to his lateral third. Both players establish tank lines in the middle of the map. At ~14' both players go for a sixteen-marine drop, but they meet each other right in the middle of the map. They both unload in hilariously parallel patterns, but Boxer's starts a tad earlier, and so destroys everything of Hyperdub. Hyperdub expands to his third; Boxer expands to his forth.
      Boxer sieges up below Hyperdub's main, and even elevators some siege tanks in. They take out Hyperdub's factories' techlabs and his armory, which is devastating since Boxer's own armories and e-bays are well into upgrades. Boxer then makes FIVE orbital commands at his forth, followed by a deluge of mules. Hyperdub takes his forth. A contain at Hyperdub's forth keeps his army away from his main, which allows Boxer to continue to whittle away at Hyperdub's production capabilities with tanks. Boxer expands to both his and his opponent's back doors. Boxer actually makes two fusion cores as his minerals near five digits. Boxer takes out Hyperdub's forth, which leaves him with only one mining base. Although it happens offscreen, apparently Boxer starts dropping mules onto Hyperdub's siege tanks, making them deal a lot of damage to each other in a non-so-happy splash fight. From his economic position, Boxer proceeds to macro his brains out and attack move to victory.

Boxer played very well into the late game. For someone whose macro has often been questioned, he had a gigantic economic advantage over Hyperdub for most of the game. Boxer overwhelmed Hyperdub's multitasking with constant pressure on multiple fronts, and used the advantage to get an insurmountable lead. The extra orbitals were super spiffy, and quickly paid for themselves. I think in the future the same thing will happen, just more slowly- i.e. I have 550 spare minerals and a lead, I'll invest in this orbital which will pay for itself a few minutes from now.

Boxer wins

HongUn 1-0
Boxer 1-0
Hyperdub 0-1
TheWind 0-1

HongUnPrime.WE v oGsHyperdub

Shakuras Plateau, cross positions

      Both players expand early. And when Hyperdub spots HongUn's expansion, he expands again and parks a marine marauder force in the middle of the map. HongUn gets two forges and a twilight council to complement his gateways and robotics facility. Hyperdub stays on infantry units and medivacs for the time being, getting ghosts to complement his marines and marauders. HongUn starts his templar archives and his third base. Both players are upgrading quite a bit- Hongun gets to 3/3 as 2/2 finishes for Hyperdub.
      Hyperdub attacks just as HongUn warps in five zealots to harass Hyperdub's forth. Hyperdub manages to emp every single templar when they get caught behind the main army. Hyperdub cleans up as a result and tears down HongUn's third as his own third almost falls to HongUn's zealots. Both attacks are eventually repelled, leaving both players with their main, their naturals, thirds with no workers, and building forths. But after the initial battle and some lost skirmishes, Hyperdub is too far behind in food to protect his bases, and leaves the game after losing his mining expansions to solid attacks.

Great ghost usage by Hyperdub. The emps tore apart the gateway army of HongUn. When a barracks force meets a gateway force, it so often comes down to whether templar or ghosts cast first. This time it was the ghosts. Also, that quick third by Hyperdub seems like it could be the future of TvP if the protoss early expands.

Hyperdub wins

Boxer 1-0
HongUn 1-1
Hyperdub 1-1
TheWind 0-1

oGsTheWind v SlayerSBoxeR

Metalopolis, cross positions

      TheWind hatches first. Boxer builds two barracks at his gold. It is scouted. Boxer expands, builds two more barracks, and floats his proxy barracks back to his base. TheWind gets a baneling nest, then a roach warren, then a lair. Boxer techs up to starport. TheWind expands and get a in-base forth hatch.
      Boxer starts to push out across the map. Boxer uses four marauders in medivacs to detonate a bunch of banelings. TheWind gets a fair number of mutalisks out. As Boxer pushes against TheWind's third, TheWind pulls off an amazing flank that wipe out out the initial push. But Boxer's reinforcements kill the remaining units. The two armies neutralize again outside TheWind's third without Boxer being able to kill the hatchery. Boxer expands to his gold, and then gets a forth. Boxer's next army manages to finally kill TheWind's third. TheWind gets a forth, but Boxer spots it and kills it. A baneling bust almost destroys Boxer's gold planetary fortress, but the scvs repair it just in time. Boxer's attacks have left TheWind with no mining bases. He puts up something of a fight, but has to leave the game.

Boxer 2-0s his group and beats his first GSL zerg. He really seemed to be on top of his game tonight, winning his games very convincingly with lots of creative and clever play. I think at the end there he dropped in four places at the same time. His multitasking is amazing.

Boxer wins

Boxer 2-0
HongUn 1-1
Hyperdub 1-1
TheWind 0-2

HongUnPrime.WE v oGsHyperdub

Delta Quadrant, Hyperdub clockwise

      HongUn chronoboosts a first zealot out, then techs quickly up to stargate, but lets a hellion into his base which sees it and three gateways. Hyperdub techs to starport. HongUn goes to break Hyperdub's ramp at his forth void ray. But HongUn show strangely poor control and loses their charge and then the voidrays themselves. All of HongUn's forces are destroyed, so Hyperdub just brings everything over to HongUn's base and wins.

That attack could have gone much better for Hyperdub. He could have swung the void rays around; he could have drawn more units out; or he could have just kept Hyperdub trapped in his base. But he didn't, and as a result will have to fight for his Code S status.

Boxer 2-0
Hyperdub 2-1
HongUn 1-2
TheWind 0-2

Not needed

Boxer 2-0
Hyperdub 2-1
HongUn 1-2
TheWind 0-2

Scrap Station

      Choya steals Rain's gas. Both players expand, but Rain floats a decoy factory over Choya's base without having made a starport. Choya gets five gateways, a robo, and eventually a robotics bay. Rain sticks to mostly infantry off five barracks ,with a starport for medivacs, and an academy for ghosts. Rain tries a few drops, but Choya obviously has map hacks and defends each one easily. Choya techs up to templar, researching khaydarin amulet first. Choya and Rain expand to their thirds. Both armies annihilate in the middle after Choya sacrifices a bunch of his colossi to vikings*.
      A drop kills Choya's robo just before a colossus comes out. The drop also takes out two pylons, which unpowers four gateways. In the final battle Rain's emps hit a lot of the templar, and the remaining templar miss anyway. Rain's army easily beats the rest of Choya's gateway forces.

That drop ended up being deadly for Choya. But what sealed the deal was Rain's overall better control throughout the entire game.
*One small thing to note here is Choya's hotkey setup: 1 for his entire army; 2 for his templar; 4 for his nexus; 5 for gateways; 6 for robo. Since there were more than a dozen vikings on the field, and Choya had blink stalkers and colossus, and 3 was not bound to anything at all, it seems like he could think that setup through a little better.

Rain wins

Rain 1-0
Kyrix 0-0
Trickster 0-0
Choya 0-1

Metalopolis, close by air

      Kyrix goes hatch first. Trickster canon rushes it and expands. Kyrix bizarrely sends all of his drones on the attack. Zerglings eventually take the canons out. Kyrix responds by droning like a madman and expanding to his gold. But Tester just makes an army and kills him

The canon rush seemed to put Kyrix into a tailspin. By the time he recovered, he did the right thing, but it was too late. Also, Tricker's anti-baneling micro was fancily fancy.

Trickster wins

Rain 1-0
Trickster 1-0
Kyrix 0-1
Choya 0-1

TSL_Rain v ZeNEXKyrix

Metalopolis, cross positions

      Kyrix early expands. Rain two barracks. Kyrix takes a third base and starts a lair. Rain adds two factories and two armories... and leaves the game due to "client error".

REGAME
Metalopolis, cross positions again.
      Same starts as before. In fact exactly the same. Just pretend this is the same game, really. An overlord spots the factories. A roach warren goes up, and roaches deny some pre-ignited hellions. Kyrix takes his gold, and gets a spire and baneling nest. A roach raid kills a lot of scvs and both refineries at Rain's expansion. Kyrix takes a fifth. At this point it's five bases against two, and Kyrix bowls Rain over with roaches.

Kyrix wins

I love how aggressive Kyrix is with expansions. It really paid off this game.
Trickster 1-0
Rain 1-1
Kyrix 1-1
Choya 0-1

choyafOu v TSL_Trickster

Scrap Station

      Choya 4gates, wins.

Pretty disappointing that Trickster lost to something so standard.

Choya wins

Trickster 1-1
Rain 1-1
Kyrix 1-1
Choya 1-1

TSL_Rain v TSL_Trickster

Lost Temple, close by air.

      Trickster steals Rain's gas after scouting correctly. Rain gets two barracks(Rx) and a factory for tanks. Trickster rushes for DTs. Rain's army is all the way across the map when the first dark templar get into his base. It gets eighteen kills and drags Rain's whole army across the map before going down. A few more DTs do even more damage. Trickster expands, and macros up a killing army, propelling himself into the round of 16.

A great execution of a DT rush by Trickster. I wonder what would have happened had Rain just attacked up the ramp when he noticed the DT in his base. In the interview, Trickster mentions that he had a hunch that Rain would go for marine tank.

Trickster wins

Trickster 2-1
Kyrix 1-1
Choya 1-1
Rain 1-2

ZeNEXKyrix v choyafOu

Steppes of War

      Kyrix get his pool first. Choya sets up a three canon ramp contain, followed by two warpgates for void rays. Kyrix breaks the contain with roaches. Kyrix tries to counter-attack with his roaches, but they are chased off by void rays. Choya gets a couple phoenix to lift the queens, which are Kyrix's only anti-air. The void rays force a cancel on Kyrix's expansion hatchery. Kyrix responds by making a bunch of zerglings and counter-attacking again. This time it goes a lot better, and does a lot of damage. In fact, Kyrix suddenly seems to have a chance since, in the meantime, Kyrix got some spore crawlers But Choya has too many void rays by this point, and Kyrix concedes to the buzzing beams of death.

Kyrix responded pretty well in a bad situation, but Choya's contain worked very well.

Choya wins

Trickster 2-1
Choya 2-1
Kyrix 1-2
Rain 1-2