pullarius1 Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 508 Posts Last Edited: 2011-05-24 18:57:47 #1 v SlayerS_Ryung

+ Show Spoiler [The Stakes] + Inca is coming off a second place finish in last month’s Code S, but was widely criticized for his poor showing in the finals. He is be an extremely match-up dependant player with an impressive 84% winrate against protoss, but an abyssmal 0-8 record against zerg. Terran is his middle matchup at 61%, but he has won seven of his past eight PvTs including victories against Nada, Virus, Rain, and MKP.

TvP, on the other hand, is by far Ryung’s worst matchup at just 33%. He was surprisingly only sent out once during SlayerS’ march to GSTL victory- he lost to Genius in the first game of the finals. Hopefully it is because he has some super-secret new tech he’s been saving for the right moment.

+ Show Spoiler + Tal’Darim Altar - Inca clockwise

Inca goes nexus first. Ryung expands behind an early reaper that doesn’t do much damage. After building four gates off two bases, Inca starts chronoboosting voidrays out of two proxied stargates. Ryung sticks to bio, getting medivacs and his infantry upgrades.

Simultaneous marine drops at Inca’s natural and main leaves him twenty workers behind, prompting him to push all in with his eight void rays and relatively small gateway army. Unfortunately, though, Inca executes horrendously as he doesn’t charge up a single void ray before the battle, and had mostly zealots attacking up a walled ramp. Only three of the voiudrays even get level one charge before dying and, in the end, Ryung kills off more than 60 supply while his own supply falls from 120 to just 114. Inca immediately gg’s.



This was an ugly loss for Inca. It’s hard to say, though, how much of that attack was planned and how much was in response to Ryung’s great drops. Either way, I can’t say I approve of nexus first into proxied stargates.

Ryung wins

+ Show Spoiler + Crevasse, Inca clockwise

Ryung opens with four barracks (TRxx) along with fast concussive shells and stim. Inca again goes nexus first. Inca throws away two zealots and a stalker for no gain at Ryung’s expansion. Ryung attacks when stim finishes and Inca is still on gateway tech. He kills Inca’s second nexus and retreats. But Inca foolishly pursues the army, turning a slight supply lead into a seventeen supply deficit and losing all his sentries in the process. Inca reexpands and techs to dark templar (his favorite unit). But Ryung just stays on one base, and his second attack comes before the dark shrine finishes, ending the game.



Yet another finalist falls in the first round of the next tournament, continuing the curse of the GSL finals.I wonder if his success made Inca a bit cocky, as going nexus first twice in a row against a good terran seems risky no matter how large the map.

Ryung wins

+ Show Spoiler + Not need. Inca got ryung out to dry.



Match 6: MVP_Violet v oGsTheWind

+ Show Spoiler [The Stakes] + Violet is 4-0 so far in ZvZ, having 2-0’d Yugioh and Kyrix. TheWind, on the other hand, hasn’t won a ZvZ BOx since the very first GSL when he 2-0’s a zerg named Miso in the first round.

+ Show Spoiler + Metalopolis - cross positions

Both players open with zergling speed. Violet follows up with roaches and an expansion. TheWind gets a fast lair and infestors immediately thereafter, using spine crawlers for defense. TheWind gets an expansion for himself; Violet gets his lair, and then his infestation pit. TheWind gets a roach warren, equalizing the game except for a fifteen worker advantage in favor of Violet. Parity continues as both players take their thirds and start +2 ranged attack.



TheWind gets a hydralisk den, which goes unused for quite a while. Violet makes a very strange attack that ends in roughly a draw and then makes a hyrdralisk den of his own. After macroing for a bit and killing off a bunch of zerglings, Violet just attacks in and wins.



This was an odd game for TheWind. It seemed like both players had the same general game plan, but Violet executed much better.He was constantly ahead by about thirty supply, and often had just half the bank of TheWind, who occassionally topped 1000/500 resources. One thing that stood out to me was the fact that TheWind seemed to be teching too early. For instance, his hydra den finished at 12:00, but he didn’t start his first hydralisks until 16:00, significantly after Violet’s. Although TheWind was often getting upgrades before units, he was behind in supply and economy the entire game, so it felt like the early tech should have been used to gain some sort of advantage to be worth it,

Violet wins.

+ Show Spoiler + Xel’Naga Caverns

TheWind 10-pools. Violet again goes for speed first. TheWind gets early banelings as well. Violet starts his roach warren, but it doesn’t finish before TheWind’s banelings get to his base. TheWind’s banelings do solid damage, but only about enough to justify the economy he sacrificed to get there so early. The game ends up at eight drones a piece, but Violet has speedlings and roaches to TheWind’s banelings and slow zerglings. Violet is able to simply make a bunch of roaches and attack before TheWind’s speed finishes, sealing the game for Violet.

Violet wins, and extends his ZvZ streak to 6-0 in convincing fashion.

+ Show Spoiler + TheWind gets blown away.



Match 7: TSL_Rain vs MVP_Keen

+ Show Spoiler [The Stakes] + Both players have something to prove in this match, each having just come from winning in the most recent upanddown matches. Rain has a bit more to prove, though. After his controversial run to the finals in GSL Open 3, he is the only player to have played in every single round of upanddown matches since, winning twice and losing once. Statistically Rain is the clear favorite with a 57% win rate in the mirror versus Keen’s 29%, but Rain has a history of losing where he is supposed to win, and vice versa.

+ Show Spoiler + Terminus RE - Rain clockwise

Rain goes for early gas; Keen goes for two gas. Rain tries expanding behind blue-flame hellions- Keen fends it off and double expands after getting banshees and cloak. Both of Keen’s command centers finish before Rain is even able to land his second command center at his natural. Keen uses banshee after banshee to force many scans, and although he doesn’t do much damage with them, it keeps Rain’s economy low enough that Keen pulls into a 40 supply lead. Keen is going for the standard marine/tank- Rain is going for hellion/tank. Both players take another base, putting the base count at 4-3, but a late siege mode on Rain’s part allows Keen to force a lift on Rain’s third, and Rain gg’s shortly thereafter.

Keen wins

+ Show Spoiler + Xel’Naga Caverns

Both players open with a tech lab. Rain makes a reaper; Keen gets an interesting early conc shell. Both players build their second command centers. Both players settle into one-factory tank/marine with medivac support. Rain sieges below Keen’s main and takes out a couple of reactors before being driven off. Both players add on a second factory as they take their golds. Keen forces a lift at the gold with a clever siege, and Rain’s macro really starts to slip, floating up at 1400 gas for quite a while. He does have around 20 or so more marines than his opponent, though, so perhaps it is intentional.

Keen shows solid battle control at Rain’s gold with some heads up marine bombs and a clever siege below the mineral line. Keen’s tank line gets closer and closer to Rain’s gold, and the game ends when Rain suicides fifty or so marines into Keen’s tanks.

Neither player looked that great this match.

Keen wins.

+ Show Spoiler + Keen commanded Rain to leave the game.



Match 8: oGsjookTo vs anyproPrime.WE

+ Show Spoiler [The Stakes] + Anypro started out as somewhat of a joke in Code S, a warm up game for the first round of a better player. Then, out of nowhere, he went deep in two consecutive Code S tournament, defeating solid opponents along the way, losing only to Nestea and July. With a larger, more diluted talent pool this tournament, I’m sure Anypro feels this is his time to really shine and perhaps make a run at the finals.

Jookto, however, has washed out in the first round of his past four GSL tournaments. ZvP is the only matchup he has a winning record in, and is the only matchup he’s posted better than 25% in, so if he’s ever going to win a match, it might be here.

+ Show Spoiler + Xel’Naga Caverns

Anypro gets a safe three-gate expand with hallucination for scouting. Jookto get speed first followed by an expandsion and roaches. Jookto gets a third and a spire. When Anypro moves out with his gateway army, Jookto makes a crippling counterattack that destroys the protoss natural. Anypro retaliates by re-expanding and destroying Jookto’s third, prompting Jookto to make a dozen or so spine crawlers to defend natural. Since Anypro has been spending so much of his gas on sentries instead of tech, the spine crawlers easily hold against the robo-less army. Anypro retreats, and soon after tries to take his gold. Jookto takes advantage of Anypro’s distance from his main with some extremely successful mutalisk harass that kills a huge chunk of Anypro’s workers. When Anypro moves his army back to defend, Jookto kills the gold nexus, and the game ends in his favor soon thereafter.

Very solid play by Jookto here. It was interesting that Anypro made a robotics bay for just a single observer, and didn’t make even one immortal despite seeing so many spine crawlers and roaches.

Jookto wins.

+ Show Spoiler + Terminus RE

Anypro gets his nexus first. Jookto goes for a one-base speedling/roach/baneling bust. Anypro throws up a very solid wall with many, many cannons for a relatively painless hold after losing his cybernetics core and a few probes. Jookto tries ineffectually to sustain the bust, but just ends up losing a lot of units.



Jookto finally pulls back and double expands. Anypro goes for two-stargate void ray/phoenix, which does massive damage and allows him to take a third of his own. Jookto loses a huge amount of overlords, probes, and queens to Anypro’s air, eventually putting him down 120-60 supply. Anypro builds up a solid ground army while lazily teching to a mothership, which doesn’t even get to hit the field before Jookto gg’s.

That seemed pretty bad by Jookto. I think he got too fancy with his all-in. It wasn’t even a forge expand by Anypro, so it seems like it should have been a lot easier to punish.

Anypro wins.

+ Show Spoiler + Bel’Shir Beach

Game 3 opens similarly to game 1: Anypro 3-gate expands with hallucination. Jookto gets speed, roaches, a lair, and a third base. Anypro takes out Jookto’s third with a big gateway army, but makes no more progress. Jookto re-expands there as well as to his gold. He also takes out Anypro’s natural nexus in a counter. The rest of the game is a study in counter-attacks and Pyrrhic victories. Jookto somehow combats the protoss deathball with only speedling/roach and baneling bombs. Every time the protoss moves out, Jookto destroys another base of Anypro’s, keeping him on a lower economy all game long. Eventually Anypro is mined out and attacks with everything including his probes, taking out out both of Jookto’s mining bases and initiating a base trade. Anypro blinks first and turns around to defend his base, hoping to trap Anypro’s now-smaller army against the side of the map. But Jookto manages to barely ferry his roaches away in truely Dunkirkian fashion!



At this point Anypro’s superior colossus/stalker army is forced to defend a single assimilator against roaches and a few mutalisks as Jookto has seven drones mining from a single dwindling mineral patch. Anypro splits his larger army to try to cripple the zerg, but Jookto makes a move towards the assimilator! Anypro manages to get his army back in time with just ¼ health remaining on his last remaining build. A similar situation plays out a couple minutes later, but this time the roaches get there first and eliminate a devastated Anypro from the Super Tournament.

Jookto wins.



Match 5: oGsInCav SlayerS_RyungMatch 6: MVP_Violetv oGsTheWindMatch 7: TSL_Rainvs MVP_KeenMatch 8: oGsjookTovs anyproPrime.WE @pullarius1