pullarius1 Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 508 Posts Last Edited: 2011-01-25 01:26:08 #1



Group A: (FOXLyn v PoltPrime.WE ) v oGsTheWinD

Match 1: FOXLyn v PoltPrime.WE



In his pre-fight interview Lyn seems confident that he could be CodeS material. He is hesitant to start beef with any players by saying he would like to face them, but is quick to say he wants to avoid Maka, who is his mentor, and Check, who Lyn says is pretty stressed out right now and would join the army if he loses. Lyn also expresses some frustration at how many games he has been losing playing StarCraft compared to WarCraft 3.



Game 1: Shakuras Plateau, cross-positions

+ Show Spoiler + Lyn expands after a reactor on his barracks. Polt expands after a factory that builds a hellion. Lyn follows up with two more barracks(TTR) and starts his shields/stim. Polt starts getting marines and two-factory tanks. Both players get some pre-emptive missile turrets when their initial scouting is denied. Lyn takes his third at the vertical main as both players build up marine/tank/medivac armies, Lyn with a healthly dose of marauders mixed in.

Lyn shows superior control when the two armies meet in the middle, but Polt's infantry has better upgrades. Polt drops and destroys Lyn's third; Lyn rebuilds at his interior third. Both players attack each other's bases, but Lyn, now having 100 more supply, has enough to both kill his opponent and defend his own base.



Lyn looked much better than Polt here, especially in his macro. Lyn had Polt covered in essentially every metric of skill.



Lyn wins, 1-0

+ Show Spoiler + Lyn opens with a scouting reaper into an expansion. Polt gets a factory, hellion, then an expansion. Lyn again gets three barracks (RRT this time); Polt techs to starport and eventually gets a delayed banshee. Lyn destroys Polt's rocks drawing his army out of positions, but then attacks Polt's natural and kills a lot of scvs. He then attacks into Polt's main and kills some more. While dealing with all this, Polt runs a banshee straight into a turret, where it dies. Lyn takes his gold.

As Lyn's marine/tank/medivac army gets bigger and bigger, he gets confident enough that he destroys his own rocks to provide easier access to the middle of the map. Lyn moves out sieges up below Polt's natural. Polt responds by attacking Lyn's gold, forcing it to lift away. But Lyn traps Polt's army, killing it. After two more similar attacks, Polt finally manages to kill the gold base, but is far behind in supply. Lyn just expands to Polt's fourth, back to his own gold, and at this point has such a superior army and economy, that the rest of the game is just a formality.



Lyn becomes the first Code A player to be promoted to Code S, convincingly showing us that he is more deserving than Polt. Lyn looked really good this game, and if he continues to improve at the rate he has, he should do well in Code S.

Polt looked sloppy today. One thing I noticed was that in both games Polt made a starport, but wouldn't make anything off it for quite a while after it finished. Building tech and not using it is often a sign of a build order that has not been practiced quite enough. It was also telling how Polt expended so many units to take out Lyn's third. He lost so much just to try to get back onto even footing that when he eventually succeed in that narrow goal, he was actually way behind.



Lyn wins 2-0, is promoted to Code S

Polt will face TheWind for elimination.

+ Show Spoiler + Not needed. Lyn locked the door and polted it shut.



Lyn wins 2-0, is promoted to Code S

Polt will face TheWind for elimination.



Match 2: oGsTheWind v + Show Spoiler + PoltPrime.WE

+ Show Spoiler + TheWind hatches first. Polt gets two barracks and tries for a bunker push that starts very far away from TheWind's hatchery. TheWind spots it and prevents it from doing any damage, but Polt loses a bunch of reinforcing marines to zerglings. Polt builds up to four barracks (TTxx). TheWind pushes Polt's natural with banelings and zerglings before stim and shields finish, forcing the barracks to lift while he takes his own lateral third. Polt techs to siege tanks which eventually push the xlings back and allow him to land his orbital command. TheWind uses his advantage to tech up to lair, a spire, +1 melee, baneling speed, and a fourth, in-base hatchery.

Polt starts building thors out of two factories. TheWind gets a hive, his gold, and takes his interior third. Polt gets a third factory and starts his slow, plodding way across the map. TheWind sacs one of his five expansions to Polt as he counter attacks while teching to brood lords. TheWind's counterattack guts Polt's bases, and when Polt runs into TheWind's brood lords, he gg's.



TheWind is coming on strong in his single chance to remain in CodeS.



TheWind wins, 1-0

+ Show Spoiler + TheWind hatches first. Polt gets two barracks, then expands, walling off his natural's ramp with three barracks. TheWind gets a lair after his spawning pool. Polt builds up to five barracks (TTxxx) and starts shields/stim. TheWind gets banelings, baneling speed, burrow, and a spire. TheWind double expands to his interior third and the veritcal main. Polt pushes across the map with his bio ball, but pulls back and gets three factories, all with tech labs. TheWind gets a hive. Polt starts producing thors from his three factories.

Polt finally starts moving through the top rocks to TheWind's fourth with his big bio-mech army. TheWind again just counterattacks and destroys Polt's bases while teching to brood lords. Polt does get two of TheWind's bases, but again gg's when he hits the wall of nine brood lords.



Polt becomes the first player to wash out of CodeS. It's always strange to me when a player loses a game, but does the exact same thing the next game and loses to the exact same strategy from his opponent. Polt is going to have to be a little more adaptable and creative, or a lot more mechanically sound, if he wants to fight his way back into CodeS. TheWind looked very strong with his textbook wins over Polt.



TheWind wins 2-0, stays in Code S

Polt loses, is demoted to Code A

+ Show Spoiler + Not needed. Four games, eight bases, zero wins.



TheWind wins 2-0, stays in Code S

Polt loses, is demoted to Code A



Group B: (BanBansZenith v oGsInCa ) v oGsJookTo

Match 1:BanBansZenith v oGsInCa :



In his interview BanBans admits that he thinks CodeA suits him very well, and that he would be fine staying there. He also makes the bold prediction that FruitDealer will drop down to CodeA as he does not practice enough.



Game 1: Jungle Basin

+ Show Spoiler + Both players four-gate off of two gas. BanBans is the first to get into his opponent's base. But Inca's micro is way better, and fends it off with an entire production cycle to spare, which he uses to warp four zealots into BanBans' base. BanBans quickly gg's.



It really looked like BanBans was just attack-moving with his units. He was letting zealots hit his stalkers; he didn't target Inca's damaged units; and he put so little pressure on Inca that he never seemed to think about pulling his probes. The question is, then, where was his attention? It's not like there was anything else going on. I wrote of BanBans' last Code A game that he seemed to stiffen up when the game got intense, and maybe that is what happened here: he got units into his opponent's base, and from there he just watched the battle and hoped for the best.



Inca wins, 1-0

+ Show Spoiler + Four gates again. Inca penetrates first this time, and easily kills all of BanBans' units.



BanBans may have been right about Code A being a good place for him at the moment. However, JookTo is literally dead last in the StarCraft2 ELO rankings with a record of 3-12. But two of those three wins are against protoss, so this may end up being a pretty even match to decide least-qualified Code S player.



Inca wins 2-0, remains in Code S

BanBans will face JookTo for elimination.

+ Show Spoiler + Not needed. Victory is sweet for Inca.



Inca wins 2-0, remains in Code S

BanBans will face JookTo for elimination.



Match 2: oGsJookto v + Show Spoiler + BanBansZenith

+ Show Spoiler + Jookto pools first and then expands. Banbans expands before anything. Jookto gets many, many probes when after he see BanBans wall off with a forge. BanBans gets +1 weapons, builds five gateways, and gets blink. Jookto gets a lair, a spire, and his lateral third. BanBans' first blink stalker ball kills Jookto's third hatchery and his entire army. BanBans' blink micro ends up being better than his four-gate micro, and his stalker ball ends up just winning him the game, rolling through Jookto's zerlings and mutalisks.



Jookto got blunk. He got blunk hard.



BanBans wins, 1-0

+ Show Spoiler + BanBans forge expands. Jookto expands after zergling speed. After killing the scouting probe, Jookto cancels his expansion and builds a roach warren. But BanBans gets lot of cannons. As Jookto starts breaking down BanBans' rocks, BanBans builds five panic cannons to assist the two already there, and pulls his probes, a move which just barely lets the cannons finish, which then hold off the roaches with a little to spare. Jookto switches to banelings off of only nine drones, but when his second wave falls to the remaining cannons, he gg's.



I think I was too harsh on BanBans before. He executed very well this match, and definitely seemed more deserving of the CodeS stone than Jookto. It seemed odd to me that Jookto would play fairly standard on Jungle Basin, a very difficult map for zerg, and then go for the weird, tricky build on a map that is fairly good for zerg.



BanBans win 2-0, advances to CodeS

Jookto loses, falls to CodeA

+ Show Spoiler + Not needed. BanBans WinWins

BanBans win 2-0, advances to CodeS

Jookto loses, falls to CodeA



Results:

+ Show Spoiler + FOXLyn 2-0 PoltPrime.WE FOXLyn is promoted

oGsTheWind 2-0 PoltPrime.WE oGsTheWind remains in CodeS

PoltPrime.WE is demoted.



oGsInCa 2-0 BanBansZenith oGsInCa remains in CodeS

BanBansZenith 2-0 oGsJookto BanBansZenith is promoted

oGsJookto is demoted



A pretty straightforward day of separating the wheat from the chaff. I don't think anyone will be surprised at today's results, even though four players out of six players switched leagues. All four matches today went 2-0, so it would be very hard to argue that the worse player won in any of these games.



EDIT: Errrrr, I didn't see the Match 2 VODs on the Gom site, so I had assumed they were taking place some other time. Nope! Blog now updated with the final results/recaps.(FOXLynv PoltPrime.WE) v oGsTheWinDMatch 1: FOXLynv PoltPrime.WEIn his pre-fight interview Lyn seems confident that he could be CodeS material. He is hesitant to start beef with any players by saying he would like to face them, but is quick to say he wants to avoid Maka, who is his mentor, and Check, who Lyn says is pretty stressed out right now and would join the army if he loses. Lyn also expresses some frustration at how many games he has been losing playing StarCraft compared to WarCraft 3.Game 1: Shakuras Plateau, cross-positionsMatch 2: oGsTheWind(BanBansZenithv oGsInCa) v oGsJookToMatch 1:BanBansZenithv oGsInCaIn his interview BanBans admits that he thinks CodeA suits him very well, and that he would be fine staying there. He also makes the bold prediction that FruitDealer will drop down to CodeA as he does not practice enough.Game 1: Jungle BasinMatch 2: oGsJooktoResults: @pullarius1