pullarius1 Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 508 Posts #1 v SlayerS_Ryung

The first two SlayerS players to reach the Top8 of a GSL must now fight it out, ensuring at least one semifinalist from Boxer's team. MMA is coming from a huge win at MLG Columbus where he dropped just three games all tournament in his run to first place. His fate may be decided by whether he feels invigorated by his success or worn out from an exhausting weekend of nonstop gaming and over 20,000km of traveling.

Both players have solid TvTs, but MMA should be better prepared for this match up. He has played nothing else all tournament long, whereas this will be Ryung's first mirror of the entire tournament. Also, MMA has had a much harder road to the RO8, beating Lyn, SuperNova, and Ganzi to get here. Ryung, on the hand, has had it pretty easy so far, having played Inca, Violet, and JookTo.

Game 1:

+ Show Spoiler + Bel'Shir Beach

MMA goes for proxied banshees with cloak, using the Beach's unique high ground to defend his choke from an early marines/hellion push. Ryung eventually breaks into MMA's base with a handful of marines, hellions, and a tank, but since he had nothing at home to defend, MMA's banshees have massacred all of Ryung's scvs, with 24 and 9 kills apiece. MMA recalls the banshees to clean up Ryung's army, and Ryung gg's.



MMA wins

+ Show Spoiler + Dual Site

Ryung techs to visible banshees and expands. MMA sets up for a preignited hellion drop. But instead of immediately dropping, MMA attacks the front with marines and a few hellions, doing a fair amount of damage with few casualties. But when the actual hellion drop comes, Ryung defends it for free, killing everything while losing nothing. MMA expands and lands his orbital not long after Ryung does. MMA transitions into a mostly mech force with viking support, two-factory tanks, and constant hellion drops. Ryung is building a motley army with a little bit of everything: marines, conc marauders, vikings, medivacs, and tanks off of just one factory. Both players take their thirds and add on another factory for tanks. Ryung forces a lift on MMA's third, prompting MMA to attack Ryung's natural while leaving some of his tank behind to try to defend. But Ryung breaks the defense force, and both players lose their naturals to siege tanks. Ryung breaks the contain first when MMA tries to move against his main. Meanwhile Ryung is forced to try to land a command center at his lateral expansion as he he still stuck in his base, but he can't even transfer svcs across the siege tank/viking blockade line. Suddenly MMA isn't mining from anywhere at all, and gg's after a last-ditch bum rush of Ryung's siege tanks.



The game took a turn for the worse when MMA decided to split his tanks for the counterattack. Since he did have the higher tank count, I could see why he might have thought it would be a good idea, but if there isn't some critical number of tanks sieged, marauders do very well against them, and marauders were exactly what Ryung had.



Ryung wins

+ Show Spoiler + Xel'Naga Caverns

MMA one-rax expands. Ryung expands behind a reaper and a bunker. MMA gets combat shields first as he settles in marine/tank/medivac off one factory. Ryung gets stim first and does the same, but with a little heavier focus on bio in the beginning, making marines out of four reactored barracks. Both players get their second factories at the same time, but MMA is the first to build a third command center, which he floats to his lateral expansion.

The two armies dance around the giant cavern in the middle of the map, and when Ryung briefly gets a positional advantage, he stims a chunk of his marines into MMA's natural, kills it, and retreats in time to protect his tank line before taking too many losses. However, he does not know about MMA's third base, and so probably thinks he is more ahead than is actually the case.

Ryung is the first to start massing vikings. MMA retakes his natural. Ryung takes his gold, seemingly still unaware of MMA's lateral expansion. After some more siege tank tango in the middle of the map, MMA manages to siege Ryung's gold, and holds multiple attempts to break him, killing fifty supply of Ryung's army at the cost of just twenty of his own. MMA takes his own gold, and Ryung floats his natural's orbital to his lateral expansion. Before it can take hold, though, MMA catches Ryung's army unsieged, and uses his thirty-supply-stronger army to roll it over and win the game.



Ryung never ended up finding that third base from MMA, and that might have been what did him in.



MMA wins.

+ Show Spoiler + Xel'Naga Fortress- MMA clockwise

MMA one-rax expands again. Ryung two-raxes...then takes both gasses? MMA holds off the first marine rush at the cost of six scvs. Ryung builds a factory, then a command center, then a starport for cloaked banshees. MMA builds two fairly late factories. MMA gets a turret up in time for the banshees, which is a good thing because he had again gone for combat shields first. But between the early push and the banshees, Ryung has managed to gain a ten-scv lead. As a result, Ryung gets siege mode researched much earlier than MMA, allowing him to siege beneath MMA's natural. By the time siege mode finishes and MMA neutralizes Ryung's sieging force, Ryung is up by forty supply, almost all of which is scvs. But MMA gets his third up much earlier, and slowly starts to close the gap. In fact, Ryung has around thirty scvs completely idle for a while after his main mines outs and he has not yet taken a third.

Ryung finally secures his third and scouts MMA's third at roughly the same time, but MMA has almost caught up in supply by this point. Ryung takes an another economic lead, though, setting up his fourth well before his opponent, but loses it when MMA out-positions him and destroys his natural with a marine force, which then picks up and attacks the fourth as well, killing many of the scvs there and putting MMA up by fifty supply- a ninety supply swing from Ryung's largest lead. Meanwhile MMA has taken his fourth and contained Ryung in his base. Ryung manages to break out, but MMA just lifts reinforcements into Ryung's main, and Ryung, now down by eighty supply, is forced to leave the game.



Ryung takes his revenge in a strange one-legged sumo match officiated by Cella



MMA wins

+ Show Spoiler + Ryung taps out



MMA wins



Match 2: TheBestfOu v MarineKingPrime.WE

MarineKing has to feel that is finally his time to be crowned GSL Champion. Every player who has ever beaten him in a GSL match is already out of the tournament, including the Three Exemplar, which ensures that there will be a new champion. In fact, MarineKing is the only player in the entire Top8 to have even made it to the semifinals before, and one of just two repeat quarter-finalists (Top is the other).

TheBest has taken out some impressive players on his road to the quarterfinals, but it hasn't been pretty. He barely squeaked past Min last round in a nail-biting comedy of errors in which he one-based so hard that he literally mined himself completely out of his main without expanding at all. TheBest seems like he is very lucky to be here, but perhaps he will continue his run of ruining people's liquibets by eliminating the last of the former GSL finalists from the tournament.

Game 1:

+ Show Spoiler + Dual Site

MarineKing one-rax expands. TheBest proxies a starport for cloaked banshees. MarineKing techs to starport himself, which he uses to get a viking. TheBest doesn't wait for cloak and suicides his first two banshees for no gain. MarineKing makes some stuff and wins.



MarineKing wins

+ Show Spoiler + Terminus RE, MarineKing clockwise

MarineKing again one-rax expands. TheBest opens with blue-flame hellions and a starport. Marine goes for a standard marine/tank/medivac build. TheBest's hellion drop goes poorly, prompting him to get cloaked banshees, which are ill-controlled and die as well. MarineKing again just makes some units and kills TheBest.



MarineKing wins

+ Show Spoiler + Metalopolis, close-by-air

MarineKing sticks with his quick command center after barracks. TheBest expands behind a reaper and techs to preigniter and stim. MarineKing is the one to go for cloaked banshees this game. MarineKing's first banshee does more damage than all of TheBest's banshees have done in the match so far. While harassing with banshees, MarineKing has been making some units. So he attacks with them and wins.



I usually try to not be too hard on players, but that was terrible. It might have been one of the worst matches in the past few tournaments. It seemed like TheBest simply didn't believe he could beat MarineKing in any sort of normal game and let his nerves get TheBest of him.



MarineKing wins

+ Show Spoiler + TheBest... just isn't

+ Show Spoiler + It looks like it might be MMA vs MarineKing that is the traditional SemiFinalsMatchThatWillBeMuchBetterThanTheTerribleOneSidedFinals



Match 1- SlayerS_MMAv SlayerS_RyungThe first two SlayerS players to reach the Top8 of a GSL must now fight it out, ensuring at least one semifinalist from Boxer's team. MMA is coming from a huge win at MLG Columbus where he dropped just three games all tournament in his run to first place. His fate may be decided by whether he feels invigorated by his success or worn out from an exhausting weekend of nonstop gaming and over 20,000km of traveling.Both players have solid TvTs, but MMA should be better prepared for this match up. He has played nothing else all tournament long, whereas this will be Ryung's first mirror of the entire tournament. Also, MMA has had a much harder road to the RO8, beating Lyn, SuperNova, and Ganzi to get here. Ryung, on the hand, has had it pretty easy so far, having played Inca, Violet, and JookTo.Game 1:Match 2: TheBestfOuv MarineKingPrime.WEMarineKing has to feel that is finally his time to be crowned GSL Champion. Every player who has ever beaten him in a GSL match is already out of the tournament, including the Three Exemplar, which ensures that there will be a new champion. In fact, MarineKing is the only player in the entire Top8 to have even made it to the semifinals before, and one of just two repeat quarter-finalists (Top is the other).TheBest has taken out some impressive players on his road to the quarterfinals, but it hasn't been pretty. He barely squeaked past Min last round in a nail-biting comedy of errors in which he one-based so hard that he literally mined himself completely out of his main without expanding at all. TheBest seems like he is very lucky to be here, but perhaps he will continue his run of ruining people's liquibets by eliminating the last of the former GSL finalists from the tournament.Game 1: @pullarius1