Taeja vs. Leenock (Best of 5)





Set 1 - Cloud Kingdom

0 - 1





Leenock knocks on the door with his favorite composition!









Set 2 - Whirlwind

1 - 1





Leenock's roaches meets some of the old tank and marauder love!





Set 3 - Entombed Valley



TaeJa went for a quick double rax and Leenock scouted only 1 of them. TaeJa got three bunkers up by the natural of Leenock and even though Leenock managed to morph a decent bunch of banelings he weren't able to take out all the bunkers and TaeJa took the set.

2 - 1

The worst zerg nightmare is when TaeJa has 3 bunkers at your natural!



Set 4 - Antiga Shipyard

Once again TaeJa went for a double rax, and tried sending marines and SCVs to the natural of Leenock, but this time Leenock defended and the game transitioned into a longer game. Leenock once again aimed for the 3-base Infestor/Broodlord/Queen composition while Taeja did a bit of drop aggression which allowed him to gain control of the center.

They denied each other's attempts to get a fourth base, but when they finally engaged in the center TaeJa had a lot more vikings than in the first set and he was able to spread them out perfectly and win the engagement. Leenock switched to Ultralisks but lost a bunch of them that were standing too far out on the map and eventually TaeJa could secure a fourth and at the same time do a big push that Leenock couldn't stop.

3 - 1

Leenock with good fungals, but not a big enough army to defeat TaeJa!



General thoughts on TaeJa vs. Leenock

TaeJa vs. Leenock = 3 - 1

MarineKing vs. Life (Best of 5)

Set 1 - Cloud Kingdom

1 - 0





MarineKing likes his marines. Life doesn't!





Set 2 - Daybreak

1 - 1





MarineKing is thinking: why is this kid's zerglings so damn annoying!





Set 3 - Entombed Valley



MarineKing went for proxy rax, but Life had 10-pooled which was the perfect way to counter. MarineKing built a bunker behind the minerals of Life's natural and forced a cancel. Meanwhile Life countered with some zerglings in MarineKing's main, and did a lot of damage. At this point MKP had lost a lot of SCVs while Life hadn't lose a single drone.

Life expanded twice and delayed MarineKing's expansion for a long time with zergling aggression. The far better economy eventually won Life the game as he crushed MarineKings feeble attack.

1 - 2

Life plays with MarineKing as the zerg forces are far superior at this point!

Set 4 - Whirlwind



Life went for quick speed, and did some light harassment. MarineKing went for hellions so he held off the lings pretty easily. While MarineKing had his hellions out on the map, Life did som ling run-bys and got a good amount of SCVs. Life then went for mutas and the muta-ling composition turned out to be too much for MarineKing and although he had Thors, Life did a really nice magicbox and killed way too many SCVs that was trying to repair the Thors. Eventually he just overran MarineKings natural and main with zerglings and the young zerg took the set and the series in impressive fashion.

1 - 3

Look at that happy kid. 15 years old and already in the semifinals of GSL!

General thoughts on MarineKing vs. Life



Life just has his own cool aggressive style of playing and there are just so many small things that he excels at like his constant zergling movement and his somewhat strange timings. In every game his great zergling based harass managed to damage MarineKing's economy severely. And even with MarineKing's great micro and defensive abilities he was still forced to constantly try and protect his bases. This just allows Life to control practically all games he plays, which is why he has what it takes to reach round of 4.

MarineKing vs. Life = 1 - 3









The first set was a lot like most of Leenock's games in the RO 16 in that he eventually ended up being behind on bases, but at the same time managed to get his beloved massive Broodlord/Infestor/Queen army. TaeJa had his own fourth base for a long time while constantly denying Leenock's attempts to get one, but eventually when Leenock carefully pushed out TaeJa had no way of stopping Leenock's deadly composition and the young zerg took the set.Leenock went for a heavy roach aggression at the 12-minute mark, but TaeJa har sieged tanks and quite a lot of Marauders and was able to defend well. From there TaeJa started dropping in Leenock's main while pushing out on the map. Leenock tried to transition to Hive-tech, but TaeJa constantly pressured with numerous drops and in the end Leenock tried engaging, but TaeJa's army was better and he took the set.In the Round of 16 Leenock had great success with his Broodlord/Infestor composition which won him a lot of games in which he was actually behind on bases and economy.In this series though TaeJa's aggressive style just seemed to fluster Leenock more causing him to not be able to focus on getting his Broodlord/Infestor force as intensively.Generally TaeJa just knew how he wanted to play Leenock and today he looked like the smarter player of the two.MarineKing tried some early bunker aggression on Life's natural, but Life deflected it perfectly. The game transitioned into longer game with both eventually going up to three bases, with MarineKing though delaying Life's third significantly.The game was pretty back and forth with Life moving around with his zerglings beautifully and trying a lot of run-bys. He invested heavily in zergling/baneling aggression constantly switching between attack MarineKing's main and third and managed to kill almost 30 SCVs.But MarineKing's upgrades were better and when he finally pushed out Life couldn't defend.They both went up to three bases pretty fast, but Life used his three bases to once again do some heavy zergling/baneling aggression. He did this beautifully and even though MarineKing got a bunker up by his natural he took far too much damage from Life's attack. MarineKing tried to do a typical MarineKing counter-attack, but Life had far too much and he crushed it, and when he then he pushed out afterwards with Infestors MarineKing had no way of defending.