GSL Ro32 Day 3

You can say that Day 3 of the GSL Ro32 was a day of stardom. We had Check, Tester and Rainbow, three of the favorites to win the entire tournament. And in the midst of all that we were to see Zenio vs HongUn, a match that promised to be very, very close.

It is tough to make up two intro paragraphs for every day of the tournament and I am already quite tired of writing and because of that I give you the results right away. Go ahead, be unsurprised.

GSL Ro32 Day 3

Tester

2-1

NEXFreeSaga

oGsZenio

0-2

HongUnPrime

KeepingWerra

0-2

IntoTheRainbow

CheckPrime

2-0

JustfakeWerra

Tester vs NEXFreeSaga
Tester is always a fun player to watch as he plays in a way that is so robust and flawless that is hardly to overcome by just anyone. The game on Xel’Naga Caverns showed us once again how solid Tester is. There are just not many players who take time to hunt observers and put a Stalker at every choke to deny every scouting attempt, although it is as simple as the fact that if you more bases that your opponent you will also have more Colossi. Another lesson that FreeSaga was taught when Tester pushed (usually, Tester doesn’t need to push twice).
Deciding to exploit the architecture of Steppes, Tester opened his second game with aggressive 2-Gate play but FreeSaga was able to scout that in time and alter his play adequately, pulling proves off gas and investing into Gateways. Eventually, Testers aggressiveness caught up with him and he started to fall back in terms of units and tech. It was about the 10 minute mark when FreeSaga just had more units and overran Tester despite all the Force Fields that was thrown at him.
Game 3 was on Metalopolis and threw in shock and surprise everyone that witnessed it – from players and shoutcasters to casual and non-casual viewers. FreeSaga knew he couldn’t outplay Tester after the mid-game so he went for blind 2-Gate proxy build at the gold high-ground. Very fortunate for him, he and Tester spawned at rush positions, making the cheese all the more effective. Chronoboosting his Zealots, FreeSaga marched into Tester’s main for what he taught was the winning move. And it could’ve been but several unfortunate thing happened. First, Tester managed to sneak a Zealot into Saga’s base killing half of his probes and reducing their count to eight. Second, Saga just could not keep with Tester’s micro. He was way too confident in his sheer numbers and stupidly engaged despite of factors such as probe surround, artificially created choke points and army-to-army ratio. Running his Zealots around to recover their shields while using Probes to deny the same to Saga, Tester managed to match the Zealot count. Which was to be expected with Saga’s probes being one digit number. When Tester pushed Saga’s forces back and destroyed the proxy gates, the game was over.

oGsZenio vs HongUnPrime
Another tough match for the Swarm was coming our way. Zenio had to face HongUnPrime and was really going for the win on Lost Temple with some beautiful Nydus play, “dropping” Hydralisks at the natural highground disturbing the fast Nexus, and then at the main actually taking down the main Nexus. It all seemed fine for the Zerg but amidst all that fanciness he forgot to spread creep properly and when the Protoss pushed with an army of Colossi and Gateway units that should’ve been easily repelled, the Zerg died ingloriously due to poor basic mechanics such as macro and creep spreading.
The second game on Scrap Station was much more humiliating. HongUn managed to delay Zerg’s natural quite a lot, throwing Zenio off balance while quickly teching to Fenixes and Blink. HongUn’s fliers were unforgiving and when the harassment finally stopped the Fenixes had a kill count of more than 20. After that it was just a matter of Stalkers trampling the Zerg.

KeepingWerra vs IntoTheRainbow
There are player who are just BETTER than others. That became evident in this particular series in which Rainbow completely manhandled his opponent. The first game was quick and simple. Rainbow opened with stim timing push and forced a cancel on the quick Nexus. He then smartly retreated, transitioning to dropships and more Marauders while Keeping tried to get a high tier army by rushing Colossus. Rainbow tried to make worth of his Medivacs and despite not being quite effective, his main army of Marauders just crushed the Protoss, who had significantly fewer units because of the rushing to Tier 3.
The rematch on Kulas Ravine was similarly one sided. Rainbow started with two defensive Bunkers at his choke while teching to Banshees. KeepingWerra managed to defend that with some Fenixes but again the difference in the classes was clear when Rainbow just had more stuff due to battle macro. When MMM clashed with Stalker/Colossi it was a slaughterfest.

CheckPrime vs JustfakeWerra
Check is a baller and a very flexible zerg and that should be clear. In his series against Justfake he showed us how one can deviate his Muta/baneling play with some peculiar tweaks. On Metalopolis, he opened with a quick Hatchery and delayed gas, ling speed and lair. He added a third hatch at his expo, opting for lots of Zerglings/Banes with which to stop Terran’s initial bio opening. Justfake, being the smart player he is, quickly transitioned to mech play but it hard-counters really don’t matter much when your opponent just has about 150 food worth of Zerglings and Banelings. Using Mutas to poke here and there and distract Terran’s attention, Check used his humongous force to carpet roll over Justfake.
Using this build once again on Steppes, Check used his slightly delayed gas to go for Roach/Ling army. And he was almost in for a treat when Justfake went for a very cute and flexible push with Banshees, Marines, Blue Hellions and some Tanks. However, Justfake microed his units sloppily and was overran by Roaches, Lings and even some Queens that were now pooping tumors all over. Check had such a huge advantage that he destroyed the Terran without even saturating a third.

If you are not satisfied by all those games you are a) suffering from incurable mental disease or b) just waiting for the TLO games. Well, if it’s b) just click the Day 4 link, duuh!