Zergs, shotguns and HuK: Up-and-down Day 3, Part 1

The schedule change of GomTV's broadcast put the last four groups of the up-and-down matches in one day. In the first part, HuK faced a fearsome Terran opponent and the Zerg swarms went against each other.

Group E

SlayerS_MMA vs MarineKingPrime

It was like I wasn't watching MarineKing play in the game on Tal'Darim Altar. Yes, he went for his signature aggressive pushes but executed it sloppily and could not break MMA for a huge deal of time. Even under the constant pressure and the scary shadow of MarineKing's contain, MMA managed to get a hold of himself and do constant drops that put MKP out of his skin. Eventually, the Prime player had had enough and decided to finish this but MMA's defenses were too strong and after the push MarineKing was twice behind in every aspect and GGed out.
The Crevasse, though, was an entirely different picture. MarineKing cleverly punished MMA's greedy fast CC and managed to do a lot of damage with a Marine pressure, sniping some SCVs and a reactor. He then played an almost perfect macro game, taking position in the center and beat MMA in both base count and upgrades, that led him to win the game. Further excellence was showed on Xel'Naga Fortress with MarineKing completely denying MMA's forward rax rush and then winning more and more ground by constantly sniping tanks in open confrontations in the middle. After few more minutes of exemplary TvT, MarineKing secured his place in Code S.

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MarineKing's strike forces sniped a lot of tanks this day

SlayerS_MMA vs Liquid`HuK

HuK's struggle to get back to Code S began on Metalopolis where MMA decided to execute an all-inish 1-base Marine/Banshee/Tank push. Sadly for him, HuK approached this patiently and carefully waned down the tank numbers until he could crush the remaining forces with his Gateway units and win the first set.
The rematch on Terminus was a lot quicker. HuK proxied two of his four gates outside his main, faking an expansion build that MMA fell for. Thus, not being prepared accordingly, the Terran had no chance to hold HuK's obliterating offensive. The foreigner climbed his way back to the S class!

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Although strong on first sight, this terran army had absolutely no reinforcements coming in the near future

up-and-down matches group e

MMA

1:2

MarineKing > To Code S

HuK > To Code S

2:0

MMA > To Code A

Group F

MVP_ViOlet vs ZenexKyrix

So rarely do we get to see an all-Zerg group and that is why I was extremely excited to watch at least two Zerg mirrors in one day, an event that is now close to extinct. Unfortunately, no set reached a heavy macro phase, the first game between Kyrix and Violet on Caverns included. The set started as you usual ZvZ but that was until Kyrix made a newbie mistake and failed to queen-block his ramp, letting the 20+ lings of Violet to sneak in and rain rampage.
On Altar Kyrix went for a quick baneling rush but again the class of Violet shined. He used every single unit to its full extent to minimize the damage, even using sim-city mechanics and drone blocking to prevent a baneling terror. Not being able to utilize his tech even one bit, Kyrix GGed shortly after the angry lings of Violet ate all his drones.

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Drone-blocking the banelings? Yes, he can!

oGsTheWind vs ZenexKyrix

TheWind showed incredible defensive play on Fortress and kept Kyrix's Zerglings away from his main by proper queen blocks and nicely placed Spine Crawler. But what brought him the victory in the first set was the Zergling harass he managed to apply while Kyrix was busy thinking how to break TheWind's position. The Zenex player soon found himself being lethally struck in the drone count - an aspect that was his Achilles' heal today.
Although losing the first set, Kyrix managed to pull off two consecutive victories due to TheWind's sloppy micro. The oGs coach went for a 9-pool/drone all-in on Dual Sight but the sloppy execution forced him to retreat and drone-up. He was actually fine for the better part until he miss-microed horribly and lost all his lings to Kyrix's banes, costing him the game.
Same was the outcome in the third set on Metalopolis. After defending his hatch first for quite a while, TheWind once again failed to properly fend off the baneling march of Kyrix and his army was in shambles for a second time in the last ten minutes. TheWind, quite disappointingly, fell to Code A.