InCa vs 
RyungInCa started the series on Creavasse with some very risky plays, going for Nexus first and then, after getting four gateways up, he hid two stargates south of Ryung's base and powered up Void Rays. Unfortunately, he might have misjudged Ryung, thinking that the SlayerS terran would just sit there and wait. Ryung launched a stim timing attack with multiple drops and completely negated InCa's economy. The decision to basically base trade was also not a wise one and after his eight (!) Void Rays melted under bunker fire, InCa GGed out.
The Tal'Darim set was painful and brutal. InCa again went for Nexus first and after scouting it, Ryung decided to not fool around and executed a surgical Stim timing attack that sniped the expansion and some valuable units. A second wave of the same put InCa in the ground as he just did not have enough units to deal with the terran army.
Violet vs TheWindStarting on Metalopolis, TheWind went for a quite bizarre build, getting an extremely quick Lair right after ling speed and immediately putting down an Infestation Pit. While everybody was wondering if this is some kind of strange cheesy or timing attack play, TheWind actually double expanded and sat passively as both he and Violet amassed their Roach/Infestor army. But then TheWind started making terrible decisions, wasting a ton of Fungals on Violet's scouting parties of lings (including a fungal on a single zergling). Having the mana advantage, Violet did a nice attack that allowed him to snipe the majority of Wind's infestors and to win even greater victory, the former War3 pro sneaked some Roaches in Wind's base and did some economy damage as well. That put him far in the lead and he won the next decisive battle with ease.
TheWind opened the game on Xel'Naga Caverns with a very aggressive 10-pool, followed by immediate Baneling Nest. He tried to make use of this huge window of time before Violet's ling speed finishes but bad control led to the death of too few Drones, putting TheWind behind both army- and economy-wise. With Speedlings and Roaches in production, Violet soon pushed to get a 2-0 victory.
Keen vs RainBoth players took completely different tech paths on Terminus. Rain went for gas first for quick blue flame into pure mech, while Keen invested into cloak Banshees. The latter could not do any damage as Rain was meticulous in sniping them but the TSL terran was behind in another aspect - his siege tech timing. Thus, Keen took the opportunity to do a timing attack and wither the mech army of Rain. From that point on, Keen moved down to deny the third of Rain while taking his fourth at the same time. Being two bases behind and not even having air superiority, Rain left the game.
The fun on Xel'naga Caverns started when Rain moved out with a mid-game bio/tank push, sieged up at the south low-ground of Keen and elevated his bio inside, trading his marine for some important siege tanks and reactors. But Keen was far from dead and Rain had to eventually retreat and let the match enter the late game. Which is kinda the time where Rain starts to make mistakes and this time it was his unbelievable siege tank passivity. Even though supplies were equal through the most part, Keen kept getting better and better position and even though he lost a huge chunk of tanks by trying to access Rain's natural through the rocks, he soon found himself sieged up at both chokes in the centre. Using the well covered right coridor, Keen sieged up a couple of tanks and started denying the gold minerals for Rain. The TSL terran then made a huge blunder and sacrificed all his marines in a clumsy attempt to clean the contain. Being 50 supply behind, Rain had to forfeit.
Anypro vs JookToSet 1 on Xel'Naga Caverns was a perfect example of how to handle ZvP. After the two armies - Roach/Ling for Jookto and Stalker/Sentry for Anypro - missed each other due to taking different attack paths, the Zerg launched his assault on Anypro's natural. The hesitation from the Protoss whether to turn back was for just a moment, but that actually cost him the nexus. Anypro issued
a second attack and this time he was way more successful, killing the third of Jookto and moving on to the natural. Sadly, though, he was met with a huge number of Spine Crawlers and he had to eventually turn back and start rebuilding his economy.
A space to breathe, however, was all that Jookto needed. His Spire tech had already kicked in and, after catching the Protoss forces out of position once again, he mutalisked the hell out of Anypro's prime while simultaneously pushing the third nexus and forced a cancel. Being so far behind, Anypro entered a final confrontation but lost despite the nice blink micro.
In contrast to set 1, the game on Terminus was not an example of how to ZvP. I don't know why Jookto did not want to play a macro game on the freaking Terminus and instead went for a stupid Roach/Baneling all-in. I might never know. Never mind, the events did not go along Jookto's way and his Banelings and Roaches were completely denied by smartly placed Cannons. Seeing that he is infinitely behind, the Zerg double expanded to get his economy up, but Anypro already had Stargate tech and a buttload of Phoenixes. Jookto's struggle for survival was needlessly painful to watch but at the end he decided to surrender (finally!) and the game went into set 3...
...which, fortunately, was such a tense game on the new and pretty Belshir Beach. JookTo opened standardly with fast ling speed and soon took a third but this decision of his was severely punished as Anypro's 6-gate timing was fierce. JookTo lost his third and was pinned down to the corner. Somehow, he managed to produce enough units to stay alive and recover and eventually even take a gold third. But what really impressed me is the way he used baneling drops to dictate the position of the protoss army. With consecutive ingenious attack, JookTo sniped all mining nexuses with well calculated roach aggression, while using baned overlords as "shield". Fearsome feeling indeed - move and get blown up; stay and lose your bases.
Those losses made Anypro to do the one thing that could possibly bring him victory - a base trade. Having high Colossus numbers, he sniped the west fourth of the Zerg and soon his natural. JookTo, meanwhile, was chewing through the Protoss building and soon what left was one assimilator and a scary army ball for Protoss and several hatches, two drones and some Roaches and mutas for Zerg. Some sloppy decisions made JookTo lose some valuable units but at the end, tricking the Protoss with nice burrow play, he killed the only remaining Protoss building and win the match.
| Ro64 Group A Day 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| InCa | 0:2 | Ryung | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Violet | 2:0 | TheWind | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rain | 0:2 | Keen | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Anypro | 1:2 | Violet | ||||||||||||||||||||||
