Code S October Group E: July, HongUn, Losira, Ganzi

The new week began with another group of death. HongUn, one of the few protosses still remaining in Code S, was placed among players even champions have failed to dethrone. HongUn, Ganzi, July and Losira would not let the day pass tediously.



HongUn stood passive from the start of the game, expanding to natural early and proceeding to take and saturate a third while laying the foundations for his blink/colossus play. Unfortunately for him, July had plans of complete opposition. The Zerg also reached three bases quickly, going for the big aggressive burrow roach play with baneling bombs to spice things up.

July's move came at the 10th minute mark as he stormed HongUn's front with the raw strength and brutality that suit his style. There were no mind games or a moment of indecisiveness: July just burrowed underneath the forcefields, dropping banelings on top of stalkers at the same time to drown HongUn in a sea of units for the GG.


Going for the throat



To indirectly bypass the rax build time nerf, Ganzi went straight for the double proxy rax in the center and that was a rush Losira had no means to stop. Bunkering up the ramp, Ganzi had little trouble killing the natural of Losira, but the Zerg answered with a cheese of his own, proxying a hatchery at Ganzi's third.

To Losira's disappointment, the proxy hatchery got scouted just as Ganzi started his third CC and the zerg had to think of yet another plan of coming back. The latter consisted of him getting a roach warren and applying slight pressure to Ganzi, trying to buy enough time to recover macro-wise from the early game. Somehow, Losira was still alive despite and even managed to equalize the economies and reach baneling tech.

But the power of Ganzi was just too huge at that point. A simple 2-base marine/tank push sealed the deal for Losira as due to having no centrifugal hooks, his small number of banelings did not connect a single hit.


Well hi there...



The fuse of this very unpredictable game was lit when, after doing a bit of reaper play, Ganzi moved out to destroy July's third. Knowing that he cannot save his expansion, July rallied all his forces straight towards Ganzi's expo, where they found a base most bare. As Ganzi even missed to lift his supply depots, July got a free rein in terran's home, bane-blowing his SCVs to reduce their count to 11.

Realizing that his only chance of victory is to go for an all-in, Ganzi attacked with whatever forces he had left in the middle of the map. Looking from afar that seemed like an unwinnable situation. But July's impatience was his biggest enemy as he would not wait for his upgrades to finish or his additional units to hatch and instead went straight for the surround. The miscalculated attack did not clean Ganzi's forces efficiently and July had to in turn use his drones to keep himself alive. Suddenly, the worker cap did not seem that grand.

July continued with the odd decisions, expanding towards his opponent by taking the gold after quite the delay. He tried to poke at the terran with his mutalisks but as a thor popped out July had to give it up. Minutes later, another impatient engagement cost him even more units and so Ganzi came victorious in this very bizarre game.


This is what happens when you try to rush things



HongUn opened with a void ray into double stargate phoenix but was a bit too sloppy in executing his rush and took too much time and too much damage taking down Losira's third. That gave the zerg enough time to spore up his base (although he also made some careless mistakes, to his luck not at all critical) and tech up to hydra den.

That turned the tides of battle around as Losira took the reins, going fully on the offensive. What followed the air play were constant hydra vs blink battles with Losira expanding like crazy behind this and HongUn trying to hang on to whatever economy and infrastructure he had. A few engagements actually went into HongUn's favor but the stream of hydras was unending. HongUn got pushed further and further back until the hydras even reached his natural nexus. As it fell, HongUn had to gg out.


Losira finally breaks through despite HongUn's endurance in blinking



Gambling on Losira going for hatch first, July opened with a 10-pool and rallied his lings down south only to find that Losira had actually went for a pool first build. Lings popped out just in time for the IM zerg to chase July away and Losira was now visibly safe to set up his expansion.

It was to little surprise to see that July stuck up with his 1-base now all-inish plan. He put down a bane nest and rallied forces towards Losira's expansion and, naturally, seized its life. The urge of early victory, however, was too strong in July and he tried to force his way out the ramps, sacrificing a lot of banelings just to get one queen and than be stopped by Losira's own banelings.

By that time the attack finally ended, July was superbly behind. He was too slow to get his own expo (Losira took his immediately after the pressure was over) and that made him have less of basically everything - queens, banes, lings, even roaches, despite the later warren of Losira. As he moved out for his final attack, Losira even sneaked lings in his base to destroy his mineral line. July's adventure in Code S October was over.


Give him a minute or two and Losira will have more spine crawlers than July has supply

Code S October Group E Standings
Ganzi	2	0
Losira	2	1
July	1	2
HongUn	0	2

It is sad to see another protoss go, but I suppose we had it coming. After all, this is the team of this GSL so far, isn't it? To his defence, HongUn got probably the toughest lot after group C and even before the start of the season one could easily see that it would be close to a miracle to go through the incredible SlayerS_Ganzi and IMLosira, a zerg who had great part in revitalizing ZvP for his race.

What is even sadder is watching such a performance from July, whose style and decision making are, at best, fluctuant. At one point he is this ruthless conqueror, bringing memories of his old BroodWar days and in the next moment he is impatient as a little child waiting for the ice cream truck. July has to shape up because MLG Orlando is just around the corner!