Code S November Group H: Mvp, Alive, Curious, MarineKing

Group H brought an old grudge match back into viewers' attention - Mvp vs MarineKing and while everyone had fixated their eyes upon the possibility of this classic TvT occurring, two young players stood proud and eager to get out of this crushingly difficult group.



Alive took control of the early game by cornering Mvp with cautious marine/tank pushes but the IM terran could not be contained for too long. Knowing that he has to go back eventually or he would die during the siege, Alive lifted his contain and headed home and this is when Mvp struck true and hard. A small medivac drop cleared Alive's third-in-construction and before he could react adequately, another drop at his main tortured his workers, pushing Alive into making an uncalculated decision.

Instead of going back and resecuring his position, the TSL terran surged in for a base race scenario but such did never ensue as all his marines instantly melted under the fire of Mvp's few defending tanks. Thus, without waging even one big battle, Mvp came victorious, pulling ahead 1-0 in his group.



With no intent to fool around with mid and late game antics, MarineKing went straight for the all-in going up to 3-rax/reactor hellion into siege tanks. Curious, of course, had no idea what was coming his way and when he eventually smelled what MKP was cooking it was a bit too late for him to react. The zerg had way too few lings, just one spine crawler and his baneling speed hadn't even been started so eventually the game turned into something that people will mention when they say they've been hit with something harder than a sledge-hammer.


Siege. Hammer time.



Terrans have proxied many things during the years - marines, banshees, reapers, even thors. It is very rare, though, to see a proxy marauder rush with the care and precision of Mvp's.

MarineKing's position was made even worse by the fact that he went straight for the 1-rax CC, which made him all the more vulnerable to the rush. In all honestly, MarineKing defended more than excellent and even managed to sneak a proxy banshee of his own but he was just outplayed on so many levels. The IM terran would advance to the Ro16.



Alive chose to go for the very popular reactor hellion/mass marine build and took his third behind the early pressure he applied to Curious. The winds started blowing against him, though, as a slight overextending put him in swarm's maw and his whole army got mauled down by Curious' forces. That gave the zerg more opportunities to pressure Alive's third. Alive's troubles were magnified by the fact that he had a marine-only force hovering around the map which was basically free food for the banelings without the necessary siege support.

Thus Curious' hive tech came to be and Alive felt the wrath of +2/+2 brood lords - an enemy too formidable even for his +3/+3 marines. That was until Curious engaged in the most wrong way rushing carelessly into tank fire and leaving his brood lords stranded and naked - an easy prey for Alive. This sole mistake turned the tides of battle back to the terran's favor and few minutes later Curious was dead as a doornail.





In the last game of Group H we saw MKP doing what MKP does best - going for so many marines that your computer lags off. He opened fast CC into 4-rax and was soon at Alive's front door but the TSL terran already had two siege tanks which scared the marines away.

Alive continued building up his tank force as opposed to MKP who stuck on marines for quite a long time, which ended at a significant (more like significant) tank disadvantage for the Prime terran. When the time for direct engagements out in the open came, MarineKing found it unbearably hard to make anything happen - his marines had shorter life-span than the one of a scouting drone and, sadly for all his fans, he would have to fight for survival come Code A Ro32.

Code S November Group H Standings
Mvp	2	0	To Code S Ro16
Alive	2	1	To Code S Ro16
MarineKing	1	2	To Code A Ro32
Curious	0	2	To Code A Ro48

There is not much to say about this group. All in all it was Mvp doing his thing, which is, plainly said, being better than everyone. Alive has never been at the skill level of the multiple times champion and Mvp himself has met and defeated MarineKing so many times that he could probably write a PhD thesis on it.

The other thing about MKP was also mentioned by the caster duo - the kid needs to get out of his comfort zone and explore the other antics of TvT more in depth. We all know he is good, it is about time for him to find out as well and sticking to this rotten marine-heavy style is not going to do the magic for him.