Code S November Group E: Happy, DongRaeGu, Gumiho, Bomber

Group E - one of the most easy to predict Code S pools, right? Well, as it turned out - wrong!



It is always invigorating seeing a terran forgo marines in a TvZ in favor of pure mech so kudos to Happy for playing this Dual Sight game. The terran opened with 1-rax CC into double reactor hellion but at first he had great troubles cracking through the roach defenses of DongRaeGu. It was not until the zerg made a foolish and poorly planned attack into +2 thors and tanks did Happy got a chance to savor a victory.

DongRaeGu's recovery did no take long, however, and soon he had mutalisks terrorizing Happy's base, the harassment made easier by the fact that Happy did not actually move out to apply hellion pressure to any zerg base so DRG easily took map control. But once again, a flawed engagement by DRG ended with the death of all his mutas which was basically a green light for the terran to move out and win the game.


DongRaeGu;s first blunder. It won't be his last



Short TvTs always bring joy to my heart especially when they are won on the back of really minor armies. Gumiho entered the game as the heavy underdog against StarTale's Bomber but less than 10 minutes later he walked out like nothing spectacular has happened.

Gumiho opened with a standard reactor hellion expand and began feeling the turf at Bomber's base. And that the turf was fertile he found out soon enough. Every consecutive hellion harass dealt geometrically more damage and delayed more and more Bomber's banshee harass, which was his built from the start. When Bomber finally managed to reach Gumiho's base there were already vikings there to deny damage to his economy. On the other side of the Altar, Bomber was losing more and more SCVs and one failed all-in push later, he GGed out.


It's a gg indeed



Those who live by the hellion, die by the hellion. That should be Gumiho's motto from here on, seeing how he lost all his mid-game momentum to a group of preigniter hellions which sniped more than half of his SCVs. Aside from crippling the economy, Happy's harass damages extended further, infecting Gumiho's very own build order. The FXO was aiming at a strong mid-game bio presence, going for quick stim and double e-bay but as it was he had to spend the better part of the game rebuilding his income and struggling to secure a third base.

Thus arose the peculiar situation of Happy's mech having total control of the map and Gumiho's bio trying to move out and make something happen. In vain, of course, as there were more missile turrets and sensor towers than there were marauders.


Even this major battle couldn't put the reins of control back in Gumiho's hands



One of the first lessons in the TvZ textbook is "Don't attack spine crawlers with Hellions". It's right there next to "EMP is good" and "Marines shoot faster with stim". It's not like Bomber made mistakes #2 an #3 but doing #1 for five minutes straight was quite enough. DongRaeGu defended like a boss and turned the game around with crushing mutalisk harass which ended with lots of dead tanks, production facilities, SCVs, turrents and even an orbital command.


DRG cleans everything up and prepares for his final match for the night



Gumiho opened with the standard reactor hellion into CC and easily set up a contain at DongRaeGu's natural who had to spine up hard to keep the hellions away from his worker line. Gumiho, though, extended this play by mixing in some marauders and going for a really cute aggression that cut the queen count down but eventually had to retreat for DRG's reinforcements started to look very scary.

As the smoke cleared, Gumiho was sitting on three bases already while DRG was just now looking to get his third. Him being alive and with lair tech probably put some confidence in him but a medivac drop soon scalded his hopes as his fresh third was sniped and he was back to very minor economy.

Although DRG put up a good fight he could never fully recover economically to the extent of at least matching Gumiho's. The terran soon even took a gold base which basically finished the story for DRG, although it took him a few more battles to persuade the zerg of his defeat.


Gumiho's great early game attack

Code S November Group E Standings
Happy	2	0	To Code S Ro16
Gumiho	2	1	To Code S Ro16
DongRaeGu	1	2	To Code A Ro32
Bomber	0	2	To Code A Ro48

Unbelievable, isn't it. Of all the groups in Code S never would have I predicted such an outcome about this one in particular. Not that Gumiho and Happy are bad by any measure, it's just it feels like they are still trying to gain recognition as top tier players. Here, they made their next big step.

What surprised me the most, however, was Bomber's sloppy play that night. The inability to successfully deal with a simple hellion harass in TvT and the mind-numbing action of trying to wane down spine crawlers with hellions took my words away. Usually, you expect more of a MLG champion. Much, much more.