Puma and HuK are the two EG members that will make it through to the Ro16 bracket, erasing the two zergs in the group - EGIdra and LLLOrly - from the tournament.
After easily defeating Idra earlier, HuK moved on to face yet another team-mate in the face of Puma. On Antiga Shipyard, Puma opened with an early marine pressure but as that was denied by HuK's defensive forcefields the terran had to fall back and prepare for the counter attack. The latter came soon and posed an immense threat for Puma's life but a heroic ever-in-the-red bunker stood under unending SCV repair to safe Puma's skin. The mid-game saw Puma win two important victories - a medivac drop that cleaned HuK's main nexus and another beneficial direct engagement in the centre - that crippled the protoss macro-wise, making him type the GG.
Game two on Altar began similarly with Puma going for 4-rax pressure but HuK barely cleaned all the marines before the offensive bunker had the chance to finish. Despite successfully repelling the attack, HuK chose to play extremely safe and defensive and tech to a high-gas colossi/archon/templar composition with double forge so Puma took advantage of that and went for a quick fourth. Soon the game entered a state where both players had maxed armies and were circling the centre searching for the best possible way to engage. Ultimately, the two armies clashed and Puma showed way superior micro, cleaning HuK almost flawlessly and walking out with double the supply and a gg from his team-mate.
Thus the group was in a state where both HuK and Idra stood at a 1-1 score (Idra thanks to his previous victory over Orly) so their final game would be a do-or-die. Idra went on to face Puma and snatched the first set after defending Puma's 2-rax bunker rush and transitioning to mass roach/muta composition to battle down the terran's hellion/thor army. Puma, however, took some notes and came back to win the subsequent two sets making Idra's life a living hell thanks to his insane hellions and a passive but flawless style. With a 3-4 in sets, the EG's star zerg was almost surely out of the tournament and it was to be decided by the HuK vs Orly game.
The latter series saw one of the most tense games in the group making the audience cheerfully applaud every step of the way. The opening set was played on Terminus and saw Orly going for an aggressive roach/bane drop strat, aiming to destroy HuK's forward third as the protoss defences at that point constricted his free movement around the map. The immortal of HuK were unyielding though so Orly chose to tech switch to mutas but as that proved inefficient as well he had to call it a game.
Photo by: GosuGamers.net
The second game was a most epic one on Shakuras Plateau, going for more than 30 minutes of unending action. HuK took an early victory by cannon-killing Orly's third but the zerg sprung back with a stunning macro and pressured the protoss so hard that HuK's third came really, really late. As Orly's economy expanded so did his capabilities of trading armies and HuK endured wave after wave of roach drops and ling run-byes that pushed him further and further down. HuK responded with warp-prism and blink harass of his own but at the end of the game Orly was everywhere, fungalling and cleaning every protoss army, eventually tying the score.
In the final set Orly took a quick third but as he failed to scout the proxy pylon just north of it in time, HuK came on to punish him with pure gateway pressure. Orly's roach tech was just a snitch later but it was all HuK needed to clean it all up and take second in his group with relief.
| DH winter Ro32 Group A standings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player | Games | Sets | ||||||||||||||||||||||
  Puma | 3-0 | 6-1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
  HuK | 2-1 | 4-3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
  Idra | 1-2 | 3-4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 Orly | 0-3 | 1-6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| PuMa 2-0 Orly | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| IdrA 0-2 HuK | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| PuMa 2-0 HuK | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Orly 0-2 IdrA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| PuMa 2-1 IdrA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HuK 2-1 Orly | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Day two of DreamHack resumes at 14:00 CET with groups C and D.
