GSL 2012 Season 1: Groups E and F Battle Report

GAME ONE: MMA vs Gumiho

PEOPLE PROXY TECHS ALL THE TIME, yet hiding a siege tech is much, much more rare than a sneaky starport or barracks. MMA counted on Gumiho’s surprise and was not let down. Unsuspecting of the coming danger, Gumiho employed a greedy fast CC into hellion build and needless to say, it all ended with a build order loss for him.

I have used the terms “SCV holocaust” quite a few times before and I will continue to turn to it whenever situations like that particular set two call for it. MMA opened with a banshee/marauder rush that forced a big SCV pull from Gumiho but at the same time the FXO terran had a banshee of his own in MMA’s main. The latter was all that kept him afloat during the better part of the game despite the SlayerS ace winning every ground engagement. Then, in a surge of a peculiar idea, Gumiho decided to add a second starport and go airborne but this play of his did not bring him any fruitful spoils. All MMA had to do was start thor production and beat Gumiho wherever he met him.

GAME TWO: Zenio vs YuGiOh

IN THE ZVZ FOR THE NIGHT Zenio opened with an early pool into baneling nest and speedlings and... that was it. The quick-hatching YuGiOh could not find an adequate way to deal with Zenio’s relentless aggression and had to surrender the first set.

Early aggression was Zenio’s key card in set two as well. The new Liquid member opened with a succession of speedling attacks and each wave crippled YuGiOh further and further as many queens and drones fell without serving their true purpose. Despite that early game tormet, YGO did manage to somehow stabilize and enter a mid-game state that was not falling apart by the second but that wasn’t much of a help, too. Zenio transitioned to turtle infestor and once his army was set to go, the Liquider utilized visibly better control on his army and spells and snatched the 2-0 victory.

WINNERS MATCH: MMA vs Zenio

MMA CONTINUED TO SHOW HOW DIVERSE IN HIS BUILD ORDERS HE CAN BE. Opening the winners match on Entombed Valley, the terran utilized a thor/hellion build with a transition into marauders to confuse the hell out of Zenio. The Liquid zerg had all the wrong composition and kept throwing speedlings and banelings into preigniter fire and surrendered his territories inch by inch. A ghost of a counter attack was attempted near the end of the set but all in vain.

And if Valley was not a testimony about MMA supremacy, the Belshir Beach set definitely did the job. Zenio was straight on outclassed as MMA employed a series of smaller attack, eventually bringing the Zerg down to two bases and the G button on his keyboard.

LOSERS MATCH: Gumiho vs YuGiOh

BEING IN THE LOSERS MATCH DID NOT DETER YUGIOH FROM SHOWCASING SOME SICK DEFENSIVE SKILLS against Gumiho’s hellion/marauder opening. The zerg used some ripsnorting on the fly sim city to trap the hellions and bring them down with drones while his zerglings were taking care of the bio units. A simple baneling/roach/mutalisk counter attack was what YuGiOh needed to get the lead in the series.

The Crossfire set, however, was a whole other matter. Although both enemies played uncharacteristically bad for Code S-ers, watching YuGiOh was like observing a guy dying to prolonged divorce lawsuit thanks to a bad lawyer and barren arguments. Gumiho stripped his opponent of his third base twice without so much of smidge of resistance before YGO finally composed enough strength to bark back. It was for a short time only, however, as Gumiho, although just as clumsy in this particular behavior, finally got the seaside villa and the spacey apartment to win the trial.

Game three on Antiga was much similar, with the only difference being YuGiOh actually playing well from the start. He was successful in repelling the early hellion aggression and expanded his domain up to five bases quickly and without much trouble. It was there that his downfall began, starting with failing to scout Gumiho’s fifth expansion at the centre right, inability to destroy any of terran’s bases be they mining or not, and ruining his chances in general by not able to contain Gumiho’s constant drops and harassment despite enjoying such an early lead and abundance of ultralisks.

FINAL MATCH: Zenio vs Gumiho

ZENIO WAS A CONSTANT NUISANCE IN GAME ONE, constantly pricking Gumiho after the marine/hellion opening was dealt with. Gumiho began splitting his forces into smaller chunks to both defend his bases and apply pressure to the zerg himself but that made it all the more easier for Zenio to pick the off.

Game two saw Zenio taking the strange decision of heavily investing into mutas, despite suffering a excruciating pain to his drone line after Gumiho let his hellions loose. And if the impotence of the much expensive muta flock was a big enough repercussion, losing them all to Gumiho’s marines drew the flat line of Zenio’s vitals.

The final set of the day saw Zenio losing his natural to a proxy rax bunker rush but returning the favor with a baneling bust. Yet once again the Zerg insisted on going for this muta heavy play despite being on the economy back foot from early on plus losing a couple of them each time a marine squad was encountered did not aid Zenio’s cause into winning this series.

GSL 2012 Season 1 Group E
Player	W	L	Status
MMA	4	0	Advances to Code S Ro16
Gumiho	4	4	Advances to Code S Ro16
Zenio	3	4	Drops to Code A Ro32
YuGiOh	1	4	Drops to Code A Ro48
MMA 2-0 Gumiho Zenio 2-0 YuGiOh MMA 2-0 Zenio Gumiho 2-1 YuGIOh Gumiho 2-1 Zenio

sC vs JYP

JYP’s STRUGGLE AGAINST WHAT ONE WOULD SAY TO BE THE LEADERS OF TEAM MVP began with a PvT agaist sC. JYP opened with a solid economical build, going safely up to three bases and overall playing on par with the terran. The protoss tranquility, however, was shortly disturbed after sC launched a double pronged attack, baiting the majority of JYP’s forces with a marine/marauder attack at the third while dropping the main nexus at the same time. In a state of panic (or confusion, doesn’t matter much actually), JYP warped a handful of stalkers and sent all his probes to the gunfire, resulting in a timely death of his economy and a gg.

The second game started similarly: JYP grew up to three bases comfortably enough, following it with a gateway attack only to find out mid-fight that he just doesn’t have enough stuff. Although he was not 100% cleaned up, JYP lost all his sentries, making sC’s backslap all the more harder - his third fell immediately despite blink and charge being researched and only the colossus and storm tech kept JYP from fully dying. The latter was only postponed, though, as sC came strong in the late game and completely obliterated his protoss opponent.

DongRaeGu vs JYP

THAT PvZ SERIES MARKED THE RETURN OF GENIUS TO THE BIG SCENE after the BlizzCon champion and all in all regular Code S-er was given much disregard due to not producing results at all. He shut haters’ mouths by manhandling DRG in a simple and elegant way, opening on Antiga Shipyard with void ray build, combined with +1 attack gateway timing attack that destroyed DRG’s third and even managed to sneak out unharmed. DongRaeGu would eventually stabilize and transition to mutalisks to counter the colossus tech but his eyes got too big with greed for the third of Genius and that was it.

Game two saw Genius open once again with a solid stargate mass phoenix into 6-gate into a third nexus but was eventually force to base race as this time DRG handled his mutalisks much better. With overwhelmingly more units to his disposal, this was a piece of cake for the protoss, making the “no base race against mutas” rule seem stupid.

sC vs Genius

SC OPENED THE SERIES WITH A GHOST ACADEMY AFTER TAKING HIS SECOND BASE but could not do much with it because of the abundance of tier three units that Genius somehow spat on the field. Finally, the terran managed to pull off a sick EMP volley and even cast down some nukes on the field in order to hold his centre base but Genius was patient and calm, not rushing to stupid decisions. This led to a perfect war of nerves that was waged between two centre bases and even bringing the though of a draw to casters' minds. However, Genius would not allow that to happen and the tons of AoE damage swung the tides in his favor.

Second game on Belshir was much shorter as sC’s reactor hellion/marauder build got absolutely crushed by stalkers. Genius didn’t even need to use blink.

JYP vs DongRaeGu

JYP’s MISFORTUNES WITH MVP PLAYERS DID NOT END WITH THE LOSS TO SC as DongRaeGu also craved for a piece of the EG protoss. On Daybreak, JYP once again displayed that he can play an exemplary early game as his tight build quickly got him to three bases and +1/+1 but he started falling apart when DRG’s mutas hit the field and started finding cracks in JYP’s defense all over the place. DongRaeGu wrapped up the series with 2-0 as he folloed the Daybreak win with one on Metropolis, mercilessly destroying JYP’s 6-gate +2 blink rush.

DongRaeGu vs sC

DRG DISPLAYED INCREDIBLE PROWESS AT DEFENSE, repelling the double proxy rush of sC with drones alone and extending this advantage to a win with an immediate baneling bust. Recovering from this quick and embarrassing loss, sC proceeded to play one of the best games that day, although not entirely thanks to him. The terran opened with a double reactor hellion and took the lives of near 20 workers, but by some miracle his team-mate managed to stabilize and even catch up. sC continued his oppression by setting a contain but the zerg broke out with tons of infested terrans and in the span of few minutes managed to turn a 60 supply disadvantage around with a multitude of fungals. Ultimately, though, this was not enough and the score was tied.

The final set began with a hellion/marauder opening (talk about making a beta build mainstream again) and after a long struggle DongRaeGu finally managed to chase it away, even before his casters hit the field. The zerg used infestors to control the mid game and transitioned to ultralisks later on to snatch the 2-1 victory and advance to the Ro16.

GSL 2012 Season 1 Group F
Player	W	L	Status
Genius	4	0	Advances to Code S Ro16
DongRaeGu	4	3	Advances to Code S Ro16
sC	3	4	Drops to Code A Ro32
JYP	0	4	Drops to Code A Ro48
sC 2-0 JYP Genius 2-0 DongRaeGu Genius 2-0 sC DongRaeGu 2-0 JYP DongRaeGu 2-1 sC

Who would think that the groups would end in such a way? Oh, yes, everyone. That makes my job both much easier, as I can throw basically anything at you and it will still be more life-turning that the E and F games, and much harder because, well, I like to make sense every once in a while.

MMA and Gumiho deservedly dominated Group E in a way that no one doubted they will. The two zergs were never close to coming out as victors and, in my humblest opinion, they won't anytime soon, especially if Gumiho's skills continue to improve. I know some of you might scold me for frowning upon the foreign acquisition Zenio but let's not kid ourselves - they guys hasn't smelled a GSL top eight finish since 2010 and was even in Code A last season, further proving that he is a very questionable Code S entity. To his credit, his IEM Kiev run was entertaining and did produce some results but I am still far from convinced that Zenio should be regarded as a top tier zerg. Still, time will tell.

The only thing worth mentioning in a positive fashion is how well Genius played that day. I mean it. There was once a time that this guy was counted among the grand masters of protoss and was walking cockily on stage and pointing to the GSL trophies (never actually winning one, though). He then turned to a mediocre Code S player results-wise, scoring a succession of Ro32 and Ro16 drop outs, making people doubt his prowess. It seems like he is back in shape, though. Pray to god that he can survive his Ro16 group, because things ain't looking pretty.