At this step of GSL's evolution, the Up/Down matches are a mini-tournament of their own with a line-up that can rival some of the Western majors. In the very beginning of GSL 2012 Season 2 we saw MVP's former Code S terran Keen, Idra's killer Avenge, SlayerS' YuGiOh, StarTale's team league hero Squirtle and more fighting it out for the very precious Code S seeds.
To Code S we go: Squirtle
VS YuGiOh on Entombed Valley
The fires of the up-and-down matches were lit with quite the torch as YuGiOh went on to face Squirtle in the first game of GSL 2012 Season 2. Eagar to present us with an appropriate gift, YuGiOh went straight for the crazy stuff, proxying a hatchery at Squirtle’s natural, delaying the expansion and putting out a form of immediate danger to the protoss.
It would all end to be a foolish thought. Squirtle found defending this move by YuGiOh to be a piece of cake and soon the zerg threat was cleaned. Immediately, an expansion and a stargate were started for Squirtle but after his phoenixes could not do much, the game entered a passive state where both players just macroed up and got their tech up.
First to make a move of any significance was Squirtle, who directed his colossus deathball towards the third of YuGiOh. After a few fungals and good corruptor shots it seemed that the zerg had the upper hand after all the colossi were death but Squirtle still had a menacing army of sentries and stalkers. He sniped the third and the fourth on his way back, putting him in a good position.
Not crying too much over his loss, YuGiOh started expanding everywhere, soon covering half of the map in purple. Even though he continued losing direct engagement, his ling run-byes successfully brought Squirtle to just one mining base. Still, that was all the protoss needed and as he collected his ridiculous mothership/blink/storm army and vortexed half of zerg’s units, the protoss got a very flashy and spectacular first win of the day.
VS BboongBboong on Crossfire
In his game vs BboongBboong, Squirtle went for a very peculiar build from many, many months back, opening with one gateway and transitioning into a cannon rush with zealot support. When the pylons started warping in beside his hatchery BboongBboong realized what was going on but was too hesitant to react properly and pulled just a couple of drones at a time before actually having the correct amount to DPS down those cannons.
Too little, too late. With two zealots and two probes, Squirtle managed to put the expansion to death and retreated back to get his own nexus up. Bboong also got back to droning but he would find soon enough that was the least appropriate thing to do as Squirtle did a last-second cancel on his nexus and pummeled the unprepared zerg to death with a 4-gate army, accompanied by hallucinated zealots to tank spine crawler damage! Squirtle’s play was nothing short of perfection.
VS Keen on Daybreak
Keen played really well during the very early stages of the game, perfectly scouting Squirtle’s 3-gate nexus opening and even extorting a forcefield, winning some nice ground before the actual battles started. What he did miss was Squirtle’s transition into a 7-gate all-in.
Keen’s situation was worsened by the fact that he neither had the appropriate tech to defend it (which would be basically any other tech but massively upgraded bio), nor the proper stationary defense, the latter being in the form of two measly bunkers. Those were completely cut off from SCV support once the eight full-mana sentries came knocking and Keen, who to that moment was 2-0, scored his first but not last loss for the day.
VS Avenge on Belshir Beach
Belshir Beach is a 4-gate map and everybody knows it. Yet, on top of it, there are oft times when players try to trick each other and play the ring-around-the-build-order, ending in some very one-sided games which are over two minutes into the match.
This one was nothing of the sort. It was a straight on offensive 4-gate losing to a better controlled defensive 4-gate. Boring story, the likes of which we have seen in the millions. And now I realize that no introductory paragraph that I write will bring any excitement to the table so forget about it and think of this game as the one that branded Squirtle as a Code S player for the first time in his career.
To Code S we go: BboongBboong
VS YuGiOh on Dual Sight
YuGiOh and Bboong both opened very standard, going for 1-base baneling nest and 1-base roach warren, respectively. After getting some roaches out, Bboong tried to be aggressive and moved up the map towards YuGiOh’s main but this and all of his follow-up attacks would fail due to YGO’s hectic zerglings. Each time the roaches made it too far away from their base, YGO would send a large enough squad to snipe whatever he can and by the second such run-by Bboong was down some drones, two queens and a spine crawler, which severely cut into his macro and defensive capabilities.
By the end of the game, Bboong was the proud commander of approximately zero successful roach attacks and was, to say the least, a zerg slave to YuGiOh, who kept running around and sniping stuff until he finally decided to bring in the big guns, morphed a ton of banelings and battered down whatever defense Bboong had.
VS Heart on Dual Sight
Already down 0-2, BboongBboong chances of advancing were extremely slim. He was literally a game away from going back to Code A and he still had to play Keen and Avenge. And Heart, of course.
The new terran of Complexity opened the game with a reactor hellion opening but after that was shut down, he did some add-on rearranging and transitioned into a marine/medevac centric army. He used it to move down and deny the third of Bboong but then, out of nowhere, he practically died to a ling run-by.
The death of the hatchery was like a kids’ cartoon compared to what was happening back at Heart’s base. Lings were everywhere, the SCV count was dropping rapidly, buildings were on fire, the wall-off, unconvincing as it was, was cracking more and more. Heart had to muster everything he got in order to stabilize but everything he did from that point on indicated his total mental breakdown.
With mutalisks now on the field, Bboong could only multiply his earlier advantage. The number of forced stims that did no damage was growing by the second and each time the two armies met, Heart’s was dangerously in the orange. His biggest success this game was him killing the third of the zerg for the second time but that was it. Heart would return to Code A, while BboongBboong kept his Code S hope alive.
VS Keen on Cloud Kingdom
This game was a big test for both players. On one hand, Keen had suffered his first loss at the hands of Squirtle and his opening invincibility was shaken. On the other, BboonbBboong was still balancing on a razor’s edge and had a long way to the positive score.
Based on my impressions of Keen by seeing his play in previous GSLs, I would have never guessed that he would do a move like this one. He opened 1-gas double reactor factory, pumped out some hellions and then immediately initiated a hellion/marine/SCV all-in. BboongBboong, of course, was well aware and promptly put down two evo chambers to artificially tighten the choke, spined up and met the terran units at the bottle neck where he methodically and ruthlessly slaughtered them all.
A build order victory but a victory nonetheless. And, honestly, who gambles his positive up/down score by orchestrating such a desperate move?
VS Avenge on Belshir Beach
It was only appropriate for the group to finish as it began – with a proxy hatchery and a PvZ magnificence redux. After cleaning the pesky hatchery at his natural, Avenge decided it was time for an all-in! Seven gateways followed the stargate opening and soon the protoss was under way with four void rays and a large enough gateway army to kill everything in its path.
Only, it was not meant to be. Avenge lost his probe before he could place a proxy pylon and thus delayed his attack until a second worker was summoned. This gave Bboong some time to prepare but even with this postponement he was in big trouble. A proxy pylon eventually saw the light of day and Avenge commenced his attack.
BboongBboong fought courageously, always surviving by the skin of his teeth but his persistence was rewarded as the 7-gate/stargate all-in of Avenge began sucking him dry. The protoss could not fully reinforce his army and Bboong, still at three bases at the time, slowly crawled back to seize the day. Avenge lingered a few minutes more in the game but he was down twice in supply, was soon two bases ahead and BboongBboong had larger roach/hydra army than anyone could swallow. The zerg deservedly grasped the Code S medallion after being down 0-2, beating Heart and living through two consecutive all-ins.
Final Standings
| GSL 2012 Season 2 Up/Down matches Group A | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
  StarTale_Squirtle | 4-0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 BboongBboonPrime | 3-2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ZeNEX_Avenge | 2-3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| SlayerS_YuGiOh | 2-3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 MVP_Keen | 2-3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| coL.Heart | 1-3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Squirtle > YuGiOh Keen > Heart YuGiOh > BboongBboong Keen > Avenge Squirtle > BboongBboong Avenge > Heart YuGiOh > Keen BboongBboong > Heart Squirtle > Keen Avenge > YuGiOh BboongBboong > Keen Squirtle > Avenge Heart > YuGiOh BboongBboong > Avenge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
