Group B of the up-and-down matches was very dense on past and current stardom. We had GSL runner-ups Leenock and Inca, one of SlayerS' (now former) best terrans Ganzi, IEM Season V champion Ace and, finally, Mvp's Sniper - a zerg who still had a lot to prove to himself and to the public.
To Code S we go: Leenock
VS Ganzi on Dual Sight
Ganzi was tricky and smart as a fox and opened with a double proxy rax "hidden" just next to a watch tower. Leenock knew that there was something coming but had no idea what exactly and when and the first time he glimpsed Ganzi's opening was when marines arrived at his doorstep.
Of course, Leenock was prepared in advance and Ganzi had to fall back, drawing away the zergling away while he flew his two barracks into Leenock's main. Streaming units from two corridors at once, Ganzi pressured both the natural and the main mineral line but without much success. With each passing seconds Ganzi's plan appeared to be more and more flawed.
Leenock's retort was in the form of a speedling/baneling bust that forced a lift on the natural and blasted down the front wall. Ganzi tried to play around it, dropping marine around to snipe some zerg tech but all he achievend was to take down a baneling nest before dying to a follow up ling/bane attack.
VS InCa on Belshir Beach
Leenock opened with a 1-base baneling nest build, made only stronger by Inca's embarrassing scoutint pattern that missed both the absence of a hatchery on the natural and the building baneling nest.
Completely unaware of the coming attack, Inca was soon brought down to 17 probes while Leenock was doing whatever he wanted, that being droning up properly and going for a roach warren. To his credit, Inca did not GG out immediately and did try to stabilize by retaking his main and going for a stargate but by this time Leenock was in full control of the game - he had three bases running, absurd amount of roaches and more than a decent infestor count to make his way through Inca's petty wall-off and win the game.
VS Ace on Metropolis
The IEM Season V world champion opened with a slight 1-gate pressure that transitioned into a 3-gate play. The build was promptly spotted by Leenock, though, so the zerg was more safe than he would ever be and so both players sat back to macro up.
The rest of the game was just a video lecture on how to abuse mutalisks versus protoss. The air assault was untiring and with a critical mass of mutalisks, moving out was out of question for Ace. Leenock kept throwing units at him because he had more than enough of those and Ace was holding to dear life with whatever blink stalkers he had left. Yet, there was just no point resisting Leenock and after donating his probes to the banelings, Ace dropped back to Code A in a flash of slimy green. As for Leenock, with 3-0 in score he was already a Season 2 Code S player.
VS Sniper on Antiga Shipyard
If this game was shorter, I would've said that there was nothing to write about it. Leenock opened with some speedling agression and pressured the natural of Sniper but overall nothing too fancy.
That was until both zergs decided to go spire and bring back a cool fragrance from the old BroodWar days when all we saw was mutas and speedlings. Of course, this mirror match was now freshened up with some baneling explosions, fungals, dying queens and whatnot and was a real treat to watch, despite having a relatively short mid-game. It was extremely pleasant watching Sniper fight furiously for the Code S spot which would have been his had he not lost this ZvZ, giving Inca the chance to step in his shoes instead.
To Code S we go: Inca
VS Sniper on Dual Sight
Inca opened with a 1-gate expand but soon had to cancel his nexus after a horde of lings bit him in the face and Inca had to wait until his sentry count was a bit higher before he could try that again.
Once he had an economy secured, Inca teched to blink and warp prism and orchestrated an elegant run around with his units, blinked through the descructible rocks into Sniper's main, unloaded four full-mana sentries and started dealing pain to the drone line. By the time Sniper managed to chase him away, he was down near 30 workers and Inca was already on his way to colossus tech.
But if there is one thing that is extremely common on Crossfire it's a PvZ base race (very similar to Belshir Beach in that department). Knowing that fighting the colossus death ball is pure suicide, Sniper ran around with his roaches and corruptors and attacked the protoss base while Inca was approaching zerg territory. Unfortunately, this was one of the more boring base trades and in the end Sniper just did not have the firepower to emerge victor.
VS Ace on Daybreak
Ace was already down to Code A but he had one more chance to make someone's life miserable. Sadly for him, this was the once undisputed PvP masatermind and the lord of Dark Templars Inca. Inca op ened with a 3-gare pressure but as he could not make it past the sentries of Ace, the bell ringed round two, branded under the immortal prism drop versus, what a shocker!, dark templar harass. Once again, the two protosses pawed at each other with cotton gloves and suddenly the game was past the 15-minute mark - seven minutes longer than the average PvP duration.
For more than 10 minutes Inca and Ace just sat there, building towards that maxed out army before finally engaging each other. Inca was in the defensive position and managed to secure a better concave for his colossus, dealing absurd amount of splash damage to Ace's immortals, tanking some fire with whatever zealots he had left. The sheer positioning was Inca's only advantage but it was more than enough to secure the win.
VS Ganzi on Belshir Beach
I guess you could say that the final game of that day was a disappointing one. Ganzi opened with a 1-tech lab/1-reactor bio pressure and as it got defended, Inca retorted with a stalker rush of his own. As he could not get past the bunker, Inca retreated to his natural but Ganzi once again took the ball and tangoed back to the attacking side, gathering his SCVs and going for one final attack.
A wall of forcefields parted his forces at the ramp and it was over - Inca was Code S, Ganzi would drop down. Not very elegant closure, but one nonetheless.
Final Standings
| Up/Down matches group B standings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
  FXO.Leenock | 4-0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 oGsInca | 3-1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| MVP.Sniper | 2-2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 SlayerS_Ganzi | 1-3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ST_Ace | 0-4 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Leenock > Ganzi Sniper > Ace Leenock > Inca Ganzi > Ace Inca > Sniper Leenock > Ace Sniper > Ganzi Inca > Ace Leenock > Sniper Inca > Ganzi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
