In the second to last match in GSTL Group A there stood an interesting vista - the two times champion of SlayerS met one of the best performing teams world-wide FXOpen for their tournament life. Boxer's team entered the series with its strength hurt by the departure of Ganzi and Taeja but by the end of the day they would suffer an even greater hit as their ace was defeated by a most unexpected enemy.
Pennant match: SlayerS vs FXOpen
Game one: Puzzle vs Lucky [SlayerS 0-0 FXOpen]
Immortals... We put their name to the test!
This was probabaly what passed through Lucky's mind which has been, obviously!, exposed to too much comic adaptation moves. After stopping Puzzle's two base +1 push with his roach tech, Lucky went all berserk on the protoss, going up to five bases and pressuring both the third and the natural with a maxed out burrow roach/ling army.
But in those corridors, his numbers counted for nothing. Puzzle's forcefields did the job they are paid for perfectly - the roaches were cut into small groups, easy enough to be gunned down by the not so small immortal count of Puzzle. As the rest of the game developed, the immortals did past the test of their name and were an ever present threat to the constantly melting ground force of Lucky. The zerg tried to bypass the obvious ground superiority of Puzzle by going mass mutalisk but this move met a dead end as well as there were already high templars on the field.
Puzzle is fighting on two fronts and holding thanks to his immortals
Game two: Puzzle vs Oz [SlayerS 1-0 FXOpen]
This was as standard PvP as you get, i.e. quick, somewhat boring and easy to follow.
Puzzle was the one to open with aggression, doing a two stalker pressure that ended with no victor. He then transitioned to a 1-base robo with a late blink, while Oz himself rushed to council early and took an expansion along the way. Once blink was done for him, Oz tried to make a move but wisely chose not to as he would have landed in front of immortal guns plus the fact that Puzzle was really close to getting his own blink.
With the tech advantage now in his possession, Puzzle dashed after Oz, forcing him to retreat to his natural but there is where he met his death. With a few forcefields, Oz cut away half of Puzzle's army, the immortal included, and owned it with a better concave to tie the score.
The immortal of Puzzle is on the wrong side of the forcefields
Game three: Coca vs Oz [SlayerS 1-1 FXOpen]
Certainly, you remember SlayerS_Coca. It may be for his second place in Ralegh 2011 or for his rising ZvP superiority. But many of you will go to that silly match fixing with Byun four months ago that got him temporarily ejected from the SlayerS house and banned him from televised matches for a while.
I don't know how much Coca's practice suffered but he did seem a little bit rusty in this game. Oz opened with a standard 7-gate +1 blink rush which would have been a complete failure had Coca had the larvae needed to spend all those accumulated resources he had at one point. He lost his third but was quick to recover by retaking it, going for a fourth and a fifth and adding a ton of infestors to his army.
Nevertheless, he was still stiff in his mechanics and threw away the final battle in the center by engaging with only half his army against Oz's now +3/+1 blink stalkers. And when you invest so heavily into infestors one might consider it a good idea to actually bring the along.
While Oz dodges the baneling bombing, there are about six infestor defectors off-screen that are losing Coca the game
Game four: Ryung vs Oz [SlayerS 1-2 FXOpen]
Game three saw standard opening from both players, with Ryung going for pure bio and Oz giving up on his 3-gate poke after seeing the heavily bunkered terran natural.
It then occurred Oz to go for the weirdest move - a late dark shrine that was doomed to fail even in the layman's eye. And indeed it did and all Oz succeeded in doing was throw money and supply away for Ryung to collect. Meanwhile, the SlayerS terran was less fancy but way more efficient - his macro was spiraling out of control and soon he was near 40 supply ahead. When he initiated his attack, Oz had no charge, no storm and no upgrades and forcefields alone could not get him through this mess.
Any tech but a dark shrine would have helped Oz in this situation
Game five: Ryung vs Choya [SlayerS 2-2 FXOpen]
Everything went bad for Choya in the start of this game.
First, a slacking stalker let a scouting SCV see the double gas in the main base, indicating there will be some kind of an early tech play coming. Second, another patrolling SCV spotted the proxy robo facility which would soon breed a couple of colossi. Marauder production and stim were already on their way, Ryung was safe.
But the again, no one can do to you what you can do to yourself. Maybe the confidence of seeing Choya's plans made Ryung overconfident but in a way he underreacted to the all-in. He was a bit late on his additional bunkers, lost a bucketload of SCVs trying to repair the ones he had and he constantly put his marauders under colossus fire for no apparent reason and before stim was even done. When the essential upgrade was finally completed, Ryung already had too tiny of an army (most of it in the orange and red) to fight off the all-in.
"How did it come to this?" is the question that baffles Theoden Ryung
Game six: MMA vs Choya [SlayerS 2-3 FXOpen]
In the times when team fOu was still fOu and when Choya was way more active than now, he was often scolded for his no-more-than-two-base all-inish plays. But enough I say, as his feat against MMA has the magical power to wash away every shame in the past.
Choya opened with a 1-gate/robo expand, quickly teching to colossus as it is very common to do on Crossfire. Thus, at that time, the things happening on the other side of the map were of greater interest. MMA was called forth to bring equality to the score as his team was currently down 2-3. One might argue that it was a bit premature but, as it turned out, that would not matter.
MMA stuck to a 1-base play, going for a masive bio ball with tank support and moved out once concussive shells and siege tech were completed. Choya saw that a bit late but still in time to stall as much as possible to give his thermal lance upgrade a time to finish. Although MMA's attack hit a few seconds before the latter, Choya looked to be fine - he never rushed into anything, drew back his immortals when they lost shields, focused down the tanks and SCVs as much as he could and, all in all, had this game won while the contain was still in progress. MMA lingered for a bit longer but in his heart he knew he'd lost that for his team - he was down twice the worker count and there was absolutely no way to hurt Choya in any way to earn the gg.
Choya cleaning up the terran like a boss
Game seven: Crank vs Choya [SlayerS 2-4 FXOpen]
It was time for PvP with Crank and Choya, the former being a very risky choice in my eyes as, after all, this is the most volatile match of all and SlayerS were just a game away from elimination. Also, picking a relatively new name and betting him to win three in a row is questionable at best; but then again what do you do when you've lost MMA?
Crank opened with a 3-gate immortal expand as opposed to Choya's very aggressive one base 4-gate colossus pressure. The beginning of the first battle was well into Choya's favor but a small micro mistake lost him his colossi and suddenly the FXO player was bare-handed against immortals. And this, kids, is how you lose PvP.
Few seconds later this colossus will be dead and so will Choya
Game eight: Crank vs Leenock [SlayerS 3-4 FXOpen]
FXO have proven time and time again that they possess the ace power needed to close the series. Confidence was also on their side that day: Puzzle was out, MMA was out, Ganzi and Taeja were no longer part of the team and, finally, SlayerS' last hope was an up-and-coming player who was soon to be overshadowed by either Leenock or Gumiho.
FXO's choice was the former as Leenock came forth to play the eight match in the series on Belshir Beach. The zerg opened with a 1-base baneling bust and despite being scouted ended up doing crushing probe damage still, most of it at the hands of a single baneling that was unintentionally awarded a juicy meal of workers who had the worst lack to pass through it while transitioning to the expansion. With near 15 workers killed, Leenock was in a commanding position.
Having lost the first round was bad enough news for Crank but he did not give up. He tried both a stargate play and, after it got denied, an immortal/colossus ground army push but he only gave Leenock more opportunities to unleash zerg hell upon him. With roaches, mutas, hydras and infestors on the field, Leenock was more than prepared to push him team to the victory.
Poor Crank is being eaten alive
Editor's take: The Man of the Hour
So SlayerS are out of the GSTL before even making it to the playoffs. A few months ago I would categorize what as an upset but just as everything else that's StarCraft 2, the climate of the team league has shifted dramatically to the point where everybody can beat anybody and "upset" is a word long forgotten.
In the battle report section of this article I mentioned the fame that Choya had many months ago. Even when he won, it was in a very dry manner, using a style that everybody knew would fall out of fashion in the days to come. And indeed it did: Choya had troubles keeping his head afloat and after a couple of seasons in Code A, he disappeared from GSL stage for four straight seasons. I don't know how far he can make it in GSL Season 2 now, but that's not really the point now, is it?
What Choya did to earn his spot in this editorial piece consisted of two things. One, he won two games despite all misfortunes that befell him, i.e. his all-in getting scouted by Ryung and then being on the receiving end of MMA's killing intent and people just do not simply live through it that easily. Second, he got rid of SlayerS' ace this early in the series that both gave his team a two-game advantage and unclogged the path in front of FXO until the rest of the match.
SlayerS has oft been a team that has been "carried" to victory by a handful of people. In the past this was MMA, then along came Taeja the all-killer and, finally, there was Puzzle - the protoss equivalent of them both. Losing one of those just before the series was played and seeing the other two called forth and fall way too early in the series foreordained the death of SlayerS.
