The first round of the Ro16 and already things are starting to get hot. Who is the hotter Zerg, Jaedong or Effort? Can Stork salvage enough of his PvZ to beat down type-b? Does go.go have even the slightest chance at winning? Will we see another Kwanroll? Let's find out!
A lot of questions to answer, and answered they have been, although the answers may well surprise you. With the most interesting game of the four also being the first one, everyone was eager to see whether Effort would beat the scariest Zerg on the block or just become another statistic in Jaedong's ZvZ win stats.
Jaedong vs EffOrt @ Outsider
The game on Outsider kicks off with Jaedong spawning at the 5 o clock position and Effort in the 9 o clock position. Both players' faces were the very images of concentration as their hands flew across their keyboards. Jaedong went for the overpool build while Effort got his pool slightly quicker on 9 psi before overlord.
Effort's zerglings were the ones to march across the map, looking for trouble. A tense micro game of hit and run commenced at Jaedong's ramp until Effort spots the slightest of openings between two of Jaedong's zerglings and manages to sneak into the base.
More cat and mouse action between the zerglings kept both players on their toes as they advanced further up the tech tree, both getting lair and planting down spires at roughly the same time. One of Jaedong's zerglings made it out in time to see Effort planting down his second hatchery at his natural, while Jaedong's second hatchery was safely nestled in a corner of his main base.
The zerglings finally duke it out and four purple Effort zerglings rush into the drone line, getting a kill before being annihilated by zerglings and newly hatched mutalisks. After a brief pause in which both players marshalled their air units, Jaedong's mutas and scourge headed for Effort's base, accompanied by zerglings. It was going to come down to the mutalisk micro, as neither player had a real advantage over the other. A frenzy of flapping wings and exploding scourge later and Jaedong's mutalisks flap victoriously over Effort's main hatchery.
As the final mutalisk dies, Effort shakes his head and types in GG. It would seem that at this time Jaedong is still, in ZvZ at least, one notch ahead. Further clashes between these two players will paint a clearer picture, but for now, Jaedong sits at 1-0 while Effort is at 0-1 in the OSL.
type-b vs Stork @ Heartbreak Ridge
Heading into this match, I'll be blunt: I've considered type-b a flukey zerg of no real significance and one who has yet to show that he deserves to be in the OSL. Taking down BeSt in the previous round does little to impress, as most zerg with a pair of hands seem to be doing that these days. Stork is a staple name in the OSL on the other hand, although his PvZ has never been considered magnificent and especially not in recent times. Even so, I'd expect Stork to win against type-b in most cases.
Stork begins the game at 3 o clock, putting type-b at 9 o clock. Stork gets a good start, managing to harass the expansion drone for some time and eventually planting down a pylon, prompting the drone to take the bottom expansion rather than the natural. He also keeps his scouting probe alive for seemingly ages, spotting the lair tech, but perishes before he sees the spire. Stork's sair/dt opening prompts a tense little exchange at the bottom left expansion, with sairs picking of overlords and scourge picking of sairs in a race to see whether the dark templar would be allowed to wrek the drone line. More overlords are spawned and the dark templar are summarily driven off.
The remaining corsair flies over type-b's side of the map, noting the morphing lurkers and the high hatchery count. type-b attempts a tricky move and attempts to raid Stork's base with a handful of mutalisks, but Stork has more than enough dragoons and cannons to fend the mutalisks off.
The mutalisks dance around while Stork pushes out, attempting to snipe some high templar and being only marginally successful, getting stormed and shot by dragoons for their trouble. type-b runs frantically around the map with an extremely large force of speedlings, waiting for Stork's main army to move enough away from his main base before running in with plenty of zerglings and mutalisks, while attacking his army with another zergling force. Again, some casualties are sustained by Stork but excellent storming and solid defense thwarts type-b yet again. More zerglings are hurled towards Stork's bases and still they keep dying, but type-b has had plenty of time to get a defiler mound and a few defilers out on the map.
Stork moves back and forth, never really making any headway on the map, but is instead constantly forced to defend against waves of zerglings and defilers with dark swarm and plague. type-b sits on most of the bases on the map as a result and his economy is absolutely booming. A DT drop takes down the spawning pool, but that's a small enough blow against a five base zerg with ultralisks on the way. A catastrophic drop that gets taken down by corsairs help Stork's position somewhat, but his Zerg adversary still has most of the map and he still fails in making any headway with his main army.
If there is one thing Stork is very successful in doing, it's hunting overlords. A fleet of corsairs take down a staggering amount of overlords, despite them being guarded by spore colonies. Some minor skirmishes between the massive ultralisk force and Stork's army occur, until the observers zooms to Stork's base, spotting the dark archon within. It's maelstrom time! Reavers are stationed at Stork's outer bases while his corsairs kill even more overlords.
After all the build-up, the final battle is a bit of a whiff. Stork gets caught out of position, his maelstrom catches a measly two ultralisks, his reavers get taken down quickly and his natural soon follows. Stork stays around to watch his top right base get wrecked by type-b's overwhelming numbers and also sees his main get torn apart. Only when his top expansion goes down does he admit defeat, and Stork taps out. Type-b played a solid game, not spectacular by any means, but his ability to pressure Stork into not moving out with his army to kill expansions deserves credit. type-b ends the day with 1-0 in the OSL, while a demoralized Stork goes home with 0-1.
Bisu vs go.go @ Return of the King
For the third match we have sure-fire win for Bisu against go.go... Or do we? The Revolutionist has hit a rough patch just the last week, getting defeated by the likes of Jangbi, Hwasin and even the Storm Zerg himself, YellOw. Will he show nerves against go.go, the Terran with the face of a bug? go.go starts off in the top left and Bisu starts off in the top right. None of the players seem intent on cheesing right of the bat, with Bisu going for a one gate tech build and go.go walling in, preparing for a fast expansion as per standard play. While a lone dragoon and zealot put pressure on go.go's front door, Bisu's plan becomes apparent. It is not to be reavers, as some people might've guessed, but rather a dt rush on a rather large map. The fact that the map is quite large favors go.go, as the dark templar have plenty of ground to cover before being able to do damage. And sure enough, by the time the dark templar reach go.go's base turrets and tanks are already present and nothing happens.
At this point Bisu backs off and starts thinking about his expansion and proceeding in a more standard Protoss fashion. go.go, on the other hand, has something completely nonstandard in mind. Knowing that observers will be late in coming thanks to the early dt, he plants down three additional barracks and starts amassing a medic and marine army, all the while pumping tanks out of his single factory. Bisu's observer sniffs the edges of go.go's base, but is unable to see anything until the push is already on the way.
While Bisu was heading for fast Arbiters, a large MnM army supported by tanks move out towards Bisu at a fast pace. Dark templar slice at the edges of the Terran army and the handful of dragoons and zealots do all they can to delay the deadly push. The marines take the brunt of the punishment from the Protoss forces, leaving the tanks to clean up everything else. Scans deal with additional dark templar and soon enough five tanks are sieged and ready in Bisu's natural. To add insult to injury, go.go plants down a command center next to Bisu's natural nexus in a classic bad manner play. Bisu promptly GGs and a disturbance in the Starcraft community is felt. It is as if a million gosubetters cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Bisu recieved some scorn by choosing an "easy opponent" in go.go and now it appears it has come back to haunt him. Capable of so much more, the OSL success keeps evading Bisu it seems, while the Terran who should be doomed prevails. 1-0 for go.go and 0-1 for Bisu.
Kwanro vs Canata @ Holy World
Finally we have the match between Kwanro and Canata. Canata, once famed for his TvT usually, has oddly enough stepped up his TvZ game, at least against the lesser Zergs. Likewise, Kwanro's ZvT history is servicable and should serve to put these two players on equal footing. Kwanro starts out at 1 o clock and Canata at 11. It soon becomes apparent that we would be seeing the ever so popular mech build play, as Canata claims his gas along with his barracks.
Sure enough, a vulture is soon produced and restlessly paces just outside the range of the sunken colony Kwanro erected in front of his natural. Having gone for a more economical build, Kwanro establishes two expansions before going for lair tech and produces a lone hydralisk to drive off the vulture. While tanks are produced en masse, a lone wraith tries it's luck and picks off the odd overlord, but is soon dealt with as well. At this point Kwanro has very little in the way of army strength, and instead goes for yet another expansion, rather greedily it must be said. Deviating from the mech path, Canata adds a number of barracks and starts adding bionic units to his already plentiful tanks, the timing push on the way.
And what a timing push it is. A handful of lurkers and zerglings are no match for the mighty Terran ball. Just before the defiler mound finishes for Kwanro, his natural sunken line is under siege by four tanks, who swiftly blast their way through the defenses. The only casualties Canata suffers are marines caught by the splash of his own tanks and a science vessel, at least until dark swarm enters the picture.
Despite dark swarm, the splash from the tanks overwhelms the few units Kwanro has left and it is not long before his main mineral line is being shelled by tanks as well. Marines stream in, take down the Zerg tech and Kwanro will be rolling no one this game. Canata took advantage of the greedy play Kwanro showed and performed the timing push quite well. Personally I was expecting a bit more from Kwanro, but I guess I've been underestimating Canata a bit. In any event, 1-0 for Canata and 0-1 for Kwanro.
More mayhem to come
Luckily for Starcraft fans, the next batch of games take place tomorrow already! The last OSL news post contained the schedule, but for easy browsing I'll present it again:
◆ June 26th
Ro16 Group A Match 2 Heartbreak Ridge - FlaSh vs Yellow[ArnC]
Ro16 Group B Match 2 Return of the King - FanTaSy vs BackHo
Ro16 Group C Match 2 Holy World - HwaSIn vs ZerO
Ro16 Group D Match 2 Outsider - by.hero vs Leta
To offer some quick, gut predictions, after watching Flash's recent TvZ play he is the favorite against Yarnc, but not an overwhelming one. Fantasy should deal with Backho without too much difficulty, Hwasin should triumph over Zero and Leta will most likely stomp by.hero. Got your own idea about who will defeat who? Post your comment below and let the debate rage! Place your gosubets, prepare some popcorn (if you're going to watch it live, or if you really like popcorn) and check back for more updates once the games finish!
Links
Youtube.com - Source - Vods
