Table of Contents
Today's matches
[Match 1] RorO vs Flying
A large portion of the day was scarred by brutal and one-sided slaughtering and here’s where it began, RorO playing Flying in an all-KeSPA match up.
If his Protoss colleague sOs made viewers ooh and aah seeing all the feints and exquisite techs last week, Flying chose the more direct “I am coming to kill you” path to victory. The Woongjin Protoss opened with a 6-gate +1 timing which worked like a charm against what RorO’s strategy. The Zerg had chosen the staple double evo play but had started the upgrades a bit earlier by delaying ling speed and thus could only watch helplessly while Flying was hammering him to mincemeat.
Game two wasn’t prettier for RorO and he once again found himself at the receiving end of early aggression without any way to properly counter it. Flying opened with a phoenix/+1 zealot attack off two bases and marched into RorO’s third, establishing with great delight that the Zerg had not yet started his roach production. RorO had to produce a ton of unnecessary units just to make sure he doesn’t die there and eventually he did stabilize somewhat, at least to the point he could get an army with some meat in it.
Not that it mattered one bit. Knowing that hydras are what’s most likely to come, Flying initiated colossus production, picked a comfortable fight at a ramp in the center and blazed RorO to ashes.
[Match 2] YoDa vs Soulkey
Hailing from an IEM World Championship stomp as well as completely dismantling the competition in round of 32, Yoda entered the match up having attracted quite the lot of community attention. With Soulkey grilling out Maru in the previous round, there was also a sort of an eSF revenge potential against the rising KeSPA tide.
To his fans’ disappointment, Yoda could live up to the expectations and played out a somewhat subpar series against the Woongjin ace. Yoda opened the first match with a hellbat drop but that was easily shut down by Soulkey’s preventive roaches. Despite scouting said roaches as well as the baneling nest in production, however, Yoda still chose to land his third CC despite clearly not having enough units to defend.
And he paid dearly for that as a huge roach attack with baneling follow-up came knocking at the 14th minute mark. For the army size he had, YoDa defended incredibly but from one point on, it was simply a numbers game and YoDa was it a lethal disadvantage.
Almost the exact same scenario repeated in game two but somehow it managed to get even worse for Yoda. Sneaking lings into the main, Soulkey scouted the hellbat drop and not only repelled but also shot it down dead, putting Yoda in a dire situation. Knowing he’s running out of time, the Terran launched a desperation all-in pulling all but few of his SCVs and although he managed to drill deeper than expected (even live long enough to commence a second all-in pull), a great baneling connect combined with air threat of mutas put an end to his misery.
[Winners match] Soulkey vs Flying
The ugly picture of one-sided games continued with the Woongjin team-kill in the winner match. The slippery lings of Soulkey once again found a crack in his opponent’s wall and swarmed in to, essentially, win the game there and then, scouting and denying the phoenix tech and crippling Flying just enough so that he can die to hydras a few minutes later.
[Winners match] Soulkey vs Flying
The ugly picture of one-sided games continued with the Woongjin team-kill in the winner match. The slippery lings of Soulkey once again found a crack in his opponent’s wall and swarmed in to, essentially, win the game there and then, scouting and denying the phoenix tech and crippling Flying just enough so that he can die to hydras a few minutes later.
As game two on Akilon Wastes commenced, it looked like Flying might get the chance of manufacturing a comeback. The Protoss opened with a double gas before nexus and went into a 6-gate blink/sentry/MSC timing attack to erase Soulkey’s third and safely recall back to his natural.
Although down to just two bases, it was not Soulkey’s intention to lie down and die. His prospects of coming back, however, were looking as grim as ever: a swarm host and hydra production had started but Flying was already pumping out a double robo colossus to specifically battle this army. As a result, a spire had to be put down for Flying and corruptors soon hit the field.
What Soulkey probably didn’t realize was how important would these corruptors become just a few minutes later. As Flying pushed across the map, he found himself surrounded from all sides and by failing to control his stalkers adequately, the anti-air of Soulkey wreaked havoc across the colossus line, allowing his ground forces to pincer in for the killing 2-0.
[Losers match] RorO vs YoDa
Not until the losers match of the group did a pinch of intrigue make its way to the matches and Yoda and Roro were to be thanked.
Sticking to his style from the first series, Yoda opened with hellions and then a hellbat drop but was once again on the failing end. To his luck, he had partially learned his lesson and had established a decent bio/mine production to drag the match into the late-game despite his opening misfortunes.
The bio/mine phalanx soon moved out and started hitting all over the place but RorO’s defenses were incredibly well composed and not until the 20th minute mark did he see a base of his fall, reducing him to just three mining locations – something he most definitely could not afford considering how his plan was to go for both brood lords (to negate the mine field) and ultralisks (for extra tanking).
Although temporarily reduced to a diminished income, RorO was still able to command his hive tier army of death towards Yoda’s third and the Terran was cornered between a tusk and a hard place. Through pristine transfusions keeping his units as cost efficient as can be, RorO inch-by-inch crawled towards the opening 1-0.
Finally seeing how hellbat drops are not doing him any good, Yoda switched it around and took a CC first. This was scouted almost immediately and two hatches were planted by Roro as a follow-up, setting a standard macro game ZvT scenario.
Now that he had not screwed himself up completely, Yoda went out there and through unending aggressive play showed he’s an IEM world champion for reason. With relentless determination, Yoda sprinted back and forth to put Roro’s fourth in a prolonged arrest and have him play a kind of a scrappy game, at least compared to what a late-game ultralisk-oriented Zerg economy should look like.
Despite the difficult (and poor) situation he was in, RorO found a way to bark back. A couple of ling run byes in turn denied Yoda’s third and 20+ minutes into the game, the two players’ mining was way past sub-optimal and a entrancing low-econ late-game ensued.
Knowing that an uncalculated attack would mean death, Roro and Yoda swayed back and forth in a minor “you hit me, I hit you back” dance on the edge. In those moments, it was Zerg’s patience and his heavy preference for spellcasters that stole the show and slowly but steadily, Yoda started bleeding out. Spearheaded by fungal growths and infinite transfusions, Roro pushed in with just a couple of the most efficient ultralisks in the world and made Yoda surrender and drop down to Code A.
[Final match] Flying vs RorO
The only series that went to the full three matches started with a special type of grandeur as Flying opened defensively and went for a void ray and into air toss right off the bat. At the other side of the map, in attempt to make Artosis happy, Roro went for swarm hosts and corruptors as a counter and the two entered a Pelennor Fields-scaled PvZ.
47 minutes did it take before a victor was determined and not until the very last battle was it clear who would that be. Overall, RorO played it conservatively, hiding behind a massive spore crawler wall and using swarm hosts to sniper units and bases for free, uprooting and escorting them with a viper/corruptor cohort to maximize the applied pressure. Flying was also not among the most active and preferred to slowly push with the help of his tempests, knowing that if he doesn't get chain-fungalled or insta-abducted into spore crawlers and can timely feedback all the vipers he will eventually prevail.
Unfortunately for him, neither of that went his own way. His group of high templars got separated from the main army by mistake and died to infestors, allowing the vipers to reign supreme. With no mothership to provide any sort of cloaking field to his units or nexi, Flying basically invited Roro to drag him to hell.
To viewers’ disappointment, none of the following two games lived up to the enormousness of their predecessor. In game two, Flying opened with double immortal, double colossus “soul push” which, although scouted, cut through RorO’s choice to commit to hydras with ease and forcefields. The series reached its end on Whirlwind as Flying opted for 7-gate void ray all-in only to be once again scouted and critically delayed for about two minutes as RorO found the proxy pylon just in time. Those minutes gave the Zerg just the time he needed to roach/hydra up, surround the irrelevant Protoss force and prevent the complete Woongjin Stars domination, knocking Flying down to Code A.
Photo of Soulkey by: Team Liquid
Photo of Soulkey by: Team Liquid
