Supernova rises above the Protoss lot
With players like IM_Squirtle and SKT_PartinG the Terran killer in the group, Supernova’s advancement was doubtful at the start of OSL Group H. Since the launch of Heart of the Swarm, the AZUBU Terran has been struggling to regain his past form of a top contender but had immense difficulties doing so, especially in the times of INnoVation’s reign and overall KeSPA dominance.
To the delight of Artosis and Terran fans overall, a strong and solid Supernova showed up for today’s games. His first match was against Squirtle and the amount of control over the game the Terran displayed was astounding. Squirtle opened with a 10 gate/10 gas build and marched across the map to deal some economy damage to Supernova but paid dearly for this decision some minutes later. Once Supernova secured all the tech he needed hell was unleashed upon Squirtle. A widow mine drop was the first chapter of Protoss’ downfall as Supernova hit him with downright better army control and crippling bio drops, the latter of which sniped the robo to critically delay the colossus production of Squirtle. When the Terran army finally hit frontally, Squirtle was simply overrun.
As PartinG has long been known for his prowess in PvT, the winners match of Group G provided a higher quality of entertainment, though not particularly longer. Both players flexed their muscles by displaying their excellent defense capabilities against hellbat drops and the follow-up Protoss retort but come the time of the actual wrestling, Supernova was once again packing the stronger punches. An SCV pull came to supplement his main bio/viking army and although Parting’s ability to survive Terran offensives is legendary, he couldn’t live through that one. Colossi were immediately focus fired and storms were playfully dodged to ease Supernova’s advancement into the Ro16.
Parting with Squirtle and YongHwa
Despite playing two relatively dull games in the opening and winners matches, PartinG’s showing in the decider against Squirtle was nothing short of hilarious, though not as much for the IM Protoss. Squirtle (spawned at top right) failed to scout PartinG’s starting position (bottom right) by walking away a pixel earlier than he should’ve and, as a result, eventually deducted that his opponent must be at the top left and a mothership core was rallied that way upon spawning.
What would’ve otherwise been an absolute disaster turned out to be Squirtle’s biggest luck in this game as at that same moment, PartinG was proxying a stargate at 12 o’clock and which was spotted only because of Squirtle’s failed scouting in the first minute.
Cleaning the stargate tech from there was not the end of Squirtle’s misfortunes, however, as Parting was still ahead in economy, having already finished his natural back home. As Parting decided to not crush his enemy early but instead go for a standard macro game, a familiar late game PvP situation arose in which the tempest/immortal army of Parting was fighting the tempest/colossus army of Squirtle.
As with every such PvP scenario, it came down to numbers and targeting and in those Parting was again superior. The tempest armada of the SKT Protoss just large enough to chain one-shot the big units of Squirtle and the latter was sent out of OSL, following YongHwa’s steps.
Meanwhile, in losers match, Squirtle and YongHwa are having fun with late-game PvP
Rain screws up Terrans' flawless run
Rain is another player that has been trying to go back to what he was in 2012 – a multiple-tournament champion and a top three Protoss in the world, easily. 2013, however, was not too kind to him: He started the year in Code A and made it back to Code S, only to fall down to the lower levels again. In fact, since his top four in 2012 Season 4, Rain wasn’t able to make it past the Ro32 of Korea’s premier tournament and the burden was heavy on his shoulders today.
If that was the situation on paper, in reality things proved quite differently. Tossed into two PvTs – statistically his weekest match-up in HotS – Rain’s playstyle and control of the game did remind of his bullying confidence of his early days.
To viewers’ enjoyment, Rain also made sure that the way he carried out these games caught all of the extremums of his playstyle. First was the artful handling of Keen on Bel’Shir Vestige, an orchestration of countless free-unit sniping all across the map thanks to Rain’s tireless blink stalkers, which outclassed Keen’s otherwise phenomenal engagements and carass into a defeat. Second was the brutal beating of Bomber who opted for a quick third base out in the open on the back of hellbat harass but who was mercilessly ran over without Rain ever scouting said third base.
Bomber recovers to take second, makes for 7/8 Terran success rate
Outside the game against Rain, Bomber’s overall performance today can roughly be described as other players tickling him only to be rudely bitch-slapped across the face.
Said tickles came in different forms but the end result was always the same and always favoring Bomber. Hurricane attempted a fancy sentry drop into DT harass but was quickly reminded of Day[9]’s famous counter to all, the “go and f***ing kill him”. Keen had a little more success in the deciding match as a marine drop put him 20 SCVs ahead but suffered an even harsher ousting as Bomber unloaded five medivacs full of hellbats into his main. All that Keen did from that point on was simply delaying the inevitable, an unfortunate outcome for the young Terran, especially considering the high level of play he showcased.
Keen's top level plays (like leaving Hurricane without nexi) could not earn him a spot amont the top 16
