The round of 16 Group A started tonight, and with the group consisting of Snute, Sen, Alicia, and Nestea. With the group consisting mainly of zerg players it was exciting to see how the spore crawler buff affected Zerg vs Zerg.
Snute upsets Nestea
The first game of the night was between Snute and Nestea. Game one Snute showed some impressive zergling attacks doing significant damage to Nestea's economy. Nestea was able to build a significant number of mutalisk and attack with a mutalisk/zergling which was too much for Snute to hold allowing Nestea to take game one. Game two Snute performed an amazing Roach/zergling counterattack that was able to break through Nestea's forces
Alicia sends Sen to the losers match
The second series of the night was between Alicia and Sen. Game one Alicia massed a large amount of void rays which allowed him to have cost effective trades even when Sen teched to hydralisks, evetually there was just nothing Sen could do to stop Alicia's void ray army giving game one to Alicia. Game two went into the late game with Sen having a large army of Ultralisk/Infestor/Brood Lord. When the late game came Sen was able to simply remaxx his army after trading evenly with Alicia tieing up the serise 1:1. Game three Alicia went back to what won him game one, by hitting a timing attack with void rays that was able to give him the series 2:1 over Sen.
Alicia sends Sen to the losers match
The third match of the night was the winners match between Snute and Alicia. Game one was a hard fought game for Snute and Alicia. Game one was extremely exciting with Snute performing some impressive nydus worm plays. Snute eventually teched to swarm host and was looking to engage Alicia's army, however Alicia was able to catch most of Snute's forces by suprise and destroy his entire swarm host supply allowing him to take game one. Game two Alicia performed a mothership core/zealot timing that did a tremondous amount of damage to Snute's economy, however Alicia was unable to destroy Snute's base due to a misclick. Snute was able to pull himself back in the game and tie up the series with the use of vipers and hydralisk. Game three Snute was able to get is zerglings into Alicia's main base and do severe damage to Alicia's economy. Then Snute was able to get a fantastic engagement that allowed him to dominate Alicia's forces giving him the series 2:1 over Alicia, and making him the first player to advance to the round of 16.
Nestea loves mutalisk plays
The fourth series of the night was the losers match, the winner would go on to face Alicia for a chance to advance to the round of 8. Game one Nestea teched into mutalisk and was able to build a much larger force of mutalisk due to the fact that he took an earlier lair than Sen. When the late game engagement came Nestea's mutalisk ball demolished Sen's giving game one to Nestea. Game two played out very similer with both players going mutalisk, however Nestea was able to win the ground battle and so he had his lings to tank some of the mutalisk shots allowing his mutalisk to triumph, which allowed him to take the series 2:0 and advance on to face Alicia.
Alicia likes to make void rays
The final series of the night was between Alicia and Nestea, it would see who would advance along with Snute to the round of 8. Game one Alicia stuck with the strategy that won him the series against Sen, which involved getting a large ball of void rays and simply decimating his opponent. Nestea responded by making corruptors which are countered by void rays. This allowed Alicia to destroy Nestea's forces due to the void ray's ability prismatic alignment. Game two Alicia performed roughly the same build, however this time Nestea attempted to respond with mutalisk play, but by the time he was able to get his mutalisk forces out Alicia simply had too many void rays for him to take out. Thus Alicia took the series 2:0 over Nestea and advanced on to the round of 8 along with Snute.
