From late 2011 till mid 2012, DongRaeGu was the symbol of the Swarm. Some would even argue the Korean was on top of the entire game. He holds championships from the GSL, IEM and MLG brands, along with several top four finishes at several other premier tournaments. And then, after acquiring a silver medal from Iron Squid II, his name vanished from the top of the scoreboards.
It wasn’t a complete disappearance in all truth, but with other Zergs such as Life, Soulkey and Symbol taking the headlines, DRG’s top eights and IEM Shanghai and Assembly Summer failed to inspire. With every WCS Korea season becoming more and more stacked, DongRaeGu’s chances seemed thinner and thinner. Being paired with Innovation, hero[join] and Gumiho in his season 3 group didn’t ease the task.
However today, the "Final Boss" gave a new hope to all Zerg players struggling against the dominance that is the Terran race. With no intention of pursuing his poor string of performances, DRG was, nonetheless, treated to a somewhat weird opening by his first opponent, Gumiho. A blitzkrieg of reapers and hellions! -- but the game soon normalized as the FXO Terran transitioned to full mech.
Seeing tanks and hellion as the meat of Gumiho’s army made DRG even happier than Artosis. Known for being the weaker composition in this match-up, the mech of the Terran started receiving heavy punches from all sides, empowered by blinding clouds, huge roach concaves, hydra DPS and, later into the game, swarm host assaults. Gumiho tried to win half of the map for himself but the series of cost-efficient trades always kept him in a catching-up position. Despite able to down a few hatcheries of DRG’s, Gumiho had to eventually surrender to the pressure.
One game ahead made it all easier for DRG and the closing of the 2-0 came almost effortlessly. Having switched to the more powerful 4M, Gumiho nevertheless continued to find himself trapped between roach/hydra concaves, his units rendered almost useless before the spread of DRG.
If Gumiho was a relatively easy prey, it was not so much the case with Innovation. Although the Season 1 champion took a heavy beating at Gamescom, he had just all-killed the entire FXOpen at GSTL and after the 2-0 again hero[join] was looking as strong as ever.
Being a modern TvZ between top macro-oriented players, all three games of the series were very much alike. The tug of war between DRG’s muta/baneling and Innovation’s marine/mine/medivac was ripe with dynamic and no clear winners till every single one of the GG’s were called. The sharpness of Innovation style in his most famous match-up was evident and the Terran was able to win set one despite being put behind on a couple of occasions. During the next two games, however, DRG managed to be even more flawless. Utilizing perfect creep spread, frantic mobility and well-calculated trades, the Zerg was able to overcome a player highly regarded to be the most skilled Zerg killer in the world. With an aggregate 4-1, DongRaeGu advanced to the RO16.
Fortunately for all his fans, Innovation’s loss to DongRaeGu in the winner match was just a speed bump on his way to the next group stage. Dodging Gumiho entirely, Acer’s ace was thrown into his best match-up statistically twice and ended up playing hero[join] both in the opening and the deciding match of Group F.
Considering herO didn’t play the best PvTs of his career that ended up being an easy 4-0 cruise for Innovation overall. Set one of the opening series saw the Protoss go for a 3-nexus play into a huge gateway explosion – a strategy that remained unscouted for the better part of the game but one that never came to fruition anyway. A timely SCV pull hit herO before all his gateways could kick in and wasted him in a blink of an eye, shaking him hard enough so that he completely mispositioned his immortal in game two, allowing Innovation to snipe it and trample through for the 2-0.
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Set two came at the end of the day and once again it was a mix of herO’s own mistakes and Innovation’s incredible sense of timing. The Protoss attempted a 2-base colossus play in game one only to see it crash and burn before finally falling out of Premier league to a simple bio attack that took him by force.
Those results meant the elimination of herO and Gumiho out of WCS Korea premier league as third and fourth in the group, respectively. And while there have been players suffering the same fate in spite of playing near perfectly, it was obvious that both herO and Gumiho have things to fix in their playstyle.
As mentioned, micro mistakes were what plagued CJ's Protoss' executions. In all of his three series, herO displayed he's willing to invest a lot of ideas behind his build orders and diversify them well enough to make them suit his macro-oriented playstyle. Concealing his third nexus and skipping thermal lance so he can get both storm and colossi out were cool moves but at the end of the day it was that mispositioned immortal or that miscontrolled attack that cost him the series. Next season, maybe...
As for Gumiho, his problems lay with his clumsiness in handling face-to-face engagements and swollen armies. Which doesn't really come as a surprise for anyone who's been following the FXO Terran from the start: Gumiho has always been known for his multitasking and drop control and we got to see neither of that in today's games. Reflecting on how he lost today, it should be real easy for Gumiho to identify his weakness.
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