MajOr impresses, but falls short, HuK advances first from Group E

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WCS America Premiere League RO32 Group E opened with a couple of mirror matches, first up, an upset between recent Dreamhack winner Taeja and North American Terran Major with the latter taking the win 2-1. All three games were determined in the sky, the player with the better Banshee control and Banshee denial dictated the results and the player with better execution consistently came out on top.

The second mirror (PvP) of the day between Top and HuK played in the most peculiar manner, the catalyst of which began with misplaced force fields by HuK, allowing Top to overrun HuK’s more meager army, although HuK was in a better position economically. Meanwhile, HuK’s warp prism managed to cut Top’s economy to nearly zilch and with nearly no income being generated by either players the only available assets were the standing armies. The clenching move came when Top positioned his army, three immortals and a few zealots under Huk’s ramp with no high ground vision. HuK identified this positional error and with his last warp-ins of sentries trapped and destroyed Top’s remaining forces and took the win. The second game between HuK and Top would’ve gone to HuK if it weren’t for a botched force field. The NA Protoss identified Top’s Dark Templar player and prepared for the silent assassins the best way he could with the little time he had to adapt, throwing up a robotics facility while warping-in a couple sentries to stop the Dark Templars from advancing up his ramp. Top intelligently ran in a stalker first, which effectively threw off HuK, causing him to miss the true threat, the DT. The damage Top dealt was too great for HuK to recover and the Chinese player took the second game. The third was a pretty back and forth game, one that looked, at first, in Top’s favor when he hit HuK with a proxy oracle. Following, HuK effectively pushed Top’s base with a stalker army causing Top to pull probes and losing many in the process. Top then counter pushed HuK, killing his expansion, but lost almost all his sentries retreating from HuK’s large blink stalker army. HuK, with an army advantage, managed to press forward taking out Top’s own blink stalkers in a final battle. The last

With HuK defeating Top and Major beating Taeja in their opening matches, the two North Americans found themselves in the winners’ series. The first game was won essentially in one engagement, HuK runs into Major army (three unsieged tanks and a handful of marines) in the middle of the map, HuK drops two time warps on the army followed by trapping force fields, annihilating Major’s entire force. With nearly his entire force eliminated and having dumped minerals into an early third, Major had nothing remaining to stop HuK’s forces from rolling over his natural. In the second game, HuK continued his customary aggressive play and did so well, however possibly overextending into a large bio army without a sufficient amount of AoE damage. Although the Protoss player killed 54 workers in his assault, he did so at the cost of almost his entire army. Major follows up by reestablishing his third and takes advantage of his 50 army supply lead by splitting up HuK’s forces with sizable drops. With HuK crippled, the last engagement was not a close one with Major’s bio army crushing HuK’s gateway based one. The last game of the series was a rather one sided one, and was largely due to a tech switch by HuK. Major discovered HuK’s route towards Templar play, who responded by going Colossi heavy. Major granting HuK enough to switch loses an important engagement because he’s nearly vikingless. HuK, with a sizable economic lead had the luxury to mineral dump into zealots. The zealots ravaged Major’s third and natural, crippling the Terran’s economy while pushing with his colossi heavy army on another front. Despite Major being able to defeat HuK’s main army handily, HuK left his opponent’s economy in shambles. Major, unable to compete with HuK’s production eventually fell to his opponent’s subsequent attack.

The losers’ series felt very much like TaeJa did not belong there. TaeJa’s 2-0 victories were convincing ones over his Protoss opponent. The first series was pretty much determined in one engagement, around early mid game when TaeJa advanced towards Top’s base with a bio force that really wasn’t that threatening. Fully aware of Taeja’s presence at the perimeter of his base, Top carelessly lapsed on where his opponent’s forces were specifically. TaeJa managed to snipe Top’s lone colossus without contest. With no Colossus to support the Protoss’ gateway units, TaeJa preceded to kill many of Top’s gateway units as well as sniping his opponent’s natural expansion while tanking photon overcharge shots without flinching. Shortly after that critical blow came another, TaeJa ran by Top’s natural forcing a cancel on the incoming Nexus with no contest since Top’s army sat useless in his main. The final encounter was an unsurprising one, as the long established three base Terran overwhelmed the reconstructed twice two base Protoss with ease. TaeJa’s second victory over Top played similarly to the first. Top goes for a proxy stargate, but it gets scouted by TaeJa’s widow mine/marine filled medivac. Although aware of the threat, Top still manages to pick off three workers, not bad considering the circumstances. Top’s critical error however, was using a photon overcharge on two hellions and then again, on a widow mine drop that still managed to kill 6-7 workers. Knowing that the Mothership had no  energy for a third charge, TaeJa attacked with a bio force that convincingly stomped Top’s AoEless army.

Despite Major’s promising performance versus Taeja in the opening best of 3, he was unable to best his Korean opponent during today’s reseries. The Dreamhack champion demonstrated his prowess, besting the North American 2-0. It wasn’t one-sided by any means however, as Major fought with enough vigor to keep the series’ conclusion a constant question mark. Major excelled at harassing while simultaneously thwarting Taeja’s own. However, the Korean player won almost every primary engagement. In each series Taeja was able to consistently establish his third before his opponent, gaining him the economic lead. Major, with no choice other than an offensive push, lost too much to Major’s already sieged tanks, leading to the North American’s well fought, but ultimate defeats.