After a first day of playoffs at WCS America S3, Jaedong, Byul, Polt, and Oz advance to tomorrow's Semi-finals.
The first series of WCS America opened swiftly, with Jaedong taking out Hack with a two base all-in Roach drop, yep, Jaedong went for a very early Ventral Sacs. Although Hack did identify the Roach portion of the Jaedong, he didn’t identify the looming Overlord cloud approaching the blind side of his base. The attack was overwhelming, giving Jaedong the first win of the day.
Hack struck back in the second game, managing to roast nearly all of the drones in Jaedong’s main with a group of blue flame hellions. Hack followed up with some bio to finish off Jaedong’s poorly funded army.
The last remaining games of the series were more macro oriented, with all the matches extending to the classic zergling, baneling, mutalisks versus bio, mines. Hack took Jaedong apart with some ridiculous drop play in game three, hitting all of the Zerg bases with bio, while leaving widow mines in Jaedong’s mineral lines to tax the Zerg player's control. After weathering the multi prong aggression with significant losses, Jaedong called it quits knowing that his chances at a comeback were close to none.
Hack, with aggression still on his mind, attempted to break Jaedong in the last two remaining matches of the series, but could not get the Tyrant to falter on either account.
In game 4, Hack tried a double starport banshee push along with some hellions. Identifying the build with a game saving overlord scout, Jaedong prepared spore crawlers at each of his expansions. Still, Hack managed to do decent damage taking decent trades without. Jaedong demonstrated his late game superiority, crushing all of Hack’s attempts at aggression and finally, with one huge one sided battle that involved destroying almost all of Hack’s widow mines with baneling detonations, ended the game.
Perhaps doubting his abilities to take on Jaedong in a straight macro game, Hack attempted to proxy barracks his opponent in the final game of the series. Jaedong, however, diligent with his scouting, managed to identify Hack’s shenanigans and sent drones to deter its success. Attempting to recover from the slight economic advantage given to Jaedong for deterring Hack’s cheese, the Terran player attempted to poke and prod at Jaedong’s expansions, although ultimately at a loss. Eventually Jaedong pushed with an army with a greater supply and better upgrades, giving Jaedong the expected victory.
The second quarter final series between Chinese Protoss MacSed and Korean Zerg Byul played out just as epicly as the preceding series between Hack and Jaedong.
In game 1, Byul fakes roach aggression while transitioning to mutalisks in the background. Unaware of the transition, MacSed gets taken off guard and although he did manage to get blink tech around the time of Byul’s attack, the Protoss player still suffered great economic loss. After dancing back and forth, MacSed was fed up with the situation and attempts a base race. The muta count however, was just too great for MacSed's stalkers to handle and eventually the Protoss player fell.
In game 2, MacSed did something I personally have never seen. Gateway aggression accompanied by a proxy robotics facility for reinforcing immortals. The battle was close and although Byul managed to end MacSed’s proxy robo push, he does so at the loss of nearly 20 drones and countless roaches. MacSed then followed up with an expansion and another push consisting of blink stalkers, immortals, sentries, zealots and newly added DTs, which ends the game.
MacSed maintains his trademark aggression throughout the final two games of the series, but unlike game 2 fails to succeed in game 3 and 4 due to Byul’s scouting overlords. In Game 3 MacSed goes for 7 gate aggression and threatens Byul’s third. The encounter that should’ve quickly ended in Byul’s favor turned into a seemingly endless war of attrition. Macsed demonstrated some impressive micro, using his normal stalkers like blink stalkers. The Roach stream however, didn’t seem to let up and eventually MacSed’s aggression was put to a stop. Unable to match up against the economically superior Zerg, MacSed eventually fell.
MacSed attempted to go DTs in the final game, but his decision ultimately catalyzed his eventual defeat as Byul managed to scout MacSed's tech choice with an overlord. Forced to cancel the shrine and opt for blink, MacSed was pigeon held to hit with a belated blink timing. Byul researched burrow knowing that MacSed would be hitting without any robo tech putting the Protoss in an awkward position. Unable to advance forward knowing burrowed roaches could ambush him at any moment; MacSed was forced to try another proxy robotics, albeit this attempt would not be as successful as the first.
The third and fourth series of WCS America were sweeps. The Terran vs. Terran matchups between Polt and Heart proved that Polt is a master of comebacks. Each game of the series played out in similar fashion. Heart would gain an advantage, often in the form of a doom drop. Crippled, but not out, Polt would gain an upgrade advantage and just take better engagements. Each successful engagement closed the gap until the favor was sizable for Polt. The WCS America Season 2 Champion's form suggests that he could very well be on his way of reclaiming the title of Champion in the second successive season.
Juxtaposing Polt's dominance, usually strong Liquid HerO seemed on tilt during the final series of the day as Oz made quick work of the WCS America Season 1 champion. The first match went rather favorably for Oz, but was the closest. Each subsequent match was progressively more and more in Oz’s court.
In Game 1, HerO attempted to proxy oracle Oz. Not only was the build not optimal against Oz’s, which was blink stalkers, Oz also managed to scout HerO’s stargate. Oz then pushed with his stalker force, leaving his mothership core to deter any of HerO’s stargate shenanigans. Knowing that his oracle wouldn’t suffice, HerO followed up with a void ray to accompany his oracle. Working in tangent, the two stargate units managed to kill all of Oz’s probes, but Oz managed to kill HerO’s nexus along with most of his probes. A strange base race scenario was in play, although Oz with a much larger army. Unable to deal with the blink stalkers, HerO’s small contingent of forces were knocked out and it was on to Game 2.
Game 2 was even until one very tragic engagement for HerO. Both parties opened differently, Oz with gateway and stargate aggression while HerO opted for a gateway fast expand into robotics. Unable to defend his expansion, HerO left his natural's Nexus to fall, but didn’t lose much else. After reestablishing his natural expansion, HerO managed to maneuver blink stalkers through Oz’s bases, taking out around 12 probes. Oz pushed in response, a push that HerO seemed to defend well enough, except for one very major detail, Oz snuck an oracle into HerO’s main that racked up 22 kills. HerO attempts one last push with an incredibly meek force, only to GG soon after it is destroyed.
The final match between the two was painful to see. HerO attempted to three gate his opponent, putting all his chronoboosts into warp gate tech, however his strategy got scouted. HerO almost manages to win by killing Oz’s mothership core before it can photon overcharge, but Oz manages to pull away the crucial unit before HerO could snipe it. With photon overcharge and a plentiful amount of Stalkers, Oz was able to deter HerO's advances. HerO however, instead of simply pulling away continued to press, but each time attempt was met by loss. Knowing that his demise was inevitable, HerO called the GG ending his hopes of again, becoming the WCS America champion.
