GSL 2011 S1 CodeS Group D RO16 (Jinro!)

Shakuras Plateau, close positions

      Rainbow double expands after his first barracks- one to his natural and one to the 12 o'clock expansion on the far side of the map. MC expands early as well, eventually bringing his gateway count up to six. MC then just breaks his way up Rainbow's ramp and plows through four terran bunkers, using an absolutely perfect rainbow of forcefields to completely section off Rainbow's army. MC quickly gets into Rainbow's main and Rainbow concedes.

MC really had his way with Rainbow here. Rainbow thought he was being pretty clever, but MC responded by just killing him without any knowledge of his cutsy play at all.

MC wins

MC 1-0
Jinro 0-0
MarineKing 0-0
Rainbow 0-1

Xel'Naga Caverns

      Jinro goes gas/barracks/gas for reactored hellions. MarineKing goes for a one-barracks expand. Jinro uses a supply drop, goes for cloak banshees, and expands. MarineKing starts building up a tank/viking army. Jinro's banshees do a good amount of damage as he starts getting marine/tank/viking as well. MarineKing pushes out, but just barely skirts Jinro's tank line defending his natural, and loses a lot of his army. Jinro's banshees continue to do very well, taking out a lot of tanks. Jinro sets up a solid contain outside MarineKing's natural. But MarineKing sends three medivacs worth of marines to Jinro's base. Jinro doesn't have enough at home to defend it, and doesn't have quite enough to break MarineKings natural against sieged tanks. When he loses the bulk of his containing force, Jinro gg's.

Jinro seemed to be ahead for most of the game here, but really let his guard down on that drop. His banshee micro was particularly impressive, but despite the damage they did, I think they ended up taking away some of the bulk and muscle from Jinro's army.

MarineKing wins

MC 1-0
MarineKing 1-0
Jinro 0-1
Rainbow 0-1

LiquidJinro v oGsMC

Lost Temple, close positions

      MC gets a quick stargate for the spiffy new fifteen-second chronoboosted phoenix. Jinro get one of each production structure with tech-labs on both his starport and his factory, and a reactor on his barracks. However, Jinro cancels a raven when he sees his first phoenix and starting going for tank/viking instead. MC gets his robo. Both players expand. MC gets to more gateways as he builds up a very interesting unit composition of six phoenix, two immortals, six sentries, and ten zealots. MC attacks, but Jinro holds with his high-ground tanks. Jinro gets an armory for vehicle upgrades, two more factories, and cloak for banshees. MC gets his robotics facility and another robotics bay.
      A pre-ignited hellion drop kills a dozen or so of MC's probes. Then Jinro takes up a sieged position over MC's natural's cliff. It destroys MC's gas before being repelled. Jinro expands to the close island. Jinro has eight-teen tanks in the middle of the map, but MC has five immortals which let him break out in close battle and take a third at the close-by-air main. Jinro takes his forth at the shared gold where he sieged up a big mass of tanks. Jinro starts getting thors and MC starts phoenix production again. Jinro slowly creeps his way back into the middle of the map and sets up a solid contain, the arc of which starts deep in the gold base and goes almost all the way to the cliff of MC's main. And even through MC has eight immortals and eight phoenix when he tries to bust out, two thors take out all the phoenix almost immediately, and MC's immortals simply cannot get enough surface area since they are stuck in his natural's choke. MC gg's

I actually fell asleep while watching this live, and woke up thinking Jinro had lost. But in the end, Jinro had so many tanks in such a nasty concave that they were essentially one-shotting the hardened shields right off of the immortal. This may be the start of a whole new TvP metagame.

Jinro wins.

MarineKing 1-0
MC 1-1
Jinro 1-1
Rainbow 0-1

MarineKingPrime.WE v ST_RainBOw

Metalopolis, close positions

      Rainbow two barracks, with one of them proxied at the gold. His early pressure is foiled by a bunker at the bottom of MarineKing's ramp. MarineKing builds a command center, two more barracks, and a reactor. Rainbow pulls all of his scvs and attacks. Rainbow loses so much in his assault of the bunker that he easily pushed out of MarineKing's main. He stays in the game for a bit trying some fancy micro, but for every one thing that Rainbow has, MarineKing literally has two or more of those things, and Rainbow eventually gg's.

Dammit Rainbow. Why do a strategy that is countered by a single bunker? Why just go all-in when you see it? Why try to out-marine/scv micro the king of marine/scv micro? How can you lose with an all-in to someone who early expanded? Most importantly, how could you lose so easily, making MC and Jinro face off for the second Code S slot?

Rainbow loses.

MarineKing 2-0
MC 1-1
Jinro 1-1
Rainbow 0-2

oGsMC v LiquidJinro

Scrap Station

      MC four-gates. Jinro techs to banshees and tanks. Jinro scouts the four-gate with a hellion just in time to make a bunch of bunkers. But MC's forces just walk by, since there is no wall-off! Jinro manages to hold after surrounding the stalkers with scvs. The aftermath, though, is that Jinro is significantly down in workers, but significantly up in tech. Both players expand. Jinro does a lot off damage with his first cloaked banshee, bringing the players back to fairly equal economic footing.
      MC gets double stargate for phoenix, which kill a few scvs when they come out and force Jinro to make missile turrets. Jinro gets and armory and some thors. Lots of thors. Three-factory thors. MC gets his fleet beacon and starts with two-stargate carrier. MC takes the gold. Jinro scouts the carriers and builds a third command center. Jinro starts pumping vikings out of two reactored starports. Once he has some critical mass of vikings Jinro attacks through the middle. Jinro's marine/thor/viking force destroys MC's carrier/immortal/stalker army! As Jinro starts wrecking MC's base, MC retreats with the survivors of the battle and counter attacks into Jinro's base. It takes Jinro forever forever to get back to his base, but he eventually gets back and defends without too many losses to his production facilities.
      Jinro finishes off MC's main and the natural with landed vikings. Meanwhile MC has retreated to his gold and started pumping out immortals as quickly as possible. But Jinro gets there with eight thors, where strike cannons the immortals in oblivion, and forces MC out of the game.

And Jinro 2-0s the invincible champion of last season to advance to the round of eight! Despite supposedly not practicing TvP at all, he seemed to know exactly what it took to beat MC, who just could not overcome Jinro's mech. MC is in such shock after the game, that he looks despondent when Jinro comes to his booth, and he doesn't even offer to shake Jinro's hand. In his post-game interview, Jinro reveals that mech had been working very well for him on the ladder and in practice, and that he had never used it against MC before.

Jinro wins, advances.

MarineKing 2-0
Jinro 2-1
MC 1-2
Rainbow 0-2

Not needed, although if any group should have been a full round robin, it was this one.

Final seeding:
1. MarineKingPrime.WE 2-0
2. Liquid Jinro 2-1
3. oGsMC 1-2
4. ST_Rainbow 0-2

Final seeding:
1. MarineKingPrime.WE 2-0
2. Liquid Jinro 2-1
3. oGsMC 1-2
4. ST_Rainbow 0-2

What a crazy, awesome, roller-coaster of a day in the GSL. I was happy that MC won, frustrated when Jinro lost, elated when Jinro won, furious when Rainbow lost, and then some sort of crazy combination of all of those when Jinro advanced. An amazing end to the group stages of the first season of the GSL, and assuredly a prelude of the awesomeness to come in quarter finals.

I'll probably do some more stats I find interesting like I did at the end of Group H, but unless people want them I likely won't put them up here, since formatting is kind of a pain.

Thanks to Jinro my jaw wont get off the floor. His play vs MC was awe inspiring, showing that no one is unbeatable, and that foreigners are certainly a force to be reckoned with!