GSTL Recap: SlayerS v MVP

Crossfire
      Noblesse one-rax expands, then gets gas and techs to starport to jump right into marine/tank with some vikings. Alicia expands to the gold after starting warp gates and getting a sentry off of one gateway. Noblesse scouts Alicia's expansion, lands his second command center, and makes a banshee followed by a raven. Alicia techs to colossus with four gates, making a lot of zealots with his golden minerals. Alicia attacks MVP's natural with an immortal and a lot of zealots. The immortal absorbs a good six shots from the tanks, allowing the zealots to close in and massacre Noblesse's small defense force. Noblesse is forced to lift his oribital and loses a lot of scvs. But meanwhile Alicia has lost twelve probes to an uncontested banshee at his gold! The game state is left with both players roughly even on workers and tech, but Noblesse has lost a lot of his army and many of his oh-so-critical tanks.
      Noblesse is content to stay on one-factory tanks for now, making another banshee to supplement his army. Alicia tries attacking with his now almost exclusively colossus/chargeless zealot army, but just three tanks are enough to easily repel it from behind a line of marines. Alicia, seeing his zealots fading in usefulness, builds a forge and a twilight council in response. Alicia takes his natural, and starts attacking Noblesse's backdoor rocks. Alicia breaks through into Nobby's main, but is again pushed back by tanks. Alicia decides to get blink and starts switching over to stalker production. Noblesse takes his third, and starts adding marauders and medivacs into his martial mix.
      Alicia pulls Noblesse's army away from the front to his corner third with a small attack, then moves his entire army up Noblesse's ramp into his main! But a terrible, terrible glitch has trapped two colossus behind! But it doesn't matter, as Alicia uses force fields to trap Noblesse's army outside as he destroys ALL of terran production facilities. Meanwhile, a six-zealot force takes out Alicia's third! Noblesse finally cleans up his base, but is left with just one mining expansion and no production to speak of. He makes a last-ditch attack into Alicia's army, but can't even break the archon/colossus front, and gg's.

Great, great game by Alicia. Noblesse did have medivacs at the end there, and seemed like he could have made a better effort to save his main instead of helplessly watching it burn from the outside. Also, he moved his ENTIRE army out of position to save his third from what turned out to be just a single zealot. Noblesse also didn't have any upgrades or stim for his bio at 19' into the game, despite having four barracks worth of m's and another m's.

Alicia wins
SlayerS 1-0 MVP

SlayerS_Alicia v MVP_viOlet
Bel'Shir Beach
      Alicia bravely goes for a 17-nexus before gateway, even after scouting an early zergling speed build from Violet. Violet kills the scouting probe and builds a roach warren. Alicia spots the lack of a second hatchery, and starts building cannons to fend off the the seven incoming roaches. Violet does some damage at first, but some solid force fields and some awful micro on the roaches means Alicia easily survives. (Terribad roach moonwalk HIGHLIGHT at 5:30 and before). Alicia builds a celebratory stargate. Alicia makes some void rays, but Violet gets spore crawlers out in time. Alicia builds a second stargate and starts mass phoenix production. Violet shows some more bad micro as he loses some unburrowed and building spore crawlers for no reason. Violet loses all of his queens and most of his overlords before he stabilizes at thirty supply against seventy. Violet manages to tech to hydralisks, but by now Alicia has a huge ground army and a-moves to victory.

Violet looked pretty weak here.

Alicia wins
SlayerS 2-0 MVP

SlayerS_Alicia v MVP_GuineaPig
Tal'Darim Altar, Alicia clockwise
      Alicia luckily scouts the right direct, and scouts Guinea early, seeing that he has spawned in as protoss. Alicia gets quick three stalkers. GuineaPig uses all his chrono boost on warp gate tech, but doesn't four-gate. Both players go for blink with three gates. GuineaPig has better micro when the armies meet in the middle of the map, and somehow kills all of Alicia's stalkers while losing only a few of his own. Alicia gg's.

Solid mirror match by GuineaPig. Slayers sends out Boxer to combat the craziness of the Pig!

GuineaPig wins.
MVP 1-2 SlayerS

MVP_GuineaPig v SlayerS_Boxer
Xel'Naga Caverns
      GuineaPigSpawns in as terran for another mirror match. Boxer proxies two barracks at Piggy's gold... WITHOUT EVEN SCOUTING HIS RACE! GuineaPig scouts Boxer's completely empty base and responds...with a command center. GuineaPig even builds a second barracks only after the second command center has finished. Boxer essentially wins with his first attack, but GuineaPig valiantly holds on for a while until Boxer gets out a second base and a cloaked banshee.

GuineaPig is either the bravest or the dumbest player ever. Or both. MVP sends out the zerg phenom DongRaeGu.

Boxer wins.
SlayerS 3-1 MVP

SlayerS_Boxer v MVP_DongRaeGu
Crevasse, Gu clockwise
      Boxer sticks with what works and again proxies two barracks in the middle of the map without scouting. Gu hatches first at his back door. Boxer starts bunker pushing Gu's main after protecting his first scvs. Gu goes to cut off Boxer's reinforcements as speed starts. Gu builds a ton of zerglings and breaks the forwards bunkers, causing Boxer to retreat his two barracks back to his base and take his backdoor expansion. Zerglings run by the remaining bunkers, and get to Boxer's front just as the barracks land to form a solid wall. Gu eliminates the rocks on Boxer's ramp and calls back his zerglings to take care of the rest of Boxer's bunkers.
      With the immediate threat gone, Gu techs to spire, makes a baneling nest, and takes his third. Boxer builds a third command center of his own and researches blue flames as he builds a pack of hellions. The hellions try to attack into Gu's main, but retreat when they see a wall of spine crawlers. Boxer switches his two factories over to thor production just in time to defend against Gu's mutalisks. Boxer wants to transition into a mostly mech army, making three factories at once to help bring his resources back down below 1000/500. Boxer takes a third, but his thors are too slow to protect all of his bases, forcing a lot of missile turrets and costing him a lot of workers. DongRaeGu takes a fourth, and is now up by twenty drones.
      DongRaeGu takes his fifth and sixth bases as he techs to hive and starts infestor production. When Boxer first pushes with his now almost exclusively mech army, Gu takes advantage of Boxer's immobility by easily eliminating Boxer's third base with his huge muta flock. Boxer is forced to continue to press forward, but Gu is already so far up in economy that he easily takes out all of Boxer's thors, allowing Gu's mutalisks to pull back and wipe out the rest of the army. Boxer stays in the game for a while doing whatever it is that he does when he's already lost, but the gg from the emperor is inevitable.

Slayers sends in TvZ expert Ganzi.

DongRaeGu wins
MVP 2-3 SlayerS

SlayerS_GanZI v MVP_DongRaeGu
For some reason this VOD isn't working for me. Hopefully I'll get back to it.

DongRaeGu wins.
MVP 3-3 SlayerS

MVP_DongRaeGu v SlayerS_MMA
Xel'Naga Fortress, Gu clockwise
      Gu hatches first to start this early-season rematch of the May finals. MMA get two-barracks with a makarax, and expands when his first pressure is thwarted. Gu gets his baneling nest and three gasses all at once for a fairly early spire. MMA builds two factories for pre-ignited hellions. Similarly to the Boxer game, Gu builds spine crawlers to defend against the hellions as he techs to spire. This time, though, his third hatchery is built in his base, and he is getting burrow. MMA gets his armory, presumably for some thors, and builds a third command center.
      MMA shows his impeccable timing as four turrets exactly at the same time as the spire. Gu takes a very gutsy third right outside MMA's main. Gu goes for the long con and burrows some pre-emptive banelings in the mineral line of MMA's third. They soon come into play as MMA lands his third orbital there, and the green explosion takes out around ten scvs, leaving MMA twenty workers behind. Gu takes his more natural third as his fourth base.
      MMA attacks the zerg expansion right outside his main, but Gu counter-attacks wth mutalisks and zerglings into the terran main, wiping out all the scvs and almost the orbital command. MMA chases all the drones away from the zerg expansion, but doesn't manage to destroy the hatchery before he is forced to retreat to protect his own main. When all is said and done, MMA is fifty supply and two bases behind; luckily of his production facilities are intact. But in the meantime DongRaeGu has built up a giant wall of banelings which roll in and decimate the third, forcing MMA to gg soon thereafter.

A huge comeback win by DongRaeGu to revenge last season's finals loss. Hopefully he keeps this up. I've been burned by up-and-coming zergs before.

DongRaeGu wins
MVP wins 4-3