Out of the four players in the Group of Death, STX_INnoVation was the least popular. He had been known for years in Brood War as Bogus, a very good, but not great Terran player who had the ability to take games off top players but never truly contend for a championship. With his move to Starcraft 2 and an abrupt name change in order to start anew, Innovation has now joined the ranks of elite players, with lesser players wishing they could get a win over him as a career highlight. While Innovation might not have had the level of fan support of the other three in the group, everyone watching respected his skill and knew why he was a crucial component in completing the greatest group of all-time. When Innovation came out in first place, few could say they were truly surprised. After all, he is a monster.
Starting off against KT_Flash, Innovation dropped his first game of the night, paying the price for not getting sufficient anti-air defense by having his economy reduced to shambles by hellbat drops. The loss didn't shake the stoic Terran, as he came back in the second game with a quick multi-reaper build, catching the predictable and greedy Flash off guard. The game ended in about five minutes, leaving the fans shocked at the perfect reaper control Innovation used to abruptly end a game that could have potentially gone on all night.
The final game was a tour de force by Innovation, as he won with superior micro and army composition. Going bio, Innovation was able to defeat a stronger macro player in Flash, using drops onto tanks and doom drops into the main to be able to draw Flash's mech army back and give him openings to win skirmishes. Flash was able to hold on impressively, even looking like he had the lead at times, but Innovation continued the pressure, dropping every square inch of Flash's territory and exploiting the weakness of the slow moving mech army. Flash's army was pulled apart by Innovation's impeccable decision making and execution, and Innovation went on to the winners match.
Life struggles to accept the possibility that someone might be able to micro hellions better than he can micro zerglings.
With ST_Life beating SKT_PartinG in the first games of the evening, this left us with the dream match that everyone had been waiting for. All the other player match-ups that the group could offer had already occurred, except for Innovation vs. Life. In a battle between the best TvZ and ZvT in the world, you might have expected a close affair with either side taking it 2-1, but it went the same way the series against Flash ended for up Innovation: in true and total domination.
Innovation himself even commented after the games that Life was not playing his best and was 'off' from his usual, scary self. Innovation's widow mine along with bio play was overwhelming, and he was to use superior positioning and game sense to out-maneuver his aggressive foe and get the upper hand in every fight that commenced. Life's zerglings—the scourge of every other Terran player on earth—were tamed by Innovation, allowing him to comfortably play the way he wanted. Unable to deal with Innovation's flawless play, Life fell in two games that made him look a level below the STX ace.
With his advancement to the quarterfinals confirmed, Innovation will now be searching for one thing he hasn't accomplished yet in his SC2 career: reaching the grand finals. He is now three-for-three in getting out of the group stages, a hugely impressive feat considering how difficult Code S is, but his troubles have all come when getting into the knockout rounds. He has been the engine behind bringing STX back into playoff contention in Proleague, but the format there is a best-of-one. He is quickly becoming the greatest group stage player in GSL history, but that's best-of-three. For Innovation to take his throne as the king of Starcraft 2, he's going to have to learn how to win in five or more. Mvp has never been a great team league player, or even a group stage player in the GSL. But during his time in Code S, he was the master at preparing and winning Bo5/Bo7 series, and has four champions to show for it.
If Innovation can take this final step, is there anyone in the world who can stop him?
Parting's Life in a Flash
Out of all the players in this group, SKT_PartinG was the one who needed to advance the most. Everyone else had a way out. INnoVation was already respected by everyone, and while he might not have had huge fan support, he also didn't have the super-high expectations or hype to make a loss in a group-of-death damaging. KT_Flash is the greatest RTS player in the history of e-sports, so even with a loss, he would still be called God and have everyone rush to make excuses for him as they joked about him bestowing his divine mercy upon the others. ST_Life, in the same vain as Flash, is widely recognized as a true prodigy and has already won major championship after major championship, and did not need another GSL to solidify himself as one of the best and most popular players in the world.
PartinG? He talked smack, and he talked a lot of it. He received heat in the Korean and international communities. Throwing stones at the house of Life—a very popular player worldwide—is something that was ill-advised, with many fans turning on him and saying he was immature, too cocky, and foolish to taunt a better player. Also, his move from Startale created a rift between him and his old team that was once his family, giving us a feud where fans couldn't tell if there was real bad blood, or if it was just a ploy to create more interest. In any case, PartinG was in trouble. The mob had gathered at his doorstep, and were just waiting for an excuse to set everything ablaze.
He got off to a rocky start on the night, losing two straight games to the player he had trash talked for the past few months, getting embarrassed in back to back blowout games. Life's ling counter-attacks were too much for Parting to handle, and he was continually called back to his base when he wanted to push. With his opponent lacking upgrades and having no power behind his two base all-in attacks, Life held easily and proceeded to the winner's match without having to break a sweat.
Parting was between a rock and a hard place. With a loss to Flash, he would be out of Code S and be made the laughing stock of the StarCraft II world. He created the group of death, had been talking trash to Life, and was going to get bounced out from the group first, looking like a complete idiot. The haters' claims would be proved right: that he was more style than substance, his words spoke louder than his actions, and he could only run around and talk smack for so long before being put into place by his betters.
PartinG dismantles Flash in a macro game
Parting fought back. He would not go down that easily, taking on God himself in the loser's match and taking the series 2-0, crushing him with a complete performance that saw him win in a super late game and with a powerful two-base attack. Knocking out of the most popular player in the group probably didn't win him any more fans, but it did give him one final chance at redemption against Life. He had fallen to Life in last season's Ro16, but came back in the deciding match of the night to take the series and move onto the Ro8, leaving his rival back in Code A.
Playing unlike himself, Life went for two weird ling all-ins in a row, wanting to stop Parting in his tracks and get him off his toes. This did not work, as Parting held strong and got the upgrade advantage unlike the first series. Following up into two-base all-ins, SKT T1 Protoss wa able to redeem himself for an embarrassing performance earlier in the group. Beating Life 2-0, Parting advanced from the group, looking like he had a gigantic weight lifted off his shoulders.
He didn't do a ceremony afterward, just sitting in the booth with his hands on his face and looking more relieved than bursting with happiness. Life, likewise, looked as dejected as we had ever seen him, staring blankly at his monitor and wondering what had gone wrong as he fell out of another Ro16 group. Parting sheepishly left his booth, handed a few memorabilia gift cards to the fans, and went into his booth to pack up his stuff, showing a more conservative Parting than we usually witness after monumental victories. To the question of true drama or publicity play, the answer appeared to be the latter: Parting apologized after the gamed ended and said that there is no actual tension between him and his former team.
He's polarizing in the community, but there is no question about how good Parting truly is. Behind all the bravado and pro wrestling-like trash talk, Parting is an eighteen-year-old kid who is still maturing and trying to get his words across in the right way. He knows how to build himself and bring attention to the matches he plays, but he's learned a lesson in how that can come to bite him in the ass if he's not careful. However, just because Life is gone for a second straight season doesn't mean that PartinG has a free pass for the rest of the GSL. There is still one player left that won't let PartinG off so easy. Bomber still awaits on the other side of the bracket, and the Startale captain will want to make sure his insolent ex-teammate learns his lesson.
Yeah, but it's not like Bomber could actually make it to the finals and deliver the final blow of justice to Parting for Startale, right? It's Bomber. He isn't allowed to have heroic endings. Only sad, anti-climactic finishes where we are sitting wondering why we believed in him in the first place. While Parting might finally feel like this chapter is over in his career, hoping to move on from the feud with Startale, there is still a slight chance that the true climax is still a few weeks from occurring.
Now What?: Prodigy Edition
KT_Flash - First out of the group, this isn't going to sit well for one of the most competitive players in the scene. He wants to win every tournament he enters, and he won't be happy being the first player out in the group of death. Still holding one of the best records in Proleague, he will be shifting his focus on getting his team into a playoff position. With Parting and Innovation holding two of the final spots for the playoffs, Flash can still get some revenge in the upcoming rounds if he can knock one of those two down into the bottom half of the Proleague ladder.
It's hard to say anything bad about Flash, losing in the hardest group imaginable this far into a tournament, but it might be time to start peeling back the 'perfect' and 'unstoppable' talk every time he plays a game. He is one of the better players in the world, but he still doesn't have a championship and couldn't get it done in the group of death. No one should take what I'm saying that Flash is a bad player, but before we talk about how godly he is, maybe we should wait for him to win a championship in the game first. An excellent player, Flash still has room to improve before he can challenge for a Code S championship.
ST_Life - Is he slowly becoming Clide Jr.? This is his third straight Ro16 where he was the favorite to advance, but he fell in the final match of the night, getting knocked into Code A. He has gone 1-2 in his past three Ro16 group stages, and he seemingly cannot find a way back into the knockout rounds, a place where he has been unstoppable. Unlike Innovation, longer series are the forte of Life, and is the reason why he has won so many championships. With the ability to throw in cheese, play a long, macro game and do crazy builds, a Bo5 or Bo7 is where Life excels the most. Sadly, we will not be able to see that ability at work this season.
Life will now try to help Startale capture their first GSTL title and get back into Code S for another shot at the title. Also, with teammate Bomber still in the quarterfinals, you would expect Life to be helping heavily with a possible Zerg match-up in the quarterfinals and more than likely Innovation semifinal if he can get there. Life's Premier League season might be over, but Bomber's is just beginning.
Life's overrated, if you can't get out of the group stages 3 GSLs in a row then you are not the best player in the world. Meanwhile Roro won the last GSL, has done very well in proleague and people barely mention him. (Sniper all over again)
On May 04 2013 09:37 Grumbels wrote: Life's overrated, if you can't get out of the group stages 3 GSLs in a row then you are not the best player in the world. Meanwhile Roro won the last GSL, has done very well in proleague and people barely mention him. (Sniper all over again)
Yeah not like he hasn't won like almost everything for the past 6 months
Thanks for the write up Fionn! however, i do think that you left out a sentence along the lines of: "PartinG had 2 of the sickest holds in the history of SC2." also, one of the most definitive things about Life is his ling aggression, so neither of the games in the losers final vs PartinG was unlike him. also, straight up: the 2nd game in the losers final was not a ling-all-in. period.
On May 04 2013 09:37 Grumbels wrote: Life's overrated, if you can't get out of the group stages 3 GSLs in a row then you are not the best player in the world. Meanwhile Roro won the last GSL, has done very well in proleague and people barely mention him. (Sniper all over again)
Great recap, Fionn, there are some passages in here I very much agree with, you have a way with words, I wish you'd find the time to write more again. ^_^
On May 04 2013 09:37 Grumbels wrote: Life's overrated, if you can't get out of the group stages 3 GSLs in a row then you are not the best player in the world. Meanwhile Roro won the last GSL, has done very well in proleague and people barely mention him. (Sniper all over again)
Life isn't overrated, but yes he doesn't have claim to best player in the world now after getting trounce in Ro16 three times in a row. At worst I still don't see him falling past top 3 zerg anytime soon. That being said, he'll have to do better because Starleagues are what counts at the end of the day.
I'd love to see Innovation win this season's GSL. He's been so consistent, and now that the days of Broodlord-winfestor deathballs are over, he has never had a better chance to win it all.
Parting vs Bomber final. Goes to Game 7 and when Bomber has the game won throws ceremonial mules and dances too much allowing Parting to engineer an epic comeback.
Innovation beat everybody 3-0 except Flash at the MLG Winter Championships including MC for third place. I have been waiting to see him play again. He doesn't disappoint. None of these guys disappoint. Win or lose they are all still the best in the game. They don't have to prove anything to anybody.
everyone knows.. Life is better than parting.. thats a fact.. but why did life choose this cheesy builds? i mean amagine a macro game against parting as Life -.-" kinda ez right?
On May 04 2013 10:30 monsta wrote: everyone knows.. Life is better than parting.. thats a fact.. but why did life choose this cheesy builds? i mean amagine a macro game against parting as Life -.-" kinda ez right?
game 1: Life smelled blood in the water and went for the kill... and overcommitted. It happens. (to be fair: no other protoss in the world would have survived that onslaught) game 2: Life had early aggression, then droned up behind it after Parting again held perfectly. Life was going to 3 bases when Parting hit the one base timing.
Also, a macro game vs Parting is NOT easy. Life lost a macro game last season in the Ro16 in a macro game to Parting. How could a macro game against a top 3 toss in the world who just beat flash at macro be easy? -_-
On May 04 2013 09:37 Grumbels wrote: Life's overrated, if you can't get out of the group stages 3 GSLs in a row then you are not the best player in the world. Meanwhile Roro won the last GSL, has done very well in proleague and people barely mention him. (Sniper all over again)
LIfe's problem in the final game was all about the 20 lings that got forcefielded in by parting before he moved out. If Parting hadn't caught those, life would have held the push EZ. Amazing the little things that decide games.
To the question of true drama or publicity play, the answer appeared to be the latter: Parting apologized after the gamed ended and said that there is no actual tension between him and his former team.
Not sure where you got that from. I had thought they were just joking beforehand, the interview afterwards is what confirmed that there is some animosity between them.
I'm sorry to Life as well. Even after I won, I feel bitter when I think about him. I know it's my own fault, but I feel like I took my anger out on him. We were close when I was still on StarTale but now the relationship has completely reversed. I want to apologize to him as well as Bomber.
I'm not sure where everybody is getting the "Life is better than PartinG" thing from. Granted, Life is stronger against other players, but head-to-head the two of them are pretty evenly matched. As shown by the last two GSLs. Anyway, great games all around.
sometimes i wonder if people forgot that life is still in high school... hes a 16 year old kid who has other things in his life other than just practicing all day, wait for the summer when he can play full time and he will win another gsl
Parting lost "back to back blowout games" you say, and you're saying he was all-in both games too. I wonder why he was trying to put down that 3rd nexus in game 1 then, it's not like he would have survived in the macro game, right? And Life sacrificed a bunch of units just to kill that pointless nexus... weird.
On May 04 2013 10:30 monsta wrote: everyone knows.. Life is better than parting.. thats a fact.. but why did life choose this cheesy builds? i mean amagine a macro game against parting as Life -.-" kinda ez right?
game 1: Life smelled blood in the water and went for the kill... and overcommitted. It happens. (to be fair: no other protoss in the world would have survived that onslaught) game 2: Life had early aggression, then droned up behind it after Parting again held perfectly. Life was going to 3 bases when Parting hit the one base timing.
Also, a macro game vs Parting is NOT easy. Life lost a macro game last season in the Ro16 in a macro game to Parting. How could a macro game against a top 3 toss in the world who just beat flash at macro be easy? -_-
He won many times already, I think that he was exhausted after the games against Innovation(which he should be, what Innovation did to him was insane) and wanted to end 2 games quickly. Didn't work though because of Parting and Force Fields.
Overall, the group went a bit worse than expected. First 3 sets were good(even though Life could've played better against Innovation, but we don't know if it would've changed anything, he just forced a lot of sloppy mistakes.), but then we had Parting vs. Flash and Parting vs. Life that were just painful to watch.
but then we had Parting vs. Flash and Parting vs. Life that were just painful to watch.
hum how can you say that was painful? I don't like the protoss race since broodwar, but the Parting hold/come back in game 1 vs Flash is just amazing (remember he was B2 against B4 flash, and just holding with storm and zeal) and the games against Life, even if Life's decision to go on allin games is strange, how mainy players in the world could have handled that as perfectly than Parting? the FF and Gate/pylon block were just godlike
In terms of drama, Innovation was definetely not the most talked about. Within the players though, its a general consensus that Innovation in KESPA is the best terran at the moment. There was even an interview where Flash admits Innovation is the best player at the moment. So I was definetely not surprised when he got through
On May 04 2013 10:30 monsta wrote: everyone knows.. Life is better than parting.. thats a fact.. but why did life choose this cheesy builds? i mean amagine a macro game against parting as Life -.-" kinda ez right?
he had a huge advantage everytime with this builds, but he threw it everytime away and lost 0:2....
On May 04 2013 21:16 Darkhoarse wrote: I am very sad for Life... Hoping that somehow Bomber can win this, but I don't see him going through Innovation.
If someone were to beat Bogus, it would be Bomber. He is so good TvT (aka beat my favorite player Taeja convincingly) I was Sad D:
Innovation is better mechanical player than Flash, bam i said it. And i said that since MLG.
The only moments when Flash is better is when his greed / turtle play kicks in, and thats it, beside that there is vast skill set where Innovation is simply better.
On May 04 2013 09:37 Grumbels wrote: Life's overrated, if you can't get out of the group stages 3 GSLs in a row then you are not the best player in the world. Meanwhile Roro won the last GSL, has done very well in proleague and people barely mention him. (Sniper all over again)
Nobody cared about zergs winning GSL towards the end of WoL. The only reason why life is famous is because he won a ton of foreign tournaments.
On May 04 2013 10:30 monsta wrote: everyone knows.. Life is better than parting.. thats a fact.. but why did life choose this cheesy builds? i mean amagine a macro game against parting as Life -.-" kinda ez right?
he had a huge advantage everytime with this builds, but he threw it everytime away and lost 0:2....
Yes, he was too greedy. All it took was getting roaches up for defense instead of giving the opportunity to parting to all-in him back. Both of the time he had a better economy once the game stabilized (and this is with a perfect reaction from parting..I'll steal that life build) but he just tried to go pure ling for too much.
I think this season will either be Innovation's or Soulkey's.
No, as every season I'll blindly believe in Bomber, and I don't know how he will prevail and kick ass in the group stage and take the finals, I know THIS time will be that way...
On May 05 2013 06:17 KaiserCommander wrote: No, as every season I'll blindly believe in Bomber, and I don't know how he will prevail and kick ass in the group stage and take the finals, I know THIS time will be that way...
Ever since seeing Innovations play style he has become my favorite player. When your play style is drop everything always you make for interesting games. Sad to see Flash go down though. I think it would've been funny to see Flash and Innovation advance and make Parting and Life regret their group choices.
" Behind all the bravado and pro wrestling-like trash talk, Parting is an eighteen-year-old kid who is still maturing and trying to get his words across in the right way. He knows how to build himself and bring attention to the matches he plays, but he's learned a lesson in how that can come to bite him in the ass if he's not careful. "
Rather disappointing take away. I think we're much too much obsessed with teh golf clap when its storylines that sell. You can't critcize parting in one moment then bemoan boring, meaningless interviews.
I think this was an extremely poorly written recap that didn't accurately portray either of the Life/Parting series, and had a clearly biased feeling against one of the players that actually distracted me from reading the article. And no, it wasn't the weak command of the English language or lack of game knowledge that was the most distracting. Like seriously. Did PartinG have sex with your mom or something?
PS please proofread posts... there were grammatical errors/sentence structure errors... ugh..
On May 04 2013 10:23 RaiKageRyu wrote: Parting vs Bomber final. Goes to Game 7 and when Bomber has the game won throws ceremonial mules and dances too much allowing Parting to engineer an epic comeback.
On May 05 2013 15:31 guN-viCe wrote: Who said Flash is the God of SC2? He was the God of BW.
Thanks for the write-up ^^
He is not there yet. We know it. Flash himself knows it. When Flash talked a out "enlightenment" in Brood War, he really meant it.
The real question is if Flash will reach "enlightenment" in SC2, and thus become "god". The expectations on Flash are very high, but long time Flash fans also knows that good stuff takes a while to bake. It took many painful seasons of dissapointment before Flash won his second OSL, leading to his 2010 dominance.
What is important is that unlike the rest of TBLS, he is consistently improving at a fast rate. He may not be #1 now, bit it has happened before. He was the underdog against Stork before destroying him. He was the underdog against BeSt before humilliating him. He was the underdog against Jaedong before becoming the last true Bonjwa.
On May 04 2013 10:23 RaiKageRyu wrote: Parting vs Bomber final. Goes to Game 7 and when Bomber has the game won throws ceremonial mules and dances too much allowing Parting to engineer an epic comeback.
Bomber in a nutshell.
Bomber literally goes out from the booth and dances, he thinks everyone is going to do the dinosaur but people just look at him confused, meanwhile parting gets the victory screen.
Good writeup. It was really disappointing to see Life try such weird builds against Parting though. I mean he took him down 2-0, why not go for a macro game and ling runbys and such? Why life why? It still boggles my mind but maybe, just maybe he actually didn't want to face Parting in a long game after he won their first bo3 :S
Little typos: "has four champions to show for it" should be "has four championships to show for it" and "and he was to use superior positioning" should be "and he used superior positioning"
It's really a great group with great matches. I got very hyped during all the games, especially when PartinG beat Life in the last match. PartinG was beyond his limit and what a game! And after I reviewed the report of PartinG, I assume that Life lost to INnoVation deliberately just to beat PartinG out of Code S with his own hands in the final match, because they two are real rivals and PartinG betrayed the team. But PartinG just proved himself with the inspiration of Bisu. I never feel regret to be a fan of SCII. <3
Why does the front page say Innovation was the least talked about player? I figure it would be parting. He was the least interesting member of the group imo.
Flash was a broodwar god becouse of his understanding of lategame in that game. By his decisions in the game vs Parting, its clear he does not have that knowledge about sc2 HOTS yet. What im trying to say is, we can still expact great things to come from him.
On May 04 2013 10:23 RaiKageRyu wrote: Parting vs Bomber final. Goes to Game 7 and when Bomber has the game won throws ceremonial mules and dances too much allowing Parting to engineer an epic comeback.
Bomber in a nutshell.
Bomber literally goes out from the booth and dances, he thinks everyone is going to do the dinosaur but people just look at him confused, meanwhile parting gets the victory screen.