Easy Does It


While the players in the top half of the playoffs bracket were all fascinating individuals, they failed to produce many games of interest and the day was over shortly after it began. Neither (Z)Leenock nor (Z)Rogue managed to take a map off of their their terran or protoss opponent, leaving (T)Maru and (P)Stats to face each other in the semi-finals, and Life to carry the zerg torch.





Game 1

King Sejong Station

RATING:

Maru started off the series with a proxy reaper, which wasn't spotted until a bunker was nearly completed in Leenock’s main. Although he seemed to be playing safely by stopping at three reapers, which forced Leenock to build 16 zerglings in a panic, the Jin Air Terran ended up sacrificing his only units for a single extra drone kill. The game ended up looking like a normal one as Leenock opened fast mutalisks against mech, but Maru suddenly started adding barracks and researching bio upgrades. Leenock, thinking he was playing against mech, quickly went up to 82 drones and seven bases as well as a hive while keeping Maru pinned to four bases with mutalisks. However, constant attacks on Maru’s bases came at a heavy cost, and when Maru moved out with his maxed bio army, Leenock’s ultralisk-based force wasn’t powerful enough to adequately defend.

yFW Leenock Z5 RATING:

In the stage of the game where Maru attempted to grab his fourth base, Leenock became the Leenocktopus, with units being sent in every direction to demand Maru’s attention. His mutalisk opener and Maru’s slower, safer mech start allowed him to take half of the map, including Maru’s backdoor base, relatively quickly. Additionally, he ransacked Maru’s fourth base with mutalisks, repeatedly busted the third, and threatened Maru’s natural back door. After several extravagant harassment attempts, Leenock's economy was only acceptable, and he made a poor choice by transitioning into ultralisks without enough to pay for any complementary units.

T11 Jin Air MaruRATING:

Some of Maru’s decisions were questionable, to say the least. While his mid-game control and positioning proved to be extremely strong, his mech –> bio transition came across as unnecessary, and he could have easily done much worse against Leenock’s initial mutalisks as a result. This odd transition, however, proved to be seamless enough to hold anything Leenock could come up with, and the Jin Air Terran stayed cool under pressure. Maru eventually attacked with his extremely potent thor/hellbat/marine force, taking few risks and patiently wearing away at Leenock’s economy and army.



This turned out to be the only high-quality game of the evening. Leenock tried to open with an off-beat 14/14 in the second set, but Maru’s reaper and engineering bay block severely delayed his expansion and a wall-off precluded any possible counter-damage. Maru followed this up with a hellion/marine elevator and caught Leenock building a spire while only having six zerglings and three queens, leading to immediately game-ending damage. (T)Maru attempted a 2rax at match point, and although it was found immediately, he simply floated his barracks home and expanded. In a strange turn of events, this expansion was immediately followed by four additional barracks, and a BitByBit-like train of SCVs and marines was soon flooding into Leenock’s natural. A single spine crawler was not enough to save him.

The other series of the night was much poorer as Rogue capitulated with a whimper. Rogue started off his series aggressively with a 14/14. However, Stats quickly scouted this after choosing a safe gateway expansion, and took nearly zero damage. The KT Protoss elected to build a few phoenixes before attacking with six gateways worth of units, finding that Rogue had cut corners to amass only a small group of hydralisks. After this straightforward win, Stats seemed comfortable enough to open nexus first, but Rogue’s 14/14 forced a probe pull as well as multiple cannons. Rogue, however, was indecisive about how he wanted to cripple Stats and failed to gain anything more than a few probe and zealot kills. He tried to play off of the gold base, but Stats’ seven gate followup easily crushed him. Down 0-2 going into the third game, Rogue baffled by staying on two bases despite no other significant deviations from a normal game happening. His delayed burrowed roach + tunneling claws attack was extremely ineffective, and (P)Stats managed to complete the sweep.