[GSL] Code S S1 - Protoss Hope?

Group F: MVPsC, EGJYP, MVPDongRaeGu, MVPGenius

Match One: sC vs JYP

Game One – 1.5/5

+ Show Spoiler +

Notes and Comments


Wins come in fours: Perhaps Genius felt a twinge of jealousy upon seeing the Protoss President welcomed back by hordes of fans. 2-1, and 5-4 on map scores? What an amateur. Genius clinched first place in his group with four straight games against championship caliber opposition. That marks the third time Genius has had a 4-0 day (to my knowledge, a GSL record). On the other two occasions, he ran through four members of NS HoSeo in GSTL, and his entire Up-Down group to make it into the current Code S tournament.

It's been hard to figure out Genius as a player. For the longest time, we thought he had plateaued as a RO16 level Protoss player. He was solid enough to be mediocre, without a real spark to be great. He admitted as much in an interview, saying he had been unmotivated and content to retain Code S in the old format. Things might have changed.

Being consistent will keep you in tournaments, but being streaky will allow you to win them. What will the future hold for Genius?

Art Nouveau: Stephano is widely acclaimed as the player who popularized the double-evo Zergling + Infestor style, and the player who achieved the best results using that style as well. Though Stephano might be the face of this style, DongRaeGu's recent play makes me think that the young Frenchman might only be second best. Starting back in Arena of Legends III (King of Kongs), DongRaeGu used the so-called 'Stephano' style with brutal effectiveness. It's a difficult style, requiring great mechanics and map awareness to maintain map control and security without any sort of anti-air units. With some of the best mechanics in the West, Stephano made it work very well. So I suppose it's no surprise the Zerg with the best mechanics in the world is making it work for him as well.

In the finals of King of Kongs, DRG made MKP's famous Marine micro completely useless as he fungaled and swarmed his way to victory. The game against sC on Dual Sight looked like a repeat of those MKP games, where he used a quartet of Ultras, Lings, Banes, and Infestors to take apart the Terran army in record time. Seeing that DRG is already a master of Muta-Ling-Bane, it's scary where DRG could go with even more styles available to him.

Lamenting the macro map (Daybreak sucks): Move aside Terminus. I've found a new map where I can fast-forward to the eleven minute mark in every game. To an almost scary lack of exception, Daybreak means three base. While other TL staffers thought Daybreak was good enough to be map of the year, personally I'm finding the lack of variation on the map to be a pretty boring. Sure, the numbers say it's one of the most balanced maps in competitive play, and I like that for the players. But as a viewer, the horribly imbalanced Dual Sight 1.0 provided some much more entertaining, epic games.

It's funny, because as a reaction to a lot of early pro-SC II games ending far too early, the earliest non-Blizzard maps were all created to be very macro centric. Terminus, Crevasse, Tal'Darim Altar, etc. To a lesser extent, Dual Sight, Bel'Shir, and Daybreak have ended up in that direction as well (Dual Sight and Bel'Shir had to be made more three base friendly, because Zerg was owning too much face). I'm proud of Cloud Kingdom crossing the ocean and becoming part of the GSL map pool, but it's still one that's interpreted as an "Oh it's far too long to rush, let me take three bases and turtle." map (Leenock proxy-hatches not withstanding).

Now that we've seen a ton of macro games, and ton of boring macro games, might it be time for a change?

Protoss Hype Train 2012.

Group G: aLive, SlayerS_Brown, IMHappy, MarineKingPrime


aLive

Breaking News: Alive seems to be gone from TSL and is without team for the time being, but he will still be competing in this season's Code S after a strong showing last season, getting all the way to the quarterfinals for the first time before bombing out in embarrassing fashion against Leenock. He didn't show up for GSTL profile shooting, his Twitter name is sans the "TSL," and even GomTV.net has him listed as teamless.

Let's get this out of the way right now, friends. Alive is really, really, really good. I cannot stress enough how good this guy is when he is actually playing at his highest level. Along with MarineKing (we'll get to him later), Polt and Byun, Alive is one of the Ladder Gods in Korea, usually atop of the ladder for most of the season. This season is no exception, currently 1st in Korea with fifty more points than the second place player. When Alive is on his game, Alive is one of the best players in the entire world.

You can see flashes of brilliance when he plays at times in the GSL. He looked spectacular in the Round of 16 last season, going in strong against a weary Leenock in the quarterfinals who just got home after running the gauntlet at the MLG National Championships. It wasn't a lock for Alive to win that series, but he it was disappointing that he lost. What happened when Alive played Leenock last season is what has always been holding Alive back: his nerves.

Alive tried a cheese in the first game. It failed. Alive tilted. Alive then fell apart in the next two games, getting wiped out of the GSL without putting up much a fight. A lot of people say that MarineKing has the weakest mental strength of the GSL players, but to me, at this moment, I would put him second behind Alive. Someone with this much talent and skill should be known by more people. When you look at a group, Alive should be the player that makes casual viewers go, 'Wow, Alive is playing today! This is going to be awesome!'

Going into this group, Alive might be the least hyped or talked about player of the four, but if you asked me who has the best pure skill out of the four in this group, I would honestly say Alive. He's that damn good when he plays at his potential. Though, sadly, when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter how good you are on ladder or in certain games if you can't be consistent. With the probable changing of teams, this could be a new start for Alive. Will he become the consistent Terran force that he is capable of or will we see the same Alive that crumbled in the quarterfinals of the November season?


SlayerSBrown

Can he do it? We've been down this road many a time, friends. Seed, Yonghwa, Alicia, Sage, Puzzle, Oz. All have been hyped up (captained by Artosis), and they have all at one time or another been the player that could have become the Hero of Aiur. Protoss has not made a final since Nestea wiped the floor with Inca in May of last year. Protoss has not had a GSL champion since MC all the way back in March of last year. This season, like many before, a new Protoss has been put before us with a lot of potential, and just like many time before, Artosis has said that this player is special and should be someone to watch out for.

Brown got into Code A without much fanfare. He was just another one of the guys from the SlayerS camp kicking ass in the qualifiers and qualifying for GSL. Going into his first series against Superstar in November, there still was not a lot of hype. He played well, but no one was really predicting that this guy was going to get into Code S. But he kept winning. He kept becoming more impressive with each set he played. By the time he vortexed Losira's army in Code A and got into Code S without losing a single game, a new Protoss Hype Hero was born.

There are a lot of expectations for Brown going into this tournament. When a month ago, no one even knew about Brown, he is now one of the most talked about players going into this season. His first two wins, over Superstar and Ryung were dominant, but neither player were Code S level when it came to vP. Losira was his only true test that made people start hyping him up, and Losira wasn't even able to make it into Code S this season.

So, what are you betting on, TeamLiquid? Will Brown be another Alicia? A hyped Protoss, expected to do great things, but falling from grace in a blink of the eye, straight into the depths of hell known as Code A and B? Or, will, somehow, someway, this Protoss from Slayers rise above the Artosis Protoss curse, make a trip down the Royal Road and live up to this new found hype following him?


IMHappy

MiniVP continues to be one of the most underrated players in the Starcraft universe, continuing to be consistent and improving under his mentor MVP. His mech play has to be considered the second best in the world behind MVP's, only rivaled by oGs' SuperNova. Happy has actually brought a lot of new mech builds to the GSL, showing the power of different unit compositions and taking his opponents off their feet with his innovative play.

Sadly, for Happy, his strongest match-up, TvZ, which is at a ridiculous 15-2, will not be showcased on Thursday, having to play against two Terran and a Protoss. Take away his amazing TvZ, and he is only 50% against the other two races, even though he has had strong performances against tough opponents like DongRaeGu, MC and Genius, beating all three in the past few months in Korea. For Happy to get out of this group, he will need to use his mech style to his advantage against the more bio-prone players in Alive and MarineKing. MVP has shown that, when played correctly, mech should beat bio, but it'll be a hard test against two of the best bionic users in the world.


MarineKingPrime

It's been a long time, MarineKing. Ever since the Super Tournament, MarineKing hasn't made a Round of 16 in any of the regular GSL's (not counting Code A) and hasn't been in a GSL final since his second loss to MVP almost a year ago. It finally feels like MarineKing is getting back in form, doing decently in both HomeStory and the Arena of Legends, and playing well in the past Code A season, getting past his idol Boxer in the final round, making a gigantic comeback in the third game of that set to get back into GSL.

I think Happy is the worst match-up MarineKing could have drawn in the first round. His mech play is patient and could frustrate MarineKing. If MKP wants to advance from this group, he's going to have to have some strong strategies planned and not jump into tank lines. If he can pick his battles at the right time and not suicide marines into the line of siege tanks, the rejuvenated King of Marines should have a great chance to make it out.

This will be a huge test to see if MarineKing can keep up with the newer age Terrans. A lot say that his bio play is going out of style, but if he can take down Happy, it'll be a huge statement that MarineKing is here to stay in Code S and definitely at the level of players who deserve to be there.


Predictions:

Brown > Alive
Happy > MarineKing
MarineKing > Alive
Brown > Happy
MarineKing > Happy

P.S: Artosis has to be right about a Protoss sometime, right? All aboard the new Protoss Hero Hype Train!