[Code S] RO32 Group C Recap/Group D Preview

Results from Live Report Thread by opterown.
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Tried and True
– Keen defeats Squirtle with consecutive proxy-barracks rushes to advance to the RO16

They say that if you can't learn from the past, you're doomed to repeat it. It's a saying Squirtle should have taken to heart, as he could have avoided reliving the most painful defeat of his career. In a near repeat of game seven of the Code S Season Two finals, Squirtle was faced with a proxy 11/11 barracks all-in, held it off with almost perfect micro, and then threw the game away after moving out too quickly against his opponent's follow-up all-in. Then, he lost to the same strategy again.

Fortunately for Squirtle, the stakes were much lower this time around. His opponent was MvP.Keen in the Code S RO32 winners' match, and while the defeat meant Squirtle lost a chance to advance as the first place player in his group, he was still able advance by defeating ThorZaIN in the final match of the night.

"I haven't been able to bring myself to watch game seven yet." said Squirtle during the post-match press interview. "It's a hard strategy to stop... ...I think I'm particularly bad at stopping it."

For Keen, there was no devious motive in reviving his opponent's most painful memories. After dropping the first set to Squirtle in a macro-game on Daybreak, he adopted a purely utilitarian mindset: "After losing the first game, I thought Squirtle was better than me. So I gambled." The decision to use the strategy twice in a row had a similarly simple explanation "It worked in the second set, so I used it again."

Jävla Protoss
– ThorZaIN impresses against Gumiho but drops four sets to Squirtle in third place finish

With less than a day to prepare, jet-lag working against him, and not enough time to even familiarize himself with the new GSL maps, the deck was heavily stacked against ThorZaIN in his Code S debut. Yet, ThorZaIN managed to make the best of a bad situation, surpassing (albeit, low) expectations to finish as third place in his group.

ThorZaIN faced Squirtle in his first and final matches, where the Startale Protoss brutally dominated the Dreamhack champion with four different strategies including his famed "Squirtle" colossus timing. However, in between two tough series losses, ThorZaIN found the time to impress the Korean viewers as well.

Going up against Gumiho, a previous Code S semi-finalist in the losers' match, ThorZaIN came back from a 0 – 1 deficit to win in three sets. ThorZaIN even managed to put his own particular style stamp on the series, winning the final set with battlecruisers after thirty minutes, an impressive amount of time to drag out a game where he took an enormous lead with an early 4-barracks attack.

By finishing in third place, ThorZaIN now starts off in the second round of Code A, and has a guaranteed spot in the Up/Down matches for Season Four.

Game of the Night: Keen vs Gumiho – Game Two – Cloud Kingdom

In the hands of entertaining players like TSL_Symbol and NSH_Freaky in the GSTL, ZvZ has been making a good case to become the new 'best mirror' of Starcraft II. However, Gumiho hit back for the reigning champions, showing why GomTvT still reigns supreme.

Using the mobility of vikings and hellions to constantly attack and harass Keen, Gumiho produced yet another one of his trademark games where everything broke down and chaos reigned supreme. Gumiho showed that you can turn the standard mech paradigm of safe and slow on its head, and that when you do so, it can produce some fantastically entertaining results.

LG-IMMvp, ZeNEXSuhosin, LG-IMHappy, Genius

Finally, the defending champion is back in action. LG-IMMvp has started to resemble a superstar prizefighter, a competitor who chooses his fights and opponents carefully, distancing himself from taking needless risks lest he tarnish his image. For Mvp, less is truly more – and as long as he keeps winning championships, no one can really blame him for taking this approach.

I'm going to agree with NaNiwa here: Mvp is no longer the most skilled player in the world. However, his wealth of experience, deviousness in mindgames, and ability to play even better under pressure make him the very best player. His match against Squirtle in the Code S finals was like the legendary bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, where an older, physically dominated Ali won through a combination of grit and intelligence.

Alright, onto the group. While I've made a personal promise to never, ever doubt Mvp again – this is one of those groups where I would have picked him to advance, even if I were not a born again Mvp-tian.

Let's look at his first opponent, ZeNEXSuhosin (previously known as ZeNEXLine). Suhosin is an unremarkable, good player, who's probably going to end up being this tournament's BBoongBBoongPrime. For those of you who don't remember, the very competent, unremarkable B4Prime combined decent play with some luck in the Up/Down matches and made it to Code S last season. Previous finalist Genius immediately realized that B4 was one of the weakest of the 32 players in the tournament and shrewdly picked him as his first opponent, taking an easy victory in the first match.

When you think about how Suhosin plays in the GSTL and Code A, it wasn't completely out of the question that he would make Code S again one day... but he would need to play at his highest level, and also get a bit lucky in terms of other players' match results. All of that happened for Suhosin in his Up/Down group, and he advanced after defeating Polt and Vines in some tight tie-breakers. Obviously, Mvp wasn't impressed, as he picked Suhosin as his first opponent.

The complicating factor here is that Mvp picked Suhosin before the full implications of the Queen range buff became apparent in ZvT. Zergs have prioritized creep spreading and figured out how to take their thirds both safely and greedily, causing a veritable downpour of Terran tears. However, since I have "don't doubt Mvp" tattooed on the back of my hand (for maximum visibility when typing dumb predictions), I'm just going to say that Mvp will win anyway, and the ZvT problem is more of an issue for...

...LG-IMHappy, a guy who we used to call Mini-Mvp before we figured out that comparing anyone to Mvp is pretty much sacrilege. Happy was briefly lost when we reshuffled the Terran deck and discarded most of the redundant cards, but he's looking good again these days. His TvZ hasn't been so hot, but then again, a lot of people seem to say that's the new problem match-up in this game. His TvT, on the other hand, has been quite impressive, and he's used interesting bio-mech into full mech strategies to defeat both Ryung and fOrGG in Code A. However, those two were players on different teams, and it will be much harder to try to innovate against a fellow LG-IM teammate in Mvp. Of course, TvT and TvZ are things he can worry about later, because he first has to get through...

...MvP.Genius. Well, not anymore. Genius recently removed the "MvP" tag from his twitter, a 100% indicator so far in Starcraft II that someone has indeed, left his team. Strangely enough, I don't think it influences this group at all. The former oGs guys (TheStC, HerO, fOrGG, Jookto, Vines) all suffered from losing their team, teamhouse, and practice environment, but that's because they were more or less, standard Korean progamers. If anything, that's what Genius is the furthest from. Genius has always been an odd-ball; a lazy, talented player who found a way to cleverly (or infuriatingly, depending on your point of view) stay in Code S at all costs. Happy has the longest average game time of any GSL player, and Genius has a ridiculous win-rate in games over 25 minutes. It's not to hard to envision a scenario where he manages to hold out until 200/200 and defeats Happy, in spite of the LG-IM Terran's careful preparations.

Overall outlook and prediction

The major takeaway from the previous Code S was to stop doubting guys who know how to win. For Mvp, that rule applies up to the grand finals, while for Genius, it's usually relevant until around the RO16 at least. Happy and Suhosin are good players, but just not good enough that you'd ever want to pick them over proven winners in Code S.

Mvp > Suhosin
Genius > Happy
Mvp> Genius
Suhosin > Happy
Genius > Suhosin

Mvp and Genius advance.