Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better – Squirtle impresses with an easy victory over Genius, immediately outdone by Seed's 2 - 1 over Gumiho three hours after landing in Korea.
The days of Protoss being the whipping boy of the GSL are over. Not only have they provided four of the six GSL finalists this year, but their dominance is continuing in WCS Korea. With Puzzle and Parting already waiting in the winners Ro8, and Hero facing off against Creator tonight for another guaranteed Protoss spot, Squirtle and Seed did their part to make it so that five of the eight quarter-finalists will be from Aiur.
Squirtle's victory over Genius was not unexpected. Genius told interviewers he barely wins against Squirtle on ladder, and the Pokemon Protoss transferred his ladder dominance over to the main stage with a quick 2-0 victory. Squirtle had Genius scouted from the get-go, purposefully picking Cloud Kingdom as the first map, knowing that Genius almost always used a blink-obs build on it. Genius fell into his opponent's trap, and Squirtle went up 1 - 0 early with a perfect counter build (DTs, knowing that Genius only builds one, offensive observer with the build).
Genius tried to go back to his roots by going for stargate play in the second game, but Squirtle decided to go the same route and built phoenixes as well. With better micro in the first battle between the two flocks, Squirtle got out to an early lead and never surrendered it. Genius had no answers for Squirtle's play, losing 0 - 2 and falling down to the losers' bracket, where he will need to string together a few victories if he wants to continue his dream of being the first two-time Blizzard Starcraft II champion.
Squirtle proved why he is the best PvP'er in the world and a definite top four Protoss in the world alongside Seed, MC, and his teammate Parting. He might not do the ceremonies that the other three do, and he might be considered the most boring of the current Aiur Elite Four, but Squirtle knows how to get the job done. With a date with his former WeMade Fox teammate Roro in the quarter-finals, Squirtle will try to finally kill the last remaining elephant in the upper half of the bracket. Other players on Squirtle's level might overlook a KeSPA opponent, but Squirtle will show his old teammate proper respect and face him as if he were going up against DongRaeGu.
Not to be outdone by a mere silver medalist, Seed continued his amazing streak of victories in the past month with a 2 - 1 triumph over Gumiho in the worst of conditions. After being given the daunting task of going from San Francisco to Korea, getting off a plane, and then taking a train ride directly to Mokdong studio for his WCS series, Seed showed the class of a GSL champion and possibly the best player in the world by fighting off the fatigue to advance to the winners Ro8.
He faltered in the first set, not looking like him champion-self, but turned on the afterburners when he realized he was one set away from getting sent to the losers bracket. Like so many times before, Seed actually became better once he was pushed against the wall, and he once more extricated himself from an impossible situation. With barely any sleep, no practice, and coming off playing (and winning) in a gigantic, almost ten hour team league final the day before, Seed pushed through it all and came back to win the next two sets with unparalleled concentration and stamina.;
It's not that Gumiho played badly, but Seed was simply better on the night. Even with all the elements thrown into the match, the current GSL champion made everyone realize that he is no fluke and will be here for a long, long time. Now, with his quarter-finals place booked, he will look forward to fighting for a chance for an Asian finals ticket next week against possibly an even tougher challenge, TSL's Polt.
Heads or Tails Fail – Polt extends his unbeaten series streak in Korea, stopping Tails' all-in in game three to advance into the winners quarter-finals
The first game set the tone for the entire series. Tails did the best he could, but got absolutely crushed under the superior macro and mechanics of Polt. After setting up a soft contain early in the game with a healthy dose of bio units, Polt didn't skip a beat on his production and gained himself a heavy economy lead. The Protoss had no answer for Polt's play, failing to establish a third over and over again, and getting pushed back into his own natural.
Things only got worse when Polt started to drop, Tails' defense being non-existent and letting the Terran player ravage his tech in his main base. With no HT's patrolling his main to stop medivacs, his army on one hotkey, and no plans on getting an army that could dish out AOE damage, Tails had zero chance of coming back in a game where he couldn't keep up with one of the best TvP'ers in the world. With Polt attacking from all sides, and Tails not having the economy to spread his army thin, it was over in a game that you would have thought was a Code S player vs. one of the newer transitioning KeSPA players.
Figuring that he had no chance in a longer game, Tails went for two all-ins in a row. First on Entombed Valley, after seeing that Polt had only one bunker up and predicting he was going for a greedier opening, Tails selected the ole' 4 Gate to try and pick up an easy victory. With a superior army count and Polt deciding to fight in the natural instead of going up the ramp until he could stabilize, Tails grabbed a quick second victory and wiped the slate clean after getting beat down on the first map.
Seeing that an early timing worked once, Tails went for a two immortal all-in in game two to try and advance into the quarter-finals. This time around Polt figured out there was something fishy from the start, scouting more diligently than in game two and placing up three bunkers before Tails attack came knocking on his doorstep. Not having medivacs in time for the fight, Polt saved his stim, knowing that he would only have one go for it, and then activated the ability at the perfect time to wipe out Tails' desperate attack to win the game.
Knowing he had lost, Tails tried to finally take his natural base, but it was too late. With a booming economy on two bases and tech, it was all over when Polt's army came in for a counter-attack. Using elevators tactics and making Tails try to save his natural expansion with a small army, Polt claimed his victory and advanced to the quarter-finals as the last remaining Terran in the winners bracket.
Now, as the last surviving member of his race on the winner's side, Polt will be facing off against Seed in next's Monday most anticipated match-up. With the pair being the only GSL champions still left on the top site of the bracket, only one will be able to confirm their place in the Asian finals and progress on into the semi-finals. Tails, in the late-game, was an easy opponent for Polt to handle, but it will be a gigantic step up in competition next week. With both players riding big winning streaks at major events coming into the quarter-final match-up, it will be a duel between possibly the two strongest players left in the winners bracket.
Uh oh, do we have another KeSPA upset coming? Taking a look back at the KeSPA > GomTV upsets, we can find a few similarities.
Zerg vs Terran: KeSPA players have been excellent in mid-game ZvT, although their ability to manage the late game has lagged behind. Mid-game is where SC II Zerg tends to be the most "zergy" in the Brood War sense, abusing mobility, springing traps, and backstabbing relentlessly to gain an advantage or just end the game outright. On the other hand, late game revolves around baby-sitting a bunch of excruciatingly slow, floating targets that have the durability of Indian automobiles, whose only redeeming quality is their ability to hurl annoying little bugs a reasonably far distance. Basically, they have to play Brood War PvT, and they're not very good at it.
Code A or below GomTV opponent: Hack and YuGiOh are good players, but you wouldn't say they're Code S quality. That's part of why they lost to Reality and RorO, because at the very worst, the KeSPA players are showing they can fight fairly evenly with Code A opponents. To be honest, Soulkey could have also taken at least one series for KeSPA, whether it was WCS or WCG if he didn't have to play the 'ARE YOU SERIOUS??' line-up of MMA, TaeJa, and Gumiho.
On a side note, we'll pretend RorO vs Leenock never happened.
Psychological advantage: Though a handful of GomTV players seem to welcome the variety of playing a new pool of opponents, and even look forward to an opportunity to put their yet-unprepared colleagues in their place, the majority of GomTV players appear to be scared out of their minds. Playing not to lose is one of the worst things you can do, but that's precisely what happens in many of these KeSPA vs GomTV games if the post-match interviews are to be believed. My favorite quote happens to come from Heart, after he beat ZerO to make it into the WCG South Korea tournament. "Good? Bad? I have no f***ing idea man, I was scared s***less. It's great that I have 3000 hours of muscle memory so I can grind out wins in games where I can't actually think straight" (many liberties taken in translation).
It's ironic, because that's probably the same way Heart has made a lot of his opponents feel during his various tournament runs. He went into the MLG Winter Season as almost a complete no-name, yet came out with a third place finish as he cheesed and all-in'd fearlessly. I suppose it's easy to be fearless when there are absolutely no expectations on you. And it must suck to have the tabled turned on you, as Heart learned with the KeSPA players.
Anyway, all of this suggests we're on the verge of another upset. It's ZvT, sC has been slumping miserably for a while (Genius 'jokingly' tweeted about sC's 2000+ League of Legends rating), and while he's not really a choker, sC probably falls in the middle of the pack for mental fortitude. At the same time, Jaedong hasn't looked quite as good at Zerg as Roro or Soulkey, but that's nothing a few hours of watching Stephano's stream can't fix.
According to some betting sites, DongRaeGu is over a 1:3 favorite to beat Effort. That's patently absurd, and is one of the lines that has made me contemplate moving to Australia or New Zealand so I can legally bet on Starcraft matches.
Here's some intensely flawed, but oddly compelling logic: Effort is 6 – 0 in Proleague ZvZ, and 3 – 0 against RorO specifically. RorO is 2 – 1 against Leenock (goddammit, I thought we were forgetting that happened), who in turn beat DongRaeGu who was playing the hardest he possibly could in one of the most important matches of his career. Ergo, Effort > DongRaeGu.
Alright, maybe it's too early to say that, but does he have a serious chance at scoring an upset? Hell yeah.
On a more serious note, ZvZ definitely has some of the mirror match-up flukiness to it, but it's nowhere near being as volatile as PvP. It's possible for great players to largely transcend the volatility of the match-up – in particular, it's worth looking at the games of the extremely defense oriented ST_Life. DongRaeGu actually used to be one of those players, and at one point his ZvZ was probably the best in the world. However, he's presently crashing and burning in one of the most epic free falls we've ever seen from a progamer who used to be THE best in the world. At some point he's going to make his recovery, but unfortunately, he may have to hit rock bottom before he can begin the process.
It's great that the bracket worked out in a way that the Gom players who lost to KeSPA players before will have a chance to avenge themselves. As mentioned above, the fear of shaming oneself and one's peers must have played a factor in some of the GomTV players' losses, and a repeat match might help us learn exactly how big an influence it was.
The situation has changed a bit since the opening week of WCS. While GomTV players are still favored against KeSPA players, the fact that several players lost – including a champion caliber player in Leenock – makes further losses much more excusable. Also, in the case of YuGiOh, he'll have the experience of playing against a KeSPA player in his pocket. The second time around, he might have stopped seeing them as mystical beings, coming to compete from a parallel universe. Instead, he'll be able to look at them for what they are: good, but not great competitors who could probably tough it out in Code A. And as we all know, YuGiOh is the King of Code A.
After seeing last week's games where Mvp beat Polt in marine-tank vs marine-tank with two exploding wrists, and Happy choked ridiculously hard against TAiLS, I'm convinced that Mvp could beat Happy even if his hands became paralyzed mid-match and he had to play with his elbows instead.
Prediction: Mvp 2 – 0 Happy
Bonus Match!
Okay, it's not really a bonus match, but with only three Winners Ro16 games yesterday, one of them was moved to today. Yup, Liquid's HerO got to play with a day of rest, while Seed had to play right off the plane. Why? I have no idea, but I imagine it had something to do with Liquid's management being on the ball and asking for a schedule change way, way beforehand.
In the cruelest match of the evening, HerO gets to play a top tier Protoss player in his worst match-up three days after having his soul crushed by a different one. You couldn't really blame HerO for falling into a catatonic state, with "f*** PvP" being the main thought on his mind. On top of that, a ridiculously jet-lagged Seed managed to defeat a top-tier Terran player in Gumiho yesterday, going directly to the GomTV studio after getting off the airplane, which means that even if HerO wins here, he'll have been outdone by Seed once more (completely tangentially, the way Symbol, Byun, and HerO looked completely crushed after getting beat by Seed makes me think that his long Code S absence was due to him taking a year off to study black magic.)
Creator is looking as strong as ever, coming off a 3 - 0 vs CoCa, 2 - 1 vs DRG, and 3 - 0 vs SeleCT. He might have lost to NaNiwa the last time he played a best of three PvP in the GomTV studio, but that's hardly a blemish considering that NaNiwa is one of the best PvP players in the world (on this point, let there be no controversy). Though Creator hasn't proven that his PvP is as good as his terrifying PvT or PvZ yet, he's accumulated so much momentum going forward, it's hard to pick against him here.
Prediction: Creator 2 – 0 HerO
Last edit: 2012-08-14 13:55:56
PhoenixVoid Canada. August 14 2012 11:52. Posts 8598
Proves that he is here to stay?? He is still in his gsl champion form. he could very easily fall off soon. wait at least another month before making claims of consistency.
NovemberstOrm Canada. August 14 2012 12:00. Posts 4007
JD v SC is the one I'm really looking forward to, still loving getting to see these kespa guys play against the koreans I already know. I would also say MVP v Happy cuz I though Happy looked good TvT a while back, but I can't help but think of the Game Genie Terran's wrists during his match and cringing
and finally: GoGo Liquid`HerO!!!!!!!
I got a disease, and the only cure is MOAR ESPORTS!
AgentW United States. August 14 2012 12:29. Posts 2330
Yo I bet hero is gonna fuck creator man.. just saying. Good read thanks for this :D and I bet that effort will still lose against drg... although I think it may be close because I love effort. GOING TO BE AWESOME!
Adapt and React I MKP, PartinG, CoCa <3
opterown Australia. August 14 2012 12:33. Posts 27555
According to some betting sites, DongRaeGu is over a 1:3 favorite to beat Effort. That's patently absurd, and is one of the lines that has made me contemplate moving to Australia or New Zealand so I can legally bet on Starcraft matches.
hmmmm dammit i have never bet on an sc2 match before but this sounds tempting lol
live report calendar: http://goo.gl/qc4eD
iiGreetings Canada. August 14 2012 12:38. Posts 546
According to some betting sites, DongRaeGu is over a 1:3 favorite to beat Effort. That's patently absurd, and is one of the lines that has made me contemplate moving to Australia or New Zealand so I can legally bet on Starcraft matches.
hmmmm dammit i have never bet on an sc2 match before but this sounds tempting lol
Sounds so amazing eh.. but i would avoid it lol.
Adapt and React I MKP, PartinG, CoCa <3
bittman Australia. August 14 2012 12:42. Posts 7257
MVP v Happy might be cool if they both go for their penchant Mech TvT styles. Potentially match of the night. Potentially not also, Happy has never reached the same heights as before.
JD v sC everyone is looking forward to because of JD, but I'm here for sC. Such a talented kid, I keep waiting for his 'return'.
Oh and DRG losing to effort? If he does I consider DRG is potentially actually in a slump. Odd isn't it that people are basically calling DRG in a slump because he lost 0-3 to MC and in GSTL vs Leenock. DRG is constantly touted, when he's on point, as the greatest player because he is great at all 3 matchups. This is no offence to effort, but DRG in form has a ridiculous win rate in ZvZ. If DRG looks on point and effort wins or makes it look close then effort is surely already at a Code S standard of ZvZ. No buts.
On August 14 2012 12:42 bittman wrote: Oh and DRG losing to effort? If he does I consider DRG is potentially actually in a slump. Odd isn't it that people are basically calling DRG in a slump because he lost 0-3 to MC and in GSTL vs Leenock.
drg has also lost to polt, hero and creator, not just mc/leenock. it's pretty much straight losses for a while =/
Last edit: 2012-08-14 12:45:39
live report calendar: http://goo.gl/qc4eD
LowEloPlayer United States. August 14 2012 12:51. Posts 181
On August 14 2012 12:00 hyptonic wrote: Proves that he is here to stay?? He is still in his gsl champion form. he could very easily fall off soon. wait at least another month before making claims of consistency.
Oh please stop hating on Seed already. I was mad, too, after he beat Symbol, but after seeing him rape MC in the finals and BM everybody and not give a fuck, I've realized that he's a baller. Also, he beat TaeJa in a TvP. You have to be pretty fucking good to do that.
Australia. August 14 2012 12:29. Posts 27555
