[Up/Down] Group B Recap

Due to typhoon Bolaven, Up/Down matches have been rescheduled so that there are no games on August 29th. Details at Gomtv.net

Results from Live report thread by Probe 1.
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On Target
– MVP.Sniper clears his group with a perfect record

MVP's Sniper showed that he wanted to waste no time putting last season's Code S disappointment aside, smashing through his group with a 3 – 0 record and confirming a spot in Code S Season 4. The promising Zerg player from MVP had shown high level games in both the GSL's lower leagues and the GSTL, but his first Code S appearance was cut abruptly short by super-veterans mTw.SuperNova and SK_MC. On the back of last night's Up/Down performances, another 0 – 2 for Sniper seems highly unlikely this time around.

Sniper dominated in his first game against FXOGuMiho, covering the entire map in creep and expanding at will as his opponent went for the recently popular banshee-heavy style of mech. Sniper took advantage of Zerg's strengths, tech switching from muta-bane-ling to mass roaches to make sure Gumiho never had the correct mech composition. After running rampant over Gumiho in the field in several battles, Sniper capped off the game with brood lords.

His second game against SlayerS_Puzzle was the toughest, as a dangerous two base immortal all-in proved to be almost lethal due to Puzzle's great use of force-fields. However, Sniper managed to barely hold out, and when Puzzle came with his follow-up all-in, he had enough infestors out to neutralize the Protoss force.

In the third and final game against ST_AcE, Sniper was in the driver's seat again. AcE established a strong three expansion base on Cloud Kingdom, but he fell apart helplessly to backdoor attacks from Sniper once he tried to move out on the map and conceded a fast GG. The following two matches in the group confirmed that no one could match Sniper's 3 - 0 record AND beat him in head-to-head as well, thus confirming him for Code S.

– GSTL hero Gumiho comes in second place

Despite dropping his first game to Sniper, Gumiho managed to go through in second place due to some solid play, and the luck that invariably factors into the Bo1 group play of the Up/Down matches.

Gumiho's second game saw him fend off a 4-gate from Puzzle for a remarkably easy win. His third game proved to be much harder, as he fell behind heavily to ST_Hack's hellion tactics in a mech TvT. However, Gumiho dug in and found a way to fight back, roasting Hack's SCVs with his own hellions and eventually forcing a highly advantageous base trade. Hack couldn't handle the base race nearly as well as Gumiho, and was forced to concede the game.

This put Sniper at 3 – 0, Gumiho at 2 – 1, Puzzle at 1 – 2, Hack at 1 – 1, and AcE at 0 – 3 in the group. Due to the fickle nature of head-to-head tiebreakers, Gumiho found himself in a situation where he could advance automatically in second if Puzzle managed to defeat Hack in the very next game. To Gumiho's fortune, Puzzle did just that, putting Hack away with his solid macro play on Cloud Kingdom. The two final games of the night were wiped off the schedule, and Sniper and Gumiho were free to go home early to enjoy their success.

Game of the Night
– FXOGuMiho vs MVP.Sniper on Antiga Shipyard – Free VOD

It wasn't the closest game of the night, but it was the most eye-catching in the context of recent trends. After Mvp showed his banshee-heavy TvZ mech style at IEM Cologne, we've seen other Terrans try to immitate his style. TheStC brought an almost exact copy of the build to MLG Raleigh (no doubt, thanks to IEM's near instant release of tournament replays) with which he defeated Leenock, while Gumiho brought his own tweaked variation against Sniper. The crux of Mvp's style is the way he maintains 4~6 banshees in the mid-games, and Gumiho made two starports to pump out cloaked banshees very quickly while making mass orbitals with his extra minerals.

The interesting thing was Sniper's response. After fending off the banshees, he went for a large muta-ling-bane attack, which managed to trade decently well with Gumiho's army while failing to break through his lines. Whether or not it was intended from Sniper, this caused Gumiho to focus on making thors and hellions, which would prove to be fairly useless against the incoming mass-roach transition. With a few corruptors mixed in to take care of lingering banshees, Sniper was able to crush Gumiho's army several times on the battlefield before finally finishing the game off with brood lords.

You can't give Sniper too much credit here, as Gumiho barely tried to harass past the early game (something Mvp consciously tries to do when he mechs) and managed to get his army composition wrong constantly, but it was still intriguing to see how a skilled Zerg played it out against what could possibly be a rising style.