[GSL] Code S Ro16 Group C / Code A Recap (S4)

Results from Live Report thread by Shellshock1122.

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Wiped Out
– mouz.MaNa and mionix.NaNiwa eliminated, leaving no foreigners in the GSL for the first time.

There have been plenty of jokes about the word "Global" in Global StarCraft League for a long time, but much of the humor went out of it on Tuesday night. MaNa and NaNiwa, the last remaining non-Korean players in the GSL, were eliminated from Code A by Korean players FXOasd and STX_Mini. As a result, for the first time since the GSL ceased to be an open tournament and required qualifiers instead, there are zero non-Korean players left in the GSL.

MaNa looked to be off to a good start, defeating asd in his first game on Antiga Shipyard with solid macro play, building up a strong three-base foundation and shredding his opponent with zealots and storms. However, in an unexpected blast from the past, it was the infamous 1/1/1 that got the last laugh. asd utilized the one-base all-in twice in a row, taking games two and three to eliminate the Polish Protoss from the competition.

Fellow foreigner NaNiwa couldn't avoid the same fate, falling 0 – 2 to KeSPA Protoss Mini. While NaNiwa had profited greatly from PvP during his two quarter-final runs in Code S, it failed him when the situation was most dire. He failed to break Mini with an immortal heavy attack in the first game, while he was crushed in a near-max late-game colossus war in the second.

In the past, a combination of generous foreigner seeding and a relatively forgiving relegation/promotion system allowed at least one foreigner to survive in the GSL at all times. Now, looking ahead to GSL Season Five, there's a real chance it will be an all-Korean tournament unless the GSL decides to practice its brand of seed-giving welfare once more.

– KT_Flash defeats MVP.SangHo as KeSPA and non-KeSPA players split series 3 – 3

As expected, Flash defeated Killer to make it past the first round. However, it wasn't the drubbing many expected, considering one player's nickname is 'God,' while the other recently re-joined a Korean team because he had allowed his skill level to fall drastically.

In games one and three, everything went the way Flash wanted, allowing him to repeat a victory pattern from previous games. His Protoss opponent eschewed storm to go for colossi heavy compositions, allowing Flash to win in a fairly simple manner, using his impeccable macro and ideal army compositions to almost a-move his opponent to death.

However, things didn't go well at all in the middle game, where one base openers (an immortal-gateway attack from Killer, and a 1/1/1-esque build from Flash) cancelled each other out and left both players left transitioning awkwardly into the mid-game. Killer ended up getting the better of the situation, using a DT switch to do a large amount of damage to Flash as he tried to move out from his two bases. Flash ended up committing to an all-or-nothing attack, one which Killer was able to clean up easily with gateway units to take the game.

While Flash's ability to take build order leads and macro with near perfection has been very impressive so far, his series against Killer will leave some fans wondering how he will fare against more elite Protoss opposition when he's not allowed to play his game.

In other KeSPA vs ESF news, the split was even at 3 - 3. While Flash and Mini won as mentioned above, MaruPrime defeated EffOrt as the CJ Zerg tried to all-in three times in a row. Effort succeeded once and failed twice, falling out of the tournament. Maru deserved much credit for his inspired defensive action, displaying some incredible micromanagement to hold off attacks while going for greedy builds.

STX_Last and TSL_Shine fought a very close series against each other, highlighted by a fantastic first game on Whirlwind where Shine barely beat out Last's Mvp-mech style with brood lords. At the end of the day, the TSL Zerg defeated the OSL quarter-finalist 2 – 1, but on the strength of the gameplay from both players, it was no shame for Last to be eliminated so early in the GSL.

As expected, aLive defeated the relatively unknown by.hero from Team Eight (the third 'hero' so far) 2 – 0. aLive had it both ways, crushing his opponent with a cheesy two-rax bunker rush in the first game, and 'spooned' his opponent to death with Mvp-mech in the second.

No Star Hoseo
– Jjakji eliminated from Code A, leaving no NS HoSeo players in the GSL

Foreigners weren't the only faction eliminated from the GSL. Former GSL champion and NSH ace jjakji was dumped from the GSL in unceremonious faction, losing to KeSPA Player sOs (aka sHy) 0 – 2. While Jjakji had fallen considerably since his championship winning prime, his TvP was shown to be quite strong in recent tournaments, making it a particularly surprising loss.

The first game on Antiga Shipyard saw sOs get ahead with good blink stalker harass after his fast expansion, after which Jjakji opted to do a massive all-in in the mid-game, pulling a huge number of SCVs to go attack with his medivacs and infantry. Jjakji came close to breaking his opponent's defensive line, but sOs was able to hold out by a narrow margin. In the second game, sOs killed off NSH's hope in a particularly cruel and anti-climatic fashion, using a 4-gate + warp prism all-in to end the series.

Match One: LG-IM_Mvp vs EG.JYP.RC

Hmmm... The famously awful PvT player JYP (35% winrate), a player who has never made it to the Ro8 in the GSL, going up against four-time champion Mvp, who happened to win his most recent championship by beating only Protoss players from the Ro8 onward. The conclusion is so obvious, it's downright suspicious. Just to make sure nothing is wrong here, we'll go over the reasons Mvp might lose as an exercise.

As we've always said before, even when JYP had a PvT win rate in the 10 percent range, his actual PvT was never that bad. Maybe it was below average, but you just can't become a progamer with a 10% win rate in a match-up. More than his actual skill, it was a mental block keeping him down when he played PvT in the GSL booth, causing a self-reinforcing cycle of self-doubt and second-guessing that made him blow leads and collapse in spectacular fashion.

With a few weeks off playing PvT, JYP managed to cast his mental shackles off as he started GSL Season Three, showing confidence and playing some pretty good games. He's 9 – 3 since July, taking down opponents like FnaticRCRain (a 'should-win'), ThorZaIN (decent win), Hack (impressive), and SuperNoVa (also impressive). From fending off deadly all-ins to playing late macro games, JYP actually looked like a solid TvP player these past months, as unbelievable as it might be for long time followers.

On the other hand, Mvp's TvP has been going in the opposite direction since GSL Season Three. After his miraculous win against Squirtle in the Season Two finals, he's lost to Genius, Oz, Flying, and PartinG for a 0 – 5 record in Korea. He has been pretty good abroad, going 4 – 0 against Grubby and Feast at IEM Cologne, but I doubt those two would be insulted if I said the aforementioned Korean Protosses are better players.

Early game attacks have been particularly troublesome for Mvp, as various one and two base attacks have taken him out before he's been able to execute his game plan. If JYP has picked up on this – how could he not have, with almost two weeks to prepare for this match? – he could be the next Protoss to take an easy win off Mvp.

Well, I guess if we put it like that, a JYP upset really is a possibility, as unlikely as it would have seemed three months ago.

...Nah.

Prediction: Mvp 2 – 1 JYP


Match Two: ST_Curious vs MarineKingPrime

To no one's surprise, Curious (who has the distinct honor of having the only non-acronym ID in the group) and MKP have made it into the Ro16. Curious is probably the best textbook Zerg player in Korea, while MKP might be the most mechanically gifted pro-gamer in the entire world. They are players you'd expect to be making it into the semi-finals and challenging for championships, but somehow in the GSL, they find the Ro16 to be a barrier that's as impenetrable as Code B is for foreigners.

It's particularly shocking in MKP's case, as he failed to make it past the Ro16 even when he was winning MLGs left and right earlier this year, becoming the consensus #1 player in the world. For him, we're willing to put it down to variance or bad luck. Getting stopped before the Ro8 three seasons in a row? An improbable sequence for MKP, but nothing you can draw any conclusions from. If he gets stopped again this season, then maybe there's something worth talking about.

As for Curious, we're almost certain it's mental hurdles that have kept him from passing the Ro16. When he had his first big breakout, he utterly destroyed Code A (in the past, a tournament that actually had its own champion) with an incredible 13 – 0 run to get directly into Code S. However, once Curious reached Code S, he just looked like a different player, independent from the higher quality of opponents. The game sense, the decision making, and the attention to detail that made Curious look completely on top of things at all times in Code A were nowhere to be seen. Even then, he played well enough to stay afloat in Code S, coasting along for five consecutive seasons despite not playing up to his potential.

There's a chance that this could be Curious' second break-out season, where he goes from Code S regular, to someone who's regularly in the championship picture. In interviews, he's said he's made a lot of progress in getting over his nervousness when playing in Code S, and it showed in a fantastic Ro32 performance where he crushed MC and MKP with great play. Perhaps the problem was that he was taking things a little too seriously before, consciously stifling all emotion and earning himself the name "Poker Face." At the Ro16 group ceremony he was the most jovial of all the players gathered, cracking jokes and maintaining big banana grin.

MKP and Curious already faced off once before in the Ro16, where Curious won the series 2 – 1. The games Curious won were your typical infestor backed hive-tech streamrolls, while MKP won a game with strong mech play on Entombed Valley. After the games, Curious was nonplussed about the loss to mech, saying that he just guessed wrong and suffered a loss as a result. If that's really all there was too it, he better hope he doesn't guess wrong twice this time.

This should be an extremely close series, but I'm giving it to Curious here. Typically I pick conservatively, not giving a player credit until he's proven he can win at least once at a given level of a tournament. However, MKP seems to be running in place for the last few months, while Curious' recent play has been convincing enough for me to believe he's over his nerve issues and ready to take it to the next level.

Prediction: Curious 2 – 1 MKP.


Winners Match and Onward

Given that PvZ is his best match-up, beating Curious twice would have been JYP's best chance to get through. Unfortunately for him, that's an impossible scenario, and he will have to defeat at least one Terran player to get through. In a way, it sets up a nice personal challenge scenario for JYP: Overcome his weakest match-up once and for all, and he'll be rewarded with passage into his first GSL Ro8. On the flip side, there would be no more cruel scenario than for JYP to defeat a Terran, and still get eliminated from this group.

MKP would be more than happy to flex his TvP muscles against JYP, but you have to wonder how he feels about going up against Mvp. To put it bluntly, Mvp's been the player who has single-handedly crushed more of MKP's hopes and dreams than all other players combined, defeating him in two GSL grand-finals and eliminating him from a few other tournaments just for kicks. However, it's been ages since they last played against each other, and MKP has grown a lot since then. Should they meet again, we'll see if MKP has fear in his heart, or vengeance.

Curious, well... He could be the best player in this group if he can play up to his potential. He has nothing to fear from Mvp, unless he pulls some new game-changing style of play out of his a** after ruining Zerg lives everywhere by introducing his banshee-mech to the world at IEM Cologne. Knowing Mvp, it's a possibility. JYP is deadly at all phases of PvZ, and might actually be the toughest opponent Curious has to face, but he'll be 50/50 against him at worst.

As for Mvp, he's Mvp. You have to believe he's always a title contender in the GSL. His run through Code S Season Two to win the championship, when none of his performances for the months prior suggested that it was even a possibility, tells us that "knowing how to win" is the most powerful attribute a player could want. He might have gone out in the Ro16 last season, but that doesn't stop him from being yet again, one of the most dangerous players in the tournament.

Predictions:

Mvp > JYP
Curious > MarineKing
Curious > Mvp
MarineKing > JYP
Mvp > MarineKing

Curious and Mvp advance