[Code S] Ro16 Group C Recap / Group B Preview

Results from Live Report thread by pencil_ethics.

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Eyes on Five
- Four-time champion LG-IM_Mvp advances to the quarterfinals with victories over JYP and MKP, drawing Symbol in the Ro8.

Once again, Mvp rides into the final eight. We all know about his shortcomings, injuries, and sometimes inconsistent play in foreign events, but even with a damaged neck and wrists that should belong to a 90 year old secretary, Mvp was able to get through a group with a player of every race. It wasn't the most overly difficult group, EG.JYP.RC still having the stigma of being weakest Protoss against Terran, MKP being Mvp's personal win dispenser, and Curious coming down with the shakes whenever he reaches the Ro16. Even so, you can't take away the fact that Mvp took care of business like a champion.

JYP was able to take a game off of Mvp in their initial series, but Mvp was able to clinch the series 2 - 1 with a nice defense of the EG player's proxy gate in the final game. Even when Mvp is at his absolute worst and doesn't seem he can execute like he would want, his sturdy defense has always been able to keep him in games. Even if his opponent might be in better form than the injured champion, Mvp's ability to defend all-ins and pull off his own cheeses was the reason why he won the championship back in Season 2.

Going up against MarineKing in the GSL for the first time since November of last year, the same story unfolded. Unlike the Terran circle of Polt > MMA > Mvp > Polt that has actually been flipped on its head in 2012, MarineKing still doesn't know how to beat Mvp. Now, with Mvp's 2 - 0 victory over MarineKing, the four-time GSL champion now has a staggering 11-2 record against the three-time silver medalist in the GSL.

MarineKing got completely shutdown in the first game, his cloaked banshees getting smacked down by Mvp's predictive viking production. He tried to stay in the game after his build opening went as bad as humanly possible, but Mvp wouldn't let an advantage slip away. Going for delayed cloaked banshees of his own - something Mvp is known to do against players who open cloaked banshee against him - Mvp overwhelmed the weakened marine king by attacking him on all fronts.

The second game provided the best game of the night, with MarineKing and Mvp showing what makes them great. Mvp broke down MarineKing where he was weak, punishing MKP for his overextensions and lack of defense at home. Mvp was able to drop over and over again in MarineKing's main and expansions, ravaging his supply depots, add-ons and SCVs. When MarineKing would finally clean up Mvp's drop and push him out, he would neglect putting up a sensor tower or a ring of turrets, letting Mvp come back 30 seconds later and continue his onslaught.

MarineKing, not having the same patience and defense Mvp has, went for what he does best: innovative offense. When he couldn't break Mvp's wall of tanks, he picked up almost his entire army in dropships, maneuvered them past the siege line and went for a base trade. With the lack of defense at home, it was MKP's only chance at getting back and the game. For the first few minutes, it looked like it might actually pay off. He cleaned up a lot of Mvp's army, had a massive advantage in marines, and wrecked Mvp's main base.

The problem came down to the number of actual bases in the base race. After both mains were clearned out, Mvp still had a base up with 21 workers, while MKP had a few stray buildings and just two SCV's on the map. Even though MKP had a large number of marines, Mvp had too many leftover tanks protecting his remaining mining base. Being put in a checkmate position, MarineKing tried for one more desperate push with his army, but he was shredded by tank fire to bring the series to an end.

With advancement out of the group and only three series victories away from capturing an astonishing fifth GSL title, Mvp is inching closer to putting his legacy beyond the reach of any player in StarCraft II. Already the best player in the formative years of the game, Mvp's four titles mean he will be remembered as a StarCraft II legend even if he were to retire today.

Eight Feels Great
- MarineKingPrime goes beyond the Ro16 for the first time since the summer of 2011, beating Curious and JYP to take on Life in the next round.

Time to play Good News/Bad News with our contestant MarineKingPrime!

Bad News: You got beat down again by the guy who has given you nightmares since January 2011. If you make it to the finals and meet Mvp again, you might actually pass out before the games even start. You are now 2-11 against him in GSL, pretty much making yourself Mvp's win piñata.

Good News: You made the quarterfinals for the first time since the Super Tournament! Yeah, ST_Curious had the worst luck of any player in recent history, and JYPvT's might have been a bit over-hyped after his games against Supernova, but who cares? Round of Eight! Woooooooohooooo!

MarineKing might have not gotten the biggest monkey off his back, but he detached the second most annoying one, getting to the quarterfinals for the first time since his disastrous semifinal loss to MMA in last year's Super Tournament. Back then, MKP went up 2 - 0 against the SlayerS ace and was on the verge of his fourth finals, but he fell apart and lost three straight games to MMA (his teammate, Polt, would go on to win the only Prime championship in the GSL). Since then, he has bounced around Code A and Code S, getting through to the Ro16 of Code S and repeatedly failing to make it through in disappointing fashion.

This time around, the games weren't the prettiest, but he got the job done and that's enough for now. He got build order wins against ST_Curious in the first match of the night, got outplayed by Mvp in the winner's match, and then bopped JYP into oblivion in the final set of the night. All in all, it doesn't fill you with the greatest confidence that MarineKing has what it takes to make it all the way to the finals with the Ro8 shaping up to be the scariest it has ever been in history, but it's not like he was the most confidence inspiring player in the first place.

He was on fire in the early part of the year, winning MLG Winter Arena and Championship, but couldn't get it done in the GSL. MarineKing knows what it takes to make it to a final and even win a major championship, but nothing would match the happiness he would receive if he could finally win the big one in Korea. Continuing his journey to that dream, he will need to beat the one player that he did not want to face in the quarterfinal: ST_Life.

Life, in the past month, has gotten 2nd in TSL4, only losing to the equally young and scary Creator, gone 8-1 in Code S, and destroyed a recent MLG Online qualifier, going 10-1 as he tore through jjakji, Curious, Naniwa, Harrier and Keen. He is a player that is almost impossible to prepare against. He is not scared to six pool you five straight games and see what happens. He also wouldn't mind going into a 30+ minute game five straight games and having you lose to him in a macro game. A lot like MarineKing, Life brings a wealth of builds into their quarterfinal clash and won't be afraid of MarineKing's aggressive play.

Now What?
- ST_Curious goes down to Code A with an unlucky 0-4 record, and EG.JYP.RC falls to two Terrans, putting his JYPvT Revolution on hold for now.

ST_Curious: He still can't make it to the round of eight. This really seemed to be the season he would finally do it, beating MarineKing in the first round of this season's tournament, but it just didn't happen. He got smacked by a bunker rush in the first game, and his own baneling bust got shutdown in game two when MarineKing's hellions cleaned up all of his early zerglings. Then, he was lost 0 - 2 to JYP in the losers match, losing an early hatchery to cannon-rushes in both games. All in all, it was possibly the worst night in Curious' GSL career. Now in Code A again, he will try to qualify for Code S next season, do well in the first group stage, and repeat this process all over again. More likely than not, we'll just copy/paste this section next season when he suffers another Ro16 defeat.

EG_JYP_RC: Not a bad season. What else can you say? He beat Supernova twice, got a 2-0 victory over Curious, and lost to two tough Terran players. His PvT has improved mightily from where it was a few seasons ago, and if he can make it even better going into next season, JYP will be a dangerous player. If he had been put into a group with two Zergs and a Protoss instead of two Terrans, and we could have seen JYP in the Ro8 with just a few lucky draws away from the finals. He's an amazing PvZ player, and if his improvements in JYPvT continue in an upward trend, JYP will become a championship level Protoss.

Group B: ST_Squirtle, coL.Heart, FXOLeenock, Liquid`HerO


Match One: ST_Squirtle vs. coL.Heart,

The King of the Kongs is the headliner of Group B. Squirtle is the favorite going into this group as he’s just too solid compared to the rest of the players. Heart got this far on the back of all ins. HerO is famously inconsistent, even if he's over his nerves. Leenock thrives on aggression and unpredictability, but falters when those don't pay off for him. On the other hand, Squirtle has no discernible weakness, no weak match-up and no trouble with nerves (well, except when he's in game seven of the grand finals. But we'll deal with that when we get there). Already, Squirtle has slapped down Heart in the Ro32 last time to make it to this round. It's no surprise he picked Heart again as his stepping stone to move on.

Every story needs a villain and this season Heart is putting on an award-worthy performance. Heart is the final master of the 1/1/1 and 11/11. While other Terran villains such as BitbyBit, Rain, Puma and have fallen or given up their dastardly ways, Heart stayed true, becoming the true heir to a long line. While he managed to make it through the Ro32, he'll need all of his cunning and grit to make it out out of this group of much more formidable opponents.

The strength of Heart’s 1/1/1 comes from two thing. First is his ability to open with different types of aggression whether it be a banshee, hellion drop, or 2 rax pressure into the 1/1/1. The second is the fact that Heart can play a completely regular standard game and knows when to bring it out to his full advantage. This happened in his WCG games against Parting where he went 1-2 against the famed PvT player, but only playing macro games. For those who only saw his cheesy series against NaNiwa in Code S, they would have been shocked to see how close Heart was to winning the series.with straight up games. Still one could hardly blamed Heart if he tried to just 1/1/1 his way past Squirtle as it seems like there are few Terrans left that can play head to head with Squirtle in a macro game.


Match Two: FXOLeenock vs. Liquid`HerO

Hero should be coming into this group burning hot after his Ro32 performance where he crushed the likes of Symbol and Ryung. Hero’s strength has always been army engagements, multi-tasking and multi-pronged harass, and they were on full display in his last match against Symbol where he constantly harassed and attacked to accumulate small advantages all across the map. In the end, HerO was able to go into the final engagement with the scales tipped far in his favor.

The Prince of war was the last player to be picked into this group, having honor of being one of the players feared enough to be picked in the final four of the group selections. Still, this group will be hard for Leenock, especially starting off against an excellent PvZ player like HerO. Like HerO, Leenock likes to be aggressive and use multi-tasking. However, while HerO's harassment kicks in after he's reached the late-game, Leenock likes to speed the game up much earlier, using mutalisks, speedlings, and drops when he can. Even when Leenock can't kill his opponent outright, he can often take a big enough advantage to transition safely into hive and finish off his opponent.

This match between Hero and Leenock should be fast paced as both players like to be aggressive, looking for ways to be active with their armies at all times. HerO might have to play more defensively than he's used to, turtling up a little in the mid-game so he can safely launch his attacks in the late game. Expect an extremely even, quick tempo match, where either player could come out on top.

Winners match and Onward

At a glance, Squirtle should be the odds on favorite to get out of the group. He’s already stomped Heart once and got to choose him again. He should favored against both HerO and Leenock as well. Squirtle has one of the best PvP records in the GSL, and having honed it even further as he played several consecutive mirrors in WCS Korea. Against Leenock, he should be favored, able to play both all-ins and macro games very well. And of course, he has the PvZ silver bullet: the Ohana immortal-sentry all-in to take out Leenock for sure on one map.

Hero and Leenock are close behind Squirtle, vying for second place in this group. This makes the first match between them very important as that could very well decide the final outcome. Both players will have a tougher time against Squirtle, but should be confident against Heart. Heart will probably pose a bigger danger to HerO than Leenock, since his all-in style is most pronounced in TvP, while he chooses to play more standard TvZ games.

If Heart wants to move on, he’ll need some luck and try to meet Hero so he can try to 1/1/1 him. While Hero is quite strong against Terran, playing PvT with Heart is can be similar to playing PvP, where Terran can force the Protoss player into playing some life or death guessing games. In addition, Heart seemed confident enough to pick Hero over the other possible candidates during the group selection, which means he might have something in mind.

Heart could also try his luck beating Leenock in a straight up TvZ. He showed some strong macro-based TvZ against Sniper in the last round. His style was a bit old fashioned using the old sC style to constantly send armies of marines and tanks across the map, but it was good enough to batter down a good player in Sniper. Still I can’t see Heart beating Leenock in a series, and he's likely to finish last in the group. Even so, he was picked by almost everyone to fall out in last place in the Ro32, and he still made it. Heart is belongs to a particular breed of pro-gamer that will do anything to win, and it's dangerous to count him out.

Squirtle > Heart
Hero > Leenock
Squirtle > Hero
Leenock > Heart
Leenock > Hero

Squirtle and Leenock advance.