[Up/Down] Group C Preview/Group B recap (S5)

Match results from Live Report Thread by Shellshock1122.
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Back in Business

MVP.DongRaeGu clears Group B in first place with a 3 – 0 record.

It was a rough summer for DongRaeGu, but it finally seems like things are falling back into place for the former GSL champion. On Tuesday night, he defeated LG-IM_YoDa, SlayerS_Genius, and ST_Bomber to take first place in Up/Down match Group B, earning himself a spot in the year's final Code S. Combined with a crushing 4 – 1 victory in the OSL semi-finals, DongRaeGu is looking more like the elite Zerg of old – contrasting with the disappointing player who suffered quick eliminations from Code S and WCS Korea over the last couple of months.

While it's hard to say his opponents played tremendously well, wins are wins. YoDa was the first to fall, unable to capitalize on a good early hellion runby and tapped out to DongRaeGu's midgame muta-ling-baneling attacks on Antiga Shipyard. Bomber was forced to GG out before he could do anything, having his CC-first build countered by a fast pool from DongRaeGu.

DRG's old teammate and Code S finals adversary Genius put up the best fight of the bunch, and had the advantage of starting off the match by foiling an early pool rush from DongRaeGu. However, DongRaeGu played well to recover from his disadvantage, taking economic risks that paid off as Genius played out his own advantage safely. DongRaeGu then went mass mutalisks and put the hurt on Genius, damaging him enough to set-up a successful base-trade victory further down the line.

All in all, it was a good night for DongRaeGu, and he had the added bonus of not exposing any more of his ZvP than necessary ahead his OSL finals meeting with By.Rain. DRG only showed a fast pool build when he went up against Genius, and his 3 – 0 score was enough to excuse him from playing a needless second ZvP against Mini, the other Protoss in the group.

LG-IM_YoDa edges out ST_Bomber for second place.

Unlike some of the convoluted scenarios in six-man groups, the final outcome of Group B simply came down to one last match between YoDa and Bomber. In the course of the night, YoDa and Bomber had taken identical paths – defeating Genius and mini, but falling to DongRaeGu – to put them at a second place deadlock with 2 – 1 scores as they headed into their head to head.

It ended up being decided by a coin-flip – at least if you believe YoDa's post match comments. In a TvT duel on Entombed Valley, YoDa opened with a fast expansion + quick starport, an economically advantageous, defensive start against Bomber's fast banshee. While plenty of other players have come back from such deficits, YoDa said afterward he was so ahead he 'couldn't lose.' By the content of the game, we'll have to take YoDa's word for it, as he simply macroed up, made a mech army, and crushed Bomber with superior numbers.

Thus, YoDa makes it back to Code S after a painful, but surely educational debut season. In Bomber's case, he returns to Code A, to once more be called 'one of the best players not-in-Code S.'

Protoss players SlayerS_Genius and STX_Mini crushed.

So far, the Up/Downs haven't been kind to Protoss fans. Following JYP's elimination yesterday, Mini and Genius were banished to Code A as well, and this time in even more brutal fashion. The mercurial Genius had one of his worst nights in months, getting smashed by Bomber's marine-drop/hellion combo, failing to defend YoDa's two base all-in, and blowing an early lead after holding off DRG's zergling rush.

However, STX's Mini might have had it even worse, getting the opportunity to play just two games (both losses) before his elimination was ensured. While Mini was able to beat Flash with unique phoenix play in Code A, YoDa and Bomber took the GSL newbie to town. YoDa made short work of mini with a proxy barracks all-in, while Bomber took an economic lead with a CC-first build on Whirlwind and stomped mini in a one-sided macro game.

Luckily for Protoss fans, there will be plenty more chances in upcoming days, with players like PartinG, Seed, finale, and MC due to play – not to mention KeSPA players like Sang and Trap.

*Actually Season Five

Round robin, top two advance to Code S.

6. FXOasd

There isn’t that much data about asd as he is a player that has been dropping in and out of Code A after a brief stay in Code S nearly a year ago. He plays in enough tournaments to have some name recognition, but doesn't seem to do well enough to leave any kind of lasting impression outside 'another decent Korean Terran.' His run though Code A to reach the Up/Downs was decent, taking out Mana in the first round. But then he got punked by Maru, where his greedier openers were punished by Maru's more aggressive builds.

As far as we can tell, FXO seem to prefer him in TvT and TvZ snipes in team leagues, so he might feel okay about the group composition of two Terrans, one Zerg, and two Protosses. But even with that in mind, he’s probably the underdog in this group as the other two terrans in this group, Keen and Byun are both very accomplished in TvT. The one Zerg, Shine, looks at his best in TvZ, while PartinG is a PvT monster. There's also Trap, but his win and loss against SuperNoVa and Gumiho don't tell us much.

Even though I place asd at the bottom of the pack, we’ve seen players with less hope get by (Suhosin, I’m looking at you). Also, his games against Maru ended quickly due to build order losses, it's hard to say how he'll match up against Keen and ByuN. If he can take those pivotal matches, asd has a chance of making it through.


5. ByuNPrime

The last season was extremely tough for the Prime Terran as he got knocked out 0 - 4 by OSL finalist Rain in his Code S group. He then got beat by his teammate Creator, leaving Byun with nothing to do for a month until Up/Down matches just because he had the horrible luck of drawing two of the best PvT players in the world consecutively. The games themselves were generally long macro bouts where Byun would play well for a majority of the match, only to be eventually outplayed by Rain and Creator in the later parts of the game.

Byun is definitely strong in the match-up, and has used siege tanks to great effect as part of an alternative composition. Nevertheless, he has been on a downward trend in TvP since Seed took his soul 2 seasons ago and that kind of funk is hard to get out of. Because of that, Byun will have to depend much more on his TvT and TvZ (Both matchups he hasn’t played in a while on GSL) to get past this group, and possibly age some cheese to get past Trap and Parting and get back to Code S.


4. MVP.KeeN

Keen seems to be a man in turmoil. It has been 4 months since Nada ended one of the most abusive one-sided relationships in GSL history by retiring from SC2. With Nada’s retirement, it seemed that the way was clear for the Code S regular Keen as his personal demon had been put to rest.

Instead, Keen’s results have been marred by inconsistency. If Bomber didn’t exist, Keen would be the poster boy for inconsistent Terran performances in the GSL. One season, he’s going on a streak taking down MMA, Nestea, Gumiho and Squirtle. The next, he's losing to Heart, and then Mana and Bomber in Up/Down matches. In the most recent Code A, his run was stopped by the Ro32 officer, Sniper. After that disappointing loss, Keen then went on to beat Life in his GSTL match and nearly beat Curious in the Ace match. Keen struggles to find himself a place in the hierarchy that is GSL, constantly ping-ponging between mediocre and brilliant.

What Keen does have going for him is that he recognizes when he's not the favorite in a match, and is completely willing to cheese to try to get past them. This kind of mentality seems to do well in Up/Down Groups giving Keen a good shot at making it out. In addition to that, Keen’s TvT has generally been strong so I’m giving him a slight edge over his Terran brethren. Beyond that he can have fantastic TvZ, but his TvP is mostly untested, only having one recent game with Inori.


3. TSL_Shine

In the last Up/Down groups, Shine was able to get Suhosin into Code S. This time around Shine will be trying to do that for himself. Shine has always showed strong TvZ in the GSL, it's what got Suhosin into Code S even when Shine himself had nothing to play for. Added to that is the fact that he has been practicing a lot of ZvP as his last Code A match was against the Terminator. Unfortunately for Shine, terminator just used strong timing attacks to take out Shine in his Code A matches. Still, this is one of the better groups Shine could have landed in as he only has to practice two-matchups, while every other player in this group will be practicing for three. For that reason, I placed Shine as being a bit more favored than Byun and Keen despite being on a similar skill level.


2. STX_Trap

Trap got seeded into Code A on the back of his Proleague performances, and seemed to do very well at first. He first beat the PvP impaired Oz in the first round. He then beat a much more accompolished opponent in Supernova using great defensive scouting, pylon placement and troop movements to stifle Supernova’ style.

However, he then hit a brick wall in Gumiho as Gumiho stuck to his own style using a lot of multi-tasking and aggression to keep Trap on the back heel the entire game before dealing him a killing blow. Overall, he’s probably one of the strongest Kespa players left in the GSL. He’s already shown his PvT to be excellent. His PvZ is a bit unexplored, but he can always rely on a timing attack to kill lone-Zerg Shine, and in a PvP fight, KeSPA's Protosses have shown superior coin flipping technique thus far. If it wasn’t for the fact that non-KeSPA players love to cheese elephants, Trap would be my number one pick to make it out of this group.


1. ST_PartinG

Parting is a player that always does very well in everything he enters, only to fall short of first place like a true KongTale player. In WCS Korea, he got 3rd, WCS Asia, 2nd, and in OSL he reached the quarterfinals. While Parting was always a PvT specialist, his recent tournaments allowed him to show his PvZ and PvP strength. In PvZ, he’s beaten Curious twice and Roro once, thanks to his mastery of the all-powerful immortal all-in. For PvP, he’s been the first player to ever have the pleasure of beating both Korean Hero’s (the Zerg hero is next), and played well at WCS Asia until he hit the wall of By.Rain.

Overall, Parting has been an extremely solid player that rarely dies to cheese and is extremely dangerous to Zerg players in bo3’s, and even more so in best of ones. With three Terrans in this group, PartinG is definitely the favorite. He might not even have to practice for his single PvZ against Shine, since he's performed his immortal all-in so many times that he could pull it off in his sleep. The only real challenge for Parting will be the PvP with Trap which should still be slightly in his favor as he had to PvP his way through most of WCS Asia.