[Up/Down] Group E Preview/Group D recap (S5)

Match results from Live Report Thread by Shellshock1122.
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Out in a Flash

Hot start for KT ace is a Flash in the pan.

Everything was coming together perfectly. Flash, possibly the greatest player in Brood War history, and the most hyped player in the SC2 community following the KeSPA transition, started out with a very clean, dominating victory against former Code S champion Seed. While the LG-IM Protoss didn't play perfectly, having bad positioning in battles and letting Flash destroy a critical third base for free, it was still a good first statement for Flash in the group. He played the best player in the group, a recent Code S champion, and stomped him into the ground.

In his second game, he faced a totally different kind of opponent. FXOSirius was the only player in the group who wasn't expected to have even a narrow chance at getting out of the group, and everyone was looking to Flash to welcome him to the Up/Downs with a thrashing. Sirius went for an early pool, Flash went for a double proxy rax, and the rest was history. Flash's decision making was better, had the better micro, and was able to get his bunker up in Sirius' natural before it could be taken down by the rag tag group of zerglings and queen.

With the strategy of making a ton of marines and denying a third for Sirius, Flash waltzed across the map, told Sirius to do his worst and waited for his opponent's banelings to form. With a beautiful arch of tanks and a split of marines, Sirius rolled to his death and watched his army turn into green goo in seconds. Flash gained his second victory and was one map win away from pretty much guaranteeing himself a spot in Code S.

Then everything fell apart. Similar to his OSL quarterfinal against Last, up 2 - 0 and only needing a single win to advance on to greater glory, he simply couldn't keep the momentum going and seal the deal. Going up against former KT teammate mTw.SuperNova in the next set, he couldn't stop the heavy drop action from his opponent. Any time he moved out of his base, the mTw player would be dropping his made with hellions or counter attacking with Flash scurrying back home to try and stop the bleeding. Flash tried to keep himself in the game, but with Supernova severely delaying Flash's third base and having drop after drop work in Flash's main, it was only inevitable when Flash was handed his first loss in the group.

It all came down to his game vs. Ryung. A win and he was in, and a loss would mean that he would have to put all his hopes into Sirius, the weakest player in the group, somehow upsetting the recent champion Seed. In one of the best TvT's of the year, Ryung and Flash went blow for blow, tilting back in forth in positioning, and putting on a truly classic game during a week where most of the Up/Down matches were disappointingly one-sided. Flash, for the second straight game, had to play from behind and did his best to keep himself in the game.

Finally, after an almost fifty minute game, Flash couldn't stand up any longer in the all out brawl the two players just went through. He won many major battles, and his macro was off the charts, but Ryung had done a better job of playing with the big picture in mind. Knocked down and nearly knocked out of the group, Flash had to watch all his hopes and dreams of making Code S get thrown on the shoulders of Sirius, the player with the worst score in the group.

A victory from Sirius would mean that everyone in the group would be 2-2, giving us the first ever five-way tie in Up/Down history and make everyone play the group all over again. Sirius didn't get embarrassed by Seed, but couldn't hold in the final parts of the game, dropping to 1-3 in the group and denying us the tiebreak from hell and a chance to get Flash in Code S.

With Flash now seeded down in the bottom of Code A for next season, people will have to at least wait until the start of 2013 for him to make his Code S debut. After the elephant domination of late, the Up/Downs and Code A have tilted the momentum back to the non-KeSPA players. mini, Trap and Flash, some of the best KeSPA players since the switchover to SC2, all failed in their first attempt in the Up/Down matches. With only five KeSPA players confirmed for next season's tournament, Terminator will be the last hope of the elephant race come tomorrow. If he loses, we will have found out the true counter to elephants: the Up/Downs.


SuperNova fails to capture NesTea award

As sad as it must be for many Flash and KeSPA fans that their God wasn't able to make it to Code S, the saddest story of the night was Supernova's failure to make it into his 10th straight Code S season. Though he is not the most popular or hyped player, Supernova always had one thing going for him: he was consistent. There would always be players with a better story surrounding them, or a player with a more exciting play style, but you could always look at the next season of Code S and see Supernova ready to play. He was a constant along with Nestea since almost the beginning of the GSL.

Now Supernova has lost the thing that defined him. Going 2-2 in the group and losing a tiebreaker to Ryung, Supernova will be in Code A for the first time since he lost in the finals of the tournament a year and a half ago against Losira. Supernova has been out of Code A so long, that the last time he actually started there for a season, Code A was still a tournament where an actual finals took place for $1,000.

Supernova played well in the last two games of the night, but the first match against Ryung was truly the point that will haunt him for the next few months. Doing a build that almost no one could make sense of, Supernova went for early blue flame, but only produced two hellions. Switching out of that and going cloaked banshee, it still wasn't enough due to Ryung getting a faster cloaked banshee of his own. With no defense at home due to his early commitment to hellions, Supernova had to watch the game end awkwardly with Ryung sniping workers effortlessly with a single banshee.

So what now for Supernova? Everything resets to 0. Being on a foreign team might help him go to more foreign tournaments and hopefully get more exposure, but the Nestea award is now long out of his reach. Seeing that GSL has settled on having five Code S tournaments a year, it would take Supernova at least until the start of the 2015 season for him to try and get his hands on the award again.

Looking at the current Code S streaks, Mvp is on eight and seems to be a shoe-in for his very own Nestea award if his body can hold up for a few more months without taking a break. Below that, we have Leenock, MarineKing and DongRaeGu, all with six straight seasons in Code S.


So Now What?

LG-IM_Seed: Came into a group that he was expected to make it out of, and he did. He had a pretty bad first game against Flash, but followed it up with three solid victories. With the recent fall of jjakji out of Code S, Seed is still trying to prove that he is someone who wasn't a one trick pony. He doesn't necessarily need to win another title, but with a few more consistent seasons, no one will question his abilities.

SlayerS_till_November_Ryung: First off, Ryung is an amazing TvT player. Secondly, he got pretty lucky to advance. Due to the Up/Down tiebreaker rules, his loss to Sirius, the worst player in the group, didn't hinder him at all. With victories in his strongest match-up against the only two Terrans in the group, it was all he needed to get out. With a move to Axiom on the horizon at the start of November, he can strengthen his TvZ and TvP for Season 5. If not, he will need to cross his fingers for a group of Terran in the Ro32.

FXOSirius: What did you really expect? He got Salmosa in the first round, the easiest opponent he could have asked for, and then had a major upset of MMA in the second stage. After beating MMA, everything else this season was gravy. He picked up a win against Ryung, but lost to everyone else, at least giving him the satisfaction that he won't be one of the few to go without a win in the Up//Down groups. He isn't a Code S player, but with a bit more experience, he might be in 2013.

*Actually Season Five

Round robin, top two advance to Code S.

6. ST_Sparta

Many GSL fans will be relishing Sparta's games tonight, as they hope to see the other players in the group dish out some vigilante justice upon the man who eliminated Nestea. Certainly, a total beatdown seems to be the most likely scenario for Sparta, who has no notable achievements besides barely toppling a much diminished Nestea.

However, I have a minor suspicion he might better than we think. It's just from one thing: Startale chose to play him recently against team MVP in the GSTL. Now, you might say that GSTL teams frequently make weird personnel decisions or try to get their players more experience, but this was a particularly strange move. The rest of the line-up Startale played on that day was their definite A-Team in Bomber, PartinG, Curious, and Life. That means of all the prospects they could have chosen to play as a 'throwaway' player, Sparta was deemed the most worthy. That's ahead of Hack or any of the other former ZeNEX bench players. Surely he must have shown a spark behind closed doors, a hint of brilliance that convinced them to take a chance?


5. 8th_Terminator

Has the elephant charge finally been stopped? Three KeSPA players took a shot at the Up/Down groups, and all three learned why the Up/Downs are one of roughest, nerve-wracking, and occasionally totally random experiences a player can go through. Mini and Trap were just mauled straight up, both finishing in the bottom two. Even the elephant-god, Flash, was felled at the end of a struggle.

Now, only Terminator is left as he attempts to save face. Shy (sOs), Bogus, Bbyong, and Roro may have it through to Code S through Code A, but come on, this was supposed to be an invasion. Right now, it's more of a expeditionary force.

Sang looked good against Shine and Suhosin in the earlier rounds, which doesn't give us any information at all as he goes into a no-Zerg group. All around, KeSPA Protosses seem to be pretty decent at PvP (though not immune to flipping), so that will help him here. Unfortunately, he was embarrassingly dismantled by Polt in the one recent PvT series we saw from him. Happy, Heart and Sparta aren't as good as Polt, but it still doesn't bode well for Terminator.


4. MVP.finale

I'm having a bit of trouble telling finale and Vampire apart these days. They're both good enough to be in Code A and deserve a regular spot on MVP's GSTL roster, but it's tough to say just yet if they are real Code S material.

To be honest, I can't say that I would have known the difference if they had switched places, which would have put finale in Code S already while Vampire was left to brave this Up/Down group. It's not like finale couldn't have emulated Vampire's performance in his bracket, coinflipping and winning against PartinG, and graciously accepting thrown games from sSak and Hyun. Conversely, put in finale's position, Vampire probably would have immortal all-ined Jaedong twice, and totally fallen apart against Hack as well.

I'm putting finale in at five, but honestly there's not too much difference between ranks 5 to 2. The "sure Code A player, uncertain Code S player" moniker fits about everyone, and it really might all come down to who's luckier on the night. finale has an added advantage in being able to PvP flip against the best player in the group (MC), so first place is actually in play for him.


3. LG-IM_Happy

During the frenzy of By.Rain hype, everyone somehow forgot that he lost to Happy. Yup, while everyone was arguing over who would triumph between Mvp and Rain, the fact that Happy won 2 – 1 in the Ro32 was almost completely overlooked.

It was understandable to some degree, as the desire to hype Rain was so strong that the Happy series could have been easily passed off as a fluke. The third game, after all, was one of the strangest and scrappy games in a long time, and the Paragon of Standard, Rain, couldn't be expected to know how to handle every situation without more experience.

Still, strange and scrappy is exactly what Happy has shown to be recently, and you can't take that win away from him. For Happy, it's better to be a weird Terran player who occasionally wins in not-quite understandable ways than be a generic good Terran like he was in the past. Altogether, his Code S run last season made you scratch your head about whether he was really a Code S player, but you didn't exactly think he was fish out of water. That's at least more than we can say for the bottom three in the group.


2. coL.Heart

Changing one's reputation is hard. Having won most of his high profile games with all-ins, Heart is stuck with a reputation as an unconscientious cheeser. While it's somewhat deserved, people overlook all the times he plays straight up games, which he happens to play fairly well.

However, this is the kind of group and situation where Heart will probably revert to the dark side. First off, there's no TvZ – the match-up where Heart plays standard the best. Then there's three Protoss opponents, the race against which Heart is the most prone to cheesing (he's scheduled to play finale on Ohana; pencil in a 1/1/1). TvT is somewhere in the middle, with Heart able to play it very well either way.

Also, while I have no statistical evidence to back this, the gut feeling I have from watching Heart in tournaments is that when he's in a dire situation, when he's a game away from elimination or advancing, he instinctively reaches for the cheese.

In any case, whether you approve of him or not, this style of play has led Heart to become a successful player. Maybe it's not a style that lends to consistent, long runs in Code S, but there's no question he has the skills to make it there and shake things up.


1. SK_MC

Every famous player is stereotyped, with an easy, go-to narrative for fans and casters to get behind. But never had a player so fully realized the fictional, idealized version of himself in real life as MC did last week.

Going up against Last in the 3rd/4th place matches in the OSL, MC quickly fell behind 0 - 3, looking outclassed in every way as Last crushed him in macro games. After disappointing losses in the GSL Ro32 and OSL semi-finals, it looked like it would be the final blow that would send MC hurtling off the edge and into a slump. With nothing to lose, MC decided he would just go back to the basics: he all-in'd.

And lo, the StarCraft gods rewarded he who stayed true to himself. MC went all-in four games in a row, and he won four games in a row*. Incredible.

The series was a perfect embodiment of the spirit of MC. But after the games, MC also showed us something completely new and different. You would have expected him to perform the grandest of ceremonies, and boast about how he was never worried, even when he was 0 - 3 down. Instead he talked about how he felt like he was down and out at 0 - 3, and took his hat off to Last for being better in macro games. Was that really the same MC who came into the OSL dressed as the Undertaker, carrying a coffin for the KeSPA players?

Anyway, about how that's relevant to this day's matches: I'm not 100% sure. Let's just say we know two things about MC.

1. He'll never stop surprising you.
2. He's very good at winning.


*Okay, so he wasn't totally all-in in each of the games, but we'll say it was close enough.