| GSL Code S 2020 S1 | Ro16 | Group C | Rundown Posted: 13 May 2020 07:59 AM PDT As a hairy man once said, we're halfway there. Group C: - Living Legend with six GSL Finals and lets not mention how many trophies: soO
- Protoss Hope looking to solidify his position at the top of the food chain after reaching back to back Finals: Trap
- Dark Horse ready to reignite the flame: PartinG
- Underdog Supreme here to do the impossible: Bunny
Lets be clear, heading into tonight there was one clear favorite, Trap solidified himself as one of the very best players in 2019 and as the other Protoss players falter it's only natural to look at him when it comes to pushing the race forward. soO on the other hand is a man on a timer, similarly to other older players we're just waiting at this point for his final run before heading off to the military, so it's incredibly hard to both anticipate his level or judge it on any given day, so the pro player turned streamer turned pro player PartinG had the door wide open for him tonight accordingly after playing himself into shape over the course of the Ro24 and finally the designated punching bag of the day unfortunately was a role left up to Bunny, who nevertheless had proven before he wasn't to be underestimated.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead, Obviously
This is not a drill, PartinG not only held on against the initial onslaught tonight, the once upon a time Champion then showed world class perfect macro play to secure 1st place in dominant fashion. What followed definitely wasn't pretty, in fact it was more than a little disappointing, nevertheless Trap recovered in time to put down the other two players in the Group, earning himself 2nd. M1 | Trap [ 1 : 2 ] Bunny | ★★☆☆☆ | Sorry, What? - Ever Dream | You would think after going for fast triple CC the Terran would have to chill out a bit, instead Bunny bunched up a few Marines along with some Tanks, marched them across the map and killed the pure Gateway army waiting there to die with all the Probes and third Nexus, outrageous scenes in this opening game of the night.
- Golden Wall | The quality kept spiking as the Terran then put down a Barracks and Factory just outside his opponent's main, however not only did Trap scout the lack of base inside Bunny's base, the Protoss then simply didn't take his Nexus & instead ran a Stalker towards the proxy, which pretty much ended the game then and there.
- Eternal Empire | The failed mine drops and endless posturing with mini Doom Drops made the Terran look impossibly behind from the very start, so when just a few Zealots completely ruined his mining at the third CC as the Protoss was taking his fourth Nexus it made the game feel already over. It was at that point, however, that the decision not to add almost any splash damage to his composition came back to bite Trap as he found himself out of position and then had to run into Widow Mines he couldn't see as his opponent blasted him with Vikings and Ghosts on top of that, so as the army supply doubled for Bunny, the fourth Nexus got killed and opponent was left with only a few Disruptors, the throw was complete.
M2 | soO [ 1 : 2 ] PartinG | "★★★★★" | NA Ladder Games - Ever Dream | In a true display of peak Starcraft we got to watch what happens when you try to 12 Pool against PartinG while he's cannon rushing you; as it turns out, you just die, the Protoss player placed every building perfectly and eventually pushed like a boss thanks to the power of the Immortal & Warp Prism duo, classic case of play stupid games win stupid prizes.
- Zen | I know what you're thinking, why would you ever do the same terrible build again? Simple, your opponent doesn't like to scout and the map is garbage to defend on, so thanks to those factors soO got the free win with his second 12 Pool of the night.
- Eternal Empire | Why does this scenario keep happening? In any case, PartinG wasn't interested in giving up the entire match for free, so he scouted the 12 Pool and had the perfect defense accordingly. From there soO tried pulling a fast one with his quick Lair, unfortunately for him the Protoss kept scouting, the bane of any cheeser's existence. PartinG then caused even more bleeding by taking out 17 Drones over the course of a few Glaives attacks as he expanded and even when his first real push came out the Protoss correctly identified soO was on his last legs & this would be the only opportunity for the Zerg to come back, so he went home and expanded instead after cancelling the fourth Hatch. It was then time for a Colossus upgrade to the Protoss army in order to deal with the ridiculous number of Ling Bane on the map and what followed were so many engagements where soO tried his best to break through, yet virtually every Force Field was perfect and PartinG's control never faltered. After contesting one of the hardest angles to attack from on the map repeatedly, the Protoss did eventually break through to an incredible position that allowed him to take out two bases for the price of one, making his lead insurmountable and closing the game out in style not too long after thanks to an endless supply of Stalkers rolling over the Swarm.
M3 | PartinG [ 2 : 0 ] Bunny | ★★★☆☆ | Hunting Wabbits - Nightshade | Bunny failed to scare PartinG with his fake proxy Barracks and to make matters worse not only did the Protoss just expand as you regularly would he then took out an add-on virtually for free to further irritate the Terran. The game slowed down from there for both players as no one felt like dying for no reason but things did start picking up when PartinG moved out to contain his opponent as a drop was trying to ravage his base back at home, shortly after which all hell broke loose. After taking a few close fights and dealing more econ damage, PartinG packed his bags and went home to defend his fourth base while leaving the Terran technically stuck on two and even though the desperate push coming into him looked a lot more dangerous than expected, last time I checked Storm is pretty good especially when delivered through a Warp Prism and fighting SCVs & severely bruised Bio.
- Ever Dream | The pretty much failed DT drop and Blink "transition" with a Robo Bay behind it and a proxy base felt like PartinG was throwing everything at the wall and hoping something would stick. Bunny tried taking back control of the game by putting down his third CC really early, however through a combination of mind games, Stalkers doing their thing and a Colossus marching across the map to sell the fake, the Terran completely misread the situation and hunkered down for a while on technically just two bases. The proxy shenanigans did eventually get dealt with by Bunny, but at that point the Protoss army had teched completely out of control plus upgrades weren't looking too hot for the Terran, making it so PartinG was in full control until the end, which came not too long after he positioned Observers perfectly everywhere to give himself the room to pull off a million Storms and Disruptor shots, not to mention a Zealot counter attack that may as well have been the main push, crippling Bunny's economy even further and forcing him into desperate fights he could never win, the DT blink play and multi pronged attacks that actually ended the game in PartinG's favor were just the icing on the cake.
M4 | soO [ 0 : 2 ] Trap | ★★☆☆☆ | soO Long - Ever Dream | When the delayed two Oracle hit squad got basically nothing done and the Protoss player's third Nexus couldn't even go up for what felt like a long time, it honestly looked like Trap was done tonight. Instead, an Immortal and a few Sentries strolled across the map and killed the unsuspecting soO with what felt like minimal effort, "when macro player sometimes cheese" in a nutshell.
- Eternal Empire | The calm openings here, solid handling of the Archon drop play and stellar Ling onslaught on the Protoss player's third Nexus made it look like this one was going to be incredibly straightforward for the Kong of Kongs. The fast four bases and even Spire with Hive, however, made me question whether this was even soO playing, someone notorious for loving low tech units. Trap identified the situation and took a fourth base accordingly, seemingly absolutely unafraid of going late, only to find a perfect timing before the Greater Spire and even upgrades could be utilized to the fullest, wrecking both the fifth and fourth bases with 25 Drone kills only to have DTs fully kill them off just a little later. The then stuck on three bases Zerg was quickly running out of options and the mass Ling play vs Archon Zealot already felt like the writing was on the wall, so when the Protoss army came back under still morphing Broodlords the game had as unremarkable an ending as you would expect.
- Simulacrum | Watching one Adept walk cross the map to kill three SCVs and deny the CC for a while already felt good for the Protoss, the failed Widow Mine drops and how well Blink Stalkers did picking off defense were just the proverbial cherries on top. Although once again the splash damage was getting delayed, a ridiculous worker lead was accumulating, leaving Bunny with a very tight window to take this one away. Instead of having to find that opportunity, though, Trap served it up to him on a silver platter, pushing into a basically three base Terran and showing abysmal control to lose all his tech units off that. The econ difference, however, did pay off in the end as the Protoss leveraged his lead to switch into Disruptors which got a lot of work done along with a swarm of Zealots, eventually tipping the army supply over to him and in doing so securing the outcome of the game.
- Eternal Empire | The choice to go for Drilling Claws felt fine enough on this map, nevertheless I can honestly say I've never seen Mines do less damage than they did here, largely thanks to the air tight defense and perfect Observer placements by Trap. Slower bases and less workers somehow didn't slow down the Terran macro machine too much, though, and the Protoss did try to throw the game again by attacking into the defensively postured opponent's concave which resulted in far too many losses, however Bunny didn't identify as much and ignored the SCVs he lost in favor of sniping Nexuses, ultimately sealing his fate. Trap still almost lost this one when he couldn't cleanly hold the multi pronged attacks on his bases, however a timely proxy Nexus and Disruptor switch allowed by his econ lead made it so no matter how many sick fights the Terran kept pulling off his engine was always going to run out of fuel first.
Things aren't looking too great so far in the Ro16, it's two out of three times now where individual performances and disappointments overshadowed the games and even the day itself. - Match of the Night - without a doubt M3 for me; all jokes aside with the "5 star" ladder games where G3 was great none the less, PartinG fully displayed his power in the match against Bunny who lest you forget made Trap sweat both times they played each other; the PvT on display in the winners' match was nothing short of a master class performance, strongly recommend it if you miss seeing PartinG at his best like he was today.
Finally, here are some of my closing thoughts on each player: - PartinG played incredibly well tonight, this was a truly vintage performance from the Protoss master & if he wasn't up against someone coming out of Group D next there was honestly an incredibly high chance he makes at least Ro4 this Season, which I think is a testament to his progress. It's funny when someone of his caliber becomes an underdog, because it's not the same as a rookie heading into deep waters for the first time, PartinG has already been in the highest pressure scenarios and stood on the biggest stages, so there's always a chance he leverages that to his advantage. It will still be incredibly unlikely for him to move on further, but with performances like tonight, how can a small part of you not believe in him regardless?
- Trap had an off-day, that's the most polite way of putting it, while still ending things out with a 4-0. If you're just someone who looks at the scores, that's going to feel a lot better than actually watching the games, where as soon as Trap stopped defending pretty much everything went to shit. The timings felt off, decision making looked disastrous and even the Protoss player's control was shaky more than a few times. Frankly, this sort of level just doesn't represent who Trap truly is, so I hope for his sake he shapes up for the Ro8, otherwise it's going to be a quick and painful night for Jin Air's strongest uncrowned player.
- Bunny kinda got screwed today, I will never stop preaching about how stupid the M5 "rematch" truly is; that said, the buck stops with you at the end of the day, if you couldn't even beat this version of Trap - someone as it turns out he's historically even had a good matchup with - there wasn't much hope taking down any of the monsters coming through Group D next. I really liked a lot of what Bunny delivered today in terms of his performance and definitely appreciate the macro prowess he displayed, just needs slightly more intangible power to reach the next level, honestly, which always sucks because you can't really point to what has to change for him to reach it.
- soO is a legend of this game, no amount of terrible performances are going to overshadow that; nevertheless, what happened today was incredibly disappointing in the context of knowing he's on his last runs before the military, contrast what Classic did in this position and it feels even worse. I hate that some people are always going to meme on the guy for his lack of GSL trophies when he's done so much more than most players who've touched this game, but lets be real if this version of soO somehow bullshitted his way to the Ro8 he would have gotten destroyed there and that's just the sad truth. I hope this isn't the last we see of him, but it seems like things are going in that direction considering he has already shown interest in casting even before "retiring".
As always, if you think differently let everyone know why in the comments below. Catch you on Saturday May 16th for the final Group D in the Ro16, where Maru will have to deal with long time nemesis INnoVation while Zest tries to figure out which one of them he can bop to earn his own spot in the next Round & the whole time RagnaroK will be there thinking how nice it would have been to be in Group A instead. Thanks as always for reading & see you when I see you! (: -M P.S. Ro24 Rundowns: Groups A | B | C | D | E | F Ro16 Rundowns: Groups A | B submitted by /u/d1MnZz [link] [comments] |
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