| GSL Code S 2020 S2 | Ro24 | Group E | Rundown Posted: 04 Jul 2020 07:50 AM PDT We all know Saturday Night plans lately have gone even more to shit for obvious reasons, so thankfully the GSL is here to brighten our day. Group E: - Living Legend with 4 Code S Finals all of which he won in a row, the one and only: Maru
- Dark Horse, Queen of the Swarm and only foreigner Zerg consistently competing in Code S: Scarlett
- Underdog Supreme i.e. the to-a-fault-macro-loving Zerg: Armani
- Enemy Unknown, the eerily nicknamed Protoss newcomer: Prince
This is the the kind of Group where you could argue the outcome is virtually predetermined, because in no universe could we imagine Maru unable to secure 4-5 maps against this level of competition and from there Scarlett would handily slap down either the underdog or unknown prospect who survives the lower bracket battle only to be ultimately dismissed all the same. That said, in the GSL what you don't know certainly can hurt you and considering we get basically no newcomers when one arrives you should pay attention - also never underestimate players with nothing to lose.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead, Obviously
Some say it's not about how you start but how you finish, in that regard Maru would leave no doubt as to who the boss was in this Group by the time it was done, coming out 1st as expected. After stumbling even harder in comparison and also having to push back against her opponent's enormous effort in the match before the decider, Scarlett still made sure to remind us class is permanent and veteran status matters at the end of the day. M1 | Maru [ 2 : 1 ] Prince | ★★★☆☆ | Kings Never Die - Submarine | As soon as we saw the unknown go with a cannon rush in TvP for his debut game, it should have been clear this Prince kid was something else. The unfortunate part for Maru was that he had decided to do a cheeky semi-proxy Barracks with a Reaper, so he got ridiculously close to losing here, only to be bailed out by a lucky moment around 2:30 when his SCVs were allowed to escape this pseudo game of tower defense, seeing as Prince didn't wall them off in time and from there - considering Terran buildings can still fly - Maru quickly got enough units out to crush his opponent completely and steal this one away accordingly.
- Deathaura | Both players took it slow after that action packed first game, however Prince certainly wasn't done pulling rabbits out of the hat and even a Reaper Hellion duo sneaking into his base early on didn't deter him from executing a devastating attack not even 5 minutes into the game, where he utilized Charge Zealots instead of the predictable Blink Stalkers, taking advantage of the building placement and Tank splash to full effect, massacring over 20+ SCVs, which basically made it so the Protoss was up a base and had double the worker count, meaning it was time for Maru to tap out.
- Pillars of Gold | Not to be outdone, the Jin Air Terran decided it was his turn to kill some workers, succeeding violently around 4 minutes when his Hellion drop resulted in 11 Probes going down. Although it's true Prince still had a worker lead regardless, the overly ambitious third Nexus in combination with his Stargate fleet and not much else made the followup push from Maru look unstoppable with Mines and Tanks galore to back up his Marines, securing victory handily for the Terran.
M2 | Scarlett [ 1 : 2 ] Armani | ★★☆☆☆ | Now You See Me - Ice And Chrome | The mirror was true to its name as both players established three Hatches with the first real deviation as Lair came into play being the Overlord Speed and Drops from Scarlett while Armani went for Nydus play instead. As the assault from the underdog was coming in around 6:35 his Drones at home were being murdered by Banes dropping from the sky, so it was all or nothing for Armani's Roaches and Queens unloading into the main. Just before she could be broken, Scarlett finally pulled and sacrificed enough workers to make a grown Zerg player cry, ultimately however it was enough to stabilize by the skin of her teeth and drive the enemy out in time. From there the foreigner extended her upgrade lead and pulled off a particularly devastating Roach drop that killed a few Drones too many, forcing Armani's hand, after which he did a desperate failed attack to put the finishing touches on this game.
- Ever Dream | With the peace treaty signed again, each player got their three Hatches and while Scarlett went for the Overlord speed once more looking to repeat the previous game, it was Armani's mixup to go with +1 melee along with a seemingly late proxy Spire that would decide the outcome of this one. It's especially easy to criticize Scarlett here because we saw the clear window during which she could have won with double the army supply of her opponent, however being too reserved would essentially cost her the game, allowing Armani to mitigate her lead completely by the time his Mutas were out, virtually ending the game on the spot with his checkmate around 7:45 considering the amount of AA from the foreigner was too pitiful to realistically put up a contest.
- Deathaura | For the briefest of moments I thought Scarlett knew something we all didn't as she took her third Hatch at the top of the map and started making Drones and a Queen out of it, however when Armani's scouting and Overlord over the missing base started raising red flags and our Zerg trickster never did anything to remedy those suspicions, Armani inevitably scouted her proxy so as early as 3:35 the game was basically over at that point. Scarlett did try to finesse her way out of the impossible situation she'd put herself in, only to predictably fall under the insurmountable production difference and econ deficit, with the deal being sealed by Armani's quirky Muta Ling Bane forces killing a bazillion Drones or so and pretty much every tech building to go with them, pulling off the upset.
M3 | Maru [ 2 : 0 ] Armani | ★★☆☆☆ | Brutality - Ice And Chrome | The early game pressure from Maru was annoying enough with Hellions, a Liberator and even Viking harassing the Zerg's mineral lines, so when the two base two Starport BC rush arrived around 6:45 on top of that it was basically Drone barbecue o'clock with 20+ going down along with the fourth Hatch being removed from the game. Some late Corruptors after that made it look like Armani might stabilize, but it simply wasn't meant to be as the subsequent waves arrived and the Mech followup behind them made things feel even more doomed, so Hellions kept flaming everything in their way and at one point the BCs even sniped the Spire, all in all a game that felt hopeless from start to finish for the Zerg thanks to the relentless pressure by the Jin Air Terran.
- Ever Dream | The lack of equivalent earlier pressure this time around maybe should have given it away a different kind of push was coming, namely a significantly more aggressive attack by Maru at 6:15 with two perfectly placed Tanks to cover his Marines and some brilliantly tucked in saved Hellions to provide a wall of flames against the flanking Lings, truly an exceptionally simple and beautifully executed assault that completely obliterated poor Armani even quicker than the previous game.
M4 | Scarlett [ 2 : 1 ] Prince | ★★★☆☆ | Quality PvZ In 2020 - Eternal Empire | The madman decided to do it again, with some utterly beautiful placement that could be observed as early as 1:05, the rush did its thing and as the game slowly turned from Cannon vs Spine into Shield Battery vs Bile and finally Stalker vs Ravager, Prince showed us he had the micro to back up his brilliant planning and placement, taking the fight to Scarlett and bringing the map to a close when Drones had to be pulled to try breaking his hold on the game unsuccessfully.
- Ice And Chrome | It was then time to go into a more normal state of things with the Protoss choosing Stargate tech surprisingly and an initial Oracle that got spotted immediately yet still got more than a few Drone kills, but the real story was another Charge push incoming backed up by Archons, which really looked like it would crush the Zerg on the spot due to the decision to put down a Spire and make mass Lings by her, however even as the deadly duo of forces unloaded inside the Swarm's main around 6:40 Scarlett kept her composure and cleared everything without suffering any real econ losses, to which Prince responded by putting down two more Stargates after seeing the Spire and preparing a fleet to obliterate them on arrival for the win. Instead, the Zerg put her flock just outside of vision and waited for the opportune moment to strike, which came when the entire Protoss army was busy chasing Roaches so at 9:30 the doomed Mutas dove into the enemy base and picked off 23 Probes before their time inevitably expired, granting Scarlett an insurmountable econ lead. Not wanting to let her take advantage of it, Prince gathered his forces as quickly as possible in an attempt to show destiny arrives all the same around 10:15 only for Scarlett to once again find it within herself to hold on, picking off the Prism to deny reinforcements and swarming what was left in a beautiful display of resilience, coming out with a 30 Drone lead by the end of it. And just when we thought it was all over, the Protoss came back with an even more devastating attack at 12:00 which would end up killing over 40 Drones to prolong this game further as Scarlett did manage to eventually stabilize again. From there both players were understandably out of steam, however the Zerg's constant teching as she held on attack after attack gave her the edge she needed, Scarlett built an incredible force of Vipers, Hydras and Lurkers & the tech-light Protoss forces mainly leaning on Carriers simply couldn't contest her dominance on the map for long, with the final real fight around 19:50 going in the Zerg's favor completely.
- Ever Dream | If you didn't already think this guy was special, the balls by Prince to put down a blind Nexus should have swayed you in his favor, considering Scarlett was chatting with the master of cheese himself prior to this. To make matters even more exciting, the Protoss then put down the proxy Dark Shrine and crossed his fingers as you do in these sorts of scenarios. Unfortunately for him, Scarlett's defense was vigilant and shut his initial pressure down cold, to which Prince responded by teching with DT Blink so when his attempted harass got denied even harder around 6:40 frankly the writing was on the wall for this one. The decision from the Zerg to go into Swarm Host Nydus play definitely wasn't wrong after that, but it did make the game painfully longer than it had to be, regardless though it basically looked like she handed the Protoss a shovel and made him dig his own grave for the next five minutes or so, seeing as it was basically impossible for Prince to ever catch back up after putting himself at such a deficit, culminating in more than a few desperate pushes which were never going to work against the Lurkers waiting back at home for Scarlett while her 18+ Swarm Hosts were doing their free thing across the map.
M5 | Scarlett [ 2 : 0 ] Armani | ★★☆☆☆ | Revenge - Ice And Chrome | With both players going for three bases fast and Scarlett opting for the Overlord speed, it was Armani being devious here with a Carapace upgrade and an early attack arriving 6 minutes into the game - and it certainly had to get a lot done, considering he had put himself down 20 Drones in order to make it happen. Through a tremendous effort and once again by the minimal margin, Scarlett held on and came out still ahead in econ by the end of the fighting and as Armani tried leaning on his trusty Spire to come back the Queen of the Swarm decided it was time to present her opponent with a Math problem via her trusty Roaches that he simply couldn't solve at that point.
- Deathaura | The early Bane Nest by Armani on just two Hatches immediately signaled to us this one would be quick and things went his way initially with a snipe on the third Hatch and also denying an upgrade via the exposed Evo Chamber at the wall. In response Scarlett just took a page out of her opponent's book by going for the Spire, turtled up on two bases and banked up the resources she needed to, finally coming out when her expansion was killed off again and unfortunately for Armani the decision to go into the same tech but later was the crucial error of this game, allowing Scarlett to snowball off her flock's dominance inside the enemy base around 7:20 when she literally flew Mutas and marched Lings into everything all at once while double expanding at home behind it, which as it turns out wasn't even necessary considering Armani's defense was nonexistent, his rallies screwed what was left of his forces and seemingly out of nowhere this game turned on its head and went in Scarlett's favor.
What a shockingly great day of Code S, definitely makes up for what happened earlier this week. - Match of the Night - I really appreciated the match between Prince and Maru to open things up, but I just have to give it to the PvZ in M4 partially because it was the first great one we've had in a while and also just because that game on Ice And Chrome was phenomenal & genuinely could have gone either way so many times, highly recommend it in particular from tonight.
Finally, here are some of my closing thoughts on each player: - Maru stomped so hard in the TvZ onslaught it honestly sort of erased the "what could have been" questions from our minds after that shaky TvP opening. Overall there isn't much to say about him because the expected result happened, in no universe was Maru getting knocked out in the Ro24 from a Group like this, however what comes next is better competition and that'll give us a much more realistic assessment of where the GSL King is at and whether his own prediction of the G5L not coming anytime soon is accurate or some classic playing possum.
- Scarlett kind of got too smart for her own good in the mirror and then had to overcome an exceptionally well prepared opponent to get her revenge, but all things considered she got the job done and by the end of her last two series looked like the better player, convincingly so. I'm really happy she now has two back to back Ro16s, last Season she genuinely could have even made the Ro8, so looking forward to how things play out moving forward for her.
- Armani is such an interesting conundrum. After watching him for quite a few Seasons now, it's become clear the guy sticks to what he knows because when he tries to mix things up - like he did in that final series - things don't go well for him. In that regard, it feels fair to say unless on the day his play is peaking so he has a chance to take down better players, it almost seems like this Zerg has to just hope for things to go his way as he plays his own game and tries to make it work or else it's just over for him (in that regard, I'm not really sure we should expect him to advance beyond the Ro24 anytime soon).
- Prince literally finished in last place, yet it still feels like his stock went up, this is how you make a debut in the GSL. From almost taking down the King of Code S himself to bringing the fight against Scarlett with incredible force, you just have to give this Protoss player props for performing and planning so well against the best players in this Group. I can't wait to watch more of Prince, I don't think anyone expected so much from him and I'm sure we're all interested in seeing more.
As always, if you think differently or have something interesting to add, feel free to do so in the comments below. Catch you on Wednesday for Group F, where Trap and Ragnarok should take care of business against everyone's favorite underdog Bunny and the returning trickster Patience before we then head into the most chaotic part of every GSL Season i.e. Ro16 Group Nominations, which are looking to be more stacked than usual. Thanks as always for reading & see you when I see you! (: -M submitted by /u/d1MnZz [link] [comments] |
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