Starcraft Afreeca StarLeague Season 10, Second Semifinals match thread

So many awesome games, what a treat to watch. I'd say game 4, 5, 2, and 1 were the most fun to watch - in that order. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKefXYXowPk

★ = recommended game

Game 1: Mindgames ★

Maru goes proxy 2rax reaper, which is found quickly with a great scout by TY. TY defends it with a small loss, but the game becomes fairly even. TY goes 2 factory, seemingly for mech. Maru scans it and also decides to go mech. TY drops down 2 eng bays for a bio switch and adds 4 raxes. Maru scans TY again and sees the bio switch, and does his own bio switch. Maru gets for 1/1/1/1 upgrades and is basically upgrading both bio and mech simultaneously. He out-maneuvers TY's split armies on the map and takes a good engagement to win the game. A funny and remarkable sequence of mindgames from two of the most adaptable terran players.

Game 2: How the hell did Maru make this close ★

TY grabs an early lead from cloaked banshees and runs with it for the entire game, at one point going up to 9 expansions (!!). Maru defends and defends (with one planetary under siege for what felt like a third of the game), loses 2 bases, but manages to miraculously bust out and starts wiping TY's side fo the map. It seems like Maru might take it, but TY decides to counterattack and finish off Maru's last remaining mining, forcing an engagement that wins the game in TY's favor. A ridiculous show of patience and skill from Maru's end in the face of an unsurmountable lead.

Game 3: Counterattack

Maru does a fast tech push to siege TY's main. It does decent damage, but TY decides to mostly ignore it and send his larger army to Maru's side for a counterattack, causing the 3rd to lift and then checkmating Maru with a siege on his main production. Nothing too crazy in this game; I suspect that the map, Submarine LE, may tend to cause shorter and perhaps less interesting TvTs.

Game 4: Sky terran insanity ★

In perhaps the most exciting game of the series, both sides take 4 bases without too much issue. Maru goes for mass viking raven, while TY goes for raven viking with about 7 BCs mixed in. Both sides make great moves, culminating in TY baiting Maru's sky army to one side with BCs, and then teleporting the BCs to his main army to hit Maru's main in a sick maneuver. It seems like this would work, but Maru's overwhelming viking count wipes out TY's entire army. It feels like TY is massively down at this point, but he spends his gigantic bank and builds a giant viking force of his own, while Maru is now the one massing BCs. TY manages to get his army on Maru's production, while Maru does the same on TY's side. Both mains now wiped out, TY makes a final engagement at one of Maru's expos. It looks like he might actually win the engagement, but TY taps out as Maru's army withstands the attack. TY had forgotten to get more than +1 air weapons this game, which makes it quite amazing that he was able to keep it so close. One of the coolest and most enjoyable TvT's I've ever watched.

Game 5: A farewell to Golden Wall ★

Maru expands to the bottom while TY expands to the top. Maru gets into a great siege position on TY's main, but TY manages to get 2 cloaked banshees into Maru's base and wreak havoc in the form of 25 SCV kills, also causing Maru to retreat. After this, they both get siege positions on each other at the same time because of Golden Wall's permeable middle mineral patches - Maru hitting TY's main while TY hits Maru's natural. Maru keeps pushing and kills TY's main, and TY rebuilds all his production at his 3rd and also the open area to his 3rd. Both players take their golds on opposite sides of the patches. Maru keeps the pressure on, continuing to slow push TY from TY's own main, but TY takes a large army and wrecks Maru's gold and natural mining, clinching the game. Another insane game. Golden wall may be retired from GSL after this game, but what a way to end it.

Game 6: The master of TvT

TY takes a quicker 3rd and an economic advantage against Maru's more defensive posture. Maru finally moves out with a scary army, but TY's defense is stellar, while able to sneak a large marine drop into Maru's main, doing huge damage. From here, TY just holds onto his lead with unrelenting pressure, getting air control with vikings and liberators, and denies Maru's 3rd and 4th while defending any attacks. Maru goes for a final push and TY crushes it with an overwhelming force. A more straightforward game which really highlights the brilliance of TY's TvT ability.

Summary

In terms of categorizing the games, I'd say game 2 and 5 were strategic victories based on TY's advantage gained from cloaked banshees (game 5 was also just crazy adaptability from TY in the face of a continuous push from Maru). Game 1, 3 and 6 were more straightforward wins based on superior maneuvering and decision making (the mindgames of 1 aside). And game 4 was a late game masterpiece that pitted TY's fantastic late game against Maru's 4th race.

submitted by /u/majoogybobber
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I've just captured the moment we were over 220k watching, I think we made history here ��

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 04:27 AM PST

submitted by /u/OnlineGamingXp
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ASL S10 Viewer Stats (Korean Afreeca Only)

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 12:54 PM PST

submitted by /u/jinjin5000
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Serral baits a voidray with an overseer to allow his dropperlord to enter Rail's main (watch the minimap)

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 01:42 PM PST

submitted by /u/yoyo_sc2
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How to deal with SC2 "addiction"? How long are you all playing and how do you get yourself to stop playing or limit how long you play?

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 09:18 PM PST

Addiction may be too strong a word, but don't know what else to really call playing the game "too much".

Basically, the game is fun to play, but the "ladder" feature and ease of just queuing up another game can make it hard to stop sometimes.

Curious, how long do you all play on average a day or a week? Do you play every day and what is your rank (just curious as I am sure some lower league players play less than masters league).

Also, how do you get yourself to stop queuing up games? How do you prevent the game from interfering with your other goals in life?

Hope this makes sense. Curious how others handle it, how long you all are playing a day (and what your rank is when you answer that), and how you control stuff.

Thanks for any information on this.

submitted by /u/JustthenewsonCS
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Starcraft II Heart of The Swarm Opening Cinematic 8k 48 FPS (Remastered with Neural Network AI)

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 05:56 AM PST

submitted by /u/eolos21
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Tactical Colossus Rally

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 10:54 PM PST

submitted by /u/Light_VIP
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Hmm...

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 04:35 PM PST

submitted by /u/U-Hrair
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2020 GSL Season 3 Code S Finals Opening Ceremony Crowd Reaction

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 05:16 PM PST

submitted by /u/PeriodistaKR
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Golden Wall

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 07:04 AM PST

Was today's Ty v Maru game 5 the last time we will see Golden Wall in a tournament? If so it was a great game to retire it.

submitted by /u/SC_Ferastu
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My cat is sceptical of Flash‘s protoss play

Posted: 02 Nov 2020 01:34 AM PST

submitted by /u/SorrowShineUnknown
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Starcraft Tips and Tricks#11: How to Cancel Prismatic Alignment as Protoss ( I've come to learn that alot of lower league players do not know how to do this.)

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 08:42 PM PST

submitted by /u/Groovyman12
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For posterity: if a few years from now, someone is combing though old games looking for games to call "immortal"

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 06:37 PM PST

The GSL Season 3 Finals has the immortal games of both Maru and TY. Just jaw-dropping performances by both players leading to beautiful games.

submitted by /u/GavinC137
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Why is Korea known for their Terrans, and EU known for their Zergs?

Posted: 01 Nov 2020 10:25 AM PST

Wondering why this is true. Also, it would be pretty awesome if Americas could pop out renowned Protoss as well, so we could have a global rivalry!

submitted by /u/ScaryPillow
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A conversation that is long overdue: Is TY the Flash of Starcraft 2?

Posted: 02 Nov 2020 01:29 AM PST

With his latest GSL win, TY has surpassed MVP in terms of win percentage. There are very few if any pro players who have as diversified a skillset as he does in terms of macro and micro, his late-game is strong. his early harass is deadly. His counterattacks are precise and he is never afraid of pulling the trigger.

Flash's dominance in Brood War will never be contested by anyone, but TY has certainly left his mark on SC2.

submitted by /u/EvidentlyTrue
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[LIVE] ESL Open Cup #43 Asia - Weekly EPT Tournament

Posted: 02 Nov 2020 01:28 AM PST