GgoBooGie vs 
RacheGame 1 @ Steppes of War. Ggo opened aggressively with Zealot/Probe early attack that caught Rache more off guard than he would’ve wanted. The Terran was going for a faster tech and his Rax was adding a Tech Lab and by the time the Zealot reached the base he had only one Marine to defend it. Rache tried to micro as well as he can to deflect the push but he lost his Marine, one MULE and plenty of mining time. The attack was eventually hold off.
Both players entered a macro phase, taking their naturals and Rache, probably scared of another Protoss pressure started bunkering up his natural ramp. Rache also scanned the Colossus tech from Ggo and decided to push before it’s too late: he brought all his forces and many SCVs but only forced a Nexus cancel. After the relatively futile attack Ggo took the opportunity to muster his Colossi, push towards Rache’s base and obliterate him convincingly.
5/10   |
Rather passive game with few battles and a total manhandling at the end that was not even close.
Game 2 @ Xel’Naga Caverns. Ggo’s intention was obviously to finish this Terran early. He put a proxy pylon close to Terran’s natural who was just taking his expo this time. After a persistent Stalker push, Rache was forced to lift his CC in attempt to escape but the Stalkers took care of that too, taking it down.
And again the game entered in somewhat of a stall. Boogie managed to keep the Terran in his base for a while but eventually he broke loose and both players started taking additional bases. At this point Boogie decided to be tricky and researched Hallucination to fake some Colossi but a nice scan from Rache revealed the deception. Irritated, Boogie decided to punish the Terran by indeed going for Colossi on top of High and Dark Templars. Harassing the SCV lines with DTs and pushing through the middle with his main high-tier army, Boogie caught the Terran around his gold expo and just stormed his way through, winning his way to the Ro32.
| 6/10 |
Yeah, the game was nothing special, just like the last one but I will give it an extra point for the Hallucination trickery.
Dreamizer vs TSL_RainGame 1 @ Shakuras Plateau. Deciding to go for a gamble, Dream opened with the risky 14-Hatch first and that proved to be quite risky as Rain was going for what now seems to be the standard TvZ opening – double Rax pressure. He started streaming his Marines towards Dream’s natural, bringing along some SCVs, and started torturing the poor Zerg. Dreamizer tried to erect a Spine Crawler and use his Drones for defense, but Rain’s micro was too good. Playing around the battlefield, the Terran managed to pick off a monstrous amount of units, kill the Spine Crawler and shortly after – melt down the Hatchery. Knowing that he has no chance in hell to win this game, Dreamizer typed GG.
| 8/10 |
Beautiful Marine control from Rain, truly deserves my admirations. I can't wait to see him play again in the Ro32.
Game 2 @ Jungle Basin. Both players opened economically, throwing their expos quite early. Knowing that many Zerg have now implemented the Kyrix-style aggression to their play, Rain walled off his ramp with two Raxes and a Factory, transitioning into Reactor Starport for a heavy Marine/Medivac army. Meanwhile, Dreamizer was indeed trying to do a Kyrix bust and went for Nest and a very, very, very delayed Lair. He morphed a ton of Banelings and rolled (or at that time just casually walked) towards Rain’s main and busted all his wall-off building but Terrans main Marine army stayed alive. At this point, Dreamizer took a third base at 9. Realizing this, Rain started his Marine pressure to this third and tried to take it down a couple of times but Dreamizer’s shitload of Baneling managed to stop him for a while. Unfortunately for Zerg, Rain had A LOT of Marines and had not the intention of stopping the pressure. Sometime later, the Terran managed to take down the third Hatch and marched to the main. Dreamizer was making a Spire and lots of Banelings but it wasn’t enough. Rain’s beautiful spread (and, again, the shitload of marines) managed to win him the second game, sending him to the Ro32.
| 7/10 |
Really neat pressure from Terran all along the entire game and a decent defense from Zerg. Also the army trades at Zerg’s third were quite exciting to watch.
Libero vs NEXGeniusGame 1 @ Metalopolis. A curious opening came from Libero this game. He apparently did not want to go with the boring all-bio army and opened Hellions plus Tanks into Banshee with Raven, aiming for a very diverse and cute army. NEXGenius, though, was going for the quite standard Gateway/Immortal army, sitting outside his natural Nexus to stop any aggression.
Libero tried to do a semi-successful Banshee harass but the best part of the game came shortly after. Going for what it would seem an all-in attack, Libero marched his diverse army of Banshees, Tanks, Marines, Raven and even some SCVs, attempting to crush Genius in one single strike. With the SCVs and PDD soaking lots of damage and the Tanks raining chaos upon the Protoss it seemed Genius was done, but luck and good micro saved the Blizzcon champion from defeat. His Colossus popped out just in time to hold the Terran pressure.
Both players were almost equal in supply and Libero had the chance to play a normal macro game but for some reason decided to go for another all-in. However, it was most inappropriate time as Genius already had two Colossi with Thermal Lance out and just burned through everything Libero had. The Terran typed out.
| 8/10 |
I really liked the first all-in push that got me, as Artosis likes to say, some “geek chills”. Libero had a really nice plan and could’ve very well won the game if it wasn’t for the second all-in attack that was set to fail before it even began.
Game 2 @ Xel’Naga Caverns. This game was painful to watch especially towards the end. Libero tried to be creative once again going for a double factory Thor build while Genius was quickly teching to Blink and DTs – an opening that is almost a hard counter to the immobile Thors. And the worst part is that Libero actually scouted the Shrine but still kept dropping MULEs, not saving a single scan. Genius’s DTs started thrashing Libero’s main, supply locking him four depots down. Later, blinking into Terran’s main, Genius quickly sniped a Thor ran away. Knowing that he has no other chance, Libero marched his three (yeah, just three) Thors down the map but they were intercepted by tons of Stalkers and Chargelots, having a snowball chance in hell to come victorious.
| 4/10 |
Really poor game from Libero. If he managed to deflect the DTs, hold his ground and transition into a more mobile army it could’ve be different but, sadly, that was not the way it happened.
Rainbow vs NewDawnGame 1 @ Metalopolis. Rainbow (a.k.a. HopeTorture) opened with the Standard 2-Rax pressure but all he managed to do is snipe two Overlords before he got stopped by the nice Drone defense. He then transitioned into 2-Port Banshees, opting to catch the Zerg before his Lair was done. The pesky fliers indeed did quite a lot of damage, killing three Queens and the Spire but not before seven Mutas came out for Dawn to clean the threat.
And there it seemed that for some reason Rainbow lost all hope (and torture). He tried to push with a Bio/Medivac army but his sloppy control allowed Dream to catch two Medivacs off-guard, weakening the Terran push significantly. After the Zerg deflected the attack easily, he just countered with Lings, Banes and Mutas and won the game.
| 6/10 |
The game was fine up to the point of Zerg’s recovery but from that point on it was a pure what-the-hell fest. Hope’s horrible control was stunning, I was expecting way more from the Reaver king, to be honest.
Game 2 @ Skakuras Plateau. Frustrated from his loss, Rainbow decided to be cheesy. Building wto Barracks in his main and another two proxied south of Zerg’s natural he started his all-in Marine pressure hoping to tie the score. However NewDawn was way prepared for this and he calmly set behind his two Spine Crawlers until he managed to get his Nest up. From that point on it was all Rainbow’s demise as Dawn exited his main and won the game with ease, throwing the GSL 1 vice champion out of the tournament.
| 6/10 |
Foolish cheese by Rainbow, foolish indeed. I am sorry to see that he lost all his mojo this season, mayber we will see him again next year.
BitByBit vs 
HayproGame 1 @ Blistering Sands. The final game of Day 2a featured one of the many (relatively speaking) non-Koreans in the tournament – the Swedish Zerg HayPro. However, his series started not as many of us wished to. BitByBit opened with an aggressive Rax push for which HayPro was not ready at all. Bringing most of his SCVs and a couple of Marines, BitByBit stomped over the puny Spine Crawler and punished the Swede.
| 4/10 |
What is there to say… That was so one sided that I felt sorry for the European for being manhandles in that manner.
Game 2 @Scrap Station. On Scrap HayPro had the possibility to come back to the series as he was playing on a very Zerg favorite map. He opened very safely with a Roach which was quite unfortunate for him as his opponent was going for a Starport tech, namely Banshees followed by a Raven. Fortunately for HayPro, the Banshee harass was not as devastating as it could’ve been but somehow the Terran kept getting more and more ahead, amassing a monstrous army. BitByBit stroke with a surgical precision just before HayPro could ensure a third base, pushing through the rocks, throwing Raven turrets all over the place and just overmuscling the Swede, throwing him out of the tournament.
| 6/10 |
I can’t really justify the grade by some marvelous, lengthy explanation. It just seemed like a 6/10 game: decent action, nice aggression from Bit and quite the explosive finish.
Tosyad vs FruitDealerGame 1 @ Scrap Station. Both Zergs opened with a Pool first build followed by ga. There, though, the builds deviated with FruitDealer going for the meaty composition of Roach into Baneling and Tosyad choosing the old but gold Ling/Baneling combo. It was the latter that made the first step towards offense, morphing Banelings at Fruit’s natural and going for a bust. The green balls of death were partially repelled (two of them managed to sneak inside and snipe some drones) and FruitDealer took the game in his hands, rallying his Roaches towards the enemy base and wiping the floor with him.
| 6/10 |
There was much rock-paper-scissors here and Tosyad just chose wrong. Apparently, there are still Zergs out there that have not been informed that the ZvZ match-up has evolved since the first month of the beta and especially with the new Roach range.
Game 2 @ Jungle Basin. Probably realizing that he cannot fight FruitDealer in a prolonged game, he went for the semi all-inish 8-pool. On the other side of the map, FruitDealer peacefully morphed a 14-hatch and his fans gasped in anxiety as Tosyad’s lings were half way through the map and all FruitDealer had were Drones.
Those, apparently, are more than enough to repel six Lings. With INSANE Drone micro, FruitDealer managed to stall the enemy Lings until he had some combat units of his own. Tosyad had to retreat to his main, his rush humiliated by couple of Zerg workers. Amidst all that, however, Tosyad managed to morph a Nest and a funny situation occurred. The two Zerg forces passed each other without noticing and suddenly Banelings were blowing up Drones and Queen and in the meantime the Zerglings of Fruit were taking… well, yeah, Drones and Queen. After those attack were fended off it was time for the players to decide how to transition. Fruit chose the more safe path, rebuilding his Queen and his Ling army while Tosyad decided to revisit his all-in strategy from earlier. He skipped the Queen and put heavy accent on his Zergling force but when he failed to break Fruit with it he bowed before the GSL champion.
| 9/10 |
You have to watch Fruit’s Drone defense! It’s obligatory!! Furthermore, the Drone exchanges and the decisions after it make the game even more thrilling, making it possibly the best game of the day.
scfOu vs FOX.LynGame 1 @ Metalopolis. SC opened Banshee while Lyn felt like a more solid Terran, going for a fast CC into Tank/Viking. Later, Lyn’s Vikings made a huge appearance, relentlessly hunting every single piece of flier that SC sent to his base. That includes the first harass Banshee, a Raven and than two more Banshees. Lyn’s air space was safer than Fort Nox.
Feeling like having an advantage, Lyn pushed towards SC’s base and sieged at the low-ground, laying waste on his opponent’s production facilities. However, SC reacted adequately and with a nice micro and Marine spread he managed to kill Lyn’s army and took the opportunity to push towards the third base of the FOX player. This offensive didn’t went just as well as SC hoped for and although he managed to take down the Planetary of Lyn, he lost all his tanks, giving the other Terran a huge army advantage. Lyn felt like taking revenge on his enemy and in turn went on to destroy his third. Constantly reinforcing his army, Lyn managed to cut even further eventually forcing SC to gg out.
| 8/10 |
Really good and intensive TvT. Lots of army trades, constant pressure from both players and an amazing Vikings from Lyn raise the grade up to 8.
Game 2 @ Lost Temple. Above, I said that the Fruit vs Tosyad on Jungle might’ve been the best game of the day but now I realize that it’s probably not the case. The former WarCraft player and the fOu member created an amazing spectacle on Lost Temple that went on for more than 30 minutes and was pure joy to watch.
Lyn opened Blue Hellions into Medivacs, hoping to cripple SC’s economy early on. For a moment it seemed that Lyn was to be successful as SC went once again for Banshees, which he kept losing for no apparent reason. Lyn’s drops started to do more and more damage with each attempt and suddenly the former Orc was aheas in bases. That was probably what made him to make the stupidest mistake of his SC2 carrier – marching headlong into the impenetrable Siege Tank line of SC, losing all his advantage in a single motion.
From that point on, SC started slowly gaining advantage, outbasing and outmacroing Lyn step by step. This late game part of the game was so intense and with so much multitasking that it is hard to put down on paper, but eventually SC got so ahead in army count that he just attacked straight on to win the second game.
| 9/10 |
A game that could not be described by words but must be watched! Enormous amount of multitasking, constant battles, critical positioning, mistakes, lost opportunities, multi-prone haras: you name it! This game had almost everything. At the end I almost wished there were Battlecruisers.
Game 3 @ Scrap Station. Feeling a bit scared, Lyn went for a very defensive build, opening with a Raven and then a CC. SC, obviously, has decided to abandon all the Banshee gimmicky and was also setting a nice Tank defense of his own… which Lyn, of course, overeagerly tried to bust but failed with splendid grandeur.
SC took the advantage of having the better position on the map and sent two Medivacs worth of Marines to Lyn’s natural, killing some SCVs and denying mining time. He then proceeded to engage Lyn at the Xel’Naga tower, drawing his attention away from the short path. SC then used it to sprint forward to Lyn’s base, siege at his production facilities and win the series.
| 8/10 |
Another nice game between those two terrans. Lots of actions and multitasking, an exemplary TvT series.
AnyproPrime vs TheBestfOu Game 1 @ Lost Temple. Everyone was tired at the end of this long day and the games got shorter and shorter. As was the case with Anypro vs TheBest, who played a 5-minute game on LT. Anypro tried to go for 1-Gate Nexus, but was caught by surprise by Best’s early Marauder push. TheBest probably could not believe his eyes as he first forced a cancel on the Nexus and immediately after climbed the ramp, sniped the Gateway Pylon and won the game.
| 7/10 |
7/10 only because I laughed my ass off watching a game between players that good being ended by 2 Marauders.
Game 2 @ Steppes of War. Another quick game was played on Steppes. Terran went for Cloak Banshee while Anypro decided to go for a heavy Stalker army in attempt to break the ramp. However, as we all know, SCV repair has been imba since 1962 and TheBest managed to stop the Protoss push. He then sent his cloak Banshee to the Probe line and started wiping the workers with a grim chuckle. Anypro had to leave the tournament.
| 7/10 |
Again the same grade for the same reason. I couldn’t stop laughing, I swear…
NEXNaya vs HongUnPrimeGame 1 @ Delta Quadrant. Everybody loves short games. Especially eSports editors that have spent four hours writing recaps, two of them on a train and the rest – while waiting for the train. Naya and HonUn were merciful enough to end their series quickly. The Prime Protoss went for a Void Ray tech that caught the Zerg somewhat off-guard. On the back of this tech, he went for Blink stalkers and while the Zerg was still shaken by the VR harass, HongUn pushed in for the kill.
| 6/10 |
A rather standard openings and transitions from both players. Zerg did not have the best crisis management, though, and overreacted a bit too much and this is what cost him the game.
Game 2 @ Metalopolis. Hm, how to best describe this game. Let’s try this way – HongUn did an awesome Cannon rush to counter Naya’s Hatch first. How is that?
| 7/10 |
I will give it a 7 only because we do not see Cannon rushes every day. Kudos to HongUn, that will teach Zergs to NEVER GO HATCH FIRST before scouting positions!
