WHAT A BETTER WAY TO START THE NEW CODE S SEASON but with a foreign representative facing the most recent champion. A thrilling beginning indeed, yet one that SEn would find most unfortunate. The Taiwanese zerg king was dismantled in two quick sets, starting with a loss to a banshee pressure into marine/tank push on Dual Sight. Jjakji followed this victory with another one on Antiga Shipyard, launching a stim timing attack that hit before baneling speed was completed. That put SEn’s third to death casting the zerg in an unwinnable position.
NEXT ON LINE WAS A SLAYERS TEAM-KILL between rising star Ganzi and the absolute eSports legend Boxer. The Emperor’s dominating presence was felt strongly on Cloud Kingdom as he spotted and repelled Ganzi’s proxy marauder rush and went full bio himself against the mech transition of his teammate. Step by step, Boxer established a complete air dominance with his vikings and used it to orchestrate a sick bio drop all over Ganzi’s tank line for the 1-0.
Unfortunately for him and his fans, Boxer could not double his lead into a win and Ganzi tied the score on Metropolis by gaining a critical advantage after the Emperor was too careless towards two of his full medivacs. Their death gave Ganzi the ability to control the entire game thanks to the significant supply lead and with the help of multiple drops and better positioning Boxer was eventually brought to his knees. The series was closed on Dual Sight after Ganzi took an early supply lead on the back of his banshee and followed this with a marine/tank/raven push that both delayed Boxer’s natural and secured Ganzi’s own. The youngster did a similar push minutes later to eliminate his mentor from Code S.
THUS, JJAKJI MET GANZI IN THE WINNERS MATCH OF GROUP A and it grew to be quite the nail-biter. On Entombed Valley, Ganzi did his best to contain Jjakji’s SCV count with constant harass and was quite successful at that, making it harder for the champion to maintain his bio-centric army. Yet once he amassed an army in respectable size, Jjakji swooped in to snipe Ganzi’s third in a move that seemed very beneficial for a few moments. The units lost tab, however, showed the bitter truth - Jjakji had sacrificed too much and had no means to stop Ganzi’s giant mech push. Set two on Antiga Shipyard was way closer as all game Ganzi fought around his tank deficit (received after one of his larger pushes failed) by sniping Jjakji’s armory, establishing air dominance and denying Jjakji’s tank advantage with banshees to snatch a 2-0.
AFTER THEIR LOSSES IN THE OPENING SERIES, BOTH SEN AND BOXER HAD TO FIGHT FOR THEIR CODE S LIFE and in the opening set on Entombed Valley it seemed that the Taiwanese had it all under control. He crushed every attack that Boxer threw at him to establish full and total map control. That, however, only lasted until SEn threw away all his infestors during an uncalculated attack, allowing Boxer to catch up on bases and hunt down the zerg despite the abundance of ultralisks and brood lords that were on the field.
Game two was just as clutch, with the action heating up as SEn committed to destroying Boxer’s centre base. Although he was successful in his endeavour, that gave Boxer the opportunity to push out and destroy zerg’s fourth and fifth, gain 50 supply advantage, establish a contain, crush zerg’s attempt to break out with ultra/infestor and take away the 2-0 victory. SEn was down to Code A.
THE FINAL SERIES SAW A CRAZY OPENING SET BETWEEN BOXER AND JJAKJI. After scoring 12 SCV kills with his banshee, Boxer moved out but executed his push poorly, triggering a counter attack by Jjakji. Boxer’s sick defense was the only thing that kept him alive and with another banshee in his enemy’s base the game went into his favor. This lead lasted shortly, though, as a banshee/marine/tank push by Jjakji in set two seized a lot of SCV deaths and tied the score.
The final set of the day began with Boxer’s proxy starport that dealt immense damage due to Jjakji’s heavy supply blocked. The Emeperor, however, was kind enough to return the favor and Jjakji’s own banshee tied the SCV count as Boxer had literally zero anti air in his base. The match then developed in a game of nerves as Jjakji set a tank/marauder contain at Boxer’s natural. In the decisive moment, Boxer acted a bit too bravely and was demolished by Jjakji’s marauders during a mistimed tank unsiege.
| GSL 2012 Season 1 Group A | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player | W | L | Status | |||||||||||||||||||||
  Ganzi | 4 | 1 | Advances to Code S Ro16 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Jjakji | 4 | 3 | Advances to Code S Ro16 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Boxer | 4 | 4 | Drops to Code A Ro32 | |||||||||||||||||||||
  Sen | 0 | 4 | Drops to Code A Ro48 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Jjakji 2-0 Sen Ganzi 2-1 Boxer Ganzi 2-0 Jjakji Boxer 2-0 SEn Jjakji 2-1 Boxer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
EVERYONE EXPECTED TO SEE FORGG COMPETE AND HAVING HIS FIRST CODE S MATCH AGAINST LEENOCK MADE IT ALL THE MORE EXCITING. True to his reputation, the terran opened with a very crisp 1-rax cc into mass hellion opening and transitioned into even more bases and aggressive teching. However, Leenock’s macro was none too shabby either and it was not long before he amassed the ultimate army of brood lords and infestors. After winning a big engagement, the zerg implemented a succession of tech switches going through mass baneling/crackling into ultra to nail down Fin. Set two was way more one-sided as Leenock had no trouble dismantling ForGG’s marine/tank push with his +1 armor lings.
WITH THREE OGS MEMBER IN THE GROUP, A TEAM-KILL WAS ABSOLUTELY INEVITABLE and faith brought MC and Supernova together for a short, less-than-thirty-minutes-long PvT. Set one on Crossfire saw MC die to a banshee/hellion harass into a 1-base all-in but the protoss was quick to recover on Daybreak by crushing Supernova’s unorthodox raven/thor/banshee with brilliant chargelot/blink/immortal play. The third game was played on Antiga and Supernova used the art of deception, tricking MC into thinking he was going for 1-rax expand. Instead, Supernova was sneakily teching to cloack banshees and with zero detection in his base, MC had to concede.
COMING FROM A CONVINCING VICTORY AGAINST FORGG, Leenock was looking with a strong ZvT spirit and he demonstrated it again shortly after playing exceptionally and overall better than Supernova on Belshir Beach, using a huge baneling/speedling bust at the end of the set to get a 1-0 lead.
Of course, this was not the end of the story as Supernova came back to retaliate on Antiga Shipyard, gaining a gigantic early lead after Leenock failed to adequately deal with a medivac drop. Playing from behind all game was hard for the zerg but to his credit he did almost steal the victory with his ultra and only a tiny micro mistakes cost him the sure Ro16 spot. Leenock had to enter the third set on Daybreak, which he lost after a cost inefficient baneling/mutalisk counter attack. The latter opened many paths for Supernova to push out and the zerg lost so many bases that he could not maintain a strong brood lord/infestor army, needed for his late-game survival.
IT FELT STRANGE TO SEE MC AND FIN FIGHTING FOR THEIR TOURNAMENT LIFE, although the presence of such names in the group mitigated the situation a bit. ForGG was the first to score a commanding lead after melting MC’s face on Belshir Beach with a 3-vase marauder timing attack that destroyed the third nexus, winning the terran the game. Game two also began bad for MC after he suffered a sloppy loss of his undefended nexus but a few chargelot/storm surrounds brought him back in the game. By in turn sniping his enemy’s third, MC was able to secure the tie.
In the end, however, the whole series ended a bit anticlimacticly as MC travelled back in the past of StarCraft 2, going for and winning the game with a proxy void ray rush.
CHEESE IS OFTEN SERVED AFTER A SERIES OF MAIN COURSES AND LEENOCK AND MC STUCK TO THIS PRINCIPLE in the final series of group B. Leenock opened with a proxy hatchery at MC’s expansion - a weird plan that was repelled with a brilliant crisis management, but the zerg bought away a tie on Belshir Beach after hitting MC with a 1-base baneling bust.
The final set was contained into a bit more orthodox frames but was just as short as Daybreak saw MC do a +1/+1 gateway timing push that, thanks to impeccable forcefields, snapped the neck of Leenock’s third and left him hanging defenseless and with a poor economy. MC’s all-in was successful, he would advance to the Ro16.
| GSL 2012 Season 1 Group B | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player | W | L | Status | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Supernova | 4 | 2 | Advances to Code S Ro16 | |||||||||||||||||||||
 MC | 5 | 4 | Advances to Code S Ro16 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Leenock | 4 | 4 | Drops to Code A Ro32 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Fin | 1 | 4 | Drops to Code A Ro48 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Leenock 2-0 Fin Supernova 2-1 MC Supernova 2-1 Leenock MC 2-1 Fin MC 2-1 Leenock | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
LOOKING BACK TO GROUP A, I honestly thought SEn would be able to make it out. Sure, ZvT is his worst match-up but he only had to practice for it alone. Of course, the possibility of a drop-out was still there and still strong, but one would assume that the Zerg king would be able to win at least one set. So what was SEn's problem? Was he thrown off by the way Jjakji crushed his every hope in the opening series? Perhaps, although we did witness him performing on a top level against Boxer. Pinpointing the exact fault of SEn would need us to focus on the latter match-up and the Daybreak set in particular. Overconfidence was SEn's biggest weakness and it made him throw away a sure win and that did affect his performance in the revenge set, ending with a 0-4 stat in a hard but not an unwinnable group.
On the other hand, Boxer was the guy to steal the show. Again. And without even qualifying. His massive bio drop against Ganzi and tactical persistence and positioning against SEn brought back so much BroodWar memories that it's hard to neglect The Emperor's performance. This guy will be eternal, and not just as a symbol.
GROUP B HAS SUCH A TITLE FOR A REASON. It was not because I did not expect MC to qualify (or Supernova for that matter). It's just that it defied all the community hype that circled some of its players, particularly ForGG and Leenock. The first came out as a BroodWar veteran and quickly earned the reputation of a fearsome terran. He ended up 1-4, winning his only game mostly due to MC's mistake. Leenock flew in as the MLG champion and GSL finalist, famed for utilizing solid, gimmickless play. He turned up doing two cheeses in a row (including a proxy hatchery at the protoss natural, for God's sake) and not defending a simple +1/+1 push.
Thus, when I say this was a group of upsets try reading between the numeric results but into styles of play and overall performance. You will see what I meant.
