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HuK, ForGG, Killer, Virus and the new product of the protoss hype Brown. Guys, this is actually a very legitimate Code S group (except from, you know, having five players).

To Code S we go: Virus

VS Killer on Belshir Beach

Killer displayed a very cool, very aggressive 2-base play, going up to seven gates with quick templar archives, storm and double forge. As 1/1 and storm clicked, Killer moved out to deny the third of Virus while taking a base of his own and used his empty templars to archon up his tanking line and do a follow-up attack when 2/2 was done.

Virus never got the chance to hop into the leading position - all his drops were defended and he never got to mine from his third base.

VS Brown on Daybreak

It felt like Virus was completely shut down from minute one. Brown's two-base immortal push delayed mining for quite a long and hurt the SCV count drastically, reducing it to 29 workers to 49 of the protoss. Virus' marine/marauder retaliation many minutes later also did not fare well: by that time Brown had all the support his colossi demanded as archons, chargelots and immortals tanked all the terran fire in the world.

Virus was on the run but there was just no place that would spell his salvation. He was meant to fall under colossi lasers and zealot psi-blades.

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VS Lucky on Dual Sight

This game was very similar in style to what ForGG and Lucky played earlier in the group: the terran opened with a harassment technique (this time preigniter instead of a banshee) and transitioned to hellion/thor while the zerg utilized roach/baneling composition in the mid-game with a transition to mutalisks and brood lords.

The main difference was that Virus never made ForGG's mistake of being caught off-guard. His first big push was at zerg's third while Lucky's army was on the opposite side of the map. Although this cost Virus his own third to a counter attack, he had enough units at home to bar further advancement of the zerg and after cleaning Lucky's fourth as well the game was practically his.

VS HuK on Daybreak

By that point Huk was at 2-1 so you could say that the game versus Virus was absolutely essential for his advancement. As with the ForGG match, however, things did not go his way.

Virus opened the game by faking an expansion build but HuK was quick to scout it and get an observer out just in case - a perfect decision that would help him deal with the first few banshee of Virus. But Virus would not abandon the Banshee play completely, not at all. In fact, his two starports kept chugging out banshees and his factories were producing thors until the terran had a nifty army of six banshee, four thors and some marines. With this composition he moved out to attack the natural of HuK and what a beating that was. Although the Canadian succeeded in cleaning the ground forces of Virus, there were still four banshees remaining, terrorizing his AA-free base.

And you can't get much of a comeback when you are doubled in supply and your economy is being put to the slaughter.

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VS ForGG on Cloud Kingdom

So here's the deal - ForGG is an ex-BroodWar terran, so, in Artosis' words, he's already among the best human being on earth. Virus is a so-so Code S player (which still translates as extremely good) with a 36% TvT win-rate. The first few minutes of the game came out strong to support those statistics and ForGG easily won the air battle at Virus' third to establish a strong, seemingly unbreakable, position.

But then again, Virus never intended to attack it head-on. In one single, brilliant move, Virus commanded all his tanks and hellions directly to ForGG's natural, killinge more than 30 SCVs and forcing a massive unsiege fron ForGG's part. The game suddenly swayed into Virus' favor who kept performing on the highest level by using constant preigniter raids to chew through ForGG's economy.

The direct battles were still as intense as ever, though. The army supplies of both players were constantly close to the absolute equality, never differentiating with more than 10 food. But that could go for only so long and the preigniter harass soon put ForGG in an unsolvable rubix cube conundrum of three parts: 1) there was a banshee of Virus killing his tanks; 2) he had to drop MULEs to actually mine something; or 3) he had to scan in order to keep his army alive. A perfect game by Virus and a well deserved Code S spot.

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To Code S we go: ForGG

VS Lucky on Entombed Valley

ForGG's early hellion/banshee aggression that constricted to some extent Lucky's map control went down the drain as his pure mech transition to hellion/thor got surrounded and corroded by roach fire when he tried to move down the map. With no immediate mech threat hanging above his head, Lucky was free to tech to brood lords and start pressuring ForGG's fourth.

The earlier loss of the terran had left him with scarcely any anti-air, mostly in the form of a few thors. Viking production was started instantly but there was no way that ForGG could catch up to the already dense flock of corruptors. He did manage to keep his fourth alive for a few minutes but ultimately knew that with no answer to the broodlords, they will be his doom.

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VS Killer on Metropolis

This short game was given fire when ForGG showed off his BroodWar skills by performing a fiery hellion dance around Killer's probes, reducing their numbers significantly. With the protoss still one base ahead, though, ForGG chose to finish what he started without taking his own expansion and gunned down Killer with a marine/tank timing attack. This caught the rich on Stalkers bur poor on zealots and sentries Killer unprepared and the Complexity player was not two games down.

VS HuK on Metropolis

HuK came really close in this game. His proxy DT tech went completely unscouted and his zealot force that kept growing while the dark shrine was building (i.e. for a long time) provided a good enough ramming of ForGG's front wall.

However, if all problems of protoss could be solved with a few dark templars and a handful of zealots, the world would be a different place entirely. ForGG SCV-blocked his turrets, stabilized incredibly quickly and after that it was just a matter of who had the higher out-front DPS. ForGG was in possession of four ghosts and enough marines to conquer Stalingrad. HuK had blink stalkers and some EMPed archons.

Do the math.

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VS Brown on Entombed Valley

Personally, I get disappointed when we see games like this. Not because they are bad, per se, but because they bring nothing new to the table. Let's walk through what happened and find out why.

Brown missed the 3-rax opening by ForGG and suffered some early damage. Then, he missed the 5-rax once again and had to play perfectly to not die there and then but instead five minutes later when his colossi got caught out of position.

Final standings

2012 Season 2 Up/Down matches group D
ST_Virus	3-2
oGsFin	3-2
EG.HuK	3-2
FXOLucky	2-3
coL.Killer	2-3
SlayerS_Brown	2-3
Killer > Virus Lucky > Fin HuK > Brown Fin > Killer Brown > Virus HuK > Lucky Killer > Brown Virus > Lucky Fin > Huk Lucky > Killer Virus > HuK Fin > Brown HuK > Killer Brown > Lucky Virus > Fin