Starcraft 2 news » WCS Global Playoffs - Day 4 Recap
With group winners already decided on Saturday, the Round of 16 of the WCS Global Finals officially concluded today. Eight players had to compete for four spots in the Quarterfinals. At the end of the day, it was Stats, Neeb, ByuN and Elazer who kept their composure and secured their tickets to Anaheim.
The first series of the night was a lopsided one on paper, and Stats stayed true to his reputation by eliminating PtitDrogo in a rather quick series, showing off calm decision-making and cleanly controlled fights.
Their first game on Frozen Temple began without much stress for either player. Stats opted for a very fast natural expansion, only supported by his Mothership Core. PtitDrogo, on the other hand, chose a more harassment-oriented strategy, opening with four Adepts and a Stargate. An early scout of PtitDrogo’s Oracle gave Stats enough time to prepare to defend it with barely any losses. Both players transitioned into the midgame with different gameplans. Stats took an earlier third base while teching to Disruptors. This looked to play into PtitDrogo’s hands, who chose an aggressive strategy specifically aimed at destroying a third expansion. PtitDrogo perhaps stuck around a little too long after taking out the expansion, though. Down a base but with a stronger army, Stats was eager to fight his opponent directly and produced a very convincing engagement north of his third expansion. PtitDrogo never recovered from his losses and Stats was able to march right across the map to finish the game.
King Sejong Station saw a much different game. This time, both players chose the Stargate opening, but neither did any damage with their Oracle. Meanwhile, a few on-the-fly decisions led to PtitDrogo cancelling, then rebuilding, then re-cancelling a second Stargate. Things smoothed over eventually, as both players seemed content to take a third base and play a standard game. PtitDrogo’s Phoenixes found little damage, and Stats was able to move out on the map more freely once Blink was finished researching. His decisive move followed shortly afterwards. A squad of four Stalkers—perfect to kill Probes in one volley—snuck into PtitDrogo’s main base, while a huge army attacked the front. The French Protoss was unable to deal with either threat, and the Probe losses he sustained during the big fight were enough to push the game in Stats’ favor. Without the necessary economy to keep up with Stats’ reinforcements, PtitDrogo was forced to surrender the game and the series to his opponent.
The highly anticipated second match proved to be a lot closer than the first. The American hope Neeb put on a Protoss vs Protoss clinic on Galactic Process, easily deflecting Patience’s 3-Gateway attack, then looking to Immortal drops to answer his opponent’s lack of Blink. The maneuver worked wonders as Neeb killed a good number of Stalkers, significantly weakening the already delayed Blink technology of Patience. Neeb took the game to his comfort zone from there, expanding rapidly and preparing for Disruptor battles. Excellent positioning and control gave him continued hits on Patience’s army and eventually let him take trades that Patience could not recover from. Seemingly desperate, Patience moved across the map to strike at Neeb’s outrageous economy, but found his army stuck between Neeb’s forces and crushed to smithereens. A simple counterattack by Neeb was easily enough to end the game and earn him a 1-0 advantage.
The Korean struck back on King Sejong Station, though. Patience chose an interesting approach to the early part of the game by teching right up to Warp Prism speed and Disruptors, pinning Neeb in his base, thereby nullifying the mobility Neeb would have had with his earlier Blink. Both settled into a comfortable macro game from there on, but Patience was always the more active player on the map. He used his Stalkers to quickly jump into Neeb’s main base, snipe a few Gateways and get out without any losses, attempted to set up aggressive positions on both sides of the map and went head to head with Neeb in the late-game again. This time, however, he outplayed Neeb at his own game, winning a fight in the middle of the map very convincingly with impressive Stalker and Disruptor micro. That victory was enough to let him overrun all that was left of Neeb’s defenses and put the score at 1-1.
Neeb completely switched gears on Frozen Temple. Usually a very macro-oriented player who loves falling back on his proven 2-Gateway expansion with Robotics Facility follow-up, he used his reputation in his favor with everything on the line. Instead of the passive Robotics Facility opening, Neeb chose a Stargate and third Gateway instead—a clearly aggressive strategy to break Patience’s defensive setup. The Korean had chosen Neeb’s preferred build this time, but Neeb’s Oracle drew Patience’s Stalkers into the main base, while a big Stalker army of Neeb’s knocked down the Pylon protecting the natural expansion. Things went from bad to game-ending for Patience when Neeb’s Oracle snuck back into his main base and killed ten Probes while he was busy fighting Neeb’s Stalkers at the front. Neeb’s victory was but a formality from this point on, and Patience quickly realized. Neeb took the deciding third game and the series 2-1.
Terran fans will be delighted to hear that GSL Champion ByuN had little trouble with Dear in the third series of the day. A greedy Command Center first build on Frost gave ByuN an early economic boost against Dear’s standard Gateway-expansion. With Blink and a Warp Prism, Dear tried to keep ByuN on the other side of the map while he took his third Nexus, but ByuN had none of it. He snuck two Medivacs around Dear’s troops and then joined them together with the rest of his army to hit a powerful attack against Dear’s weak defenses. ByuN’s army of Marines, supported by Medivac healing, ripped through Dear’s incomplete army in a matter of seconds and made its way straight into the Protoss’ natural expansion, gunning down Probes and desperately defending units alike. The pressure never stopped, and a simple follow-up attack sealed the game for ByuN.
Dear held on a bit longer on Frozen Temple, but ultimately suffered a similar fate. ByuN began the game with an aggressively placed Barracks for a single Reaper, which began shelling away at Dear’s Probes while Marines threatened the natural Nexus. At home, ByuN already prepared the next stage of his plan—Mag-Field Accelerator. With Cyclones supported by their damage Upgrade, ByuN kept Dear contained on two bases for a very long time. This meant that, despite a convincing defense of the Reaper and ByuN’s Marines, Dear was not able to capitalize on his early lead. Cyclones kept denying his third expansion and Liberators made life even more difficult for Dear who constantly had to pull Stalkers back to defend his workers. Whenever he did, ByuN’s Cyclones swept in to attack the third Nexus. When Dear finally established the base, it was immediately killed by ByuN’s push with Marines and Siege Tanks, supported by Medivacs. Dear showed his resilience by driving the army back home, but ByuN’s economy had already grown too large in the meantime and a second big attack overwhelmed Dear’s army easily. ByuN decisively closed out the game, advancing to the Quarterfinals at BlizzCon.
After three series with relatively expected outcomes, the final one of the day was the exact opposite. In a battle of kinsmen, Elazer got the better of Nerchio with a strong Zerg vs Zerg showing. The series already began in his favor when he got away with a greedy gold base strategy on Apotheosis. He kept outpacing Nerchio throughout the first game, even finding and destroying his opponent’s Spire while his own was building. Forced to switch out of his preferred technology, Nerchio chose an Infestation Pit to counteract what he correctly guessed would be Mutalisks coming out of Elazer. But all the while, Elazer had both Carapace and Missile Attack Upgrades running simultaneously, allowing him to transition to an extremely powerful Roach-Ravager army behind the Mutalisks. Exploiting Nerchio’s greedy attempt to reach Ultralisks with a sharp timing attack, Elazer smashed his opponent’s army and clinched the first game.
As much as the first game was about Elazer orchestrating a win through great planning, the second game on King Sejong Station was all about a single moment of brilliance. After standard openings by both players, Nerchio caught Elazer’s Zerglings out of position and took out three Queens that were left on their own near Elazer’s third base. Nerchio seemed to be on the front foot the entire game, but one decisive move by Elazer ruined all his hopes. While Nerchio pressured his fourth base, Elazer swung half his army around the left flank and surrounded Nerchio’s forces completely. With nowhere to run, Nerchio’s army evaporated and all Elazer had to from here on was march across the map, wipe out Nerchio’s fourth base and then smash the remainder of his opponent’s army. With no economy and no army left, Nerchio surrendered the final spot in the top 8 to his countryman Elazer.
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