In three days, the fate of 15 players was decided. Some fell, to many people's surprise, to Code A after their long runs in Code S. Others found their way up, despite being relative newcomers at least when compared to the old-timers. Was that the beginning of generations changing?
Group A
Group A began with a game worthy of Code S as FruitDealer met MarineKing in the opening match. Despite the big expectations, however, both played quite a standard match which ended with MKP's marine/tank push crushing the face of the zerg with utmost ease.
Two TvTs followed with Ryung prevailing over Dream by winning the preigniter hellion war and MarineKing falling to Happy to come 1-1 in sets. Dream showed incredible perseverance in repelling MarineKing's fast-tech heavy aggression and when his cloaked banshees destroyed yet another attack, the MVP player countered for the victory.
In the fourth match in group A, FruitDealer continued his ZvT struggle, playing a long macro game on Altar against Ryung. Although the former zerg champion won numerous advantages in the mid game with muta harassment and ling run-byes, the complete lack of hive tech brought defeat upon him as the heavily upgraded terran army started its fearsome pushing.
More TvTs followed with Dream snatching up an important and entertaining victory from MarineKing on Fortress after a peculiar low-army (Dream) vs no-econ (MKP) situation arose. Although pressured against the ropes, Dream kept his cool and patience and managed to win the game by chasing away MKP's tanks with a single, though heavily guarded banshee.
Ryung continued to stay undefeated going through Happy and MarineKing by showing immaculate strategic positioning and macro mechanics. That put Ryung on the top of Group A with a 4-0 score - an impressive run by the young SlayerS terran.
FruitDealer, on the other hand, was not as fortunate, losing a third game in a row as Dream handled his roach/muta army quite well and knocked him down to Code A. The MVP terran then lost the final (and decisive) set in Group A to let Happy take the second place in the pool, just below Ryung.
Group B
Asd got an early lead in the group by triumphing over sC in a long, hard TvT on Terminus. sC chose to play mech and delivered quite a lot of hurt with his preigniter hellions but ultimately Asd's army was more mobile and also bigger, easily controlling the crucial central parts of the map.
sC was quick to even his score in sets, however, by defeating Anypro on Metalopolis by opening with a deadly marine/tank aggression and taking a quick gold third to get an enormous, unbeatable economy advantage in the mid-game. Minutes later, another protoss fell as Tassadar got crushed by Asd by choosing the inappropriate build order. Tassadar's DT shrine into late colossi was useless as the large marine army with banshee support marched forward to climb his ramp.
Anypro scored another loss against Noblesse even though he somehow managed to transition out of his failed 8-gate all-in. Anypro fought bravely for over 20 minutes but the EMPs and maruders of Noblesse proved to be a bit too many. Tassadar shared the same end as his protoss brother but way quicker, finding his loss in front of the guns of sC's marine/tank/banshee/SCV all-in, a force not to be stopped by three immortals, zealots and ticklish sentries. Those two were soon to end with a 0-3 results, dropping down to Code A, with Anypro losing to Asd and Tassadar to Noblesse.
Thus, three terrans were left to fight for the top 2 spots. Noblesse won two in a row to top Group B with a 4-0 score and Asd finished second with a 3-1.
Group C
GSL May finalist InCa was the first to fall that day, not being able to stop Alive's rine/tank/all-in, despite his attempt to force a base trade with his DTs.
Leenock was the one to score the first victory for the swarm in the up-and-down matches, sweeping Keen on Crossfire in a very equal and tense game with finally taking the win by constantly rebuilding his bases and keeping his baneling count big enough to melt whatever marines tried to move out.
From there on, a scary terran win streak began with Alive winning two more against Leenock and Inca before being stopped by another Terran - the youngster Keen. The latter had picked himself up after the loss against Leenock and that win allowed the MVP terran to take the top spot in the group, having the advantage of direct victory when both him and Alive ended with a 3-1 score.
With Group C completed, all six players to advance to Code S step in the light - Ryung, Happy, Noblesse, Asd, Alive and Keen will all climb up to fight for the big money.
GSL July Up-and-down matches
Group AGroup BGroup C
Ryung 4-0Noblesse 4-0Keen 3-1
Happy 2-1asd 3-1Alive 3-1
Dream 2-2 sC 2-2 Inca 1-2
MarineKing 1-3 Tassadar 0-3 Leenock 1-2
FruitDealer 0-3 Anypro 0-3 Banbans 0-2
