Nigh year 2011's end, GomTV gathered ten champions to fight in an ultimate tournament. Group A saw IPL 3 medalist Stephano go against the mighty Koreans but suffered a clutch loss as DRG, Mvp and MC emerged victorious.
Mvp vs MC @ Bel'shir Beach
Aiming to play a macro game, Mvp opened with a 1-rax gasless expansion but MC had entirely different plans altogether. The oGs protoss went straight for the 4-gate blink prism all-in but stumbled upon the worst thing that could have happened - an elusive SCV scouted the entire build of MC and Mvp started preparing for the attack.
In the early minutes of MC's offensive his observer provided him a bit of control over the battle. MC managed to blink here and there, sniping a bunker or a depot but as a sudden scan got rid of his spotter, MC found himself in a difficult position. He struggled for a little longer but as marauders hit the field, the game was practically over.
Hero vs Stephano @ Daybreak
Knowing that rush distances are too long on this map, Stephano sprinted towards a fast third while HerO decided to open with a slight 2-base pressure towards the aforementioned third. The said pressure went horribly wrong though, as Stephano's roach tech kicked in in time to decimate the attack flawlessly and put Hero in a mind-boggling situation: the protoss was a base behind and was just getting his robo tech up while Stephano's economy was more than flourishing and soon the zerg exploded with a humongous roach army.
Stephano's scent for blood led him to HerO's third, then in a process of saturation. Combined with some more minor frontal attacks and the lack of thermal lance for the colossi, the Frenchman walked out victorious with Hero's nexus in ruins. The pummeling continued on and on and even with colossus range eventually finishing, the Korean was dead as a doornail.
DongRaeGu vs Mvp @ Tal'Darim Altar
Mvp's double reactor hellion opening quickly realized the level of its impotency as DRG's sim city defense was sturdier than a granite rock. The zerg smartly delayed getting a third and placed a macro hatchery to both better defend his expo and still have the needed macro burst to be on par with the terran unit-wise.
DongRaeGu naturally transitioned to mutalisks to win back the map control and chase the hellions away but that was all he accomplished with the fliers - missile turrets and thors sprung just in time for Mvp's base to be completely safe. The thor count kept growing as did the hellions - Mvp was going for a tankless mech.
In response, DongRaeGu chose a roach/baneling composition and with his newly acquired sense of security, the zerg moved out to pressure the terran. The first engagement went horribly for DongRaeGu as he lost most of his army supply by attacking into a tight choke. That served as a valuable lesson for DongRaeGu who did not make a single mistake like this till the rest of the game. Whenever Mvp tried to move to establish a position on the map or at least attempt to cover a fourth base, his zerg opponent was there with the perfect arc of units. When Mvp finally made it out of his base to pressure one of zerg's bases, he immediately felt the presence of roaches in his own main. Knowing that the game is most over, the IM terran typed out.
Hero vs MC @ Calm Before the Storm
PvP is sometimes so funny that it can reach comical proportions. Such thing happened to HerO on CbtS as he opened with a nexus first, followed by cannon-walling his ramp to prevent any units from breaking in.
Little did he know that his death would came from within, warped in through a hidden pylon of MC, sneaked out of sight at Hero's inner expansion. The life of DreamHack's champion got even worse when he realized that he had his zealots stuck outside of his base - the cannon wall-off had left them stranded. Hero furiously cut through his own defense but it was already too late. He had suffered a bit too much probe damage and his entire build was going down the dumpster. An easy victory for MC.
DongRaeGu vs Stephano @ Crossfire
Another mirror followed, this time of the zerg persuasion. Stephano met DongRaeGu on Crossfire and the Korean went straight for the aggression, opening speedling baneling off of one base against Stephano's quick expand. The Frenchman had very few troubles during the first waves of enemy units and although he lost a queen, his spine crawlers did stay alive to aid him as the game unfolded further.
By that time, DongRaeGu was literally checkmated - he had no means of accessing the enemy drones nor did he possess enough units to break Stephano's ramp. With one base behind as well, the Korean had to gg.
Hero vs Mvp @ Antiga Shipyard
Another short game happened on Antiga Shipyard between Mvp and Hero. Confident that his opponent won't try anything fishy, Hero opened nexus first - a most dangerous gamble as he would later find out as Mvp 3-rax bunker rush came knocking.
A clean victory for the terran.
Stephano vs MC @ Dual Sight
By his third match, Stephano already had a nice 2-0 lead so this confidence might have been one of the reasons for him going for a 2-base roach/ling rush. A build against which, by the way, MC had shown times and times again he is almost invulnerable. The protoss used sim city defense and force fields to keep his economy alive and maintain an equal income ground with the zerg. Although his rush was completely deflected, Stephano somehow found a way to transition out of the disadvantage and enter a stable mid-game (as stable as it was possible, of course, considering his opening).
Stephano would not enjoy a macro peace for too long, though, as MC had plans to crush the zerg resistance while it was still weak. Walking out with a +1 immortal/colossus timing attack, MC had the full strength to blast every roach he stumbled upon on his way towards the zerg base. Thus, the Frenchman suffered his first defeat for the day.
DongRaeGu vs Hero @ Shakuras Plateau
Hero opened with an in-your-race maneuver, gate-blocking DongRaeGu's natural to delay his hatchery even more. As it got cleaned, however, the zerg spread himself over thre bases as quickly as he could and started droning up like crazy.
To continue his devious play, Hero used his still alive probe to cannon up DongRaeGu's natural (gosh, that base did not have it easy today) but a slight misposition of one of the cannons gave Hero away and the rush was cleaned swiftly and without any zerg casualties.
From that point on, it was like some invisible force made HerO fail his every follow up move. His macro faltered, his zealot harass was ineffective, even his signature sentry prism build was torn apart as soon as it was spotted. His macro was also close to non-existent and still being on two bases, the Liquid protoss gave up the match, meaning he was most certainly out of the Blizzard Cup.
Mvp vs Stephano @ Shakuras Plateau
I don't remember who was that said Stephano's biggest weakness is that Koreans will figure his style out. If I didn't believe that than, I surely do now.
The Shakuras set was opened with Stephano going for his very signature double evo ling/infestor build. And it was all peace and quite until Mvp's 3-rax into reactor preigniter hellions build hit the Frenchman like a truck or rather a flaming one. Stephano had both less supply and the completely wrong army composition to fight off Mvp's advance so when all his lings got roasted in milliseconds, the zerg typed out.
DongRaeGu vs MC @ Crossfire
The final game of the day saw DRG going against MC in match as important for them as much as for a third player - Stephano. With a 2-2 score, Stephano was rooting hard for a protoss victory as being tied in sets with DRG would mean him advancing the the Ro6.
DRG opened crossfire with a straight-on 2-base infestor rush, opting to break MC's wall with as much infested terrans and speedlings as he could muster. The solid sim city wall and the force fields, however, were more than enough to keep MC safe even without utilizing his earlier phoenix build or the follow-up archon tech to the fullest. With the zerg army defeated, MC moved out to take a third at the bottom right.
The zerg responded with a huge mutalisk switch that brought worries back to MC's camp. The protoss air force was cleaned up and soon the economy and the tech at MC's main was under attack. With the warp in of few high templars the mutas had to go away but their job was done - map control was back in DRG's hands and he could calmly transition to a more roach-centric composition.
To MC's bad luck, the mutalisk terror continued and eventually the protoss got sick of playing catch me if you can with the zerg fliers and went straight for DRG's third - a situation that immediately grew into a base trade scenario. And you know what they say - never base trade against mutas. DRG spined up his main in mere seconds and continued to decimate the protoss base while MC helplessly tried to make his way in. That was a GG from MC and the end of Stephano's hopes of making it to the Ro6.
Blizzard Cup Group A Standings
DongRaeGu3-1
Mvp3-1
MC2-2
Stephano2-2
HerO0-4
