Super tops the last group
Put in a group with Season 2 champion Bomber, SKT super Zerg soO and HSC V runner-up YongHwa, Super successfully tricked many a fan into underestimating his chances and entered the last Ro32 group almost invisibly. Yet although not exactly an individual league powerhouse with this being his first Code S appearance his brief 2012 Season 5 stint, Super had it nonetheless coded in his record the possibility do defeat anyone, as those who followed his TeamStory Cup run would remember.
Long starving for success out of the comfort of team league, Super thus attacked Group H viciously, taking none other than Bomber as his first victim. Playing to his opponent’s style, Super patiently secured bases to match Terran’s signature unstopping macro and was able to match Bomber’s sea of bio units with his colossus deathball and snatch a 2-1 victory. In fact, hadn’t Bomber barely lived in the face of Super’s 1-base MSC/blink rush, it would’ve been an even stronger opening for the MVP Protoss.
Up in the winner’s match, Super eagerly awaited his opponent and soon it was soO who came to face him and once again the Protoss was outstanding in “solving” his enemy. Opening phoenixes, Super went for a quick third and a fourth shortly thereafter, making incremental advancements towards the end game army that can fight soO’s preference for late game encounters. After being successful in that, Super only needed one magnificent defense against soO’s forces in game two and one blink/colossus counter-push to secure his Ro16 spot.
Looking back at soO’s tendency of always making the Ro16 this year, it was almost expected to see the SKT member finish behind Super in the group, despite having to go through every single opponent in the pool. The solid, macro-hungry Zerg began his journey to the second group stage by unleashing maxed Swarm armies at YongHwa, only failing to break him in game one of their series when the Protoss put up a stalwart defense against the embracing concaves of soO. The second 200 push of soO would not let that happen again, however, and with the score tied a massive swarm host play was initiated to coin the 2-1.
After suffering the loss to Super described above, soO took the elevator down to the deciding match where Bomber was already waiting. The Season 2 champion had barely won the loser’s series against YongHwa and was looking forward to exercising his macro crush another Zerg neck to continue his streak from the Gamescom weekend.
If only soO had given him that chance. The SKT Zerg opened with almost uncharacteristic of him aggression, launching a roach/ling all-in off two bases. With a single bunker, Bomber was unable to keep his front wall standing and a GG was called, putting the champion one game away from elimination.
Falling back to a trick he used against Jaedong in Germany, Bomber cast the die and committed to a bunker rush in attempt to return soO the favor, only to find himself unsuccessful. Drones were immediately pulled as a response and the rush was shut down promptly, putting Bomber in a critical disadvantage. The Terran would struggle for a little bit longer and attempt a few desperation bio attacks as his last chance but soO’s superior macro did not allow Bomber to tie the score.
It might be too early to state that Bomber’s law is back in full force as two losses today don’t mean much but there were obvious flaws in Bomber’s play nonetheless, biggest of which being his predictability. In both TvP’s he played, the StarTale ace was read almost flawlessly by his opponents. Super was able to turn that into a 2-1 victory for himself and YongHwa came really close to that too, cleverly predicting Bomber’s SCV pull and countering it with a colossus push of his own.
Although there is little doubt that Bomber will survive challenger league and come back for the next premier season, the shakiness in his performance today could very well indicate that Bomber has not gone through an extreme makeover following his Season 2 win and has remained the same Terran we’ve always known: one packing a skillset like no other player, pairing it with the most mismatching results possible.
