2011 January Code A Round of 32: Day 1

Today is the first day of January's Code A tournament. This is a 32 player tournament whose top 8 finishers will get a chance to play their way into Code S by beating the early losers of this month's Code S tournament. Meanwhile, the bottom 16 players (everyone who loses in the opening round) will be have to defeat hopefuls from Code B to avoid relegation.

Unlike the odd Code S round robin format, the Code A tournament is a best of 3 single elimination tournament similar to the 2010 GSL tournaments.

Today's matchups:

TankBoyPrimeWE Terran #1 2010 Results: Ro32, Ro32, DNQ Eliminated Map: Scrap Station

vs.

IMJunwi Zerg T-#15 2010 Results: Ro64, DNQ, Ro64 Eliminated Map: Steppes of War

Maps Jungle Basin Shakuras Plateau Lost Temple

BanBansZenith Protoss T-#15 2010 Results: DNQ, ro64, ro64 Eliminated Map: Blistering Sands

vs.

ZeNEXcOre Protoss T-#9 2010 Results: DNQ, ro32, ro64 Eliminated Map: Scrap Station

Maps Xel'Naga Caverns Steppes of War Shakuras Plateau

IMJunwi (Z) vs TankBoyPrimeWE (T)
Match Rating: 6/10
VOD Link

Click for match play by play and commentary

Game 1 - Jungle Basin

Hatch first on 15 for Junwi, gasless opening for TankBoy

Command center on 21 for TankBoy, his marines snipe an overlord at his expansion as well

Factory and two more barracks with TankBoy, he pushes four marines up into Junwi's main

While Artosis criticizes exposing the marines, they kill an overlord in Junwi's main

Zerglings attack as the marines withdraw but there aren't enough to kill any of them

Zergling speed and lair coming for Junwi, stim and a starport coming for TankBoy

Baneling nest now for Junwi, TankBoy is completely walled in with barracks with add-ons

Spire for Junwi, reactor dropships and shields for TankBoy

TankBoy moves out with a medium-sized marine/marauder army with two dropships

He scans and kills creep tumors at the bottom of Junwi's ramp

He moves up the ramp with only marauders to avoid baneling attacks, then uses his dropship to put a few marines on the high ground

Mutalisks come out and TankBoy immediately withdraws

TankBoy's force joins reinforcing marines and two siege tanks at the front of his main

Junwi goes to the rocks with mutalisks and zerglings, forcing TankBoy to bring marines to defend

Baneling speed, muta air attack, and a macro hatchery for Junwi

Junwi expands to his near outside base as well as the center

TankBoy moves to the outside hatchery and forces a cancel with his army

Junwi ignores and counters into TankBoy's main with mutalisks and zerglings

TankBoy sends his army into Junwi's main instead of trying to go back

The mutalisks return to help the banelings defend Junwi's base

Junwi masses up a large group of zerglings and banelings and after whittling down TankBoy's forces attacks and slaughters TankBoy's army

Junwi now with a nearly unstoppable advantage. He gets 20 banelings to go with his dozen or so mutalisks

Junwi rebuilds his outside expansion, so he's three bases to two with a fourth on the way

A dropship moves out for TankBoy, Junwi takes a fifth in the other outside base

TankBoy tries to move out but Junwi's 24 mutalisks force him to stay at home

Junwi's maxed now with banelings, TankBoy at 120 supply and almost exclusively marines in his army

TankBoy builds a thor, but the mutalisks kill it without even bothering to magic box

TankBoy moves his army out and it gets immediately obliterated by Junwi's banelings

TankBoy concedes

Crushing victory for Junwi on a map that seemed like it wasn't in Zerg's favor in GSL 3. TankBoy seemed pretty impressive back in GSL 1, but perhaps he's fallen behind the curve.

Game 2 - Shakuras Plateau

Cross positions, TankBoy at 10 and Junwi at 5

Hatch first on 15 for Junwi, another gasless opening for TankBoy

TankBoy finds an overlord in the lower left and kills it with marines.

Command center for TankBoy, meanwhile he pushes out with four marines, but they get intercepted by zerglings and two are killed, though another marine drives off the surviving zerglings

Stim and another barracks for TankBoy, quick third expansion (36 supply) for Junwi

TankBoy lands his command center at his natural, zergling speed coming for Junwi

Baneling nest out for Junwi, TankBoy moves out with a small group of 7 marines and three marauders

TankBoy feints towards Junwi's main, then heads up to Junwi's third and attacks the hatchery

Junwi's zerglings and banelings arrive and destroy the army with the hatchery at about 1/3 health

Over twenty supply lead for Junwi as he starts his spire, then gets baneling speed

Two dropships fully loaded with marines head toward Junwi's weakened third hatchery

Junwi's response is good and he immediately responds with a large group of zerglings and two banelings

The marines have to kill the banelings instead of the hatchery, then they get surrounded by the zerglings and most die before the rest get evacuated by the dropships

TankBoy moves out with a medium sized infantry and tank army, but walks over five burrowed banelings and loses just about all of his infantry

Junwi immediately attacks with his zerglings and mutalisks. TankBoy doesn't have even remotely enough to defend after that baneling trap.

TankBoy surrenders

Even more dominating performance than the previous game, if that's possible. Other than the overlord snipe, nothing went right for TankBoy this game.

Commentary: Junwi never won a match in the 2010 GSL tournaments whereas TankBoyPrimeWE played some good games. Despite my expectations, Junwi looked far, far better than TankBoy today. Junwi did well and is only one more match win away from getting a chance at promotion. Based on his current form TankBoy will be lucky to avoid being relegation two weeks from now.

BanBansZenith (P) vs ZeNEXcOre (P)
Match Rating: 2/10
VOD Link

Click for match play by play and commentary

Game 1 - Xel'Naga Caverns

Standard openings for both players

BanBans gets four gates, cOre goes gate-robo-gate.

Proxy pylon for BanBans behind the grass at the expansion, stalkers warping in

Force field at the ramp temporarily keeps the stalkers out, BanBans adds a pylon on the low ground below cOre's base

When the force field dissipates, BanBans' six stalkers walk up the ramp. Probes come out.

BanBans' reinforcements warping directly into the base thanks to the low ground pylon.

cOre concedes

Ouch. Not a good game for cOre, who got hard-countered by a pretty ordinary four gate rush.

Game 2 - Steppes of War

Standard openings, but a very fast proxy pylon (about 16 supply) for cOre behind the minerals at BanBans' expansion

cOre puts a second gateway at the proxy pylon.

cOre's scouting probe leaves and BanBans sees the proxy gateway there

BanBans pulls back as a zealot, two stalkers, and a probe arrive for cOre

BanBans adds a bunch of gateways deep in his base, cOre ineffectually attacks the pylon but BanBans just adds more

Warp gates finish for BanBans and he warps in a bunch of stalkers

The stalkers counter up to cOre's base. cOre delays it with a force field, but it only delays the inevitable.

BanBans' stalkers don't bother to micro against cOre's zealots, but enough of cOre's probes have died that it doesn't really matter

cOre surrenders

BanBans didn't look very impressive, but he wasn't exactly pushed to his limit, so we'll just have to wait and see how he does in the round of 16.

Commentary: Pretty embarassing performance for cOre. These are teammates, so perhaps BanBans managed some sort of psych-out that made cOre choose such disastrous strategies. Luckily for cOre he's got a little while to get himself straightened out for the relegation fight.