Code A – RagnaroK upsets Cure, sOs & Dark advance

The first series of the night featured sOs and Hurricane facing off in five hectic PvP games. The series could rightfully be described as a “typical” sOs series, with proxy-tactics being liberally wielded on either side. We’d advise sOs fans to check out game three on Romanticide, where the evil genius managed to win a game with a sky-Protoss composition of Carriers-Void Ray-Mothership. On the other hand, sOs haters might relish in the events of game two on Blackburn, where sOs managed to botch an otherwise game-winning DT-drop due to a supply block. Ultimately, sOs’ knowledge of the dark arts allowed him to win the series in game five, when he scouted out Hurricane’s 3-gate strategy—aided by one proxy-gate. In the post-match interview, sOs revealed he knew exactly how to counter the 2+1 gate strategy due to being an avid practitioner himself, demonstrated by his one-sided victory in the early-game Stalker wars.

Next up was Armani vs Dark, where the two players seemed headed toward a standard macro game in game one after going up to three bases. However, Dark scouted his opponent’s Lair tech early on, allowing him to cut Drones and launch a series of Ling-Bane-Roach attacks that won him the game. Dark wasted no time in going up 2-0, surprising Armani with a 12-pool Zergling+Drone all-in that managed to elude all of the scouting Overlords. Armani tried to pay Dark back with the exact same strategy in game three, only to be hard-countered by Dark’s decision to go for a more conservative variant of the 12-pool build. Not only did Dark have plenty of Zerglings in defense, but his superior economy allowed him to build the Queen and Spine Crawler that sealed his victory. While Dark made Armani look foolish in the series, he used his post-match interview to praise Armani’s macro-game skills, citing them as the reason he decided to use so many cheesy strategies in the first place.

The final series of the night produced a huge upset, with RagnaroK taking a 3-0 sweep off Cure. Regular TL.net readers will be familiar with RagnaroK’s status as the king of ‘moral victories’ in TvZ—that is to say, he’s a player who puts up great fights against elite players in macro games before inevitably surrendering.

This time around, however, RagnaroK managed to prove exactly why he has been so confident in challenging the likes of Maru in straight-up games. RagnaroK used Muta-Ling-Bane to dominate Cure in games one and three, where he looked completely in control throughout all stages of the game. The second map on Lightshade was a dicier affair, as the two players were plunged into a tense mid-game base-trade. There, Cure’s AfreecaTV studio jinx continued, as he failed to destroy RagnaroK’s Lair by a difference of TWO hit points, thus costing him the game.

GSL Code A will continue on Monday, Jun 21 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00) with ForGG vs Percival and PartinG vs Zest.