GSL ST2: Zoun crashes the Jin Air party in the RO4

Super Tournament #2 seemed to be headed toward a Jin Air reunion party in the semifinal round, but the party was unexpected crashed by Zoun’s shocking 3-2 victory over Rogue in the quarterfinals. It was Zoun’s second major upset of the tournament, as he came off a reverse sweep of Dark in the previous round.

While Zoun’s triumph over Dark could be attributed to the Zerg’s fruitless attempts to go for early/mid-game busts, Zoun was able to show skills beyond his defense against Rogue. He took the first map with a clever Disruptor drop into an all-in build, completely overrunning Rogue’s haggard defense. Rogue took the next two maps, out-dueling Zoun’s Stalker-Disruptor composition with his Roach-Hydra-Viper in game two, and accepting a gift from Zoun in game three when he clumsily allowed his army to be surrounded by Roach-Ravager-Zergling. Zoun tied up the series again in game four by taking to the skies early, with his Oracles followed by 2-Stargate Phoenixes able to ravage Rogue’s economy and set up an easy mid-game win. The final game had shades of the series against Dark, with Rogue looking to bust Zoun’s 2-Stargate Void Ray opener with Queens, Roaches, and Mutas. However, as with Dark, the attack hit way too late to achieve anything, with Disruptors easily shutting down the attack and allowing Zoun to march to victory.

As for the other three quarterfinal matches, ex-Jin Air domination proceeded as expected. sOs put on a mind-gaming masterclass against Dream, successfully driving his opponent insane over the course of three games. sOs took game one with a 2-Gate opener combined with a proxy-Robo, and then proceeded to execute what seemed to be the same build in game two—but it was actually a feint to set up a DT drop that completely wrecked Dream. In game three, sOs psyched Dream out yet again by starting with one-base play, only to play out a ‘normal’ Blink-Stalker macro game with a delayed expansion. However, Dream had become so paranoid upon scouting sOs’ one-base start that he played hyper-defensively, putting himself far behind despite sOs’ non-optimal build. sOs happily snowballed his economic advantage to a win, crushing Dream with Gateway units backed by Templar.

Trap was just as impressive as sOs in his 3-0 dismissal of Bunny, but for different reasons. Trap showed Parting-esque Stalker and Prism control in game one, using his ‘defensive’ Blink Stalker build to inflict heavy damage early on and comfortably steamroll his way to a win. Bunny fought back courageously in game two, challenging Trap to a late-game macro duel where he actually seemed to come out ahead! However, Trap showed his veteran savvy by going for an aggressive basetrade with his weaker army, using his superior multi-tasking and speed to run circles around Bunny. Trap made reversing a 30-supply gap seem almost effortless, whittling away at Bunny on all fronts until he earned a comprehensive victory. Finally, Trap closed things out with a simple DT drop, with Bunny paying the price for using all his energy on Mules.

The last quarterfinal match saw, Maru take out SpeCial in yet another 3-0 sweep, though the series was also quite entertaining despite the scoreline. The two Terrans went back to their Brood War roots, playing mech vs mech in all three games. Game two on Romanticide was especially reminiscent of Brood War, with SpeCial setting up a long line of Tanks to split the map in half. Ultimately, the series resembled Maru’s 3-0 against RagnaroK from the previous round, where the games were close… …until they weren’t. Overall, Maru’s ability to seize map control and use his initiative to establish a stronger economy really shined through, and he used his superior economy to batter SpeCial to death. Also, Maru’s use of mass Ravens proved to be just as effective against mech as against bio, playing a crucial part in his game two victory.

Super Tournament #2 will conclude on Thursday, May 27 8:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) with the semifinals and grand finals.