[ASL16] Ro16 Preview Pt1: Fire Fight

One of the most exciting Ro24 in the history of ASL has ended with some great games, some less than stellar but all exciting/heartbreaking depending on who you’re rooting for. All leading up to one of the most stacked Ro16 in the ASL.

Simplistik returns to recap the latter half of the Ro24 as BisuDagger and BLinD-RawR preview what is to come in the first half of the Ro16.

Group D

This might well have been the best ASL Ro24 group in years. We saw the maximum number of possible match-ups, mostly amazing quality. Consider for a moment that this one little group produced the best ZvZ of the last decade, an astonishing late game ZvP comeback and an insanely clinical ZvT against the current best Terran, all by the same player: Effort. Yes, you should go and watch these games. I’ll wait.

In Match 1, free tried his hand at outlasting Light, by taking as many expansions as he could and keeping the Terran deathball at bay with storms and drops. Unfortunately, for free, some of his drops were very wasteful, and our Protoss underdog lost many many zealots to mines, for free. Light bagged the win with a 4-base, max supply, full upgrade slow push into the neutral natural.

Action opened Match 2 in the normal way: 9-pool gas. But Effort wasn’t interested in normal and went with an in-base-11-hatch 10-pool. The commentators immediately sensed that something unusual might be happening. Action’s first lings killed a couple of drones and he immediately started his lair, and added a sunken colony to avoid dying to Effort’s superior larva count. When Action’s spire was half-grown, Effort, still without lair, started a hatchery at his natural. There were all sorts of zergling shenanigans, but neither player suffered any significant damage. Effort’s spores finished just in time to hold off the mutas, and bizarrely one of the spores killed an overlord.

Then the game takes a long breath. Effort is being Effort and makes the most of his ling advantage, keeping the mutas busy, sniping a drone, damaging a hatchery and so on, while finally getting his lair. Action realises that he needs more economy and gets a third hatchery. Effort’s spire finishes around 10 min, at which point Action already has a full control group of mutas. Of course Effort gets burrow and hides a bunch of lings around the map. Both players go for hive and Effort adds a few more spores, just to be on the safe side. Action sacrifices a few drones, because he can I guess. Effort gets a small number of mutas and pokes around with a few scourge. Around 12:30 Action starts a hatchery at his third base, and not to be outdone, Effort starts two hatcheries, but one gets nuked by mutalisks. Still down in air units, Effort can really only lope around with lings. Action decides to get a greater spire, because he’s gotta find some way to make this game more interesting amirite?

And then the action picks back up again. Still with air superiority, Action takes down Effort’s third expansion, while at the same time defending his own successfully. Effort tries his best, but he doesn’t have the muta numbers. At around 15:00 we get to see the first defiler, which plagues a bunch of scourge for easy killing. Now Action has to be careful. If his muta-ball gets plagued the game could quickly turn sour. And so Effort finally gets his third up and running. What’s a good counter to defilers you ask? Tanks, yes. Reavers, yes, storm, OK. How about ultras? What? Surely not. But yes, Action adds an ultralisk cavern to his burgeoning selection of buildings. And thus we have a ZvZ with every possible Zerg building. Is afreeca paying these guys some kind of commission? Is this a drinking game? The ZvZ unusal buildings/units soju party, probably.

And the Zerg unit bingo continues. What’s good against lings? Yeah, lurkers are pretty decent, so Effort gets a few of those. How do you keep mutalisks from kiling your own plagued fliers? Get a few devourers maybe? Bit of a stretch? Never mind, Action is happy to give it a go. Meanwhile, the first ultralisk is romping around and Action has a fourth base up. Supplies are at an insane 144 to 110. Yes, you are probably dreaming.

What are we seeing here?

In the first hive-tech ZvZ exchange I’ve seen in at least 10 years, Action sends a few ultras, mutas and devourers into Effort’s third. The mole-zerg defends by plaguing the ultras to kill them with lurkers. Effort decides he wants to have a go as well, and sends a group of hydras with swarm to take down Action’s third base. A flock of mutas gets plagued by the by. Although the ultras slice up the hydras, the hatchery goes down. We watch a few more crazy fights and a pattern is starting to emerge. Ultras are actually good against hydras and lurkers, but vulnerable to plague. Hydras are pretty good at countering and they take down buildings fast. Eventually, Action’s superior economy allows him to keyser-söze his way through Effort’s underground forces and take the win.

I’m not quite sure what just happened here, but it felt pretty good.

In the Winners Match, Action managed to hide his distant third base until 8:30, at which point it was already defended by two sunken colonies, three stacked lurkers and nearly had a nydus finished. Light tried a large drop into the Zerg main, but Action was very well prepared and didn’t take much damage. The end of the game was somewhat surprising. Light smashed Action’s third base, with a quick nydus-snipe. This triggered Action to move out with a huge hydra-lurker-defiler brood. Although Light was ahead in supply, action managed to get his troops, under dark swarm, all the way into the Terran natural. And with the factories only just completing their machine shops, being “light-years away from having tanks and siege” (Nyoken, 2023), Light tapped out.

That’s a lot of stuff.

In the Losers Match, Effort opted for a slower economic opening, going up to five hatcheries before his spire had finished morphing. This gave free enough time to hold off the hydra pressure and the muta switch, and eventually secure (s)air superiority. When DT’s sniped the Zerg 4th at 9 o’clock, and corsairs feasted on undefended overlords, it looked like Effort’s ASL run was already nearing the end. But despite constant pressure from a very scary Protoss army, Effort managed to secure a second main base and natural. Eventually both players ended up on 5 gas. Effort was forced to turtle, while free harassed his heart out, razing multiple expansions and slaughtering scores of drones, but ultimately Protoss never managed to land a killing blow. Running low on resources in his starting quadrant, partly due to some effective lurker drops by Effort, free needed to secure the final free main. A nexus warped in at the natural, together with a good number of cannons, and with reaver support Protoss fought off the first attack. But an effective combined drop and zergling run-by tore down everything. Free rebuilt, but his army was out of position and Effort overran the defensive for the second time, about 30 min into the game. The swarm had finally secured a decisive economic advantage and started to catch up in supply. Free gave up on trying to secure further bases and tried one last large, but ultimately doomed attack. GG!

A moderately pricey drop

In the Final Match, Effort faced the daunting task of having to beat renowned TvZ monster Light to stay in the tournament. Light opened 8-rax to Effort’s 12-hatch. Stellar drone micro, without drilling, killed two marines, ending Light’s first attack. While Light built his natural CC and a factory, Effort morphed his third hatch in the main. In what feels like a long time, the swarm skipped the spire go straight for lurkers. As soon as Light scanned the hydralisk den, he cancelled a barracks in favour of a second factory and added a forward bunker. Four lurkers played tag with a small bio ball, and then backed off when the Terran army mobilised. In hindsight, I wonder if Light misread the game slightly, expecting some kind of 2-base all in that never came. Either way, Light paused for a moment before moving out with about three control groups of MnM. Meanwhile, Effort carried on teching straight to hive and started his third at the bottom left main, secured with two lurkers over the ramp. Light hit the expansion with his first two tanks, just before swarm was available. If Effort had taken the natural, he would’ve probably lost the game right here.

Don’t panic…

But on top of the ramp, the lurkers bought just enough time for seven more to arrive. With his first vessel on the scene, and now up to four tanks, Light tried to break the ramp, while simultaneously attacking the Zerg natural. The vessel kept looking for the first defiler, but was smartly screened from the nydus by two attentive scourge. With dark swarm finally up, Light was forced to back off. The attack on the Effort’s natural also failed, because of a lurker under an overlord. Meanwhile, Light took his third and repositioned for a big attack on Effort’s natural. Lurkers again managed to buy time for swarm to arrive. A small group of lurker-ling-defiler put some pressure on Light’s natural, which also cut off reinforcements.

Finding no opening, Light tried to put pressure on bottom left again, but Effort had swarm cover ready. He always seemed to have just enough units to hold on, without ever suffering any significant losses. Effort’s attacks on the other hand were very extremely effective. Six lings and a defiler forced a full evacuation of Terran’s third base, and it took a while for Light to retake it. A lone lurker at 9 o’clock impaled quite a few careless marines. Eventually Light started mining top right. But again, a small number of zerglings snuck around the Terran army and tore through the undefended base, while their siblings caused more trouble at 12 o’clock. When the first ultralisk spawned, Light had about 8 vessels, but it wasn’t enough. Effort’s four base economy went completely undisturbed all game, so he had no trouble replenishing his losses. Like free in the previous game, running low on resources, Light tried a final Hail Mary play and shoved into the Zerg fourth. But of course Effort had lurkers under swarm. GG.

Six easy steps to beat Light in ZvT:
1. Skip mutalisks.
2. Take a third with a ramp.
3. Build a spore colony at your natural(??).
4. Don’t panic.
5. Destroy the Terran economy with 12 lings.
6. Defend perfectly everywhere.

This group show-cased everything good about ASL, and it is a real shame that free and Light will play no further part. But I look forward to Effort and Action taking on some more Terrans.

Group E

And the upsets continue. On paper Queen was the obvious favourite to emerge from the group, and so, naturally, he didn’t. In the first match, Queen tried out one of his usual slower openings: 2.5-hatch mutalisks into 3rd base on location. Ample chose a more powerful 5-rax build. For a short while, Queen managed to pick off some rallying marines, to prevent the M&M deathball from coalescing. But once three groups of marines got out onto the map, Queen was in trouble. Mutas managed to slow Ample down a little bit, and a one-sunken-one-lurker-duo finished off the first attack, but Ample simply had too much production. Queen mis-microing his zerglings didn’t help either. The second wave ran over the lurkers and mutas and smashed Zerg’s third base. Ample’s third attack, with vessel support, simply jogged past the one lurker under swarm outside Queen’s natural, to finish the game.

Jaedong also opened 2.5-hatch mutas, which was scouted by a smart SCV. Sharp went for 3 barracks into double starport, taking a more defensive position than Ample. There was a cute moment when a drone killed an injured firebat to start morphing the third base. Jaedong got more mutalisks than Queen, and tried the kind of harassment that he was once known feared for. The mutalisks killed some SCV’s and a few marines wandering around in single file. It seemed to be working as Jaedong eventually took down the turrets next to the main mineral line and the damage started adding up. But Sharp had sent a small group of bio across the map that killed off the Zerg third. Then the previous game repeated. Zerg tried to take a different third base, but a large bio-vessel force just killed everything.

The somewhat unexpected Winners Match was a somewhat unexpectedly fun TvT. Initially both Terrans traded tanks, vultures and wraiths fairly evenly, while going up to three bases. Ample got an advantage with a nice splitting attack that killed a lot of SCV’s at Sharp’s third. Then Ample got an even bigger advantage with some very effective high-ground against low-ground tank sniping, to take a 50(!) supply lead. But if you’ve watched Sharp’s TvT escapades before, you know that he only really starts playing when the game is very nearly lost. And so again this time. Sharp swung around to the bottom of the map with a big counter attack to besiege his opponent’s fourth base. Ample completely messed up the defence, trading poorly and losing his base. Sharp seized the opportunity to drop the main base. With impeccable hospitality, Ample showered the visitors with gifts of free tanks, until the supply difference had swung 50 into the other direction. With superior eco, more tanks and better position, Sharp closed out the game smartly.

The Losers Match started with a big build order advantage: Queen’s 9-pool-gas allowed him to punish JD’s 12-hatch. Jaedong held the first zergling attack, very narrowly saving his hatchery, but was reduced to 6 drones in the process. The game proceeded as expected, with both players jostling to get a mutalisk advantage. Amazingly, Queen decided to mine his natural gas with a hatchery above the ramp in his main. Jaedong managed to tear down Queen’s third hatchery, but lost his own natural on the backswing. There was probably a small opening for the Tyrant to get a decisive air advantage, by chasing down his opponent’s mutalisks, but he didn’t take it. Then Queen won a big air engagement to end Jaedong’s ASL run before it really began.

Weird scenes in the gas mine. – The Doors

In the Final Match, Queen got a chance for revenge. Instead he got run over by ample big bio battalions. It wasn’t all bad for Queen, as he defended Ample’s 8-rax opening. The mutalisks were moderately effective, but didn’t quite do crippling damage. Ample carelessly lost too many valkyries, which in theory gave Queen time to get into the midgame. But somehow he failed to use his opportunity wisely. Meanwhile Ample kept macroing away and just overloaded Queen was masses of units. I haven’t seen this many marines wandering into a Zerg natural in a while.

Big attack, small defence.

Group F

Group F wasn’t exactly bad, but there were really only two close games. In Match 1 it looked like ivOry was in a good position, after his mutalisks dealt a lot of damage to Rush. But it’s often difficult for Zerg to transition from an aggressive opening into a normal mid-game. ivOry tried to take more bases and get his lurkers ready, but the timing and control were off, and Rush just ran him over with some solid marine control.

Match 2 featured our first PvP this season, with old rivals Bisu and Stork going at it. Both players chose almost identical openings and after a bit of low level goon hoo-ha, both players built larger armies off two bases, mainly composed of goons with reaver support. Bisu gets caught out of position a couple of times, but seems to be trading effectively. But for some reason Stork is constantly 20+ supply ahead, presumably due to superior probe numbers. Eventually we get a big engagement outside Bisu’s natural, where the Revolutionist carelessly throws his reavers away which costs him the game.

When does someone turn into a parody of themselves? How many times will Stork carry on trying the same PvT strategy? Isn’t this insanity? Whatever it is, it’s not Sparta. Yes, Stork tried carriers again. No, it didn’t work this time either. Although for a brief moment it looked like it might work, like it always does. Will we ever learn?

In the Losers Match, ivOry didn’t do something that often works against Bisu (hydra busts) in favour of something that doesn’t usually work against Bisu (unless you’re Shine or herO I guess): a heavy mutalisk opening. Bisu scouted it, built two stargates and accumulated enough sairs to win the game.

The Final Match featured probably our last PvP this season, with old rivals Bisu and Stork going at it. Bisu got away with an earlier nexus and both players built large-ish armies off two bases, mainly composed of goons with some reaver support. Stork gets caught out of position, loses badly and GG’s.

Carry on carrying Dinotoss. 20% of the time it works every time!

Stacking The Deck

ASL 15 champion, JyJ, returns to the stage after 4 months of online only competition. In the past month of games, the only thing Jyj could do is watch and scheme who to collect into his group of doom. Last season Jyj established himself as the Zerg destroyer, defeating Sacsri, ZerO, Soulkey, and by.hero. This confidence in the matchup spilled over into the group select ceremony where Jyj manage to acquire 3 Zergs. Sitting on his dinner plates will be healthy servings of Calm, Soma, and EffOrt. No matter how things turn out, Group A, starting September 4th, will be a Zerg graveyard.

Match 1 will feature JyJ versus Calm on the map Retro. This is a very advantageous first match for Jyj. Retro winrates in the Korean Proleague have gotten as high as 55% in favor of Terran. Calm has a 25% ZvT winrate compared to Jyj’s 53% winrate. Those margins are huge between the two players. Calm squeaked through his Round of 24 group with luck, but round of 16 is big league. Barring a brilliant cheese, there is absolutely no way he beats Jyj.

Match 2 is the first Zerg versus Zerg between Soma and EffOrt on the map Retro. Unfortunately, this isn’t played on the map that brought us hive tech play this season, and also lacks a geyser in your natural that you can mine from your main. However, it does feature Effort, who has brought very entertaining games this season. Historically, Soma and Effort have delivered some of the most fun ZvZs in ASL history. Their winrates are comparable in proleague too; Effort 57% and Soma 53%. The deciding stat? It has been 4.5 years since Effort has won a single game in the round of 16. The rust on Effort hasn’t come completely off yet and Soma will win this match.

Match 3’s Soma versus JyJ for the winners match is a comparable to watching the Grand Finals. As this is written, the 3 maps for this match are currently unknown. Soma is thriving as top Zerg in proleague matches. He’s ranked second overall and winning 54% of his game versus Terran. Jyj had a great run against Zergs last season, but he did not have to face Soma. Soma is coming back this season with a vengeance after his horrid ASL15 performance. The prediction here is that Jyj suffers his first series loss and has to fight it out in the final match.

Match 4 features Calm, who has a 25% winrate in ZvZ, versus EffOrt. Effort far out skills calm in the match up. Coin flipping won’t help Calm as he’s in over his head again and will be eliminated more quickly then this preview.

Match 5 will feature JyJ versus EffOrt. This is another fantastic matchup. Effort is no stranger to beating very powerful Terran opponents. Couple that with his 51% winrate, he’s in a good position to take out Jyj. (#6) Effort is ranked 9 spots ahead of (#15)Jyj too. Effort also showed us how resilient he can be against another strong Terran, Light. At a glance, this group looked like a blessing for Jyj, but at then of the day, it feels like a funeral for the returning champion. The curse of the perfect matchup group will be too strong and Jyj will suffer elimination from Effort.

EffOrt and Soma advance to the Ro8!