Code S RO16 - Cure And Solar Advance (Season 2 2023)

Republished By Plato

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The Code S RO16 wrapped up with Cure and Solar advancing from Group D and earning the final two RO8 spots.

Cure looked more than worthy of his runner-up placement in the previous season, advancing in first place with a dominant 4-0 performance on the night. Solar, despite losing to Cure in the winners’ match, was still able to advance without much trouble by taking two 2-0 wins against Ryung. Unfortunately for American Protoss Astrea, his GSL woes continued as he recorded his fourth last place finish in a Code S group.

Code S will resume on Tuesday, Jul 18 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00) with the first RO8 group, featuring ByuN, Solar, Maru, and GuMiho.

Match Recaps

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Initial Match #1: Cure [2-0] Astrea

Game One – Gresvan (Cure win): Astrea opened up with Stargate-Robo while Cure went for an expansion into 3-Rax, setting up the familiar attack vs defense scenario in PvT. Astrea did a good job defending up to his third base, but Cure really slowed down his attempts to take a fourth base with good infantry movement. Astrea got in some SCV kills with warp-ins on the other end of the map, but the overall situation gradually moved in Cure’s favor.

Astrea gambled on an aggressive move, leaving a token defensive force at home while moving out with the majority of his Disruptor-centric army. However, Cure played the situation beautifully, executing a devastating backdoor attack while leaving just enough troops at home to hold off Astrea’s attack. With the game turned hopeless, Astrea GG’d out.

Game Two – Babylon (Cure win): Astrea took an aggressive stance early on, proxying a second gateway out on the map for some Adept pressure and then adding a Prism for added harassment. Cure went for some harassment of his own in the form of a Marine drop, and the two players found themselves in a low-eco situation after raiding each other’s mineral lines.

Astrea stayed on the offensive, gearing up for a frontal attack with Chargelots supported by a handful of Immortals and Archons. While this forced a temporary lift on Cure’s natural, Cure still got the better of the exchange by dropping Astrea once again during the attack. That left Cure with a solid advantage as the two players finally settled into a slower-paced macro game.

Cure’s lead grew even larger after he landed a big Mine drop that took out over a dozen Probes. Astrea couldn’t find a way back into the game from there, and he eventually GG’d out to a far superior infantry army.

Initial Match #2: Solar [2-0] Ryung

Game One – Gresvan (Solar win): Ryung went for a 2/1/1 opener in game one, trying to pressure Solar with drops followed by Marine-Tank pushes. However, Solar’s Ling-Bane defense was on point, and Ryung achieved very little with his attacks. The game turned into a very comfortable macro snowball for Solar, who assembled a massive Hydra-Ling-Bane swarm and forced Ryung to concede.

Game Two – Dragon Scales (Solar win): Ryung went for a drastically different approach in game two, opening with 2-Starport Battlecruisers. While this build went undetected, Solar was still able to minimize his damage taken with mass Queens. Once his Spire was complete, Solar struck with Corruptor-Ling-Bane and received the second GG from Ryung.

Winners’ Match: Cure [2-0] Solar

Game One – Gresvan (Cure win): Cure did a ByuN impression in game one, opening with 2-Rax Reapers into 4-Rax Marine pressure. His version of the strategy was on the more methodical side, waiting for his first Tank to execute a delayed push instead of applying constant pressure like ByuN. Solar seemed to be on top of his defense at first, but a moment of inattentiveness allowed Cure to take out his fourth base.

The two continued to battle it out into the mid-game, with Cure continuing to stay ahead. Solar was unable to keep up with all of Cure’s movements, allowing drops to slip in and deal some damage. Rather than pressing harder on offense, Cure used his advantage to comfortably transition into late-game, map-split mode.

Behind in economy and tech, Solar couldn’t stop Cure from achieving the dreaded Terran map split. After weathering several waves of Zerg attacks, Cure actually started moving past the halfway line and into Solar’s territory. Understanding his terrible situation, Solar spared the viewers a needlessly lengthy match and GG’d at around the 23:00 mark.

Game Two – Royal Blood (Cure win): Cure went for one of his own signature strategies this time, going for a greedy 3-CC opener into Battlemech. Solar wasn’t able to scout this out, and had to scramble to defend against waves of Cyclone-Hellion with his own Queen-Roach. Cure used Cyclone kiting to take amazing trades against Solar, leaving the ONSYDE Zerg with more than double the resources lost as he GG’d out.

Losers’ Match: Ryung [2-1] Astrea

Game One – NeoHumanity (Ryung win): The early game was quite active considering the map, with the two players trading blows with various attacks. However, neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage, and the game flowed into the kind of typical macro game you see on NeoHumanity.

Astrea opted to play ground heavy, with Disruptors making up a big part of his force. Ryung initially matched him with Marine-Marauder-Ghosts, but eventually teched up to ranged Liberators. Astrea was caught flat-footed by this aerial tech switch, and Ryung used the zoning power of his Liberators to demolish several key Protoss bases and leap ahead.

A moment of carelessness saw Ryung lose a number of his key Liberators, giving Astrea a brief window to launch a major counterattack. However, Ryung was able to barely hold the line with his hastily mustered defenders, and Astrea GG’d out from his dire situation.

Game Two – Gresvan (Astrea win): Ryung opened up with a fast 4-Hellion drop while Astrea played a defensive Blink build. The game seemed to swing heavily in Ryung’s favor after his Hellions incinerated nine Probes, but it went right back Astrea’s way after he repaid the favor with his Blink Stalkers. Astrea was able to go into the macro build-up phase with an advantage, and soon assembled a deadly army of Gateway units supported by Colossus and Disruptors. Ryung’s Disruptor dodging wasn’t quite up to snuff, and he had to surrender after a series of frontal attacks from Astrea.

Game Three – Royal Blood (Ryung win): Astrea opened with a defensive Blink build once more, while Ryung went for a fast 1/1/1 push with Marines and Tanks. Astrea found his third base under siege and losing HP fast, so he committed to a desperate attempt to hold the base with whatever units he had. Unfortunately for Astrea, this failed at saving the base, and also cost him several key units in the process.

With tournament elimination on the line, Astrea tried to keep playing the game out from his difficult situation. However, it was to no avail, and he had to eventually surrender to increasingly deadly waves of infantry and Tanks.

Decider Match: Solar [2-0] Ryung

Game One – Babylon (Solar win): The series started with the most honorable of macro games, with minimal shenanigans early on. Ryung kept pace with Solar for much of the mid-game, and he seemed positioned to make an easy late game transition. However, a big Hydra-Ling-Bane attack at Ryung’s fourth base swung the moment in Solar’s favor, as he erased a big chunk of Ryung’s army and SCVs. After that, Ryung couldn’t escape the downward spiral and GG’d out to Solar’s continued onslaught.

Game Two – Gresvan (Solar win): Ryung went back to trickery in game two, opening with 2-Barracks Reaper (one proxied) before making an abrupt transition to battlemech. While Solar had lost to Cure’s battlemech in the winners’ match, that had come off the back of a greedy, optimized build from Cure. In Ryung’s case, his early Reaper harass failed to slow down Solar much, leaving Solar in a much better position to defend.

Not only Solar did defend against the Cyclones, but he was soon able to counterattack with mass Roaches. Ryung just didn’t have the space to keep kiting against the incoming Roaches and had to GG out.