- YOU WERE SO CLOSE MC, impressive performance against Stats at least
- epic, epic throw from Solar in that one game, can't believe he lost that series lol
- epic cannon rush from Parting, love it, too bad he didn't advance

partings double cannon drop in like.... 0 seconds? love it

and that zealot pickup vs disruptors w0w~~

At first I was like BOSS TOSS IS BACK!

...then as the series went on, Stats just looked off

Epic cannon rush making it look too easy

lol Solar really messed up trying to smash down a brick wall with his head with those roaches

[x] CATTLE BRUISERS

cant say i had Calm winning the group of death

Match 1: I'm a college football fan, and when U of Slippery Rock plays Ohio State, we get into the realm of what's a MORAL victory, what kind of victory shows that a player (or college football program) is up and coming, and surprised and impressed... yet while ultimately losing.

Props to Ragnarok for surviving Maru's 1st and 2nd timing pushes. Couldn't WIN, because Maru is a God, but he showed some good play, especially good defense vs Terran harass, before ultimately succumbing.

Match 2: I liked herO's idea in game 1, to show one thing, and switch to something else, but Tastosis called it when they said that overlord that scouted the phoenix switch was the MVP. The mechanics of the game mean you can't just build towards one thing, stop with no initiative, and build towards something else while banking on the element of surprise

Match 3: Maru too good

Match 4: ...Aaaaaand Ragnarok squandered every nice thing I said about him.

If you're gonna proxy a hatch that far away, you might as well just hide a base and get minerals from it in case it never gets scouted

WOW I came away wildly impressed with both players.

In game 3, I thought it was fascinating when Scarlett pushed, and a) all the phoenixes were out of lifts, b) all of Scarlett's anti-air got killed, and c) the ground game devolved into a low-econ, every unit counts, scrappy fight to the death. That herO didn't die there is a testament to him (and like 18 phoenixes).

With both armies and economies shattered, that forced Scarlett into spores, hydras, and queens, which forced herO into colossi, and he somehow won the micro victory (with help from the expertly micro'ed phoenixes that he didn't let die).

From game 2, I also really liked herO's 2-adept/warp prism harass. Drop the adepts somewhere safe, shade them in, get 3-5 worker kills, pick up, and repeat for free like 4 or 5 more times until there's an overwhelming amount of roaches at every base. If there's just 1 queen and 4 lings defending, it's basically free. I think that's gonna become a thing in the ZvP meta, and because of how the adept shades and warp prisms and shields work, it's basically unstoppable.

It's a shame to lose the one foreigner in the Ro32, but what a great series from both sides

I root for soO like I root for the try-hard teenage virgin in 80's teen movies... I really want him to climb that mountaintop one day. Maybe it'll be this season!

I also love Tastosis and they contribute directly to my sc2 fandom. In Match 3 Game 2 we got a riveting Tastosis discussion of optimal quicksand play suddenly interrupted by a sharp hellbat all in timing, and the game just ended lol

Then in game 3, soO goes early roach warren and does enough damage to get out of the group, which I was happy to see!

Match 4 was a hard fought, if inconsequential, PvP where I thought Creator looked nice. But we all knew he wasn't beating Inno.

Just gonna get this outta the way now, Rapid is a perfectly fine caster... who's knowledgeable about the game, and occasionally has piercing insights. But a big part of what makes following Starcraft fun for me is Tasteless staring deeply into Artosis' doe eyes, and the running jokes they have, and the tangents they have about the best time-travel movies, or the best international airports, or the best quicksand survival skills.

So get rid of Rapid.

I was always rooting for TY, because he's a boss Terran who always wins in the macro late game... Once it gets up to liberators with range, he just constricts his opponents and chokes them out so they have no chance to win.

I've always rooted for Impact, because I live in Atlanta (and he once lived in the A with fellow old-school gamer Polt), so I was pleased to see him do well.

As for the rest of it, I'd be fine if Rapid had ZERO role in the tournament going forward.