WCS America Results (Group C)

Group C's games are in the books and fit my predictions (HyuN and Revival), albeit not Aligulac's (which had ByuN moving forward rather than Revival).  Here's a look at the games themselves:

 ByuL 2  TheStC 0

The expected result as TheStC's TvZ is awful.  The Terran opened with three reapers and while tickling a number of lings, he did not notice ByuL's ling counter which did significant damage; when TheStC tried to move out with hellions lings wrecked his natural and got into the main as well; ByuL's mutas reined supreme and an attempted hatch-snipe from TheStC accomplished nothing--he subsequently killed it with a drop, but ByuL was already twice his supply and taking his fourth, so the game was not in doubt.  Game two both players opened greedy as TheStC eschewed scouting as he followed his opening (going into mech); ByuL's lings got into the main as the depots were not raised; ByuL suicided a small roach army back by queens into TheStC's army, rallying his reinforcements and wearing down the mech army; ByuL went for swarm hosts and TheStC pushed out too early and lost his entire army; roaches walked into TheStC's natural as the depot was not raised (again) and a game that was spiralling out of control just got worse, as the Terran tapped out after a futile counter attack was cleaned up.

 HyuN 2  Revival 1

Another expected result, although it's interesting that HyuN only one with cheese.  Game one Revival went for a ling attack on HyuN's third and did some damage and then killed a lot of roaches in an excellent engagement; Revival made a big push, but could not break HyuN and was forced to retreat; HyuN then attacked with an upgrade advantage, but wasn't able to completely win the engagement; HyuN continued to be aggressive, using burrowed roaches as well as his army, but Revival was able to defend; more and more hydras were added by both players as engagements continued, with HyuN adding vipers to his composition, but the momentum ultimately went Revival's way as he began to hurt his opponent's economy and eventually won him the game; the game featured a lot of use of the contaminate spell by HyuN which was cool to see.  Game two HyuN went for an eight-pool as Revival early expanded and did crippling damage; while the game went on a little longer it was never in doubt.  In the final game HyuN went for an eight-pool and an early baneling nest as Revival early expanded again and quickly won the game and the series.

 HyuN 2  ByuL 1

As predicted again, this was the closest series of the day.  Game one HyuN went for an early third base and ByuL attacked the natural with roaches and lost his entire army, dying to the counter attack.  In game two ByuL was able to cancel HyuN's third and snipped three queens early as the latter was attempting to go zergling heavy (ByuL went for roaches); ByuL gave up his third to the ling attack, but then countered with roaches and won the game.  In the final game featured early ling/bane wars as both players went for mutas; ByuL lost a ton of drones to a ling runby and then lost the first muta engagement, which won HyuN the game.

 Revival 2  TheStC 0

Another set of crushing defeats for the Korean Terran.  Game one TheStC went for a hellion/marauder attack as Revival went for roach/bane, with the former losing all his hellions to roaches, but holding off the attack without suffering too much damage; without medevacs TheStC's attack failed, putting Revival ahead; transitioning to mutas and his army rolled over the Terran.  In game two TheStC went proxy two-racks where he made a reaper first, which was scouted early and while the bunker got up it died immediately and that ended the game.

 Revival 2  ByuL 1

The Aligulac surprise, but following my prediction.  Game one Revival went for early lings and brought the drones along to help the attack, but failed with only two drones remaining he died to the counter attack.  In game two both players were fairly passive as they both got firmly on three bases before the roach wars began, with Revival getting hydras and ByuL making banelings and then infestors; eventually Revival rolled ByuL over.  The final game was crazy, as ByuL went for a massive ling attack and while lost his natural he didn't suffer devastating damage; Revival's counter killed ByuL's queens; ByuL went for mutas while Revival went for roaches; the two exchanged thirds; ByuL left his mutas fighting in Revival's base a little too long (despite killing the natural and the third) as queens and spores were just enough to keep the latter in the game as he killed ByuL's third (again); Revival lost his third again, but ByuL lost almost all his mutas (amusingly, ByuL tried to block the third by burrowing a ling next to a spore crawler); ByuL refused to build anything other than mutas as Revival was stuck on hydras without upgrades and roaches; Revival built infestors as ByuL continued his muta harass, destroying the main completely and killed all his overlords in the natural and then the natural itself; Revival built a ton of spores at his remaining base and then tried to hunt down the muta flock with infestors; eventually Revival killed ByuL's fourth so the latter attacked Revival's base with all his banelings, which did nothing and the mutas attacked the spores and got annihilated, ending the game.  Day9 called this a stupid game (all in good fun I think), but it really was entertaining to watch.

HyuN and Revival move on to the round of sixteen.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)