The opening day of the round of 16 featured an upset (versus predictions), but despite that and a good list of players did not feature many entertaining series (there was one; the VODs have been posted). The upsets by VortiX were as much poor play from his opponents than his own skill (Mvp could not or would not scout diligently, while MMA was unable to split against banelings even off creep. Here's a look at the games:
Mvp 2 Bunny 0
Game one Bunny (going bio) went for an early cloaked banshee with a tank/marine push, but Mvp (going mech, as he did all night) did great damage before the push with a reaper/hellion runby and then held off the attack; Mvp did damage with his own cloaked banshee and then went for a double hellbat drop while Bunny was out on the map with his army and did tremendous economic damage; Bunny was forced to try to do damage and wound up getting his army shelled by tanks and shortly afterwards tapped out. In game two Bunny built five reapers and did a good job harassing, but banshee harassment from Mvp put the Korean ahead who then killed the Dane with his first big attack.
VortiX 2 MMA 0
Game one MMA went for a weird, slightly proxy two-racks that VortiX scouted early which somehow wound up with both players relatively even and stable; MMA went for greed while VortiX set-up a baneling bust; the bust cancelled stim (MMA was researching it in his wall) and killed some workers; MMA dropped his tanks at the fourth to shell the third (even building turrets to protect them from mutas), forcing VortiX to take another third; MMA then went drop-happy before taking a bad fight outside his third, got behind and could not claw his way back (for whatever reason MMA had a hard time splitting his marines successfully against banelings). In game two MMA went super greedy taking his third off of just two reapers; VortiX responded with a roach/bane attack which MMA prepared for too late and died too immediately.
VortiX 2 Mvp 0
The biggest upset of the night. Game one VortiX went for a roach push and Mvp wasn't prepared and simply died to it. In game two VortiX went for two-base muta and Mvp thought it was a roach attack--Mvp held off the initial attack and the next three that followed it, but the fourth attack (with VortiX's on five bases) finally killed him.
MMA 2 Bunny 1
Game one MMA went banshee followed by a tank/marine push, but while Bunny took a lot of indirect damage from the banshees he held without much difficulty; with the lead Bunny went for raven harass in the main while elevatoring his tanks to assault the natural and MMA abruptly tapped out. In game two Bunny went for cloaked banshees, but MMA scouted it and nothing was accomplished; Bunny followed it with a tank/marine push which MMA held without losing much; Bunny held MMA's push (the same composition as Bunny's), but found himself very far behind and eventually died to a doom drop. In the final game MMA went for a marine/tank push using the elevator play to pressure the main, which Bunny defended well, but the Dane's follow-up attack was awful as he threw away his army without accomplishing anything; MMA sieged the natural and Bunny could not break the contain even by pulling SCVs and tapped out shortly afterwards. Bunny was clearly uncomfortable with the TvT matchup, but had a chance to beat MMA here.
MMA 2 Mvp 1
A modest upset and the best series of the day. Game one MMA went for an early drop plus hellion runby which did some economic damage; Mvp's response with hellion/banshee did more damage and gave him a lead; MMA moved out with marine/tank and set up a contain outside the natural and Mvp pulled SCVs to break it; the game settled down as both players got solidly on three bases; MMA was able to kill a lot of Mvp's tanks caught out in the middle of the map by dropping on them, but he pushed further and got crushed by Mvp's defense at his third; Mvp was able to force the third and fourth to lift; the game settled again as both got established on four bases and Mvp began transitioning to battlecruisers; MMA went for a base trade before the BC's could arrive and that did not go well for him and he tapped out shortly afterwards. In game two both players went for mirror openings (both going mech), with Mvp going for the drop/hellion runby that MMA did the previous game, doing a lot of damage with it; the players settled on to four bases before MMA made a huge push where he sieged the third and Mvp could not break it and had to tap out. In the final game MMA made a marine/hellion push that Mvp was not ready for and he took a ton of damage; Mvp's desperation counter attack did a ton of damage, but he died to cloaked banshees while he was across the map (he had no defense against them).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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