The foreigner against the Korean Genius.

Game 1 starts out with a prepared move by Genius. Double proxy gating against the very late scouting Naniwa proves to be effective, with the base trade being denied by a cannon wall in on top of genius ramp, giving him a 1-0 lead in the set.

Naniwa picks Entombed Valley and elects to do a 2gate expand build, while Genius does a 3gate and stargate pressure build. Naniwa holds with some good force field baiting, keeping his expansion nexus. The Swedish protoss proceeds to kill genius with a 7gate blink attack with Immortals and a warpprism in Genius´s main, forcing a game 3.

The currently team less Korean protoss names Could Kingdom as the deciding map and with a good reason as he does a blink observer build to exploit the ability to blink into the main on this map. At the same time Naniwa opts for a 3gate robo expand build. Genius uses his stalkers and really good blink control to pick off isolated units until he gets a big enough of an advantage to just overrun Naniwa.

Game 1 of one of the few TvT sets in the Round of 16, starts out on whirlwind, with Byun adopting a cloaked banshee strategy, which gets shut down almost immediately by Vikings of Keen. Keen translates this advantage into a higher siege tank count. Defending every droop successfully until he is caught unsieged by Byun, killing every single single tank.

This lets Byun get up a faster third, while pressuring Keen. Byun does not overextend his forces, keeping his siege tank advantage and killing Keen in the end with a carefully executed marine tank push.

Game 2 on Metropolis starts out with both players going for banshees followed by an expansion, Keen being the more successful one. Keen gets up a contain against Byun forcing him to lift his natural, while a cloaked Banshee gets a lot of scv kills in Keens mineral line. Keen overstays his welcome and gets his contain broken by Byun but it seems that the damage has been done and Byun has to gg as Keen launches his second attack.

Game 3 on Entombed Valley begins with Keen going for a Banshee build once again and once again not being able to do too much damage. Keen transitions into 3Base mech, while Byun is going into heavy bio play, making up for his later third with drops killing svcs. Keen starts to push with a very high siege tank count. Leap frogging carefully across the map. As Keen reaches the middle of the map, Byun starts to drop and do multi pronged attacks canceling Keens fourth and spreading Keen out picking off tanks, thors and scvs. Keen is able to siege just outside Byuns natural but is losing units at Byuns 4th. Keen keeps engaging in small scale battles, which favors Byuns bio composition, which results in Byun having to much bio in the end, winning him the series.

Game 1 Byun opens with a reaper expand, getting a full scout and a decent amount of probe kills. Genius opens up with a safe expansion build with a quick observer. Genius tries to go for an Immortal bust, but gets caught off guard with marines attacking his base at the same time, winning Byun the first game.

Game 2 on Whirlwind Genius opens with a 3gate expand denying any harass from Byuns reactor helion into banshee build. Genius continues to play safe, getting collosus before his third. After he gets his Phoenix tech scouted he abandons it going speed zealots and templar archive instead. Byuns composition of marauders, tanks and marines as he completely destroys Genius army, unable to push his advantage though. After 20 minutes of back and forth action genius catches Byun unsieged with a lot of chargelots and Archons killing the complete army and taking game 2.

Game 3 opens with a pretty uneventful early game with both players playing very cautiously getting 3Bases. Byuns drop attempts didn´t end up doing very much damage either way. Genius miss controls the eventual maxed against maxed army battle, which snowballs into him loosing the game, despite having a hidden base.

The Losers match between the foreigner and Keen deciding who gets another chance at getting into Ro8 and who goes back to Code A.

Both players open up with a relatively safe expand build. Naniwa pressures Keens expansion forcing it to lift, while getting a robo and Observer to defend Keens cloaked banshee, which he does with minimal probe loses. After taking a third and getting a few immortals to deal with Keens tanks, Naniwa busts the third of keen, forcing it to lift and killing a bunch of workers. The Swedish protoss fails on his next attack though loosing almost all of his archons and immortals while a drop kills his third putting Keen back into the game. Keen sensing his opponents weakness tries to go for it with most of his scvs, but ends up getting crushed by Naniwas control and losing game 1.

In game 2 Keen does a proxy marauder build, which gets scouted immediately but is able to build a bunker in Naniwas natural to which Naniwa responds with an expand in the top left. Naniwa clears his natural while harassing the terran mineral line with some Zealots in a warp prism. After an unsuccessful Immortal bust on Keens natural. Now he goes for collosus. A small army catches his first collosus out of position and kills his robotics. Another small army denies Naniwa his natural and shortly after Keen scouts and subsequently kills the top left expansion. Naniwa finally gets 2 collosus out and unites them with his army and pushes to knock out Keen.

Similar to Group B, the last set of Group C would be a rematch of the first set.

Game 1 we can already see an adaption from Naniwa as he is scouting to see if he is getting proxygated again but Genius ends up doing the exact same build as in their earlier match. With a 3 gate blink observerbuild and Naniwa doing also the same build, which is 2gate nexus. Even though genius manages to make up for his later expansion, Naniwa does a way better job at defending this game, surviving the constant aggression from Genius without falling apart. The game transitions into more stable game, with both players massing collosus on three bases. In the big collosus war Naniwa catches Genius in an unfavorable position and is able to win game 1

Game 2 on Antiga Shipyard is almost a complete reverse of Game 1 with Naniwa going blink and genius going for a quick expansion. Naniwa is not able to kill enough probes to make it work though as he gets his observer sniped rather quickly. Genius translate this economic advantage into a more powerfull collosus army and after 2 big engagements Naniwa has to gg.

Game 3 on Ohana both players are going for 1 gate expands with a quick robo to be safe. The game quickly gets into the mass collosus phase while Genius is doing speedprism double immortal harass, which Naniwa defends reasonably well. Both player get their third and Genius continuing his harassment with mass speed zealots warp ins into Naniwa´s main. In the end Naniwa once again gets the better Mass collous engagement getting him once again into the Round of 8 of GSL.

Arguably the best zerg player on the planet against Ryung.

Game 1 on Whirlwind spawning in cross position DRG goes for a fast third base with 5 Queens, while his opponent goes for a fast third CC and double engineering bay. Both player stay relatively passive into the midgame. DRG going for a heavy zergling composition with a few banelings and mutalisks to deny drops while going for hive. Ryung is going really marine heavy with just a few tanks and medivacs. The players trade their armies with no clear advantage for either player. DRG goes for a broodlord army while Ryung starts to drop everywhere, avoiding the broodlords, sniping tech, drones and hatcheries. Ryung starts massin ravens, viking and nuke harass.

Nearly all of the expansions are getting taken. DRG attacks with his Broodlord Corrupter infestor army while Ryung goes battlecruiser. Seeker Missiles obliterate DRGs army. Ryung keeps pushing and DRG is forced out of the best TvZ played in the GSL since the beginning of it yet.

Game 2 starts of similarly to game 1, both players taking fast 3rd bases, DRG even taking a quick 4th. DRG going for the big zergling, baneling and mutalisk bust of his 4Base economy and manages to win by relentlessly assaulting Ryung.

Game 3 on Antiga Shipyard DRG goes for his usual fast third Base, while ryung tries to go for a Marauder helion all in, pulling all of his scvs, but losing to a baneling,ling and queen defense.

2 GSL veterans battling it out for the Ro8 spot.

Nestea scouts Supernovas cc first and goes for a double expand before pool build himself, giving him an edge economically. Supernova wants to punish this early third with a marine helion attack delaying his engineering bay and third cc but Nestea responds perfectly with a lot of roaches. Even though Supernova turns the attack around, Nestea attacks with his roaches and kills a lot of scvs. Nestea keeps this significant advantage throughout the game and overwhelming Supernova eventually who is not able to keep up economically.

Nestea goes for an early third again, this time after building a pool and Supernova chooses a helion Marauder opening. Supernova tries to hit a helion marauder stim timing. Supernova pulls a lot of scvs, but Nestea is able to clean up the attack with roaches, queens and Banelings. As supernova has almost no scvs left he ggs.

Two absolute legendary Zerg players battle it out, for being the best zerg player right now.

The game begins with both players mirroring builds exactly until the 5 minute mark with both going for a safe fast expand. Both getting their third reasonably quickly.
Nestea tries to go for a roach timing, by skipping upgrades. DRG manages to hold and stays ahead in upgrades and pushes with 4Infestors to win the game.

Nestea decides to go for a for a pool gas expansion build, while DRG builds his expansion hatchery first. Nestea then catches DRG completely off guard with a speedling allin.

DRG decides to pick Cloud Kingdom for their last match and once again their builds are perfectly synchronized until the 4:30 mark. DRG transitions into the new ZvZ style of double upgrades for zerglings, while Nestea goes for roaches. DRG manages to kill the third of Nestea with 1/1 mass zerglings, while securing a third himself and teching to infestor. Nestea uses his only chance left by going for a roach baneling allin but DRG stops it with ease, securing his spot in the Ro8 of GSL.

Ryung opens up with a banshee build, but gets shut down by Ryungs viking first build. Ryung sucessfully put some light pressure on Supernovas faster expand. Supernova suprises Ryung with some good positional play, killing his whole army without losing almost anything forcing Ryung out of the game.

Supernova proxys a barracks and starts building marauders on Cloud Kingdom. Doing some damage, but not beeing able to do anything with the follow up reaper. After both players take their naturals Ryung gets 2 armories indicating mech play while Supernova goes for the marine, marauder, viking and tank composition. Supernova over commits to Vikings taking air control, but losing the ground battle to Mass tank, because Supernovas thors made Ryungs banshees and vikings largely useless.

After opening with reaper helion, supernova transitions into cloaked banshee while Ryung does a safe medivac helion marine into expand build. Supernova get´s a lot of marine kills with his banshee and continues to rally units to Ryungs front while taking his own natural. Supernovas siege finishes first, which enable him to siege Ryungs front and just starve Ryung out. Supernova goes on to play Nestea for the final Ro8 spot.

Supernova proxies a barracks and tries to bunker rush Nestea, but he deals with it easily, taking almost any damage. The game develops into a normal TvZ mid game with Nestea taking a third and deflecting a marine helion push with roach baneling. After this, both players are powering hard, only exception being Nestea getting mutas to force missile turrets out of Supernova. After a few exchanges Supernovas whole army gets obliterated by a mass amount of banelings. Supernova and Nestea both go up to 5bases. Supernova is going for battlecruiser and ravens while Nestea switches from Ultralisks to mass corrupter and broodlords and manages to overwhelm Supernova.

Supernova does a cc first build, which is scouted by Nestea and he responds by going 3 hatch before Pool. After some marine harass by Supernova on Nesteas third, both players prepare for a powerful mid game on Entombed Valley. Nestea crushing Supernova´s first push, but fails to defend the second one, which subsequently kills Nestea´s fourth. Supernova stays way too long siege up at Nestea´s former fourth ends up beeing cleaned up. After defending his fourth multiples times, from a maxed out ultralisk, zergling, baneling and infestor attack, Supernova is able to push Nestea back and kill him.

Nestea opens up with a 7Pool on Daybreak and with Supernova going for a cc first build, Nestea picks up an easy win to advance into Ro8.