[x5.Crescendo]

Exile5 went into Week 2 of the DuSt League with high expectations. When Tileä threatened the all-kill with her first three games, it seemed like the team had it in the bag.

Then disaster happened in the form of DuSt Gaming's Mamuri, a strong zerg player with a penchant for mutalisk openings. x5 zerg after x5 zerg fell to DuSt Mamuri, and when a messed up simcity let lings into the x5 Terran's base, DuSt had completed the reverse all-kill.

Here are the results:

Tileä > sWs - Map: Bridgehead
Tileä > Kirk - Map: Terraform
Tileä > PSiArc - Map: Cactus Valley
Tileä < Mamuri - Map: Coda
chankim < Mamuri - Map: Iron Fortress
Yours < Mamuri - Map: Moonlight Madness
RunaMoK < Mamuri - Map: Dash and Terminal



It was a sobering turn-around, and a reminder that just because we don't immediately recognise a name from recent major competitions, it doesn't mean they are not a very real threat.

Exile5 gives a nod of respect to DuSt Gaming and Mamuri's stellar performance. But we'll be prepared for next time!



Current standings can be found at the DuSt League website here



After the series was closed out in DuSt's favour, I took a moment of each player's time to get their thoughts on the day's games.


===x5 Tileä===

Tileä, this week saw your first showing in the DuSt league, and you came very close to an all-kill of DuSt's lineup.

Would you share with us some details about your first three games. Which did you enjoy the most?

Tileä: sWs tried to open with a 4gate that I shut down without a single warp-in occurring, which put me pretty far ahead. After that I just did back and forth pressure between the front and back rocks on Bridgehead with a roachling army, eventually adding hydras to win. It was a reasonably solid game but I had some macro issues which I'm somewhat unsatisfied with.

I did a 10pool speed build against Kirk and managed to cancel his natural and get slightly ahead by sneaking out a few drones and expanding myself. After that we both just spammed speedlings until I eventually won because I had a slight economic advantage. It was the game I was the most satisfied with my performance.

In my game against PSiArc I got ahead early on with some good/lucky zergling control and then we played a very standard game where I kept him boxed into four bases and kept trading with him. He played extremely defensive (I think he only pushed out from his four bases once in the entire game?) and I almost threw away my lead by being overly aggressive without transitioning properly. After I realised that was happening I backed off and solidified my lead and eventually won. I had a lot of issues with my macro and feel like my injects/creep spread were significantly below my standards but I'm overall happy with how I played.


You've mentioned in private that you were unhappy with your play against Mamuri, but I also know you tend to be dissatisfied with anything short of a perfectly executed victory. I didn't get to watch the matches, to my regret, so I'd love to know what happened. Given the opportunity, what would you have done differently?

Tileä: I did a speedling timing into +1 speedroach timing build which I only started to do a few days ago, so I lack experience playing it v muta styles (which Mamuri did). In addition to not having adequate experience/game knowledge I also made uncharacteristic mistakes executing the build (I took gases late so my roach timing was smaller than it should have been and I forgot to start +2 missile attack for something like three or four minutes). Mamuri played extremely well and definitely deserved to win, I would have just liked to not have gotten so far behind from mis-executing and playing out my build badly in the early stages of the game.


===x5 chankim===

Chan, you had to go head-to-head with Mamuri after Tileä's almost-all-kill was stopped in its tracks by the DuSt Zerg. What were your thoughts going into that match, and did you have a particular plan of action?

Chan: I just got off a plane so I was really exhausted and nervous, so I didn't really have a plan or anything. I just wanted to play my best.


What happened in the game? What did you take away from it in terms of preparation for future clashes?

Chan: I played a standard macro game against Mamuri's 2 base muta > roach infestor style, but got really impatient and attacked into his infestor spine wall and lost. So in the future, I'm just gonna try to play a lot more patiently because I've been losing a lot of games like that.


===x5 Yours===

Cameron, you'd just seen Chan and Tileä - both very strong zerg players - fall to the mutalisk plays of Mamuri. As someone who is quite fond of mutalisk styles yourself, what were your thoughts heading into your match against Mamuri on a map like Moonlight Madness? What was your plan?

Cameron: After watching Tilea and Chan play their maps against mamuri, I knew it wasn't going to be an easy game: as far as I know he's an ex full time pro and his play showed it. I'm pretty confident in my Muta vs Muta play, but too bad for me - one too many mistakes gave him the advantage and he was able to take the game


Given the choice, in a future series, what map and matchup would you most enjoy?

Cameron: ZvZ is probably my strongest at the moment, so I would still go with ZvZ. My match vs mamuri, who as far as I know is ranked pretty highly on KR, doesn't deter that.


===x5 RunaMoK===

Josh, as Mamuri had just about finished engineering a reverse all-kill, you'd ended up in a position with perhaps the most pressure on your shoulders.

It was match point against an opponent who'd shown excellent mechanics and macro. What were your thoughts/mindset entering into that match on Dash and Terminal? What did you have planned? What went wrong?


Josh: Well, I had the gimmicky map. I had a self pressure to do well but I think as team we felt great about the score.

Going into the series we were the underdogs vs a backbone Korean team. So plan was from the get go lift to the gold and make some magic happen. I quickly studied the innovation vs soo game on that map and prayed for the same spawn.

Everything felt good until I botched my SimCity, exposing key structures and units: namely my tank which spawned on the opposite side and got taken out by lings. All in all it's a prep thing. Literally first time I tried that build on that map.


Given the choice, in a future series, what map and matchup would you most enjoy?

Josh: Moonlight madness and vs a zerg :P




===Final Thoughts===


On one hand, x5 didn't get to completely build on the momentum from week 1 - but on the other hand it was a close fought series which is always good for morale even after a loss. Facing a strong player and falling just short of the mark is a strong impetus to improve just that little bit more for next time - which is exactly what Exile5 plan to do.

With ACL Melbourne LAN on the horizon, much of the team's preparation is for that event. As a result the team likely won't get as much of a chance to prepare specifically for their next opponents, 1 Step Ahead, who x5 play on August 31, 11am AEST.

On paper though, x5 feel the odds are in the team's favour, given DuSt PSiArc all-killed 1 Step Ahead in week 1. However, x5 are not naive enough to think the first two weeks' results necessarily show the full depth of the opposing roster. If anything, it can be expected that 1 Step Ahead will try to schedule their strongest players to try and put some points on the board in week 3.

Congratulations again to DuSt for a strong showing in week 2. x5 will vent some of their frustration by playing better in the matches next Monday

GLHF all!