Picture by Kenzi
The 6th of April, Gumiho played vs. the GSL Season 1 Champ, Stats in the Ro16. They faced off where our Terran player was the clear underdog. Stats was hot off his win, where Gumiho couldn’t even get past the Ro32. Even before that, he finished second in the incredibly stacked IEM Gyeonggi where Gumiho wasn’t even able to qualify. Despite the odds stacked against him, the GumiGod played his own way and it worked. Here’s how he did it.
The first game was played on Cactus Valley, a big four player map, PvT’s on this map either end really quickly or they go for awhile. This was an example of the latter. It started off as any other game, Gumiho tried some drop pressure, Stats was able to defend it. He quickly teched up to colossi while getting a third, Gumiho build up his bioball with a third and started to position aggressively with an army composed of MMM, widow mines and vikings to snipe the colossi. With some patience and some back and forth, Stats was able to defend his expansion, making both players to play the basics; macro. Gumiho pumped out a fleet of liberators with range while dropping every which way. In the climax moment, Stats moved his army to threaten Gumi’s fourth. Defending his fourth from afar with liberators, the terran found himself in an advantageous position when he beelined for the protoss’ main and sniped the natural nexus. Forced to walk across the map to defend, Stats was zoned out by the liberators and forced to take a poor engagement which earned Gumiho the win.
The second game was played on Newkirk Precinct, with a base-to-base distance quickly covered by flying units, air unit openers are quite common. That’s exactly what happened here, but game 2 was a series of unfortunate plays. Gumi opened with a widow mine drop harass, but Stats opened phoenix/adept. Losing the drop without doing much, he was in a poor position when Stats came flying into the main with a prism and 8 phoenix. After having caused massive damage to his army and economy, Gumi tried to muster up a force and doom drop Stats’ main, but he defended it with a massive colossus based army, did a counter push and forced out the GG.
Echo LE, one of the golden maps from HotS repurposed for this expansion, composed by many low-ground and high-ground areas, the third is also easily secured with collapsible rocks making it easier to defend. Despite this, game 3 started cheesy with a hint of non-standard. Stats went for a proxy stargate, pumped out two oracles, harassed with them while making a void ray and marched into Gumiho’s delayed natural with the intent to end the game then and now. Losing over 20 SCV’s and with his front door knocked down, Gumi was able to defend with the skin of his teeth. Retaking his natural while pumping out units, he was able to counter push to the win with marines, medivacs and 2 tanks. He even constructed a bunker at the bottom of the protoss’ natural expansions ramp, with the firm intent to hold his ground or die trying.
Watch Gumiho’s amazing comeback here!
One of the good maps that came out of LotV, Proxima station has an inbase natural and a potential gold base 4th. Needless to say, standard macro is the norm here. This game was slightly more straightforward, Stats went for stargate opener with oracle harass with the goal to go phoenix/adept. Meanwhile, Gumiho went for cloaked banshee. Without a proper way to detect the cloak tech, Stats lost exactly 23 SCV’s and found himself in the economic gutter. By simply pumping out units, our Terran player was able to push his lead and force his way into his opponent’s third after the second try. Without a proper way to defend his third and without an army, Stats GG’ed out. Granting Gumiho the win 3-1.
Watch the full VOD here!
Having played his own aggressive style and triumphed over the GSL Champ, Gumiho surprised many, but we always believed…
Two days later, Gumiho now had to face the smiling assassin herO. Once again, Gumiho was the underdog, despite an amazing performance vs Stats, his opponent has always been a consistently good player, despite the fact that his last major win was in 2015 with SSL Season 3.
The first game was played on Abyssal Reef. With the interesting setting of being an underwater map causing expired units to simply float up. This map has many paths and many potential flank routes. herO started off with the now common stargate opener, building double oracle, then transitioned into blink stalkers. Gumiho was able to scout it with a reaper and set himself up into a defensive position, widow mines covering the mineral line, a viking flying around and a squad of marines roaming in between his natural and his main base kept him safe. Gumiho decided to go for a very powerful 3 siege tank/marine +1 timing attack. With a cleverly placed stasis ward, herO was able to catch more than half of Gumi’s marines and jumped on the weakened army, destroying it while taking little losses. With his timing broken, our Terran tried to transition into a macro game, but herO kept harassing and engaging until he lost his third and then the game.
The second game was played on Newkirk Precinct, the map with a short air distance, an oldie but a goodie. Opting for the same opener as game 1, herO went oracle opener, but this time transitioned it into phoenix/adept. Once again, Gumiho decided not to take a third and went for a 4 liberator/widow mine timing. The Protoss player was able to defend with an overwhelming number of adepts and phoenix. While defending Gumi’s attempts at drops with phoenix, taking a fourth and continuing to produce adepts, herO was able to brute force his way into a victory, pushing Gumiho out of his third base and into his natural.
Played on the shining map of Echo LE, the third game started off the same from herO’s side. Oracles scouted and harassed while adepts and phoenix were being massed back home. Yet this time Gumiho played differently. He actually went for a third while pressuring herO’s third with some marines and widow mines. After getting pushed back, he defended wave after wave of phoenix adepts, while producing a massive amount of MMM with liberators. With no AOE and losing his fourth, herO was forced out of the game by Gumiho’s overwhelming bio army.
In game four, played on the four player map Cactus Valley, herO actually didn’t go for phoenix/adepts. He went nexus first and then went for a colossus based army. Gumiho went for a pressure build with tanks resembling the build in game 1. herO was able to defend it and slowly transitioned to making disruptors. After successfully defending his third, Gumi pushed back with liberators and marine/marauders. Slowly but surely, Gumiho was able to take advantageous positions and force herO to take unfavorable fights, eking out the win.
Tied up with 2 wins and 2 losses, the last game was played on Proxima Station.
In the same flavor as the first couple of games, herO, starting in the north, went for a stargate opener making oracles to harass his opponents worker line. Gumiho was able to defend it quite easily while he went for another pressure build. Pumping out marines like there was no tomorrow, he walked across the map and sat in front of herO’s third, waiting for his reinforcing medivacs. The Protoss was able to sniff out the pressure build, since he opted to build void rays instead of phoenix. Just as the medivacs arrived, Gumiho stimmed in, but herO pushed it back with force fields, photon overcharges, and the void rays sniping a full medivac. Gumiho fell back and went into macro mode. Building up a fleet of liberators while herO built colossi, they battled back and forth trading units and map control. Despite getting slowly pushed back by liberator zones, herO was able to tech up to tempest and pick them off one by one with oracle revelation. Even with a wonderful arc around herO’s fourth, the protoss death fleet was too much for Gumiho who lost all his liberators and about half of his ground army. Trying to stall with drops at his opponents 5th and main, his efforts were not enough. The ROOT Protoss defended enough that he was able to walk into the Terran’s territory and kill everything. Forcing the GG and taking the series 3-2.
Watch the full VOD right here!
With his run ending in the quarterfinals, Gumiho took home ₩ 1,000,000 and 450 WCS points. Even with a loss relatively soon, we are still impressed with his performance. So far, he has had his busiest year since 2015 with the amount of tournaments played in and results. He currently stands at #14 with 1750 WCS Points. At his current rate, he has a decent chance to make it to BlizzCon. With 3 KR tournaments and 1 Global event left to gather up points, we hope he is able to hammer out wins and qualify to the most important event of the year. We continue to support him and we hope you will too!
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