A round up of all the Starcraft II action from the sixth day of competition

Series Five - Thorzain T versus Stats P - In Depth Review
Game One
Thorzain takes game one with some really impressive late game mechanics that are synonyms with his play style. A late game matchup that many people have been saying is a lot easier on the protoss side of the spectrum was shut down by some amazing play from Thorzain and questionable decisions by Stats.
“The Spoon Terran”
Thorzain’s “Spoon Terran” style is to wear down his opponent over long periods of time to 100% make sure he has the win, often Thorzain has been known to never overextend himself unless he is 100% sure [Dreamhack Stockholm final game vs Polt].
This game is yet another demonstration of his masterclass of Terran play.

The first area his spoon hits is the economy of Stats.
Thorzain first of all senses that he has an opening with his three barracks before gas and the lack of units he scouts from Stats. He exploits this with a big squad of marines that make a beeline for the probe line. Most players would chose to take down sentries or force some extra army production, but Thorzain new the sentry count was already low due to some unknown early tech and opted to take down probes. With Thorzain killing off ten probes at that stage of the game is key to slowing down any push that Stats had in mind.
Subsequently Stats abandoned his robo build and moved towards a twilight play and took his third base.
Thorzain then repeats this action when he has his medivac tech on the field by dropping onto the mineral lines of stats targeting probes. When three probes equal one gateway you know you will either slow down a push as they try to re-establish their economy or their timing will lack that extra punch with the lack of supporting economy.

Thorzain then shows us how he is willing to focus onto the late game with practical and methodical play.
His late game decision making is very Thorzain-esque, with him walking around the map taking down expansions to starve the protoss he doesn’t just use this as his time to throw himself at their front door. He sits back and picks down colossus’, high templars and other key composition units.
With Thorzain slowly winning positional wars with great nuke play and just patience that a Shaolin Monk wouldn’t be able to pull off, he takes the game with some great engagements.
Stats electing to go early storm
Stats went for a very early robotics facility but due to an early marine push from Thorzain he abandoned this tech path and moved towards his templar archives.
This was the perfect tech path to move down due to what he saw from Thorzain’s first push.
An early scouting probe was able to see two barracks but no gas before it is forced to leave. With this information Stats is able to deduce that Thorzain is teching into medivacs at a hurried pace, then along with the mass marine attack at his natural his is very aware that Thorzain has skipped an earlier gas for a mineral heavy barracks-marine tech path.
Whatever Stats had in mind for his initial tech path, most likely colossus, he had to move into the much faster and cheaper High Templars using his robo for only observors.
With the greater barracks count Thorzain has he focuses on a faster third base, upgrades and marine production before he even has his starport finished.
Thorzain’s big push moves out at 11 minutes, even before his initial two medivacs are on the field, with 1-1 upgrades to Stats’ 1-0.
If Stats had gone into colossus production very early with his fast robo, he would be down on the sentry count and more importantly an actually supplemental army.
The push from Thorzain is completely annihilated with very cost efficient storms that actually give him the supply lead
Late game compositions
The late game compositions from both player was the deciding factor of this game.

Thorzain was focusing on what the terran has to do, reply to the tech changes of the Protoss, while Stats was creating the protoss melting pot of units.
The melting pot idea, or more commonly know to the community as the “Tastosis One Of Everything”, was Stats’ main downfall.
When playing protoss you have the advantage of being able to tech swap within 30 seconds. If you are going mass colossus you force a load of vikings from the terran and then instantly warp in a zealot-archon composition.
With Stats incorporating a little of everything into his build, Thorzain did the same by adding, viking, marauders, marines, ghosts and medivacs.
Stats was working towards the very unconventional mass carrier transition once he had thrown his army at the wall of terran, but with his incorporation of colossus, Thorzain had already begun mass viking production.
With Stats’ transition already facing a high viking count, he is unable to cause the surprise damage that carriers usually cause.

Game Two
Thorzain wins game two in dominant fashion. A great catch onto Stats’ proxy robo gives him enough time to bunker the top of his ramp and mount a defence.
With the 1-1-1 from Thorzain he is able to once again hit the production of Stats until he has no way to win.
Thorzain’s Banshees
Thorzain’s banshees were the key ingredient for him to win game two.
Thorzain knew that his opponent was down on observers due to killing one with a scan, two with his raven and the robo that was proxied. With Stats spending so much gas on two robos and three observers, Thorzain opts to use his banshees in a solely offensive manner.
He knows that Stats is spending the majority of his gas on a new robo and another observer and he finds a very small timing window where he hits Stats to take out the majority of his probs.
Behind this Thorzain was willing to spoon his way into the later game with a command centre, but he knew he had an overwhelming advantage and moved towards Stats’ base with his 1-1-1.