I chose to write about this interesting "new" player. RuBy or Min Chan Ki is the new guy from MBC who has stirred up the pro scene a bit recently. I have to confess firstly: I don't like him, I seem to have a natural animosity towards all MBC players and my subjectivity will probably shine through on several occasions. I started noticing him in his first game against Luxury (one of my absolute favourite players btw) in the latest MBC survivor tournament.
Live Report thread:
http://teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=63435
VOD:
The game started fairly standard before we got to see Luxury's build. It was 3hatch directly into lurkers. Interesting, I thought, and after a while we would see some battles between tanks and mnm versus lurkerling, no one seemed to come out on top, but luxury managed to thwart the attack on his main, which was essential for the continuation of the game. Meanwhile Lux got his third gas and started hive tech a bit later. RuBy was still 2 bases and kept pushing without much to reap from it while trying to attack Lux's third and eventual fourth gas fruitlessly. He also expanded to his third base at the same time. I remember thinking that if Lux can keep this up he will take the game, he started up ultra tech while sending lurkers and dark swarms to RuBy's newly constructed base. While this was happening, RuBy decided to push straight into Lux's main and killed a couple of unsupported ultras at a time, with no defilers to be seen. Eventually lux ran out of ultras and his main was demolished. Afterwards I thought: "Damn, I never expected this from this no-name. He played that perfectly and pushing at the exact right moment. Then again it could be all the dark rituals going on in the MBC practice house (drenching in goat blood and all the other things you'd imagine ringleader Pusan might think of)."
Right after this, he managed to beat Stork on Blue storm which was clearly his biggest upset win to this date, but as his TvZ is what I've taken an interest into, I will leave this and just say that I don't really know how Stork managed to lose to this guy. I think he was negligent in his preparing for these games thinking they would be a walk in the park. I was disappointed in Stork for losing, and even more befuddled with RuBys talent.
VOD:
Next in line was against sAviOr in proleague.
VOD:
This was right after sAviOr beat Hwasin in proleague finally showing some of that old skill again. I thought that he might show this new kid a lesson since it seemed like he was coming back (which he clearly wasn't, since he's still unbelievably inconsistent). The game was anything but standard since sAviOr went for a crazy mass mutalisk build with loads of upgrades for his flyers. It seemed to work for several minutes since he continued to harass effectively for a long time. After a while though, the genius maestro decided to sacrifice them in a worthless attack straight into the mnm blob that had been building for a while. In the end sAviOr lost because he had absolutely no upgrades on his ground forces and hardly any forces or tech either. This might have been a game where sAviOr lost because of his mistakes and not where RuBy displayed excellence beyond expectations, but it showed you that RuBy is never to be counted out of a TvZ game. As he finally got rid of the mutalisk plague he just charged straight into sAviOr and tore him apart, precisely what he was supposed to do to win. I was angry after the game since it was a typical sAviOr stubbornness loss where he just wouldn't modify his build as the game progressed (I think he kept upgrading air attack and armour even after the muta horde was eradicated. But at the same time RuBy did everything he was supposed to. I was starting to become impressed.
Finally, the game I would like to turn your attention to is the game against sAviOr in which the maestro had to bite even more dust.
A short, but recommended recap by Live2Win:
http://teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=65072
VOD:
Basically sAviOr started strong and got all his macro working while defending the crucial expo in the corner. His unconventional and unperfected choice of tech and execution didn't work however, when the, now typical, RuBy unstoppable push into sAviOrs behi... I mean main came. Nothing the maestro could conjure would halt the tide of marines after a very nice drop by the young player aiming to go all the way. One thing to note is that while sAviOr had five bases running at the end of the game, RuBy had two.
RuBy then got dismantled by Anytime and lost to Kal after some "bad luck" (if you believe there is such a thing, I don't...) when his metal got caught in an "unfortunate" mine explosion. Still, I was very impressed by this piglet's TvZ (and at the same time happy that one more MBC player was eliminated. Yes I hate them, get used to it!).
You might say that he just managed to win because of non standard builds and a lot of mistakes from his opponents. That, however, says something about our subject, that he is perfectly capable of tackling anything the zerg throws in his face no matter how weird it is. Something I didn't mention was that he managed to keep his vessels alive better than most players, which is an incredibly important part of the matchup. I don't know if his style will stay effective or if he will accomplish anything in the future, but I know he will probably show some more examples of his interesting TvZ. I hope we will see more games like these where he looks like he's totally beat and then manages to annihilate hi opponent with a push from nowhere.
I guess he's now the third member in the sAviOr Owning Fraternity (sOF) where he, Bisu and firebathero sit and circle jerk in a bowl of sAviOrs tears while high fiveing each other and switching hands from their semi-limp members with their fraternal brothers unclean hands. Yumm... Cum-Five! (maybe something for the writers of Scrubs?)
What do you think? Please tell me if this was worth reading, and please comment on the subject too, if you have something to say about our subject (like more hate for the MBC team ). I'd like to learn how to find pictures and such, so if you've got tips, I would indeed accept them happily.