I should warn though, this is Maru we are talking about, so it may very well be one of those “don’t try this at home” kind of situations here. He does not proxy as much anymore, but Maru is still most well known for his crazy proxy rax opener that somehow always gets him ahead. How and when did Maru become the best Terran in the world you ask? It was when he seemingly proxied every single game a few years back. Being on a losing spree will only make his odds go down in the short term, meaning you can get a huge payout in Starcraft 2 betting if you bet on Maru at the next event.Maru vs Dark, Final WESG 2017 StarCraft 2 Grand Final (Start at: 2:05:18) He’s still 3rd in over EPT rankings behind Trap and Rogue. Don’t count Maru out for the rest of 2021 season. He has been here before.Īt the back end of 2020, he lost consecutive matches to TY, Armani and Clem falling out of GSL Season 3 and DH Winter Finals. Maru may have gone out early in the GSL group stage, but he is far from done. He has developed the tools necessary to beat every opponent he comes up against. Remember, Maru is not only one of the best and most exciting Starcraft players of all time, he is also one of the longest standing and most accomplished. Game 7 was a good macro game that saw Reynor put lots of pressure on Maru, who eventually broke. This was the turning point in the series. It was wonderfully done by Reynor, who won the mind game. Maru’s pressure was shut down and he lost the game because of it. However, Reynor was way ahead of him and countered the build with a quick Spawning Pool. The reason for this is that it was the least likely map to do this build on, due to how strong Terrans mid game is on this map. Maru, who had yet to cheese at this point, decided to do a 2 proxy barracks play. This is typically a map where Terran can abuse Siege Tanks against Zerg. Game 6 was played on Beckett Industries LE. Winning the engagement in decisive fashion, killing 12 drones and a few Queens, he was able to escape with most of his Hellions and from there he had a massive lead which won him the game. He noticed that Reynors Queens at his third base were pushed out far away from his natural expansion and teleported his battlecruiser directly on top of them while pushing in with his Hellions. Game 5 saw the same strategy deployed but with a brilliant adaptation that Maru made when he saw how Reynor handled it in the previous game. Despite this, Maru ended up winning in dominant fashion with his mech play.
This resulted in Reynor killing all of the Hellions without suffering much damage. Instead, he ran the Hellions in first and teleported the Battlecruiser into the main afterwards. Generally, the Terran will teleport the Battlecruiser into the main base to draw the Zerg army back and then run into the third with the hellions. However, he was able to keep Reynor from scouting the fusion core which allowed him to catch Reynor off guard. Maru opened with a fast Battlecruiser and Hellion harassment. After a good macro game in game 3, Maru won out with his classic pressure. Down 2-0 against a strong Zerg, Maru used his experience to claw his way back. Clem is known for his fast and dynamic bio play in the TvZ matchup, which is what Maru had tried in those first two games. Reynors performance is large in part due to the amount of practice he has been getting with the Terran player Clem. Perhaps this was due to how well Reynor played. Maru really did not look entirely himself in those first two games. Maru lost the first two games due to uncharacteristically allowing Zergling run-bys into his mineral lines. In spirit of analyzing the bright spots of his performances, let’s take a look at his best of seven against Reynor in the Dreamhack Grand Final. So while his early exit is disappointing, it is not yet time to write him off. The two TvP matches ended 2-1 in losses for Maru. His group in GSL consisted of two Protoss players and one Zerg, who he beat. Maru has primarily been playing TvZ and TvT matchups recently, and has been performing very well in them. Though his GSL loses were tough to swallow, the circumstances made it slightly more palatable. Having suffered so many back to back defeats, one must be reminded why hope is not lost for Maru.
Next, he went out in the group stage at 2021 Global StarCraft II League Season 2: Code S.
First he lost in the Dreamhack Summer Season Grand Finals against Reynor in a hard fought series that saw all 7 games played. Cho “ Maru” Seong-ju has come up against a couple tough losses in the last few days.