EPTSKT took the reins in terms of production for this season of Proleague and excitement was high going into the first few matches of Round 1. Even the potential of the ace players being curtained off until the last moment added to the suspense.
The first match of the night MVP was up against the titans of Proleague SKT1. The initial impressions of each team could make even the most diehard MVP fan feel anxious. MVP fielded 6 players chatting away and slumped forward while SKT1 had their full 12 player lineup on the bench. If that wasn’t enough to demonstrate the differences in Proleague experience then the player information should have been, when the camera panned to Dream’s booth the pre-game statistics showed a blank canvas. No wins, no losses, no games played. A stark comparison to Rain’s 11 – 2 PvT in last season’s Proleague.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/K0kHYDQ.png)
Dream utilized an engineering bay block against Rain in the first game of the night. This curveball is something Rain has hit back a thousand times in practice but on this occasion Rain’s reactive twilight council skewed the order of things, as he accidentally finished blink nearly a full minute before warp gate.
Dream effectively held the first blink in, traded evenly against the second and fell far behind on the third. A follow up push with chargelots and archons would paint a dash of red on Dream’s previously blank canvas.
Welcome to Proleague.
In the next game Super would over commit to defending Soo’s Mutalisks with mass phoenixes. A mass hydra follow up would close the game out before Super could launch any counter damage.
Next up was Parting versus Dongraegu. DRG’s form is a relative wildcard going into this proleague season after he managed to defeat Innovation at the peak of his TvZ reign of terror suggesting a resurrection of the 2012 DRG. But up against Parting DRG seemed to be just another zerg, losing 12 drones to Parting’s initial phoenix harass and then falling in the first real engagement.
SKT1 took their first match of the season with a clean sweep. There was always a chance of this happening but if it’s any consolation for the MVP boys a clean slate can be a heavy burden, now they can go back to the drawing board to fight IM on a new day.
The two remaining Kespa newcomers - Prime and IM - played out the second match of the night, in what was likely to be just as one sided. While IM didn’t quite have the star power of SKT, Prime was definitely underdog enough to have a lot of people expecting another clean sweep.
The theme of the night was the importance of experience. For the first match all of the SKT players individually and collectively trumped the MVP players for proleague experience. But for Prime and IM it created a much more exciting series.
In game 1 TerrOr, the newcomer, lacked the calmness of mind to deal with Squirtle’s, the GSL finalists’, relentless mid-game DT’s. Out of desperation TerrOr would force an engagement with his brittle zergling mutalisk army before gg'ing out.
In the second game the new captain of Prime Kal (aka Jila, GooJila) showed how his proleague experience way back from 2007 carried over as his phoenix harrass revealed a weakness which he exploited with gateway aggression before the Liquid mercenary HerO could finish his blink research.
In the best game of the night Creator utilized a cannon rush against team league giant Yonghwa. Yonghwa held the cannon rush giving Creator a hair width advantage. Yonghwa had expanded to his natural and launched a gateway counter attack against Creator’s delayed tech. Creator’s late mothership core was able to cast a nexus cannon with its dying breath letting Creator ride his superior economy to a victory.
In the 4th match Byul, a WCS runner up, and Splendid, another new recruit, did their best impression of Jaedong and Dear with similar results as Byul crushed the protoss army from underneath and forced the ace match.
Creator has had a historically strong PvP and was the obvious ace choice for Prime, anticipating this IM sent out Byul in the 5th PvZ of the night.
At 7 supply Creator sent out a probe.
After the cannon rush and now the double proxy gate, Creator seemed like he was going to take 2 straight forward cheese wins in his first night of Proleauge.
But with a wayward drone Creator’s fate was sealed. Byul scouted everything before he had reached 14 supply and was able to go pool first.
A follow up of zerglings at Creator’s main and Spine crawlers at his own base closed out the first night of Proleague in IM’s favour.
Business as usual in Seoul, Korea.
SKT>MVP
IM>Prime
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