The third place match took place between foreign-fan-favorite Pusan and, arguably the best Protoss of the current era, Sky. Pusan won the first game on Fighting Spirit by efficiently punishing Sky's faster expansion. In game two Sky shot back with very quick dark templars after hiding his templar archives successfully. Going into the deciding ₩1,000,000 game, it seemed impossible to predict the build orders, let alone the outcome.

The Spirit Toss, in yellow, warps in at the bottom right corner of Wind and Cloud. Sky, in red, finds himself in the bottom left. Both players start with a very standard gateway at ten psi. Sky warps in an assimilator to continue down the normal one-gate-tech path. Pusan decides to switch things up by adding a second gateway. It is perhaps just as well that he finds himself in close position and scouts correctly. Fortunately for Sky, he wisely invested in a zealot, although he does send his probe in the wrong direction. From here on Pusan constantly produces zealots and sends them across the map.

The first three enemy zealots enter Sky's main base together and he finally knows what his opponent is up to. At this point he still has only one dragoon, so he pulls probes off the line to deal with the aggression. His zealot dies, but a fresh dragoon joins the fray. Together the probes and dragoons chase the zealots to the ramp. For a moment it looks as if one dragoon will get trapped, but it somehow stumbles across the probes to safety. After trading two zealots for a probe, a zealot and some mining time it looks as if Pusan's opening is failing. Another wave of zealots arrives, but against three dragoons they should do no damage at all, but Sky loses a dragoon anyway.



At this point Pusan's experience shines through. He realises quickly that his 2-gate gambit failed and so he uses his zealots to distract Sky long enough to warp in a nexus and some cannons at his natural expansion. Sky on the other hand clears out the zealots in his base and calmly expands to his natural. He also adds a citadel of adun and immediately follows it up with templar archives and a robotics facility to push his tech advantage. Pusan warps in several more gateways, but he must rely entirely on his game sense to deduce that Sky might be about to drop dark templars into his main base. He appears to be guessing correctly when he warps in a photon cannon in his main mineral line.

Assembly finishes on Sky's shuttle and heads straight towards Pusan's main base. Two dark templars are racing across the map, to catch the flight. Only now does Sky add a third and fourth gateway. The camera pans to the edge of Pusan's main base, revealing several dragoons seemingly ready to deflect any drop attempts. But moments before the shuttle rendevous with the dark templars, Pusan's defenders waddle off to pick a fight at his natural. A probe also nearly spots the threat. When the shuttle finally enters the base it is one dragoon and two dark templars against a single cannon. Pusan starts warping in two additional photon cannons, but Sky's stealth strike force takes them out casually.



Without detection in his main base and no robotics facility on the way, Pusan orders all his dragoons to counterattack. The natural expansion falls easily, but a fresh round of dark templars chase the dragoons away. Meanwhile their brethren are laying waste to Pusan's main base, demolishing the nexus, some gateways and several pylons. They die before killing the cybernetics core. when the first observer finally shows itself. Both players rebuild their nexūs at the first opportunity. Sky sends a probe to scout around the map for possible hidden expansions, but Pusan seems to be too honest for that anyway.

The drop further increased the tech disparity. Sky can be seen loading two high templars into a shuttle before Pusan even starts construction on his templar archives. Those same templars get unloaded in a sneaky spot and proceed to storm several probes at Pusan's natural expansion. This ultimately forces three dragoons and an observer to permanently guard that location. Eventually Pusan also has a shuttle loaded with some high templars ready to kill some probes. Unfortunately for him both shuttles meet while trying to sneak along the bottom edge of the map. Both transports head back home.

The game calms down a little bit. Sky continues to look for an opportunity to harrass a little bit, but finds none. Instead he expands to the 9 o'clock base. Both Protoss continue grow their armies. Shortly after deflecting another harress attempt, Pusan engages the opposing army just outside of his natural base. He suffers a crushing defeat largely due to his much lower dragoon count. Sky is now in a commanding position. He has the larger army, an additional base and superior tech.



The game enters its final phase when Pusan sneaks out a shuttle, loaded with high templars, and a lone dark templar on foot. Sky is caught unaware and loses a large number of probes to psi storms at his natural expansion. The dark templar however is prevented from entering his third base, because photon cannons are already up. Pusan tries for another storm drop, but Sky turns the tables on him and kills the shuttle with some well placed psi storms of his own. Pusan's army pushes out for one final battle and there the game ends.

GG.

Sky went on to collect his 3rd place prize with a huge grin on his face. Sky fighting!

Pusan could do nothing but look on, smiling ruefully. Hopefully my eyes were not deceiving me and he actually enjoyed the occasion. I hope that playing live on stage will have fired him up to keep trying his best. Pusan fighting!

P.S.
Nobody really likes ZvZ.




To start off with, how did you both first find out about the SSL7? Have you been following it closely since the start?

snipealotI've never been an avid Brood War fan really, but mid September I realized that foreign Brood War was essentially dying. I knew about Brood War streams on Afreeca and figured I would try to do some restreaming. As I started looking into what kind of players were on the service I found Sonic and his broadcasts. Due to my language classes and (Brood War-hating) girlfriend though I didn't have time in the evening to watch it. I only really managed to catch two full evenings, that being Larva's Ro16 group broadcast and the grand finals in person.

CaucasianAsianI had the expectations to be following Starcraft a lot once I got to Korea. Unfortunately, life has a way of getting in the way, and I was only able to watch a few games here and there when I had free time. I was extremely busy during the season, which made it difficult to watch the games as religiously as before I went to Korea.

Did you have a specific player you wanted to see in the final?

CaucasianAsianI was always a big fan of Busan ever since I was younger just getting into the scene. I was really happy to learn that he was going to play in the event, despite it not being the finals. I'm not a big fan of zerg, and ZvZ games are a little confusing for me to follow, so I had hopes that Busan would make it to the finals, but it unfortunately didn't turn out that way.

snipealotNo favorites really. All the players have rather unique personalities so I was happy just to see them all. I must say that even though I predicted a Killer win in the final I was rooting for Larva.

Going into the final, what kind of series did you expect?

snipealotI expected Pusan to put up a good fight but ultimately succumb to the power of Sky; and I expected Larva to be hopelessly outmicroed by Killer. So basically what we saw I guess.

CaucasianAsianI was expecting Killer to win in a very decisive manner, as he had the nickname of a mini Jaedong, as their play styles were similar (despite their skill gap).



When you arrived at the venue, what was the crowd like outside?

CaucasianAsianI was walking to the venue, and I remember being a little sad that I didn't see as many nerds running around as I had hoped. But I learned that I was lost on the University Campus. When I finally found the venue, I had arrived about an hour before the event started, and there was already a line of at least 100 fans waiting to get their preferred seats. Seeing such a crowd made me smile, as even if I don't play the game as much as I used to, it was nice to realize that there still were many fans of the the greatest RTS ever made.

snipealotEmpty. I arrived when the show was supposed to start. Thanks to the foreigners I had a seat though.


Did any of the fans look surprised to see a group of white guys queueing up with them?

CaucasianAsianI suppose it was as if we were at any other place. There were some glances at us, but South Korea, especially Seoul, in general is becoming more open to foreigners, so there weren't really anyone wide-eyed about seeing a foreigner.

Although we did get quite a bit of camera action!


From the few glimpses we got of the crowd, the venue looked pretty full. What did you think about the size of the crowd?

snipealotThe venue was packed for the first half of the show. Sadly due to Pusan arriving late, technical issues etc. everything ended up being pretty delayed. I'm assuming this is why some people had to leave early. Either way it was an awesome turnout.

CaucasianAsianThe crowd was pretty full, almost every seat was taken up, and for the Busan vs Sky games, there were many people standing in the back or sitting on the steps in the auditorium.

Did you notice any difference in the type of fan that was at this final, as compared to any other eSports live events you’ve attended? Any fangirls?

snipealotMostly late teen to mid twenties males, kind of typical for an amateur-ish event like this. Most fangirls in Korea follow the players, not a specific game. There were a few of course, though some might have come for the concert.

CaucasianAsianThere were a lot more males in the teens, and early 20's and a lot less fan girls than previous events I have attended. Although there were a few girls, men definitely were in the majority.



Now to the games themselves, how did you enjoy the two series?

CaucasianAsianI'm sure I'm a little biased for the PvP's as I was a protoss player when I still played a lot, and I was on the edge of my seat for the entirety of the games.

But the for both series, I felt as if I was watching a pro level game. Their skills are just simply amazing.

snipealotThe PvP was pretty good, and the ZvZ was... what I expected. Killer appears to have full control in ZvZ. I didn't expect Larva to throw away units the way he did sometimes though. Games that could have gone on longer ended rather abruptly because of that.

In the weeks since final, the SSL has been through hell and back. After a couple of very dark weeks, we know for sure now that there will be an SSL8. How much further do you think this can go and what would you like to see from the SSL in the future?

CaucasianAsianWith the recent drama, as long as the players don't succumb to the same temptations that Savior and others did prior, I hope that it will last a lot longer. I was sad when I read about the news that Sonic was thinking about quitting, but let out a very large sigh of relief when he said he would continue once again. I hope that people will continue to support Brood War in any way they can.

snipealotIn my opinion it can't really go anywhere but up at this point. I feel SSL7 was the culmination of what Sonic could do on his own - and it was impressive. Going into SSL8 though he will have the support of two legendary commentators to help him out. Hopefully the hype and excitement going through the community can help him land a few big sponsors as well. I'm also trying to convince Sonic to do a dual Afreeca+Twitch broadcast, something I've been wanting to see for a while.

Thanks for helping out by talking to us today and a special thanks to snipealot for restreaming the tournament from beginning to end, foreign fans would have been lost without you. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share before we wrap things up?

snipealotIt's been a fun couple of months, but I have had a ton of help. As most of you know there are a bunch of volunteer moderators controlling the stream(s) 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. They are the real heroes. Hopefully Twitch will accept my partnership application when I apply again after new years as well. Then we can start to really support Sonic and the Korean Brood War community.
CaucasianAsianSonic truly deserves a ton of praise for all of the hard work he has put forth. He is someone who truly does care about the game, and the scene. I'm simply just grateful that he is helping the scene survive.




The match-fixing scandal which contributed to the decline and eventual end of televised Brood War in Korea is never far from the minds of fans watching Starcraft on Afreeca. The presence of sAviOr as a BJ and his participation in tournaments broadcast on Afreeca has long been a source of controversy. Sonic himself made the decision long ago to exclude players involved in the match-fixing scandal from his leagues, sacrificing the huge potential viewership which could be brought in by any matchup involving the disgraced champions.

Having taken the decision to forego the gains of including a player who has retained a large fan-base both in and outside of Korea, in favour of preserving the integrity of his competitions, it is a cruel irony that Sonic would have to deal with another match-fixing scandal, this time within his own league.

The news of the first match-fixing incident, with its life bans, criminal charges and all-too-late apologies, marked the end of a love affair with Brood War for many long time fans. For those who have spent huge amounts of their free time over many years all out of love for the game and for the purity of competition, it is hard to reconcile that effort in the face of such an insidious crime.

You are forced to doubt every game you’ve ever watched, the legitimacy of series, of tournaments and of entire careers. When considered in this light, it’s not hard to understand why Sonic wanted to simply walk away.

But he didn’t.



In the end, we should have expected no less. Sonic’s persistence in building his tournaments and in continuing with Brood War after its glory days have passed has long served him well. The seventh Sonic Starleague was a shining example of what is possible when a man retains his passion and his optimism. While Sonic’s faith in Brood War may have been tested, it was not broken.

Now, however, he is not alone. Joined for the SSL8 by Kim Carrier and Lee Seung-Won, Sonic has for company two men who for 10 years were the heart and soul of individual league competition in Korea and whose dedication to Starcraft remains undiminished.

There is no doubt that there’s work to be done. There is no clean and obvious solution to this kind of cheating and as long as there are people betting on games there will be forces at work to try and affect their outcome. The most important thing is that there’s someone willing to try.

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The SSL7 team was: Simplistik, ArvickHero, JohnChoi, Hyde, SirJolt, Plexa, Chef, kjwcj and HawaiianPig.
Photo Credit: Kimbilly, CaucasianAsian and syst.
Special thanks to: Pachi and 2Pacalypse-, without whom this post would be an absolute mess.