With the Qualifiers behind us, the Round of 24 is ready to begin. Join Sayle and Elegant on Saturday, Feb 09 8:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) for the cast of Groups A and B!







With the groups finally locked in, the TLS Round of 24 promises to be an exciting series of games. ZvZ haters will be pleasantly surprised to see that all groups contain only two ZvZ-pickers at most. The Terran and Protoss players in the Ro24 will most definitely have their work cut out for them facing down the Zerg menace, and if they cant stand up to the challenge there is a likelihood of the Ro16 shaping up like some MSL's of old.

All of the points qualifiers and 2nd place winners were seeded into groups A through F. The qualifier winners were then allowed to chose in an order based on who was first to qualify. In order, these players were: (i) Eonzerg, (ii) Trutacz, (iii) Draw, (iv) Julia, (v) G5 and finally (vi) Pro7ect.

EonZerg picked a fairly Protoss heavy group (vOdtoasT picks PvZ against Zerg) so he is obviously looking to exploit the innate advantage Zerg's usually have in the match-up.

TrutaCz picked next and chose a group with a nice mix of races. While the race picker Nemu may seem like a wildcard, he can often be quite risky in his builds making this group one good for a safe and standard player to expoit. Interesting to note, is that dRaW (who was next in line to pick) was hoping to take this group for his own before trutaCz took it.

dRaW, confident in his PvZ, chose a group full of zergs making Group C a practice heaven for him. It's likely we'll see some of the Zergs in Group C off-racing against their Zerg counterparts so expect this group to be full of PvZ goodness (and some long games if dRaW's form in the qualifiers is anything to go by).

Julia picked Group F, a group G5 was eyeing due to his confidence in PvT. Julia, however, obviously feels comfortable in his TvZ. Rightly so, as he demonstrated with his complete unravelling of Andreyyy in qualifier #4.

G5 then took his choice of the remaining two groups and chose Group B -- probably because of the presence of TTF, and the chance to show off his PvT prowess.

Finally Pro7ect was granted Group A (the only remaining group) and finalized the Ro24.

All in all it should be an exciting set of matches. Will the Protoss and Terran players be able to stand up against the might of the Swarm and diversify the Ro16, or will the Zergs overcome and end up in a "who is going to play PvZ this time" war in the Ro16. The balance of skill in all the groups is extremely even, so regardless of what ends up happening the Ro16 is going to be played at an incredibly high skill level




As the winner of the sixth and final qualifier for the TeamLiquid Legacy Starleague, Pro7ect was given the sixth and final pick of groups in the round of 24. 'Pick' is very much a euphemism here. None of the qualifier winners wanted to be placed into Group A and so Pro7ect was left with the Group A assignment. Group A thus consists of the following players: (1) Pro7ect, (2) TechnicS, (3) Drone, and (4) EnjoYmE.

The first match-up of this group will be Pro7ect versus EnjoYmE on Neo Ground Zero. Pro7ect is hot off a strong performance in the final qualifier where he demonstrated intelligent and consistent Terran timing play against Protoss. In addition, Pro7ect has already defeated EnjoYmE in the fifth qualifier tournament, and he looks set to repeat this performance against EnjoYmE in the round of 24.

The second match-up has Technics and Drone face off against each other on Neo Ground Zero. TechnicS made it into the Legacy Starleague in the very first qualifier, where he demonstrated very strong games against both Protoss and Zerg. Drone has had a consistent presence in the latter half of the qualifer stage, and generally picks Protoss to play against Zerg in order to avoid the mirror match. He exhibits competency in that regard but has emperically lost to strong Zerg players throughout the qualifier stage. TechnicS should take this in a close match.

Continuing with the hypotheticals, Pro7ect faces off against Technics on New Sniper Ridge in the winner's match. This match might just revolve around how much practice TechnicS has done ever since qualifying for the Legacy Starleague weeks ago. However, I believe that the strong timing play of Pro7ect should give him the advantage and win him the match, granting him passage to the next stage in the tournament. Meanwhile in the loser's match we have Drone versus EnjoYmE on Neo Sniper Ridge. Drone's practiced performance throughout the last few weeks of the qualifier stage against players who are stronger than EnjoYmE should grant him the edge against him. Finally, in the rematch game that will decide who gets second place in the group and advance, TechnicS should repeat against Drone, eliminating him from the tournament.








G5 had to choose between being put in group A or B, either facing EnjoYmE or INF3cted on Neo Ground Zero. Even though G5 2-0'd dewalt in the final of qualifier #5 he seems more confident in his PvZ. With a total score of 5-2 in PvZ vs players like Cosy, Eriador, and Zaraki, going 2-1, 2-1, and 1-0 respectively. INF3cted on the other hand has gone largely untested in the matchup during the qualifiers, only playing one PvZ against notable players where he defeated WandS 1-0. However with the map being Ground Zero which is an excellent map for Zerg and G5 still not being tested fully I'm going to have to give the edge to INF3cted, which has looked strong and has improved lately.

To be honest; Bakuryu is quite far ahead in skill of everyone else in this group, already qualifing in the second qualifier. Only edged out by both TechnicS and trutaCz in the semifinals of qualifier #1 and the final of qualifier #2. Everyone else that he has faced has been crushed, notably going 2-0 against TerrOr and 2-1 against Julia. TTF has not faced many Zergs, only facing Julia. who he lost to 0-1. With the map being Ground Zero, Bakuryu should win without breaking a sweat.

Bakuryu will go on to face INF3cted on Sniper Ridge. Even though Bakuryu lost to both TechnicS and trutaCz in ZvZ he should take it quite easy. INF3cted has yet to win a single ZvZ vs notable players, losing to both Pike and the Hungarian Ace. INF3cted does have TechnicS to practice ZvZ with so we might see something up his sleeve.

I have already mentioned that G5 has not yet been tested. This is even more true for his PvT only having played one Terran in all qualifiers, beating Moxie 1-0. TTF however has played tons of TvP against notable players going 4-5 against players like GoTunk, Djem5, EnjoYmE, dRaW, and dewalt. Only losing to dRaW and dewalt. With TTF's larger experience with the current scene and having played so many Protoss, TTF will take it.

The final game will be played between INF3cted and TTF, deciding who will move on to the round of 16. This matchup is incredibly hard to predict as it could go either way. TTF has only played against Julia where he lost and INF3cted lost to Ramms and went 1-2 vs Pro7ect. If this was one year ago having taken a game off of Pro7ect would make INF3cted the clear favorite but as it stands Pro7ect's form is arguable. I'm giving the edge to TTF based on nothing else than my Terran-bias and that we all would like to have less Zergs in the round of 16 (except for Harem).

In general; Bakuryu will be the indisputable #1 of this group but the second place could go to any of the other three in this group.

Player	Staff Picks
Pro7ect (15)
	HawaiianPig, 2Pacalypse-, SirJolt, Jonvvv, Kiante, kjwcj, Hyde, Falling, itsjustatank, Epoxide, Sayle, ArvickHero, nbaker, BisuDagger, Torenhire
Technics (10)
	HawaiianPig, 2Pacalypse-, Jonvvv, kjwcj, TheEmulator, itsjustatank, Epoxide, Sayle, nbaker, Torenhire
Liquid`Drone (5)
	Sirjolt, Hyde, Kiante, Falling, ArvickHero
EnjoYme (2)
	TheEmulator, BisuDagger

The staff picks for Group A are fairly predictable. Pro7ect and Technics both looked extremely strong in their qualifier games. With Technics off-racing in his final, there's always the question of whether he would've beaten EonZerg if he had played ZvZ. Together, they are the obvious picks for the majority of staff. With that being said, there is some limited support for the underdog veteran Drone, of whom the more intelligent writers and editors** chose for victory. The support for EnjoYmE was understandably quite limited as his name doesn't have the same notoriety but this just gives him the opportunity to come out and surprise everyone (and make BisuDagger and TheEmulator look smart).

** Editor's Note: Kiante is an extremely unbiased writer.

Player	Staff Picks
Bakuryu (13)
	HawaiianPig, SirJolt, Jonvvv, Kiante, kjwcj, Hyde, TheEmulator, Falling, itsjustatank, Epoxide, Sayle, nbaker, Torenhire
G5 (9)
	2pacalypse-, SirJolt, Kiante, TheEmulator, Falling, ArvickHero, nbaker, BisuDagger, Torenhire
INF3cted (6)
	2Pacalypse-, Jonvvv, kjwcj, Hyde, Sayle, BisuDagger
TTF (4)
	HawaiianPig, itsjustatank, Epoxide, ArvickHero

The picks for Group B were extremely more varied. Only one player was a clear constant: Bakuryu. The moustache Zerg impressed a lot of people in tournaments prior to the TLS as well as in his qualifiers and it's unsurprising he's garnered so much support. The votes were fairly split between the other three competitors, with the comeback-king G5 getting a surprising number of votes (perhaps from staff members band-wagoning with another writer who went out on a limb to pick him for the victory)**. TTF and INF3cted are both extremely talented players to boot and honestly this was by far the harder group to predict, and when the games actually go down anything could happen.

** Editor's Note: See the previous Editor's Note

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That's all for now! Join us on Saturday, Feb 09 8:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) for the cast of Groups A and B! And as always a big thanks to our sponsors: