The final weekend of the Ro24 is upon us! The last eight players will be battling it out to see which four make it to the Ro16. Group E will feature a lone protoss hero fighting against the zerg hordes while group F contains not just one, but two of our precious few terrans. So far the zergs have claimed half the spots in the Ro16; will they be able to keep the trend going or will our protoss and terran players tip the scales? Join us on Saturday, Feb 23 8:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) to find out!









The first match of group C featured a quick game between dRaW and Napoleon on Neo Ground Zero. Napoleon spawned at the top left corner of the map, while dRaW spawned at the bottom right. Napoleon opened with a standard hatch first build, contrasted sharply by dRaW's aggressive early-game choice to accompany a cannon rush on Napoleon's expand with early zealot pressure.

dRaW's attack catches Napoleon off guard, and it left him in such a position that he felt confident enough to build a manner Nexus in the middle of Napoleon's main. His confidence was short-lived, however, as the manner Nexus was canceled as dRaW realized that the game was not immediately won for him, despite his large advantage at that stage of the game.

Napoleon attempted to recover the game by going for a zergling all-in off a speed timing, but dRaW's position was just too far ahead of him to have any chance.



The second match of the group also went by relatively quickly. Jim-Raynor spawned at the top left position of Neo Ground Zero, while SouthPark spawned at the bottom left position.

The players both opened with a 9 pool. SouthPark played more defensively, holding his lings in an arc at the top of his ramp in order to stop Jim-Raynor's attempts at a ling run-by. Both players then fell back in order to build mutas with +1 attack and scourge support.

SouthPark manages to get off good scourge hits on Jim-Raynor's mutas, granting him the advantage in the game and the win.



After two quick matches, the winners' match between SouthPark and dRaW delivered. The players spawned at cross positions on New Sniper Ridge, with SouthPark at the top left position and dRaW occupying the bottom right position.

Similar to his game versus Napoleon, dRaW opted for early pressure against his opponent. His early 2 gate zealot pressure was dealt with by SouthPark's units, built off an earlier pool into expansion build on his part. After holding off the early pressure, SouthPark goes for lurkers in a bid to both contain dRaW at his natural by holding the high ground ridge just outside of that position and to drop lurkers into dRaW's main base.

Unfortunately for SouthPark, one of dRaW's dark templar spotted the lurkers as they finished morphing in the middle of the map. In coordination with a scouting zealot, he disrupted SouthPark's lurker drop plans for at least a little while. SouthPark was about to manage to take the containment position on the ridge outside of dRaW's natural in response, though.

Despite the initial disruption of his drop plans, SouthPark was finally able to set up a lurker drop onto dRaW's main after the Protoss player moves out and bypasses the lurker containment. This lurker drop was then reinforced by a doom drop consisting mainly of hydras.

Despite his aggression, SouthPark was not able to do the amount of damage needed to be done in order to make his play efficient. This fact, in coordination with his lack of saturation off only three bases at this stage of the game, began to turn the tide against him to the favor of dRaW.

After a series of mid-game exchanges, the game moved to the later stages. Still limited, at that stage of the game, to three bases, SouthPark built a number of ultralisks. In response, dRaW opted to build dark archons for maelstrom for use in coordination with high templars with storm. This unit composition worked completely in dRaw's favor, as the decisive engagement of the game was won by dRaW using dark archons and high templar to wipe out the opposing Zerg units with relative ease.



The losers' match between Napoleon and Jim-Raynor featured lots and lots of mutalisks. Spawning on New Sniper Ridge, Napoleon started off in the top right position, with Jim-Raynor at the bottom right.

Jim-Raynor went for 2 hatch muta into lots and lots of mutalisks against Napoleon's bio force. Napoleon's late engineering bay ensured an early advantage for Jim-Raynor's mutalisk harass. As the harass progressed more and more in Jim-Raynor's favor, he opted to continue building them en masse.

The game got to the point where Jim-Raynor simply had too many mutalisks for his multitask abilities. While Napoleon was able to build vessels for irradiate, there were simply too many mutalisks present in game for that ability to make any difference. With the map control offered by the ridiculous number of mutalisks present on the map, Jim-Raynor took a large number of expansions at assorted positions throughout the map.

At the end of the game, Jim-Raynor mowed down Napoleon's limited army, morphed half of his mutas into guardians, and then attack-moved his entire army, winning him the game.



The final match of the group featured a relatively tame rematch between Jim-Raynor and SouthPark. The players spawned at cross positions on Fighting Spirit, with SouthPark at the top right position and Jim-Raynor at the bottom left position.

SouthPark opted for a fast one-base lair opening for quick mutas, in comparison to Jim-Raynor's expand build. With the ling advantage, SouthPark was able to force the cancellation of Jim-Raynor's expansion plans, forcing him to go for later one-base mutalisk.

The mutalisk advantage also went in SouthPark's favor, and he eliminated Jim-Raynor from the Legacy Starleague.





The first match of group D featured trutaCz against ZZZero on Neo Ground Zero, with ZZZero spawning at the top right position and trutaCz spawning at the bottom right position.

The two players opted for identical 12 hatch builds with equivalent lair timings. Both players were also content to trade scourge for opposing overlords for a substantial period of time in the early game.

As the emphasis on both sides shifted to the muta count, trutaCz was able to gain the upper hand, which allowed him to survive a base trade situation and win him the game.



In the second match of the group, NeMu spawned at the bottom left position of Neo Ground Zero as Zerg against andreyy, who spawned at the bottom right position of the map as Terran. andreyy went for a mech build, while NeMu opted for a hydra bust tactic off a 2 base macro hatch position.

The hydra bust failed in the face of andreyy's strong defense positioning at his natural. In addition, his attempt at mutalisk harass in andreyy's main was effectively staved off with sufficient numbers of goliaths for anti-air.

The mutalisks afford NeMu map control, and the ability to take a third base. In response, andreyy attempted to take it out with a push, but NeMu was able to flank andreyy's army and gain a permanent advantage in the game. To emphasize that he had the game won, NeMu built queens and established an infested command center at andreyy's former third base, causing andreyy to concede defeat.



To avoid the mirror match-up, NeMu chose to play Protoss for this match. He spawned at the top left position of New Sniper Ridge, while trutaCz, playing Zerg, spawned at the bottom right position.

trutaCz opened with a 9 pool, while NeMu opted for a less-orthodox gateway first into late expand accompanied with a strategic special chat rush ploy. trutaCz's ling run-by through NeMu's non-ling tight wall proved that actions truly do speak louder than words typed into a Brood War chat box. After killing a number of probes and keeping NeMu's forces occupied for an extended period of time in his main, trutaCz followed up his attack with the intention of ending the game quickly off only two bases.

trutaCz was able to build up a force to overcome NeMu's limited corsair numbers off three hatcheries, and forced NeMu to leave the game in defeat.



Unfortunately, ZZZero encountered debilitating computer issues which left him unable to play his match against andreyy. As such, andreyy was granted a walkover win against him and proceeded to the final elimination match of the group.



Despite his luck in getting a walkover victory, the final game started off badly for andreyy, who got an SCV behind the minerals in his initial worker split. He spawned at the top left position of Fighting Spirit, while NeMu, playing Zerg, spawned at the bottom left position.

NeMu opened with a ling bust strategy that worked exceptionally well for him. His advantage snowballed as he was able to destroy andreyy's natural, which forced his opponent to play off one base. NeMu's tech to mutalisks provided him with more than the vessels built in response could handle with irradiate, winning him the game and granting him entrance into the next stage of the Legacy Starleague.




Last week I predicted 9 out of 10 matches correctly, and was the only one from staff who picked NeMu to advance. This week I hope to look like a genius once again.

eOnzErG was the first to pick a group in the round of 24 coming of a huge win in qualifier #1. The group consists of two Protoss and one Zerg opponent for him (vOddy offraces PvZ). eOnzErG seems very confident in his Zerg vs Protoss, and he should; absolutely destroying qualifier #1 only dropping one game. He managed to beat Wallace 1-0, fan-favourite and round of 16-qualifier dRaW 2-1, and eventually TechnicS offracing Protoss in the final. The first opponent in the group however is a Zerg, the polish player Pike. eOnzErG has not played many ZvZ's lately, however the last time he played he 2-0'd Michael. Pike has not ZvZ'd in quite some time either. In the last three months he has played INF3cted four times going 3-1 and 0-2 in a series to TechnicS. Based of off eOnzErG's recent success, awarded third place for both Zerg of the year and biggest talent of the year on ICCup, in addition to his compelling play he should take it.

The next game is dewalt vs vOddy. This is indeed a tough match-up to predict. dewalt is a russian powerhouse, voted Protoss of the year and biggest talent of the year 2012. dewalt has already won once vs vOddy in qualifier #3 but has gone a total of 3-2 in PvZ, 1-0 against vorti and Naugrim and losing to SouthPark 0-2. vOddy is a new face to many, only recently appearing in competitions. He come out of nowhere and probably upset many, ending up in second place in points with 145 points. vOddy has played a lot of ZvP's, a total of 9 games and a score of 5-4 against opponents like dRaW (1-3 total), dewalt, LancerX, Drone, and Djem5. My sources tell me that vOddy has been practicing a lot. I'm betting on an upset.

eOnzErG plays a ZvP against vOddy. eOnzErG rolls over everyone in his group and goes 2-0. dewalt is really good and Pike has not shown incredible performance as of late, dewalt should take a solid win. vOddy has to regame dewalt, this is where it gets really tricky. Will vOddy upset twice in a row? I have to say that I'm really impressed so far by vOddy's play that I can't deny the possibility. Bring pride to Sweden, vOddy goes 2-1 in the group.






Group F was chosen by qualifier #4 winner Julia. Yet another strong polish Zerg, Julia is in my eyes the strongest player in this group. Julia beat Cosy once already in qualifier #4 and has gone 4-4 against Bakuryu, ZZZero, and Dashwriter. Cosy beat Ace and lost to Julia, going 1-1 in ZvZ. Julia should win but the volatility of ZvZ might bring us an upset.

Game two is a Terran vs Protoss between the peruvian player TerrOr and the russian player Ramms. As we know from the final of qualifier #6 Ramms offraces Protoss against Terran. His play did not show any strength and did not impress me. This is the only recorded games he has played against Terran in over 7 months. TerrOr on the other has shown nothing but solid play, ending up in first plays in points after the qualifiers with a whopping 169. Points awarded from one semifinal, one quarterfinal and three consecutive round of 16 finishes. Yes you read that correctly. He has only played two games against Protoss as of late, going 1-1 vs andreyy. It's hard to tell who will win, Ramms performing lackluster and TerrOr has not shown us that many games against Protoss. TerrOr is much like Sea, incredibly solid and always makes it to the round of 16 but falls short, he is also a rollercoaster in TvP. Sea won SRT 11, maybe it's TerrOr's turn? TerrOr wins on Neo Ground Zero.

Zergs. They have been TerrOr's bane this tournament. Unfortunately for him there are Zergs everywhere. He is on a total score of 3-6. 0-2'd by eOnzErG, 1-0 Napoleon, 1-0 aCe, 0-2 Bakuryu, 1-0 aCe, 0-1 Napoleon, and finally 0-1 against Julia. This does not look good for TerrOr. While Julia is 6-1 against andreyy (2-0 in the final of qualifier #4 and it was not close), TerrOr, DividedHeir and SnowFantasy. I want this so badly to be a great TvZ but I'm not so sure it will be, I will gladly be proven wrong. Julia should win with ease.

Cosy has yet to play a single Terran in TLS, I have no clue where he stands in the match-up. He might be amazing at ZvT but judging from his other games Ramms is a level above. Ramms has gone 4-2 in TvZ against Jim, 2011, and NeMu. Ramms is the most likely to win. TerrOr regames Ramms on Fighting Spirit. TerrOr advances to the round of 16, 2-1. If Cosy wins against Ramms, Cosy advances to the round of 16.

Player	Staff Picks
eonzerg(9)
	HawaiianPig, 2Pacalypse-, Jonvvv, ]343[, Falling, Sayle, Epoxide, itsjustatank, ArvickHero
Dewalt(6)
	2Pacalypse-, Jonvvv, CaucasianAsian, itsjustatank, Torenhire, ArvickHero
vOdtoasT(6)
	HawaiianPig, CaucasianAsian, ]343, Falling, Epoxide, Torenhire
Pike(1)
	Sayle

For the first time in staff-picking history, we have two players getting equal numbers of votes from our staff. eOnzErG appears to be the favorite in this group, but Dewalt and vOdtoasT (aka vOddy) are not far behind with six votes apiece. The surprising result here is that Pike only managed a single vote from loyal fan Sayle. This is the player who was chosen as LRM's ace in the legendary Gambit's Cup finals a year ago and has since posted strong results in multiple team leagues. Admittedly, his showings in individual tournaments haven't been as impressive as someone like eOnzErG, who has won multiple recent defiler tournaments, but this may just be the chance for him to prove the hatersstaff wrong and make Sayle right about something for once.

Player	Staff Picks
TerrOr (9)
	HawaiianPig, 2Pacalypse-, CaucasianAsian, ]343[, Sayle, Epoxide, itsjustatank, Torenhire, ArvickHero
13Julia(7)
	HawaiianPig, Jonvvv, ]343[, Falling, Epoxide, itsjustatank, Torenhire
Ramms(6)
	2Pacalypse-, Jonvvv, CaucasianAsian, Falling, Sayle, ArvickHero
Cosy(0)

Poor Cosy. Despite being #6 on iCCup ladder with a coveted green A- icon, our zerg boy didn't get a single staff vote. Oh well, at least now he has something in common with gym-bag. The other three players divided the votes fairly evenly, with TerrOr proving to be the slight favorite. Not surprising considering TerrOr and Ramms are longtime powerhouses while Julia surprised many with a dominating win in the fourth qualifier. Despite their differences in picking who will advance though, I'm sure all the staff agree that TerrOr has the best picture by far.

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That's all for now! Join us on Saturday, Feb 23 8:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) for the cast of Groups E and F! And as always a big thanks to our sponsors: