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Every game before game four had seen HiyA doing a perhaps not unorthodox but certainly not standard timing push with his first four to seven tanks and his vultures. Making the games very entertaining and action-packed. Game four started on the new SSL exclusive map; Pamir Plateu. Having only seen two games previously and being the first televised Terran vs Protoss none was quite sure what to expect. HiyA spawns in the bottom right and gets the allied color; yellow, while Tyson gets red in the top left; making it cross-positions. As I initially wrote, HiyA had been extremely willing to attack early with his units. With Pamir Plateu also having a large reverse ramp outside of each natural Tyson felt like the safest choice would be to go for a semi-defensive 10/15 Gate with some pressure from his own side, even though Pamir Plateu is a four player ramped map. HiyA goes for a what looks like a standard Fake Double. He sends an SCV after his barracks finishes and scouts Tyson at the second base where he spots the 10/15 Gate and goon range.

After scouting Tyson's build HiyA opts to go for a siege-expand instead, skipping spider mines. Tyson attacks with his first three dragoons while HiyA makes a command center in his main. Just as the first siege tank sieges Tyson tries to bust the ramp with four dragoons against HiyA's four marines and one siege tank. While this happens HiyA sends in his first vulture in to Tyson's natural, trying to snipe the probe building the nexus but gets denied. When Tyson pushes up the ramp and gets shot by the siege tank he notices the very forward position of it. He goes down the ramp again to try to snipe it, knowing that with four dragoons he would two-shot it. HiyA notices the same thing and quickly unsieges his siege tank while simultaneously moving down the ramp with his marines, effectively removing Tyson's vision up to the high ground. HiyA succeeds and saves the tank in the yellow health.


While the siege tank is unsiegeing and the marines undefended, Tyson spots another opportunity and kills off all of the four marines while pushing up the ramp. HiyA's second tank comes out at the perfect time as the first tank sieges again. While pushing up the ramp Tyson loses two of his dragoons and the last two shortly after, but not after sniping HiyA's first siege tank. HiyA looks like he has defended but Tyson's two reinforcement dragoons arrive while HiyA only has one unsieged tank out without a full wall. What looks like it might be the end of the is just an illusion as HiyA pulls ten SCVs to repair his siege tank and surround Tyson's dragoons. Tyson loses one of his dragoons and escapes with the other while HiyA suffers no losses. Back at home Tyson's nexus is just about to finish as HiyA floats out his own command center. Tyson follows up the 10/15 Gate with a robotics facility. HiyA builds two additional factories, an academy, and starts the research for spider mines. Tyson builds two additional gateways and an observatory, going up to a total of four gateways. Yet again opting to go for the safer route being wary of HiyA's aggressive play.

When spider mines finishes HiyA sneaks out with four vultures out of his natural. Tyson has three dragoons waiting on top of the ramp and picks off one of the vultures. HiyA plants a couple of mines in the retreat path for the three dragoons as he does his patented attack with another three vultures, two SCVs, and four siege tanks.


HiyA chases away the three dragoons, managing to kill off one of them before turning around towards Tyson's natural. A look at Tyson's main reveals that his reaver tech is already up. Tyson lets HiyA get all the way up to the ramp outside of his natural. HiyA sieges, puts down some mines, and builds two turrets. Tyson knows that he can't give up the high ground. Without the turret completed HiyA has no anti-air. Tyson spots it and flies his shuttle over HiyA's siege tanks. HiyA unsieges two of his tanks to avoid the friendly splash from zealot bombs. This is the signal for Tyson to go as he attacks with all of his dragoons and dropping the zealots on the tanks. Without the reaver it looks like Tyson is going to lose the engagement but the two dragoons that weren't killed in the bottom right flanks HiyA's tanks. Tyson pulls back knowing that he doesn't have enough dragoons to kill off HiyA's forces completely. HiyA only has one remaining tank, but with two turrets complete and so many vultures and spider mines HiyA keeps up the pressure on Tyson.

HiyA transitions into a six factory all-in, making three more factories. Tyson waits for two more rounds of gateway units and his second reaver before once again trying to defend his ramp. While HiyA still only has one tank Tyson attacks HiyA's position. Going in with his zealots first to tank the damage and flying in his shuttle dropping both reavers on the tank before the shuttle dies to the turrets. The reavers gets a couple of shots before dying, without having anymore tanks HiyA is forced to pull back. Tyson still has eight dragoons left so he chases HiyA until he takes a mine hit as he doesn't have an observer. HiyA simultaneously tries to sneak three vultures into Tyson's natural but Tyson has four dragoons waiting. Feeling the pressure from HiyA, Tyson goes for two base arbiters instead of taking a third. After a while of vultures running around planting mines and trying to harass, Tyson takes his third base at the 12 o'clock. Tyson is poking around the middle of the map with nine dragoons but gets cut off by HiyA's vulture while HiyA attacks from the front with his tanks. With mines in the retreat path Tyson loses all the dragoons in a landslide.


HiyA gets to walk up to the ramp with his six tanks and dozens of vultures without having to siege on the way. This time Tyson goes in before HiyA has the time to setup his siege tanks, only three of the tanks manage to siege before the engagement. Tyson flies in with a speed shuttle containing a DT and three zealots. He drops the DT and HiyA scans immediately. Yet again Tyson manages to stall HiyA's attack killing all but one siege tank before running out of zealots and retreating. HiyA still has a lot of vultures left and chases Tyson's dragoons trying to surround time and plant mines. Tyson does a good job of stutter stepping and only loses one dragoon. This gives HiyA enough time and room to push up with three tanks and siegeing them, Tyson loses another two dragoons to one shot. Tyson waits for another round of gateway units before flying in with his shuttle dropping his reaver and zealots on HiyA's siege tanks. HiyA is forced to unsiege once again due to the zealot bombs. HiyA pulls back to his reinforcement tanks and saves most of his units. Seven vultures goes to the 12 o'clock that has just finished but no probes have been transferred yet. Tyson is too low on units and has to stay at the ramp outside of his natural to defend against HiyA's push. The vultures mines up Tyson's third and has free reign to kill the nexus. Tyson sees that HiyA has no buffering vultures for his tank. This prompts Tyson to attack HiyA's position. HiyA gets pushed back once again but doesn't suffer any particularly big loses. Meanwhile the vultures has taken down the nexus at 12 o'clock to 300 hp. Tyson tries defending the nexus with a speed shuttle containing a reaver and one speed zealot. The reaver gets a huge shot of, killing two vultures. The zealot mine drags and manages to take three vultures with him. Saving the nexus at 250 hp.

Tyson with so few units pulls back to his natural ramp once again. HiyA attacks with his reinforcements, he is yet again untouched on his way. This time HiyA gets to setup with mines, turrets and siege. But like so many times before right when the turrets are about to finish Tyson flies in with a speed shuttle forcing HiyA to unsiege his tanks and run away. Meanwhile Tyson does a questionable probe transfer to the 12 o'clock where vultures arrive. The vultures kills off all the probes and finishes the nexus making it a two base vs. two base again. HiyA pushes up a bit more again with his reinforcement tanks and fortifies the position with mines and turrets. Tyson has two speed shuttles and his arbiter is finally out.


The first speed shuttle with the reavers dies to turrets but the second one with four zealots makes it to the tanks. This time HiyA doesn't unsiege his tanks. The engagement looks like it's going Tyson's way until he runs out of zealots and his observer dies to a turret. Yet again HiyA is left with one single tank. Tyson gets a bit overeager and walks onto mines losing several dragoons.


After the mine hit Tyson is forced to pull back again while HiyA doesn't have enough units to attack either. At this point in time both players main are completely mined out, making it a one base vs. one base. With some more units from both players HiyA sets up a position a small distance from Tyson's ramp while Tyson takes the 9 o'clock as his third (second mining) base. Tyson tries to pick off some mines in siege tank range with the cloak from the arbiters. HiyA scans it and Tyson is forced to attack. Tyson drops his first reaver but only gets of one bad scarab. He drops the second reaver closer to the tanks but it doesn't get to fire a single scarab. Unknowing for everyone watching Tyson had gotten stasis. Tyson gets off a huge stasis on three tanks and two vultures.


Tyson kills off all of HiyA's units except for one tank and one vulture. Tyson stays with his remaining five dragoons to kill the units as they come out of stasis. With the next wave of reinforcements from both players HiyA pushes up with three tanks and sieges to save his units that are still in stasis. Without having any buffering zealots Tyson is still forced to engage. Just as Tyson reaches the three sieged tanks the units comes out of stasis. What looks like the end of Tyson is a wrong assumption as the story takes another 180 degree turn. HiyA runs out of scan and cannot see the remaining of Tyson army, which at this point is only three dragoons. There is no anti-air either to kill the two arbiters overhead. The two arbiters chases the retreating siege tanks, picking off two at low health to the commentary of Sayle. “THEY DON'T DO DAMAGE! THEY DON'T EVEN DO DAMAGE!!!”. A misrally by HiyA gets two of his siege tanks killed in the middle of the map.

HiyA has been pushed all the way to his own ramp. Finally four goliaths are out but gets instantly stasised. Tyson gets mined out at his natural too, making it a one vs. one base game once again. Knowing he has the advantage at the moment Tyson expands to the 12 o'clock again. HiyA tries some vulture harass at the 9 o'clock but gets denied. Without time to tech to storm Tyson makes two archons for a final engagement. With two great stasis Tyson takes the final engagement.


HiyA has no follow-up and his forced to leave the game. Tyson shows some formidable defense and takes it to a game five.

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Having already eliminated one tournament favourite in the previous round, hero faces an even tougher challenge up against HiyA in a ZvT match-up which he has always struggled with. HiyA, meanwhile, having emerged unscathed from a tough TvP scrap with Tyson, has been incredibly fortunate to be dealt the best possible match-up for him, and one which he seems certain will land him in the final.

Although no one would have picked it before the start of the tournament, a Ro4 place in the SSL seems like a reasonable reflection of where hero stands in the current SOSPA hierarchy. After benefiting from two fairly soft group draws in the Ro32 and the Ro16, hero showed his mettle in the Ro8 by eliminating Movie and has clearly established himself as first in line should Killer ever choose to abdicate his spiny throne. The issue, as it has always been, with every SOSPA Zerg not named Killer, is ZvT.


hero’s ZvT during his time on STX and Team 8 was, by the standard of his other two match-ups, very poor. The only time during his pro career that hero ever looked like a player who would be able to consistently measure up to top Terran players was in his period of peak form in 2009, when he reached an OSL Ro8. Since then, aside from the occasional one-off good game, hero’s versus Terran match-up has been on a clear downward trajectory. More recently in his career on Afreeca, hero has continued to suffer a the hands of the best Terran players.

HiyA’s TvZ record pretty much speaks for itself. Although the arrival of Sea, and also possibly sSak, has put a damper on HiyA’s longstanding status as the best TvZ player on Afreeca, there’s no one outside of Killer who really stands a chance in a long series against any of Afreeca’s top three Terran, of whom only HiyA has a less than 70% win-rate in the match-up. Over the past year and a half, HiyA’s TvZ has proven to be as versatile as it is strong, making it difficult to directly counter his style, or make predictions about what he may do from one match to the next.


Having beaten hero in both long and short games just a few weeks ago, HiyA should be able to control the pace of this series from the outset, and potentially, by taking a few extra risk, end it very quickly. Over his entire career, very few Zergs have been able to stand up to HiyA’s early aggression and on the basis of hero’s recent ZvT showings, things are not likely to change soon.

While there are one or two series in his recent past that suggest hero may have enough to at least be a factor in this semi-final match-up, overall things look grim for the former STX pro. With their most recent match-up ending 3-0 in favour of HiyA and never really looking close, the retired OZ Terran would be right to feel confident, although he has dropped series to Zerg players worse than hero in the past. In HiyA’s mind, this series is clearly all about setting the stage for his second SSL finals appearance, and while complacency may see him drop a map, his undeniable talent and experience should see him through.

HiyA 3 - 1 hero




After sSak’s strong performance in the Ro16, this match-up became many viewers’ pick for the final, and it would have been were it not for Sonic’s longstanding love of random brackets. While it is disappointing that we won’t get to see these two players meet on a slightly larger stage, this ought to be one of the most high quality series we’ve seen so far in this, or any other, SSL. Against some very stiff competition, sSak has quickly risen to become one of the best players in the SOSPA scene while Killer’s return to dominance after a new year hiatus is indicative of the former Hwaseung Zerg’s enduring quality.

After his game one loss in last weekend’s Ro8 series against Larva, some doubts were cast over whether or not sSak was really the player we thought he was. With only 23 games on record at time of writing, it felt safe to be optimistic about sSak’s skill as a player. After all, he’d spent several years on SKT’s Proleague roster and still has yet to pass the six month anniversary of his retirement from the team that Boxer built. Indeed, even after sSak powered back from that 0-1 deficit to take his semi-final berth with style, it’s still not entirely clear how he will stand up against a player as singularly talented as Killer.


Having played a majority of his Proleague games against Zerg opponents and having taken some impressive victories along the way, it seems as if sSak’s TvZ must have been reasonably well regarded by his coaches at SKT, although the 37% win-rate he ended up with is actually worse than the record used to damn hero’s pro-career ZvT earlier in this preview. Outside of his apparently promising but ultimately disappointing displays during his time on SKT, sSak has looked pretty strong against the Zerg opponents he’s faced so far on Afreeca. In his debut TvZ in SOSPA competition, sSak looked completely composed as he defeated Cola 2-0, less than half an hour after Cola had taken out longtime TvZ superstar, HiyA. Since then, sSak has remained relatively untroubled by Afreeca Zerg talent pool, with only a couple of one-off losses to Larva blemishing his relatively brief career.

One of the biggest “What ifs” of this SSL has related to Sea, a player who at the start of 2013 we had anointed the new best player on SOSPA forever and ever, the end, no take-backs or mind-changes. Sea spent the following few months making everyone feel incredibly foolish by losing to almost everyone in almost every possible way and looking as if he might have been better off sticking with SC2. Around April though, the Liquid Terran seemed to reawaken and begun playing the kind of Starcraft we had expected of him after his debut tournament victory in SRT11.

Sea’s return from the dead was confirmed three weeks ago when, in the final of one of Sonic’s weekly Super Match tournaments, he beat Killer in one of the best TvZ series ever played on Afreeca. Another few weeks prior to this loss, Killer lost in the first round of that week’s Super Match series to Mong. Even earlier than that, the week before his Ro8 series with Mong in SSL7, Killer lost heavily to HiyA in yet another Super Match series. He is mortal, he can be killed.


This section of a preview would usually contain a rational discourse about a players’ strengths and weaknesses, perhaps a couple of statistics or a tidbit about their playstil. Instead we have two paragraphs of narrative, building up to a climax in which Killer loses, not one, not two but a whole three series over the course of six months in his weakest match-up. This speaks to the kind of player he is, and what he’s meant to SOSPA competition since his debut, and perhaps most importantly, how much even the most swarm-hearted amongst us can enjoy watching him lose.

A Killer versus HiyA final seems like the best outcome in the mind of most viewers, and indeed it does seem like the most likely. However better Killer’s form is in offline matches than in online events, sSak will pose a significant challenge. Having been somewhat surprised by the significantly less impressive ZvT of Larva last week, sSak will need to be alert from the very start of this series if he hopes to hold his own. A clean sweep is very difficult to achieve in ZvT and unless sSak is completely off his game, this series will likely be won by quite a narrow margin. Even so, the continued ability of Killer to turn in almost flawless performances in an offline environment should win out, and carry him to his second consecutive SSL final.

Killer 3 - 2 sSak

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WRITERS: Hyde, kjwcj, and Epoxide
GRAPHICS: Hyde
PHOTOS: dailyesports, SKT T1