Round of 16 has concluded last weekend and we're marching forward to round of 8 without losing any time. Same as in round of 16, we'll cast on both Saturday and Sunday, so after this weekend we should know our semi-finalists. Starting on Saturday, we have our reigning champion, Sziky, taking on a Spanish Zerg eOnzErG. Following the ZvZ, we'll have a TvZ between skzlime and Julia. Continuing on Sunday, we'll have a TvZ and a PvZ featuring players TerrOr, Michael, TechnicS and dRaW.

Find out more about this week's groups and the players in the recaps and previews below and make sure to tune in with Sayle on Saturday, Jul 06 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) and Sunday, Jul 07 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) for the Round of 8 matches.






The first game of this group featured Skzlime in a mirror match against TerrOr on Wind and Cloud. TerrOr opened two-port wraith against Skzlime’s 14CC expansion build. Skzlime was caught unprepared against the wraiths, and he lost nineteen workers in total to TerrOr’s initial attack. While TerrOr had control of the skies, Skzlime was able to set up a position of contain outside of TerrOr’s base, and he eventually built up enough ground forces in the mid game that he was able to shift to an even more aggressive stance. However, TerrOr was able to break through Skzlime’s units, and initiated containment of his own as well as some serious vulture harass at the nine o’clock position in the late game. TerrOr’s position on the high ground was not something Skzlime felt like he could deal with, and so he left the game.

The second game on Wind and Cloud featured the Protoss player, G5, up against Ramms, who played Terran in this game. G5 began the game by stealing Ramms’ gas twice after scouting horizontally and finding him early in the game. He then followed this up by taking his natural and a quick third while Ramms sat back in a defensive posture and took his own natural expansion. As the mid game developed, the two armies faced off on opposing high ground areas and G5 caused the Terran player to unsiege all of his tanks at the same time and then attacked at that point. While the Protoss attack was relatively successful, it was unable to dislodge his opponent from the high ground position. After Ramms moved against the Protoss natural and the outlying expansions, G5 attempted to build emergency dark templar and carriers in order to cope but he was not able to turn the game around in his favor and he thus lost the game.

The winners match of the group was set between TerrOr and Ramms, who plays Protoss against Terran, on Wind and Cloud. The early game was relatively passive except for some light dragoon harass on the part of Ramms that disrupted the Terran’s expansion attempt for a small amount of time. In the mid game, Ramms’ arbiter play finally paid off with an impressive recall into the Terran player’s main base. The game continued after this point however, and it culminated in a split map with cloaked carriers versus a very large Terran mech army. Ramms was able to reach a critical mass of carriers, and won the game as a result. In the second game, which was played on Outsider, TerrOr was able to hold off the recalls and reach a vastly superior position in the game with solid play that bled the Protoss player out before he finally left the game. In the third and deciding game of the winner’s match, which was played on Fighting Spirit, TerrOr executed a two-factory timing attack that completely destroyed the Protoss defense and ejected Ramms from the game in quick fashion.

Skzlime faced off against G5 on Wind and Cloud in the first game of the losers match of the group. G5 opened with a quick robotics and initiated reaver harass. The harassment failed, but G5 was able to take three bases behind it. Not to be outdone, Skzlime dropped tanks into the Protoss third and main, but this ended up being driven off by the Protoss player. After successfully attacking into a sieged Terran army uphill, G5 switched to massive carrier production. Unfortunately for him, however, Skzlime had far too many goliaths in comparison to G5’s low carrier count. A slugfest developed as both players continued to engage each other. Skzlime was able to reduce the carrier count, but G5 built dragoons and archons to supplement his army. G5’s attack failed however, as he attacked into a well-defended bottom left base, giving his opponent the lead, and, in his words “[the game] went from, I shoulda lost this, to I shoulda won this, to I lost it.” In the second game, which was played on Outsider, G5 repeated his drop harass strategy and transition to carriers. Skzlime was forced into an all-in position by the end of the game, but G5 was allowed to achieve a critical mass of carriers and thus took the win. In the third and deciding game of the losers match, which was played on Fighting Spirit, Skzlime, eager to reverse his fortunes in this series, opened with the intent of doing drops versus G5. Skzlime was able to get vultures into the main and kill a number of probes, but G5 simultaneously attacked the Terran natural in a counterattack. G5 lost his attacking units despite being able to drive off the vultures, putting him at a disadvantage in the game. After a failed attack in the mid game against the Terran army, the supply disadvantage grew even wider. After a slow bleeding out, G5 finally left the game and was eliminated from the tournament.

The final match of this group was then set between Ramms, playing Protoss, and Skzlime. The first game of this set took place on Wind and Cloud. After a relatively passive early game, Ramms attempted an attack against Terran units on the high ground that went extremely poorly for him. The Protoss player was able to do some proper mine drags, but after another failed attack into a Terran siege line, Ramms saw himself at a terminal disadvantage in the game and left. In the second game, which was played on Outsider, Skzlime sieged on the cliff atop the Protoss natural for some light harass at the start. Further cliffing as well as vulture harass seriously disrupted Ramms’ production, and Skzlime was in far too advantageous of a position at the end for Ramms to hold off, and Skzlime was able to move on in the tournament instead of the Protoss player.



The first match of the group was set between the Zerg player, eOnzErG, and the Protoss player, Dewalt, on Wind and Cloud, and it featured large mutalisk counts versus corsairs and archons. At the end of the game, Dewalt was able to break through the Zerg defenses at the top left position with a swarm of archons, zealots, and a dark archon in such a manner that eOnzErG was unable to hold it off, even with the appearance of ultralisks.

The second match featured the Zerg player, TechnicS, matched up against the Protoss player, WandS, on Wind and Cloud. TechnicS attempted a hydralisk bust in the mid game that was held off through the use of high templar storm. WandS attempted to attack in an attempt to retake the initiative in the game at various points after that initial Zerg attack, but once hive technology was fully researched, the massive swarm of ultralisks that emerged were simply too much for him to handle.

The winners match featured Dewalt versus Technics. In the first game, which was played on Wind and Cloud, Dewalt’s zealot harass was able to do serious amount of economic damage to TechnicS. TechnicS was able to turn the game around, however, after being able to rebuild his economy and take a number of bases from which he was able to macro up a formidable hydralisk force that busted through the Protoss natural. In the second game, which was played on Outsider, Dewalt built four gateways and pumped out a massive number of zealots in order to cheese a win. In the third and deciding game of the winners match, which was played on Fighting Spirit, TechnicS went for a nine pool against Dewalt’s expansion build that went completely unscouted, leading to an immediate Protoss build order loss.

The losers match of the group played out between the Zerg player, eOnzErG, and the Protoss player, WandS. The first game, which took place on Wind and Cloud, was over very quickly after eOnzErG was able to bust through the wall at the Protoss natural with hydralisks, despite the presence of high templars with storm research. The second game between these two players, which was played on Outsider, was also over in a very quick fashion after early zergling pressure in the form of a nine pool met up against a Protoss 10/12 gateway attack. WandS was able to take the game with the ground units and also with the support of reavers. In the third and deciding game of the match, which was played on Fighting Spirit, eOnzErG’s early zerglings put WandS at a significant economic disadvantage. WandS’ build was delayed substantially, allowing eOnzErG to build up a hydralisk bust that ended the game and allowed him to move on to the final match of the tournament.

Thus, the final match of the group was set between Dewalt and eOnzErG. In the first game, which was played on Wind and Cloud, Dewalt was able to drive off the early zergling pressure and punish his opponent’s three hatchery play with the help of a critical scarab hit from his reaver in the face of what looked to be a Zerg force that was at an advantage in numbers. The second game in this match was potentially the shortest ever in the TLS, as Dewalt built a seriously deficient wall outside of his natural and immediately lost once the zerglings arrived at his base. In the third and final game, Dewalt was able to initially hold off a hydralisk bust with a probe surround and and zealots despite not having enough cannons at the natural expansion’s wall, but he ended up splitting up his zealots and eOnzErG was able to kill his natural expansion and win the game.







The quarterfinals starts of with a rematch from last season's semifinals and the most recent Defiler tournament. In TLS Sziky won in convincing fashion with a score of 3-1. In Defiler #61 that happened just under a week ago eOnzErG 2-0'd Sziky. This is the first time Sziky loses a ZvZ best of-series in quite a long time. Unfortunately Sziky is much like the foreign Killer, he doesn't lose to anybody (Marwin is Sea in this analogy). Even though eOnzErG recently took a series of him he won't stand a chance, because it's gonna be as long as last time until Sziky actually loses a best of-series in ZvZ again. But like last season, Sziky is prone to make silly mistakes in ZvZ's. eOnzErG is sure to capitalize on those mistakes or at least get one build order win that Sziky doesn't stop. Also Outsider is a very quirky map, especially for ZvZ. Don't expect an upset because it won't happen but eOnzErG might take it to a game five.






I'm almost not surprised Julia made it this far this season. Julia probably had the easiest group to get out of in the round of 24, but him 2-0'ing a round of 16 group with Michael in it? I didn't expect that. Julia has yet to face any terrans this season and he got 0-2'd last season by TerrOr and Ramms. He did however play fantastically against Napoleon in TLS2 Qualifiers, unfortunately it's probably one of the worst series in Brood War history. skzlime on the other hand is a well known TvZ monster. This guy single handedly held the TvZ win ratio at respectable level for a couple of months. With Julia's lag and pretty solid play skzlime might have his hands full but skzlime just doesn't lose, the comeback against eOnzErG was just too much. Outsider is a map that skzlime doesn't quite seem to get and Match Point doesn't have the standard look. skzlime will take the four player maps convincingly.






This was the match-up I had the most trouble predicting by far. Michael is inactive and I have no idea where he actually stands. In addition to that TerrOr's TvZ is super wacky and not very consistent. Just by looking at the round of 16 groups I get the feeling that TerrOr played really really well while Michael didn't impress at all. Even though Michael is inactive he just pulls stuff off anyway. If Michael is the slightest bit active he will take the series pretty easy I think. I have to go for the upset and say that TerrOr will win. Either way we will see a fifth game on Fighting Spirit. This series is bound to be epic.






Ah, here we are, the monthly retirement for dRaW. We are getting pretty used to this sight by now. At least you have an excuse for not winning, right? Jokes aside, TechnicS has been looking like his old self again. 2-0'ing both his groups, only dropping one game. dRaW went 2-1 in both of his groups losing two ZvP's to Julia and Sziky. He did however take a game off of Sziky. I have also heard that dRaW has been practicing against WhistleR and not have the best results. This is another series that I think will go to a fifth and deciding game on Fighting Spirit. To me it just feels wrong not to have TechnicS in the semifinals. dRaW agrees that TechnicS is the one that will advance and when dRaW isn't in his normal cocky attitude you know he will lose.

Sziky vs eOnzErG	Staff Picks
3-1 Sziky(3)
	Epoxide, kjwcj, nbaker
3-2 Sziky (3)
	Sayle, BisuDagger, itsjustatank
3-0 Sziky (2)
	Falling, Nagisama
3-1 eOnzErG (1)
	2pacalypse-

It’s a rematch of the Ro4 from TLS1 between Sziky and eOnzErG! Similar to last TLS, the staff is once again going with Sziky as the easy favourite to advance on. This comes to no surprise since he won the last TLS in spectacular fashion and the only thing that the TLS staff is divided on is how much Sziky will win by. It’s almost a perfect division between the three possible scores for Sziky. 2pac remains the sole believer that eOnzErG will advance, and with a score of 3-1 too! Does he know something the rest of the staff doesn’t know about? Or is he on something the rest of the staff doesn’t know about? :D

Julia vs skzlime	Staff Picks
skzlime 3-2 (5)
	Sayle, Epoxide, itsjustatank, Falling, nbaker
skzlime 3-1 (2)
	2pacalypse-, Nagisama
skzlime 3-0 (1)
	kjwcj
Julia 3-2(1)
	BisuDagger

After being knocked out in the Ro24 groups last TLS, Julia has made it all the way to the Ro8 this time around. However does his streak end here at the likes of skzlime? Most TLS staff think so, with the same voting distribution as that of Sziky and eOnzErG. BisuDagger was the only staff member to believe Julia will advance on, while the rest think it will be quite the close game, but going towards skzlime’s favour.

TerrOr vs Michael	Staff Picks
TerrOr 3-2 (4)
	2pacalypse-, Sayle, Epoxide, Nagisama
Michael 3-2 (3)
	BisuDagger, kjwcj, Falling
Michael 3-1 (1)
	nbaker
TerrOr 3-1 (1)
	itsjustatank

Speaking of rematches, TerrOr and Michael are facing each other once again in the exact same round as last TLS. Last time around, most of the TLS staff predicted correctly as Michael went on to take down TerrOr 3-1. But this time around, TerrOr managed to get slightly one more vote in thinking he would advance. Most of the staff this time around believes it’s going to be a close game between Michael and TerrOr with a 3-2 final score going either way. I’m hoping TerrOr will have some TerrOrfying TvZ prepared against the CHEESEKING!

TechnicS vs dRaW	Staff Picks
dRaW 3-2 (3)
	2pacalypse-, Falling, Nagisama
TechnicS 3-1 (3)
	Sayle, kjwcj, nbaker
TechnicS 3-2 (2)
	Epoxide, BisuDagger
dRaW 3-1 (1)
	itsjustatank

From having two rematches, we have also two new players into the Ro8 this season. Both TechnicS and dRaW were eliminated from the Ro16 last TLS but they’ve both managed to reach the Ro8 this time around. Sayle has often said that dRaW’s PvZ is his best matchup, however he has gone and betrayed him by voting 3-1 in favour of TechnicS. The rest of the staff is quite divided on who might come out on top, with slightly more favouring TechnicS instead of dRaW. The lone Protoss will have to stand strong against the onslaught of Zerg in order to advance on to the next round!

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That's all for now! Join us on Saturday, Jul 06 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) and Sunday, Jul 07 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) for the Round of 8 cast. And as always a big thanks to our sponsors: