We have finally reached semifinals of TeamLiquid Legacy Starleague, Season 2. After grueling two months of competition, we're down to final four. Last weekend we had one of the most interesting matches we ever saw in TLS. First day started with two underwhelming 3-0 series that were fourty-four minutes long in total. But in second day, we had two of the most epic and intense series with both ending in a 3-2 score. Let's hope we'll see the same thing this Saturday in a semifinal that should be worthy of TLS. And of course, it wouldn't be a proper TLS without Zerg dominance; same as the last season, we have three Zergs and one Terran in the semifinal with only Sziky making a repeated appearance. Other three players are Julia, TerrOr and TechnicS.

Find out who will go into the finals and who will play the 3rd place match tomorrow on Saturday, Jul 13 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00).






The first quarterfinal match was set between the two Zerg players, Sziky and eOnzErG. In the first game on Jade, both players opened with identical builds. Sziky was able to get scouting information before his opponent could do so. After an intense amount of zergling micro, eOnzErG was able to do a significant amount of damage to Sziky’s zergling numbers. However, as the game’s focus shifted to mutalisks, eOnzErG suffered critical scourge hits on his stack which quickly led to defeat for him. In the second game, which was played on Match Point, Sizky was able to disrupt his opponent’s mining and the enemy spire at the same time. As a result, eOnzErG was forced into an all-in position and lost the game after the failure of a last-ditch effort at an attack. The third and final game, which was played on Wind and Cloud, was over in a flash after Sziky’s initial attack against eOnzErG’s natural expansion did a substantial amount of damage. The result was assured despite eOnzErG’s attempt to pour zerglings into Sziky’s base in order to do damage before Sziky’s mutalisks could arrive to clinch the victory. Sziky took the series 3–0.



The second quarterfinal match of the weekend was set between the Zerg player, Julia, and the Terran player, Skzlime. In the first game, which was played on Jade, a gas steal combined with early zerglings disrupted Skzlime’s early-game plans slightly. Julia proceeded to fake Skzlime out by convincing him that his was to be lurker-centric but in fact focusing on developing mutalisks instead. Julia’s mutalisks were able to run amok in the Terran base, but it was not until the follow-up lurkers arrived outside of the natural and killed all of Skzlime’s marines that the Terran player finally decided that the game was over. The second game, which was played on Match Point, started off badly for Skzlime after he lost his initial SCV and was unable to significantly delay the Zerg player’s natural expansion. As Skzlime moved out to attack the Zerg natural, Julia was able to sneak zerglings into the Terran base. Skzlime ignored this threat and committed firmly to the attack at the natural. After the Terran attack failed, Julia’s mutalisks moved in and brought the Zerg player up to a two-game advantage in the series. In the third and final match of the series, which was played on Wind and Cloud, Skzlime opened with a command center on twelve, a build order opening that rapidly transitioned into a build order loss once Julia’s first two zerglings arrived at his natural expansion. Julia took the series 3–0.



The third quarterfinal match of the weekend featured the Terran player, TerrOr, set against the Zerg player, Michael. In the first game, which was played on Neo Jade, TerrOr opened with a command center on fourteen while his opponent opened with three hatcheries before building a spawning pool. This mutually greedy play on the part of both players led to a passive early game, and the action only picked up after TerrOr’s decidedly anti-mutalisk composition was able to do significant damage to Michael’s mutalisk-heavy army. After breaking through the Zerg forces, TerrOr was able to attack the natural and the Zerg fourth base. The game finally ended after a failed attempt at a surrounding attack on the Terran forces in the center by the Zerg player. The second game started off at an exciting pace, as TerrOr decided to do a quick bunker rush. The bunker was allowed to complete at the Zerg player’s natural expansion, and the expansion fell quickly. After finally being able to stave off the bunker rush, Michael was able to build three hatcheries and stabilize. TerrOr, however, was able to keep the advantage that was gained early on in the game and was able to beat his opponent after holding off the Michael’s final all-out attack with the help of good building placement and the presence of sufficient numbers of defensive units.

Michael found himself in a do-or-die situation as he entered the third game, which was played on Wind and Cloud. TerrOr opened with a two-factory build, and he was able to get vultures into the Zerg player’s base to do a bit of economic damage. Michael was able to stabilize, however, and he was later able to hold off an extremely dangerous-looking Terran attack at his natural with the help of a large mutalisk force and sunken colonies. After holding off the attack, Michael seized the upgrade advantage and was able to deal successfully with TerrOr’s bio-mechanical army composition to win the game. In the next game, which was played on Outsider, TerrOr proxied a factory outside of the Zerg’s mineral line and simultaneously went for two starports in his base. Despite his best attempts, TerrOr was unable to push the vulture through his opponent’s mineral line, making the proxy factory play somewhat useless. The wraiths arrived to make up for the lack of economic damage made by the proxy factory play, and this act was shortly followed by a multi-pronged drop attack on the Zerg base. Michael was able to holding off these attacks and then respond to them by flooding mutalisks and zerglings into the Terran base, which was left largely undefended. His move won him the game and brought the series to a deciding final game. In that final game, which was played on Fighting Spirit, TerrOr won an elimination race against Michael despite having run into a wall of sunken colonies at the natural expansion. His victory in that game eliminated Michael from the tournament, with a final score of 3–2.



The final quarterfinal match of the weekend was set between the Zerg player, TechnicS, and the Protoss player, dRaW. In the first game, which was played on Jade, TechnicS opened with a five hatchery before gas build. The focus of the game revolved around Zerg hydralisks versus Protoss high templar control in mid game. Signs that things were beginning to go wrong for the Zerg player began when it was revealed that TechnicS had forgotten to research hydralisk range. Despite an attack at the top right position having gone badly for dRaW, the Protoss player was largely able to get the better position out of numerous engagements, winning him the game. In the second game, which was played on Match Point, TechnicS opened with the same build. Seeing this, dRaW punished the greedy play by killing off four drones with a single zealot and then going all-in with dragoons. While the dragoons were not enough to kill TechnicS outright, due to the production capacity of five hatchies in spite of the economic damage, a Protoss shift to zealot and high templar, with the inclusion of a dark templar to the mix, proved to be decisive.

In the third game, which was played on Wind and Cloud, TechnicS once again opened with a five hatchery before gas again, and this time dRaW got hydralisk busted at the Protoss natural expansion. dRaW was eventually able to hold it off after a long while with the use of reavers, cannons, and probes. However, mutalisks arrived and began to continue the work of dealing more damage to the Protoss player’s economy. As a result, dRaW’s high templar were late in arriving. dRaW had some good opportunities with a reaver drop, but the puzzling pathing AI and damage random number generation of the scarab meant that zero damage was able to be done to a huge stack of drones. dRaW continued with the drops, but they ended up not being cost-effective. At the final engagement of the game which took place in the center of the map, the Zerg player overwhelmed his opponent with reinforcements and continued the momentum with another win. In the fourth game, which was played on Outsider, dRaW opened with a 10/12 gate into expansion build, which was combined with a delayed cannon rush. The early zealots were able get into the Zerg base, but they were not able to do a significant amount of damage damage. TechnicS’ lurker drop counterattack against the protoss base severely limited Protoss mining, and dRaW found himself bounced out of a game in progress. In the fifth and deciding match of the series, the problems continued for dRaW, who ended up getting contained within his base, allowing TechnicS to gain the economic advantage in the form of extra bases. By the end of the game, this economic advantage proved crucial as despite losing numerous units to dRaW’s forces, the Zerg player was always able to replenish his numbers. TechnicS won the game of attrition and eliminated draw from the tournament, after having took the series 3–2.







It's very surprising to me that Julia got this far. He had a very easy group in the round of 24 only having dRaW as real opposition. He did however defeat dRaW in dRaW's best match-up. In the round of 16 he got in my opinion the easiest group. However, Julia yet again surprisingly goes out in first. This time beating Michael. In the quarterfinals Julia probably gets the opponent that is most suited for him. Julia's best match-up is ZvT. Julia has a very abusive style and it seems skzlime didn't prepare for that and played his normal style of TvZ with greedy expansions. Julia 3-0'ing skzlime maybe isn't that big of an upset in retrospect, but it's always easy to be clever in hindsight. Unfortunately for Julia this is where it ends. Sziky looked mortal for one second, then comes back and crushes eOnzErG 3-0. Behind TechnicS, eOnzErG has the biggest chance of taking down him in a ZvZ series and after the last defiler he maybe even had the biggest shot at doing so. But he got 3-0'd, absolutely destroyed. This season Sziky hasn't been playing around. He went out in first place out of his round of 16 group, a group with dRaW, Bakuryu, and Bizzy. Sziky only drops one game, against dRaW but takes the series. If Julia beats Sziky that would be the upset of the century. Sziky will not lose here, he's going to the grand final once again.






This part of the preview is going to be full of bias. I have hope. The hope that we will not see another ZvZ final. That we will see the best match-up with TerrOr at the peak of his career, twice. Even though Michael have been active for quite some time I didn't actually believe myself when I predicted that TerrOr would beat him. It was just wishful thinking. TerrOr played some amazing games and fulfilled the preview and Michael didn't play that bad. In the other quarterfinals between TechnicS and dRaW, TechnicS looked surprisingly out of shape. The hype video got me going, thinking that TechnicS would destroy dRaW. But dRaW went up 2-0 and TechnicS looked very very close to being knocked out 0-3 in the quarters. However with some solid but not impressive play and some mistakes from dRaW he managed to pull it back, taking the series 3-2. Is TechnicS really in shape? Is he going to bring it to the semifinals? If he is TerrOr will have a really hard time advancing, I'm talking about not even winning a single game. But if he doesn't TerrOr is sure to capitalize on his mistakes, the mistakes dRaW couldn't capitalize on to close the series. I have faith.

Sziky vs Julia	Staff Picks
3-0 Sziky(6)
	Sayle, Epoxide, itsjustatank, Falling, nagisama, nbaker
3-1 Sziky (1)
	2Pacalypse-
3-1 Julia (1)
	BisuDagger

With the semifinals close at hand, the TLS staff is fearing a repeat of last season and a possible ZvZ finals. Those that did decide to come out and vote have basically resigned to the notion that Sziky will crush Julia in 3-0 fashion. 2Pac believes that Julia may scrape a single win from Sziky’s terrifying play, while BisuDagger goes completely insane and thinks Julia will win 3-1! Only one thing is for certain though, it’s that one Zerg will be in the finals… most likely named Sziky.

TerrOr vs TechnicS	Staff Picks
TerrOr 3-2 (5)
	2Pacalypse-, Epoxide, itsjustatank, Falling, nagisama
TerrOr 3-0 (1)
	BisuDagger
TechnicS 3-1 (1)
	nbaker
TechnicS 3-0(1)
	Sayle

After a less than stellar performance in the Ro8 by the non-terrorfying Zergs, TerrOr stands as the last bastion of hope against the unrelenting Zerg swarm. Most of the staff leaves their fate to TerrOr in hopes that he will be able to take out TechnicS in a close semifinals. Others like Sayle, have resigned their fate and bowed down to their new Zerg Overlords preemptively and predict a 3-0, or 3-1 infestation.

---

That's all for now! Join us on Saturday, Jul 13 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) for the semifinals cast. And as always a big thanks to our sponsors: