This is it ladies and gentlemen. After many epic games and storylines created in the process, we've found ourselves at yet another finals of TeamLiquid Legacy Starleague, this time Season 2. Eerily enough, race compositions and match-ups for finals and third place match are same as they were in Season 1, a TvZ third place match following the ZvZ finals. However, all the players but one are new now. Sziky, the unstoppable force, has found himself once again in the finals defending his title against the Bulgarian Zerg, TechnicS. In third place match we have a Polish Zerg Julia fighting against the Peruvian Terran player, TerrOr. They've all tried very hard to come to this place, so expect the games to be fought until the very bitter end.

Find out who will be our new (or old) champion of TeamLiquid Legacy Starleague, Season 2 tomorrow on Saturday, Jul 20 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00).






The first semifinal match of the weekend was set between the two Zerg players, Sziky and Julia. In the first game, which was played on Jade, Julia’s early zerg;ings were unable to do significant damage to Sziky’s economy, and Sziky’s counterattack was too much for Julia to handle, even with mutalisks. In the second game, which was played on match Point, Julia attempted to get the upper hand against his opponent by delaying his spite in order to build a macro hatchery. however, Sziky’s mutalisk and scourge control helped him make short work of Julia’s forces. The last game of the series ended up being played on Wind and Cloud. In that last game, Sziky won the pivotal zergling versus zergling engagement and he thus eliminated his opponent from finals contention with a final score of 3–0.



The second semifinal match of the weekend was set between the Terran player, TerrOr, and the Zerg player, TechnicS. In the first game, which was played on Jade, TerrOr’s early medic and marine force made short work of TechnicS’ zerglings despite their mutalisk support. Reinforced with siege tanks and vessels, TerrOr moved out to attack the bottom two left bases. TechnicS was able to defend with nydus, and he followed-up with a counterattack into the Terran natural. The counterattack does a significant amount of damage and forces the Terran player to retreat to one base for some time. After stabilizing, TerrOr dropped into the nine o’clock position. As the mid game ended and the late game began, TerrOr crept back into the game by winning a series of close engagements. At the climax of the end game, TechnicS bet the entirety of his chances at winning the game into a final all-out assault on the Terran position. This move turned out to be the winning one, as he was able to just barely take out TerrOr’s forces.

As the second game, which was played on Match Point, kicked off, TerrOr blocked the Zerg player’s attempts at a natural expansion. His initial vultures were able to kill off a number of zerglings and drones until the mutalisks finally arrived. After noticing that his opponent was building a very mutalisk-centric composition, TerrOr shifted towards a goliath and valkyrie anti-air mixture. Despite the compositional advantage, TerrOr simply did not have the unit count required to take advantage of it and he lost a huge army in the process of finding that out. As the mid game developed, the two players split the map, despite the best attempts from TechnicS to deny the Terran player the ability to split it and subsequently play defensively. To counter the siege tank lines, TechnicS employed queens with broodling research in an attempt to dislodge and damage them. Despite TerrOr having taken the upper hand in the supply count towards the end of the game, TechnicS’ queen force kept him in the game for quite a long time until a final attack on the part of TerrOr sealed the deal and brought the series to 1–1. In the third game, which was played on Wind and Cloud, TerrOr built firebats to answer the early zerglings from TechnicS. In the face of mutalisks, however, they proved to not be that effective. On the back of this, TechnicS was able to get up to four bases. With the overwhelming economic lead, TechnicS took the game and brought the series to 2–1. The final game, which was played on Outsider, was over in a flash after a delayed bunker rush on the part of TerrOr went horrendously for the Terran player because of impressive drone drill on the part of TechnicS.







TerrOr and Julia both had quite amazing runs in the quarterfinals, both playing TvZ against formidable opponents. Julia crushed skzlime in a very quick series, abusing skzlime's greedy builds with fast pools and aggressive play. TerrOr however played a long and close series against Michael, showing some amazing creative play and resilience. In the semifinals both players were severely out-matched by the opposition. Julia wasn't close to winning a single game against Sziky and TerrOr had problems closing on advantages against TechnicS. The TvZ TerrOr played left me a bit worried because TechnicS didn't play that incredibly well. TerrOr has a tendency to do very very weird tech builds that seem vurnable to a lot and unoptimized. Julia is sure to capitalize on such weaknesses with his abusive play. Overall TerrOr is more solid in longer games than Julia is. If TerrOr can get to the late game relatively unscaved or close out on big advantages he can take games off of Julia. I don't see TerrOr getting there in too many games though. This series will be extremely close and have lots of aggression. Julia is my favourite to win, but will TerrOr pull a cinderella story like skzlime did last TLS?





I was going to analyze this series extremely much, but then I remembered. It's Sziky. Sometimes he checks if we are alive and randomly loses a series narrowly to eOnzErG in a Defiler tournament. When we finally think; ”Oh Sziky is mortal, he can lose a series to another top foreigner”, he completely destroys everyone else we thought stood a chance to win a series, and guaranteed to at least take one game off of him. Sziky is 89% in ZvZ in 2013, only losing to eOnzErG and SouthPark. Let me remind you that he has only lost one ZvZ series to a foreigner in half-a-year. TechnicS has always been seen as the #2 foreign Zerg and the one with the biggest shot at taking down Sziky in a ZvZ. Initially I thought TechnicS would take a few games and make it look like a competition. Alas I have accepted Sziky as the undisputable #1 foreigner. Unfortunately for TechnicS he won't see the glory of Sziky typing gg first. Just like last season, we are screwed. Sziky will blow out the finals just like last season without losing a single game. But maybe TechnicS can...? Nah, who am I kidding?

Sziky vs TechnicS	Staff Picks
4-0 Sziky(5)
	Epoxide, itsjustatank, ArvickHero, Falling, nagisama
4-1 Sziky (1)
	Sayle
4-2 Sziky(1)
	2Pacalypse-
4-3 TechnicS (1)
	BisuDagger

One does not simply enter TLS to compete for first when Sziky is an invite. When you sign up, you’re essentially playing for second place. It’s the finals matchup that many saw coming especially once the semifinals matchups were decided. “I can see the ending!” is what many TLS staff members are saying, while others continue to be on some sort of intense illegal narcotic/paint thinners, or both to think otherwise. With that said and done with, most of the staff has picked Sziky to easily take the finals much like last TLS. 2pac and BisuDagger had a bit too much to drink when they posted their picks. BisuDagger went a whole other level picking TechnicS to win 4-3 and “forcing 4 hive tech games”.

Julia vs TerrOr	Staff Picks
TerrOr 3-2 (4)
	2Pacalypse-, Falling, BisuDagger, nagisama
Julia 3-1 (2)
	Sayle, itsjustatank
Julia 3-2 (1)
	Epoxide
Julia 3-0(1)
	ArvickHero

I’m not sure whether TLS staff members picked TerrOr to win because they think he will, or just didn’t want to see a Zerg 1, 2, 3 finish. Half the staff think that there might be some justice and TerrOr will take third and avoid a Zerg sweep. The other half just can’t decide how much Julia will win by. ArvickHero has fallen into the clutches of the Swarm, predicting a sweep of Zerg for both games.

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That's all for now! Join us on Saturday, Jul 20 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) for the finals cast. And as always a big thanks to our sponsors: