Having hardly put a foot wrong all tournament, Sea's 3-0 victory over sSak in last week's final wrapped up the latest installment in what has been an excellent month of Starcraft from the Liquid Terran, leaving many of us wondering how we ever could have doubted his credentials as the SOSPA Terran.

In this news update, we are again joined by the Scandinavian duo of KristofferAG and Epoxide, with KAG taking on his usual role in the recap section and also contributing to Epoxide's VOD round-up, which showcases some of the best games that we saw in this most recent SRT.

This week marks something of a new dawn for the SRT and SOSPA competition as a whole, with a huge group of new players including OSL finalist Best and former KHAN progamer Brave. It also marks my last SRT news post for what might be some time, with Epoxide ready to take the reigns for SRT16. Thanks to everyone who reads our posts, watches the games and posts in the LR threads, it's amazing how far this whole thing has come since we decided to start writing news about Sonic's leagues, and it would all have been for nothing if there wasn't still a great community around to enjoy it. Be on the lookout for the SRT16 preview post which will be going up very soon, it's sure to be bigger and better than ever.

Third Place Match

Match Point was the introductory map for the day, kicking off with both players going for macro-oriented builds. A single zergling managed to make it into Pusan's main, and did some damage while also scouting out everything Pusan was doing. A single Zealot from Pusan picked off a Drone in hero's natural, but with three Hatcheries hero already had a steady and strong economy, going up to Lair and Spire. Neither player was able to do any substantial damage, with the initial Corsair from Pusan getting picked off by Scourge. A Speed Shuttle with two DTs was the next step for Pusan, but it got instantly scouted by a burrowed Zergling, allowing hero to prepare by burrowing Hydralisks and popping up aas the air fleet arrived. The DTs were cleaned up without any problems, along with a couple Corsairs.

Unable to do damage with his drop, Pusan sent four Zealots to the newly established fourth for hero, which once again got scouted by burrowed zerglings, allowing hero to defend it easily. Pusan was getting a third of his own, which hero wanted to pressure, but without any Lurkers and with Pusan having two Reavers in position to defend, there really wasn't much hero would be able to do. A four-zealot drop from Pusan got lucky and made it past the patrolling Scourge, but got cleaned up after taking out only a single Evolution Chamber. A couple Zealots in the fourth also got cleaned up without doing any damage. Pusan's continued drops did one thing, however, as it forced hero to stay and defend. Or, you could say it let hero macro up a scary army. As Pusan tried getting his fourth up, hero pulled the entire Protoss army out of position to defend it, while sending the majority of his Lurker/Hydra/Zergling army to his third. Seeing just how much zerg there was in his base, Pusan instantly called the GG, putting hero in the lead.


Fighting Spirit saw a change of pace as hero went for a pool/gas before Hatch, while Pusan went for a FFE. Pusan's intial scouting Probe went cross-map, right to hero's base, but as he was expecting a Hatchery first he turned around after seeing the natural. Completely in the blind about what hero was doing, he went for a Cannon first. Along with a couple Probes being pulled from the main and a Gateway in place to almost close the wall, it let him hold the first wave of Zerglings. He obviously didn't expect hero to keep the pressure up, as he sent his Probes back to mining and didn't build any extra cannons. It would end up being a short game, as the second wave of zerglings took down the only Cannon in a matter of seconds. Pusan went home with nothing, and hero took the third place.

Grand Finals

With no delays, Sonic and Kim Carry brought us directly into the match we'd all been waiting for, Sea v sSak, a Bo5 to decide the champion. Though, in reality, with this being the first sponsored SRT, both players would be leaving this with a nice prize, it's hard to call anyone a loser in this situation.

The first game between Pusan and hero was a macro game from the first second, but Sea had something else entirely in mind. Proxying his initial Barracks, he managed to pick off an SCV and delay the expansion of sSak while getting his own up early, before switching to Factory tech. sSak was unable to do any damage with his early Vulture lead, and Sea was able to delay the third going up while also defending sSak's advances before grabbing a third of his own. With neither player looking to move out, Sea went for a four vulture drop into the natural of sSak, doing a lot of damage before sSak reacted, followed by a Goliath drop in the main to do even more damage. The following move-out from Sea forced sSak to pull a lot of SCVs, and though sSak managed to defend, Sea was already grabbing a fourth. With sSak contained in his main to defend against drops, Sea managed to send more Vultures towards his third, taking out even more SCVs. Realizing just how much damage had been done to his economy, sSak called the gg, giving Sea game 1.

sSak opted for a very greedy opening on Fighting Spirit, getting his CC before anything else, while Sea went for a Barracks straight into Factory and gas, without producing any Marines. While sSak kept macroing, Sea went for cloaked Wraith off a single Starport, allowing him to pick off the initial Wraith from sSak and get a full scout on sSak's base, even picking off a few SCVs in the process. Though the Wraiths didn't do much damage, they kept sSak back with his initial push, allowing Sea to get his first tanks out in preparation. Behind all this Sea got his third up way earlier than his opponent, while sSak was adding on Factories. A single Vulture from Sea managed to deny the third of sSak two times, but sSak was eventually able to establish both his third and fourth bases, while Sea decided to go around sSak's main army, establishing a siege tank line that by now stretched across the entire middle of the map. While Sea grabbed his fourth base, he pushed through the siege tank line on the right hand of the map, only to have sSak reveal a large Wraith army. Sea meanwhile was still building up a fairly large Wraith army, while sSak was trying to grab the 3 and 1 o'clock bases at the same time, only to have the 3 o'clock base instantly denied.


Suddenly both players decided this was a Wraith game. With an explosion of Starports on both sides, it was obvious thies game was all about the sky battle, which sSak seemed to be winning heavily with a far superior Wraith fleet. Sea was however the one on 7 bases, while sSak was still only on 5. As Sea moved up along the left side of the map, sSak grabbed the chance, against Sea's far inferior Wraith numbers and with nowhere near enough Goliaths, sSak instantly cleaned out the entire army of Sea, putting himself in a definite lead, before starting to camp the Starports of Sea. Eventually, Sea was able to free up his Starports, and sSak suddenly found himself losing the air battle again. With 5 bases to 7 there was no way sSak could produce Wraiths faster than Sea, and gg was soon called.

Game three became win or die for sSak. Sea needed just a single win to grab his third Ranking Tournament victory. Sea opened with a slightly forward Barracks before going into an expansion, with sSak getting his expansion earlier and a couple Vultures out for harass, though it quickly got denied. Sea flew his “slightly proxied Barracks” closer to sSak's base while moving out with his first couple of tanks and a single Wraith, against a completely naked sSak. Suddenly it looked like sSak could lose the game this early. Forcing all the SCVs off the mineral line, Sea was able to rack up about a dozen worker kills before a clutch cloaked Wraith arrived to save the day.

Sea and sSak both added on a Starport, but Sea completely ignored any cloak tech, and instead went for some Goliaths in his army. Ssak soon had a slightly superior tank count, which forced Sea to go through the middle of the map and avoid the siege line outside his natural. With Wraiths in position, sSak tried to cut him off, but Sea had a nice little surprise for him. A large Wraith count suddenly appeared to take out all of sSak's Wraiths, before cleaning up the siege tanks and moving straight to his undefended natural. Though sSak still had cloak going for him, he had no army. Soon enough Sea's tanks were shelling sSak's natural, while both players tried to establish thirds. Sure enough sSak was still producing Wraiths, and he did get a third base up, but in the meantime Sea managed to kill off his natural. With Sea not reinforcing his Wraith army, sSak did eventually clean it up, but with the massive losses he'd suffered there was no way for him to bring it back. GG was called, which meant Sea is going down in history as the first player to reach 3 SOSPA Ranking Tournament championships!

Here are ten of the best games from this season. They are in no particular order. PS. The game on #2 is my personal favourite. Enjoy!