Most people seems to not have noticed but the quarterfinals are actually over! Last week had some huge match-ups, most notably sSak vs. Killer and hero vs. Movie. Also the opposite of two worlds, Killer absolutely stomping sSak, again. hero and Movie duked it out in what could be one of the closest series in a very very long time. All the favourites advanced (hero vs. Movie is debatable) but Sea was much closer to the brink of death than he would have liked.

Finally the SOSPA coverage team had a small break between the quarterfinals and the semifinals, still people didn't notice that the quarterfinals were actually played. KristofferAG is here to fill you in and recaps the first stage of the elimination bracket. The recommended VOD section returns with the best games of the quarterfinals. At the end is an analytic piece on how the semifinalists has historically done against each other and how they will fair in this tournament's semifinals. Hopefully you're without withdrawals, the semifinals is on in .

Day one of the quarterfinals started right as we finished the second group stage, with both the two top players in the SOSPA scene playing out their matches. Killer went up against sSak in a match no-one expected sSak to win, and Sea would face HiyA in a potentially amazing TvT, all depending on HiyA's current state of mind and play.

Killer and sSak were up first, with the Terran opening with a one rax expand build, and Killer going for mutalisk off of two bases. The initial harass did some damage, but Killer was forced to pull back and defend as sSak moved out with a marine/medic army. By the time the mutalisks were back in sSak's base, there were turrets everywhere. Though, turrets aren't really an issue when your mutalisk flock one-shots every turret. Killer secured a third while killing off sSak's workers, and the three barracks couldn't spit out enough marines to hold the next push, giving Killer the early lead.

We all know Killer wont hesitate in bringing out the cheese, and that's exactly what he did against sSak on New Wind and Cloud. While sSak went for an even greedier opener, cc first, Killer got himself an early spawning pool. Before it finished, he dispatched five drones to deny any bunker from going up, while his zerglings were morphing. There was little sSak could do against Killer's impressive drone micro, and he eventually got overwhelmed by lings.



The third game was where both players got to show their skill, as sSak managed to defend Killer's initial mutalisk harass with turrets going up just in time. Both players spent some time teching up, but as sSak moved out, guardians appeared behind his natural, and it all looked rather grim for the Terran player, as he was unable to breach the third of Killer while his natural was being shelled. Yet somehow, the game stabilized, and soon enough both players found themselves on four mining bases. After defending his third and fourth, Killer got out ultralisks and went on the offensive, taking out the fourth of sSak while also pressuring the fourth and new fifth base, and dropping into the main. sSak defended valiantly, but the constant stream of Zerg units eventually became too much, and Killer secured the 3-0.




With the first match taking a mere 45 minutes to finish up, it looked like we had a short day ahead of us. That is, till Sea and HiyA decided to take it to game five. In a TvT. That's two hours of joy right there! Sea's TvT is fairly solid, and the same can be said for HiyA, so it wasn't that big of a surprise seeing the players duke it out like they did.

Both players went for a wraith opening in game one, Sea proxying his starport and stopping production after a single wraith was built, before switching to factories and goliaths. HiyA saved himself from Sea's early push with cloaked wraiths, which Sea was unable to do anything about. As the wraith count grew, HiyA was free to snipe siege tanks, goliaths and workers at little cost, which meant that when HiyA's mech push finally came, he was able to slowly push his way through Sea's lines to siege up his natural and deny his third. With a valkyrie and a couple of wraiths, Sea was still able to clean up HiyA's forces and one of his bases, making the game seemingly even. Sea grabbed a lot of worker kills, but HiyA's superior army had too many goliaths for the wraiths to handle, giving HiyA game one.



Sea proxied a barracks at the start of round two, but didn't use it offensively, building a factory in the back and getting a CC up. HiyA did the same with a CC on the low-ground, but followed it up with yet another wraith build. Sea still managed to get a fairly good contain up for large parts of the game, ensuring that his third was faster than HiyA's, and he even maintained a forward position after his contain was breached. Out of nowhere, Sea did it again, a mass switch into wraiths and a couple valkyries mixed in for good measure. HiyA overreacted and kept making a massive amount of Wraiths, which were denied any harass, and Sea was allowed to macro up a ground army that was far superior to anything HiyA could produce.

Sea was the one that went for the early wraith harass in game three, and he managed to grab well over a dozen worker kills with just two wraiths, while HiyA's mech attack failed to do any substantial damage, ending with a pretty even trade. When there was a move-out, it was from both players, completely avoiding each-others armies. Sea kept his wraiths home to defend, and as HiyA's defensive line got demolished in seconds, the gg was called quickly.

Along comes game four, and with that, our first set on Nostalgia, a map we haven't seen before in SOSPA leagues. Sadly, it wasn't the amazing game we'd been hoping for. HiyA got a fairly strong contain up on Sea early on, and though Sea did manage to get some nice harass in with vultures, he was contained on two bases for a while. When he finally got the third base, HiyA had gone for a surprise switch to wraiths, which let him annihilate Sea's army, bringing it all to the rubber match.

Sea's now closer to elimination than he's been so far this tournament, and neither player were prepared to drop out quite yet. Circuit Breaker was the final battlefield, and knowing that HiyA loves his wraith builds, Sea opened with a couple goliaths, which meant his natural was open to vulture harass. Though it was deflected, a couple SCVs did go down. Sea got wraiths out of his own, and managed to delay HiyA's third and pick up a few extra SCV kills with it. When HiyA suddenly showed off a couple of valkyries, Sea retreated and teched up, going for a larger air force of his own. As HiyA breached Sea's contain, he lost air superiority, while also losing a fourth. With his lead, Sea deo cided texpand along the left side of the map, which was punished by HiyA, with Sea losing two CCs. Once again HiyA lost his fourth, leaving him on a single mining base, while Sea was happily mining from two locations. Still, breaking HiyA's defenses seemed impossible, so Sea did what any smart Terran would do. Doom drop into the main of HiyA. The next couple of minutes saw a starved HiyA trying to make something work, without succeeding, and Sea eventually took the set and match victory.




The second day of the quarterfinals was kicked off with a TvT between Mong and Ample. Most people probably didn't expect seeing Ample here, or able to take a game off of Mong, even with Mong's roller coaster style of consistency.

As game one proved, wraith is the name of the game for SOSPA Terrans. Mong opened with a proxy rax that was unable to do any substantial damage, but it was the following siege tank push that hurt Ample so much. Four siege tanks made their way across the map, accompanied by two wraiths, that completely ruined the fun for Ample. The natural went down, and even though Ample was able to get a decent amount of wraiths out of his own, Mong switched to goliaths and easily took out whatever forces Ample had left to secure the first win.

On New Wind and Cloud Ample was the one to go for a proxy rax, this one doing some more damage than Mong's attempt, by killing a couple SCVs before a bunker went up to defend. Ample set up a solid contain on Mong's base, and was able to expand to a third while doing so, though Mong's breakout and expansion wasn't far behind, and when Ample attempted to pressure it, Mong used his dropships to defend. The second push was enough to break it, but Mong's counter attack forced Ample to defend, while both players expanded further. Mong was soon on top of harass with his dropships, while Ample slowly moved his army around to deny the mining of his opponent. Soon Ample was set up outside all the bases of Mong, forcing him into the drop play he's most known for. This time, though, it just wasn't meant to be, and Ample managed to tie it up.

In the third game, neither player went for any proxied buildings, though Ample tried to apply pressure with marines to punish Mong's fast expansion. The bunker was already in place for the former CJ Terran, and Ample was forced back home, as Mong prepared his wraith opener. Already with the first push Ample found himself far behind, with a couple of wraiths to defend but no ground army to speak of, and the goliaths made short work of the air fleet.



Now, game four was another slow-start game, where both players ended up on three bases fairly fast, and Mong being the aggressor initially. Though his first army was destroyed, he employed some seriously stylish moves with a tank and a vulture, with the vulture scooting around destroying mines laid down by Ample as they were placed down while the siege tank was left alone. So cool. Other than that, the game was fairly bland, with Mong showing why he is superior to Ample, as he was able to macro up more efficiently, kill off Ample's army, deflect harass, and counter-attack, getting him the 3-1 victory.




The final match of the quarterfinals was a PvZ between Movie and hero. If Movie were to lose, there would be no hope for the Protoss in the tournament, and the final would be a TvZ. Knowing hero and seeing his play earlier in the tournament, there was no telling who would come out on top.

What better way for hero to start the quarterfinals the same way he ended the round of 16? His three-hatch hydra bust on New Heartbreak Ridge was about as close to a success as possible, but Movie clearly knew better than to underestimate his opponent, putting up enough cannons to deflect. Movie was allowed to macro up and get out his templars and shuttles, though hero's map control was so good at this early point that the initial shuttle with its templars fell before doing any damage. The following mutalisk play from hero was unable to do any damage due to a nice sair and high templar count, but hero still made a fairly scary army preparing for the attack from Movie. Even with a scary amount of storms hitting nice targets, hero held, without dodging a single storm. As a result, the counter-attack wouldn't have worked, but Movie was still on two bases against the four of hero, and gg was soon called.

Movie opened up with two gateways to apply zealot pressure on hero, which ended up being fairly unsuccessful. However, the shuttle and reaver allowed him to still take his natural and deal some minor damage to hero's worker line. High templars were out in time for the mutalisks, but nice storm dodging allowed hero to snipe multiple templars, goons and probes before being forced out. When Movie eventually did attack, hero decided to avoid his army completely, going for the counter, which turned out to be a disastrous decision. Movie took out the natural and main of hero, while hero only managed to kill the natural and half the production facilities. Even with the defensive lurker line on hero's third base, he was unable to defend against what remained of Movie's army.

Fighting Spirit saw Movie being the initial aggressor, after getting up two bases and a decent amount of corsairs, with a small group of gateway units. It seemed like hero got caught completely by surprise, as he was barely able to get hydralisks out to defend in time, but was unable to counter-attack. Movie managed to lose all his corsairs to scourge in the middle of the map, which triggered a mutalisk tech switch for hero. Though he was able to do substantial damage to Movie's worker line, the Protoss player decided to box everything (multiple times) and a click the Zerg base (multiple times). With the archons, hero's mutas had a hard time sniping the shuttle and reavers, and the defenses were too weak to do anything.

The first major engagement on Nostalgia came well into the game, after both players had set up their third bases, as Movie moved out. The Zerg player had snuck around and managed to get a really good arc on the Protoss army, but with reavers out, hero was still forced back, but as Movie now had to defend his new third, his natural was completely open, and as hero just sniped the shuttle, the reavers were left alone on the third. Zerg forces streamed into the natural and third, and Movie was instantly forced to gg.



Game five might have been the longest game this SRT, even considering some of the round of 16 games. The first fifteen minutes or so featured a lot of minor battles between the two, as they both expanded to four bases. Movie found himself contained by a large field of lurkers outside his base, so the Zerg went for another couple of bases while Movie attempted to make storm drops put him in the lead. Though he wasn't able to make them put him in the lead, he was able to at least equalize the worker count before hero started placing scourge around his bases to fend off any further drops. Even with the scourge, there were constant worker massacres in multiple locations, stressing hero's multitasking. When corsairs were made as well, the DT drops kept doing massive damage. Movie was about to learn that you can't win a game through harass. As the ultralisk den finished, hero sent a massive attack to take out Movie's fifth base, putting him back on only two mining bases. By the time it was rebuilt, hero was up to eight bases, and pushing the natural and main, taking out multiple tech and production buildings in the process. From this point on it was the slow and inevitable death of Movie, and in spite of many a storm, he was unable to defend forever.

In this new section we list all the good games from the previous stage of the tournament for your viewing pleasure! The games are handpicked by me & KristofferAG, the games are in no particular order. Enjoy!

Sonic's randomizer strikes again. What could have potentially been Mong vs. Killer and Sea vs. hero turned into two mirrors, at least we can be happy that we will see a Killer vs. Sea grand final (unless Avalon happens). Unfortunately the semifinals aren't too exciting, both hero and Mong have been tossed around by their opponents in mirrors for quite some time, however some hope can be found in recent results.

There is no mistaking when saying that Killer has been at the forefront of Zerg ever since he joined the scene. Much like Jaedong he excels the most in ZvZ, having a godlike record at over 78%. No other Zerg, except for maybe Cola, comes close to Killer's brilliant ZvZ. Killer has never lost a SOSPA ZvZ series. He has been pushed to the edge two times. The first time was by aforementioned ZvZ prodigy Cola, pushing him to the fifth and deciding game in a Super Match almost exactly one year ago. The second time was by hero, just as recent as the semifinals of SRT14. It was yet another 3-2 and Killer barely managed to keep his perfect best-of-series record.



Since then Killer has played two ZvZ's against Fengzi in SRT16, winning 2-0. hero has played three ZvZ's, winning against ZergFight, ZergMaN, and Terror, the first two in SRT15 and the latest one in SRT16. According to their results they are both still going strong. But lets be honest here. hero has just over 50% win rate and has losses against Larva, beast, and ZeLoT. I mean it's freaking ZeLoT, have you seen his muta micro? It's unacceptable, I want to say 3-0 but hero played well in their last encounter so I'll give him one win.

hero 1-3 Killer.



Mong almost looks like his old self again. Making it to the semifinals from the tough round of 16 group he had is a testament to his current skill level. Unfortunately for us there isn't much we can analyze about his current TvT. He played one game against HiyA which he won quite handily, and in the quarterfinals he was paired against Ample who isn't exactly known to be the best Terran player. Nothing bad has come out of Mong this whole tournament but neither has it from Sea.

Sea and Mong have faced each other three times. Sea taking all the encounters, 3-1, 2-1, and 3-2 respectively. The latest series came in SRT14. Sea's form has just been improving lately and he is still riding high on his unstoppable tsunami wave. Even though the series against HiyA was really close it didn't feel like Sea was playing bad at all. In the first game Sea was far far behind and still kept doing amazing stuff almost pulling it through, and in the other game he lost featured yet another early setback by build-orders. In the games he won he looked ridiculously good and was no way near losing.



The reason HiyA could win those games was much due to his incredible wraith micro and smart builds. Mong hasn't exactly been known for his two-ports nor his micro of the wraiths. I still got to give it to my second favourite Terran, he has been playing really well lately, but unfortunately it ends here for him. Sea is on a mission.

Sea 3-1 Mong.