The Teamliquid Legacy Starleague Season 3

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This year is now drawing to a close, bringing closer the one-year anniversary of the TLS. It has been an exciting year not just for our little tournament, but for Brood War worldwide. Sonic's Starleagues have flourished, gaining players, sponsors, and viewers by the day. The SBWI is hosting a teamleague with the best players from around the world. But for me, the story of Starcraft in 2013 has been TLS, providing incomparable casted content to viewers and priceless bragging rights to successful participants.

After three regular seasons, Sziky remains our undisputed top foreigner. He won all three championships without ever appearing seriously threatened. In this final season, he faced his toughest competition yet, but his own play rose to the challenge as well. With incredible games against all three races, he put to rest the admittedly biased cheers for his opponents from staff and fans. TLS has felt at times like the world versus Sziky, and Sziky won.

Don't forget, loyal viewers, that TLS isn't over. The championship season will have a larger prize pool than all three regular seasons combined. More importantly, it will be the biggest and best foreign tournament yet. We've seen players prepare more and compete harder with each passing season as TLS picks up momentum, and with more on the line Sziky will have to play better than ever to defend his crown. Look forward to the tournament's announcement in the coming months, and for plenty more Brood War goodness.

Thank you to TeamLiquid and 2pacalypse- for making all this happen, to Razer and TwitchTV for supporting the tournament, and to the players and staff for their commitment to Brood War. Most importantly, thank you to the readers and viewers for watching, posting, and spreading the love for this great game. See you in the championships!




In the first game of our Zerg vs Zerg finals, we saw trutaCz spawn at the north of Destination, with Sziky at the south. trutaCz made a nine pool against Sziky’s overpool, and he managed to sneak his lings into his opponent's main base. They entered just as his speed finished, and this allowed him to cause serious problems for Sziky. It forced a lot of lost mining time as the drones had to stack. Rather than making drones, trutaCz continued to produce zerglings, and this seemed to take Sziky a little bit by surprise and trutaCz was able to take a very close zergling fight in Sziky's natural.

Sziky was able to produce enough lings to reinforce and hold on to his base, but trutaCz’s spire was significantly faster, which putt him in a commanding position. Even though he had three fewer drones and only one base, trutaCz claimed a strong mutalisk advantage, and Sziky was forced to make spore colonies to defend. trutaCz then made the classic move of running into the main with zerglings while holding the ramp with mutalisks, but he was unable to accomplish much. However, he returned to the natural and used zerglings to take down one of the spore colonies.

At this point, Sziky’s first mutalisks hatched. Although he had only a small number, he was brave enough to take advantage of trutaCz’s position to counterattack into his opponent's main base, and he killed every drone save two before trutaCz’s mutalisk flock arrived to defend.


trutaCz sent his mutalisks southwards again, but Sziky's well positioned spore colonies meant that all he could do was finish off the natural, while the drones at the main base were safe to harvest resources. At the same time, a single mutalisk from Sziky snuck into trutaCz’s main, killing the last of his workers and leaving him stuck on 25 minerals. trutaCz could not break Sziky’s main base and was forced to gg after an excellent and tense first game.

The second game was on Aztec, and trutaCz opened with nine pool speed. After a tense wait, it emerged that Sziky went for a twelve hatchery build that put him at a potentially decisive build order disadvantage. Sziky immediately canceled his hatchery. He placed a sunken colony as he could, and he was able to prevent trutaCz’s zerglings from dealing too much damage, although they did kill three drones. trutaCz’s spire was a lot faster than his opponent’s and he further delayed Sziky’s spire by forcing a cancel with his zerglings.

Sziky counterattacked with zerglings, but a sunken colony from trutaCz and his newly-hatched mutalisks meant that they were deflected without any drone losses. In an incredible move, Sziky split and controlled six zerglings around the main base, which forced all of trutaCz’s mutalisks to remain in his own main for a long time and gave Sziky time to begin his own mutalisk production and delay his spore colonies. Once the zerglings were finally killed, trutaCz made his way to Sziky’s base, but spore colonies again meant that he could do very little damage. Once again, Sziky realized with his his main base adequately defended he could go for a counterattack, which killed every drone in trutaCz’s main. In this one move, Sziky secured victory, because even though trutaCz had more mutalisks, he had no way to put them to use and no economy to produce any more. GG.

The third game was on Andromeda. Sziky spawned at the top right while trutaCz spawned in the bottom right. Sziky opened with overpool with gas while trutaCz decided to go for a twelve pool. Sziky thought about a zergling attack but then pulled back and waited for his spire to finish, and trutaCz expanded to his natural. When his mutalisks finished, Sziky went for a zergling attack at the natural but this was held comfortably while trutaCz had also established an equal force of mutalisks. Things looked good for trutaCz as he had an earlier expansion and more drones, and he decided to compound this advantage by making more drones. Sadly for him, Sziky was not going to let himself be put so far behind, and seized this moment to attack. Since trutaCz had made extra drones, he found himself with insufficient mutalisks and Sziky easily took the fight and the game.

The series was at 3-0 in Sziky's favor and trutaCz was now faced with the monumental task of having to win four games in a row against the undisputed king and overlord of foreign Brood War. On Fighting Spirit, both players decided to go for nine pool speed and, as they spawned in cross positions, there was no scouting advantage for either player. Both players had the same devious idea and hid their first six zerglings, which meant that we saw identical back stabs from each player!



However, despite the exactly equal positions Sziky was left with six drones after the attacks, while trutaCz was only left with one. After seeing the position, trutaCz gg’d, and confirmed Sziky as the champion of TLS 3!










Sziky has won the Teamliquid Legacy Starleague three times now, and I would like to put those wins into a bit of perspective. In the main tournament overall, across all three seasons, Sziky has garnered an impressive map score of 38 wins to seven losses. He has won about 84 percent of all of his games. The overwhelming majority of these games have been against Zerg players; this is unsurprising, as Sziky only begins to show up towards the later stages of a tournament because of seeding, and Zerg has been dominant in the Teamliquid Legacy Starleague overall. He has won exactly 86 percent of his games against his Zerg brethren. His performance in the other match-ups has been excellent as well, with a perfect 100 percent win percentage against Terran (total score being three games to zero losses), an 80 percent win percentage against Protoss (total score being four wins to one loss), and almost a 75 percent winning performance versus the racepickers (total score being six wins to two losses).

While this is an impressive show of dominance, it is largely one that demonstrates a significant amount of lopsidedness. His numbers against Zerg speak for themselves, and he has demonstrated his skill against his Zerg peers on multiple occasions. I believe that the person who shall eventually topple Sziky from his throne will be of a race other than Zerg. Whoever that is, I leave it up to you to decide, both in discussion and in play.

Good night, and good luck.

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That's all for now! Keep a close eye on TeamLiquid for announcements on the championship season and other great Brood War content. And as always a big thanks to our sponsors: