by BigFan

Group A was one of the most anticipated groups of the Ro16 due to its players' high caliber which included Effort, Mind, sSak and Movie. Effort, in particular, was someone that many people had high expectations for due to his ZvT matchup slowly rivaling and for some viewers, even surpassing the best ZvTers in the Afreecan scene. However, after Effort lost a long macro game against Mind on Neo Jade which saw both players constantly skirmish all over the map for bases and important positions, he decided to withdraw from SSL citing special treatment complaints. You can read all about the juicy details here. This withdrawal granted all the remaining players a free win.

sSak played his first game against Movie on Circuit Breaker. He opened up with a rax FE to Movie's gateway expand build and focused heavily on his economy while defending Movie's harass. Movie decided to go for carriers and took more bases to fund this plan. Once Movie revealed his carriers, both players went on the offensive with Movie recalling several times unsuccessfully and sniping sSak's command centers while sSak retaliated by taking down several of Movie's bases. The game entered survivor mode as both players were depleted of resources with sSak barely hanging on with several goliaths to become the final victor. sSak's next game against Mind on La Mancha did not go as well. Mind grabbed the early advantage with a command center first then defended against sSak's drop. sSak kept up in the base count, however, Mind's strong macro, great positioning and mine placement were too much for sSak who conceded defeat after losing his army (gif)


This brought us to the potential final game of the group, Mind against Movie on New Heartbreak Ridge. Mind played safe with a rax factory opening against the nexus first of Movie. He tried to inflict some damage and build a bunker using some SCVs, marines and a vulture, however, terrible control saw him lose it all. Movie counter-attacked soon after and ended up hitting the perfect timing with his bulldog, catching Mind right before he was able to utilize resources from his newly formed expansion. With this win, all players ended up with two wins and a loss to their name leading to the tiebreakers.

In the first tiebreaker game on LM, Movie managed to get a strong three base economy going. However, he ended up having a terrible first engagement due to miscontrol and sSak's strong defensive position. After this mishap, sSak took the macro advantage and won more engagements to win the game. sSak's luck ran out when he went up against his kryptonite, Mind on HBR. Both players expanded behind a proxy rax and went up to 3 factories. Mind used his great foresight to completely block all of sSak's advances and dropped sSak's main causing him to gg. Mind was unable to close off the tiebreakers, stumbled upon meeting Movie on CB. After fending off Movie's reaver harass with no damage and establishing a strong three base economy, Mind attacked Movie's third base. However, a decently-controlled engagement from Movie helped him defend his base (gif) and continuous counterattacks using zealots, goons and carriers cemented Mind's defeat.


In the second tiebreakers, sSak started off playing against Movie on HBR. He opened with a rax fac and got a bunker for defense, while, Movie went for a proxy gate with one cannon on the cliff and expanded behind it. sSak easily defended against this and the followup reaver attack. He managed to take down Movie's fourth base, however, bad positioning and strong macro from Movie decimated his army (gif) and led to his eventual defeat. In the next game, Movie fought Mind on LM. He went for some early aggression, took a third and managed to deny Mind's third at the cost of his army. Mind was persistent and established a third then took out several expansions of Movie with a strong push to win the game. Mind finally closed off the tiebreakers when he played sSak on CB. Both players constantly tried to outmaneuver each other and fought for positioning in a fantastic all-out war. In the end, Mind eliminated sSak, the previous SSL champion.

by BigFan

Group B contained the previous finalist Last, strong Zerg opponents, Killer and ZerO and a relatively unknown player, Olympus, who has made claims of being a Top 5 player and had a knack for unorthodox games. Though Olympus was someone to keep an eye on, the story of the group was none other than ZerO who trounced all his opponents to advance in first place with a 3-0 record. In his first game against Killer on Neo Jade, ZerO opened with an expansion first to Killer's pool first build. He attacked with zerglings early on, but, did not due much damage. Both players morphed some mutalisks and with some impressive micro, ZerO took the mutalisk advantage. He defended against countless numbers of scourge and zerglings attacks afterwards, before, countering to take the game:


He played his next game against Olympus on Heartbreak Ridge. After opening with a pool expansion build, ZerO played a strong defensive game denying zealot and dark templar harass while opting for hydras. He managed to hide this fact from Olympus who had only a cannon, zealots and several high templars for defense once hydras attacked his natural. With good storm dodging, ZerO easily took the game. In his last game against Last on Circuit Breaker, ZerO withstood Last's +1 5 rax attack as well as his mech using queens then pushed back and counter-attacked Last's main and his undefended bases to take the game.

Killer was the second player to advance after showing some solid games. In his game against Last on HBR, Killer channeled his inner Jaedong and used his amazing double mutalisk control group micro to slowly tear down Last's army, turrets and expansion to take the game in a one-sided fashion. Against Olympus on Circuit Breaker, he defended his early aggression and scored some economical damage at Olympus's main by hitting an ee-han timing before retreating. He established a strong economy soon after and made a great decision by attacking Olympus' relatively undefended expansion while Olympus tried to forcefully break Killer's third which had a ton of sunkens for defense. From this point forth, Killer took more bases, became really aggressive and went for guardians to finish the game.


The most disappointing player of this group ended up being Last. His only win of the group was against Olympus who tried some proxy dark templar shenanigans. After this was scouted and defended by Last using a bunker, Olympus tried a last ditch effort to break Last's front using 5 dark templars and a goon, but, with repair, Last survived, maintained his economical advantage and defeated Olympus in due time.

by BigFan

Quite possibly the weakest Ro16 group, group C had no clear favorites to advance. After all the games were played, one thing was certain. While HyuK has improved since the last SSL, he still had a habit of making critical mistakes that cost him games. Mong played his first player against HyuK on LM. He opened up with rax FE to the expansion pool build from HyuK. After HyuK morphed a spire, Mong found himself on the defensive against Hyuk's spectacular mutalisk micro that had the commentators state, "Jaedong is going to be jealous" (gif). Despite that, Mong was resilient and hung on to win the game after HyuK made a terrible decision and lost his mutalisks due to overcommitment.


Mong continued playing wonderful Starcraft against Free on CB. The Afreecan Flash showed us impressive multitasking, pinning down free with vulture harass and drop play while simultaneously expanding all over the map. By the time free realized what had happened, Mong already had a strong economy going, withstood several recalls from and kept taking down bases to force free to admit defeat. Unfortunately, Mong's streak came to its end when he met GuemChi. On Neo Jade, Mong opened up with his usual build, but, retreated to the low ground when his marines had to face a single goon from GuemChi's 2 gate goon build. Having just conceded the high ground and facing a goon force that kept growing in size due to great micro from GuemChi, Mong tried to hang on for dear life, but, the game was over in favour of GuemChi after he lost his last tank.

GuemChi played against HyuK on CB. In that game, after making many cannons due to a smart decision from Hyuk (several hydras made), GuemChi outmacroed HyuK and won the game with storms/zealot drops and good positioning in his engagements (gif). However, once again like Mong, GuemChi could not win his last game. In his game against free on HBR, Guemchi went for a proxy robo which was scouted and taken down by free. Free then took control of the game. He added 2 more gates, got his own robo for reavers and attacked GuemChi who did not have a strong army to withstand free's attack. After his last reaver was dead, GuemChi called the gg.


free's final match was against HyuK on Neo Jade. Deciding to do things a bit differently, free skipped the stargate and used cannons to defend his nexi while opting for speedlots. His well-microed speedlot army was strong enough to take down HyuK's sunken defense at his third. After the remainder of his army joined the fight, Hyuk had no army left and gg'd soon after. With this last win, Mong, free and GuemChi all traded blows and ended up with 2-1 records. We were off to the tiebreakers!

The first two games of tiebreakers showed the power of the dark templar in the hands of a capable user. On Neo Jade, free used dark templars to do a lot of economical damage to Mong, then easily beat him after taking several bases and throwing army after army at his front. GuemChi, who played free next on CB, also used dark templars to clean up a ton of free's probes when free didn't have an obs ready and won the game with a smaller army soon after. However, against Mong on LM, GuemChi went for a nexus first against the rax fac opening of Mong. After scouting the opening, Mong went for a SCV pull with marines and vultures and killed lots of units. Followup attacks, especially the marine/tank attack won him the game and forced a second set of tiebreakers!


The second round opened up with Mong battling free on LM. free used his strong reaver micro to get many worker kills and expanded several times to gain an economical advantage. His great map control was paramount to his expansions working at optimal capacity. When the two players engaged, free took the engagement and later on, the game. Up against GuemChi on NJ, free caught GuemChi out of position after both players opened with a 3 gate and won the game after he gained the army advantage. With both Mong and Guemchi's SSL life on the line, they squared off on CB. Mong decided to go for a lot of vulture harass as he established a four base economy while GuemChi's dark templar drop was denied and he was forced on the defensive. Once Mong maxed out, he went on an unstoppable offensive which saw GuemChi lose most of his mining bases and the game.

by BigFan

The last group of the Ro16, group D, featured fan favorites, Bisu and Larva, ZvP specialist hero and the one and only fishking, Hiya. hero stole the spotlight after showing fantastic gameplay against all his opponents. In his game against Hiya on Circuit Breaker, hero went for 3 hatch muta and kept Hiya's MnM army small with solid mutalisk micro. Despite Hiya recovering and fighting back with strong micro (gif), hero won more engagements and took the game after attacking Hiya's expansion. His next encounter was against Larva on Neo Jade. While Larva opened with a pool gas build, hero stuck to one base, got speed for his zerglings and had his mutalisks out first. He decided to commit to a large attack leaving a single sunken at home for defense. He ended up winning the game after taking down all of Larva's spores despite having all of his own drones slaughtered by Larva's counterattack.


hero's final opponent was Bisu on LM. Quite possibly the best SSL game played so far, both players were pretty aggressive and constantly fought for the positional advantage after opening with mostly standard builds. hero was able to delay Bisu's third base, establish a better economy at one point and dropped Bisu's fourth and fifth base while Bisu constantly picked off overlords with his corsairs, disrupted mining with dark templars and zealot/high templar drops as well as took some good engagements with his impressive micro (gif). After losing most of his mining bases, Bisu rammed his remaining army into hero's fourth base. After the dust settled, Bisu was left with one mining base and no army promoting him to gg out.

Though Bisu lost this game, he played quite the thriller against his remaining opponents. Against Hiya on Neo Jade, Bisu went for dark templar drops that didn't do much damage while Hiya opened standard with a rax fac. Both players went for the macro game with Bisu trying to buy time for his carriers to come out by attacking up ramp against Hiya's army. After getting crushed, he retreated and Hiya made his way to Bisu's fourth base, however, carriers came out just in time to prevent any major damage. Hiya lost his army and tried to recover, but, with arbiters also joining the mix, he could not stop Bisu's march to victory.


Bisu also dispatched Larva in a rather one-sided fashion on HBR. Bisu opened up with forge expand while Larva went for pool and double expanded. Larva decided to go for hydras and tried to attack from behind Bisu's natural, but, this was defended against through the clever use of dark templars. Once corsairs were out, Bisu managed to sneak one of his dark templars into Larva's main, prompting the whole Zerg army to withdraw before attacking with a speedlot and high templar army storming Larva's hydras and drones to win the game. Larva's only consolation in this group was his game against HiyA on LM. Larva was able to get into a great position using stop lurkers and took several bases as Hiya went for mech play. He stopped a double drop and defended well against HiyA's attack on his fourth while he methodically took down HiyA's mining bases to take the game.

Last vs ZerO

on Neo Jade

by c3rberUs

Last starts at 5, opening with 14 CC while ZerO starts at 7 going for a 12 hatch. Last adds an early ebay and goes for +1 5 barracks. Going along with the build, he sets off cross map to deny Zerg expos. He scans 11 and finds ZerO trying to hide his drone and promptly sends a lone marine to gun down the poor worker. ZerO of course needs to get his third ASAP, so he sacrifices a bunch of mutaling to divert Last away from another drone making its way to 11. Last goes to 11 after realizing ZerO's scheme and runs into some lurkers. Due to his quick reflexes, he saves his MnM from getting impaled.


In order to shake ZerO some more, Last brings some tanks to 11 and pushes up while simultaneously dropping marines at ZerO's main. ZerO is able to quickly contain the trouble in his main but Last is able to push up the ramp at his third. Then with impeccable timing a defiler blankets the lurkers a dark swarm and he goes on to secure his 4th. Last initiates the mech switch and adds expansions behind the maneuvers. With tanks rolling out of Last's factories, he puts pressure on ZerO's nat and main but CB's bridges and dark swarm works in ZerO's favor so Last detours to bombard ZerO's new 9 o'clock expo.

Last's mech switch and expanding at the right side of the map has gone totally unpunished and the resource counter reveals the extent of his advantage: ~180 to ~90 supply. Even though ZerO is saving for ultras, his supply count looks dangerously low.


It turns ZerO is being very patient because he is amassing his signature unit, queens at a quiet corner of the map. During the game itself, it felt like forever before he unleashed them.


Following the revelation, ZerO began to assert his presence at the map with small parties of lings and ultras with a sprinkling of broodlings. He upgraded drops on overlords and used them to counter wave after wave of units from Last.


I don't know if this was something Last thought of before the match or on the fly but it works. Not only did he force ZerO to run his queens away, but without proper anti-air. Last begins the process of de-droning ZerO's mineral lines.

ZerO, however, decides he's going to completely ignore them and masses ultraling and assaults Last's main. Unfortunately for Last, his tank numbers have dwindled since the appearance of the queens and as a result, his main base gets devoured. Last does land a counterblow by taking down 9 and a lot of drones.


Despite Last clearing what seemed like control groups of drones, ZerO's economy looked stunted for a few moments but his hatcheries keep on churning out ultraling and more queens. Shortly after the destruction of the bottom right, ZerO begins clearing every expo of any terran structures and takes over the map, forcing Last to the 1 o'clock main. To add insult to injury, he infests 2 CCs leftover at the bottom and 3 o'clock expos.
In a last ditch effort, Last pushes ZerO out of 12 and makes it his own. He leaves at least 6 tanks to my count there anticipating ZerO to come there. But at this point, ZerO can take his pick of bases. He goes for Last's 1 o'clock base. What few tanks Last has left gets blown up by the massses of queens and his wraiths are powerless to stop the streams of cracklings/ultras under the cover of dark swarm. GG

The round of 16 went to tie breakers as we all prayed would happen. This meant double the amount of games to choose from. Here's your handy guide to those that you shouldn't miss.

A matchup worthy of a final, but instead our top 2 Elo players face off in the Ro8. Lucky for us unlike the last season, this season it’s a Bo5.

This may be the biggest match that Bisu will have to face in this entire tournament even expressing his concern about going against Zerg in this tournament (except Larva who will always end up doing his dishes) but the fact remains Bisu’s star power isn’t for show, he has repeatedly shown in this tournament itself that he is an extremely flexible player capable of busting out some great early game aggression and monstrous macro while being the foremost authority in the matchup. With the preparation that goes into a Bo5 we can say that the revolutionist is looking mighty powerful.



ZerO has also been on a roll this SSL going 2-0 in the Ro24 and 3-0ing his Ro16 group and now going up against Bisu with a favorable map pool that’s quite favorable to zerg. ZerO tends to favor playing to the late game against Protoss but its possible that with a Bo5 he’d choose a more aggressive style of play especially on HBR which is the opener and the closer to this Bo5, after all, what need is there to prepare two specific builds on the same map when you can just 3 hatch hydra bust.



This match could truly go either way but one thing is for certain, regardless of the result the true winners are us the fans.

• ZerO < New Heartbreak Ridge > Bisu
  
• ZerO< Neo Jade > Bisu
  
• ZerO < La Mancha > Bisu
  
• ZerO< Circuit Breaker > Bisu
  
• ZerO < New Heartbreak Ridge > Bisu

ZerO to advance 3-2.

The TvZ mastermind, Mind (no pun intended), finds himself in his strongest matchup entering the Round of 8. Mind boasts an 82.5% vZ win rate in the post-KeSPA era, something unheard of even in FlaSh terms. Mind played an exceptional TvZ vs EffOrt in the group stages and has been dismantling hero since the beginning of 2015. While Mind has not played many official TvZ games recently (only 3 in the past 3 months), there is no doubt in my Mind (god this is too easy) that he will once again, show off his TvZ brilliance, particularly in an extended Bo5 series.



Killer’s vT is something to be desired for. While he boasts 75% win rates in both vP and vZ, those stats won’t help him in this matchup, especially against the best TvZ player on the planet. His game vs Last in group stages did show some signs of brilliance, as his all-in mass mutalisk build was able to whittle down Last before his zerglings moved in for the kill. Also, his overall recent performance in SSL 11 has shown that he is still one of the best Zerg, sitting at 6-2 in the tournament. Still, he’ll need more than just his standard ZvT in order to overcome the powerhouse that is Mind.

Mind has already gone 2-0 in TvZ in SSL 11, showing solid play on Jade and Circuit Breaker. Similarly, La Mancha is in many ways part of the same family of four-player maps with mains at the corners, nearby thirds, and limited cliffs/ridges, leaving only HBR more of an unknown. All-in's and cheese work sporadically, but asking a rusty Killer who plays sparingly for three wins is much too much.

Mind to advance 3-1.