“Knees weak, army are heavy.” Five words and you, the reader, already know what song I’m referring to. One shot at the first TLS Championship is on the table. One shot at the highest foreign prize pool in the last half decade. One shot at claiming to be the best foreign Starcraft: Brood War player in the world. One shot at glory no one else can share.

We often forget, as viewers, what it takes for an international Brood War player to remain competitive. Korea offers a way to self fund practice. Streaming, entertainment, skill, all are keys to success at Starcraft in the Korean world. This is not the case in Europe or the Americas. Dsaqwe, a Croatian, and DragOn, a Canadian, simply don’t get to choose the same life style. And our average age group of Brood War fans and players is gradually shifting to older and older. Starcraft 1 is eighteen years old. In 1998, Google was founded, Armageddon the film was released, Spice Girls were still relevant and Teletubies were still on television. Most of us were still in elementary and middle school, but now are in college, have real jobs or even started families. Life doesn’t get easier for anyone as Brood War ages.

So what does it take for Dsaqwe and DragOn to get to this stage? Hours of practice scrunched in between full time jobs. They both are training on Korean Fish Servers where they can’t read any of the UI text and now must have Korean friends offer phone numbers in order to hold Fish accounts. It’s insane the level of effort these two put into practice to reach this level. The bottom line is, these two players don’t just need us to show up as viewers on Sunday, they deserve it. We owe it to them, our hard working casters, and dedicated TLS staff team to show up, pop some popcorn, and enjoy the best international Starcraft can offer.

Semifinals Recap

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In games one and two on Neo Electric Circuit and Aztec respectively, dsaqwe went for 3 gate aggression. In both cases, he microed really well against LancerX, especially in the second game where he overcame a high ground disadvantage and made it into LancerX's base. From there, he killed probes and took two quick games.


In the third game on Neo Jade, dsaqwe went for proxy 2 gates while LancerX opted for 1 gate core. Upon scouting the zealots, LancerX added a shieldbattery and it seemed like he was going to come on top. Alas, poor shieldbattery usage and better micro from dsaqwe sealed his fate:



On Neo Electric Circuit, koget opened with a proxy rax and bunker-contained DragOn who lost a lot of probes trying to prevent the bunker from going up (gif). Koget went on to double expand behind this and easily thwarted DragOn's attempt to get back into the game by trying to shuttle goons into his base.


Game two on Aztec allowed us to see some intense micro early on from both players as kogeT tried to expand while being constantly attacked by zealots from DragOn's gateway. kogeT ended up establishing his expansion and taking control of DragOn's large ramp, however, the lack of aggression from that point onwards allowed DragOn to grab a 3rd and 4th base, get his macro going and recall several times into kogeT's main. With several recalls, kogeT plummeted in supply and his contain grew weaker to the point where DragOn ran in a large army and easily took the second game shortly after (gif).


In game three on Neo Jade, DragOn went for 2 gate goon aggression and managed to break kogeT's bunker, take down several tanks and SCVs. Behind this aggression, he double expanded to try and take an eco lead. However, kogeT mine-tricked his way though DragOn's pylon wall at his third while expanding behind it (gif). Despite this setback, DragOn eventually cleaned it up and with 8 gateways, destroyed kogeT's army and attacked into his natural to take game three.


The final game took place on Neo Overwatch. After a failed double pronged attack (gif), kogeT expanded behind it and went for a 5 factory attack. He took the bridge outside DragOn's base to keep up the pressure but DragOn never relented and forced him back every time. After DragOn took his third and eventual fourth base, his macro was too much for kogeT to handle and he conceded defeat after his re-established third was taken down.

Finals Preview

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