Team Flash versus Team Zzz had the façade of a thrashing but felt like a full on beat down. On paper, it was quiet close as we saw the first team battle of the season go to the Ace Match. Each team took the stage wearing team colored jackets doting the sponsor titles and the swagger of those cool varsity kids everyone is jealous of. Hearts flutter worldwide and a thrill that the best team in the league would be posting up against the 3 best Zergs in the world.

Set 1 kicks off with top map spawns. Effort opened 3 hatch before gas. Flash does a solid read on this build as he sends several marines to Effort's base to perform ling counting and possible drone picking. Behind this, Flash opted for 2 barracks academy over the standard +1 5rax opener he is known for. His aggressive build order is great for close spawn position on Fighting Spirit. With little scouting information, Effort took a third base at the bottom right main. Flash had a light turret defense, but scans the third base of Effort. This kicked his plan into action. Flash, now on 3 barracks, has produced a small army that heads toward the bottom right location. This force, scouted by Effort, proved to be a great distraction as all mutas and lings head there to defend. Flash’s hidden, much large army, was led by two firebats towards the natural of Effort. With all the zerg forces out to defend the third, Flash moved in fast. Stimming, he took down all the sunkens and sent in a firebat to kill 9 drones. The fate of Effort was sealed and Flash took set 1.

Rain battled it out against hero on Blue Storm. This two spawn map remains very protoss favored. Hero played quite a great game in the early stage. He grabbed a nice 3 base lead and denied Rain’s third. The corsair+dt opening by Rain is also defended well in the early stages. It wasn’t until Rain dropped a deadly dark templar into the main base and Hero suffered 15 drone kill that things started to go awry. The dark templar harassment continued as the spire was sniped and more workers were killed. This massive economic damage was far too devastating and Rain took set 2.

Set 3 is the first team battle 2v2 of the season. Rain+Flash face off against Effort and Zero. Both Effort and Flash go random and both land zerg as their race. Right from the start comedy ensues. Flash floats his overlord to the left to find the pleasant surprise. It was going to be PZ vs ZZ, where playing as double Zerg is so overpowered it was banned by Kespa. But the show must go on. Effort and Zero put on an expert display of coordination and ling control while Team Flash could do little more than chuckle and die slowly.

The score being 2-1, ZerO had a chance to play. Setting off against Last, ZerO played on the most favorable Zerg map. The map has 3 spawn positions making ground rush distances very favorable, especially since Last opened up with an extremely greedy build. With a fast command center on the way, Last had little to defend when ZerO stormed in with zerglings and caused great economic damage. Last was forced to turtle and tech straight to Valkaryies for defense against mutas. And despite the fact that the defense was great, ZerO was just too overwhelming. A grand display of mutas, guardians, and even devourers came into play as the great spire Zerg overwhelmed Last and tied the series.

The final pairing was set. A rematch pitting Flash against Effort on Circuit Breaker. This game felt like an episode of Sesame Street featuring Terran. Kids come count with Flash.1 rax, 2 rax, 3 rax, 4, 5 rax, +1, stim and more! This game was a brilliant exhibition of how Flash has obtained a nearly unbeatable matchup. Effort tried to play the game extremely standard game and fell flat on his face. Flash demolished his final opponent and Team Flash won that day.


Day 2 hasn’t begun and already viewers were experiencing a mental beat down. Discussed ad nauseum in the day 1 live report thread about how it is possible to defeat a Terran +1 5rax. Set 1 takes right to example one. Light versus Larva took place on Fighting Spirit. Both spawning at the bottom, Larva does a standard 2 base muta while Light worked his way towards the ultimate bio build. What’s a Zerg to do? Well Larva, who has an outstanding record versus Light opened fantastically against the Terran. Light, for whatever reason, was sloppy and didn’t build turrets in a timely fashion. Opting for marines over turrets, Larva swooped in and started to do some solid damage. Keeping light’s army contained to his two bases, Larva took a close third. Is it possible that a Zerg wins this? Mid game hits and both players split the map. The game observer, noticing that Larva is light on gas heavy units, showed a flock of Queens gathered in his main. As viewers look on, a deadly scan is laid out. Light now knew about Larva’s game plan and acted immediately pushing cross map with his now mech army. Larva knew that he has lost the game due to that single scan because his queens do not have the energy to defend. Team BeSt took set 1.

Describing Set 2 will take longer than watching set 2. Miso zergling all-in'd Stork on Blue Storm (that map with a 35% winrate for Zerg versus Protoss). Stork can’t believe it. GG.

Set 3, this set is the matchup of the day. My recommendation is to go watch it immediately. Starting off with the second 2v2, the attitude is “why is this here”? But then Free happens. Opening spawns show that Miso and Light get the lucky draw. With Light randoming Zerg, it’s 2 zergs versus the Free+Larva (protoss+zerg) combo. Fighting at the same disadvantage Flash and Rain had, it felt obvious this set would be over quickly. But then the dragon spirit came out of Free. Despite Team Stork losing Larva early in the game, Free managed to do significant damage to both zerg players. He put Light’s economy in shambles with zealot harass while taking the air with corsairs. Miso couldn’t make anything due to being supply blocked and Light turned his base into a UMS sunken defense.

Free looked in control of the game. Grabbing up to three bases, using storm drop harass, and amassing a large core army, he looked ready to win. Then miso became deadly. He abused his control of the air with scourge and overlords picking off observer after observer. This hard contained Free due to the amount of lurkers on the map. Miso played brilliantly as Light harassed Free’s natural with sunkens. Over time, the gap grew too wide between the players' economies and Free could no longer overwhelm either opponent. After a beautifully drawn out game, Free conceded and Team Best won that day.

Terror vs PianO on Fighting Spirit to kick off the match between Team Sea and Team Guemchi, and honestly, Guemchi could not be more thrilled. Who the hell throws Zergs out onto Fighting Spirit anymore knowing full well if they draw a Terran, it’s almost an insta-loss. PianO has also been a monster in TvZ, having an incredible 72.31% win rate. A TvZ specialist on Fighting Spirit? Yes please. But expect Terror to open up some gimmicky opener, maybe slow overlord drop into the main with lurkers? Or 2 hatch muta to play more aggressively against the traditional 5 rax play? Whatever he does, I expect Piano to open safely and cautiously.


The battle of the captains, a theme for the weekend, will be between Sea and Guemchi on Blue Storm. Blue Storm, traditionally been a very balanced map considering both sides have many features to take advantage of. I expect with how cheesy Sea can be, he’ll open up with a very aggressive tank push to take advantage of the small choke outside Guemchi’s base and shell his natural, since Guemchi will open 1 gate expo. Sea will roll Guemchi to a simple macro victory afterwards. Sea is also hot off a decisive 3-0 over Bisu as well in the ASL2 while Guemchi crumbled to FlaSh 1-3. I expect Sea will edge out his rival captain in set 2.


The 2v2 match has become my favorite thing to watch and the match I honestly look forward to the most in these series. I think ZT is favored against ZP since Terrans can get out stim early and kite around the zergling/zealot armies. Tanks are also insane in 2v2 to contain one of the players, especially with how wonky the Hunter’s map layout is. It will be exciting to watch the first Terran come out in 2v2 as so far, it’s been all ZZ and ZP matchups. That being said, Terror with his popularity has definitely been grinding some 2v2 in his stream time so he might have some edge, not to mention he was also an STX Soul member along with Shuttle, though we don't know how much of a presence in the team house Terror had since he was never that good of a player. Conversely, PianO and Soukey are both ex-Woongjin Stars team members so there’s definitely some chemistry between the two players. I think PianO and Soulkey are more than capable of defeating Shuttle and Terror.


Outsider is another one of my favorite maps of all time, but unfortunately for Shuttle, it’s been a pretty historically good Zerg map. We’ll definitely be seeing some air battles and potentially corsair/reaver on this map given the mineral wall layout. This map with only one real choke to either player’s base will not favor the typical 6 gate style of Protoss. It will come down to see how good Shuttle is dodging scourge traps and picking the proper build on Outsider. I’d really like to see 2 stargate corsair with shuttle play after taking control of the skies. Soulkey will open +1 flier carapace and a quick tech to Hive for Devourers in anticipation with ultralisk drops if it ever reaches late game. I still think Soulkey can bring this game home over the veteran, Shuttle.


To entertain the idea of an ace match, my personal picks would be Sea and GuemChi as the respective team captains. Sea has the best all-around game and if there’s one thing that’s missing on team GuemChi, it’s a good vT player. GuemChi has the best winrate of all of them (albeit at 50%), but I wouldn’t put it past the captain to insert his other members to pull off some crazy cheese on Circuit Breakers.

Final Score: Team Sea 1-3 Team GuemChi