In an unlikely turn of events, Action, who's only made his second appearance in the ASL since the league's inception, managed to take down both Effort and Mong to advance out of their Round of 24 group in first place.

Action vs EffOrt on Slyphid:
Spawning in the 12 o'clock position on Sylphid, Action found himself opening with a very quick gas followed by a pool on 9 supply, with EffOrt (8 o'clock) going for 11 pool 11 gas into 11 hatch. Forgoing any plans for early aggression, Action rushed out lair tech, delaying the ling speed upgrade. EffOrt, having scouted his opponent's spire chose to capitalize on the apparent disparity in production capabilities, rushing across the map with a handful of lings with speed. Action's botched positioning allowed EffOrt to slip a single ling through into the main base, forcing his opponent to morph more larvae into lings. Thwarting the aggression, the former KT player launched a counterattack. EffOrt, failing to recognize the threat, overinvested in anti-mutalisk measures, and crumbled under the pressure created by his adversary's ling flood.


Mong vs Stork on Slyphid:
The face-off between Mong and Stork started in typical TvP fashion. Stork's opening zealot, managing to find a kill on a single marine, delayed Mong's expansion ever so slightly, forcing out a quicker bunker as well. With a 1 gate range nexus of his own, the Dragon followed up with a robo and additional gates. Mong, whose lone vulture found all, but a single probe kill before falling to the roaming dragoons, recognized the need to play it safe and Mong added an armory, an academy, and quick mines. A money scan soon revealed Stork's intentions of playing an eco game, allowing the Terran to correctly choose his response moving forward.

Mong's 2 fact tank / goliath with quick upgrades set him up for a strong mid-game push, countering Stork's questionable choice of following up with a fleet beacon. Pushing out at the 13 minute mark, Mong, despite both players having maxed out, encountered little resistance, as the 2/1 mech force mowed down Stork's 1/0 zealot / dragoon. Recognizing Mong's superiority in a straight up fight, the former Samsung pro attempted to divert his opponent's attention, skirting around the main bulk of Mong's army and hitting the reinforcement line. Failing to buy sufficient time for additional carriers and psi-storms, Stork was ultimately forced to defend his beleaguered natural. Mong crushed the Protoss force with ease.


Action vs Mong on Autobahn:
New maps always leave extra room for experimentation. For Action that meant sneaking a drone inside Mong's base on Autobahn and praying the proxy hatch play works. Botched marine control left the Terran's gas exposed, which delayed the stim upgrade even further. Recognizing Mong's inability to punish the proxy hatchery, Action doubled down on the aggression, adding a sunken in the main base of the Terran. The Zerg managed to keep the Terran contained on 1 base for over 11 minutes, resorting to a 3 hatch muta follow-up to slow down the Terran's counterattack. With access to lurkers, Action snuck behind Mong's natural mineral line, putting himself even further ahead economically. With defilers on his doorstep, the Terran player had no response to the dark swarm lurker combo, tapping out at the 16 minute mark.


EffOrt vs Stork on Autobahn:
EffOrt found himself off to a good start in the losers' match against Stork, as his 9 pool opener allowed him to sneak 5 lings into the Protoss main base. Finding 7 probes worth of damage gave EffOrt the time he needed to catch up with Stork's FFE. The damage dealt to the Protoss player delayed the corsair follow-up and the subsequent templar archives, with EffOrt being prepared for anything that could potentially allow Stork to come back from a hefty eco / tech deficit. EffOrt's 4 base lurker push allowed him to seal the Protoss in on 2 bases for an extended period of time. Only breaking out at the 15 minute mark, Stork set his sights on EffOrt's third. However, with 6 lurkers on top of a ramp, all Protoss zealots vanished off the battlefield in no time, leaving the Protoss with a squishy dragoon / templar based force. With a superior economy and 8 hatcheries at his disposal, Effort quickly outproduced Stork and closed the game out with a counterattack, eliminating the Protoss Dragon from the ASL.


EffOrt vs Mong on Circuit Breaker:
The final game on Circuit Breaker saw EffOrt open with an aggressive build yet again. Mong, despite scouting the Zerg's 9 pool, mistimed his SCV pull, losing perhaps a few workers more than he should have. Minor gains left and right gave EffOrt the map control he needed to successfully keep Mong in the dark. The belated 5 rax +1 found no opportunities to move out and delay the Zerg, as Mong found himself on the receiving end of a 3 hatch lurker bust. And yet again, despite properly recognizing the incoming threat, Mong's decision-making failed him, as a large chunk of marine / medic got surrounded just outside the Terran's natural, giving Effort the momentum he needed to break through and dispatch Mong in a decisive manner.


Action and EffOrt advanced to the Ro16!

This group really built itself to be a long group with Sharp, Mind and Sea with only our defending ASL champion Rain being one to keep the pace up, so bring out the popcorn friends. TvTs galore here!

Rain vs Sharp:
It would be remiss if I did not mention that Sharp and Rain are quite similar when it comes to their tournament runs so far with both players making the deepest runs on their respective mirror matchups.

Nevertheless, Rain has results which reflect better than Sharp’s when it comes to their non mirror matchups. In this case, his PvT so far has looked far more solid (21-7 including a 2-0 vs Sharp, 2-0 vs Mind and he has not played Sea this month) than Sharp’s TvP (which stands at 13-10 in September).

Expect a great victory for Rain. Sharp is a top 5 player this month, so he won’t be as easy as some would expect.

Mind vs Sea:
It's always hard to gauge Sea’s performance and even less so when he plays as little as he does on stream having transitioned into being a variety streamer. To be more precise, we’re a little over halfway through the month and Sea has not had any TvTs in his sponbangs. In fact, he hasn't played any TvTs last month either.

Of course that doesn’t mean that he's obviously going to lose or anything, far from it. The point of a Bo1 is that if you’re even capable of taking one game off your opponent anywhere in recent time, you have a chance to win offline too. I would say Sea is more than capable of doing that.

Mind hasn’t put as much time in the mirror either. At least, he's only played 7 games and has a 5-2 record which includes a 1-0 win vs Sharp. Needless to say, I’d give advantage to Mind, but that's not a guarantee.

Winners', Losers’ and Final Game:
The winners' game is set to be a straightforward victory for Rain. Mind would most likely try to end the game quick, but Rain should be on top of any of that and should push ahead if the game goes long to win.

I would not bet on Sea against Sharp’s TvT aside from his one loss to mind. Sharp has been killing it, and it would be really surprising if we saw Sea win this game, but the best he could do is make it look close with a BBS.

Mind vs Sharp will probably be match of the night. I think both players can possibly win. Obviously Sharp being a TvT sniper has the definite advantage, but there is no reason Mind can’t make it difficult for Sharp. They’ve already had great matches against each other over the years. I’m going to predict Sharp, but again, Mind has definitely been preparing for this eventual matchup and Mind is very good at his preparation.

Rain and Sharp to advance to the Ro8!