For the round of 4 in the second season of the KSL, we have three out of the four semifinalists from last season. Soulkey will have a rematch with defending champion Last and Rain, who lost to Jaedong 0-4 a few months ago, will have to face Sharp.

Now, Rain is coming into the semifinals after a comfortable 3-0 sweep of returning Leta, who put up a fight with some great vulture harass in a fairly entertaining first game featuring a nuke and carriers being locked down. However, Rain eventually prevailed and then just cruised through games two and three. His recent offline PvT results are quite favorable. He won 3-1 against Light in his group in the KSL. He destroyed Leta, and he defeated both Mind and Sea in best-of-ones in their group in ASL6. Interestingly enough, he lost to Sharp in this same group in their most recent encounter.

The sponmatch results don’t do justice to Rain’s PvT prowess. He sits at a quite mediocre 46.6% since October, but 33 of his 73 games vs Terran were played against Flash. Make no mistake: Rain is still one of the most formidable Protoss players out there, if not the most formidable. He's a former ASL champion, and a Protoss who is making his second consecutive KSL semifinals appearance.

For his part, Sharp has shown a serious improvement in all of his matchups lately. But once again, he qualified for the semifinals on the back of his formidable TvT skills, defeating Mind with a decisive 3-0. He had to face two Protoss players to qualify from his Ro16 group, where he had to play a total of nine games against Movie and Jaehoon, opponents nowhere as intimidating as Rain. At first glance, his online sponmatch record in PvT is actually quite good. He has a winrate of 58.6% since October, maintaining a positive winrate with Best, Shuttle and Mini, but with a 15.4% against PvT maestro Snow, and 28.6% against Rain.

With all that said, this is Rain’s match to lose. Most of Sharp’s recent offline PvT games have been scrappy, back-and-forth games won mainly because of his tremendous tactical ability with vulture drops, runbys, pincer maneuvers and judicious use of defensive matrix. There has been a trend established in all those games. He tends to shoot himself in the foot early on, and then has to prove said skills in coming from behind to even the game. This is unacceptable against a player of Rain’s caliber. Sharp seems to prefer an aggressive, vulture-heavy style, with plenty of dropship play and backstabs. This just plays into Rain’s cards.

He is sure to have studied his recent matches after having to endure Leta’s early drops in their first game and he quickly adjusted his play to make his defenses nigh impenetrable, denying a mechanically lesser opponent their powerful weapon. Also, Sharp’s unconvincing record with reaver expert Snow shows he just can’t defend against the best of them (then again, taking on Snow as Terran is a tall order in itself) - and Rain is one of the best. Sharp’s style of play favours his opponent, whether he chooses to opt for his trademark safe play into inhumane macro or the multiple-shuttle incisive pushes he introduced himself. Expect Rain to reach his second offline final in a total of three tournaments this year.

Prediction: Rain 4-1 Sharp

Rain to advance to the finals!