Its all or nothing now going into the bracket stage, with the change going into SSL being that Ro8 games are now Bo7 instead of Bo5. It has become the ultimate test of endurance for our Top 8.

Not to mention his season being one of the hardest to predict with the Ro8 with the matchups, for this week we cover the first half of the Ro8, Snow vs BarrackS and Soulkey vs Light

Simplistik as always with Battle Reports from Ro16

Liquipedia

Round of 16, Group A

Match 1 - Soulkey vs Sea on Radeon
Defending champion Soulkey starts with a relatively soft match against Sea. The players start in cross-spawns. Terran opens with a, let's say, unconventional 'wall' followed by a command centre, while Zerg goes hatch-first.



Four marines march across the map unspotted, while a lair is morphing. They hit the natural completely unopposed and slaughter two drones.



Behind this Sea has started building two factories, while Soulkey starts his spire. Zerglings clean up the marines easily enough.

The next ten seconds more less decide the game. Speedlings trap and destroy the first vulture. And then they get into the Terran natural, kill the remaining marines, three SCV's and deny two missile turrets.



Sea tries to hold on by trying to buy time with vultures, but they don't get anything done. The first eight mutalisks find two goliaths and two turrets. You do the maths, but this cannot work for Terran. Sea is reduced to zero goliaths several times. Mutalisks keep trickling in faster than Terran can produce anti-air. The first science vessel crashes without doing anything.



Easy ten minute win for Soulkey. Not sure what Sea was thinking.


Match 2 - Rush vs JyJ on Radeon
The second match couldn't be more different. Watch the first if you want to have a quick laugh. Watch the second if you want to watch a tense high quality super late-game TvT. This is an early Top 10 contender.

Rush starts a barracks in the centre and JyJ, bizarrely, fails to scout his opponent's location, despite going up the ramp. Rush gets a slight leg up by killing one SCV. Both players get factories and start making vultures.

This game will seesaw several times and JyJ immediately punches back. His first four vultures kill several SCV's.



And then Rush retaliates immediately with wraiths. The opening is a bit like a boxing match in which the fighters aren't allowed to block. The first wraith arrives in time to kill the SCV building the armoury. And together with the second paper plane they kill enough SCV's at JyJ's natural to tip the game back in Rush's favour very slightly.



Both players add factories and start manouvring around the map with their small ground armies, but they sort of miss each other, like two ships in the night. The dark, dark night. And we end up with both naturals under siege. Rush secures his with tanks and SCV's while JyJ holds with tanks and wraiths. Rush gets slightly further ahead. (Around this time, the first match was already over...)

Over the next few minutes Rush grows his lead by getting his third base faster, killing some SCV's with a drop and picking off a few tanks for free with wraiths. The only thing really in favour of JyJ is that he has some units in an annoying position on Rush's side of the map. And that he's Terran, which is always good when you're behind. Oh, and his +2 vehicle weapons finishes first.

And so, with decent positioning and good macro, JyJ does manage to wrestle his way back into the game. Both players get to four bases and the map is slowly getting split in half. To stay safe from another wraith move, JyJ commandeers a flight of valkyries. And they escort an unsuspecting science vessel straight to valhalla.



Both players expand to the main and natural bases at the top side and acquire a few dropships. Rush parks a number of tanks and goliaths in JyJ's original natural, but it's a pretty low-value location and it does get cleared up fairly easily. About five minutes later, having hunted down some of his opponent's air units, Rush takes the initiative with another drop. Seven fully loaded cargo planes deliver their gods to the top right natural.



But this turns out to be a poor move. Firstly, there were six turrets so Rush loses most of his dropships, albeit after unloading. JyJ's army arrives fairly quickly and wipes out the para-tanks. And his own dropships find a good route into the top left main, from where it's possible to deny both bases, rather than just one. And it's harder to clear out with pure ground units, because there is the bane of every attacker: a ramp.



For some hilarious reason, JyJ has built his physics lab literally in the centre of the map, and so we all know what's coming next. But for now we carry on with the airmail circus. Rush drops twelve o'clock and takes it out. JyJ flies half way around the world, over the unguarded expansion at nine o'clock, where the starports are, and eventually into Rush's main.

Three or four factories get shelled into the ground before Rush's army, with d-matrix and air support, clears out the attack. Not a disaster. But behind this JyJ has also taken out the top left natural. Although Rush seems to be losing the war slowly, he does have a much larger bank. Perhaps JyJ's saturation has been on the poor side.

The first two battle cruisers are operational, but it'll be a while longer before they have the numbers to take over the fighting duties. Rush sends ten loaded dropships into JyJ's main, while JyJ has another go at denying top left.



Rush's army goes to town on JyJ's base, destroying all the factories, a starport and a number of supply depots. BC's eventually arrive to clear up the respective drops. Both commanders quickly burn through their banks and get up to a control group of capital ships each. Rush manages a decent EMP on four of five BC's. And his new and improved air force finds the rather oddly positioned physics lab, and quickly blows up the attached science facility. Spare a thought for the poor researchers.



The upshot of all this is that JyJ doesn't have the energy or the numbers to take a stand, so he starts getting pushed back. The final air battle is a bit of an anti-climax. But, hey, how often do we get to see this?



Outgunned, JyJ tries to cobble together some emergency defences, but a handful of mechs and paper planes will not stop the iron armada.

GG!


Winners, Game 1 - Soulkey vs Rush, on Deja Vu

Game 1 opens with a tense moment. Soulkey's nine-pool lings arrive when Terran only has two marines and one SCV blocking. But, with impeccable micro Rush holds perfectly.



Now behind, Zerg follows up with a quick lair into spire at the natural. An SCV sacrifices itself to find out the tech choice and timing. But, I'm not completely sure it actually saw the spire. And then somewhat strangely Soulkey also morphs a hydralisk den in his main.

Of course, Rush is trying to squeeze as much army as he can out of his build, so he only builds one comsat station. And then he scans the hydralisk den next to the lair. And, quite reasonably, SCV's immediately start to build two bunkers and a turret in the natural.



Rush also cancels construction of a barracks in favour of building a quicker factory. But all this preparation for the (as of yet) non-existent lurkers is of course a big mistake. The first four mutalisks arrive to find a joyful absence of missile turrets and start wreaking havoc. A lot of marines and SCV's get killed. Soulkey wills the mutas to be very aggressive and they slowly get ground down, but not before doing a lot of damage. Behind the aggression a third hatchery starts morphing.

Zerg air reinforcements keep arriving and find that marines trickling out of two barracks with no turret support are quite easy pickings. Rush does his best to stabilise. Missile turrets eventually spin up and a starport is under construction too. Terran supplies are holding for now. And the Zerg economy is not super strong. So it looks like we might transition into mid-game.

Rush now has two starports and a factory, all three with addons, and also constructs two more barracks. The marines do a decent job keeping the Zerg air force at bay. Soulkey is teching towards hive and growing his economy. And then we see the first lurkers skitter across the map. An infantry platoon is slightly in front of the Terran natural when they arrive.



Zerglings and mutalisks provide cover for the lurkers and the infantry gets wiped out. Soulkey takes a supply lead and locks Rush in. Three science vessels have arrived, but that's not enough to push back the mutalisks or chew through the lurkers. The infantry tries a somewhat desperate attack on the contain and, predictably, loses.

Rush knows that a defiler has got to be on the way, but he just doesn't have the material to get out. Despite his machine shop, he still hasn't produced a tank. And Soulkey is masterfully engaging the Terran army with his mutalisks, scourge and lings. As a result the first two defilers manage to swarm-hop lurkers into the Terran natural.



Soulkey can apparently do whatever the hell he wants, even when he's only on three gas. So he throws some guardians into the mix. The natural gets overwhelmed and the barracks start crumbling under the aerial onslaught. Firebats come out to try and combat the swarm, but...



One wraith tries to help, but obviously there are scourge. Who is Rush kidding?

GG. That was brutal.


Winners, Game 2 - Soulkey vs Rush, on Monty Hall SE
And now for some Monty Hall Madness. Soulkey opens three hatch before pool, and Rush builds a hidden factory behind the gas of one of the close expansions. Only on Monty Hall...



Soulkey has opened up the left lane and is working on the centre, while Rush is mining his way through to the right. Never the twain shall meet. The overlord misses the factory, even though there was an SCV in a suspicious location. Rush expands along the top. Soulkey opts for hydras. Unfortunately, for Rush, he struggles to glitch the first vulture of the minerals. So he only kills a few zerglings, one drone and gets scouting info. A wraith shoots down the forward overlord.

Soulkey follows up with a spire. Rush has finished a science facility and is adding more barracks. A bunker at the Terran expansion buys just enough time when the first speed hydra attack hits. A single tank with SCV support manages to hold.



Rush gears up for a bio-tank push up the middle. Soulkey is really on it though. First he delays the SCV's mining out the mineral barrier, then he snipes a tank with a ling run-by. And off to the side he's morphing some hidden lurkers who end up denying reinforcements. The siege tanks start shelling the defences and a ling counter into the Terran expansion is denied by the rebuilt bunker.

Science vessels dodge some scourge and one of them irradiates the first defiler. Marines start shooting the hatchery and the tanks move up. It looks like Rush is about to take a significant lead.



The first swarm lands and the Zerg army barrels forward. All Rush has to do is click on the hatchery to kill it. But he messes up the targeting. The Marines are forced to retreat, the tanks get overrun and the hatchery survives.

Rush tries to regroup but gets slowed down by some lurkers. He does however successfully zone a defiler away from his own expansion with a vessel. A bit of posturing in the middle lane doesn't get anything done. Soulkey starts his fourth expansion and Rush is still on two base, although with a fairy healthy army size and vessel count.

A few lings manage to get into the Terran main down the left lane, and they brought a defiler. Firebats are there to save the bacon from the fire. Wait. Anyway. Fighting with plagued units under dark swarm, in your own base, is really not what Terran wants. On the plus side, the science vessels keep on accumulating value.



Rush tries to attack on multiple fronts, but Soulkey has just enough army and defilers spread around to hold. And because it's going so well, Zerg takes another base. Now we are five bases against two. Rush tries his hand at some parachute play, but the only thing that drops is his own supply.



After this failed airborne assault Zerg gets ahead in supply. Terran has started to mine a third base at three o'clock, but surely needs more than that. Quite smartly, Rush keeps up the vessel and bio threat along the right side, which also protects his new base from being countered. And with a couple of tanks arriving, the pressure ramps up.

But Terran is blind on the rest of the map and a large Zerg swarm of hydras, lurkers, lings and defilers march slither/skitter/lope down the middle and straight into the Rush's main. The barracks are under threat and Rush doesn't have the right unit mix at home to fight back effectively.



Rush carries on trying to push the top. But Soulkey has too many units and it's hard going. Meanwhile the Terran main is literally on fire. And with the last two barracks about to collapse, Rush taps out.

GG!

Soulkey moves on to the knockout stage in dominant fashion. Is anyone going to be able to stop him? Whoever wants to do so needs to read the game state better than Rush managed in this series.

The remaining games of the group are a bunch of long and fairly average TvT's. First Sea puts up a valiant fight, but gets outclassed by JyJ. And finally, Rush calmly moves past JyJ. I got the sense that JyJ didn't play with the same freedom as he did during his championship run. When he's really on, his TvT is excellent, but he seemed to lose his way a little during these games.

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Round of 16, Group C

The highlights of this group were undoubtedly the games between Snow and Speed. Mini couldn't keep it together as he flunked out 0-3 due to, expected but, misplaced aggression. Rain barely did anything wrong, dispatching both his opponents with a minimum of fuss. But Snow and Speed were locked into an epic four game battle for second place.

Match 1 - Snow vs Speed, on Radeon
Both players open fairly standard, in base gate and core vs in base rax and depot. Snow finds Speed first and his probe starts tickling one of the construction workers. Being completely blind, Terran gets a bunker, while Protoss warps in a nexus. The scouting SCV never makes it into the Protoss natural, which must feel pretty terrible.



The first vultures are also denied entry, so Speed starts setting up a drop since the positions are fairly close. Snow's reaver-shuttle starts flying over to the Terran main and misses the dropship. Four vultures unload, but the Protoss sim-city is perfectly set up and four dragoons are waiting. Still, trading four vultures for scouting and four probes is probably fine. Simultaneously two vultures try to hit the natural, but Snow slams the door shut in their pointy faces.



The reaver has a lot more luck on the other side. Turrets are not ready and there are literally zero fighting units (OK, OK. Zero fighting units other than SCV's...) at home. The goon steps on a mine and a wraith ultimately takes down the shuttle. But meanwhile the reaver has killed 19(!) SCV's and a tank. If this was a ladder game, Speed might just leave here.



Snow is nearly double in supply and can pretty much do whatever he wants from here. This should be easy for the player who's (/cough) supposed to win the tournament. Right? Well, let's see. Two dragoons deny another drop while the others amble over to the Terran natural to put on some pressure. At eight and a half minutes, Speed has only eight SCV's mining at his natural. One per minute I guess. Behind this damaging opening Snow is getting his citadel, presumably for quick arbiters.

Watching the game back, my sense is that Snow could've just bulldogged his way to an easy victory here. Speed has three clumped tanks, one turret and a bunker. That's surely not enough to hold a proper attack. But Protoss stays on two gateways for a long time. Instead of proper manly fighting units, a couple of invisible musketeers arrive in their fancy cloaks. And they walk right into the natural and kill a tank.



Speed is so far behind he doesn't even have one comsat station. And I'm not sure where his vultures are, or even if he has any. And if course there are no turrets at the natural. Time to GG? Nah, let's plod on. Definitely not before time, a round of vultures do hover out of the factory and a missile turret finishes to end the DT threat. A second reaver shuttle is also pushed back. This could've definitely done more damage. A micro-win for Speed, but something to hold on to.

Speed tries some more dropship play, but between cannons and good probe pulls it doesn't do much. Meanwhile Snow's fourth nexus is on the way. The supply gap is still almost forty, but the Protoss army looks pretty small.

Vultures play explosive tag with zealots as Speed is trying his best to secure a third base. With the first arbiter out, Terran doesn't really have the scans for an attack. Meanwhile Snow is working his way up to the Royal Straight Flush of Protoss builds, the Swiss Army Knife, the Omni-Cusher: Reaver drop into simultaneous arbiter and DT into carriers. All quite normal really, as far as I can see. I wonder why we don't see this build more often? It's obviously completely overpowered. Actually, isn't storm missing?



While Speed gets his third base up and running, Snow is setting up to secure the bottom right main while his carriers start warping in slowly. And Terran only has five factories. An arbiter sharks around looking for an opening, but doesn't commit. Speed scans the carriers and starts inching towards the middle of the map. His ground army is now big enough to win a fight, but he needs to be careful with arbiters and reavers.

Speed takes his fourth base and starts moving South. Snow kills a few zealots to free up supply for carriers. When the first engagement happens Snow has five carriers, a bunch of stasises (what's the plural?) and a medium sized ground army. Terran gets the better engagement, manages to EMP the carriers and goliaths instantly shooting one down. The dragoons can't engage properly because the map is too narrow here.



As the Terran juggernaut inches forward Snow is forced to engage, which means he can't build up his interceptor count. The bulk of the Terran army sets up a strong position outside the Protoss natural. And behind this small groups of Terran units start attacking Snow's outer expansions. Tanks blow up six o'clock. Probes have to be pulled from the natural und the third base is under threat too. Meanwhile Speed's economy is chugging along unhindered.

But Speed should be running out of minerals in his main and natural shortly, and Snow still has bottom right. Eight carriers with full interceptor count should be hard to beat. But for some inexplicable reason Snow donates two carriers to a tiny group of goliaths and wastes his advantage. Then he loses another carrier needlessly while attacking Speed's third base. And Speed has had the time to manouvre his, now somewhat useless, tanks across the map to blow up Snow's main mining base.



Snow's supply plummets below 100 and he loses another carrier. Speed expands to the top right to make sure he doesn't run out of steam. A small goliath attack on the Protoss third gets thwarted by carriers, but Snow then flies into the middle and loses another carrier. Either Speed is really brilliant at goliath movement, or Snow is very sloppy with his carrier micro. Or, most likely, something in between. Up to this point Snow has lost at least six carriers. So he could be at twelve. In which case the game would be over. Instead he's struggling to remake enough interceptors. Undeterred, Snow battles his way across the map all the way to twelve o'clock, one of Speed's remaining mining bases, but loses two more carriers and ultimately his dragoons.



The carriers float over to top right and blow up the command centre, while a small group of goliaths once again hit Snow's third base. They overwhelm three zealots and one dragoon and force the probes to flee. Speed is not mining, but Snow only has one mineral patch left at his natural and has no bank. The third nexus goes down and Snow is also out of mining. The main command centre has floated down to the third base. And Speed is pulling all his goliaths together there. Snow engages and... promptly loses another carrier. That's nine lost. And with the dragoons cleaned up Speed has enough anti-air fire power to overwhelm the remaining interceptors.



Snow is unable to break the last Terran mining operation and concedes.

GG!

Pretty impressive game by Speed. I feel like the 'Ten-Minute-Flash' moniker is exactly wrong. The first ten minutes were a disaster, but the rest was very good.

On the other side. What happened to Snow? Did he break both his wrists on the way to the studio? Also, maybe, just maybe, the omni-build is overrated?

Snow ultimately survives Speed's onslaught, just about outlasting him in game 1 of the final match and finally getting a decisive carrier lead with better micro in the last game. Good showing from Speed. I hope he'll be back and we'll get to see him play some other match-ups too. As for Snow, after this rather shaky showing he is surely not as favoured against Barracks as he should be...

So the Round of 8 has arrived and here we are, with two absolute heavyweights and tournament favorites that have to clash already in the quarterfinals. I think a lot of people were hoping for a matchup like this to take place in the semifinals or finals, but here we are. Also sad is that Snow is on this half of the bracket, so only one of these three heavyweights can even make it to the finals. But the broth has been heated and we’ve reached a boiling point. Let’s dive into it.

Light

Light’s been consistently the best performing online player for the past several months, and he’s already off to another flying start in the month of October, with a 9-3 record against Zergs. Even more impressive was his performance in the October 2nd proleague match where he defeated Snow and Soulkey back-to-back in the winner’s league portion. That being said, most still don’t consider Light as anything but an offline choker still, as he’s failed to make the semifinals since his ASL 13 win, on top of the three straight tournaments failing to even make it to the quarterfinals. He looked shaky in his Ro16 group as well, not exactly exuding confidence that you would hope to see in the best Terran in the world. Further, even his Ro24 match against huro was a tough one, and he would’ve lost had huro not tragically lost his shuttle to the last missile turret shot. While the map pool is going to favor his side of the matchup, I find that Light is still going to be the underdog coming into this match.

Soulkey

It’s obviously going to be an extreme uphill battle for Soulkey in this match. This is one of the worst map pools for Zerg, especially in ZvT, in recent memory. In fact, it reminds me of 2006 when maps were so slanted against Zerg until he-who-must-not-be-named won an OSL in such a lopsided map pool. However, Soulkey is ready to go to war, and is currently leading the eloboard for the month of October with a 12-7 record against Terran. Considering the difficult map pool and still maintaining such a solid winrate, it’s no wonder that people still consider Soulkey an absolute beast right now and still a favorite in spite of the map pool. Further, even in unique or awkward situations, it rarely feels like Soulkey ever falters and continues to play extremely well. His matches against Sea and Rush really showed that he’ll be ready for whatever a Terran can throw at him, and his standard play is simply suffocating. He barely broke a sweat making it to the quarterfinals, and considering he’s playing someone who is known for being an offline choker, everything feels like it’s pointing to a Soulkey victory.

(All map stats are taken from eloboard.)

Map 1: Radeon
ZT: 394-391 (50.2%)

I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better game 1 for this series to take place on. Radeon is an incredibly balanced map, one of the best in the current meta. Part of me believes that whoever wins this game will end up going on to win the entire series. In part, because winning a standard game on this map will set the tone for the rest of the series, and the loser might feel like they have to change their initial strategy over the course of the series. I envision this game playing out standard, with Soulkey slowly tightening his grip on the game until Light eventually succumbs to his play.

Light < Soulkey

Map 2: Pantheon
ZT: 48-68 (41.4%)

Another standard map, although Zerg seems to massively struggle on this map (close and easy to defend bases for Terran while the middle seems easy for Terran to push through). This map screams another standard game, but I expect Light to take this one if it goes standard, considering the features of the map. It might be ever so slightly too difficult for Soulkey to hold on. There’s also the threat of Light’s interesting bunker rush against 1st scout 12 hatch, which he has been using a few times to great effect, going for a 2nd depot and rallying marines to Zerg’s natural instead of expanding himself. If he’s lucky enough to pull it out in a game, it would be quite the match to watch.

Light > Soulkey

Map 3: KICK BACK
ZT: 50-65 (43.5%)

A very weird map for TvZ, it seems like there’s a lot of cheese that can happen on this map. Zerg can opt to be greedy with 3 hatch before pool, while Terran can counter it with a forward/center rax. On the flip side, 9 pool speed with 2 drones to mine out the mineral patches seems like it would also be an interesting strategy to bust a Terran who opted to go either 14CC or 15CC, and could lead to some interesting games. I think that both players might guess the other is going to go for something greedy and both play with aggressive builds, which may not bold well for Light as a center rax would get destroyed by a 9 pool speed.

Light < Soulkey

Map 4: Deja Vu
ZT: 84-82 (50.6%)

A pivotal game 4 takes place on the second most balanced map for TvZ. Once again, I expect for the players to show their standard prowess, but with a much more balanced map, I think Soulkey will replicate her performance in Game 1 and take this.

Light < Soulkey

Map 5: Dominator
ZT: 77-95 (44.8%)

Dominator is another fairly straight forward map, though I think that the inverted ramp actually helps Zerg with better muta harass. The downside is that for most of the spawns (top and right), the natural is difficult to harass while all 3 spawns have ling tight walls (though the top spawn would cause marines to emerge on the wrong side). Of all the standard maps, I also expect this map to have some weird shenanigans, especially from Light with maybe some kind of fast factory play, but some kind of lurker bust or defiler swarm rush could also be a feature on this map with the inverted ramp from Soulkey. Overall, I think this map could potentially favor Light with how the bases are setup, and it being 3p means trying to take the other natural as the 3rd base is a shorter rush distance compared to a traditional 4p map.

Light > Soulkey

Map 6: Minstrel
ZT: 38-77 (33.0%)

Oh god where do we start with this map? For off, obviously this is one of the worst possible maps for ZvT in recent memory. I mean seriously, how do you take a 3rd base on this map? It screams some kind of weird cheese from Soulkey. Light should know this and prepare adequately, because so long as he plays a simple macro game, it’s so difficult for Zerg to play this game in the mid-long term. I’m honestly expecting either some kind of insane proxy hatch or a simple muta all-in and just hope that he can push through Light’s defenses. But I do expect that if this map reaches this point, that Light will take it.

Light > Soulkey

Map 7: Monty Hall
ZT: 44-52 (45.8%)

What a final map to end a series on. It’s surprising that this map is actually quite a balanced map for how quirky it is. Will one of these players have the courage to lay it all on the line, and prepare something extra special on this map, some absurd cheese that we’ve never seen before? Something that rivals the infamous FlaSh vs Bisu cheese? Or will it be a more standard macro clash? I really have no clue, it’s so difficult to guess what players are going to do on this map, but if I had to lay it all on the line, I think that Light will be the one to try for something sneaky like a 2 port wraith, but Soulkey will hold on and eventually take this game if it reaches a Game 7.

Light < Soulkey

Soulkey wins 4-3 and advances to the semifinals!

GOne of the most exciting things to come out from the season so far has been BarrackS who has showcased some of the most well planned build and just excellent execution, far more refined than we are used to in this era of professional play, the truth did in fact come out in his Ro16 winner’s interview after beating hero and Bisu that had been practising with Flash.

While not taking away anything from BarrackS because for all the practice and support he gets, if he can’t execute then its all for nothing. Just having someone on that level to help you prepare and do the map analysis and build development is really going to boost BarrackS ability to take on even one of the best protoss players like Snow.

Speaking of whom, Snow, depending on who you ask, would say just managed to survive his Ro16 encounter with Speed making him look a bit shaky going into this series against BarrackS. Barring the opening match against speed where Snow went really greedy with all the tech at once but at the cost of not having much of an army or even microing what he had. The biggest issue was that he was out multitasked, Speed, true to his name was one of the fastest players in the league who knew how to efficiently use his speed, BarrackS on the other hand is about as fast as Speed but his effectiveness relies on a good execution of his build rather than on the fly decisions which is what Snow could not adjust to.

Snow needs to adjust his playstyle and even though its a Bo7 try not to risk pulling the omni tech build if he’s not confident.

Frankly, I think that Snow has already learned his lesson about keeping an eye out for vulture harassment anyway, especially in that final game on Minstrel.

Maps:

Deja Vu - BarrackS Pick
TP: 86 wins, 85 losses (50.3%)

While online its probably the most balanced map, Protoss is yet to beat Terran on the map in the season so far, makes sense that Barracks would pick it first, the high ground middle makes it very good for terran to make their pushes onto multiple protoss bases at once. I think BarrackS will be able to take this one.

Minstrel - Snow Pick
TP: 66 wins, 67 losses (49.6%)

Results online show that Minstrel is also very balanced but so far in the ASL this is the most favored map for Protoss against Terran, which makes sense its a 2 player map with a lot of ridges much like Heartbreak Ridge, making it an excellent carrier map as showcased by Snow himself against Speed. Snow picked this first, its probably his most confident map, he most likely will take the win on it.

Pantheon - BarrackS Pick
TP: 102 wins, 78 losses (56.7%)

This map is understandably great for Terran because of how hard it is for the protoss player to secure a 3rd gas base forcing them to choose between a 3rd mineral only base with a double wide ramp or a gas base but with an awkward ramp setup that makes it easy to siege and hard to defend against forcing a protoss player to be limited to being more aggressive in the early game, if BarrackS can prepare for the obvious early game pushes. He should take the win.

Dominator - Snow Pick
TP: 115 wins, 135 losses (46.0%)

Or as we know it, 3 player Gladiator, plays much like it too but with fewer bases that the terran can take advantage of as the game goes longer, which is how Snow managed to outlast Speed. This one goes to Snow

Radeon - BarrackS Pick
TP: 443 wins, 410 losses (51.9%)

Standard map of the series, the more seasoned and better player should win, by this point I expect BarrackS’s inexperience being on the stage to start showing. I think this is where Snow starts pulling ahead.

KICK BACK - Snow Pick
TP: 74 wins, 80 losses (48.1%)

An interesting Troy like base setup with the double naturals is a huge boon for protoss than terran, I foresee this to be the map Snow does his best reaver work against BarrackS.


Monty Hall
TP: 62 wins, 58 losses (51.7%)

Not at all surprising that Monty Hall is the last map in the series, most players want to avoid it like the plague, its not bad for either race per se, even historically going all the way back to 2007, it really comes down to scouting on this one, the map almost never plays out the same way every time, living up to its name.


Both players decided to get their heavier picks for the middle of the series instead of blowing it on the start, shows that they’re trying their best to end the series early. BarrackS especially, seeing as how he tried to push Radeon back as much as possible.

If this goes to Game 7 its anyone’s game, but I think Snow has the better chance to end it in 6, though neither player is looking forward to who their potential next opponent is.

Snow Advances to the Ro4!

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Writers: BLinD-RawR, FlashFTW, Simplistik
Graphics: v1
Editors: BLinD-RawR