Defying the odds and enduring heartbreaks, thats what competition has always been about as we march to the remaining Ro8 matches.

BeSt absolutely defied the odds against Queen to advance to his first Ro4 appearance in 2 years, in the 2nd match however not only were odds not defied, all hopes for it were crushed by Light as he very easily dispatched of Jaedong to advance.

Now BisuDagger and FlashFTW look ahead to Rain taking on Snow both excellent protoss players and the best at PvP as well and following that we have a rematch of the ASL16 Ro4, Rush and Soulkey, Rush has been the only terran so far to have ever taken Soulkey to the limit in ASL, can he do it again? Can he go beyond? or will Soulkey show dominance again.

Queen vs BeSt Recap by Simplistik.

Liquipedia

Round of 8, Match 1, Queen vs Best

ASL19 has been great so far. And the first quarter final, between Queen and Best, raised the level again. The whole series was compelling, as the winner was unclear almost all the way to the end, with some wild momentum swings along the way. Let us have a look what went down.

Set 1, Metropolis
Best opens strong with an old Protoss classic: 9/10-gate.



Queen defends fairly well, but still takes some economic damage in the process. Best holds the hydra-counter and then channels his inner Mantoss to run over the flimsy Zerg defences with pure zealot. Who needs templars?

Set 2, Eclipse
Queen punches straight back with early ling pressure that does too much damage. Best hangs on for a while, but even a 10-kill DT doesn't manage to even the economic odds. Eventually, mutalisks pick of the templars. And the Protoss army gets swept aside by a tsunami of hydralisks.



Set 3, Dominator SE
Best holds off the 9-pool perfectly even though he opened gate first and started his nexus before warping in the first cannon. This gives him the opportunity to mix in a DT drop. A Zergling misses the shuttle by mere pixels, but Queen senses that something is off, and pulls his drones before taking too much damage.



During the drop Best throws away all of his zealots. Maybe that was intended to be a distraction, but it didn't work. And after that very poor trade Queen is in a commanding position and, once again, rides his advantage to victory.

Set 4, Death Valley
And so we arrive at Death Valley. I figured that there must've been a reason why Best picked the map, but I don't think anyone really knew what was coming. This was, by some margin, the game of the tournament so far. The game was long, action-packed, with smart strategies and rarely seen units. This game is even better than Best's ASL15 exploits on Nemesis. And should Best end up winning this tournament (a tall order given that Soulkey, Light and Snow are still here), it will surely attain legendary status.

Best spawns in the bottom right and opens forge first into nexus to the North. Protoss probably can't open by taking the base behind the mineral wall, because defending two openings early game is too hard. Queen opens over-pool again and then takes both his closest bases. A drone mines out the mineral wall on the North side. A zealot wanders around the top off the map and then slides through between the Zerglings all the way to the lair. Both players tech and macro for a bit, then Best goes on the offensive.



While poking at the top with some zealots (and a DT), another dark templar slips through the minerals and slices up some drones. But once again, Queen is on top of it. And he's got plans of his own.



A hatchery starts growing at what would normally be Protoss' third base location. This is serious trouble for Best, because Zerg now controls the important side of both gates to the wealth of the West. To make matters worse, this isn't something that Best had encountered in practice, as we learn later in the interview.

More Zerg units trickle down and start lurking, in some cases literally, near the mineral wall. Best responds by warping in some cannons on the high ground. He needs to worry about drops too. A band of zealots takes up a position outside the Zerg natural to provide cover for taking the top right base.

The Protoss forces have a go at the Zerg base, but lurker reinforcements arrive and force a retreat. Feeling secure, Queen takes another base. Best is now on a clock. Minerals at his natural are already running low, and he will surely lose if Zerg can get five uncontested geysers.

Queen has obviously done his Overmind-assigned homework. Hydralisks shoot down one of the troy-assimilators and damage the other one. If necessary, Zerg can abandon the poor Northeast and grow fat on the oil riches of Texas the Southwest.



Meanwhile, a fresh band of zealots has been shuttled into the centre, to start putting on some pressure. But they encounter far too many hydralisks to get anything done. There might have been a brief opening to thin out the defences at 5 o'clock, but keeping the observer alive would've been very difficult. One lurker decides to check Best's tax return.



There are three cannons in range, but they only fire once an observer arrives, because reasons. Best now has the kind of army composition and size that can really hurt a Zerg in the mid-game. But his only attack vector would be shoving into Queen's natural. Zerg is gathering resources at six locations, while Protoss is still on three. Best needs a miracle. And, given that he is literally Protoss-Jesus, he simply conjures one up out of dreams and thin air.



Best's army is hanging around nowhere interesting, staring at some rocks, and then the observers shows us an arbiter floating gently along the top edge of the map. The Protoss force teleports straight onto the defending hydras, which get wiped out almost in an instant. The crowd and the commentators go crazy. Queen does a funny little head bobble as he starts evacuating his drones and bringing over reinforcements.



The bulk of the Protoss force secures the ramp, while the rest starts slicing through the Zerg tech buildings. The spire, queen's nest and one evolution chamber die. Hydralisks slither up from the natural as Queen scrambles to clear the Protoss invaders out of his base. Another wave of Protoss forces hits the Zerg natural and quickly overwhelms the defenders.



Best has two opportunities to shut the gate, but he leaves it open, perhaps hoping that his reinforcements can get through. But they take their sweet time clearing up the Zerg natural instead. Fearing, rightly, that he would get overrun, Queen abandons his natural and closes off the entrance. One hydra gets trapped on the other side and bangs on the gates screaming for help, Hollywood-style.



Meanwhile, a few zealots roam around the Southwest causing trouble. Queen has taken some blows, but he still has four bases mining in relative safety on the richer side of the map. So Best needs to keep pushing his advantage. And what better way to do this than with another recall.



The top left central base is completely undefended, so the Protoss units go to town. A few transferred drones get stormed in the process and Best's supply lead grows to 70. The units from the second wave have mostly survived and rotate round the centre towards 9 o'clock, where they are joined by a third recall.



There is initially no overlord, so the Zerg units can't see some of their mortal foes. There are lurkers, but there are also templars and Best did manage to drag one observer through the warp. But unfortunately, this observer gets electrocuted when the hydras get stormed. So some of the lurkers survive, and the Protoss army runs out of means to deal with them. There was one more storm available, but it wouldn't have been able to hit all the lurkers.

In hindsight, this was the turning point. If the lurkers go down, the base is dead and most of the Protoss forces live. The hatchery at 8 o'clock will soon follow, and Best can choose how to wrap up the game. As it is, Zerg swallows up the the attackers at both bases and clings on.



The game was incredibly complicated at this point. Best had quite a few different options. Maybe he could've used his units to set up a forward position at the bottom right central base. If he can get some cannons up there, he probably has a path to victory. Or maybe he could've broken six o'clock, where he has better access to reinforcements like observers or templars in a shuttle. But, let's leave those possible worlds behind and get back to the actual game.

Zerg has been reduced to two mining bases, at 10 and 9 o'clock, and is also getting gas from 6 o'clock. The hatchery at 8 o'clock has survived, so that can be resaturated. Protoss is only mining at 2 o'clock. This is OK for now, as the army is still large, but can't go on for long. One available location is the Zerg natural, so Best slowly takes that and the game goes full circle.



But even with that base, it won't be enough. Best still has to get his troops across if he wants to finish off the swarm. Time for another recall attempt into the main. But Queen is surely now looking out for arbiters, so some deception is called for.



I never realised that the three geysers are lined up. How pleasing. Unfortunately, for Best, scourge are in place and they sniff out the correct arbiter on the second attempt. I suppose it's just about possible that Queen checked the energy of the five units, which would've revealed the real one. (If I understand hallucination correctly, they would've all had the same amount of health and shield.)

As his advantage starts evaporating along with his ineffective illusions, what could Best possibly try next? What any self-respecting Protoss does in this situation. He shuttles a couple of DT's across. And at the same time he recalls into 6 o'clock. This provides cover for probes to start mining out the mineral wall as well.



The recall goes well. Zealots and dragoons overwhelm the sunken colonies and lurkers. This time the observer stays alive too. The swarm responds immediately by sending everything with teeth or claws towards the Southern base. The DT's run into some units and get cleared up. One of the mineral patches crumbles which allows zealots and templars to start squeezing through.



What follows is perhaps the closest fight of the entire series. Storms electrocute a good number of hydras, but Queen's micro is solid so he avoids the worst. Initially the Protoss forces cling on, but more and more Zerg units start pouring out of the hatcheries. Queen has been macroing efficiently, while Best floats over 1000 minerals, probably because he's busy controlling his complicated army. When a clutch of fresh lurkers joins the fray, the Protoss force has to withdraw.



Top right is mined out. Best knows time is against him, so he gathers his remaining units for one last hurrah. But there is too much Zerg. The lurkers are spread out well and scourge take down the arbiters. In response, Best pulls out one last fan service move and treats us to a stasis field.



One more arbiter gets scourged, and with no option left to gain more income, Best is forced to tap out.

GG!

What a game. These were some of the longest and most beautiful 24 min in Brood War history. Absolutely incredible. Is it too early to call this the game of the season?

Two seasons ago, this would've been the end of Best's run. Going out in a blaze of glory is nice of course. But staging an epic comeback from 1-3 down is surely better. It's true that some of these Ro8 Bo7's have been blow-outs, but this series is surely a good argument for keeping the format.

Set 5, Radeon
Interestingly, if you look at the players' faces after game 4, Best looked positive and entertained, while Queen appeared to be suffering. But of course it is our protest contender with his back against the wall. It's almost a meme that Best plays better when he's behind, but there appears to be a kernel of truth to it. Facing elimination, he takes off his jacket, offers some prayers and gets down to business.



The business in question being a very technical cannon rush against a 12-hatch opening. I think this might be one of the more complex shenanigans I've ever seen. Best starts and cancels several pylons and cannons in a way that seems to be completely baffling to Queen, who even loses a drone to a probe. He sends eight lings to take back his natural.



But with yet another fresh pylon, the lings are funneled in one at a time and get splattered, one at a time. So at 4 min, Queen sits on 650 minerals after canceling his natural hatchery twice. Best rides out the predictable hydra pressure and then pushes out onto the map with speed-lots and templars. At a critical point two zealots kill all the drones and the hatchery at 6 o'clock thanks to some very good screening and the game spirals from there.



I'd love to know what Queen was thinking after this game. He certainly didn't look like he had comfortable lead.

Set 6, Deja Vu SE
Queen continues with relatively safe openings and gets punished hard by a cross-map 12-nexus. Best uses his economic advantage to get out a couple of quick DT's. And with accurate scouting information from his corsair, they get a lot of work done.



In the end the cloak-boys get 13 kills between them, including a sunken colony. Trying to catch up on economy, Queen gets too greedy and just doesn't have anything to deal with the invisible men. This puts Zerg even further behind, so that the next zealot-archon-corsair attack ends the game.



The crowd is loving it. And so we go the distance. Best is buzzing. Can Queen keep it together?

Set 7, Pole Star
In the final game, Queen decides to gamble on a speed-ling opening, but just like his 12-hatch and his safe builds, this too backfires as he runs into cross-map forge first. To make matters worse, Best successfully hides a probe in the Zerg main which gifts him a comfortable early game.



Instead of hydra pressure, Queen tries to catch up economically. But this time Best comes for him with an early +1 speed-lot attack. Three zealots dash into the main as a distraction and six more pounce on the Zerg third at 11 o'clock.



Mutalisks hatch, but they don't kill zealots with the required urgency. As a result, Queen takes significant damage again. The game almost ends when a DT nearly slips into the main.

However, the fast upgrades and DT's mean that Best doesn't have the resources to also warp in corsairs. Protoss is still on two bases and can't allow Zerg to stabilise. The only option is to go for a pre-Bisu zealot attack supported by two archons. This time Queen holds fairly comfortably and now he has a chance. Best pivots into building up his goon count while teching. Because there are barely any hydralisks out, the dragoons can pick off one of the macro hatcheries.



A full flock of mutas sharks around, killing cannons, probes and templars. Best has his third base running when the swarm finally mobilises significant ground forces. The game, and therefore the entire series, comes down to one critical battle at five o'clock. Mutalisks have successfully eliminated the templar threat and the Protoss army is somewhat out of position. A few emergency cannons start warping in. If Queen can cut off Best's third, then he has a good chance to take the game. Lurkers unburrow and hydras slither forward.



Two lurkers decide to follow their sat nav instead of using their actual eyes, or whatever it is they use to sense their environment. So they skitter straight into the Protoss army and get obliterated. The other two lurkers burrow too far away. Photon cannons buy enough time for Aiur's finest to get up the ramp.

When the dust settles, Best has reclaimed the driver's seat. The nexus and most of the probes live. The goon core is still intact and Protoss has a comfortable 40 supply lead on even bases. Queen squeezes his three base economy for all that it's worth and his fliers continue to assassinate high templars. But it's not enough. Best has a huge dragoon force with better upgrades.



One of the fresh Zerg bases goes down. Eventually, Best has warped in so many high templars that even the mutalisks get overloaded. And once they hit Zero's fourth base, the writing is on the wall.



Huge storms devastate the remaining hydralisks and the dragoons reign supreme.

GG!

What an incredible series. This is what Brood War is all about!



Best climbed one mountain. Can he scale two more to get on top of the world?

Two battle-tested Protoss players will face off against each other in the most epic PvP we could ask for. Snow, who has defeated Rush and Mini, faces off against Rain, who has defeated Action twice, and will now have to play against each other. This preview will cover the players, but not the maps because it is a mirror matchup where the only advantage players have is the fear they instill in their opponents.

Snow continues to enter the ASL as one of the tournaments top players. For nearly a decade, he has been considered a top dog, yet winning ASL has eluded him all this time. Snow’s greatest skill comes from his ability to exploit reaver player. This was showcased greatly as he dismantled Rush in the last round. Snow also holds the record for a reaver with 72 unit kills in a televised match. Coming from the Kespa era, Snow held a 67% winrate in PvP and continues to dominate the matchup as seen in his series versus Mini.

Rain is both an ASL and KSL champion. He is a PvP powerhouse and his tournament win come off Protoss heavy tournaments. In fact, Rain has only won in a final against Protoss opponents. It’s possible again for this trend to continue, should BeSt and Rain make to the final. Now, Rain holds over a 90% winrate in PvP in the post-Kespa era, hasn’t lost a best of series versus Protoss, and doesn’t look like he can be stopped.

Snow and Rain have history with each other. Dating back to 2018, Rain defeated Snow (3-1) in the ASL Season 5 finals. The following year, Rain defeated Snow (4-0) in the 3rd/4th place match. It looked like history would repeat itself later in 2019, when both Snow and Rain dominated ASL Season 8. However, Rain got knocked out in the round of 4, leaving Snow an even tougher opponent, Flash. He lost that series 0-4.

The 2020’s era of ASL has gone quieter for Snow and Rain. Last season fate tried to bring these players together by pairing them in a round of 16 group stage, but they managed to avoid each other. Still, with their success, the players were seeded from their outstanding performances in the last season, and one of them will gain a seed along with this victory if they advance.

Predictions:

Map 1 <Death Valley>: Rain

Map 2 <Eclipse>: Rain

Map 3 <Metropolis>: Rain

Map 4 <Deja Vu SE>: Rain

Rain Advances To The Ro4!

Soulkey

I could probably just leave this part as “don’t even question it,” but that wouldn’t be as fun for me, or for the readers. Soulkey has continued to show his prowess in ZvT, a matchup that most other Zergs still have issues with even in spite of the better map pool this season. He seems to have no issues dismantling his Terran prey, despite their best attempts at trying to throw him off his game with weird and unconventional openings. He systematically took apart Scan’s valiant attempt at a 2 port wraith, and took down Light 2-1 using an overpool to hard counter a 14cc, and read Light’s plan of a vessel/tank into mech strategy on Death Valley. The man simply is the smartest player in the game right now, and it’s too hard to try to outplay him mechanically too. Not to mention he doesn’t default to 12 hatch into 2 hatch muta every game, he has the ability to mix in pool first builds to catch his opponents napping. He is both the sword AND the shield at the moment and there’s no easy or simple way to penetrate his defenses. In a Bo1 format, you might have a chance of trying to catch him off guard like Light did in his center 8 rax game. But over a seven game series? Forget about it. The only matchup that Soulkey would have a chance of losing in at the moment is a ZvZ, but all the other Zergs got eliminated in their respective Ro8s, so now there’s no one left to stop Soulkey from his historic 4-peak. Oh, and one last thing, did I mention Soulkey is 3-0 against Rush in the ASL, beating him in ASL12, 16, and SSL Autumn? Yeah, this one was over before it began.

Rush

Rush has yet again managed to make it into the bracket stage of another ASL, bringing his tally up to 9 bracket appearances in his last 10 events. Unfortunately, he had to run into the current monster of the Brood War scene, and with not a great track record against Soulkey, chances aren’t looking so good for him. But I wouldn’t count him totally out (maybe a little bit). Rush’s clean and technical style of play means that he won’t simply fold to Soulkey’s aggression, and he can stand up to him in a macro game. After all, he nearly knocked out Soulkey in a tight 3-4 loss in the ASL16 semifinals. Rush has also demonstrated that, although it wasn’t the easiest path to the bracket (dropping games to Speed and Snow), even in the face of enormous pressure in both those losses, he can still find ways to right the ship and play a competitive game. Holding his nerve will be key to attempting to upset Soulkey. One example was from their ASL16 matchup where in Game 1, Soulkey cleverly disguised a 9 pool and caught Rush off guard in the early game. Despite his marines constantly being killed and being set behind, Rush calmly navigated the mid-game, took minimal losses to the muta harass, and used his brilliant multitasking with dropships and rock solid play to find the comeback and win the game. He’s going to need to tap into those skills that allowed him to repeat that competitive series on Tuesday.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think both players demonstrate a very technical and solid style of play that is going to set up to be a very exciting series. But when players are stylistic mirrors against one another, the player who is even just a tiny bit better typically comes out on top. Plus, there are very few gimmick maps this season, with Death Valley being the lone experimental map. But Soulkey has even demonstrated his ability to navigate through experimental maps in the past too (and by the way, he selected Death Valley for game 5). I don’t think this will be as one-sided as some other people may think, but I do still think this matchup is close to 85/15 in favor of Soulkey.

Map 1: Metropolis

This map has definitely looked really good for Zergs with the exposed mains and naturals being susceptible to mutalisk harass, and I don’t see how this will be any different. If anything, I expect Rush to start off with something a bit cheeky like an 8 rax gas similar to what Light did in Game 2 of his series with Soulkey. With that in mind, Soulkey might open with an overpool as he’s been known to do when he suspects some odd build. But if Rush can get himself into the mid-game with no issues, his heavy dropship play could come in clutch as the open air that favors mutalisk harass can also come back to favor dropship play.

Map 2: Pole Star

Pole Star has been good for Terrans, and every Zerg has been vetoing this map in their ZvT matchups (all 3 Zergs vetoed Pole Star in their Bo3 series in the Ro16). There’s no surprise why Rush picked this as his first choice map for the series. If Rush has already snuck a win in Game 1, we could definitely see a bit of an upset here if Rush can also snatch victory in this game to push it to a 2-0 advantage. If there’s one map I actually favor Rush over Soulkey, it would be this one.

Map 3: Dominator

Another good map for mutalisk harass, my guess would be that Soulkey can push for a mid-game advantage with his mutas. But Rush’s solid bio play coupled with his knack for finding weaknesses in the Zerg’s defense to get drops in will be critical to his chances of winning this game.

Map 4: Deja Vu

We’ve seen that even at a significant disadvantage in his finals match against Sharp on this map, that Soulkey’s mutalisk control can still make it a game. The more standard the map, the more I would favor Soulkey, and Deja Vu is no different.

Map 5: Death Valley

The funky map of the map pool, Soulkey’s intelligence and understanding of how to play every situation makes me favor him here. While Rush has good tendencies to get damage with drops, I think Soulkey will understand the potential weaknesses on this map and will do all he can to shore up the air defense.

Map 6: Radeon

If there’s a map that I fully anticipate Soulkey to go 2.5hatch style, this is the map. He’s shown that he likes that style on this map with the wide middle to surround the Terran army. I fully anticipate this map being a very typical and standard affair.

Map 7: Eclipse

I anticipate that someone is going to lay it all on the line if the series makes it to a Game 7. My guess is that Rush will deviate from standard and open with a more harass focused build like a 1/1/1 and try to disrupt Soulkey as best as he can.

Soulkey wins 4-1 To Advance To The Ro4!

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