We witnessed what was probably the expected end for this season of the ASL, but it did not come easy for anyone who participated. Many will call ASL19 one of the best seasons if not the best and I won't deny it. Not only did it give us great starcraft but gave us real stakes on believing someone could topple Soulkey. It didn't happen this season, but ASL20 is already on the horizon, who knows who will sail across the screaming sea to catch a glimpse of victory.

But for now, lets recap.

The best ASL season in living memory has come to a close. (It almost was the Best season, but the leaves were still too green.) And like the rest of the tournament, the final was also great, with three amazing games and yet another whacky Death Valley appearance to boot. I would love to know what would happen if we took all the wonkiest ASL maps and made a tournament exclusively with those. (Other than a very long list of balance complaints...) Just imagine, Death Valley, Sparkle, Gold Rush, Nemesis, Block Chain, Multiverse, 76, Inner Coven! It would be glorious. Deeply unfair. But glorious.

Before we get into the games, let's take a moment to appreciate Soulkey's incredible resilience under pressure. This season, Protoss had four match points and Soulkey won all of them. Last season, Soulkey was almost untouchable, dropping a laughable three maps on the way to his third final. But before that, he was tested every time. In ASL17 the Iron Wall was 0-2.5 down against Mini and faced a game seven ZvZ. And the wall stood. In season 16 Soulkey was 0-2 down against JyJ, who knocked him out before, and then 2-3 against Rush. But the champion won all five of the necessary knock-out games. If we go back a little further and include ASL15 and 14, Soulkey has faced a total of 18 knockout games, against the very best opponents, and he won 16. The two losses were against the eventual champions Royal and JyJ. Which makes you wonder, when was the last time Soulkey wasn't in the zone? Probably in ASL13, more than three years ago, when he failed to convert his advantage over Rain. This is truly a remarkable record and I'm struggling to think of any good Brood War comparisons.

Best, too, has been steadfast this season, facing elimination match after elimination match, all the way to the final. A lot of his fans worried about how he would hold up psychologically. But with his performances against Queen, Light and SK, I think it's time we put the 'Best is weak mentally'-meme to bed now. That is not to say the challenger didn't make any mistakes. Of course he did. This is Brood War after all. And Soulkey punished each error mercilessly, as is the King's wont. And still, with a few small adjustments, we could have had a brand new champion. Could this be the season that finally galvanised Best's desire, that gave him the necessary belief to come back and actually win it one day? Only time can tell, but I truly hope so.

Let's get into the games.


Set 1 - Best <Eclipse> Soulkey

Best starts the series off by trying one of his citadel openings which worked so well against Queen. Soulkey has come prepared however. An overlord sees everything, which allows the champion to cancel his hydra den (started after the lair) and pivot into easy air dominance. To make matters worse for Best, lings get into the Protoss main and the first two zealots across the map don't do enough damage. Five mutalisks can't believe their luck when they find only one lonely cannon and a confused dragoon.



The Zerg flappers do as they please, baiting storms, sniping templars and wrecking probes. They even glaive a goon while blowing up the main nexus. Having gotten practically nothing done on the other side of the map, the weak Protoss defences get flattened by a surprisingly small number of hydralisks.

Maybe if Best had blocked the lings, then he could have killed the overlord, and without losing mining time he could have gotten a second cannon up... Lots of ifs. The only good news for Protoss fans at this point was that Best looked amused rather than shaken.


Set 2 - Best <Metropolis> Soulkey

In the second game, Soulkey takes the initiative with a 3-hatch hydra play which backfires. Zealots spot the low drone count at the third and there are plenty of cannons ready. The forge and the gateway go down, but the Zerg attack ends up in fleshy bits on the floor.



Corsairs add insult to injury by popping two overlords. Just before 10 min, Protoss literally doubles Zerg's supply. Best is so far ahead that he can play around with DT's, while goons and cannons easily hold the mutalisks at bay. Watching himself microing five bruised flyers to slowly pick off individual probes proves too much for our three-time-champion.


Set 3 - Best <Death Valley> Soulkey

The starters were so-so, but now we move on to the tasty part of the meal. Although public opinion appears to be firmly in favour of banishing the makers of Death Valley from the kitchen forever. Soulkey taught us that 5-pool is almost an auto-win against forge openings here, so I expect he expected what we all expected, namely a gate opening. Also turns out that the Overmind has many more devious plans.

Best must feel reasonably good about Death Valley, as he picked it in every knockout series. He decides to take the initiative with 9/9-gates just north of his natural. The location is quite interesting. An overlord heading straight to the natural might miss it. It is a little towards the Zerg base, but not that much. And perhaps it is very well positioned to deal with early pool openings.



The first zealot goes just barely unspotted by the overlord. Meanwhile, Soulkey has willed a drone to morph a hatchery at 5 o'clock, on the Protoss side of the map. That is also what Queen did, which ultimately won him the game.



Soulkey must have been suspecting 2-gate pressure, because he's been spawning lings almost non-stop. As soon as the overlord spots the gateways, said lings get to work breaking one side of the access to the Zerg base. Zealots arrive and force the zerglings to engage. Ten lings get a good surround and quickly kill one Protoss warrior. An assimilator implodes, but after a short slow-melee shuffle three zealots make it into the Zerg main, keeping the path open for now. There is a game of tag as Soulkey tries to kill the second assimilator from both directions whenever the zealots stray too far in either direction. But Best manages to clean up most of the lings on his side, which allows his units to start pressuring.

And this is the part of the series where Best blunders the worst, in several different ways, while Soulkey navigates the game perfectly. This wasn't ultimately the losing move as the challenger had opportunities in later games, but he missed a good opportunity to take a decisive lead by making a very avoidable mistake. He didn't scout. We don't know for sure what Best thought Soulkey was doing. My guess is he expected an expansion at 10 o'clock with maybe three or four drones. Of course this was completely wrong.



Instead, one drone had mined out the access to the Protoss main, completely unspotted, and lings were slowly building up there. At this point it still wasn't too late as the lings didn't have critical mass, but no probe or zealot ever bothered to have a look. Honestly, not popping a pylon in vision of the minerals is criminal. I get it, maximising for macro by placing pylons close to the nexus is usually better. But usually you also have much better information regarding what's going on.

Feeling completely, and unjustifiably, safe, Best warps in a nexus at 3 o'clock, while Soulkey is getting ready for the killing blow by mining out his own mineral wall as well.

At this point, Best has seven zealots in the Zerg main, but they don't do anything. They just stand there, in the wrong spot. After killing the assimilator, in a kind of Rorschach move, they can only do three things. First, killing drones. Difficult, because there are now two sunken colonies. Secondly, keeping an eye on what Zerg is doing. There are ten or maybe more lings, so they need to be a little careful that they don't get surrounded, but surely they can move along the edge of the map to check the two main points of interest: the ramp (with a view of the natural) and the geyser. And they do neither. They just stand there. Thirdly, they could block the ramp. But they just stand there. Honestly, I don't get it. Have I already mentioned what they zealots were doing? Yep, they just stood! I wonder if you can sense a measure of frustration...



Eventually, one of the zealots telepathically sends a message home that there's a drone mining out the ramp. But the orders to do something about it are too slow and most of the lings get out. And at this point Best still does not know that his new neighbours have literally drilled through the shared wall. Eight zerglings run through the Protoss base, seemingly out of nowhere and tear down the pylon by the gates. Best has been busy macroing and teching, so he has one zealot. No points for guessing what happens next.



Watching this, I was honestly groaning, as I'm sure spectators around the world and in the studio were as well. I feared that our fresh finalist would completely fall apart, as he suddenly found himself transported back to that mild, but humid summer evening half a lifetime ago. Best had practiced hard until long after dark. And after lifting some weights, he nipped out briefly in the cooler evening air to get some food. As he makes his way back to the practice house, his plastic shopping bags, filled with energy drinks and snacks for himself and the rest of the SKT crew, crinkle faintly. Pausing under a lamp post, he fumbles around for his keys, when a sudden tap on his shoulder makes him jump. He snaps around only to glimpse the flash of the EVER OSL trophy a fraction of a second before its spikes crash into the side of his head. On the hard, dusty ground, the last thing Best hears before passing out is the God of War ripping open the crimson wrapper of a Choco Pie. July's mercilessly grinning face has been seared into the deepest darkest corner of Best's mind, where it waits to jump out in ambush whenever Zerglings unexpectedly burst into a Protoss base.

And so we bid farewell to Death Valley, which ends its ASL run with a 100% record for Zerg, and 0% for Protoss. Just a tad lopsided, although the games themselves tell a different story I think. Still, it was fun while it lasted.


Set 4 - Best <Radeon> Soulkey

For a couple of minutes after the previous game, as he watched the replay and thought about his next move, Best's face keeps twitching. And even at the beginning of set 4, he still hadn't quite recovered voluntary control over his physiognomy. And yet, this is the season when Best turned from a contender into an actual challenger. Something happened to Best in those series against Queen and Light. He came out calmer and more focused. For the first time it looks like Best has the kind of grit that mortals need if they truly want to challenge the Gods. If Soulkey expected Best to roll over and hand him the trophy with a hug, he was in for a rude awakening.

The first few minutes are a little slow as we get cross-map overpool vs forge expand. Soulkey takes his two closest expansions as his zerglings scour the map. To my surprise, and delight, Best actually continues with a citadel and adds two more gateways in his natural. And unlike in set 1, this time no overlord is sent in deep enough to find out. The overmind's psi-detectors must've been tingling though, as Soulkey morphs a spire.



Eventually, at 6 min, an overlord does head in to find the lack of gateways as well as the early templar archives. The first few zealots, already with leg upgrades, arrive at Soulkey's natural and third base around the time that the first mutalisks hatch. Zerg holds the first wave fairly comfortably, with decent sim-city backed by one sunken at each location.

Feeling confident that the defences will hold the mutalisks flap across the map looking for some easy kills. But this time they are met by multiple cannons at both bases. And the remaining zealots use this moment to bulldoze their way through some zerglings at the Zerg natural. As well as all the lings, they also slice up the sunken colony and two workers, force drone drills and pull the mutalisks back.



I do wonder if four cannons at each nexus and a dark archon are not a little overkill against eight mutalisks, which will exert a significant drag on the Protoss economy. Seeing no more zealots come out, Soulkey drones up, while Best warps in more gateways and starts building up a goon army and early templar energy. When the red archon eventually gets spotted by three mutas, it retaliates, but this also feels a little wasteful.



At this point Zerg actually edges ahead in supply as the first clutch of lurkers hatches. It's starting to look like Best is taking too long to build up for the first mid-game push. Soulkey decides that he's ready for a fight and starts morphing a fresh hatchery in the bottom left corner as his army starts heading South. Two sneaky stop lurkers are biding their time outside the Protoss natural, hoping to spear some templars. Without a stargate, observers are out quickly though, so this gambit comes to nought.



A massive dragoon templar force rumbles into the centre of the map and the Zerg units mostly melt away into the shadows, quickly slithering home. Behind his big stick, Best expands to 3 o'clock and, crucially, an observer finds the Zerg fourth. Most of the hydralisks are at the top left, so the Protoss force manages to get into the bottom left natural virtually unopposed. This is dangerous for both players. Best has to be extremely careful not to get his main army trapped, while Soulkey is unable to reinforce his fourth base.



Best opens proceedings by attacking the ramp with dragoons and storms. The swarm starts pouring south in response. There are a lot of Zerg units, but they find it difficult to engage the dragoons in that narrow area, with still a few storms and a maelstrom left.



Protoss reinforcements arrive first with a band of zealots sandwiching the hydralisks. Soulkey desperately clings onto his base by morphing sunkens. He's not even mining gas there at the moment, but Best has too much.



Still, if Zerg can somehow lock that Protoss force in and grind it down, then it might be hard for Best to recover enough fighting power. So more hydras and lurkers come down to set up a contain outside the bottom left natural. The Protoss units split, only a few staying in the main to finish off the buildings and the rest stays near the choke on the low-ground. There are three observers, but all the templars are gone, so it's difficult for Best to engage.



Soulkey wastes three lurkers by sending them too far forward where they get picked off by dragoons. The rest of the Protoss units then retreat up the ramp. The swarm pulls back towards the centre while expanding to 12 o'clock, which gets scouted by a DT. Now on even bases, Protoss supplies start surging ahead, but the army is still split up. When Best tries to pull the pieces together, hydras and lurkers drive a wedge between the separate groups, in another attempt to overwhelm the survivors in the bottom left. Although, given that there are only six goons, one zealot and an archon now, I'm not sure that's really very important.



On the positive side, this keeps Best busy in the South and away from where Soulkey is expanding. The main Protoss death ball arrives from the centre, and it looks like Soulkey decides to run. But just when the Protoss army turns back to the centre, the swarm comes in again to have a go at the stragglers. This forces Best to turn around again and we get a fight.



Initially the exchange looks good for Zerg, but then the slower templars arrive and the storms do good damage. Overall, this exchange probably went slightly in Soulkey's favour. His fourth base is also finished, but it's not clear he can actually fight the Protoss army. Best realises that the game will go on for a bit longer and starts warping in a fresh nexus at 6 o'clock, which gives us an aesthetically pleasing mirror setup.

Soulkey would love to deny the Protoss fourth base, so he sends the swarm South again. A couple of mediocre storms go off before the hydras snipe two templars. Nevertheless, there are enough dragoons, with slightly better upgrades, to hold the line.



One DT fails to abuse the chaos enough to slip into Soulkey's newest base. Best briefly loses sight of the Zerg army and is caught slightly out of position when a large gob of hydras slither into 3 o'clock. They kill a few probes, but the four cannons buy enough time for reinforcements to arrive and the outcome is another decent victory for Protoss.



On four bases, Zerg can churn out a lot of unit, so Soulkey throws a few more waves at his opponent in the centre of the map. But now two upgrades down he's not getting the returns he needs, and Best maintains a healthy supply lead. Zerg is under increasing pressure to make something happen and so a new hatchery starts morphing, unspotted for the time being, in the top right.

Having swatted aside one battle Zerg attack after another, Best finally pulls all his units together and marches north. There is one last engagement, which the dragoons win decisively by mowing down a bunch of uncouth peasants. And Soulkey is forced to concede.




Set 5 - Best <Deja Vu SE> Soulkey

Soulkey sticks to his guns with another overpool into two hatcheries at expansions, 8 and 9 o'clock respectively. Best opens forge and finds his opponent first in close positions. Overlords spot the first two zealots heading out onto the map, where they hang around the centre for a bit, waiting for the right time to scout. Of course, this is one of the ways to die to Soulkey: not having at least two zealots in your wall when ten speed-lings arrive. One zealot warps in just before the lings arrive, but it doesn't quite plug the gap on the right.



The probe pull is slightly too slow, so six lings get through into the main. Best immediately warps in a cannon in his main mineral line. The good news, from the Protoss perspective, is that Soulkey's economy is ropey after spawning so many lings. There are infinitely more zealots at his third base than drones.

Best's defensive micro is spot on and Zerg is also forced to make more lings to deal with the zealots, so Protoss actually comes out ahead economically. The first corsair ignores the overlord in the Protoss natural and sails straight into the Zerg main to find the spire about to finish, so more corsairs are called through the warp. Two overlords pop as the scourge scout.

Soulkey pivots into hydralisks as Best readies a band of +1 speed-lots to see if he can do some damage. The warriors are out on the map when a sneaky group of hydra-ling suddenly bursts into the Protoss natural. The three cannons get overwhelmed quickly and there are no defenders, so this looks like it will do a lot of damage.



And then a perfectly timed dark templar materialises, fades into the shadows and starts serving up hydralisk rumps. We get treated to a tense and messy fight, where Best tries to warp in a new line of cannons, while hydras stream in from different angles. Zealots try to keep the snakes at bay, but some slip through. Corsairs work hard to protect the DT.



The cannons finish, partially helped by an opportune supply block, before Zerg can scrape together enough spitting-power. The first two high templars also arrive, so the hydralisk attack ultimately fails, which leaves Best in a very good position going into the midgame.

Next, Soulkey hatches a small flock of mutas and scourge, at least partly to stop losing overlords cheaply. There is a short air skirmish, but neither side loses anything significant. In the background hydralisks have manoeuvred onto the ridge outside the Protoss natural and a few of them start morphing into lurkers. With Soulkey I can never quite tell, so perhaps the mutas were a feint, trying to make his opponent overcommit on air defences?



Either way, The larger Protoss army seizes the high-ground, forcing Soulkey to cancel the lurkers and run. For a large part of the remaining game Best shows us superb army splitting and movement to prevent Zerg from taking up favourable forward positions on the raised ring around the centre of the map.

Immediately after the dragoons have pushed past three o'clock, a probe warps in a nexus there, followed by some cannons. Instead of expanding, Soulkey decides to contest the Protoss base. There are two paths and the swarm pokes and prods both directions alternately depending on where the core of Best's army has gone. Throughout the fighting Soulkey quickly and accurately snipes templar after templar. This should swing the battle in Zerg's favour, but somehow there are always just enough gateway units, with better upgrades, to stem the bleeding.

Initially, the Protoss forces move well to parry attacks on both sides. But in the chaos a few hydras slip through to pick off a few of the warping cannons.



Three of them take an unauthorised break behind the minerals, until a round of transferred probes arrive and force the slackers, reluctantly, back to work. At the same time, Best's army gets pulled out of position by an attack along the Southern ridge. The brood waiting to the north immediately seizes on this opportunity and rushes into the open expansion. It looks for all money that the nexus is doomed to fall as both players struggle to get their larger units, dragoons and lurkers , into good positions through their respective chokes.



Most of the lurkers don't manage to get in range of the nexus as the hydras are in the way. The probes evacuate, leaving space for zealots to wrap around the right side of the nexus and push back the onslaught. Soulkey decides to back off instead of suiciding units for the kill, and so the nexus lives, for now.

A fresh brood attacks along the southern vector, but is stopped by a solid line of goons. Although, without significant storm or zealot support Best's army size starts dwindling. The walking tombs hold on thanks to reinforcements trickling in and a solitary DT. As the fight turns in Aiur's favour, the eager warriors start pursuing a few fleeing hydralisks. This ill discipline turns out to be a mistake, as any student of ancient battles could have predicted.



Soulkey is slowly running out of steam, but he has the wherewithal to send a small clutch around the top to finish off the nexus. Given that Zerg is still on three bases and will start running low on minerals soon this move successfully prolongs the game. Best, on the other hand, is now in serious economic trouble as the mineral crisis starts biting hard. His main is mined out and the five blocks of crystals remaining at the natural are all below 200.



Perhaps Soulkey could've kept pushing, and perhaps Best would've buckled. But instead a baby hatchery starts growing in the top left, which gives Protoss time to warp in a fresh nexus. Most of the corsairs, who had been keeping an eye on the northern half of the map, fly over a group of hydras and get shot down. The single remaining mutalisk tries, entirely in vain, to stop the nexus. The single remaining dark templar, however, does successfully abort the hatchery.



Despite this tactical victory, Protoss is still in danger as the mineral shortage has allowed Zerg to catch up in supply and start attacking on both sides again. This time Best has literally split his army into two groups to fight back on both sides simultaneously. And the high templars finally lands some decent storms. Given that the supplies are even, the swarm might be able to end the game here, but it would be risky. The main minerals are just running out, and if the fight goes badly Protoss could easily run away with the game. So Soulkey plays it safe and double expands. And we can all take a few deep breaths after fifteen minutes of non-stop action.

One thing that impressed me about Best's performance this game is his scouting. (Unlike on Death Valley... but I'm not bitter.) A corsair spots the new base at 6 o'clock just as the drones arrive, and before Soulkey is able to respond Protoss units come down the ramp and send the workers packing.



Worried about getting surrounded, quite reasonably, most of the Protoss units stay on the ridge and only move down the ramp when hydras start arriving from the other direction. Eyeing the full energy high templar, the Zerg units decide that they probably forgot to turn off the oven at home and skedaddle. The hatchery goes down without any fighting.

The same corsair has rotated around the map and also finds the top left expansions. As those are much harder to push, with lurkers already in place, Best is forced to start securing the top right by way of compensation. There are a few hydras, but nothing a large ground army can't handle and so a nexus starts warping in at 2 o'clock.

Soulkey has decided that he can't win quickly by contesting the top right as he has neither the tech nor the economy. So he starts to gear up for late game by getting his queen's nest around 22 min. Better late than never I guess. A sneaky attempt to re-take 6 o'clock is immediately snuffed out by dragoons.



A lot of drones arrive at the top left quadrant and revive the swarm's economy, while Best is still mining on one base. Zerg supplies surge past Protoss. And then half a dozen accumulated storms rain down on Soulkey's northern garrison and even the numbers.



Zerglings start sharking around the map, looking for openings, but the Protoss defences are sewn up tight. Best keeps skirmishing at the top, getting efficient trades with a patient storm-retreat-recharge-repeat cycle.



At the same time some Protoss forces posture around the South to prevent Zerg from taking another easy base. Soulkey is busy reinforcing his positions, macroing up, getting his upgrades and moving into defiler mode.



The champion exploits a small moment of poor positioning and sets up lurkers under swarm on the southern ridge outside of the Protoss natural. Best feels threatened and pulls most of his army together to storm the Zerg units back into the black void they crawled out of.



More and more lurkers and zerglings arrive and the situation starts looking dangerous for Protoss, although the supplies tell a different story. Soulkey is trading very inefficiently and loses well over fifty supply for in the end no real gain. Turns out that simply getting a bunch of units under dark swarm isn't enough in this situation. Best senses weakness and starts attacking the Zerg rally point, widening the supply gap even further.



Another consequence of this failed attack is that six o'clock is, once again, exposed and gets wiped out for the third time. Soulkey tries to get some units across to top right quickly, but Best is on it and this attack, too, comes to nothing.

The defending champion is definitely feeling the pressure now as his mouth stays open and he wobbles slightly in his chair. Zerg needs at least one more base to just stay in the game, so Soulkey sets up defences on the southern ridge to cover the entrance to six o'clock.

By contrast, after all the difficult situations throughout the early and midgame, Best is finally completely in control. He calmly expands to the top right and starts skirmishing in the South, while still thinning out the Zerg units at the top with clockwork regularity.

As the Protoss force makes progress clearing through the lurkers on the southern ridge, lurkers are forced to run around from the left to set up a defensive position closer to the hatchery.



Soulkey tries a counter attack in the North, but Best has so much more supply that he can easily defend that. On the other side of the map, a defiler is caught napping as a deceptively small group of zealots and archons just run onto half a dozen spread out lurkers and actually win the fight.



The swarm tries a last ditch sandwich, but the rest of the Aiur's force arrives and smashes everything Zerg to bits. The hatchery goes down and many drones die to splash damage.

Soulkey flops sideways and concedes. Best takes the lead to the intense pleasure of his fans (and neutrals everywhere I assume).




Set 6 - Best <Dominator SE> Soulkey

This is the third game this season Soulkey faces elimination. But, as usual, he had a sip to drink after his loss and somehow recentred himself. I'd be interested to hear how Best was feeling at this point. I was buzzing, because he was so close and playing so well.

Protoss opens forge and scouts Zerg second to find a 9-pool with six lings morphing. Two cannons are called for as a hatchery starts at the eastern natural, followed shortly by another at 2 o'clock.

Both players tech towards air units with the stargate starting a little before the spire. Two zealots amble up towards the north-eastern corner of the map, but don't manage to put any pressure on the drones.

The first corsair scouts all three Zerg bases, before heading home ahead of the inevitable scourge. A templar archives slowly shimmers through the dimensions. Three more zealots, shadowed by zerglings, make their way across the map.

Soulkey continues to grow his economy by adding two more hatcheries and spawning more drones. Both players add some defences, sunken colonies at both expansions and cannons in the main respectively. This is just as well for Soulkey, because zealot leg upgrades finish before the first mutalisks hatch.



Simultaneously, two small groups of Protoss warriors dash into the Zerg third and main. At the third they take down the sunken colony and at both bases they kill one drone. It's not super clear to me that this was actually worth it, but it does at least keep the mutas away for a few extra seconds.

Interestingly, Soulkey doesn't immediately send his mutalisks across. Instead he waits for a round of scourge. Best stopped warping in corsairs after his first two and with only two cannons in his main this game has the potential of turning into a repeat of game one.



Cutting corsairs means that psi storm research is faster and the first templar lands a significant blow, killing two Zerg flyers and heavily injuring the others. Without this storm there's a high chance that Protoss loses the nexus. As it is, scourge keep the corsairs away, but the five remaining mutalisks are very bruised, so the second cannon shoots down two more before it implodes, leaving only three. In the natural a dark archon is slowly charging up energy.

Best evacuates his probes temporarily, but the damage three mutas can do is very limited. They kill one probe and remove the nexus' shields before dragoons arrive to chase them off. Soulkey replenishes his air force somewhat and then expands to one o'clock. When our three time champion has his back to the wall, he apparently prefers to duke it out in big macro games.

(Could this be the key to beating Soulkey? Play defensive early in the series to deflect his aggression. Then turn the tables at the end when he feels that he can't gamble anymore? You tell me.)

The dark archon does it's best to stay hidden as scourge come through to scout. But it looks like Soulkey has sensed it anyway as he unstacks his mutalisks.



This time the hive is more than ten minutes faster and the first few lurkers are also slowly forming inside their cocoons. As his opponent sets up in a solid defensive pattern, Best is falling behind economically. Supplies are almost even and Zerg is two bases up and technologically on par.

The only thing Protoss really has is a large army with freedom to roam the map. So Best moves out into the middle while expanding to nine o'clock. The Protoss force, in one big ball, waltzes over to the Zerg natural, kills one lurker and a few zerglings and wanders off again.



A zergling swarm tries to counter, but turns around when it finds that the Protoss third base is more than secure. But they do manage to deny Best's attempt to take his mineral only base.



Of course, we all know what any self-respecting Protoss player does when things are starting to look bad. While the main force pushes into the narrow path between the two northern Zerg expansions, two dark templars shuttle into the main and slice up ten drones before Soulkey notices anything.



This distraction somewhat evens the odds and Best also finally lands a maelstrom, on some ground units, and a couple of decent storms. Another dark templar relieves an unsuspecting drone from the earthly burden of starting a new expansion at five o'clock.



Best is slowly but surely getting into the groove as he is approaching max supplies. Maybe he only gets really excited when he's finally macroing off more than ten gates. Whatever the reason, he swings around with his army and stops Soulkey's attempt to take his mineral only, emphatically.



However, this move leaves the Protoss forces out of position and a successful zergling counter forces Best to cancel his attempt to take ten o'clock. Meanwhile, Soulkey has another go at securing five o'clock. A few zealots with archon support try to intervene, but lurkers force them back.

With the large open centre, the two players keep losing track of each other's forces so that Best manages to get his army into five o'clock fairly unopposed to stamp it out once more.



And, once again, this allows zerglings to deny ten o'clock. Wait, have I get the map name wrong? Is this Deja Vu? So the game goes on four bases to five. Control over the last main base location is becoming more urgent for both players. Protoss upgrades hit 3-2-1, which is rather unusual in the modern game, while Zerg is at ground upgrade level 2 across the board.

Best repositions his forces to finally secure his fifth base. In hindsight, this looks like the moment to also secure the top left. Perhaps it could even be done sneakily by shuttling a probe into the main undetected and getting some cannons up.

Both players are mostly maxed and Soulkey's defensive playstyle is allowing him to actually build up a bank. Best is not managing to apply enough pressure in a resource efficient way, so he starts the final transition by warping in a support bay and another couple of robotics facilities.



And finally this is the moment when Soulkey seizes the initiative decisively. It starts with a small swarm of zerglings and lurkers attacking the Protoss mineral only, with defiler support. Initially there are enough zealots to defend.



But as more and more Zerg units pour in Best is forced to pull his main army south to help with the defending. The defence is successful, but a look at the minimap reveals that it was a pyrrhic victory, merely prolonging the inevitable. As soon as the Protoss forces have left the twelve o'clock area, the swarm repositions lurkers across from the nearby fortifications. A hatchery starts morphing almost immediately. This is spotted by a dark templar, who can't do anything to stop it alone.

Two speed shuttles appear to be heading to twelve o'clock, but then veer across the map to unload a squad of suicide infiltrators into the Zerg main. The zealots and DT's immediately destroy the spawning pool, but zerglings arrive before they can get much else done.



This is a cute move by Best, but it seems desperately besides the point. There are still four unmined locations on the map, and Soulkey controls them all, three with hatcheries either morphing or finished. I wonder why Best didn't drop some units into the northern main, to at least slow his opponent down if nothing else.

Meanwhile the attacks against the Protoss mineral only base continue unabated, although the result keeps repeating. There is a great moment when a clutch of lurkers can't get under a dark swarm because a detachment of dragoons is taken up most of the available space.



One good thing about the speed shuttle is that the only survivor spots the fresh hatchery at six o'clock on the way home. And as there are literally no defences, Best quickly removes it from the game. Also this appears to have reminded our challenger that he actually needs another base or two, so this seems like a good location to start. And while we're at it, why not use those shuttles to air fry some drones?



Of course I'm being flippant. Best knows full well that he needs to contest the northern starting location. His army rotates up and pokes away at the lurkers on the ridge, but the spread is good and dark swarm is up, so they head over to Soulkey's mineral only instead. But this doesn't go well either, as the very spread out Protoss force gets hit from multiple angles and suffers significant losses without actually killing the base.

Behind this Best shuttles a band of zealots and an archon into eleven o'clock, but it's slightly too late. The attackers find two sunken colonies ready with several more morphing. And once they have made progress against the static defences, hydras and lings start pouring in.



Protoss' attempts to secure six o'clock are thwarted several times by cracklings, who have an easy time overwhelming cannons and zealots with no splash damage backup. Best is still trying to push twelve o'clock, but Soulkey has enough production to weather the storms, literally. A templar drop zaps a few more drones, but losing two templars and a shuttle is also 300 minerals which Best is becoming less able to afford by the minute.

The first reaver crawls into view around 28 min. The siege worm is picked up by a shuttle which joins the massive gateway army in one last trip across the map. The bulk of the Protoss forces converge to attack the eastern mineral only base again. It appears that Best no longer believes he can win the game, as his units mostly suicide into lurkers. And, having lost 80 supply without any significant return, the contender taps out.



I am still puzzled by that last move. Soulkey didn't need that mineral base to win. Protoss also still had the option of attempting to take six o'clock. Or Best could've at least died trying to attack the base he actually had to kill, namely the top. Perhaps with two or three more reavers, which he did have resources to make. Please help me understand what happened here.

After the game Soulkey looked his usual calm focused self. Best, on the other hand, looked somewhat tired to my eyes. Perhaps the emotional strain of the final was finally catching up to him. That said, he did play well in both his previous series deciders, so maybe I was falsely projecting my own exhaustion onto him.


Set 7 - Best <Pole Star> Soulkey

Either way, the entire season comes down to this one last game. Unfortunately, for us spectators, this turned out to be similarly anti-climactic to the final game between Soulkey and Snow.

Satisfied with the returns so far, Soulkey opens overpool once again. The scouting probe finds Zerg second and collects all the relevant information, but narrowly fails to delay the natural hatchery. As the players are in cross positions, Best respond with nexus before cannon.



Before having found his opponent, Soulkey has already decided to play a more economic opening by hatching only four zerglings. Best takes the stargate route, followed by a quick templar archives.

The first corsair finds the Zerg third, a lair, some hydralisks an evolution chamber and additional hatcheries morphing. This time there is no spire so Protoss has air superiority. On the other hand, it's not so easy to get value out of four corsairs in the modern game, if there are no mutas to defend from.

One way to get mileage out of surplus buccaneers is of course to combo them with dark templars à la prime Bisu. And Best has used his quick archives to squeeze out a DT, but he wastes it by trying to run through the reasonably well defended natural. This DT could have plausibly prevented or slowed down an expansion so the waste is extra painful.



We're only seven and a half minutes into the game, but I feel that Protoss is already in deep trouble. The corsairs have not been worth it. The fast tech has done nothing. And all this means that there are virtually no ground units when the hydras arrive, so Best has to warp in a lot of cannons, while Soulkey can get away without growing any static defences at all.

The hydras pick off the forge before any upgrades finish and lock the Protoss into the natural. Behind this Zerg can simply expand to take a commanding lead.



The disparity in the openings can be seen by the fact that at nine minutes the number of producing hatcheries and gateways is exactly the same. This cannot possibly be good for Protoss. And at ten minutes Soulkey surpasses Best in supply and never looks back.

Zerg can basically do whatever now. Soulkey opts for a full control group of mutas with scourge support. They quickly find and overwhelm the corsairs. Best has a dark archon and a bunch of dragoons and templars in position. But the three-time champion knows that the only way his opponent can get back into the game is by killing the mutas for free. (And I actually think Best would still be behind after that.) So he unstacks them. Zerg doesn't even need to do any damage. Just maintaining the status quo is enough to get further ahead. Eventually, five mutas get caught in a maelstrom. The other six kill a few probes in the main.



The bigger problem for Best is that Zerg has a huge ground army. And as he tries to expand to two o'clock the swarm arrives in numbers. The map layout makes it harder for the defender to get in position than the attacker. Templars land some really good storms and for a moment it looks like a comfortable hold.



And then the observer pans south to show another huge wave of Zerg units streaming in. Protoss has units sitting at the natural, but they can't get there quickly enough and so the nexus gets cancelled. Best tries to sneak a nexus at twelve o'clock but there's no hiding from the hydras.

Another nexus warps in at two o'clock and this time Best holds the attack with more super juicy storms. Unfortunately, he is already running low in minerals in his main, and he just can't keep up with Soulkey's production. During the lull in the fighting, Zerg surges ahead in supply again. Protoss upgrades are good at 2-0-2, but consume has finished and the next fights look very difficult.



Soulkey feels so comfortable with the position that he morphs lurkers pretty much on his opponent's doorstep, while also taking a fifth base without any defences at home.

Once the first dark swarm lands in range of the third nexus the game is done. Best doesn't have enough storms to hold off the endless waves of lurkers. The Protoss forces smartly wrap around from the back, but the nexus still goes down. The supply gap has turned into a yawning gulf. Best has to settle for second place, as Soulkey brings down the curtain on an incredible season.



And so the best tournament player of the current era emphatically grabs his fourth consecutive title. What an immense achievement!

Given that the next ASL is (probably) only a couple of short months away now, I can't wait to find out if anyone can finally crush through the Iron Wall. Surely it can't stand forever...

ASL19 has closed out with an incredibly dramatic finals that delivered on the anticipated hype. While some might have thought that Soulkey would easily dismantle Best, Best showed incredible resilience and adaptation to push Soulkey to a Game 7. Ultimately, it was Soulkey who emerged victorious and cemented a record breaking 4th ASL in a row. With that in mind, let’s look back at ASL19 with our tournament review!

Overall Tournament Grade: A

I think it is largely agreed that this tournament delivered to the fans. There were some incredible storylines throughout. We of course had the typical “Can Snow finally win?” and the Snow vs Soulkey storyline, which did not disappoint with a 7 game thriller. We had an emergence of an old face in Jaedong who stepped up and showed us some inspiring StarCraft that we haven’t seen in a while. Another player who is sure to be proud of his accomplishments this ASL will be Scan, who advanced to his first ever Ro16, which he considered to be his finals. We even saw Best make his first final since 2008, with an emotional interview after advancing past Light in the semifinals. Not to mention there were a total of 4 Game 7s in the bracket stage, with 3 of them being both semifinals and finals matchups. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a more dramatic and climactic Ro4 in ASL history. The tournament itself was deep and filled with talent, with the Ro16 being one of the strongest fields put together, meaning strong players like Mini and hero were unable to advance to the Ro8.

Tournament Surprise: Jaedong

Jaedong has not had the best success in ASL. After making his grand return to Brood War in ASL2 where he made it all the way to the semifinals, he had only made it to brackets in ASL15. Even then, his Ro16 group was made up of Action, Shine, and Royal. He even dodged Royal by winning back-to-back ZvZs to advance, so it was not the best representation of his skill level. But this ASL was different, Jaedong played with energy and confidence that we haven’t seen in years. In this season’s Ro16, he took down Best and Speed in dominating fashion without dropping a single game. And even while his 1-4 defeat against Light might look like a lopsided result, he showed resilience in the losses and was no pushover. Fans have been waiting for the Tyrant to take back his throne for years. Maybe this season is the launching pad for him to regain confidence and make another deep run in the ASL.

Tournament Disappointment: hero

I don’t blame hero too much for being knocked out 0-2 in his Ro16 group, given that his group was a monster group of death featuring Snow, Rush, and Mini. But still, it’s always going to be a bit disappointing to find yourself knocked out and don’t even manage to pick up a series win in your group. I expect hero to be back stronger next season, but it could be a worrying sign for him given that the Ro16 group stages are looking more and more difficult each season. He’ll need to level up his game if he hopes to continue his consistency in the ASL.

Map Pool Rating: B+

I think overall, this season’s map pool was pretty solid, with only 1 experimental map and overall good map choices. Death Valley provided us with many exciting games, even if it might not have been the most balanced map (ZvP imbalances). The modifications to last season’s maps of Dominator and Deja Vu were welcome changes as well. While Metropolis was a well made and a fresh take on a standard 4p map, Pole Star sort of felt stale and continued to present 4p map balance issues by favoring Terran too much. Personally, I would hope that we see more 3p maps introduced as they tend to be quite balanced, along with well balanced 2p maps. Still, a solid map pool that deserves a complimentary rating.

Conclusion and Looking Ahead:

ASL has already announced that it will be launching ASL20 in August! We’re excited to continue providing readers content and hope everyone has enjoyed our ASL19 coverage. If you have any ideas or comments, feel free to comment below! Til then, see you next time!

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