The groups are drawn, this will be a Ro16 for the ages and we're starting with the reigning champion Soma and his finalist opponent Snow face up against tough opponents in their own groups.

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Group D
Match 1: Light <Octagon> Calm
Calm probably knows that he will struggle against Light straight up, so naturally he goes for a gambit: Fast third at another natural, with burrowed lings, mass sunkens and ensnare. Sounds great, right? Hahaha, no. There is a reason why we have never seen this before. It doesn't work. Light knows the timings perfectly. He simply trains a scary large bio clump and smashes the third base before the queens have enough energy.

Match 2: RoyaL Mind
This is probably our first lacklustre TvT this season. Royal tries an early three factory vulture shove, but doesn't execute well. Mind holds perfectly to get ahead. After that he plays a standard macro game. Throughout, he gets earlier expansions, has better harassment, quicker upgrades and air superiority for most of the game. This all adds up to Royal falling further and further behind until Mind has strangled him out of the game.

Winners: Light <Attitude> Mind
Mind gets an early advantage with fast wraiths killing something like seven SCV's. But Light manages to leverage his vulture map control into a quicker third, and his earlier armoury into faster upgrades. The game hangs in the balance for while as both players jockey for position in the centre before eventually splitting the map vertically. Quite a few air units are made, but they mostly neutralise each other. As the game goes on, Mind slips up a few times losing units for free, while Light's macro also seems stronger. As a result Light is about 50 supply ahead when he manouvres a big drop onto the high-ground of Mind's newest base. From there he can also shell down another base at the attached natural. Mind doesn't have enough dropships to fight back immediately. Instead he attempts a counter attack on the ground. Light holds and moves on to the group selection ceremony.

Losers: RoyaL <Jane Doe> Calm
I expect the pros are going to have a good laugh about Calm's performance. He opts for a quick 3-base build again, which is fine on Jane Doe. But you have to be prepared for vultures on this map, especially against Royal. As it is, the vultures do quite a bit of damage, which slows down the Zerg build considerably. Ironically, burrow would have helped here. Both players do their own thing for a while and then it becomes clear that Calm has hatched a few queens again. Royal comes across the map with a decent bio-tank force. This time there is enough time to build up energy for ensnare, and some lurkers emerge from their cocoons just in time! Is Calm going to look like a genius? Hahaha. No. He researched broodlings. And so the Terran army crunches through the swarm while the queens first watch on and then get irradiated. Two of them actually survive to destroy two tanks, just in time for the broodlings to help pack Calm's bags. It was kinda funny, in an awkward way, but what the hell was Calm thinking?

Final: RoyaL <Pole Star> Mind
This is an interesting game in the sense that Royal does something that normally doesn't work well in TvT. As Mind moves out with his first force, Royal counters aggressively. Three tanks siege up just outside of Mind's natural and all the vultures dash in. The tanks don't do too much, except slow down Mind's response. But the vultures kill a rather large number of SCV's. Still, as Royal trades this entire army for economic damage, this means that Mind now has a much larger army. And in TvT, especially early on, that can usually be leveraged into a strong positional advantage. But Mind's counter-attack takes too long to get through the mine field and he even takes some hits. By the time Mind's tanks have inched close enough to start putting pressure on Royal, some defensive tanks are already in position. And with much superior factory output, Royal holds easily and moves on to the round of 16.

Group E
Game of the Week
Match 1: Rush Piano
To those people who say TvT is boring I say: Watch this game. You'll thank me later. PianO must have studied Rush carefully to try something like this. Piano starts with a proxy factory tucked into the little pocket just outside of his opponent's main. Rush does scout that area, but not the pocket. Once finished, the factory floats over the wall into the only corner of his base that Rush doesn't have vision of. Maybe on ladder it doesn't matter, but in ASL you always to scout your main apparently.



Piano, with nerves of steel, waits not only until he has three vultures ready, but also mines. So when the sneak attack finally comes, the damage is devasting. But the game isn't over. Two mines go off, but the tanks survive. And unlike Piano, Rush does have a second command centre. Incredibly, once the vultures have been cleaned up, supplies are dead even. Rush also has a starport and a bunker at his natural which still puts him in a reasonable position. So Piano has more work to do.

He sends two tanks and two marines to cause trouble. His barracks floats over the bunker, presumably making it impossible to repair. But Rush gets off a shots on the marines, so his wraith can just barely finish them. He then sends a tank to shell across the wall and it looks like he is holding. But Piano is cooking up another surprise...



He proxies two starports in the same location vacated by the proxy factory. Meanwhile said factory is still running and has churned out a goliath which promptly kills an SCV and lures a tank into a deadly mine trap. And while Rush is distracted dealing with the annoying shenanigans in his main, another tank and goliath arrive at his natural to cause more economic damage. Rush's SCV's are forced to evacuate.

But Rush retakes control of his natural and then sends his two wraiths out to scout. And they find the proxied starports, but it's too late. Three wraiths have already been built and the win the first and only air battle. Rush tries to hide an armoury under in the bottom right corner, but Piano finds it. And with no counter-play left and running low on SCV's, Rush concedes.



Match 2: Flash Speed
Flash opens with an interesting new(?) build, with rax on 12.5, instead the usual 11. This gives slightly better optimised economy to allow him to go straight into four factory speed vultures. Credit to Speed though for actually manouvering the early exchanges better with mines and faster tanks. But 10-min-Flash loses his early advantage by driving two tanks straight into mines. 50-min-Flash immediately pounces on the weakness by ceasing the high-ground ridge outside of Speed's natural. The underdog does manage to push the contain back once. But the greatest player of all time takes it back with his next wave of reinforcements to keep up the pressure. Speed does his absolute best to make the game uncomfortable with vulture run-by's and several almost successful breakout attempts. It feels like the game is hanging in the balance for a surprisingly long time, but Flash has a bigger economy, more gas income and the high-ground. (And you know how that goes, Anakin...) So Speed's valour is ultimately only delaying the inevitable.

Winners: Flash Piano
This game is a classic example of one player just being straight up better across every facet of the game. After Piano's antics in the first game, I was a little disappointed that he tried to play standard against Flash. And it goes pretty much as badly you think it would. Before the clock hits 7 min, Flash deals a lot of damage with a vulture drop into the pocket expansion. Piano sends units back to respond and promptly loses control of his forward natural. The upshot is that Flash expands first on an already bigger economy, with more factories producing. Piano tries a couple of manouvres around the map, but Flash parries him at every turn before moving in for the kill.

Losers: Rush Speed
This was also a very fun game that is well worth watching. Rush gets an early advantage when Speed mishandles the initial marine pressure. This allows Rush to get a significantly earlier expansion, as well as positional advantage in the centre of the map. Speed fights back well, just like he did against Flash, with good macro and very active vulture movement. He also wins a significant skirmish in the centre as Rush is trying to lock him into the corner. Speed's speed vultures (hah) kill several SCV's trying to build command centres. And then the underdog also secures his third gas faster to erase Rush's early advantage.

But then Speed bungles a couple of dropship moves and hands initiative back to his more seasoned opponent. Rush wastes no time to bite off more of the map. Speed decides to turtle on five bases in the top left quadrant while Rush expands across the bottom half of the map. If this position holds then Speed will eventually run out of steam. And then Rush does something I still don't really understand. He starts putting a lot of pressure on the nine o'clock base, inching forward tanks with d-matrix support. But this is a high-grand base with a ramp. In TvT that's practically unbreakable without dropships. Not only does this cost Rush some tanks, it also clumps up his army on one of the half map. Speed reacts perfectly and sends a large force down the Eastern half, more or less unopposed, to where Rush's new bases are. The sequence of moves by Speed here is pretty incredible. While the big attack is coming down, he drops another base with a tank vulture combo and runs a bunch of vultures into yet another base to blow up loads of SCV's. Rush has to respond by pulling back to defend.

And, in the final movement of this game, this is exactly the opening Speed needs. Now with decent supply lead, and with a bunch of Rush's units still idling near nine o'clock, Speed sends another large army to the South-East. Without serious opposition, they tear through two bases and take up position on the high-ground. And behind this Speed can expand. Before the game can stabilise, he has taken all the bases on his half of the map. Rush is more than 60 supply down and struggling to to stay in the game. And once Speed has more dropships the result is no longer in doubt. Rush a couple of minutes to process the fact that he is getting eliminated without winning a single game. Ouch.

Final: Piano Speed
The final game of the group is a much shorter affair. After similar openings, Piano catches out Speed with an early vulture play supported by a tank. Speed loses a huge number of SCV's and most of his army. After playing two long tense games, I wouldn't blame him for being a bit out of juice. He never recovers full control of his natural and when Piano's wraiths arrive Speed has to tap out. It's a shame for Speed really, and I still feel that he may fully deliver one day. But hats off to Piano, what a performance! And the pure emotions in the interview were also a great part of the story. Is he now officially the oldest player to make the round of 16? I guess we'll have to see if he can deliver more upsets.

Group F
Match 1: Best Leta
Leta opens with a one base build, no surprises there. He opts for 1-1-1 into vulture drop with mines. Best actually defends the first drop fairly well. Leta continues with several vulture follow ups. Initially, it looks like Protoss never takes crippling damage, and Best does get his fourth base up reasonably quickly. But Protoss also doesn't manage to punch back, so Terran can macro on three bases of undisturbed economy. And then we slowly realise that the vulture harassment has actually done its work. We all know that Best maxes out fast, but this time his gateway explosion is late. By the time he really hits his stride, Leta is already sitting pretty on 175 supply with solid upgrades. Best does deny the Terran fourth base for a bit while also expanding to another main. Leta moves out shortly after with a huge army and cracks open the newest Protoss base. With both players maxed now Best can't really engage the large number of tanks and he has no bank to quickly remax. He tries some shuttle play but Leta's excellent wraith and goliath control shuts that down efficiently. It looks like Best has an opening when he catches most of the tanks unsieged in the centre of the map. And the fight goes as well for Protoss as it possibly could. But Leta still comes through with the larger army and the healthier economy. For the rest of the game we have to watch as Best slowly starves. Leta moves on to the Winners Match in surprisingly dominant fashion.

Match 2: Queen Jaedong
Queen gets the more economic opening. Ordinarily, that would mean Jaedong should play more defensive from behind. But the Tyrant just hates being pushed around, so he tries to pressure his opponent with lings to slow him down. This helps a little, as he actually manages to avoid morphing a sunken. But Queen still ends up with one more mutalisk and comfortably wins the first flapper fight. A few scourge arrive for Jaedong just after the fight has been decided. This gives a split second where a few bruised mutalisks manage to disengage. And because Queen fails to track them down, they can meet up with fresh reinforcements. Queen spots a juicy, seemingly undefended, overlord and can't help himself. And Jaedong pounces to get in a few free hits. This doesn't quite win the game, but now the odds are close. Queen still has scourge to make something happen. And then Jaedong pulls out his famous stellar micro, and squeezes his mutas through between two groups of suicide gliders to win the second battle. Basically, nobody in their right mind would turn injured mutas into the path of chasing scourge. Certainly Queen did not expect that. I guess that's why it worked. You should watch that movement in slow motion. Queen ends up losing most of mutalisks and with them his ability to contest the air. And when he starts losing drones at his natural the game is up. By all rights, Jaedong should have been dead. That was a near miraculous comeback.

Winners: Jaedong Leta
Leta is not messing around as he brings the aggression. Three marines and an SCV arrive early at the Zerg natural to pressure the morphing sunken. When the sunken is almost finished, they try to squeeze behind the minerals, but Jaedong pulls drones perfectly to block the movement. While this is happening the first vulture arrives and threatens a hover-by. But Jaedong again reacts in time to block the ramp and the vulture does without killing any drones. Many lesser Zergs would have fallen apart here.

Leta transitions into 2-port wraiths with cloak on the way while taking his safe pocket base. The wraiths kill a few overlords and push back the first mutalisks. Jaedong also expands. Both players gear up in defensive postures, pretty much skipping the midgame. Leta eventually moves out with eleven wraiths and some bio. Some marines die to stop lurkers, but nothing too crazy. Meanwhile, Jaedong is teching quickly towards defilers.

Leta's wraith control is something to behold and it's been a long time since I've seen a skilled player one-shotting overlords like this for free. But with only one vessel and no tanks, it's difficult to see how Terran would ever make a serious dent on the Zerg defences. That said, Leta once again gets to an undisturbed three base economy and Zerg has not managed to even start a fourth base. The wraiths win a big irradiate-supported engagement against the mutalisks.



But none of this really matters once dark swarm comes online. Without tanks to slow it down, the swarm quickly rolls across the map. This also now gives an opening to Zerg to expand. Jaedong immediately researches plague and catches all the wraiths and a large force of bio. After this the supplies are already too close and Terran has no map presence to speak of. Still, Leta defends his natural with tanks and irradiates and he does manage to sneak out two dropships to kill the Zerg fourth base. But in order to win this game, Terran needs to do more than that. And when Leta tries to move out with about 10 tanks he runs into dark swarm. A little later the remaining tanks get caught in the open outside the Terran natural. And from here Jaedong is content to let Terran run out of steam, only really attacking any units that move out too far.

Eventually, there is a messy finale where Leta sends everything out to take his mineral only and attack the Zerg while leaving his natural wide open. Hydras immediately slide in to destroy the command centre, the attacking infantry across the map gets wiped out and then the mineral only gets overrun, too, in classic Zerg campaign style. See you Leta...

Losers: Best Queen
When Zergs manage to obscure their build Protoss can end up in deep trouble. And so it proved here once again. Queen sneaks out a drone to morph a hatchery out on the map towards Best's base and starts spawning lings. The probe never gets into the Zerg main, and no other unit ever scouts around the map. Maybe seeing eight lings being extremely cautious should have set some alarm bells ringing. As it is, Best has two zealots and a dragoon when 20 lings arrive, and no outside vision to drill with his probes. What a sad way to go out.

Final: Queen Leta
Zerg loses three drones early to a three marine poke just before the sunken is finished. This clumsy reaction pretty much sums up Queen's performance overall. Leta obviously goes for 2-port and, for some reason, the former back-to-back champion opts for a two-base muta-ling play. In theory this could have done something. Presumably the idea was that the mutas distract the wraiths while the lings kill the turrets. But after running into the main, the lings just huddle in a corner and lasered down by the wraiths for free. This is before there is even a bunker up at the natural. Queen tries with another wave, but Leta competently repairs the bunker. Then the wraiths tear through the Zerg air force and send Queen home.

This is a great moment for Leta who returns to the group selection ceremony for the first time since ASL10! This is the tournament of the underdogs with Leta joining sSaK, YSC nad Piano. The 2-port-Terran looked pretty good in those macro games, so maybe I shouldn't write him off prematurely. But is playing starport-heavy openings every game really going to work out for him?

As for Queen... He played against all three races, semi-embarrassed himself against two and knocked out a fan favourite with an all-in cheese. If that's how you're going to approach ASL, then please just do an EffOrt next season. I'd rather have BTS. What a wasted slot.

Group A kicks off the round of 16 with Soma, tulbo, Sharp, and sSak. This is the first time we get to see Soma play live coming off his championship run from last season nearly 6 months ago. Soma didn’t have it easy last season either. He lost 7 games in his final 3 matches against BeSt, Bisu, and Snow. The silver lining is that his only Protoss opponent in this group is Tulbo. How is Tulbo even here anyway? He grappled his way though group C taking down Larva and Shine. Larva is a respectable Zerg opponent, but he’s no where near the caliber of Soma.

The two other players in this group are Terran’s Sharp and sSak. sSak had a dominant performance in the round of 24. He took down 1-time ASL Champion JyJ and 4 time champion Soulkey. Is that the highest total of championships ever taken down by a single player in a group stage? Sharp had some struggles in his round of 24 group, but is still showing flashes of the brilliance that took him to the finals a couple seasons back.

Match 1: Soma vs tulbo
Tulbo has no story written for ASL yet. If he wishes to be a name remembered, winning this match will certainly do it. A best of 1 victory on Pole Start would put him in a winning position to escape from this group. Soma is a master of preparation. No doubt Soma will have studied Pole Star and strategized beyond Tulbo’s depth. This should be an easy start for Soma. Soma will win.

Match 2: Sharp vs sSak
Sharp is the automatic favorite here, but Sharp and sSak feel like identical twins. Besides the obvious TvT mirror, both have similar playstyles. It will be really fascinating to see who actually has the better vulture control and harass. Given, sSak’s takedown of Jyj is more impressive then Sharp’s wins over Scan and Mong, sSak will win here.

Winner’s Match: Soma vs sSak
We are looking at a rematch from the previous season. In ASL 20, Soma defeated sSak in the round of 24. This win was Soma’s first step towards his victory march. sSak has had some tough luck against top Zergs. He was knocked out of the round of 24 in season 19, losing games to hero and Action in the process. His inability to defeat top zergs will haunt him again and Soma will win this battle.

Loser’s Match: Sharp vs tulbo
Sharp hasn’t had the best time against Protoss players. His 0-2 loss to BeSt and defeat against Snow sent him packing in the previous two ASLs. Tulbo has nothing to lose and should roll out with the most abusive early game possible. Will Tulbo win with a stinky a cheese, or will he lose to Sharp cheddar? He will lose. Sharp advances to the Loser’s final.

Final Match:
Fun fact, sSak and tulbo were in the same group in the round of 24 for ASL season 19. If these predictions are correct, they will have avoided playing each other once again. With two Terran players in a rematch, this makes for an exciting final match. Due to how close in skill these two are at TvT, it’s hard to imagine they both don’t trade wins. In this case, Sharp will take the upper hand in win 2-1 in an epic hour and a half long series.

Soma and Sharp Advance to the Ro8!

We’re just missing Hurricane and Tempest to round out the list of Protoss players who have weather-related names. Actually I never thought of that, it’s always Protoss players who like these names (Thunder and Lightning were names used by SC2 Protoss players too). Probably because of psi storms… Anyways, the two precipitation Protosses are joined by herO and PianO to round out this group. Hope you brought your umbrella!

Snow PianO

SnOw has been on an absolute tear in proleague, registering two recent all-kills while being the 2nd spot on the ELOBoard. His PvZ continues to improve and shape up, while we already know just how good he is at PvP and PvT with his absurd shuttle/reaver control. Just recently he had an outstanding PvP comeback win against Bisu where he came back from a severe deficit after losing most of his probes to a DT rush and masterfully controlled his reavers to grind out a win. Against PianO, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see a repeat of his infamous match against Speed where he dismantled him with one reaver. PianO had a very clever way of winning his TvTs in his Ro24 group, but that won’t help him here against stronger opponents.

Snow wins.

hero Rain

herO has steadily climbed his way up the ELOBoard rankings up to 4th now (technically 5th because FlaSh’s elo isn’t showing up). He’s also defeated Mini 6-3 recently, and his ZvP looks good. He completely dismantled tulbo with a simple 5 hatch hydra timing too, though I don’t anticipate that working quite as well against Rain. On the other hand, our favorite League of Legends streamer still manages to come in, advance a little into the ASL, then get eliminated. Is this the group where he meets his match? Rain is so talented, it has to be said, but this group is definitely a little tougher than he might’ve wanted. Plus in PvZ, it’s hard for me to favor Rain against such a strong ZvP player.

hero wins.

Snow vs. hero

In earlier ASLs, we would often point out that for how good SnOw’s PvT and PvP are, he really struggled with his PvZ. But given the fact that his final boss for several ASLs in a row was Soulkey, and then Soma, he’s really managed to improve his PvZ where basically anyone not named Soma doesn’t fear him anymore. herO, while being pretty well known for his ZvP, just hasn’t been the same herO as of late. Getting knocked out of the last ASL pretty handedly was certainly a surprise, and while he’s gotten back in form with very solid proleague performances, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough to defeat a Snow who is still hungry to win his first ASL.

Snow wins and advances.

PianO vs. Rain

If Rain’s form in his Ro24 group was anything to go by, it’s that while his micro and execution may not be like his peak, but he’s still got a very sharp mind for build orders and and game state analysis. I don’t think PianO is stronger than either Sharp or Mong in TvP, and in an extended series, that spells trouble for him. PianO’s proleague results are also very mediocre, and given that he plays in K-League instead of Proleague, it means his competition just isn’t strong enough for me to confidently put him at anything more than a Ro16 player.

Rain wins.

hero vs. Rain

This is a fairly straight forward rematch between herO and Rain for me, and I just don’t see how Rain is going to find a way to advance against an in-form herO. The drive just isn’t there for him anymore to try hard to win an ASL these days, and he’s almost just playing these tournaments to limit test himself to see just how good his raw skills are. He’s had some success in PvZ in previous tournaments, but I would argue that both Action and Queen are weaker in ZvP than herO is. If herO’s proleague results were poor, I might’ve given Rain the nod, but as it stands, herO should take the first match along with the potential rematch.

hero wins and advances.

Snow and hero Advance to the Ro8!

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