The expected finals is sure to be a barn burner but is the final stop before really lacking in any pitfalls?

It should go without saying that Leta earned his spot in the Ro4 and with it the seed into next ASL but the question is if he's truly capable of standing against the reigning ASL champion or will his wraiths make even Soma sweat just like the rest?

Flash and Light have it much harder facing each other as two of the best in the matchup face up against each other, a true TvT classic is upon those of us who have the energy and endurance* to withstand a clash with these two.

*(Which is of course to say that we got the time for it.)

Liquipedia

Welcome to the quarterfinals! Soma and Leta come soaring into the final 4 with dominating victories. Soma takes down hero in an absolute ZvZ smashing. Leta eliminated the extremely resilient Tulbo. Both players have only dropped a single map during their stay in this tournament. Soma dropped his map to Terran player sSak and Leta dropped a his to Zerg player Jaedong. Are these one time flukes or did sSak and Jaedong temporarily expose the armor of these to competitors.

Soma came into the ASL hot. He only just returned last ASL and waltzed his way to a championship win. His streak includes wins over the Terran great Light. Should Light advance, they would meet in the finals for a revenge match. Regardless, Soma is about to play historically 2 of the 3 best Terran versus Zerg players of all time. Flash has a kespa TvZ winrate of 72%, Light was at 66%, and of course Leta comes in at a strong 61% winrate.

Leta has more freshly returned. He do not participate in the main bracket of the past two ASLs. He has also never advanced this far in a tournament despite his illustrious career. His run through the Sonic era was disappointing. Leta had a losing record against Zerg from 2015 to 2020. In the past 6 years, Leta has barely been a thought in the ASL, but every time he play he continues to insist his wraith builds are good enough to beat Zerg. Now Leta has us all waiting eagerly to see if he can do it again.

Match 1: Neo Sylphid
This map was not used in last seasons map pool. It has a historical 56% winrate for TvZ. In ASL 21, the record sits at 1 to 1. This three player map has been a top choice for Terran in general due to it’s close marching distance. Soma is going to be hoping his overlord scouts quickly so he can sniff out the exact build order Leta goes for. Leta plays like he has a schedule to keep and won’t veer from his game plan. Soma ’s adaptability versus Leta’s stubbornness is going to give him the advantage and win in game 1.

Match 2: Jane Doe
This two player map also gives the advantage to Terran. There’s so much going on between the backdoor base, the temples, and the weird ramp blocking neutral units. This gives Soma the opportunity to hide his build for a long time and catch Leta by surprise. The mineral lines are also at a far distance and well protected from potential wraith play. Leta is going to try to replicate the damage Light did to Jaedong last week, but Soma will pull off the victory.

Match 3: Octagon
This was the final map for Light versus Jaedong. The Terran advantages to this map are really strong. As long as Leta has a good mental state heading into this match, he will take his first win here.

Match 4: Pole Star
This is one of the maps that holds a winning record in ZvT for Zerg. That stat holds up for last season too. Give this advantage and Soma ’s pure dominance as of late, he will take a 3-1 lead here.

Match 5: Knock-Out
This is Soma ’s last map pick. If things go as planned, Leta will be facing elimination. Leta’s run has been respectable, but Soma is just too ‘S’ class to give up more then one game against Leta. Soma will take the final win need to advance.

Match 6: Attitude (if played)
Match 7: Match Point (if played)

Soma Advances To The Grand Finals!

This semifinal matchup features the two best Terrans in the world, both of whom overcame incredibly intense competition in their Ro8 matches against Jaedong and Snow, 3-2. But as they say, iron sharpens iron, and the two players are all the better because of their arduous fights. The two Terran titans now battle it out to see who has the right to advance to the finals in an intense Bo7 matchup.

Light

The road for Light to the semifinals has not been all smooth sailing. After breezing through his Ro24 group, he stumbled in his Ro16 all Terran group by losing the opening match to Royal, and almost losing to Royal again in the final match. In the quarterfinals, Light narrowly defeated Jaedong, 3-2, but not before giving up a 2-0 advantage and allowing Jaedong to almost pull off his patented reverse sweep. But he managed to clutch it out in the end with his valk/tank build and strong bio positioning which held the tide of Zerg that Jaedong could throw at him.

If we look back at Light’s games, and notably his TvT games, there definitely are weaknesses in his play. He’s not emerging from the openings in as good of a position as he realistically should be against weaker opponents, and while he’s ultimately won the games he’s needed to, there’s a sense that he lacks control of the games. Although he eventually beat Royal in the final series 2-1, he did not look the most confident in his play and there were several moments where he fell behind, only for Royal to make a serious mistake to allow Light to regain control of the match. Another example was his match against BarrackS on Sylphid, where BarrackS had a strong vulture push in the early game which looked to end the game early, until he flubbed the micro and allowed Light’s tank to survive. Against Flash, Light cannot rely on mistakes by his competition to win games. His play has been almost reactive rather than proactive, almost playing like he knows that his responses to what his weaker opponents will do is sufficient to pull out wins. And while some might say that this strategy is a playstyle, to me it says that he is not as confident about taking big vulture and tank engagements head on, waiting to see when his opponent slips up to step forward, rather than imposing his will in the match. If he continues this playstyle, he will be in for a very difficult match against Flash.

On the positive side, Light’s taken firm control of the ELOBoard rankings, currently sitting atop the charts with seriously good results for the month of May. He’s also won the Escore tournament b2b now, featuring some nice TvT wins over Royal, Leta, and Rush. And while having a rocky-ish road to the semifinals, taking the series over the player with the most momentum in the scene still has to give him a lot of confidence moving into the match against Flash. Ultimately, if Light wants to beat Flash, he’s going to need to figure out ways to stop Flash’s early game optimizations and throw him off his preparation.

Flash

Much like his opponent, Flash has not had the smoothest trip to the semifinals either. After completely making fools out of his Ro24 Terran group, he ran into an in-form Jaedong in the Ro16, who managed to beat his 13cc mech. But Flash was not shaken, and swiftly dismantled Ample and Bisu to advance to the Ro8. There, he waged war against the best Protoss player in the world and eeked past Snow in a close 3-2 victory.

Unlike Light, Flash’s TvT in his tournament run has looked utterly unbeatable. Granted, his competition is not what I would call the most difficult, beating Speed, Piano, and Ample in a combined 5-0 this tournament. But it’s the way he’s dismantling his opponents that really demonstrates what Flash’s TvT is made of. First, he’s already innovated a new, more greedy opener with a delayed 12.5 rax CC build which seeks to keep the rax timing early enough to get marines out while still getting an incredible economic advantage over his opponent. Second, unlike Light in this tournament, even in neutral, or even disadvantaged positions (1 rax FE vs 13cc against Ample), Flash finds ways to pull out tiny advantages that snowball into dominating positions. It’s almost like watching Magnus Carlsen turn a dead even endgame and squeeze water from rock to find a win.

If there’s one knock against Flash, it’s that his starport usage isn’t as innovative or stylish as some of his Terran counterparts. We saw Royal and Light both utilize lots of starport play in their games, and Leta has of course been favoring wraiths and dropships heavily throughout his own deep run. Perhaps Flash doesn’t think that these wraith switches or air fights are as necessary or strong enough to consider them, preferring more to simple goliath production to counter his opponent’s air. It’s not that he’s incapable of going wraiths (he utilized them fine in his Game 2 against Ample), but it’s just not expected that he would show up with sneak wraiths to turn a game on its head.

But outside of that, I think Flash’s TvT in an extended series is legitimately unbeatable at the moment. The mix of preparation, strong build order knowledge, and an inhuman ability to always find moves to gain incremental advantages in a matchup that’s all about the smallest advantages building up over time, and you’ve got the greatest TvTer of all time.

Flash wins 4-1 And Advances To The Grand Finals!

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