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Recommended Games+ Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler [Game 1] +Poll: Recommend Soulkey vs Soma Game 1?Yes (13) 87% No (2) 13% If you have time (0) 0% 15 total votes Your vote: Recommend Soulkey vs Soma Game 1? (Vote): Yes
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Poll: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 2?Yes (4) 44% No (3) 33% If you have time (2) 22% 9 total votes Your vote: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 2? (Vote): Yes
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Poll: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 3?Yes (23) 92% No (1) 4% If you have time (1) 4% 25 total votes Your vote: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 3? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
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Poll: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 4?Yes (6) 55% If you have time (3) 27% No (2) 18% 11 total votes Your vote: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 4? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
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Poll: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 5?Yes (8) 62% No (5) 38% If you have time (0) 0% 13 total votes Your vote: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 5? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
(Vote): If you have time
Poll: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 6?Yes (18) 90% No (1) 5% If you have time (1) 5% 20 total votes Your vote: Recommend Soma vs Soulkey Game 6? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
(Vote): If you have time
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On October 06 2026 21:08 PachiBW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2026 20:58 c3rberUs wrote:
I was 10% watching due to work. Do you guys think this was closer to the "coin-flip" stereotype or did the better player took the series match convincingly? The better player won. Despite what people say about his skill level, soma is a pretty bad player mechanically. He just has good game sense. He makes countless unforced errors in all of his matches and zerg is really easily able to punish those mistakes as soulkey showed here. It's just when he fights protoss, and to a lesser degree terran, they aren't able to capitalize on those mistakes as much because their armies aren't as mobile. In this series soma showed he needs to go back to starcraft university and learn where to build spires, to not just run his lings into opposing lings letting them die for free, and where to position his overlords.
That is a very generalized and - dare I say - a very bold claim, and I would love for you to elaborate further.
We are talking about 56.76% (21W-16L) winrate in ZvZ - which is the 2nd highest ZvZ winrate in the history of Remastered here (possibly 3rd if you don't count Queen's losses in ZvZ bronze matches) - trailing only effOrt (60%, 12W-8L), as well as arguably the greatest ZvP player in the modern era with 43W-20L, having lost only 3 matches (not games) ever against Protoss when it matters (plus one third place loss against Bisu).
Since 2021, he also has winning head-to-head record against almost everyone, losing only to Bisu (201-229), Light (243-270), FlaSh (39-56), plus some thin losing record against Larva (15-17) and TY (9-10). Data pulled from Eloboard combined with unlogged StarCastTV matches.
Both of his ASL wins are no cakewalk either. Again, not trying to doubt you, I'm sure you've seen something that I haven't paid attention to, but the guy is absolute god-tier player based on his stats.
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On October 08 2026 03:32 Kanzzer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2026 21:08 PachiBW wrote:On October 06 2026 20:58 c3rberUs wrote:
I was 10% watching due to work. Do you guys think this was closer to the "coin-flip" stereotype or did the better player took the series match convincingly? The better player won. Despite what people say about his skill level, soma is a pretty bad player mechanically. He just has good game sense. He makes countless unforced errors in all of his matches and zerg is really easily able to punish those mistakes as soulkey showed here. It's just when he fights protoss, and to a lesser degree terran, they aren't able to capitalize on those mistakes as much because their armies aren't as mobile. In this series soma showed he needs to go back to starcraft university and learn where to build spires, to not just run his lings into opposing lings letting them die for free, and where to position his overlords. That is a very generalized and - dare I say - a very bold claim, and I would love for you to elaborate further. We are talking about 56.76% (21W-16L) winrate in ZvZ - which is the 2nd highest ZvZ winrate in the history of Remastered here (possibly 3rd if you count Queen's losses in ZvZ bronze matches) - trailing only effOrt (60%, 12W-8L), as well as arguably the greatest ZvP player in the modern era with 43W-20L, having lost only 3 matches (not games) ever against Protoss when it matters (plus one third place loss against Bisu). Since 2021, he also has winning head-to-head record against almost everyone, losing only to Bisu (201-229), Light (243-270), FlaSh (39-56), plus some thin losing record against Larva (15-17) and TY (9-10). Data pulled from Eloboard combined with unlogged StarCastTV matches. Both of his ASL wins are no cakewalk either. Again, not trying to doubt you, I'm sure you've seen something that I haven't paid attention to, but the guy is absolute god-tier player based on his stats.
I just watch his games in daily proleague. He just makes a ton of mistakes that other plays get lambasted for when they make the same types of mistakes (and lose the games because of them - see snow). It's his game sense and his ability to fight on multiple fronts well that allows him to win, but genuinely if he didn't win those games despite those mistakes people would be harping on all his mistakes and say he is a bad player/played badly in those games and deserved to lose.
Light is the only Terran that can somewhat reliably beat soma's Muta/ling harass into lurker contain into defiler closer so I'm not surprised he has a winning record against him. Rush (and most other terrans) loses to it nearly 100% of his games in the modern era. I kind of wish soma advanced to the finals because it would've been a 4-0 sweep in soma's favor with him literally forcing the same strat every time because he knows rush can't beat it. The strat can outright win with the mutalings, but if it fails, it can outright win with a lurker bust, and if that fails, it usually wins as soon as the defiler arrives, and if that fails, he can transition out with a third hatch and still be even. Soulkey will probably win at least one game against Rush doing this, but we'll see...soulkey usually goes a little more all-in when he does it, but that puts him behind if he doesn't break the terran and since Rush's bread and butter is timing attacks, if soulkey fails to break him, he'll almost certainly die to Rush's timing attack in response to the failed aggression. Soma refined the strat allowing for outright wins, but also the ability to transition out when it fails.
Zerg is far too forgiving in PvZ and that's mostly why soma can make as many mistakes as he does. Meanwhile if the protoss makes a single mistake, they lose on the spot. And this can happen at several different junctions in the game. Since soma's play style forces both players to focus their attention on multiple fronts increasing the likelihood that both players make mistakes, this ends up favoring zerg since protoss dies when they make one. This is also why soma loses more drones than any other zerg to DTs, because his attention is already being allocated elsewhere. He lost 40 drones to Best and the game turned into a back and forth nail biter of a game that Best just barely won. He lost 30 drones to Mini and still won. He lost 10 drones to a DT rush against Bisu and still won. All of these games were almost won/won by soma because the protoss players made one mistake after killing that many drones.
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On October 08 2026 03:32 Kanzzer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2026 21:08 PachiBW wrote:On October 06 2026 20:58 c3rberUs wrote:
I was 10% watching due to work. Do you guys think this was closer to the "coin-flip" stereotype or did the better player took the series match convincingly? The better player won. Despite what people say about his skill level, soma is a pretty bad player mechanically. He just has good game sense. He makes countless unforced errors in all of his matches and zerg is really easily able to punish those mistakes as soulkey showed here. It's just when he fights protoss, and to a lesser degree terran, they aren't able to capitalize on those mistakes as much because their armies aren't as mobile. In this series soma showed he needs to go back to starcraft university and learn where to build spires, to not just run his lings into opposing lings letting them die for free, and where to position his overlords. That is a very generalized and - dare I say - a very bold claim, and I would love for you to elaborate further. We are talking about 56.76% (21W-16L) winrate in ZvZ - which is the 2nd highest ZvZ winrate in the history of Remastered here (possibly 3rd if you count Queen's losses in ZvZ bronze matches) - trailing only effOrt (60%, 12W-8L), as well as arguably the greatest ZvP player in the modern era with 43W-20L, having lost only 3 matches (not games) ever against Protoss when it matters (plus one third place loss against Bisu). Since 2021, he also has winning head-to-head record against almost everyone, losing only to Bisu (201-229), Light (243-270), FlaSh (39-56), plus some thin losing record against Larva (15-17) and TY (9-10). Data pulled from Eloboard combined with unlogged StarCastTV matches. Both of his ASL wins are no cakewalk either. Again, not trying to doubt you, I'm sure you've seen something that I haven't paid attention to, but the guy is absolute god-tier player based on his stats.
Result wise he may not be, but style/skill wise he's a level below Soulkey.
Soulkey legitimately dug it out against the best Terrans multiple times in late game to win ASLs. Think it was his first ASL title where he held on to dear life against Royal and slowly crawled back with his dark swarm play? In season 19, he also pulled out the Defiler 6 times in 14 games against Best and Snow. Many still remember his famous 40-min back and forth battles vs Snow on Blitz Y and Dominator.
Now ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw Soma build a Defiler in ASL? He killed 3 Protosses on his way to the first title, playing 19 games, and only 2 times it went to late game, only because the map was Roaring Currents (which kind of forced you into that, but even so, there was no Defiler as late game on this map is played totally differently). Out of the 12 games he won, 9 were won off the back of Ling aggro or Hydra bust, 1 was a 3 Hatch before Pool, the other 2 were the 2 Roaring Currents games. His second ASL was kind of a cake walk. Only had to play Tulbo, sSak, Hero, Leta (sounds like a Ro24 group) until Flash in the final. And even then, the final was just a gambling competition between the two of them. No game went to late, some ended as soon as they began, the rest barely went into mid game lol.
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On October 08 2026 09:57 TMNT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2026 03:32 Kanzzer wrote:On October 06 2026 21:08 PachiBW wrote:On October 06 2026 20:58 c3rberUs wrote:
I was 10% watching due to work. Do you guys think this was closer to the "coin-flip" stereotype or did the better player took the series match convincingly? The better player won. Despite what people say about his skill level, soma is a pretty bad player mechanically. He just has good game sense. He makes countless unforced errors in all of his matches and zerg is really easily able to punish those mistakes as soulkey showed here. It's just when he fights protoss, and to a lesser degree terran, they aren't able to capitalize on those mistakes as much because their armies aren't as mobile. In this series soma showed he needs to go back to starcraft university and learn where to build spires, to not just run his lings into opposing lings letting them die for free, and where to position his overlords. That is a very generalized and - dare I say - a very bold claim, and I would love for you to elaborate further. We are talking about 56.76% (21W-16L) winrate in ZvZ - which is the 2nd highest ZvZ winrate in the history of Remastered here (possibly 3rd if you count Queen's losses in ZvZ bronze matches) - trailing only effOrt (60%, 12W-8L), as well as arguably the greatest ZvP player in the modern era with 43W-20L, having lost only 3 matches (not games) ever against Protoss when it matters (plus one third place loss against Bisu). Since 2021, he also has winning head-to-head record against almost everyone, losing only to Bisu (201-229), Light (243-270), FlaSh (39-56), plus some thin losing record against Larva (15-17) and TY (9-10). Data pulled from Eloboard combined with unlogged StarCastTV matches. Both of his ASL wins are no cakewalk either. Again, not trying to doubt you, I'm sure you've seen something that I haven't paid attention to, but the guy is absolute god-tier player based on his stats. Result wise he may not be, but style/skill wise he's a level below Soulkey. Soulkey legitimately dug it out against the best Terrans multiple times in late game to win ASLs. Think it was his first ASL title where he held on to dear life against Royal and slowly crawled back with his dark swarm play? In season 19, he also pulled out the Defiler 6 times in 14 games against Best and Snow. Many still remember his famous 40-min back and forth battles vs Snow on Blitz Y and Dominator. Now ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw Soma build a Defiler in ASL? He killed 3 Protosses on his way to the first title, playing 19 games, and only 2 times it went to late game, only because the map was Roaring Currents (which kind of forced you into that, but even so, there was no Defiler as late game on this map is played totally differently). Out of the 12 games he won, 9 were won off the back of Ling aggro or Hydra bust, 1 was a 3 Hatch before Pool, the other 2 were the 2 Roaring Currents games. His second ASL was kind of a cake walk. Only had to play Tulbo, sSak, Hero, Leta (sounds like a Ro24 group) until Flash in the final. And even then, the final was just a gambling competition between the two of them. No game went to late, some ended as soon as they began, the rest barely went into mid game lol.
Could you provide us more useless information to back up your completely non sense argument?
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On October 08 2026 09:57 TMNT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2026 03:32 Kanzzer wrote:On October 06 2026 21:08 PachiBW wrote:On October 06 2026 20:58 c3rberUs wrote:
I was 10% watching due to work. Do you guys think this was closer to the "coin-flip" stereotype or did the better player took the series match convincingly? The better player won. Despite what people say about his skill level, soma is a pretty bad player mechanically. He just has good game sense. He makes countless unforced errors in all of his matches and zerg is really easily able to punish those mistakes as soulkey showed here. It's just when he fights protoss, and to a lesser degree terran, they aren't able to capitalize on those mistakes as much because their armies aren't as mobile. In this series soma showed he needs to go back to starcraft university and learn where to build spires, to not just run his lings into opposing lings letting them die for free, and where to position his overlords. That is a very generalized and - dare I say - a very bold claim, and I would love for you to elaborate further. We are talking about 56.76% (21W-16L) winrate in ZvZ - which is the 2nd highest ZvZ winrate in the history of Remastered here (possibly 3rd if you count Queen's losses in ZvZ bronze matches) - trailing only effOrt (60%, 12W-8L), as well as arguably the greatest ZvP player in the modern era with 43W-20L, having lost only 3 matches (not games) ever against Protoss when it matters (plus one third place loss against Bisu). Since 2021, he also has winning head-to-head record against almost everyone, losing only to Bisu (201-229), Light (243-270), FlaSh (39-56), plus some thin losing record against Larva (15-17) and TY (9-10). Data pulled from Eloboard combined with unlogged StarCastTV matches. Both of his ASL wins are no cakewalk either. Again, not trying to doubt you, I'm sure you've seen something that I haven't paid attention to, but the guy is absolute god-tier player based on his stats. Result wise he may not be, but style/skill wise he's a level below Soulkey. Soulkey legitimately dug it out against the best Terrans multiple times in late game to win ASLs. Think it was his first ASL title where he held on to dear life against Royal and slowly crawled back with his dark swarm play? In season 19, he also pulled out the Defiler 6 times in 14 games against Best and Snow. Many still remember his famous 40-min back and forth battles vs Snow on Blitz Y and Dominator. Now ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw Soma build a Defiler in ASL? He killed 3 Protosses on his way to the first title, playing 19 games, and only 2 times it went to late game, only because the map was Roaring Currents (which kind of forced you into that, but even so, there was no Defiler as late game on this map is played totally differently). Out of the 12 games he won, 9 were won off the back of Ling aggro or Hydra bust, 1 was a 3 Hatch before Pool, the other 2 were the 2 Roaring Currents games. His second ASL was kind of a cake walk. Only had to play Tulbo, sSak, Hero, Leta (sounds like a Ro24 group) until Flash in the final. And even then, the final was just a gambling competition between the two of them. No game went to late, some ended as soon as they began, the rest barely went into mid game lol.
You may have a good point regarding his skills compared to SoulKey - and the data also supports it. SoulKey also right behind soma in offline ZvP winrate in Remastered and far and away the greatest ZvT player with 65.79% winrate (75W-39L. Larva technically has higher Remastered ZvT winrate at 68% but he's only played 25 games). Versus Terran & Protoss online, like soma, he's only has losing h2h record against FlaSh (23-46), Light (234-253) and is almost dead-even versus Bisu (141-139).
However, I was specificially challenging the claim that soma is a "pretty bad player mechanically" and that he "just has good game sense". Sounds to me like he was saying soma's mechanical skills are well below the whole pack, which I'd assume he may or may not include Queen, Action, JD, effOrt OR herO etc...
That's the problem with such a big, generalized claim - it needs to backed up against all other top Z players, not just SoulKey.
I also want to reiterate how good soma's online ZvZ record is: while he has winning record againt all Zergs, SoulKey only has winning record against JD out of all the players I mentioned above. The ZvZ data is much thinner than the other matchups, but that's the thing: I'm not the one with the "soma is a pretty bad player mechanically" claim, so the burden of proof is not on me.
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0-2 for my LB so sad. Oh well GG on SoulKey on his 5th ASL title.
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On October 08 2026 12:30 TornadoSteve wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2026 09:57 TMNT wrote:On October 08 2026 03:32 Kanzzer wrote:On October 06 2026 21:08 PachiBW wrote:On October 06 2026 20:58 c3rberUs wrote:
I was 10% watching due to work. Do you guys think this was closer to the "coin-flip" stereotype or did the better player took the series match convincingly? The better player won. Despite what people say about his skill level, soma is a pretty bad player mechanically. He just has good game sense. He makes countless unforced errors in all of his matches and zerg is really easily able to punish those mistakes as soulkey showed here. It's just when he fights protoss, and to a lesser degree terran, they aren't able to capitalize on those mistakes as much because their armies aren't as mobile. In this series soma showed he needs to go back to starcraft university and learn where to build spires, to not just run his lings into opposing lings letting them die for free, and where to position his overlords. That is a very generalized and - dare I say - a very bold claim, and I would love for you to elaborate further. We are talking about 56.76% (21W-16L) winrate in ZvZ - which is the 2nd highest ZvZ winrate in the history of Remastered here (possibly 3rd if you count Queen's losses in ZvZ bronze matches) - trailing only effOrt (60%, 12W-8L), as well as arguably the greatest ZvP player in the modern era with 43W-20L, having lost only 3 matches (not games) ever against Protoss when it matters (plus one third place loss against Bisu). Since 2021, he also has winning head-to-head record against almost everyone, losing only to Bisu (201-229), Light (243-270), FlaSh (39-56), plus some thin losing record against Larva (15-17) and TY (9-10). Data pulled from Eloboard combined with unlogged StarCastTV matches. Both of his ASL wins are no cakewalk either. Again, not trying to doubt you, I'm sure you've seen something that I haven't paid attention to, but the guy is absolute god-tier player based on his stats. Result wise he may not be, but style/skill wise he's a level below Soulkey. Soulkey legitimately dug it out against the best Terrans multiple times in late game to win ASLs. Think it was his first ASL title where he held on to dear life against Royal and slowly crawled back with his dark swarm play? In season 19, he also pulled out the Defiler 6 times in 14 games against Best and Snow. Many still remember his famous 40-min back and forth battles vs Snow on Blitz Y and Dominator. Now ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw Soma build a Defiler in ASL? He killed 3 Protosses on his way to the first title, playing 19 games, and only 2 times it went to late game, only because the map was Roaring Currents (which kind of forced you into that, but even so, there was no Defiler as late game on this map is played totally differently). Out of the 12 games he won, 9 were won off the back of Ling aggro or Hydra bust, 1 was a 3 Hatch before Pool, the other 2 were the 2 Roaring Currents games. His second ASL was kind of a cake walk. Only had to play Tulbo, sSak, Hero, Leta (sounds like a Ro24 group) until Flash in the final. And even then, the final was just a gambling competition between the two of them. No game went to late, some ended as soon as they began, the rest barely went into mid game lol. Could you provide us more useless information to back up your completely non sense argument?
No because nothing can beat the uselessness of your post here.
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EPT
