This week's game features Action, the new, up and coming Zerg from eSTRO. While this Zerg player's record may look pretty poor, do not be mistaken, he is actually a player with lots of brooding potential. He has taken games from some really good players including Violet and SkyHigh, and looked amazing while doing so. In the other corner this week, is Mind. Having not performed well in the individual leagues recently, Proleague is his only grounds to redeem himself. He successfully cheesed Calm a couple of weeks ago, but much still remains to be said about his play.

Starting off the game with a somewhat risky strategy, Mind opened with a 14CC against Action's 12 hatch. Action's drone scout quickly scouted Mind's build, but Mind was able to stop the harass from getting any SCV kills. A 3rd hatch was planted for Action, and Action's 3 hatch muta was soon to be pit against Mind's marines and medics.

The game first picked up when Mind made a move early with just pure marines. In what seemed like a manoeuvre to force Action to sunken up, Mind left his choke with his initial 6 marines, and this was scouted by a ling. Action refused to comply to Mind's plans, however, and no sunken was started. Unfortunately for him, Mind had been determined to follow through with the attack, and, before long, the marines arrived at an undefended Zerg natural.

They picked off an overlord and a couple of drones, but more importantly, they forced Action to spawn more zerglings and pull drones off mining to defend. Action did eventually fend off the attack, speed for his lings kicking in just in time, but Mind definitely came out ahead in that exchange.



In order to pile the pressure on, Mind then followed up his early marines with another attack, this time supported by firebats and medics. 6 marines, 2 firebats and 2 medics arrived at Action's choke, where strangely, Mind decided not to engage a single sunken and a small group of lings in what would have been a game ending move; even if he hadn't broken the defense there, he would have at least forced Action to spend larvae on lings, delaying the mutas significantly.

Anyway, Mind fell his army back to his choke, awaiting the arrival of the mutas. Action tried some ling run-bys, but only succeeded in losing all his lings for mostly no damage at all. Things were looking grim for Action, who was now facing a Terran who was well turreted, had 4 raxes pumping, roughly 2 groups of marine medic out, and a starport nearly completed.

With nothing much to fear, Mind moved out with his marine medic, aiming to pressure the Zerg's third. The muta harass was somewhat successful in picking off bits of the army, but Mind was simply trading some of his marines for muta kills, forcing Action to spend precious minerals replacing them.



This all acted in Mind's favour as Action's third base was further and further delayed. In fact, Action knew that a strong push would soon be coming, and there would be no way to stop it without defilers, so he even delayed his 3rd base in favour of a faster hive. Action's understanding of the situation, and willingness to compromise on his 3rd gas to get his defilers out, was truly a mark of a strong Zerg player.

However, the young Zerg player still had a long, steep uphill climb in front of him. Against Mind's now +1 attack upgraded marines, his mutalisks were faring abysmally. His freshly planted 3rd base was in jeopardy, but thankfully, his mutas bought enough time for his first two lurkers to get up the ramp.

The danger, though, was far from over. Mind's large mid game army was up and running, and making its way over to his nat. Attempts to scourge the first vessel failed, and 3 tanks began shelling Action's sunkens. A couple of lurkers from Action's third base made their way down to stop reinforcements, but Mind cleared them out ruthlessly, allowing the reinforcements to join up and form a huge army. At this time, we were ready to award the win to Mind - Action's chances just seemed impossibly slim. Consume's completion and a darkswarm planted at his nat looked like it was just temporarily delaying the inevitable.



What happened next stunned us all. Action's multitasking, defiler control, general awareness and game sense was just absolutely beautiful. In the gruelling task of defensive swarm play, Action wowed us all with play that was reminiscent of the retired GGplay or even the Maestro himself.

Mind's continued and repeated assaults on Action's third were again and again turned away by swarm and lurkers. A two dropship drop on Action's main, and a simultaneous frontal assault on Action's nat failed to do much damage, with only the drop being mildly successful, taking out an evolution chamber and a hydra den. Many brave soldiers fell to plague, lings and lurker spines, and dropships and vessels were scourged - there was hope that Action might yet crawl his way back into the game.




A 4th and 5th base were going up for Action, as Mind's third began its mining operations. Another 2 dropships headed up for Action's 3rd, timed for a concurrent attack at the hatching natural at 12 o'clock, but lings were well in position, awaiting the descent of their payload, and along with lurkers under swarm at the nat, both attacks were swatted away.

Mind was persistent though, and he was finally rewarded when his marines brought Action's new hatcheries, at both 11 and 12, down. In the meantime, another base at 10 was coming up for Mind, and 2 factories were being constructed, clearly indicating Mind's intention of getting mass tanks.



Trying to put an end to Action's comeback, Mind headed for Action's 4th gas at 1 o'clock. Things looked precarious for a moment as only a couple of lurkers were present, but swarm and some reinforcement lings prevented the base from falling. Ultras were now out for Action, but his main and nat geysers were probably depleting quickly, and he would soon need another base to sustain their production. Mind's vessel count had also been slowly growing despite Action's constant scourging, and five vessels were doing irradiate raids on the Zerg army.

Confident that Action's army had been sufficiently dwindled down by irradiate, Mind then rallied his army together and made a move on Action's nat. Marines and medics faced down with a couple of irradiated ultralisks and sunkens, and tore them apart. All the drones fell promptly, and Action took a huge hit to his economy, though he managed to clean the attack out eventually. On the other side of the map, Action's lings had geared up for an assault on Mind's base at 10, but without the help of swarm, had failed to do so, setting the Zerg player back again.



Mind's macro had been going strong, and another army of marines and medics, soon, was marching down to Action's natural. Swarm and plague turned it away temporarily, and at the same time, Action's second assault on Mind's base had better results, forcing a liftoff. The Zerg player's fortune appeared to be changing, but he still had a large Terran army, freshly reinforced with some ten odd tanks, to deal with.

This was probably Mind's final stand. His main and nat were dry, and he was only running on 1 base at his third. This army had to do damage. He trudged on to Action's 4th base at 1 o'clock, getting hit by multiple plagues along the way. However, it was his impatience that killed him. Running up the ramp at 1 with his marine medics, they quickly got surrounded and crushed by ultraling. The tanks then found themselves without any cover, and were gobbled up by more ultraling flowing in from Action's bases. Mind tried an eraser to save himself, but ultraling poured into his bases and ended the game.




This game was a fantastic showing from Action. He demonstrated some fantastic understanding of the matchup, timing his expansions and hive tech perfectly despite being behind. His defiler play was also delightful to watch, and could be said to be on par with the best. Mind did not make too many major errors that game, so this comeback was truly one of Action's own merit. This player has lots of potential, and we see him going places in future.

At the end of every round, we, the Proleague coverage team, wonder how we might sum up the round in a unique and fun manner. Last round, we provided a summary of the top 10 games of the round, in a bid to ensure that you didn't miss out on any of the show-stopping action. With the conclusion of round two, we have reached the mid-point of the regular Proleague season (which excludes the Winner's League), and this time, we thought we would celebrate with the inaugural Proleague Awards!

Drawing from the OSL awards idea that was first introduced by Mensrea ages ago, we decided that this would be an interesting project to embark on. But, of course, we've thrown in a few twists of our own, to make this our very own. Read on!

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The 'Roger Federer' award for player of the tournament
Who deserves the most coveted prize of all, player of the tournament?


This young terran has come a long way since his debut in 2007. Not many people would've predicted his meteoric rise to fame then, as his games were fraught with cheese and rushes, but there is no doubt now that he is the strongest Terran player in the scene. With a record of 22-3, he leads by a huge margin, with second place, Zero, only coming in at 20-10.

We wanted to make a case for Really or Sea, as they are players who have been pivotal to their team's success, but our blind fanboyism didn't allow us to see past Flash's monstrous 88% win ratio. Hell, if he continues on this rampage, this award might soon have to be named after him.

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The 'Lady GaGa' award for best breakthrough player
Who made you sit up and suddenly take notice?


There are many players who just fade away, retire, or disappear, after a lifetime of mediocrity. Names like Keke, Jy and Eliza, should ring a bell, or maybe you've just never heard of them. Well, Really looked like another eSTRO player destined to walk that path, having achieved nothing of significance since he first appeared on the scene in 2007 (bet you didn't know that). However, if you've been following our weekly updates, you'll have noticed that that has all changed.

Let's put things into perspective. Before the start of the 09-10 season, Really's record was 42-53, with a win ratio of 44% (including games from individual leagues). If we looked at just this season's games, Really has gone 18-7. His record puts him in third place, ahead of even players like Effort and Calm. In fact, Zero's second place 20-10, has a poorer win ratio when compared to Really's 72%. This player ruined many anti-teams in FPL, and continues to defy the odds.

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The 'Lebron James' award for best newcomer
Like it says, which player is the best novice?


After puzzling over this decision for quite a while, we finally arrived at this result. There will probably be much controversy over who should really receive the award, and who actually qualifies as a newcomer (especially since we didn't follow any particular guidelines on this one), but we're pretty satisfied with who we've picked.

Action's record so far is 8-5, ahead of the other candidates in the running for the award, Flying, Killer and Turn. For someone who's only played 4 other televised games before this season, this is actually a really good accomplishment. What is more incredible about this Zerg player is that he plays excellent games almost all the time - of the 14 GotWs that we've done in the coverage of this season, Action has been featured in 3 of them, the most of any player, including this week's action packed, explosive game against Mind.

In second place is Flying. Flying's play continues to improve on an everyday basis, and his recent game against Roro is testament to this fact. His handling of Roro's sunken/spore/lurk into mass ultralisk was well calculated, and his choice to expand into the middle worked like a charm. This Protoss player shows lots of promise and is likely to do well in future.

Now, you might ask, why not Killer? He has beaten some big names like Fantasy, Movie and Zero. However, his disappointing ace match performances convinced us that he still has a long way to go. We also took a look at the games he's played, and sometimes, Killer plays some of the crappiest games possible. In the end, the question we asked ourselves was, who would you rather watch play? Action, no doubt.

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The 'Guus Hiddink' award for coaches
Which coach left the greatest impression?


People often disregard the importance of having a good coach. While not all is known about what exactly a coach does, what we know for sure is, coaches not only pick which players will be sent out, and what strategies they'll use, they also have the ability to influence the atmosphere and morale of the team.

Early last round, we reported that Coach Ha was once again taking over the helm of this floundering team, and look at what he's done. Since he took over, MBC's wowed everyone; they ended second place in R1, and now conclude round 2 with an overall top 4 finish. Sure, they didn't fare as well in the second round, but their results are still a huge improvement from where they were in the previous season.

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The 'Unk' award for strangest ace choice.
Why not?


Your team is tied 2-2 with the opposition, and you're forced into the ace match. At your disposal is the best damn Zerg on the planet, and some other scrub, a fresh face to the scene. Who do you pick? To some the choice is obvious. To others, not so much.

What makes this choice so clear cut is that, playing Jaedong as ace has essentially been Hwaseung's strategy since forever - they got through the majority of last season with it, and very nearly won the Proleague grand finals with it. Everyone knows the drill: Jaedong wins a game, someone else wins another game, Jaedong wins ace. Now, why's this Killer dude fucking with the system?

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The 'Atlas' award for team carrier
Which player was crucial for his team's success?


Immediately following the 'Unk' award, we have the 'Atlas' award, and this goes to Sea, MBC's hero Terran. Sea first led the MBC revival in R1, helming the onward charge, but when he started losing games in R2, so did MBC. In fact, everytime MBC won a set, Sea also won his match. The reverse was also mostly true. Everytime Sea lost his game, MBC also lost the set. Only once (against eSTRO in R1), when Sea lost to Really, was MBC able to fight back and bring it to ace, where Sea redeemed himself with a win over Upmagic.

Right behind him in the runner up spot is Jaedong, the critical piece in Hwaseung's winning strategy. When he was underperforming in R1, Hwaseung's results were terrible; they came in at 9th place with a score of 4-7. After Jaedong's recovery, they improved a little, 6-5 the score at the end of R2.

Similarly, a large part of Hwaseung's wins can be attributed to Jaedong - almost every time Hwaseung won, Jaedong also won a match. There were only two exceptions to this, once, when Hwaseung won 3-0 so Jaedong didn't get to play, and a second time just this week, when Jaedong was allowed some off time to get MSL practice in. The burden on these two players' shoulders, it is a wonder they do not collapse under its weight.

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The 'Idra' award for BM
Who had the best, funniest, most unique BM in a match?


With governing body, Kespa, enforcing some of strictest rules around, players get very little opportunity to BM in a game. Tricks that were tried in the past included offensive GGs, most notably by Backho with his "zizi yo" against Firefist, using buildings to draw pictures, ala Much and his pylon hearts, and dancing around opponents, FBH style.

Honestly, we didn't expect this award to go to anyone else. Every opportunity FBH gets (and these days, these are few and far between), he puts to good use. In this game, he acquires an advantage with a mech build that catches Action off guard. As his goliaths decimate Action's nat, the camera cuts to FBH in his booth where he is already performing a victory ceremony. Move over CCs-proxied-in-opponent's-main, this is the next big thing.

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The 'Obama peace prize?!' award for most WTF moment
Was there a game that made you drop your jaw in wonder?



After watching this match, we were at a loss for words, so we thought simply recounting Canata's build would have to suffice. Proxy 8 rax, 8 refinery, 9 factory? 10 depot? The build was so laughable that you kinda wonder what was going through Canata's head during practice. Or how Oov even approved of this build. Or what Boxer was thinking as he watched from the benches.

Everytime you see a cheese, you can go through a mental checklist - an index of criteria that has to be fulfiled for the cheese to be successful. Say a 4pool, the list would look something like: opponent 12 hatches, or opponent screws up SCV micro. For Canata's build: magical gnomes appear in Roro's booth and rip off his keyboard and arms, forcing him to play mouse-only with his feet. Really, what are the chances?

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The 'Ferrari' award for teams
Which team looks like it might be a winner in theory, but always just falls short?


Yes guys, WeMade Fox. A few weeks back, we mentioned that WeMade was on the rocks once again after a fantastic start in early R1. Specifically, we brought up the fact that WeMade lacked a strong ace player, and often floundered in the ace match to teams that appeared "weaker." Well, WeMade continued that trend well into R2, and at its conclusion, has played a total of 10 ace matches.

Here's the icing on the cake. Of the 10 matches, WeMade has only succeeded in winning 2, putting them at an incredibly pathetic score of 2-8. They often don't seem to have a clear idea which player they want to field, alternating between Roro and Mind, and these two players have each only won a single game, despite having decent win ratios in normal Proleague games. Heh, the pressure must really get to some people.

By now, everyone would be familiar with the change-map-pool-per-round system. This round, the Winners League, is no exception, and everyone eagerly looked forward to the new maps that would be used in the all-kill league. And MrHoon gave us some surprising news...



Changes

The most obvious change here is how much more tighter this map has become. Walls that surround the expansions of the four sides (12, 3, 6 and 9) are even longer, making defending the expansions much more easy. Easily reminds you of Andromeda, without the islands. The second change is the removal of the 'backdoor' opening, which in the previous version was blocked by four 32-value mineral fields. This means players no longer have to worry about backdoor run-by from happening in mid-game, where the terrible worker AIs mine them out without being commanded to do so. With a free mineral-only expansion after walling-in, this may play out similarly to another map - Arcadia II, just without the wide, open center. Huge macro games or timing push-based play are expected to play out the most here, especially since unlike Andromeda, this map has no high ground for the players to turtle with.


Not a lot of changes here. The third gas is now easier to defend thanks to a tighter choke, and the removal of the bridges at the center of the map now makes it easier for Terrans to play against Zergs (although, they have been replaced with destroyable Power Generators). A small change is that lurkers shouldn't be able to attack the natural from the high ground at the third, as you can see some doodad and unwalkable terrain being placed there. Other than that, I expect the map to play out similarly as according to the map test matches, albeit a bit more balanced.

Return of Mech?
While most matches played out more or less standard, we have seen TvZ being the hardest match up to balance on these two maps, with Mech builds prevailing on these two maps. Will we once again see Mech being used on these two maps?

Judgement Day's changes allows quick 3 bases while pushing out just a bit further with tanks, mines and turrets allows a very fast and safe third gas. While the tighter openings at the expansions may allow Zergs to have a much easier time defending against vulture raids, the cliffable natural still remains, and with not much room to flank, Zergs are going to have an incredibly difficult time facing Mech if they don't go for a super-economy build ala Flash vs GGPlay.

Boxer showed us why Mech is strong on Roadrunner - Multiple paths that Vultures can abuse and being able to melt an expansion and quickly regain map control with a Mech blob army. The removal of the bridges at the center of the map now gives Terran players more reason to choose Bionic over Mech as MnM won't die on the bridges anymore, and unlike Destination where getting a third gas after being contained behind the bridges was extremely hard, this map allows for a quick third gas even if you did get contained behind the bridges, which may make a Mech transition possible or even a tank-heavy MnM army viable (although the third gas may or may not be the same 2000 value geyser).

Either way, it will be interesting to see how these maps will play out after these changes, and what better way than to start off with the exciting Winners' League, where you don't even know who you're playing next, much less what you're going to face.