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It is week 2 of Winner's League and the sheer number of games pouring in is simply overwhelming. With the best of 7 format in play, there really is no time for a breather, as each playday brings about a great deal more games than usual. Miss one and you'll have a tonne of catching up to do, although as fans, that's little to be complaining about. As the saying goes, "you snooze, you lose," and here we are, detailing what exactly you missed out on for the past week.
To start things off, we continue our all kill tally, and this week, another two join the esteemed list of players who have achieved this feat. If you're on this site, reading this now, you've probably heard of Fantasy, for he is to progaming, like Toyota is to cars - one of the strongest players in the field, but with some recent problems and hiccups of his own. After a disappointingly early exit in the OSL a couple of months back, he continued accumulating losses in R2 before he was axed from the lineup, with the SKT1 Terran slot going to Canata instead. He reemerged to play an occasional game or two late in R2, and there he showed some recovery of form, taking out players like Zero, Sea and Calm, leading his ailing team to some victories.
This week, the stage was set, the commentators were ready, and the fangirls were in place - as the first player sent out by SKT1, it was up to Fantasy to perform. Against CJ, he was eliminated quickly by SkyHigh, but in the set against eSTRO, he was truly the star of the night. Clashing with what is arguably eSTRO's finest line up (save the absence of flying), Fantasy had his work cut out for him, but nonetheless, he buckled himself down, and delivered an all kill to SKT on a silver platter.
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Attention adoring audience, no need to cheer. It'll get to my head.
Some absolutely breathtaking play took place in that series, and in terms of entertainment value, strategical understanding and novelty of builds, Fantasy was unparalleled. From his science vessel rush into 3 fac tank against Hyvaa to the 3 fac vult answer to Really's aggressive 2 fac vulture opening, you never knew what to expect from Fantasy. The game against Upmagic was icing on the cake too, and to honour Fantasy's achievement this week, we have selected it to be Game of the Week.
GOTW - Fantasy vs Upmagic on Roadrunner
By Pangshai
TvT. Oh how we've avoided this match up like the plague. Not too long ago, they were all about huge tank lines and turret walls. Hour long stalemates, after splitting the map in half, with BCs, wraiths and vessels involved were not uncommon. We've progressed a little from those times, but many would probably agree that watching TvT is still much like watching a chess match. With the overabundance of mirrors these days, we can't help but chance upon a TvT every once in a while, but games like this one make it all worthwhile.
The match began with Fantasy in the bottom right and Upmagic in the top right of Tornado. The early game was riddled with some unorthodox play - Fantasy proxied his rax on the other side of the bridges leading to his nat, and scouted with 2 SCVs. Despite this, the game played out fairly standard - no one performed, or died to, a rush. Factories were started for both players, and upon their completion, Upmagic threw down a starport in his main, while Fantasy, continuing with his proxies, also started a starport, his, at the 12 o'clock expo.
The first confrontation of the game occured when Fantasy forced his way up Upmagic's ramp with a vult rine combo. Easily picking apart Upmagic's defense of 2 rines, he made Upmagic pull off a couple of SCVs to defend, and took those out as well. A second vulture made its way into Upmagic's main, but a lone tank from Upmagic prevented any further SCV losses. Fantasy, however, now had the upperhand in terms of scouting. With knowledge of the incoming cloaked wraiths, he put down an academy in his main, along with a second starport, looking to overwhelm Upmagic's wraiths and claim the skies.
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The first wraiths for both players were immediately deployed to the opponent's main as soon as they were out. Fantasy's began picking off the SCVs that were desperately trying to get an academy up, while Upmagic busied himself with those mining minerals. Firebats and tanks soon joined the fray, and the SCV casualties started to rack up.
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Goliaths eventually forced Fantasy out of Upmagic's main as his wraiths' energy ran out, and similarly, the wraiths in Fantasy's main were made to retreat. Just as Fantasy was looking like he had came out ahead in this exchange, with an SCV count just slightly larger than Upmagic's, the fighting began again. This time, 3 wraiths and 2 goliaths found their way into Fantasy's main, and SCVs started falling like flies. At the same time though, Fantasy's 6 wraiths had whittled Upmagic's SCV count down to a mere 2.
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Sadly, the return flight of Fantasy's wraiths was just a tad too long, and while they were on their way back, all their SCV comrades fell to Upmagic's army. Upon their arrival back home, they exacted swift and merciless revenge for the deaths of their buddies, leaving no survivors behind.
Upmagic was in a grim position now. He had the economic lead with 2 SCVs to none, but a single cloaked wraith quickly deprived him of that, thanks to a wasted scan. His only option left was to attack, and he sent his remaining 3 goliaths on a march down to Fantasy's main. As they neared the centre of the map, Fantasy's wraiths swooped in on his main, and took out his scanner, and from the look on Upmagic's face, he knew the game was up. His goliaths arrived in Fantasy's main, hoping that his wraiths would be out of energy, but as soon as they cloaked, Upmagic typed in the GG and left the game.
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This game might've changed our opinion on TvT. It showcased fast paced, low eco action at its best - both players racing against each other to do as much damage possible to the other's economies. A refreshing and welcome change from the standard mass expo, tank/vult/gol/dropship style of TvT, this game entertained like no other.
No doubt, after this game, some of you are probably wondering about the appropriate answer to 2 port wraith. Well, before you go posting in the strategy section, take a look first at Leta's game against Baby, part of his all kill run against WeMade FOX. Yes, the other player this week to achieve an all kill is hite SPARKYZ's Leta. What made his achievement less outstanding though, is the fact that his opponents weren't playing quite up to par.
Not trying to take anything away from this accomplishment, but you have to look no further than his game vs Roro to understand what we're trying to get at. Roro's 2 hatch muta did a tonne of damage in Leta's main, and he even had Leta contained until his defilers were out. This would've been an easy win for any other Zerg, and it was probably nerves getting to Roro, but he managed to screw it up from there, forgetting defilers, losing expoes, not scourging well. Leta played well, his dropships roaming the map and controlling Roro's expansions, but there were obvious slip ups in his game as well.
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Leta, giggling to himself after seeing all his opponents' mistakes.
To a lesser extent, Pure similarly threw away the first game. After defending Leta's first drop without probe losses that were too major, he continued making a bunch of DTs that ended up being stranded outside of Leta's nat due to mines. Why he never got a forge and cannons in his mineral line is something that eludes us, but it would've saved him from such an early loss. Surely, you've to expect another drop to be coming after your opponent's cleared out all your DTs in his main.
Anyway, enough on that, we move on to the almost-theres. These players went on a 3 game rampage, but they were brutally stopped before they managed a 4th. Light, Jaedong, Best and FBH form this pool of players, FBH even managing this for a second week in a row, defying the expectations of all 488 players who still have him on their FPL anti teams. They must be kicking themselves right now, as FBH has lost a total of 14 points for them, and looks set to continue winning more games. Interestingly, FBH and Jaedong's streaks were stopped by Really and Zero respectively, and both these players went on to almost reverse all kill the other team. Unfortunately, they were plugged in the ace game - Really, in an intense match against Stork, and Zero, once again, by Killer, who is now 2-0 vs him.
Really, though, in his reverse all kill attempt, played a truly spectacular game against Jangbi that would have made Game of the Week. In it, he utilised the medic's optical flare to blind Jangbi's observers and shuttles, stopping any form of reaver harass that Jangbi was planning, and taking out his eyes on the battlefield. Mines became so much stronger because of Jangbi's lack of detection, and the useless observers and shuttles just ate away at his gas while taking up supply. So effective was his strategy that the day after he'd executed it, Light employed it in his game against Pure, blinding arbiters and observers, and achieving a similar result.
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Jaehoon celebrating a victory: a very uncommon sight.
Speaking of Light, his teammate, Jaehoon, has also been doing pretty well. Getting displaced from his seat by HyungJun must've ignited some kind of inner fire, because he completely stomped Kal into the ground on Judgement Day - pretty unprecedented for someone with a 37% win ratio, and a reputation to suck. After Kal went down, it was surprising that STX didn't field Hwasin, especially on a decent TvP map like Tornado, but it didn't really matter, Sea would've brought it to an end anyway.
And... that's roughly what went on in this week's Winner's League. Before we're done, however, Harem takes a look into next week for us, points out some potentially notable games, and makes some daring predictions.
February 7
CJ Entus vs KT Rolster
Movie<New Tornado>
Flash
This night is filled with awesome and what better way to lead off than with a rematch of the OSL finals. While Movie might not have managed to win the finals, he showed just how dirty and creative he is with some builds that would make even Idra alt+qq against his fellow Entusmen. However, Flash is still going to be the clear winner of this match. It's just a matter of which CJ player will snipe him. After all, Flash isn't getting his first all-kill of the season. Why, you ask? Because G-Chizzle is on Stars and the thought of someone else all-killing CJ makes him ROFLster.
February 8
Samsung KHAN vs STX SouL
great<Judgment Day>
YoonJoong
There's a rumor going around that STX has a Protoss other than Kal. Such a rumor can only be likened to the Loch Ness monster sightings. Silly people, when will they learn? Kal's PvZ would have just rolled over the Khan Zerg easily, though, if January has her way then the Birdtoss will take down the Red Shuttle like a true bird of prey, and then fry himself some clam for dinner. That just leaves Hwasin and it's simply a matter of either loading a shuttle with dts or watching Hwasin allow one of his CCs to burn down yet again.
February 9
MBCGame HERO vs Woongjin Stars
Sea<Judgment Day>
ZerO
Hype doesn't even begin to do the opening match justice. This is a match that even the most stalwart of Protoss fans will be anticipating. Why? Because Starship Troopers is going to be re-enacted and everyone loves Neil Patrick Harris. An interesting note about this matchup is that Sea will be looking to avenge his MSL prelims loss to Soulkey, so losing to Zero is not an option for him. However, it'll be all for naught as Sea will be no match for the bonjwa Guemchi himself.
February 10
Hwaseung OZ vs CJ Entus
Jaedong<Fighting Spirit>
Iris
The last time these two titans met, dongalisks reigned supreme and Iris went home immediately to contact Blizzard to get them to patch SC. Unfortunately for him, Blizzard declined and now he has nightmares of glaive wurms every night to go along with his fear of defilers. Poor guy. Now, CJ is one of the best sniping teams out there. They are spending this week trying to think of ways to keep from being Donged. However, stopping Jaedong alone won't be enough to secure a CJ victory. CJ still has to stop the fearsome magikarp's splash attack, and hope that the mini Dong in the booth is Baxter, or they will be facing a true Killer.
CJ Entus vs KT Rolster


This night is filled with awesome and what better way to lead off than with a rematch of the OSL finals. While Movie might not have managed to win the finals, he showed just how dirty and creative he is with some builds that would make even Idra alt+qq against his fellow Entusmen. However, Flash is still going to be the clear winner of this match. It's just a matter of which CJ player will snipe him. After all, Flash isn't getting his first all-kill of the season. Why, you ask? Because G-Chizzle is on Stars and the thought of someone else all-killing CJ makes him ROFLster.
February 8
Samsung KHAN vs STX SouL


There's a rumor going around that STX has a Protoss other than Kal. Such a rumor can only be likened to the Loch Ness monster sightings. Silly people, when will they learn? Kal's PvZ would have just rolled over the Khan Zerg easily, though, if January has her way then the Birdtoss will take down the Red Shuttle like a true bird of prey, and then fry himself some clam for dinner. That just leaves Hwasin and it's simply a matter of either loading a shuttle with dts or watching Hwasin allow one of his CCs to burn down yet again.
February 9
MBCGame HERO vs Woongjin Stars


Hype doesn't even begin to do the opening match justice. This is a match that even the most stalwart of Protoss fans will be anticipating. Why? Because Starship Troopers is going to be re-enacted and everyone loves Neil Patrick Harris. An interesting note about this matchup is that Sea will be looking to avenge his MSL prelims loss to Soulkey, so losing to Zero is not an option for him. However, it'll be all for naught as Sea will be no match for the bonjwa Guemchi himself.
February 10
Hwaseung OZ vs CJ Entus


The last time these two titans met, dongalisks reigned supreme and Iris went home immediately to contact Blizzard to get them to patch SC. Unfortunately for him, Blizzard declined and now he has nightmares of glaive wurms every night to go along with his fear of defilers. Poor guy. Now, CJ is one of the best sniping teams out there. They are spending this week trying to think of ways to keep from being Donged. However, stopping Jaedong alone won't be enough to secure a CJ victory. CJ still has to stop the fearsome magikarp's splash attack, and hope that the mini Dong in the booth is Baxter, or they will be facing a true Killer.
On that note, we're more or less done this week. As usual, we raved about Winner's League last week, and we raved about it again this week. In case you are one of those who've yet to see the light on the matter and still doubt the awesomeness of Winner's League, well, just keep watching - the games will speak for themselves, and we're positive you'll, very soon, change your mind.
This Proleague update was brought to you by Team Liquid's PL 2009-10 coverage team - riptide, heyoka and pangshai. Many thanks to keit as usual for the stellar graphics, Harem for the week 3 previews, and 7mk for letting us use his photo in the banner!