[WL] Top Brass, Bottom Feeders

Special Features

The last couple of weeks has potentially been the most exciting and intense weeks that any diehard starcraft fanboy has experienced - first, we had the TSL finals, a thrilling bo7 between Mondragon and Nony, in what was probably the last big starcraft 1 tournament in the foreigner scene. Then, we had the release of the starcraft 2 beta - a move that rekindled passion in the game for some, but prompted the departure of others who had been playing the game for years. In the midst of these wild and monumentous happenings, we neglected to bring you an update last week, lost in the mad rush of everything around us - for that we offer our sincerest apologies, and we shall seek to compensate by offering you a double dose of Winner's League this week to whet your appetites.

A look at what got us all worked up last week

Diving straight in, we take a look at the teams on top. KT Rolster sits firmly ahead of everyone with a 7-0 score, having taken out some traditionally strong teams like SKT1 and Hwaseung Oz. With a monster like Flash in their arsenal, it is not surprising that they have taken Winner's League in such dominating fashion, given the all-kill format employed. Basing their strategy around when they play Flash, he is usually either fielded as the team's first player, or reserved for the ace match, both of which work very effective mind games on the opposing team. In fact, in the match against SKT1, KT was down 0-3, and coach Park must've been feeling pretty confident about his chances. However, Flash came out, sat down calmly in his seat, and proceeded to completely demolish SKT1's premiere lineup in a reverse all kill. Flash has been playing some great starcraft recently, and we thought it'd be appropriate to have another one of his games as Game of the Week, this time, the ace match against Kwanro.

GOTW - Flash vs Kwanro on Roadrunner
By Pangshai

This week, Flash vs Kwanro makes the headlines with some very entertaining TvZ play on Roadrunner. Flash, despite dropping a couple of games recently, is still showing extremely strong form after his MSL loss to Jaedong, but his opponent, Kwanro, is no scrub either, coming in as top 5 Zerg in KeSPA, power and ELO ranks. The two last clashed in NATE MSL, where Flash came out ahead with a 3-1 score. Now, with the team's hopes on their shoulders, who will claim victory?

A pretty standard early game with Flash 1 rax FEing and Kwanro planting a 3rd hatch after his pool, quickly took a deviation from regular play when Flash started a factory immediately after setting up his expansion, and headed towards valkyrie tech. Allowing Flash to scout his spire tech with his SCV, Kwanro too, had some tricks up his sleeve, faking 3 hatch muta, and going for fast lurkers instead.

Expecting mutas, Flash stayed at home with his marine medic army, and when the mutas did not arrive, he knew something was amiss. Realising he had been fooled, he made his valkyries useful by sending them out on an overlord killing mission, but they promptly met their ends to some scourges. His marine medic army, as well, was sent for some expansion hunting.

Unfortunately for Flash, his army missed the lurker eggs that had been hatching in the middle of the map, and with his army out and about, 5 newly morphed lurkers sauntered into his undefended nat, and dug their way into the ground. Flash retreated his SCVs quickly, minimising their losses, but with only freshly trained marines to defend, Kwanro was climbing up his ramp pretty much unhindered. A tank and new recruits eventually cleaned it up, but Flash was massively behind.

Trying to even the game out a little, Flash landed a drop in Kwanro's main. He scored a small number of drone kills and succeeded in taking out Kwanro's spawning pool, but with hive tech (supported by a third gas) already up, and Flash's science facility still unconstructed, it seemed defilers would soon end the game. In the back of his head, Flash knew this was going to happen. However, unlike other Terrans who would still try, futilely, to get vessels out to defend, Flash opted for another path. In his main, he began adding new factories, making the midgame switch to mech in order to defend against the swarm push at his new expansion with mines.

Soon enough, the attack came, and some decent micro from Kwanro allowed a minority of his army to make it through the minefield. It forced a liftoff of the CC, but once the swarm wore off, the expansion was reestablished.

Understanding the limitations of mech, Kwanro was now taking expansions all over the place, quickly populating them with drones while also pumping out huge amounts of ultraling with upgrades. Flash, however, was not idle. His vultures were everywhere, mining up the centre of the map, and harassing Kwanro's expansions, feasting on supple drone flesh.

Flash eventually took a 4th base at bottom left, and established a position on the high ground where his tanks began shelling the nat at 6. Ultras tried to take it out, but mines and mass tanks held, and Kwanro lost a good number of units. This attack, however, was just a prelude to many others to come, beginning a game of brutal harass and immaculate defense. Kwanro hit Flash's expansions a countless times with drops of ultraling, and each time, Flash held it off, sometimes just barely. In response, Flash performed vulture raids of his own, picking off entire populations of drones, mining up the entire map, and even taking out ultralisks with mines.

When all was said and done, and the dust from the attacks had settled, Flash had probably come back from his early deficit. Kwanro on the other hand, had suffered greatly at the hands of Flash's vultures, and while he still had many bases, his drone count had dwindled significantly. It was obvious he didn't have the answer to Flash's mech; his drops were failing miserably, and if the game continued any further, he'd, no doubt, be facing defeat. He added queens to his army, in hope that in a long game, their broodlings would be of some use, but this seemed more like a move of desperation.

When Flash finally maxed out, he deployed his 200/200 metal army, heading for Kwanro's expansions on the right. The first volley of broodlings hit his army on the way, but did little to stop their progress. Flying his ultralisks in to engage the Terran army via overlords, Kwanro tried to save his expansions on the right, but the tanks held fast and together with some reinforcement vultures, mowed the ultralisks down.

Things were looking pretty grim for Kwanro now, as the tanks took the high ground and began shelling his expansion at 3. He still had a pretty decent army of ultraling, but that met up with a second metal army in the middle of the map, and was taken out. Suddenly down from 5 bases to 1, time was running out for Kwanro to get something done. He managed to clear out the units on his high ground, but with his terrible economy, there was just little hope of taking on the Terran giant. After continuing and failing with a couple more drops, he GGed out of the game, evidently disappointed with his play.

Kwanro's inflexibility this game looked like it really cost him. As we all know, ultralisks are pretty terrible against mech, but having prepared them against what he thought would be an mm army, Kwanro was too stubborn to switch up his game plan. Combating mines with ultralisks is not exactly the smartest thing to do, and a muta/hydra switch, or even just a muta switch would've done a lot better. Once again, great play from our intrepid Terran hero, but really, it was Kwanro's game, and he threw it away.

Continuing where we left off, we have MBCGame Hero and STX Soul rounding up the top 3 teams, with a score of 6-2. MBCGame has been solid all season, so a placing outside of the top couple of teams would've been a unexpected. What is a little bewildering is Light's performance so far in Winner's League. Despite a lacklustre performance last round (where Sea outshone him in every aspect), Light has simply crushed most of his opponents this round. You have to look no further than his all kill of SKT1 just this week to get proof of his current form. Complemented by Hyun, Sea and Jaehoon, MBC's outfit is heading forwards strongly.

STX Soul, in contrast, has found success with some lesser known players in their line up. Shuttle and Modesty have both seen a fair amount of play this Winner's League, and surely, must have lived up to the expectations of their coach. When they falter, team veterans like Kal, Calm and Hwasin are there to pick up the slack, and bring in the win for the team. Their only all kill so far though, was achieved by Shuttle against KHAN, an accomplishment that he is, no doubt, still boasting about in the team house.

Behind the cute asian pose is the soul of a heartless all killer

Now, let's turn our attention to the bottom few teams. Coming in right at the bottom is Airforce ACE - no upsets there. What has made many oldschool progaming fans sad is that ACE is getting schooled week after week. It must really be terrible for morale when you go out with the knowledge that the other team expects to all kill you, and what further worsens this is the fact that often times, ACE is not getting all killed by an S class player, but some scrub like Puma or Baby. This week, however, must've felt pretty good for the players of ACE, as they claim their first victory - against Hwaseung Oz, no less, renewing the claims of a Jaedong slump.

Speaking of Jaedong, his team hasn't been doing too well either. As we've mentioned a countless number of times, Jaedong is central to Oz's strategy and when he doesn't perform, neither does Oz. What is interesting though, is the huge swings in Oz's form this round. Occasionally, they give tough teams a run for their money, bringing KT Rolster and Woongjin into the ace match, and defeating SKT with ease. Other times, they lose to ACE and eSTRO. As a team that should be most familiar with ace matches, they haven't been faring too well in those either, coming in at only 2-3, with none of those wins actually attributable to Jaedong. These findings were intriguing, so we took some time out to review his ace match game against Stork in the Game of Last Week.

GOLW - Jaedong vs Stork on Match Point

By l10f

The crowd became silent. The two players were about to clash. It was the battle of the aces. Stork, the ace of Samsung Khan and the Protoss race. Jaedong, the ace of Hwaseung Oz and the Zerg race.

Jaedong's signature death stare

Jaedong spawned at 1 o'clock as the tan Zerg, and Stork warped in at 7 o'clock as the teal Protoss. Jaedong opened with a 12 hatchery 11 pool, and Stork responded by making nexus and gateway before cannons. Stork tried to delay his cannons as long as possible to get some economic advantage, but this allowed Jaedong to sneak in two zerglings into Stork's main. Stork vastly underestimated these two zerglings, as he sent out his first zealot, which did no damage, to Jaedong's main, but Jaedong's two lings, later reinforced by four more, took out a total of 6 Probes before they were killed.

Warning: Do not underestimate Jaedong's lings!

Stork's tech was significantly slowed down by the zergling harassment, but the game continued on fairly standardly. Stork teched up to templars while building up a speedlot army, and Jaedong got his 4th and 5th Hatcheries, a hydralisk den, and the mineral expansion. The first major conflict occurred at 5 o'clock when Stork brought his zealot and templar army to attack Jaedong's expansion while taking his own mineral expansion. Jaedong's lurkers were misplaced, and he lost a few hydralisks to storm, but Jaedong was able to clear out the army with almost no drone losses.

If only that storm was 1cm to the right...

Jaedong, after killing Stork's main army, streamed all of his units to the ramp above Stork's mineral only expansion, and attempted to contain Stork. Now feeling confident, Jaedong took another expansion at 6 o'clock to secure his lead. Stork knew he could not break the contain at the ramp, and decided, instead, to move out via the smaller ramp between his natural and mineral expansion. Although he was able to push into the center, Stork lost a lot of his army fighting at the small ramp.

That's not where you want to be standing.

Despite the losses, Stork's army looked very big, and started to advance upon the middle of the map. Jaedong then pulled out his secret weapon to stop this army: stop lurkers. Stork, not knowing there were lurkers right next to his units, placed all of his army in a clump. Fortunately for him, an observer flew in just as Jaedong unleashed his lurkers, and Stork was able to kill all of them. The damage done was enough for Jaedong though, and he simply moved all of his units and once again killed Stork's main army.

Yikes.

Things looked very grim for Stork. Jaedong was two expansions ahead, and his hive had just finished. Stork was only left with some zealots and templars, and his 11 o'clock expansion attempt was canceled by a handful of zerglings. When he finally moved out again, he was stopped by lurkers. It looked as if Jaedong was about to overwhelm Stork with his economy when Stork pulled off a brilliant move. He dropped 8 zealots into Jaedong's main, killing off the spawning pool, defiler mound, and evolution chamber. Jaedong tried to counter with his own drop, but it was blocked easily by high templars. This allowed Stork to safely secure his 12 o'clock expansion.

The tide turns!

Stork seeing that Jaedong had panicked a little, then moved out to the center once more. Jaedong took this opportunity to drop Stork's main and divert his attention, while attacking Stork's main army with everything he had. What followed was one of the most beautiful PvZ sights ever seen. Storms and blood filled the screen. Jaedong's army was completely decimated by storms. Jaedong's attack was very well executed, his army surrounded Stork's army, but Stork's storms were simply too well placed. However, not all was lost for Jaedong. The lurkers that he had dropped in Stork's main had done significant damage.

The Protoss army is completely surrounded... By Zerg blood.

After the epic battle, both players took a breather and started macroing again, but the feeling was completely different. If had initially felt like Jaedong was building up a massive army to completely destroy Stork, but now it felt like he was squeezing out units to halt Stork's powerful economy. Jaedong's expansions, all taken early in the game, were now starting to run out. He knew he wouldn't last long and that he had to do something about the 12 o'clock expansion. However, nothing he threw at it was able to penetrate it.

I wonder what the total number of kills this drop got for Jaedong...

Jaedong kept losing battles after battles. Stork's storms simply removed any Zerg unit save the ultralisk. Even so, those ultralisks were massacred by archons when they met in the center. Worse yet, Stork had pulled off a storm drop on Jaedong's 6 o'clock expansion, killing off most of the drones. This wasn't a major problem for Jaedong though, since all of his other expansions had ran out of resources and he had plenty of drones to move to 6 o'clock.

Two templars with a total of 16 kills.

Jaedong dropped ultralisks, zerglings, and defilers in Stork's main as a final attempt to throw Stork off. Stork, thinking that he would win in a head on fight, now that Jaedong had split his army, attacked Jaedong. It turned out to be a huge mistake for Stork. He got overconfident and fought under dark swarms with his plagued Zealot army. Jaedong's army overwhelmed Stork's army, and the dropped units killed off most of the gateways in Stork's main base.

Stork shows us how not to fight against a Zerg army.

Jaedong seemed to be back in the game. Now he had a large army while Stork had barely any, and no gateways to replenish them. Jaedong then made a decision that decided the outcome of the game. He could either go for Stork's mined out mineral expansion and the 1 o'clock expansion and confine Stork to only his 12 o'clock expansion with no room to build anything, or he could attack the 12 o'clock expansion and destroy Stork's last mining base. Jaedong went for the latter.

You may not see it, but there's a dark templar under the double swarm.

Jaedong threw in small amount of units at a time until Stork ran out of storms, then ran all of his Ultras in. Little did he know that 1 dark templar was blocking the path and this delayed the attack for a few precious moments. This was all Stork needed. By the time Jaedong took down the 12 o'clock expansion, Stork had rebuilt his army, and Jaedong's army was badly damaged from the storms it took while destroying 12 o'clock. Jaedong tried to defeat Stork's army by brilliantly using overlords to drop defilers and plague the army beforehand, but it was simply not enough.

The plague and the swarms are not enough.

Jaedong's 6 o'clock expansion was mined out, and Jaedong could not stop Stork from distance mining the minerals in 12 o'clock. Jaedong, dripping in sweat, was forced to type GG.

Where's your death stare now, Mr. Tyrant?

... and Samsung Khan defeats Hwaseung Oz 4-3!

So, where were we? Ah yes, underperformers. Speaking of those, there are a whole bunch of them on CJ Entus. Effort, for one, has gone 6-8 in this round, but he is outdone by Movie, who is at an abysmal 3-7. The last of the ace trio, Skyhigh, has a barely passable record of 7-8. Whatever happened to this team - it's almost like they just collectively decided to start sucking together. Much like Oz, 5 of their 9 games played have entered the ace match. The only difference is their record is worse, having only taken 1 of the 5 games for a score of 1-4, with Effort bringing the only set home against KHAN. CJ's score of 1-8 trails even that of eSTRO's, and their playoff hopes have already gone up in smoke. Although this is the case, we sure hope they can show some decent play in the couple more weeks left of Winner's League, else we'll have to start worrying when regular Proleague returns.

Rounding out the bottom four is eSTRO. Back in the regular season, it seemed as though they had overcome this curse, but Winner's League has proven to be a different game altogether. The issue here is that the other members of eSTRO are not supporting Really sufficiently. At the end of last round, we hyped up Action and Flying as the next big things in proleague, and we made a note to watch out for them. Well, Action has disappointed thus far with a record of 4-7, and Flying has barely played any games, surrendering his spot to Hyvaa and Sangho instead. Upmagic too, hasn't been performing to the level that he is capable off, and eSTRO is suffering majorly because of it.

Token picture of Reach, because he is hella sexy.

Before we come to an end, you might have noticed that we missed out some of the teams. That's mostly cause they are still in limbo with a score of 4-4, with the exception of Woongjin who's at 5-3. With another week of results, we'll better be able to judge who is more likely to enter the covetted playoffs, so while you watch the SC2 streams, and catch the exceptional coverage that teamliquid has been bringing you, don't forget to watch those WL games. Tune in again next week for more WL news!

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, 7mk for letting us use his photo in the banner, and l10f for guest writing a battle report this week!