As you can see here, this week was largely back and forth. It resulted in a bit of shuffling around, but not much real progress can be seen. The week opened with a nice surprise, NaDa coming out in set 4 in WeMade's match against eSTRO and helping lead them to a 3-2 victory. BaBy also earned a new accomplishment that match, winning the first ace match of his career.

The next day KHAN delivered a nice surprise (at least to a few of you), defeating MBC in 3 straight games (Sea lost to Chavi, and Light was unable to stop Stork). That same day, SKT took down hite in a series where fantasy, Bisu, and Hyuk all briefly looked like a family again and did their jobs with murderous precision.



In the middle of the week the Oz vs ACE set led to an interesting result. Jaedong and Killer both lost to RuBy, and PerfectMan got his second win of the year, this time against Casy (who holds a starleague title, even if he did avoid protosses to get it). KT once again showed their full power and took down Woongjin in ace, with Flash defeating free.

STX lost their match in the later portion of the week, to eSTRO in a quick 0-3 series that showed Really and Flying still have what it takes. WeMade cruised in over CJ, making them the only team this week to finish 2-0 and earning a wink and a thumbs-up from our Team Liquid coverage crew. They brought back another old time favorite in this match as well, fielding Midas on Match Point where he was able to take down CJ's star protoss, Movie.



To finish it up, hite took down KHAN in ace, in a set where January felt it wise to send out firebathero (although to be fair, the map was Roadrunner against a team most likely to send a terran). n.Die_soO (more on him later) briefly won star of the evening in SKT's match against MBC, taking down Light and bringing them into an ace match. Light said no sir to that, however, and shut down Bisu in the deciding match to take the series 3-2.

Nada started at 7 o'clock as the Blue Terran 1 month and 10 days after his victory over Hoejja. Hyvaa, who recently beat Flash, spawned at 1 o'clock as the Orange Zerg. Hyvaa opens with the standard 3 hatchery before gas, and Nada responds by getting a very fast command center in his natural. He also adds a quick gas right after starting the command center. He starts a factory while continuing to produce marines from 1 barracks, and he also builds an academy.



Hyvaa gets a quick evolution chamber, even before his lair finishes, then builds a spire. Nada builds a starport, still on one barracks, then adds two more barracks and an armory. Hyvaa manages to sneak up to Nada's main with a zergling and sees the armory and starport. Hyvaa still continues to make mutalisks, and Nada builds up a bionic-valkyrie army.



Hyvaa tries to harass using his first mutalisks and a pair of scourges. Nada microes his valkyries very well, and all the scourges die without killing a single valkyrie. Nada moves out, now feeling confident. Hyvaa produces a lot of zerglings and engages at the center. Nada loses all of his ground army, but Hyvaa loses all of his mutalisks.

Hyvaa secures his 3rd expansion with lurkers, and Nada changes to a mech build by adding 5 factories and lifting his barracks. Hyvaa takes this chance to remove mines with Zerglings and attempts to attack Nada's natural. Nada has very few units due to his tech change, but two mines kill most of Hyvaa's army.



Nada expands to 6 o'clock and builds up a large vulture-tank army. Hyvaa takes 7 o'clock main expansion, but after being scouted, gives it up without any attempt to protect it. Nada sends a group of vultures to kill the hatchery.

Nada moves out with his vulture/tank/goliath/marine/medic army towards Hyvaa's natural. Hyvaa expands to 12 o'clock expansion, but he has very few ground units. He builds up a large mutalisk army while stalling with sunkens. When Nada moves in far enough, he sends the mutalisks to kill all of Nada's army in front of his natural.



Nada loses a lot of tanks to the mutalisks, but manages to harass 12 o'clock with a group of vultures. Nada also expands to 7 o'clock main, but Hyvaa quickly denies it with mutalisks and hydralisks. Nada traps Hyvaa's units at 7 o'clock, and Hyvaa uses this opportunity to expand again to the 11 o'clock natural expansion.

Nada, feeling a little behind economically, takes 3 o'clock expansion while moving out with his large mech army. Hyvaa tries to kill 3 o'clock with mutalisks, but goliaths come to defend it. Hyvaa then turns his attention to 6 o'clock and uses a handful of units to make all of Nada's units come back. Then he again tries to attack 3 o'clock while Nada's units are at 6 o'clock, but very well placed buildings and units from Nada clear out Hyvaa's army.



Nada expands once again to 7 o'clock expansion and attacks Hyvaa's natural. Even though Hyvaa uses dark swarm and plague, tanks kill everything inside the dark swarm. However, Hyvaa manages to burrow lurkers under dark swarm before his hive is killed. Also, Hyvaa uses a few mutalisks to kill Nada's 3 o'clock expansion.

Nada's units are now very well upgraded, enough so that even a few goliaths can stand against a large amount of mutalisks. Hyvaa begins to lose concentration, losing units when he shouldn't. Nada is now prepared against any harassment in his expansions, and Hyvaa's attack at the 7 o'clock expansion fails completely.



Nada once again moves to Hyvaa's natural, only to be stopped by dark swarm again. Nada changes direction and goes for the 11 o'clock expansion. Hyvaa was unprepared, and did not have any defilers there. Nada kills the expansion then moves on to kill the 12 o'clock expansion.



With 12 o'clock dead, Nada has 3 bases to Hyvaa's 1 running. Hyvaa, knowing he is too far behind in unit count and economy, concedes the game to the Tornado Terran.

Remember last week when I mentioned how easy it was to make an anti team? !!!!

You see, anti-teams are these vicious little things. They're just waiting. Waiting there. One week you feel completely safe, and you laugh at how big names fail to win. The trades come in and you think: "What -1 for a trade tax? No fucking way." Then anti-teams kick in and slap you, over and over, all week long. And there's nothing you can do, nothing but sit in a corner and cry.

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• The usual suspects
  RorO: -8 524 players didn't learn from previous seasons.
  Bisu: -8 310 people deflowered.
  BaBy: -7 yeah... you weren't expecting it with a team full of Terrans right?
  RuBy: -8 probably the worst anti-team choice ever.
  Really: -8
  Leta: -8
  
  
  
• Now you Sea me, now you don't!
  *waves magic wand* Pop! Bogus honors his nickname and the economy crashes. 55 people bought Bogus after his stellar performance in week 1, and he pays off with 1 pt this week! Sea plays along and does exactly the same thing after falling to Chavi (what is this I don't even...)
  
  
• The irony of EffOrt
  Going down so fast he's reached mach speed. After making it out of his OSL group, he loses in an Ace match against Calm and doesn't appear in the other match. Other big losers this week: Kal (0-2), Movie (0-2), Killer (0-2), Horang2 (0-2).
  
  
• The TLPD button won't even recognize his name (try it)
  n.Die_soO (he plays zerg...for SKT) went 2-0 and racked up 8 points this week. That's right, one of MuMyung's old trainees made as much as fantasy, and for only 2$ (25% of the price of the back to back starleague finalist). How many people own soO? 3. How many have him on their anti-team? 16. The question now is: how many people actually miss-clicked when trying to buy this other Soo?
  
  
• WeRake
  Want to hear something funny? If you wanted to make an all WeMade team (BaBy, Midas, RorO, NaDa, Shine, Major, WeMade), it would cost you 19$ and it would've scored 65 points by now. You would be in the top 10, you would be a whopping #1 if unused points from that team went into your overall score. Win by doing stupid things!
  
  Now the question is, will this trend continue? Or will it turn out like it did for Bogus? See you next week for the answer.

"Last season, Jaeyoon (Savior) and Hyungtae (Iris) hyung gave us a lot of help, but this season it was all on Jungwoo hyung (Effort), Younghwa hyung (Movie) and me. At first I thought it would be alright, but it was more stressful and tiring than I expected."

      -- Skyhigh, March 2010 Daily E-Sports Relay Interview

"Even if the powers are missing, the will deserves praise."

      -- Ovid

"I love CJ," was Teamliquid staff member GTR's opening sentence in an article where he explained to the nonbelievers why he thought CJ Entus would make it through the playoffs and win the 2008-2009 Proleague. The love was proud and unabashed, and though Hwaseung OZ would obtain its revenge and knock them out of the running, CJ's third place finish was an honorable one. The team's prospects were good, the fans' spirits were high and a new season full of promise lay just around the corner.

Inside each professional Starcraft team, transfers of power are nebulous, often messy affairs. There are no democratic elections or official inaugurations, but at the same time there are no clearly defined lines of succession or fixed rules of inheritance. Things are more clear-cut in the starleagues: power is forcibly seized by one player, either through a palace coup such as when iloveoov took down Boxer, a guerilla uprising like July's first OSL run or a revolution that casts a bonjwa under the guillotine's blade.

The Proleague, however, isn't a one-man job, as a drunk and desperate Leta informs me. Even the teams dominated by an undisputed ace have to send out three other players every match. The variety of matchups, the particularities of the opposing team and each player's current form must be taken into account when deciding on a lineup. These constantly shifting factors favor a team with depth, able to field players suited for every occasion -- snipers, single matchup wonders, solid albeit unspectacular workhorses, and the most prized possession of all, the ace. Or better yet, a cadre of top players that can all fulfill ace duties. All these players need practice partners and, when they grow old and weary or slump their way out of the regular lineup, potential replacements.

And thus a team takes shape and a history is born. If that team is to perpetuate itself beyond its current crop of players, it must cultivate the up-and-coming newbies, nurture their budding abilities and turn them into the top dogs of tomorrow. It must strike a balance between competition and cooperation -- the youngsters look up to their hyungs and benefit from their experience, yet they aim to take their place, or at the very least share their spot in the limelight. The older players hope the newcomers will pull their own weight, but remain wary of these ambitious upstarts who clamber out of the Minor League into the regular lineup.

Ideally, a virtuous circle is set in motion as the younger players develop thanks to the wise counsel of the older ones, who for their part feel rejuvenated and are spurred onwards by the fresh blood on the roster. The old boys stay dangerous while the rookies start tearing it up -- no need for a transfer of power when a team can achieve something better, a balance of power. Few outfits have managed this: KT's fortunes took a turn for the worse when their old stars faded away and only Flash delivered on his potential. After Anytime's departure and with forGG traded away to KT, OZ was left with Jaedong and Hiya, who took their team to the Proleague finals by the skin of their teeth and the sweat of their brow. Since then, rookies have failed to make a lasting impression and only Killer has managed to improve significantly. As for SPARKYZ, because of Yarnc's slump and its prior trade of Luxury to KT, the team has only Leta to carry it forward.



CJ Entus was one of the few teams that successfully established this balance of power in its ranks during the 2008-2009 season. After a great 2007 Proleague Round 2 at the end of which they took second place thanks to strong showings from Iris, DarkElf and Much (Savior was in a deep slump, or perhaps he was already throwing games and pocketing commissions), CJ's performance in the first half of 2008 was mediocre, as Iris slumped in turn. Savior was demoted to the B team during the summer. CJ's Coach Cho, in his great wisdom, turned to that same B team and brought the promising rookies Skyhigh, Effort and Movie on board. After a few tryouts over the course of the 2008 season, these three players would form an essential part of the team during the 2008-2009 Proleague, and their arrival coincided with the rebirth of the Berserker and Savior's attempted comeback.

Skyhigh was initially the most hyped of the three newcomers. His first claim to fame was his 14-0 combined record in the offline qualifiers of the 2008 GOMTV-4 MSL and Bacchus OSL -- though he never actually made it into either of the two starleagues. At the start of the 2008-2009 season he wasn't even in the lineup, but he finally reemerged in the second round with a solid 6-4 record. This was only a prelude to the third round, the event that will be forever tied to his name: the 2009 Winners League, where he single-handedly rescued his team from certain defeat at the hands of the Dong thanks to a reverse all-kill of Hwaseung OZ in the finals. Skyhigh's star peaked; having previously reached the semifinals of GOMTV Classic's second season, this personal victory was the rookie's crowning moment.

Effort was still playing in the Minor League in early 2008, where he achieved a promising 6-1 record in the first round. Once he joined the big boys for the 2008-2009 season he quickly became a staple of the lineup, going 5-2 and 9-5 in the first two rounds, before exploding in the second part of the season with an 8-2 record in both the fourth and fifith rounds (in his great springtime run he went 14-2, with wins against Jaedong, Flash and Stork). A Proleague monster was born, a master in the clutch who super aced his team past SPARKYZ and Khan in the playoffs. Effort didn't display the same brilliance in the individual leagues, but he nonetheless made it to the semifinals of GOMTV Classic's third season, where he was defeated by his teammate Iris.

Which brings us to the Berserker. Iris was already playing in Proleague back in 2004; his first starleague was the 2005 EVER OSL, where he reached the quarterfinals and was defeated by the eventual winner, JulyZerg. A consistent beast, Byun Hyungtae has hammered his way through the seasons, though he has always fallen short of a title. From the start of his career, while his partner in crime Savior molested the MSL, he climbed ever higher in the Ongamenet leagues, eventually coming within a hair's breadth of gold in his epic series against GGPlay in the 2007 Daum OSL finals. After that high mark he ran out of steam, slumping in the first half of 2008.

The new blood on CJ's A team buoyed his spirits and Iris returned to a decent form in the 2008-2009 season, going 5-2 in the first round and 11-6 in the Winners League. The latter performance was crucial due to Effort's poor form during that round; this is where CJ's depth and the balance of power between the older players and the rookies paid their dividends. While the Berserker's unsatisfied hunger for a title was reawakened and he went on to reach the finals of GOMTV Classic's third season, the player who had vowed to destroy everyone in 2009 was also showing signs of recovery. Savior went 5-2 in the first round and 6-4 in the Winners League, and fans cherished every victory, knowing in their hearts that it could well be the last.



Pulled forward by its hot newcomers and pushed on by its rejuvenated veterans, CJ Entus took home the Winners League trophy and finished third in the Proleague. The next season looked more promising still. But the balance of power which had been the central element of CJ's success finally broke and took the team down with it -- CJ is now second to last in the overall standings.

Iris fizzled out at the end of the previous season, with a sad 0-4 record in the last round. All of his energies went into his final starleague run, a deep foray into the Avalon MSL that took him past Upmagic, Hwasin and even Bisu. Savior's promising start proved fruitless, and he too puttered to a halt, going 0-5 in the previous two rounds of the 2009-2010 season. He has now been dropped to the B team once again, amid suspicions of corruption that have left his reputation in tatters. The old Protoss Much, who had held up with a decent 15-13 record over the season, consigned himself to irrelevance by joining Air Force ACE, from whose bench he could wave his cane at the youngsters.

Today, the full brunt of the workload rests on the young shoulders of CJ's three new musketeers. One of them has succumbed to the pressure: since December, Effort is slumping, having gone 15-16 in the last two rounds. He lost his four games against Terrans in the Winners League, including games against mediocre players like Lomo and go.go. His ZvZ skills are tapering off at an alarming rate; only his ZvP remains a threat against Protoss of any caliber. Skyhigh for his part has never lived up to the hype stirred up around him in the wake of his Winners League triumph. His defeat of Jaedong masked his weakness against Zerg -- he has a 4-6 record against them this season. Not every TvZ is about fending off a 5 pool, and Skyhigh doesn't seem to have benefited from the Terran ascendancy over the Swarm. For now he is confined to the role of a TvT specialist.

The one player currently holding the fort is Movie, and even he only went 17-20 this season. The acne-ridden Protoss developed more slowly than the other two, and was still a backbencher during most of the 2008-2009 Proleague. With the transfer of power from the old generation to the younger one, he was thrust at the forefront of the war effort along with his teammates and became the most promising member of the team thanks to his deep run in the 2009 EVER OSL, where he reached the finals, losing to the budding bonjwa Flash. However, while he has proved himself in PvZ, in fact spearheading the Protoss uprising against an unfavorable matchup with his aggressive macro style, Movie went 3-6 against Terrans and 5-8 versus Protoss. Not the mark of a well-rounded ace who can provide a solid backing to his team in every matchup.

Once again, Coach Cho has had to plunge his hand into the B team and hope to bring back up talented rookies, raw potential ready to be molded into murderous skill. The most promising players are Snow, the Protoss terror of the Dream League (6-0 in the first round) who emerged with a decent 5-5 record in the Winners League, and Hydra, who went 7-8 during the current season and reached the MSL Round of 16. What remains to be seen is whether these two newcomers and, beyond them, other rookies like BByong, Rush and Miso will manage to step up to the plate and repeat the stunning performance of their predecessors. Will Hydra ever all-kill an opposing team? Will Snow ever lift a Proleague trophy over his head? The fate of CJ Entus may very well depend on it.