Bringing Out the Big Guns

Last week was all about the weakest links; a cutthroat battle simply for survival. Winner lived to fight another day, loser was left for dead in the wild. But this week is about the alpha dogs, the teams who either won their way here, or were seeded into the second round on account of prior domination. This week will be the first chance to size up teams like Mousesports, SlayerS, last season's runners-up; NSHoSeo, and the champs; Prime. Arrayed against them will stand a group of foreign teams, from the underdog Acer, the insurgent FXO.CIS—who've already tasted Korean blood—the beastly Empire, and last season's best performing foreigner squad; Liquid.

These are no easy match-ups, no fresh faced beginners just happy to be here. This week's match-ups are knock-down dragouts between teams with much higher ambitions than simply this round. But only four will go on, while another four will have their Team Arena Challenge hopes put on life support. It's not win or go home this week, but that doesn't mean the fight is going to be any less intense.

Week Three (Losers R1) Review

By tree.hugger

In the battle of two teams that we know could have played so much better in the first round, aTn-Type delivered and iS regressed. ClouD was the hero, winning two close TvZ's to start. From the get-go iS was behind, really, as jEcho's early loss took away one of their biggest threats. As it turned out, iS didn't have CrazymovING available either, so the loss of jEcho was especially acute. aTn-Type might've had a bit of a scare after Socke lost, which removed their two best players from contention, but Delphi delivered where he had not last week, taking out iS's top protoss Insur to win the match for the Europeans. It was a convincing performance for aTn-Type, and a total sea change from their hapless defeat at the hands of dtG.

Meanwhile, iS earned the sad distinction of being the first team out of IPL TAC3. As the first qualifier, they brought a lot of talent into the equation, and had a lot of promise for this tournament. But the timing proved bad; lacking CrazymovING for this match, having Insur in the middle of exam week for the first match. jEcho impressed, as did Pyre, but the team was especially let down by Axslav. The steady, smart, seasoned Protoss in the middle of their line-up, Axslav was called on to stop a two-kill streak in both series, and was crushed early in both games. Here he tried a fast nexus and lost to a bunker rush. It was painful, and set iS behind.

aTn-Type will move on thanks to this solid performance, while iS will have to qualify for the IPTL in a few months, They're a talented squad and could easily do it, but will need to put the pieces together in a way they just couldn't here.




The first team out of IPL TAC 2, Dignitas looked to be in deep deep trouble against Eclypsia early on. After taking the first win, Bischu and SjoW flat out died to mutalisks, in two of the most cringe-worthy games yet seen in this tournament. In his third match, KenZy went mutas again (because hey, why not) but KiLLeR went infestors, and suddenly the tide turned. The Chilean zerg rolled to a three kill and Dignitas was able to bring SeleCT to the table to shut down Welmu's hope for a comeback. So Dignitas was saved from a second straight embarrassing IPL TAC, but beyond KiLLeR and SeleCT, they haven't looked good at all. Dropping two games to KenZy isn't so great in and of itself, but how the games played out was even more awkward. In the next round, Dignitas will surely face a team with more depth and more star power than the undermanned but plucky Eclypsia.

Speaking of Eclypsia, the French outfit deserves quite a bit of credit. Losing two of their aces and a third starter right before the tournament began, they gave a good account of themselves despite losing twice. Welmu had to play the hero, as we expected, but it was KenZy, not Dayshi to was the other spark. He hasn't been to many tournaments, but his play here suggested perhaps he would be able to produce some entertaining games. And Welmu looked more impressive every day. His three kill of dtG in the qualifiers looks better given the beatdown dtG inflicted on aTn-Type. His three kill against Acer was impressive on its face. His comeback attempt here was good as well. It's hard to say exactly when or how Welmu stepped up his game; he was, after all, dropped from Empire reportedly for not practicing hard, but it's clearly happened. With events like Dreamhack Summer coming up, it'll be interesting to see how Welmu performs at big EU lans with his newfound skill.





CompLexity got a big boost from the always unexpected qxc, and with Heart as their ace, probably played somewhat comfortably after qxc did his early damage. Still HwangSin's four kill brought It's GoSu to the brink of victory, and stole the show with his powerful macro play and remarkable post-match smackdown to his haters.

This counts as a win for compLexity, and that's what matters most, but there's definitely an issue here. coL has shown it's chops in the EG MC, qualifying for the playoffs, but has looked anemic here in the IPL TAC. This is a team with three players who have played in Code S, yet they're left to rely on wins from two players who haven't. qxc was good enough today, but the rest of coL's non-Korean line-up has been mostly unused, and it's hard to judge their skill. GanZi has been just plain bad for coL in this tournament. Ditto for NaDa. The good news for coL is that they've got another chance at this, and their line-up is certainly not short on talent. But they don't do a lot to make you comfortable.

For It's GoSu, they didn't exactly show off their depth here, and not letting qxc get three kills could have freed up more time to snipe Heart. But hey, HwangSin is definitely a solid player and he's improving, which is great news for GoSu. Even more, their announcement of recruiting oGsIllusion gives them a second Korean threat, which will hopefully allow them to deploy their non-koreans better. Overall, not a bad week for GoSu, despite the loss.





Karont3 mixed it up a bit, and powered through without having to use any of their terrans. But for x6, it was basically the same result, as the supporting cast couldn't chip into Spain's finest, and Sleep couldn't save the team as he did in their qualifiers. x6 didn't suffer an all-kill, but with one of their two wins coming against Karont's coach, this didn't really save much face.

That coach, by the way, is José Luis Ryo Moreno Durán, apparently Karont's only protoss and also brother of LucifroN and VortiX. Although unfortunately only two of the family played, Karont has probably set a record that will never be broken; three brothers playing in a single tournament. Beat that Luxury/YellOw. Oh wait, you can't. You're banned. Good riddance.

But I digress.

VortiX was super for Karont, and their overall strategy seems to be fairly clear; VortiX is expected to be the workhorse, AlaStOr and MikOeL will snipe, their weakest player will lead, and LucifroN will mop up. Simple and smart. For x6, after leading with Sleep last time, they waited until the bitter end to play him here. The switch didn't change much; it was still essentially 'all-kill or bust' for the Korean here. Mystik's help was surely appreciated, but AlaStOr (who rises daily in the GM rankings, and probably deserves more attention than I've given him) brought some serious ZvZ skill and shut down the prospective comeback.

Poor x6 didn't have so great of a time in the IPL TAC. Karont3, meanwhile, moves on as one of the more interesting teams in the tournament. Their explosive potential is great, but can they show it against top teams like Quantic, who destroyed them in the first round? We'll have to stay tuned.

Week Four (Winners Round 2) Preview

By NrGmonk

In all of the matches this week, the higher seeded team was given an autobirth to the round of 16 while the lower seeded team had to beat another team to get here. And in almost every match this week, the higher seed and clear favorite for the match is the Korean team. So it might surprise you to hear that it was actually Mouz, a team with zero Koreans who got the higher seed, over Liquid, a team with three Koreans. The reason for Mouz's high seed is its incredible performance in team leagues; with Thorzain leading the charge as ace, Mouz won EGMC season V, EGMC season VI, and currently holds the second place ranking in EGMC season VII.

But the Mouz that will be playing versus Liquid this match is far different from Mouz that dominated the previous team leagues. Without Thorzain, they lost not only their best player, but also their glue in team leagues. Although every player in Mouz's main four main lineup, Thorzain, Morrow, Mana, and Hasuobs, were all instrumental to their success, it's no secret that Thorzain was the key player to rely on. He usually contributed the most in all-kill formats and was almost always the go-to ace in a pinch. Without Thorzain, Mouz just does not have the solid backbone they've come to rely on. Mana has a notably weak PvZ, Morrow has not been meeting his early Wings of Liberty expectations, and HasuObs does not yet have the extra oomph to get past the title of just "really good European Protoss". Rounding out the lineup is biGs, who has really been stepping it up lately, and HeRoMaRinE, who has been competitive in his new role as a starter, but hasn't been able to deliver concrete results. Overall, Mouz should still be a favorite for some, being the last remaining competitive team who has not tried to recruit a Korean, but are no longer the powerhouses they once were.

Still, the past few months have not always been kind to Mouz's opponents, Team Liquid, in team leagues. Mainly, they failed to qualify for the EGMC playoffs, placing sixth of twelve. However, I would argue that the all-kill format of IPL TAC favors Liquid, as their players tend to go on hot streaks more than players from other teams. Specifically, Sheth, Ret, TLO, and Hero are all players who have done surprisingly well in this format, getting many more kills than one might expect from them.

The other disappointment is that they got promptly got knocked out of the GSTL with disappointing 1-5 and 2-5 scores against two "lower tier" Korean teams. But in the GSTL, Liquid competed without their full roster, with notable members Ret and Sheth not being in Korea. Taeja was also notably absent from Liquid's first match. With Liquid's full lineup available to them in this online competition, they will prove to be a much more formidable opponent.

Prediction: Liquid 5:3 Mouz





What can we say about Prime? As the winners of IPL TAC 2, the last season of GSTL and most recently, Season 1 of the KSL, Prime should be the clear favorites versus any team in IPL TAC 3. With a lineup led by MKP and supported by young rising stars like Creator and Maru, not to mention GhostKing and BBongBBong, it's no wonder Prime is one of the most feared teams on the planet. Prime is especially scary in IPL TAC, because unlike teams such as IM, Slayers, and MVP, they have shown they are not shy to sport their best lineup in non GSTL team leagues. And against a full Prime team, most foreigner teams stand very little chance.

Acer is one of those teams. With recent news of elfi's depature, (although there is a possibility these games were played before his departure) Acer is down to a roster of five, the minimum required to complete in this league. Now, the only well-known and competitive players they have left are Nerchio and Bly, certainly not enough to challenge the Primes. One thing to look forward to in this match, however, is the return of Mondragon. Since TSL3, the Brood War foreigner legend has not been seen much in the international scene. But because Acer now only has five members, one of them being Mondragon, you can again look forward to roaches being made as a counter to every Protoss unit.

We've seen Acer try to take on big bad Korean teams before, and the results have not been pretty. I except Nerchio, one of the best players in Europe, to perhaps take a map, but to actually take the match would be nothing short of a miracle.

Prediction: Prime 5:1 Acer



NSHoSeo may not have as big stars as some other Korean teams, but do not underestimate them in IPL TAC3. In IPL TAC2, HSHoSeo beasted all the way through the losers bracket going through Zenex, Empire, Startale, FXO, oGs, and took one series from Prime before losing the second series and taking second place. NSH also has a habit of providing us a show with their players' often unique styles. Sage was once heralded as the next Protoss hope, with both creative and solid play. Seal consistently shows the best creep spread in the world. And most recently, Freaky has shown us how to only make infestors and actually win games.

FXO.CIS is the big surprise of round one over Complexity. The Eastern European team may not be as popular or well-known as they should be, becuase they don't attend many LANs, but don't mistake that for a lack of skill. Strelok, Brat_OK, HappyZerg, and LoWeLy are all top European players, with LoWeLy holding number one in his NASL division and Strelok with a strong second in his. With a combined team effort, this "underdog" team took down the big bad Korean based coL and are eagerly awaiting round two.

Unfortunately for FXO.CIS, I think they're about to hit a brick wall. Don't get me wrong; I still think FXO.CIS is one of the most underrated teams in IPL TAC, but they may find themselves out of their league this week. Unlike Complexity, NHSH is a proven GSTL-tested team complete with a coach, a teamhouse, and many team league matches and achievements in their pocket. In the last IPL TAC, they showed that they were extremely strong in this tournament. They do not hesitate to bring out their biggest gun, Jjakji. Do not except NSH to falter here, but at the same time, do not expect FXO.CIS to go down without a fight.

Prediction: NSHoSeo 5:3 FXO.CIS



Slayers, oh how you have changed. When they first broke out, Slayers were known as the team that only had Terrans with MMA, Ryung, Boxer, Ganzi, Taeja, and Clide. Now they are an extremely balanced team, able to field high level players of a variety of races in team leagues. However, two notable players will probably notably absent from this war, because Slayers prefers not to use them in online team leagues: MMA, probably because the coaches want the other players to get more experience, and Yugioh, because he doesn't live in the Slayers house with all his other teammates. Even so, the team they will probably field, consisting of Ryung, Clide, CoCa, Min, Alicia, Puzzle, and Crank, is still enough to realistically beat every team in this league.

Two players I especially want to highlight are Crank and Puzzle. In their recent GSTL matches, Crank and Puzzle were relied upon to provide important wins for the team. Crank is a relative newcomer, but his coaches are extremely confident in his play. They have shown this by sending him to international tournaments and consistently putting him in the team league matches, even throwing him in the Ace position a couple of times. Crank also has the distinction of being the first person in GSL history to max out on 3-3-3 carriers and a mothership, something we may never see again. Puzzle, on the other hand, is a veteran of Code S. Though he recently dropped down to Code A, that certainly didn't stop him from scoring wins left and right in the GSTL. In all of his games, he showed extremely solid and confident macro play against the variety of tactics his opponents used to snipe him.

However, on the other side of the coin, Empire also has a really good chance to realistically beat Slayers. Even before their amazing Korean acquisitions, Empire was shaping up to be one of the best teams in the world, led by the Terran trio of Kas, Happy, and Beastyqt. Some of their amazing results include winning the GCPL Season 2 and taking second in EGMC Season 6. Now with recent MLG Spring Arena II winner Violet, one of the best Zergs in the world, and the one-two Protoss combo of TheMista and Vines, they seem more and more to be a well-rounded team, capable of not only of taking matches of the best foreigner teams, but also beating Korean GSTL teams as well.

Still, how can you bet against Slayers? The fan favorite can field a full lineup of tested GSL level players who all live together in a team house, backed by professional dedicated Starcraft 2 coaches. This alone should give Slayers the slight advantage they need to overcome the rather scattered Empire.

Prediction: SlayerS 5:4 Empire