The Special Lookback

By: Wunder

Your regularly scheduled Proleague will be back this week on April 6th, but for now KeSPa has produced for us "The Special", a unique event where Proleague coaches were able to hand select their players from any team in the league. For a full list of the teams and results, check Liquipedia. As a result of these peculiar rules, we had an all Terran team, an all Zerg team, an all Protoss team, and a team consisting of TaekBaengLeeSsang, the most legendary players on BW. And unlike the notoriously serious atmosphere of normal Proleague, we were treated to a much more relaxed setting where the players were able to show off some personality.

Ceremonies abound

At the start of Wings of Liberty, we were treated to something that was rare in BW: emotion. In the first few open seasons of GSL, everyone remarked that it was nice to finally see players break out of their shells and show some personality. What was really exciting though, were the team leagues. The ceremonies that arrived from the team leagues are still talked about today; and whether they were awkward or hilarious, it was great to see progamers having a bit of fun with their opponents. Due to the nature of "The Special", Kespa players were not only allowed to chat, they were encouraged.

From the general banter of teammates and friends, to the balance cries of losing players, it was great to see Kespa players having a bit of fun with the game and enjoying themselves. Even as (Z)

RorO was dismantled piece by piece by (T)

Flash’s multitasking and drop play, he still joked about it and had a smile on his face after the thrashing he was just given. As (P)

BeSt realized his time was up and (T)

Bbyong’s 1/1/1 had successfully ended the game, he left with a cheeky ‘super imba’ and quickly ran back to his team. Apart from the chat though, there were also a few ceremonies that were performed.

A common ceremony that was performed was the “Let me help you pack that”. (P)

Stork kicked it off with a win against his own playing coach, (Z)

oDin, and ran over to his coach’s booth and began to help pack his teammates things for him, as if to say “It’s over, here, let me help you pack so you don’t get too embarrassed by the loss”. (P)

JYP took it one step further after his win against KT’s (T)

BrAvO. He ran over and patted the Terran on the back and started to pack his keyboard up for him. He ended the ceremony by picking up his opponent’s jacket and draping it over him, whispering sweet nothings in his ear to ease his loss. JYP performed it once more on his teammate in the semi-finals, and ran over to (Z)

Jaedong and helped to pack his keyboard and mouse.

Jaedong had his own ceremony as well, as after a deadly quiet game against Hyuk, he stood up and, no doubt at the prompting of his fans, did a small cheer. Unfortunately it came off as forced and a bit awkward, but was endearing nonetheless.

yay?

The ceremony of the event has to go to the aftermath of (T)

MajOr vs

Terminator. Before he gg’d out, Major stood up and hit his head on the plastic ceiling of the booth, and both players walked out and chest bumped each other. It was an adorable little ceremony and is hopefully evidence that Major is integrating into Team 8.

You'll get used to it

Speaking of Major...

Major made his Proleague debut in this tournament, playing against his teammate Terminator. The game opened up relatively normally, with some light banter which seemed to convey that Major was getting along with his teammates. Major did well, kept up with Terminator’s harass and pressure and was even in supply up through the mid game. However, he made the critical error of allow the Protoss to run wild with upgrades and was always engaging in battles where he had a disadvantage in upgrades. A hidden third for Terminator as well as simultaneously denying Major’s third base, allowed the Protoss player to take a solid lead and he built up a strong number of colossus and templar. As he obliterated Major’s army he typed, “Welcome to proleague”. Although Major lost his first match, he did show strong mechanics and potential for the future.

Game of the event

Though there were a lot of good matches to choose from, my favorite match had to have been the game between (P)

sOs and

Carno(Stats) -VOD, just for the fact that we saw tempests in a PvP. He opened with a 1 gate expand, and then made a lot of sentries and hallucinated multiple oracles, stalkers and colossi, tricking his opponent into questioning what sOs was really teching towards. The culmination of that strategy ended in a real oracle actually going into Stats’ natural and using revelation on his units, allowing sOs’ tempests to siege his natural in the negative space. He proceeded to mass tempests and lay waste to Stats’ base. Stats tried to retaliate with his own tempests, but he could never catch up to sOs's numbers and was forced to tap out.

We probably won't see this for a while

TaekBaengLeeSsang: HotS edition

TBLS crushed this event, with Flash not dropping a single game, and the rest of the crew going 2-1 in all of their games. As legends in Brood War, this display of strength cemented the fact that these players were not going anywhere anytime soon. Each player showed that he had a strong grasp of the new expansion and were poised to go into the next round of Proleague armed and ready.

The Revolutionist

Though somewhat absent in his team’s line-up, Bisu was ever-present at this event, showing up for the ace match against Team 8’s TRUE. The game opened up normally, but it was anything but as the game went on. A +1 gateway push at TRUE’s third was deflected, but because it forced TRUE into roach tech, a follow-up oracle obliterated his mineral line and got Bisu 10 drone kills and a queen. Bisu then did some nice multitasking by warping in a handful of zealots in TRUE’s main while attacking the Zerg’s fourth. Off balance, TRUE abducted archons right into the middle of his vipers with no unit support, which allowed Bisu to capitalize and clean up the rest of TRUE’s army and end the game.

The Commander

Stork managed to showcase some Brood War flair in his game against Bbyong, where he responded to the Terran’s mech composition with his iconic carriers. Bbyong had assumed the game was won, containing Stork on his half of the map, but when the carriers showed up, the CJ terran was pushed all the way across the map and had no answer to the sheer power of the carriers and their interceptors.

The Tyrant

While Stork dealt with an uncommon build in his match, Jaedong showed exactly how to respond to the more common marine/tank composition in TvZ. Up against Light, Jaedong first deflected the Terran’s hellion/widow mine pressure perfectly, losing next to zero workers. He then launched himself at Light’s third base and forced a lift-off and a handful of SCV kills. On the back-foot, Light collapsed under Jaedong’s follow-up mutalisk harass and was systematically dismantled by the EG Zerg.

The Ultimate Weapon

Finally, we had Flash, the Ultimate Weapon. His games were essentially a comprehensive guide on how to play TvZ -- and they were against some of the best Kespa Zergs as well. Roro, True, Soulkey and Zero all stood face to face with Flash and were dismantled by his macro and multitasking. His game against Roro was particularly entertaining, as Roro - high off his GSL win, was completely stunned as Flash’s medivacs zoomed across the map in a dizzying fashion. Roro was in such a state that he even pleaded with Flash to “slow down”, as his swarm hosts and lings were too slow to catch up with Flash’s marines and medivacs. Eventually, Flash had whittled Roro down to the point where the Terran had a 150 supply lead, forcing the Samsung Zerg to tap out.