by stuchiu

Here we are again with another rematch of the infamous GSTL Las Vegas finals, just a little over one year after that fateful disconnect. To refresh your memories, PartinG and MKP faced off in the crucial fourth set of the GSTL finals, with both of them at the peak of their PvT powers. Toward the end of an epic, incredibly close game, PartinG finally seemed to be pulling away with a massive lead, his deathball coming together after he had defended against countless waves of infantry. At that moment, a disconnect occurred, hurtling the outcome of the game into chaos, and evoking chants of "WE WANT LAN" from the crowd. Any decision would have seen one of the teams become infuriated, but it happened to so be that the GSL decided in the favor of Prime on that day. A rematch was called for, where MKP emerged victorious. He would continue to sweep the Startale team and clinch the championship for Prime.

While a match between these two teams is still a very good one, it has become a lot less attention grabbing than it once was. The grudge between Prime and ST has had an year to cool down. Both teams' rosters look very different now – Startale's in its composition, and Prime's in its quality. Startale lost incredibly crucial players in PartinG and Squirtle, but acquired team ZeNEX and in turn an incredible prodigy in Life. Prime dropped every Zerg play on their roster, but kept their four man core intact. The difference is that we rate that core very differently in 2013 than we did in 2012. MKP is no longer the best player in the world, but Creator, ByuN, and Maru have all gained much more experience. While these two teams feel very different from they way they did one year ago, you can't help but feel that there is always a chance for something special when these two meet up and tonight is no exception. Also, we can resume from replay now.

Opening Match: ST_Golden vs. MarineKingPrime

The night will open with MarineKing from Prime vs. Golden from Startale. MKP is easily the ace of Prime. He has the most fame, results and skill on the team. Despite all of that, he has always had some consistency issues and has had issues with Zerg players ever since the queen patch. While some hoped that the TvZ issues would go away with the arrival HotS, it seems like that match-up remains a problem for him as Curious easily ran him over in their recent Code S match. While not playing against Curious, MKP will have to face another ST Zerg in the form of the ex-fou, ex-slayers, ex-light, ex-quantic player Golden. While nowhere near matching Curious’ resume, Golden recently distinguished himself by qualifying for this season’s Challenger League. Objectively, MKP is probably the overall more skilled player between the two, but Golden matches well against MKP’s style with his mass ling/bling style. Startale must be confident in Golden to send him out when it means possibly benching one of Curious or Life, and we'll see if he can live up to expectations.

Advantage: Startale


Prime Barbershop Quartet vs. StarTale Musical Chairs

With the GSTL moving back to the Bo7 GSTL format, Prime has never looked better (well, since they won the GSTL, anyway). Before they would have to scramble trying to find a suitable 5th man, only to get very mixed results. Now with just 4 players playable in a match, Prime can just play their four best players in MKP, ByuN, Maru and Creator. The only real consideration that Prime needs to take into account is what order they should appear in, but with 3 of the 4 players being Terran it generally doesn’t make much of a difference for them or the opposing team.

...Or Prime can keep doing what they've always done, and keep sending in one untested player per match as a sacrifice and have their core players bail them out. Actually, that's a bit unfair to the rest of the Prime bench, as Classic and Salmosa did okay last season filling in as fifth men. Those two are gone now, but it has to give you a little faith in Prime's ability to find other players to play a role. But with less margin for error, head coach Gerrard will have to think a lot harder about using his lesser known players, even though giving them experience and confidence will be crucial for the playoffs where the games revert to best of nine.

On the other hand is ST, which is hurt by the bo7 format. They have one of the deeper rosters in GSTL and have 8 legitimate choices to use besides the one slot that should be (the history of GSTL tells us 'should happen' doesn't always actually happen) reserved for Life. For Terran they have Bomber, Hack, Sound and Sparta. The latter 3 just proved their mettle by getting through the qualifiers with relative ease and into the Challenger League. For Protoss they have the ZeNEX Protosses Avenge and TREME. Both have reputations as decent, solid players, but are unlikely to get any play time as Prime is especially good in vP matchups. For Zerg they have Golden starting, and Curious and Pet waiting in the wings. Curious can easily play the Ace role and has before as he seems to have nerves of steel outside of Code S, while Pet is yet another ST player to prove his worth by making it through the Challenger League qualifiers.

While Prime might have a very strong and lean lineup, Startale is not lacking in strength and they have many more choices with their depth.

Advantage: Startale


Aces: Whoever goes last for Prime vs. ST_Life

Generally, Prime uses MKP or Creator for their ace. But with MKP taking on the first slot, there is no real clue as to who will act as Prime’s ace. Creator has had trouble with the transition to HotS. Byun has some terrible nerve issues and is hugely hit or miss. And Maru, while solid, just hasn't shown that he can go head to head against a player like Life. Startale on the other hand can just use their best Zerg in the world card to finish the match if the need to, and on top of that, they also have strong alternatives in Bomber and Curious making it hard to for Prime to guess who will be the last man sent in.

One thing to note is that Life hasn't been quite as good as people would have hoped in the GSTL compared to his results in other tournaments. Players like Mvp, MC, and Nestea have also shown that GSL success doesn't mean GSTL success, and Life might be a part of that club.

Advantage: Startale


Overall Prediction

Everything here looks in favor of Startale: The starter, roster and ace all are in ST’s favor. But of course, Prime still has a fighting chance. MKP, Byun and Maru are all extremely streaky players that have performed all kills before. Byun just all killed Azubu, and both MKP and Maru have all killed ST in other tournaments. Momentum is everything here for Prime. But even on their best day, ST still has Life, and Prime has no answer.

Startale 4 - 2 Prime