Table of Contents

Round 4 Week 2 Review
Spoiler Alert!


Ultimate Weapon disengaged
Flash loses a lot


One step forward, two steps back
Poor EG-TL


Tough week for mech
Mech goes 1-3


Games of the week
Jangbi vs Flash
Zenio vs Crazy
Alive vs TY


Fails of the Week
Jaedong vs Stats
Argo vs ZerO


SK Planet Proleague table and results at Liquipedia

By: Likeapen

For the average fan of StarCraft, this week was not a good one. All the foreigner fan favorites, after being hyped to no end, performed abysmally in Proleague. Flash's amazing MLG run did not transfer over to Proleague results as he continues a four game losing streak. Jaedong, after successfully performing as the ace player for EG-TL showed extreme weakness in ZvP yet again. And the Coach Park magic we saw last week certainly did not last to this round as EG-TL might be slipping back to their previous form once again. Even the fan favorite strategy of mech performed poorly as it was systematically crushed convincingly this week. Meanwhile, RorO continues to do well. What does it all mean?



Thanks to xpaperclip for formatting!

Round 4 Week 2 Matches

Round 4 Week 2 Standings

Ultimate Weapon Disengaged

While Jangbi, Roro and INnoVation continued to flourish in the Proleague this week, Flash had an uncharacteristically bad run. He suffered three straight losses in week two, one in a hard fought TvT, and two others to strong timing attacks. You couldn’t say that Flash was way off his game or is losing it, but it suggests that even the very best can have a bad week from time to time.

He started out his week against Samsung Khan, with a TvT against Reality on Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct. Flash opted for a mech response to Reality’s reaper into triple CC build. After a big battle at Flash’s third, the KT Terran looked in control and ready to kill his opponent with a counter. But Reality turned the tables with a clever marine marauder backstab, causing 21 SCV casualties. With Reality having already secured a fourth base, Flash now needed to do crippling damage with his counter. However, Flash continued to make key mistakes: He left his his hellbats behind his sieged tanks and his reinforcing troops were slowly picked off by a small bio squad. With his coutner crushed and his army diminished, he was forced to concede.

Flash was then installed as the KT ace in the very same match, this time facing Jangbi on Akilon Wastes. Jangbi employed Parting’s favored PvZ build on this map, the apparently unbeatable immortal push. It was clinically executed and cleaned up all of Flash’s SCVs from his natural and a good portion of those at his main. While Flash did his best to posture outside Jangbi’s base as if there was a comeback on the cards, the economy deficit was simply too great. Some zealot run-bys, followed up by a big attack with high templar left Flash and KT the losers of this match.

Then on Monday came the game we were all waiting for. The Tyrant versus the Ultimate Weapon, EG-TL versus KT, Jaedong versus Flash; a renewal of one of the greatest rivalries in the history of Starcraft. A build order loss would surely be a disappointing result, and so it was. Flash’s forces were caught out in the middle of the map as Jaedong executed his speedling baneling push. With a group of marines pinned against his own wall and not enough behind the wall to hold the Tyrant off, the banelings ravaged Flash’s economy. Once again, Flash had to walk away from the booth disappointed and defeated.

This match also went to the ace game, and JD was called up for EG-TL. But where was Flash? He wasn’t played as the ace, with KT instead opting for Stats as their man. To be fair to the Terran player, this choice in aces is more of an indication of Jaedong’s ZvP weakness rather than a lack of confidence in Flash. Still, it was disappointing to not see Flash get a chance at redemption.

It truly was a horror week for KT’s main man, and no doubt he will look to turn it around as the Proleague train keeps rolling. His results in Proleague and Heart of the Swarm so far speak to him being a vastly better player than his 0-3 performance this week.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

After last week’s glowing write up on how EG-TL were tracking in Proleague, it’s only fit to follow up just what happened this week. Quite frankly, it wasn’t nearly as good as we might have hoped.

Just when we all thought they might have turned a corner, EG-TL suffered two losses, possibly in the worst ways possible. Their first match for the week was against Team 8, a team they trailed in the standings by only one win. They were within striking distance, and it wasn’t beyond them to chalk one up over Team 8. Well, that turned out to be as far from the truth as you could imagine.

Four losses in a row later, and EG-TL were back in that place that they were in before Heart of the Swarm kicked in. TRUE, Argo, TY and ALBM all put in impressive showings, but with EG-TL putting up HerO, Jaedong, aLive and JYP to match these players, you would have to say that they underperformed to lose like that.

There was a very strange highlight amongst all of this. TRUE’s rubbing of Major’s belly after his victory against HerO takes the cake as the strangest victory celebration this week. Is Major Team 8’s Buddha? You can make up your own mind on that one…



But the question again had to be asked, could EG-TL bounce back, this time against the formidable KT Rolster lineup? Surely, after their performance against Team 8, this was impossible? Well, HerO, Jaedong and JYP all had different ideas, taking out MyuNgSiK, Flash and hitmaN respectively. With Oz, Zenio and aLive still in the hutch for EG-TL, surely this one was a foregone conclusion?

Well, as with a lot of things that have happened to this team, there was a nasty twist in store for them. Oz lost a crazy PvP to Zest. Zenio looked to have an early advantage against Crazy but his tardiness in teching to lair cost him very dearly. ALive came up against KT’s most successful player this week in Stats and again couldn’t get the job done. So Jaedong was inserted, and KT elected to play Stats as their ace, which proved to be an intelligent choice. Jaedong stumbled to a loss and the reversal was complete.

You have to feel for EG-TL, but at the same time they have no one but themselves to blame. The match against Team 8 was a shocker, and they had four opportunities to blow KT away but failed on every occasion.

Tough Week for Mech

We saw mech play broken out only four times over the course of week two, and these attempts usually resulted in disaster one way or the other for the player who chose to go factory heavy.

Flash’s attempt to mech in TvT, as highlighted previously, went awry. Notwithstanding the resume from replay that happened after Flash lagged out, which no doubt impacted the psyche of both competitors, it looked ill-fated even before that.

Two of the top Zergs in the league, Soulkey and Roro, also showed how adept they were at stopping a mech army. Roro’s chance came in set 6 of Samsung Khan’s match up with CJ Entus against sKyHigh. Roro had an advantage from the outset, after spotting the mass blue-flame hellion play from sKyHigh with his well placed overlord. This wasn’t helped by some questionable decision-making regarding the positioning of his hellions from sKyHigh. Time and time again his hellions were not only warded away but surrounded and killed, leaving Roro to freely take expansions and eventually become too economically ahead to lose.

A slightly more successful attempt came in the form of Cure’s effort against Soulkey. While his hellion banshee pressure didn’t achieve too much, he was at least able to keep his units alive and progress to the mid game on an even footing. But with Soulkey using the mobility of roaches, hydras and vipers to keep Cure occupied while he built up an insane economy, again the meching player saw himself at a huge disadvantage. At one point, after Cure had knocked out a number of Soulkey’s expos, things might have looked ok, but reinforcements had arrived in the form of hungry ultralisks who cleaned up Cure’s tanks bit by bit, along any hope he had of taking the game.

And then there was one. The fourth and final attempt at mech came from Team 8's TY against Alive, a match you can read about in this week's "Best Games of the Week." In a week of constant disappointments, this game would be our shining glimmer of hope.

Writers: Likeapen, Wunder.
Gif Creation: Heyoka and R1CH.
Graphics: HawaiianPig
Editors: monk.