Table of Contents

Round 4 Week 3 Review
Spoiler Alert!


Out with the Old
In with the New


Woongjin Stars halted
...a bit


PvProleague
More lasers, now from the air!


Games of the week
Brown vs TaeJa
Fantasy vs TY
Innovation vs TaeJa


Plays of the Week
sOs vs Stats
Argo vs Mini


SK Planet Proleague table and results at Liquipedia

By: Likeapen

This week's Proleague round saw two of the most anticipated matches in Round 4, as four of the most notable teams clashed. The week started off as Coach Park's old team, SKT T1, faced off against his new team, EG-TL, in the latest grudge match of Proleague. Then, the dominant force of Woongjin Stars faced up against a wounded KT squad who were hurting from a loss against CJ Entus. These two matches didn't disappoint, and provided some of the best viewing of Round 4 so far. It was a fascinating week of play, complete with upsets, a standard 4-0 sweep from Stars, and plenty of PvP to keep the Protoss among us satisfied.

Thanks to xpaperclip for formatting!

Round 4 Week 3 Matches

Round 4 Week 3 Standings

Out with the Old, In with the New

Coach Park's new squad, EG-TL, came up against a very fearsome looking SKT T1 outfit that would have been itching to get a chance at their old mentor's new side. If there was any animosity between the two team, it didn't show, as even after the match, which went all the way to the ace, everyone was in particularly good spirits.

The match started according to script for SKT1, with PartinG completely dominating aLive in the opener. An EG-TL upset was quickly on the cards, however, as comeback kid TaeJa defeated Brown in stirring fashion and EG-TL's Tyrant, Jaedong, was able to overcome soO with a devastating early baneling attack that killed almost all the SKT1 Zerg's drones. Oz wasn't able to stop FanTaSy's continual aggression, and when Rain was victorious a long game with HerO, you could feel EG-TL's chances slipping away.

Even though JYP looked to be at a build order disadvantage with his proxy stargate against phoenixes, he made up for it by going blink stalkers and simply marched through the front door of ParalyzE's base while his oracle did the damage to the probes in the back. A well executed move put JYP in front and EG-TL into an ace match.

But who would Coach Park send out? Though SK Telecom T1 had strong players in Parting, Fantasy, and soO, Rain has shown to be the consistent pick for ace in HotS. The question for Coach Park then came down to who he thought would do the best against Rain. Then, in the most maverick choice for ace we had possibly ever seen in Proleague, Coach Park put his faith in HerO for the finale.

HerO, you ask? All signs pointed away from this as a smart pick. After all, HerO has a terrible record at Yongsan stadium and an even more terrible record against Rain(0-5). Furthermore, HerO had just lost against Rain in this very match, yet another likely blow to his confidence. Finally, HerO is known to be an emotional player, one likely to buckle under these immense pressures. But Coach Park knew better and his faith in HerO would be rewarded.

In the ace match, an early zealot, stalker mothership core attack from HerO did more damage than the Liquid player could have dreamed of, killing multiple probes and a zealot. But most importantly it scouted the oracle coming out of the stargate for Rain, and allowed HerO to prepare his own phoenixes at home. With an expansion back home, air control and his stalkers keeping Rain in his base, HerO took an insurmountable lead. One final push with immortals sealed the deal and a monumental win for EG-TL.

Woongjin Stars halted...a bit

After losing their first Round 4 match to EG-TL in memorable fashion, Stars went on a big roll. They won their next three matches pretty comfortably, including a very impressive sweep of Samsung Khan earlier this week.

People began to talk about the depth of the Stars line-up, and just how impressive they are as a team despite not possessing the ‘big name’ of a Flash, Jaedong or Rain. While I think Soulkey and sOs would probably like to talk to some folks about that last bit, the depth of their line-up is certainly unquestionable. Flying, free, ZerO and Light have all proved themselves to be exceptionally accomplished, and coming up against Woongjin Stars inevitably means there are no free wins.

They met their match in the final match of this week, however, in the form of a red hot KT side. KT must have been rattled by their ignominious performance against CJ Entus earlier in the week where only Flash and Zest looked to be on top of their game, because they came out all guns blazing against Stars on the final day of week 3. Stats played a cool style against sOs to eliminate Stars’ top Protoss, Crazy held an early ling attack from ZerO and was allowed to get up to infestors relatively easily, and hitmaN recovered from some early shakiness to steamroll Light. Even though Soulkey got his revenge on Flash from their games in GSL earlier in the week, nothing was going to stop KT as Zest snuffed the match out.

A great win by KT, but Stars still sits extremely comfortably on top of the standings, unlikely to give up their spot soon if at all this season.

PvProleague

This weeks’ Proleague was one for the purists, the Protoss purists, that is. We saw more PvP this week than you can poke a stick at and it was obvious from a glance at the scheduled matches for this week that we would be witnessing a lot of Protoss killing other Protoss. If you can believe it, 35% of the matches played this week were PvPs.

But before you cry Protoss imbalance, let's take a look at why this might have occurred. First, Proleague is traditionally Protoss heavy. Though many may know the strength of KeSPa Terrans in the form of Flash and Innovation, Terrans start to get scarce after these two big names. Protoss, on the other hand, have top performers in Rain, sOs, and herO along with an almost innumerable Protoss supporting cast in HerO, JYP, Stats, Zest, Flying, free, Stork, JangBi, Bisu, Argo, Terminator, Trap, and many more. Even in WoL, when Zergs were dominating the scene, Protoss remained statistically the strongest race in Proleague. This round in particular received even more Protoss reinforcements as Bisu, PartinG, Brown, and Oz joined the ranks of Proleague teams while the other races combined only received aLive as a notable recruit.

Then there's the issue of the Proleague format. Because coaches are allowed to seed players onto specific maps, it is more likely for Protoss to be seeded onto Protoss favored maps. And because many of the maps for this round are new, we do not yet have a perfectly balanced map pool. In particular, three of the eight maps for this round (Fighting Spirit, Akilon Wastes, Naro Station) are Protoss favored and indeed these are the maps we see PvPs the most on.

One bright side to having so many PvPs is that the best ones will always rise to the top. Fittingly, the final game for the week was a somewhat epic one on Akilon Wastes between Flying, fighting for Woongjin Stars’ life in the match, and Zest, looking to shut Woongjin Stars out 4-1. The final battle in this one saw a classic War of the Worlds Protoss endgame, with colossi raining down punishment on both sides. When the smoke settled, Zest had won and KT had defeated Stars in comprehensive fashion.

Another one of the most interesting PvPs this week came in the form of an extremely accomplished comeback from Oz against Comet. Oz looked down and out after his early expand was crushed by stalker and mothership core aggression, but Oz was able to maintain a strong probe advantage through clever use of his phoenixes and built a strong enough army to kill Comet.

Stats vs sOs is another example of a very tense PvP, although some might think it was a little too cheesy for its own good. Let’s just say that if a double stargate goes unscouted there’s trouble in store. More on this in the Plays of the Week section.

Individually, the prize for the best PvPer of the week goes to Zest, who won his opening battle with Bong in KT’s match against CJ Entus. Later in the week, he secured KT’s victory against Stars’ second-in-command Protoss lieutenant, Flying. Poor Bong, on the other hand, lost his third straight PvP after consecutive losses in this match-up last week as well.

Writers: Likeapen, Wunder.
Graphics: HawaiianPig
Editors: monk.