by stuchiu

• STX_Innovation
  
  Strengths
  - Strongest TvZ in the world.
  - Great macro, micro and multitasking.
  - Can spike his HPM (hellbats per minute) to 600 in dire situations
  
  Weaknesses
  - Other Terrans
  - Has to juggle GSL with carrying STX Soul in Proleague
  - TL and Artosis both really want to pick him to win, so that can't be good
  
  Ideal Winning Scenario: Wins 4-0 in a one-sided stomp like the entirety of his run so far.
  
  Craziest Winning Scenario: Wins 4-0 in a surprisingly close set. Innovation is not an imaginative man.
  
  
• Azubu_Symbol
  
  Strengths
  - Great at preparing for long series.
  - Nydus God: 13-3 when using Nydus Worms in GSL.
  - Has the entire TSL-Zerg brain trust backing him.
  
  Weaknesses
  - Playing against Innovation, isn’t that enough?
  
  Ideal Winning Scenario: Somehow, someway wins 4-3. Even a close series of 3-4 would be seen as a miracle considering who he’s playing.
  
  Craziest Winning Scenario: Wins 4-3 only using only Nydus attacks. Mr.Chae cries tears of blood as he gets another ZvZ finals.
  
  

Still the Greatest Terran in the World

“...and though Mvp was the last and most valiant defender of the Terran Kingdom, his era was coming to an end. Though already long past broken, he kept his vigil for one year longer than anyone thought possible, but the foul Zerg youth named Life finally cut him down and ended the glorious Terran Kingdom. The Terran was vanquished, Zerg had triumphed. The Zerg era had begun. But from the ashes of defeat would rise a new champion. Reborn under the waters of Yongsan and anointed upun the Korean ladder, Innovation would rise to retake the GSL.”
- MajOr 3:16

Three weeks ago I called Innovation the greatest Terran player in the world based solely on his awe inspiring straight up macro play Three weeks later, not much has changed. He crushed his way through the group of death going 4 - 1 , easily stomping Flash and Life into the ground. He crushed the reigning champion Roro 3-0 in the quarter-finals, and he got two Proleague all-kills along the way against EG-TL and CJ Entus. Innovation is on a roll and his momentum has never been stronger. He has risen to a point where his macro play is now so strong that mixing it up actually hurts his chances of winning. All-ins, strategies, gimmicks, tricks, and oddball styles are of no meaning to Innovation. He will play straight up, he will play to the late game and he will just use his superior mechanics to edge out a win every time. And he could very well be the first Terran GSL champion in over a year.

GSL for the majority of its lifetime has been an all Terran affair. While Nestea and MC represented their races well, it has always been a Terran dominated tournament with the most champions and finalists coming from that race. This all changed in 2012 as it became a more even battle with between the three races and for a brief moment it looked like Protoss would have a chance to shine and take up the trophy. Unfortunately for them, DRG slapped Genius around and the entirety of the Protoss race underestimated the willpower of broken man Mvp leaving them with only Seed as their GSL winner. After that came the era of the Zergs as Life, Sniper and Roro would go on to win three GSLs, twice in ZvZ finals.

Going into HotS, this meant that the first tournament of the expansion had a large amount of Zergs, 14 in total. But of those 14, 5 stood above the rest: Life, Leenock, Soulkey, Roro and Symbol. Of them, Innovation has now exterminated 3. He beat Leenock decisively 3-0 at MLG. He beat Life in the Ro16 group of death 2-0. And he beat Roro 3-0 in the Ro8. From the other two races, only four others can match Innovation's skill level. For Protoss there is Parting, Rain and sOs. For Terran, there is Flash. He beat Flash 2 - 1 in the group of death, beat Rain in the deciding match in the Ro32 and Parting was derailed by Soulkey in the ro8. Only two now stand in his way. Symbol here and Soulkey in the finals. This is Innovation’s GSL for the taking.


Symbol, the Nydus God

Among the top Zerg players, Symbol was probably the least likely to make it this far. Life was a 2 time GSL champion and had just won MLG. Leenock was a 2 time MLG Champion and one of the best players to never win the GSL. Soulkey was a consistent Zerg player in the GSL, reaching the ro8 twice, and is one of two aces of the strongest team in Proleague. Roro was the reigning champion of GSL having beaten Symbol to take it. Symbol and Roro had the least amount of time to switch literally playing WoL to the very last second of the expiration date.

In another way, Symbol was the most likely to get this far. Among the Zergs, no one matches him in terms of consistency: Ro8 - Ro8 - Ro16 - Finals - Ro4. Since his debut into Code S, he has reached the playoff bracket 4 times out of 5. The only time he didn’t, he was stuck in a hellhole with Life, Leenock and Soulkey. On top of that Symbol is the best Zerg at reinventing himself. Other Zergs like Life, Roro and Soulkey just focus on their own styles and slowly hone it over time until it becomes a sword that can cut through anything. Symbol is different. One season he loses with his ultralisk queen infestor. The next he just goes broodlord infestor. One season he is all about macro late game zerg. The next he’s busting Zergs and Terrans alike with lings, banes and roaches. Symbol doesn’t care about his style. His only style is victory at any cost. He does not care if it comes to him in a drawn out 50 minute game or a 5 minute bust. So long as he thinks the strategy is the one most likely to gain him victory, he will use it.

But for Symbol, this will be beyond hard. Even ignoring Innovation’s TvZ and just looking at the outside environment. No one expects him to win. Almost no one wants him to. No one from Kespa, no one from ESF, not Mr. Chae, not the casters, and not the fans. Anything to avoid the THIRD ZvZ final in a row. In the entire world, only a handful of people want him to win: CMStorm_Polt, Quantic.Hyun, MVP_Shine, and LG-IM_Ragnarok. Even after the dissolution of TSL, the old team of the Swarm preserved strong camaraderie, sharing strategies, cheering each other on and generally helping each other out whenever they can. And Symbol will need all the help he can get. With the entire world against him and praying for his defeat, Symbol will go into that booth with everyone in the world rooting against him.

By now, even the ladder-focused Innovation must know that all Symbol has done is large roach baneling attacks and nydus attacks against Terrans thus far. The problem for Symbol is that while he can play macro games with the best Terrans in the world, Innovation is on another level. He devastated both Life and Roro in long macro games. But if Symbol sticks to his roach bane bust style then Innovation must at least veer from his preferred builds and play safer than he wants. At the very least, disallowing Innovation from playing his game is a good start for Symbol.

Symbol must find a way to catch Innovation off guard in every games of this series. He must disrupt the plan, strike when Innovation’s guard is down, get ahead in the mental game. If not, then he will have to take a page out of Parting’s book. Back in WoL, Parting believed that he could not win late game against Zerg so he perfected the build we now know as the Soul Train. In Symbol’s case, if he cannot find a way to beat Innovation in a late game, it can be entirely possible that he goes for a nydus bust 7 times in a row. And for any other player that would be ludicrous and suicidal. For Symbol, it could be his only chance. Having gone 13-3 in games with the Nydus, it may be his only weapon he can use to even get a glimmer of victory against the man with the world’s greatest TvZ. The question is, do Zergs have souls?


Overall predictions:

Unless Symbol finds a weakness in Innovation’s play that no one else has yet discovered, this will be a very hard match for him. Innovation is seemingly nearly invincible in this matchup going 16 - 1 so far in HotS, the one loss being a game in PL against Soulkey. This will be by far Symbol’s hardest series to date, and for Innovation it will be business as usual. I can’t see this going any other way except in Innovation’s favor. Unless Innovation has a complete meltdown in his mental state, he should make it out of this series easily.

Innovation 4 - 1 Symbol