Photos by Silverfire and GomTV

Auction OSL - Ro32 Day 1 Preview
Soulkey, Flash, Innovation and more


Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

Games change, but the Starleague lives on. In StarCraft, Brood War, Wings of Liberty, and now Heart of the Swarm.

With GomTV taking care of the first season of WCS Korea, it's now OnGameNet's turn to host the top flight competition in Korea. The prestigious Starleague name has been attached to this tournament, which is equivalent to the prior Code S or the newly minted Premier Leagues in America and Europe. But all those leagues owe homage to the OSL to begin with, for starting the tradition of great StarCraft tournaments that allows esports to exist in its current state today.

For better or for worse, one of the ancient customs of the OSL remains in this changed world: the best of one. For logistical and scheduling reasons, the initial, Ro32 round will be played two groups at a time, in best of one format. It's a drastic change for a StarCraft II scene that has grown with best of three as the default, and it will surely impact these matches greatly - at least in terms of preparation if not results.

Group A: Soulkey, YuGiOh, Flash, Ragnarok

by Waxangel

Match 1: Soulkey vs. YuGiOh

As called for by tradition, the defending champion Woongjin_Soulkey headlines the very first group and match of the new season. After finally finding individual league success in a new game and different tournament format, one has to wonder how he feels about returning to the OSL, a tournament where his highest result was a round of 16 elimination. Is the pressure weighing down on him? Does he feel nostalgia for the past? Or maybe he has voided his mind of such distractions, the way he did when he rallied from a 0 – 3 deficit in the Code S Finals to score the most famous comeback in StarCraft II history.

Soulkey proved that he deserves the title of 'best Zerg in the world' with his Code S win, but he has drawn a tricky if not exactly 'difficult' group. With a 2 – 0 victory over TLO and 3 – 1 victory over RorO at the WCS S1 Finals, Soulkey showed us he's still a top tier ZvZ player in a post-spore buff world, but ZvZ is still ZvZ. Compared to the other match-ups, the effects of a single misread, micro mistake, or unluckily selected build order seem to be amplified.

His opponent, the lone international team participant in ROOT.YugiOh, needs to take advantage of this fact. He hasn't played a relevant tournament ZvZ since the spore-patch so it's difficult to rate his ZvZ, but it can't be that much of a stretch to assume he's worse than a player who just beat TLO and RorO, and was one of the top ZvZ players in the original roach-infestor days.

Playing a macro game here could be a big mistake, and one can easily imagine the creatively inclined ROOT captain Catz emailing YuGiOh a new all-in suggestion every day. YuGiOh, royal highness of Code A, just making it to the Starleague while being on a foreign team is an immensely impressive achievement. It's alright to temporarily put away the "I want to show entertaining games" mantra for now and do whatever it takes to win. If you get through, there will be plenty of time to show off your strong late-game swarm host play later.


Match 2: Flash vs. RagnaroK

Normally the defending champion should look like the strongest player in a Ro32 group, but he's facing some serious competition from a player some call God. KT_Flash had his last Code S season cut short when he was knocked out of the group of death, but he rebounded from that setback by racking up a 18 – 5 record ever since. With that kind of record and players like JangBi, Innovation, and RorO on his victims list, it's arguable that Flash is stronger than he has ever been in SC2. He's now looking like a legit championship contender in all aspects, not just a player with great macro and tightly optimized builds.

Just like Soulkey, Flash has handed a deceptively dangerous mismatch as his first challenge. The 16 year old Zerg LG-IM_RagnaroK has been hyped inside hardcore fan circles ever since his TSL days, and now he's finally managed to make his big stage debut in the OSL after some prior success in team tournaments.

While facing a talented young prospect shouldn't trouble Flash in itself, the way RagnaroK reached the OSL will give him some pause. Facing Gumiho in the final round of Code A, RagnaroK went for two drop all-in builds that completely countered Gumiho's attempts to play a standard triple-orbital style. Gumiho even made tanks in preparation for some kind of all-in, but they were helpless against roaches dropped directly on top of their heads.

If RagnaroK has more where that came from, then he stands a chance of beating Flash in a one-off. After taking a page from HyuN's book with drop tactics, he could look to another member of the ex-TSL Zerg brain trust for inspiration – maybe one of Symbol's cleverly masked nydus worm all-ins could do the trick? RagnaroK tried something of the sort against Maru in the GSTL, and while it didn't work, it will be another route of attack Flash must keep in mind. The usually solid Flash has to be favored overall, but it will only take one unaccounted possibility for RagnaroK to add another famous Terran to his upset list.


Other matches and overall prediction

While there were too many possible matches in Code S groups for a player to prepare intensively for every single map, I get the feeling that with the bo1 format, Flash might actually come in having completed some form of specific practice for every single map + player combination. Flash is just known for being an insanely driven practice-freak, so even with Proleague to take care of, I think he'll be the best prepared for this group.

Flash and Soulkey also have a slight advantage in being very used to OnGameNet's Yongsan Esports stadium, having played the majority of their career matches there. YuGiOh and Ragnarok are mostly products of Mokdong and Gangnam, and their condition could be adversely affected by having to play in an entirely new environment. It's not just the chairs, the lighting, and sound of the booth that could put them off – the Starleague is the most storied StarCraft tournament in Korea, and there will be a new kind of pressure on their shoulders.

Overall, I'll go with the popular and completely unbold prediction for the veterans and past champions to advance. They have the advantage of having played a ton more big matches, actually having played in Yongsan and the OSL, and generally being better players. That said, there's no telling what could happen in this format that no one has dared to use yet in StarCraft II. I would be surprised to see either of Flash or Soukley be eliminated, but not that surprised.

Soulkey > YuGiOh
Flash > RagnaroK
Flash > Soulkey
YuGiOh > RagnaroK
Soulkey > YuGiOh

Flash and Soulkey advance.

Group B: Innovation, Savage, Flying, Bbyong

by CosmicSpiral

1. STX_INnoVation

Fresh off a 4 - 0 dismantling of sOs in the WCS Season 1 finals, Innovation is looking to go full Terminator and crash his car through this group of girlie men. There is no Soulkey to save these poor souls from this abomination of man and StarCraft II solving algorithm. And you know that the memory of that Soulkey loss is powering him like an infernal fire. Innovation may have temporarily punished sOs in Soulkey's stead, but a player of such expectations does not forget so easily.

What is there to say about Innovation? He has almost every possible advantage over Savage and whoever he meets in the (most likely) winners match. His macro is consistently mind-boggling, his micro never fails to deliver, his pushes are nearly impossible to stop unless you are one of the best players in the world, his harassment never stops until he finds a weakness, and now he has the benefit of having a trophy to show his ascension to top dog. The last part is perhaps the most important. To lose a GSL final after being up 3 games is heartbreaking, and it would signal a decline for many players who lack the mental fortitude to pick themselves up afterwards. But his dominating WCS victory reinforces what most observers would agree on: GSL was just a fluke. He won't let an opportunity slip out of his hands again.

2. CJ_Bbyong

Color me surprised, Bbyong being favored to make it out of a group? He has not been the most illustrious KeSPA player but the CJ stalwart has quietly made strides towards becoming one of the better players. Granted, his Proleague performance has been somewhat shaky and he loses most of his games against the best players. However, he has looked solid in most of his wins, and his losses – with the exception of a beating against Soulkey – hinged on a few mistakes. With poor Virus retiring to real life, Bbyong is poised to be the next Terran who superglues himself to the Ro32.

But why he is second then? The main reason I’ve chosen Bbyong to advance is his odd combination of relentless aggression and slick builds in TvP. Most terrans will opt for safe economic openers to gear up for mid-game pushes and Bbyong is no exception. Even with reaper openings he prefers to scout around the map and count out proxy openings rather than get into the opponent’s base for probe harassment. But from there he does whatever he wants to get the win. Marine/hellion/medivac push into quick third, 1/1/1 with SCV pull, it doesn’t matter as long as Bbyong thinks it’s going to kill you.

If the group goes as expected, Bbyong will either face Innovation in winners or face Savage in losers. He should lose against the former but be able to defeat the latter, while Innovation is favored against Flying in the winners match. Confusing? Well, to simplify, I expect it to boil down to a deciding match between Flying and Bbyong in the very end. Given Flying’s recent PvT record in HotS and Bbyong’s traditionally strong performance in TvP (the only matchup where he has consistently won games since the beginning of HotS), I give the slight edge to the CJ terran.

3. Woongjin_Flying

It was summer 2012 and things were looking up for WoL. The KeSPA players had finally entered the fray and the update to the 1.4.3 patch promised to make early-game ZvT more than defending hellions into dying to a better economy (how little we knew). It was around that time that Flying started to turn heads in Proleague and OSL. He went 6-1 in the hybrid season with great finesse in PvT and PvP and impressed us by getting to the OSL Round of 8.

But afterwards he struggled to stay dependable, and now it’s hard to say whether he ought to be advancing out of his group. Judging from his previous games in last season's GSL, Flying definitely has the talent to get to the Round of 8 and even the Round of 4. But the question is whether he is well-rounded enough and the answer to that is "Try again next time". His 3 game rut in Proleague is forgivable given that he has to split time with Code S. More concerning is Flying's inability to grasp the PvT matchup; he has lost all his games versus terran in PL and boasts a very mediocre record in total. Flying will most likely beat Savage and it’s a given that he is the underdog against INnoVation. The race for second will probably boil down to Flying versus Bbyong, and as I mentioned before, Bbyong has shown strong builds and decision-making in TvP while Flying has not. However it is a Bo1 format and matchup strength counts for far less when one mistake makes all the difference.

4. Team 8_Savage

It is odd to see Savage in Premier League considering that his past performances in both WCS and SPL have been neither memorable nor particularly impressive. Out of 8 SPL appearances he has only won 2 games and currently sits at 0-4 against terran opponents. All his 3-0 sweep of his Up-and-Down group proved he could scout and defend all-ins…or rather, poorly hidden ones. Nothing here suggests that he will be much of a challenge for Innovation.

With that being said, Savage probably won’t lose due to mechanical inferiority. He looks and feels like a world-class player when nothing is happening: his builds are executed perfectly, he knows the timings and purpose of his builds to a tee, and he always pulls ahead in supply by the 12 minute mark. What will kill Savage is his incredibly poor sense of priority management: the thing that separates the best players from the merely good ones.

In most of his SPL losses he was either ahead or even until a discernible point in the mid-game: when he saw his opponent take his own fourth and he embarked on a failed timing attack. At that point the clock struck 12, the elegant carriage turned back into a sluggish overlord, and Savage forgot that it's better to delay your injects and actually micro your troops instead of a-moving into a perfect concave. Flying and Bbyong aren’t pushovers either when it comes to the late game.

The other matchups are easier but still a challenge. Flying has showed strong PvZ with solid wins over Dongraegu, Roro, and Soo. Bbyong has been progressively getting stronger and stronger and can boast close matches against Rain and Leenock, losing and winning those games respectively. It would lovely if Team 8 got a solid representative in Premier League but Savage is probably not good enough to be that man.

INnoVation > Savage
Bbyong < Flying
INnoVation > Flying
Bbyong > Savage
Bbyong > Flying

INnoVation and Bbyong advance.