EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/pachi/banner/SPL_080930.png)
Shinhan Proleague 2008/2009 Coverage by Riptide and Heyoka
There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
Theres too much confusion
I can't get no relief
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/proleague200809/pl_hybrid.png)
Advanced Mutalisk micromanagement is needed when teams enter the playoff phase. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines. The truth is five hatch hydra. Interceptors attack endlessly, mindlessly, in the dead of night the Overmind screams. A new heir, a new era, the old will rise up and take the crown once more. A bloody coronation. Lee Jaedong will lead Oz to its end. He is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. End of line, end of line, end of line.
– Heyoka, after watching Chill vs Combatex fifteen times.
At 53 wins, Lee Jaedong is sitting pretty for top gun. Kim Taek Yong, on the other hand, had a bit of a bad spell, much to the chagrin of SKT, a team that had grown accustomed to him leading from the front. With a string of losses against the likes of Jangbi and go.go, Bisu’s recent performance no doubt raised some eyebrows among the team’s coaching staff. If there’s one thing the Protoss titan is known for though, it’s consistency, and Bisu has bounced back with five straight wins. Yes, the universe is back in order, and we can all breathe again. With 52 wins, he is also still very much in contention for top gun.
Leta, at just 46 wins, is so far down that we really don't see him able to recover. Flash, on the other hand, is right up there with both Bisu and Jaedong. Any run for top gun made by the Terran monster, however, hinges on KT making the playoffs. Although not impossible, it is unlikely that KT will oust KHAN, even a KHAN that is failing, from a number six spot. Thus, though Flash's individual performance puts him neck and neck with Jaedong, his team's overall performance is probably going to let him down as he reaches for number one.
Thus, the end game is very likely going to be in the hands of just two players. The powerhouse which Oz revolves around, Jaedong plays at least one game every match, and playing 10 of their 15 ace games, is well and truly their certified ace. Currently 9 – 1 in his last ten games, and boasting 64% or higher percentages in all his matchups, including a stellar 81.52% in ZvZ, if the current pro scene has a destroyer, it is him. Oz last won Proleague in 2007, beating KHAN in a final in which the then Legend Killer was sniped by Frozean.
Now, two years later, Oz is here, and ready to fight SKT to the bitter end, and if there is anyone to lead them it is a man, who while still finding his stride, fell in the battle of all battles to an opponent clearly his inferior. Now, as this season draws to a close, it is that same man, now in reach of a Golden Mouse, who stands ready to take his team all the way.
Of course, Bisu is nowhere near done. Although SKT doesn’t rely on him the same way Oz relies almost exclusively on Jaedong, he is still very much the team’s heavy artillery. While Fantasy and Best, the latter ailing, do pad the team’s lineup pretty well, it will be Bisu who sits at the center of any serious quest for glory. Their R5 performance has been very consistent, and in the last two weeks have managed to bridge the gap with Oz and tie for wins. As this last week of Proleague draws near however, expectations for Kim Taek Yong to perform are high, and rightly so. If SKT is going to improve on their 2008 bronze medal, it will be this Protoss that leads the way, and if someone can steal the title of top gun from Jaedong, it’s certainly him.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/proleague200809/pl_jokerthief.jpg)
No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I we’ve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour’s getting late
Playoff Fever
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/heyoka/R4Stand.png)
With the Proleague round robin stages ending this week, and six teams making the playoffs, the last playoff spot is clearly still up for grabs. While Oz, SKT, Sparkyz, STX and CJ are pretty much in, KHAN and KT are battling it out for sixth place. With KHAN facing Oz and Ace, and KT only having a single match against STX this week, however, KHAN does have the advantage of having that extra game to play. However, although Samsung will very likely walk over ACE with ease, their other match is against a rock solid Oz led by Lee Jaedong himself, and a win there does seem difficult, if not unlikely. KT on the other hand also have their work cut out for them as they face a peaking STX. All in all, the fight for number six is going to be brutal, and the remaining games should therefore be a treat to watch.
In the STX house, spirits are high, and the goal for this last week is clear. Reach number two. Given their current form, Coach Jo Gyu Baek knows that if the team were to end up in a higher playoff spot, the chances of ousting a giant like SKT or Oz is much higher. The true dark horse of this season, SouL is a force to be contended with, and as SKT, Oz and CJ fight each other out for first, second and third place, they are no doubt also keeping their eye on the pretender who is fast approaching.
Finally, it is also time for eSTRO and ACE to give up playoff dreams, and give some rookies time to play. In a season that’s all but over for them, it would be beneficial in the long run to have their newbies get games against the league’s top players, and learn valuable lessons by being stomped on. In the end however, it is undeniable that the battle ahead is between the powerhouses of this round, and that the showdown everyone is waiting for is that of two teams led by the current masters of the game.
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approachin
And the wind began to howl
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approachin
And the wind began to howl
Statisfaction
Now, on to the nerdery. As we’ve discussed in previous PL updates, the playoff system is quite complex.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/pachi/misc/spl_postseason.png)
Pachi's famous anti-confusion remedy.
As you can see, six teams make the playoffs. That in itself makes any kind of prediction kind of silly, because half the field makes it in.
It has an even weirder kink in the system, in that the teams who finished first and second are automatically seeded into the semifinal and final rounds. Finishing the ranks at #1 puts the team one victory away from the championship, #2 is two victories away, and #3-6 are all four victories away. Top finishers at the end of the regular season are highly rewarded, making the race close down to the very end. Essentially the team who finishes in second place is nearly 75% more likely to make it into the finals than who finishes in third.
The first thing to do is to look where I have teams projected to be at the end of round five. Here is what I got:
![[image loading]](/staff/heyoka/Predict/playoffs1.png)
The numbers with the white background are actual match points against each other team this round (1 when they win, none when they lose). The green background are unplayed matches, the number is an 'expected win' based on the past four rounds (Oz has gone 1-3 against KHAN in the past so their "expected" value from playing that match is a quarter of a point). The expected column then adds up this round's results and projection with past results, to get a number of total wins.
There are better ways to do this, but every time I run through a more complex model the results tend to be within about half a point. These results right now coincide pretty closely with the model I made at the start of R5 (which you can find here).
This model in particular gives an interesting result, having STX finish in number two. I ran this two weeks ago to start with, and originally I thought that was mostly in error. STX has been doing well against teams they have lost to historically (SKT-Hite-FOX), and the way this is done it will greatly overvalue that in forecasting. They continued to crush in the last two weeks however, and with the matches they have coming up this is looking more and more like a good possibility. KHAN's place is also unrealistically high here, because this doesn't account for the week KHAN dropped their whole A-team squad. A more likely top 6 includes KT at the bottom and KHAN nowhere (interesting that they started this round at number two and now have given up hope in the playoffs at all).
Playoff Value
I wanted to see how each team in the top spots have done in the past year against other teams. I decided to take the top 7 here vs each other top seven team, and here is what it looks like:
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/heyoka/Predict/top7.png)
I'm showing this to make a few points. When you chop off the worse half of proleague teams, each team is pretty evenly matched with each other team (with the clear exception being teams who are falling in by the skin of their teeth). This means that spots one and two are incredibly valuable, as the first two rounds of the playoffs are somewhat of a crapshoot (this is the same in most sports, so no huge surprise).
It also shows that squeaking into the playoffs doesn't even mean a whole lot to a team like KT, as they don't stand a real great chance of winning the playoff A and playoff final just to get the chance to play in the semi final round. KT in particular gets even worse when you factor in that a playoff match is played with seven games, instead of five (a subject deep enough to warrant its own writeup or at least its own dedicated section).
Looking forward
All in all, there is nothing too shocking to report right now. Oz, SKT, CJ, and STX are in good position to grab a title. Finishing in a top spot is important to Oz in particular, as their lineup does not do particularly well in a seven game series. STX might come out of nowhere to threaten the second place spot. We can expect some fun games in the last two weeks.
As we hit the final few week of Proleague this year, I will begin looking more specifically into what kinds of numbers can be quantified with more accuracy. Things such as team depth (to show the effect of bo7 over bo5 in the league) as well as simulating how playoffs will look and how they may play out. Stay tuned!
Highlights
To finish off this week’s update, we’re bringing you nothing but the best. The highlight of the week, I'm sure many of you will agree, is the game between the SKT T1 wrecking machine Bisu and the veteran Zerg YellOw of Airforce ACE. Those of you who have been around Professional Starcraft for long enough remember a Zerg giant who sparred with the likes of Lim Yo Hwan. While more recent fans will probably never see The Storm Zerg in top form, they did glimpse a moment of King Hong’s former glory in this great game. From a beautifully executed build coupled with expert positioning and micro, this remnant of Starcraft’s golden era truly gave us all a match to remember. Thank you Hong Jin-Ho. In an era where veterans are either retired, or failing badly, a little nostalgia is more than welcome.
Thanks to Pachi for the Playoff image and banners and GTR for finding the Bisu/Jaedong pictures.
I think I'll be around for a while.
