GOMTV Hot6ix Cup

Grand Finals Preview
Soulkey vs. Rain

Brackets and standings on
Liquipedia

by CosmicSpiral

Here is a matchup that feels so right, it has to be wrong. In a year where the only tournament guarantee was a Korean would stand triumphant on top of the body heap, a SKT_Rain vs Woongjin_Soulkey final seems overly quaint. For once we weren’t treated to a stunning upset or inexplicable collapse (although Bomber almost gave us both in one night). Finalists aren't always what we expect them to be, but in this case both Soulkey and Rain look the part. They're the kind of low-flash, high-efficiency macro players that a young Artosis might have hung up posters of in his bedroom, the players who play the game the "right" way if such a thing could be said to exist. For a series of textbook excellence, we need to look no further.

Winning here won’t automatically prove Soulkey is the best Zerg in the world. The question itself is plagued with doubts over competition, personal evaluations of gameplay, and indeterminate methods to account for opportunity. Does an 8-man invitational measure up to Dreamhack Winter in terms of assembled opponents? Would Soulkey be more accomplished than Jaedong if he could fly around the world too? How much can we forgive him for that 0-4 loss against Dear in the WCS Season 3 Finals? All of these are legitimate queries and unfortunately they don’t have easy answers. There are too many tournaments, too many variables, too much information processed and disseminated throughout the competitive community for a clear response.


I doubt Soulkey is troubled over his ranking in the cosmic hierarchy. Being the top dog or 47th on the list doesn’t change much. He’s a Zerg dedicated to playing in Korea and he faces the same problems as the rest of his kin: long waits between tournaments, few chances at exposure, and brutal online qualifiers just to nab a spot at the next IEM. For now he must be content with thoughts about holding another 1st place trophy. Fresh off a relatively easy win at WCG, Soulkey comes into the finals with some serious momentum and confidence. His ZvP has looked excellent lately and this time, there’s no Innovation or Dear standing in his way.

Whether you attribute his decline to laziness (words from the man himself) or a changing metagame, SKT_Rain’s fall came at a very unfortunate time. At the end of WoL he was a revolutionary player who was changing the way we thought about Protoss; the additions of HotS promised to make his style even stronger. The mothership core, oracles, death rays, a useful late-game air unit… all of these should’ve make Rain’s playstyle nearly unstoppable. Yet when the expansion arrived, Rain unexpectedly turned invisible. Besides a strong run in WCS Season 2 he hasn’t made much noise in 2013. Much of this can be blamed on his limited appearances: Rain has only been in 6 tournaments all year, 5 of them purely Korean affairs. Yet there has been no shortage of challengers trying to fill his unoccupied throne either. Back in 2012 Rain’s approach to PvX was something unique, only shared by Creator. Today Parting, sOs, Trap, Dear, Sora, herO and many others excel as balancing offense and defense using Protoss 2.0. Rain’s resurgence inevitably means he must conquer these interlopers.

While Rain is no longer the paradigm of conservative macro play, he never stopped being relevant even at the nadir of his career. His careful mixture of passive buildup and periodic harassment has been the gold standard throughout the year, refracted through so many different lenses it can no longer be called ‘his’ anymore. Almost every successful protoss, whether it’s Dear reenacting the Theodosian Walls or Trap dropping HTs all over the place, the same principle remains: Protoss uses all-ins but it doesn’t need all-ins to succeed. They are merely traps to punish the idle and strikes to cripple morale. Tonight Rain will try to prove all that 2-base nonsense is overrated. One only needs lasers and storms to take out the best.

Overall Outlook and Prediction

Tonight is a chance for Rain to get even. Soulkey brushed him aside during the quarterfinals of WCS Season 3, and now would be the perfect time to avenge that defeat. But is he ready to tackle this challenge? His utter domination of Symbol may not translate into a hard obstacle for the Woongjin Zerg. After all, Symbol played rather predictably and his roach/hydra/viper strategy gave him few chances to mess with Rain’s economy.

Soulkey’s main concern is whether Rain was paying attention to his history against Bomber. He tends to struggle against unpredictable patterns and Rain is supposedly all about safe predictability. There are plenty of ways Rain can use that Ro8 series to his advantage. Stargate transitions, DT timings, a very quick 3rd base, almost any deviation could mess with SK’s careful preparation.

Prediction: Soulkey 4-2 Rain

Writers: CosmicSpiral
Graphics: shiroiusagi.
Photos: GomTV, Silverfire and ThisIsGame.
Editor: Waxangel.