by lichter and stuchiu

Acer and Liquid have faced off before in the ATC semifinals, just one season ago. In that meeting MMA went full SlayerS mode as he all-killed Liquid to give Acer a 5-1 win. However, Liquid later repaid the favor in the SC2L finals, where TaeJa took out Acer's MMA-INnoVation duo to help his team take the championship. And now, the rubber match commences...

The Mean Green Machine: Team Acer

#1 Seed: 8 – 1 Regular Season, 43 – 20 map score (+23)

At 8-1 and on an 8 game winning streak, you’d be hard pressed to call Acer anything but the favorites to win ATC Season 2. Their +23 in map differential is greater than all the other playoff teams combined, which is just insane. We all knew that Acer would become a force to be reckoned with after claiming INnoVation in one of the biggest transfer coups in history, but over the course of the season it’s become clear that Acer is far from a one man team.

Instead of taking over, it seems as though the former STX ace has galvanized his new squad into raising their level of play to try and match his. MMA has looked like a champion reborn since INnoVation’s arrival, while Bly, Nerchio, and most of all Scarlett have climbed up the foreigner rankings during the tail end of 2013. Acer will hope that their momentum carries over into the ATC postseason and that they end their year on a high. With a win in Krefeld, Acer will certainly be in the discussion for best foreigner team of 2013.

INnoVation: In an interesting twist, this might become INnoVation’s THIRD major team league title in 2013. After winning the SK Planet Proleague on STX before departing for Acer and winning the GSTL just last month, he has yet another opportunity to make his sponsors proud as their undisputed Ace player. However, Acer is no one man team as RoBogus doesn’t even have the most wins in ATC. With one All-Kill and a 17-5 record, he has done very well for himself, but most viewers would have expected him to be waaaaay above everyone else in the win rankings of a foreigner league. Instead, he was able to comfortably sit out for 3 matches while his teammates thrashed the opposition. THAT should make any team shake in their boots. But even this Super Ace has a weakness: TvT. Losing twice in TvTs against Axiom and losing to foreigners Happy and Dayshi, everyone knows that it’s his weakest matchup. Still, at 66% in ATC, and having won two crucial matches against SuperNoVa in the GSTL finals, can we truly call his TvT weak?

Bly: As the second best foreigner behind VortiX, Bly’s ATC season has been a resounding success. Though most of his wins were concentrated in his 3-kill of CompLexity and All-Kill of IG, amassing a Top 10 record in a league filled with strong Koreans is no easy feat. A streaky player, Bly has often appeared early in the lineup. After a successful regular season, Acer will hope that Bly will be able to replicate his performances on the big stage where he is the most untested among their top 5 players.

MMA: Don’t let MMA’s unflattering record of 7-2 deceive you; the only reason he’s played so few games is that he just hasn’t had the need to. With INnoVation, Bly and Nerchio racking up wins left and right, MMA has only been called upon infrequently. He’s only played in 4 of Acer’s matches, closing things out twice against Mouz and TeamLiquid. Having the WCS Europe Season 3 Champion as your third best player must feel nice.

Scarlett: Mysteriously absent for most of ATC, Scarlett should be considered Acer’s wild card. After impressing during the back end of 2013 at ASUS ROG, IEM Singapore and RedBull NY, Scarlett is in the best form of her career. She has played some of the best games of the year in ZvT, especially against Bomber, but her winrates are even all around. Scarlett could be deployed anywhere as needed, and Acer will have to think carefully about the right time and place.

One Man Army: TeamLiquid

#4 Seed: 5 – 4 Regular Season, 37 – 34 map score (+3)

Teamliquid makes their entrance into the ATC finals aboard a raft in a sea of tears, due to their controversial, last second entrance into the final four. For those who don't know, Liquid was all but out of the running until Taeja's miraculous 5-0 all-kill against Quantic tied them with Mouz in record and map differential. The controversy came because of the tie-break: Mouz had defeated Liquid in their head-to-head. tournament rules stated that total map wins took priority over head-to-head. While the argument over what tie-break system is most ideal will never cease, no one can deny that TaeJa deserves an immense amount of credit for putting his team in that position to begin with. He was asked to deliver a 5-0 on command, and he did.

Team TaeJa: The monster has a total record of 19-9 in ATC, better than the combined scores of his five teammates Hero, Ret, Snute, Zenio and TLO, who went 18-25. TaeJa also recently won the most prestigious and lucrative tournament of his career at Dreamhack Winter, netting him $30,000+ and capping off an incredible year where he won five individual titles.

As amazing as TaeJa has been in solo competition, TaeJa's name is synonymous with team league success as well. You just can't help but remember his godlike run through IPL TAC 3 where he almost single-handedly won Liquid the championship. More recently, he was responsible for taking out both INnoVation and MMA as Liquid claimed the SC2L championship. If Taeja is on fire this weekend, no one will stop him.

And his supporting cast

Ret: Once one of the top Zergs in Europe, Ret has fallen off in HotS. He occasionally graces us with what looks like a perfect macro game, a tantalizing glimpse of what could be. Ret has been solid for Liquid in ATC, going 6-6 in map score (just barely worse than HerO's 7-6), though his wins and losses have come in streaks. Ret's play on the upcoming weekend could be the difference between TaeJa having a reasonable workload, or having to bring in PirateTerran and MoustacheTerran as well.

TLO: After his constant 5th place finishes in the beginning of the year, TLO has come back down to earth as the increased competition has made it harder than ever before to stay on top. Despite that he is still one of the better Zergs in Europe, and more than game to take matches off Koreans on his good days. In fact, he's kind of like a European version of Life, with only just a few less strengths and a few more weaknesses, literally.

Snute: It's not something you notice at first glance, but Snute had an extremely successful 2013. Among the foreigner Zergs, he has won the most money this year and was one of the few foreigners to make it to the finals of a premier tournament (HSC7). However, most of his success came earlier in the year, and he hasn't really had much luck recreating that form. He has spent a lot of time in Korea at either the EG-TL house or the CJ house, leaving him little time to actually participate in the ATC league. This will be our chance to see what he picked up in Korea, and see if he can contribute in ATC when it matters the most.

Conspicuously Absent - HerO: After traveling around for the past 2 months going from tournament to tournament, HerO has finally got some time to kick back and relax. Liquid has allowed him to take the ATC finals off, so that he might be better rested as 2014 approaches.

by SinCitta and Waxangel

Wolf Pack : Western Wolves

#2 Seed: 6 – 3 Regular Season, 38 – 28 map score (+10)

Western Wolves are going to the finals as the dreaded dark horse. Ever since failing to qualify for season 1, Western Wolves changed their roster considerably, allowing them to qualify for season 2. In their first match they barely edged out a 5-4 win against compLexity, giving the impression that while they could certainly hang in there, they wouldn't be competing for the title.

The truth was far from it: Western Wolves, together with their joker San, extended that one win into a four win streak, including an impressive 5-0 win against Axiom thanks to San. Not only did they secure playoff qualification early, but they also turned quite a few heads in the process.

Going into the finals, the hype has cooled down a little. Even though they secured their qualification early, losing painfully to Acer and Mouz in their last handful of matches had to be embarrassing. But the big blow against their chances of winning the championship is that their joker and key player San will be missing, as he must fulfill other obligations in Taiwan's TeSL.

StarNaN: Being the third Protoss in the team behind San and Daisy, the senior wolf StarNaN only had two caps this season, plus one in the qualifiers. When he played, he faced other European players where he took a map before losing twice, but never went on a streak. Outside of the ATC, he is a regular in Dreamhacks and other Swedish events where he had some deep runs.

Daisy: Things have been silent around Daisy after he made himself known at IEM Katowice and many online tournaments. He has been struggling in the WCS EU region, blocked by the wall of lag, unlike his peers duckdeok or Genius. How might he have performed had he made it to the offline rounds? Now we might be able to know. Daisy achieved a balanced 5-6 record in the regular season, but he will need to play better to take the burden off Check.

Sting: Sting's most notable achievement was his IEM Singapore win in 2012, but like Daisy, it he has been very quiet as of late. He is mostly visible in the ATC regular season where he had a 5-8 record, with four of his wins against Quantic and his other win against LucifroN. Not only was he outmatched against the top Koreans in the league, but he also had many losses against Europeans. Maybe the offline setting will allow him more crisper play than he showed in the regular season? Like Daisy, he needs to show better play so that he can take some of the pressure off of Check.

Check: With San missing for the finals, Western Wolves' hopes lie on Check's shoulders. His stats in the regular season are 6-1 against Protoss, 5-2 against Zerg and 4-4 against Terran, being one of the league's top players and actually taking more maps than San in the regular season. He made his first splash in SC2 in the stacked Korean qualifiers for IEM New York, where he beat the likes of DRG, PartinG and FanTaSy, only to fall to INnoVation during his TvZ peak. Since then, he showed promising performances, yet he hasn't made a bigger name for himself in the shark tank that is Korean SC2. The ATC finals will be his first offline appearance in a foreign tournament, maybe the first of many more in 2014.

Led by GSTL Champion TotalBiscuit: Axiom Esports

#3 Seed: 5 – 4 Regular Season, 37 – 30 map score (+7)

Ladies and gentlemen, in the red and blue trunks, one half of the GSTL champions, Axiom Esports!

After partnering with Team Acer to win the most recent season of GSTL, Axiom are now all on their own as they try to win yet another team title. While it's undeniable that INnoVation played a gigantic role in Axiom-Acer's GSTL win, it would be foolish to sell Axiom short. In the GSTL season prior to that, an INnoVation-less Axiom-Acer achieved a second place finish in the regular season with even contributions from all of its members. Axiom's players may not have had much individual league success in HotS, but they have always been strong team league competitors, with any player capable of stepping up and being the hero of the day. They are a team that exemplifies the idea of "the sum of the parts is greater than the whole," and they are very much in this title fight.

CranK: With a 9-6 record, Axiom's player/coach/cook/driver/maid/manager/cameraman Crank has racked up the most wins for Axiom in the ATC. Given the nature of Axiom's roster it wouldn't have been surprising to see any of their players get the most wins for their team, but it's definitely a nice bonus for Axiom's founding member. Crank looked absolutely devastated after dropping a key map in the GSTL finals, and he'll be looking to make up for it in the ATC.

Heart: Once known as the cheeser supreme, Heart has 'rehabilitated' himself by becoming a generic, solid macro Terran. Such a shame, since he was more interesting when he was more of a shameless cheeser, but at least he's still got some of that in his blood.

Impact: Axiom's new recruit has been good in ATC with a 6-3 record, but his performances in live settings is a worrisome. He had a poor 1-5 record in the GSTL, and he has yet to show he can really perform in a pressure situation. Well, another trial by fire it is!

Ryung: A lot hangs on Ryung's performance.

Ryung has been doing poorly in recent months. He's fallen out of WCS America's Challenger league, and has failed to make a big impact in GSTL or ATC. This is particularly worrisome because on a team like Axiom that relies on even contributions from all its members, Ryung was the one player that you could have called the "ace." He was the one you'd look at to score multi-kills or bail the team out in tough situations, something he had been doing since his SlayerS days.

If Ryung can give his team a spark, then it might be enough for Axiom to fight against streaky aces like TaeJa, INnoVation, and Check. If Ryung's slump continues, then Axiom will be hard pressed to take the title. Unless...

Alicia: With Ryung in trouble, who's the player you look to first to step up? Why, it's none other than Alicia, the player on Axiom who's had the most individual league success in the past. As a player who once managed to win three silver medals in a row (long before Jaedong), Alicia's peak-level play is probably the best out of all the Axiom players.

And indeed, Alicia has picked up the slack. He was the best player on the Axiom half of Axiom-Acer in GSTL, going a combined 11-6 in the tournament. Though he's not a one-man championship team like INnoVation or TaeJa, Alicia has all the skills needed to be Axiom's ace in a pinch.