After an exhausting playoff series that went all seven games and included Proleague's longest recorded game, SK Telecom T1 defeated Samsung Galaxy 4-3 to advance to the round one playoff finals. Though the previous day's playoff match between SKT and Jin Air had been decided by one player's hot streak, no one could build momentum in the match between SKT and Samsung as the two teams traded blow after blow. In the end, SKT's new signing Classic (formerly of Soul) was able to overcome Samsung's ace player RorO on the seventh and final map to send SKT through to the finals.
The match started off on a high note for Samsung as a struggling Stork showed his best form in months to defeat PartinG in the opening match. From there, the series quickly devolved into a fight in the mud. Neither side was able to keep a player out for more than a couple of games, while swarm hosts began to feature prominently in long, drawn out matches.
Game three game between Reality and Soulkey was the highlight (or lowlight) of the playoff series, with the two players turtling into a 2 hour, 21 minute stalemate. Even the re-game, which Soulkey won, clocked in at a marathon 45 minutes.
After a back and forth sequence that saw Shine defeat Soulkey (improving to 8-0 head to head), Rain defeat Shine, and RorO defeat Rain, the series came down to one final match between RorO and Classic on Frost. After all the drawn out games on the night, Classic went straight at RorO in the early game with a devastating cannon rush. However, RorO's excellent play from behind allowed him to recover, establishing a swarm host army seemingly capable of taking him into the late game.
Unfortunately for Samsung, RorO could not complete the comeback. Classic was able to put together a push of death with stalkers, colossi, and templars just before RorO could completely dig in on defense, and he incinerated RorO's swarm hosts to force the GG.
SK Telecom T1 will now face long-time rivals KT Rolster in the round one playoff finals on February 11th.
That Rain vs. Roro game was so sad. Enduring locusts just makes for such boring games. Rain can't take a fifth because the SH can kill it from far enough away that he can't attack into them. So we have to watch as he runs out of money slowly and dies in a 50 minute game.
On February 11 2014 01:39 DinoMight wrote: That Rain vs. Roro game was so sad. Enduring locusts just makes for such boring games. Rain can't take a fifth because the SH can kill it from far enough away that he can't attack into them. So we have to watch as he runs out of money slowly and dies in a 50 minute game.
Actually, Rain main issue was that he could attack the center base of Roro because of infestors on the high ground. He actually had enough AoE to deal with the hosts, he just could walk up the ramp due to fungals. If he loses his HTs and stalkers from fungals, Roro's corruptors just kills colossi.
And to be fair, if it wasn't for swarm host, it would be Rain trampling Roro with his voidray, dual AoE death ball. Zerg has nothing to combat that if not swarm hosts. Just too much AoE and anti air.
On February 11 2014 01:39 DinoMight wrote: That Rain vs. Roro game was so sad. Enduring locusts just makes for such boring games. Rain can't take a fifth because the SH can kill it from far enough away that he can't attack into them. So we have to watch as he runs out of money slowly and dies in a 50 minute game.
Actually, Rain main issue was that he could attack the center base of Roro because of infestors on the high ground. He actually had enough AoE to deal with the hosts, he just could walk up the ramp due to fungals. If he loses his HTs and stalkers from fungals, Roro's corruptors just kills colossi.
And to be fair, if it wasn't for swarm host, it would be Rain trampling Roro with his voidray, dual AoE death ball. Zerg has nothing to combat that if not swarm hosts. Just too much AoE and anti air.
Well I'm not saying get rid of Swarm Hosts, just enduring locusts... because they can attack from so far away it FORCES Rain to have to attack into fungal and spores etc. So Roro can sit back while his free locusts deny Rain's 5th and Rain cannot actually attack into the SH with his deathball. Eventually he WILL lose.
If they didn't go that far the SH couldn't just sit there and spew locusts nonstop. They'd have to be moving around and be exposed at some point. Rain could take a fifth, and when RORO wanted to attack it he'd have to put his units at risk like Rain does.
Most boring semifinal ever!!! Swarmhosts just kill this game.
I spotted also something interesting in Soulkey vs Reality game. Once the game passed 1h, Reality was still microing his best, moving tanks, placing PDD etc, but Soulkey could generally take his hand s off keyboard, just every couple of minutes move back SW a little bit , well "I HAVE 21 SWORMHOSTS".
And again just one small mistake could have costed Reality the whole game. This is not fair. Zerg should be the race which relies on multitasking, runbies, harassment etc. What do we have right now, everybody sees.
If you can see a unit revealed by Oracle's Revelation even after it's burrowed, then things may get better. Basically Toss can shoot with Tempest from a long range and Zerg can shoot with Locusts from a long range as well. Although how exciting this is to watch I still have some serious doubts.
On February 11 2014 02:50 TW wrote: Most boring semifinal ever!!! Swarmhosts just kill this game.
I spotted also something interesting in Soulkey vs Reality game. Once the game passed 1h, Reality was still microing his best, moving tanks, placing PDD etc, but Soulkey could generally take his hand s off keyboard, just every couple of minutes move back SW a little bit , well "I HAVE 21 SWORMHOSTS".
And again just one small mistake could have costed Reality the whole game. This is not fair. Zerg should be the race which relies on multitasking, runbies, harassment etc. What do we have right now, everybody sees.
Zerg has to react, Terran playing campy mech-style forces soulkey's hand. The mech play is just as much to blame as the SHs.
On February 11 2014 01:39 DinoMight wrote: That Rain vs. Roro game was so sad. Enduring locusts just makes for such boring games. Rain can't take a fifth because the SH can kill it from far enough away that he can't attack into them. So we have to watch as he runs out of money slowly and dies in a 50 minute game.
Actually, Rain main issue was that he could attack the center base of Roro because of infestors on the high ground. He actually had enough AoE to deal with the hosts, he just could walk up the ramp due to fungals. If he loses his HTs and stalkers from fungals, Roro's corruptors just kills colossi.
And to be fair, if it wasn't for swarm host, it would be Rain trampling Roro with his voidray, dual AoE death ball. Zerg has nothing to combat that if not swarm hosts. Just too much AoE and anti air.
This. The only other viable comp is mutas, and that needs to do significant damage on the first punch, or have a sick economy to trade with...
Thanks for the writeup. Shine's record against Soulkey is really cool.
As it should be, KT faces SKT in the finals. Here's to hoping for a really exciting number of games, with TY and Flash bringing it home for the best KT.
honestly i hate toss and i find this race is op and easy but SH are easily the worse designed unit in the game and should be removed instantly its sad to see those game and i even feel some sorrow for toss when they face sh ... on the other hand without sh zvp would probably be as much imba as tvp is right now ...
Zerg has to react, Terran playing campy mech-style forces soulkey's hand. The mech play is just as much to blame as the SHs.
It is just game design that SH require less micro. I don't blame Soulkey for using them. All in all DK should do sth about turtling styles, cause only few poeple have enough time to watch possibly 5 1h long games during one day.
If there are no swarmhosts, how can zergs deal with this Reality's style?
I like Wolf a lot but I seriously had the urge to slap him when he started talking at the end of the series about how incredibly awesome it was. After Game 2 when the swarm hosts came out nonstop I found this series to be practically unwatchable.
Also when I queued up the Twitch VOD this morning, the title of the VOD was "FINAL: KT vs SKT." They've fixed the name now but I sure do appreciate them making sure that it is COMPLETELY impossible to watch Proleague VODs in a spoiler-free manner.
If there are no swarmhosts, how can zergs deal with this Reality's style?
They cannot.
Are you sure? Zerg can get their own deathball with BLs, corruptors, infestors and vipers, then as long as they take even a somewhat even fight, remax much faster than Terran can. They could have a faster more mobile army and harass with mutas and lings like Soulkey tried to do very very briefly.
It's not really a useful discussion since SHs might be altered somewhat but they won't be removed or redesigned, but I'm not at all convinced that SHs are the only answer Zerg could possibly have to a deathball. The reason we see them all the time is they're certainly the easiest and most obvious answer.
Both style are as boring from my point of view. I wanted to watch the game before going to work I ended up being late and killed my phone batterie while watching the end on it. If Starcraft 2 wants to survive we need to fix it, because it was really anticlimax series and they almost did it twice in a row.
Samsung should have played Solar during the serie, that kid is really good and game are very fun to watch when he is in it.
Was an incredible game between Soulkey and Reality. I think the blame mostly rests on Reality's shoulders for its length though. His style was literally to never really attack ever, and he also played it out very defensively when they got to the final unit battles.
What he could have done was use his buildings to wall up his tanks so he didn't need PDDs, then used the raven's energy for HSMs on the zerg army periodically. That would have not only won him the game, but done so a lot more quickly. He had enough scans to easily find weak spots to dart in and HSM and fly out, and all he really had to take care of was the SWs like that (which would be easy cause they can't outrun it when burrowed). Then the tanks clean up the queens and thor/viking can defeat the mutas.
Still, interesting to see games of all times every now and then.
If enduring locusts gets removed from the game (as it should after so many debacles like these), I hope that the replacement is a locust number upgrade from 2 to 3, so that they reach critical mass with less investment, even if they can no longer siege a third from so far away or defend their hosts constantly.
On February 11 2014 05:11 SpunXtain20 wrote: Was an incredible game between Soulkey and Reality. I think the blame mostly rests on Reality's shoulders for its length though. His style was literally to never really attack ever, and he also played it out very defensively when they got to the final unit battles.
What he could have done was use his buildings to wall up his tanks so he didn't need PDDs, then used the raven's energy for HSMs on the zerg army periodically. That would have not only won him the game, but done so a lot more quickly. He had enough scans to easily find weak spots to dart in and HSM and fly out, and all he really had to take care of was the SWs like that (which would be easy cause they can't outrun it when burrowed). Then the tanks clean up the queens and thor/viking can defeat the mutas.
Still, interesting to see games of all times every now and then.
Even with Buildings he would need the PDDs. Reality literally tried to attack for 1 hour and Soulkey slowed him while spreading creep everywhere. Also Soulkey used his Spores to prevent Ravens from getting close. And even when Reality decided to camp on a main ramp to save energy, Soulkey could have just moved away. And Zerg units are to fast on creep to get hit by long range Seekers unless they derp, like Soulkey did several times. Of course he could have used Mules to try and deliver hits.
But yes both players where really at fault that the game dragged out. Reality for being a derp with using seekers on opponent units that are super fast without killing them to prevent Seeker drags and stacking his air fleet so badly. And Soulkey for not simply winning afterwards by actually using the Locust to do damage and not to dance around. Like some in the LR said by moving them into the Tanks or splitting the rallies to reduce splash. With both done at the same time Realitys army after the map was mined out would have survived around 3 waves.
The good part about this game is that kespa will probably analyze it to see flaws in the strategies and that we will see better Locust usage and then this sort of games shouldn't happen anymore in ZvT. So better enjoy these games while they last because they will be gone soon one way or the other.
On February 11 2014 08:29 FeyFey wrote:The good part about this game is that kespa will probably analyze it to see flaws in the strategies and that we will see better Locust usage and then this sort of games shouldn't happen anymore in ZvT. So better enjoy these games while they last because they will be gone soon one way or the other.
Good fucking riddance if they do leave. I would wager that this Bo7 was the longest match in pro league history because 4 of the 8 games lasted 40+ minutes. Reality vs Soulkey alone is 3 hours of starcraft.
I like long macro games. They usually are fun to watch but this ZvX Swarm Host turtling is just not entertaining. I don't blame the zerg for doing it because they have no choice vs a Terran who wants to sit on 4 bases and never move out and Swarm Hosts are the only viable way to engage a Colossus/HT/Stalker death ball.
Big big problem in the game IMO and it needs to be fixed in some way. And I think all 3 races need to see nerfs to the cores of these compositions.
game three was awesome until the ~2hrs 05 min. mark. watched it, before i went to uni ^_^ when reality finally moved up the ramp and didn't want to commit anymore the excitement was finally gone. i mean for about an hour when he started to leapfrog he was the one who would've thrown as soulkey just played passive and counted on his locusts (what else could he have done).
Pet peeve, but at some point it becomes misleading to report game lengths from the in-game clock. A 2h21 "Blizzard Time" game is 1h42 in wall clock time, or the length of a reasonably average tennis match.
Roro is doing pretty well this Proleague, he did somewhat slump after winning that GSL but you don't win one without being a decent player. Now for Seed to emerge again!
EPT
Classic (formerly of Soul) was able to overcome Samsung's ace player 
RorO on the seventh and final map to send SKT through to the finals.
Reality <Star Station> ![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/proleague/2014/r1playoff2.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/HawaiianPig/SPL/SPLstaricon.png)
