Round 3, Week 3 Preview

Week 3 Preview
Telecom Terrors

Must-Watch Match
sOs vs. Classic

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

By: Zealously

With the two telecom teams looking like they already have playoff spots secured, it's now a dog fight between the six remaining teams to take the two last playoff spots. Six teams are tied at 1-2, leaving the last two playoff spots wide open for anyone to take. However, none of them seem to be playing well at the moment, and the first team to break out of ther funk and find some stability will have a good chance at clinching a Round 3 playoff spot.

It's worth noting this week that hero, Life, TY, RorO and Leenock will be absent due to Dreamhack Bucharest. Though RorO will return in time to play against SK Telecom on Tuesday, he leaves his team to cope without him in a tough match against IM. KT will certainly miss TY against MVP, a team who handed them an unexpected loss in the Round 2 playoffs. While no team wants to go into a Proleague week missing a player, they will also hope to use this chance to discover hidden gems on the bench.

Roster Notes

• Newly acquired IM-mercenary Oz will make his debut in the 2014 season of Proleague with Life and HerO gone at DreamHack. Oz was a decent player for EG-TL in the previous Proleague season, and he's improved significantly since then. Coming in as the WCS America runner-up, he'll be looking to show that he can still compete with the best Korea has to offer. With the recent sub-par performances of other IM Protosses, Oz could potentially prove a key part for a so far unreliable team.
  
  Speaking of IM's Protoss line-up, Ruin is also getting a chance at proving his worth to the team. With neither YongHwa nor Squirtle showing particularly good form, Ruin's half-impressive, half-humiliating showing in Code A seems to have been good enough to earn him a start. Facing a weakened Samsung roster missing its ace, it's a relatively low risk opportunity for IM to try out new players.
  
  
• MyuNgSiK returns in TY's absence to face MVP.Billowy, the wildest of wild cards in Proleague. Though there was undoubtedly an element of luck in Billowy's all-kill against KT Rolster last round, he is undeniably a strong PvP player. Myungsik's match history doesn't tell us much other than that he has lost against some of the world's best PvP players, but Proleague has produced some strange occurrences in the past - with the Protoss mirror played out on Maze, anything can happen.
  
  
• CJ_Sora seems to be on his way to becoming a line-up regular for CJ once more, returning for the second match in a row to play against MarineKing on the so far Protoss-dominated map Maze. Prime's decision to field a Terran on what seems to be a consensus Protoss map is a bit perplexing, and we will have to wait and see what MKP brings to the table. If Sora doesn't get completely hoodwinked by MKP's trickery, this could be a bloody game for MKP.
  
  
• Protoss still holds the vast numerical superiority in Proleague, but Terran has caught up to Zerg. In twenty-four potential (standard) matches, 11 Terrans are being fielded in comparison with 13 Zergs and 24 Protosses.
  
  
• Jin Air ace Maru has received the worst draw he could have hoped for against SKT, being forced to play the second map against Soulkey. The ex-Prime Terran has never won a BoX against Soulkey, going 3-12 in maps.
  
  
• Reality is playing against an SKT Zerg on Tuesday. The last time such a match-up took place, this happened.
  
  
• Rain is playing Shine. Heh.

Must Watch Match: Classic vs sOs

by Zealously

Well, maybe it's a "watch it if you really want to, but we don't wanna pressure you into it" match. After all, it's a PvP.

There are two types of players: those who follow a strict set of rules on how to play the game and which builds to employ in what situations, and then there are players like sOs. Players like sOs, Tails and even Leenock at times often seem to directly violate the rules we like to set about how things should work in Starcraft. For sOs, more than any other player in the game's history, that willingness to play unorthodox and employ builds no one else thinks to use has proven the by far most successful approach to Starcraft II. It has made him some $200.000 over the span of six months, and while players periodically put a stop to sOs' weird-ass antics, he always seems to rebound and refine and eventually come out as a top Protoss once again.

On the other side of this match-up we have Classic. Running the risk of agitating SKT fans, Classic so far has not managed to distinguish himself in the way he has had the chance to do on multiple occasions. No one can doubt that Classic is good (his PvT record is monstrous and neither PvZ nor PvP are bad by any means), but with the exception of a few very short streaks he has failed to capitalize on the potential he has shown on several occasions. He isn't a player to necessarily crumble under pressure or watch absentmindedly as a completely new build appears, but he isn't a player with a claim to the exclusive group of players that sOs belongs to. In many ways, Classic's play is reminiscent of Rain's - typically bread and butter macro play with an occasional curveball thrown in with prepared builds of the kind that are often useful in Proleague.

On paper, Classic is exactly the type of player that sOs has picked apart again and again with mindblowing strategies or builds that logically shouldn't work but somehow still do. Playing on Maze, which is essentially a revival of last season's Arkanoid, opens up nearly infinite possibilities for an innovative player or group of players to utilize. sOs has ventured into trend-setting proxy oracles and tempest rushes in separate match-ups before and often adds a touch of his own to PvP as well. With a map like Maze, where the rules are little more than suggestions, there's literally no way to know what the $200,000 man will pull out of his hat. Jin Air's current predicament (advancement to the season playoffs are still not assured, and a low placing this round will make things difficult) is an added layer of pressure, but sOs has displayed remarkable calm under pressure and an uncanny knack for performing only when it matters, and the significance of this match might serve only to make sOs play better.

However, with the nature of PvP and with how unexplored Maze's details still are, Classic should not be counted out. Playing a classic macro game on a standard map along the lines of King Sejong Station is one thing, but there is no standard to speak of on Maze. On a map like Maze, in a match-up that contrasts the highly innovative style of sOs with the crisp and practised but fairly standard style of Classic, the roles may very well be reversed. sOs is likely going in with the intent of bringing something to the table that neither Classic nor the SKT coaching staff expects, but he has to account for the possibility that the very same thing is coming his way.

PvP has received a lot of criticism over the years for being too volatile and too hard to predict, but this is a match you should not miss - a match where the completely unexpected is to be expected.

Writers: Zealously
Photos: KeSPA, ESL
Editors: Waxangel.