Proving Your Worth

Guilty vs TY is one of the reasons we watch Proleague so intently. An unknown player stepping into the booth for the very first time, in front of a live audience and thousands of people at home, playing the game of his life against an established veteran. He didn't even rely on cheese or an all-in, he just played well and nonchalantly exited the booth after forcing the tie into an ace match. Though his team lost, Guilty is the big winner for Coach Stork's trust.

CJ's record on the other hand continues to flatter their position. They are the only undefeated team at 4-0, but three matches went the distance. They've only faced the four "weaker" teams so far, and the next three weeks will be a big test of their ambition.

Match Of the Week: KT vs Samsung

by Darkhorse

Week Four's matchup of Samsung and KT was an interesting one on paper. Two undeniably good teams sat at a disappointing and even shocking 1-2 through the first three weeks of the round, and both teams were on the outside of the playoff bubble looking in. The only thing that kept us from picking this as our match of the week beforehand was the seemingly bizarre lineup choices made by Samsung. Absent their (admittedly struggling) ace player Solar and fielding the unknown and untested Guilty against one of the best teams in the world, Samsung still managed to make one of the most entertaining matches of the season.



The match kicked off in rather lackluster fashion as Zest—the undisputed ace and player I have decided to give the "KT Player who isn't Slumping As Hard Anymore" award to—rolled over Shine. While Shine opted for a Hatch/Gas/Pool build, Zest quickly countered by dropping cannons at Shine's main ramp. Shine had no scout whatsoever on this until it was far too late, and he was forced to cancel his natural and take the gold. While Shine's follow up baneling bust looked ever so slightly worrisome for Zest, the KT Toss remained cool under the pressure and held easily before winning with a zealot attack.



One thing that can be said about KT is that they have the most stagnant lineup in the league. This week they chose to switch things up and send out Action, who, you may be surprised to hear, is currently on a six match Proleague win streak against the likes of Cure, Rogue, Dark, and now Dear. The game was a fairly standard macro game throughout and Action quite simply outplayed Dear in the midgame with a roach/hydra composition as he took good engagements, split Dear's forces well, and sniped Dear's colossus on multiple occasions.



Flash vs BrAvO was incredibly sad to watch if you are a Flash fan and incredibly confusing for everyone else. The game seemed to start in fairly standard fashion as BrAvO opened with banshees, while Flash got an earlier expand and defended the harassment with turrets. Then Flash went for a marine drop that did a whole lot of nothing and decided to invest in upwards of ten hellions for no apparent reason. BrAvO then decided to showcase what seems to be his main attribute in TvT: get a better composition early in the game and go kill someone with it. Somehow BrAvO pushed into Flash's natural with an excellent position on his siege tanks, air control with vikings, two banshees, and a few marines and somehow Flash had about seven marines and ten hellions to defend. Flash's army was crushed and BrAvO took control of Flash's natural before Flash tapped out in his fourth straight loss this season.



One might look at this matchup and assume that TY would simply roll over his inexperienced opponent. After all, Guilty's TvT sat at 25% all time in broadcasted matches and he hadn't won a single tournament match since September. In spite of this he came to play and provided a tense match against one of the world's best terrans that is easily in contention for best TvT of the season thus far. The two players chose identical opening builds with a reaper scout followed by an expansion and a raven. Guilty then built a delayed banshee while TY cancelled his own and attempted a tank push with a superior viking count. In one of the smartest moves of the game Guilty actually killed the back rocks in his natural very early on which allowed him to be prepared for TY's push. With a roughly equal viking count as well as the ever-so-important banshee, Guilty was able to clean up TY's tanks and start a push of his own. What followed was several minutes of non stop action as Guilty attempted to push up TY's natural ramp with his tanks while TY desperately tried to muster up a defense. Eventually TY cleaned up the push and Guilty's macro slipped due to all the fighting. With the two players relatively even in supply, Guilty sieged up behind TY's natural and did an eight marine drop that inexplicably killed nearly all of TY's main mineral line. Guilty then snowballed this economic and positional advantage to get an overwhelming army of better upgraded marines that crushed TY's tank line at the third and forced the ace match.

Ace:

Even in a slump and even when he doesn't appear in the normal lineup, Solar is still clearly the ace player in Samsung's team house. KT countered by sending out Zest who, as I mentioned, is the KT player that seems to have his head on straight right now. Both players opened fairly greedy and fairly standard with three quick bases. All signs pointed to a potential late game PvZ, but Zest didn't get the memo. While Solar felt safe to tech up to both swarm hosts and a spire at the same time, Zest simply researched blink, +2 attack, and used his three base income to pump out a ton of stalkers and went for a push. Although Solar eventually managed to defend the first attack with roaches, lings, and a drone pull, he lost his critical third hatchery and his swarm host count only got to a pitiful two. Zest's next push was too much for Solar as his poorly upgraded roaches were forced to fight Zest's immaculate blink control off creep, and Solar finally GG'd out, giving the win to Zest and KT.

Quick Notes:

Guilty was impressive and was certainly entertaining, but don't get too excited. He isn't in the week five lineup so I doubt we will see too much of him and even if we do I doubt he will live up to the hype after his win over TY. Just temper your expectations a bit.

Zest is starting to find his footing after a disappointing start to 2015. He has won his last four Proleague matches including two consecutive clutch ace match wins to practically single-handedly pull his team back into the playoff race.

KT's Terrans have a combined record of 1-7. I just wanted to point that out because everyone is piling on Flash and to be honest they should also be piling on the 1-3 TY whose only win this season was over DeParture.

This match featured by far the two biggest disappointments of the season: Flash and Solar. Both of these players are bona fide stars with individual tournament golds on their resumes. These are players you expect to sit near the top of the Proleague win rankings and yet both are 0-4. I doubt either of these players finishes the round without a win but even if they do turn it around from this point the two of them will still have had a disappointing opening to the 2015 season.

Progress Report: Week Four

by banjoetheredskin

A - SK Telecom T1

SKT earned Janitor of the Week + Show Spoiler + with the only 3-0 match score, continuing the one-a-week trend that began in Week 2. Dream controlled his game against TerrOr in dominating fashion from start to finish. soO got a bit lucky with his roach nydus, because YoDa scouted it a little too late. INnoVation was just a level above MyuNgSiK the entire game. The games were also about as short as their sentence summaries.

Comments
A week off must have been nice. Shame on you for not playing more B-teamers. I'm not giving an A+ because I wouldn't call this a very quality win.

A- - StarTale-yoe Flash Wolves

The upset of the week deserves a star for StarTale. Life dusted off his shoulders and in turn dusted both Maru and Cure to lift ST-yoe over Jin Air. He played a superb reactive style, adjusting to his opponents and executing the perfect response. In what was probably the best game of the week, Leenock out-muscled sOs in a macro duel. Despite these laudable successes, San and aLive flopped pretty hard in their sets. Nevertheless, with this win, ST-yoe overtook their opponent for third place overall, and should have solid chances at making the playoffs.

Comments
Life and Leenock definitely deserve their spots in the regular lineup. aLive's skills are pretty dead, though.

B+ - KT Rolster

Another week, another double win for Zest to carry KT. He out-cheesed the cheeser in Shine with some cannons and put on a clinic against Solar in the ace, solidifying his position as KT's best player by a significant margin. Action turned some heads with a clean defeat of Dear, relentlessly attacking with roach hydra off a four base economy. TY and Flash both got bopped, which was somewhat of a surprise from the former, but now expected of the latter. Luckily for KT, Zest continue's to pick up Flash's slack, and they are slowly clawing their way back into playoff contention.

Comments
I think you know what I'm going to say about Flash. That's right, play your B-teamers against Prime!

B - CJ Entus

So CJ are in first place at 4-0? They managed to pull off their third ace victory against MVP, but in the grand scheme of things it was a pretty disappointing performance from the statistically best team. Here is a picture/gif summary of the match.
+ Show Spoiler +

Comments
Well, you've beaten the four weakest teams. If you want to be able to finish this round as well as you've started, you'll want to avoid as many ace matches.

C - Jin Air Green Wings

Not a whole lot of people expected ST-yoe to beat Jin Air, and with good reason, so it has to go down as a disappointing loss for the team that until now had looked like the arguably best team. However, Maru and Cure were both just outplayed by Life in TvZ, which is nothing to be ashamed of. sOs' creative build was completely shut down and the ensuing macro game was all but over anyway. Cure and Trap stomped their opponents, and seeing good play from the latter is especially encouraging. As a whole it was not a terrible loss for Jin Air.

Comments
Stop losing TvZ ace matches. Cure, and especially Maru, need to be winning those. sOs is being a little too cute with his builds.

C- - Samsung Galaxy

Samsung's only beacon of hope, Dear, lost his first match of the season to the crippling roach hydra pressure by Action. Shine died to a cannon rush the game before. All was looking grim, except for Samsung's last hope. Flash was playing. BrAvO chose a similar two base push to what he beat Bbyong with on the same map, and with some excellent army movement and positioning, forced "God" into submission. And in the shock of the round so far, Guilty, the stone-cold eMotion-less killer + Show Spoiler +, thrashed TY. But then Solar, who is worse than Flash, lost in the ace match to Zest. It was a moral victory for the Samsung Terrans, at least.

Comments
GUILTYYYYY! Bravo, BrAvO. Solar lost his starting spot but then got to play in the ace, really? And what's this with Shine going hatch first? Dear's micro was very lackluster as well.

D+ - MVP

MVP deserve at least some credit for taking CJ to the ace match. YongHwa defended herO's proxy gate stalker rush, and Losira played a great macro ZvZ against ByuL. However, Seed botched his attack early on, and the risk of the hidden base follow-up backfired completely. MarineKing showed against Bbyong, twice, that his TvT is not very good at all. If MVP want to rely on a player to carry with two wins, it's not a great outlook when that player is MarineKing.

Comments
Give MarineKing better TvT build orders. Stop getting Seed PvP.

F - Prime

Every match was pretty painful to watch. TerrOr looked lost against Dream's 2rax, and his death was inevitable even after finally breaking out of his main. YoDa might have had a chance to defend soO's nydus roach, but he couldn't stop it in time. MyuNgSiK looked for a moment or two like he was going to manage, but INnoVation was just the superior player. Rough times are rough.

Comments

Awww...it's okay, you're still doing better than Flash! But you get to sit out next week. And at least Creator didn't have to lose another PvZ! But MyuNgSiK should go back to doing allins. A macro game against INnoVation, seriously what the hell?

Week Five: Preview of the Week

by Darkhorse

Proleague viewers have to accept what is an odd truth about the current Round 1 situation: CJ are in first place and they are undefeated. CJ fans have to accept what is an unavoidable truth about their Round 1 situation: that first place spot and undefeated record has a big asterisk next to it. What is undeniable is that CJ has played well. What is also undeniable is the fact that their schedule thus far has been soft. They have yet to play either of the two Telecoms and, of course, Jin Air. In addition, their penchant for playing close series against bad teams is troublesome heading into the final stretch. In any case, CJ sit pretty at the top of the Proleague ranking and are in prime position to make the playoffs provided they don't get exposed in the final three weeks. Jin Air on the other hand are in a bit more of a precarious position. Sitting at 2-2, they are just barely in the top four and can't afford any mistakes. The good news for them is that they have the best map differential possible for a 2-2 team as they won both their matches 3-0 and their two losses were 2-3. To top it off, they have one of the easier season-ending schedules as they get Prime and Samsung in the last two weeks. Beating CJ would give Jin Air much needed playoff security in a tight field so this match truly is one of the most important of the season for both teams.



In a night full of intriguing matchups this ZvP might get a bit overlooked, but the opening match of ByuL vs sOs should be an interesting game and will set the tone for the entire series. Both players have been hit or miss so far, with ByuL going 3-2 with an ace match win but also having the blemish of a loss to TerrOr on his resume, and sOs delivering an even 2-2. Both players are coming off of week 4 losses, but those losses aren't particularly telling. sOs tried to be too cute against Leenock early and played a very entertaining game from behind (I recommend Leenock vs sOs as my game of the week) and ByuL losing in ZvZ to Losira isn't too surprising, nor does it reflect poorly on ByuL. This game could go any which way. sOs could do as he does in PvZ and open with cannons into wonky stargate play; ByuL could play aggressive roach hydra or sit back with swarm hosts; or any number of other possibilities. The point is this match should be close, and whoever takes the ever so important first game will obviously have a huge advantage throughout the rest of the match.



herO has only played one PvZ so far this season, a marathon game against Curious in week two. However, a rematch in GSL last week displayed a flamboyance and creativity often associated with the other hero. It was a dazzling display of multitasking that shredded the Gatekeeper into pieces, and it's difficult to imagine any zerg getting the best of herO should he play at that level. Despite starting the season a flawless 2-0 with wins over Flash and Classic (another must-watch game) Rogue has been pushed out of the Jin Air lineup in favor of Trap for weeks three and four. A win here would go a long way towards both helping his team win here and proving himself as a mainstay in the starting roster. Another complete toss up as far as predictions go, but I'd expect this game to veer into the non-standard, much like ByuL vs sOs.



sKyHigh is the CJ wildcard of the week, as he makes his second appearance of the season here. He is 1-0 so far, but the most important part about him specifically in this matchup is that he has a reputation as a great TvT player. It's easy to see why, as he beat Maru, Reality, Flash, and Bbyong in his improbable Hot6ix Cup Ro4 run. However, he hasn't done much of note since and even lost his last two TvT's, both against Gumiho. Cure, on the other hand, has been one of Jin Air's best players this season. He is 3-1 and was even the choice for last week's ace match against Startale (although he lost to Life). Neither player has played a Proleague TvT yet, so it is hard to make a prediction. Despite sKyHigh's much vaunted TvT, I would give the edge to the more experienced and fast rising Cure.



In theory, this should be a clash of the titans, a dream match as ace player is pit against ace player. In practice holy sh*t this game could get sloppy. Both players have a tendency to get a little weird in TvT (well in all matchups really) with Maru breaking out the crazy aggression and Bbyong having a bit of a hellbat obsession. Maru picked apart MarineKing with ease back in week three and Bbyong is 2-1 in the matchup this season so it would seem that the two of them have a handle on the matchup, but there is evidence otherwise. Bbyong played one of the worst TvT's I have ever seen from him back in week one against BrAvO where he seemed to think there was some kind of "no rush 20" rule in place, and Maru has actually been hit or miss over the last few months in TvT with losses to Journey, MarineKing, sKyHigh, and even XY in Bo3's. If this game goes long it will probably be incredibly entertaining and possibly even Mech vs Mech. However, I think it is more likely that this game gets decided before the ten minute mark with hellion drops and banshees.

The Clutch Factor: The clutch factor is in my opinion one of the more important things to note for this match. CJ have been the cardiac kids all season long, with three ace matches already in the first four weeks to Jin Air's two. However the distinction here is that CJ are 3-0 in ace matches while Jin Air are 0-2. CJ hasn't utilized herO at all, instead opting for Bbyong and ByuL, and they have delivered. It's hard to believe that a team with Rogue, Maru, sOs, and Cure is struggling in ace matches but they are. Admittedly losing to Life or Dark in an ace match isn't something to be ashamed of, but thus far it looks like CJ has been the more clutch team. In a match that could be down to the wire, that could be extremely important.

Lineup Segment:

Last week we saw some new names make a huge impact in surprising performances. Guilty was the shock of the week with his win over TY, but Trap, Dream, and Action also made their coaches look good with wins in the first appearances of the season. This week provides us with even more chances to see new faces (often courtesy of Stork) so as usual be on the lookout for both the rare breakout performance and the much less rare crash and burn (unless you're flash).

The Samsung Shuffle

In what is becoming known as the Stork Way, Samsung has removed the two players who actually took wins last week in favor of some relative newcomers. While Armani and Journey have both been in the lineup once this season, they are still two players we don't see much of. The question is which of these two players is going to give a Guilty-like performance this week?

sKyHigh

Perhaps knowing that Jin Air would be fielding both of their top Terrans, CJ decided to utilize sKyHigh this week as opposed to their other rotating fourth Hush. We haven't seen too much out of sKyHigh since his Ro4 finish in the Hot6ix Cup. He managed to qualify for NSSL, but let's be serious: he had the easiest qualifying bracket there was. Let's just say if the hardest opponent you had to beat was TerrOr, you had a pretty easy time in the brackets. In any case sKyHigh will get a chance to prove that TvT against Cure this week in CJ's most important match to date.

Center

Center had a rough week one outing against INnoVation and hasn't really been seen since. MVP has finally found some much needed roster stability as MarineKing, YongHwa, and Losira seem to be the three best performing players. What MVP really needs is to find a solid fourth to fill the final gap, and Center has an opportunity to prove that he can fill that void. The trouble is that he is playing Dear. Good luck Center.

BBoongBBoong

Speaking of team's looking for a fourth, good god Prime needs a fourth. To be honest they could use a first, second, and third as well but the search for someone to help back up Creator, Myungsik, and YoDa hasn't been going well. TerrOr has had his chances and at least he took one win, but he still looks shaky. The TANGTANG experiment didn't come out to much either, and Gerrard has now turned to the veteran B4 as his third choice. The way I see it, he is likely a slight upgrade on TerrOr and TANGTANG by virtue of being more experienced, but I don't expect him to blow the doors off here. That is unless the curse is real and Flash will never win in Proleague again (he is 0-3 in TvZ so far).

Sleep

KT apparently liked having a zerg in the lineup last week and this week they have dropped TY and are giving Sleep a shot. He was 2-2 last year in Proleague and is a bit of a surprise choice to be making his first lineup appearance of the season. I don't really know what to expect from the ex-IM/Slayers/Checksix/AZUBU zerg but to be quite honest he doesn't have to do much to be considered a success on the struggling lineup of KT.

Notably Absent: soO

SKT seems to want to give both their young guns (Dark and Dream) spots in the lineup, while Classic strangely enough seems to be the one that is rotated out. This week Classic is back in and soO will be on the sidelines for the first time this season. With Dark and Dream playing so well recently, there seems to be a bit of a changing of the guard going on with SKT, and it will be interesting to see how the rest of this season plays out with the veterans Classic and soO occasionally being forced to sit on the bench.

FPL Rundown: Week Four

by lichter

Best Player of the Week: Bbyong

How do you solve a problem like CJ Entus? They are 4-0 in the round with a surprisingly low +6, but the fact that they have three legitimate aces on their team makes them a tough nut to crack even if you can win 2 games. They are 3-0 in Game 5s, with Bbyong and ByuL their two representatives so far. As the ace of the week Bbyong stepped up on an evening when both herO and ByuL failed, and likely put his team into the round playoffs with 3 matches to go. Sure, it was against a clueless TvTer in MarineKing, but points are points.

Most Surprising Player of the Week: Guilty

Yeah. Stork is a genius. Even though Samsung lost the match due to Solar's failure against Zest, two unheralded players in BravO and Guilty nabbed wins against Flash and TY respectively. Unknowns like Guilty almost never see the light of the booth, so an appearance alone was a surprise. But to beat a respected Proleague player like TY on his debut? Nice work. Now you get a fan club.

Worst Player of the Week: MarineKing

Oh MarineKing. Once upon a time (like a month ago) we actually thought you might be good again. But it turns out you're only okay in two matchups and still a dunce at the third. I guess all those beat downs from Mvp four years ago still haunt you, and you're still incapable of ever figuring out how to play against your own race. MarineKing actually has a 40% winrate against Koreans in HotS TvT, and it was a surprise to see him chosen as MVP's ace. Perhaps they were expecting herO or ByuL, but instead MarineKing received a double beat down from Bbyong. Lesson learned: never trust a guy who sucks at the mirror.

Worst Team of the Week: Prime

Yeah this was bound to happen. Surprisingly this is the first time they've ever been worst team of the week, because they've found ways to avoid being swept the past three weeks while other teams performed worse. Finally though, the worst team in the league earns the distinction of earning negative points in Week 4. It doesn't seem to matter how often Prime players play; they really can't seem to earn their keep. With YoDa and his 5 points as their best performer, it's going to be another long, long season for Prime fans.

Budget Guy of the Week: BrAvO

A few more wins against strong TvTers and BravO could carve out a more frequent place on the Samsung line up. Terran has been doing well this season (compared to *cough*PvProleague*cough*) so players that specialize in that mirror should become more valuable as the season progresses, and BravO could finally live up to the potential he showed on Woongjin Stars 3 years ago. Although his wins against Bbyong and Flash were similar attacks on two bases, BravO still showed a very high level of execution. Should terrans continue to do well, expect BravO to earn himself more game time.

How the fuck are you worth negative points: Solar

Seriously. How in the fuck. I don't think this has ever happened past Week 1. EVER. In the history of FPL. EVER. The only way to receive point deductions is to lose an ace match, but most players who get picked for ace matches usually do well in the season or perform well on the night. Neither has been true for Solar who's downward spiral now looks more like a bottomless pit. I seriously don't know how long this slump is going to last, but remember, this also happened last season. After a great round 1, Solar went on an interminable rough patch that only ended once Proleague was over. Will this happen again in 2015? Honestly, I don't want to think about it.

Worst Trade of the Week: Anyone for Solar

This award is getting pretty boring. I just swap Solar or Flash in and out every week. I mean, how can they not be the worst? They suck right now and their bloated start of the round cost means they're still pretty expensive. And people are still hoping for them to turn it around. Then I'm going to make them a 2 and 3 respectively in round 2 and they both score in the 20s. Ugh.

Best Trade of the Week: ByuL for Life

For the first two weeks of the round, ByuL looked like the best zerg in Proleague along with Dark. But after two brutal losses against TerrOr (!!!) and Losira, ByuL now has more competition in the form of Leenock and Life. The two ST-Yoe zergs have been on fire the past three rounds, and their team finally looks like a decent combination. Life's double win against Maru and Cure had the look of a motivated WCS Champion, and his rich vein of form could be what helps ST-Yoe turn things around.

Might be Good Value: Journey

Swapping cheap players is generally impossible, but Samsung continue to make the round interesting by playing their entire roster. Journey might not be as interesting as players like Dream, but he's getting a shot anyway. Fortunately, he'll be facing one of the worst TvTers in MarineKing, so it's definitely a winnable match. Will Samsung debut two good TvTers in two weeks? Stork, you're the best.

Most Interesting Trade Bait: Losira

MVP have yet to find their stride after a few crushing defeats, and their line up still looks in need of some work. But Losira is slowly putting together a decent round with 2 wins and a loss, and he's still an affordable pick up. He has a chance to cement his place as the team's de facto zerg, and he faces Armani, a player with a 43% ZvZ in Korea. Most people will have to take a punt by trading someone with a much higher value to get him, but it could turn out to be a steal.