The Thick of Things

by DarkLordOlli

We're already in Week 4 of Round 2 now and the playoff picture is beginning to unfold before our eyes. With all individual leagues concluded for the moment, everyone's focus should be back on Proleague for a while. All teams are going to need their best players at their very best now - it's time to finish the round strongly.
Here's a short breakdown of Proleague's Round 2 standings as of this moment:

• CJ lead the pack with a fantastic 3-0 record, 9-2 in maps. A win over a middling MVP (who did manage to overcome Jin Air in the ace last week mind you!) would surely secure a spot in the playoffs for them. Last week's 3-0 over Prime and especially their initial victories over KT and SKT should give them plenty of confidence to produce a strong run in.
  
• Choya's boys won't go down without a fight however, as their own challenge is still very much alive with MVP's 2-1 record. HerO came out to snipe sOs in the ace match with the exact same build he'd already sniped him with for IM last season. Inca be praised.
  
• Samsung Galaxy have, perhaps a bit surprisingly, gone 2-1 as well and occupy the second place in the table due to their 8-4 map score. They were only narrowly beaten by Jin Air in the first week and have since beaten MVP and ST-yoe convincingly. With Prime their opponents this week, they face a prime opportunity to extend their winning streak.
  
• Speaking of Prime, they've taken one whole map so far this round. There's stepping up to do if they want to challenge for a playoff spot next round.
  
• ST-yoe also find themselves at 0-3. After two hard fought losses in the first two rounds, they were done in hard by Samsung Galaxy last week.
  
• A weakened KT lineup were blown out of the water 3-0 by their arch-rivals SKT. Even though KT's lineup looks ridiculously scary (especially now that Zest and Life have just come back with huge individual titles), they've only managed a disappointing 1-2 record (5-6 in maps) so far. Their playoffs bid is still alive, but there's a huge match this week that might decide whether or not it stays alive.
  

We've got a more detailed recap of Week 3's matches below, as well as a preview of the Jin Air vs KT Rolster clash which could prove to be a deciding one for KT's playoff ambitions.

Bagels

by banjoetheredskin

Zero. Zilch. Squat. Nil. Null. None. Breaking the trend this season's games have followed rather consistently, Week 3 was full of bagels. There was another ace match, but there were also three 3-0 sweeps. In two of those, the losing team dropped to an overall 0-3 record for Round 2. For Prime, it was their second straight bageling.

Some might have expected more one-sided series, given that there were many relatively inexperienced faces lined up due to star players attending IEM Katowice. A break from the general parity between teams' normal rosters, we could have anticipated a stomping here and there. However, the exact way things played out and the unprecedented level of one-sided victories was not foreseen.

MVP's less accomplished and younger players DeParture and Center drew more favorable matchups against Jin Air's B-teamers Pigbaby and Symbol. They both dealt economic damage early and held onto their leads, which was enough to compensate for the shortcomings of the mainstays MarineKing and Losira. The former's greed bit him in the ass when Rogue knocked down his front door with a baneling bust, and the latter was expertly outmaneuvered and out-tech switched by sOs. In the ace match, HerO finally redeemed himself in Proleague, ending his three loss streak this season as he took down sOs with un-countered dark templars. That was the end of the close series, though.

In a not-very-stacked Telecom Derby, there was an odd anticipation of how the teams would adapt to an ace match when they were both missing their two aces. But it never even got close to the fifth set. Despite Action's previous success as an infrequent sniper, soO trounced him with a roach timing. Classic killed Stats in a brief PvP after a critical mothership core snipe and a followup allin against the fast expansion. Dream shut down First's surprise proxy double oracle and crushed him before he could stabilize on a splash unit.

The next bageling was even shorter, as Samsung turned a few heads and improved to 2-1. Journey and Daisy got into an awkward base trade, but Journey held strong and rebuilt much faster than Daisy and overwhelmed him not long after. Hack made the mistake of doing the exact same build two weeks in a row, so Dear's one base oracle into 4gate blink allin worked pretty well against the three CC opening. Reality finished ST-yoe off with a hellbat timing to which Curious reacted too late.

Making it even easier on me to catch up VoDs, CJ closed out the week with the third straight sweep. Prime further enhanced the irony of their name, as "First" once again dug themselves deeper into last place. ByuL's advantage with a 10 pool over TerrOr's hatch gas pool opening led him to a solid defense of the Prime Zerg's measly speedling allin and subsequent knockout punch. Hush hushed MyuNgSiK in a wild, back and forth blink game that ended with both players on one base, but for the CJ Protoss a higher stalker count and an oracle ready to deal more damage. Bunny then outclassed YoDa in a TvT with expert mech vs bio play.

With these results, CJ moved further ahead in first place while Samsung jumped into second. One map separates SKT from Jin Air for third, while one map separates Jin Air from MVP for fourth. KT hold sixth as the only 1-2 team, while ST-yoe and Prime languish in what amounts to last and dead last with their abysmal map scores. This means that Week 4's matches will be very influential in the battle for the playoff spots as we move through the halfway point of Round 2.

Focus Match

by banjoetheredskin






The GSL Season 1 Champion will have to turn around and start off the match for KT just a day after his crowning moment. His reputed prowess in ZvZ suggests that he could take out even a player of Rogue's caliber if he's still a little green from his GSL hangover. But Life's ZvZ has been largely untested in the past few months, and in the few instances he has played the mirror, he has looked only just as good as Rogue. In fact, many might underestimate Rogue in this matchup. In his game against Shine on the same map in Week 1, he exhibited very strong game sense and decision making. If Life's confidence is soaring a bit too high, Rogue is definitely strong enough to knock him off his pedestal. Yet if Rogue wants to take the win, he'll want to avoid trying to beat Life at his own game.


KT must have wanted Flash to draw a TvP by sending him out on Deadwing, so on the surface sOs seems like a favorable match. However, sOs is the type of player who is the kryptonite to a macro machine-oriented player like Flash. Given the Jin Air Protoss' tendency to put his own spin on macro games, or avoid them altogether, the bludgeoning style of Terran Flash prefers might not work. He will of course know sOs' reputation well enough to scout diligently for proxy structures and units that require turrets for defense, but that kind of paranoia is what makes sOs' diverse set of strategies so potent against an opponent who does not have the flair to reciprocate the intimidation factor. Nevertheless, INnoVation showed that a change-up as simple as a proxy mine drop can throw sOs' game off enough to overwhelm with powerful standard Terran gameplay.


A rematch of the IEM Katowice finals, the best Protoss in form and the best Protoss of HotS will head off in what we hope will live up to the quality of games they showed in Poland. With proficiency in macro games, Zest thoroughly outplayed Trap on his way to a 4-1 victory. However, Trap played well enough to beat pretty much any Protoss not named Zest, and shouldn't surprise anyone if he were to take the win here. Having already shown success with the mirror matchup in Proleague this season, Trap may even have a slight edge against Zest. The KT Protoss is only 2-5 in PvP this season, and perhaps a bit too predictable with his strategy selection in the Bo1 format.


Cure's drop-heavy style in TvP took us by storm as he plowed through Zest in the last GSL of 2014. Since then he has made a few international appearances and played a number of memorable games in the matchup. But when Cure went to Katowice, herO put on a clinic on stopping the Jin Air's preferred tactics. Stats, on the other hand, has had mixed success in PvT. Most critically, he has looked rather vulnerable to good drop harass, which does not bode well for him against Cure. However, he is the type of Protoss who could break away from a normal game and throw a complete curveball, especially on a map that favors Cure's style so much. His teammate already flashed a colossus drop build on Vaani, so don't be too surprised if Stats ends up researching gravitic drive before thermal lance.