The End of an Era

There are few things in the world more bittersweet than watching something great come to an end. And while "great" may not be an apt description for what Startale-yoe and Prime have accomplished this round, their performances have been monumental in their own rights. That is, in opposite land. The two old arch-rivals have, and I say this in the gentlest, least offensive way possible, made themselves look like jokes this round. Not once, or twice. Twelve times. Their combined match record this round is 0-12 (11-36). It is an impressive record, but not in any positive way.

Not since the days of Airforce ACE has a team gone completely winless for an entire round. Airforce ACE were infamous for their inability to win, the weakness of their performances overlooked somewhat as a fact of life. And while the same holds true for Prime to some extent (even with their few acquisitions), ST-yoe weren't supposed to go winless. The loss of Life was a blow to their roster strength, but it should not have knocked them out as completely as it has. They have flapped about harmlessly, winning only a few more maps than Prime and looking just as bad as their old rivals in several matches. I cannot blame them for losing a match to the seemingly unstoppable CJ Entus, or taking losses to the Life-led KT Rolster, or Jin Air Green Wings. But to not eke out a single win, in spite of the relative volatility that has made Proleague unpredictable this round... The teams have come a long way from when they were the two strongest teams in Korea.

Of the players that were present for the infamous GSTL Finals in Las Vegas, way back in 2012, only 3 players remain: Bomber, Hack, Curious and Byun, one of which has disappeared mysteriously off the face of the earth and seems to have no intention of returning. The fifth, Parting, is shackled to SK Telecom for years to come and could not aid Startale in clawing out of the pit they have fallen into even if he wanted to.

The two teams have come a very long way from where they once were, and I anticipate their upcoming, fated match with a sense of dread. They're no longer fighting for championships or anything even close to that ballpark, they're fighting for the dubious honor of not being dead last, only second to last with a terrible record. It is a disappointing state of affairs, yet the optimist in me can't help but feel a little shred of hope for a great match. Elite-tier skill is not a prerequisite for great entertainment, and incredibly entertaining matches have come where we've least expected them in the past.

Because what could be more fitting than to end this short, deplorable era of constant disappointing matches with one great match for the storybooks?

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On a different note, make sure not to miss CJ Entus vs Jin Air Green Wings on Tuesday. Both teams have ripped through the round like hot knives through butter, being challenged only rarely. Given that the teams will likely meet again in the round playoffs (where CJ have shown considerable weakness in the past), their round robin match will be a good indicator of how their potential next meeting will turn out.

Also, sOs is facing herO. That never turns out well, but it can be entertaining if you know what to expect. Full line-ups are available in the spoiler below.

+ Show Spoiler +

The herO We Deserve

by Jehak

Introduction:

Proleague: The definitive team league where all star players don't just fight for themselves, but for their pride and most importantly, their team’s pride. Today, we’re going to see a PvP between two world class protoss players: CJ Entus's herO and KT Rolster's Zest. Anyone familiar with this matchup knows how famous it is for its rock paper scissors style of play. This means that the games can differ from micro intensive mirror builds, equally as intense tech switches during the entirety of the game, or end in a simple “my build is better than your build” style of game. Fortunately, it looks like we aren’t going to be disappointed today as we see a prime example of how herO and Zest, both established GSL protoss players, play out their styles and techniques.

Game 1:

The game opens out with herO spawning on the bottom right and Zest on the top left. herO chooses to start out with a standard 13 gateway followed by an 18 cybercore and 21 stargate. Zest surprisingly also chooses the same opening but instead, builds his stargate in the top right of his base on the low ground to hide it from herO. In terms of one base builds, these economic openings mean that any kind of pressure can potentially win the game. This is demonstrated in Game 2, where stalker pressure can hit before stargate tech is finished, potentially ending the game. However, stargate is a very gas heavy build when you consider the high gas cost of phoenixes. This of course also means that both players are stuck with this tech path and are hoping for mid game harass to tip the game to their favour.

Due to Protoss’ lack of anti air in the early stages of the game (aside from mass stalkers or cannons), air superiority in the early stages of PvP allows players to dictate the way the game progresses. Oracles can punish players and contain them in their base and phoenixes can pick up small numbers of stalkers and unguarded probes. Therefore, from this point on, the name of game is map control. herO takes the initiative and starts harassing Zest’s probe line with his initial oracle resulting in 4 dead probes. Zest wants revenge and takes it in the form of phoenix superiority. He swiftly amasses a force of phoenixes and uses this to take back the lead and try to contain herO back in his base.

Zest, now taking the advantage uses this opportunity to take his natural expansion ahead of herO. At this point, herO’s in trouble. He’s losing map control, the ability to dictate the direction of the game, has less phoenixes than Zest and most importantly, hasn’t even started warping in his second base. herO doesn’t just need to catch up economically, he NEEDS to deal damage to Zest. herO is on a ticking timer until immortal tech finishes and he knows that unless he stalls Zest long enough to prevent them from posing a threat or, getting his own immortals out fast enough, he will lose this game.

“How?” You may ask. Well think about it. Deal damage? Catch up economically with close to no penalties? That sounds a lot like protoss to me. And you know what the most protoss thing of all is? That’s right. Dark templars. This tech path allows herO to attain his previous goal by stalling Zest while simultaneously taking back map control. It is also important to note that other tech choices would simply be too slow considering that, herO already chose a twilight council tech path, a robotics facility would be behind Zest's, a fast third is too hard to defend and out producing Zest's phoenixes forgoes herO's already weak economy. As such, herO quickly starts to warp in dark templar tech and researches blink to prevent any further air shenanigans.

Turning the perspective back to Zest, things seem to be the polar opposite. The chisel protoss has his natural base warped in, has map control, vision on herO’s base and is almost done warping in his robotics facility. To top it all off, At the 8:20 mark, he even manages to scout the dark templar shrine warping in herO’s main. This means certain doom for herO. Right?

Apparently not, as Zest either forgets about the shrine or mistakes it for a pylon causing him to be unprepared for the impending harass from herO. It even seems that luck isn’t on Zest’s side as an observer pops out from Zest’s robotics facility and completely moves out of position making it unable to detect the incoming DTs. herO takes this opportunity to walk his DTs straight into Zest’s main and start killing off numerous probes. A total of 8 probes fall before Zest finally manages to stop the harass.




After that potent harass, the game tips dangerously in herO’s favour as the dastardly protoss regains the much needed map control and is about to finish the +1 attack upgrade. herO, from the DT harass, also scouts the robotics facility tech and from experience knows that immortals are inevitable from Zest. The game is going to be decided now and herO’s not about to lose this one. He marches his army across the map with the intent to kill and Zest, due to his recent loss of map control, doesn't even see it coming until its too late. That coupled with the phoenixes being out of position in the corner of map makes Zest react to the attack too late, as he desperately harasses herO’s base with phoenixes in an effort to divert herO’s army. However, herO doesn’t fall for it as he blinks his way to victory and crushes the single immortal that Zest manages to build at the last moments of the game prompting a GG to come from Zest.

Overall, it seems that Zest’s inability to capitalize on map control turned out to be his downfall. His opening play via stargate and continuous aggression gave him the much needed lead and even allowed him to bully around the infamous herO. However, a combination of not being active on the map, failing to spot vital tech, bad positioning of units and even a little bit of bad luck have ultimately defeated the chisel protoss. herO on the other hand, has seen through his fellow korean counterpart and exploited all of his weaknesses. Despite being behind, the execution of his dark templar tech change and decisive strike just before Zest’s immortals could come into play led herO to a well deserved victory.





Game 2:

Now, onto game 2. All the chips are on the line this time as well as the coveted proleague title for their respective teams. herO took the first game against Zest and now, Zest’s facing the same opponent in a 2-2 bracket. Will KT Rolster Zest finally end his losing streak and win his team the title? Or is the star player from CJ Entus too strong? Lets find out.

The final game starts with Zest spawning in the top right and herO spawning in the bottom left of Overgrowth. Both players choose to go with a standard 13 gateway double gas opening with cyber core at 18 supply. In this initial stage, both players are vying for map control with their stalkers.

This time around, herO takes the aggressive stance and obtains early map control by heavily damaging Zest’s initial stalker with his own. However, just like how an elephant never forgets, it looks as though Zest isn’t going to forget the last game. Placing his initial stalker behind two sentries, he goes on the defence by taking his natural expansion and teching up to dark templars.

Opting for dark templar tech is a risky choice considering that Zest is behind at the moment. When you also factor in that Zest is going for a sentry → Twilight council→ stalker → sentry build, this is a significant time and gas investment. The safer route would most likely be to go into stargate tech since Zest can defend and catch up via harass at the same time. It almost seems as though Zest is trying to take revenge on herO by using his own strategy against him. That said, this build does have advantages since Zest gets an earlier expansion and has the ability to switch to blink. This means that Zest has the advantage if herO commits to the same phoenix heavy build as in the previous game and doesn’t manage to scout the dark shrine. However, if herO does manage to scout the shrine early, or goes for a robotics facility first, then Zest would be sorely behind. On the bright side, there is also the possibility of herO going into a gateway oriented build, allowing Zest do major damage while herO scrambles to get out detection.

Unfortunately for Zest, herO decides not to take any risks and goes for a simple 1 base stargate play. As opposed to last game, this one base stargate play is more aggressive and appears to be a choice as opposed to a forced reaction. During the last game, Zest also went for a stargate play but opted for phoenixes forcing herO to do the same. In this scenario, herO has the time for a larger amount of early stalkers from his gateways which can lead to map control and allow him to deny expansions more easily. herO in tandem, gains the tech advantage due to the oracle’s ability to detect invisible units. Furthermore, if Zest shows that he’s going for a cheesier style of play, herO’s gateways have the secondary purpose of defense while oracles can simultaneously harass. This build does have the one weakness of being susceptible to the harder rushes such as 4 gate, 2 gate proxy, and especially blink timings due to it’s relative low unit count early on. Regardless, herO takes the lead by using his initial oracle to snipe two sentries, force a photon overcharge in Zest’s main and scout the dark shrine. He does this while simultaneously pressuring the natural expansion resulting in his stalkers destroying Zest’s finished natural expansion.



Zest, having lost once, refuses to lose again. Using his gateway advantage, he amasses a stalker army, starts to research blink, cancels his dark shrine, and moves out to pressure herO’s natural expansion. However, this allows herO to counter attack Zest with his oracle netting him 5 dead probes. Refusing to turn back, Zest warps in a set of 3 stalkers at his main for defense and continues with his offensive towards herO’s natural, ultimately forcing herO to cancel it. This comes at a price in the form of herO’s oracle giving him 4 more probe kills.

Taking herO’s natural expansion is a big victory for Zest, but considering the 9 dead probes and the fact that Zest is sorely behind in tech, things look very gloomy for KT Rolster. Zest’s options are extremely limited here considering that herO has already finished his robotics facility and stargate while Zest only has blink. To be fair, Zest does have the contain on herO with the sentries at herO’s ramp allowing him to make sure that herO stays on one base. Plus, Zest has a replacement natural expansion allowing him to pull ahead over herO economy wise. However, since this is PvP and a game between two Korean GSL players, the tech advantage is too much to ignore. Therefore, Zest can either try to catch up to herO’s tech lead or end the game right here using his large stalker lead. Zest chooses both as he starts a proxy stargate in the bottom right corner of the map and pushes up herO’s ramp for the kill. herO lashes back, utilising a combination of photon overcharge, immortals, and sentries; forcing Zest to blink out.

At this point, Zest’s first oracle pops out and his robotics facility is about to finish but, it may be too late. The contain that Zest has on herO is still maintained, but what he’s sacrificed in terms of tech is still significant. herO’s blink research is about to finish alongside his newly made warp prism while using his probe lead to catch up to Zest’s stalker count. With this in mind, herO puts his two immortals in the warp prism to potentially break the contain. Expecting this, Zest scouts the impending bust as well as the blink research using a hallucinated phoenix. He understands that he can’t contest this even if he manages to kill the two immortals and promptly retreats to his natural expansion. Following the retreating army, herO, with a count of 2 immortals and a warp prism starts to move towards Zest’s main entrance. Zest can see the impending army coming through his watchtower control and knows that an attack of this size would most definitely kill him. He then accordingly tries to distract herO by attacking his main probe line with his oracle despite it being futile due to herO’s high probe saturation.



It seems that today is not KT Rolster’s day, as herO engages Zest’s army with his stalkers and immortals while simultaneously dropping with zealots and oracles in Zest’s main. Back at herO’s main, Zest manages to kill 8 probes with his oracle but despite that, he loses his oracle, main nexus and his entire army to herO, forcing him to throw down the GG.

In the end, both Zest and herO showed off their flair and world class skill in this game but when it came down to it, Zest, under the pressure of disappointing his team buckled and fell, while the dark knight: herO, rose to the occasion.

Week 6 Recap

by Destructicon

Last week fell back into the ugly trend of having one close 3-2 match and three decidedly not-close matches. With the season nearing its halfway point, the teams are pulling no punches and we can see the wheat separated from the chaff. Leading the race this round are CJ Entus in first place with a perfect 6-0, guaranteed to secure first place regardless of the outcome of next week's games. In tow are Jin Air and SKT1 who will be fighting to determine who gets 2nd and 3rd place at the end of the round. Further down we find KT, Samsung Galaxy Khan and MVP, all tied at 3-3 score but separated by indicator points. Given the right set of circumstances any of KT, Samsung and MVP could make top 4. Prime and Startale-yoe limp hopelessly behind.

The closest match of the week turned out to be the first one, MVP vs SKT1. The telecom titan came out swinging with soO hitting DeParture with a strong pre muta roach, ling timing and then cleaned him up with a nydus follow up before the young Zerg could catch his breath. Not to be outdone, MVP's Panic turned it around by going for a gateway attack and hitting as Billowy was rushing towards a Dark Shrine. The lack of an a mothership core for Billowy and a hidden robo for Panic sealed the win for MVP. Losira brought Mvp into the lead by deflecting INnoVation's early game attacks and then winning the ensuing macro game. But MVP were unable to finish it out as YongHwa took too much damage from Classic's proxy gateway and fell behind in economy, from there Classic just rode his economic lead to a win.

In the ace, MVP took a gamble and sent out Center while SKT1 went for soO. Center attempted to put some early pressure with a proxy bunker, however his miscontrol of the situation saw him lose a reaper, and it was all downhill from there, soO caught Center's remaining reapers and killed them for free, shutting down harass attempts and then returned the favor with efficient harass of his own, overwhelming Center and eventually crushing MVP's dreams.

Samsung Galaxy vs CJ turned out to be a one sided blowout. It started in game one when Dear failed to notice sKyHigh's double drop moving across the map and took critical damage, losing the mothership core, his robotics facility, several probes and key units, leaving him powerless to hold against the inevitable mid game push. It didn't get much better as Hurricane became too trigger happy in the 2nd game and blew a photon overcharge on his natural nexus to deflect a lone reaper, allowing Bbyong to drop into the main and deal crippling damage. herO came out and cleaned up Reality by deflecting all his early game scouting and then going for a 3 gate blink pressure of 2 bases that spiraled out of control, taking home another 3-0 for CJ in simple fashion.

In KT vs ST-Yoe, Life led the charge against his old team, containing Hack's mech on his side of the map for most of the game before striking the killing blow as Hack moved to secure his last mining base. Daisy and Zest played a fairly long macro game on Deadwing where Zest opened with a proxy stargate but was unable to deal crippling damage. Daisy put himself in a good position with a faster expansion, but Zest's blink pressure put him back in the game. The game was fairly quiet until Zest got up to his tempest and forced the game winning fight outside Daisy's 3rd. Stats vs aLive was a quick and ugly game where aLive -- despite going for a reaper and scouting diligently -- missed Stats's proxy stargate. An oracle showed up in the Terran's base, and you know how it goes from there.

Despite the one-sided scoreline, Prime vs Jin Air was one of the week's better series. sOs put the first points on the board after deflecting a early ling pressure and later on counter-attacking an overly timid BboongBboong. This allowed sOs to get into a position to snipe the 3rd, He repeatedly sniped the third, putting his opponent at a disadvantage that left him unable to defend against sOs's stalker/colossus push. TANGTANG vs Rogue was an odd game, where -- in an attempt to counter the current meta -- the PRIME Terran went for a 2 base bio/thor/hellbat SCV pull aimed to hit in the crucial window before zerg saturates a 3rd base after a 2 base muta opening. The game went down to the wire as TANGTANG was within an inch of breaking Rogue, but the Jin Air Zerg rebounded and took the win.

It was up to Cure to finalize the 3-0 sweep, MyuNgSiK wouldn't make it easy. The Jin Air Terran got many incremental advantages from early game marine pokes and widow mine drops, but he dealt no game-ending damage. MyuNgSiK defaulted to his beloved phoenix/colossus style, shutting down all future drops and securing a 3rd essentially unhindered. Cure kept poking for a while but, unable to find an opening, eventually threw everything he had into a massive, maxed out attack. The two traded evenly in supply, but Cure eliminated the crucial Colossi that could have otherwise punished him for overextending. MyuNgSiK tried to poke with his surviving phoenix squadron but missed the vulnerable 4th of Cure, which allowed the Terran to simply reload on bio and hit another strong timing. This time, there wasn't enough buffer for the colossi and the entire protoss army just evaporated, leaving Prime dead in the water at 0-7 going into the final week.

Focus Match

by banjoetheredskin
Never have two winless teams played each other in the last week of round robin. Perhaps two teams have never been as bad as ST-yoe and Prime this round. One might argue that because they are so irrelevant, this match does not warrant being highlighted for the final week when we have the two best teams, CJ and Jin Air, playing. But who cares about that when CJ have already locked first place, and Jin Air secured themselves a playoff spot? The only consequence of that match is if Jin Air lose 1-3 or worse while SKT win 3-0, or Jin Air lose 0-3 while SKT win 3-1 or greater. Then, Jin Air would drop to second.

We don't care about such small technicalities. We are looking for the greatest dunce cap in all of StarCraft II Proleague history. We are about to see the first winless team throughout an entire round. The ignominy at stake is far more momentous, far more intriguing than another week in which we see two good teams lined up to play what we think will be good games.

The reality is that we have no expectations for this match other than maybe some hilariously bad or silly games, or even some downright boring games. We don't think there will be a tangible sense of heightened importance, as both teams fight to their dying breath not to have the single worst performance in one round of Proleague ever. Instead, we expect to see the same performance ST-yoe and Prime have shown all round, even all season.

San is probably favored against Zoun because he is definitively the better PvP player, although not by much. Given that he's not playing one of the top Protoss players, he shouldn't have as much trouble against the young Prime player, even if Zoun is earning more playing time through his own merits.

MyuNgSiK might not be favored against the rising Pet, but he certainly knows how to pull out some whacky PvZ allins that could baffle a more inexperienced player. What could also be interesting is if the game goes long, how Pet will choose to play with the new swarm host patch in place.

YoDa might be favored against Curious if Expedition Lost were a good map for mech. But since neither one of them is known for his standard TvZ or ZvT, it's really hard to say how the game will play out. Maybe Curious will die to a proxy reaper again, or maybe YoDa will die to a proxy hatchery.

Creator still can't win a PvZ in Proleague it seems, and Leenock is pretty much the only player on ST-yoe who can win with some consistency, particularly against Protoss. Creator might have a chance if he can last long enough to test Leenock in the new late-game PvZ with the updated swarm hosts, but if he keeps playing his stubborn greedy style he could easily die before then.

Although ST-yoe haven't looked as atrociously bad as Prime, having taken three teams to the ace match before losing, that fact itself is not something to be overlooked. If Prime can miraculously win as many games against ST-yoe as they have all round, they have a legitimate chance to win the whole match, given how horribly their opponents have been in the final set.

Here are some closing statistics to prime you for this tale of two starless teams:

• ST-yoe have 6 total map wins from 6 different players.
  
• Prime have 2 total map wins from 2 different players.
  
• Therefore, neither team has a player with more than 1 win.
  
• ST-yoe have lost 3 matches 2-3 and 3 matches 0-3.
  
• Prime have lost 2 matches 1-3 and 4 matches 0-3.
  
• ST-yoe have 5 players with at least 2 losses.
  
• Prime have 6 players with at least 2 losses.