Baffling Stats

The first game of the night began rather uneventfully. Flash looked to put on pressure with a 3 reaper opening, prompting Dark to go into roaches and gear up for a big bust. However, Flash caught wind of the attack and responded by playing uncharacteristically safely, getting a tank [E/N: Flash's only consistency seems to be his peerless ability to show us what doesn't work] and expanding more cautiously than he tends to. Dark responded by simply macroing harder, outpacing Flash by getting 2/2 and spreading creep way past the halfway mark. Flash attempted to pressure with either drops and aggressive moveouts, but his attempts were effortlessly crushed and when Dark counter-attacked, Flash had no response. His army was crushed and he was left defenseless when Dark came around for round two..


Dark decided to gamble on Stats being greedy and opened 9 pool. However, Stats had gone for the safer gateway expand rather than a greedy nexus first and caught wind of the early lings. Dark tried to force his way in after researching speed, but Stats' crisis management was excellent [E/N: No it wasn't, it was a trainwreck that somehow kept chugging along the tracks], getting his wall up in time, setting up his defenses while expanding. By the time Dark was able to force himself in it was too late, and Stats easily cleaned up the remainder of Dark's forces to force the GG.


Sending Sorry out was a very interesting [E/N: some would say foolish] decision on the part of SKT, indicating a lot of faith in the hitherto unproven rookie, but he was unable to cash in on that faith. Both players went for expand plays and Stats was the first to attempt light pressure via a oracle. Sorry was ready for that move, killing the oracle with a hidden widow mine at the loss of only 2 SCVs. Stats decided to go for a phoenix/colossus composition while taking a 3rd base. Sorry continued to power his economy, getting a 3rd of his own before promptly going for an SCV pull that was slightly too light on marauders. In the critical engagement Stats' positioning and army was just a bit too strong and he managed to, by the skin of his teeth, break the army of Sorry and force the GG shortly afterwards.


With the heat rising, SKT1 resorted to sending out their machine in an attempt to restore order. However, INnoVation fell victim to Stats's early blink pressure, losing an abundance SCVs and army units to blinks he should have been sufficiently prepared to handle, slowing down his economy considerably. Stats quickly went up to three bases and colossi while INnoVation was busy recuperating. Realizing how far behind he had fallen, INnoVation went for a Hail Mary SCV pull but was beaten to a pulp in the crucial engagement, extending KT's lead to a nearly insurmountable 3-1.


In what was probably the closest game of the day, no player remained in the lead for the entirety of the game and things seemed to balance on the edge until the very final War of the Worlds. Stats elected to go for early blink to delay the expansion of Classic, while the Chintoss opted for an earlier robo and immortal production. Despite expanding later, Classic would make it up with an earlier robotics bay and efficient blink harassment. Through his constant harassment, he gardually replaced stalkers with more valuable tech units still dealing damage. No player was able to deal game-ending damage and the game progressed to its latest phase, with both players maxed and with +3 attack.

Stats decided to move out, and he and Classic engaged in a war of maneuvering, trying to outwit and pull each other out of position with harassment. Classic unfortunately lost track of the bigger picture, cleaning up Stats's forces and sending a large group of zealots to counter-attack across the map. But Stats tasted blood in the water and struck at the crucial moment when Classic's army was divided and at its weakest, blasting through his front line and decimating the crucial back line colossi to seal SKT's fate and send KT to the semi-finals vs Jin Air.

Preview: KT Rolster vs Jin Air

by Zealously

Although the fact seem to have passed most fans by, Jin Air Green Wings may very well be the most the dangerous team in Proleague. Before you point at the dominant Round 2 run of CJ Entus or politely remind me that Jin Air did not make the finals of last season, keep these facts in mind:

• Starting from the beginning of last season and the new format that came with it, Jin Air is the only team to have made all six round playoffs so far. Out of those six, they have made the finals three times and won twice (tying SK Telecom).
  
• Their ace trio (Maru, sOs, Rogue) finished last season with an impressive scoreline of 72-45. Including matches played in round and season playoffs, 92-59. Include matches played this season, both in round robin and all-kill, and that number grows to a whooping 129-80. This is the best record of any three players on a Proleague team.

This, more than anything else, speaks volumes of Jin Air's consistency. Consistency is a word we've grown cautious of using when discussing Proleague, in part because of the cutthroat competition and in part because of how volatile many of the league's best players appear to be. Even Flash, historically a paragon of consistency in Proleague through both slumps and injuries, has struggled to maintain stability. INnoVation, perhaps the best team league player to ever play Starcraft II, has had an mediocre-at-best round and repeatedly failed to deliver. Of the handful-or-so players that have maintained their position as Proleague top dogs from last season, three players play for Jin Air.

For many, consistency is a question of trade-offs. Few players can maintain consistency while occasionally reaching high peaks, mechanical or strategical. Life is notorious for being either or, sometimes finding short periods of equilibrium when he is both consistent and capable of going on streaks but, for the most part, it's one of the two and not both.

For Jin Air, this isn't exactly the case. While it would be difficult to argue that Rogue can achieve the same mechanical heights as Life on his best day or that sOs could carve the same bloody road through Korean SC2 that Zest has, it would be equally difficult to argue that any other team short of maybe the ever-so-fickle CJ Entus has what it takes to match Jin Air on a day when everything falls into place for them.

Alongside the Terrific Trio – Maru, sOs and Rogue – there is a fourth slot in the lineup that is up for grabs. Jin Air have two ways to approach their fourth player. They either:

• Designate an unexpected sniper whose sole purpose is to eliminate one of the key threats on the opposing team

or

• Field a player with a catch-all streak capacity similar to that of the aforementioned three.

In the first category, Pigbaby and Symbol both strike me as one-off snipers that you cannot safely bet on Jin Air fielding but are threats nonetheless. However, neither Pigbaby nor Symbol (particularly not Pigbaby) appear half as strong as they would have to be to reliably tackle Stats or Life. With how on-point Stats looked in his dismantling of SK Telecom today, it seems unwise bordering on insanity to field either of them to fill that function.

In the second category, we have Trap. At 2-2, he has pulled his weight this round without drawing too much attention to himself. Presently, he is in a position where his being fielded as starter can be interpreted as Jin Air feeling KT out, but also as a player with all-kill potential being sent out to lead off the match on a high note. Personally, I'm particular to the latter. Although IEM Katowice is a few weeks behind us, he made enough of an impression in making the finals that His greatest weakness is his PvP – where he has sustained multiple losses to players ranging from Zest to Panic recently – but he should be able to rely on the Terrific Trio having his back versus Protoss.

Cure deserves an honorable mention in this category as the fifth man. He could be the player of choice over any of the Terrific Trio, but it seems like exactly the kind of thing that got SKT into trouble today. This isn't to say that Cure and Sorry are equal, but when you have players who have better track records of performing on a consistent basis, it is often best to stick to them.

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There isn't much to say about KT Rolster's performance against SK Telecom. It was, after all, not really a KT Rolster performance as much as simply a Stats performance. To underline this statement:

There are two facts that should be laid down clearly about today's match:

• Flash performed predictably and failed to make an impact against Dark. He balanced on the knife's edge for a while, but ultimately failed to keep it together.

Given that TY is being fielded as starter against Jin Air instead of Flash, it is possible, perhaps likely given the presence of Zest, Life and Stats on the roster, that KT management have decided to bench Flash for the time being. It wouldn't be the first time, but it would be a momentuous occurance nevertheless.

• Stats beat players of each race and did so almost* without showing weakness. Taking out Dark, Sorry, INnoVation and Classic makes a powerful statement. With a player capable of beating top-tier players in each match-up waiting on the bench, properly planning out a series against KT Rolster becomes absurdly difficult
  *He did almost kill himself against Dark by repeatedly messing up a usually simple defense against zergling pressure

Outside of Stats's mad streak and Flash's (alleged) relegation to the bench, not much has changed for KT Rolster. Their roster is thin and not very adaptable – TY replacing Flash is as far as they are likely to go – and the core of Zest/Life/Stats is still likely to play the most crucial role against Jin Air.

Overall thoughts and prediction

There are two potential match-ups that I want to highlight. The first is the battle of the prodigies, Life and Maru. It isn't unlikely that they are the assigned snipers for each other (given how close their recent face-offs have been), and whoever wins that match-up grants his team a nearly insurmountable advantage.

The second is Stats vs everyone. After his performance today, it's hard to believe that Jin Air won't have something prepared. They can't know when or in what scenario the ex-Chintoss will come out, but they need to be prepared for the eventuality. Zest has not been particularly reliable in ace positions this season, so eliminating Stats and/or Life will be on the top of Jin Air's agenda.

Easier said than done.

KT Rolster 4-2 Jin Air Green Wings