Week 4 Recap

by Darkhorse

There are just three weeks of play left in what has been the absolute closest round of this year. If you don't believe me, have a look at the current standings:



Six out of the eight teams in the league all sit at the same record with two wins and two losses. The only outliers are SKT, whose 4-0 record combined with the fact that they have already beaten CJ and KT makes them virtually guaranteed a playoff spot, and Prime, whose 0-4 record is made even worse by a dismal one map win all round (Creator still seems to have Zest's number somehow) and two map penalties giving them a -13 map differential and probably their worst round yet. Everyone else is within three maps with KT currently sitting in second by virtue of being +2 and MVP's map penalty putting them in 7th at -1. These final three weeks will separate the contenders (Jin Air, CJ, KT) from the pretenders (cough cough Samsung) as all six battle for the three playoff spots that will likely be up for grabs.

Prime 0-3 Samsung: What we Learned

• Samsung generally beats who they should beat and lose to who they should lose to. Cleaning up Prime isn't exactly an impressive result, but it at least allows them to keep pace with the rest of the 2-2 crowd and keeps their playoff hopes alive for this round.
  
• Somehow Samsung does better when their best player (on paper) is on the bench. Solar still has a 1-11 record in Proleague this year, while his less talented teammates like Dear, Hurricane, BrAvO, and Journey have been doing the real heavy lifting.
  
• Give Prime credit for at least allowing their rookie TANGTANG to get some more experience but he was clearly no match for Dear as his early widow mine/marine drops were completely shut down. KeeN continues his trend of attempting to multitask a little too much and losing drops to a mix of micro mistakes and bad luck. YoDa looks nothing like the YoDa we saw earlier this year who made the round of 16 in Code S, as he was outclassed by Journey in his late game army movement. For Prime it seems pretty clear: If Creator ain't winning, ain't nobody winning.
  
• Neither of these teams look to be playoff material. Prime obviously has no shot this round and the future doesn't look any better. Samsung is 2-2 like everyone else but their last three opponents are Jin Air, KT, and SBENU which looks to mean at least two losses on paper. Still, there may be hope for Samsung especially going into next round as Dear looks to be in good form and they have a trio of reasonably strong Terrans to back him up in Reality, Journey, and BrAvO.

SBENU 1-3 MVP

• I hyped this match up as a GSTL throwback, and the games thankfully didn't disappoint. MMA vs Gumiho was entertaining, although it wasn't the nail biting game of the year that their GSTL finals match was. HerO vs DRG was a forty minute PvZ slugfest that looked straight out of 2012, and it would probably be the game of the week had it not been for Flash vs Innovation.
  
• It was awesome to see Seed so excited after securing the win for his team, and MVP in general seems to be in much better spirits this round then they have been in the past.
  
• Speaking of Seed vs Bomber, it boggles the mind how Bomber still thinks it is a good idea to pull SCVs in every single one of his TvPs, especially against players who have both colossus and storm. It was well played by Seed to hold off the worker train, and it may be time for Bomber to rethink his strategy in the matchup, as this is the second week in a row where it has been shut down.
  
• After starting 2-0 and being on top of the standings after week two, the SBENU hype has certainly faltered. While you can't exactly fault them for losing to KT in a series of close games, this match should have been a win on paper. SBENU has a lot of talent and depth, but the inconsistency of players like MMA and DRG seems to be carrying over into the team league.
  
• Congratulations to jjakji for being the only player on SBENU to pick up a win, in his very first Proleague appearance no less.
  
• SBENU has two players in the Ro8 of GSL and neither of them got to play. Interesting choice.

SKT 3-2 KT

• While last round featured two blowouts in the Telecom derby (3-0 for SKT in the regular season and 4-1 for KT in the playoffs with a Stats all kill) this series lived up to the hype. The games were close and the matchups were exciting, and the rivalry is only heating up with Life on KT and Dream becoming one of the brightest stars in Starcraft II.
  
• I've already mentioned Innovation vs Flash, and it was certainly the best game of the week. Even with Flash not really being on Innovation's level these days, the match was a highly entertaining back and forth mech vs mech on Deadwing, and I'd recommend that anyone who hasn't seen it go watch the VoD.
  
• While Dark was the team's ace for the earlier rounds, he doesn't seem to be living up to that standard in round three. He is 1-2 so far (admittedly his losses came against two very strong players in herO and Stats) and has been left off the starting lineup twice this round. With early eliminations from both individual leagues, you have to wonder if we saw Dark peak in early 2015 and he is sliding back down to relative mediocrity.
  
• On the other hand, Stats is actually slowly becoming the strongest player on KT. He is becoming a bit of a SKT slayer having all killed them in last round's playoffs and clutched out the fourth match of last week's match against SBENU as well as against SKT. He will also get a chance to double kill SKT in S2SL, as his Ro4 opponent is Classic and should he advance to the final he will face Dream. Have I mentioned that this rivalry is exciting?
  
• The Dream vs Life rivalry is only getting better. While this iteration of the matchup wasn't the best the two have played, it was still exciting enough to be a worthy addition to the myriad of games these two have played against each other in the past months, and the fact that it was the ace match only makes it better. While Dream has gotten the better of the Zerg prodigy recently, I'm sure that the two will continue to trade games as they continue what is probably the best rivalry in Starcraft II today.

CJ 3-2 Jin Air

• While the Telecom rivalry may be talked about quite a bit more, CJ and Jin Air have been having their own battle over the last few months. The two had an incredibly close match in the finals of round two, and this duel was nail biting as well.
  
• Jin Air generally rotates one member of the lineup every week and always fields Maru and sOs. This round Rogue has pretty much been a constant while Trap, Cure, and Terminator have seen playing time in the fourth spot. Unfortunately, Cure is 0-2, Terminator lost this week, and Trap's 1-0 record is deceptive considering his one win came against BBoongBBoong. Maru, Rogue, and sOs are a fearsome trio, but we learned this week that if one of them falters, they can't rely on their fourth member to pick up the slack.
  
• With Dark, Life, and Solar all faltering in their own ways, I think it's high time we start debating whether Rogue or ByuL is the best Zerg in the world. Both players picked up wins here, and both are currently in the quarterfinals of GSL. I'd give the edge to ByuL considering he also finished top eight in S2SL and beat Maru twice to win this match, but both players have really stepped up over the last few months.
  
• ByuL essentially saved CJ's round with his ace match win over Maru. Had he lost, the team would have been in seventh place with a 1-3 record and with a match against KT on the horizon, there would have been a very real chance that the round two champs wouldn't even make the playoffs. Fortunately for them, ByuL clutched it out and CJ is in decent standing with 2-2 record along with everyone else.
  
• Poor Sora.

Week 5: CJ Entus vs SBENU

by banjoetheredskin


herO <Echo> MMA

After Dream's complete annihilation of herO in the S2SL semifinals, there seems to be plenty of reason to believe that herO's PvT is not as good as it was said to be. He has a glaring flaw in his defense of the intense early factory aggression that the best Terrans prefer to use. herO also didn't survive past the midgame, so not much can be said about his current capacity for the late game. MMA, while not one of the best Terrans, is at least flexible and experimental in his TvP playstyle, having played around with modern iterations of the 1/1/1 and an adaption of Polt's bio-mech allin. However, the few games he's played recently in the matchup show an aversion to the late game entirely. It is likely, then, that MMA will attempt to emulate Dream's strategies to both exploit the weaknesses in herO's play and capitalize on a possibly broken mentality after the CJ Protoss' double individual league dropouts and 3-game losing skid in Proleague. Fortunately for herO, MMA is not Dream, or even Maru, so he still has a good chance with otherwise solid PvT.


ByuL <Expedition Lost> Leenock

As ByuL continues to gain recognition and attention for his rise to contention for best Zerg, expectations for his performance continue to grow. He did deliver in his GSL group, taking down Dream and herO easily after losing to Curious. While that bodes well for him overall, the critical part in this match will be his loss to a Zerg player. Although ByuL's performance in the mirror matchup has been an impressive 6-2 this Proleague season, his recent 1-2 defeat against Curious exhibited a general shakiness with decision making and game sense. Leenock has fewer games to look at for analysis, but his loss to Life in Week 3 was ugly. His speedling allin was held with relative ease, a foregone conclusion to the desperate transition into a macro game. Nevertheless, Leenock's reputation for creativity and innovation remain founded, even in ZvZ. ByuL can definitely play a straightforward Zerg mirror, but he'll need to smooth out his rough edges to properly handle the Leenocktopus.



Hush <Cactus Valley> Curious

Speaking of Curious, the Gatekeeper has hit his peak individual league form in HotS by a country mile. He took down herO, otherwise known as one of the best PvZ players in the world, in convincing fashion with intelligently-timed aggression. It should speak volumes, then, to say that herO is probably five times the PvZ player Hush is. CJ's consistent PvP sniper has drawn what appears to be his least favorite matchup against a player who, as it turns out, is quite good at planning for his Protoss opponents. To be fair to Hush, though, his only recent PvZ was against a fantastic Zerg in Rogue, just days after the swarm host patch. In a time when Zergs were all over the tech tree with experimental compositions, Hush would have had difficulty crafting a game plan against the unorthodox play. Now he at least knows that Curious sits on the normal end of the Zerg spectrum, and is aware of the timings and counter plays the Sbenu Zerg may seek to employ. But with a confidence boost from his return to the GSL quarterfinals in the twilight of his career, Curious should by all means have the upper hand against a player not known for any success in the matchup.


Sora <Coda> Bomber

Sora's historic success in PvT and the maps on which he has been sent out suggest that CJ have been trying to field him against a Terran. Finally, they've succeeded in drawing Sora's ideal matchup, and ought to be content with Bomber as the opposition. Although the Redbull/Sbenu Terran will occasionally play styles from years ago, he is proficient in the current Terran meta of factory harassment and holds a frightening potential for scv pulls. While Sora's play in PvT is almost entirely unseen, he has five very recent Bomber games to study that should aid him in devising a strategy. Sora's combination of his current anonymity and capability of astronomical peaks in performance make him a legitimate threat to Bomber. The main concern CJ should have with Sora is his relative inexperience compared to Bomber, which has before led him to choke in and throw games he could have won. All of these factors spell out an intriguing possibility for a PvT that highlights the nitty-gritty and could very well send the match to an ace set.