TY vs Zest

by DarkLordOlli

Opening Starleague's stacked quarterfinals is a KT teamkill, but not one you'd necessarily expect in later stages of a big league. You would expect Stats, Life, Flash and Zest to be the ones killing each other, but this season it's been TY who has impressed most next to Zest. With a solid win over Trap in Challenger, followed by a group winning performance against Classic and Rogue, TY is one of the biggest surprises of the tournament. This, unfortunately for KT, sets him up for a teamkill against Zest, who made it through arguably (according to me) the strongest group of the Ro16 in second place.


Zest, wiping his mouth after devouring more terrans

Whether you've noticed or not, Zest's PvT has been impressive over the past few weeks. Beating Maru twice to advance through his group may have only been the top of the iceberg, albeit a very significant one. After struggling against Jin Air's ace terran for what seemed like ages, he finally overcame him to eliminate Maru from the tournament entirely.
What sticks out from Zest's current PvT to me, your everyday protoss enthusiast, is that he seems to have developed an entirely new style. He's used it in most of his PvT's over the past few weeks and it's already catching on among other top protoss players as well.

To summarize the changes he's introduced, it's important to understand the current metagame of PvT. 3rax timings have become very rare in the matchup, factory openings and 3CC builds are by far the most popular. Both of these builds have very limited midgame pressure potential - factory openings suffer from late stim, 3CC builds from both late stim and late medivacs. As a response to this, Zest favors a PvT style that takes a very early third base off only 3 gateways, a building robotics bay and blink - no forges. Even once the third nexus is established, he only adds on a single forge. This gives him an extremely flexible setup going into the midgame, which is where terran aggression does ramp up. His early third base almost puts terran on a timer to find damage against him, but the late upgrades allow for pure unit production (almost pure blink stalker and colossus). If left alone or after defending terran aggression, he then adds on all of his important infrastructure at once - either a second forge and dark shrine or templar archives, or more gateways and charge for a strong counterattack once he's stabilized. And the best part of it is that almost any protoss opening transitions into this playstyle very fluently. Ever since he's been playing it, no terran has really found a way to reliably break it without mistakes from Zest's side. And that is exactly where this match becomes interesting.

TY is one of the smartest terrans there are at crafting new and - let's put it bluntly - very abusive strategies. Whether it was his tank drop against Soulkey on Yeonsu or his once-in-a-lifetime tank/turret rush against herO that denied his natural gas mining and hit a followup timing to exploit it - TY is a smith of intelligent builds. Since these two are teammates, I can only imagine how many times TY must have played against Zest's style of PvT. TY has to have some sort of blueprint on how to deal with Zest's vastly improved PvT, or at least enough experience to be able to predict his tendencies. This gives TY an opportunity that other terrans might not have against Zest. TY has had all the time in the world to explore weaknesses in Zest's play and he will have to bring his very best countermeasures to the table if he's to advance here.
The stakes are high for him. KT's lineup have struggled massively in Proleague over the past few weeks, with only Zest performing flawlessly for them so far. This tournament is one of TY's best chances to show his coaches that he might be worth picking over someone like Stats or Life if their trouble continues. He can recommend himself with good play here.


TY: "Man they still won't predict me to advance."

Predictions:

For all the negative aspects around teamkills, this one has the potential to be very entertaining. Zest deservedly enters the series as the favorite, not only due to his new found PvT prowess, but also his level of play in general. Unless my sources are wrong, he's been sitting on top of the Korean ladder for a while, and that more often than not indicates that a player is hitting their stride. TY will have to find his luck in builds and strategies that counter Zest's specific style, but he also has to pick the right counters to deal with Zest's wide array of refined protoss openers. If he can throw a wrench into Zest's gears, there's a chance for TY. If he doesn't, Zest might clean him up with very little trouble.

Zest 3 - 1 TY

ByuL vs INnoVation

by munch

It’s understandable that, in such a demanding game, players develop idiosyncrasies and habits that they carry throughout their career. Builds are honed to perfection, compositions tweaked and philosophies decided upon that are often followed to the bitter end. For a long time, INnoVation was the poster child for predictability in Starcraft 2. In all three matchups, you’d know how he would open; his opponent would know how he’d open; and the only question remaining would be whether he could execute his gameplan well enough.

His recent switch to mech play in TvZ then is a step off the beaten path. For a player who’s practically built his career off dominance with bio in TvZ, that’s quite a display of confidence. He’s certainly not the first recent convert to Artosis’s way of thinking—GuMiho’s been meching since late 2014 against zerg, while especially in the EU scene mech play has steadily risen in popularity throughout the year—and it's likely that his show of strength in recent weeks may tempt even more to the dark side. Zergs everywhere are desperately searching for answers to the late game mech composition, but make no mistake; this match isn’t merely ByuL up against terran mech—not for the first time, INnoVation’s TvZ is head and shoulders above the rest. His positioning in the late game is flawless; he’s improved on his ability to cope with early pressure, while his ability to inexorably wrestle control of the map and abuse terrain in the mid game seems unstoppable. On the rare maps in this map pool where mech is unfavourable (Iron Fortress mostly), INnoVation’s bio game is hardly sub-par either, as Curious discovered in last week’s GSL, while he’s always had a love for opening up longer series with a bunker rush. From being the terran with the strongest parade pushes in TvZ, he's evolved into the complete package this season.


INnoVation: "Hmm maybe if I don't mech I'll get home in time to tend my flower garden."

There was a time when we thought INnoVation would rule the Starcraft scene. He was the dream of the KeSPA machine made flesh and blood; strong in TvT and TvP, while possessing arguably the single most dominant matchup in the history of Starcraft 2. Slowly though, the flaws in the code began to show. SoulKey led the way, comprehensively demonstrating how to take advantage of INnoVation’s predictability. Others began to chip in—DongRaeGu and Curious showed that he could be beaten at his own game; Maru beat him through the power of mind games alone, while NaNiwa and duckdeok made a mockery of his title winning ambitions. Far from marking the beginning of his reign, his Season 1 title in 2013 marked the high point of his standing in the scene, as the façade of invincibility crumbled in the following months.

It’s rare that a player seizes the moment to stand atop the world unquestioned and unopposed. It’s rarer still that a player grafts his way back up for a second crack at the ascent. Flaws have seemingly been patched, titles are falling his way, and while his TvZ may have changed in form, the end result is just as inevitable as it was in those heady spring months two years ago. He lost a year to his foreign isolation on Acer, while poor form marked his early months of 2015. Now, though, the pieces are beginning to fall back in place for him. It’s time to make up for lost time.




ByuL: "That dirty terran's gonna mech I just know it."

So what will ByuL do to stop him? Well, it’s clear that unless he’s had an epiphany during the past few weeks, taking on INnoVation in the late game is hardly ideal. It’s informative here to actually look at his ZvP—another matchup where he tends to aim for victory in the early to mid game. He’s acutely aware of both his strengths and weaknesses as a player, and his adaptability in-game has been key to his success. Arguably more so than any zerg, ByuL is willing to roll the dice, and we can expect to see early aggression from him. He loves mutalisks, and it would not be a surprise at all to see early spire shenanigans—something that could easily net him a quick win if INnoVation neglects thor production. His play against FanTaSy in the GSL last night was pretty standard fare—a roach/hydra based composition, transitioning into ultralisks in the late game. It’s worth noting as well that ByuL’s keen game sense allowed him to time his ultralisk push to hit the crucial window while FanTaSy was teching to Sky Terran, and if he’s to progress tonight we’ll certainly need to see more of that.

We’ve seen a few top tier zergs take wins over mech recently—notably Dark’s aggressive style beating out BrAvO in Proleague—but most revealing of all was soO’s nervousness against FanTaSy in the late game during his IEM Gamescom run. Granted, soO’s always had somewhat of an issue closing games out in the end game against defensive opponents, but if one of the best zergs in the world, who practices constantly with one of the best mechers in the world can’t figure out a late game solution, then it’s easy to see the scale of the task ahead of ByuL.

It’s been a funny old year for ByuL so far, mixing farcical comedy with undoubtedly his finest year of Starcraft to date. His place at Blizzcon is all but nailed down, and so focus naturally turns to whether he’s got it in him to go the final step and win his first championship. He’s had a couple of brutal defeats already this year —eviscerated by his teammate herO’s clinical aggression in their KeSPA Cup semifinal, while the tears after his loss to Rain in last season’s GSL told the tale of a man who’s often seemed stranded on the precipice of greatness, unable to climb that final step. He’s emerged as a genuine contender to Life and soO for the title of top dog amongst the zergs in the past few months, but without an actual championship win there’ll always be that asterisk next to his name. Take a title in season 3, however, and those claims will become harder to silence.

Predictions

The odds are stacked against ByuL here, and while I think he’s got a shot at taking a game, it’s difficult to see him progressing to the semifinals.

INnoVation 3 – 1 ByuL