Gooey Green Glory

by Destructicon

While the first day of KT vs Jin Air snowballed into a one-sided beatdown, CJ and Jin Air's first encounter of the playoffs was a close, back and forth affair that went all the way to the ace, ending in explosive fashion.

Bunny vs Rogue kicked things off in a rather sloppy but entertaining TvZ on Echo. In typical Bunny fashion, the CJ Terran opted for widow mine drops. Protoss, Terran or Zerg - it matters not. However, Rogue was more than prepared for it and shut down nearly all aggression coming his way, suffering only the barest of losses that were offset by his killing multiple medivacs. To make matters worse, Rogue's own counter-aggression and subsequent mutalisk harassment slowed Bunny down to a crawl. Deciding to move across the map, Bunny quickly [E/N: not quickly enough) found he had forgotten combat shields, delaying his aggression further, allowing Rogue free reign to tech, build a bank, and harass. By the time Bunny moved across it was too late, the bank and army of Rogue was too big to handle. [E/N: A bunny cannot beat a log, after all.]

Next up was Bbyong vs Cure on Iron Fortross, which started rather slow but quickly picked up in intensity. Bbyong opted to go for his beloved mechanical style while Cure predictably chose bio. Cure built up a early viking lead and leveraged it into air control as he caught Bbyong of guard and picked off several vikings and a raven, putting the Habitation Station celebrity. Cure then leveraged his air control to establish siege positions at Bbyong's 3rd and later 4th, denying his opponent quite a lot of mining.


Cure wreaks havoc in Bbyong's mineral line. Because Bbyong is the man he is, this is somehow bad for Cure.

Bbyong, however, read the situation well on several occasions, displaying intimate knowledge of the matchup by going for a push when he sensed Cure's army was at its weakest and forcing him to trade away his vikings. Bbyong then amassed a big army, one that Cure's brittle army could not beat, and with his own air superiority secured there would be nothing to stop him from moving across the map to secure the win.

The following game took place between sOs and ByuL on Coda. Things got off to a crazy start from the begining as sOs opted for some early oracles to cripple ByuL's economy, scoring a total of 14 worker kills - despite uncharacteristically losing an oracle. The harass severely shook an already unsettled ByuL, who deviated from his plan of going ultralisks and went for a triple [E/N: in case you're checking, triple does mean there were three of them] hydra den, double spire and infestation pit before he managed to compose himself. This lapse in concentration allowed sOs to move across the map and take several favorable engagements, while even establishing a 4th right by ByuL's doorstep. The Zerg's amazingly peculiar 3/2/1 build completely absent strong points put the two-time finalist at an army disadvantage. sOs allowed ByuL no quarter, going for the decisive battle with storms and archons crashing into the Zerg base before ultralisks could even hatch.


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CJ would bring the fight back to Jin Air when a seldom-seen Sora pulled his weight to the team effort. With a meticulously planned gateway attack that caught Trap off guard and threw him off with cleverly constructed pylons, the Lightning Toss delivered precisely the kind of preparation that brought Pigbaby a surprising victory against KT Rolster. Killing Trap's early stalkers and mothership core with strength in numbers and snowballing to an easy victory, Sora made his first sign of life in 2015 and tied the series.

herO swiftly followed up with another brutal early game against Symbol. An almost unfairly successful cannon rush followed by zealot aggression that managed to cancel the nat and the 3rd put Symbol so far behind that the Jin Air Zerg could probably have opted for a Wings of Liberty build for the hell of it. Symbol, in fairness, tried to make a game of it by attempting to take the gold while cleaning up his nat and 3rd, but herO off-handedly expanded and went for the follow up 2 base guillotine.


"Meh, it would have been easier to just hit him in the head with my star. Not as messy, either.

Next we had a fairly standard game between RagnaroK and Maru on Vaani Research Station. Both opened up safe, with RagnaroK even throwing up the safety roach warren in the spirit of TSL Zergs. Things went downhill quickly in the mid game as Maru started dropping and dealing ever increasing damage to a RagnaroK at a loss for response. The CJ Zerg tried moving across the map with his force of roaches and slow banes, only to run into a fortified position guarded by tanks. Sensing weakness Maru pressed his advantage, repeatedly hounding and chipping away at the indecisively controlled army of RagnaroK. The Little Psychobath barrelled punches, and RagnaroK could not hold. With a tied series and only the final game ahead, CJ fielded herO against Jin Air's player of choice - Rogue.

On Echo, herO went for a greedy nexus first, answered in kind by Rogue's triple hatch build. herO followed his early expand with a 6-minute third before adding sentries, prompting Rogue to drone hard while also getting a safety roach warren. To slow down the rapidly growing economy of Rogue, herO went for an early game move out but was caught off-guard and forced to recall. At this point, viewers and casters alike sensed that something was not as it should be. Rogue was researching overlord speed in conjunction with ventral sacs and bane speed, and herO knew nothing of it.


I will never get tired of this picture

The CJ Protoss went for another push onto the map, but was once again caught and forced to recall, expending his mothership core's energy reserves. These recalls bought Rogue the time he needed for his tech to finish and set the trap. Thus, when herO went for the real attack his forces were met by a veritable rain of banelings, corrosive bile melting his proud army within seconds.



With a handful of stalkers surviving the carnage, herO retreated and did his best to do... anything. Alas, from there Rogue was so far ahead that he decided to simply take the scenic route - drown his opponent in banelings, max out before crashing into his opponent, and securing the first match for Jin Air in explosively glorious fashion!

Match 2 Preview: Hot Or Not?

by munch

Jin Air displayed their strengths in the round robin format by shutting out KT Rolster and ultimately edging out CJ Entus through a combination of depth and meticulous preparation. The all-kill format did not treat them nearly as kindly against KT, where they very nearly fell in unceremonious fashion and were only saved by sOs' last-minute sweep. But Jin Air have always fared well against CJ in this format in the past. For this week's installment, we'll take a look at the lineups from a different perspective. Though highly dependent on streaks, the all-kill format still demands depth. The format, regardless of how streaky one player or another can be, demands that you have an answer for each opponent the opposing team could reasonably put up. With this in mind, here is tomorrow's matchup, broken down player-by-player.

Maru – herO

While we didn’t get the Maru vs. herO ace match that we might have expected yesterday, it’s still clear that both of these players are at the top of their respective pyramids. Jin Air may have more multi-killing power than any other team in Proleague bar SKT, but time after time, it’s been their resident terran who’s bailed them out of trouble. Similarly, while ByuL has been the shining star of CJ for much of the year, herO’s ace status has never truly come into question (with his recent SSL triumph probably settling that issue for another year). Both these players have hit the top of the Proleague kill charts round after round, but they trouble the scoreboard in notably different ways. Over the eight round playoff rounds and two postseason runs that we’ve had over the past two years, Maru has racked up four three-kills and an all-kill; meanwhile, herO has yet to beat more than two in a row. If Coach Park’s traditional snipe picks fail to come off, that lack of staying power may be CJ’s weakness tonight.

Rogue – ByuL

Or it may not; for while CJ’s 2014 season seemed to be a Bonnie Tyler karaoke plea, 2015 has seen ByuL join herO as the team’s second major threat. For all the promise he may have showed previously, he’s only truly gone supersaiyan this year. Reaching three starleague finals in two seasons is frankly ridiculous, in the process becoming the first dual finalist in Starcraft 2, and he’s still got one last shot at converting one of those at the end of the week. Much like ByuL, Rogue’s been bashing his head against the Starleague glass ceiling; unlike ByuL, his personal hell has been the Round of 8. Five out of his six runs this year ended at the quarterfinal stage this year (the outlier was a bafflingly inept exit to Hurricane in the SSL Challenge).
In Proleague, both have proved to be the anchors for their teams; the players their respective coaches can most rely on to pull a win out of the bag when it’s most needed.


"When it's needed, I make a lot of banelings"

That’s most exemplified by Rogue’s ace win just last night, or ByuL’s triple kill to seal the Round 2 playoffs title for CJ earlier in the year. Both will undoubtedly see play tonight.

sOs – Bbyong

And now we come to the teams’ mental lieutenants. [E/N: mental lieutenants and mental lieutenants] While it’s unarguable that sOs has garnered far more individual accolades than Bbyong, both players have gone through the same general patterns in their Starcraft 2 careers, blowing hot and cold seemingly at random. We all know about sOs’s peaks and troughs—Blizzcon 2013, IEM Katowice etc., but Bbyong’s results in Proleague last year were similarly extraordinary—a run in form during rounds 2 and 3 amounting to a 16-4 record, for example. They’re also both known for busting out the craziest of builds just when the pressure’s on—carriers against jjakji in Katowice, mech against Classic in the Proleague Playoffs last year. We’ve had plenty of high quality games in this post-season stretch so far, and even a fair few odd strategies, but if you’re expecting to see something gamebreakingly awesome, look no further.

Pigbaby – Bunny

These players have seen almost no action in the regular season, but both have emerged as threats to be respected in the final weeks of the season. We know what both of them will do; their opponents know what they’re going to do—the only question is whether their abusive strategies can be stopped. Pigbaby’s defeat of TY just last week was an absolute masterclass in all-inning. To reiterate:



Meanwhile, Bunny’s widow mine fetishes have been well publicised by now. Rogue may have coped admirably with it, but it’s wise to remember the absolute shambles of an economy that was left over for sOs following a similar attack back in Round 4.

Terminator – sKyHigh

Both are essentially lovably huggable mascots at the moment; neither have seen much action at all recently. sKyHigh has had one Proleague appearance in the past three months. Meanwhile:

Trap – Sora

This may be a pretty obvious pairing given their matchup yesterday, but their career trajectories so far invite comparison. Both of them have just a pair of outstanding runs as the outliers for their otherwise mediocre results so far—WCG and WECG for Sora, MLG Anaheim and IEM Katowice for Trap. Neither have had much success at all in this latter half of the year—indeed, Sora was marked as inactive on Aligulac before yesterday’s match—and while they might be named in the six man lineups in the Proleague format matches, it’s difficult to see either being picked as one of their team’s respective remaining threes tonight.

Symbol – RagnaroK

While both of these players started at opposite ends of the spectrum, it’s becoming undeniable that their career trajectories are both stalling out at the moment. For all his success in WoL, Symbol has looked all at sea in HotS. Bereft of ideas, solid mechanics, and indeed broodlord-infestor, the once mighty zerg has been rendered very much mortal indeed, and without a second wind once LotV hits, it’s difficult to see him breaking out of his malaise. On the other hand, RagnaroK’s been threatening to emerge as a talent for years by now, but yet again, it seems that this hasn’t been his year. Both have been tested at times this year, and both have come up short, and neither are likely to show up tonight.

Check – Hush

And here, the house of cards comes tumbling down. Hush showed great PvP in 2014, but has struggled badly this year, and hasn’t been seen for months. Check has been practically invisible all year long (no starleague appearances, 1-1 in Proleague). We might see Hush with a specific plan for sOs, but chances are both players will have the night off.

Cure – Trust

And now we finally come up to the opening set of the night. Both of these players are somewhat unexpected picks here, but while Cure’s regression since reaching the semifinals in GSL Season 3 last year has been a grave disappointment, Trust has probably had the most impressive year of his understated career so far. Two spots in Code S this year match his previous best, and his PvT in particular has stood out, with a 75% record in offline games. His victories may have come over lesser opponents (jjakji, MarineKing, Ryung, SalvatioN and an amateur terran in the SSL qualifiers), but you can only beat the opponents put in front of you. With Cure’s form in 2015, it’s even arguable that he may belong in that category. He is running at 14-16 in offline TvPs for the year, and outside of victories over Stats and MyuNgSiK in Proleague (both suffering from shocking form at the times of their respective matches), has failed to register wins over anyone notable recently.

Predictions

munch: Jin Air 4 - 3 CJ Entus
The_Templar: Jin Air 3 - 4 CJ Entus
Zealously: Jin Air 2 - 4 CJ Entus
Soularion: Jin Air 4 - 1 CJ Entus
Jer99: Jin Air 4 - 2 CJ Entus
Destructicon: Jin Air 4 - 2 CJ Entus