Weekend Warriors

Two rounds down; one to go. The pressure’s beginning to mount in this truncated three-round Proleague year, and every team knows they’ve only got one more chance to jostle for a place in the top 4. It’s been a bit of a break from the teamleague grind while the GSL and SSL started up; it’s certainly all-or-nothing time now.

In case you've missed the announcement, Proleague will be broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays for Round 3 due to SPOTV's LCK obligations. No announcement on the Round / Season Playoff schedule has been made yet.

Five Conclusions

1. Time for our second playoffs edition of Five Conclusions, and once more, there’s no better place to start than with the Round Champions. Since the start of 2015, we’ve had six rounds of Proleague. SKT have won three; KT and CJ one each. On four of those first five occasions, Jin Air finished as the losing finalists; not to mention their loss in the Season Playoffs last year. KT ran them incredibly close, but this time, they finally pulled out the crucial win. This time, sOs decided to deliver for the first time in 2016. This time, Maru clutched the big win against Zest. This time, they are Kongs no more.
   
   
2. KT, on the other hand, must be cursing their luck. Once again, Stats delivered an all kill for them; once again, there was all too little backup coming from the rest of the team. Losira’s absurd argument over the replay / remake conundrum seemed to tilt him once the match restarted (not that he delivers often for the team anyway), but the bigger concern will again be TY failing to show up. It’s hard to criticise Stats or Zest really—in particular, getting outplayed by Maru at his best is a fate that’s befallen many a player. It’s the rest of the team that needs to step up.
   
   
3. One bright spot for SKT is that Classic’s benching seems to have done him a world of good. From his all-kill of CJ, to his 7-1 performance in his SSL group, he certainly seems to be back in competitive form. Whether he’s in championship form is a question best left for a couple weeks yet (especially when his PvZ weakness is further tested), but it’s come at a great time for an SKT roster that seems to be cracking. Dark’s still the unquestioned MVP of the side right now (although his ZvP brings up a few questions—Stats’ recent immortal-less chargelot-archon style is a good adaptation against Dark’s ling-bane composition ), but everyone else is struggling. INnoVation seems hopeless right now outside of the TvZ matchup; soO similarly for ZvZ; while Dream simply hasn’t played enough since TY battered him in their GSL quarterfinal. They’re still already qualified for the Season Playoffs, but they’ll need to improve across the board to repeat their championship success from last year.
   
   
4. Last time, it was the Afreeca Freecs; this round’s sacrificial lamb was CJ Entus. On the one hand, it’s hard to criticise them too much. They obviously have much less firepower than the big three teams right now, and simply making the playoffs should be regarded as a success. On the other hand, though, being all-killed by a player who’s recently been benched for a lengthy period of time for his poor performances isn’t ideal. Notably, it was yet another failure in the all kill stage from herO. Since the start of the modern Proleague era in 2014, CJ have played 12 all-kill matches. In that time, herO has picked up a single double kill. For a team that revolves around him carrying them through the league, that’s simply not good enough.
   
   
5. Time to choose a Round MVP then, and this time, the obvious choice is also the right one. Maru won all six of his matches in the regular round, before winning the crucial final match against Zest. There’s simply nothing else he could’ve done for a team that’s struggled with inconsistency at times—sOs and Rogue in particular. herO picks up a deserved runner-up prize for carrying CJ on his back through the round robin—three ace match wins is seriously impressive, especially when he set up all three by winning his programmed match as well—but his failure to make it count when it mattered the most cost him here.
   

Afreeca vs SKT

aLive <Frost> Dark

So, how much do you trust online form? That’s essentially the big question for aLive. From mid-February to mid-April he went winless offline; a miserable 9 match run over various competitions. He’s turned it around ever so slightly with two 2-0 wins over Losira and DRG in the SSL qualifiers, but that’s hardly indicative of a more long-term uptick of form. In the same time though, aLive’s cut a swathe through his online opponents. A 72% win rate overall, including a 24-3 record in TvZ, is completely different to the aLive we’ve seen on LAN. That’s partly down to the opposition he’s faced—lower tier Koreans and foreigners—and DeParture’s probably the best player he’s beaten.

That’s far less useful to us when his opponent tonight is Dark. The SKT zerg is undoubtedly the best zerg in the world, and with all the difficulties that zergs are going through with terran right now, it’s up to him to show us how it’s done. aLive might be rolling through opponents online, but Dark’s probably still too good for him.


Super <Overgrowth> soO

Super is one of Afreeca’s most consistent players. Outside of his poor PvP, he’s performed quite well this year. Granted, he hasn’t played many offline PvZs recently (a win against RagnaroK and a loss to Leenock in Proleague), but he’s got an online winrate of 72% since the start of April. Again, much like aLive, it’s against weak opposition, but you can only beat what you’ve had put in front of you. On the other hand, soO’s also been thoroughly average in PvZ. He’s beaten the players you’d expect (Hush / Blaze / TAiLS) and lost to those you’d also expect (Stats / Zest). The match tonight’s going to tell us a lot more about how exactly both are playing.


Bomber <Frozen Temple> Dream

Oh Bomber. Forever on the hype train rollercoaster, surprising us all with good play before tanking his next event. He actually played quite well in the SSL, sneaking out in 3rd place in his Challenge group. That said, it really doesn’t bode well for tonight. TY and Cure both 2-0’d him on the night, and he was constantly caught out of position on the night. Dream too needs to atone in the matchup. The last time we saw him was during his crushing GSL quarterfinal defeat, but the 0-3 scoreline probably does him a disservice. Sure, TY was the better player throughout, but Set 1 was especially close, and Dream showed resilience fighting to stay alive in a doomed set 3. Against a much less fearsome TvT opponent, it’s time to see what he can do.

Patience <Dusk Towers> Classic

Since beating Classic three months ago in their lower bracket SSL clash, Patience hasn’t had the greatest luck in the matchup. Stats 4-0’d him with ease, he ran into Zest and sOs in Proleague, while he even managed to lose to NightMare in the GSL S2 qualifiers. Meanwhile, Classic’s been in great form since his comeback. 6-2 in Proleague since his break, he’s also stormed to the top of his SSL group. More pertinently for his match tonight, his PvP has looked excellent. He’s 10-2 in the matchup, dropping two games to Trust and Stats, while his list of conquests includes Zest, sOs (x3) and herO. Chances are that Patience’s mirror matchup funk’s going to continue for a while.

ACE <King Sejong Station> ACE

Honestly, there are only two viable choices for SKT here—Dark or Classic. Everybody else is performing too poorly, is weak in certain key matchups, or is too inconsistent to be trusted here. For Afreeca, it’s again hard to call, as no one on their team has stepped up to make the role their own. Super’s probably the best pick to gamble on Dark coming out.


Predictions

aLive < Dark
Super > soO
Bomber < Dream
Patience < Classic

Afreeca 1 - 3 SKT

KT vs CJ

Leenock <Frost> herO

A pretty simple match first up. herO has been in pretty good form recently (especially during Round 2), while Leenock’s a player who hasn’t even nailed down the 4th spot in KT’s lineup. Granted, ZvP is probably his best matchup, but that’s got less to do with his quality there than with his failures in the other two. Proleague wins over Super and herO were impressive back in early April, but he looked extremely outclassed by Stats in Code A. Stats might be the best PvZer in Korea right now, but I think herO can repeat the feat.


TY <Overgrowth> ByuL

Following that up is a match that would have been a similar no-brainer this time last year. However, it’s 2016, and right now TY is one of the strongest terrans in the world right now, and has looked dominant against all zergs not named Dark in recent times. ByuL did beat him back in April in Proleague, but the terran’s gone from strength to strength in the matchup since. The same can’t be said for ByuL; he’s lost all his ZvTs since. GuMIho and BrAvO bested him in Proleague, while Cure and Reality beat him in the SSL qualifiers. He’s a shell of the player that fell thrice in starleague finals in 2015, while dominating the terran matchup for the whole year. Add in the growing inability of Korean zergs to cope with terran aggression in the mid-game, and it’s hard to see TY losing here.


Zest <Frozen Temple> MC

Well, let it never be said that MC does things the easy way. A Proleague debut against Zest is probably the toughest test he could have been given. He himself estimates that he’s third or fourth in the CJ rankings; even if he was dominating in-house practice, it’d still be impossible to back him here. Until we get more evidence otherwise, Zest is the best player in the world, the best protoss, and the best PvPer. MC’s going to have to pull off a true magic trick here if he wants to start off his new employment with a win.


Stats <Dusk Towers> RagnaroK

Take a brief look at RagnaroK’s record, and you’d probably immediately spot why this is arguably the most one-sided match of the night. He’s a mediocre 10-12 in PvZ for the year, but those wins have come against Code A/B calibre opposition (1-0 and 2-0 over Hurricane, 2-0 against Adun, and a messy 3-2 against Coach Stork). All respect to Stork—progaming isn’t his full-time job, after all—but if RagnaroK’s scraping a win there, chances are a higher calibre of protoss will make mincemeat of him. That’s exactly what Stats is. The KT lieutenant has been in scary form. 45-17 in the past two months, he has 70%+ winrates in all three matchups. His PvZ in particular has been superb, and since his 2-4 defeat to Dark in the SSL Grand Finals, he’s been unbeaten (including a revenge 3-1 win over Dark at the Cross Finals).


ACE <King Sejong Station> ACE

Frankly, any of TY, Stats and Zest would suffice here, but chances are that the GSL Champ will still be the one to get the nod from the KT coach. On CJ’s side, herO is practically the only choice; I don’t think I’d back him against any of the three.


Predictions

Leenock < herO
TY > ByuL
Zest > MC
Stats > RagnaroK

KT 3 - 1 CJ




A quick note: unfortunately, due to the late release of the Proleague rosters on Friday, I haven't managed to write up all four matches in time for Saturday. Expect a second release tomorrow before the second set of games; hopefully this won't be an issue again in the coming weeks. Enjoy the games.