EPT
Maru, a former SSL champion and 
Stats who won his first Starleague a day earlier. Also noteworthy was the absence of aLive who forfeited his match in order to attend the offline finals of the Ting Open this weekend; as a result Patience received a 2-0 victory.The first match of the day paired
Zest against 
ByuL. On Overgrowth, Zest went for a glaive/warp prism timing on ByuL’s third, but was unable to kill the hatchery. He followed up with an immortal/archon attack, but ByuL’s ling/bane/roach was enough to wipe Zest out. Double warp prism harass characterised Zest's play in the next two games, to vastly different effect. Game 2 saw his constant harass pay off, allowing him to tech safely to storm and ride the wave to victory, but ByuL's traditional mutas quickly shut down both prisms on Whirlwind, before his strong ling / bane / ravager force secured ByuL his second win of the season.The aforementioned match between Stats and Maru got off to a sloppy start, as a fast viking helped shut down Stats' oracle for minimal damage. From there on out it was a clinic by Stats, though. He repelled Maru’s aggression with phoenix/adept, added in colossi and took the 1-0 lead. Both players proxied in game 2, but while Maru’s starport was scouted and killed, Stats’ oracle inflicted heavy damage. Clever use of stasis once more from Stats took the sting out of Maru's all-in push, before a swift counter sealed the win.
Dark and INnoVation got off to a passive start on Newkirk Precinct. After a number of small skirmishes, INnoVation effectively ended the game in one move—doom dropping Dark's main and locking him out with a heavy liberator siege on the ramp. Despite his high ultralisk count, he lost base after base until he was forced to tap out. For the second time Dark opted for a roach-heavy composition featuring infestors. INnoVation poked with all manner of units, but Dark dealt with it well. Having massed a large bio army with tanks, INnoVation moved out at the 9:00 mark, found a siege position between Dark’s third and natural and closed out the game to maintain his flawless 4-0 map record.The final match featured
sOs and Solar. In typical fashion, it was sOs dictated the pace of the game on Whirlwind with adept pressure. Having secured a third, sOs moved out only to lose his entire army to Solar's strong roach / ravager defence, and a desperate chargelot / archon all-in was easily shut down by Solar's swarm host follow-up. Game 2 looked to be a similarly simple win for Solar—shutting down sOs' proxy adept push with ease, and predicting sOs' dark shrine with a spore in the natural. However, adepts drew Solar into the main, before DTs sniped down the spore and exposed natural. sOs took his gold base, but faulty scouting from Solar seemed to convince him that his opponent was on one base as well, and the protoss' supercharged economy fuelled another strong immortal push to level the series. Game 3 saw yet more adept aggression from sOs, and the game looked to be firmly in sOs’ control as he established a great position with a shade into Solar’s main. A momentary lapse saw them clump up and wiped out by banelings though, and Solar easily closed out the game.Join us on Saturday for Week 2 of the SSL Challenge, or next Monday for the continuation of the SSL Premier.
