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4 Posts
Week 6 of SSL Premier featured four mirror matchups, including a battle between the bottom two players and two of the three 4-1 players,  ByuL and Solar.
 sOs dictated the pace in games one and two with adept pressure into an immortal attack, but could only notch one win. In game three sOs had the phoenix advantage, but Zest's constant dark templar warp ins caught sOs by surprise and gave him his first match win of the league.
 aLive shut down a proxy reaper build from INnoVation to take game two, but INnoVation got the better of early exchanges in games one and three. The follow up pushes with tanks and ravens were enough to give him the second series of the day.
Game one started honestly wih Solar and ByuL selecting gold bases as their third on overgrowth. ByuL got ahead by killing Solar's but threw away his lead at Solar's third a few minutes later. His economic lead won out in the end though. A ling bane attack gave him the lead again in game 2, but this one he held the whole way to the finish line to become the first player to 5 wins.
Patience had the bigger army late in game one, but dark templars managed to kill all his workers but one and his following indecisiveness gave Stats time to catch up and win. Game two swung both ways, but Stats hid a base during a basetrade with Patience not mining. When Stats eventually cornered Patience, his colossi and superior disrupter count gave him the match.
Dark hung on with a cumbersome hive tech army in game one, but Maru eventually picked him apart. Game two was more passive, but Dark leveled things by attacking rather than defending. Maru went for a cyclone/hellbat timing on Newkirk Precinct, but Dark held firm. Maru tried again, but couldn't get anything done and was forced to concede the match.
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That hold by Dark in game two, he looked scary good.
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United States97277 Posts
Zest winning is probably the upset of the year
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Zest winning, albeit over sOs who dropped out of GSL in the Ro32, is a pretty big upset. Wouldn't call it a comeback, but its a good sign.
Inno beating aLive is another good sign, given that aLive was starting to look like his kryptonite.
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Dark / Maru game two is so perfect -- not only was it pretty action-packed and strategic, Dark's mass baneling style is the perfect antidote visually and strategically to Maru's style of play, IMO. Out brick-wall-headbutting a player who often seems frustratingly trapped in that technique. GGs
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Today matches delivered but Maru vs Dark was the match.
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I feel like SC2 has never had this little dominance by any one player before. Usually, there's one or two players who are just, huge favorites, but even the strongest players seem to be perfectly capable of losing to others.
Innovation is still a top-tier player, but there are still plenty of games where he lost to a player I thought was totally inferior. I wonder if that just means LotV is simply more luck-based, or if the competition is way more even.
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I feel like SC2 has never had this little dominance by any one player before. Usually, there's one or two players who are just, huge favorites, but even the strongest players seem to be perfectly capable of losing to others.
Innovation is still a top-tier player, but there are still plenty of games where he lost to a player I thought was totally inferior. I wonder if that just means LotV is simply more luck-based, or if the competition is way more even.
Well the contenders for the throne would have to be Inno, Stats, and Dark imo. But they're only a little (if at all) above guys like TY, herO, or ByuL. And there are plenty others who are arguably up there too, like Maru, soO, Solar, ByuN, etc.
INnoVation (and/or Stats) has been the most consistent top-tier so far this year (WCS year), but he's got plenty of rivals.
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On April 25 2017 08:13 Blargh wrote:
I feel like SC2 has never had this little dominance by any one player before. Usually, there's one or two players who are just, huge favorites, but even the strongest players seem to be perfectly capable of losing to others.
Innovation is still a top-tier player, but there are still plenty of games where he lost to a player I thought was totally inferior. I wonder if that just means LotV is simply more luck-based, or if the competition is way more even.
I'd agree LotV allows for even less dominance than previous iterations of sc2 as it feels like comeback potential as at an all-time low, the strategic diversity is shallow, and the intensity of each match has only gone up. Still, most other eras aren't too far off from this one. There's maybe 3 periods I can think of that really fit what you described in the first 2 sentences:
1. 2011, where Nestea and Mvp were expected to take the other out or they'd fall to some other top-tier badass like MMA, DRG, Leenock, or MC.
2. 2014 where Zest made ro8 or better in almost everything and soO was in every final.
3. Life's second peak between Blizzcon 2014 and quarter 2 of 2015 where Life made 4 premiere finals and won 3 of them. Additionally, he was 1 game away from hitting simultaneous starleague finals.
I also think Stats deserves a nod. He's made 3 premiere finals in the past few months and is in a good position in SSL Premiere atm.
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Can't believe the VODs for this still aren't available.
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Cure is the bonjwa we are waiting for
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EPT
