Nine months removed from his victory over Dark in the last SSL finals, Solar looked to defend his throne against INnoVation, who dominated the regular season of Premier on his way to booking a direct ticket to the finals. Solar, on the other hand, only reached the big stage after grueling 3-2 victories over Stats and ByuL.
INnoVation started the series with a command center first on Frost. Solar opted to settle into a macro game instead of trying to punish the greedy opener. He effortlessly defended when INnoVation began to poke with multiple pairs of marine filled medivacs, moving into ling/bane/hydra while establishing himself on four bases. Up by over 30 supply, Solar attacked into INnoVation's third from multiple angles, effectively resetting INnoVation's army. Solar reloaded before returning with double the army supply to take a 1-0 lead.
INnoVation opened game two with hellions and banshees. The initial group of hellions failed to get damage done, but the follow up in greater numbers killed nearly 20 drones. Solar tried to catch up in the worker count, but INnoVation was already transitioning into mech. Solar's paltry army couldn't defend two places at once and he lost even more workers to thors and hellions. Having severely weakened Solar, INnoVation gathered his army together for a lethal push on Solar's third and rolled his opponent over.
With the series tied, Solar tried to throw INnoVation off with a gas steal and an unusual third base location. INnoVation once more went into cloaked banshees before bio, slowing but not crippling Solar's economy. Solar's macro appeared to be humming, but a drop in his main caught his mutalisks out of position. Solar defended but lost a good portion of his army. INnoVation took advantage, powering up into a massive army on three bases. Solar tried to counter with mutalisks, but while he killed 10 workers he couldn't force INnoVation back. Down 40 army supply, Solar dove in and lost his army, giving INnoVation his second straight victory.
INnoVation’s bunker rush went unscouted in game four. Solar was unable to stop INnoVation from killing his hatchery and his only response from that point was to mass zerglings in an attempt to break out. INnoVation had too many marines and bunkers, though. Stuck on one base with no army, Solar conceded.
INnoVation's banshees gave him an economic lead going into the mid game on Whirlwind. Just as he had on Overgrowth, he moved into mech and the same double thor drop/hellion run by. He found less success this time, even losing a thor. Despite that, Solar was still behind. He got a hive, but was unable to hinder INnoVation who moved out with a maxed out army. He sieged up outside Solar's natural, even killing multiple vipers before Solar could even engage. When Solar finally took the fight, he lost the majority of his army. Solar tried one final roach/hydra push, but his army evaporated to tanks. Despite having started the series with a win, Solar tapped out, giving INnoVation his fourth straight win, the match and the 2017 SSL Premier Season 1 championship.
Whoa that is some fast typing, hasn't even been an hour since Inno won.
Congratulations to Inno for picking up his third Starleague trophy! Also, great to see Inno mixing it up with mech as well as bio, especially with the new Thor. And he didn't even use 5rax reaper, so even better.
I'm most interested with the possible JinAir INnoVation though. Can anyone (Korean speakers?) confirm what exactly the CEO meant by "supporting" Inno?
Innovation outplayed Solar the entire time. Solar has the hydra/lurkers build vs bio which his thing but then Innovation turned on the mech switch and Solar was basically clueless.
Happy for Innovation but I wonder where this amazing performance was when he played at GSL.
On June 11 2017 01:11 AshC wrote: Innovation outplayed Solar the entire time. Solar has the hydra/lurkers build vs bio which his thing but then Innovation turned on the mech switch and Solar was basically clueless.
Happy for Innovation but I wonder where this amazing performance was when he played at GSL.
He basically got all the TvTs that knocked him out of all the recent tournaments.
Bad performance by Solar, Hellion into Banshee is a very old school build that has long since been figured out and Solar just looked like a clueless noob.
Granted, mech has also been buffed to shit, Innovation plays about as perfect as a human can and Solar isn't really in the same league as him, but still, Zerg looked pretty hopeless this tournament, stiff competition nonetheless.
I feel like it would have been a closer game if it was Byul vs Innovation. Byul is much better at macro TvZ than solar, which would fare much better against Innovation's style.
Solar down 40 army supply in a game he was always behind in is a war? That's really lol worthy. It was a slaughter. He didn't belong on the same stage as Inno.
EPT
Dark in the last SSL finals, 
INnoVation, who dominated the regular season of Premier on his way to booking a direct ticket to the finals. Solar, on the other hand, only reached the big stage after grueling 3-2 victories over 
Stats and 
