Gold Series Team Championship: Spring Season
Week 3 Preview - The Shake-Up

by TheOneAboveU

A crazy holiday break week for GTC has turned out to be just as eventful as a week of actual play. Chivo SC disbanded due financial issues regarding COVID-19, and were hastily replaced by the newly formed team GP (Bomber, Super, GogojOey). Also, GTC traded out Korean star-power for Canadian celebrity, as TY got the boot from Triumphant Song Gaming while Scarlett re-joined the league by signing with Brave Star Gaming. While Dragon Phoenix and KaiZi remain far ahead of the pack, one wonders if there will be further moves that change the balance of power.

As always, Wardi will broadcast the matches on his channel on Monday and Tuesday starting at 13:00 CEST.

News Breakdown

Chivo SC disbands; replaced by Team GP

Chivo’s sudden disbandment due to the economic pressure of COVID-19 on their sponsor leaves RagnaroK, SpeCial, and TooDming without a team—strong potential reinforcements for most other GTC teams. The exit of Chivo resulted in new Korean organization Team GP belatedly joining the fray. The team already had Bomber and Super under contract, and recently signed Hong Kong's GogojOey to meet eligibility standards for the tournament. As things stand, it seems like Chivo’s only result so far—a Week 2 win over Invictus Gaming—will be voided for both teams, and Team GP will be given a fresh start.

Transfer News: TY leaves Triumphant Song Gaming

In a surprising move, TY left Triumphant Song Gaming after his contract ran out and both parties agreed not to extend. Chinese community members on TL.net have relayed rumors that TSG’s management were unhappy with TY’s results in team competitions so far—understandable, as their presumptive ace recorded a sub 50% win-rate in the GTC and NeXT competitions. One has to wonder if TSG cut bait with TY too early, but perhaps his salary was too prohibitively high to wait and see if his form would recover. Regardless, this leaves TSG in a significantly worse position than before, with a roster of Solar, Star, and Cloudy. TSG could scramble to find a replacement, but given the several weeks grace period before new signees are eligible to play, the prudent choice may be to lay low during the Spring Season and wait until next season to reload.

Scarlett joins Brave Star Gaming

After Newbee disbanded their StarCraft 2 division, we quickly saw TIME snapped up by KaiZi Gaming (where former teammate Dear has signed earlier). Now, their former colleague Scarlett also rejoins the GTC fray, signing with Brave Star Gaming. The Korea-based Canadian brings a much needed Zerg presence to a squad consisting of Dream, Hurricane, and Cyan. BSG are currently sitting on a 1-1 record, and may be in the thick of a playoff race by the time Scarlett is eligible to play in week six (presumably, going by the precedent of TIME).

Week 3 Preview

Inaugural season champions Triumphant Song Gaming will finally meet the GTC's new powerhouse in Dragon Phoenix Gaming. A week ago, I would have called this a climactic clash of titans. But with TY gone, there's no point in sugar-coating what looks to be a one-sided match. Even with TY, TSG lost 4-1 against DPG just last week in NeXT Spring (a smaller team tournament running parallel to GTC). Without TY, the odds of victory are even worse.

Everyone expects DPG.Dark to annihilate TSG.Star, but allow a Dark fan some space to voice his concerns. Dark's ZvT feels like it's in a weird spot. His beloved roach-ravager openers are no longer securing easy wins at their usual clip. Maru multi-tasked Dark to death in the Super Tournament, breaking his image as an unstoppable macro game player. It would be okay if it were just Maru, but it's not: Dark lost by a catastrophic 0-3 scoreline to BSG.Dream in the KungFu Cup finals, in which Dark had no answer to Dream’s BC-mech strats. Now, TSG.Star is no Maru or Dream. Last week in NeXT he already faced Dark and lost, and with what we’ve seen from him in his series against αX.BreakingGG, he’s exactly the kind of player that would crumble right away under the pressure of Dark’s aggression. Dark has some soul searching to do in ZvT, but it’s unlikely he’ll have to change it up against this Terran. Star might shine brightly, but Dark is a black hole, ready absorb whatever he can muster up.

Our second series is likely going to look similarly one-sided. TSG.Cloudy looks quite outmatched by DPG.PartinG, and not just because he recently came out of semi-retirement. The only PvP he’s played since December 2019 was a 0-2 loss to Firefly. PartinG might drop series against PvP experts like Zest, but he is rarely upset by weaker players (a loss to Creator late in March being the exception). Even then, Cloudy isn't on the level of Creator, who, despite being a punching bag for the community, always has one good day in the week when he can can score a major upset.

And if any of you think TSG.Solar is guaranteed to bring two points home for TSG here against DPG.Firefly, you’d be wrong. Last week in NeXT Spring, Firefly beat Solar fair and square in a macro game, securing the group stage victory for DPG and sending TSG down to the elimination match, which they eventually lost to Team LP. Firefly isn’t just winning fan hearts with his enthusiasm and camaraderie anymore, he’s improving his gameplay rapidly: Solar wasn’t his only victim at NeXT, with LP.Impact also falling to him. I’m not saying he’s likely to win, but don't be surprised if he steals a map.

Prediction: Triumphant Song Gaming 1-5 Dragon Phoenix Gaming




For Alpha X, this week is going to be an uphill battle: KaiZi Gaming are the clear favorites, seen by most as the only true rivals to DPG. Last week, KaiZi demonstrated their strength by sweeping Team LP 6-0. Can Alpha X put up a better fight?

Things should stark off pretty even, at least. αX.Astrea hasn’t been able to challenge the upper crust of Korean Protoss players in PvP yet, but did post some good results against players such as Super and Chance. His opponent KZ.Nice was the victor in a PvP match during the last week of GTC play, punishing LP.Jieshi's greed play. More impressive, perhaps, are the three maps he took off of Zest at the beginning of April in a BO9 show match. Judging from how they played so far, it does seem like both players feel safer and more confident in a longer games, so it’s possible we'll see some macro PvPs. But it’s still PvP, so we'll probably see a player try to cheese their way to a win. I do think the chances for a map split are very high here, as no one really has enough of an edge statistically to take the 2-0.

We cannot say the same for our next match, in which αX.BreakingGG will be the clear underdog against KZ.Bunny. While I maintain that BGG looked pretty good in the early and middle stages of his first ZvT against TSG.Star last week (the game in which Star played bio), he looked utterly helpless in the late game, and was absolutely crushed by Star’s mech play on the second map. With Bunny being known for his explosive bio play, we might be in for an unexpected treat, depending on how long BGG can keep up with his opponent. Bunny has looked improved lately, overcoming RagnaroK in the GSL qualifiers and beating TRUE in his Ro24 group—but perhaps BGG can keep the games close if his counterattacks hit their mark.

Our third game of the series contains some upset potential. αX.Zoun already took down one fellow Korean Protoss in BSG.Hurricane this season (though he was greatly helped by the latter’s terrible performance on the day), but beating KZ.Dear is a mission of the highest difficulty. However, it's probably one Zoun will have to clear in order to give his team any chance of winning. Dear has shown some very solid performances in the Protoss mirror, and is a tough draw for anyone not named Zest. For Zoun, the Week 1 win against Hurricane and another 2-0 over GP.Super in a clan war between Alpha X and Team GP outside of the GTC are his most prominent recent results, along with some losses to Patience and Creator. All in all, Zoun taking one map would already be a pretty good result for him, but he'll probably need a 2-0 for his contribution to affect the final result.

Prediction: Alpha X 1-5 KaiZi Gaming




With Chivo being gone and TSG severely weakened, Brave Star Gaming are suddenly in a much better position to actually make it to the playoffs, perhaps even with a good seed. Invictus Gaming should also be extra-motivated: they've had one loss erased from their record as Chivo's results have been voided. Back at 0-1 instead of 0-2, their playoff chances don't seem quite as bleak.

If there was an ‘Unluckiest Player of the Season’ award, iG.Coffee would be the early favorite to win it. For the third week in a row now, the Chinese Terran faces a Korean player, which is a shame since I feel like he would be slightly favored in most of the intra-China matches. He lost to both RagnaroK and DPG.PartinG so far this season, but he honestly didn’t look bad. Sure, the difference between him and his opponents was apparent in the end, but Coffee had some good moments in every game. But instead getting to take safe points against an easier opponent, he has to face another team's ace in BSG.Hurricane. Maybe it consoles him to know that Hurricane’s PvT form is relatively poor at the moment when it comes to the numbers. Don’t count Coffee out entirely, because when Hurricane has a bad day, it’s often a really bad day.

Our second match is a PvP between iG.MacSed and BSG.Cyan, two well-known names of the Chinese scene with a long list of matches against each other, which surprisingly is almost 50-50 over the course of their careers. MacSed has the historical advantage by the tiniest of margins—three maps out of the over 70 they played—but Cyan has the edge in recent victories and overall form. They already met three times this year alone, Cyan coming out ahead every time. He also seems to be a beast in PvP at the moment, posting a win rate of almost 70%. His opponent is much less fortunate, having lost more mirror matches than he won in recent times. Cyan then should be our clear favorite here, but MacSed definitely has it in him to take at least one point. The last two matches were 2-1 wins for Cyan, and MacSed took a map off of online Zest during the last KungFu Cup—that counts for something!

If BSG.Dream did not just 3-0 DPG.Dark in the KungFu Cup finals with a dominant showing of his BattleCruiser into Mech opening, I would have said iG.iAsonu could maybe score a point here with his signature aggression. But Dark’s roach-ravager pressure failed utterly and completely to have any impact at all against Dream, making me skeptical if the creative-minded iAsonu can really do any better. I will be careful not to over-hype Dream, because we got a little bit too excited last autumn during a few weeks of strong online results. But even if we're being cautious, Dream’s TvZ should be more than adequate against most Zergs in the GTC, including iAsonu (though it is notable that he lived up to his reputation as iG's best player by beating both TY and LP.Impact at NeXT last week, securing his team's only map wins).

Prediction: Invictus Gaming 1-5 Brave Star Gaming




After being demolished 0-6 by KaiZi Gaming in their first match of the season, Team LP will look to restore their credibility in the GTC with a good showing against newcomers Team GP. It has to be mentioned that Team LP advanced out of their group in NeXT last week by defeating both iG and TSG, so they're definitely better than their 0-6 loss to KaiZi suggests. They are certainly in a good position to profit off Chivo’s exit and TSG’s weakened line-up, perhaps setting up another dream run through the playoffs as was the case in the first season of CTC. Likewise, Team GP will want to start off on the right foot here, proving that their line-up can compete for a playoff spot.

At first look, the initial match should be a good one for LP.Patience, who faces GP.GogojOey, the first player from Hong Kong to participate in the league. On the second look, the numbers are surprisingly strong for our Zerg player, who boasts amazing recent form in ZvP, while Patience has struggled for map wins in the match-up in the same time frame. But on third look, these numbers are a bit misleading. Patience’s losses come from the likes of DPG.Dark and RagnaroK—very much expected and nothing he has need to excuse—while GogojOey has done a bit of stat-padding by dominating fellow SEA players in many online tournaments. Patience may be unreliable and inconsistent vs Code S Koreans, but is a deadly player against opponents of a lesser skill level. We'll see how significant GogojOey's stats really are.

The second duel is likely to be the decisive match in the series with LP.Impact taking on GP.Bomber: a match-up we last saw all the way back in 2016. The pressure is probably going to be on Bomber, as it seems more likely that GP is going to be down by a few points at this point in the series, and it’ll be on him to keep them afloat. Fortunately for him, Impact does seem quite vulnerable in ZvT right now, losing matches to DPG.Cure, SpeCial, and TaeJa recently. It’s not going to be a walk in part for the Terran veteran, however, as he had his own big losses to cope with: DongRaeGu demolished him 5-0 in a show match only a couple of days ago, and Armani also dealt him a defeat. So while he's trying to climb back into relevancy, he doesn’t quite have the credentials yet to be feared like the other Code S players in the GTC (though interestingly enough, Patience failed to make it into Code S this season). Taking a map doesn’t seem outlandish, though, and in the end that is all he really needs to do to give his remaining team mate a chance to force the ace match.

GP.Super is a CTC veteran, formerly playing for KaiZi Gaming and putting up a strong 6-0 regular season record last season, so he is definitely someone you can rely on in a team league. LP.Jieshi lost a PvP in his last appearance in the league against KZ.Nice, showing a very greedy play-style that relied on getting away with an economic advantage without dying to early aggression. It didn’t go all too well for him, even though Nice didn’t play all that aggressively. Now, curiously the statistics for this match actually favor Jieshi slightly, which is really surprising. Super lost a lot of PvP matches recently against players like Chance and αX.Zoun, even being eliminated from the GSL qualifiers in a mirror match-up. If LP is up 3-1 at this point, Jieshi may actually be in a good position to secure their victory here. Him 2-0'ing Super seems unlikely—maybe just because I remember Super being so solid last season—but I can’t just discount the stats, which make a map split out to be a likely outcome here. And that would probably not bode well for Team GP’s debut in the league.

Prediction: Team LP 4-2 Team GP

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