Week 8 Recap

Week 9 Preview

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

Gold Series Team Championship:
2020 Spring Season

by: TheOneAboveU

The results of week eight played out so that the five playoff teams of the Gold Series Team Championship have been determined with a week of games left to play. DPG, KaiZi, and Alpha X are locked into the top three in that order, while BSG and Team LP have been left to contest the #4 and #5 seeds. As for the rest of the teams, it's time to bid them farewell for this season, and see who can salvage some pride (and extra prize money) in the final week of games.

GTC on Twitch?

The more interesting topic for non-Chinese fans this week might be the abrupt ban of Twitch streams from Gold Series tournaments, which led to Wardi having to halt his long-running English coverage of the GTC/CTC. There is hope, however—a similar Twitch ban for Netease's Gold Series tournaments in the WarCraft III category was recently lifted, so relief may be on the way for StarCraft II as well.

TSG disbands

The current worldwide COVID-19 epidemic strikes down another StarCraft II team, as Triumphant Song Gaming disbanded their SC2 division due to the strain put on their sponsors by the extreme changes in the global economy. This makes TSG the GTC's second team after Chivo SC to disband due to COVID-19, and leaves Solar, Cloudy, and Star as free agents. However, the trio still will compete in their last match of the season.

Week 8 Recap

Points are awarded as follows:

• 3 points for a 'normal' victory in a series that does not require an ace match
  
• 2 points for a victory in a series that requires an ace-match
  
• 1 point for a loss in a series that requires an ace-match
  
• 0 points for a loss in a series that does not require an ace match

Triumphant Song Gaming 1 - 5 Invictus Gaming
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Invictus Gaming finally managed to get that precious win on the board—their just reward for keeping their heads up after each loss and putting up a respectable fight in many of their series. However, with the news of TSG’s SC2 division being disbanded after their loss to Invictus Gaming, the all-Chinese roster’s victory took on a bit of a bittersweet note—even making the joke that iG literally destroyed TSG seems too cruel.

Getting his team off to a good start as we expected, iG.Jim left TSG.Star without much of a chance in their match, winning the first game with an early Stalker move-out and somehow getting a Shield Battery into Star’s main base. In the second game, Jim player Blink Stalkers and held off Star’s Bio move-out with them, countering and winning afterwards.

After having crushed GP.Bomber a few weeks prior, iG.XiGua repeated his upset performance against TSG.Solar. Hitting a sweet timing while Solar was teching to Roaches, XiGua overwhelmed him with his massive Ling-Baneling attack, killing first Solar’s third base, and then breaking into his Natural to force the GG. The second clash featured essentially the same dynamics, only with Solar safely getting to Roaches this time while XiGua was stuck on Line-Baneling. Still, he got that important third map win, giving his teammate iG.Coffee a chance to close the series out with just a single map win against TSG.Cloudy.

Coffee didn't squander the opportunity. Bringing out his signature two-base heavy play, he went for a strong push at Cloudy’s third base, cleverly choosing a path which avoided the Protoss player’s Blink Stalkers, denying him the chance to weaken the attack with some micro. Coffee got deflected eventually, but killed 15 Probes and had a Liberator deny mining at the natural all the while. A second wave hit right before Psi-Storm was ready, so Cloudy’s High Templars couldn’t turn the tide anymore: Coffee secured the win for iG! Basking in the glory, he asked Cloudy if iG had already won the series in the second game. After the Protoss had confirmed that, Coffee told him he’d show off something fancy. And, indeed, he built three barracks in his own base, blocking off Cloudy’s scout with an early second depot. The mass Marine rush with SCV pull was enough to overwhelm the Protoss, who had played a normal expansion build.


Team LP 4 - 3 Alpha X
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Team LP and Alpha X delivered quite the nail biter in this important clash. While Alpha-X needed just a single point to clinch a playoff spot, LP needed as many points as possible to be safe (being the first of the mid-table teams to play their match). In the end, the two teams split the points, which ended up being enough to clinch their playoff spots after the rest of the week's games were played.

LP.Jieshi started with some Gateway aggression against αX.Astrea, but the American seemed very prepared for it and was able to break the Chinese player’s contain quite quickly, having assembled a Gateway force supported by Immortals. Though he also expanded, Astrea knew he had the superior army and tried his luck with an attack, which overwhelmed Jieshi, who didn’t amass enough Phoenixes yet to counter Astrea’s Robo units. Game 2 turned out to be a mirror of Game 1, with Astrea being the Gateway aggressor and Jieshi the Robo defender. Astrea came out of the scenario with the better economy, but was now in the position of having the worse army. His Oracle harassment furthered his eco lead, so Jieshi went for a massive attack, but his entire Adept force was trapped by a defensive Stasis Ward from Astrea, enabling the Alpha X player to safely finish off half of Jieshi’s army before the Adepts came back. Rolling with the gained advantage, Astrea closed the map out and set Alpha X up with a 2-0 lead.

The next PvP game went LP’s way, with LP.Patience getting the better trades against αX.Zoun in a match with back-and-forth attacks from both sides. Zoun came back in a close second game, harassing Patience constantly with his Warp Prism while both players went for Robo-based armies—Patience showed his signature Dark Templar into Disruptor play again, and almost blew up his own army while trying to defend against a Zealot runby. Instead of opting for a Stargate answer, Zoun responded with his own Disruptors to counter Patience's tech. Initiating a very courageous fight at Patience’s fourth, Zoun got off some devastating shots, crippling Patience’s Disruptor count and thus his ability to retaliate, and overwhelmed the LP player’s army to take the map.

Unfortunately for Alpha X, αX.BreakingGG just couldn’t get that last map win against LP.Impact, though he tried his best to steal it away. An early Ling-Baneling attack on the first map failed to achieve much at first, but then managed to cancel Impact’s third Hatchery. BKGG got a bit unlucky at this point, as his Speedling scout in the Korean’s main failed to see both the Lair and the Spire building there. Surprised by the Mutas, BKGG’s Roach attack lost all its momentum. While the Chinese Zerg held on for quite a while against Impact’s pressure, even getting some crippling burrowed Roach harassment through, he lost the decisive Roach-Ravager engagement. On the second map, Impact opted for a 12 Pool expansion, getting a lot of damage done to BKGG by killing Drones, Lings, and even two Queens. Playing from behind, BKGG couldn’t keep up in the Roach-Ravager game and was overwhelmed.

Not opting for the PvP in the ace match this time, LP sent out Impact to face Astrea in the ace match. In a move that showed a surprising amount of respect for Astrea's macro-game, Impact went for a Speedling flood against Astrea’s expansion. The Protoss held on well at first, managing to re-wall just in time despite a few very close calls, but Impact just did not stop the pressure, and broke through eventually. While Astrea managed to hold against one or two leaks, he was overrun eventually, as he couldn’t re-wall the gaps anymore, and ran out of units to buy time for himself. It was a very close ace match, but in the end Impact's gamble paid off big for his team.


SYF 0 - 6 Dragon Phoenix Gaming
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DPG have been the dominant team all season long, but thus far they had always won their matches in a relatively moderate manner. Finally, against poor, battered SYF, they achieved their first clean 6-0 victory.

SYF.DynaMite tried to score a cheap win against DPG.Dark with a Proxy 3 Rax build, but the Zerg had already anticipated this, opening with Pool first and scouting the proxied buildings. Killing three SCVs and two Marines while only losing one Zergling, Dark easily deflected DynaMite’s attack and the Terran had to tap out. In the next game, Dark opened with his trusty Roach pressure on Golden Wall, hitting right before DynaMite’s first Battlecruiser could come out, and killed almost 30 SCVs with ten Roaches. Though he took some losses to the BCs afterwards, he defended DynaMite’s aggression well and always countered with Roaches, keeping the Terran economy low. Amassing a Roach-Corrupter swarm, Dark simply overwhelmed DynaMite’s small Mech force.

The second pairing saw DPG.Firefly put on another very solid PvZ performance, though SYF.EF did not look bad by any means in Game 1. In the first game, the Protoss opened with Stargate and followed this up with Charge and Archons, playing a style depending on multiple attacks from different sides to pull the Zerg’s Roach forces apart. Massive warp-ins into EF’s main, coupled with attacks on his third base achieved just that. EF survived the onslaught, and was able to counterattack two times, but was deflected by Firefly’s back-up force of Immortals. In the second game, EF just fell apart against Firefly’s Glaive pressure, which killed 33 Drones before the Zerg conceded the match.

Unfortunately for all involved, with SYF.SortOf having returned to Sweden, and GTC being bound to the Asian region, the last series of the day was marred by disconnection and lag issues for the Zerg, leading to a rather one-sided stomp by DPG.PartinG. Not that PartinG wasn't the favorite anyway under neutral conditions, but SortOf's all-ins might have fared better otherwise. Anyway, PartinG managed to scout SortOf’s intentions perfectly and held the attacks with ease to complete the sweep.


Team GP 0 - 6 Brave Star Gaming
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In the Preview, I wrote that if ever there was a time to show up in their best form for Brave Star Gaming, that time had now come. And, lo’ and behold, they managed to 6-0 Team GP to secure a playoff spot for themselves in quite the impressive fashion.

GP.GogojOey showed his confidence against BSG.Cyan by going for a standard macro game instead of all-inning, but took a lot of losses against the Protoss player’s Stargate opener. Four Oracles were produced and roamed the map, deflecting Zergling attacks and diving in for Drone kills, as well as denying jOey’s fourth base. The Zerg went for Mutas to combat the Oracles, but Cyan had seen that coming and had already prepared Phoenixes at home, resulting in a weird mixture of Muta-Corrupter-Ling fighting Cyan’s Gateway-Oracle-Phoenix forces all around the map. In the end, the Protoss was able to break through on the ground despite losing his air force to finish the game. Golden Wall, as always, ended up GogojOey’s map choice, and he quickly secured the gold base for himself to initiate a big Roach attack, but Cyan scouted the move and defended well. At this point, both entered a back-and-forth battle between their bases, until Cyan had finally overwhelmed the Zerg.

While this got BSG off to a good start, the next duel could have still started a comeback for TGP. GP.Super has played a fantastic season, but it seems BSG.Scarlett just knows the secret to beating Korean Protoss players. The first game turned out to be a long macro game with both players being seemingly very content on just staying on their side of the map and building up their economies. Afterwards, the bouts between Scarlett’s Roach-Ravager-Ling-Baneling swarm and Super’s Robo-Gateway army began, with the Zerg holding her bases successfully and then setting up to go for her favoured BL-Infestor composition, while also doing devastating Baneling runbys. Super hit a timing right as Scarlett’s Brood Lords were done, but no Infestors were around yet, initiating a prolonged battle around her fourth Hatchery, as both sides fed more and more troops into the engagement. He was able to break both her initial army and her Roach-Ravager re-max, but the Zerg player had whittled Super’s army down so much that he had to retreat after killing merely one Hatchery. Both rebuilt their strength after that, but Super’s economy was crippled by Baneling attacks, and so his next move-out turned out to be a do-or-die maneuver, with Scarlett holding successfully. Game 2 was a quicker affair, with Scarlett mixing it up and hitting an attack timing before Super’s Glaive build could take effect, outright killing the Protoss and securing her team the win.

Afterwards, BSG.Dream finished off GP.Bomber in relatively quick manner. Playing Reaper-Hellion aggression on the first map and expanding behind it, Dream got far ahead of Bomber and crushed his desperation attack with ease. Game 2 was much closer, with Dream getting ahead at first due to his proxy Barracks build, which cancelled Bomber’s expansion, but later turned into a weird base trade scenario, as both players dropped into their opponents’ main bases. But while Dream managed to evacuate all his assets, Bomber neglected this and outright lost his main OC and some infrastructure to tank fire. Dream, having more production capabilities left, was able to destroy Bomber’s force in his main, forcing the GP Terran to concede.

Weekly MVP Award: LP.Impact

Securing Team LP’s playoff participation with a very solid 3-0 performance, Impact definitely deserves our Weekly MVP Award for this service. Not only did he win his series against BKGG without stumbling, he also defeated Astrea in a match in which I would argue he entered as an underdog.

Our honorable mentions this week go to iG.XiGua—not only to recognize his great for performance this week, but also to once more highlight his fantastic showing against Team GP in the catch-up match—and to BSG.Scarlett for securing a 2-0 against one the league’s most solid players in Super.

Week 9 Preview

With only the somewhat irrelevant seeding between Team LP and Brave Star Gaming to be determined this week, prize money will be the primary thing fought over this weekend. For the former TSG and DLG squads, this will be their send-off matches, and it would be great to see them end their GTC journeys on a high note. Let's hope the players agree and deliver some great games!




One final time the team of Triumphant Song Gaming will stand on the battlefield together, then their bond is cut and the three players will go their separate ways. Still, they’ll want to depart with a victory over Team LP to end the season a somewhat high note. Unfortunately, that's going to be quite a challenging feat to achieve.

PvP has not been TSG.Cloudy’s strength ever since his return from retirement, with the TSG player-manager merely winning a single Bo3 this year up to this point. That's not that surprising, considering that Cloudy has shown himself to be more of a standard macro player in the other match-ups—the current PvP meta may simply not play into his strengths. A player of the caliber of LP.Jieshi, who definitely falls on the cheesier side of the scale, feels much more comfortable at the moment, and this is clearly reflected in his rather solid form in the mirror match-up. Being able to learn from a team mate like LP.Patience likely also helps. Without Cloudy scoring a 2-0 here, TSG will find it incredibly difficult to secure victory before an ace match. Actually, it's hard to see him even taking a single map, unless he's done some really intensive PvP training.

TSG.Solar and LP.Impact have always been two of Korea’s most active online warriors, as such their match history is quite a long one. Solar doesn’t just dominate the historical record between the two, their more recent clashes also have been heavily in his favor. Of six meetings, Solar won five, while Impact merely got away as the winner in the sole Bo1 they played at NeXT Spring—though perhaps Impact’s only win being achieved in a team league should give LP some courage, as should Solar's map drop against iG.XiGua last week. Also, a majority of the series did not end 2-0, showing Impact is consistently able to take maps from Solar. And as we all know, that's all you need to do against TSG to score a win in the end. Solar is definitely the favorite here, but as has so often been the case, his victory may not save his team from one last defeat.

The last match is the most one-sided of the day, stats wise: TSG.Star will face LP.Patience, who is exactly the kind of player a young up-and-comer still lacking competitive experience does not want to face: an unorthodox, brazen Protoss player thriving on chaos. If Patience can pull off mind games against a seasoned veteran like BSG.Dream, imagine what he can do to Star. This is going to be a repeat of their first and only meeting at NeXT Spring, where Patience scored a point for his team. This time, he’ll likely have the honor of hoisting the TSG coffin on his shoulder.

Prediction: Triumphant Song Gaming 2-4 Team LP




The SYF trio deserves respect for continuing their fight in the league despite being scammed by their team owner early on in the season. They weren’t able to make anything magical happen after the scandal, but they never gave up and showed extraordinary fighting spirit. And perhaps, with their journey together coming to an end, they can once more show their strength from the beginning of the season.

A lot will depend on the connection situation for SYF.SortOf. His games against DPG.PartinG showed some big connection issues making a longer, standard game nigh impossible, which is unfortunately where SortOf’s big advantage over iG.Coffee would be. Not being able to play macro is severely reducing the Swede’s options and Coffee should plan accordingly. If he survives up to a certain point, he should have the games in the bag, since it’s hard to see SortOf split up his Banelings against Tank fire or control Mutalisks with a severe ping disadvantage. Some sort of Baneling bust or Roach-Ravager play will likely be his solution to the problem, and if Coffee isn’t ready for it he may well succumb to the aggression.

As for our next match, it’s pretty much a toss-up, surprisingly. SYF.EF and iG.XiGua have an evenly matched historical record, a similar, slightly negative recent ZvZ record, and yet they both have scored some impressive mirror match victories over strong Korean players in the last few weeks. SYF beat DongRaeGu 2-0 in a Kung Fu Cup, and only last week in GTC XiGua took a map off Solar. A 2-0 for either team seems very possible—this one is as close to a coin-toss as can be.

While the stats are telling us absolutely nothing about the previous pairing, they do give SYF.DynaMite a large advantage over iG.XY. I would, however, provide a bit of an asterisk to those numbers. While XY’s win rate in TvT may not be great at the moment, his strategic approach to the match-up is actually quite good. It’s merely his execution, which is not on the same level, and so far this is what’s really held him back from pulling off a massive upset. Remember, he even had DPG.Cure at the brink of defeat at some point early in the season, he just couldn’t close it out. Against DynaMite, a much less experienced player, perhaps there is more of a chance of gaining a critical advantage. Still, the odds are quite bad, and DynaMite has shown some great TvT outside of GTC as well recently. It’s hard to say where we are going to be at this point in the series, with the previous two match-ups being hard to predict. But I assume this to be either over in favor of SYF after this TvT, or going to the ace match, where DynaMite will likely get another chance to prove his worth.

Prediction: SYF 4-3 Invictus Gaming




Team GP made for a really cool replacement for Chivo SC, and must definitely be commended for playing such a big part in the playoff race despite their later entry into the season. But it seems like they ran out of steam just before the finish line, and the only reward for their valor will be a coup de grace performed by the undisputed titans of the league.

You’ve seen me be critical of both GP.Bomber’s TvZ and DPG.Dark’s ZvT in these articles before, and if you check on their recent stats in the match-up, you’ll perhaps understand why. That said, I’ll still rate Dark as the heavy favorite to score a 2-0 victory here. His ZvT may not be the best at the moment, but his Roach-heavy style is exactly the kind of thing which could easily catch Bomber unawares and crush him, while I don’t see the Terran’s passive style stand up to Dark’s macro abilities. You need to pull Dark apart bit by bit, and Bomber simply does not play TvZ that way at the moment. Dark easily outclasses Bomber in every area.

This will be the first meeting for GP.Super and DPG.Firefly and while everyone’s gut reaction might be to declare Super the favorite going into this, the numbers do paint a different picture with Aligulac projecting the match to be slightly tipped in Firefly’s favor. While the Chinese Protoss often finds himself at a disadvantage fighting Korean Protoss players in individual tournaments, he seems pretty evenly matched with them in team leagues, splitting maps with LP.Patience previously (and he should have won that series 2-0), and decisively taking down KZ.Dear in the NeXT Spring Grand Finals to force an ace match. Still, it’s probably fair to say that Aligulac is a bit off in this case: Super has had more consistent PvP results against stronger players than Firefly, and we should look on to him as the slight favorite, if there must be one. Overall, I’m looking at this as a map split scenario.

DPG.Cure has a chance to let out some frustration from his GSL finals loss by beating up on poor GP.GogojOey. You don't need us to tell you that jOey is severely out-gunned. Trying a macro game against Cure would be insanity, especially on Purity and Industry, so he will likely fall back onto his cheesy side to try and steal a map win. Not exactly an unpredictable move, so Cure’s probably going to be fine.

Prediction: Team GP 1-5 Dragon Phoenix Gaming




As this is almost a meaningless match in terms of playoff implications, it's not shocking to see KaiZi bring out their bench squad to handle their final regular season game. But such is the depth of KaiZi that even their B Team might be able to get the win.

While BSG.Dream vs. KZ.Bunny doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as, say, Dream vs. INnoVation, KaiZi have picked a great match-up here for their Terran. In both meetings between these two players this year, Bunny has won 2-0, and I specifically remember their TSL5 Qualifier match to be quite a one-sided affair in favor of Bunny. The KaiZi Terran prefers decisive early game plays, moving out with small Reaper-Hellion forces and perhaps a Medivac to force an early decision. That’s how Bunny destroyed SYF.DynaMite in record time in their duel in GTC, but it’s also how Dream gained early advantages over GP.Bomber last week. I expect a lot of early action in this one, and hopefully a much closer showdown between the two than their previous match.

In the second pairing we get the next edition of BSG.Scarlett taking on a Korean Protoss player. This time, she’s facing her former Newbee team mate KZ.Dear, who had eliminated her from the last season of GSL Code S, so there might be some payback to be had. Last week against GP.Super, the Canadian Zerg showed her trademark mix of macro strength and cheese (going from a BL-Infestor game into an early Roach-Ling attack), which has given her great success against Korean Protoss players in the ESL Opens. On the other hand, just dying to Glaive Adepts is always on the table. This match should be another close one, with a map split looking like the most probable outcome.

To—perhaps—top it off, we get BSG.Cyan taking on KZ.Nice. Nice had a very strong Kung Fu Cup run recently where he scored some solid PvP wins, before losing to teammate INnoVation in the finals. In general, the mirror match-up seems to be his weak point at the moment, which perhaps open up the opportunity for Cyan to close the series out in favor of his team (if his teammates have pulled their weight). The BSG Protoss is already a slight favorite, having won four out of six duels with Nice this year, including the two Bo5s they played. He's generally fairing a bit better in PvP as of late, but I can't really put my hand down on a 2-0 victory here. I can absolutely see all of these three matches ending with a map split, with an ace match to decide it all.

It’s hard to say who we might get to see in that last duel. BSG certainly has two strong options in Scarlett and Dream, while KaiZi has some heavy hitters in reserve. But will KaiZi use them? This season we haven’t seen anyone field an ace player who didn't already play on the same day (possibly due to rules?), so we probably won't see INnoVation parachute in to save the day. Still, I’d favor KaiZi to take it in the end, even knowing that BSG are a dangerous team (Scarlett's all-in's in particular).

Prediction: Brave Star Gaming 3-4 KaiZi Gaming

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