Week 2 Review: Zergs dominate as Maru's TvT streak ends

by Wax

A mass culling saw twelve players eliminated in week two of TSL8, leaving just twelve players to contend for the championship in the third and final week. Maru's surprise knockdown to the lower bracket seems to have the trophy beckoning for a Zerg champion, but you can never know for sure until the final GG is typed.

Last week, Maru told us that either Bunny or Cure were the most likely players to end his twenty-two match TvT winning streak, and the Team NV ace told no lies. Bunny handed Maru a shocking 2-1 in their upper-bracket match, reading Maru like a book and completely shutting down his aggressive early-game drop tactics with committed defense. While that was a great result for Bunny, it was probably not what most StarCraft II fans wanted as it prevented a fateful rematch between Maru and Serral (Maru defeated Serral in the King of Battles finals).

With Maru sent down to the lower bracket, the Swarm is now in pole position to win the TSL8 championship. Serral easily dispatched of Bunny to reach the winners semifinal, where he's joined by fellow Zergs Solar and Rogue. While they're joined by a Protoss interloper in Trap, he also seems destined to take a lower bracket plunge as he faces Serral at the top of his ZvP game.

While Maru was bested by Bunny, he did survive a lower bracket match against Cure to stay alive in the tournament. Alas, his next match is just as difficult, if not more so—he faces Dark, who was sent down to the lower bracket by his nemesis Rogue. It definitely feels like these two are facing off too early as this is effectively a round-of-12 match, but sometimes unfortunate brackets and seedings send title favorites on an early collision course.

Overall, TSL8 has been rather cruel to the non-Korean players—with just Reynor, HeroMarine, and Serral left in the top twelve, you'd think that this was a tournament from 2019 and not 2021. If Clem was the most painful week one elimination for the foreigners, then the week two 'award' would have to go to MaxPax. The Danish Dynamo (I'll just throw that one out there again and see if it sticks) was sent down to the lower bracket after a close loss to Trap in the upper bracket, and he had to square off against Scarlett with their tournament lives on the line. Fans may have expected MaxPax to win if they went by his form in the ESL Open Cups, but the veteran Scarlett came through with another clutch performance in a big tournament to send MaxPax packing (in turn, Scarlett was sent out of the tournament by Reynor). There's no question that MaxPax has incredible raw talent, but he still seems to need more seasoning in major events.

RagnaroK and herO have stayed around as unexpected survivors in the lower bracket, and at least one of them is going to reach the top eight as they face off in a head-to-head match. It's tempting to say that their luck will soon run out, but considering the upsets they've scored so far this tournament (RagnaroK beating Zest and Reynor, herO beating Clem), they might just have a few more surprises in store.

Recommended Games

Trap vs MaxPax (at 3h9m): MaxPax came into this match as the #1 rated PvP player on Aligulac.com, and it wasn't just some case of him farming wins in the European silo. He had taken out several strong Korean players in the previous weeks, including Zest, Zoun, and even Trap himself. Though it's impossible to draw sweeping conclusions from a single best-of-three, MaxPax's TSL8 match against Trap was still an intriguing test of how his unique PvP style would hold up in major events.

The answer, at least according to game two on Blackburn, was "really, really, well." This fascinating and unorthodox match saw MaxPax bring out what was effectively a Protoss 'mech' composition on Blackburn, turtling up with powerful and expensive units. On the other hand, Trap's play was Zerg-esque, taking many more expansions than his opponent and trying to use his mobility and numbers to break through his opponent's defenses.

While it never seemed like MaxPax was being truly threatened, the interplay between the different army compositions was still extremely entertaining to watch. PvP rarely gets to benefit from the contrasting armies that make other mirror matches fun—like mech vs bio in TvT or ground vs air in ZvZ—so it was a pleasure to see it happen for once.

Maru vs SpeCial - Game 2 (at 4h55m): Speaking of contrasting armies: could I interest you in mass Thors vs mass Liberators in a TvT? SpeCial has really been trying to force mech these days, and TSL8 was no exception. Interestingly enough, Maru's solution to mech wasn't mass Ravens or blazingly fast infantry movements—he simply made a f***ton of Liberators. While this match wasn't necessarily close, and I'm not even sure that Liberators are theoretically supposed to counter Thors, I still want to recommend this game because it was just so different from the typical TvT's that we usually see.

God of Predictions: Wardi

Week two's GOD OF PREDICTIONS is Wardi, who was correct on 11 out of 16 possible predictions for 68.75% accuracy. Even though Wardi had a horrid day five where he went 3/8, he rallied on day six with a perfect 8/8 score. Rotterdam and ZombieGrub tied for second place with 62.5% accuracy, while Steadfast came in fourth at 58.33%. Finally, feardragon took last place for the second straight week with 56.25% accuracy, despite being largely unburdened by his NA-fandom this time around.

Day 4 Caster Predictions - Day 5 Caster Predictions - Day 6 Caster Predictions

Since Shopify has yet to offer to sponsor GOD OF PREDICTIONS, I've retroactively decided my Twitch.tv/wardiii subscription is now a prize. That's a tax write-off, right?

Week 3 Preview: The Final Stretch

Matches begin at 12:00 GMT (+00:00) on Friday and Saturday. Sunday matches begin at 13:00 GMT (+00:00)

That sense of impending doom—all ZvZ on the final day?: Winter appears to be Swarm season, as Zergs are in a fantastic bracket position to win the TSL8 championship. Given Trap's poor PvZ form lately, and the fact that Maru has to navigate a treacherous BO3 against a cheesy Dark in the lower bracket, it feels like there's a real chance of an all-Zerg championship sunday.

If that does come to pass, it's hard to say exactly which Zerg would be favored. For the last year or so, Zerg vs Zerg between the top players has felt like a coin-flip, with the next tier of players having a solid shot of pulling off an upset in any given match (without spoiling the results too much, the recently concluded NeXT Tournament only served to further that perception). In a big tournament setting with preparation time, I'd still probably give Rogue a small edge over his peers due to his clutch mentality and meticulous build preparation. However, given that the final stages of TSL8 are a three day gauntlet, I really think this is a toss-up between any of the Zergs to win.

If it does come down to the fans' worst-case scenario, then personally, I hope that at least we get to see Solar go all the way. Serral, Rogue, and Dark have already won more than their fair share of championships, and it would be a breath of fresh air to see someone new break back into the title mix. Skill wise, Solar isn't too far back from the big three, but he's been prone to collapsing in big moments. If he can keep his mentality together this weekend, he definitely has a shot at getting through the ZvZ gauntlet and winning it all. Although, considering his luck, he'll probably just end up facing Maru again.

Terran saviors: Oh, right, Maru. A narrow 3-4 loss to Rogue in the Super Tournament finals shouldn't make us forget that Maru was the hottest player in the world headed into TSL8, and his TvZ had a lot to do with it. TvT may have been where he was putting up gaudy numbers, but TvZ was where he was beating the best players in the world in high-stakes matches.

Theoretically speaking, there's an opposite scenario to the ZvZ nightmare where Maru becomes a TvZ buzzsaw and rips through all of Dark, Reynor, Solar, Rogue, and Serral on his way to the championship. No, it's not a likely scenario, but much, much crazier things have happened in TSL.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to short sell ByuN, HeroMarine, and Bunny's chances to save the day. ByuN and Bunny just got absolutely mashed by Dark and Serral in week two, and there wasn't much in their play that suggested they could win rematches. As for HeroMarine, I like his chances against Reynor in his very next match (even Reynor is absolute,y positively, 100% terrified), but his historical record against the likes of Serral, Dark, and Rogue isn't that encouraging.

Bounceback opportunity for Trap and Reynor: Despite being the reigning TSL champion, Trap hasn't gotten much attention or hype in this tournament. The same goes for Reynor, who used to be one of the most feared players in the entire world. Alas, both players have been going through slumps over the past few months, and it wouldn't have been entirely surprising if they had been eliminated in week two.

Still, now that they've survived to play in the final week, one has to at least entertain the idea that they'll hit a hot streak at the right time. "Form is temporary, class is forever" is one of the more popular athletics cliches that has entered the Korean esports scene, but it turns out to be true from time to time. For instance, Dark's run through the lower bracket of TSL6—which was absolutely the most difficult tournament run of the pandemic era—came at a time when Dark himself was in a bit of a rut. Yet, for seven matches, Dark was able to play like the Global Champion version of himself, toppling nearly all the top players in the world. Maybe it was a one in a million run, but it was a reminder that you can always have faith in players who were once the best in the world.

May herO madness never end: I'll conclude with a player who doesn't have much of a shot to win the championship, but is still my favorite player of the entire tournament so far: herO.

I've always had an affinity for players who understand that there is an inherent competitive value to making things weird, and thus strive to confuse their opponents at the cost of lofty notions like 'efficiency' or 'optimal play.' Throughout TSL8, no one has been more fond of a messy brawl in the mud like herO, and players like Clem, Lambo, and Spirit have fallen victim to his unusual. Personally, my favorite moment from herO was when he brought back an archaic Phoenix-Adept all-in against Clem, and later admitted that it was a flat-out bad build. Yet, herO understood that even a bad build can be good for a single game if it gets in the head of his opponent. I think StarCraft II would be a lot more fun if more players realized that and incorporated it into their play (except the one-base Roach-Ravager bust in ZvT—that build will always be bad). Go forth, herO, and sow the maximum amount of chaos possible in your remaining matches!

Writer: Wax
Images: TeamLiquid
Statistics and records: Liquipedia and Aligulac.com