Week 9 Recap
BASILISK take down Vitality

Week 10 Preview
Shopify vs Weibo in key match

Bracket and standings on Liquipedia

World Team League - 2024 Summer Season

by: Nakajin

An eventful week in the WTL made sure that with just two rounds left in the regular season, almost nothing has been decided in terms of relegation or playoff seeding.

At the top of the table, BASILISK took a clean victory over Vitality, meaning the race for the regular season championship (and #1 playoff seed) will go down to the wire. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the standings, OFFSYDE, Berserker, and Starlight Twinkle have been left tied at five points, which should see the struggle to avoid relegation continue until the final round. Finally, the tight mid-table battle between Mystery Gaming and Platinum Heroes for the seventh and final playoff spot is still undecided, while Twisted Fairy lurks on the outside in hopes that the two teams will slip up.

The upcoming week 10 is unlikely to determine any team's fate entirely—rather, it should set the table for a suspenseful finale in week 11.

Week 9 Recap

Top 7 teams qualify for the playoffs.
Bottom 2 teams must requalify.
Points are awarded as follows:

• 3 points for a 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

Mystery Gaming+AG 2 - 4 PSISTORM-NAVI
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Mystery Gaming failed to gain any ground on Platinum Heroes in the playoff race, falling to the boys in the tornado jerseys.

Nanami had MYGAG's best chance of creating an upset in his first game against Spirit. His delayed 3-Gate Stalker aggression hit just as Spirit had boosted Medivacs across the map, opening up the potential for an anything-can-happen basetrade. However, Spirit mass repaired his Bunker just in time to save the day, while his drop inflicted the damage he needed to snowball his way to a quick victory. Nanami put up a respectable fight in game two after losing his third base to an early push, but Spirit was just too good with his tech transitions and army movements in the late-game.

MaxPax then put PSISTORM on match point, flipping the usual PvT script on Ghost River to kill Coffee with a fast Blink all-in. Then, as if to make a point, he repeated the feat on Oceanborn to lock in three points for PSISTORM.

Lancer salvaged two map points against Gerald to close the series. The player formerly known as Cyan took his first map with some slippery Adepts, and then made it a 2-0 with a double Immortal drop followed by a Stalker-Immortal timing.

Platinum Heroes-R8 1 - 5 Shopify Rebellion
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While Mystery Gaming couldn't make up any ground on Platinum Heroes, the Heroes themselves didn't create any distance either. A disciplined Shopify Rebellion team proved to be too much to handle, and the Heroes left the match with zero points.

The series opened with Lambo swatting away Nicoract's BC-Hellion opener, after which he surgically picked apart the mech follow-up. Nicoract started game two with his pet cat in his lap, who may have advised him to try a sneaky 4-Barracks stim Marine all-in. However, Lambo used his own cat-sense to figure out that something was amiss, and prepared ample defenses with which to stop Nicoract's attacks and seal the 2-0. We do not know if Nicoract's cat received admonishment or consolatory pets afterwards.

Ace players Goblin and ByuN clashed in the middle match, which resulted in Platinum Heroes stealing a surprising 1-1. On Ghost River, Goblin and ByuN were happy to sit back and split the map up until the 11 minute mark. Goblin then began his offensive, pinning ByuN back with effective attacks while freely taking expansions on his side of the map. While ByuN had the tech advantage with Liberators, he couldn't gain any ground against Goblin's constant warp-ins of mass Chargelots and Stalkers. Goblin even managed to establish expansions on ByuN's side of the map, after which he pummeled ByuN to death with his big sacks of money. A 2-0 for Goblin seemed to be on the table after his Phoenixes shut down ByuN's early aggression on Crimson Court. However, just as it seemed like Goblin was on his way to another economy-based victory, ByuN killed all the Protoss momentum with a big drop into the main. ByuN refused to let Goblin fully stabilize, and piled on the pressure with infantry to finish the game.

Scarlett then proceeded to secure the victory for Shopify with a come-from-behind win against Kelazhur on Amphion. Kelazhur killed 15 Drones with his initial 3 Hellions, and then 10 more with a follow-up. You'd think hosting a 24 Drone BBQ before the 6 minute mark would lead to a bit of a bop, but somehow Scarlett managed to force a regular macro game through some great Roach-Ravager play. Ultimately, Scarlett survived until she had a game winning combo of Roaches, Ultralisks, and Vipers, which must have left Kelazhur wondering what the heck just happened. With the series decided, Scarlett ran up the score in game two with some early-game Ravager pressure followed by solid macro play.

OFFSYDE Esports 4 - 2 Starlight Twinkle
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OFFSYDE turned the "don't get relegated" contest into a three way race, bringing Starlight Twinkle down into the trenches with a 4-2 victory.

uThermal gave one of his stronger showings of the season in the opening bout, winning a solid, no-frills macro game against Wayne on Alcyone. However, Wayne got his point back on Post-Youth through deception, concealing a fast Spire and surprising uThermal with Muta-Ling.

Next up was HeroMarine vs Krystianer. Big Gabe pulled ahead on Ghost River, haranguing his opponent early on with Cloaked Banshees before finishing him off with a routine mid-game push. However, Krystianer proved his mettle by tying the series once more on Oceanborn. The SLT ace wielded his 4-Gate Blink opener with precision, dealing enough SCV damage to force HeroMarine to counterattack with all his Marines and Tanks in a desperation basetrade. Despite being the slower party in the basetrade, HeroMarine played the situation extremely well and manufactured a very even rebuild-from-scratch scenario. Unfortunately, he had been unable to complete stimpack upgrade prior to the basetrade, which allowed Krystianer to win the final battle between surviving armies with some very impressive Blink micro and Warp Prism juggling. After taking the hard fought victory, Krystianer continued his evolution toward becoming the HungryBox of the StarCraft II scene with another one of his energetic popoffs.

With the series tied 2:2, Firefly closed it out for OFFSYDE with a 2-0 against YoungZest. While the little-known YoungZest had created some big upsets in previous seasons, this outing proved to be rather unremarkable as he waved the white flag in two consecutive mass-Phoenix wars.

Team Liquid 5 - 1 Berserker Esports
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Berserker remained in the relegation zone with a loss to Team Liquid, where all the matches went mostly as expected.

Cure demonstrated the weight class difference between him and BattleB in game one, overwhelming the German Terran with the speed and pace of his multitasking. Then, he made it 2-0 with slower, more methodical Marine-Tank play in game two.

SKillous then brought the three points home for Liquid against DnS, winning a pair of fairly straight-forward mass Gateway unit games.

GunGFuBanDa and MaNa tied their series to close things out, with GFBD winning the Blink Stalker war in game one while MaNa DT dropped his way to victory in game two.


Twisted Fairy 3 - 4 Weibo Gaming
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Weibo Gaming dropped a point against Twisted Fairy, which was a result they most certainly rued later after BASILISK won cleanly against Vitality. Had Weibo taken all three points from their match against Twisted Fairy, they would have had a realistic—if small—chance at winning the regular season.

Oliveira quickly put some points on the board for WBG, brute forcing his way through Nice's Phoenix opener with a Marine-Cyclone-Tank push. Nice then picked Goldenaura to give himself a better chance at playing a standard macro game, but Oliveira still carved him up with Medivac drop play to take the 2-0.

Next up were Classic and herO, who fought their way to a 1-1 draw. Game one saw Classic go for a MaxPax-style fast expand with Stargate tech, while herO went for a 1-base proxy-Robo all-in. herO bypassed Classic's frontal defenses by elevatoring his units into the enemy main, but two Void Rays with the support of a Probe militia easily parried the attack and forced herO to GG. herO was still in an aggressive mindset on Crimson Court, and this time he was successful as he forced several small-scale skirmishes in the early game and took advantageous trades. herO capitalized on the situation quite adeptly, hitting a Glaive-Adept + Immortal timing to get the 1-1.

That put WBG in the driver's seat with a 3-1 score, but Jieshi was unable to continue his string of strong performances and gave up the tying 0-2 to Stats. Game one saw Jieshi's DT-drop fail to recoup its investment, which eventually led to Stats overwhelming him with Gateway units in the mid-game. The two players were then thrust into a very active and hectic second game, where both players stayed on two bases and harassed each other simultaneously. Unfortunately for Jieshi, he couldn't quite keep up with Stats in multitasking, and he eventually had to GG.

For the second straight week, Weibo elected Oliveira as their ace over herO, whereas the Fairies went with their usual ace in Classic. Oliveira opened with a greedy 3-CC opener on Oceanborn, which matched-up well against Classic's middle-off-the-road Blink-Robo start. Classic failed to slow down Oliveira with his Blink Stalkers, and it wasn't long before Oliveira used his strong economy to put a much bigger army on the field. Oliveira opted to play his lead in a slow and safe manner, delaying Classic's fourth base for as long as possible while expanding and teching up to Liberators back at home.

While Oliveira had certainly put himself on the path to victory, Classic still had a chance to change things when he busted out with a max-supply army. After much maneuvering and jockeying for for position, Classic finally found a decent engagement angle against overstimmed infantry with the supporting Liberators slightly out of position. Classic just barely won the fight, after which he immediately charged toward the Terran main to try and camp the production buildings before infantry could reach critical mass again. This was almost a game-winner for Classic, but he erred by setting up his Warp Prism a little too far forward and allowing it to get picked off.

Still, Classic had broken the core of the Terran army, and he seized the chance by striking again before Oliveira could fully stabilize. What ensued were several minutes of repeated attacks, with Classic desperately trying to push Oliveira over the edge into defeat. However, the resource situation was on Oliveira's side (exacerbated by a juicy nuke on a Probe line), and Classic had a limited number of attempts before he ran out of steam. Eventually, Oliveira finally achieved the solid hold that let him stabilize for good, after which he closed out the game and series.


Vitality 2 - 4 BASILISK
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BASILISK with Serral in the line-up remained undefeated on the season as they took down first place Vitality to spice up the race for the regular season championship.

Reynor started things off by stopping Maru's undefeated streak on the season. Maru committed hard to 2-Rax Reapers on Alcyone by building five of the raiders, but Reynor shut them down to exit the early-game with a significant lead. Reynor's economy skyrocketed like a meme stock, and he cashed out with a victory by shutting down Maru's Marine-Tank pushes while hitting several devastating backdoor attacks. Reynor then decided it was his turn to go on the offensive on Ghost River. Maru wisely gave up his third base and sat tight on two bases until it was safe to poke his head out again, while Reynor was content to expand and macro behind his attack. Economically, it was a good tradeoff for Reynor, but he was left trailing in terms of tech and upgrades. Maru ruthlessly took advantage of this, hitting with a near-max army of 2/2 Marine-Marauder-Tank just as Reynor's Ultralisks were about to hatch. Freshly spawned space cows fighting separately through narrow chokes don't do well against a consolidated Terran army, leaving Reynor with no choice but to GG out.

Next up was Ryung's presumed execution against Serral, which indeed ended up being a 2-0 for BASILISK. Game one was the kind of never-in-danger, macro beatdown from Serral that most fans expected, but Ryung managed to make game two a little bit interesting with a 3-base 8-Barracks all-in. Ryung hit a very nice timing that might have had a chance to win the game if microed by a younger and more spry Terran, but he ended up eating too many Baneling hits in the end.

That left Solar needing to clutch out a difficult 2-0 against ShoWTimE in the final series. The two players headed to Amphion, where Solar opted for a hidden Spire after showing ShoWTimE some initial Roaches. While this mid-game tech switch went undetected, Solar's initial round of 12 Mutalisks 'only' dealt moderate damage instead of getting the game-changing results they needed to justify the investment. Deeming a switch back to ground units to be even worse, Solar fully committed to mass Mutalisks in hopes of overwhelming ShoWTimE before he could get out enough defensive Phoenixes. However, die Mauer lived up to his name, and simply sat tight on four bases, chased Mutalisks around, and waited as his army grew stronger and stronger. Not wanting to give Solar the slightest opportunity to basetrade, ShoWTimE only moved out when he was absolutely sure he could attack while covering himself on defense. This patient attitude proved to be a winning one as well, as Solar's Lair-tech army had no answer for ShoWTimE's game-ending attack at around 16 minutes.

Solar got a consolation point for Vitality on Post-Youth, going for maximum annoyance value with a Swarm Host-Lurker composition. The game ended up being quite interesting and unusual, with ShoWTimE trying to counter the burst firepower of the Zerg swarm with the mobility of his Gateway units. While the game remained close for a while, ultimately ShoWTimE's inability to preserve enough of his key splash damage units (Templars) gave Solar the win. Overall, ShoWTimE vs Solar was the most entertaining series of the week, and one that's well worth checking out the VOD for.

Weekly MVP: WBG.Oliveira

This week's MVP pick was rather easy, as only one player came up with a 3-0 performance. Weibo Gaming's Oliveira dragged his team to a victory over Twisted Fairy (2-0 vs Nice, 1-0 vs Classic), keeping the team one point clear of Team Liquid and Shopify at third place in the standings.

Weekly MVP's:

• Week 9: WBG.Oliveira
  
• Week 8: PSISTORM.MaxPax
  
• Week 7: WBG.herO
  
• Week 6: SR.ByuN
  
• Week 5: BASILISK.Reynor
  
• Week 4: MYG.Cyan
  
• Week 3: SR.Scarlett
  
• Week 2: OG.Firefly
  
• Week 1: SLT.Krystianer

TL.net Moral Victory™ Recipients: KeeN, Nicoract

Preview: Regular Season Week 10

The Twisted Fairies (9 points) are not quite out of the playoff race yet, as both Platinum Heroes (12 points) and Mystery Gaming (10 points) are facing near-certain losses this week against BASILISK and Vitality. However, Twisted Fairy themselves have a tough match-up as well, as they go up against Team Liquid.

Stats finally played up to expectations against Jieshi last week, which bodes well as he faces TL ace Clem. The Shield of Aiur sporadically gives us glimpses of his prime form, and he did so against Clem at DreamHack Dallas where he handed him a 2-1 loss. Still, you'd have to peg Stats as the underdog when you consider their average, day-to-day form, and just surviving Clem's early aggression (now aided by same-server ping due to Clem's Korea trip) could be tough for Stats. The hope for Stats will be that his defense and mechanics are on point, and he can survive Clem's early game stratagems and drag him into longer, messier macro games.

The second duel between Classic and Cure will be an interesting test for two players drawn into the same Esports World Cup bracket. Cure has an overwhelming head-to-head advantage against Classic when you look at their entire careers, but things have been closer this year where he only has a 6-5 lead. It would be a welcome boost of confidence for either to get the win here and show their elite standing.

SKillous and Nice will finish the series. Recent form is clearly on Skillous' side, but Nice has good enough baseline ability that I think he'll be able to wrestle away at least a map.

In the end, I think Clem will make the difference in the end and give TL the full three points.

Prediction: Team Liquid 4- 2 Twisted Fairy



Platinum Heroes seem to have made peace with their imminent demise against BASILISK, sending out Nikich and ArT for their season debuts.

Hardcore WTL fans will recognize Nikich from the WTL qualifiers, where he was the only player getting wins on the board for team Platoon. A match against trigger is a lot more winnable than one against Serral or Reynor, and maybe Nikich will show that he deserves some more main roster appearances with a good performance. Trigger will still be the favorite, but Nikich's online wins over Astrea and Lancer in the last few months at least show a smidgen of upset potential.

The rest of the matches project to be a BASILISK stomp, although I would love for Goblin to continue his great WTL campaign (and continue the 1-1 curse) against Reynor. However, it's still a longshot for Goblin to get the 1-1, and BASILISK still have the ultimate insurance in the form of Serral if it comes down to it.

Prediction: BASILISK 5 - 1 Platinum Heroes





In the midst of their most challenging stretch of games ever in the WTL (two losses in a row— gasp!), Vitality will be happy to have an easier match against MYGAG. A victory is probably out of the question for MYGAG, but taking maps is still valuable as there are some fringe tiebreaker scenarios to consider in week 11.

Lancer vs Solar looks like their best chance of getting some points, with Lancer having stolen a 1-1 in their last duel. Still, with a 4% historical win-rate against Solar, it really would be a heist if he pulled it off again. Maru and Ryung far outmatch their Protoss opponents, and they shouldn't have too hard a time securing the victory for Vitality.

Prediction: Vitality 6 - 0 Mystery Gaming



PSISTORM are the only team whose final placement we can feel somewhat certain about, as their name is currently penciled in for sixth place. The situation is much more urgent for SLT, who are in the midst of a tight relegation avoidance race with OFFSYDE and Berserker.

There's really no 'good' configuration of match-ups for SLT vs PSISTORM, but Krystianer vs Gerald is a satisfactory opener. The two Polish Protosses play each other very often in both online and offline competitions, with the head-to-head favoring Krystianier moderately in recent months. A 1-1 should be expected, but Krystianer has the chance (and duty) to make it a 2-0 with a good performance.

Things are much rougher for Cham and Wayne as they go up against Spirit and MaxPax. It's especially bad for them since none of the starting maps allow for gold-powered early/mid-game shenanigans, but you can bet there WILL be shenanigans nonetheless. The script for an SLT upset would have Cham and Wayne getting a single map between them, while Krystianer comes through with a 2-0 against Gerald. Of course, PSISTORM would be favored in any ace match, but just getting a point would be big for SLT.

My head tells me it's a 5-1 for PSISTORM, but I'll go with my heart for once*, and believe in an upset to keep the relegation race suspenseful.

Prediction: PSISTORM 4 - 3 Starlight Twinkle

*Once this paragraph.





While this match won't be conclusive, whoever wins would gain a massive advantage in the don't-get-relegated contest. This is the easiest remaining match for the teams in the relegation three-way, and whoever gets points here might survive until the very end.

HeroMarine and BattleB will partake in a rare all-German TvT competition. While BattleB has shown us some potential this season, it should be smooth sailing for Big Gabe in this important match.

uThermal against GunGFuBanDa feels like a toss-up. GFBD has played better in solo tournaments this year, but when it comes to the WTL, he's still tied 3-13 with uThermal this season. Considering that uThermal gave away a bunch of losses by playing random early on, one could argue he's actually been better when he's played 100% seriously. A 1-1 seems most likely, but I rule out no result.

Firefly and DnS should also be very close. Six months ago, DnS was deep in a WTL slump, but he has really recovered well this season. His team now need him to get a 2-0, but Firefly has a long history of clutch heroics in the WTL. In the end, I'll pick ONSYDE to win based on their Big Gabe difference.

Prediction: OFFSYDE 4 - Berserker eSports



We shouldn't overlook the upper/mid-table battle for playoff seeding, as the ability to skip a round is invaluable in the gauntlet-style WTL playoffs (well, except for the 6th-7th place teams, but no format is perfect). WBG and Shopify are likely to end up somewhere in the 3rd-5th place range, and 3rd would feel a lot better given the potential opponents coming up from lower in the gauntlet.

With Maru suffering his first map loss of the season, a tiny MVP award window has opened for herO (16-3) and ByuN (16-4). Since the start of 2024, they are at a near deadlock in both head-to-head and overall performances against each other's respective races. A 1-1 is the logical prediction, while a 2-0 would likely secure a team victory for the winner.

Scarlett will have a very hard time beating Oliveira, as she's had trouble dealing with strong, straight-up play in the recent past (unless she can force an interminably long game). Oliveira has been practicing with Serral and is in his best form since his world championship run, so a 2-0 seems like the likely result.

Lambo will hope to avenge Scarlett in a perplexing match against soO. The WBG Zerg is one of the finest ZvZ players in the history of the game, and sometimes he still shows glimpses of that legacy in this twilight phase of his career. However, he's been way too up and down lately, and I don't think he's sharp enough to take on Lambo on a normal day.

An ace match would probably reunite ByuN and herO, although WBG have favored Oliveira in the past two ace matches. Considering the map (Ghost River) I should go for ByuN, but herO is one of the few Protosses who can turn the short rush distance to their advantage. I'll give the hyper-aggressive Protoss the slight edge here.

Prediction: Weibo Gaming 4 - 3 Shopify Rebellion

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