Week 11 Recap
Vitality win third straight regular season

Regular Season Awards
The best players of each race and the overall MVP

Bracket and standings on Liquipedia

World Team League - 2024 Summer Season

Vitality fended off a late-season chase from BASILISK to claim their third consecutive World Team League regular season championship. Needing a victory against Team Liquid to clinch first place, Vitality got a huge contribution from Ryung in the form of a 2-0 over TL ace Clem. After Maru and Solar helped close the series out, Vitality finished tied on points with BASILISK but with a +6 in map differential, giving them the top seed headed into the playoffs.

The final week of regular season play also saw Platinum Heroes clinch the seventh and final playoff berth, while Starlight Twinkle and Berserker eSports were forced to accept relegation.

WTL will now take a two week break for the Esports World Cup, and resume with the playoffs at the end of August.

Week 11 Recap

by Wax


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

BASILISK 6 - 0 Berserker Esports
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BASILISK took care of business against Berserker as expected, temporarily moving up to #1 in the standings where they would await Vitality's response. On the other hand, the loss confirmed Berserker's relegation.

Reynor kicked things off for BASILISK with a 2-0 against BattleB. Game one on Oceanborn saw the 100/0 man easily parry BattleB's 3-base push, after which he ended the game with swarms of Ling-Bane and stylish double-Nydus tactics. Dynasty was BattleB's map choice for game two, which he used to execute a greedy 3-CC opener. This set up another 3-base push, but much more threatening this time around. Unfortunately, BattleB's combat micro was less than ideal (especially at the key timing before Reynor's Baneling speed upgrade was complete), and Reynor forced the GG after thwarting multiple waves of attackers.

Next, the Finnish Zerg derby predictably went Serral's way. Serral took the first game by surprising Mixu, overwhelming him with a 27-Drone Zergling-Roach all-in. The Finnish Phenom stayed aggressive in game two, winning the early Zergling-Baneling skirmishes before finishing Mixu with Roaches.

ShoWTimE proceeded to close out the series with a 2-0 over GunGFuBanDa, though it wouldn't have any effect on the final standings due to Vitality's unsurpassable point differential. ShoWTimE overpowered GFBD in a Blink-Stalker mirror in game one, and then held off an Immortal-Adept push while backdooring with his own Adepts in game two.


Platinum Heroes-R8 3 - 4 OFFSYDE Esports
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OFFSYDE confirmed they would avoid relegation with a narrow victory over Platinum Heroes, whereas the Heroes were left to wait for the result of Twisted Fairy vs Mystery Gaming to see if they would retain their playoff spot.

Game one of uThermal vs Kelazhur saw the Dutch Terran go for typical 3-base macro play, while Kelazhur delayed his third base to go for a strong 2-base push. A well executed attack from Kelazhur destroyed uThermal's third base, prompting the Dutch Terran to give a slightly early GG (while he was very behind, the final nails hadn't been put in the coffin). The two Terrans followed-up with a very entertaining, 23-minute bout on Alcyone, which started with non-stop early game action and eventually turned into a Sky-Terran war. Kelazhur's decision to commit fully to air units ultimately earned him the 2-0, as he won the conclusive air battle against a uThermal who still had much supply locked up in Tanks (Kelazhur followed up with what seemed to be an "I did the math" ceremony).

Firefly proceeded to equalize the series for OFFSYDE, getting a 2-0 of his own against YoungYakov. Dynasty invited shenanigans in game one, with Yakov taking a fast gold expansion on the aggressive side of the minerals. However, Firefly heavily punished this risky move with Adept-Oracle harassment, making it all too easy for him to fend off a weakened Ravager-Ling-Queen all-in and take the game. FireFly took a more conventional win in game two on Site Delta, overwhelming Yakov with mass Gateway units in the mid-game.

Goblin and HeroMarine proved to be evenly matched in the third bout, splitting maps for a 1-1 tie. Game one on Site Delta was a convincing win for Goblin, who used Phoenixes to shut down Big Gabe's aggression before finishing him with Colossus-Chargelot. This led to a mindgame from Goblin in game two, where he showed two early Phoenixes before pivoting into a 2-base Blink-Stalker all-in. Unfortunately for Goblin, his key proxy Gateway was in the worst possible position: straight in the path of HeroMarine's Marine-Tank push. After forcing cancels, Big Gabe immediately pushed all the way to Goblin's natural and extracted the GG.

With both sides having more than one viable ace option, we ended up seeing the TvT match-up of Kelazhur vs HeroMarine to decide the final victor on Post-Youth. Kelazhur went for early offense, going for 2-Barracks Reapers out of his main base against HeroMarine's standard tech path. Unfortunately for Kelazhur, his Reapers didn't deal enough damage to make the investment worth it, and HeroMarine was quick to counterattack once his tech came online. Big Gabe was utterly ruthless in exploiting his tech advantage, using Marines, Cyclones, and Ravens to deal severe damage to Kelazhur before a Tank finally chased him away. By that point, HeroMarine had already accrued too much of an economic lead to overcome, and he snowballed to a series-deciding victory.

Twisted Fairy 4 - 2 Mystery Gaming-AG
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Mystery Gaming had a chance to overtake Platinum Heroes for the final playoff spot with a victory in this match, but they couldn't overcome Twisted Fairy in an all-PvP clash.

The mirror madness began with Classic and Lancer (formerly Cyan) splitting the opening series 1-1. The two players began on Oceanborn, macroing up and slamming mass Gateway unit armies into each other. Classic was better at army positioning and adjusting the ratio of his Immortals and Archons, giving him the eventual win. Lancer picked Dynasty as the second map, which led Classic to play unorthodox by going up to 5 Phoenixes early on. However, they didn't give him as much map control as expected against Lancer's more standard Blink-Stalker play, which allowed the Chinese Protoss to set himself up on three bases much more quickly. Playing from behind, Classic cut Probes for a 3-base Chargelot all-in, but GG'd out after it failed to deal the requisite damage.

Lemon and Nice followed with another PvP on Dynasty, where proxy-Pylons and missed wall-offs from both players led to early-game Adept chaos all over the map. Lemon's multitasking proved to be better in this situation, and he came out of the situation with a meaningful Probe advantage. Nice tried to turn things around with desperation DT's, but he GG'd out upon seeing that Lemon had remembered to get detection. The series moved on to Site Delta for game two, where Lemon went for a fast expansion with Stargate while Nice countered with a proxy-Robo all-in. It turned out that Lemon was no MaxPax, as he lost after allowing his key defensive Void Rays to get picked off.

We returned to Site Delta for game one of Stats vs Strange, which began with both players taking fast expansions. Stats risked taking a fast third as well, which he got away with thanks to winning an early Stalker-Sentry skirmish. While Strange potentially had a chance to catch up on the back of his faster upgrades and tech, Stats capitalized on his economy advantage to win with an overwhelming Chargelot army before the situation could go awry. Stats then proceeded to end SLT's playoff hopes on Goldenaura, overpowering Strange in a straight-up battle between ground armies.

PSISTORM-NAVI 2 - 4 Weibo Gaming
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Weibo came out victorious in this bout for playoff seeding, locking in third place for themselves while forcing PSISTORM to settle for sixth place.

Both Oliveira and Spirit had their upcoming Esports World Cup match well in mind during the opener, as they both went for maximum cheesiness as to not reveal anything about their strategies or playstyle in a normal game. Both Terrans opened 2-Barracks Reapers on Oceanborn (both proxying 1 Barracks on the map), leading to a complete basetrade within minutes. With nearly all the SCVs wiped out, the two were left to settle things with their remaining Reapers. Spirit had been more diligent in preserving his Reapers and sneaking out just a little more production, and handily won the final fight thanks to his 9 to 7 Reaper advantage. Amusingly enough, the two players went for almost the exact same openers on Post-Youth, with the only difference being that Oliveira committed fully to his cheese by proxying both Barracks. However, Spirit scouted out Oliveira's proxy with an SCV, and he simply defended with his Reapers to stabilize the situation and force an unintended macro game. Oliveira came out with the victory after sixteen minutes of intense fighting, using Thors to bust through Spirit's final line of Liberators.

Moving on to the second series, herO and Gerald also got in on the early-game tomfoolery in their bout on Dynasty. Gerald went for 2-Gate into an expansion at his backdoor gold base, while herO went for a MaxPax expansion at his natural. herO quickly made Gerald pay for taking the riskier expansion, using the mineral wall against him and taking a series of very advantageous engagements at the gold base. While Gerald eventually 'secured' his gold base, he had already taken too much damage to have a fighting chance. herO made it 2-0 on Goldenaura, haranguing Gerald early on with Stalkers and Adepts before taking an economy-based victory.

The table seemed set for MaxPax to 2-0 Jieshi in return and force an ace-match, but WBG's final runner pulled off a major upset to earn his team the full three points. Jieshi opened with a fast expansion on Site Delta, which MaxPax looked to punish by proxying a Pylon and several Shield Batteries in the enemy natural. However, Jieshi knew exactly what to do in the situation, getting the exact number of defensive Shield Batteries needed while focus-firing the correct enemy targets. Jieshi's only major mistake was missing a big Stasis Trap from MaxPax's follow-up Oracle, but he still came out of the early-game with a serious advantage. MaxPax demonstrated his PvP mastery by actually mounting a semi-credible comeback from that situation, but ultimately the gap was too big to overcome and he GG'd out to Jieshi's far bigger Stalker-Immortal army. Jieshi continued to impress by playing a very solid standard macro game in Goldenaura, but he paid the price for staying too Zealot heavy against MaxPax's increasingly powerful army.


Starlight Twinkle 1 - 5 Shopify Rebellion
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Playing against an already relegated Starlight Twinkle, Shopify Rebellion took a convincing win to clinch the #4 seed.

The match started with Wayne winning SLT's only map of the night, beating ByuN on Oceanborn. The game looked rather dire for Wayne after his speedling attack off of 45 Drones completely failed against a conservative ByuN, but the situation flipped when ByuN was too hasty in launching a counterattack. ByuN seemed to expect Wayne to make Drones and try to catch-up in macro—instead, Wayne just made even more Zerglings that dealt fatal damage when ByuN moved out. Wayne went on the offensive once more on Crimson Court, this time going for Roach-Ravager off of 40 Drones. Again, ByuN's decision to play things safe helped him defend with ease, and this time he slow-played his lead into a routine victory.

Next, we were treated to another PvP on Dynasty with Harstem and Krystianer clashing in the second series. The two players initially played a surprisingly standardl PvP considering the map, taking their normal naturals and macroing up. However, Harstem got away with taking his third base at his gold, whereas Krystianer played it safe by taking his regular third. Harstem's income advantage, combined with some good troop movements, gave him the edge he needed to win in the Zealot-Stalker-Archon-Immortal wars. Harstem then took the 2-0 on Oceanborn, profiting off of some effective early/mid-game Adept harassment to win the ground war again.

Finally, Scarlett closed the curtain on SLT with a 2-0 over Cham. Scarlett took game one in a classic ZvZ knife fight, out-microing her opponent in a series of low-tech duels. Cham tried to mix things up with a fast Lair in game two, but GG'd out after failing to gain an edge with his tech advantage.


Team Liquid 1 - 5 Vitality
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Vitality overcame their recent blunders with a decisive victory against Team Liquid, locking in the #1 seed headed into the playoffs.

Ryung worked his WTL magic once more in the opening bout, scoring a massive 2-0 over Liquid's ace player Clem. Game one on Oceanborn started with Ryung risking a faster Rax-CC opener while Clem went for the more conventional Factory-CC. Clem's attempt to punish Ryung failed spectacularly, as his overaggressive Cyclone-Marine drop was picked off by a Viking. From there, Ryung's lead manifested primarily in the form of superior upgrades, allowing him to hit a strong 1/1 Marine-Tank timing. While Ryung didn't deal much direct damage, he succeeded in setting up a semi-contain that Clem struggled to break out of. Ryung took care to not press his advantage too hard, and was content to keep a one expansion lead while continuing to pressure around the fringes of Clem's territory. Eventually, playing on the opponent's half of the map paid off for Ryung, as he caught Clem moving some Tanks without sufficient cover. Ryung pounced on the critical Tanks and picked them off, which caused a rapid chain reaction into Clem's defeat.

The two players changed roles in game two, with Clem taking a faster expansion while Ryung prioritized tech. Ryung looked to exploit Clem's slower tech with a 2-Cyclone drop, only to be attacked even earlier by Clem's Cyclone-Marine marching on foot. The semi-basetrade that ensued went in the favor of Clem, putting Ryung in a serious economic hole. With the situation looking dire, Ryung cut SCV production and bet it all on a big Marine-Tank-Raven-Viking push. While it initially seemed like Clem had more than enough units to defend (equal army supply), Ryung maximized his only remaining advantage—his superior Raven count/mana—to pull off an incredible bust through Clem's defensive lines and force the GG.

Maru proceeded to bring Vitality one step closer to the regular season title, taking his first game against SKillous on Dynasty. SKillous took a big early risk, expanding quickly to his gold base on the exposed side (with the rich gas). Unfortunately for SKillous, Maru was already playing a fast tech build, and upon scouting the greedy expansion, he proxied a Starport for a committed 1/1/1 all-in off of one base. SKillous couldn't withstand the Marines, Cyclones, and Liberators flowing into his gold base and had to GG out. Still, SKillous managed to delay Vitality's triumph for one more map, besting Maru on Goldenaura. This time, Maru's fast Cyclone tech failed to make any headway against SKillous' defensive Phoenixes, and even exposed him to an opportunistic Phoenix-Stalker counterattack. From there, it seemed like SKillous might roll to a typical economic victory, but Maru managed to gather enough forces for a strong 3-base push that swung the game back in his favor. However, the game had one final twist in store, as SKillous rallied for his own counter-counterattack, which was just strong enough to finish Maru off.

Solar made no mistakes at the final hurdle, locking in the regular season title with a 2-0 against Cure. The Liquid Terran eschewed the 3-base all-in meta to play for a longer macro game on Site Delta, and Solar was more than happy to be his dance partner. While there was some mid-game push and pull, the game ultimately headed toward a late-game map-split as neither player wanted to be overly aggressive. Playing with a largely Hydra-Bane swarm supported by a handful of spellcasters, Solar made the winning play with a classic Zerg tactic: A burrowed Infestor flank. A lethal Fungal caught a big clump of Cure's bio in the field, allowing Solar to annihilate the Terran forces and stream reinforcements forward until victory was secured. Just for good measure, Solar took the final map as well, this time beating Cure with mass Ultra-Ravager-Bane.

Weekly MVP: VIT.Ryung

Ryung was the obvious pick for the final weekly MVP award due to his 2-0 'upset' over Liquid ace Clem. Or was it an upset? Ryung's ability to play out of his mind in clutch situations has become a core part of WTL lore, and by this point, it's almost an insult to suggest he would drop the ball when it matters for his team.

Expected or not, Ryung's 2-0 played a crucial part in locking in Vitality's third consecutive regular season championship. A 2-0 over the opposing ace would already put a player into Mvp consideration, but the playoff stakes push Ryung over the top.

Weekly MVPs:

• Week 11: VIT.Ryung
  
• Week 10: MYG.Lemon
  
• 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, Serral

Regular Season Awards

by: Nakajin

To avoid confusion, the TL.net awards are separate from the official WTL awards.

Best Regular Season Protoss: WBG.herO

The Smiling Assassin has taken back the prestigious TL.net award from his Danish rival, once again proving himself to be the best Protoss in the WTL. herO's 19-4 map record helped Weibo Gaming achieve a third place finish, which I originally expected to be very difficult after Dark's departure in the off-season.

While MaxPax had a very similar 20-5 record, herO took the award due to the slightly better quality of his performances. While neither player had an especially difficult slate of games, MaxPax dropped a handful of unexpected ties against Nicoract, DnS, and Jieshi, whereas herO never dropped the ball in matches where he was clearly favored.

Best Regular Season Terran: VIT. Maru

Maru is easily the greatest player in the history of StarCraft II team competition, and it's no surprise that he's earned our best Terran award for the third straight season. Funny enough, his 19-3 record counts as one of his worst seasons in recent memory, as he recorded 21-1 and 21-2 records in previous campaigns.

Maru's first half of the season was especially impressive, as he went on a blistering 16-0 run (a 23-map winning streak if you continue from the previous regular season). Although he was shaky in the last few weeks, going 1-1 in three consecutive matches, there still wasn't anyone who came close to challenging him for this award.

I will particularly remember his masterclass over fellow Terran Spirit in week 8, quelling the Polish Terran's momentum with disheartening ease. It encapsulated how Maru looks at his best: a ruthless finisher of games, with no one able to stand up to his mid-game aggression.

Best Regular Season Zerg AND Regular Season MVP: VIT.Solar

Solar is one of the OG's of the SCBOY team leagues and has been one of its best players since it was called the China Team Championship back in 2019. It feels extremely fitting that five years after he first played in the competition, he finally wins TL.net's all-around regular season MVP award.

It was a tight race between Solar (19-4), Maru (19-3), and herO (19-4), but it was Solar's more difficult match schedule that put him over the top. While herO played five opponents who achieved a 50% or higher win-rate and Maru faced merely two, Solar played seven such opponents—more than half his matches! Even if Solar tends to get overshadowed by Maru's dominance and Ryung's underdog heroics, he's arguably the rock that anchors this championship squad.

[Note: I'd be remiss not to give Serral a shoutout. In a season cut short by his military service, the Finish Phenom recorded a perfect 12-0 record. Odds are he would have been in the MVP discussion if he could have participated every week.]

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