This week's featured game is between Flash and Hyun on the map freshly introduced this season, Tornado. Taking a brief look at the layout of the map, the main, striking feature is the third base being a good distance away from the nat, an aspect which will favour marine medic play over mech, in addition to the fact that the nat minerals have been rearranged to be placed against the side of the map, instead of open to muta harass. TvZ stats so far show good balance with the games at 5-4 in favour of Terran, nothing to get upset over.

While it seemed like the game opened fairly typically, 2 hatch muta against 1rax CC, there were many little details that made it differ from other games - Flash scouting with 2 SCVs and only starting his CC after a marine and a second depot, and Hyun going hatch, extractor, pool, as opposed to the usual hatch, pool, extractor.

With the completion of his spire, Hyun brought his mutas over to Flash's main, but did commit them to harassment against Flash's immaculate defense. Instead, he was satisfied with flying around the outskirts of Flash's main, threatening to harass, while teching very quickly to hive with a third base and lurker tech. Unfortunately for him, Flash saw through his plan, and quickly moved out with a handful of marine medic off of 4 rax. Although Hyun managed to stop the first attack with mutas, a second attack was able to break the 2 lurkers on his ramp thanks to some poor positioning, and Hyun's third fell under a hail of bullets.



Finding himself suddenly with just 2 base and a completed greater spire and defiler mound, Hyun tried to make the best of the situation, taking 2 more bases and morphing some defensive guardians. Flash, in the meantime, pushed his units onto the high ground just past his choke in preparation of taking his third, and to prevent a swarm attack from landing at his nat. Also, he sent his 5 wraiths out overlord hunting, after the guardians that they had been prepared to battle did not show up.

The game slowed down somewhat as both players sat and macroed up, but with the appearance of his first vessels, Flash immediately moved his army north, putting pressure on Hyun. With his vessels fresh off the production line and low on energy, he was unable to irradiate much, and the effectiveness of his army was much reduced by Hyun's defilers. Eventually Flash, in an uncharacteristic move, made a mistake, suiciding more than a group of marines into Hyun's lurkers, burrowed above the ramp of 1 of his expoes.



With this undismissable loss, it seemed Hyun might have successfully clawed his way back from his previous deficit, now with 4 well saturated gas bases online. However, as the observer panned back to Flash's rally point, his pernicious plans were revealed - a 5 dropship doom drop. After clearing a path out to ensure his opponent did not notice his dropships, Flash's drop went straight for the heart of his opponent, landing in Hyun's main, and easily tearing down all the tech buildings and the main hatchery.



Not letting up on the pressure, Flash followed this up with another drop at 1 of Hyun's expansions, taking it, and the tech that he was rebuilding there, down. Once again reduced to just 2 mining bases, and with Flash's vessels controlling the sky, Hyun GGed out of the game as another bunch of dropships landed their marine medic load in his main and took out the newly rebuilt hatchery, and his ultraling army.



Flash's understanding of his opponent's builds was his ticket to victory this game. Instead of staying home to defend against Hyun's muta "harass," he moved out with perfect timing - just before Hyun's economy or tech kicked in. The subsequent dropship play was a very interesting change to the usual mm-tank-vessel push, taking a page from Boxer's book, and providing a very spectacular ending to what would have been an otherwise everyday game.

With two full weeks of play under our belts, the numbers are starting to roll in. This week, the pack begins to diverge and so far there have been some surprises worth noting.



-KT and WeMade are undefeated. Pangshai went into it in more detail, but the bottom line is that Flash and Luxury are 4-0 and look good. The protoss lineup (Violet and Stats) are 3-1 and also look strong. Forgg has a worse record than frOzean. WeMade's accomplishment is especially impressive if you consider the fact they let Rock play a game.

-Last Year's winners, SK Telecom T1, have started out slow. Common sense would point to a P/T heavy team having trouble with a Zerg centric map pool, but HyuK is at least pulling his weight at 2-1. They started last season with a 4-7 record so perhaps this is all part of Coach Park's strategy.

-So far the decisions of what race to send out on which map has been very narrow. We have had 43 mirrors and 38 non-mirrors, when a typical round last year had about 2:3 ratio of mirrors to non-mirrors. There hasn't been a single Terran fielded on HeartBreak Ridge yet, it took until the 6th ace match (the last night of week 2) before there was a dynamic matchup to occur in a deciding game. The week 3 lineups are following this same trend, with 21 mirrors and 19.

-My personal favorite, ACE is currently sporting a position that isn't last. They haven't won a match yet, but getting to the ace match twice has made their game differential a paltry -4 games. If KHAN keeps up their abysmal performance (having won only a single game in 3 matches) maybe they stand a chance of improving their permanent position to 11th. Unlikely, but hope remains.

The Great ACE Hope

We here at the Liquid Statistical Derivitaves (LSD) center believe this fall will mark the next phase in ACE's evolution as a team. ACE has always been the worst team, and by a large margin. They have one thing other teams have difficulty maintaining however, a thing any competitor can do with huge amounts of in battle. That thing is endless hope. ACE's lineup changes far more than any other team in history, and thus we always have a new class of players to look at and tell ourselves "this time will be it". For comparisong, this is ACE's lineup at the beginning of last season:

+ Show Spoiler [Ace 2008] +

And this is their team now:

+ Show Spoiler [Ace 2009] +

Notice the common players. They are Casy (when did he even see play last?), Reach, and Anytime. Due to the population of aging Brood War players growing all the time, it stands to reason that the ACE of today is considerably stronger than the team BoxeR helped found, and that the ACE of tomorrow will be considerably stronger than today.

We are beginning to see it in the statistics as well. This is a table showing how long each set played was, for example they had a total of 12 times where they made it to the final deciding game during the entirety of the 08-09 season.


I was going to add in win percentage as well, but in each of these they only won a single match. Round 1 was against eSTRO (3-0) and Round 5 was 3-1, also against eSTRO)


What are we looking at here? We are seeing a team that is improving. At the beginning of last year, they got absolutely rocked in every game of every match. They didn't make it to the fourth set more often than not (although to be fair one of those times it was because they won). By the time we got to round 5, they had a much more even distribution, and even began playing in deciding games on a semi-regular basis. The overall "games played" difference might seem small (7 games), but if you consider that for the entire season* the difference between the team with the most games (STX, with 190) and the one with the least (CJ, 172) is only 18 games, this is a notable number. Their distribution for round 4, that magical period they somehow fluked into a 5-6 record, is about the same as we see listed here for round 5.

In the first 2 weeks of this season they made it to the ace match twice (out of 3 matches). This is likely a trend we can expect to continue (though at a lower rate than 2/3) through round 1, and brings them to what has been dubbed "the eSTRO dilemma". Remember at the start of last year when eSTRO made it to the deciding game in their first 7 matches, and only won one of them? As ACE improves, they are going to find themselves on similar footing. They will have a lineup just strong enough to win 2 out of the first 4 games, but the lack of a player able to win consistently in game 5 is going to keep their record poor.

Where do we go from here? We wait to see if ACE can keep up their current pace. We hope, we cross our fingers, we have fun watching YellOw occasionally take a game off Bisu. Given their performance in the past year, if we can some day conclude they have moved up to "1th place material" it will be more than a marginal gain. Once they are there, we can begin to truly talk about their problem in game number 5, and look at who are new players are we can hope will remedy that.

Also by that time Much will be playing for them who actually might be able to win in the 5th set. Maybe.

* Number is only non-Winner's League, this only counts the bo5 set format used in Rounds 1,2, 4, and 5. Final note: props to my best bro Zeppelin (of stove-at-NE-LAN fame) for first pointing out this eSTRO-ACE comparison to me

Fantasy Proleague has advanced another week, however the story remains much the same with six of last week's Top Ten hanging in there (Dark_Storm, integral, losso, Tribulation, RecYouGood, calvinL, XxForgexX). Trades apparently are only for the weak, as five of the teams in the top spots including the current leader opting not to bother.

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• Must Have
  Just like last week KT Rolster is in charge. One single player in the Top 50 and only nine players in the Top 100 are without KT Rolster as their team. (31 Iazz (SKT), 62 pachi (WJ/EST), 69 Sharkified (STX), 77 Syntax Lost (MBC/Hite), 78 Nemelex (STX), 78 ssystem (STX), 86 IvanC (STX), 99 Clonze (WEM), 99 Presony-Boy (STX)).
  
  
• Fail Boat
  Similarly, Hite and KHAN are still in trouble with both shedding trade value and are both now purchasable by eSTRO owners. Also still free falling is Hite star player Leta, who despite a hefty initial 9 point cost, is now at a bargain price of 46.23 from his 1-2 record.
  
  
• Disaster!
  If Sea ninja'd antiteams last week, RorO this week nuked some with a normal win and ace match win earning him a massive +10 and singlehandly ended the hopes over 200 teams, especially those who thought they were savvy when they picked him up on their anti team.
  
  
• Missing In Action
  This week's M.I.A player is Bisu. After only earning two points because his team swept, SKT failed worse than Hwaseung by not even reaching the ace match causing the star protoss player to fall very far behind in the points race. Though he shouldn't worry too much because all S Class (except Flash) are underperforming this season.

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This week's interviews focuses on four different contributers to the community, two staff members from Team Liquid and two members from SC2GG.

• BachHo - Currently in Ninth place.
  BachHo is the main contributer for the StarCraft fansite SC2GG and he is showing that he has an idea about progaming. After finishing in 12th last season, he is currently hanging around the top spots again.
  
  + Show Spoiler [Interview] +
  1. You missed out barely on the supercool Former Top 10 club last round with a 12th place finish, are you confident that you'll be able to hold on this round?
  I'm not going to lie, I was pretty crushed on missing out on the cool kids club last season. I learned a tremendous amount about the rules of the game though and was able to carry a lot of what I learned into this season, which is why I'm confident I can hold things together this time around. I'm glad to see many other top contenders up there as well, like lazz and pripple. It's good to know that experience pays off in this.
  
  2. Why do you have Daezang captain? Do you regret it?
  The simple answer is that I'm a huge trade whore. I'm all about maximizing points, and to do that I have to be able to trade all of my better players. A lot of people have players like Jaedong and Flash as their captain, and I think that really is a big mistake in terms of trading. There generally aren't ties at the end of this - points are everything. That's why I have Daezang as captain. It gives me the opportunity to trade everyone else and really maximize the points I can get. The only regret I have is that he isn't going to be as lucrative as by.hero was last season.
  
  3. Do you have anything to say to the TeamLiquid fellow staff members semioldguy and Plexa, who you are currently destroying?
  I'm always impressed by semioldguy's teams because he always picks non-traditional lineups and somehow scores enough points to be competitive with it, so kudos to him for that. That being said, I'm fairly happy at the moment lol. Bring it on TL Staff, Team Bill Murray's waiting.
  
  4. Do you think that KT Rolster will be able to keep their current pace?
  I think KT Rolster will keep up a strong pace, but there are two big things that'll happen this season that will prevent these all-KT teams from taking the crown. I won't mention the first reason for strategy purposes (Gotta help out the non-all KT teams here), but if KT loses one game this season, then the pack of wolves behind them are going to jump all over them and take back the crown. An all-KT teams can be lucrative, like the random computer SK team was a few seasons ago, but there's always a week spot somewhere in the round. Having a flexible team that gets steady points each week can take advantage of that. Ideally... -gulp-
  
  5. How do you feel about anti-team scoring? Should it be changed?
  Right now I see anti-team as being somewhat easy. Most of the top teams have smart anti's that won't hurt players too much. People make a big deal out of losing 2-4 points a week, but I think that's pretty average. Once you get a hang of the anti-team, and more importantly, do your research, I don't completely feel it is as punishing as it could. I think a change may be in order to make it more difficult and reward players. At the same time though, changing it would make FPL almost be like two games, which could complicate things. There are over 1000 players struggling with anti-team at the moment, so it might be wise to just leave it as is and reward the people who invest time in figuring out the anti-team system.
  
  Quick shoutout to the TL FPL staff for putting together FPL and to SC2GG.
  
  
  
• semioldguy - Currently in 15th place.
  Founder of the original fantasy proleague format for Team Liquid and was the commissioner of fantasy for proleague some of the individual leagues before he was replaced by a bot. Unlike robots, semioldguy is currently sitting pretty in the standings and is in a key position to move towards the front of the pack for next week.
  
  + Show Spoiler [Interview] +
  1. Does it amaze you how much fantasy proleague has changed since you ran the first one?
  I am amazed, proud and totally blown away by what it has become. I'd sort of pondered that it could be something like it is now, but it wasn't more than a happy thought of what it could be like. Fantasy Starcraft in it's current form isn't far off from what less than a year ago I thought to be wild imaginations. I'm glad so many people enjoy it and how much it has grown. It gets larger every season. This is not something I could have even come close to doing and bringing all this way on my own.
  
  2. Do you think you will be able to keep up without Flash?
  Yes, I can keep up without Flash. It isn't Flash I'm worried about. I've got my own pair of big cost players who should carry their weight just fine in Calm and Effort. I'm much more worried about keeping up without Luxury. Flash was a large investment and would be expected to produce well, but Luxury is very good value to his owners right now and he opens up a lot of options that give those owners a good edge if they use it well.
  
  3. Do you have anything to say to fellow staff member Plexa, who you are currently destroying by a whole point?
  He's got a very solid team (minus maybe Iris who was a very over-hyped pick in my opinion). Hyuk was a great choice that I overlooked in selecting my team. The two of us joined staff on the same day and I'd have to admit he has done much more to contribute than I have in that time. I wish Plexa and the rest of the staff the best of luck... but I still plan to leave them all in the dust this season.
  
  4. Do you think that KT Rolster will be able to keep their current pace?
  No. KT Rolster won't likely be able to continue their pace, but will continue to be a good value pick. The team pick is probably the most important aspect in building your team as well as having a touch more control for those who look at the schedules for the round in the order that teams will play each other. Being able to trade KTF for any team this week is potentially a huge opportunity.
  
  5. How do you feel about anti-team scoring? Should it be changed?
  The anti-team scoring, although I think it is balanced, could probably be changed. The dynamic of an anti-team really enhances the strategy and variability of the Fantasy Team in a way that additional main-team slots really can't accomplish. I think some tweaking with the anti-team scoring could help enhance that even more if done properly. It'd have to be carefully done though to be balanced as changing the scoring would affect the relative costs of players to be put on the anti-team which would need to be taken into account as well. With adjustment I think it could be made that an anti-team itself would have more than one viable strategy rather than a breaking strategy of just picking players that won't play, but finding ones that will not meet expectations when they do play. Making a change to invalidate one breaking strategy, just to introduce a new format where some players find a new and different breaking strategy would be frustrating to players I would imagine and should be looked after to be sure it less likely to happen.
  
  I'd say don't change it though as I have been very good building my anti-teams thus far and changing the mechanics I could lose some of my edge.
  
  
  
• Plexa - Currently in 21st place.
  This is Plexa. Head Writer on Team Liquid / MBC Super Fan / Elf. Plexa is looking for his first finish in the double digits, with previous uninspiring finishes of 303 and 729. He is currently high on the ladder and has a lot of options availiable with tradable options in KTF and Fantasy and a very cheap anti team.
  
  + Show Spoiler [Interview] +
  1. Do you contribute your current performance to having Pusan on your team?
  100% yes. Fanboyism always pays off eventually. This is the season it will. Ironically, Nazgul was trying to coax me into taking movie over pusan which I almost did. But hey, Pusan is amazing so w/e
  
  2. Do you think you will be able to keep up without Flash?
  Yes. Zerg season baby! Flash is great and all, but the maps are favorable to Zerg - I'm honestly more worried about luxury.
  
  3. Do you have anything to say to fellow staff member semioldguy, who is only ahead by a measly point?
  Ah we both have similar teams in the sense we went for similar strategies (strong zerg, backho on anti, weak teams supporting). But I think the fact I have an all protoss anti team will serve me better in the long run. Additionally Effort sucks, and pure got lucky today. So yea, I'll reclaim #1.
  
  4. Do you think that KT Rolster will be able to keep their current pace?
  Yes. Flash is in form, Luxury is in form. That is enough to get to Ace where either can clean it up. Maps are great for zerg, so hoejja/firefist should come into play soon.
  
  5. How do you feel about anti-team scoring? Should it be changed?
  Anti-team is fine.
  
  
• RainmanMP - Currently in 26th place.
  Another contributer to SC2GG, probably most recognisable as the wonderful man who brings us translated Line Ups every week for proleague. The proleague gods have looked favourably on this contributer and has given him a strong team with Captain Flash.
  
  + Show Spoiler [Interview] +
  1. Do you still have faith in JangBi?
  No not really, I want to trade him away as soon as possible for someone who actually wins their games.
  
  2. Does being the man who translates the lineups give you a secret advantage?
  I wish. I love being literally one of the first people to know who plays who. Wednesday nights are my favorite and everyone knows that come around 13:00 KST, I'm busy.
  
  3. What's your goal this season? Top 10 Club? Beating BachHo? First place?
  Top 10 for sure. Of course I would like to get first, but thats shooting a bit high. Beating BachHo is more like a consolation prize than a goal.
  
  4. Do you think that KT Rolster will be able to keep their current pace?
  Yes I do. I'm a die hard fan and I've watched every game so far live. My only regret is not picking more KT members for my team. For the record, if KT wins Proleague, I'm getting the Rolster logo tatooed on my bicep.
  
  5. How do you feel about anti-team scoring? Should it be changed?
  I don't mind the current system as my anti team is doing fairly well(meaning they don't play or win much). Although I do think there is more skill involved for the proposed new system where you pick who loses as compared to now where most people just see which players aren't playing.