[PL] ORLY?

YARLY. He's on fire.

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SkyHigh, Fantasy, Sea, Leta, and more recently: FBH and Mind. What do these Terrans have in common? Might it be that they all are, or were, once, top players - that the mere mention of their names might have struck fear into their opponents? Or maybe that they haven't been performing recently, failing to win games and disappointing their fans in proleague? Fortunately not. Today, they've been grouped together for a different reason: they've all been victims of Flash's TvT, during his insane 22 game streak against Terran. To allow you to exactly comprehend how unprecedented this is, we'll try to put it in more understandable terms.

Flash has not lost an official game of TvT since May 2009 - this means, excluding games from leagues like STX Masters and GOM season 3, Flash has won every single TvT he's played for slightly over half a year. To add to that, his opponents have included almost every notable Terran in progaming today. From proleague round 1 TvT master, Sea, to arch nemesis FBH, who has always had the propensity to do well against him, Flash has seen and defeated them all. His ELO vs Terran is 2298, putting him firmly in first place, and the TvT runner up, Leta, trails him by more than a 100 points at 2195.

A look at Flash's TvT from October last year

Now, the reason we're telling you all this is simple. It is to acquaint you with the immense difficulty of the task ahead of anyone who attempted to defeat Flash. In fact, Flash's play has gotten so intimidating and scary that sometimes when we do previews for games in the coming week, we wonder what goes through the heads of the players who are up against him. We figure it is probably something akin to "I should try my best' or "Holy shit I'm gonna get raped."

Weekly, we see challengers attempt this daunting, absurd task, only to be delivered a resounding defeat. Some come closer than others, forcing Flash to the extremes of his ability, but in the end, the result is always the same. This week however, someone accomplished what had been recently thought to be impossible. Really, the young upstart from eSTRO who came out of nowhere this season, crushed Flash in a straight up, standard TvT, breaking his streak of 22 games. To mark the occasion, we have chosen the game to be this week's Game of the Week.

GOTW - Flash vs Really on Match Point

By Pangshai

Enough with the introductions and the players, we're just going to cut to the chase here and get straight to the game. This week's GotW started with Flash in the bottom left of Match Point, and Really in the top right. The openings were almost identical; both players opted for a fast expansion, but Really started his CC directly at his nat.

The game then panned out with Really getting mass vultures, and Flash heading for a fast 4 goliath drop. As the drop headed over to Really's main, Really decided to sneak some vultures into Flash's main, speeding past some sieged tanks at Flash's nat. The vultures caused a tonne of damage, killing a good amount of SCVs, and costing Flash lots of mining time in his main while he cleared out the intruders. Flash's drop, in the meantime, had been spotted by mines on the way, and Really was prepared with tanks. It netted a small number of SCVs and was generally annoying due to Really's lack of anti air, but Flash was definitely behind economically after that exchange.

Following the drop, Really executed more vulture harass, which would become a hallmark of this game. A guerilla team of vultures made its way into Flash's main, and threw down some mines before it met its end at the hands of Flash's tanks. However, Really's harass was determined and relentless. With Flash's army out in the middle to pressure Really's third, a drop of 3 vultures landed in his main, where more SCVs were lost.

Things were quickly spiralling downhill for Flash, who had to do some serious damage with his army. At the high ground above Really's mineral only, Flash went in for the kill against Really's outnumbered forces. Flash had some initial success in taking out Really's first group of units, but vultures, mines and fresh tanks held their ground, and Really's mineral only went operational.

To further his lead, Really then executed yet another drop; this time, 2 vultures, at Flash's nat. While the number of SCVs picked off was pretty insiginficant, vultures are pretty inexpensive themselves, and Really was doing lots of damage for their very cheap price. Encouraged by his minor success, Really decided to up the ante, flying 2 dropships of tanks and vultures into Flash's main. More mining time and units were lost defending, and to demonstrate his absurd multitasking skills, Really found the time to send another couple of vultures to take out SCVs at Flash's nat.

It was not looking good for Flash. Really had him out-manoeuvred, abusing the mobility of vultures and dropships, out-expanded, and by all means and purposes, outclassed. Before Flash could really recover from the hammering he'd just received, Really continued the onslaught of attacks. A third dropship had been added to the mix, and 4 tanks and 4 vultures arrived to lay waste to Flash's main. SCVs were transferred out once again, and Flash had to recall his army from the centre of the map, taking some valuable time from the defense.

This drop served two purposes. Firstly, the mines and tanks did some major damage to Flash's returning units, but more importantly, it forced Flash's tanks to be pulled out of position, and as Flash cleaned out the drop in his main, Really's impossibly big army headed out for their next objective: Flash's high ground. It arrived unhindered, and Flash was forced to lift his mineral only immediately. Making its way down, it encountered some resistance in the form of Flash's tanks, and was halted in its tracks. Unfortunately the damage had already been done, and Really was expanding all over the place, taking every other gas base except for the 6 o'clock position.

Flash was far behind at his point. He tried to pull some miracle drops, but Really was on top of his every move. His drops were taken out with ease, and Flash gave up the game, along with his 22 game TvT win streak.

Really impressed us all this game. His aggressive harass was played to perfection. He did not allow Flash to enter a comfortable macro game, always keeping him on the balls of his feet with drops and run-bys. The pressure eventually got to Flash, who seemed like he did not know what he was doing at all this game, after continuously being forced to pull his units back from the centre of the map to defend.

Another surprise was in store for us this week. With Flash's defeat this game, KT Rolster went down 0-3 to eSTRO. In fact, in the set against Woongjin Stars, they almost fell in similar fashion, with Barracks far behind MVP after the early game, but catching up later due to some shoddy play by MVP. After all the raving about Violet, he failed to pull his weight, disappointing in both the set against Woongjin and eSTRo, failing to bring the Woongjin set into ace that cost KT dearly. KT takes two losses this week, but luckily, still remains firmly in their top spot with a score of 16-5, to runners up STX's 14-7.

Since the end of the round comes next week, we figure the results round up might as well happen then, so we'll take the remainder of this update to point out some interesting games that happened this week. One of these was Fantasy vs Zero, which happened in the ace match of the SKT/Woongjin set. Taking a leaf out of Flash's mech into marine medic play, Fantasy spiced things up by switching to mech after opening with marine medic. Vultures and mines gave Zero headaches, limiting his expansion count, and harassing his drones, and tanks took out the ultralisks that he had prepared for marine medic.

Too late to switch over to the standard mech response of muta/hydra, Zero countered with ultraling drops all over the place, taking out Fantasy's expansions, and hitting his main hard, abusing mech's lack of mobility. Unfortunately, Fantasy's army was just too strong and without an economy to power his war factory, Zero eventually fell to a hail of tank fire.

The other interesting game was Sea vs Pure on Heartbreak Ridge. Pure opened with a gas steal into fast expansion, and Sea answered with a fast acad, pushing into Pure's nat with marine medic out of one rax. The nexus fell, but Pure had another cheese planned, as a cannon warped in on the cliff behind Sea's nat. Sea cleared it out easy with tanks, and the subsequent push of marine/medic and tank/vult left Pure hurting. What he was hoping to achieve with that is something that still eludes us, but his strategy made for a very fun game indeed. Be sure to check it out.

Next week is week 7, and the final week of R2. As R2 draws to a close, expect a large round up, summary post from the proleague news team. The final few games are being played next week, and here's our take on them.

January 16
(P)

JangBi<Neo Moon Glaive> (T)

HiyA
Dragon-killer TvP against a Protoss who is easily top 2 PvT. Lately, JangBi has shown everyone, who forgot just how strong of a player he used to be, some very impressive play after his disappointing R1 slump. HiyA, on the other hand, hasn't played a televised TvP since October of last year where he crushed Shuttle with a 4fac allin timing push. The map itself they are playing on is very T favored but who cares about map balance when you are Zeus himself shooting thunderbolts and storming all that is in your path.

(T)

Light<Outsider SE> (Z)

EffOrt
Last time this happened was in R1, and we, similarly, hyped that up as well. Then, they played an excellent game on Moon Glaive, and both players now can be considered to be in good form. Light made it to the ro8 in the MSL (but got raped by Kwanro), and Effort has been his usual self, perhaps with more losses than usual recently. This game will be a good gauge for both players, and will be an excellent preview for what is to come in the winner's league

January 18
(P)

Much<Match Point> (Z)

ZerO
Everyone hearts Much but ZerO is no stranger to being loved by spectators through his entertaining play with Queens. When these two collide, cuteness and action-packed will be the theme. Are we going to see another cheese ala all of Much's games so far, or will he have a different strategy prepared? The map is Match Point, and it is a two player map, so cheese is not entire out of the picture, and we've yet to see any proxy gates at the high ground of the third. Protoss is just slightly stronger on this map though, so we might see Much try some corsair play that has been gaining popularity on this map.

(T)

Mind<New Tornado> (Z)

Action
Despite showing some hiccups in his game against HiyA, Action's play still shows a lot of promise for a team which really needs a strong Zerg now that hyvaa is slumping. His game vs Violet was just pure art to watch and he showed some nice, spur of the moment decision making with those drops. Mind, too, showed us exactly why he is called the Genius Terran as he out thought the Brain Zerg, Calm, in their match on Tornado. After that game, Zergs on iccup hoped to never see New Tornado as a MotW again.

January 19
(Z)

HoGiL<Outsider SE> (P)

Bisu
Not being excited for this game is a crime against humanity. HoGiL's ZvP is out of this world amazing and Bisu is Bisu. Outsider also makes for the best games. This would be game of the night but if you look at what is playing in the other set...

STX SouL vs KT Rolster(on OGN)
(Z)

Calm<New Heartbreak Ridge> (P)

Violet

Hwasin<New Tornado> (Z)

Luxury

Kal<Match Point> (Z)

HoeJJa

hero<Neo Moon Glaive> (T)

Flash

This entire series is amazing and a must watch for anyone who loves to watch good SC. It even starts off with a bang in Calm vs Violet. Violet needs to be especially careful and persistent with his early-game scouting or he could end up suffering the same fate as Pure. The map being HBR makes matters even worse for the rising protoss star if Calm tries any more shenanigans early on.

With Luxury's ZvT, the question is not if he will all-in but rather when. Hopefully, Hwasin treats this game like playing a South American Zerg on ICCup and doesn't fall prey to anything he will regret. He also has something to prove after a disappointing loss to his teammate, Kal in the MSL.

Despite falling prey to a hydra bust from JD himself, Kal's PvZ has been off the charts showing very strong and even innovative play such as the dragoon/sair build that he used against Saint. To make matters even more exciting, he also has an upcoming bo5 against JD so all he knows right now is PvZ. However, since he is playing HoeJJa on the very same map that he might have to play JD on, expect something out of the ordinary.

KT clearly learned their lesson last week as they realized without Flash, their chances of winning become slim. Not much needs to be said about Flash's TvZ at this point so let's just hope that hero doesn't go guardians in hopes of a more exciting game.

We'll now wind up the post by saying, next week will be the end of R2. We've come a pretty long way, and soon the Winner's League is going to be upon us. Don't worry if you don't know what that is, we'll get back to you on that shortly, for now, enjoy next week's games, and start rethinking that FPL strategy for R3's Winner's League. Oh, and also, Heyoka's birthday is today. Happy birthday from the coverage team (and everyone on teamliquid)!

This Proleague update was brought to you by Team Liquid's PL 2009-10 coverage team - riptide, heyoka and pangshai. Thanks to keit as usual for the stellar graphics and Harem for the Round 2 Week 7 previews!

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