This week had some interesting (and memorable/momentous) matches. Seven out of ten went to Ace, we had a few reverse sweeps, Flash broke his Ace losing streak, Bisu and SKT finally lost...

Quite an interesting week indeed. If you haven't seen the VODs, pull them up in the Small Vod Thread and make sure to check Simplistik's full R&S standings. Seriously, those are some baller charts.

Our unlikely game of the week kicks off on Benzene, with ggaemo spawning at bottom left and Perfectman spawning at top right. Both players open up normally, and a little manner pylon gayness gosuness forces ggaemo to put down his hatchery at his 3rd base at the top left expansion before taking his natural. Game proceeds as usual with Perfectman teching to stargate and citadel and ggaemo finishing his simcities with his 4th and 5th hatcheries. Following recent ZvP trends, Ggaemo doesn't put down his hydra den and prefers a fast second evo chamber. Perfectman moves out with his first speedlot force but is easily repelled by speedlings/sunkens/drone drill. He nevertheless moves up toward the 3rd but is forced to pull back halfway there as speedlings are intercepting reinforcing zealots and threatening his natural. Zealots rush in to pressure ggaemo once again but are intercepted on the low-ground in between the pods and are forced to make a panicked retreat a well-timed escape. ggaemo starts to tech toward hive while Perfectman starts pumping out reavers. Perfectman moves with his sair/reavers toward the main but Ggaemo beautifully intercepts him with a huge scourge cloud, destroying 7 corsairs.


However, the shuttle still lives and flies dangerously toward the main, and even though it is hit by a scourge and shot a few times by a spore colony it delivers its cargo, a Reaver and a dark templar, at the natural before dying. 7 lings and 7 drones are killed before the reaver finally falls. Meanwhile, Ggaemo sneaks through a few lings toward perfectman's morphing 4rd base at the 3 o'clock and destroys the morphing cannons but is repelled before he can deal more damage. Hive tech finishes and ggamo launches a massive onslaught toward the 3 o'clock but the critical adrenal gland upgrade has yet to finish and Perfectman wards off the assault easily. Perfectman expands at the bottom left base while ggaemo takes the 9 o'clock. ggaemo masses his forces at the 12 o'clock for a drop in perfectman's main, but a wandering corsair spots him. He nevertheless moves out to drop the natural while sending a control group and a half of zerglings at the bottom left base. Both attacks are easily defeated.


Meanwhile an ultralisk cavern goes up for ggaemo. Perfectman moves with a huge zealot/archon/templar army toward the 3 o'clock while ggaemo masses his forces again at the 12 o'clock. Perfectman stampedes down the pod and rushes toward ggaemo's forces. Ggaemo pulls everything from the 12 o'clock to help defend. Massive plagues lands on the zealots while reavers are unloaded. The victor is still unknown when a massive scarab lands and kills around 10 zerglings, giving perfectman the upper-hand.


However, zerglings rush in suddenly from all-sides and decimate Perfectman's battle-wearied zealots and ggaemo even sneaks a small zergling force to pick off a reaver the templars are surrounded and soon only a control group of zealots and 2 archons are left to defeat the onslaught. Perfectman sneaks in a shuttle and drops 2 reavers to reinforce the attack while he starts killing the hatcheries. Zealots run across the map to reinforce their poor brethrens while more newly spawned zerglings rush in. Seconds before the cavalry arrives to save the heroic wariors of adun, both the archon and the reaver falls and ggaemo takes a battle that raged for a whole minute.


Ultras finally spawn for ggaemo and they slaughter a puny force Perfectman sends to destroy the left 12 'clock. Ggaemo then moves out with a massive ultraling army, attacking and destroying the bottom left base.


Perfectman tries a last desperate assault with an impressive archon ball but ggaemo batters it down with wave after waves of ultraling. With no units left and all of his bases mined out, Perfectman types out.

One of the great pleasures of any new season and any new round is that we get to see new players make their debuts in the booth. Sweaty-palmed, dangerously dehydrated, and frantically trying to remember their prepared builds, these new faces usually lose in humiliating fashion. That's alright, everyone has to start somewhere. But almost inevitably, we see these guys back in the booth. Sure, they probably lose horribly again, but everyone knows the result isn't important. They go back to the minor leagues. They take some wins and some losses. Here and there, these players get chances at the big time. They lose and lose, (and lose and lose and lose, in Killer's case) but eventually they get a lucky draw; another newbie, a decisive BO win, or maybe even Lomo. And suddenly they win, and the light-bulb goes off.

"I can do this!"

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Princess.


Princess muddled around the practice room and Dream League, taking up space, consuming food, breathing air, and generally doing nothing useful for Hwaseung Oz. He periodically appeared in the starleague prelims where his ID was as frequent a source of hilarity as it was the subject of an early exit. But before the summer prelims rolled around, Princess lay awake in his bed in the highest tower in the family castle. Nervous for the upcoming games, Princess had difficulty sleeping.

"I'll take in the air on the balcony and wait until I calm down." he thought.

He stepped into the welcoming midsummer night, and leaned against the marble railing.

"All of this practice I've been doing," he thought, "It hasn't paid off. I've worked harder than I've ever done since the last prelims, and yet my results haven't gotten any better. Hell, I even borrowed Jaedong's toothbrush, and that didn't change anything. Well, I guess there's always starcraft two."

Princess leaned over the balcony to spit derisively to the ground far below, but then remembered that spitting was not tolerated in polite company. The weight of his failures piled up like an ultralisk upon his shoulders, and Princess sank to the balcony and began to cry. His tears poured out, and Princess watched through blurred vision as they flowed across the polished stone under the railing to drip down, hundreds of feet, to the streets of Seoul below. Then, as quickly as the feelings of despair had come, they vanished, and Princess got to his feet. A warm breeze rolled in and he felt calmer than he had in months.

"It's not just hard work that I need," he said outloud, startled by the realization, "I've got to believe."

As Princess said those words, something caught his eye, and he looked upward. Through the clouds and light pollution, a shooting star arched across the heavens, like a glaive worm bouncing off a marine, and Princess smiled. He knew.


What has come since has not been all peaches and daisies for Princess—such is the nature of pro-gaming for everyone who isn't Flash—but a breakthrough has been made. In the next MSL prelims, Princess didn't lose a game in a smackdown of hungry, RuBy, and SKT_soO. In the OSL prelims, he narrowly lost to Guemchi, before getting sweet revenge days later by taking the protoss out of the MSL survivor tournament.

But of course, what has caught the eye of your faithful PL writing staff is the regular appearances Princess is now making in Hwaseung's line-up. Even since we first saw him in the MST, his mechanics and decision-making have improved dramatically. And with a 4-2 appearance on the season, we're not the only ones who have noticed.


Killer appreciates talent like a short man does height*, so it seems to this writer that Princess is on pace to destroy everyone in 2011 improve drastically. Look for OZ's next game against an in-form Hite Entus as a real gauge of Princess's progress. Hentus is somewhat zerg poor (Shoutout to MisO, who looks to get some playing time in the near future as well.) and Princess ought to get playing time against a terran or protoss. That'll be a challenge, but one I think Princess is well up to taking at this point. And if Oz wants to make a playoff run, with an anemic terran line and a non-existent protoss one, they're going to have to bank on their growing zerg—how weird does that sound?—and Jaedong lines to pull through. Expect more results like the recent win against Stars, and expect some more Princess beatdowns in the not-to-distant future.

*Actually, Killer is on a six game winning streak, with no mirrors. Did you know that? Neither did I.

We've got a little bonus for you...

Woongjin Stars:

PianO: C-
Piano is a classic "Woongjin Terran", and I mean that in the most derogatory way possible. Best out of 7 means that he gets to play more often -- but sadly, he's definitely not performing and reminds us why he wasn't played much the course of last year.

Flying: C
There isn't much to say about this Protoss other than he has a long way to go. Of course, thanks to the best out of 7, he may be getting more opportunities to play, which may change our opinion of him.

free: A-
While free is quite good, I have a really difficult time believing in him due to his style. His play seems very shaky, making a lot of errors and in general, does not give much faith to anyone watching him play -- which may explain why Stork and Bisu were complaining that Free was the highest ranked Protoss. His wins comes from his extremely good ability to go through battles well -- in fact, this is what he's best known for in the Korean scene -- he manages to get a Protoss ball, and decisively seals games by controlling them into victory.

Really: B
Considering Really is 6-1 in his last 7 games, I really would like to put him higher than a B -- but allow me to be a bit conservative, as he is coming back from a losing streak that lasted god knows how long. If he keeps up this momentum, then there's no doubt he'll be climbing much higher. Conditional on this is the hope that he never slumps like he did ever again.

ZerO: A-
Okay, he lost to HoGiL in his worst match up. But I'm willing to bet that if he offraced Terran, he would have been able to crush Hogil, as Zero's Terran had beaten Flash's Zerg in the past (or at least, he boasted about it on a TV Show). Once he improves his ZvZ a bit more, I think there's no problem placing him as an A class.

Neo.G_Soulkey: A-
One of the best new players to hit the scene, period. There's not much to blame him on other than the lack of experience -- which he will get plenty of in this best out of 7 format, as Woongjin will be able to land their full line up without a problem.

Crazy-Hydra: C+
Seems to be doing decently this season... for now. Not much to add past that.

Unranked: Britney, Center, hOn_sin

Overall, Woongjin is a pretty solid team with a dependable ace player in every race, provided that Really is not slumping. However, anyone past these core ace players aren't particularly decent, although these players will definitely have opportunities to perform and grow thanks to the new format. If Woongjin manages to raise these young players, then Woongjin will be able to give SK Telecom T1 a run for their money this season.

The Verdict: A-

SK Telecom T1

Hyuk: C+
Hyuk hasn't earned many opportunities to show up in the Proleague this season, which makes ranking him rather difficult. And yet, it's pretty clear that Hyuk hasn't been performing since his glory days last season where he managed to pick up some wins and make it into the big stages of both Starleagues. He managed to climb up into the Starleague this season over a slumping Movie, so we'll see what he is really made of.

Bisu: A-
No, Bisu is not "back".... yet. Yes, he might have a 12-1 record, but anyone who has watched those games know that many of those games weren't won very convincingly. However, the good news is that he's been picking up confidence. But it's hard to consider him A level calibur for now --but hopefully this MSL season will make us all a bit more convinced of his play.

BeSt: B+
There's no doubt I would have actually considered giving Best an A if I were to rate him at the end of last season considering the force he has been giving off during SKT's post season run. But the offseason seem to have really have killed his overall momentum. He has good PvT, Decent PvP, but PvZ only comparable to Pure's (considering Modesty picked up his first three official ZvP wins from these guys...). But even his prized PvT was beaten by Sea and Firebathero. He's definitely capable of more, we'll see where he is next round.

Canata: D+
Sometimes I'm in awe on how long Canata has been playing this game professionally, considering there is no doubt that he is one of the worst players in this league. Hopefully now that the burden of captaincy has moved onto Hyuk, he'll be able to concentrate more on playing and perhaps, showing us more entertaining games.

Fantasy: A
The Crown Prince is easily the third best player in the scene at the moment, there's little doubt about this. An amazing series versus Flash into all killing STX into solid proleague performance, Fantasy is trying hard to catch up to Lee Ssang. Sadly, he still has a long way to go.

Kwanro: B
If we had to judge only for ambition, Kwanro would easily be ranked A. In terms of this, he picked the perfect team to move onto -- SKT. Yet, he still seems to be adjusting to his new environment, and hopefully when he's fully adjusted we'll see some beautiful zergling all ins accompanied by massive surges of posts in live report threads.

s2: C+/B-
I'm not quite sure where s2 currently is, as he hasn't played that many games this season. He seems to be performing okay, however.

n.Die_soO: B-
soo definitely performed well in the Proleague, which is why he's ranked this high (especially for an SKT Zerg). But in the end, he has a lot of negative bias he needs to break through if he is to establish himself as a decent player overall.

Unrated: By.Sun, Paralyze, yeOngJae, Ssak

SK Telecom just ended their monstrous streak, which shows how strong they really are in this best out of 7 format. They also trained their new Protosses very well, as By.Sun and Paralyze are performing quite well in their limited debuts. While they have good aces they can trust and unlike Woongjin, their B team can actually perform from time to time. Solid team overall, and definitely will be one of the two teams that will be fighting for first place.

The Verdict: A-