Since GSL's first forays into tournaments, Prime has been perennially popular. As a team they have maintained a constant presence in the hearts of fans, even during times when tournament wins were thin on the ground. Their popularity has derived from the 'Holy' Check, Marine 'Most-Loved-Man-On-Reddit' King, and Maka, progenitor of TheMakaRax, to say nothing of the recently departed Polt 'OptimusPrime.' Prime is a team that will always have a name, regardless of results. They even have the deliciously named AnnYeong, and 'Artosis-Thinks-I-Suck' anypro. If CJ Entus or the KTF MagicNs are any indication, championships come and go but fan relationships last forever.

Superstars in player relations, this recent journey in GSTL revealed they have yet to find themselves in the booth, their voice is shaky when the pressure’s on. Results have been unsteady and their play, at times, rocky. Barely sneaking into the playoffs, their post-season berth is thanks to Fenix ripping through oGs.

Their first outing of the seasons could perhaps best be described as a rout, with TSL's Killer and Puma alone tearing through them with ease. Their second was not much more successful, as oGs claimed a narrow victory, using HuK for his only GSTL appearance.

Their match against SlayerS in week six went more smoothly, with Boxer fielding nothing but Terrans and HongUn picking them apart one by one. Ryung briefly took control, only to be snuffed out by Terius on the sands of Bel'Shir. Their next appearance was in week eight against MVP where, predictably, DongRaeGu destroyed each and every one of their hopes to complete an all-kill.

They stood at 1-3 going into their final day of play, future uncertain and hope resting not only on their own victory, but on the eventual loss of rivals oGs. When BBoongBBoong completed a sweep of F.United it kept them in the game, though the odds that oGs would then fall to the men they had just ousted seemed stacked against them.

When Soccer and Fenix combined to take down oGs in the following week it seemed the fates had turned in their favor. Prime's 2-3 record was sufficient enough to advance from group play and into the playoffs.

Sometimes the most unlikely of fairy tales come true. For Prime, and for Prime's fans perhaps more importantly, this week is time to prove they can be champions. Champions of more than just community websites, but of booth and stage as well. It’s time for those heroes of hearts and minds to step up and do their fans proud. It is time for them to make their own luck.

Every sport has dynasties. Stengel's Yankees, Aikman-era Cowboys, Jordan-era Bulls: teams for whom losing went beyond unlikely into unthinkable. These are teams whose names become synonymous with dominance and authority, a certain dignity and gravitas, their continued success a manifestation of collective will.

In the brief history of GSTL, Incredible Miracle has sown the seeds of becoming that team. Fielding both MVP and NesTea, each the top of their respective race and holding no less than six GSL golds between them. Each would be a likely ace on any other team, they also have a previous Code-A winner in Losira (who also has a Code-S silver – one that might have been gold had he not run into NesTea). YoDa, Happy, and Fenix round out the rest of their lineup, helping to quell any doubts as to their team diversity and depth.

On their side as well, they have the experience needed to back up raw talent and honed skill. Between MVP, NesTea, and Junwi there are mountains of experience playing on camera, so it's no surprise they are a team who is comfortable in front of the camera and even their youngest stars understand how to handle the pressure. After winning the first GSTL they went into the second as heavy favorites, only to come one game short to Boxer's team of trainees.

After those performances it came as a bit of a shock when it was revealed they did not meet the requirements for GSTL3 and were unable to compete. They came into this first season of long-format GSTL a bit rusty and a bit out of shape, but they have returned as a stronger team.

The first week against fOu (FXO Korea) they stumbled a few times, but escaped with a 4-3 victory, and that which doesn’t kill IM only makes it stronger. After Happy started off strong YoungHwa and Losira were unable to complete the kill until YoDa stepped in to finish off sC and take the win. Their second play day, against ZeNEX, looked to be more of the same. Some strong play from True, a near-kill from YoDa, and Losira coming in to clean up and take the 4-2 victory.

The next two weeks represent a low-tide mark for IM. First, victims of a Qxc all-kill when the coaches neglected to take FXOpen seriously, and second when StarTale's Bomber/Curious combo wiped them out in short order.

To maintain playoff contention they needed to bring their serious faces and wipe out HoSeo, which Losira did in fine style with his first all-kill.

Through the season they managed a 3-2 record, certainly a level that sits somewhere below the "dynasty" calibre described above. Of course, that is until their lack of MVP and NesTea is taken into consideration. With MVP sitting at 0-2 and NesTea not yet seeing play, their strongest weapons are sitting in reserve, neglecting to show much of anything. They are letting the rest of the team gain the maturity and exposure needed to compete on the team league stage. They have hobbled into playoffs with a self-imposed handicap. They’ve brought knives to a gunfight and triumphed where lesser teams have fallen, and now is time to strike with their greatest assets.

The miracle being mobilized might very well be… incredible.

It's sometimes hard to remember that Bomber, July, Curious, and Rainbow all play on the same team together. In terms of raw, overall player talent, I would put StarTale behind only Incredible Miracle. In terms of depth of skill, ST and IM are about equal. With that being said, (unless they are changing their logo) StarTale is the least talked about team. Teams like MVP and HoSeo get talked about for being better than expected, and teams like SlayerS and IM get talked about for putting up some crazy games. Despite the lack of “buzz” surrounding the team, StarTale is one of the fiercest teams in the league, players like July and Bomber are constant contenders to win championships and players like Virus and Curious are fierce underdogs that can take a game off of anyone.

In week one StarTale accomplished what IM couldn't, beating FXO without using any big name players. Curious, Tiger, and Squirtle all got to demonstrate their high level of skill. With Squirtle and Curious being the first players to exploit some changes in the metagame, they were able to show off what we could expect to see from the next few months of Starcraft play.

StarTale showed their true capability in their next game against ZeNex. They were able to use the often-underrated Ace to snipe Byun and afterward use Bomber to get a reverse three kill. This demonstrates a lot of the strength in StarTale’s line-up, that nearly anyone in their roster is capable of an all-kill. In the same week that qxc got his all-kill against IM, StarTale experienced their only loss against HoSeo. They lost some weird games against Tassadar, Sculp, and Seal, and since the series was so close (4-3) I wouldn't think too much of the loss.

In the final week of StarTale's play they were able to demonstrate their true skill, dominating IM 4-1. IM are often thought of as the unquestionably highest skilled team in Starcraft 2, but Bomber easily beat MVP, Happy, and Losira, and Curious was able to beat YoungHwa for the win.

The biggest issue with StarTale is that it's almost impossible to tell how well they will do. Literally every player on their team has the capacity to all-kill, as well as the capacity to lose a stupid game that they shouldn't, against players they should be beating. The best demonstrations of this dynamic are the series of ST vs. IM and ST vs. HoSeo. Against IM, Startale easily won, using their best players to their advantage. Against HoSeo, ST lost terribly, with matchup results coming out seemingly at random. Despite the fact that no one talks about them, I wouldn't be surprised to see StarTale make it all the way to the finals with their deep and robust player roster, as long as they don't lose too many weird games.

Ah, MVP. Never has a team been more aptly named. The team’s story this year has really been about a single player and his unprecedented dominance; it’s not entirely unfair to say that they would have been better if they’d only played him. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

MVP as a team is relatively young; their first major appearance was GSTL May, which they only made it into thanks to IM’s disqualification for lack of players. MVP wasted no time making an impact, though. They showed strong play across their entire lineup, with known players like Genius, Keen and GuineaPig consistently churning out wins while a rotating cast of supporting characters swapped in.

The real surprise for most of us, though, was DongRaeGu. While he’d been a fixture atop the Korean ladder for months, it wasn’t until GSTL May that we finally saw him in a televised game. He quickly showed us what he was capable of by taking down MarineKing in game 7 of MVP’s first match, setting the stage for him to contine as ace throughout the season. Without his extraordinary play, it’s quite likely MVP wouldn’t have been able to take defending champions SlayerS down to the wire in an action-packed 5-4 final.

Suffice to say, moving into this season of GSTL expectations for both MVP and DRG were high, and one of them didn’t disappoint. Their first match against SlayerS set the tone for the season: Noblesse, Violet and GuineaPig managed one win between them before DRG came out to save the day with three straight wins. Match 2 against OGS was the same story with new names; this time it was Finale, Monster and Keen who led the fail-charge before the DRG cavalry arrived.

Match 3 brought us a new story: What happens when DRG doesn’t play. While Genius tried to step up and take his place, it wasn’t enough to keep MVP from falling to F.United.

MVP wasn’t about to let that happen, and in Match 4 they just let Tails go out and lose a game before they unleashed the Gu on Prime. While Prime’s coach insisted they had a plan in place for DRG, it proved to be pretty ineffective as he crushed their entire team and increased his winning streak to 10. With just one match left, it looked like DongRaeGu might take his undefeated streak into the playoffs with a shot at a #1 seed, but then the unthinkable happened: Clide.

MVP used their now-familiar strategy of sending out someone to lose game 1 (in this case Monster), then sending in DongRaeGu to clean up. This time, though, something went wrong; DRG actually lost to Clide. MVP sent out Vampire and then GuineaPig, but neither played a particularly compelling game, giving Clide the all-kill and TSL the #1 seed.

Heading into the playoffs, MVP's needs are pretty clear: SOMEONE other than DRG needs to win some games. The entire rest of the team only managed to cobble together 5 wins over the course of the regular season, and while DRG doesn’t lose often (a grand total of three times so far over two GSTLs), he does sometimes. If MVP can find a player or two to step up and rack up a few wins before DRG heads out and does his thing, they’ll be a force to be reckoned with, but if teams can simply focus on a strategy to beat DRG and assume the rest will fall into place, the path becomes a lot riskier. With long-time powerhouse IM and the surprising young superstar NSHS to get through before the finals, DRG’s going to need all the help he can get.

Most likely to All-Kill: This has got to be Bomber, this guy is a beast, capable of throwing anything and everything at anyone. This is largely a reason why he is so successful in these formats. Bomber’s only real problem may actually be BBoongBBoong himself in the road to an all kill because of his ZvT, the man just knows how to build on momentum.

Snipe me!: Squirtle, while he has been fantastic so far this season his PvZ is his weakness and it is certainly within reason for either BB or Terious to take him out should he start a run of his own in this match.

AVOID: Curious. In combination with his impressive record, this man has been on a tear lately. In his last eleven games he is undefeated; this guy will take out anyone Prime can throw at him so it’s wise not to waste their best players on him and instead try for a snipe.



Most likely to All-Kill: Well fortunately for Prime they have MKP, the man who is capable of all-killing any team on any given day. BB has a shot at doing this, but his chances are slim and the tides will have to favor him on this day for him to be successful.

Snipe me!: Surprisingly enough this is going to MKP, although he is a solid player capable of clearing through the lower ranks of a team, he has been severely underperforming in this league; and Bomber is an absolute TvT monster completely capable of taking this man out.

AVOID: HongUn. Despite his terrible PvP record overall, he recently went 3-1 against MC so he is more than capable of knocking out either Squirtle or Ace should it come to it. To be honest I almost wanted to do a repeat for this one as Prime doesn't really have any players you would want to avoid, per say but HongUn could certainly make a well timed impact here.



I’d just like to point out in its entirety what everyone already knows: DRG is a beast. Looking at the team stats, without him they are 6-14, a measly 30% win-rate. Throw in the D-man and that skyrockets up to 16-15, which while being only a hair over 50% that’s really all you need it to be to win team league matches. This does make the most sense as MVP usually waits until they have no other options and send out DRG to get a 3-kill or flame out entirely.

Most likely to all-kill: I don’t think I need to be clever about this, or even try to be creative and say something like Genius has got this! Nah DRG is far and beyond the most likely to kill anything in his path.

Snipe me!: Ideally this award is given to Keen for his TvT, but it seems IM is one step ahead and set that up for the opening match. Otherwise I will give this to GuineaPig, while he is a random player I’m sure IM could throw Yoda or MVP at him and take him out easily as his vT is abysmal.

AVOID: DRG! But you can't avoid DRG so...avoid sC! With his transfer to a new team I'm sure he's looking to prove himself, though the strongest people from the opposition don't favor his best match up he's still a frightening force.





Most likely to all-kill: When you think all-kill for IM you have to think who can get through DRG, and to be honest that's a very tough call. I don't think Losira has been showing the consistency to win that many games in a row as well as getting through DRG so this one has to go with Fenix. His TvT can get him most of the way, then he'll just have to hope for some amazing play until the end.

Snipe me!: Again the starting player seems most obvious for a snipe, Happy is really lacking in the vP department and I think that's a perfect opening for Genius to pick him off should he get through Keen.

AVOID: MVP. Yeah yeah he hasn't done so well in the team league this season, but let's get serious now this is MVP and he's been beasting through every MU lately. I'm sure his team is counting on him to take these play offs seriously. Watch out because this is where he's going to start making his team league splash.