The reasons for the poor form of Team 8 were hotly debated after they were summarily destroyed by KT. What sparked the discussion wasn’t so much the 3-0 scoreline, but more the manner in which the players lost. Jaedong and Baby in particular looked in spectacularly bad form. Jaedong lost to a simple pre-muta bio push because he decided not to make any creep colonies. Baby then came out and got his 4 factory push destroyed by a handful of Stats’ goons after a disasterous attempt to push out of his main base. Jaehoon’s loss to Hoejja came from him failing to have sight of the back mineral patches and dying to a Hydra bust. The common theme among these losses was a failure to implement basic scouting techniques, showing just how unsettled Team 8 must be and increasing their loss streak to six.



The start of a bad week for SKT fans was defined by Bisu’s loss to Hon_sin. After managing to clean up Hon_sin’s 2 factory push due to a failure to bring reinforcing marines and bringing the match to a fairly even state Bisu fell to the follow up 6 fac. For a player who has publicly said that his PvT was improving at the end of last season Bisu showed no real feel for the matchup, being completely fooled by Hon_sin and being unable to show some of the prowess that other protoss have shown in the matchup recently (specifically Stats). The other matches in this series went pretty much to formula. Zero disappointed against an in-form Fantasy, Light showed why his TvZ is still untouchable, Best utilised his new-found PvZ form and Sun was taken out in his worst matchup PvP by the unlikely sniper Flying.



After such an encouraging start to the season it seems like Ace is starting to fall off. Despite their win over Team 8 last week, their performance against Khan was like one of old. Although Orion managed a win over Sharp, the rest of the games were relatively short and quite one sided. With Khan being able to play Stork and Jangbi in their later sets and their less well known players like Shine and Brave picking up wins it seems like their charge up the rankings back to number one might be starting again.



Yet another stab to my heart occurred in the form of an SKT loss and was made all the more painful by the fact that it meant that STX moved above SKT on the ladder for the first time in a long time. Bogus easily crushed Sun in a short game with Sun attempting to be a little too greedy and essentially dying to a straight FD. Bisu returned the favour punishing Trap for an attempted early expansion in an equally short game. Fantasy out classed classic in a split map TvT and Best disappointed against an in form Last who easily took down the PvT specialist dealing well with Best’s attempted 2 base Carrier build with ease. Finally Hyuk came out and after a the irrational decision of cancelling his expansion hatchery after 12 pooling against an overpool was easily cleaned up by Modesty (Medesty?) to give STX the victory. This series showed the possibility for anti-climactic 5th sets in the new format which was a by product of both the teams front loading their talent to attempt to finish the series before it came to a deciding 5th game.



There was a definite feeling of Déjà vu in the air with KT’s second game of the week. Once again they won with a quick 3-0 victory with most of the games being quite quick and disappointing. After getting in a good position against Wooki, Zero managed to fall apart, losing his entire army of hydralurk to some good storms from the KT protoss and being unable to make up the deficit after it happened. Stats easily dispatched of sHy holding off a 3 gate push against his earlier nexus with a well timed reaver and riding his economic advantage to victory with a strong 3 base push. With Stars needing to win or else they sent out their TvZ specialist Light to deal with Crazy-Hydra. Unfortunately due to Light being unable to glitch an SCV through his wall to scout, he lifted his barracks just as 8 speedlings arrived at his door and his death was quick and painless after that. KT are really on fire right now and have more than earned their spot at the top of the table.



After racking up a 6 game loss streak Team 8 finally kicked their funk out of the way and got down to business, taking down CJ convincingly and knocking them off the top of the table to be usurped by KT. After so much criticism and debate surrounded Team 8 after their disappointing loss to KT earlier in the week they silenced the critics with one fell swoop. Even though Jaedong lost in the face of a build order advantage that Effort got with a 12 hatch, the rest of the Team 8 players stood up and took the victory while even being able to rest Baby. Leta was quickly dispatched by a fast 2 gate DT build from Tyson after making no real detection apart from mines. Jaehoon took out the PvP specialist Horang2 with some good dragoon micro and a favourable build order and finally Sea took out Hydra in an impressive game on the unfavourable map for terran, Outlier. All in all it was a good shot to the system for Team 8 and they showed that maybe they can become a threat this season after all.

If you know what happened to these two teams, let me know, because I'm not entirely sure. The analysis of SKT always starts with FBB, so I'll start there. Fantasy is doing well, no question about that. The man has earned his rank on Power Rank and is probably SKT's ACE right now. Bisu and Best however... seem like complete opposites of what made them great in some games. BeSt is known for solid, albeit predictable play with lots of macro. Bisu is known for spectacular micromanagement. Then last week, Bisu failed spectacularly against Hon_sin, despite the rookie Terran's botched 2 factory build and despite being 20 supply ahead in one point of the game with one expo ahead. BeSt followed up with a 2 base carrier build, which was promptly demolished by a superbly playing Last who would definitely have had more trouble against BeSt expanding like a madman or pressuring his front. The SKT Zergs maintain their level of suck, and Sun's nerves failed him miserably against Bogus. Against ACE, my recommendation for SKT would be to play players like s2 and Ssak, both to be less predictable and to allow the slumpers a bit of reprieve.

ACE was looking really strong when Kal won his games with superb micro against Stork, ZerO and Sea. FBH looks decent, and I begrudgingly must say even Canata is performing above expectations, with special cards PianO and Iris ready to demolish any unsuspecting Terrans and Zergs on the way. Then how did ACE suddenly switch gears to "we play Chavi and orion now, hur-dur"? And how did Kal look suddenly helpless against Shine? No idea. I am all for switching up the lineup a bit, but it backfired immensely. They can't allow themselves the same mistake against SKT.

While SKT lost their previous two games, they lost them by a very close margin, whereas ACE was pretty much crushed, so I am inclined to give this to SKT, who will likely surge up in the rankings again. ACE can win this, but bar a spectacular failure of one of the FBB, it will take great snipes to have a decent chance.

My prediction: ACE 1-3 SKT



December seems so long ago now. STX and KT switched last place between themselves like playing a game of "hot potato", and spirits were low. Then, all of a sudden, came the wins. It was to be expected from KT Rolster, who made great acquisitions in the form of Mind and Wooki and who played Stats and Flash to spectacular effect, yet no one thought STX would perform so well, so I'll focus on them today. The Terran duo in Last and Bogus is a very solid 1-2 punch, both streaking high. While Bogus has admittedly the more spectacular games, Last is content with his 6-0 streak. Dear, the STX fanfavorite as of late, is also still undefeated 3-0, but also untested against non-Terran. Where STX shines is it's Terran and Protoss lines. KT should also be wary of Shuttle, who might easily be ready to attempt to snipe Flash again. You should never underestimate anyone who has the balls to go D-web against the Ultimate weapon.

What about the results themselves? STX has shown spectacular sniping, KT a bit less so. KT seems more solid overall, but if I trust any non-Flash non-Fantasy player to beat Stats into a pulp at the moment, it's going to be Bogus. Last is untested against Zerg and might not have what it takes vs. Flash or Stats, but I favor him over any player that is not one of them. Mini and Calm might pop out of nowhere to snatch unsuspected wins, but so might Mind and Crazy-Hydra. It should be a spectacular match that you should definitely watch, so tune in!

My prediction: + Show Spoiler + KT Rolster 2-3 STX SouL (upset!) (OK, maybe a bit of fanboyism too)