[ThSL] Round of Four Preview

Round of Four begins at Tuesday, Oct 09 9:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)







In the opening game of the ThSL Ro8, Chill elected for a three-hatch muta build. Intrigue, on the other hand, opted for a one-rax-expand with some early marine pressure. However, Chill’s sunkens held off intrigue’s vanilla marines without difficulty. When the spire finished and Chill’s mutas took flight they dealt a significant blow to intrigue’s economy by killing a lot of SCVs and disrupting mining at the expansion, all the while Chill expanded around the map.

Chill transitioned into lurkers and by the time intrigue broke through the mini contain for the much needed counter attack, Chill was already at hive with defilers. He then used those defilers along with his lings/lurkers to break into intrigue’s main to take the first game.

Intrigue opened with the one-rax-expand again in the second set, against Chill’s Kwanro build, which gave him a lot of speedlings very early and allowed him to strike swiftly. After a short but brutal killing of the marines, intrigue’s base was at the mercy of Chill. After a light-hearted dig at Chill's choice of strategy intrigue typed out, making Chill the first player to move onto the semi-finals.


Kiante elected for a one-base build due to the nature of the terrain on Neo Requiem - his build being the quick scout into three-gate goons. Lings and the reverse ramp gave Drone a peak into what Kiante was up to and upon seeing the stargate Drone put down spores at his main and natural, which severely limited much of what the scout could do. Kiante attempted an attack but the growing number of hydras diminished his offensive capacity. Drone continued to build up his numbers and ended the game with hydras before Kiante could even finish warping in an expansion.

In game two we see the typical early game PvZ. Kiante held off an early ling run-by and proceeded to take map control with his +1 zealots. Drone expanded while Kiante remained on his two bases and continued to pump units from his many gateways.

Soon, Kiante had a large force at hand and went on the offensive, he busted through the natural despite a good number of lurkers protecting the expansion. Kiante expanded while Drone's natural, main and fifth expo were razed. Drone huddled in his corner with a handful of defilers while Kiante strengthened his position and mounted another successful attack to end the game.

In the final game, Drone elected for a nine-pool build and quickly took his natural and third expansion. Kiante opened with the standard FE. A speedlot attack caught drone by surprise and threw his third into disarray. Hydras, workers and a sunken or two eventually held off the blitz and Drone continued to macro away. Kiante remained on two bases and added more gateways to amass an army.

Drone's map presence continued to spread; Kiante had to make a move, he went on the offensive towards the open third where lurkers were spread. Zealots were quickly shredded up like paper, Kiante's goons killed off the remaining lurkers but there was nothing to protect them from the swarm of lings that would surround and devour them.
Kiante took a third and organised another strike in the hopes of staying in the game, but Drone had more than enough units to defend the assault. As the last of the dragoons fell, Kiante typed out and gave way for Drone to move onto the next round.


To beat someone distinguished and crafty like Rekrul, one must prepare an audacious game plan, but more importantly one must have the audacity to attempt such a plan. Could Cambium pull it off?

Cambium began the first game by hijacking Rekrul’s gas and planting a manner pylon, which threw Rekrul’s mining into chaos as SCVs were pulled to tear down the assimilator. Cambium followed up with his forward two-gate, pumping out goons for an early attack. Rekrul threw up a defensive wall, which kept him safe from goons busting in. Rekrul held his wall at the cost of some SCVs until his tank arrived, alleviating the goon pressure. Soon after he took a secret expansion and got his starport up.
Cambium built more gates, got a second base and started to produce speedlots. Unfortunately the same wall that saved Rekrul earlier would lead to his demise, he would lift his barracks one too many times, as if to taunt or tempt Cambium into attacking. With an open invitation into the main, Cambium eventually rolled in with his units and took over the base.

Given the similarities of the first and second map, Cambium executed the same plan - gas steal into four-gate. Rekrul dealt with the gas steal much faster this time around and got his defenses in order. Cambium pumped out units and took an expansion, Rekrul bolstered his factory count while he maintained his defensive stance. As his CC landed at the natural, Rekrul un-sieged all his tanks to re-position, which left him in an unfavourable position as Cambium stormed in with his goons. SCVs were pulled and although Rekrul had a great worker/vulture block going it would not last and Cambium’s micro and goon numbers quickly dominated Rekrul’s natural defenses. A warping pylon at the small choke stopped reinforcements from touching Cambium’s units at the natural - a sign Cambium was in full control and that victory was only moments away. Once the Protoss reinforcements arrived, Cambium cancelled the pylon and moved into the main.
The remaining tanks were dismantled and the main was left completely vulnerable to invading forces.

Cambium had done the unthinkable, he had out-rekrul’ed Rekrul. Earning him a position in the semi-finals.





The first clash between Jonoman and Metal[x] was short and fierce and Jonoman earned a quick victory.

In game 2, Jono followed up with quick DTs and forced a cancel on the natural. However, when Metal[x] drove back the DT attack, Metal switched to beast mode and released his vulture drops. Metal's vultures were everywhere assaulting the Protoss' worker lines again and again in a seemingly single-minded pursuit to wipe out every last probe. After a failed recall into defensive mines, Metal had gained too much of an advantage and he secured the game and tied up the series.

But game 2 was to be only a preview of the craziness to come in game 3.

Jonoman, perhaps liking the success of his DTs, proxied his templar tech far in the top left corner while Metal proxied a factory above Jono's base. Neither proxy was scouted, and Jono began streaming his DT assassins to Metal's base. Metal seemed to suspect shenanigans and spread out his marines to scout for it. As the DTs made the long march across the map, an engineering bay was thrown down. Jono's first DT took two mines to the face. The second DT nearly met a similar fate, but managed to get into the mineral line only to find a turret waiting. This DT also goes down doing zero damage.

Metal then pushed back, streaming vultures into Jono's new expansion, which was defended only by two defensive DTs and two un-upgraded dragoons blocking the ramp. The DTs died clearing most of the mines, the Nexus weathered some damage, and the vultures attempted to surround the reinforcing dragoons. But the ramp held, the Nexus goes up, and the vulture attack was beaten back.



However, Metal had left a small present that gave the casters and viewers near conniptions as they waited at the edges of their seats. A lone spider mine placed in the mineral line was missed late into the game even by Jono's very late obs. The entire time, the mine (and viewers) waited for an absent-minded dragoon to pass by and blow up the returning probes.

In the meantime, Jono cleared out all of the other mines without an obs, while Metal follows up with a dropship. The vulture harass had only just begun.



While Jono moved out with his dragoons and shuttle, Metal's vultures dropped in the main. The probes were pulled, but three dragoons went down before the harass was halted. But the drop was merely Metal's shot over the bow before he unleashed such a string of drop harasses that the distressed casters begged of Jono "Can he just make cannons? ...just make some f-ing cannons!"

The next drop followed shortly after. This time the drop was in the natural and the observer was nowhere near. The left-over mine from the first push patiently waited to leap out, but the vultures needed little assistance to wipe out the probe line. Jono did kill the vultures and the over-looked mine was finally cleared, allowing the viewers to breathe easier.



Jono had been on the back foot ever since the failed DT rush, but he had doggedly pumped probes from his two bases and expanded into the top left corner. In addition an arbiter is on the way. Metal is now on five factories, but still building primarily vultures.

Metal drops another group of vultures in the main, and yet another gang of vultures found Jono's third expansion blocked only by an undefended pylon wall. The vultures began chipping at the wall while Jono reinforced the wall with a forge and multiple gateways. The pylon wall went down just as the first cannon finally warped in, and dragoon reinforcements cleaned up the vultures from behind.



Yet another vulture drop hit the main and, at the same time, Metal took his third. Metal was everywhere on the map, and Jono is nowhere. However Metal still only has seven tanks.

Metal dropped two tanks on the undefended third and Jono pulled his probes to attack the tanks. However, Metal's follow up drop of vultures turned the bold defence into a route, and the probes are massacred. Dragoon reinforcements hurried to defend, but were blocked by the very gateway wall that kept the first vulture push out. Mines destroyed most of the dragoons, but Jono managed to clean up the tank-vulture drop at his third.

Once again, vultures were in Jono's natural and main and once again the raiders were cleaned up. Again and again, Metal had bounced from base to base, pulling Jono's defence in a hundred directions. However, Jono had slowly consolidated an impressive army, and he sprang to attack.

Bypassing the giant vulture army in the middle of the map, Jono recalled his army into Metal's base. Caught out of position, Metal rushed his army to Jono's base. However, Jono stases five tanks at the bridge, sending the remaining three tanks, and the large vulture army, into retreat. Dragoon defenders drag mines into Metal's army wiping out half of the vultures.



Meanwhile, the recalled army rampaged through Metal's base, picking off reinforcements and wrecking Metal's supply & production, and it's gg.






Cambium:There’s been some confusion w.r.t. my nationality, and I think this is a good time to clear things up: I’m Chinese Canadian currently living and working in Japan.

I stumbled upon TL in 2003 because it was one of the few sources for BW VODs back in the day. I first got involved by doing some translations from translated Chinese interviews to English, but eventually, there were enough Koreans on the site, such translations weren’t necessary any more. I followed progaming on TL since 2003, all the way until its end. It was a fun ride, and I'm really glad I was part of it.

Over the years, I had the opportunity to meet quite a few TL old-timers from all over the world, and it’s been great fun every time.

Cambium:WELL, if you have been following the ThSL, I'm sure you would know by now (Professor Jolt <3)

The vascular cambium (pl. cambia or cambiums) is a part of the morphology of plants. It consists of cells that are partly specialized, for the tissues that transport water solutions, but have not reached any of the final forms that occur in their branch of the specialization graph.

It was just something that I randomly learned about in high school Biology, and thought it was a really cool word at the time, and it looked nice (you know how words have ‘shapes'). So I registered on TL with it (back 8 years ago).

Cambium:It felt awesome. What is so great about this tournament is that it gives you opportunities to play against these legendary tier pokemons... you know, players you would hear stories about, but wouldn't normally get a chance to play against. I’ll mail Rek the small sticker if I win the tournament, since he seems to have an unparalleled fascination with them.

Cambium:No, I didn't prepare anything. I thought of a few scenarios, but I didn't get a chance to practice. I knew he was playing Random, and since I play Protoss, it's very unlikely that it would be PvP (something like 10-15%?, empirically).

I was planning to forward two Gate regardless whether he spawned Z or T. I had planned to cannon bust his wall if he spawned T and walled on Requiem (which probably wouldn't have worked out so well lol). I was just lucky that I scouted him super early and stole his gas twice. I was fairly certain I had lost during game one after he landed his Barracks to block my zealots, but I really didn't have a follow up, so I had to go on with the all-in.

As for ‘perfect counter’, I honestly can’t think of a better response than what Kiante had already said: we were just being cunts to each other, and the cunts exploded.

Cambium:I am bad, as most of you know.

I stopped playing BW in 2009, but I had a lot of free time during my master’s studies, and hit C+ 40-10 or something 1.5 years ago, but I really didn't have the drive to grind it out to see how high I could reach. I had stopped playing BW again since then until ThSL came along. I practiced quite a bit prior to the group matches just to get in shape (probably ~30 games of mostly PvZ), now I play about 8-10 games a week. BW is a great source of entertainment and frustration.

My current level is poor compared to before. A lot of the time, I know I should do X then Y then Z, but I usually just stop at Y or sometimes even X because it's so hard to keep up mechanically, and I just say 'screw it, w/e'.




Cambium:No pressure at all. I expect to get outplayed completely, and I’m serious about this.

PvZ is almost impossible when you play against a player who is better than you, because Zerg almost always has a full scout of your base, and is therefore almost impossible to do weird all-ins. From Drone's game against Kiante, I think he plays very reactionary and management oriented ZvP, which makes the match up even harder. You are really walking a very thin line playing PvZ as opposed to PvT, and I’m pretty sure I’ll fall over pretty quickly.

I was just really lucky against Rekrul. As a spectator, I actually really wanted to watch Rek and Drone dueling it out. For the few of you expecting an upset, my PvT has always been a lot better than PvZ, but I will try my best! Although, I do have the propensity to cancel Forges randomly =/

Cambium:I think it's amazing. What I like the most about ThSL is that it got me started playing BW again, with some of the bestest and greatest no less. I would love to play in future events, and I think I should be able to play at a higher level if I keep this up! And most importantly, we are having so much fun.

Cambium:I still spend quite a lot of time on TL, but less so in the BW forum because it's kind of quiet. I’m pretty active in TLHF, and I think it’s a great subforum and encourage everyone to visit.

As for amateur leagues, aside from ThSL, SSL is a great event, and I follow it a little bit, and watch a couple of VODs whenever I have time. I also try to catch some Gambit Cup if team CN is involved. Salye is doing an incredible job BTW.

Cambium:Kiante and SirJolt for the FANTASTIC work they are putting in towards the tournament. I don't think Kiante gets enough love, whenever I make a mistake in the games, I immediately think to myself, "ah crap, I wonder what Kiante is going to say about that". It's great.

There are also a lot of people working behind the scenes like yourself, HPig, and our organizer Torenhire. You guys are all amazing.

And those who follow ThSL, thanks for watching!




I've been doing my best to collate some facts about race balance in the ThSL, but I'm going to level with you, I'm no mathematician. I am, if anything, an artist. It's all I can do to tell you some of the things I've seen in my time casting the ThSL, the dreams and the nightmares.

So many people claim that Brood War's balance lies in the cleverness with which its three races intertwine, the careful balance between detection and cloaking, mining and construction. Those who have seen more than a decade worth of play come and go know better, they place the burden of balance on the careful construction of maps.

I've said it before; I can't offer analysis based on years of accumulated statistics. I can't offer analysis based on the tenuous balance of different maps. There is, however, another layer, one that exists beyond the mechanics, beyond the maps, beyond even the intricacies of high level play, there are the bugs.

Those of you who have watched the ThSL will by now know that I am in a special position. My lack of knowledge, game sense, and understanding may well be the least likely Brood War commentator, but you find me in strange circumstances. Inhabiting a strange, liminal netherworld, a place in which anything can happen and nothing is as it seems, I have been made a casting shaman. I gaze into the gaps between the games and divine things no one else can see.

I've seen things you daren't dream of, probe millipedes snaking their way across the map, surrounding hatcheries and bringing them down with cold efficiency. I've seen Protoss players drowning under the sheer weight of their banked minerals, in spite of their maxed armies. I've seen Zerg players with evolution chambers researching 3/3 for fifteen minutes. I've seen Terran mines dragged across the map, and siege tanks doing donuts for minutes at a time.

I've seen a vespene geyser burst, spattering blood across the creep, only to have a single probe emerge, a twisted Protoss Ahab. I've seen reavers fire endlessly without need to rebuild scarabs, hordes of hydralisks wandering into them, helpless. Scarabs, you understand, are themselves bugs.

In a world you may never see, a world reached only by means even I can't fully comprehend... Protoss imba reigns supreme.

As we come into an all ZvP semifinals, there's only one question on my mind. Can the lust for first place and those precious stickers overcome the clear imbalance in favour of Protoss players? If so, is it possible that we could see Chill and Eriador advance to give us the ZvZ finals we so sorely deserve to hear Kiante rage about?*

*It's not, possible that we'll see a ZvZ finals, as both Chill and Drone recognise the advantage Protoss has and play PvZ.





If you read the interview earlier in this update you'd know that Cambium doesn't fancy himself against Drone. This attitude is completely understandable. As someone who was in this position a few weeks ago I think I have a pretty good feel for how intimidated Cambium must be feeling. This lack of confidence can in fact be a boon. Playing with no expectations and no stress about the result can lead to much smoother games. Cambium is no stranger to taking on old school players, beating Rekrul convincingly in the Ro8. While it is evident that Drone is on another level of difficulty to Rekrul, this experience can only work in Cambiums favour.

Drone on the other hand has dominated almost everyone he has run into during this tournament. The Ro8 saw Drone actually dropping a game and was in a tricky position in the final match, but was able to pull through. This ability to assess the game state and make intelligent decisions to try and come back from deficits was perhaps most evident in Drone's loss in game two. He lost his main and his natural, but still managed to hold off a max supply protoss army for another 10 minutes with just exceptional unit control and decision making.

Regardless of who wins this series, it is clear that it should be exciting. Cambium playing with no regrets and Drone coming in as the solid and resourceful favourite. This is a case of my head arguing with my heart when I try to make a prediction, but if I was forced to, I would guess that Drone 3 - 1 Cambium will be the final result. That being said my heart wants to see Cambium win as the underdog / Protoss hero.




This series on paper looks a lot harder to call. Both Chill and Jonoman have been well into the blue ranks in their Broodwar career. Both are coming off an extended hiatus and have been slowly warming up their play throughout the ThSL. Chill's play has been exciting and at times scrappy, often getting into a poor position and digging his way out of it with calm decision making and fighting spirit. However, this was not the case in his series against intrigue, which took the form of a quick two-zero stomp, with Chill demonstrating his versitility in both standard Muta/lurker/defiler player, and also his variety of openings to gain an early advantage through unorthodox agression. This was a whole new side of Chill's play that had been lacking previously in the tournament, and it suddenly appearing has most likely made Jonoman feel quite nervous going into their series.

Jonoman's play has steadily been improving over the course of the tournament as well. After a fairly sketchy group stages where he lost a series to Kiante (myself), he's come back strongly and has shown some good fight and perseverance. Jonoman showed that he has exceptional PvZ, taking out one of the favourites for the tournament in the Ro16 in the form of BioboyAT in some solid macro games. His victory over Metal[x] was looking in jepardy all throughout the final game, but his ability to overcome disadvantages and understand the reality of the game state makes him a fearsome opponent.

All in all this series will most likely go down to the wire. I expect both players will mix in a variety of standard and cheesy strategies to try and take down the series, but once again, if forced I'm going to predict a victory to Chill 3 - 2 Jonoman. The sole reason here is that throughout this entire tournament I have often called a game as a loss for Chill, only to be calling the gg in his favour 15 minutes later. No more will this happen. Chill will take the series.

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This THSL coverage has been brought to you by HawaiianPig, 2Pacalypse-, Sirjolt, Hyde, Falling and Kiante.