Table of Contents

Week 2 Lookback
Eight Matches of Madness


Featured Game
EG.ThorZaIN vs. CJ_SongDuri


Week 3 Previews
Sat/Sun Previews


Fantasy Spotlight
The winners and losers of week 2.



SK Planet Proleague table and results at Liquipedia

by monk. and Waxangel

The season is still young, but Week Two of Proleague gave us a better picture of who might become the powerhouses and who could struggle to stay out of the bottom of the table down the line. Defending champs CJ Entus got off to a good, first place start with a 3 - 0 record, with SK Telecom chasing closely behind. On the other hand, Samsung KHAN is stuck with the last place spot for now, a surprise considering their good SC2 record in the hybrid Proleague. However, with Team Eight racing to the bottom with a 1 - 7 map score last week, KHAN might not be there for long.

As for the darlings of the foreign scene, EG-TL, it was a week with both good and bad news. On the plus side, they drubbed Samsung KHAN 4 - 0 for their first loss. On other hand, they took a 3 - 4 loss to CJ, where HerO and TaeJa both lost matches. Seeing as the Liquid Duo was one of the main reasons EG-TL was regarded highly coming into the season, one must wonder how they will perform as the season goes on.

December 16th - 17th

After taking an 4 – 3 win over Samsung KHAN in the opening week, the KeSPA 8th team played more like the team most people were expecting when the rosters were revealed at the start of the season. A team where the ace BaBy plays a crucial role, and is hard pressed to get wins from anyone else when he falls (a 0 – 4 loss to SKT would follow later in the week).

The series served to highlight a critical weakness of the Eights, with BaBy getting easily sniped by the far lesser known Hitman. Having played mech builds in TvZ in the previous week of Proleague and in Code A matches, Hitman was able to prepare a strange but ultimately effective counter strategy consisting of mutas, roach drops, and a transition to brood lords before his opponent could find his bearings.

The silver lining the Eights was that their captain Jaehoon won his game at least, keeping him at 2/2 on the season. If he can continue to be a reliable second man to BaBy, then this team could piece together some more series wins down the line.




Two of the deeper SC2 rosters in the Proleague engaged in a close, hard-fought battle, with Woongjin winning due to their possession of the superior ZvZ player. The Ace Match map was predetermined as Tal'Darim Altar, a map that has been dominated by Zergs thus far (80% of entries are Zerg, and none of the daring non-Zerg entries have won a game yet). For all his great performances in MLG run online leagues, soO couldn't hold up to the GSL tested Soulkey in a ZvZ Ace Match.

Outside of the ace, the series contained a mixture of expected results and upsets. Key players soO, Rain, and Soulkey won their games, but we saw Code B > Code A upsets in Paralyze over sOs (sHy), and hOn_sin taking down Fantasy. Additionally, it was encouraging for Woongjin to see one of their best BW players in Zero pick up a win (with a baneling bust on Best), but they were left waiting for their BW Protoss ace Free to find his form as he took a bad loss to Rain.




The Samsung vs. STX featured the only Code S vs. Code S match of the week, as Innovation (Bogus) took on Roro in the ace match. In the aftermath, Samsung were denied a win in an ace match for their second consecutive game.

Interestingly, it was RorO who won his regular line-up game against Last (with overwhelming force of muta-bane-ling-infestor on Arkanoid), while Innovation was the one who didn't quite live up to his reputation as ace by dropping a game to Reality (Innovation's fast banshee was countered by even faster marine-hellion attacks).

RorO tried to bring the same style of play to the ace match on Ohana, using muta-ling-bane to retain some mid-game map control while he transitioned to hive. However, it proved to be almost completely ineffectual against Innovation, who shored up his defenses against a bust, and then sprang forward with a deadly pre-hive marine-tank timing. RorO tried to counter attack to buy time, but it was to avail as Innovation simply held at home and plowed through RorO's bases to take the series for his team.




EG-TL's quest for their first win was delayed once more, losing to yet another Proleague championship winning team. This time it happened to be CJ Entus, the defending champions who made a strong playoff run in the hybrid season based off their SC2 play.

Things seemed to be going swimmingly at first, with Jaedong and TaeJa overpowering Bbyong and Bong as expected. The foreigner duo of HuK and ThorZaIN fell listlessly after, but that was somewhat expected. However, things then took an ominous turn as key player HerO lost to Hydra, falling for his old nemesis in the slow-ling all-in. Luckily for EG-TL, JYP was able to make the save, taking down Effort with a three-base timing in a PvZ. It all came down to the ace match, and EG-TL answered a much-asked question from the fans by picking TaeJa over HerO as their ace. Meanwhile, CJ went with hero[join], their most tournament accomplished player, setting up a TvP clash on Ohana.

In yet another surprising result, Liquid's other ace fell to lesser known player, this time with all the marbles on the line. TaeJa left hero[join] to his own devices, allowing him successfully go for fast upgrades and fast templar tech. The investment paid off in spades for hero[join], as he was able to crush TaeJa in huge storm-timing attack, grasping hold of the lead and never letting go until the final GG.

December 18th - 19th

The same KT Rolster that looked so dominating against a weakened EG-TL and a Jaedong-less Team 8 would go up against their first true challenge in Woongjin Stars. And while KT Rolster swept their first and second matches with 4-0 and 4-1 scores, they would soon feel what it would be like on the opposite side of the coin, falling 0-4 to the Stars. Everything seemed to go wrong for KT Rolster and the same team that had looked so in control before seemed clueless against a full strength Kespa team. Some of the losses were painful to watch, with Action failing to defend against a warp prism + sentry block, and Mind getting caught completely defenseless against a cloaked banshee.

But the story of the match had to be Flash. Flash's precision and his attention to detail in his match against Zenio was nowhere to be seen against Zero. Many times, Flash's head seemed to be in the clouds, wondering if perhaps he left the stove on in the teamhouse. His reaction times were horrendous as he lost army after army to simply due to not paying attention, either sieging tanks too late or only starting to split marines after half of them had already died. Unfortunately for Flash, this is not an isolated incident, as Flash has been known to make similar mistakes, most recently in his games against Baby in their recent GSL match. As Flash is obviously the heart and soul of KT Rolster, it's worrisome for the team's performance down the line.




Though on paper, this looked like a one-sided victory of a front-runner team over a back-crawling one, the final score doesn't do justice to how close this series actually was. First of all, as Team 8 is widely regarded as the weakest team in proleague, and as it was with Airforce ACE before them, it looks like teams are choosing to send weaker players against the Eights in order to give them more experience. SKT1 seemed to follow this rule, as s2 and yeOngJae, two non-regulars in SC2, were thrust out into the battlefield.

Team 8's Speed tried his best against s2 in a close game, but he could not overcome Zerg'derim Altar. Baby gained a sizable economic lead against Best, but lost it all in one unfavorable battle. Ryul2 actually reached the Infestor/Broodlord stage on equal terms against Fantasy, but Fantasy's scrappiness somehow allowed him to slowly and eventually whittle down Ryul2's entirely Infestor/Broodlord army down. And finally, yeOngJae versus Alone was probably the least close series; Alone tried cute tactics such as baneling drops followed by baneling landmines, but yeOngJae's combination of solid standard play and map abuse were more than enough to power through the Alone's Hello Kitty tactics.

And so a 4-0. As the season goes on, we're beginning to see Team 8 cementing themselves as SC2's Air Force ACE and SKT1 cementing themselves as SC2's SKT1.




STX and CJ are two of the hottest teams as of late. STX has Bogus; after reaching top four in the GSL, Bogus is probably one of the most hyped Kepsa players that exists. Meanwhile, few teams have as strong of a one-two punches as that of CJ's hero[jOin] and Effort combo. When the two teams clashed, there was a mixture of refined and raw play to be seen in the games. The most impressive win came from Bogus who microed his way to victory with just one well-executed attack against Hydra. And the biggest flop came from Trap, who fell to a standard 1-1-1 all-in like it was 2011. But by the time all the regularly scheduled matches were done and finished, the score was tied at 3-3 and it was time for the ace match.

As Tal'darim Altar was the map, at least one Zerg was sure to show. CJ sent out Effort, a player with much potential, but a 0-3 record in the Proleague at that point. STX, without a particularly strong Zerg, chose Bogus as their champion. Seeing as no other race had ever beaten Zerg on Tal'darim Altar, Bogus chose to employ a proxy 2-rax looking for an easy victory. Things looked great for Bogus as his proxy remained unscouted and his opponent went for an especially late pool. But just as Bogus looked like he was about to secure the win, he overextended, letting a pack of lings run-by to kill all of his SCVs at home. Bogus might be a great player, but he let his hubris get in the way of an easy victory for his team.




EG-Liquid is slowly learning the ropes of Proleague. From their opening 0-4 embarrassment against KT Rolster, to their nail-bitingly close 3-4 loss against CJ Entus, to their complete sweep of Samsung Khan, it's starting to look a lot better for the first foreigner team in Proleague.

Roro seems to be particularly weak to EG-TL Zergs; after being soundly defeated by Idra at WCS Grand Finals, he suffered another big loss to Zenio today in a fairly standard game. Meanwhile, JYP was able to hide a probe in Stork's base, so he abandoned his original plans and took the opportunity to four gate to victory. Hero just simply outclassed Reality and showed that he was the much better player in their match. And Shine continued to prove that he simply cannot win games, getting outplayed by Jaedong at the Tyrant's best match-up. This loss would bring Shine to a 0-4 record and his team to a 0-3.

As much of a great result it was for EG-TL, the bigger story is how Samsung Khan has been floundering so far this season. The second place finishers from hybrid proleague have looked sloppy and unfocused throughout all their games and it's truly the whole team's fault here. Not one player has really stepped it up at all and everyone has been looking either mediocre or just bleh, a trend Samsung will have to fix quickly if they wish to vie for a playoff spot.

Week 2 Standings

Writers: monk. T.O.P. and Waxangel.
Graphics: Hawaiianpig.
Editors: monk., TheEmulator, and Waxangel.