Table of Contents

Team Check Ups:
Part One
Samsung, STX, KeSPA, CJ


Featured Game
Rain vs. HerO


SK Planet Proleague table and results at Liquipedia

Round one of Proleague are over, and we've got an early feel for how the season could shape up. Seven games is a small sample for sure, and the rise and decline of players will surely sway the fortunes of the teams down the line. But there were still lessons to be learned from four short weeks of games, enough to give us a little insight into how the second round of games might go.

Here's our brief report on the eight teams of the Proleague, starting with the 8th through 5th place teams of round one:

Samsung KHAN (1 – 6, -14 map score)

Round 1 Lookback

Player	Race	Total Win - Loss	Ace Win - Loss	In line-up
JangBi		3 - 3	1 - 0	7/7
RorO		4 - 4	0 - 1	7/7
Stork		3 - 4	—	7/7
Reality		2 - 5	—	7/7
hOpe		1 - 1	—	3/7
Turn		0 - 2	—	3/7
Kop		0 - 2	—	2/7
JuNi		0 - 1	—	1/7
Shine		0 - 5	0 - 1	5/7
oDin		—	—	0/7

Last place, a 1 – 6 record, and a staggering minus fourteen map differential is not what we expected out of the second best SC2 team of the hybrid season. It's another result that suggests the hybrid season was truly just a stepping stone.

While there were lackluster performances around the board, there were two factors that really crippled Samsung. First, their ace RorO failed to live up to his billing as one of the best KeSPA players in the early transition. A 50% win rate from your ace is something you'd expect from Air Force ACE, and not surprisingly, Samsung KHAN shares that defunct team's familiar last place position. Second, they couldn't get any kind of production out of Shine, their #2 for Zerg for much of the first round. Shine must have been doing something right in practice to earn so many appearances, but he failed to earn even a single win for his team.

You can see Samsung's plight in how deeply they dug into their bench. While other teams ran fairly short rotations, Samsung threw just about everyone out there in hopes that they might give the team a positive contribution. Alas, it didn't go well, and none of their players played broke a 50% win rate.

Round 2 Outlook
New Registration: BBatta

The sixteen year old BBatta comes in a total rookie, with no broadcast games in either Brood War or SC2. But considering how everyone else has been doing, you can understand how Samsung is willing to take a chance on such a player.

Samsung's position pinned to the bottom of the table still seems a bit unlucky. It's not like Samsung are a title contender, but they shouldn't be this terrible. Stork and Jangbi are pulling their weight decently in the middle, and if RorO (looking like a bigger IF by the week) can pick up his game, they should at least be fighting it out for a mid-table spot.

The all-kill format of the Winners League should help Samsung, especially since it's best of seven instead of best of nine like the GSTL. Samsung has three solid players in RorO, Stork and Jangbi, and their issues in round one stemmed from whoever was playing in the next three spots over. In the Winners League, they only have to fill four spots max, meaning their lack of depth is much better hidden.

We've mention him a lot already, but the most critical factor will how much RorO steps up his game. All-kill is an extremely top heavy format, and teams with super-aces typically dominate. RorO has fallen off a lot since the WCS World Finals, but he's shown us great play from time to time that suggest he can be that kind of super-ace. His stock might be low after round one, but don't sleep on RorO.

-Waxangel

STX Soul (2 – 5, -7 map score)

Round 1 Lookback

Player	Race	Total Win - Loss	Ace Win - Loss	In line-up
Innovation		5 - 4	1 - 1	7/7
Dear		4 - 3	1 - 0	6/7
Last		3 - 3	0 - 1	6/7
Trap		3 - 3	0 - 1	6/7
hyvaa		2 - 5	—	7/7
Classic		1 - 4	—	5/7
Mini		1 - 2	—	3/7
Comet		0 - 1	—	1/7
Size		0 - 1	—	1/7
Bear		—	—	0/7
Calm		—	—	0/7

Many would think STX Soul to be a team with a clearly defined ace player, the GSL top 4 finisher, Innovation (aka Bogus). But a closer look reveals that many of Innovation's teammates have just as impressive achievements. Last took fourth place in the last OSL, Trap won rookie of the season during Hybrid Proleague, and hyvaa placed top 8 in the MLG MVP Invitational. Dear also proved himself last round, finishing with a 4-3 record, the 2nd best on the team. Unlike most other teams that have clearly defined aces, STX likes to pass around the burden/honor around among its regulars. In fact, four different players from STX have been chosen to play in the ace position, all with mixed results.

But after their 4 - 5 best core players (who are just average to slightly above average), it just gets bad from there. The rotating lineup competing for the last two spots is atrocious, and along with hyvaa, they've managed to accrue a 4 - 11 record in round 1. Consider this: all but two of STX's seven matches this round have gone to the ace match. (The other two were stompings courtesy of KT and EG-TL, two of the stronger teams in Proleague) STX seems to be able to fight toe-to-toe with most teams, but are unable to close it out early with a 4:2 or better score, because they always seem to have at least one default loss. Then when they get to the ace match, they are able to put out solid players, but don't have a reliable, designated ace to take it home each time.

Round 2 Outlook

Round 2 brings a new format that is a mixed blessing for STX. The biggest advantage for STX in winners league is that instead of being forced to field six players each time out, only four are required to win a match. This allows STX to only use their core four players if they wish, a core that is quite consistent and certainly much better than their bench. The absence of an ace match also helps out STX as that stress-filled position is one Soul has struggled to fill.

On the other hand, this round will be played in an all-kill format and all-kill formats have traditionally been dominated by one or two players (superaces). Innovation is good, but probably overrated after his Code S run. He's better than his 5 - 4 Round 1 record tells: he faced some of the toughest competitors in the league, losing to Effort and Taeja, but took down both Rain and Flash as well. He is definitely ace material, but doesn't show the dominating strength of a player like DRG or Symbol in their GSTL primes. Thus, once again, we come back to the core. Since Innovation cannot be 100% relied upon, in order to succeed in this league, all of STX's core will have to pull their weight and then some.

These two conflicting factors, the reduction from 6 players to 4 in the lineup and STX's lack of a particularly strong ace, bring us back to exactly where we started. STX will probably perform similarly to how they did in round 1, hovering in the lower half. The only probably difference is that in this all-kill format, they may be more likely to upset the stronger teams, but at the same time, they can be more vulnerable to the weaker ones.

- monk.

KeSPA 8th Team (3 – 4, -6 map score)

Round 1 Lookback

Player	Race	Total Win - Loss	Ace Win - Loss	In line-up
Baby		5 - 5	2 — 1	7/7
Speed		4 - 2	—	7/7
Jaehoon		3 - 3	—	7/7
Ryul2		3 - 4	—	7/7
Terminator		1 - 3	—	7/7
Alone		1 - 3	—	4/7
check		0 - 3	—	3/7
Haruhi		—	—	0/7
Sherry		—	—	0/7

Baby, one of the few established SC2 stars before the start of the Proleague, had a fairly mediocre round one, with his 50% win rate only redeemed by the fact that he went 2 – 1 in ace matches. While many would have predicted a last place finish from the Eights with their star ailing, it turned out that the rest of the roster was stronger than anyone imagined.

Speed, Jaehoon, and Ryul2 – who have annoyingly started going by Cure, Argo, and Savage, respectively – combined for 10 wins and 9 losses and gave the team the solid backbone they seemed to so sorely lack before the season. It's been a semi-crapshoot as to which of the unheralded BW players would end up blossoming as SC2 players, and T8 looks to have gotten pretty lucky so far with Speed and Ryul2. If Baby had lived up to his end of the bargain in round one, then we might even have seen the Eights finish in the top half of the table.

Round 2 Outlook
New Registration: Major

Team Eight played the shortest rotation of any team in round one, with five player spots 100% fixed for every single match, and the sixth spot taken over by the duo of Alone and check. In the Proleague format, we'd say that's a weakness, and that the team lacks depth. However, depth isn't nearly as important in a Bo7 winners league, and we can instead repackage that weakness as a strength in "they know for sure who their best players are."

While we'd love for MajOr to wow everyone in practice so much that he instantly makes the team's top four, in all likelihood we're not going to see a whole lot of him until we return to the Proleague format of matches. Still, with the maps determined beforehand, we can still hold out for the possibility of seeing him used for a mech TvZ snipe on a specific map.

Overall, Team Eight are in a similar position as Samsung. They have a solid line-up of players, but their ultimate success will depend on a talented, but highly inconsistent ace.

-Waxangel

CJ Entus (3 – 4, -1 map score)

Round 1 Lookback

Player	Race	Total Win - Loss	Ace Win - Loss	In line-up
herO[join]		6 - 4	1 - 2	7/7
Effort		5 - 3	1 - 0	7/7
Hydra		3 - 5	0 - 1	7/7
BByong		3 - 4	—	7/7
SonGDuri		2 - 2	—	6/7
sKyHigh		2 - 4	—	6/7
Bong[S.G]		1 - 1	—	2/7
Leta		—	—	0/7
Snow		—	—	0/7
rare		—	—	0/7
Horang2*		—	—	0/7

Damn, what happened to upheaving the existing order? The hybrid season champs had a great first two weeks of games, but were brought back down to earth by the superpowers SKT and KT. Not surprisingly, the team's success followed the rise and fall of ace player in herO[join], who had been the lynchpin of their playoff campaign in the hybrid season. After starting out 5 – 0 in round one and leading his team to an early 1st place position, herO finished his last five games with a 1 – 4 record.

Weeks 3 and 4 weren't actually that calamitous a "collapse," as CJ lost a series of very close games. SKT, Samsung, and KT handed them three straight 3 – 4 losses, and while the inability to win ace matches is worrisome, it's no cause for panic.

The real problem could be how top-heavy CJ is looking in the early going. Effort backed herO up with a 5 – 3 record, starting to ease into his old role from the Brood War days as an efficient Proleague win-machine. But outside the top two, the rest of the roster produced a disappointing 11 – 16 record.

Round 2 Outlook

Fortunately, being top heavy is the single most desirable quality in the winners league (the second being having just enough depth so that no player is a free-kill). HerO and Effort are one of the better one-two punches in the Winners League, more than capable of carrying a sagging bench to a few victories.

One point of curiosity, and perhaps concern for CJ Entus is how they'll choose to deploy their roster depending on the maps. CJ was very committed to using their players as map specialists in round one – Hydra on Arkanoid, BByong on Planet S, Effort on Tal'Darim, and SkyHigh on Bifrost – and the fixed map order of the Winners League could allow them to continue that strategy.

The loser's map-pick style of GSTL made the conventional wisdom to always play your top X players, but we could see that challenged in fixed-map style of the Winners League. Don't be too mad if Skyhigh comes out as the ace on Bifrost while herO[join] is left on the bench.

-Waxangel


Continue to Part 2

Writers: monk. Geiko, and Waxangel.
Graphics: HawaiianPig.
Editors: monk., and Waxangel.