With the Round of Mirrors completed, the 11th SOSPA Ranking tournament took a short break this weekend before the final stages begin on Wednesday night. With only a one day break between the Ro4 and the finals, there will be little time for preparation or recuperation for our remaining four players.

In this edition of SRT news, graphics man and former SPL battle reporter Hyde has pitched in with his account of the Ro8 matches. Next, in stark contrast to Hyde's sober and well-reasoned narration, comes my attempt to reclaim some dignity following another round of absolutely disastrous predictions.

There's only two days left in this installation of SOSPA Ranking Tournament but the best games are still surely yet to come. Tune in on Wednesday night to find out who will be playing in the final for the grand prize of ₩500,000.

The Ro8 kicks off with a 30 minute action-packed TvT with vultures and mines doing the majority of the damage in the early game. Mong seemed distracted, walking into mines and leaving his bases open to assault. As mines covered the ground both players took the sky with dropships, taking out SCVs and expansions but never really gaining enough of an edge to take the game at that point. Mong then set up a tank line that stretched from the top of the map to the bottom, cutting off vital resources from Ample, who sacrificed all his units trying to punch a hole through the lengthy barricade, thereby leaving his remaining bases completely open to attack.

Game 2 began with Ample's early attack that was not quite successful but also not a complete failure. Nonetheless, both players threw up their starports and took the battle into the skies. Unfortunately for Ample in a blink of an eye he lost a squadron of wraiths, leaving Mong to setup a contain with little resistance. Ample then lost more wraiths as the game progressed and forfeited when his ground units were wiped out trying to break through the contain.


Things continued to get worst for Ample in game 3 when he set out to contain Mong only to find himself contained moments later. Mong, more vigilant with his contain, made it hard for Ample to even manoeuvre around it without meeting opposition. Ample soon found himself stuck in the corner on three bases while Mong claimed the entire map. Every time Ample pushed forward, Mong pushed back harder and it became clear when Mong's wraiths flew overhead that Ample was at too much of a disadvantage.


Sea continues his dominance in the tournament, giving us a further taste of what we can expect from him should he enter SSL8.

The first game started off slow with Sea mostly sitting back and never making any big moves while Larva quickly teched towards hive. Sea eventually moved out and hit a sweet spot at Larva's third before the defilers were of any use. The third fell without much of a fight and Larva tapped out. Sea changed the pacing in the second game with a centre 8-rax, reinforced with a second barracks Sea swiftly attacked with a handful of marines, catching Larva off-guard and making short work of the natural to end the game.


In the third game, Sea continued to put on the pressure with an early sunken bust, but larva held on with some great timing, including his interception of reinforcements and some clutch lurkers which kept his head above water. Sea continued his stranglehold setting up a contain. Larva's only option was to take the fight into the air as all his ground unit, even with defiler support, were being obliterated by tanks.

Unfortunately for Larva his continual muta attacks on Sea's bases were reminiscent of some weight watcher's program - expensive and mostly ineffective. Mostly ineffective because Sea had a decent number of science vessels that continuously wrecked the mutas, not to mention marines and turrets. It consumed a large amount of Larva's attention to micro them and did nothing more than delay the inevitable, once Sea focused on Larva's third and fourth it was all over for the SSL finalist.


The best PvPs generally come from aggressive/harassment heavy gameplay and we get plenty of that in the first match as both players invest small fortunes into early reaver drops. While Tyson was unlucky with some of his scarabs, I must give Movie some credit for his intelligent worker shifts that mitigated what could have been horrific economic damage.

Watching over mineral lines became even more significant once they reached templar tech as a flurry of storm drops devastated worker lines. While the focus remained on who could move their workers out of harms way quicker, both players failed to so adequately as the number of dead workers tallied up.

Large cash reserves were burned through on both sides replenishing workers and the continuous trading of armies. As the 30 minute mark approached, players began dialling back the action. Tyson focused on getting his economy back up while Movie focused on destroying it with guerilla warfare tactics, all the while building up his own force.


It's surprising how much damage a handful of zealots and a dark templar could inflict on Tyson's bases, leaving retaliation as Tyson's only option which ended unsuccessfully. Movie continued his momentum in game two with a hidden 4-gate that he quickly converted into a (dirty) victory.

In the third game, Movie continued with his utter disregard for playing honourably, opening with proxy 2-gate almost pulling off a brilliant pylon prison, if it wasn't for some nifty micro from Tyson that saved him by the skin of his teeth. Realising his plan wasn't working out, Movie set up a contain that Tyson eventually smashed through and proceeded to overwhelm Movie.

Tyson tried paying the favor back by attempting some early aggression in the next game, which ended up having the opposite desired effect and before he knew it he was on the back foot scrambling to get his defences together. Movie's extra gate had allowed him to deflect and then go on the offensive rather quickly, in under a minute Tyson had lost all his units and with that any chance of advancing in the SRT.


In the first match we learn that two hatcheries are better than one and it's not about how quickly you can get mutas out. Hero's aggression never paid off this game, sticking with the one base, despite having mutas out long before Beast could even get his spire up, Hero could do nothing more than pick off a drone here and there. Beast sat back and played defensively as his economy grew stronger. He even had scourge to waste on overlords. Hero, unable to inflict any damage typed out and moved onto the next game.

Aside from beast forcing hero to cancel his early hatchery, nothing really goes right for him, that includes running into scourge, a botched sunken rush and leaving his base wide open for Hero to kill some drones. Hero's hidden expansion gave him the extra gas and edge he needed and Beast succumbs to the large clump of mutas and a wave of scourge that would scare any air force.

Things continued to go downhill for Beast as he opted for mass lings, Hero's solid defence deflected the entire attack which won him the game.


The fourth game turn out much better for beast with his second attempt at mass lings when they busted through Hero's natural, taking out a significant number of lings. Hero's base is left wide open to Beast's muta attack and even without dodging scourge Beast takes the game handily.

Beast upped the ante with his mass speedlings by adding a third hatchery, which paid dividends as a surge of lings overwhelmed Hero's natural and caused havoc in the main, which occupied Hero's mutas long enough for him to set up spores defences. Hero found himself in a familiar position, he had air units/control but couldn't do anything with it, so he started to recover his losses and even managed to win a large scale air battle. However, Beast edged himself further with some strategical attacks which netted him a good number of drones. From there the game concludes with muta/scourge pandemonium and Beast standing in the end with superior numbers to take the final game.

Beast confounded all expectations in the Ro8 by taking out established ex-pro Hero in a series which harked back to the heady days of June 2012 when Beast was in top form and among the best Zergs active on Fish. Mong’s performance in the Ro8 was also reminiscent of his best period of form in 2012, as he completely dominated Ample in a TvT series that had promised to be a much closer affair.


This matchup is essentially a tale of the contrasting strengths of its two protagonists. First, Beast, who like Mong is a former SRT champion but whose best performances and most impressive victories have always come against Zerg and Protoss opponents. Mong, meanwhile, was originally famous on Afreeca for his TvZ, specifically his ability to repeatedly destroy sAviOr with his late mech playstyle.

Beast could, for all we know, be in the best form of his life and it still oughtn’t matter. Even when at his lowest ebb, Mong plays the kind of TvZ that borders on cruelty. On current (or indeed any) form, Mong should see this out easily.

Mong 3 - 0 Beast



Sea and Movie both showed their difference in class in the Ro8, easily advancing over their hard-working but ultimately inferior opponents. For Sea, the Ro8 did little but confirm the notion that the only player who has even an outside chance of testing his TvZ is Killer. While for Movie, a win over Tyson in what could have been a tricky match-up further improved his claim for number one position among Afreeca Protoss.

After being burned badly in the Ro16 by predicting Sea could struggle with his TvP against the maverick stylings of Sky, I’m loath to doubt the abilities of Sea ever again. However, looking back 12 months to when both of these players were progamers and playing semi-regularly for their teams in Proleague again makes me wonder if this will be entirely straightforward for the ex-MBC Terran. The last broadcast game between these two came a little less than twelve months ago, with Movie taking a easy (but cheesy) victory over Sea on Jade.


Movie’s PvT form towards the end of his career yielded few notable results but his 2-1 PvT record in the 11-12 Proleague season is more pleasing on paper than Sea’s 1-7 in TvP. How relevant this is to their current form is debatable but it should leave little doubt about Movie’s ability to at least be a factor in this series.

With the ease of Sea’s straightforward victory over Sky in the back of my mind, I won’t take the risk of predicting against him. All that’s left now is to hope Movie can be the first one to actually put up a fight.

Sea 3 - 2 Movie