After a Ro4 that lived up to expectations, in both the best and the worst ways, we move on to the final. Following an incredibly tough series against Movie, Sea will likely be hoping for a little bit of a rest. Mong, meanwhile, has been conserving his energy, and has needed only a little more than 90 minutes of game time to advance through the elimination bracket, having not dropped a game since the Ro16.

Returning in this post to recap the best and the worst of the Ro4 is our resident Starcraft scholar and all-round handsome devil, Hyde. Then, after the accidental triumph that was the Ro4 predictions, I set out to prove the old adage that even a stopped clock is right twice a day with my final preview for this tournament.

When Sea rolled over Movie in the last game of the semi-finals, there was some sense that the 11th SOSPA Ranking Tournament had effectively ended as a contest. However, as has been demonstrated multiple times in only the past few weeks, Brood War has a way of surprising you when you least expect it.

Looking at the results above most people would think Mong had a cakewalk in the semi-finals, and they would be mostly right, simply because Mong capabilities, both offensively and defensively, exceed that of beast's. But that's not to say that beast played poorly, there were definitely some moments where he displayed competence and while he's no Killer at the very least he put up entertaining games with some unorthodox strategies.

In the first game beast kept Mong’s marines well at bay for the majority of the game, never allowing them to travel more than halfway towards his expansions before intercepting them with his mutas. That allowed beast to reach hive unhindered and tech to both defilers and guardians. Unfortunately for beast, Mong moved out with a considerable force for a two-prong attack that hit the small window of vulnerability, a period where his defilers were not ready and the mutas were cocooned. Beast had little in the way of ground units and when the defilers and guardians finally arrived, beast had lost quite a lot at his natural and his third. Beast never recovered and Mong grew stronger in economy and army size, which made defending the next large attack an impossible task.


Determined to take at least one game, beast looked to his bag of tricks and pulled out a 3-hatch hydra surprise attack, which might have worked if beast reinforced better, wasn’t in cross-positions, and focus fired a little more diligently. There were more forces at work against him though, like Terran being a super resilient race and medics making everything better. Once Mong knew what was coming he held on with his medics/marines/SCVs until siege tanks arrived and beast’s gig was up. Beast got his lair and held on a little longer before Mong’s forces became a little too much.

In the third game, whether Mong was tired, didn’t feel like playing late-game, or angry that beast even attempted the last strategy, he showed his teeth with an 8-rax. Mong bode his time, waiting for one or two more marines before he launched his own surprise. Backed with a train line of SCVs, Mong’s surprise attack was a great success that propelled him into the SRT finals.



Sea came against his first real opponent in this tournament that put his skills to the test and brought about many exciting games. Far from his dismal performance in season one of the SK Planet PL, Sea exhibited more flexibility and variety. Movie, on the other hand, played similarly in almost every game, never really deviating too far from what appeared to be his favourite opening, which brought about mixed results. Perhaps he would have been more successful had he diversified his strategies a little more.

The series started off with both players opening with builds geared towards harassment, Sea with a factory and starport, Movie with his robo and support bay. Both players make their move at roughly the same time with Movie suffering slightly more economic damage. However, Movie turned up the heat when he loaded another reaver and zealots into his shuttle and moved out with goons. Sea’s siege mode was late and Movie took advantage by pressing the natural that lead to Sea's tanks huddling up – a perfect scenario for Movie’s shuttle drop. The shuttle dropped its payload and left Sea with nothing to defend the invading army.


Unshaken from the quick defeat, Sea continued to play with vigor, scouting persistently, which uncovered Movie’s proxy robo. Sea then subdued Movie temporarily with his 3-fact push that destroyed Movie’s natural and forced him back inside his main. Decent shuttle/reaver drops gave Movie some hope as he expanded during the harassment. However, he was still far behind and Sea was ready to push out again. The narrow pathways made Sea’s push all the more dangerous and Movie’s attempts at counter-attacking and breaking through the push ended in disaster.

Sea gained an early advantage with his vultures in the third game when he limited the movements of Movie with spider mines. Taking advantage of Movie’s defensive play, Sea took a quick third which drove him further ahead. It didn’t help that Movie’s play was a tad sloppy, his attack on Sea’s third ended with goons idling at the ramp that gave Sea all the time in the world to bring troops. Moments later Movie attacked again, but instead of attacking with his goons and shuttle in unison, they came one after another, which resulted in more dead units while Sea’s third remained open for business.
Sea widened the gap by taking out Movie’s third that left him unable to deal with the relentless Terran onslaught.


Movie remained rigid in his stratagem and opted for another reaver opening. Much of the reaver harass was deflected but movie didn't yield and continuously sent his shuttle in and out. This goes on for quite some time; Movie continued to attack Sea’s main/natural and suffered great losses that it looked reckless on the surface.
But amidst all the chaos, Movie’s plan was coming together. He had delayed Sea’s push, lowered the number of tanks via ceaseless shuttle incursions and agile DTs, long enough for him to reach arbiter tech. When the expected counter-push came, Movie’s arbiter arrived in the nick of time to to turn the tables. A minute later and Movie had the game all wrapped up with a well-placed recall and some sensible micro.

At this point I would have liked to see something other than a reaver opening, just for variety’s sake, but Movie stuck to his guns and proxied another pylon. To Movie’s dismay, Sea located it fairly early with routine scouting, which greatly limited Movie’s ability to harass. Sea eventually moved out with his marines/vultures/tanks and took advantage of the terrain that forced Movie back to his natural and held him hostage for short while. Movie tried to even the playing field by taking an expansion and harassing via shuttle, but they were ultimately fruitless and Sea’s commanding lead quickly gave rise to a formidable mech army that Movie simply could not stop.

Having coasted through the tournament up to this point, Sea faced the first real challenge of his SOSPA career in his Ro4 series against Movie, narrowly advancing 3-2 over the former CJ Protoss. Mong, meanwhile, played what appeared to be one of the easiest series of his life as he effortlessly dismissed Beast in a three game series that took a little less than 45 minutes.

Mong enters this final 5-0 against Terran so far in the tournament but there’s little in his series against Shinee and Ample that will prepare him for a player who maintained a 60% TvT win rate over his seven year career as a progamer. In past Afreeca tournaments, Mong has often struggled against HiyA, previously 2-3 and 0-3 to a player whose TvT was often his greatest weakness during his time on Hwaseung OZ.

It’s difficult at this stage to make any particularly worthwhile comments about Sea’s current ability in the Terran mirror match-up, as he’s yet to actually play a broadcast game in it since his return to Brood War competition. In lieu of that, we can examine Sea’s performance in TvT during the final stages of his professional career - and the outlook is bright. During his final season of Proleague, under the hybrid system, Sea went 3-0 against Terran opposition. In fact, part of Sea’s struggles for form during the 11-12 Proleague season can be attributed to the fact that he didn’t meet a Terran opponent in a single one of his 14 games.


What this final comes down to is a difference in experience, a difference in knowledge and ultimately a difference in skill which form the gap between a player with over 150 Proleague wins and one with none. In the semi-final against Movie, for the first time on Afreeca Sea faced a player with whom he shared some amount of parity and was able to pull through, bloodied, but alive. There’s only one name left on Sea’s hit-list now and there’s little to do but for his chance to face off against the reigning king of SOSPA, Killer.

Mong’s place in the final was well earned and well won but, for Sea, this match-up should be little more than a formality.

Sea 3 - 0 Mong