The 12th SOSPA Ranking Tournament wrapped up with Afreeca's new star man, Movie, utterly dismantling beast, who for all his best efforts looked completely outmatched against the former OSL finalist. It's beginning to feel like every time we think it's safe to bet on an up and comer, a big, mean A teamer like Movie is waiting around the next corner ready to take his lunch money and send him back to Dream League. Beast deserves credit though, for raising his game to a new level in 2013 and for joining Larva in taking the fight to the brand name ex-pros that have been dominating Afreeca tournaments for the past six months.

As has become customary for the final recap of an SRT tournament, we've expanded our coverage slightly with a full strength team available for this news update. Coming up first is our resident art-man Hyde with a recap of the grand final series between Movie and beast, followed by Epoxide's account of the tournament deciding game. Then, KristofferAG and I have teamed up to assemble our top ten games from this edition of the SRT, with all VODs provided by the irreplaceable ArvickHero. Finally, we have a winner's interview with SRT12 champion Movie, translated by Kimoleon and containing Movie's thoughts on his games throughout the tournament and his time on Afreeca so far.

Next up on the agenda is the big one, the 8th SonicTV Starleague. Watch this space.

The SRT finals turned out more lopsided than one would hope but still produced some exciting moments. Movie stumbled at the beginning but later found his groove that allowed him to dictate the pace and flow of every game with his reputable harassment (something he made look far too easy). Aside from the first game, Beast never had much of a chance to showcase his prowess seen in previous stages and often fell victim to Movie's ploys. Not once in this series did he reach hive which was disappointing given how exciting late-game PvZ can be and how defilers and cracklings could have tipped the scale a little more in his favour.

Game one started off on Python, Movie opened with two-gate but unfortunately his zealots didn’t produce any meaningful results which put him on the back foot and gave beast free reign all over the map. Movie followed it up with corsairs and reaver harass but beast was well equipped to deal with such threats – having scourge and lings all over the map and even burrow. Movie took the isolated third next to his main and continued to poke in and out with sairs but their numbers dwindled in the presence of hydras and scourge. An unfruitful slowlot attack at beast’s third was a strong indication that things were getting out of hand.

Movie’s situation went from bad to worst when his insignificant air force couldn’t combat beast’s mutas, which forced him to give up his third and lose a good number of probes in the main. Desperate to make something happen Movie sent out his modest army to exert some semblance of control, a good number of storms were thrown out but not nearly enough to stop beast's swarm that eventually swallowed Movie’s army and forced him to type out.


Affairs went much better for Movie in game two when he opted for a forge-first expand that gave him a stronger foundation to play to his beat. His sair fleet made it a nightmare to be an overlord and opened a small window to slip a DT into beast’s mineral line. Beast hastily moved on the offensive but Movie’s natural was lined with cannons and zealots that made it impossible for his hydras to break.

Beast’s units seemed anywhere but where they were actually needed and Movie continued to terrorize overlords and devastate beast’s worker population with storm drops. A moment later and Movie moved out with a lethal force that would coerce beast to submit.

With the score tied, beast was eager to win to gain back momentum. Beast opened with an overpool and quickly took two expansions while Movie played out the standard FE.
Beast’s intents were made clear when he continuously pumped units and threatened to attack, he wasn’t in this game for the long haul and it showed in his drone count. Surprisingly, both players employed trickery to gain the upper hand, beast moved several overlords outside of Movie’s main and gave them speed to fake a drop while Movie hid four zealots out of view until the coast was clear to wreck havoc.

Both players set their plans in motion and both had fallen for each other’s deception. Empty overlords cruised over the wall and into the main; Movie pulled back his zealots and beast’s hydras moved in to the natural and busted all the cannons. Meanwhile, Movie’s task force bolted into beast’s main and natural; silenced the few hydras that were alerted and proceeded to erase beast’s meager drone count. A reaver and zealots eventually allowed Movie to fight off the hydra blitz. Beast, however, was out of drones, out of hydras, and out of luck, which put him out of this game.


Game four started like every other PvZ, both players opted for standard builds. Beast hunkered down as he built up an air force; some well-cloned scourge nabbed a stack of sairs, which gave beast air superiority and his overlords a break. Beast took his fourth as his mutas took flight to attack Movie’s vulnerable main. They say the best defense is a good offense and Movie mounted an expeditious attack that forced beast to throw down several sunkens and bring his mutas back home. Beast’s sunkens did little to hold off the onslaught, the natural and main fell and large numbers of drones were murdered while trying to escape. Beast took refuge in his remaining two bases and continued to build more mutas.

Beast’s only way back into this game was to take a risky third and utilise his superior air force, he poked in and out constantly and kept Movie occupied for quite awhile but as time went on his mutas became less effective. Eventually Movie shut down beast’s mutas altogether with a dark archon and a combination of archons and storms. This left beast with little hope of coming back - his risky third had been discovered and his only means of keeping Movie at bay had been countered.
Beast conceded once his new third came under attack while Movie expanded behind his death-dealing army.

Find out how the 12th SRT concluded in Epoxide’s excellent battle report.

Before game five beast had been thrown around left and right by Movie's harassment. Going into match point beast had to summon what he did in game one to not lose four games in a row after going 1-0. Game five was on Neo Electric Circuit where beast, in yellow, spawned in the bottom left and Movie, in red, spawned in the close vertical position in the top left corner. For the first five minutes of the game Sonic decides to show us all the sponsors, Sinbal Farm, File TV, and Smart Box. Fortunately for us we can watch the early game from Movie's perspective (thanks snipealot!). Movie goes for a forge first and scouts beast last. beast looks like he went hatch first, Movie follows up the forge with a nexus. As the map is Electric Circuit beast takes his third macro hatch at his in-base mineral only. Movie decides to go for +1 corsair with reavers.


As Movie is teching up he moves out with his first zealot when the second one is done. He tries to trick the zealot through the psi disruptors by mining the minerals with a probe. After 30 seconds of trying and no success he walks into beast's base to scout. beast goes for a 3 hatch hydra pressure but Movie sees in time and builds some extra cannons and his fine as the first reaver comes out. beast makes another two hatcheries at his natural and is now up on a total of five. When the second reaver comes out Movie goes to harass at beast's natural, simultaneously beast lurker drops at Movie's natural.

Movie only manages to pick three drones while one lurker is still alive behind Movie's natural who is denying mining. beast follows it up by doing a two overlord drop in the main with two lurkers and four hydras. The lurkers in the main manages to kill around 10 probes before it's cleaned up by zealots. The lurker at the natural is also killed by a reaver and mining resumes for Movie. While this is all going on Movie is still harassing with his reaver and shuttle in beast's main. He manages to pick off another four drones before heading home with the shuttle, leaving two zealots to kill the hydra den at the third.


beast goes for yet another two overlord drop in the main, this time with eight hydralisks. Since Movie only has zealots to defend with beast does a cute lurker egg block on the ramp, preventing the zealots from doing anything. Movie brings his shuttle to harass beast's third, managing to kill the hydra den and another whopping twenty drones. The reaver ends up with 27 kills before being killed.


beast manages to kill almost all the probes in Movie's main with his lurkers and hydras that were previously dropped. Movie cleans everything up, beast drops yet again with a hydralisk and four lings basically doing nothing. Movie manages to drop a dark templar into beast's main and dropping a reaver at beast's third at the same time. Movie ends up with a 14 kill dark templar and an 18 kill reaver. beast drops two lurkers into Movie's main and kills all the probes but five in the main. Movie kills beast's third base in the process. Movie tries to storm drop beast's main but the shuttle gets intercepted and killed. Movie storm drops the natural but only catches around five drones with two storms. The Afreeca Player dies on snipealot 3, but we can still watch the end of the game from Movie's perspective.


Movie keeps harassing with storm drops, flying in a shuttle into beast's main through two scourge dodging one of them and dropping a high templar, storming the scourge over the drone line. beast tries to do a mutalisk switch but eats a big storm on all of his mutas and the remaining corsairs clean up the rest. beast gg's after having no options left. Movie takes the tournament in convincing fashion with incredible multitask and harass.