EPTBenQ GSTL 2013
Season One
LG-IM vs. FXO
Match Recap
Axiom-Acer vs.
Team MVP
Preview
Brackets and results on Liquipedia
FXO vs. LG-IM: Recap
Super Effective
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Squirtle leads LG-IM to victory over FXO with three wins in his debut match.The first Heart of the Swarm GSTL started off with LG-IM going up against two-time champions FXO in GomTV's new Gangnam Studio. The series between the defending champions and one of the strongest rosters in the world initially looked like it would be a nail-biting, 7-game series. Players from both sides took turns at eliminating one player before being eliminated themselves, tying the match up at 2 - 2 by the mid way point. However, LG-IM's new acquisition
Squirtle came out and closed out the series with a 3-kill, eliminating Tear (now playing on the ID Hurricane), 
JKS and Leenock to win the opening match of the GSTL season for his new team.How does this game work?
- A hit at MLG, HotS brings one-sided games in the GSTL.
The theme of the night was, more than anything else, inexperience.
FXOLucky and LG-IM_Ruin started off the match by playing a game on Red City that was almost identical to WoL for the first 15 minutes, with Ruin not even getting a mothership core until very late. With both players macroing up without much aggression, Ruin looked clueless when he eventually found himself on the wrong end of a severe beatdown. Lucky marched into his base, abducting every colossus in sight with vipers to severely weaken Ruin's army, and then killed him off with hydras and roaches before storm was finished.Going along with the theme of the losing player getting utterly wrecked by HotS units, the next match saw
Lucky's Life-style mass ling/baneling attack on 
YoDa thwarted by a few well-placed widow mines blowing up in his face. While Lucky was was able to deal some damage to Yoda's economy, the LG-IM Terran had already sent two medivacs full of units across the map to deal damage while the baneling bust wasn't doing nearly enough damage to make up for it. Lucky tried a second, last ditch baneling attack, but it was thwarted by another massive widow mine shot. Though Lucky managed to hold on for a few more minutes he eventually died to Yoda's superior army, tying up the series at 1 - 1.![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSTL/2013s1/minebefore.jpg)
Before.
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSTL/2013s1/mineafter.jpg)
After.
The next player to be sent out was
Tear, aka Hurricane (presumably because FXO liked the idea of playing Hurricane on Whirlwind), who proceeded to also play a very WoL-esque game. He caused some minor damage with a mothership core coupled with a zealot/stalker poke early in the game, but aside from the MSC the game ended up playing out almost exactly the same as it would have in WoL. Both players went into macro mode, with Yoda repeatedly trying to deal damage with medivac drops. He did take out a few gateways, but he regularly found himself outmaneuvered by Hurricane who deflected his aggression with relative ease before serious damage could be dealt. More importantly, the tipping point came when Yoda accidentally built a fusion core instead of (presumably) a new factory (his initial factory had been destroyed while floating around), and found himself delayed from getting an armory and 2/2 upgrades for what seemed like an eternity. He decided to engage Hurricane's colossus-based army out in the open, and though his initial engagement was good, Hurricane pulled back and Yoda's units followed, clumping up only to be melted by colossus fire and force the GG. With the series once again in FXO's favor, the IM coach decided that it was time to bring out the big(ger) guns, and the newly acquired
Squirtle was the player of choice. Squirtle had for the most part been solid in the mirror match-up, but was also 0-2 in past games against the FXO Protoss. Their game on new map DMZ was no TvT-esque standoff like many had hoped it would have been from the map name. The game ended up going to Squirtle after Hurricane made the huge mistake of moving down his ramp with all of his units to take out a proxy pylon after scouting Squirtle's DT tech, letting Squirtle's DT to deal serious damage. Squirtle's advantage spiraled out of control as he transitioned into air, his void ray supported force going to town on Hurricane's units and tying up the series once more.- Monobattles, GSTL Style
In every Starcraft team league since the beginning of time, there have been strange players picks, stranger gameplay decisions and really weird games.
JKS vs. Squirtle offered a combination of all three in one single game. The decision to use JKS, who had performed quite well in the pre-season, was still surprising to many viewers, who expected the proven Leenock-Gumiho duo to be FXO's final two players. Sent out to stop Squirtle's momentum, JKS's methods were questionable at best. Upon scouting stargate tech and detecting Squirtle's intention to go into mass void rays, JKS answered with going for... Ultra/ling. And a lot of queens. It may be that he tried to divert Squirtle's attention while preparing for a switch into higher tech, but he found himself losing ultra after ultra while his queens couldn't provide the firepower to take out the void rays. Strangely enough, the ultras and lings were still able to be somewhat useful despite having no anti air-capacity, using their superior mobility over void rays to shut down Squirtle's attempts to move past three bases.
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSTL/2013s1/thisishots.jpg)
Welcome to HotS!
JKS did manage to win one engagement on the back of good transfusions and lots of fungal growth on top of clumped void rays, but failed to capitalize on that victory and allowed Squirtle to take a crucial fourth base and transition to a less one-dimensional army. Squirtle replaced some of his his mass void ray count with mass archons, and JKS found himself completely unprepared for the switch. JKS was forced to tap out and surrender the lead to IM as his unit composition, tailored to fight mass void rays, was surrounded and killed in the middle of the map.
- No incredible miracle from Leenock
Leenock was the final player to be sent out for FXO and their last hope to come back in the series. Leenock was no stranger to high-stakes matches in both individual and team leagues, but so was Squirtle, whose confidence and calm under pressure shone through in game six. Leenock went for a very powerful 2-base swarm host/nydus build that he had been favoring on the ladder recently, and he laid siege to Squirtle's base with queens and drones coming along to set up solid containment. Squirtle reacted nearly perfectly, immediately warping in a group of zealots from an advance pylon to damage to Leenock's economy and force the swarm hosts back, buying him valuable time while he teched to colossi. While Leenock had been able to tech to vipers in time to handle colossi in his ladder matches, Squirtle's zealot counter took its toll on Leenock by delaying his viper tech. Once range was researched, Squirtle marched down the ramp just as Leenock unburrowed, killing several swarm hosts in the process. From that point, Leenock was on the back foot with the inferior army and a weakened economy. He tried to hold off Squirtle's counter-push, but eventually all of his swarm hosts were incinerated, and Leenock had to surrender the match. Player of the night:
LG-IM_SquirtleAlthough Yoda played well against Lucky, and Tear against Yoda, the only player who truly shined was Squirtle. In taking out both Tear and Leenock, who alongside Gumiho have carried FXO to two team league championships, as well as JKS who showcased solid play in the pre-season, Squirtle showed exactly why LG-IM wanted him. Recently, there hasn't been too much talk about Squirtle with other Protoss players from both KeSPA and eSF also wanting their time in the spotlight, but with how Squirtle performed tonight he's definitely earned the right to be played a lot in future GSTL matches. His intelligent decisions against JKS' unorthodox composition and Leenock's innovative swarm host build seems to indicate he will be a force to be reckoned with in HotS.
Axiom-Acer
Team MVP
by: Waxangel
The Story So Far: Axiom-Acer
Axiom-Acer. Also known as Zombie SlayerS, or Genna Bain's home for abandoned children. How about another name? The most interesting team in the GSTL. Sure, there are teams in the GSTL with more star-studded rosters, but I believe Axiom-Acer fully deserves the title of being THE team to watch this season. Let's go through the reasons.1) They're an actually competitive non-Korean team: With teams like Complexity, Dignitas, and Fnatic toning down their focus on StarCraft II, we've been left with only a handful of international teams that are serious about trying to be competitive with Korean-owned teams. Yes, the reason that teams like EG, TL, Quantic, and Axiom can try and compete with Korean teams is because they employ Korean talent. However, there's definitely an "our Koreans" versus "their Koreans" aspect to it, and many fans will be cheering for Axiom-Acer to show that they can take on the established eSF titans. Oh, now that we've brought up EG-TL....
2) Comparisons to other coalition teams: As we've seen from EG-TL's plunge into the Proleague, it can be very difficult for foreign teams to compete in Korean leagues when they have other interests like streaming, overseas competitions, and appealing to international fans to worry about. In fact, Axiom-Acer is already set to have a player MIA due to foreign travel in their opening match, with player-coach Crank in England for the ESET UK Masters tournament at i48.
While EG-TL's experience suggests that Axiom-Acer will have a rough time in the GSTL, another coalition team offers a glimmer of hope. F.United was the original shorthanded coalition of foreigners (NaNiwa, Fenix and ThorZaIN) and Koreans (Lyn, Soccer, Moon) to play in the GSTL, and no one seemed to give them much of a chance in the 2011 GSTL. However, the team put together some surprisingly scrappy performances, and finished 2 - 3 to narrowly miss out on the playoffs by map-score differential. With the cutoff line for the playoffs in the HotS GSTL being fifth place, you can definitely see Axiom-Acer being a darkhorse candidate to slip in.
3) No one really knows how good they are: It's hard to get a handle on how good this roster actually is. If you want to look at it simply, it's SlayerS + Scarlett. Before their untimely demise, SlayerS was always one of the better teams in the GSTL, and they even made it to the finals in 2012 when they were partnered with Evil Geniuses. The complicating factor is that the two players who carried SlayerS back in those days were Puzzle and CoCa, both of whom quit StarCraft II to try to go pro in League of Legends (though they have recently returned to StarCraft II).
The only "sure thing" Axiom-Acer has is Ryung, who sometimes played as SlayerS' ace. None of other the ex-SlayerS players on the Axiom roster were actually multi-kill threats. Alicia performed well in foreign tournaments but had trouble converting that to results inside Korea. Crank was deployed fairly often and won some games, but rarely went on streaks. Miya was known as the player who was great in practice, but fell apart under the pressure of playing in the booth. Aside from Ryung, we've barely seen them play WoL, let alone HotS, in the past few months, so who knows what kind of shape they'll be in this tournament? Of course, there's also MMA, one of the best players in the world in 2011, and a key part of SlayerS' GSTL winning rosters at the time. MMA had a rough 2012, but if HotS helped him return to his old form, then this team immediately becomes a LOT more dangerous.
4) Scarlett is playing: Speaking of unknowns and wildcards, how about Scarlett? The Canadian Zerg has always been something of a mystery, right from her debut at IPL4 where she came out of nowhere to defeat Terious and Demuslim while giving Oz a run for his money. Scarlett was clearly one of the best foreigners towards the end of WoL, and a lot of people in Korea and abroad have been eagerly anticipating her Korean debut.
Going by her WoL skills, Scarlett should be able to make an immediate impact, but there's no telling how HotS might complicate things. Another iconic foreign Zerg in Stephano seems to be faltering after the release of HotS, as is Scarlett's teammate Nerchio. On the other hand, Liquid's Ret rose out of a slump to show great play at IEM Hanover, while the underdog Goswser actually ended up being the most impressive foreigner at MLG Dallas. If Scarlett maintained her skill level relative to WoL, then there's no reason she shouldn't be earning starts right away. We'll have to wait until the actual games to see how HotS changed things.
Here's the final word on Scarlett: The GSTL is a league where Fenix 3-killed oGs, ThorZaIN 3-killed MVP and qxc all-killed IM. Anything could happen.
The Roster
Key Players: Since the rest of this short-handed team has been covered above with a blanket "who knows how good they are?" I'll use this space to praise the remaining Axiom-Acer member in
Heart. While Heart has earned a lot of hate for being a cheesy player (which no one would even have cared about except for the fact he happened to get matched up against HuK and NaNiwa at some important tournament junctures), you can't criticize him for failing to get results. Heart earned two top-four finishes at MLG in 2012, and even earned himself a top 16 finish in Code S during a season where all Terrans could do was complain about Zerg. Heart's penchant for cheesing gives him the potential to become Axiom-Acer's version of MVP.TAiLS, a creative, cheesy player who is capable of sniping anyone. Not every team can claim to have a player like that, and it could give Axiom-Acer a much needed edge.The Ace:
AX.RyungI mean, we hope it's Ryung. If MMA ends up being the ace over Ryung again, when he's essentially the guest player from the partner team...
Team MVP: They could even be playing Proleague on the side.
Team MVP once again comes into the GSTL looking like a team with the tools to win a championship. They're one of the deepest teams in the entire league, and if there was ever a best of 17 team league, they'd undoubtedly be the favorites to win it. For each race, they are three or more players deep with at least Code A level talent.Of all the teams in the eSF, team MVP seems like the one that could have the most success in the Proleague, with their insanely deep roster providing no lack of practice opponents, a quality player for each map, and the ability to rotate players regularly over the course of a tiring, six round season.
Of course, they're not playing Proleague. Instead, they're playing the GSTL, a best of seven, all-kill league that doesn't really play to their strengths. With players like DongRaeGu and Sniper, MVP is kind of top heavy, but just not top heavy enough. One through eleven, they're the deepest team in the GSTL. But one through four, they're middle of the pack at best. Luckily for team MVP, they're still probably good enough to make the playoffs, where the format reverts to the old best of nine, and their depth can start to play a bigger role. In fact, that's exactly what happened when Team MVP won their only GSTL title.
Back in 2011, during the only other round-robin style GSTL, MVP relied on super-ace DongRaeGu to carry them through the best of seven regular season. Then, once the best of nine playoffs started, the depth of the team kicked in. TAiLS closed out Incredible Miracle with an amazing two-kill over Mvp and Nestea (both at the height of their power). In the semi-final gainst NSH, Genius came through with massive four-kill. And then in the finals, DongRaeGu didn't even have to play a single game as Noblesse and Keen combined for five wins over an outmatched Prime team.
In 2013, Team MVP looks to repeat that story.
The Roster
Key Terrans:
KeeN, Noblesse, DreamFrom past matches, we can deduce the established hierarchy here is Keen > Noblesse > Dream. Despite Dream's great performances in online qualifiers and at international tournaments, Team MVP seems reluctant to use him as a mainstay in the GSTL.
In any case, Code S regular Keen (though he's in Code A this season) leads the Terran line. Keen can be excellent when he's playing at his best (he even beat Life in a key game last season), but his form tends to fluctuate a lot. You'd think a player like that would be streaky in the GSTL at least, but he hasn't been a multi-kill threat in the GSTL since 2011. Neither has Noblesse, for that matter. For the most part, MVP's Terran line is effective, but isn't relied on to do any heavy lifting. Perhaps the advent of speedy medivacs will change that?
Key Protosses:
finale, Lure, TAiLS, VampireIn a best of nine, the clever TAiLS had a high chance of earning a start so he could execute a devastating cannon rush or other carefully aged cheese of his choosing. With just four spots open in the best of seven, the competition is now a lot tighter. Vampire and finale are the two 'standard' Protoss players on the team, both having shown enough quality to make it to Code S in the past. They seemed to share starts for team MVP in the previous seasons, but now they've been joined by Lure, who impressed last season by taking out effort and Jaedong in Code A. Given the situation, Team MVP could actually just designate each of them as a specific race sniper: Lure for Zerg, Vampire for Protoss, and finale for Terran. We'll have to wait and see how this plays out during the regular season, and see if anyone of them manages to earn the coach's favor.
Key Zergs:
Monster, DongRaeGuIn general, Team MVP's Protoss and Terran lines have the role of trading evenly with the other teams, while it's up to the Zergs to rack up multiple kills. With three extremely good Zergs in DRG, Monster, and Sniper, they're certainly capable of doing so.
Monster's been a hipster fan favorite for quite some time now, though mainstream fans will probably remember him mostly for choking against ThorZaIN at the DreamHack Stockholm 2012 semi-finals. But really, he's an excellent player, and he recently won the HSL mini tournament, topping Oz, Hack, and Maru along the way.
The Ace:
Sniper"You silly Snorlax, DongRaeGu is the ace of MVP, not Sniper!" some of you may say. Well... remember December 8th 2012, when MVP and FXOpen met in the grand finals of the GSTL? Yeah, ummm, Sniper played as the ace.
Yes, if you didn't already have enough reasons to hate Sniper after he beat every fan favorite on his way to a Code S title, after he all-killed SlayerS in their farewell match, after he made Eve cry in her pro-gaming debut in that very same match, he even took away DongRaeGu's legendary ace spot on Team MVP. If Scarlett can make Sniper cry, we'll consider it justice well served.
Head to Head
Starting Match:MVP.KeeN < GSL Star Station > AX.AliciaWe haven't seen either of these players in HotS at all, and in Alicia's case, we haven't even seem him in a live tournament since August of last year. If this were a WoL match back 2012, I'd say these two were pretty evenly matched, but given the lack of information right now, I'm going to stand off from saying either player is the favorite.
General outlook and prediction
Neither team has had much of a chance to show their HotS prowess. Both of them were eliminated in the first round of the GSTL pre-season, and only MVP's Dream actually competed in a major HotS tournament (the IEM WC). Given team MVP's pedigree, incredible depth, and talent level from WoL, they should be the favorites on paper. However, best of seven is more upset prone than best of nine, and it would take just one player on Axiom-Acer getting hot to make things tight.
I'd say MMA has the most potential to swing this match, given his big game experience and the skill he showed back at his peak. Remember, MMA was the first player to really bring chaotic medivac play to the forefront, and he should have been very pleased with the medivac buffs in Heart of the Swarm. While I'm not exactly betting on it, given MMA's lengthy period of poor play in 2012, you still have to respect his potential to be great again, even if just for a night. On the other hand, if it's DongRaeGu and not MMA who regains his 2011 super-ace form, then Axiom-Acer are pretty dead.
An unpredictable match between teams who have yet to reveal themselves in HotS thus far. Might as well make a WoL prediction.
MVP 4 - 2 Axiom-Acer
It's been so long since the MMA of late 2011...
