Up until this point, hero has managed to avoid all Protoss confrontation in this tournament and his ZvP has not been tested since the 12th SRT against Perry. While it's his strongest matchup, he would be confronted by the finest Protoss player SOSPA has to offer - Movie. Although Movie's last showing against Larva wasn't spectacular, he's still very much capable of delivering heavy blows and at times hero almost buckled under the weight of such attacks. But it would be hero's night as he put his high apm to good use to weather the harass and devastating attacks to become the first player to enter the semis.

The first clash had hero making arrangements to mitigate much of Movie's harassment, overlord speed to escape sairs and scourge to shut down any shuttles that dared to fly too close to any hatchery. Hero gathered his hydra force and led Movie's forces on a merry chase, far away from his third leaving it vulnerable to attack. Movie quickly retaliated with a strong attack that brought hero down to his knees but quick thinking and a lurker egg on the ramp stemmed the damage from spreading too far and allowed hero to recover. With dark swarms and cracklings, hero denied Movie his expansions while his late game army grew out of control to eventually take the game.


Movie turned things around in the second game with a mid game attack. Hero's entire army would be violently obliterated as they clumped under several storms, allowing Movie's remaining troops to inflict irreparable damage and even with the assistance of dark swarm, hero couldn't muster enough forces to stop Movie's onslaught.

Movie mixed things up in the next game with a five-gate goon all-in, but travel distance and some vigilant patrolling led hero to knock out reinforcements to severely weaken Movie's assault. With the attack foiled, Movie attempted an awkward transition but hero had gained a large lead and the continuous muta harassment around Movie's mineral lines only widened the gap further. Constant ling aggression kept Movie from taking a fourth and by the time hero morphed his ultralisk cavern, Movie was all out of steam.

The ground beneath Movie's feet was shrinking, there was no safety net to fall back on this time, no amateurs to take advantage of. In a move of desperation and a final bid to stay in the series, Movie went for broke and bet everything on a cannon rush on a map where cannon rushing doesn't work too well. Hero reacted appropriately and whittled down the cannon until a sunken finished it off. Unable to warp cannons fast enough at his own base, a simple ling attack would net hero the final victory he needed to move onto the semi-finals.

Sounds of tank blasts and machine gun fire filled Sonic's studio as sSak's army rained hell and laid waste to Larva for most of the night, dropping just one game to take the series against the SSL7 silver medalist. Larva has come a long way since his early Afreeca days, making a name for himself with his strong management skills, but on the night Larva fell short of being brilliant against his former team mate, sSak. It was a question of execution and there sSak reigned supreme with his impeccable control that often forced Larva into uncomfortable situations to make numerous errors.

Things went swimmingly for Larva in the first game. Larva managed to pick off a substantial number of marines and medics early on when sSak moved out carelessly and attacked up a wide ramp. Larva kept sSak pinned inside his base with his continual mutalisk harass, eventually reaching hive. sSak's attempts at controlling the map were halted by constant encounters with lurkers and by the time he made the mech switch, Larva had the map and ultralisks to take the game.

Larva's fortunes quickly took a turn for the worst in the second game. Excellent drone micro was all that went well for Larva in this game as sSak quickly built up an marine and medic force to put on the pressure. Larva positioned his mutas/lings/lurkers for a pincer attack, but the attack wasn't quite in-sync and things went awfully wrong for Larva as he sustained substantial losses while sSak reinforced his numbers for an easy victory.


Larva's multi-prong attacks continued to fail him in the third game as sSak was actively looking to prevent them, which made timing and executing these large attacks a nightmare for Larva. Larva would try anyway with dismal results as sSak continued to pump out reinforcements to hammer Larva's numbers and expos. Eventually sSak arrived at Larva's doorstep with a substantial force. The only thing that stood between Larva and total annihilation were his defilers and unfortunately at the most crucial moment they were sniped as soon as they exited the nydus, which left Larva without any means to defend himself.

Larva was on his last leg but wasn't out just yet and he would make sSak work for his final victory. After having his hydra den scouted Larva faked a muta switch while continuing to make lurkers. The ploy would work and Larva would surprise sSak at his natural to deal decent damage as well as occupy the natural for a short period. A small pincer attack allowed sSak to retake his natural and from there he moved out to exert some map control.

Larva and sSak clashed several times on the open field but each time it would cost Larva more and more as sSak's hit-and-run tactics sniped lurkers before they could burrow. Even with the help of dark swarm, Larva's forces would be chipped away by sSak's sublime control. The constant chipping would take its toll and Larva's forces and map presences faded gradually. sSak made his mech switch and at that point he owned much of the map as he littered it with mines and set up barriers with siege tanks and made it difficult for Larva to move. A critically mistimed defiler and ling assault at Larva's forth meant sSak was free to level another base with his tanks. One last ditch attack with a large ultralisk force was all Larva had left but it would be far from what was necessary to stop sSak's reinforcements.

In the context of the SSL, Killer has been a phenomenon. Following on from the groundwork laid by players like HiyA and Anytime, Killer arrived on Afreeca late last year and after a couple of weeks to find his feet, promptly begun to destroy everyone. In his first two months of Afreeca competition, Killer participated in three individual tournaments, and in doing so played against basically every top player that existed in SOSPA competition at the time. His record after those first two months was 32 wins, 12 losses, and two tournament wins. Another month later he’d 3-0’d Mong and then Pusan to book himself a place in his first SSL final and was now firmly established as the best player on Afreeca and perhaps the best ever to participate in SOSPA competition.

The first truly remarkable thing Killer achieved on Afreeca, before he had ever won a single tournament, was his single-handed dismantling of the TvZ triumvirate formed by HiyA, Mong and Sexy. Even with the rise of talented ZvT players like MinHo, Cola and the now disgraced Luxury, before the arrival of Killer, there was no Zerg who could reliably beat any of Afreeca’s best three Terrans, let alone destroy them in the way that Killer did in the latter half of 2012. Even now, six months after Killer first started taking their lunch money, all three maintain close to 70% winrates in the match-up and the former OZ Zerg remains the only player who can ever be trusted to win a ZvT series that actually matters.

Outsize of ZvT, which regardless of its strength is statistically his weakest match-up, Killer has only ever lost a series to one player, Movie. In fact, if we consider only “major” tournaments (ie. the SSL and the SRT) Killer remains undefeated. Lately however, in smaller tournaments run midweek by Sonic and played at slightly lower stakes, Killer has begun to look a little more vulnerable than he has in the past.

First with a close 2-3 loss to Movie in March, his first ever against a non-Terran opponent, followed by series dropped against Mong, Sea and then Movie again, a small group of players who do actually stand a chance of beating Killer in a real series have begun to emerge. This might actually have been a concern for the SSL7 champion, if it were not for the fact that all of these players have now been eliminated from the SSL.

Although he remains something of a divisive figure, ZeLoT’s run to the Ro8 is one of the most interesting things to happen so far in this SSL, and a great achievement for a player who was almost completely unknown when he arrived at the group selection ceremony in February. Relying heavily on early-game all-ins but showing the occasional flash of real, progamer level skill, ZeLoT has taken some big scalps so far in this tournament, including that of SSL6 champion, Sky.

While he has been in the form of his life in recent months, ZeLoT’s overall SOSPA record does not make for good reading. With only his ZvZ approaching anything near a winning record, and his ZvT current standing at a desperate 33.3%, ZeLoT is a clear underdog in a Ro8 where most other players’ worst match-ups sit a lot closer to 50 percent than 30.

While some may not appreciate the way he’s gone about it, ZeLoT’s progress to the quarter-finals shows there is some substance to him. His ability to find ways to beat the likes of Ample and Sky, players who at their peak could beat anyone Afreeca had to offer, is a sign of real strategic intelligence, and if he can develop his base skillset further, as players like Larva have done in the past, ZeLoT could become a real contender.

HiyA is the grand old man of SOSPA competition, having been one of the first truly successful progamers to make the transition across from KeSPA competition following the dissolution of Hwaseung OZ in 2011. It has been almost two years now since HiyA first showed up on Afreeca and in that time we’ve seen him go through various periods of dominance and disappointment, but the Hollywood Fishiking has always remained one of the players to beat in any tournament.

One of the facts of life that we’ve come to accept with Afreeca competition is that the players are no longer able to completely focus their time and efforts on maintaining and improving their level of play. Since HiyA’s debut, this reality has been apparent in the slow decline of any number of ex-pros, who arrived fresh from the workhouse-like environment of a KeSPA teamhouse, with the crisp execution and flawless decision-making that we had come to expect from a Korean progamer. The group of players that formed HiyA’s “generation” of Afreeca ex-pros has all but gone from the tournament scene now, with Anytime, BackHo, Sexy and now even Pusan, all having faded following their heyday in mid 2012.

HiyA’s ability to maintain a consistently high level of play for such a long period of time is exemplary, and it remains to be seen whether any of the more recently retired players will be able to match him when it has been a year or 18 months or even two years since they had Starcraft as their full time occupation.

However good he has been, HiyA has not had the success in Afreeca tournaments that his win record would suggest, and this is down to one point of dissonance that even after all this time, remains slightly confusing. Simply put, TvP has been the bane of HiyA’s entire Afreeca career. A match-up which he always seemed to have a unique understanding of during his time as a progamer on Hwaseung OZ and the one in which he held his highest win-rate has always held him back, with a succession of strong Protoss players having been the last obstacle between HiyA and an SSL title along with any number of other tournament wins.

While Sky, Anytime and now Movie have caused significant problems for HiyA, the same cannot be said for any Terran or Zerg players, with HiyA’s win-rates in TvZ and TvT un-matched by any other player with the same number of games played. Only Killer and now perhaps Sea have consistently been able to find HiyA’s measure in best of X series, with both of those players having retired from their progaming careers almost a full year after HiyA left OZ.

Although he’s clearly not done yet, there is a sense that time could be running out for HiyA to take the kind of major victory that a career like his needs to feel complete, making this SSL as important as any tournament HiyA has ever played during his time on Afreeca.

Throughout his entire career, Tyson has always been overshadowed by other Protoss players who were just that bit better. On MBC and then Team 8, Jaehoon, while hardly establishing himself as the most impressive or consistent player, always seemed to have that little amount extra that relegated Tyson to an afterthought. Now, on Afreeca, Tyson has had the misfortune of arriving at about the same time as two hugely popular and successful Protoss players, Shuttle and Movie. As in his pro career, though, whatever Tyson lacks in charisma or pure skill, he makes up for in hard work and clever strategies.

Having already taken out one of his Protoss rivals, Shuttle, in the Ro16, a win for Tyson against HiyA would make him the last remaining Protoss in the SSL8, an achievement that would surely trump the Elo rankings or super match victories of his rivals in terms of significance.

So far Tyson has looked quite strong in all three match-ups. Although he’s yet to face a Zerg opponent in an official game, he has taken wins off beast and Larva in one off games and his 2-1 win over Mong in SRT11, along with a victory over sSak in a recent event match, show that he still has some of his historical strength in PvT. Overall, Tyson’s record tells a story about what he is like as a player, solid but often found lacking against the real top players in important games.

While he’s already shown that he has some of what it takes to become a top competitor in SOSPA leagues with his strong performance in PvP in the Ro16, Tyson has to go at least one round further to really establish himself as a challenger to the likes of Shuttle and Movie, who have continued to take big wins outside of the SSL.