After some classic last minute shuffling of the group line-ups by Sonic, the Ro16 of SRT15 served to prove exactly one thing: the accuracy of my previews is completely unaffected by my knowing who is actually competing in the groups. Perhaps slightly more significantly, it also saw the continuation of HiyA's post-SSL8 slump and served as a reminder of just how bat-shit insane Sky really is, all in all a pretty good four days worth of Starcraft.

With KristofferAG still out sick the one man band returns again this week, with a recap of all the ups and downs of the Ro16 and a look at what is in store for us in the Ro8 both presented by this writer.

With Sea, sSak and hero the last remaining hold-outs against an oncoming horde of Protoss competitors, things are going to get very interesting in the final rounds of this tournament. With the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals happening on consecutive days this week, stay glued to your Live Streams sidebar and the TL front page as the SRT team will be bringing you lightning round coverage of each round as it happens.

After some token SRT rescheduling, this group changed from a place that Ample would go to die, to a place where HiyA would go to die, although perhaps not in the fashion that we would have anticipated. With the SSL8 finalist falling 1-2 to the cheesy stylings of amatuer Protoss, Hint, in the opening series, HiyA may have been hoping for a little bit of an easier time in his upcoming losers’ match. Unfortunately for him, Movie hadn’t quite woken up yet and subsequently lost to the group’s second amateur, Hi, the ex-CJ Protoss’ first PvP series loss in almost 5 months.With both of the big hitters condemned to the losers’ match, amateurs Hint and Hi played a best of one PvP for first place in group A, with Hint taking the win.


Then, in what could have under different circumstances form the final of an SRT, Movie met HiyA in the losers’ match. Somewhat predictably, HiyA capitulated in what is now his second consecutive Ro16 elimination in SRT tournaments. The final series of the group was a rematch between SOSPA’s ace Protoss, Movie, and the increasingly dangerous looking Hi, and with Movie having had a chance to warm up, it appeared that this series may be a little more straightforward. Boring is rarely a word associated with Movie in SOSPA competition and he again lived up to his reputation by managing to lose the opening game on Match Point to Hi, before sweeping the final two maps to salvage a place in the Ro8.


As the only group to survive Monday night’s reshuffle unscathed, group B looked incredibly finely balanced going into the first series, and was kept interesting by a series of absolutely incredible throws by SSL6 champion, Sky. The group opened with a series between its two strongest participants, and the two eventual group winners, with hero’s talent for ZvP reinforced by a straightforward 2-0 win over Shuttle. Up next was a 2011 legends match between Sky and ZergMaN in which the former Hwaseung Protoss continued to push the bounds of bad manner, with his scout/manner nexus strategy failing to make headway against ZergMaN’s safe play and ultimately leading to a 1-2 loss.

The winners’ match between hero and ZergMaN was basically a formality, with the continued improvements in ZvZ that saw him narrowly lose to Killer in SRT14 meaning hero was simply much too good for ZergMan’s old bones. In the losers’ match, Sky again seemed to have lost none of his skill, nor any of his maddening hubris, turning his early advantage versus Shuttle into an early GG following some great comeback play from the retired STX captain. Having recovered well from his drubbing at the hands of hero in the opening series, Shuttle’s PvZ in the group final against ZergMaN was as good as it has been in a long time, leaving him with a place in the Ro8 and first place amongst Protoss players in TLPD’s SOSPA Elo rankings.


With HiyA out of the way and his TvP shape continuing to impress, this group was perfectly set up for sSak to dominate, with the ex-SKT Terran cruising to a comfortable first place. The afterglow of Ample’s historic strength in TvT was still visible in the opening series, with the former SSL semi-finalist managing to take a game off sSak but with the result never really in doubt. In the group’s second series, Pusan showed new blood Terran Shout how the PvT match-up works in SOSPA competition, taking an easy 2-0 victory over the startled looking rookie.


By the time the winners’ match took place, sSak was fully warmed up and showed Shout some of what is required to win a TvP against a top Afreeca Protoss, reversing Pusan’s dominance of the opening series and taking the group C victory with time to spare. In the losers match Shout continued to look a little out of sorts, as Ample bounced back from his opening TvT loss with a routine 1-0 win, setting him up for a final series with Pusan. With Ample’s decision making and execution both looking rusty, the former MBC captain continued his 2013 revival to take a solid 2-0 PvT win, and claim his quarter finals berth.


With his progress in SOSPA tournaments so often hampered by losses to aggressive Protoss opponents, the nature of Sea’s wins against Lazy and Tyson to take first place in group D are especially significant going into the latter rounds of the tournament. In the opening series of the group, amateur Olympus was looking to build on his group win in the Ro32 in a PvP series against Tyson. Unfortunately for Olympus, Tyson’s progamer pedigree was fully on show as he easily defended the amateur’s attacks, taking a swift 2-0 victory. In the next series, Lazy, who seemed especially conscious of his awful win record against Afreeca Terrans, threw the kitchen sink at SRT15 champion Sea, who rode his luck a little but ultimately did enough to survive and ending up with a pleasing (if not a little surprising) 2-0 series win.

In the winners’ match, Sea decided to take the game to his opponent Tyson, setting up a bunker contain which quickly lead to a gg, following some slightly clumsy control by the Protoss player. With his biggest weakness having cost him the opening series, Lazy came into his own versus Olympus in the losers’ match, showing the first glimpse of his cheesy but effective PvP stylings as he advanced to the group D final. Tyson’s PvP has a slightly erratic quality to it and this, in combination with Lazy’s unconventional take on the match-up, lead to one of the more interesting series of the Ro16. With Tyson’s control swinging wildly between perfection and absolute desperation, Lazy outplayed the ex-MBC Protoss in the second and third games and was well deserving of his second appearance in an SRT Ro8.

Movie continued to make things hard for himself in the Ro16, losing his opening series versus amateur Hi, before reversing the score in the group final to narrowly avoid what would have been an embarrassing early exit. Pusan, on the other hand, didn’t quite have enough to challenge group C winner sSak in the winners’ match, but otherwise looked extremely comfortable in his 2-0 PvT wins against Shout and Ample. This is usually the stage of the tournament when Movie begins to wake up and actually show the kind of play that we expect, and given Pusan’s gradual rediscovery of his past form, the former CJ Protoss will need to be ready to fight.


Pusan’s PvP has never really been his standout match-up, with Sky having regularly denied the retired MBC captain better results in tournaments in a number of one-sided series in 2012. While Movie has a number of important PvP wins under his belt in recent SRTs, including his streak of 3-2 wins versus Shuttle, his play in mirror matches has rarely been impressive as against Terran and Zerg. What this leaves us with is a series played by two strong players, neither of whom are ever quite at home when facing off against their own race. Fortunately, at least in the case of Movie, this has rarely lead to the kind of messy or disappointing series that can sometimes occur between two players not entirely comfortable with a match-up.

These two enter the series with their official record tied at 2-2, thanks to two meetings in the Ro16 of the last SRT. While Pusan’s initial 2-0 win in the opening series was impressive, there was a sense in the second series that Movie’s 2-0 victory represented a more accurate depiction of the two players’ skill. Pusan’s return to the top of Afreeca competition is welcome, but if the real Movie shows up he should have this match-up well under control.

Movie 3 - 1 Pusan


Having narrowly advanced from his Ro32 group, amateur Protoss Hint finds himself in the Ro8 courtesy of an impressive PvT series versus the out of sorts HiyA and a relatively straightforward win over fellow amateur, Hi. sSak continued his run of good results in the Ro16, with his precise and controlled play in his group C winners’ match victory over Pusan especially significant in a tournament which still features a number of very strong Protoss players.

In the last round, sSak was beginning to look like one of the most consistent TvP players in the SOSPA scene, and although Sea’s first place finish in group D shows that sSak is not without competition, the former SKT Terran continued to build his reputation in the Ro16. The significance of sSak’s current 60% win-rate in TvP isn’t fully apparent until you examine the fortunes of some of his fellow top Terrans. Neither of Sea and HiyA, probably the two best and most successful Terrans in the SOSPA scene right now, are even with 10% of sSak’s current TvP winrate, with their peak TvP Elo’s also more than 50 points short of the SSL8 third place-getter’s current level.


It would be wrong to ignore Hint’s PvT, which has been his most important asset so far in this tournament and has been the springboard for some of his other more successful appearances in SOSPA competition so far. However, beating middling Terrans is something that we’ve begun to take for granted from basically ever Afreeca Protoss who reaches this stage of tournaments, and Hint will need to continue to improve on his narrow 2-1 win over HiyA if he hopes to get past one of Afreeca’s new Terran stars.

sSak 3 - 1 Hint




Having already met once in the Ro16, SOSPA’s second best Zerg and Protoss meet again in the Ro8. Neither player has been pressed especially hard so far in SRT15, with both having lost only one series and otherwise looking quite comfortable as they dealt with less distinguished opposition. Given Shuttle’s talent for PvP and PvT, if he can make it past hero this tournament would represent one of his best chances yet at winning an SRT, but his record against the former STX progamer, or against Zerg in general, suggests that he’s going to need to do something special.


Since Killer’s withdrawal in the Ro32, hero has stepped into his role as SRT15’s chief Zerg in impressive fashion and looks in good shape for his fourth consecutive top four finish. With Killer’s commitment to smaller online tournaments often questionable and other former top Zergs apparently out of form, hero has for some time now represented the one player that fans of SOSPA Zergs can really count on to turn up and play well every single time. On top of this history of consistency, hero also possesses an absolutely lethal ZvP, losing only one official series in 2013 and approaching or perhaps equalling the level of double SSL champion Killer.

Shuttle’s PvZ is by far his worst match-up statistically and his record versus hero is even worse. Perhaps the one light in the darkness for the retired STX captain is that he is currently the only Protoss player to have won a series versus hero in the last six months, but given the quality of the series and its timing, right in the middle of hero’s preparations for his SSL8 third place play-off, Shuttle will likely need a lot of luck on his side to reproduce this result.

hero 3 - 1 Shuttle


Like hero versus Shuttle, this is another rematch from the Ro16, thanks to Sonic’s now trademark randomisation techniques. With an important TvP win over Movie forming the crux of his victory in the last SRT, Sea’s play against Protoss continues to be impressive, seeing him take first place in group D without dropping a single game. Having been sent to the losers match by Sea, Lazy recovered by defeating Olympus and then Tyson, building on the good PvP form that saw him take out Tyson in SRT13.

Having lost his first series of the tournament 2-1 to Sky, Sea’s versus Protoss match-up is still obviously not without its flaws. However the SRT14 champion continues to win the games that he needs to win, in stark contrast to a number of other top SOSPA Terran players. It’s hard to imagine that Sea’s form can dip sufficiently in the five days that will have passed in between his last series versus Lazy and this quarter-final matchup for the Liquid Terran to fail to advance, but the nature of Afreeca competition, along with the importance of this series for his opponent, could yet disrupt the natural order.


Again, with these two having played so recently and with the series having had such an emphatic result, a lot of things will need to go wrong for Sea. While Lazy is one of Afreeca’s emerging talents, his PvT record, something that forms the backbone of most top Protoss’ ability to compete, is less than impressive. An unfortunate draw in what could have been a breakout tournament for the former MBC Protoss; Sea should have this one under control.

Sea 3 - 0 Lazy