WCS Korea Season 3
GSL Code S
Ro8: Dear vs. Trap
Preview
Ro8: Soulkey vs. Rain
Preview
VODs on Twitch.TV
Brackets and standings on Liquipedia
Quarter-Finals: Dear vs. Trap
During its tenure in SC2, STX SouL became inextricably linked to the fortunes and identity of its star player. From the beginning INnoVation proved to be SouL’s most adept player in individual leagues, and he quickly garnered admiration as he qualified for OSL and GSL mere months after officially switching from BW. From there he developed into a guaranteed threat to win every premier tournament, beating the best players with stunning ease and singlehandedly skewing TvZ stats with his merciless pushes.
Team leagues did not escape his wrath either: he seized a 43-20 SPL record while serving as Soul's dreaded final boss. The robot with a human face contributed to every victory and defeat and in doing so, became subconsciously associated with the overall state of his team.
But just like a quasar, Innovation shone so brightly that everything in his orbit became regarded as minor stars. Debates on Proleague matches inevitably focused on whether the opposing team could snipe him with a well-conceived plan, not on how they would deal with the supporting cast. The accomplishments of teammates like Last and hyvaa had no luster compared to Innovation’s, and their failure to replicate those results came under greater scrutiny due to their teammate’s reliability. Innovation was winning in every scenario regardless of circumstance, making it easy to typecast the rest of STX SouL into their Proleague roles: hyvaa the cheesy zerg, Trap the PvZ specialist, Mini the secret PvP specialist. So when Innovation joined Acer, it was a slight blessing in disguise. Without his specter serving as the ultimate benchmark, it forced other players to fill his shoes while letting their individual performances stand alone.
From the shadows they come
Nobody has benefited more from this change than Soul_Dear and Soul_Trap. The two best players after Innovation (and arguably hyvaa), they were the stalwart pillars that supported STX through their championship run in Proleague, Dear acting as the workhorse while Trap was reserved for his untouchable PvZ. Together with Mini and Classic, they formed a Protoss quartet that could take the pressure off of Innovation and win matches before he had to be called in. And yet despite their obvious promise, they were overshadowed by their perfect teammate who could seem to do no wrong. Rarely were they given credit for STX’s championship run despite playing essential roles in the playoffs. Instead Trap was dismissed as a one-matchup wonder while Dear was strangely criticized for not stomping everyone at MLG Spring Championship (the high expectations of a KeSPA representative!).
In the span of only one match, things have completely reversed. Today we regularly criticize Innovation for being too predictable in his TvT and too stubborn in his overall approach to the game. Meanwhile the two Protoss underdogs are in the Ro8 against all odds and expectations. Dear is being praised for excellent play throughout the tournament, especially his games against DRG and Supernova. And how many people would’ve predicted that Trap would get this far without playing a single PvZ? Instead he has had to rely on his so-called weak matchups and while he has not looked as clean as his SouL brother, Trap has shown equal ingenuity in manipulating the expectations of his opponents.
Despite their overall success in Proleague, Dear and Trap have mediocre records in PvP overall: Trap barely sits above a 50% winrate at 20-18 and Dear is only slightly worse with 16-17. Oddly enough these players, who were clearly excellent when preparing against zergs and terrans in a BoX series, performed slightly worse when they tried the same against protoss. Dear is 7-11 in Bo3 series and has lost his last 5 series in a row in various embarrassing ways. Trap is only 6-6 and while he pulled off some neat tricks against sOs in the Ro16, he was blatantly outplayed by Yonghwa in Code A and Squirtle in the IEM qualifiers. His recent matches in the Ro16 epitomized his strengths and weaknesses to a tee: most of his wins against sOs showed great aggressive control and adaptability, while his loss against Rain on Yeonsu demonstrated an indecisive lategame.
One soul, two styles
Dear and Trap share a similar approach to PvP, one in which big risks take ultimate precedence, and the level of mindgames between these two might reach absurd heights. Trap can be classified as the ‘aggressive SouL player’ due to his emphasis on 1 base play. He loves to challenge his opponent’s scouting with an assortment of proxy builds, notably double gateway and twilight council -> 1 base blink. If he can’t get a quick expand with 1 gate -> nexus -> robo, he will elect to delay his opponent’s expansion as long as possible with 3 gate blink. Trap occasionally experiments with archon/void ray variants instead of the typical immortal/colossus/archon compositions but has found little success.
By contrast Dear can be loosely categorized as the ‘safe SouL player’. He also exposes himself to danger but usually to grab an economic advantage. While Trap has only elected for fast nexus on huge 4-player maps against predictable opponents, Dear is willing to do so the same on 2-player maps like Bel-Shir Vestige. Dear is not a huge fan of proxy strategies as his playstyle is based on controlling the opponent’s movement until the midgame. To that end he prefers fast twilight council for blink and stargate builds for oracle harassment. Dear will sometimes open void ray first if he is feeling particularly frisky. Yet Dear has blindly gone for 4 gate blink all-ins and proxy stargate to punish greedy opponents in the past, and such strategies could work well against a player who is accustomed to exploiting standard openers.
Overall outlook and prediction
All of this sounds like the makings of a fun, if sloppy, showdown except for the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Stylistically, Dear excels in the midgame and he annihilates adversaries if he can reach that point with an untouched economy…if he can get there. As it turns out he dies a lot before he reaches that point. Dear’s love of expanding and teching quickly is unfortunately coupled with an inability to read his adversary’s intentions. It’s a pattern that has been exploited by opponents dating back to MLG Spring Championship. If he sees nothing that’s blatantly out of the ordinary he’ll take that as a sign that he should expand right away or immediately go for stargate. And so opponents gladly allow him to indulge in this habit. They place proxy buildings a pixel outside of the regular scouting paths, betting that Dear will not deviate from them even by accident. Most recently sOs slapped him around just by placing pylons inside his main base and waiting for Dear’s army to be out of position. Dear never spotted them as he never had units in position to see the probe, even when he was completely safe from harassment.
This will undoubtedly be one of the most stressful matches of Dear’s life. He may have had the more impressive games leading up to this match, but Trap is the worst possible opponent he could face. He’s aggressive, keen on punishing tendencies, and willing to push attacks past their rational end if it can win him the match. Of course Dear is keenly aware of his teammate’s approach to PvP and he must subvert expectations if he wants to seize control of his series. Trap is a crafty opponent but most of his plans share a common theme: he is the one making the critical moves while his opponent sits back and attempts to figure out what’s coming next. If Dear can reverse the roles and keep Trap in a guessing state, he can extend the match and force the type of macro game where he will be comfortable. However, his glaring weaknesses in the matchup may be too much of a problem to overcome.
Trap 3 - 1 Dear
Quarter-Finals: Soulkey vs. Rain
Dammit, Soulkey. Why'd you have to go and get second place in your group, setting up this insanely stacked quarter-final match? SKT_Rain vs. Woongjin_Soulkey is a match you'd expect to see in the semis or grand-finals, but instead we're going to see one of these two players drop out of Code S tonight.
Rain and Soulkey were two of the best KeSPA players when KeSPA made the big switch, and they've been some of the top performing players in the Association ever since. Not only do they have championships to their names (an OSL for Rain, Code S for Soulkey), but they've placed high in nearly every tournament they've been in. Soulkey is now in his FIFTH consecutive quarter-final and was the Zerg Mvp of the Proleague season. Rain has been slightly less consistent, with one embarrassing stint in Code A he'd like to forget, but he's always been a rock for SKT1 and has frequently been in championship contention.
While both players are titans of KeSPA and top candidates to win this tournament, they come into this match-up with slightly different momentum. After a slow start in HotS, Rain is looking the best he ever has in the new expansion. While losing in the finals of the last WCS KR tournament was a disappointment, he made it seem almost obvious that he should get another crack at the finals as he stomped through this season of Code S. On the other hand, Soulkey enters the match feeling rather warm but not hot, having maintained a consistently high level of play since his championship season but failing to put on any really inspiring performances.
Changing climate
A month or two ago, this match would have been a battle between the paragons of safe, standard play. If there was a university of StarCraft, it would be a match-up to be put in textbooks and taught in classes. Protoss vs. Zerg 101. However, Rain has since deviated from the curriculum.
Last season in the OSL, Rain made a conscious effort to vary his style up, going for more all-ins and aggressive builds. While some purists might argue that he would have reached the finals anyway by playing his usual style, what's done is done. We now have a new, slightly more aggressive Rain.
If last season was more a demonstration of his attacking style in PvT, we got to see Rain's fondness for two base pressure in PvZ this season. Already a fan of phoenix-zealot timings during the days of forge-FE, Rain has shown a similar aptitude for the even more annoying version that can be performed off of a gateway-FE. On top of that, Rain has been exhibiting an almost MC-like killer instinct in this season's PvZs, taking out TRUE and SongDuri (not especially impressive names, I'll admit) with large amounts of warpgate units. In contrast, the one late-game PvZ he played was rather lackluster, as he fell to SongDuri's swarm host-brood lord combination.
Soulkey will still play the part of the solid macro-Zerg for the most part. He can play every style and every strategy, whether it's roach-hydra-viper, swarm-host attrition, or mass muta-corruptor. Cheesy builds are also part of his repertoire but in an almost boring, clinical way, as if he's thrown them in at carefully calculated ratio to optimize his win-rate.
Somewhat like Rain, Soulkey's recent play has seemed a bit altered as well. After losing to Sora in a couple of neck-and-neck late game wars at the WCG Korea qualifiers, Soulkey showed up at Code S with a noticeable preference for killing Protoss with big roach-hydra armies. From a viewer's perspective his super-late hive play had been impressive even in his defeat against Sora, but apparently Soulkey himself felt differently. Perhaps his mindset has been changed to "I should really try to kill Protoss in the mid-game, because f*** void rays."
Overall outlook and prediction
Two base pressure is a threat coming from any Protoss, but Rain's excellent micro and execution make him especially dangerous. If Soulkey comes in focused too hard on the mid-late game, he may not even survive up to that point. Fortunately for Soulkey, he is great at scouting and having a general feel for the game, so it's unlikely he's going to fall as helplessly as TRUE and SongDuri.
It's hard to tell what will happen if the games end up going late. Rain hasn't showed us his late game play for while now, minus one disappointing loss against SongDuri. Not to take away too much credit from SongDuri, but that's just not a good sign for Rain as he goes up against Soulkey.
Another thing to consider is Soulkey's penchant for hydra-roach timings, and the fact that Rain did remarkably poorly against them when he played Jaedong in the WCS Season 2 finals. Going for a 3-base macro game might just open Rain up for a deadly attack.
Given the format, it goes without saying that neither player has to play the same style they've already shown this season. This is the Ro8, and preparation and strategizing have always played a big part in the GSL. With neither player really showing a "I don't care if you know my style, you can't stop it" level of strength in the match-up, we're likely to see at least a couple of especially prepared surprises.
Though this is a close match-up, overall I favor Soulkey slightly. Rain hasn't shown us convincing late game PvZ play for a while now, whereas Soulkey has just looked solid overall at every stage of the game.
Soulkey 3 - 2 Rain