The expected players advanced to the semifinals from the quarters. What was interesting was how it all went down. Both Sea and Killer came closer to the brink of getting knocked out of the tournament than they would have probably prefered. Mong and Terror showed that they are excellent players in TvZ, even though they didn't make it to the semifinals. Lazy showed some more great PvT while Hint did some more cheesy stuff, how unexpected, right? The semifinals features two great matchups, with the best TvT in the world and some great ZvP to close it out. It's not something you are gonna want to miss.

N.geNuity and kerpal churned out some more recaps even in these days of short notice. First out is the recap of Lazy vs HiyA, written by N.geNuity. It's followed by three recaps by kerpal. Read the recaps here. The recommended VOD section is out and will return in the final recap news article with the best games of the quarter-, semi-, and grand finals. Last out as usual is the preview of the semifinals. The best TvT in the world starts in !

HiyA versus Lazy was a matchup of two wild cards - players that have been known for pulling out a wide variety of play or wacky play. Lazy has shown virtually every opening this SRT, overcoming the strong TvP of sSak with a mix of macro openings, DT, or reaver play, and showed proxy gates in the round of 32. HiyA, on the other hand, is someone who could bust out wraith nuke openings at any time. The series proved to be a tight one, going to a full five games.

Lazy decided to go for a nexus first play in both games one and two. HiyA, on the other hand, was the first to show aggression. In the first game, HiyA went for a standard SCV pull in response to scouting the nexus first, but actually looked to be in a very bad spot as that tactic failed. HiyA went for broke with a second factory before command center, and established a siege position outside the natural; the strong contain proved too much for Lazy, who lost his shuttle and reaver harassing HiyA. Game two was a different story, as HiyA opened with a two factory play that got shut down by the production from the twelve nexus, losing two out of three tanks as he moved across the map. A dark templar followup secured Lazy the win.

The series changed pace after that, as HiyA did not go for the quick win but went with his philosophy of putting heavy pressure on the Protoss early on with speed vultures while expanding himself, letting neither the Terran nor the Protoss amass units in the early mid game. Game three on New Empire of the Sun HiyA constantly traded armies with the Protoss, which although left HiyA with low tank counts, left Lazy unable to out-expand the Terran, and struggle to even expand at all. This constant pressure let HiyA eventually win the game as he took out the last bit of Protoss economy, despite mining only on one base at the end.



On Benzene, Lazy showed absolutely beautiful mine defusal play with his dragoons to put HiyA in an uncomfortable spot early on. Although HiyA had nice play with two dropships ferrying four tanks with speed vulture support on the ground to take out Lazy’s third and do harassment, Lazy stabilized and grew a large carrier force with fast air weapon upgrades that carried him to the final set.

Lazy pulled out the last stop with a gas steal into a proxy robotic play, but the story of the last set would be Lazy’s loss of reavers and shuttles without ever inflicting damage (although he did use them nicely in defense to a certain extent). Using the map architecture well, HiyA took out the natural of Lazy from the low ground, and that sealed victory from him as it slowed Lazy’s economy as well as massively delaying Lazy’s arbiter tech as HiyA sniped down the citadel as well.






Sea is the absolute favourite here, and it is easy to see why. To his credit, Terror shows some great play under pressure in game one, and very nearly holds on to his third. He holds off a superior force with careful lurker play and manages to hold out until dark swarm despite the ramp-less bases of Neo Electric Circuit. Unfortunately his grip on the ball relaxes for a split second and Sea snipes his nydus canal. In the second game Terror shows nerves. I'd have to watch again to be sure, but I saw him get a queen's nest at a very sensible time, but he had not even started his hive when Sea sieged tanks outside his natural. Again, Terror impressed by driving back Sea's army with a lurker zergling force. Terror continued to play well against Sea's mech switch, sniping a total of three command centres with mutalisks, and forcing Sea to build goliaths in situations where Terrans would prefer vultures and tanks. Terror lost his natural to a push, but good ultralisk and zergling drop play consistently reduced Sea's tank count. Meanwhile, Terror worked his way up to six bases and was eventually able to take the second game.

So Terror has now achieved wildly more than anyone ever expected. A player with a 50% ZvT record against a list of some of the worst Terrans ever to play in an SRT has just won a convincing macro game against Sea.

Sea bunker rushes in the third game and Terror holds well enough that he feels the need to tell Sea about it in chat. Sea stabilises and pressures Terror hard, eventually breaking through moments before consume would have saved Terror. Balance is restored as Sea takes a 2-1 lead. In game three Terror tries to cover a little too much ground with too few lurkers, and suddenly Sea is in his natural. Terror reacts well though and cleans up the marines, although they kill many of his drones. Terror is uncontested for the rest of his journey to hive, and is able to go on the aggressive with small squads of lurkers and defilers. Sea shows his class and plays SK Terran. The game from there is of a rare calibre, with great aggression, huge plagues, erasers, korean smack talk and some moments of true magic, like Terror successfully scourging down two D-matrixed dropships.

The headline here might be that Sea wins 3-1, but the news is that Terror is a real contender and if he plays ZvT like that more often, we will see a lot more of him in the future. Whether we like it or not.




In game one Hint sets the tone of his plan for this match with a proxy-gate strategy. Shuttle has been reading the recaps lost to Hint in the last round and so is fully prepared and scouts it early. In game two Shuttle trusts in his reaver micro to break an early expand by Hint, but Hint's dragoon count is too high and Shuttle is unable to micro his way out of the economic hole. Hint levels the series at one game each.
Hint reprises his nexus first into double gateway play in game three, but Shuttle has seen this all before and punishes Hint with a three gate goon attack that wins him the game. Hint seems much less comfortable with the preparation focused play of the latter stages of a starleague.

Shuttle has first hand knowledge of Hint's tendencies and has prepared accordingly. Shuttle's read is wrong in the third game, as he plays it safe with an observer expand against Hint's much riskier two gate expand, which delays his robotics until after he has two bases and four gateways. Shuttle's faster reaver keeps him safe, but his economy well behind in the midgame. Despite being a base ahead, Hint makes the decision to counter attack when Shuttle pushes, leading to a fully fledged base race. Hint has plenty of cannons, but it is shuttle who pulls out the win, managing to snipe all of Hint's observers to take the win with a flood of emergency DTs. Shuttle advances to the semi-finals.




Killer opens twelve pool for fast two hatch muta in the first game, and perfectly (albeit accidentally) counters Mong's attempted bunker rush. Killer crushes a group of marines that Mong clearly thought were going to win him the game with the kind of defensive perfection that has been a hallmark of his play. From there he continues to mass mutalisks and is able to overpower Mong. Unaccountably Mong refuses to leave the game, spamming turrets despite having no control of his main base. At one point he is down to just one of his five barracks, but eventually he builds enough science vessels to drive Killer away. Of course Killer has four bases and is well on his way to hive. Killer seals the deal with his first eight lurkers and a cloud of mutalisks and scourge.

Killer knows a good thing when he sees it, and opens with an early pool again in game two. Mong defends, but seems a little worried and follows up with a two barracks academy opening, neglecting to expand. Mong attempts to sunken break and Killer loses many of his drones in defence. Killer tries to go for crazy zerg, hoping to abuse Mong's late economy, but takes a poor engagement with mutalisks and zerglings and loses everything. He concedes immediately.

In game three Mong takes an early lead with good defence against Killer's three hatch mutalisk play. Mong opts not to pressure before hive, but instead to take a third and switch to mech as he pushes. Killer is able to secure a fourth but Mong transitions comfortably into map-splitting mechanised play. Killer battles with lurker drops and a hydra switch and is able to trade efficiently despite being a base down. The signature queen play is a long time coming, and a little too late to save Killer when one of Mong's pushes get's close enough to snipe a nydus canal.

Mong now finds himself within a single game of victory, and rolls the dice with a command center first. Killer is forced to play from behind with three hatchery mutalisks, but soon is able to carve himself out a strong position. Mong attempts to recover with drops, but that perfection I mentioned is back and Killer is in position time after time to defeat them. He ends the game with a lair tech attack into Mong's natural, effective due to Mong's consistently poor dropship luck.

We reach the ace match, famously a test of nerve as much as a test of skill, although Match Point is one of the most viable mech maps in the map pool, Mong opts to stick to bio, perhaps remembering the thumping Killer gave him in the previous round on Neo Electric Circuit. Killer risks taking a gas before his pool, and then double expands as his spire completes, presumably hoping for a macro kick that hits before Mong is comfortable moving out and denying either base. It arrives in the form of a zergling swell that catches Mong's initial marine attack completely off guard, delaying Mong and allowing Killer to mass lurker zergling from all four bases and crush Mong's first tank and vessel push. Mong is completely pinned by the huge lurker force, and in time Killer's defilers arrive, preventing mining at Mong's natural and ultimately ending the game. Killer goes through to the semifinals, but not in the convincing style that might have been expected. There was no indication here that Killer is on the form needed to beat Sea.

Both semifinal matchups are rematches from the round of 16. They also met last season in the quarterfinals, Sea narrowly winning that encounter 3-2. In SRT14 Sea 2-0'd HiyA in the round of 16 and HiyA knocked Sea out of SSL8 with a 2-1. This matchup has become what can be described as the neo Flash vs. Fantasy. Sea has the mechanics and macro while HiyA is cute (either one is fine here), aggressive, and is all over the place. They are also both the two current best TvT'ers.



Early on in the series in the last season HiyA looked godlike, unfortunately for him it turned out the opposite in the following games. Sea made HiyA look silly. Now again in the winners' match of the round of 16 this season HiyA looked incredible. It's Sea's turn to dominate HiyA. This is honestly one of the closest matchups we've had in a long time. It's so hard to tell who will actually turn out to win. What's certain is that this will be the highest level of TvT since Flash played Fantasy in tving OSL. You are gonna have to watch this one.

Sea 3-2 HiyA.



Even though Killer lost to Shuttle, even though Killer almost lost to Mong, even though he hasn't been playing as much; Killer is still someone that you just can't win against. Unless you are Sea of course. Killer is 8-5 against Shuttle and boasts an overall 75% win rate against Protoss. He is 3-1 in series wins against Shuttle, going 2-1, 2-0, 3-2, and 1-2 respectively. Shuttle on the other hand doesn't even have over 50% in PvZ. How come this Protoss that sucks against Zerg does so well against someone with such good ZvP win ratio? I don't have the answer, Shuttle really seem to perform really well against Killer for some reason.



If you only look at the statistics in the matchups Killer would take this series easy 3-0 or 3-1. I have this feeling of Shuttle pulling something amazing out. Killer should be able to shut him down by the skin of his teeth. This should be another top level match-up on the same day. We will see another Sea vs. Killer grand final.

Killer 3-2 Shuttle.