The round of 24 of the Teamliquid Legacy Starleague Season 2 continues this weekend with the players in groups C and D fighting it out to see who gets to move on to the next stage of the tournament. As announced earlier, there has been a slight change in group D, with ZZZero being unable to play and thus getting replaced by Sacred. However, this still makes the group 75% Zerg, so for all you ZvZ lovers out there, don't worry, you'll still get your fix. And for the rest of you, you'll be pleased to know that Group C features only one Zerg, a race picker at that, so there should be something to watch for everyone.

With that being said, tune in on Saturday, Oct 12 5:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00), which is just in !







In Group A, trutaCz was the clear favorite,with the pedigree of multiple high place finishes in previous TLS and Defiler tournaments. The first game saw him face DragOn on Destination. The game was uneventful early on, as DragOn fast expanded while trutaCz took a third base with five hatcheries. DragOn's initial speed-zealots were pushed back into his own natural by hydralisks, but he was able build up a sufficient zealot force before lurkers arrived to contain him. This allowed him to take a third base and set up in a strong position with a 50 supply lead. trutaCz responded with a composition made up of mass zerglings and lurkers, which allowed him to demonstrate his excellent multitasking ability. DragOn's army was pulled around the map trying to defend his bases and was unable to get on top of the waves of Zerg units. Before long DragOn had lost all his mining bases and was forced to leave the game.

The next match opened on Destination with Terran skzlime to the south and Terran Cryoc to the north. Cryoc placed two quick factories and began vulture upgrades, intending to be the first aggressor. Unfortunately for Cryoc, skzlime had gone straight for wraiths after blocking his front with tanks. The result was a battle at the ramp to the southern main, where Cryoc's vultures attempted to dislodge the tank position with aggressive mine placement, but good target fire from his opponent rendered the tactic ineffective. Just as the vulture threat was effectively eliminated, skzlime showed his wraiths to Cryoc's undefended mineral line. Despite their limited firepower, the wraiths were able to do massive economic damage due to the lack of defenses. skzlime mercilessly targeted down SCVs building turrets, and was only finally pushed back once several goliaths were produced.

Now with a comfortable supply lead, skzlime slowly pushed out into the dense minefield in his natural, and placed a command center. Cryoc responded with his own expansion and managed to fight off a marauding force in the middle of the map. skzlime's attack was only a distraction, however, as he simultaneously dropped vultures into Cryoc's main and ranged down mining SCVs in the natural. Cryoc cleaned up the harassment as skzlime took a third. After a period of quiet production, skzlime again took the initiative with another large drop in the northern main. Cryoc again took heavy losses from the drop, both from trading inefficiently with the tanks sieging down his command center, and from a simultaneous drop on his forward tank line that broke his only aggressive position.

skzlime now commanded a large lead in the game, and moved to finish the job with a large drop on Cryoc's third. The drop was a disaster, with mines and siege tanks doing immediate and massive damage to the clumped units. Despite the setback, skzlime kept up the drop play with a vastly superior economy supporting his production, and before long Cryoc couldn't save his main or his chance for victory.

trutaCz versus skzlime opened on Neo Aztec, as the players battled for first place and quick advancement. The Terran used his one-barracks expand to apply some early aggression, forcing a large amount of zerglings from trutaCz's three-hatchery mutalisk play. skzlime then kept the pressure on his opponent with a large plus-one marine force that kept the mutalisks on defense. trutaCz played patiently, keeping his units alive and delaying the attack. Finally skzlime decided to commit against the full forces and defenses of the Zerg, where his medics and marines were slaughtered by the Swarm. He also led a small strike force to kill the fresh third hatchery across the map, but was denied at the last moment in another discouraging defeat.

skzlime knew he was now playing from far behind, and in frustration he began taking unnecessary risks with head-on attacks that trutaCz was happy to clean up. The Zerg slowly moved towards hive tech while mass producing lurkers. This large standing army was key to keeping dominance in the game, as the Terran was never able to safely apply pressure or establish a third. skzlime, flooded by Zerg aggression at his natural, tapped out before trutaCz's hive units could deal the killing blow.

In the losers match, DragOn and Cryoc were representing their races, Protoss and Terran respectively, in what seemed a game worthy of an elimination. A loser of this match was out of the tournament and the winner would get another chance to prove himself. With everything on the line, the players certainly brought out their best game that they undoubtedly carefully practiced. The match started on Neo Aztec, with DragOn spawning at the five o'clock position and Cryoc at the twelve o'clock. Despite the map being with the reverse ramp which Protoss can take an advantage of to harass his opponent, DragOn opted out for a safer, quicker expand and Cryoc was the one who decided to be more aggressive. Besides setting up a mini contain with mines in front of the DragOn's natural, Cryoc also built a dropship which ferried a few of his vultures inside the Protoss main.

After doing a considerable amount of damage with his cute dropship play, even managing to snipe the nexus at the natural of Protoss, Cryoc seemed content and confident about moving into the mid game. Playing from the behind, DragOn was forced to stay on two bases and just make units or otherwise he wouldn't have survived the inevitable Terran's push. After a short stagnation, both players met in the middle of a map and after a reluctant skirmish, it certainly looked like Cryoc's initial lead was only getting stronger. However, being overconfident, he started to waste units in front of the DragOn's natural due to a group of dragoons in the middle of a map stopping any vulture reinforcements.

Cryoc continued his aggression towards Protoss natural, but DragOn had just enough units to defend and to get his third base, which he desperately needed as his main was getting mined out. Unfortunately for DragOn, Cryoc was already on three bases, so while the lead of Terran was getting smaller, it certainly didn't disappear yet. Mid game started to stagnate a bit, with both players taking their fourth base and amassing units. This wasn't however playing into the Terran's favor, as DragOn was continuing to catch up in terms of the unit count and economy. When finally Cryoc decided to attack, both players were maxed out, and DragOn took another expansion just before the fight, securing himself enough resources for reinforcements that will undoubtedly be needed in the aftermath of the upcoming fight.

After a little back and forth dance, both players engaged in the middle of a map, with Protoss coming up victorious due to a nice concave and use of his spells, mainly stasis and storm. The game started to go down from there for the Terran player, as he camped in the middle of a map while his opponent kept expanding around the map and using recall to the great effect in controlling his expansions. Cryoc decided to go for a final attack on three remaining Protoss bases, even managing to take two of them out. But by then it was too late, as he had no resources incoming and DragOn cleaned up the remaining of tanks and vultures while keeping his last base. Realizing that he lost the game and is now out of the tournament, Cryoc sadly typed 'gg' and DragOn advanced to the final game.

Carried on the excitement of the last game, DragOn was now facing skzlime, who had lost in the Winners match, to decide who will be the final player of this group to advance to the round-of-16 and who will be eliminated from the tournament. The final game started on Fighting Spirit, with DragOn spawning on the one o'clock position and skzlime at the five o'clock. DragOn decided to rely on his strategy from the last game where he went for a relatively fast quick nexus after only making a few dragoons. Skzlime on the other hand, decided to exploit his opponent's greediness and initiated a push towards Protoss expansion with few marines, vultures and a tank, all while expanding himself at the same time. Due to his superb control and mine usage, he managed to do a surprising amount of damage which delayed DragOn's mining time at the expansion a considerable amount of time.

After the initial aggression, the game calmed down a bit which skzlime took an advantage of, and decided to take his third base a lot earlier than his opponent. Even though DragOn was playing from behind due to his massive losses in the skzlime's early push, he still had enough units to bring the greedy, third expansion of Terran to a halt. At the same time, he tried to get a third base of his own, but skzlime managed to take an eye for an eye, and canceled it with a bunch of vultures and mines. After that, game settled down and both players retook their third base and continued to make units.

Skzlime decided to move towards the Protoss main base with his units, which proved to be an ultimate mistake for him as DragOn caught him off-guard or better yet, unsieged, and decimated his entire main force while keeping majority of his units alive. However, Terran being a turtle race made it certain that DragOn couldn't push inside the skzlime's main and instead he just kept the map control. Skzlime was still on nine factories so he managed to rebuild most of his units a couple of times, but each time he tried to move out of his base it would get crushed by superior Protoss force, especially with the nice usage of stasis.

After a couple of wins in the open field, DragOn decided it was time to deal the finishing blow and recalled to the six o'clock, which incidentally, was the last mining base of Terran. Surprisingly though, even though he lost his last mining base, skzlime still had almost a maxed number of units which he used to kill two bases of the DragOn. Though in these attacks, he was bleeding units on all fronts and with no economy to support any reinforcements, his last ditch effort to take a three o'clock base was futile as he has lost all of his units and was forced to tap out. With that, both of the Terran players in this group got eliminated and trutaCz and DragOn advanced to the round-of-16.



The first game of Group B opened on Destination with Modesty playing as Zerg at the twelve o'clock and Zaraki as Zerg at the six o'clock. Zaraki took an early advantage with a twelve-hatch opening against Modesty's twelve-pool. Modesty followed his opening with an in-base hatchery and a quick spire, taking a defensive posture against the superior larva production of his opponent. Sure enough, Zaraki ramped up his zergling production to attempt a bust, but with both zerglings and mutalisks Modesty was able to hold the aggression comfortably. Modesty took the battle to his opponent's natural with a mutalisk counter-attack. The air engagement was quick and dirty, with neither player effectively microing against scourge, and ended in decisive victory for Modesty. With no anti-air defense remaining, Zaraki conceded defeat.

The next game, also on Destination, matched the Terran Andrey against the Zerg Michael, who chose to do battle under the name "CHEESEKING". Michael opened at the southern main with an overpool gas into three hatchery hydralisk. Andrey, unaware of his opponent's unconventional opening, moved to pressure his opponent's natural hatchery with a fast two-barracks attack. Unable to cross into the Zerg base, Andrey retreated and invested in tanks and science vessels to protect a late expansion.

Michael moved to contain the Terran with a large hydralisk force but was quickly forced back by siege tanks. The Cheese King took advantage of his three gases and total map control by racing straight to queens and guardians. Andrey finally pushed out with a tank/marine composition that shredded the unsupported hydralisks in the center of the map. Michael made a crucial mistake in his control, sacrificing his queens and hydralisks, but regained his map control with a new fleet of guardians that caught the Terran off his guard. Andrey stubbornly left his tanks to die to the Zerg fliers as he prepared a science vessel defense.

The battle then moved to the Terran's fresh third, where the clumped guardians were easily dispatched with several well-placed irradiates, and Andrey moved to counter at the Zerg's third and fourth bases along the right side. Michael retaliated with several unnoticed lurkers at the Terran third and managed to save one of his besieged hatcheries despite heavy losses. Andrey kept up the pressure, making good use of several mobile and cost-effective marine/tank squads, and Michael simply couldn't afford to keep his enemy at bay.

The competition moved on to Neo Aztec for the Winner's Match, where Andrey as Terran in the northern main faced off against Modesty as Zerg at the four o'clock. Andrey immediately scouted his opponent's twelve-hatch opening, and responded with a two-barracks expand. Modesty was undeterred by this unusual response, he progressed with a completely standard 3-hatch mutalisk build with quick lurkers to protect his third base. Unfortunately for him, Andrey's high marine count was more than enough to hold against his lackluster mutalisk control, and Andrey moved out for a strong pre-defiler timing attack.

Andrey broke Modesty's position in the map center with excellent Defense Matrix marine micro, taking no losses against three burrowed lurkers. He then moved to the Zerg third and attempted the same move at the reverse ramp, but with less room to maneuver he was unsuccessful and lost the entire force. Modesty's defilers came out as he moved to take his fourth, but with his attention split and his forces out of position, the Zerg player was forced to cancel the hatchery and had to pull almost everything to keep the third base intact.

Andrey then revealed his hand with a four-dropship incursion into a completely undefended Zerg main. Modesty cleaned up the force only after taking heavy damage to his infrastructure and tech, and Andrey pressed his advantage with continued drops that kept Modesty stretched thin in army and attention. In the meantime, a lurker-heavy force was pushing back the Terran resistance at Andrey's mineral-only expansion. With the majority of his marines spread out by dropships, the Terran had only a large vessel cloud to protect his own resources. Modesty discovered and exploited his weakness, forcing a lift on both the third and fourth bases, but Andrey was quick to reestablish control.

Andrey kept up the pressure with his huge vessel force, using eraser tactics to weaken Zerg defenses and defense matrix to make the most of his marine. A big attack threatened to break Modesty's critical bases on the left side of the map, but Andrey's own irradiated vessels killed off the biological attack squad. Modesty landed some great plagues and continued to keep the Terran busy with small crackling attacks all over the map, disrupting Andrey's mining, but Andrey's own aggression and vessel harassment cut the Zerg supply down again and again. With both players crippled economically, Modesty tried to even the supplies with tactical play. He positioned two lurkers at Andrey's three o'clock base, where they racked up 27 kills between them, and landed a perfect single plague on nine vessels. Unfortunately, he lacked the raw power needed to challenge the full force of the Terran army sieging down his last mining bases. Over 100 supply in the lead, Andrey moved on the Zerg natural and Modesty tapped out.

The Loser's Match on Neo Aztec opened with Zaraki's twelve-hatch opening at the eight o'clock against Michael's twelve-pool at the twelve o'clock. Both players scouted correctly, and upon seeing his build-order disadvantage, Michael placed two additional hatcheries before his gas to compensate. Zaraki responded with his own third hatchery and made use of his earlier zergling speed to initiate the first battle at Michael's natural. The engagement was a success, as Zaraki managed to snipe the sole sunken colony and trade zerglings in his favor. Sensing blood in the water, Zaraki rallied zerglings from all three hatcheries to his opponent's base. Michael did his best to engage at his ramp in a favorable position, but by the time his speed research finished he had already taken too much damage for a comeback. Michael was eliminated from the third TLS tournament.

The deciding match of the group was a rematch of the first, with Modesty against Zaraki in another Zerg vs Zerg. Zaraki, spawning at the bottom right, opened twelve-pool with gas with a second hatchery follow-up. Modesty, at the top right, opened twelve-hatch and appeared to take the lead when he comfortably held his opponent's early zergling attack. Zaraki, however, sensed a weakness in his opponent's defenses and produced a large wave of speedlings to break the natural. The attack was a complete success, as he destroyed the sunken colony, eliminated all zergling resistance, and camped Modesty's main hatchery production. He was forced back briefly by some solid drone micro, but his reinforcing wave of zerglings simply killed off the natural hatchery and secured his advancement to the Round-of-16.





Group C is a really hard group to predict who will end in second. It also depends greatly on how good Bizzy is at the moment, it might turn out like it did for Michael, who was considered the clear favourite of his group but ended up not advancing. He is joined by EnjoYmE who qualified for the third season in a row. He hasn't managed to advance from the round of 24 groups yet with his two tries. The group is rounded off by two French players; KenZy and FremAN. KenZy has been playing in a lot of the earlier qualifiers for the previous seasons but never managed to qualify. This season he finally made it and is looking quite solid. FremAN recently retired from being a StarCraft 2 player. He quickly managed to get up to a decent level.

I'm quite certain Bizzy will 2-0 the group and thus winning the opening game against FremAN who is probably considered the weakest player in the group. Both EnjoYmE and KenZy has been doing quite well in the ZvP match-up. EnjoYmE beating players like Cosy, but losing to SouthPark. KenZy has beaten fold, Jumper, and Dienmax twice. Destination is also quite a good map for ZvP. I see EnjoYmE having trouble winning against KenZy.

In the winners' match KenZy should get crushed by Bizzy, no question about it. In the losers' match EnjoYmE gets to play a PvP and we all know how much he loves playing that match-up. In this season's qualifier he managed to beat dsaqwe. EnjoYmE should win against FremAN pretty handily. The final match should be a repeat of the second game. Generally the second place in the group is so hard to predict. The match-ups should go something like FremAN>KenZy>EnjoYmE>FremAN. It all depends on who manages to upset that.






Group D is the second group of the TLS3 Round-of-24 to contain three Zergs and a Terran. It is also among the most one-sided of the tournament, with two seasoned veterans facing off against the two players who just weeks ago battled for their tournament life in the qualification tiebreaker series.

SaCred, our first underdog of the night, has a lot to prove entering this match. His short TLPD history shows a win-streak in Gambit's Cup followed by very little success in previous TLS qualifiers. He also obtained only prompt defeat in the tiebreaker against Cosy, before being offered a chance for redemption with ZZZero's forfeit. His first opponent will be Bakuryu, the stylish "Mustache Zerg" who will be looking to best his TLS2 Round-of-8 finish this season. Bakuryu is a clear favorite in this match and this group, but it's worth noting that ZvZ seems to be a weak match-up for him.

The third player selected for Group D is Cosy, a Zerg player who has qualified for both previous TLS seasons only to be eliminated in each Round-of-24. Cosy is the winner of this season's tiebreaker and has notable recent wins against Andrey and non. If his record indicates a strong ZvT, he will certainly need it against his first opponent Ramms. Ramms will play as Terran against all three Zergs in the group, which should work to his benefit. His biggest weakness in TLS has been when he race-picks Protoss against other Terrans, which will not be an issue in this group. Ramms has demonstrated consistently impressive play and will be a favorite in this match.

If Bakuryu and Ramms do both advance to the Winners Match, it may well be the highlight of the weekend's games. Both players will want the favorable seeding that victory offers, and both have the skill to threaten a deep tournament run. The deciding factor in this match could be the map. Neo Aztec has proven to be a difficult battleground for Terrans against Zerg. I'll give the edge to Bakuryu.

Cosy versus SaCred should be a predictable battle after their match earlier in this tournament. SaCred was beaten soundly in those games, he will need to be much more prepared this time around.

A deciding game between Cosy and Ramms would offer the Zerg player a decent chance to make his presence in the tournament known. TLS3 has already seen two experienced and heavily favored players eliminated. Ramms should take the game convincingly, but Cosy will make a solid Liquibet for those expecting the upsets to continue.

Player	Staff Picks
FremAN (0)
KenZy (5)
	2pacalypse-, Epoxide, endy, nagisama, selenus
EnjoYmE (2)
	itsjustatank, Falling
Bizzy (7)
	2Pacalypse-, Epoxide, itsjustatank, Falling, endy, nagisama, selenus

Bizzy looks to be the clear favourite in Group C and the TL staff members showed it through their votes. This will be the third time that Enjoyme has qualified for the TLS. His first two appearances weren’t very impressive, being eliminated in the Ro24. Despite KenZy and FremAN being the two new comers to TLS in this group, KenZy is the second favourite among staff to make it out of the group while FremAN unfortunately received zero votes of confidence.

Player	Staff Picks
SaCred (0)
Cosy (2)
	2Pacalypse-, endy
Ramms (6)
	Epoxide, itsjustatank, Falling, endy, nagisama, selenus
Bakuryu (6)
	2Pacalypse-, Epoxide, itsjustatank, Falling, nagisama, selenus

Similar to some of the other groups, Group D features some clear fan favourites and a few relatively unknown players. The easy picks for this group by the staff were Bakuryu and Ramms. However, since it will be majority ZvZ, anything could happen. Cosy wasn’t without votes, receiving two from the staff. Unfortunately for Sacred, he will also be getting no votes of confidence from the staff. This has been quite the trend this TLS, with a farther number of zero votes compared to the previous two seasons. With Sacred adding even more Zerginess into the group, it just means more upsets and more surprises as to who would advance. Only way to find out is to watch the games this weekend!

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Join us on Saturday, Oct 12 5:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) for the cast of Groups C and D! And as always a big thanks to our sponsors: