Ace: Movie

      Movie is the clear ace on this team. His performances over the past year have been quite solid. If we remove Bisu from the scene, Movie becomes the clear #1 protoss in the Brood War scene. With a record of two SRT wins and 4 super tournament wins, Movie has quite the resume and is ready to lead CJ Entus to victory.

Wildcard: Kwanro

      There is zero argument over this pick for wildcard. Kwanro has developed play that lasts longer then the first ten minutes. However, he is more than capable of cheesing effectively too. While Kwanro is not the second best player on the team, his ability to win against any opponent through ruthless all ins makes him a true wild card.




Ace: Bisu

      Yup.
+ Show Spoiler +

Wildcard: Larva

      While ssak is a solid runner up for the wildcard position, I think that Larva holds more power here. He is a player that is capable of showing spectacular play, but pre-SSL9 has always fell short in comparison to the top players. Now, advancing first out of his group and making short work of his opponents, it seems that Larva and his back brace may be the perfect formula to wreck any opponent in proleague.




Ace: Sea

      Five time SRT winner including 4/4 in the latest SRT’s and a silver in SSL8, Sea has the 2.0 era record of any player. Sea has taken over Flash’s role of #1 Terran and he looks to establish himself as the best ACE player in proleague.

Wildcard: Lazy/Tyson tie

      These two protoss players are enigmas. Tyson is known as the player who makes his opponent think he’s playing really poorly and suddenly wins. Lazy is a PvP monster, but he was knocked out of the SSL9. I think both of these players will inconsistently show spurts of domination in Proleague which may be just enough for Sea to clean up the rest as MBC establishes themselves as the new evil empire.




Ace: by.hero/Shuttle

      By no means are by.hero and shuttle mediocre. Shuttle is just shy of best protoss at times and by.hero gets consistent results with multiple final four appearances in the SRTs among other sonic tournaments. This double ace potential makes these Bash Brothers a brutal force in proleague. While the entire STX roster isn’t the strongest, STX could easily find themselves as the scariest proleague team if both of them catch fire.

Wildcard: mini

      Mini has 1.0 era wins against 2.0 era players Zero, Jangbi, Lazy, and Piano. Clearly, he is capable of taking down some of the more solid players participating in the proleague. Advancing to the SSL9 ro16 and strong PvP wins over shuttle, it appears that he may have an established role as a PvP sniper should the need come.




Ace: Mind

      Mind is the strongest player from the 1.0 era on this team. It serves right to say he is back in form and that it will be hard to be this Terran. His one disadvantage is the Terran heavy team makes it easy for teams to prepare against KT Rolster. But don’t worry! Mind is an MSL victor collecting his win over Bisu in dominating fashion. Mind looks to collect his skulls in this year’s first proleague.

Wildcard: Light

      Light has some crazy strategies include amazing starport play in TvZ. In fact, his TvZ is some of the most spectacular you can see when he is firing on all cylinders. If you are playing KT and only have Zergs remaining to throw at Light, then it might as well be GG.




Ace: Killer

      4 time runner up to Sea in the past 4 SRTs does not make Killer any less fearsome. He’s evolved from minidong to full dong and clearly is the best Zerg in the Brood War scene these days.

Wildcard: beast

       If killer falls, OZ fans will have to rely on Hiya to hold his ground. Unfortunately, he can’t win them all and the second best Z on their team, Beast will have to step up to the plate. Beast has participated in almost every Sonic tournament in the 2.0 era. You may be surprised to hear he has two silvers and one gold in Sonic Ranking Tournaments. Beast has become a zerg that most people who follow the scene know. Maybe not a fan favorite yet, but proleague is his chance to earn some more fans.




Ace: ZerO

      Zero is one of the most recent retires from SC2. His return to Brood War was very welcomed. However, we are all still uncertain his max potential at this time. But as a clear ace for Stars in the previous proleagues and experience in beating TBLS, we can assume he will be taking back that role in the coming weeks.

Wildcard: PianO

      Piano has some of the most entertaining games. However, they usually get really close in the mid to late game and end with him losing. If Piano can do the same thing, but turn those games into wins he might become everyone’s favorite Organ.




Ace: N/A

Wildcard: the whole team

      I literally have no idea who is on this team, but I still Liquibet them to beat KT Rolster.





Fighting Spirit is regarded by the majority as the most balanced map in StarCraft history. The reasons for it is very sound. There are over 250 games played in each non-mirror match-up recorded during the KeSPA era. All three match-ups are around the 50% mark, with the highest being ZvP with 134-117 (53.4%), TvZ and PvT both end up with just +/- 1%, 148-139 (51.6%) and 143-137 (51.1%) respectively. These numbers also line up with the common notion of Protoss over Terran over Zerg over Protoss balance. It's also the most played map on Fish by far, and that's still an understatement, the map is played so much certain people have started to express their hate towards the map. I would just like to point out that you are all wrong, Fighting Spirit is the #1 map.

When we turn our eyes to the win rates provided from SOSPA games the turnout is surprising to say the least. Especially the Terran vs Zerg win rates, 159-89 (64.1%), a whole 12.5% higher than during the progaming days. The question is this due to the players changing or was the map possibly imbalanced?

Lets start with what's most recent in our memories; this summer. This summer started okay for ZvT, Killer won SSL8 and hero did decently against sSak in the consolation match. Then the month of June continued on day two:



From the end of SSL8 to the end of SRT17 Terran went 69-47 (59.5%) against Zerg. 30 of those wins came from two players; Killer (17) and hero (13). It was very clear, only two players could consistently takes games off of Terrans and hero's winrate was only at a measly 44.83%.

Lets take a trip even further back, when top Zerg like Killer and hero were not around. SSL6 featured fourteen TvZ games on Fighting Spirit, thirteen of which Terrans won, and only one which Zerg prevailed. If we take a look at the players list it gets obvious very quickly what was going on. Terran had TvZ superstars like (all win percentages listed was what they had during the tournament); HiyA (85.71%), IcaruS (77.78%), Mong (69.57%), and Sexy (63.64%). Compare that to what the Zerg could field; ZergMaN (52.00%), beast (30.00%), mahell (27.27%), Cola (20.00%), and StarCue (33.33%) who was the only one who could win a game. It's also worth noting his current win rate at 8.33% and that was his only win in ZvT ever.

If we compare that to SSL8 we see the contrasts. During SSL8 Mong, Sexy, and Sea was slumping from their ordinary 60+% TvZ win rate, only HiyA and sSak were holding the flag high. Zerg had players like Killer, a performing hero and Larva, amateur star ZeLoT (yes lol), and a re-surging Cola. Needless to say the outcome was much different, the score ended up at 9-9 (50.00%) on Fighting Spirit. A staggering improvement for the Zerg.

The statistics are skewed even further when you look at who tops the charts on Fighting Spirit. Mong, Sea, and HiyA are all in the top five. Mong has the best record overall at 77-44 +33 with 30-17 +13 in TvZ. Sea follows with 46-17 +29 overall and 19-4 +15 in TvZ. HiyA rounds it out with 54-33 +21 overall and 26-9 +17. On the other side of the spectrum we have beast, the player with the worst of them all at 21-36 -15 overall and 6-12 -6 in ZvT.

It's quite clear that it was never a map issue, Zerg players have just historically sucked in the SOSPA scene. Further reading written by kjwcj.



Thanks to how vague the available information is, making accurate predictions in an already difficult format is going to be even harder. Now I really have to work for my Liquibet points. Here’s just some factors to consider:
Players will be playing on 8 different maps without knowing in advance who their opponent will be. Such a format might cause some really unorthodox cheeses or some unexpected failure from an otherwise highly esteemed player. The highest level of play depends a lot on preparation, and strategic well prepared cheeses should be able to produce upsets.

Leading us to yet another factor, sponsorship. How are these connected? Motivation to perform well should be higher, meaning that players might practice a sniping build more diligently with their teammates than they otherwise might have. On the other hand, pressure might become more of a factor, and at 300+ APM, nervousness is something you can ill afford. Who is going to be sponsored, and how significant will the sponsorship be? Will the unsponsored teams perform better to attract sponsors to themselves or just give up and play worse?

How strict are the rules going to be enforced? During the last teamleague, we saw players playing other tournaments during the match, so that replacements were needed. Some players were also allowed to play twice if one player was missing. With theoretically more money on the line, will the system be abused, so that Bisu for example, might come out 5 times? It would certainly make some fans happy, but the results would likely be drastically different.

Add to that that the amateur additions to the teams might tip the scales, and you have yourself quite a mess. Now, let’s try and make sense of it!

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WRITERS: mustaju, BisuDagger and Epoxide
GRAPHICS: KasPra