In desperate search of their first team league win, Prime led off with the mighty MarineKing against Slayers’ relatively unknown Taeja. While such apparent mismatches often lead to cheese, this game quickly turned into a battle of ideologies, with Taeja trotting out the new Slayers hellion-heavy mech build against MarineKing’s tried-and-true bio. Unfortunately for MarineKing, the nouveau style won out, with tank-hellion-raven winning a decisive battle over marine-marauder-medivac in the middle of the map around the 10 minute mark. It took Taeja another 15 minutes, 10 or so OCs, and a few dozen manner mules to win, though, which was amusing for about 3 minutes and boring for about 12.

Time for a writer's pop quiz! TvP on Tal’Darim; you’re the P. You see your opponent going for early marauders. Do you: A) take an expansion or B) go for a quick stargate?
Neither! You C) throw down a 4-gate, hope they don’t scout it, get lucky, and win! And that’s the story of how HongUn beat Taeja.

Figuring HongUn couldn't stand up to the might of the emperor, Slayers sent out Boxer, who went with an aggressive early expansion. HongUn didn’t punish him for it immediately, instead expanding himself and skipping straight past 4 gates into a standard 6-gate. Then he just went over and crushed Boxer. This wasn't just a "he pushed and won" kind of thing, this was a timing push complete with brilliant forcefields, impenetrable walls separating his forces from the terran's. It was more in the vein of "he pushed and annihilated all in his path; his stalkers drank the blood of the marines while his sentries reveled in the lamentations of the SCVs".

When Slayers responded to domination by sending out yet another terran in the form of Ganzi, HongUn must have seriously considered an 8-gate so he could keep with his trend. Realizing that was just silly, he went with a voidray rush instead. HongUn’s first void ray hit Ganzi’s base just as Ganzi’s first banshee was headed out, with Ganzi confident in the ability of his marines to hold off the rush. Unfortunately for him, the combination of three void rays, warped-in zealots, and botched repair micro left Ganzi with too few marines to hold his own base, and it turns out three void rays tear down buildings a lot faster than two banshees.

Evidently the Slayers' motto is “all terran, all the time”, so they sent out Ryung to try to stop HongUn’s reign of terror. His ghost opening proved pretty solid against HongUn’s mass phoenix play; all it took was one key EMP to to render the protoss harass totally toothless. With his large phoenix investment almost totally nullified, HongUn moved into a kind of weird all-chargelot-into-templar build, stockpiling a cool 1600 gas while waiting for his archives to finish. Ryung somehow let that happen without launching any kind of meaningful attack, letting HongUn creep back into the game before finally charging into battle with his bio. That climactic final battle should have been a lot closer than it was, but HongUn dropped a devastating storm onto his own zealots and eliminated any chance he had of a comeback.

Still ahead 3-2, Prime took the opportunity to show off the contrast between their multi-racial approach and the terran hegemony of Slayers by sending out Terius. In a game that was surprisingly boring for how interesting Terius’ build was, there was essentially no combat at all until the fifteen minute mark, when Terius’ first nydus poured lings, infestors and ultras straight into Ryung’s main. This gave Terius a supply lead that he hung on to all game, leveraging his superior economy to choke Ryung out of the game in spite of letting a 2-marine drop take out his greater spire. Terius’ lack of brood lords and sometimes questionable ultralisk decision making made the game appear closer than it was, but all you had to do was look at the top right to check his constant 50 supply lead to remember he had already basically won.

---

In a team league match between two of the best teams in the business of Starcraft 2, the night starts off with a TvT between the two beasts of the matchup: MVP and Bomber. Bomber hit an early game marine timing that nearly took out MVP out of the game, but MVP used some great positioning play with his tanks to even things out. MVP eventually left an opening in his positioning that Bomber exploited to take the game while MVP was stuck in a useless area of the map.


Put Your Ice Cream up for a GG!

Interestingly, IM sent out Happy, another (less accomplished) terran to try and take out Bomber. Bomber put himself in a great position early on with huge harassment damage and Happy managed to nearly come back with some great tank positioning. Despite Happy's turtled position, Bomber pulled a bunch of SCVs with his marauder tank composition and was able to bust Happy's tanks to take the game.

IM decided that Losira was the answer to Bomber and sent him out next. Losira played quite well despite losing his hatchery to a hidden two barracks opening from Bomber. Bomber followed up with a hidden third that Losira scouted far too late, which allowed Bomber to slow push for the win. And there's a hunter seeker missile involved.


Hunter Seeker Missile's are Cool

IM continued their reluctance of sending out Nestea in the team league by instead sending out YoungHwa. After YoungHwa and Bomber execute their openings, neither player engages until twenty minutes later. Bomber has too many vikings and doesn't micro well enough to survive YoungHwa's deadly colossus composition.


Let's See Whose Ball is Bigger?

Startale sends out Curious to try and take out YoungHwa. YoungHwa disastrously loses his probe, critically delaying his void ray + warp gate rush. Once Curious holds the rush, YoungHwa has no economy to recover and Curious takes the game.

With all said and done, the match started off on a high note but once Losira lost to a two barracks opening, the games went downhill.

Welcome class, we’re back after a week with no GSTL. That means everyone had plenty of time to review the remaining schedule and make all the right trades, right? We made our brilliant moves and set ourselves up for some serious fantasy domination. We certainly didn’t do stupid things like trade StarTale for IM. That would have been stupid, especially for someone who writes about this stuff every week. *grumble grumble*

In case you can’t guess, StarTale thoroughly clobbered IM, with Bomber pumping out a quick three wins and 7 points before being sniped by Younghwa. Thanks to the his streak-break-bonus, Younghwa owners come away with 4 points, but that’s it as Curious quickly sniped him for 4 points of his own and a 4-1 win for Startale. And those of us who traded Startale for IM bag a 7 point net loss as IM gets -1 and Startale gets 6. In my defense, if I’d known about Startale’s new logo beforehand, there’s no way in hell I would have traded them.



At least I can rejoice in the fact that almost 600 people got hammered for 7 anti-team points by HongUn’s surprising 3-kill in Slayers-Prime. MarineKing owners also got the shaft, with him falling to Taeja; he cost an awful lot for someone who has only managed 1 point and 0 wins over the course of three matches. Prime took their 4 points and skipped all the way home, while the 3407 people who picked Slayers brought home a goose egg. Which, to be fair, is still better than IM did. Stupid IM.



Holy crap! The leader board! It’s...changed! Mighty mrbamboo has fallen from his lofty perch, all the way to #2, thanks to another lackluster week. Bomber’s strong week pushed godemperor up to the top spot, which with a name like that he must clearly think he deserves. The Cinderella story of the week comes to us from oPlaiD, whom the winds of fate have brought into fourth place in spite of him not having made a single trade all season. He also didn’t even luck into an all-kill. I’m secretly hoping he manages to win, so we all look really silly for actually trying.

This summer has been something of a struggle for the so-called “white dudes” of Starcraft 2. For many, there will be little surprise in the fact that the Koreans seem to have it all figured out. With legitimate team houses in place for nearly a year, the hard work and discipline that have come to be associated with Korean progamers are paying dividends.

In an age when MLG is inviting Koreans to be the cats-among-pigeons at major events, and in which sponsors will fly players of Nada and MC’s calibre to Dreamhacks and Home Story Cups, our understanding of “the Circuit” of has been stretched far beyond its once largely Korean-only boundaries.

We no longer live in a world in which “Korean” and “International” are necessarily separate identities.

We no longer live in a world in which MLG is a non-GSL event.

We no longer live in a world in which there will be a Dreamhack without Asian competitors.

While all of this is laudable, it serves to highlight one key fact; non-Koreans are losing ground. It’s no coincidence that the top six players from MLG Anaheim sport Korean flags. It’s no coincidence that they were followed by two players who are drinking the Kool-Aid, or eating the Kimchi, so to speak.

It’s a harsh world out there and it’s only getting tougher to pick up a major win. F.United represents the first step towards amelioration. As with FXOpen before them, United is demonstrating its willingness to fling its foreign progamers boys into the furnace of Korean competitive play. Those players that survive, will emerge tempered by the experience. Harder, better, stronger. Weaponized.

The road will be long and it will be barren, and above all it will be hard. Theirs will be thankless toil. In last night’s Code A matches, only Thorzain was able to steal a game.

David Foster Wallace once noted that, when it comes to sports, the literature is rife with war metaphor. Seldom does anyone take the time to highlight the pure, undiluted beauty of competition, the simple elegance displayed only by those at the highest levels of excellence. F.United aims to give us the chance to do just that.

If we are to step away from the war metaphors for a moment, F.United offers the chance to see something different. For once, foreigners are not a force invading the hostile territory of Korea. Rather, F.United represents a synthesis, a branch of a rare and beautiful plant grafted onto a hardier tree. In watching that tree grow and develop, augmented by the strange beauty of its alien limb, we might have the satisfaction of seeing the first of something new.

We begin from that clipping, with the raw potential to grow into something noble, something great. We have the opportunity to watch it from its infancy, to see the transformation from disparate, particularised identities to teammates. We will bear witness to skilled, dedicated players nurturing that raw talent. Each loss will be a day in the sunshine, every victory a sudden cloudburst, with faces turned skyward to catch the drops.

In an ideal world, it all leads to the gradual blossoming of something unique, something truly beautiful – something that is in Korea, but not necessarily of Korea.

We will see Thorzain and NaNiwa, once bitterest of rivals, forced to rely on one another. One-time-nemeses locked together, a symbiosis that could benefit both.

We will see Moon and Lyn, still playing War3 to qualify for WCG, showing that they can take on two games at once.

And we will see F.United showing us that the impossible is only ever just inches out of reach. The funny thing about being just inches out of reach is that, if you’re willing to take a chance, to really risk it all, sometimes you surprise everyone. FXO did it.

F.United, I love you, but tonight is probably not your night. Several of you just arrived in Korea this week, you probably haven't even adjusted to the new diet, much less had time to discuss team strategy. You're not even all living in the same house! I know team cohesion is not the most important facet in this format but it certainly can't hurt. Let's use tonight as a learning experience, we use this as our starting point to grow together. Be patient, your time will come. For now, relax and prepare for a harsh dose of reality.

Of course we can always hope that MVP pulls an Incredible-Miracle-vs-Qxc and throws out B-Teamers. MVP handily.



Old Generations has one of the more scary lineups in the team league, but has had considerable trouble generating consistent wins. Meanwhile TSL is sitting nicely at 2-0, unfortunately for them one of those wins was on the back of PuMa (who is no longer within their ranks). This one may be close but oGs gets the edge for a deeper lineup. Also HuK. oGs by a hair.



After playing 3 matches a piece, these two teams are only one game apart in the standings. Both have decent lineups and guys that can give an outstanding performance under the right conditions. "On paper", as spreadsheet warriors like to say, they are fairly similar. However the ZeNEX core is slightly brighter with Puzzle, CoCa, and Byun all playing towards the top of their ability. It seems clear they have some advantage, though just how much is up for considerable debate.

As Divinek learned anything can happen in a team league so I'm not banking too heavily on that. ZeNEX probably, maybe. Most likely.