Here. We. Go.

SlayerS was up 3-1, with a former GSL finalist on the field for them. Vanquished were three straight zergs of the opposition. Left was the strength of SlayerS' line. You almost had to feel a bit sorry for them. How come?

They had triggered Liquid`TaeJa.

Back when IM trounced SlayerS to make it into the IPL TAC 3 live finals, they looked untouchable. Remaining was a crew of strong Korean teams, but IM had done nothing but destroy similar opponents all season. Having gone 20-4 in total games, it seemed like IM couldn't possibly face a threat in the finals match. SlayerS? Already done that. MVP? Already crushed Prime? Slumping. Startale? Perhaps a threat, but with a one game advantage, what could go wrong? Liquid? Haha.

But then something happened. Something snapped for Liquid, in the whole team perhaps, but especially in TaeJa. The only foreign based team left in the competition started to believe. A team effort took down MVP. Down to their last strike against Startale, TaeJa roared back in one of the most impressive teamleague performances in Sc2 history. Despite having dropped three extremely close games to SlayerS_Genius, Liquid didn't mope, and the resulting TaeJa massacre was as definitive as any. Now they're in the finals.



On paper, they're again the huge underdogs. But that hasn't stopped them so far. We shouldn't forget that Liquid's foreign roster has been close, even if they haven't win. We shouldn't forget that TaeJa is on one of the hottest streaks we've ever seen. Can Liquid win?

But IM hasn't dropped enough games in four matches to even drop a single match. They have three Code S players, one in Up/Downs, and they've left the most successful player in starcraft two history home. We shouldn't forget that this is the team with more GSL championships than any other, including the last two. Can IM even lose?

The finals begin at Saturday, Aug 11 4:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00). Don't miss a moment.

A Look Back

NrGmonk

As this season of IPL TAC draws to a close, it's time to reflect on the season behind us. Rather, it's time for me to personally reflect. Throughout the season, I've written approximately 18,000 words over the course of 13 articles, previewing a total of 45 matches. For each match, I made a prediction of the outcome. Let's see how I did.

Monk's Prediction Summary Chart (.xlsx download)

67% isn't bad, but it's not anything to cry home about. Let me preface the remainder of this article with the fact that I'm not actually that bad at predicting matches. About a month ago, I was actually top 20 in Liquibet. Then GSTL came and wrecked everything to kingdom come, putting me barely in the top 100. For some reason, these pesky all-kill style team leagues really seem to screw me over, and I'd like to examine why.


Korean Unpredictability
For matches involving fewer than two Korean teams, I bat at 87.1% with 24 of 29 correct predictions. On the other hand, for matches involving two GSTL level Korean teams or Liquid, I'm at a whopping 37.5%, with only 6 out of 16 correct predictions, quite a stark contrast. I hypothesis that there are two major factors in play here. First is that Korean players tend to have less exposure than foreigner players. Of course you have GSL, GSTL, and some other online tournaments such as ESV and KSL, but the sample size is still minuscule compared to the myriad of foreigner tournaments we have to examine both online and in the LAN environment. For example, most foreigner viewers will easily be able to agree on a ranking for Thorzain, SjoW, and Dayshi (Hint: It's probably in that order). But how many will agree on the ranking for Sculp, Annyeong, Dream and Sound? All of these players have played for their respective teams in IPL TAC.

The second, and possibly more influential factor, is that these teams represent the very crème de la crop of the Starcraft players in the world. At the very top, competition is very tight, and everyone is capable of beating each other, leading to unpredictable results. The best GSL players are not necessarily as dominant in this all-kill team league format, and the best team league players may not do so well in the GSL. Nestea, MVP, Puzzle, CoCa, Creator, and Seal are clear examples of this one way or the other. And even the Gods of team league can fall in battle in this format. Symbol, DRG, and yes, even Taeja have fallen to supposedly lesser players in IPL TAC.


It Just Takes One to Tango
Some notable unexpected monumental performances by individual players this season include:

In an all-kill format, it just takes one person from either team to be on fire from any particular day. And in IPL TAC, this player was usually Taeja. When Liquid tried their hand at GSTL this season, they simply flopped. Even with Taeja, Liquid was easily all-killed by Tassadar, a player who has not had any other significant results in recent memory. So even with their full lineup available for IPL TAC3, who would have thought Liquid would get this far, all the way to the finals? Well, Taeja had a different idea in mind. Almost single-handedly, he took out player by player, one at a time, from championship Korean teams such as Prime, MVP, Startale, and finally SlayerS in a revenge match. As the season drew to a close, I more and more felt as if I was betting on whether would Taeja would have an on or off day. And each time, five times in total, I guessed wrong.


IM is Suddenly Good at Team Leagues?
Just a few months ago, LG-IM-SK was the laughing stock of team leagues. With more GSL championships on their team than every other team combined, they still could not break the first round of GSTL in either season this year. In GSTL season 1, they lost to both NSH and Startale, while in season 2, TSL and fnatic cut their GSTL lives short. Not since the very first two seasons of GSTL have they tasted a what it's like to be on the stage of a team league finals. One of the biggest consistent criticisms of IM is their coach; while Coach Kang was coach of the year for 2011, he has since been under constant scrutiny about his lineup choices from the likes of fans and even Nestea himself. For example, Coach Kang rarely sends his GSL champions to play in team leagues, and never uses them in online team leagues such as KSL or IPL TAC. Instead, he prefers to consistently use his lesser known players who stay in the IM team house.

So based on their past performances, and the initial uncertainty of whether MC was going to be allowed to play, I bet against IM each time they were up to play, and I lost big when they ended up being the only undefeated team throughout the season. Even more surprising is that IM did it with minimal use of their GSL champions. Coach Kang, for the most part, stuck to his strategy of sending out his "B teamers". And this time his plan worked. Some may look to the coach as a fool for consistently sending out these lesser players over the past year, but a new argument can be made that it was genius. Coach Kang has successfully cultivated his supporting bench over the past year while holding his main lineup back. By doing so, his supporting lineup is now more experienced than those of any other team. And with this experience, almost all of IM's players without a GSL championship have had huge surges lately, both in individual leagues and on the team stage in IPL TAC. For the LAN finals, IM's lineup has been reinforced with Nestea, but even without him, Liquid should watch out. More on that later.

The Finals

NrGmonk

The Players

Happy
IPL TAC3 Record: 2-0
Wins Against: DRG, Sniper
Losses Against: N/A
Above all, Happy is known for his amazing TvZ at 69%, always meching in TvT, and sharing a moniker with the Russian Warcraft 3 player, Empire.Happy. What most people forget about him, is that Happy was once good, really good. Happy actually once made it to the round of 4 in GSL, but has since lost his shimmer. He now resides in the purgatory that exists between between Code A and Code S, always bouncing around between the two, but never making a bit name for himself. MVP once stated that it was a shame IM didn't have the sponsorship money to send a deserving player like Happy overseas. Perhaps this time, MVP gave up his slot so that Happy could experience his first time ever abroad. With even more pressure as a foreigner LAN virgin, Happy should be very nervous going into this match.

As an aside: Although Happy's wins versus DRG and the rising Sniper may seem impressive, I'd like to point out that Happy did proxy 11-11 DRG on IPL Sanshorn Mists AE, a map the Zerg titan was unfamiliar with, and thus didn't know the common proxy locations for. Sorry, Happy. I'm actually a fan, but I gotta drop you know a notch there.

YoDa
IPL TAC3 Record: 0-0
Wins Against: N/A
Losses Against: N/A
Out of all the players from both teams being sent to the match, YoDa is probably the least known for the general public. While Yoda has been a part of IM forever, he's been just an average player. He does ok in individual leagues, consistently staying in Code A, and he's just above average in team leagues, with probably an average of over one win per match. Fun fact: MVP once called YoDa the best Terran on IM, but with intra-team hypes, you always have to take them with a grain of salt. Oh, and he recently qualified for Code S for the first time this season, beating the likes of July, Oz, and Supernova. So there you have it. All I know about Yoda that is.

LosirA
IPL TAC3 Record: 6-1
Wins Against: PartinG, Squirtle, Arthur, Alicia, CoCa, Miya
Losses Against: Puzzle
Losira might as well be IM's ace in this match. With the best record for IM in this season of IPL TAC and the best record for his team in the last season of GSTL, Losira seems to shine in these team leagues. And few remember that it was Losira who shined the brightest for IM in their early days of team league, getting the second all-kill ever in GSTL history over Zenex, and then following it up with another all-kill over NSH. Even in the KSL, Losira once garnered an impressive 4-kill over Prime. But just like his results in individual leagues, where he can either make it to the finals of the GSL or fall out of MLG Arenas after winning only one or two games (See Winter Arena and Spring Arena 2), Losira's results in team leagues are very streaky as well. Yes, Losira tends to sweep team league matches often, but just as frequently, he can flop without taking a single game. Or sometimes, Coach Kang just thinks he's too good, and decides to sit him on the bench along with Nestea/MVP while his less experienced team members have a go at it.

NesTea
IPL TAC3 Record: 0-0
Wins Against: N/A
Losses Against: N/A
See Nestea's attached in-depth preview.

First
IPL TAC3 Record: 3-1
Wins Against: Hack, KingKong, Curious
Losses Against: PartinG
First, known as Anyppi from his BW days, once played in KT alongside God himself. His two recent claims to fame include his MLG Summer Arena run and that he qualified for TSL4. At MLG Summer Arena, he took down Terran greats such as TOP, Puma, Ganzi, and aLive, but lost 0-2 to SortOf. From these results, it can be strongly inferred that PvT is First's strongest match-up. The only problem with this is that at the same tournament, Taeja cleaned First up without looking like he broke much of a sweat at all with a 2-0 score. But seeing as Liquid now only has one Terran in Taeja, First may not very well have a niche on his team against the foreigners in blue.

Seed
IPL TAC3 Record: 3-2
Wins Against: Dream, sC, finale
Losses Against: DRG, PartinG
Once upon a time, Seed was known as the Illusionist Protoss, named so because his Korean name vaguely sounded like the Korean word for "Illusion" and for his heavy use of hallucinations. Once upon a time, Seed was known as Tasteless's favorite Protoss, after he debuted a unique build where he hallucinated an immortal to fake an immortal bust, when he was actually just expanding. That was so long ago and who can remember such minor insignificant things? Today, Seed is known as GSL champion Seed. With his recent championships, he now joins ranks of his teammates, MVP, Nestea, and MC, as well as other legends including MMA and DRG. Still, I can't help but think that he has more in common with Jjakji or Polt. Seed's run did not exude dominance, as he actually lost to Byun in group stage 0-2, and got through his quarterfinals and semifinals matches in unconvincing fashion with 3-2 scores. Hey, but worst case scenario, Seed remains on the level of Jjakji/Polt and is still regarded as one of the top 30ish players for the next year.

YongHwa
IPL TAC3 Record: 5-0
Wins Against: five dtG players
Losses Against: N/A
YongHwa is known as the safest Protoss you'll ever meet. He is known as the inventor of the 3 stalker rush employed in about 40% of PvPs these days. And in the earliest days of Starcraft 2, he was known for only using one build per match-up, using the ultra-conservative 2 gate robo in every PvT and perhaps the even more conservative 3 gate expand in every PvZ. This obviously did not get YongHwa very far, no matter how well he executed each build. These days, YongHwa still prefers a more passive macro style, but he's somehow made it work. He both won the Korean qualifier for HSC V and then proceeded to achieve second place in the actual tournament. In his games, he still showed his proclivity towards using the same builds over and over again, but at least they were not so common builds that his opponents were intimately familiar with them. YongHwa should be best used against some of Liquid's lesser players, but out of IM's entire lineup, he's probably the least likely to take down someone the likes of Taeja.




TaeJa
IPL TAC3 Record: 16-2
Wins Against: AnnYeong, BBoongBBoong, Creator, MKP, Maru, Puzzle, TAiLS, Vampire, Life, Curious, Squirtle, Bomber, Genius, CoCa, Min, Puzzle again
Losses Against: Alicia, Sniper
I pretty much started putting the stats into these previews just to show how absurd Taeja's run throughout IPL TAC was. Anyways, see Taeja's in-depth preview.

HerO
IPL TAC3 Record: 3-3
Wins Against: Alicia, Keen, DRG
Losses Against: AnnYeong, Min, Life
Traditionally, Hero is used in team league matches for Liquid when they've got a Zerg to take down. No surprise as this has always been his best match-up, playing it with a style and flair unmatched by any other Protoss in the world. But more recently, Hero seemed to struggle in the match-up at ASUS Summer against SortOf. After the games, Hero expressed his frustration of the match-up in an interview, saying he no longer knows how to beat Zerg. This does not bode well for Liquid's main Protoss, as he's never been known for his PvP, leaving perhaps only PvT as the only safe match-up for Hero. Whether Hero is sent out against Terran or Zerg this weekend will say a lot of Hero's current strength, particularly of his once touted PvZ.

Zenio
IPL TAC3 Record: 7-4
Wins Against: Killer, Bischu, meRz, SjoW, Dream, Miya, Miya again
Losses Against: AnnYeong, Puzzle, Sniper, Genius
Zenio is the wild card for Liquid, both in his play and his ability to get results. In contrast to some of his more predictable teammates, Ret and Sheth, who always look like they have a plan, Zenio seems to play every game by feel. This often results in two types of games on opposite sides of the spectrum; sometimes, Zenio seems to dominate opponents, but he's also capable of looking silly, even when his opponents do not necessarily force mistakes. In terms of results, Zenio seems to be a far cry from when he was in Code S, and even further away from the Beta days, when he was one of the best players in the world. Of the Korean Liquid trio, Zenio notably has the worst results; Both Hero and Taeja have international championships and have gone deep into Code S, and even Ret has generally outperformed Zenio at LAN events. But as we constantly learned from IPL TAC, it might just take Koreans to beat Koreans, so Zenio might just be what the doctor ordered.

Ret
IPL TAC3 Record: 1-4
Wins Against: Sniper
Losses Against: Puzzle, Keen, Life, Genius
Ret has had back-to-back-to-back mediocre tournament performances lately by Ret standards. Over the past few months, Ret amazing beat Puzzle, but lost to Alicia at NASL, left ASUS ROG Summer 2012 early in the first group stage, and dropped out of TSL4 in the round of 32. This, along with his less than stellar performances in IPL TAC suggest that he might be burning himself out with the sheer amount of high level tournaments he's been attending. Losing to Alicia, and especially losing 2-3 to Squirtle in TSL, might be acceptable, but in the ASUS tournament, Ret fell 1-3 to both Suppy and Kas. While I don't want to be overly critical, these are just not the types of results one of Liquid's star players can bring when they face against one of the best Korean teams in the world. For this weekend, Ret will need to find and channel his inner-Ret, the one that crushed Puzzle, not the one who fell apart to Alicia, the one who won the first ever Assembly hosted by ASUS ROG, not the one who crumbled early on in the latest ASUS ROG tournament.

Sheth
IPL TAC3 Record: 4-4
Wins Against: HasuObs, MaNa, HeRoMaRinE, AcE
Losses Against: MorroW, Miya, Life, Genius
At one point, not too long ago, Sheth held a solid claim to the title of best American player. (USA, USA!) But these days, up-and-comers like Illusion and Suppy, and even the resurging Idra represent serious contenders to that title. Sheth just has not excited us lately, and it'll take a real performance (Against a team like IM, that's probably like one win) for us to get out of our chairs and chant "USA USA" for him once again.

TLO
IPL TAC3 Record: 0-1
Wins Against: N/A
Losses Against: AcE
The last we heard of TLO, he barely didn't make Code A, with a loss in the last round of the Code A qualifier. Then, he went back to Germany for a short while, almost embarrassingly losing early on in WCS Germany. Since then, he has traveled back yet again to train with the other monks at the Liquid house in Korea. The only thing we've heard thus far from him are tweets of serene pictures of the beautiful land that is Korea. After all, Korea has the perfect atmosphere to allow a Seed to germinate. Why not TheLittleOne into ABigOne?

HayprO
IPL TAC3 Record: 2-1
Wins Against: MorroW, biGs
Losses Against: AnnYeong
Haypro may very well be the secret weapon for Liquid against their titanic foes. Throughout Haypro's career, his biggest claim to fame occurred at MLG Providence where he beat Nestea and just barely lost to MVP, botching a third and final game most people would have definitively called for Haypro at one point. Although MVP is not participating this time, tales of the Incredible Miracle killer should certainly have circulated back to the IM house. It wouldn't be the most surprising thing in the world if Haypro were sent against Nestea again, hoping to reignite memories of MLG Providence past.

NonY
IPL TAC3 Record: 0-0
Wins Against: N/A
Losses Against: N/A
NonY, more likely than not, will be contributing more of a coaching or cheerleading role in this match. Although he's been practicing and streaming more lately, he has not produced big results in a while, nor has he played a single match in IPL TAC this season. Still, look for his presence to be and important factor to Liquid's success. (See Dreamhack Summer 2011)

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The Two-Match Factor
Coming from the losers bracket, Liquid has to win two matches while IM just has to win one, or a measly five games. IM has two options of strategies they are likely employ. The first, and most obvious one, is to use their full strength for one match, attempting to defeat Liquid with one solid blow and not letting it get to a perhaps shaky and uncertain second match at all. The second strategy, one that I could definitely see the IM coach going with, is to send out his weaker players first, letting them get future experience, both in a foreign events, and on the big big stage. After all, none of these players except Nestea and Seed are used to playing in front of such a large audience, and Seed, Happy and Yoda have never even been out of the country. What better time to provide experience, experiment, and take risks when you've got the safety net of a second match?

From the Liquid perspective, Liquid has to win not one, but two matches. This is potentially twice the number of sets to prepare for, so it probably makes more sense for them to use trusted macro strategies instead of spending time developing untested all-ins to used as snipes. More likely, Liquid will instead be aiming to pair favorable match-ups and maps instead of employing specifically tailored strategies. But if any player is going to be used as a strategy sniper, I see it being TLO. With his creative mind, along with the fact that on paper, he's not one of Liquid's top five players, I can definitely see TLO being used strategically in at least one of two sets.

The Preparation Factor
Preparation will be a big factor coming into the finals. Unlike every other match played in IPL TAC3, the finals will be offline and both teams' opponents will be known weeks in advance. Perhaps even more important is the prize money difference, a whopping $5000 difference between first and second place. It no longer feels like a random team match, played online with no immediate tangible consequences. The consequences of this match are clear, so look for many times the preparation for these finals compared to a normal IPL TAC match. That being said, IM seems to have a distinctive advantage in terms of preparation:

• Free Time: In the two weeks leading up to these finals, Liquid has been notably busier as an international team. Just last week, Liquid's three star players, Taeja, Hero, and Ret were busy at the ASUS ROG tournament, which spanned five days including flight time, cutting down on potential practice time, and revealing their best strategies while they're at it. Similarly, in the recent TSL4, Liquid has two players in Ret and Taeja who have to diligently prepare, while IM just has one in First. The valuable extra time IM has had to prepare will show if you see IM showing some beautifully designed sniping strategies, while Liquid relies mostly on macro play.
  
• The Team House:Most of IM's players, along with their coach lives together at the teamhouse. Meanwhile, the closes thing Liquid has to a team house is a rather large apartment where Hero, Haypro, and TLO train together. The rest of the team, including Taeja, Zenio, Ret, Sheth, and NonY all live in their individual respective houses spanning three continents. IM's players have the option to work together as a team every day, preparing just a few strategies in unison for the coming match, all while eating or in the moments before they fall asleep. Liquid, on the other hand, just has a Skype channel.
  
• Taeja's Strengths (and Weakness): One of Taeja's strengths in tournaments is his raw skill. This is why he excels so much in online leagues and foreign tournaments such as MLG Summer or ASUS Summer; these tournaments are just gauntlets and generally allow for the better overall player to shine through most of the time. On the other hand, Taeja's skill can also be his greatest weakness. Taeja doesn't show an affinity for good preparation. In the GSL, Taeja just seems to be exactly like how he does in lesser tournaments, even when he has lots of time to prepare. While other players are busy concocting and vigorously practicing counter-strategies, I imagine Taeja at home, practicing ladder as if it were a normal day, improving his overall skill but not his readiness for the upcoming match. Perhaps this is why Taeja has only achieved GSL round of 8 twice, failing each time when preparing for bo5s becomes a big factor.

The Taeja Factor
Deep down inside, I can't help but wonder if everything I wrote for this preview, and even everything I've written throughout the whole season is all but a waste of words. Maybe it all really does come down to Taeja. Will he flounder? Or will he all-kill yet again? We've seen Taeja pull off amazing feats many times throughout the season, despite all the odds and circumstances going against him. And we've seen it happen in the last GSTL finals, where we all expected a drawn out back-and-forth match, only to be given a clean sweep from another Terran who decided to turn it on that day. Throughout the season, both Liquid and the teams they faced seemed to live and die almost solely by the grace of Taeja. Perhaps Taeja is the only factor?

The Aces

By x6.Ver and tree.hugger

Everyone needs a firewall. In Sc2, we call these the aces. When times get tough, Liquid and IM both have players they turn to, both in game, and outside of it.

Solid.

This simple, unremarkable adjective describes Taeja's play better than any other. Several months ago, he was simply a skilled, albeit rather unknown Terran lost in Slayers' incredibly deep lineup. Now, he possesses the best claim to '#1 player in the world,' with two stunning victories at ASUS and MLG Arena. In the IPL TAC in particular, Taeja is almost exclusively the reason why Liquid are in the finals, having went 16-2 and rescuing Liquid from several dire situations. The only time Liquid lost against an elite team in the TAC was when Taeja got less than 3 kills (vs Slayers in WR 4).

What changed for Taeja? Undoubtedly, his nerves and mental strength have been much improved since the time he was dominating the ESV online tournaments with no GSL presence. While in the past he might have made critical mistakes to throw away a series, now he is the one who benefits from such mistakes from his foes. At multiple times during the TAC, most notably against Life, Creator, and Bomber, Taeja won tough games because his opponent made unforced blunders while he did not. Only one single time, against MvPSniper, did Taeja screw up paying attention to his army. His play overall is more refined than ever, with far fewer instances of supply blocks and mineral floating. Taeja simply does not give away anything for free to his opponents.

Perhaps even more importantly, Taeja has recently been able to inject his own unique ideas into his play, with devastating results. While before he did not have a great deal to separate him from the crowd, now he stands as the greatest contemporary Terran innovator.

His TvZ style is superficially similar to many other players, but contains subtle distinctions that give him incredible success. Instead of turtling on 3 base until a sufficient tank count is built like almost any other player, Taeja instead takes aggressive postures with marine/medivac. The Zerg is permanently denied the far watchtowers, while Taeja ensures that creep does not freely pass the midway mark and often will. In order to accomplish these goals, he sacrifices tank count to get faster medivacs and more marines initially. Taeja's tanks do come, but they arrive later than most Terrans are used to. However, when they do, his initial feigned aggression normally gives him enough maneuvering room to really damage the Zerg. Taeja simply makes Zergs feel uncomfortable with subtle means, a key reason why many Zergs make huge blunders against him.

Differing from the standard set by MMA and MVP, Taeja usually forgoes constant harass in favor of army retention. In a typical Taeja TvZ the viewer will see him sporting 50-100 marine armies in the midgame: this is because he keeps his army together and does not splurge it on drops which are becoming increasingly wasteful nowadays.

Taeja is also the best player in the world at microing extremely large numbers of marines. He presplits more often and more fluidly than any other player, and is almost never caught off guard in an engagement as he pays almost full attention to his main army. With these simple yet difficult precautions, Taeja eliminates a huge cause of losses for most Terarns.

Against Protoss, Taeja follows a much similar philosophy. He plays to the strength of his engagements, and aims for getting a maxed Terran army and setting up in a proper position. Only in rare cases does he attempt drops, normally instead relying on his uncanny ability to never get stormed. Most max supply TvP battles often come down to storms: if the Protoss can hit storms, they easily win, while if they don't, they can get crushed. Taeja somehow manages to emp or dodge storms every engagement, allowing his mass of bio and vikings to easily clean up.

Taeja has had little testing for his TvT as so few other Terrans have been able to compete lately. His 1-5 loss to Marineking in an early IPL Fight club is a potential red flag, but there is too little evidence to fully judge. His TvT contains little special creativity, just excellent maneuvering and a good eye for positioning and when to force battle.

Finally, Taeja continuously displays a wide variety of builds in every matchup. His natural, most comfortable type of setting is quick triple expansion builds with the potential for aggressive posturing. However, he regularly throws in abnormal builds such as cloak banshee triple cc siege tank TvP, or allins like proxy marauder, 2 base mass rax TvP, and forward 11/11 TvZ.

There's no doubting that Liquid's ace is as solid and reliable as they come. To win, IM can't just snipe him, they'll have to outplay him completely. Is it possible? We'll see this weekend.






NesTea isn't Incredible Miracle's most important line of defense against TaeJa or HerO, nor is he a likely table setter who could pull off an all-kill. He isn't the most recent GSL champion, or the winningest player in Sc2 history, or the player who teammates regard as LG-IM's best. But he might be the most important player that IM brings to San Francisco.

NesTea is IM's firewall; their rock. He is the oldest player on the team by close to eight years. He has the experience of teamleagues, having played the BW proleague for many years and having taken IM to victory in the first GSTL. He has the experience of individual leagues, with his multiple GSL championships. While IM has coasted to victory in all their IPL TAC matches with a line-up of up-and-coming players, NesTea is the guy who makes the averages look normal. To their finals roster, NesTea will most firstly provide a steady hand and experience.

But perhaps that's not the only reason that NesTea is coming. It's well known that he hates flying. Teammate MVP will likely skip the finals. And IM really doesn't need either or their partner SK.MC to put together a championship calibre line-up for the finals, they've already got one, and then some.

Surely part of the truth is that NesTea is here for redemption. In the most recent GSL, NesTea played well until he was mauled by ByuN. But in the GSTL, NesTea came out as the ace twice for LG-IM. Both times he lost in his signature ZvZ match-up. (In fact, an irony of this finals is that it features the two teams who went 0-2 in the most recent GSTL). This teamleague has provided NesTea with a chance to lead his team to victory once again. He's not a bad player of course; achieving Ro8 in Code S is fantastic. But in BW, and increasingly in Sc2, it's teamleagues that are the most important for players and fans. NesTea is here not just to take in the sights, but to captain his young and talented team to much wanted teamleague victory.

One final role for NesTea. If things get dire for IM, NesTea will be called upon. Remember the team has three Code S players in San Francisco, of course including NesTea. While the Professor has been uncharacteristically anonymous of late, he is still one of IM's smartest and best players. With some preparation against Liquid's line-up, he has quite a good chance of scoring some kills. What will be important is when the kills will come. Don't expect to see NesTea initially; IM should be confident they can take this without him. On paper, they can. But if things go wrong, if Liquid's preparation is good, if IM's preparation is deficient, if TaeJa is rampaging, than IM will place their trust in NesTea. Just as they did this past GSTL season where they flopped, just as they did in the first GSTL where NesTea won it for them. And in every teamleague in the middle.

NesTea is IM's rock, the steady base upon which they've built their talented line-up of up-and-comers. If the young guns in their line-up finally get washed away this weekend, it'll be up to the rock to stop them. If the young guns take the series without any help, it'll be the rock that supported them. Either way, NesTea won't be the most visible player for IM in San Francisco. But in a line-up stacked with present and future stars, NesTea might still be the most important player.

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We'll see you there. Remember: Saturday, Aug 11 4:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)