The quarter-finals of the 12th SOSPA Ranking Tournament served to remind us of why we should never take anything for granted in Afreeca competition. HiyA isn't finished yet, beast hasn't even come close to reaching his peak and Movie's arsenal of godless cheeses knows no end. Even the series that did go the way we'd expected created some excitement and Perry's dark archon play against hero leaves us with high expectations for the ex-OZ Protoss' next series.

While there were plenty of upsets and surprises in-game, this edition of SRT news will following our tried and tested formula of "recap and preview". This round, I've taken on the job of recapping the four Ro8 series, while new recruit KristofferAG has come along just in time to relieve me of my previewing duties following what was possibly the worst set of predictions in the short history of SOSPA tournament coverage, in our last news post.

As was the case in the last SRT, the grand final takes place only 48 hours after the Ro4 begins and although the prize money has been slightly reduced, the level of competition has only continued to rise. With a classic TvP match-up that could just as easily have been played in the elimination rounds of the OSL or MSL, and an SRT11 re-match between two of Afreeca's most in-form Zergs, the semi-finals of the 12th SOSPA Ranking Tournament are not to be missed.

HiyA vs. Mong

In the first Ro4 match-up of SRT12, HiyA rolled back the years with a dominating victory over Mong that was reminiscent his best series from 2011. Having been the more in-form player coming into this series, Mong was expected to put up a good fight, if not beat the ex-OZ progamer. However, after a long drop-heavy first game, Mong appeared to fall apart against HiyA’s aggressive strategies in games two and three.

Everything appeared to be going according to plan for Mong in game one, as he had the better of the early drop play, managing to take out HiyA’s island expansion and doing significant damage to production facilities at the 3 o’clock base. However, as the game went on Mong’s drops became increasingly cost inefficient while HiyA maintained control over a majority of the map. Unable to break HiyA’s main tank line in order to take any further bases and finding his every attempt at harrassment being cleaned up with greater ease than the last, Mong was eventually forced to concede.


In game two HiyA served up early aggression with a side of harassment, following up his unfortunately misplaced proxy barracks with a vulture run-by that did significant damage. Mong, who had opened CC first, appeared eventually to have stabilised but was unable to defend HiyA’s follow-up tank push. With two tanks besieging his natural and nothing but SCVs left to defend, Mong conceded.

The final game on Match Point followed a similar trajectory to game two as HiyA’s initial proxy barracks proved not especially successful but instead paved the way for further aggression. This time, HiyA floated his proxied barracks for vision, allowing him to siege Mong’s natural mineral line from the low ground. Mong, whose build had again been oriented economically, was unable to keep up with HiyA’s aggression and was obliged to GG out.

beast vs. Sky

Beast continued his upward trend in form in the SRT by beating his old foe Sky in what turned out to be a rather one-sided series. In the later games of the series, beast produced a series of builds which seemed specifically tailored for this series, following on from the preparation evident in his other SRT games this year. Sky, meanwhile, was characteristically erratic, with his excellent aggression in game one counterbalanced by some truly bizarre decision-making in the later games.

In game one, any early advantage gained by beast following his solid defense of Sky’s cannon rush quickly vanished as he misjudged his reaction to the Protoss player’s two stargate follow-up. With Sky’s corsair count already well beyond the point where scourge can land, he had free reign over the map, killing dozens of overlords and even forcing beast to cancel units or have them instantly die to the corsairs that were camping above. When Sky finally decided to move out with his ground army, the game had all but ended; Beast having lost massive amounts of time and money in his attempts to defend the aerial harassment.

Game two had the feel of two drunks in an alley fight, as the two ex-OZ pros took turns throwing the biggest punch they could muster. Both players were forced to defend at their natural, first Beast with a combination of simcity and drone-drills and then Sky, with DTs followed by a single, devastating storm. Finally, they attacked simultaneously; Sky attempting to bust Beast’s third with speedlots while Beast broke into Sky’s natural wielding a huge army of hydra/lurker. Beast’s attack proved the more potent and the series was tied 1-1.


Beast showed that Sky wasn’t the only player in this match-up capable of creative strategies in game three, as his well disguised slow overlord zergling drop took Sky completely by surprise. Having lost his entire main base to Beast’s drop and unable to do any damage in return, Sky took a moment to reflect on his situation and then left the game. In the final match of the series, the role reversal was complete as Sky, in full tilt mode after losing the previous game in such an embarrassing fashion, opened proxy two gate. Beast defended well, eventually building up enough zerglings to kill off Sky’s zealots and take the series.

hero vs. Perry

From the outset, hero versus Perry was probably the easiest of the quarter-final series to predict and it also turned out to be the one whose result most closely resembled what was expected. While the score reflects Hero’s superiority over the course of the four games, Perry competed well with the former STX progamer and, if he is able to maintain this level, will be a competitor to watch out for in future SRTs.

Game one begun with an early zealot attack by Perry which served well to delay hero’s initial 3 hatch hydra attack. By the time hero did arrived at the Protoss natural, too many cannons were in place for the attack to succeed so the game went on, with hero briefly maintaining a light contain. After adding hatcheries, hero again attempted to bust the Protoss natural this time fielding a much larger hydralisk/lurker army. Perry easily rebuffed hero’s hydralisk heavy army brilliant storm usage and then counter-attacked towards the now defenseless Zerg’s natural to win the game and take a 1-0 lead in the series.

Perry again opted to take the fight to hero in game two, however his zealot/dragoon attacks at hero’s natural and third achieved little. Once hero’s hydralisk production was underway, he was easily able to clean up most of the Protoss forces before attacking Perry’s natural, which was laid bare by a lack of templar tech and easily broken by hero. Game three on Match Point saw Perry completely forgo stargate units in service of a zealot/HT attack that was well defended by hero, displaying some fine mutalisk control. A taste of what was to come came next, as Perry caught hero’s harassing mutalisks in a maelstrom, killing all but two with the single storm that followed.


As the game carried on, Perry found himself unable to take a third and so began work on preparing a huge two base army in order to mount one last ditch attack. With his two base attack eventually stopped by hero, Perry did eventually take the mineral only at 3 o'clock. Already up and running on four bases and possessing a large hatchery count to reinforce from, hero simply threw units at Perry until he was forced to GG.

Hero was now well into his stride and the final game of the series ended quickly as Perry was caught out by hero’s initial mutalisk/scourge attack that took control of the Protoss main. With his cannons and corsairs dying mere seconds after completion and his zealot/DT counterattack easily repelled, Perry left the game, giving hero a 3-1 series win.

Movie vs. Shuttle

Shuttle’s first SOSPA tournament outing in what was his best match-up as a progamer was promising but ultimately fruitless, as Movie again proved his ability to take wins by any means necessary. This ended up being the closest series of the Ro8, with Shuttle taking an early 2-1 lead before ultimately being caught out by a dastardly (but predictable) cheese by Movie in game five.

After some typical PvP manner pylon and zealot shenanigans in Movie’s mineral line, the first map saw both players remain passive for long periods of the early game, not wanting to risk losing units in a bad engagement. Movie made the first real attempt at aggression, with a double shuttle drop behind Shuttle’s main mineral line that was cleaned up with little dmage done. Shortly afterwards, Shuttle mounted a large attack into Movie’s natural choke but ended up losing his entire army while Movie retained a handful of goons and two reavers. Having committed everything he had to his first attack, Shuttle was defenseless as Movie counter-attacked and quickly accepted defeat.

Shuttle came back into the series in game two with a fairly straightforward win on La Mancha. Having fended off Movie’s first attack while having taken an earlier nexus, Shuttle caught out a small group of Movie’s dragoons out of position, easily taking them out and then leveraging this advantage into an easy win in the ensuing main army battle. Having lost his natural nexus, Movie prepared a last ditch offensive that was held by Shuttle with the aid of a shield battery in his natural.


Things got messy in game three, as Shuttle’s seemingly guaranteed victory with two gate DT versus Movie’s three gate goon came under threat following an incredibly effective counter-attack that saw Shuttle lose both his main and natural nexus. After killing off Movie’s robo, forge and finally his hidden cannons, Shuttle took the game and the series lead.

Game four begun again with Shuttle relying on his old friend, shield battery, to defend Movie’s three gate goon. With his first attack rebuffed, Movie established a contain at the bridge outside Shuttle’s natural before adding gates and tech to prepare a huge two base all-in attack. When the final battle came, Shuttle found himself behind in just about every regard, as Movie’s much larger and higher tech army easily rolled over the former STX captain.


With the series tied at 2-2, game five took place on Electric Circuit, a map that Movie had beaten Tyson on in SRT11 using a four gate goon proxy build. A firm believer in the old maxim “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” Movie again employed the sneaky strategy in this all-important game, relying on the fact that Shuttle hadn’t seen his series against Tyson. Movie’s gamble paid off as Shuttle, completely unaware of what was coming, was simply overwhelmed by Movie’s dragoon count.

Wednesday, Jan 30 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)

Movie v HiyA

It's no surprise to see Movie in the semifinals of this SRT. In spite of his lackluster PvZ, he's managed to pull off some impressive feats lately, like his all-kill of Fish All-Stars in a recent SOSPA Event Match, as well as his victories over Killer, NaDa and HiyA in the last KotH tournament. As far as I'm aware, that puts Movie 1-0 against HiyA, not counting pro games. With such a limited history, nothing can be based off statistics in this match.

Movie is hunting his first SRT win, while HiyA is looking to reproduce his results from the 10th SRT, where he somehow managed to come out ahead in every single match he played. However inconsistent HiyA may be, there's no doubting his TvP on a good day. With his disappointing results in the 11th SRT, many had him pegged to make it no further than the Ro16, but he managed to pull off an impressive 2-0 over Larva, who grabbed the second price at the last SSL, before taking a game off Sky.


Still, Sky recently fell to Movie in an absolutely spectacular series, and there's no doubt Movie is in a great shape considering his ravaging of the Fish ladder and utter destruction of anything being thrown at him during SOSPA's event matches. Sure, he looked sub-par when he was man-handled by beast in his first match of this tournament, but with a 2-1 over Snail and 2-0 over ladder-machine Shinee, his PvT is clearly in excellent order.

It's a somewhat tough match to call, with Movie's PvT looking scary, and HiyA showing off his great overall form. However, I still don't see HiyA's TvP measuring up to Movie's current level.

Movie 3-2 HiyA

beast v by.hero

The last time these players met, in the 11th SRT, every single game turned into a bloody battlefield with units being lost on either side. Often it was hard to tell who won, as the two traded blows for a total of five games, with beast eventually ending up victorious. It was obviously a series between two very strong ZvZ players, and we're lucky enough to be treated to a rematch.

The main issue for beast in the last SRT was how unrefined his play seemed to be in both ZvT and ZvP. It quickly became clear how impressive his ZvZ had become, with wins over force[Name] and hero, but he was destroyed by Mong in the Ro8. What's more interesting was his match against Movie. Though he ended up losing 2-1, he was able to show off his creative side with a slow overlord drop into Movie's mineral only just before the corsairs popped.


Meanwhile, hero has yet to prove his ability in the ZvZ match-up, and what little we've seen from him is not exactly impressive. He lost 0-2 to Larva in the group play during the last SRT, before he went up against beast. That time, hero was predicted to take the win based on his games against Larva, but beast ended up just barely taking it, 3-2

This time, I'm flipping it over and hoping the results don't do the same. Watching beast's stream, it's hard to tell exactly how good his opponents are, but it's quite clear that he can go full-on beastmode in ZvZ, and I can definitely see that happening here.

beast 3-1 hero