As Was Prophesied

As was prophesied that one team would meet their untimely end in Week 5 and, so did one team fall to the wayside. And as everyone should have been able to predict... Well, it was Prime. Suffering their twelfth 0-3 shutout of the season, it was not a noble ending. In spite of the bright spots and upsides, their lineup inferiority could not be overcome. As the first team out of playoffs contention, they await two more tough opponents in CJ (this week) and SBENU (next week) before their season is over. Knowing Prime, it is entirely possible that they will cause a ruckus now that they have nothing to lose. What could say 'Screw you' more clearly than shutting out a team teetering on the edge of a round playoffs spot, clinging to the distant hope of a fourth seed into the season playoffs?

Only Prime will tell.

Week 5 Recap

by TheOneAboveU

It's happening again! Proleague is approaching another stalemate situation in which one single map might make the difference between advancing to the playoffs and suffering elimination. In contrast to last round, the ranking looks quite changed up, and Week 5 has solidified this situation with somewhat surprising results. SK Telecom still sit comfortably at the top, but had to accept their first defeat after a mind-boggling 14 victorious weeks. Behind them the stalemate begins: four teams with 3:2-scores, followed by two teams with 2:3-scores in pursuit... with the (supposed) powerhouses KT Rolster and Jin Air Green Wings at the two bottom positions. Only Prime have left the race and have no additional bearing on the playoffs for their own sake (they may, however, still influence the playoff race - should they beat their remaining opponents)

Week 5 delivered extremely entertaining series with accompanying suprises - despite (or perhaps because) '3:0 Monday' made its return in full force. The games on Tuesday were much closer and provided a lot of entertainment, especially the match between Jin Air and CJ proved to be quite explosive. Before we give you an overview of this week's big stories, here's a rundown of Week 5:

KT avoid disaster, eliminate Prime

Defending champions KT Rolster still are in a lot of trouble, but the disgraceful catastrophe - a loss against Prime - was averted this week with solid wins over the opponents' Terran trio by Zest, Stats and Flash. It was a much needed success for KT, as Flash admitted in his post game interview. He said that morale was low right now at the teamhouse, so even the victory against poor Prime should boost the players' motivation. Not a lot can be said about the games: YoDa continued his dreary TvP-play, TANGTANG tried to pull his boys and KeeN rolled over and died to Flash's aggressive mech after holding on by his nails for not-long-enough, in spite of an incredibly cute tech lab steal early on in the game. For Prime, this defeat means elimination from Round 4 and the Proleague playoffs, while KT kept their chances for both playoffs alive.



Yeah, even I didn't lose to Prime.

SBENU break SK telecom's 14 week winning streak

Often the '3:0 Monday' is quite a dull thing, but this time it delivered a hefty surprise as SBENU was able to break SK Telecom's winning streak of 14 weeks with great performances by a Zerg trio. Breaking the mold, I will only say one thing: Style, Swarm, SBENU (adjust accent as necessary)!

The match began with a long and weird PvZ between Classic and SBENU's ally Leenock on Cactus Valley, where the Zerg was able to show his famous prowess in scrappy games, as both players' actions led to a base race, after no amount of harrassment or engagements could bring an early conclusion to the game. Leenock was able to save enough of his economic power and set up new bases out of Classic's reach, while the Protoss had to settle in the Zerg player's old main base - which was basically mined out already. Starved for resources and unable to build himself up again, the Protoss only had the choice to attack, but got crushed by Leenock's renewed swarm.

The weirdness continued with a ZvZ between the current master of the match-up in Proleague - soO - and the player who silently put together the best winrate in the whole league without getting himself too much attention - DongRaeGu. Both opponents had the same builds in true mirror fashion, but soO was the first to get aggressive with his ling/baneling forces. DRG deflected the attack quite easily though and countered heavily with his own ling/baneling army - for several minutes DRG constantly sent waves of units into soO's natural base, dealing severe economic damage and eventually even killing the hatchery, that had been weakened over time by baneling explosions close to it. The SK Telecom Zerg was able to stabilize through his mutalisk tech, but DRG followed his enemy's example and used excellent multitasking to wear soO down and defeat him in a true mirror match.

Mutalisks seemed to be the flavour of the day, as they also found their use in the next ZvZ beween Dark and Curious. Dark tried to end the game quickly with a roach/baneling attack, but his opponent was able to scout the offensive and prepare accordingly. He deflected the push with minimal losses, countering with his swooping bats to deny Dark's third base several times. The mutas proved themselves great assets, keeping the SK Telecom Zerg on the defensive, giving Curious the space to expand and build up his own roach force. With a better economy and flawless maneuvering he forced Dark into a base race - an easy win, as he had one hidden base Dark knew nothing about.

A shocking win for SBENU with closer games than the overall result suggests - while T1 might have lost their winning streak after 14 weeks without a loss, it really doesn't have a big effect on their standing as the best team at the moment. For SBENU the victory might prove essential in their survival.

GuMiho secures MVP victory over Samsung

MVP and Samsung make us scratch our heads every week with their line-up changes and unexpected performances (the good and the bad kinds), in Week 5 the two steadily improving teams had to face each other. Predictably, it went to the ace match where GuMiho, predictably, took a solid win over Solar with, predictably, mech. But let's go back to the beginning! BrAvO decided to play bio against Losira on Vaani, not mech, and was able to win the match after the Zerg player held out bravely for several minutes with minimal chances to win - the Terran, despite having a huge upgrade and economy advantage, had big problems closing out the game. Losing several armies to Losira's swarm before finally forcing the GG, things almost seemed to be leaning in Losira's favor before the ultimate ending. The Zerg didn't play his best unfortunately, as his army control was quite sloppy multiple times, which maximized his losses to widow mine hits and eventually amounted to enough damage as to be irrecoverable.

Luckily Blaze was, once again, there for his team. The Protoss once known as Panic took his fourth win in a row, beating Dear quite convincingly with a strong push his opponent just wasn't ready for. As everyone expected, GuMiho and Journey both used mech in their TvT showoff, with the Samsung Terran being able to get an advantage for some time through his harrassment. He failed to utilize the advantage though, so GuMiho could catch up and get the better of Journey because of his huge experience in mech battles. Continuing the muta vs. muta trend in ZvZ, DeParture and Solar clashed on Terraform. For a few minutes it looked like the MVP Zerg would be able to overwhelm Solar, but a big battle on ground and in the air went in favour of the Samsung player, who flew his overlords into the muta battle to catch some of the glaive worms and give his mutas an advantage.

The teams chose the regular online cup rivals GuMiho and Solar (they had 58 games between them before this one) for the ace match - a mistake on Samsung's part, as GuMiho won a convincing mech game against the Zerg to close it out for MVP. An important win for the team, because it enabled them to stay in the 3:2-score group, ahead of KT.

Rogue overcomes mech but CJ's line-up proves superior

Struggling Jin Air needed to beat CJ Entus on tuesday to finally get out of their crisis, but the matches didn't favour them in the beginning and Fortune didn't show them any goodwill either. This is mostly the case for sOs, who went up in a match against underdog Bunny, but got toppled by a triple medivac drop with seven widow mines that destroyed 34 (do a double take and read that again: thirty-four) of his probes, just as he was moving out of his base with stalkers. After that coup, it was easy for the Terran to finish of the crippled Protoss player.


http://sc2hl.com/highlight/1531 / https://streamable.com/mz1e


The rocky start for Jin Air didn't affect Rogue though, who had a hard task ahead of him that day, as he faced Bbyong - who was sure to go for mech on the mech-favored map Terraform. Bbyong sports an illustrious mech record and is notorious for his ability to abuse particular maps to their greatest lengths, meching on Terraform being no different. However, the Sexy Boy Zerg [E/N: I do not approve of this nickname] proved the craftiness of his sexy brain [E/N: on a scale of Ret to Suhosin, one might call Rogue's brain "sexy"] and showed an inspiring strategy to overcome the feared metal deathball: He used swarmhosts to keep his opponent busy, deal chipping damage consistently and force the Terran to spread out his units over a greater amount of space than ordinary. This enabled him to use roach harrassment to greater effect and gain time to prepare for his endgame. He expanded quickly and pursued every tech path possible while putting on significant pressure with his swarmhosts and a roach/hydra/viper army. He abducted multiple tanks from Bbyong's main base into his army to keep the unit count of the mech ball down, and used every bit of space he could find for attacks. As Bbyong was busy with defending his holdings and expanding more, Rogue switched to a brood lord/hydra/viper composition - and not just two or three vipers, the Zerg had eleven vipers at one point.

With evo chambers close to the frontline to replenish energy, Rogue basically had infinite abducts and blinding clouds. He besieged the Terran's bases, but had to pull back several times, because Bbyong countered with his tank forces. The CJ player was able to win one big battle - after losing a couple of bases - due to devastating seeker missile hits, but remax from Rogue with 14 ultralisks overran the Terran. An excellent and smart game from Rogue, showing how to dismantle mech play on Terraform. Unfortunately the rest of his team wasn't up to the task though: Trap got bopped by a roach/hydra doom drop from ByuL after his oracle harrassment was deflected and Maru wasn't able to handle a proxy gate build from herO, who transitioned into a stargate and a third nexus after the early aggression. The Terran tried to make something happen with his famours drop play, but the Protoss was more than ready for it, ending the game with a mass zealot counter attack.

CJ Entus put themselves on second place with that win, while Jin Air sticks at the seventh rank, with the only positive thing being that they can't fall any lower.

Counting Down

by TheOneAboveU

What would normally be a top match has become a crisis meeting, as both Jin Air Green Wings and KT Rolster are stuck in the bottom half of the rankings with their playoff lives on the line. Fortunately, the point difference between the struggling teams and the playoff spots isn’t all too big, so a victory will be enough to bring one of the teams to a good position for a pursuit – the losers will face a difficult situation though, and will most likely miss the round playoffs. Both teams have huge problems with their standard line-ups at the moment, but KT’s coach is stubborn and won’t send out TY (did Stats teach him nothing?), while Jin Air’s coach at least brought in Cure for sOs to change it up this week.

It’s make or break in Week 5 for KT Rolster – their qualification for the season playoffs is on the line. If they lose, they may be knocked out of the tournament without even having the chance to defend their title.

Rogue <Vaani Research Station> Zest

Rogue has been Jin Air’s only stable player in this crisis, his craftiness brought him a lot of praise last week, as he dismantled Bbyong’s mech-play on Terraform. But that victory wasn’t enough to turn the tides for Jin Air, as the rest of the team was swept away by CJ Entus. Now another match-up is waiting, Rogue will have to adapt his plans accordingly. That shouldn’t be hard though: ZvP is his best match-up this season, and his smart approach to the game is one of the best assets while playing against Protoss right now.

It’s not an ordinary Protoss the Zerg has to face – Zest also competes in his best match-up this season and contrary to the rest of his team, the Chisel Toss isn’t in the middle of a slump: he only lost one out of his ten last matches, lost only one out of seven PvZs and is in all-around good shape. He might have lost his S2SL quarterfinal to TY, but his team mate figured out his PvT-style and abused that fact to the the greatest possible extent – Rogue will have a harder time planning a Bo1 against Zest. It’s not an impossibility however, the Sexy Boy Zerg has demonstrated often enough, that challenging opponents bring out his best. Whatever both players are plotting, we’re in for an interesting duel.

Maru <Coda> Flash

Two legendary Terrans, often their teams’ aces in the past, will fight against each other on the second map. It’s not a glorious clash of titans at the moment though, more like a face-off between two strugglers, who have no idea how to win anymore. Maru has lost his last five matches – a losing-streak equal to players like BBoongBBoong – and his last attempt in meching in a TvT became a disaster. What did drive Maru into this madness though? Are the rumors about his hurting hands true, did he want to conserve his strength by playing the slower style? Or did he try to adapt to the dominant meta right now? Whatever it was, it didn’t work out for him at all, as his opponent BrAvO had way more experience than him and stole a solid victory away from the Marine Prince.

Something that could repeat itself, should Maru try to mech against Flash, who’s not really in a better shape than the Jin Air player, but has a great deal of expertise in using the mechanical composition in a Terran mirror match-up. And that’s not something Maru can simply make up from one day to another. A reason for confidence is still not available for the Ultimate Weapon, as his last TvTs have mostly been disastrous: losses to INnoVation, SKT’s b-teamer Sorry and Maru himself overshadow the victory over KeeN last week. The duel between these two Terrans embodies the situation of their teams on a more personal scale: The winner can earn a bit of confidence and make a big step out of the crisis, while the loser falls into a black hole of doubts and defeats. Furthermore has to be noted that Maru and Flash are the faces of their teams, so victory and defeat will have an impact on the overall morale of the line-ups and can very well make the decisive difference in the end.

Cure <Echo> Stats

Cure once was supposed to be next big Terran thing, a mixture of solid KeSPA discipline and Maru’s best characteristics, but he never was able to get the results he needed. He never followed up on his promises, and the maddening triple-qualifier bonanza that sold him as one of the world's most resilient players was never fully repeated. As such, 2015 hasn't been a good year for Cure so far. Not only does he lack individual results, his SPL record is mediocre at best, with ten wins and as many losses. And like his colleague Maru, he’s stuck in a losing streak of five games. It’s not going to be easy to get out of that, but at least he has the trust of his coach on his side, which could be a good sign (or a bad sign for the state of Jin Air’s roster), but we’ll have to wait and see before judging.

His opponent Stats was able to stop his own losing-streak last week with a victory over TANGTANG (some would scoff and say that was hardly a victory at all) before it could reach a length of five weeks, showcasing his beloved phoenix/colossus-style on Vaani. A win against Prime’s rookie doesn’t say much though, and the rest of Stats’ recent PvTs is ambiguous, with a win against sKyHigh alongside losses to jjakji and Maru. It really depends on which Stats is going to show up – the near unstoppable force of earlier this season, or the struggling one from the last weeks.

Trap <Terraform> Life

There is a good chance we’ll see this fourth map between Trap and Life, and if indeed Terraform is played, then it could be the match that decides about advancing to the playoffs and being eliminated from Round 4. It’s a tough one for both sides: The opponents haven’t been doing all too well this season, with Trap being 7:8 (3:2 PvZ) and Life being 14:13 (3:5 in ZvP). The two players met not too long ago in GSL Code A, where Life was able to squeeze a 3:2-win out of the scrappy series, keeping the status of never losing a best of-series to the Jin Air player intact.

While the KT player does have this personal edge over the enemy, his match-up against Protoss is very vulnerable at the moment, and a lot of things can happen in a Best of 1. Life, of all players, knows this best of all. Trap has magicked many oracles into worker lines in the past, and it wouldn’t be the first cheese Life falls to this season – everyone remembers Blaze’s audacious proxy gates in the middle of Iron Fortress [E/N: and Bbyong's consecutive, repetitive, infuriating hellbat/banshee pushes - yes, we remember]. The pressure should be huge: both teams have to win under any circumstances to have a shot at advancing to the playoffs. Trap and Life, both tournament champions, have to keep it all together and stand up for their teams. The difference between reaching the season playoffs and being eliminated from this season of Proleague might lie in a few drone-kills, so Life has to bring a solid showing, has to scout for Traps schemes and react accordingly. Otherwise the Wing Commander might be the player who shoots down KT’s dreams of being back to back StarCraft 2 Proleague champions.

Week 6 Spare Previews

by munch

SKT vs MVP

Overview: So, after a 13 game winning streak in regular season matches for SKT, stretching all the way back to March, we’ve finally learnt that the Telecom Titans are mortal. After a brutal flattening from SBENU, this week will all be about bouncing back for them. MVP have been disappointingly inconsistent in Proleague this year, but with the standings still tight for Round 4, making it to the playoffs is still a tantalising proposition.
What to watch for: After losing his first ZvZ in Proleague this year, soO will be looking to re-establish his authority against DeParture, whose recent successes at Gfinity and in Proleague should go some way to reducing the pain of last year’s 0-7 record. After a dominant run of form for the whole of 2015, Classic another player looking to put his recent mini-blip of three defeats on the trot behind him, while GuMiho’s TvP has yet to truly convince this year (40% vs Korean Protosses offline). INnoVation’s TvZ dominance on Terraform was ended in truly odd fashion by ByuL in the GSL last week, and Losira will be looking to provoke similarly odd mistakes. Finally, it’s only our second chance to see Dream all round, after last week’s crushing from Zest; can he return to winning form, or will Blaze continue his streak of baffling Proleague wins?
Map of the Match: Classic vs GuMiho – It’s been a while now since GuMiho unveiled his MechvP at Dreamhack Tours against PartinG; will he wheel out another bespoke build here?

CJ vs Prime

Overview: After bringing their match against MVP all the way to the ace match, last week was a return to familiar form for PRIME. They’re still fielding the same four players , with their Chinese reinforcements nowhere to be seen, and it’s looking like a second 0-7 round in a row for Proleague’s whipping boys. CJ losing here would be the upset of the year.
What to watch for: herO’s PvT may be utterly predictable, but it’s worked out well enough for him this year (70% win rate); meanwhile, YoDa hasn’t won a single game of TvP offline since January. Yikes. After Bunny’s success last week, CJ have gone for another of their rookies this week. We haven’t seen RagnaroK offline since his Code A loss to Stork in early July, and B4 probably represents PRIME’s best chance of avoiding another 0-3 sweep. It’s hardly the greatest compliment, but KeeN’s probably been PRIME’s best player in these dark, Creator-less days. He’s their only player to have picked up more than 1 win so far this round—both against weaker Protosses. Unfortunately, Bbyong’s likely to prove a sterner test. To wrap things up, ByuL will be the anchor for CJ this week on Terraform, up against a TANGTANG who’s still winless in Proleague.
Map of the Match: RagnaroK vs BBoongBBoong is the match least likely to be a bloodbath. B4 has 2 more weeks to pick up another win to avoid being named the worst PL player in history.

SBENU vs Samsung

Overview: With the standings for Round 4 so tight, this may end up being a straight shootout for a playoff spot. Both teams have claimed huge 3-0 upsets so far this round (over SKT and Jin Air respectively), and after weak starts to Proleague for both teams this year, they’re both hitting peak form right now.
What to watch for: Fresh off his statement of intent against soO, DRG is going to be determined to maintain Proleague’s best win rate this year. While mech play in has seemed strong recently, BrAvO’s TvZ was comprehensively dissected by Dark a few weeks back on Coda, and it’ll be interesting to see if he’s patched up any of those flaws yet. jjakji will be looking for another TvP upset over the inconsistent Dear, while MMA gets his first Proleague appearance since June. After a bright start, the old SlayerS ace is on a 3 game losing streak, while his poor play in GSL will have been worrying for any SBENU fans. Hurricane may have struggled this year, but he could well pick up an upset here. Finally, Leenock rounds out SBENU’s GSTL powerhouse lineup, and should be fairly confident against Armani, whose only three wins in Proleague have come at the expense of PRIME.
Map of the Match: jjakji vs Dear features two players who have been thoroughly confusing to watch all year. Awful and brilliant in almost equal measure, who knows which version of either player will turn up on the night.