Gold Series Team Championship: Spring Season
Week 3 Recap & Week 4 Preview

by TheOneAboveU

Upsets, ace matches, dramatic twists: the Gold Series Team Championship is delivering prime StarCraft 2 action week after week. With Week 3 truly ending up becoming the week of the big shake-up, we go into Week 4 with a much changed constellation of power. The playoff race is getting intense and the stakes are being raised.

Week 3 Recap

Triumphant Song Gaming 2 - 4 Dragon Phoenix Gaming
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While the match against DPG would always have been difficult for TSG, one cannot help but feel that letting go of TY robbed them of a big opportunity here, and this result may well be an indicator for how the rest of the season will go for the former champions with no replacement in sight. Having one top player is simply not good enough in this format, and TSG will likely pay a heavy price for TY’s exit.

So, in a match that could have been TY against the BlizzCon champion, TSG had to send out their Chinese youngster TSG.Star against DPG.Dark. Even though his chances of victory in this way were incredibly small, one has to respect Star for the fact that he actually tried to play straight-up games against Dark, which in the long run may be more useful for his development than trying some random cheese (seeing as how title contention is out of the picture without TY, this might be the correct approach). Star had one moment of hope in Game 2, when his Hellions roasted 13 of Dark’s Drones, but otherwise the Korean remained in the driving seat and dominated the games, taking two relatively easy wins, grinding Star down to dust.

The PvP between TSG.Cloudy and DPG.PartinG turned out very similarly, and the volatility of the match-up didn’t help the Chinese Protoss to facilitate an upset. On the first map, he simply died to a gateway push by PartinG while trying to expand. On the second map, Cloudy actually harassed PartinG’s economy relatively successfully, but again PartinG just produced more units and overwhelmed his opponent.

At least TSG.Solar managed to secure some points for his team and denied DPG a clean 6-0 victory, getting revenge on DPG.Firefly for the defeat at his hands at NeXT Spring. The first map went a bit longer than most of the games up to this point, with Solar scouting and reacting to Firefly’s aggression, and the Protoss then transitioning into a macro game quite adeptly. However, Firefly crumbled under the constant pressure of Solar’s Nydus-Swarm Host harassment, losing more and more of his economy and army until he had to tap out. The second game featured a failed Adept Glaive push and Firefly dying to Solar’s Roach-Ravager counterattack—all in all a pretty sad series from Firefly, who definitely couldn’t show his full potential here. Solar taking the only map wins for TSG may become something of a staple in the remainder of the season. Again, going back to what-if's, one can’t help but feel that if TY had been around, TSG could have forced an ace match. And in a BO1, who knows what might have happened?


Alpha X 4 - 2 KaiZi Gaming
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Speaking of upsets, Alpha X did what TSG failed to achieve: they pulled off an upset, and what a huge one it was! KaiZi Gaming are regarded as the second strongest team of the league, and on paper it looked like they were going to crush Alpha X. But KZ's players didn’t perform as expected, while Alpha X showed up in full force.

It felt like the starting PvP series would be the best chance for a Chinese-quota player to finally win a map win against a non-Chinese player (it's been bleak compared to last season), but KZ.Nice couldn't get it done against αX.Astrea. The American played two pretty sharp matches: on the first map, he proxied a Robo to contain Nice in his main base while expanding at home, and somehow still had a bigger army when Nice busted out to counter-attack. Nice tapped out instantaneously when Astrea’s Stalkers shot down his Warp Prism transporting two Immortals. The second map was played on more even footing, with Nice’s Oracle and Adept harassment actually doing quite a bit of damage to Astrea. But Astrea showcased superior macro and managed to off-set these losses by remaining ahead in tech and upgrades. This was the kind of ‘standard’ PvP we had expected from these two—until Nice randomly moved out to lose a large chunk of his army while his economy was cleaned up at home by harassment. Astrea easily secured the 2-0 from there.

That was the perfect start for Alpha X, and much needed, since the next match looked to be much more lop-sided. Few expected αX.BreakingGG to even recover a point against KZ.Bunny, but he did have the confidence to play at least one straight-up game. He didn’t even look that bad during the game, as he actually deflected Bunny’s trademark drop play quite well, But counterattacks didn’t really hit the mark, though, and Bunny whittled him down in the end. The second map started with a Roach-Nydus attack, which failed to achieve much, leading to a macro game, which was again advantageous for Bunny in the long run as BGG stayed on quite a low Drone count. The potential for BGG is there, but he can’t keep up with the likes of Bunny yet.

At a 2-2 scoreline, any result was still possible when αX.Zoun and KZ.Dear loaded into their first map. What happened then far exceeded any expectations fans might have had for Alpha X, as Zoun played two very solid mirror-matches while Dear fell asleep at the wheel. Though Dear he kept up very well during the build-up phases of the two games, Zoun was always a step ahead in tech and outplayed Dear hard during the crucial fights. The KaiZi player showed some atrocious Warp Prism micro, got his Probes killed repeatedly by Adepts just wandering into his base, and seemed just off in general. Combined with his win against BSG.Hurricane in Week 1, Zoun certainly reinforced his image as a dangerous PvP sniper who can knock his opponents off balance with harassment and pressure. This upset puts Alpha X into an excellent position in the playoff race (and imagine where they could be, had TY left TSG a week earlier!). They may be newcomers, and their line-up might not have a great resume in solo competition, but they're sure bringing some fire to GTC matches.


Invictus Gaming 3 - 4 Brave Star Gaming
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Invictus Gaming might be one of the weaker teams in the league, but you sure have to respect their fighting spirit. This week, they forced Brave Star Gaming to an ace match and very nearly got their first win of the season.

I’ve been saying it since we started covering the CTC: iG.Coffee is one of the most solid Chinese players and has a lot of potential, and he finally showed that against BSG.Hurricane (TL.net's previous player-of-the-week pick). Starting things off with a single proxy Rax to disturb Hurricane’s early game, Coffee played a cloaked Banshee opener, which found some Probe damage, keeping Hurricane’s Phoenixes busy chasing the flyers around and ignorant of the Terran’s plans (though, had Hurricane watched Coffee’s matches against DPG.PartinG, he should’ve known): Coffee likes to pull the boys, and pull them he did! Overrunning Hurricane’s bases one by one, he finally drove him back into his main base, where the Protoss accepted his fate and tapped out. The first win for a player from the Chinese region against a non-Chinese player in this season! The second game started well for Coffee, too, as his Widow Mines did some solid damage to the Protoss economy, but his 1/1 Bio-Tank push ran right into Hurricane’s Psi-Storms, while the Terran economy was harried by Zealot attacks, giving BSG at least one of the two points they had expected here.

After the good start, iG.MacSed in his debut for the season was sent out against BSG.Cyan. The two are old nemeses, have played many games against each other, and it showed: both played totally similar builds on the first map, preferring safe macro play over aggression to decide the winner in a later stage of the game. For a while, it looked like Cyan had the upper hand, as his execution looked a bit smoother. But a chaotic fight in the center of the map between the gateway armies of both players ended with a victory for MacSed, who immediately snowballed this advantage to kill Cyan’s third base and set up a massive lead for himself. It looked he would almost squander that lead in an attack on Cyan’s natural that the BSG held out against, but MacSed’s economy was too massive: Cyan’s counter ran into a superior army and was crushed. The second game also remained very peaceful for a long time aside from some skirmishing between Stalkers, as both players concentrated on their macro. MacSed once again won the decisive battles and created an insurmountable advantage for himself, which he did not let go of. Invictus Gaming was on match point!

Unfortunately for iG, iG.iAsonu played the all-in style we predicted in our preview—and by the looks of it,BSG.Dream seemed to have predicted it as well. iAsonu's Roach all-in in game one failed, and he tapped out instantly when Dream’s first Battlecruiser entered the game. On the second map, Dream’s cloaked Banshees got 15 Drone kills, enabling Dream to eventually parade push across the map and defeat iAsonu’s Ultralisks to force iG to an ace-match.

In the ace match, Coffee was sent out against the obvious choice of Dream for BSG. This delivered a pretty awesome TvT decider match, which is our pick as match of the week! (more details below). Suffice it to say, Coffee kept up with Dream and even put some pressure on the Korean for a good amount of time, taking awesome engagements and making good decisions. In the end, one mistake by Coffee was enough for Dream to turn the tables. Still, this was probably the best showing from a Chinese player this season so far, despite the loss. BSG take another ace match victory, and Invictus Gaming get some points on the board for an ace match loss.


Team LP 3 - 4 Team GP
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Team LP had a 0-6 loss to bounce back from, while Team GP obviously aimed to make a good first impression in the GTC after replacing Chivo. In the end, Team GP were the ones to achieve their goal with an ace match victory, though it was as much of an LP throw as a GP win. Given the manner of the loss, LP might have felt even more crushed than when they lost 0-6 to KaiZi last week.

Things could have started off so differently: LP.Patience had scouted GP.GogojOey’s forward Hatchery and subsequent Roach attack perfectly and prepared adequately, setting up static defenses and even boosting out a Void Ray to seal the deal. Naturally, he let his crucial Void Ray die to Corrosive Bile and did not re-wall his first line of defense as it was broken, letting Speedlings run through to his main. First blood for Team GP and GogojOey! The Zerg from Hong Kong followed this up with a 12-Pool the next game, but this time Patience held the initial aggression off. He needed an unreasonably long time to finish jOey off after that due to some horrendous Warp Prism micro, but eventually the stubborn Zerg had to accept his loss. Still, it was a much better start for GP than one could have expected!

Unfortunately for the Korean team, LP.Impact proved more reliable than his Protoss colleague, dominating GP.Bomber in both of their games: a poke with Roaches, later his Mutalisks, and then a Zergling runby did economical damage to the Terran on the first map, enabling Impact to crush his offensive with Muta-Ling-Bane. The second map was shorter, with Bomber dying to an unscouted Roach attack—Impact had gotten Lings into the Terran base, forcing the Reaper to come home instead of scouting. Ruthlessly and efficient, Impact brought LP back into the series. And had Patience done his job, this would’ve been the end of it.

The saddest thing for their team is that LP.Jieshi actually had a very good opportunity to still close the series out against GP.Super. Game 1 was an absolute worker massacre, with Super’s Oracles killing 17 of Jieshi’s, and the Chinese answering with Adepts to kill as many from Super. The massive worker losses continued as both built up again and expanded. Jieshi won a big fight due to his Phoenixes doing some heavy lifting, but lost more Probes to Super’s Oracles in the meantime. The next massive battle then went the way of Super, who had expanded more brazenly and snowballed his lead to victory.

As for game 2... it was a bizarre PvP acid trip. Now, imagine if you will, that you not only scout your opponent’s proxy Robo, but you also get an unscouted warp-in Pylon into their main base. Imagine further, that you defend against their proxy-robo attack. And now, imagine that with victory within your reach, that you lose that game. That’s Jieshi in this game. The few Adepts he warped into Super’s main somehow didn't do crippling damage against the rather all-in Super. But that’s not the only time Jieshi gave the win away! When he had double (yes, double!) Super’s army supply, and the right tools to crush him (in the form of a healthy Phoenix count), he managed to lose his Phoenixes in the middle of the map, where they were just hanging around asleep. When all he needed to do was park them in a corner while doing something else, he lost the crucial units that would’ve won him the game (AGAIN!). Without the threat of flyers, Super was able to buy an immense amount of time, getting his Warp Prism and Adepts into Jieshi’s base, ending the game as Jieshi finally attacked right into the Disruptors that Super had waiting. Well played by Super, he did what he had to do, but Jieshi truly went Full Foreigner in this one.

If you think ‘well, it’s not that bad, they can send out Impact to crush Super, like he did in the GSL qualifiers a few days ago’ then you’d be thinking what I thought. But no, LP did not send out their clearly most reliable and strongest player. They sent out Patience! Patience! Now, to be fair, Patience played okay in the ace match, until he forgot how to use Disruptors, but the decision to put him there in the first place is absolutely mind-boggling. Super was quite happy with the choice, apparently, disregarding all safety with a ballsy offensive blink onto Patience’s army, figuring that if you were next to the Disruptors they couldn’t hit you. Turned out to be right, in this case. A well-deserved victory for GP, but what a sad, sad loss for Team LP.


Weekly MVP Award: GP.Super

Three victories on your first day of playing, that’s what I’d call a running start! Super may have had some help by his opponent making a crucial mistake, but exploiting this to its fullest potential is all Super’s achievement. Leading Team GP to a debut win is no small feat, forcing and then winning the ace match is not something anyone can just do: Super is an experienced team league player, and he showed why he is a man to be relied upon this week. It's a well-deserved MVP award for the Protoss.

This week’s honorable mentions go to αX.Zoun for his dominating performance against KZ.Dear and securing the upset for Alpha X over KaiZi Gaming, and to BSG.Dream for securing his team’s victory over Invictus Gaming in the ace match and also improving to a league-leading six map wins.


Spotlight Game of Week: iG.Coffee vs. BSG.Dream (Watch VOD)

Since the player I’d like to highlight this week already got a spotlight section in an article in the last season of CTC all to himself, let’s take a closer look at one of the matches he played, and which coincidentally is also probably my favorite match of the week: the ace match between Invictus Gaming and Brave Star Gaming featuring Coffee and Dream.

Coffee’s opener was a bit iffy—reactored Reapers with a late CC—and put him economically behind his opponent. It didn't seem optimal at the time, but his follow-up Banshees evened out the economy with their earlier timing, so it kind of worked out in the end. Perhaps playing a standard opening would’ve been an easier way to get an equal start into the game, but maybe Coffee wanted to confuse Dream a bit—not a bad approach to a high-stakes strategy duel.

The Chinese Terran postured very aggressively on the map with his army, taking an earlier third behind it, but didn’t achieve much besides that as Dream proved to be a disciplined and patient opponent. Perhaps still expecting some kind of all-out attack after the strange opener, the Korean remained defensive for a while, until he finally felt confident that Coffee wasn’t up to anything of the sort. Around this time with relatively few things going on—both armies postured, but didn’t really fight—Coffee committed his crucial, perhaps even game-deciding mistake in the long-term: he neglected his infantry upgrades for a good amount of time, while Dream already had his Engineering Bays working on them.

As Dream finally decided to get active and move out, the iG player’s units gave up their forward position and retreated back to his own fourth base position, taking up the defensive position now in a switch of the roles: Dream turned into the player with the aggressive posture now. However, he made a bit of a mistake, as he concentrated his army on the low ground with higher terrain to his sides and behind him, enabling Coffee to set up a beautiful 360° encirclement, akin something you’d see in a war documentary as the ideal tactic for a battle. Closing the trap, Coffee’s units attacked from all sides and Dream escaped only with a few air units, his reinforcements covering their retreat. But in his moment of triumph, when Coffee wanted to press home the advantage, his mistake from before came back to haunt him: Dream, knowing he had to buy some time, sent out a squad of Marines to counterattack his opponent and keep him busy, and they did so with devastating effect, since they had a massive upgrade advantage compares to Coffee’s forces.

This pattern continued throughout the remainder of the game: Coffee was very good about choosing the time and ground of the big engagements, and when to switch his composition around to more air-heavy focus, but every time it looked like he had finally gained an advantage, a force of Marines showed up at one of his bases, disrupting his supply lines, weakening his economy, denying upgrades, and even killing Siege Tanks. In this way, Dream finally turned around the supply numbers, which had mostly favored the Coffee player thus far, and then snowballed this advantage into one decisive push, which eventually forced Coffee to tap out after putting up such a great fight. The underdog may not have been successful in this game, but he definitely showed a lot of fighting spirit and potential. Coffee was very unlucky with his opponents so far, which reflects in his 1-6 score so far this season, but I really think he is Invictus Gaming’s strongest player at the moment.

Week 4 Preview

We are starting to see the rankings form some consistency, but this season of the GTC truly unpredictable outside DPG's death grip over the #1 spot. Everyone else can still make or break their fortune: KaiZi Gaming are out for blood to redeem their upsetting loss in Week 3, Alpha X seek to establish themselves in the upper ranks permanently against Team GP, who want to follow-up on their debut victory, and the duel between Team LP and Dian Lake Gaming will likely decide which of these teams still has a realistic chance to enter the race. Things are getting heated!




Had you told me at the start of the season that TSG and KaiZi would meet in the fourth week, both standing at a 1-2 score, I’d have declared you a case for the infirmary, because you were clearly not doing so well, but here we are: the former champions are weakened, likely to remain so for the rest of the season, and the current runner-ups somehow got themselves upset by a newcomer team last week. While both teams are fighting to regain control and steer out of these turbulent situations, only one can do so this week—and it sure looks like TSG will be the ones continuing in a downward spiral.

KaiZi Gaming already had one of the most solid and internationally known players from the region with KZ.Nice, but after the disbanding of Newbee they acted quickly and signed KZ.TIME, recognized as the best StarCraft 2 player to ever hail from China. After a waiting period of two play weeks, he can finally be fielded, and here he is, facing TSG.Star, the kid who probably hopes to one day achieve a position similar to TIME’s. Now, TIME wasn’t doing particularly well for Newbee in the last season of the CTC, but he already helped KaiZi win their match in the NeXT team tournament against DLG 4-0, taking down DLG.EF and DLG.DynaMite. Suffice it to say, he likely won’t need a warm-up or grace period. Star is clearly a developing talent, but just like last week against DPG.Dark he looks very much outclassed from the start. TIME will be eager to establish his dominion over his countrymen in the GTC, and goes into this match with an overwhelming advantage in form and experience.

Last week, TSG.Solar was able to save some face for this team and rescue some points. His mission to do the same this week is going to be a bit more challenging, as he will face KZ.INnoVation, who just won his GSL Ro24 group in dominating fashion with two TvZ victories, declaring afterwards that he found Terran and Zerg equally playable on the highest level—a strong and surprising opinion for someone so known for his rather whiny attitude towards the state of the game. Whiny INnoVation has won championships—how good could the "my race is actually fine" version of INnoVation be? Solar better practice playing against proxy barracks before this match, because the GSL group showed that INnoVation loves to use the strategy to secure a lead, and we know that Solar had some issues against it in the past (notably, in his ace match against DLG.DynaMite). The TSG player certainly has his work cut out for him, but it’s not like he’s without a chance here: their most recent clash ended in a 3-2 victory for Solar.

If someone is to blame for their 2-4 loss against Alpha X last week, it has to be KZ.Dear, who was clearly a bit off in his match against αX.Zoun. He showed slow reactions and bad control during the fights and was heavily outmatched. This could merely have been an off-day, and until more evidence emerges—such as a loss to TSG.Cloudy here—this must not be the indicator for Dear struggling in a more general sense. Despite the defeat last week he’s still the heavy favorite to win here, sporting a good PvP record generally. On the other hand, Cloudy was stomped on pretty hard by DPG.PartinG the week prior simply due to the latter’s superior mechanics. I’d expect something similar to happen in this match.

Prediction: Triumphant Song Gaming 1-5 KaiZi Gaming




Sitting comfortably on top of the rankings as the only team with a 3-0 score, Dragon Phoenix Gaming must feel pretty good so far about their debut season, especially since their hottest rivals in KaiZi Gaming were subjected to a bit of a setback last week in their quest to catch up to them. Though they are facing another team with two Korean players this week, there’s likely not much to be nervous about.

The hot streak of online victories for DPG.Cure, who looked truly unstoppable for some weeks this year, is slowly cooling down a bit, but the former Jin Air Terran has really established himself as a Top 3 Terran in Korea this year. Against BSG.Cyan he is looking to add another victory to his resume and give DPG a good start into the series. Already having won two series without a map loss against Cyan this year alone—one of them only recently in April—Cure will know what he can expect from his Chinese opponent, who was really unfortunate so far this season, not winning a single map for his team yet. The bad luck is likely to continue.

Speaking of bad luck, this is DPG.Firefly’s second run-in in a row with a strong Korean opponent, facing BSG.Dream this week. Though Firefly was solid against fellow Chinese players so far, he couldn’t quite make anything happen against TSG.Solar last week, and with how Dream has been playing again recently it is hard to believe that Firefly, despite all his improvement, will be able to have a much bigger impact. That said, his PvT has seen a few successes here and there recently, such as a victory over KZ.Bunny in KungFu Cup, and solid performances against many Chinese opponents. Dream’s TvP is probably not as solid as his other match-ups, with a few notable hiccups leaving marks on his record, such as a loss to amateur player DoKyung during the GSL Qualifiers. I’d never count out Firefly—how could you, after the guy cheesed a map off of Maru—but the stats do make out Dream as a heavy favorite to win both the maps here.

DPG have been very strict at rotating their Korean players, so it’s likely that DPG.Dark is going to be on break again next week, if they continue the pattern established so far (which may become too predictable at some point and could be exploited by a cunning team). Unfortunately for BSG.Hurricane, Dark is indeed on duty this week, and is looking continue his perfect GTC record. Interestingly, both players sport excellent recent results in the match-up they’re about to play with impressive win rates above 80%. Dark, of course, holds the historical edge, having not lost a series to Hurricane since the middle of 2018. Hurricane’s record is also deceiving: some of his victories come from amateur players, distorting the statistics a bit. There is also his miraculous victory against Serral at IEM Katowice, but at this point Katowice is quite far in the past in the quick-lived StarCraft 2 world. Dark, on the other hand, got his victories only off of Koreans, merely losing two series to Zest and DPG.PartinG. It’s clear who the favorite is (hint: it’s not Hurricane).

Prediction: Dragon Phoenix Gaming 4-2 Brave Star Gaming




Who would’ve thought Alpha X would be in solid playoff contention going into Week 4? What a run they’ve had so far. Continuing it against Team GP, fresh off their own debut victory, is going to be a tough challenge, but looks entirely doable, especially if they are able to keep up the energetic performances of the previous weeks.

While sending out αX.BreakingGG against GP.Super may not look like a winning move from Alpha X, this could actually be a classic Proleague strategy: anticipate where the strongest player of the opposing team is going to come out, and send a lower value player against them to either snipe them, or simply keep get them out of the equation. With the first map being Purity and Industry some weird s*** might well go down, and looking at both player’s ZvP stats, BGG doesn’t actually look too outclassed anymore. He took maps off Super in the past. And while this would be the best possible result for Alpha X, strategically they already pulled off a solid move here. A map win would be the cherry on top.

With Super out of the way, both of Alpha X’s Protoss players can go into good match-ups for them, and need not waste themselves on random PvP matches (which, to be fair, did go quite well for the team so far, whenever they came up, so perhaps they should have tried to force that for a third time and the move they made was actually a blunder). But αX.Astrea playing against GP.GogojOey is clearly a favorable match-up for the American Protoss, despite GogojOey’s fantastic debut performance last week. Astrea is honestly more reliable and solid than LP.Patience at the moment. While the stats do show his PvZ heavily in the negative right now, many of these losses come from top Korean Zerg, while he regularly wins out over the mid-level players. Now, I won’t underestimate GogojOey, and neither should Astrea: he definitely will have to scout well, play his defensive game right, otherwise the Zerg from Hong Kong is going to sniff out a weakness and punish him. But in paper, the American should bring his team two points here.

The last match is probably going to be a close one, one of those decided by daily form, because αX.Zoun and GP.Bomber had several close series very recently, which makes it hard to pick a winner: Bomber did eliminate Zoun from the GSL Qualifiers with a 2-1 score, and shortly before that won a show match between the two players 5-4, but other than that his recent performances against Protoss look pretty bleak. And while Zoun did lose those matches to Bomber—experience and nerves perhaps being a factor in the GSL Qualifier result—he has way more impressive results to even the balance out: wins over the likes of BSG.Dream and KZ.INnoVation. What I’d also count towards Zoun is that he has shown himself to be absolutely reliable upon in this team league setting so far. Losing against TSG.Solar is nothing you need an excuse for, it just happens, but pulling off super solid PvP wins over both BSG.Hurricane and KZ.Dear—that’s encouraging for a player who could yet improve. While nostalgic feelings and the personal duels between them are on Bomber’s side, I’d say Zoun is the slight favorite to take both maps here due to his other merits, but a map split and a potential ace match would be nothing out of the ordinary. And then, perhaps, Zoun will get another chance to shine in a PvP, in which he would have the advantage.

Prediction: Alpha X 4-3 Team GP




Here we go again. Team LP look like they have the better chance to win, fielding two Korean players against one, and even having the line-up advantage of two Korean vs. Foreigner matches. But they tend to look better on paper than in reality, and Dian Lake Gaming have been able to surprise us in both of their matches so far with how resilient they've were as they forced ace matches both times. Are they about to make it three out of three? It could definitely happen!

Again, on paper, LP.Patience should be the clear favorite to win the first series. Just like last week. He’s a very experienced Korean player with some good runs under his belt, but he truly is in a bit of a slump right now. It’s not even his usual lack of consistency, because normally he still wins the matches you’d expect him to, and then exceeds expectations upwards, causing upsets. But nowadays his spikes go downwards, and he exceeds in losing matches you’d expect him to take home. Honestly, if DLG.EF takes a map here, I’d not even be surprised. By no right should he be able to (even now, the stats smile upon the Patience), but at this point it’s simply hard to believe in him anymore. I’ll give him one last chance and say he’ll take both maps here, doing his job for once.

That should put LP ahead and take some pressure off LP.Jieshi, who came so close to taking down GP.Super last week. Jieshi is one of those Chinese players who could really stage an impressive break-out performance one of these days in the GTC. He’s not afraid to go toe to toe with a Korean in macro game, and he’s not afraid to go for more brazen builds either. But so far he seems to lack the ability to close games, or more specifically, the ability to not outright throw and let his opponent back into the game. So, DLG.DynaMite looks likely to win here, but Jieshi may well take a map victory, and that would already be huge for Team LP. He's taken maps off DynaMite in both of their series of this year, but the rest of the stats do not look as encouraging, with his PvT clearly being the worst of his match-ups.

As things stand, let’s say the series is 2-2 at this point, when LP.Impact and DLG.SortOf face each other. Neither player is a ZvZ specialist and Impact has the historical advantage on his side pretty clearly. However, his ZvZ was in the focus just this weekend in GSL, and SortOf will surely have taken notes of the openers, especially the Drone-Spine Crawler rush Impact pulled off. Also, SortOf has NoRegret living with him, who already gave BSG.Scarlett the edge over Rogue in the GSL. The Swedish Zerg has already split maps with TSG.Solar this season, showing that he’s not afraid to pull out some dirty strategies even against such prominent opponents. With the direction ZvZ is going at the moment—coin flips and all-ins gaining traction again—we can’t really make out a clear favorite here. While the Chinese team league traditionally is Impact’s turf, SortOf has really delivered for his team so far as well. DLG may produce another ace match here, perhaps ending with Impact and DynaMite facing each other, with the Terran pulling off another proxy rax victory, or with a Patience redemption story? It's like going to be a close match either way, and a very important one for both teams!

Prediction: Team LP 4-3 Dian Lake Gaming

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