There’s still plenty of Ro24 to go. Now its time for the latter half to take this home, throw some more former ASL champs in the pot, add some new faces, and Sea. Just like that you got a SOOP going.

Liquipedia

Match 1 - Queen vs 1127, on Dominator
First time qualifier 1127, playing under his clan name 'wico', is up against former double champion Queen. It's probably not quite fair to call Queen washed up, since he's still hovering around 50% in Proleague, but he has certainly fallen quite far from his impressive title winning performance. Last season another wico Terran knocked Queen out of the qualifiers, which might have provided a little extra motivation for our Zerg contender...

Queen opts for a standard 12-hatch into fast mutalisks. 1127 manages to get a full wall to prevent scouting, which is exactly what he needs to pull out an unusual build: double factory into starport, with delayed armoury and engineering bay. The intention is presumably to have 6-8 vultures and a dropship to wreck the Zerg economy. But the Zerg fliers spot the vultures and then come back to wreck the Terran main. Turns out that four missile turrets and zero goliaths, marines or valkyries aren't quite enough to stop nine mutalisks. They don't even buy much time. The vulture drop does a lot of damage, but there are two sunken colonies at the natural and Zerg has a third base running. And so the mutas just clean up. I would love to know how this plays out if Zerg goes 2.5 hatch, but I guess you'll have to play ladder to find out.



Match 2 - Rain vs BarrackS, on Dominator
And another grudge match. Last season, after trash-talking, Rain got schooled by Barracks and ultimately knocked out. Is Rain better prepared this time? The openings are pretty even. Rain is playing a modern style going three-gate observer into fast citadel. The idea is to get an arbiter to help hold any five-factory pushes. And, if it's well-controlled, it probably works. But Rain makes a number of questionable decisions and poor micro and positioning get him in trouble. The first seven dragoons try to snipe some tanks, but an excellent SCV pull makes it fail badly.



Rain loses two zealots and a goon and the others take a lot of damage. Then he overreacts to some vultures darting around and gets pulled out of position, so Barracks gets more than half-way across the map with his tanks before he has to siege. The first arbiter only joins the battle when the Terran army has already arrived at Rain's natural, and the Protoss forces have mostly evaporated. Barracks easily has enough scans to punch through to beat Rain. Once again.

Winners - BarrackS vs Queen, on Deja Vu
Queen, befitting of his royal moniker, is apparently a traditionalist. He goes for two-hatch mutalisks again. Barracks opts for four... barracks. The turret timing is really crisp, but some command errors get a few marines killed. Zerg takes a third base across the map and the mutas do an excellent job whittling down the marine ball. Queen gets further ahead with a great engagement in the middle of the map. Barracks is forced into a tank-valkyrie push that has to do damage before consume is finished. The Terran army gets across the map very easily. And then we get two minutes of madness.

Tanks destroy the sunken colonies, scourge pick of the valks, marines trade into a few lurkers. Consume finishes, but the defiler gets caught behind the drones and three hopeful lurkers die before the first swarm is cast. Another lurker dies to splash damage on zerglings. In a moment of brilliant clarity, Barracks notices that there's only one lurker left, so he dives on it when the first swarm dissipates. But he is a split second too slow. Queen should hold...



The last lurker dies to splash damage from deliberate friendly fire. And the Terran army dashes into the orange cloud which now protects the tanks from the mutalisks. More lurkers hatch, but marines are literally stealing their shade, so we get the bizarre spectacle of drones fighting tanks under dark swarm. Meanwhile an infantry commando has fought its way through the defences at the third base to secure the victory. Barracks is enormously relieved, Queen in despair.

Losers - Rain vs 1127, on KICK BACK
Rain feels confident and opens twelve-nexus. I expect we'll see fair few greedy openings on this map with its two pocket expansions. 1127 opened barracks first and realises correctly that he's the beatdown. Terran follows up with a factory and non-stop marine production. Just after Rain's second gateway finishes, 1127 pulls the boys and his first four marines arrive before the first dragoons have slipped through the warp. One dragoon nearly gets trapped and there's no shield battery. The bunker finishes.



Marines and vultures kill two pylons, but Rain has another one, so his dragoon production is undisrupted. When the shield battery finishes it's pretty much over. 1127 tries to make another bunker further forward, but no marines ever get there. Dragoons keep the vultures away while 1127 techs and expands. Terran tries a three tank push, but it gets crushed by three-gate-goons and an observer. Both players expand and get more production. Rain gets in an annoying reaver drop. He makes a few sloppy mistakes, but it doesn't matter. 1127 doesn't have the economy to make anything happen. Instead of trying to turtle up on three bases, our qualifier tries another attack. But he doesn't have enough tanks, or vultures, or mines, or anything, so Rain wipes him out. Better luck next time.

Final - Queen vs Rain, on Radeon
The two former champions meet in the last game of the group, and treat us to the best game of the Ro24 so far. And one of them will go home. Getting eliminated here would still be a small step forward for Queen, and for Rain it would be par for the course. Of course, it shouldn't be like this, but jeopardy makes this game more interesting. Queen gambles a little on a nine-pool, but Rain is completely safe with forge first in cross positions. Zerg starts a third hatchery at six o'clock. Two zealots trade well, but kill no drones. Both players get ready for the midgame. Queen morphs a spire, Rain warps in some corsairs, all very standard. Neither air force can get much done and more production and ground units get added. Both players take another base.

The corsairs all die in the first two engagements, but the small mutalisk flock also takes heavy damage. Rain takes a fourth base and wanders around the map with his big ground army. Queen has a sizeable army too, but not much tech. We are thirteen minutes in, and there are neither lurkers nor a queen's nest. (Does that mean the cerebrate is technically homeless at this point?) Throughout the game Rain does a very good job scouting all the possible Zerg expansions. A small group of muta-ling just fails to deny the Protoss fourth. At the same time Rain attacks six o'clock with his main army, but the defences are way too strong.



Queen takes some poor trades in the centre, and his freshly hatched clumped up lurkers eat some big storms. Rain makes up for this by overstaying his welcome and getting flanked, so both players end up losing large chunks of their armies. A small band of zealots cancel Queen's fifth base in the bottom left. Zerglings do the same thing to Protoss in the top right. Dark swarm is done and both armies are now very big. They pass each other like ships in the night. As Rain goes to stop the Zerg fifth base again, Queen decides to counter into the Protoss fourth.



Queen is in trouble now. He's been on even bases for too long and his army isn't big enough anymore. Zerg tries to take top right, but Rain sniffs it out immediately with a DT. Queen finally gets up his fifth base, but his first three bases are mined out and he's 70 supply down. Instead of going for bottom left again, Rain pulls out a nice positioning manouvre. He expands to the top right while attacking the bottom right. That way his attacking units provide cover for the expansion.



But it's not even necessary. Queen doesn't have enough stuff. One sunken, three lurkers and a few lings can't possibly hold against a nearly maxed Protoss army. So ultimately both Queen and Rain manage to improve on their ASL17 performance. Better than nothing.

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
            - Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852.

Perhaps this whole group should've been played exclusively on Deja Vu, especially the matches involving sSak and Scan. In ASL11 both Terrans were in the same Ro24 group. With two Protoss players. And the results went exactly the same way...

Match 1 - Mini vs Scan, on Dominator
We must have entered some alternate universe in which observers are stronger than reavers, because here we are, with yet another fast obs build. Scan finds no natural nexus and for some reason he doesn't feel like building a bunker. What does he think Mini is preparing for exactly? A dinner party? Well, we've watched Mini and it's obvious what's coming: HYPER-AGGRO. Two zealots and five goons against two tanks and five marines.



The barracks and SCV's do a good job to screen the goons, but both tanks get blown up. And the next mech unit that joins the fight is a... goliath. This goes about as well as you would expect. Like bringing an anti-air battery to a tank battle. It sort of but not quite works, right? Hold on to that thought, because we'll see this again in the next group. Scan does manage to build a bunker, but his third tank gets popped immediately. Immediately sieging there is probably the wrong move.

Mini does reasonable damage with the relatively late reaver-shuttle and takes a third. Scan is behind on economy, so does what every self-respecting Terran does these days (even when they are ahead actually) and goes for a five-fact push. But he bled too many units all game. Terran doesn't have enough vultures to buffer and no goliaths to keep the shuttle away, so Mini just shuts the push down and takes his fourth base. Scan gamely tries another push, but the outcome, remember Marx?, is exactly the same.

Match 2 - Bisu vs sSak, on Dominator
Both players appear confused. Bisu opens forge FE, because it has historically worked well for him in PvZ, I guess. sSak thinks we are in the 90's and goes for a one base attack with lots of marines and siege. If this all sounds rather odd to you, then that is probably because it is. Somehow, in this strange parallel universe, Bisu has read sSak like a book, and he blindly warps in four zealots and a cannon. The first tank gets sniped and Terran is already in trouble. The first attack doesn't get much done. The cannons prevent any obvious bunker plays and Bisu just has too many reinforcements. The second attack, Marx again, fails harder than the first one. And that's that.



Winners - Mini vs Bisu, on Deja Vu
Both players, very aware of the latest fashion, naturally go for observer first. Bisu gets the faster expansion. And instead of doing what we would expect from Mini, he expands. The timings favour Bisu. When Mini's first attack arrives, Bisu has more dragoons and his own shuttle is also ready. Two dragoons provide high-ground support fire and Bisu holds very easily.



Mini tries to hang around outside Bisu's natural to get a favourable engagement, which is probably a mistake. Bisu wins the ensuing fight comfortably, killing both reavers and the shuttle, without losing his own. And he still has more goons left and the better economy. All that's left for Bisu to do is the walk across the map and grab his round of sixteen ticket by smashing Mini's natural. And he does. After the game Mini shows off his trademark 30 degree slump. He really does bear the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Losers - sSak vs Scan, on Deja Vu
sSak and Scan meet in the Losers after two TvP's... Deja Vu! (I'm sorry.) This was a pretty fun TvT. Scan gets the better opening, gasless expand into three factories. sSak opts for a fast starport. The vulture drop does some damage, but nothing crippling. Meanwhile sSak loses a bunch of tanks to vultures, but that trade looks like a draw. Both players get more factories and we move into the midgame. The competing commanders jockey for position around the centre and take their third and fourth bases. Supplies favour Scan a little, but sSak gets slightly better engagements. The game starts turning into sSak's favour when his first few cloaked wraiths have arrived. Scan tries to counter with his own wraiths, but gets... scanned.



Scan's wraiths get caught with their pants down, chilling over the starports, and his air force gets completely wiped out. Always worth building a turret near your air production in TvT? Then the fighter pilots proceed to do what they enjoy most, gunning down civilian workers, and there's nothing to stop them. When they get bored of shooting fish in a barrel they get back to fighting, overwhelming a few goliaths and wrecking a bunch of tanks. Scan sends two valkyries, but the wraiths spread out. From this point on the game snow-balls in sSak's favour. He gets his bases up faster, his second weapon upgrade is earlier, he sneaks some vultures through to kill SCV's, and the supplies are now in his favour. sSak gains a decisive lead with a good drop and finally seals the deal by shooting down Scan's dropships. sSak is really quite good at this one match-up. GG.

Final - Mini vs sSak, on Radeon
Unfortunately, this was a fairly one-sided game. Mini gets away with an uncontested cross-map twelve nexus and a comfortable quicker third. And instead of going for the fashionable five factory timing attack with goliaths, sSak decides to take a very late third, but he doesn't quite manage to wall off the bridge in time. And so...



Zealots got through and roll back the tank line. Most of the dragoons survive and force a CC lift and SCV pull. Mini dances through the early part of the game beautifully, with never a wrong step. Smart zealot bombs, nice reaver shots and crisp dragoon movement. sSak tries to retake the third (yep, Marx), but Mini changes the angle of attack and waltzes in through the front. After that Mini is so far ahead that he can fight a tank-vulture-drop with pure probes and lose six dragoons to mines without a care in the world. sSak keeps us entertained with some fine Fantasy-GG-timing, but a double storm in his natural finally provides enough encouragement to let us wrap up the group.

And the biggest winner of Group B is... Marx!

Match 1 - Rush vs Motive, on Dominator
This game is an earlier contender for the top ten of the season. And if you haven't seen it yet, go and treat yourself! Don't worry, it's not long. I hope you enjoyed that. This is the sort of game that should immortalised in song, so here's a little limerick:

      There once was a sneaky young 'toss,
      Who felt in-base proxies are boss.
            But he failed to find
            the min'rals bein' mined
      And promptly grabbed his first loss.



You can also watch some amusing pro reactions. Bisu is having an absolute ball.

Match 2 - Royal vs Sacsri, on Dominator
And another short game. Royal often plays aggressive or greedy builds. In this case he opens thirteen-cc in base. Sacsri gets a great a counter with an overpool into four lings. The zerglings arrive before the first marine is ready and pick off an SCV. The command centre gets blocked from landing for a bit, and because it's going so well, Sacsri morphs a few more lings. Don't stop when you're having fun! A bunker finishes near the ramp, but the lings simply run past and start causing trouble in the main.



Royal's academy and engineering bay are late and fast mutalisks are on the way. Missile turrets finish just in time, but the marines are few and their upgrades nil. Sacsri gets another hatchery just to the North, as close to the Terran main as possible. Royal's supply is holding up OK, but he made a big mistake. His academy is in a vulnerable position and gets picked off before marine range is done. You can imagine just how much the Zerg flyers are enjoying themselves. And it gets worse for Terran. The turrets at the natural don't cover the top of the mineral line. So the mutalisks flit back and force to their heart's content, picking off SCV's and marines at their leisure. This goes on for a while and when Sacsri is satisfied that the Terran base is sufficiently on fire he morphs some lurkers and ends it.



Winners - Rush vs Sacsri, on KICK BACK
And the fun continues! Sacsri has apparently taken a leaf out of Fruitdealer's playbook and oscillates unpredictably between aggression and eco-cheese-nomic builds. This time it's three-hatch before pool and the SCV scouts it last. Rush has a full wall, but his economy is way behind. Sacsri could do anything here. Anything. And so he goes for... hydras. I'll be honest. I don't get it. Maybe explain it to me in the comments. Was he hoping for a valkyrie push, mech build, or two-rax? (Rush doesn't play mech...)

The hydralisks take down the wall very quickly, but Rush reacts with two bunkers behind and he still has two barracks left. With two medics and basic upgrades, Rush orders the infantry to go on the offensive. But Sacsri should be fine right? He's got a bigger economy and hydras are OK against early bio. Plus he's got some sunken colonies.



But the fight goes incredibly badly for Sacsri. The sunkens go down, the hydras get no real surface area, the attacks are distributed and easy to heal. It's hard to imagine how it could've gone worse. Maybe if Sacsri's chair had combusted spontaneously. And then the small bio force simply moves in to end the game. Rush can't believe his luck with these two games. That's as close to a bye as he's ever gonna get.

Losers - Royal vs Motive, on Minstrel
Here's another thing I don't understand: Minstrel. Not the medieval entertainer or the spherical chocolate snack, but the map, which is apparently named after a 'rate control algorithm'. Good to know. The outer central bases allow easy access to the back of the minerals. I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong there for the poor workers. Also, isn't movement kinda good, but doesn't really work on Minstrel? I guess we'll have to see.

In this game Motive shows us that he's actually pretty good, and probably deserves another shot. He gas steals and kills three marines with his first zealot-probo-combo. RoyaL defends the second zealot very well. Both players then spend a while gearing up for the mid-game. Motive prevents a scout and takes a third base. So RoyaL goes up to five factories and he gets an amazing scan on the stargate. Motive gets a full scout and then does something cool. He cancels the stargate and throws down four more gateways.

Royal moves out with eight or so tanks and a small number of vultures, while constantly reinforcing with goliaths. Motive's reaver micro is good and he manages to pull some dragoons away for a flank. RoyaL's tanks cross the Rubicon, but they are met by a surprisingly large contingent of dragoons.



The tanks don't have enough buffer support and get ground down by superior numbers. The reinforcing goliaths keep staring at the empty sky, wondering why they bothered lugging those heavy missile launchers all the way here. After this exchange Motive is in a really good spot, so he takes his fourth base.

Royal needs to make something happen before he falls too far behind. He gets some good harassment done with dropping vultures into Motive's main. And when the Protoss army gets pulled out of position he strikes unspotted at the third base. The tanks are set up well and the goliath pilots remembered that the have machine guns. The result is not pretty for Protoss fans.



The rest of the game is RoyaL comfortably mopping up the remaining Protoss bases with superior economy, upgrades and control. A few decent storms are not enough to turn the tide, and so another qualifier falls to the seasoned veterans. RoyaL shows off his excellent science vessel micro and wraps up the game with a flourish.



Spare a thought for poor Motive. Imagine what it feels like if the coolest thing you've done in your ASL run is to cancel a building.

Final - Royal vs Sacsri, on Pantheon
Sacsri rolls the dice again and goes for a nine-pool, but Royal isn't gonna get caught twice. He walls with a barracks and finds Sacsri on his first attempt, and he even gets an e-bay block at the natural. The zerglings do nothing. The first few mutalisks find quite a few marines and a lot of turrets. Together with a ling run-by they actually do some damage, but Terran has a lot more material. Marines force a cancel on the Zerg third and Terran pulls further ahead. Quickly running out of options Sacsri commits to heavy mutalisk pressure, showing us some nice double control-group micro. He's over the barracks and starports. But some reinforcements misrally into their premature death and the first two valkyries get out unscathed. Sacsri tries one more time, but the valkyries reign supreme and send him to Valhalla.



So far the season hasn't gone well for Zerg. If this continues Soulkey and hero will have a lot of work to do.

Group D is set to be an intriguing matchup featuring a mixture of personalities. The group consists of Speed, famous for being Jaedong's practice partner in Hwaseung OZ,Action good ol Mafia Zerg/Vegeta, Sea ASL 2 finalist (some people forget this) and Best whose fans will always say "this is his season".

Player Details

Speed - Tier 4:
Speed, also known as "Sexy," is a Terran player with a long and varied career starting off as Jaedong's exclusive TvZ practice partner back in the KeSPA days. While he has participated in many amateur leagues, he has not made a significant impact at the premier level. In ASL17, Speed struggled in the Round of 24, losing all his matches and failing to advance. However based on his performance in smaller events this year, including several first-place finishes in show matches, shows that he has the potential to surprise his opponents. Speed’s playstyle is more on the aggressive side looking to end matches quickly. He could catch a win by surprise.

Action - Tier 2:
In ASL17, Action only made it up to the Round of 16. His performance was solid, but he failed to find consistency against the top-tier players. Action looks likely to advance from the group with his current output against top Terrans being more than enough to take on Sea and Speed at the very least, BeSt remains his toughest opponent and would make a great winners' match

Sea - Tier 3:
Sea may be a genius and a talented veteran but he's never put his full talent on display and it shows. He has struggled to find success in recent tournaments, finishing at the bottom of his group in ASL17's Round of 24. Despite this, Sea hopes to remain a respected player and not just a BJ personality. Sea’s key to advancing will be his ability to adapt and avoid falling into predictable patterns or laziness.

Best - Tier 1:
Best is the highest-seeded player in Group D, coming off a solid performance in ASL17, where he reached the quarterfinals before losing to Sharp. Known for his precise macro and strong PvT, Best will look to dominate the Terrans in this group. His PvZ has also been reliable, and he will likely rely on his refined builds and superior mechanics to outplay Action. Best enters this group as the favorite and will aim to secure his spot in the Round of 16 with convincing victories.

Predictions

Match 1: Speed vs. Best
Speed doesn't stand a chance against Best's macro. Barring some smelly cheese that Best can't predict, it's an easy victory for Best.
Prediction: Best wins

Match 2: Sea vs. Action
Sea will try to end the game quickly knowing full well that Action is the better player the longer the match goes, Action just needs to prepare for the early game and he should be able to handle the rest.
Prediction: Action wins

Winners' Match: Action vs. Best
This could go either way as this has been both players' best matchup for the last two months.
Prediction: Best wins

Losers' Match: Speed vs. Sea
This Terran mirror match is likely to favor Sea, given his experience and more solid fundamentals. However, Sea is known for getting cocky which could be a liability. Speed's determination to advance will overcome his potential skill deficit against Sea.
Prediction: Speed wins

Final Match: Action vs. Speed
A rematch from match 1 could be a close contest for Action. Speed may get a win under his belt and gain the confidence he needs to take on Action. Action has consistently shown he can navigate early aggressive build orders and take ZvT to the late game stages where he dominates. Unless Action makes a rare mistake, he should be able to overcome whatever Speed throws at him.
Prediction: Action wins

Conclusion
Best and Action advance to the Ro16!

While no one can tell how one performs on match day, its nice to see a group that isn’t entirely predictable from the get-go. Group E features Light, Jaedong, Shine and huro.

Light has yet to re-capture the form he had back in ASL 13 and has since had more middling results despite being a solid participant in daily proleagues. However, being in a group with two Zergs (even if they’re Jaedong and Shine) and a Protoss who he’s leagues above puts him in a very comfortable spot to advance from the group. Jaedong could give him the hardest time if they meet, but that depends on how Jaedong performs in his opening game.

Jaedong, at least for the last month, has made top 10 in the eloboard rankings with mostly a 50% winrate vs Terran and Protoss. ZvZ is his least played matchup, but it's also the only one with a winning record. It's a toss up how he’ll perform in his opening match against Shine.

This goes the same for Shine as well. If Shine can survive Jaedong he will most likely meet Light in the winners' match. It would most likely once again come down to Jaedong or Shine in the final game.

Huro definitely got the short end of the stick here, stuck in a group that one would describe as specialists especially against him. Light has a 40-14 win/loss record in the last month against Protoss, so Huro's already got his work cut out for him in the opener. PvZ in general is hard enough when both players are at the same level, let alone against super active players at the highest level like Jaedong or even Shine, who has the benefit of getting whoever he needs to practise his bag of builds against.

Going with heart on the ZvZ and picking Jaedong

Light and Jaedong advance to the Ro16!

Mind and JyJ go up against two of the Six Dragons, Stork and free.

The SOOP intro is probably cooler than the actual group matches, but all these people, especially Stork and JyJ have repeatedly proven me wrong over the years.

JyJ has been trending down since he won ASL15, with him being eliminated in the Ro8 in ASL16 and then Ro16 in ASL17. Given the landscape of the group he may not get to flex his Tier 1 status for much longer either. Over the last month JyJ has been 11-20 in TvP (35.4% winrate) which gives him dire odds against free and especially Stork.

Mind looks better than JyJ in this group on all fronts, he’s consistently stayed at the Ro16 level for the last two seasons and has a better TvP record, 14-15 (48%), in the last month as well.

Fun fact, since coming back from the military free has only qualified into even numbered seasons. And since this season would have been ASL18, if not for the rebranding, you could say he held to that curse (or broke it since this is the 1st season of SSL). But can he break the curse of making it past the Ro24? Probably not, as he hasn’t been active in online competition much and everyone else in the group has outperformed him before.

Finally we have Stork, consistently placed third in his Ro16 groups for the last three ASL seasons. And based on the makeup of this group he’s well on his way to at least make the Ro16 for the fourth season in a row. Based on his online performance over the last month or so, especially needing to contend with two terrans who aren’t doing well against Protoss, Stork is primed to take this group, with his weak PvP record making free his biggest obstacle in getting first place.

Stork and Mind advance to the Ro16!

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Writers: Simplistik, BisuDagger, BLinD-RawR
Graphics: v1
Editors: BLinD-RawR