The Ro8 is not done yet with 2 more series to go who will be the first ever SOOPer star

The Ro8 has been an aggressive affair so far seeing as how everyone has been tailoring their builds to finish games as soon as possible, will we see a continuation of that in the latter half? hero tends to play it safe but Sharp has the kamikaze in him, we’ve seen it and we can smell it from a mile away. Rain and Rush might be the long drawn out series we could be hoping for.

Simplistik as always with Battle Reports

Liquipedia

BarrackS vs Snow

Barracks' and Snow's reactions to the bracket draw could not have been more different. Barracks was annoyed, because Snow was his least preferred opponent. While Snow was (initially) jubilant, because he figured that Barracks was the easiest of the four possibilities. And with the other options being Sharp, Rain and Soulkey, we can't really blame him. Of course the left side of the bracket now looks significantly harder than the right side. But getting through the quarters guarantees a seed in the next tournament, which is big.

I think most of us expected this series to be tight. Barracks showed some crisp builds and very good early game control. While Snow, normally the favourite in this match-up, has been struggling somewhat with Terran over the last couple of months. And after his recent loss to Barracks in an online tournament, Snow said he approached the series with an underdog mindset. In the pre-match interview, Barracks said he tried to stay relaxed, while Snow (quite legitimately in my completely unbiased opinion) appealed to the heavens for support.

What I had not appreciated until a few days ago is that Barracks has played this whole tournament, every single game, exclusively against former champions (Rain and Queen) and runners-up (hero, Bisu and Snow). And after Snow he would have had to face another champion in the semi-final. And the other half the bracket also contains only former finalists. With the benefit of hindsight, it now seems clear to me that, in such an illustrious field, somehow Barracks looked oddly out of place. Taking this all together, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by how the series turned out. It wasn't a long series and it wasn't particularly close. But we did get treated to a a fierce low-econ early-game intensity that reminded me very much of classic games from the early days of Brood War.


Game 1, on Deja Vu
Both players start cautiously with gate and barracks in base respectively. Both scout the wrong way. Barracks follows up with a factory straight into machine shop. The first zealot arrives to find three marines defending the Terran ramp. But even before Snow sees that there's no wall or command centre, his scouting probe warps in a proxy pylon on the central elevation.



And before the SCV finally finds the Protoss base, Barracks is already constructing a starport. Both players have clearly decided to play on the front foot. They are committed to early aggression no matter what the other guy is doing. The SCV gets in and finds nothing much: one gateway and the cybernetics core spinning. A second gateway and the robotics facility warp in at the proxy location.

I wonder what Barracks' read was at this point. He must surely suspect that there's a high chance of scarab rain over the next five minutes. Six marines, an SCV, a tank and the first vulture, with mines done, start poking out. While two dragoons and a zealot are trying to make themselves look big on the ramp to the centre.



A third dragoon arrives and a marine gets killed in the ensuing skirmish. But Snow needs to be careful, because there are mines now. Snow tries to defuse one without observation, but one dragoon gets injured as a result. The first dropship has arrived. And with the map rotation as it is, the warrant officer has a short path to deliver three vultures straight into the Protoss main.



The vultures lay a few mines and then set up shop near the nexus. There is no observer and only a single dragoon. The ensuing fight is very hard to follow, because Snow starts shuttling ground forces into the Terran main at the same time. So let me try to provide some clarity.

First, the fight in the Protoss main. Snow micros his one goon around the Eastern and Northern edges of his base, carefully avoiding all the mines, to take up a position in his mineral line. Meanwhile, the vultures have destroyed eight probes. The other probes get a few hits on the vultures and then retreat to stack on the assimilator. The vultures follow, but the dragoon has now arrived. From the player screen we can see that Barracks is microing his units to an extent, perhaps he is laying one of his last two(?) mines. But, if so, they get defused by probes.



The vultures pull back and hover down into the empty Protoss natural location. The probes resumes mining. When we next get a glimpse of Snow's base, he has perhaps ten workers left and the hero dragoon 'Mine Walker' is guarding the nexus. When he can spare a moment, Barracks sends the vultures back up. And from behind the minerals they kill another four probes before running out of structural integrity. A second dragoon also warps in and, obviously valuing his second life, smartly stays still to avoid triggering any mines. Remarkably, I don't think any of the, at least, five mines in Snow's base ever do anything.



The situation in Snow's base certainly looks dire for Protoss fans, but it is only half the story. So let's see what happens in the Southern theatre. The vultures landed at 5:36. And at 5:50 two zealots and a dragoon float down from a shuttle straight into the Terran main. Followed quickly by two more goons. With two more dragoons hanging out below the ridge, one of which takes a mine hit. With both players momentarily distracted by the probe slaughter in the North, we have a rather odd moment.



With no defenders present, the Protoss units start attacking the buildings. For a moment it looks like Snow is trying to destroy the machine shop. Since it's not spinning, that would only make sense to deny tank production, but on closer inspection nothing is producing either. (What actually happens if a tank is under construction when the machine shop gets destroyed?)

Both zealots pay for their structural obsessions without contributing anything meaningful to the war effort. The dragoons do a better job. All three get goo'ed but not before melting Barracks' only siege tank. Two more dragoons are lifted in and start reducing the marine numbers. At this point Barracks still has a healthy supply lead of about fifteen and his Northern vultures are still alive.

And then we reach the tipping point. The first reaver lands. Goodbye marines. The SCV's are forced to evacuate to lower ground. Which brings us to one thing I haven't mentioned so far. Barracks actually started his natural command centre at 5:55. This is after the first units get elevatored into his base. Unfortunately, for Barracks, the CC isn't even finished at this point, so the SCV's just hang around in little groups, probably chit-chatting about the weather, or fishing.



So the overall plan for the build was to get an economic advantage with an early vulture drop and then transition into two-base play from a position of strength. And based on the previous games, it would've been hard for Snow to stop the next attack. In the event, I'm not convinced that expanding here was the correct move at all. Starting a factory at the natural might have been better. There was enough gas and the resources would've stretched to at least one tank, which Barracks desperately needed to contest the dragoons.

It's also worth noting that Barracks would have likely lost even if he had killed every single probe. The reaver was already in production by the time the vultures landed. So the only real effect would've been to restrict the number of scarabs available, but I don't think that would have mattered. It looks like Barracks' best bet might have been to attack the proxy pylon. If he can stop the vulture from spawning, then he might come out of the chaos with the superior economy. If he can fight back the goons that is, which isn't a given by any means.

One wraith has arrived, but Snow still has two dragoons in the Terran main, so it can't engage the shuttle. In fact the wraith never fires a single missile or laser. As a result, neither the shuttle, nor the reaver ever take any damage. If I wasn't so unbiased, I might observe that this all seemed pretty tricky for Terran to handle.



When the factory lifts off, the reaver drops into the natural and forces the command centre to be cancelled as well. So the only thing that particular project ever contributed was to keep one SCV employed, what's called Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahme in German, at a net cost of 250 minerals. Unemployment is really bad, so this was probably still worth it.



The surviving SCV's run off into the distance, to start welding themselves to the proxy pylon. Terran doesn't have enough resources to build another base. The starport is building something, but gets destroyed by the reaver goon force. And with only two SCV's left mining, Barracks taps out. The reactions of the players are telling. Snow doesn't show much, while Barracks mutters to himself in disappointed confusion.

Although the result had already been decided at this point, I feel like this scarab accurately sums up the game.



GG.

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Soulkey vs Light

Like Barracks, Light was also not impressed with the bracket draw. Obviously, facing Soulkey in an extended off-line series is the worst case scenario for anyone right at this moment. Add to that the fact that Light has been knocked out by Soulkey and Snow from several online tournaments this year, I'm sure we can sympathise with Light when he described the draw as 'so annoying'.

Soulkey, on the other hand, exuded confidence. Practice went well, he said. And, with reference to Snow, if he can overcome Light he will take the title. Light has looked very scary this year, in all match-ups. But somehow his good performance hasn't translated into ASL success for quite some time now. The last time he made the quarter finals was two years ago. And the way Soulkey breezed past Rush would give anyone pause.

In the first game on Radeon, Light ignored the mutas in his base and punched diagonally across the map with a massive bio army, off four barracks. And then he busted through six sunken colonies and twenty lings to cripple his opponent's Crazy Zerg build to ultimately take the game. Soulkey didn't look pleased. But then he took his usual sip of water and his face returned to calm focus. Say what you want about Soulkey, but he's not out until the series is really over.


Game 2, on Pantheon
Like last game, Light goes for a wall at his natural. Soulkey opens twelve-hatch. An SCV finds the Zerg base first time. Another SCV comes in a minute later to find a lair morphing. And based on the available information, Light knows there's probably another hatchery somewhere and so he starts looking for it. We know that it just started at the five o'clock mineral only. The game time is four minutes. When do you think Light finally finds the base?



The most obvious location to scout is the bottom right main, so that's where the SCV goes. But there's nothing there. Amusingly, Light accidentally lifts his command centre while placing his comsat station. Light moves out with a small platoon of bio and scans the Zerg main. There's only one sunken colony, but Light isn't interested. There are probably enough lings and a few mutas should be out. So he checks if the hatchery is at six o'clock. But there's nothing there. The infantry then moves over to the Eastern side of the map.



A few zerglings get wiped out near the actual third location. And if the marines just walk ten metres South they'll trip over the edge of the creep. But it's difficult to look for something in a place you've subconsciously ruled out. Instead the infantry checks out bottom right again. But there's still nothing there. The Terran recon squad gets cornered and wiped out. And Soulkey is once again playing Crazy Zerg. The evolution chamber is at the hidden base, and so it's not clear how quickly Light realises what's going on.

The third hatchery has to be somewhere, so a firebat is sent out alone to scout the top of the map. (A rather thankless task you might say.) He checks twelve o'clock and the top right natural and main. But there's nothing there. Light scans the Zerg natural and the top of the main, to get a read on what's going on. But all he really sees is the lair and spire he already knew about. The first mutalisks start sharking around the outskirts of the Terran base cautiously. The firebat scout has made it to three o'clock, but there's nothing there.



Soulkey proceeds to tech to hive, but he also morphs a hydralisk den in his main, perhaps as a misdirection. The mutalisks finally feel confident in their numbers and start to poke in a bit. A few marines get caught, awkwardly funneling past the gap between the depot and the wall. But the flappers don't manage to put a dent in the Terran economy. An armoury is on the way, which looks like valkyries to me. We'd have to ask Light, but might he be expecting guardians? The firebat has finally cracked under the intense pressure of considering the point of his tiny existence in the vast near-emptiness of space, and starts warming a hatchery. This is a bit like trying to destroy a fortress by laying on hands.



Most of the mutalisks have gotten dangerously low on health. Space is a rather inhospitable environment after all. And then they take a hit from two freshly launched valkyries. The ultralisk cavern finishes around ten minutes. Soulkey has turtled up at his natural with six sunkens again, but Light has a reasonable bio force. Zerg needs to buy a little bit more time so he sends zerglings towards the Terran base. They get mowed down without mercy, but keep the marines busy for a bit. The mutalisks are also commanded to carry on playing tag. And they do, but the result is not pretty. Only five out of the ten mutalisks get away alive.

The Terran air force now consists of six valkyries, which is enough to dominate the skies and to provide cover for two dropships heading straight for the Zerg main. Soulkey scrambles to intercept the valkyries.



One valkyrie gets scourged, but the others dominate the air war. The drop takes down the spire, the pool, an extractor and a number of drones. Crucially, Light doesn't quite manage to squeeze his infantry fully behind the minerals. So two ultralisks with zergling support manage to clean up.



The valkyries now rule the sky. The last few scourge manage to destroy another of the heavy frigates. But four valkyries still kill overlords in less than four seconds. And after a brief flyby across the South, Light finally finds the missing third base, at twelve and a half minutes. Eight and a half minutes after he started looking. That's some impressive hide and seek performance. Five o'clock is literally the last base Light gets vision of and even that is more or less a coincidence. This speaks volumes about Soulkey's preparation for this series.



But, despite the impressive mind games, Soulkey is still in trouble. At 12:17 Zerg gets supply blocked, ultimately down to 20. One whole minute later, and now with twenty supply less, enough overlords have spawned. But the valkyries find them and continue the denial of production for another thirty five seconds. In total, the six valkyries shoot down (at least) 18 overlords and 12 mutalisks, and something like just under twenty scourge also connect or get shot down in various ways.

When Soulkey regains some measure of control over his production, he his down to 44 supply, consisting mainly of drones plus a few zerglings and maybe a couple of ultralisks. Being supply blocked in the midgame for a minute and a half with a relatively small army is obviously very close to GG. So let's have a look how the defending champion stabilised and fought his way back into the game.

First, Soulkey needs to deal with the Terran air force running amok. He is unable to hatch scourge or hydralisks, so he is left with building spore colonies. It takes about three minutes for the stationary defences, but they slowly whittle down the valkyries.



Watching the game back, I felt that Light could've been somewhat more careful with his precious rocket ships. Unlike Protoss and Zerg, Terran players don't often control independent groups of air units away from their main army. But the bigger factor is probably that Light was busy fending off an ultralisk attack.

Immediately after the drop is cleaned up, Zerg units pour out of the various bases and start converging on the Terran natural. Light recognises that more ultralisks are on the way and he starts pulling back. Pantheon has a huge open middle, and Terran doesn't have the upgrades or the numbers to fight ultra-ling in the open.



Five ultralisks pursue the infantry all the way back to the Terran wall. Crucially, Light is in the process of transitioning to mech. There are a few spider mines, but not enough to slow down the massive Zerg tramplers. Three of the beasts engage the marines at the natural, but a nice medic wall saves the day. Two others head straight into the Terran main.



A couple of irradiates go down, but in some ways this makes the ultralisks temporarily more dangerous, like the Hulk when he becomes big and green. SCV's are forced to evacuate. The ultralisks get cleaned up. But, despite the massive supply block Light doesn't have the material to put on much pressure. The main reason for this is his criminal the lack of production buildings. If I've counted correctly, Light has only two barracks, two starports and one factory at this point, with two more factories building.

The general consensus after the game was that the mech transition was a huge blunder. Perhaps the biggest 'throw' of the tournament so far. Instead, Light could've gotten more units out faster by adding more rax and committing to SK Terran. As well as transitioning to mech, Light is also double expanding, clearly intent on gearing up for a longer game. But his economy must be mismanaged to an extent because he nearly hits 1000 gas. All this together means that Terran isn't putting enough pressure on Soulkey to wrap up the game.

A few vultures get out onto the map and kill a few drones, but they get beaten back by lings. Light figures that he might be able to erase some drones. But the spire has been rebuilt and the vessels get intercepted by scourge. At this point I was starting to worry that Light was flailing around too much, and not focusing enough on actually putting together an actual army.



A single ultralisk gets across the map and into Light's fourth base. And there is no answer. With four armour, the vultures do almost nothing. Not that three vultures would be enough either way. The SCV's run. Two empty dropships fly across the South of the map and get scourged. The lone ultralisk gets irradiated and stampedes into Light's mineral only base, forcing another SCV transfer. What is happening? Someone kill the damn thing!



Light desperately tries to create a minefield as a buffer, but small numbers of lings do an OK job as sacrificial sappers. And none of the Terran units have a big enough gun to really stop the elephants. Irradiate is nice, but it's very slow. In the middle of all this chaos, Soulkey has shored up his economy and he's taking the top right main. When there are more ultralisks than tanks there's no question who's in the better position.



The Terran army looks like the command structure has completely collapsed. Unprotected tanks reverse away from charging wildlife like jeeps on safari confronted by a rhino. And then a few mutalisks join in the fun. Light has no significant anti-air. And Soulkey isn't gonna lose his mutalisks to turrets for nothing. Over the next minute the Zerg army plows through the flimsy Terran defences.

Light is reduced to two bases and gets locked in. He manages to get six tanks onto the field, but they simply get overrun by ultra-ling with muta backup. Light's decision-making and control seem to have completely deserted him. Instead of trying to gather up his tanks he keeps sending them in small groups out to the front without sufficient cover, with no siege behind. So the Zerg army actually trades well and Soulkey takes the supply lead. Two badly damaged tanks huddle behind an empty bunker. That just about sums it up.



Light takes a few moments to process this rather painful loss. When the ultralisks overrun his main he finally taps out.

GG!

Soulkey looked dead. But Light blundered and left the door open for an epic comeback. Unfortunately, it seems like the Super Terran never really recovered his mojo during the rest of the series. In the next game he turtles for twelve minutes in his base and then gets smashed by ultras with ensnare support...

This is Rain’s first Ro8 Appearance since ASL13, after making light work of both Mini and SpeeD in the Ro16 to easily advance he faces up against Rush who’s making his 4th consecutive Ro8 Appearance and 9th in the last 10 seasons. But he had to fight tooth and nail against JyJ to secure the #2 spot in his Ro16 group.

There's never a point to bring up personal stats when Rain is involved because he’s not actively participating in daily proleagues or sponmatches. Rush is pretty much by all accounts the #2 Terran behind Light in daily proleague with his win rate against protoss is at 49.1%(89-92). Rush only had one TvP match this season and his opponent hilariously defeated himself in the most embarrassing of ways.

Rain and Rush have only faced each other twice, once in 2011 in MSL Prelims and once in Group stage of CMSL 1 in 2019.

Maps:

Minstrel - Rain Pick
TP: 73 wins, 70 losses (51.0%)

Minstrel is once again the protoss first picked map, as mentioned before it has a good expansion pattern and the ridge layout makes it a perfect carrier map.

Radeon - Rush Pick
TP: 450 wins, 420 losses (51.7%)

Rush picking Radeon first might be a choice of confidence to say to Rain that he can beat him on a straight up map with no gimmicks and generally speaking the longer the map is in rotation the more terran pulls ahead unless the map is truly designed against them, which Radeon is not.

KICK BACK - Rain Pick
TP: 79 wins, 85 losses (48.2%)

Easy 3 gas bases means that protoss can tech up easier which means that they can confidently take control of the map faster which in turn makes it harder for Terran to push out. Rush should try to bunker pressure early game with his first vulture tank and marines and try to catch Rain if he tries to be too greedy on the map.

Pantheon - Rush Pick
TP: 106 wins, 85 losses (55.5%)

There’s really nothing more to say about this map that I didn’t say on my Snow vs BarrackS preview, the map is great for Terran because its pretty much the opposite of KICK BACK as its really hard to secure a 3rd gas base forcing protoss to choose between a 3rd mineral only base with a double wide ramp or a gas base with a 2x2 high ground pod with walls around it to funnel units, meaning that if tanks were to somehow get onto the high ground its nearly unbreakable for protoss aside from drops or recalling on top of the pod.

Or you know, Rush could proxy factory and hope Rain forgets to hold position on the ramp to prevent units coming from the front.

Monty Hall - Rain Pick
TP: 63 wins, 59 losses (51.6%)

Monty hall is a tough pick by Rain and I love it, much like the actual monty hall problem this could play out in so many different ways, right from where you choose to expand first that will determine how long this game will go. Once again this is one of the great carrier maps and Rush knows it. scouting is everything on monty hall, there are some assumptions you can make like if protoss spawns in the bottom they’re more likely to take the 8 o clock base as their natural because its slightly closer, but none of those things are a given. Terran can’t play long games on monty hall so they might take the middle natural and just push towards protoss as fast as possible.

Deja Vu - Rush Pick
TP: 90 wins, 92 losses (49.5%)

Snow had to employ a proxy robo build on this map to get the win, I don’t think Rush needs to expect that from Rain, I still think this match will play out short or at least very aggressive because of the high ground ring in the middle being so good for entrenching, I think Rush has prepared good game plan for the map, if we’re getting here we’re going to game 7


Dominator - Decider
TP: 119 wins, 142 losses (45.6%)

Rain really lucked out on getting dominator as the last map, its by far statistically the best map for protoss online, it's about 50% in the season as one of the most played maps with Rain himself having a 1-1 this season on it, there’s a lot of inherent issues that come with low ground mains in TvP that makes it so easy for terran to get boxed into their mains by protoss however once terran overcome that it pretty much always expanding towards the protoss as a 3p map so it becomes easier to push.

This series is about the best showcase of one of the hardest working competitors in Rush going up against one of, if not the most naturally gifted starcraft player in Rain.

Personally I think that Rush will once again fall short where it matters and right now TvP isn’t his best matchup

Rain Advances To The Ro4 4-3!

Well this title definitely has many meanings behind it. A golf clap for those who got the food puns. But also, considering how cheesy the Ro8 has been so far, both in Snow vs Barracks and Light vs Soulkey, I fully expect this to be yet another cheese filled series. It seems like the pros simply refuse to let a game go beyond the 12 minute mark. But we’ll see, maybe this will be a series where we finally see a defiler in TvZ, considering Light vs Soulkey didn’t feature a single defiler. Confirmed Zesagi I guess. Anyways, time for some delicious cheesy bread (or maybe it’s just a grilled cheese?)

hero

It’s never good to bet against hero in an ASL, considering he is tied for the most semifinal appearances in the history of the ASL (7 total times, tied with FlaSh). And honestly, I don’t think I’d bet against him this time either. Hero did struggle against Barracks in his Ro16 match, but it was still a hard fought match and Barracks caught him off guard by hard committing to valkyries into a mech switch. In addition, Hero’s eloboard this month has not been very impressive, only sitting at 18-19 this month. He’s shown some weaknesses, but nothing that would make me doubt his ability to push forward and take this series.

Sharp

Sharp had a fairly smooth road to the Ro8, cleaning up his group with ease, dispatching a washed Stork and 2-0ing Royal with ease. However, he’s back against the man who knocked him out in the semifinals of the last ASL. Much like hero, Sharp has not had a very impressive month on the eloboards, with a sub-par 7-12 TvZ. At the very least, Sharp did manage to take a game off hero in the October 9th edition of proleague, so he’ll have that confidence boost and mental advantage heading into this series. Sharp is also a player who typically sticks to the norm, making him somewhat predictable to play against. Luckily for him, hero isn’t the type to also do too many crazy builds to catch opponents off guard, so I expect a fairly standard and clean series from the two of them.

Maps:

Game 1: Pantheon - hero pick
ZT: 64 wins, 83 losses (43.5%)

We saw from the Soulkey vs Light series that there are definitely some sneaky builds that Zerg can execute on this map. Many have said that the mineral only base can be used similarly to Circuit Breakers (actually, Shine tried a similar build against FlaSh in ASL3), and that’s what happened to great success. We’ll see if hero takes a similar approach and plays for a more sneaky tactic, or if he’ll execute a more standard approach.

Game 2: Radeon - Sharp pick
ZT: 412 wins, 403 losses (50.6%)

I find that Radeon isn’t really a map that you can expect some kind of cheese on. The games on this map have all been fairly standard and straight forward this tournament, and I expect another longer game to happen on this map.

Game 3: Minstrel - hero pick
ZT: 45 wins, 81 losses (35.7%)

Unluckily from hero, Minstrel shows up very early in this series, which feels like an autoloss given the stats of this map. But Soulkey managed to brute force his way through Light on this map amazingly, though some could say that Light’s body language and mentality were completely destroyed by the time they played their map. Much like Soulkey, I definitely think that hero is going to look for a more aggressive 2.5 hatch build which he used to his success against Sharp on NDO last ASL. It will be up to Sharp to withstand the strong Zerg army in the mid-game.

Game 4: Deja Vu - Sharp pick
ZT: 94 wins, 96 losses (49.5%)

We saw on this map that Light opted for an 8 rax and luckily got the first scout against Soulkey. It definitely is a nice map with the short rush distances from close positions. I would expect Sharp to either open with 8 rax, or maybe try a stim timing to break through hero. With the structure of the center of the map, I expect hero to play a more normal looking 2 hatch.

Game 5: KICK BACK - hero pick
ZT: 55 wins, 73 losses (43.0%)

Sharp’s mech control is fairly strong, given his TvT, and I do expect him to potentially mix in some mech on this map, whether it’s off a mech switch, or straight up open with mech. However, I have a sneaky suspicion that hero might try to go for a pool first with some drone cheese to open the mineral wall and flood lings into Sharp’s main, something that Sharp is familiar with in their previous series on Troy.

Game 6: Monty Hall - Sharp pick
ZT: 46 wins, 53 losses (46.5%)

Both players are going to be brought out of their comfort zone on this map considering their very standard and benign playstyles. I find that Sharp’s air play isn’t something that I’m all too impressed with, and thus I find that Monty Hall is a map that might favor hero more. Still, it’s a tough map to predict. I think that Sharp has some experience with going for some kind of fast starport build, whether it’s 1/1/1 or even a 2 port wraith, so definitely look for him to mix things up this game.

Game 7: Dominator - Decider
ZT: 79 wins, 100 losses (44.1%)

Dominator is an interesting map given the layout and shape. The rush distance is once again quite short between naturals, making this map a decent candidate to 6 or 8 rax. However, it would be up to Sharp to have the courage to open with a cheese/aggressive build order on the final map of the series where it’s a winner take all situation. Conversely, with such short rush distances, I think hero could try something like a fast lurker build to contain Sharp and hold the top of the inverted ramp.

Overall, I do expect hero to take this series. He had Sharp’s number last time, and even with the anti-Zerg maps, I think hero has what it takes to push Sharp to the limit and take the series.

hero 4-2 Sharp.

hero advances to the semifinals!

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