Baby starts at 11 o'clock as the blue Terran and Flash starts at 5 o'clock as the red Terran. Both players have already won a match today, and Flash defeated Midas, a fellow Terran player in WeMade, in the first set. After the ace match loss to Ruby, Flash is determined to win for his team this time.

Both players open with a standard 1 fac double, but Flash builds it at the expansion, while Baby builds in his main and floats it to his natural. Also, Flash uses his barracks that he built at the center to scout Baby. Both players produce 1 vulture first, but Baby manages to kill Flash's vulture, gaining the mind game advantage. Baby uses that vulture to get into Flash's main and kills an SCV building the 2nd factory.



Baby goes for a starport instead, getting a wraith, but Flash saw it with his floating barracks, and is ready for the wraith. Flash uses his army to save his barracks, and Baby uses this time to push out with 3 tanks and his wraiths. Baby sieges his tanks at the center, and Flash takes a quick 3rd expansion at his mineral only expansion.

Baby carelessly loses his wraith, and begins dropship production, while also getting his 3rd. Flash's good scouting with his barracks allows him to stay ahead of Baby while being ready for anything Baby throws at him. Flash moves in at an unexpected timing for Baby and kills all of Baby's tanks at the center. Both players are now at 5 factories, but Flash seems to be slightly ahead in both economy and unit count.

Baby knows he needs to do something, and pushes out with more tanks and vultures, killing Flash's tanks by getting sight with his vultures. He also flies a dropship to Flash's main, but seeing that Flash is ready, just flies it back. Baby takes this time to also advance at the center, since Flash's attention is in his main. Flash is forced to pull back, and Baby once again drops Flash's natural while taking 12 himself. He sieges up to kill tanks going to Flash's natural from the other side of the cliff and drops once again at the cliff above the natural.



Flash, seeing that he is being harassed effectively, simply pushes out with his large army, but Baby bring his vultures around, canceling Flash's 6 o'clock while his 12 o'clock is already running. Baby's tanks are still at Flash's natural, and as Flash takes care of it and pushes towards 12 o'clock, Baby brings another batch of vultures and tanks and uses mines to kill 4 tanks. Flash is forced to pull back without killing 12 o'clock to defend.

Flash once again pushes up towards 12 o'clock to regain his advantage, and wins a big fight at the center. However, Baby sends vultures to 6 o'clock and kills some of the transferring SCV's there. Flash sieges up 12 o'clock and Baby pulls his SCV's out, but cloaked wraiths drives Flash's force back. Baby then sends a lot of vultures to 6, killing the tanks and vultures there, but Flash's reinforcements arrive before any SCV's are killed.



Baby restores 12 o'clock, and tries to push towards Flash's natural with tanks, vultures, and wraith, but he's driven back by tanks and goliaths. Seeing this, Baby decides to go around and attack 6 o'clock from the left side, sieging close enough to hit the refinery. Flash is now once again behind, and he pushes out to the center, clearing out Baby's forces at 6. Baby uses his wraiths to do as much damage as he can, while using his army to break any of Flash's weak lines.

Baby uses vultures to kill tanks and deny Flash from taking 3 o'clock, while using his main army to once again siege 6 o'clock. This time, the command center falls at 6 o'clock, and when Baby combines his army to attack and destroy 3 o'clock as well while taking 9 o'clock himself. Flash's vultures manage to kill most of the SCV's at 9 o'clock, but Baby's army now overwhelms Flash's, and Baby pushes into Flash's natural, forcing a GG.



Jaedong loves you for getting his revenge, Baby.

Zerg suprise! Sick week for FPL. The symptom? lots of red points on your anti-team. The medicine? a weekly dose of FPL news and smart trading. Hop in!

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• Death God
  great's aka makes a little more sense as he kills over 300 teams in one week. Samsung's Zerg went 3-0 this week, taking down Anytime, SoulKey and ZerO (in an ace match). Of course this means he got a 3 win streak as well, totaling +13 points and making him the player with most points in all the league (19). Everything for 5$. Slayed.
  
  
• What the hell Flash
  Another week, another ace match lost. On week 1 it was HiyA, on week 2, RuBy. This week Flash got to ace against WeMade FOX, so it's no surprise BaBy was sent. Three weeks, three TvT, three loses. Flash is going to cause more upsets than the World Cup. It was a great game though, so if you didn't watch it, I recommend you do.
  
  
• Oh BaBy!
  I can't write for this week's FPL without mentioning BaBy. To be honest, I thought he was over-hyped and that's why he is on my anti-team, I just didn't see him achieving the same stats he got last season (9-1). Well, as of now he's 4-1. He won versus Horang2, Stats, Flash and Kal, certainly no push-overs. His only defeat was in the hands of Jaedong, who by the way is on a 4 game streak, so no shame in that.
  Will it go on like this? RIP my FPL team.
  
  
• No souL
  For a team that was 6$ STX is sure doing a lousy job. I think they pretty much have a guaranteed a spot in the playoffs, but their performance this round has been disappointing and they need to wake up fast. This week they lost 0-3 (vs KT) and 1-3 (against OZ). Kal went from one of the best FPL players last round, to one of the worst expensive picks this round, going 2-5 overall and 1-1 in ace matches. Calm and Shuttle are both 1-3 and the rest of the players are not even worth mentioning since most of them only have 1pt from a team win.

On the other hand, a lot of Kal and Calm owners seem to be selling them or acquiring them on their anti-teams. For teams playing catch up on the ranks this seems like a chance of selling and overpriced player and hoping for Kal or Calm to come back. Risky, but you don't win FPL by picking Flash, Jaedong and 4 players worth 1 point!

See y'all next week :3

Yellow

Once the pride of Zerg but now mainly remembered for his repeated martyrdom at the hands of Terrans, the original silversmith proved that he still has some juice in those old bones and made the day of his diehard fans by beating Violet in the KT Rolster vs Air Force ACE match with his trademark "strategic play," some highly refined cheese that, while improper in the hands of lesser players, hearkens back to former glory when used by the Storm Zerg against unsuspecting mortals. "I learned that Fortress had a lot of strategic elements to it", he explained to an awed interviewer. "I knew that the main had to be empty, so I went for a drop", and drop hydras he did. It was a sign that the Starcraft gods had blessed this day, as Gorush routed Firefist and Ruby overpowered Flash in the ace game: ACE's sixth win this season.

After having dropped Bisu on Heartbreak Ridge last season, lurker-dropped Leta on Match Point during this year's Winners League and emerged victorious in the latest official installment of the Lim Jin Rok, Yellow nets another memorable win that allows him to laugh off the 8-16 record established over the same period. After all, both victory and defeat contribute to his everlasting glory -- every loss is another lash of the whip on his martyrized back, every win another heroic feat in an uphill battle against changing foes: Terran power back in the day, age and weariness now. Yellow can have his cake and eat it, too; in the words of Violet himself: "How could a mere mortal like me possibly win against the Yellow god?"

Three (and a half) weeks left, and it all draws down to the middle of the pack. Even though KT and STX have both been failing, KT's first place position is pretty much secured with its 3-0 victory over its closest competitor, meaning they will most likely have a ticket straight to the Proleague Grand Finals. Even though KT hasn't been doing so hot lately, let's put things in perspective: even if KT loses all of its last 7 matches, no teams but STX or MBC even have a chance to pass KT. In other words, Flash is imba (even though he has been losing Ace matches, okay?)



STX is ahead of MBC by 2 games, and MBC is ahead of FOX and SKT by 2 games, so even if STX loses all its remaining games (which should not happen, even though they are 1-4 this round) they could still snag the number six spot. Somewhere, a CSheep cries. MBC on the upswing again after a disastrous R4 could overtake them, but at this point I think we can assume that both those teams will hold their spots.

So this final stretch comes down to the middle competitors, the teams that have to fight over the 4, 5, and 6 spots. Holding up 4 and 5, respectively, are WeMade FOX and SK Telecome T1, both of which are 4-1 this round with an overall record of 27-22. Trailing them is CJ Entus, a team that has now won 3 out of its last 10 games, and behind CJ comes Stars and KHAN, teams that still have a chance to nab the 6 spot. With OZ's 1-3 Jaedong result to FOX though, they're pretty much out. Let's take a look at how this next-to-penultimate week is to shake things up:

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eSTRO and OZ are statistically and probabilistically both out of the running now, though I want to take this moment to say I was correct. So Killer, even though you won a game against CuteAngel...


Oh, please note that I don't actually hate Killer, I just am disappointed that he loses so many crucial games. As snowdrift said in last week's Ace article, if Killer hadn't been sent for those three matches, OZ would be in the playoffs. In other words, "Jaedong imba, nerf plz."

KT Rolster vs

CJ Entus

Huge match here. If CJ wants to stay in the top 6, they have to beat KT. Last time they met, a lot of hype was created--pre-OSL finals EffOrt destroyed Flash's mech on Judgment Day, and Snow's monstrous TvP took out Flash again in the Ace. Calls of "0-2?!?! SLUMPPPPP" resounded through the LR thread, and tempbans were most likely handed out for the resulting "PvT imba!" threads. Needless to say, the rest of KT seems to be doing slightly better, and by that I mean they're getting KT Flash to Ace matches, which is more than can be said about Jaedong OZ. Potential huge matches to look forward to are... well, anybody against Flash, I suppose. EffOrt vs Flash, Snow vs Flash, sKyHigh vs Flash... CJ's going to put a lot of EffOrt into stopping him, as we've seen in last round's encounter. I hope KT's coach can get the right counterpicks out for maximum hilarity. Here's to some fOrGGrolling (wait, is a word?) and to somebody getting Chin'ed.

STX SouL vs

Samsung KHAN

You want to make playoffs, KHAN? Simple! You just have to get past STX, no worries--everybody's been doing it recently! KHAN is 4-1 (2-0 Ace) this round, after being the whipping boy for R4, showing us just how fickle SPL is. In this match, there will be a lot of epic win, and a lot of epic fail, all for great justice. Will Clam continue to rear his head? Will Kal finally get his third win after seven matches? On the KHAN side, Bacondino, despite not doing so hot in the individual leagues, is 3-1 this round and is definitely starting to play better again, and great is raping my antiteam... though I've given up on FPL this season already. IntoTheWow and I cry together still, though. I don't know how this match is going to turn out, but KHAN desperately needs this win, as it's currently in 8th place. Also, boesthius you should stream this match since I want to see some bacon!


Straight up: biggest match of the week here, folks. Both teams are leading the pack for R5 with a 4-1 record. FOX has an edge in game differentials, but both teams are at 27-22 right now, at 4 and 5 respectively. Whoever wins here pulls ahead, and thus has a much better chance of holding their playoff spot. Will BaBy get over the legend killing that Jaedong put on him? (BaBy was on a 9-game winning streak in SPL, then ran into Jaedong and got mauled. After that, he dropped out of the MST 2-0 to a group he easily could have won) Is the Hyuk effect going to overcome somebody? Will we ever see Bisu again? And the most important question: is disciple going to make a very sexy LR OP for this? The answer to all these questions better be yes, and perhaps we'll see a very exciting, very decisive Ace match.

Woongjin Stars vs

MBCGame HERO

Very, very important for Stars to try to win this match, which will definitely be decided by the right matchups. Keep your Zergs away from Light (thought ZerO vs Light is a match I'm dying to watch), and try to snipe him with free. Snipe Sea, and watch out for his awesomeness if you can't. Figure out a way to break HyuN's randomly odd four game winstreak. If Stars can't win this match, then the playoffs slip that much further from their fingers. It's tough, but rooting for the underdog makes Starcraft interesting, eh?

CJ Entus vs

Hwaseung OZ

I just want to see a Jaedong-EffOrt match. Since their last encounter in SWL, Jaedong has gone 22-4 in JvZ (84.62%) and EffOrt has gone 11-5 (68.75%), but has only lost one of the last 12 ZvZs. I don't believe OZ can win, though if Jaedong can take out EffOrt there's a much better chance for OZ to make it to Ace. CJ can't take this lightly though--like I've said, they need every win they can get. At least they can beat PerfectMan. And Killer.

Suck it, Killer.