It’s been more than half a year since DongRaeGu was crowned as the new Zerg king at the finals of this year’s first GSL. While Terran and Protoss have been more dynamic, with younger players rising to challenge the dominance of the old guard, Zerg has remained largely unchanged for the last year. Symbol was hyped to be the next Royal Roader, only to fall apart in the Round of 8. YugiOh is still in Code A, as is HyuN. Players like Seal, BBoong, True and Lucky once looked like they were in the running for a championship, but all of them fell off before rising to ‘serious contender’ status.
This weekend, the GSL’s youngest player will have a chance to achieve what none of the aforementioned up-and-comers ever did: make a splash. ST_Life has taken an unlikely road to the TSL4 semifinals. It’s safe to say that a little bit of luck has played a part in bringing him here: only facing a single Protoss, Curious dispatching Squirtle for him in the Ro16, winning without practice partners (for his Ro8 match against Curious, he ‘practiced through ladder’) and unexpected endurance from a player that has only played a single Bo7 in his life (a 4-3 win over jjakji in 2011). And Life will need just a little more luck to make it to the finals over MVP_KeeN, New York City, and a reputation as a truly great Zerg player.
Most of you probably remember Life for his GSTL achievements with ZeNEX, destroying Liquid’s Zerg-heavy roster after denying HerO and Jinro with unorthodox builds. But Life has also built an impressive resumé of online results. It’s hard to ignore his achievements in the ESV and EWM weeklies, the latter having given him his Code A seed for Season 3 of GSL. Life nearly broke out in the Iron Squid, winning the second qualifier and beating MaNa and Stephano in the group stages, only to fall to top-class TvZ players MMA and jjakji 1-2.
Life is the definition of unpredictable, but his madness always has a method. His main goal in a series is to keep an opponent uncomfortable, uncertain of what surprise is coming next and how to prepare against it. This usually manifests through a plethora of aggressive builds that depend on the opponent and map. He has counter-builds, builds that counter his counter-builds, and builds that seem to lose to other builds but actually punish them in strange ways. It’s wild stuff from a strategic standpoint.
Compared to his other matchups Life’s ZvT is relatively boring. Everything he does aligns with standard ZvT theorycrafting: the use of zergling/infestor composition with double upgrades, a safe defensive posture until hive tech, heavy droning in times of peace, heavy unit production in times of war, and bases everywhere. Life avoids using mutalisks in a macro game with the exception of Antiga Shipyard, and avoids using roaches with the exception of heavy hellion harassment. I expect some of you are already nodding off now. Damn, he was supposed to be exciting!
While his core style is standard, it's his unique take on this style which makes him thrilling. He'll use calculated speedling pressure on maps like Daybreak which crush any Terran build which forgoes defense (such as the 15CC into reactor hellion). On a map like Entombed he'll respond to the fast third CC with 8:30 mutalisks, hitting well before any reactors can get into serious marine production. How is a Terran supposed to anticipate this? They aren't; "Zergs only have one type of all in in ZvT", or so they think. Life shatters this myth, and causes many Terran foes to make the Curious face. -__-
Oh, I don't have any marines -__-
Life believes in all the sacred zerg tenets except one: zerg must cede all momentum and harassment to terran until hive tech. Instead he always seeks to control the tempo of a game, to make the terran react to him and respond to his actions. To this end Life values mobility and upgrades over power and numbers, which subsequently influences his entire philosophy on the matchup. He neither relies on queen builds for defense or broodlords to dictate the battles. Queens may deflect all hellion pressure flawlessly and spread creep like internet memes, but they can’t directly control the map or make the terran sweat. Life has no use for slowing down the terran army when he yearns for that crucial fight. Similarly, broodlords are undeniably strong…and ponderous and dependent on support to survive. Corruptor/infestor/broodlord is a meat grinder while zergling/infestor/ultralisk is a sharpened sword; only one of them can instantly decimate a badly positioned army and plow through the remnants. During the few instances he makes broodlords before ultras, he morphs them in your face as he starts attacking.
If there is one reason to watch TSL4 this weekend, do it to watch a zerg player who doesn’t play by the rules. He takes a third base at 5:00 at the sight of a barracks wall, confident that he can squash the bio timing. He sacrifices all his outlier bases for the chance to take out his opponent’s main, knowing that at the end only one of them will have a functioning army. He borrows infested terran timings from his ZvP just to reprimand early thirds. He rushes 2 base mutalisk when he smells a 2 base marauder/hellion timing. Life is not foreign and his interviews are frankly boring - but his play is anything but. He is the fresh breeze among the stale air of current zergs.
Life has been waiting for this moment for over a year. He’s finally gotten over his nerves and joined a team with a fantastic Zerg to practice with. He just needs one more win to be taken seriously, one more win to become a contender. It will be a difficult series. KeeN is a great TvZ player and Life will have to pull some tricks out of his sleeve to overcome him. Could Life become the second Zerg to make it into a TSL finals?
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On September 01 2012 22:27 catplanetcatplanet wrote: Cool, that's my 1K post then! Go Life!
Also, cosmic wrote all the play style stuff, which is obviously pretty insane.
I am so glad that there are guy like CosmicSprial and catplanetcatplanet who make the great job for my favorite player from his first appearance in the KW Weekly event.
catplanetcatplanet September 02 2012 04:51. Posts 2226
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Life > elfi
X3GoldDot Malaysia. September 01 2012 17:16. Posts 3840
