Table of Contents
Round 4 Week 3 Review
Spoiler Alert!
Out with the Old
In with the New
Woongjin Stars halted
...a bit
PvProleague
More lasers, now from the air!
Games of the week
Brown vs TaeJa
Fantasy vs TY
Innovation vs TaeJa
Plays of the Week
sOs vs Stats
Argo vs Mini
SK Planet Proleague table and results at Liquipedia
Round 4 W3 Results
By: Likeapen
This week's Proleague round saw two of the most anticipated matches in Round 4, as four of the most notable teams clashed. The week started off as Coach Park's old team, SKT T1, faced off against his new team, EG-TL, in the latest grudge match of Proleague. Then, the dominant force of Woongjin Stars faced up against a wounded KT squad who were hurting from a loss against CJ Entus. These two matches didn't disappoint, and provided some of the best viewing of Round 4 so far. It was a fascinating week of play, complete with upsets, a standard 4-0 sweep from Stars, and plenty of PvP to keep the Protoss among us satisfied.
Thanks to xpaperclip for formatting!
Round 4 Week 3 Matches
April 20
SK Telecom T1 vs EG-TL
PartinG < Neo Planet S > aLive
Brown < Whirlwind LE > TaeJa
soO < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Jaedong
FanTaSy < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > Oz
Rain < Fighting Spirit > HerO
ParalyzE < Naro Station > JYP
Ace: Rain < Akilon Wastes > HerO
EG-TL wins 4-3!
KeSPa 8th Team vs STX Soul
TRUE (Alone) < Neo Planet S > INnoVation
Cure (Speed) < Whirlwind LE > Trap
TY (BaBy) < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Last
ALBM (check) < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > YoungJoo (Size)
Argo (Jaehoon) < Fighting Spirit > Mini
Terminator (Sang) < Naro Station > Dear
Ace: Akilon Wastes
STX Soul wins 4-2!
PartinG < Neo Planet S > aLive
Brown < Whirlwind LE > TaeJa
soO < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Jaedong
FanTaSy < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > Oz
Rain < Fighting Spirit > HerO
ParalyzE < Naro Station > JYP
Ace: Rain < Akilon Wastes > HerO
EG-TL wins 4-3!
KeSPa 8th Team vs STX Soul
TRUE (Alone) < Neo Planet S > INnoVation
Cure (Speed) < Whirlwind LE > Trap
TY (BaBy) < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Last
ALBM (check) < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > YoungJoo (Size)
Argo (Jaehoon) < Fighting Spirit > Mini
Terminator (Sang) < Naro Station > Dear
STX Soul wins 4-2!
April 21
Woongjin Stars vs Samsung KHAN
ZerO < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > hOpe
sOs (sHy) < Fighting Spirit > Stork
free < Akilon Wastes > JangBi
Soulkey < Whirlwind LE > Solar (Sola)
Flying < Naro Station > RorO
Light < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > Reality
Ace: Korhal Floating Island
Woongjin Stars wins 4-0!
KT Rolster vs CJ Entus
Zest (P7GAB,Wooki) < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Bong
BarrackS < Fighting Spirit > herO
Crazy (Crazy-Hydra) < Akilon Wastes > EffOrt
Flash < Whirlwind LE > rare
Stats (Carno) < Naro Station > Bbyong
Cacia (Acacia) < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > Hydra
Ace: Korhal Floating Island
CJ Entus wins 4-2!
ZerO < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > hOpe
sOs (sHy) < Fighting Spirit > Stork
free < Akilon Wastes > JangBi
Soulkey < Whirlwind LE > Solar (Sola)
Light < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > Reality
Ace: Korhal Floating Island
Woongjin Stars wins 4-0!
KT Rolster vs CJ Entus
Zest (P7GAB,Wooki) < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Bong
BarrackS < Fighting Spirit > herO
Crazy (Crazy-Hydra) < Akilon Wastes > EffOrt
Flash < Whirlwind LE > rare
Stats (Carno) < Naro Station > Bbyong
Cacia (Acacia) < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > Hydra
CJ Entus wins 4-2!
April 22
SK Telecom T1 vs KeSPa 8th Team
Brown < Naro Station > Argo (Jaehoon)
Rain < Korhal Floating Island > Cure (Speed)
Bisu < Whirlwind LE > ALBM (check)
soO < Neo Planet S > Terminator (Sang)
FanTaSy < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > TY (BaBy)
PartinG < Akilon Wastes > TRUE (Alone)
Ace: Fighting Spirit
SK Telecom T1 wins 4-2!
STX Soul vs EG-TL
Mini < Fighting Spirit > JYP
INnoVation < Neo Planet S > TaeJa
hyvaa < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > aLive
Dear < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > HerO
Comet < Akilon Wastes > Oz
Trap < Korhal Floating Island > Jaedong
Ace: Naro Station
STX Soul wins 4-2!
Brown < Naro Station > Argo (Jaehoon)
Rain < Korhal Floating Island > Cure (Speed)
Bisu < Whirlwind LE > ALBM (check)
soO < Neo Planet S > Terminator (Sang)
FanTaSy < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > TY (BaBy)
PartinG < Akilon Wastes > TRUE (Alone)
SK Telecom T1 wins 4-2!
STX Soul vs EG-TL
Mini < Fighting Spirit > JYP
INnoVation < Neo Planet S > TaeJa
hyvaa < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > aLive
Dear < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > HerO
Comet < Akilon Wastes > Oz
Trap < Korhal Floating Island > Jaedong
STX Soul wins 4-2!
April 23
Woongjin Stars vs KT Rolster
sOs (sHy) < Fighting Spirit > Stats (Carno)
ZerO < Neo Planet S > Crazy (Crazy-Hydra)
Light < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > hitmaN
Soulkey < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Flash
Flying < Akilon Wastes > Zest (P7GAB,Wooki)
BrAvO (hon_sin) < Korhal Floating Island > Motive
Ace: Naro Station
KT Rolster wins 4-1!
sOs (sHy) < Fighting Spirit > Stats (Carno)
ZerO < Neo Planet S > Crazy (Crazy-Hydra)
Light < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > hitmaN
Soulkey < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Flash
Flying < Akilon Wastes > Zest (P7GAB,Wooki)
Ace: Naro Station
KT Rolster wins 4-1!
Round 4 Week 3 Standings
Out with the Old, In with the New
Coach Park's new squad, EG-TL, came up against a very fearsome looking SKT T1 outfit that would have been itching to get a chance at their old mentor's new side. If there was any animosity between the two team, it didn't show, as even after the match, which went all the way to the ace, everyone was in particularly good spirits.The match started according to script for SKT1, with PartinG completely dominating aLive in the opener. An EG-TL upset was quickly on the cards, however, as comeback kid TaeJa defeated Brown in stirring fashion and EG-TL's Tyrant, Jaedong, was able to overcome soO with a devastating early baneling attack that killed almost all the SKT1 Zerg's drones. Oz wasn't able to stop FanTaSy's continual aggression, and when Rain was victorious a long game with HerO, you could feel EG-TL's chances slipping away.
Even though JYP looked to be at a build order disadvantage with his proxy stargate against phoenixes, he made up for it by going blink stalkers and simply marched through the front door of ParalyzE's base while his oracle did the damage to the probes in the back. A well executed move put JYP in front and EG-TL into an ace match.
But who would Coach Park send out? Though SK Telecom T1 had strong players in Parting, Fantasy, and soO, Rain has shown to be the consistent pick for ace in HotS. The question for Coach Park then came down to who he thought would do the best against Rain. Then, in the most maverick choice for ace we had possibly ever seen in Proleague, Coach Park put his faith in HerO for the finale.
HerO, you ask? All signs pointed away from this as a smart pick. After all, HerO has a terrible record at Yongsan stadium and an even more terrible record against Rain(0-5). Furthermore, HerO had just lost against Rain in this very match, yet another likely blow to his confidence. Finally, HerO is known to be an emotional player, one likely to buckle under these immense pressures. But Coach Park knew better and his faith in HerO would be rewarded.
In the ace match, an early zealot, stalker mothership core attack from HerO did more damage than the Liquid player could have dreamed of, killing multiple probes and a zealot. But most importantly it scouted the oracle coming out of the stargate for Rain, and allowed HerO to prepare his own phoenixes at home. With an expansion back home, air control and his stalkers keeping Rain in his base, HerO took an insurmountable lead. One final push with immortals sealed the deal and a monumental win for EG-TL.
The winning moment
Woongjin Stars halted...a bit
After losing their first Round 4 match to EG-TL in memorable fashion, Stars went on a big roll. They won their next three matches pretty comfortably, including a very impressive sweep of Samsung Khan earlier this week.People began to talk about the depth of the Stars line-up, and just how impressive they are as a team despite not possessing the ‘big name’ of a Flash, Jaedong or Rain. While I think Soulkey and sOs would probably like to talk to some folks about that last bit, the depth of their line-up is certainly unquestionable. Flying, free, ZerO and Light have all proved themselves to be exceptionally accomplished, and coming up against Woongjin Stars inevitably means there are no free wins.
They met their match in the final match of this week, however, in the form of a red hot KT side. KT must have been rattled by their ignominious performance against CJ Entus earlier in the week where only Flash and Zest looked to be on top of their game, because they came out all guns blazing against Stars on the final day of week 3. Stats played a cool style against sOs to eliminate Stars’ top Protoss, Crazy held an early ling attack from ZerO and was allowed to get up to infestors relatively easily, and hitmaN recovered from some early shakiness to steamroll Light. Even though Soulkey got his revenge on Flash from their games in GSL earlier in the week, nothing was going to stop KT as Zest snuffed the match out.
A great win by KT, but Stars still sits extremely comfortably on top of the standings, unlikely to give up their spot soon if at all this season.
PvProleague
This weeks’ Proleague was one for the purists, the Protoss purists, that is. We saw more PvP this week than you can poke a stick at and it was obvious from a glance at the scheduled matches for this week that we would be witnessing a lot of Protoss killing other Protoss. If you can believe it, 35% of the matches played this week were PvPs.But before you cry Protoss imbalance, let's take a look at why this might have occurred. First, Proleague is traditionally Protoss heavy. Though many may know the strength of KeSPa Terrans in the form of Flash and Innovation, Terrans start to get scarce after these two big names. Protoss, on the other hand, have top performers in Rain, sOs, and herO along with an almost innumerable Protoss supporting cast in HerO, JYP, Stats, Zest, Flying, free, Stork, JangBi, Bisu, Argo, Terminator, Trap, and many more. Even in WoL, when Zergs were dominating the scene, Protoss remained statistically the strongest race in Proleague. This round in particular received even more Protoss reinforcements as Bisu, PartinG, Brown, and Oz joined the ranks of Proleague teams while the other races combined only received aLive as a notable recruit.
Then there's the issue of the Proleague format. Because coaches are allowed to seed players onto specific maps, it is more likely for Protoss to be seeded onto Protoss favored maps. And because many of the maps for this round are new, we do not yet have a perfectly balanced map pool. In particular, three of the eight maps for this round (Fighting Spirit, Akilon Wastes, Naro Station) are Protoss favored and indeed these are the maps we see PvPs the most on.
One bright side to having so many PvPs is that the best ones will always rise to the top. Fittingly, the final game for the week was a somewhat epic one on Akilon Wastes between Flying, fighting for Woongjin Stars’ life in the match, and Zest, looking to shut Woongjin Stars out 4-1. The final battle in this one saw a classic War of the Worlds Protoss endgame, with colossi raining down punishment on both sides. When the smoke settled, Zest had won and KT had defeated Stars in comprehensive fashion.
Another one of the most interesting PvPs this week came in the form of an extremely accomplished comeback from Oz against Comet. Oz looked down and out after his early expand was crushed by stalker and mothership core aggression, but Oz was able to maintain a strong probe advantage through clever use of his phoenixes and built a strong enough army to kill Comet.
Stats vs sOs is another example of a very tense PvP, although some might think it was a little too cheesy for its own good. Let’s just say that if a double stargate goes unscouted there’s trouble in store. More on this in the Plays of the Week section.
Individually, the prize for the best PvPer of the week goes to Zest, who won his opening battle with Bong in KT’s match against CJ Entus. Later in the week, he secured KT’s victory against Stars’ second-in-command Protoss lieutenant, Flying. Poor Bong, on the other hand, lost his third straight PvP after consecutive losses in this match-up last week as well.
Games of the Week
by Wunder
With the penultimate round behind us, we take a look back at some of the best games of the week. With Taeja making his triumphant return to Proleague, it is no surprise that we had to highlight both his games this week, as they were great matches and showed why Taeja is where he is today. Making another return is both Fantasy and Ty, who have been featured in weeks past. No strangers to TvT, both players showed a fierce resilience in defending and a fiery spirit in their attacks.
Brown < Whirlwind LE > TaeJa
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
Our first match comes courtesy of two ex-SlayerS players, Brown and Taeja. The game started off innocently enough, as Taeja opened up CC first and Brown with a gateway expand. Taking a page out of his teammate Rain’s book, he followed up with a double forge colossus opener. However, unlike his teammate, Brown made a few mistakes and didn’t execute it as well as Rain, accidentally starting observer speed instead of colossus range before he realized his mistake and corrected it. For a comparison of builds, in a PvT in the same week, Rain had a third for at least 3 minutes longer than Brown, and 3/3 further along than he did. Nevertheless, Brown still held off Taeja’s advances for a long while, pushing the Terran back multiple times.
Though it could be attributed to pressure and stage fright, Brown was very hesitant during the match and allowed Taeja to repeatedly get the better position and engagement, which eventually lead to his downfall, as he lost his fourth twice due to his army simply being in a terrible position. Having lost to Zest in the first week, Brown was given a second chance to play for already packed line-up of SKT1, and though lost this match to the indomitable Taeja, he managed to win against Team 8’s Argo, and showed that he had a solid enough TvP to stand up to Taeja for as long as he did.
FanTaSy < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > TY
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
In a round populated with endless PvPs, it’s interesting to see that the best games of the week are still the TvTs. Our first TvT of the week features SKT1’s lone Terran, Fantasy, against Team 8’s Ty. This game makes a good case for the changes that Proleague has made to Newkirk Precinct, and their redevelopment on the lower side of the map has paid dividends in making the map a lot more exciting, with more ground to cover and maneuver around.
As Ty continues to mech his way through TvT, Fantasy takes up the more traditional marine tank composition, and the results are explosive. Though he was the mech player, Ty did not play the defensive role at the start of this game, as he opened with a failed widow mine drop into a small siege outside of Fantasy’s main. Not one to be left behind in the harass department, Fantasy ran his bio forces all around the map trying to find weakness in Ty’s defenses, and the game swung hard in both directions multiple times. Something strange in both player’s play is that Ty opted for a hellbat-less game this time around, though he didn't utilize the hellions speed to his advantage, and Fantasy didn't use his medivacs and their boosters.
It was oddly reminiscent of a Wings of Liberty style game, with both players thinking they were too good for the new units. Unfortunately for Ty, that didn't work out quite as planned, as while he had a constant contain on Fantasy for a lot of the game, he didn’t expand as aggressively as the SKT1 Terran and was caught off-guard as Fantasy made his seemingly casual transition to battlecruisers. A final battle on Ty’s half of the map sealed Ty’s fate, as seeker missiles evaporated his viking force, allowing Fantasy to clean up.
INnoVation < Neo Planet S > TaeJa
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
The final game of the week is yet another Taeja feature, this time a TvT against STX’s ace, Innovation. Once again another mech vs bio match-up, this game displayed the importance of positioning in mech and why you can never let your guard down against Taeja. An early hellion attack at Taeja’s front allowed Innovation to catch an early lead in this game, netting him a nice 15 worker kills. With that supply lead, he jumped ahead in both expansions and army supply, while Taeja struggled with keeping his third up and running. In a somewhat desperate move, Taeja decided to take a sneaky fourth base at the gold in the middle of the map, in hopes that Innovation wouldn't scout it.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Innovation pushed his advantage further as he maxed out, and sieged up Taeja’s third, trading hellbats for Taeja’s entire army. However, Taeja then dropped on Innovation’s tanks, which forced the STX Terran to back away to his fourth to regroup. Just as things were looking up for the Liquid Terran, Innovation decided to push out once more, this time at the top of the map, and discovers Taeja’s secret fourth base. As Taeja was forced to lift his CC and flew away, Innovation made the crucial mech mistake of simply a-moving an army around the map. A quick scan by Taeja revealed the mispositioned army of Innovation, and lightning-fast, he struck.
As he stimmed forward, Innovation quickly sieged up, but it was too late. 1/3 of his army was rallied to his fourth, his hellbats were behind his tanks, and Taeja was already on top of his army. As the Liquid Terran pounded his opponent’s army to the ground, Innovation was back at home scrambling to rally his forces. Taeja surged forward and set a contain up on Innovation’s fourth, eventually destroying it and denying his fifth in the corner of the map as well. Battered and bruised, Innovation had nothing left and Taeja rushed forward in two directions and forced the STX Terran to tap out.
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
Our first match comes courtesy of two ex-SlayerS players, Brown and Taeja. The game started off innocently enough, as Taeja opened up CC first and Brown with a gateway expand. Taking a page out of his teammate Rain’s book, he followed up with a double forge colossus opener. However, unlike his teammate, Brown made a few mistakes and didn’t execute it as well as Rain, accidentally starting observer speed instead of colossus range before he realized his mistake and corrected it. For a comparison of builds, in a PvT in the same week, Rain had a third for at least 3 minutes longer than Brown, and 3/3 further along than he did. Nevertheless, Brown still held off Taeja’s advances for a long while, pushing the Terran back multiple times.
Though it could be attributed to pressure and stage fright, Brown was very hesitant during the match and allowed Taeja to repeatedly get the better position and engagement, which eventually lead to his downfall, as he lost his fourth twice due to his army simply being in a terrible position. Having lost to Zest in the first week, Brown was given a second chance to play for already packed line-up of SKT1, and though lost this match to the indomitable Taeja, he managed to win against Team 8’s Argo, and showed that he had a solid enough TvP to stand up to Taeja for as long as he did.
FanTaSy < Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct > TY
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
In a round populated with endless PvPs, it’s interesting to see that the best games of the week are still the TvTs. Our first TvT of the week features SKT1’s lone Terran, Fantasy, against Team 8’s Ty. This game makes a good case for the changes that Proleague has made to Newkirk Precinct, and their redevelopment on the lower side of the map has paid dividends in making the map a lot more exciting, with more ground to cover and maneuver around.
As Ty continues to mech his way through TvT, Fantasy takes up the more traditional marine tank composition, and the results are explosive. Though he was the mech player, Ty did not play the defensive role at the start of this game, as he opened with a failed widow mine drop into a small siege outside of Fantasy’s main. Not one to be left behind in the harass department, Fantasy ran his bio forces all around the map trying to find weakness in Ty’s defenses, and the game swung hard in both directions multiple times. Something strange in both player’s play is that Ty opted for a hellbat-less game this time around, though he didn't utilize the hellions speed to his advantage, and Fantasy didn't use his medivacs and their boosters.
It was oddly reminiscent of a Wings of Liberty style game, with both players thinking they were too good for the new units. Unfortunately for Ty, that didn't work out quite as planned, as while he had a constant contain on Fantasy for a lot of the game, he didn’t expand as aggressively as the SKT1 Terran and was caught off-guard as Fantasy made his seemingly casual transition to battlecruisers. A final battle on Ty’s half of the map sealed Ty’s fate, as seeker missiles evaporated his viking force, allowing Fantasy to clean up.
INnoVation < Neo Planet S > TaeJa
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
The final game of the week is yet another Taeja feature, this time a TvT against STX’s ace, Innovation. Once again another mech vs bio match-up, this game displayed the importance of positioning in mech and why you can never let your guard down against Taeja. An early hellion attack at Taeja’s front allowed Innovation to catch an early lead in this game, netting him a nice 15 worker kills. With that supply lead, he jumped ahead in both expansions and army supply, while Taeja struggled with keeping his third up and running. In a somewhat desperate move, Taeja decided to take a sneaky fourth base at the gold in the middle of the map, in hopes that Innovation wouldn't scout it.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Innovation pushed his advantage further as he maxed out, and sieged up Taeja’s third, trading hellbats for Taeja’s entire army. However, Taeja then dropped on Innovation’s tanks, which forced the STX Terran to back away to his fourth to regroup. Just as things were looking up for the Liquid Terran, Innovation decided to push out once more, this time at the top of the map, and discovers Taeja’s secret fourth base. As Taeja was forced to lift his CC and flew away, Innovation made the crucial mech mistake of simply a-moving an army around the map. A quick scan by Taeja revealed the mispositioned army of Innovation, and lightning-fast, he struck.
As he stimmed forward, Innovation quickly sieged up, but it was too late. 1/3 of his army was rallied to his fourth, his hellbats were behind his tanks, and Taeja was already on top of his army. As the Liquid Terran pounded his opponent’s army to the ground, Innovation was back at home scrambling to rally his forces. Taeja surged forward and set a contain up on Innovation’s fourth, eventually destroying it and denying his fifth in the corner of the map as well. Battered and bruised, Innovation had nothing left and Taeja rushed forward in two directions and forced the STX Terran to tap out.
Plays of the Week
by Wunder
While there have been a torrential downpour of PvPs lately, every cloud has a silver lining, and in this feature, we have two very special PvPs to showcase. One is a meticulously planned strategy designed to lull the opponent into a safe sense of security, while the other is a spontaneous burst of genius that almost pays the hugest of dividends.
sOs < Fighting Spirit > Stats
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
In this game between two Protoss powerhouses, Stats showed us that you can still confuse your opponent even though you are both doing near identical builds. Halfway through the game, both players had an expansion up with a robo and a twilight council. However, there are very slight differences between their build orders, and Stats takes advantage of that fact. He decided to move out with a probe and proxy two stargates at the top of the map, a place sOs has absolutely no reason to scout.
Though sOs scouted his opponent with his observers and hallucinated phoenix, he did not notice that he had a few more immortals than his opponent, or a few more floating observers. One thing did tip him off though: an idle probe at an expansion. This probe began to arouse suspicion and sOs started to scout around the map with a zealot. In an absolute nail-biter, this poor zealot barely missed Stats’ phoenix and stargates multiple times. From there, Stats spurng his trap card and demolished sOs, lifting immortal after immortal and taking out his colossus as well. All's fair in love and war, and Stats definitely didn’t pull any punches in this game.
At least three close calls like this occurred within a minute of each other.
Argo < Fighting Spirit > Mini
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
This game was quite bizarre, and to be honest, it's not actually that spectacular of a PvP, all things considered. However, it did showcase a common tactic in PvP taken to the extreme. Argo kicked off the game with a ballsy one-gate expand. Like Oz before him, it didn't quite work out, even in Heart of the Swarm, and Mini responded by trying to kill him with brute force. After he destroyed the nexus and set up a contain, Mini was sitting pretty with a nice lead. However, Argo’s quick thinking allowed him to save his scouting probe, allowing him to set up a proxy pylon at Mini’s natural as well as inside the STX Protoss’ main. Argo began to warp in wave after wave of zealots, and even though Mini had the same number of gateways, he couldn't keep up with the zealot threat. Eventually, he was forced to recall to his base, ending his contain to deal with the ever increasingly dangerous zealot threat.
In a 1-2 punch, Argo also started a DT shrine, and with the contain gone, Mini’s advantage disappeared. Suddenly, he was on the backfoot with only a few gateways to his name. As Mini started a robo, Argo warped in 3 dark templar and tried to rush into Mini’s base. Mini, with his eagle eyes, spotted the shimmer of the dark templar, and quickly force fielded his ramp. In what was no doubt a stroke of genius, Argo instantly warped his two DTs into an archon, breaking the forcefield and allowing the sole remaining dark templar to continue up. Unfortunately, Mini was sharp enough and instantly forcefielded the top of his ramp before the DT could pass through. This allowed him to get an observer out and the threat was diffused. Though Argo ended up winning the game later on, this moment left us on the edge of our seats and it definitely showed that PvP had the potential to be extremely exciting when they wanted to be.
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
In this game between two Protoss powerhouses, Stats showed us that you can still confuse your opponent even though you are both doing near identical builds. Halfway through the game, both players had an expansion up with a robo and a twilight council. However, there are very slight differences between their build orders, and Stats takes advantage of that fact. He decided to move out with a probe and proxy two stargates at the top of the map, a place sOs has absolutely no reason to scout.
Though sOs scouted his opponent with his observers and hallucinated phoenix, he did not notice that he had a few more immortals than his opponent, or a few more floating observers. One thing did tip him off though: an idle probe at an expansion. This probe began to arouse suspicion and sOs started to scout around the map with a zealot. In an absolute nail-biter, this poor zealot barely missed Stats’ phoenix and stargates multiple times. From there, Stats spurng his trap card and demolished sOs, lifting immortal after immortal and taking out his colossus as well. All's fair in love and war, and Stats definitely didn’t pull any punches in this game.
At least three close calls like this occurred within a minute of each other.
Argo < Fighting Spirit > Mini
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch
This game was quite bizarre, and to be honest, it's not actually that spectacular of a PvP, all things considered. However, it did showcase a common tactic in PvP taken to the extreme. Argo kicked off the game with a ballsy one-gate expand. Like Oz before him, it didn't quite work out, even in Heart of the Swarm, and Mini responded by trying to kill him with brute force. After he destroyed the nexus and set up a contain, Mini was sitting pretty with a nice lead. However, Argo’s quick thinking allowed him to save his scouting probe, allowing him to set up a proxy pylon at Mini’s natural as well as inside the STX Protoss’ main. Argo began to warp in wave after wave of zealots, and even though Mini had the same number of gateways, he couldn't keep up with the zealot threat. Eventually, he was forced to recall to his base, ending his contain to deal with the ever increasingly dangerous zealot threat.
In a 1-2 punch, Argo also started a DT shrine, and with the contain gone, Mini’s advantage disappeared. Suddenly, he was on the backfoot with only a few gateways to his name. As Mini started a robo, Argo warped in 3 dark templar and tried to rush into Mini’s base. Mini, with his eagle eyes, spotted the shimmer of the dark templar, and quickly force fielded his ramp. In what was no doubt a stroke of genius, Argo instantly warped his two DTs into an archon, breaking the forcefield and allowing the sole remaining dark templar to continue up. Unfortunately, Mini was sharp enough and instantly forcefielded the top of his ramp before the DT could pass through. This allowed him to get an observer out and the threat was diffused. Though Argo ended up winning the game later on, this moment left us on the edge of our seats and it definitely showed that PvP had the potential to be extremely exciting when they wanted to be.