by: Nakajin

Week 8 delivered the bangers we were hoping for with three series going all the way to an ace match. ONSYDE Gaming barely held on to first place despite losing 3-4 to DKZ, but are in serious danger of giving up the top spot before the end of the season. Even Team Liquid, perennial WTL underperformers, might be in the mix for #1.

We also got to see RotterdaM try his hand at the WTL, only for him to join Crank in the 0-2 club. It’s not looking good for player/captain/casters so far, but perhaps we can hope for Team PiG in WTL Winter?

We now enter the home stretch of the WTL in Week 9 (held after a week’s break for DreamHack Summer) with the stakes for each match feeling even more heightened. As usual, the key races are for 1st place in the regular season and for the final playoff spot.

Week 8 Recap

Top 7 teams qualify for the playoffs.
Bottom 2 teams must requalify.
Points are awarded as follows:

ONSYDE Gaming 3 – 4 Dragon KaiZi Gaming
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Maru and Oliveira were on for a rematch of the World Championship that was (at least at first) all about Maru. In the first game, it was a kitchen-sink push of eight hellions, a reaper, three ravens, six marines, and a cyclone that got the jump on Oliveira for a quick win. In game two on Dragon Scales, Maru went for a barrack-factory-starport proxy that failed to do the expected game-ending damage, putting the world champion seemingly in a very good position. That was before an ill-advised move out cost Oliveira three tanks and the control of his natural momentarily. From then on, Maru kept on getting the best of every interaction until Oliveira was forced to send everything across the map for an unsuccessful last ditch attack.

In the second match of the series, Solar proved a tough nut to crack for herO. Still, the DKZ Protoss got the two maps wins in the end with his trademark aggressive PvZ as well as some sky-toss. In doing so, herO became only the third player to 2-0 Solar in the last two seasons (somehow, Prince and Has are the two others—yeah Solar is a weird player).

herO’s victory swung momentum heavily in favor of his team, but Ryung once again proved that he is one of the WTL’s most useful weapons. Declining to pull out the kind of desperate all-in he might have used in the past, Ryung challenged Dark’s macro ability head-on, gearing up for a massive 2-2 push on Babylon that managed to strike before ultralisks hit the field. Ryung controlled the push well enough to roll over Dark roach-ravager-bane army and secure at least 1 point for his team. With the match on the line, Dark turned to Altitude and Ryung responded with a battle-mech variant that included widow mines. It was a good try by Ryung, but in the end, he couldn’t prevent Dark from getting lurkers across the map and forcing checkmate.

DKZ made the calculated decision to send out Oliveira as their ace against Maru, hoping the demons of Katowice would rattle Prince of Terran. This proved to be a worthwhile gamble for DKZ. The two Terrans duked it out for a while, but in the end, Oliviera’s decision to forgo air advantage in favor of a bigger tank count allowed him to out-position Maru, ultimately giving ONSYDE their first loss of the season.

Team Liquid 4 – 3 PSISTORM Gaming
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PSISTORM looked to new signee Spirit to turn their fortunes around and keep their playoff hopes alive against Team Liquid.

Spirit was sent out straight away against SKillous for a rematch of their week 4 duel when Spirit was still on SLT. The two players came to an unofficial gentleman’s agreement in game one, playing no-rush for the early phases before diving into a classic macro clash. SKillous chose a gateway-disruptor composition with a heavy emphasis on chargelots and DTs while Spirit opted for a ghost-liberator army. Things got a bit crazy at the end, with 7 bases falling in under two minutes and both players finding themselves essentially without an economy. But from there, Spirit was then able to use his Liberator advantage to corner the army of SKillous and close out the match.

Spirit seemed on track to get the 2-0 on Altitude as he found his opponent out of position with a massive bio army in the mid-game. However, some over-aggression from Spirit and committed Zealot run-bys from SKillous turned the game around, earning Liquid a 1-1 tie.

The 1-1 was especially important since the second match seemed like a done deal before it started, with the semi-inactive Namshar taking on Elazer. Namshar was under no illusion of his chances and opened with a 13-12 rush with banes. The TL veteran drew on his vast experience against cheeses and chose the ‘’everything wrong with bad micro’’ response, losing a somewhat embarrassing game 1. Namshar, probably cackling to himself, chose a much more standard opening in game 2 and just kind of got out-macro’d by Elazer in a roach game. Regardless, the Swede’s surprising appearances paid off for PSISTORM, setting MaxPax up to save their season against Clem.

MaxPax put on the pressure with proxy-oracles followed by 3-gate blink. Clem’s defense was tight enough to keep the game even for a while before he used a double-widow mine drop to swing the game in his favor. MaxPax never stabilized after taking such severe damage and he GG’d out to furious bio attacks. MaxPax chose NeoHumanity as the battleground for game 2, going for another blink attack using the map’s favorable layout. This time, he hit home with his stalkers and dealt a severe blow. Clem managed to survive for a while, but eventually had to GG out against MaxPax’s unchecked economy.

It was no surprise to see the two players asked to conclude their BO3 with an ace match. Once again MaxPax chose to be the aggressor with a two-base blink attack, which did enough damage to give us an even-ish start. MaxPax changed up his tech on the follow-up, opting for storm rather than a robo-bay. That choice left Clem with quite a big timing to launch an attack, and he set up a nasty tank-mine siege outside of the Protoss third. MaxPax had a good theory for how he wanted to dislodge the Terran forces but his execution was not quite up to the task. One of his flanking groups was caught by Terran reinforcements, and his storm upgrade was just a little bit too slow to hit the perfect window. On top of that, Clem executed well on his end, even doing a slick mine target-fire to snipe a warp prism with high templars. In the end, Clem’s position could not be broken, giving TL the 4-3 victory and nearly ending PSISTORM’s playoff dreams (more on this below).

Shopify Rebellion 2 – 4 ABYDOS
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With Cure remaining out of the line-up for ABYDOS (at DH: Summer we learned it was due to an arm injury), Shopify seemed to have a very good shot at ending their mid-season slide.

It started well for the Rebels, as Lambo got a very clean defense on DRG’s early pool pressure and mass-zergling follow-up. With mutas out on the map and an economic advantage, it seemed like Lambo had things in the bag. However, he was surprisingly passive, allowing DRG to get lurkers and stabilize the match. It seemed like the German had truly fumbled the match when DRG launched a dangerous attack with his lurker-roach army and took out many of Lambo’s tech buildings. However, it came at too high a cost for DRG, and a pure roach counter won it for Lambo.

Game two saw more aggression come from DRG, this time in the form of a 48-drone ling-ravager attack. Lambo hunkered down on defense with 3 spines, and seeing this DRG sagely decided not to commit. This move seemed to confuse Lambo a bit, and he finally opted for a spire as a follow-up while DRG was free to progress uninterrupted down the tech tree and drone back up to a decent economy. DRG managed to scout Lambo’s spire, which triggered Lambo to try a max 2-2 roach ravager all-in. However, he couldn’t break through DRG’s lurkers and couldn’t do anything when those same lurkers marched across the map.

With ByuN being locked in an ESL Open Cup match versus Dark, SCboy switched the match order to play Harstem vs Creator first. It was all Harstem in game 1 on Babylon, with the captain sniping bases, sneaking DT into bases, and generally locking down his opponent to take a serious lead. However, Creator’s extremely patient defensive play eventually managed to lure Harstem into a terrible attack down a ramp, which was just what he needed to achieve a Judo throw-esque victory. Creator turned the game around with an outright miraculous engagement, completely dominating the theoretically superior army of Harstem and finishing him off with a devastating counterblow.

Harstem chose a much more aggressive opening in game two, going for a 3-base proxy-robo all-in out of one base. Creator was in real danger for a while, but probe pulls and some clutch phoenixes were finally enough to get Harstem off his back. The Dutchman, still on one base at 10 minutes, had no option but to tap out.

Finally, NightMare went up against ByuN with a chance to secure the win for his team. He decided to give us an homage to Stats, defending beautifully against ByuN’s 3-barracks aggression. The ABYDOS Protoss advanced his economy and tech largely unabated, and eventually clinched victory with Colossus. NightMare almost got to run up the score in game two, but his ill-advised counterattack let ByuN recover a point for pride’s sake.

For the third week in a row, ABYDOS Protosses rose to the occasion despite the roster looking less than 100%. Now, the team seems guaranteed a playoff spot, and it’s all about gaining better seeding. As for Shopify, things are starting to get a tad uncomfortable, especially with a match against BASILISK coming up.

Starlight Twinkle 3 – 4 BASILISK
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Following in the steps of Crank, BASILISK team captain and streamer Rotterdam took to the field for his team against Nice. The WTL organizers didn’t rate him very highly, giving him the rare “E” grade on his player card. Sadly, it was an unsuccessful outing for the man of the people, as Nice shut down his immortal-phoenix composition in game one before busting him with a one-base all-in in game two. What can you do? Progamers are good at this game.

Things got even worse for BASILISK in the next series, with Reynor’s infamous 50/50 instinct kicking in against Cham. The SLT Zerg took the first map, surprising his opponent with a well-executed roach-ling attack to snipe the third before closing it with a follow-up roach all-in off 55 drones. Reynor took the second map to avoid complete disaster, leaving Serral to try and salvage at least two points from the mess.

The opposition wasn’t exactly stellar, as JoliwaLoves, our second “E-ranked” player of the day, was unsurprisingly blasted in two straight sets. Then, SLT made the questionable choice of feeding Nice to Serral’s nigh-unbeatable ZvP, instead of letting Cham roll the dice in ZvZ. Shockingly, the two-time world champ did not lose to the least surprising glaive-adept opening of all time and kept his unsullied WTL record.

Invictus Gaming 2 – 4 Berserker eSports
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The two last place teams faced off in a battle of pride, with both looking to avoid relegation AND avoid finishing with a winless record.

After a rather straightforward game 1 win for Mixu, he and BreakingGG gave us the kind of roach vs roach classic that I was hoping to get from these two winless players. It may not go down as the highest-level game ever played, but it has an air of chaotic desperation which makes it a solid maybe-watch. In the end, BreakingGG was the last one to try an attack, losing the game in the process. Thus, Mixu took an important and well-deserved 2-0.

XY vs Spatz gave us little variation with the Terran going for two-base tank pushes while the Protoss tried some kind of storm build in both games. It worked wonders in game 1 for Spatz who showered the army of XY with storms. However, it was the complete opposite in the second game when a slower storm build made him uber-susceptible to the two base all-in.

It was on MacSed to get the 2-0 against DIMAGA and force an ace match, but the veteran Zerg came through in the clutch for his team (MacSed had won 2-0 during their Code A match). DIMAGA’s roach-bane mid-game all-in simply did too much damage on the first go and the Chinese Protoss was never able to recuperate. Macsed was able to stop the same build in a meaningless game two, but I bet DIMAGA didn’t care too much after clinching the full three points for his team.
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Unless a major upset occurs in the next three weeks, it seems like IG are yet again destined for another last-place finish in the SCBOY Team League.

Platinum Heroes 5 – 1 瘦死骆驼 (Starving Camels)
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SSLT’s momentum seems to have slowed significantly as they missed a fantastic chance to near-lock their playoff spot by beating Platinum Heroes.

ShaDoWn and TooDming started us off with a Stargate vs a standard macro-opening. TooDming revealed his hand when he stopped droning at 49 and walked his queens across the map for a queen-ling-bane all-in. However, ShaDoWn had things under control, using some clutch warpins and probe splits to minimize the damage. TooDming was then stuck in a perpetual all-in situation, launching a series of doomed attacks until ShaDoWn put him out of his misery. Game two was more competitive, with TooDming managing to execute a number of damaging ling runbys while gearing up a ling-bane-hydra attack. However, the attack hit a bit too late when plenty of storms were ready on the Protoss end.

One French Protoss tagged in for another with DnS taking on Cyan in the next match. In a blink stalker mirror, DnS made the bold choice to forgo both immortals and disruptors for the longest time. He actually did okay with a pure gateway army for a while, but ultimately had to switch to a triple robo disruptor when Cyan’s robo unit count got too big. It then became rather evident why DnS wanted to avoid the disruptor ping-pong phase of the game, getting on the wrong side of novas repeatedly and even losing 10 disruptors in a single fight at one point. That dominance in the disruptor fights allowed Cyan to transition to Carriers. He seemed in full control of the game but got overeager, stepping out on the map with just a couple of disruptors and allowing DnS to blink under his Carriers to take a massive turnaround win. Game two gave us way less excitement, as DnS’s DT’s arrived unseen in Cyan’s bases and punished his decision to skip detection.

With the match already over, even the usually pristine Firefly could not get a clean day against Goblin, having to settle for a 1-1 result.

After an incredible start to the season, the Camels have not gathered a point in the last three weeks and find themselves just above Shopify at 6th place (they hold the head to head advantage). Meanwhile, Platinum Heroes are now a surprising long shot candidate to make the playoffs.

Weekly MVP: DKZ.herO

There were a lot of worthy MVP contenders this week: Serral put up another 3-0 performance, Clem won it for Liquid with a 2-1 against MaxPax, and Creator got a series-deciding 2-0 against Harstem.

In the end, taking into account the strength of their opponents, I have to give the nod to herO and award him his second weekly MVP of the season. He became the first player to beat Solar 2-0 this season, and only the second to take a map. Even though Oliveira’s ace match win was what clinched the two points for DKZ, his overall record of 1-2 forces him to cede this week’s award to herO.

Weekly MVP’s:

• Week 8: DKZ.herO
• Week 7: SR.Lambo
• Week 6: DKZ.herO
• Week 5: Liquid`Clem
• Week 4. PH.DnS
• Week 3: Everyone on SSLT/瘦死骆驼/Starving Camels
• Week 2: ABYDOS.Cure
• Week 1: BASILISK.Serral

Playoff Picture Update

With just three weeks to go, we’re starting to get a pretty good idea of who will be competing in the postseason. ONSYDE, BASILISK, Liquid, DKZ, and ABYDOS are safe, Starlight Twinkle, Berserker, and Invictus Gaming are out, leaving four teams to compete for the last two playoff spots.

#6: 瘦死骆驼 (Starving Camels) (11 points, -4 map differential)
Remaining matches: vs iG, vs PSISTORM, vs DKZ

The Camels’ season has already been a dream come true, but if they want it to be more than a moral victory, they have to make it to the playoffs. Their week 8 defeat against PH was a hard blow, suggesting that reality is setting in after a fantasy start. Nevertheless, the Camels still have a very realistic path to the playoffs, and they may even get some outside help.

The Camels are one of the unlucky teams that have to face both SLT-Spirit and PSISTORM-Spirit, which makes their bout against PSISTORM rather tricky. Of course, they will need to rediscover their first-half magic to get anything out of their match with DKZ. Even if a victory isn’t possible against these two teams, the Camels should look to win every single map as there’s a decent chance we see standings decided by map score.

The main focus should be their week ten match against IG. Their domestic rival has been a close match for them in the past, with Invictus winning the last two matches. However, with the addition of Cyan and how Firefly is playing at the moment, they should be looking to get all three points from iG and reach 14 points.

Finishing with 14 points may not be enough for the Camels to make the playoffs on their own terms, but it could be enough if other matches break their way. Shopify and the Platinum Heroes have to play each other, reducing the chance that both of them will surpass the Camels.

#7: Shopify Rebellion (11 points, -4 map differential)
Remaining matches: vs BASILISK, vs iG, vs Platinum Heroes

While it has been a hard season for the Rebellion, they still have, in my opinion, the best chance out of the mid-tier pack to make the playoffs. Just like the Camels, Shopify should be looking to get to the 14th point mark by beating iG, after which they can look to clinch their postseason berth against Platinum Heroes. They should be heavily favored on paper, but this has been far from a predictable season for the Rebellion.

#8: Platinum Heroes (9 points, -12 map differential)
Remaining matches: vs Berserker, vs SLT, vs Shopify

While most eyes were turned to the Camels, the Heroes have quietly positioned themselves to become the true dark horse team of the tournament. While they’re not shoo-ins to beat Berserker and SLT, they have a realistic chance of getting 6 points out of those matches. Two clean victories would put PH at 15 points, forcing both the Camels and the Rebels to do more than just beat IG to secure their spots. Shopify is definitely a tough draw at the end, but the Heroes might steal a point when you consider how shaky the Rebellion has been this season.

If nothing else, the Heroes’ playoff journey is the most interesting of these four teams, as they’re playing in tight matches that could go either way.

#9: PSISTORM Gaming (7 points, -5 map differential)
Remaining matches: vs ONSYDE, vs Starving Camels, vs Berserker

I was hesitant to include PSISTORM here. Even if they were to beat the Camels and Berserker to win six points, that would still put them only at 13 points—almost certainly not enough to clinch a playoff spot. For PSISTORM to get in, they’ll need to take some points off first place ONSYDE Gaming.

A straight-up victory would most likely do it, with 16 points being a high benchmark to hit for two of the other teams. An ace win would put them at 15, which would make things dicier but still favor PSISTORM. Their most achievable result of an ace loss would put them at 14 points, which still might be enough. Since they’ve achieved a good map differential so far, 14 or 15 points might be enough to get them through on a tie break. They’ll need to play their best Starcraft and hope the other teams fail, but they can keep their fingers crossed until this Sunday.

Preview: Regular Season Week 9

Friday, Jun 23 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Starlight Twinkle vs ABYDOS

ABYDOS have done it again, entering a less than full-strength roster for the fifth straight week (this time lacking both Cure and Creator). ABYDOS has suffered remarkably little for their choices, only losing one match as a result of these roster decisions (partially not their choice as Cure was struggling with an arm injury these last few weeks). They are on a three-match winning streak and they may get away with it yet again.

NightMare, especially, has proven to be surprisingly solid in WTL, posting a 7-5 record on the season. He could carry his team to victory once again if he can manage to beat Cham. It’s a hard task, with Cham having already taken maps off of Firefly, Scarlett, Gerald, Ryung, and Reynor this season. As for Mondo, he’s no longer winless since taking a map off ShaDoWn, but still appears to be a clear underdog against Nice. On the other hand, SLT’s HHH is just as big an underdog against DRG (side note: HHH apparently stand for ”Ha Ha Ha”), but looking at his match history, he has actually taken a map off DRG in their sole confrontation, so maybe he can get the last laugh here as well. At the end of the day, I think we’re headed to an ace match where either Nightmare or DRG will push ABYDOS to victory.

Prediction: Starlight Twinkle 3 – 4 ABYDOS

Platinum Heroes vs Berserker eSports

After their victory over the Camels, Platinum Heroes are looking to continue their unlikely push to the playoffs in a must-win match against Berserker. However, they should be somewhat wary of the match-ups they got. DIMAGA’s mid-game focused ZvP has caused some problems for Protoss this season, and if Goblin has not done his homework he may be in for a rude awakening. Vindicta and especially DnS should be more comfortable with their matchups and get their team three points. However, considering that the heroes have a very poor map differential, everyone should be pushing for the maximum number of map wins.

Prediction: Platinum Heroes 5 – 1 Berserker eSport

Saturday, Jun 24 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Team Liquid vs Dragon KaiZi Gaming

DKZ’s victory against ONSYDE has put them back in the mix for a potential #1 finish, and they will look to keep climbing with a victory over current third place Team Liquid.

Curiously enough, DKZ are swapping in Jieshi for Oliveira in what seems like a very important match. Still, using him as a sacrificial lamb against Clem isn’t the worst scenario, sparing Dark and herO matches against the dangerous Liquid ace. However, Dark and herO are far from locks to win their current matches, with SKillous and Elazer being quite capable of exploiting the chaos of mirrors to steal a map. I think at least one of them will, which would send us to an ace match.

Clem has been stellar as the ace for the boys in blue this season, and I predict he gets the key victory against either Dark or herO.

Prediction: Team Liquid 4 – 3 Dragon KaiZi Gaming

ONSYDE Gaming vs PSISTORM Gaming

PSISTORM management probably looked at GuMiho’s DreamHack run last weekend with the same feeling as someone scrolling through the instagram feed of an ex living their best life. They’ll have to snap back to reality as they will be playing for their lives yet again this week against a tough ONSYDE side. As for the league leaders, they’re not in nearly as a dire a situation, but keeping the #1 seed would be a huge boon in the playoffs.

MaxPax yet again finds himself as the crucial piece in the equation. The young Dane has been good, but not great this season, and PSISTORM really need him to be AMAZING this week. Solar has shown some ZvP weakness in the last months, so maybe MaxPax can find the 2-0. If not, a 1-1 would at least give them some hope. Spirit would then look to keep that hope alive against Maru. He has only taken a single map off of Maru in his career, but it was in a very important match: last season’s playoff match against ONSYDE. With Maru looking vulnerable-ish in TvT lately, Spirit can try for the repeat.

In the likely event that MaxPax and Spirit do not manage to accumulate more than 2 maps, it will be on SpeCial to get some kind of result. At the start of the season, I would have been confident to predict at least a map SpeCial, but Ryung has been having nothing short of a spectacular season while Special has struggled to put up his usual results. If things go to the ace match, one would have to favor ONSYDE, even though MaxPax has amply proved he can beat anyone in a BO1.

It’s a bit of a WTL cliche, but I think every outcome is possible in this match. While I’m tempted to predict a crushing victory for ONSYDE based on their WTL dominance, I’m going to say PSISTORM fights their way to an ace match loss because I prefer we have a 4-way playoff race until the very end.

Prediction: ONSYDE Gaming 4 – 3 PSISTORM Gaming

Sunday, Jun 25 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Invictus Gaming vs 瘦死骆驼 (Starving Camels)

Our third and last crucial match for the playoff race sees the two rivals of the Chinese scene duke it out. For almost a decade, iG was the best all-Chinese team almost by default, but since the formation of the Starving Camels, that position has been seriously challenged. The Camels were the better team last season, dodging relegation to Code A, and will end up well above iG once again. Nonetheless, the old guard of iG held their own in direct head-to-heads, winning both of their WTL confrontations. If SSLT wants to take the next step, they need to finally dominate iG and put one foot into the playoffs.

On paper, they have the matchups to do so. MacSed may not be a great draw for TooDming, but Cyan and Firefly are big favorites over XY and BreakingGG. As stated previously, a clean victory is a must for SSLT. Will we see Chinese SC2 take an evolutionary step in the WTL, or will the old guard drag their successors down with them?

Prediction: Invictus Gaming 2 – 4 瘦死骆驼 (Starving Camels

Shopify Rebellion vs BASILISK

The Rebellion would have liked to have gotten a lucky break to increase their hopes for the playoffs, but it seems like they will logically have to take the loss and focus on their final two weeks. ByuN should dispatch Trigger without any problems, but that should also be the case with the new EPT Summer champion Serral against Scarlett. Reynor has a worrying tendency to split his series, but with a 26-2 match record against Harstem since 2019 you figure he’ll get the job done this time. If Shopify can somehow claw out a map in the ZvZ or PvZ they might steal a point, but I just don’t see it happening.

Prediction: Shopify Rebellion 2 – 4 BASILISK

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• Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/613219-wtl-2023-summer-week-8-recap-week-9-preview