by: Nakajin

SCBOY paused the WTL last week in order to hold the StarsWar 11 tournament, where Chinese fans showed up in droves to show their support for the game. Maybe it’s too early to start speculating, but after such a successful individual event, one can only hope that the WTL will return to having live playoffs in the near future.

As WTL action resumes this week, all eyes should be at the top of the table. Following a win over Team Liquid in week 3, Shopify Rebellion have pushed their way up to second place and now have a chance to topple #1 Vitality. If Shopify can’t get a result here, the rest of the league might have to concede that Vitality already have one hand on the regular season trophy as few teams remain who can give them a legitimate challenge.

Week 3 Recap

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

Team Vitality 5 – 1 Starlight Twinkle
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Team Vitality continued their steady march to a third straight WTL title as they took a comfortable 5-1 win over Starlight Twinkle.

Krystianer and Cham put up some decent resistance against Maru and Solar, but ultimately had to surrender the 0-2 losses that ended the series quickly. With only map score on the line, Ryung made a rare misstep against ReWhite by blowing a minor lead to lose the first game. A two-base SCV pull attack gave Ryung the 1-1 tie, and ultimately it was just another uneventful Team Vitality win.

OFFSYDE Esports 2 – 4 PSISTORM + NAVI
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After four unfortunate rolls of the random dice in previous series, uThermal left nothing to chance and picked Terran twice against Gerald. On the cramped Ghost River, uThermal dizzied Gerald with a proxy-Reaper into a quick double-Cyclone push, and he kept attacking to get the KO victory over the Polish Protoss. Game two on Goldenaura was quite action packed despite the map’s defensive tendencies, and the two players engaged in quite a bit of early/mid-game fighting. In the end, uThermal was forced into an all-in attack up the middle of the map as Zealot warp-ins gutted his main, and he GG’d out after just barely failing to break through the Protoss defenses.

Maxpax took the expected 2-0 over Rex in the middle series, leaving Spirit and FireFly to determine whether PSISTORM would take the full three points or if an ace match would be needed. Game one on Alcyone was a crazy mess, with the two players diving into a full-on basetrade at around the 9 minute mark. With both main bases almost completely razed, the game entered that delirious phase where both players simultaneously tried to take new bases while also thwarting the other’s rebuilding attempts. In the end, Spirit barely won out due to his advantage of having three leftover Orbitals and Medivacs to support his infantry. While Spirit’s win clinched the three points for PSISTORM, Firefly fought on until the very end and took back a map with a strong +1 Chargelot timing on Oceanborn.

Twisted Fairy 4 – 2 Berserker eSports
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Twisted Fairy finally got their first win of the season as their Protoss one-two punch took care of business against Berserker.

Stats kept things simple to draw first blood against GungFuBanDa, winning with a nicely microed proxy-Robo all-in on Ghost River. He had to work much harder for the win on Oceanborn, which was a neck-and-neck macro build-up for most of its duration. The game seemed to tilt in GFBD’s favor after he snuck some DT’s into Stats’ naked expansions, but Stats answered by hitting a game-winning 200/200 timing which took advantage of some slight overteching and resource floating from his opponent.

After months of absence, KeeN returned to professional StarCraft 2 for a match against DnS. He played fairly well considering the circumstances, but sadly there are no points for moral victories in the WTL (perhaps TL.net should create a new “moral MVP of the season” award), and DnS ultimately won pretty comfortably. For the sake of fans who just want to see the best StarCraft II in every match, hopefully KeeN can play himself into better shape as the season progresses.

As expected at the outset, Classic and BattleB got to decide the fate of the series. Game one saw BattleB play pretty well in the early/mid-game, dealing with Classic’s Blink-Stalker aggression well and setting himself up nicely on three bases. However, his big three-base move out with Viking and Ghost support didn’t seriously threaten Classic, and let him tech up to Carriers largely unimpeded. Once Classic’s ultimate army was fully assembled, he moved out and took the victory. BattleB got off to an even more promising start in game two as he cleanly held off some committed 3-gate pressure from Classic. However, once again, he struggled to convert his early advantage into any meaningful mid-game bio pressure, and Classic was able to sit back on four bases and assemble the dreaded ‘every splash unit’ ground army. Classic absolutely crushed the Terran army once he decided to move out, sealing the victory for his team.

Platinum Heroes + R8 0 – 6 Dragon KaiZi Gaming
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After a crazy first two weeks in the WTL, DKZ helped push things back to their ‘normal’ state with a 6-0 win over Platinum Heroes.

The initial series between Kelazhur and herO probably got DKZ management’s heart-rate up as it was decided by two cheeses. Kelazhur went for a one-base Marauder + Cyclone all-in in game one, which herO somehow managed to hold against thanks to great micro and timely Probe-pulls. Game two activated my PTSD as herO brought back the old proxy Stargate Void Ray + Shield Battery all-in. Unfortunately for Kelazhur, he happened to be going 3-Rax instead of Factory after his expansion, and oh god I hope more Protoss players weren’t watching this game.

Nicoract tried to play some honorable macro games against Oliveira, and actually kept things quite close against him on Amphion. Oliveira was playing a somewhat sloppy drop-heavy style, but it eventually paid off for him as he finally landed a huge squadron of Marines in Nicoract’s main while the main force was absent. Game two was a more simple affair, with Oliveira winning in the first big Marine-Tank fight thanks to his quicker usage of Interference Matrix.

Jieshi made sure Goblin couldn’t recover any map points, Adept-dropping his way to victory in game one and triumphing in the Zealot-Stalker wars in game two.

Mystery Gaming 0 – 6 BASILISK + BIG
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Serral didn’t quite ‘save’ BASILISK in his season debut—as Reynor and ShoWTimE got the job done themselves—but it was surely encouraging for BASILISK fans to know that Serral might be available for future matches. According to some Rotterdam insight, we should expect Serral to pop up once in a while, including their week 9 match-up against Team Vitality.

Reynor clapped Strange in straightforward fashion, and then Die Mauer finally lived up to his name in WTL by repelling back-to-back Cyan all-ins. At that point, Serral may have wondered why he needed to surrender any of his precious non-military time for this match, but he was still quite the welcome sight for the fans.

Not surprisingly, three weeks of military service did not reduce Serral to bronze-league Zerg, and he took the expected 2-0 over Coffee. He looked a little bit shaky in the first game as Coffee kept him pinned back with a 3-base Marine-Tank all-in, but eventually Lurkers and Vipers gave him the victory. Game two saw both players use similar strategies, but played out in a more “Serral-esque” pattern as the Finnish Phenom barely looked troubled in a front to back domination.

Team Liquid 3 – 4 Shopify Rebellion
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The Team Liquid-Shopify Rebellion match delivered on expectations by going the distance, with Scarlett emerging as the hero of the day by elevating her team to second place in the standings.

Clem and ByuN were up first, and they began with a pretty typical map-split game on Ghost River. Clem risked a fairly quick transition to Battlecruisers, while ByuN stuck to his aggressive ways by staying on Marine-Tank-Viking. ByuN’s attacking style ended up paying off, as he found a hole in Clem’s defense and landed a devastating drop before BC’s could reach critical mass. Clem had to deploy his Vikings in assault mode to barely defend, which let ByuN’s follow-up attack of Marines and Vikings easily knock the BC’s out of the sky and force the GG.

Game two saw the two APM kings hurl themselves into frantic early/mid-game fighting, starting fires in each other’s bases and all over the map. These exchanges went in Clem’s favor, letting him contain ByuN on three bases while he went up to four bases on his side of the map. However, just before the income difference was going to start showing up in army supply, ByuN executed a methodical breakout with Liberators to claim his fourth base. Clem lost so many troops in his failed attempt to maintain his containment line that ByuN was able to immediately launch a counterattack, destroying Clem’s fourth base and taking the resource lead for himself. However, the game had one final twist left in store, as Clem had been focusing on Liberator and Viking production to retake air control for himself. Thanks to his Liberator advantage, and also due to some poor engagement decisions from ByuN, Clem was able to crush ByuN’s army and go for a counter-counterattack. Clem made sure not to let this lead slip, and he finished the game to record another 1-1 between the rival WTL aces.

The batons were passed on to Cure and Harstem for the next match. Like Clem, Cure wasn’t afraid to bring some non-standard play in game one, going for a fast hidden third base on the far right corner of Amphion. The Captain didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late, and Cure ran over his Phoenix-Gateway units army with overwhelming numbers of bio. Game two on Goldenaura saw Cure go for some light drop harass early before going for a 2-base push with Infantry, Tanks, and a large number of Widow Mines. The Mines turned out to be quite effective against Harstem’s Chargelot-Stalker composition, buying him the space to kill Harstem’s third base. Cure continued to keep the pressure up from there, and he quickly overpowered Harstem before he could get enough splash damage support.

SKillous and Scarlett stepped up next, with the TL Protoss in great position to close things out for his team. Game one on Alcyone was a blast from the past, with Scarlett going for the Jaedong 2013 mass Muta switch while Skillous tried the MC Colossus-Blink Stalker all in response. In the end, the Mutas and +2 lings proved more than enough to swallow up Skillous’ army. Not one to shy away from some A-grade cheddar, Scarlett responded to Skillous’s game two map pick of Dynasty with an absolutely dirty offensive Hatchery at SKillous’ gold base (on the ‘back’ side). After establishing mining at the gold + rich Vespene base, Scarlett double-expanded at home to go up to a 4.5 bases before she even had a Roach Warren. While SKillous easily shut down the mineral harvesting at the gold base with a few units across the wall, Scarlett was still able to mine out of the rich Vespene geyser. In any case, the general confusion caused by the unorthodox build had value in itself, as Scarlett’s 6-minute Roach-Ravager-Zergling caught SKillous off-guard and ended the game.

Despite this discouraging 0-2, TL decided to send out SKillous as their ace on Dynasty. As for Shopify, they chose not to overthink the situation and sent out ByuN. SKillous decided to play a mass Zealot-Stalker style, while ByuN went for a fairly passive macro build-up by his standards. While SKillous did find a bit of damage with Chargelot-DT warp-ins in the Terran main, he just couldn’t find an opportunity to take a decent fight against the Terran army or slip in a truly meaningful Zealot backdoor. Making the situation worse, ByuN got a key Forge snipe with a small Medivac taskforce, making the Gateway unit army even weaker. The situation was already rough for SKillous, but he hastened his demise with a terrible engagement. He ran Chargelots and Stalkers straight down a ramp… with Mines… into waiting bio… on an anti-timing where his +2 armor was seconds away from being done… while his single Colossus was halfway across the map. From then on, SKillous did whatever he could to try and salvage the situation, but there are some mistakes you simply can’t come back from.

Weekly MVP: SR.Scarlett

Both ByuN and Scarlett were vital in Shopify’s win over Team Liquid, but I think Scarlett’s 2-0 over SKillous was just a bit more consequential. SKillous had played some impressive PvZ’s in the past few months, and most viewers probably had this one as a 1-1 at worst for TL. While ByuN did win the final ace match, his performance was more along the lines of ‘doing his job’ while Scarlett went above and beyond expectations. Plus I do like myself some cheese, and there’s something to be said about someone ready to unleash an outside-the-box build on their opponent’s map pick.

[b]Weekly MVP’s:

• Week 3: SR.Scarlett
• Week 2: OG.Firefly
• Week 1: SLT.Krystianer

Preview: Regular Season Week 4

Friday, May 24 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

TF and Basilisk both found a path to their first victory in Week 3, but haven’t dispelled all the doubts about their shaky early season. With Serral out of the line-up again, this is a golden opportunity for the Fairies to turn what would previously have been considered an auto-loss into some valuable points. As for Basilisk, they partially proved they can compete without Serral against Mystery Gaming as Reynor and ShoWTimE got the job done, but they haven’t fully earned everyone’s trust just yet.

Trigger has never been able to take a map off Classic before and will come in as the underdog, but KeeN is probably an even bigger underdog against ShoWTimE. The Commander showed little sign of life against DnS, and although he did manage to win a couple of online matches since then (including a 2-1 against Gerald), ShoWTimE seems too tall a mountain to climb.

This means that Stats and Reynor will probably be playing the most important match in the series. The two players have been on opposite trajectories since the start of the year, with Reynor showing worrying signs of weakness while Stats continues to regain his form (although he’s somewhat shaky in his own right). I think this penultimate duel will end in a draw, sending us to the ace match on Post-Youth. Whoever plays for TF, I expect Reynor to triumph and claim an unsatisfactory two points for BASILISK.

Prediction: BASILISK-BIG 4 – 3 Twisted Fairy

MYG started the season in first place due to the crazy upsets in week one, but their drubbing at the hands of BASILISK may have signaled their descent back to earth. Still, Berserker are a beatable opponent, and MYG could extend their stay in the top half of the standings with a win.

SCV will be taking Strange’s place in the MYG line-up, and he heads into a tough match against DnS. Coffee may also be in for a hard time against BattleB, as he’s lost ten out of his last eleven TvT’s (winning only 5 out of 22 maps). Cyan does have a favorable draw against Mixu, but there’s a decent chance he’ll only be playing for map points when it becomes his turn to play.

If the specific player match-ups were different, I might have been inclined to say MYG would force the ace match. But as things stand, a clean Berserker victory seems the most likely result.

Prediction: Berserker eSports 4 – 2 Mystery Gaming

Saturday, May 25 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Team Liquid are the overwhelming favorites against last place SLT.

ReWhite managed to steal a map off Vitality’s Ryung on their way out last week, but is nonetheless heavily outclassed by Elazer on paper. Maybe there’s some hope for the Chinese Protoss to take a map as he does occasionally beat Wayne and Cham in the inhouse SLT cup, but a 2-0 for Elazer is the most probable outcome.

Whatever fool’s hope ReWhite has is a lot more than Krystianer ought to have against Clem. He’s currently on a 19-match losing streak against Clem, dating back 5 years, with a 4-46 map record. I expect another bloodbath. Wayne is in a similar situation against Cure. Even though Cure’s TvZ has gone through many ups and downs, he has a prohibitive 88% win-rate in maps against Wayne and should have an easy day at the office.

Prediction: Team Liquid 5 – 1 Starlight Twinkle

The only 3-0 teams in the league are set for a clash at the top, with the winner getting an important leg up in the race for the regular season title.

Like most weeks, Ryung will be the key player for Vitality as he takes on Shopify’s ace ByuN. The two Terrans have met twice before in the WTL, and worryingly for SR, the record is a draw and a win for Ryung. Even if Shopify gets out of this early pickle, Vitality will still hold the upper hand in the remaining match-ups.

While Scarlett definitely has the skill and cunning to take a 1-1 against any Zerg, her 5-22 record in matches against Solar tells us what the more likely outcome is. Harstem won’t have it any easier, as he faces the teamleague juggernaut known as Maru. The only bright side for Harstem is that Maru doesn’t literally win every map (he only went 21-1 last season, after all), and Harstem actually went 1-1 against him two years ago.

For the sake of entertainment, I hope Shopify can at least take this series to an ace match, but sadly there just seem to be too many paths to victory for Vitality.

Prediction: Vitality 4 – 2 Shopify Rebellion

Sunday, May 26 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

I had serious doubts about DKZ coming into the season, but they are starting to win me over. With Jieshi proving to be quite solid, they should be able to take three points off of OFFSYDE without any complications.

uThermal picked Terran last week, permitting him to get his first map win against Gerald. It’s unclear what his race pick will be against Oliveira, but even direct-picking Terran may not be enough to earn him a tie. China’s #1 player will want to bounce back from the chilly 0-3 he suffered against SKillous at StarsWar 11, and I expect him to give a much better performance.

Firefly has been up to his usual WTL madness this season, which means herO better bring his A-game if he wants to avoid being his latest victim. However, the good news is that even with a draw, DKZ would still be favored to take all three points. Jieshi has already been playing well this season, and he happens to have a historical advantage against this week’s opponent in Rex. While Rex did beat Jieshi 2-0 a few months ago, and is quite willing to gamble on all-in builds, I don’t think he’ll be rescuing his team on Sunday night.

Prediction: Dragon KaiZi Gaming 5 – 1 OFFSYDE Esports

Platinum Heroes will hope to pull off a small upset in the final match of the week against PSISTORM. By sacrificing Nicoract to Maxpax, the Heroes have given their remaining two players an opportunity to steal some points.

Can Goblin and ShaDoWn combine for three maps against Gerald and Spirit? Goblin vs Gerald could go either way, and PSISTORM will really have to hope it’s in the direction of a 2-0 for the Croatian Protoss. However, the situation is much more grim for ShaDoWn—he’s only won a single map against WTL-level Terrans (by my estimation) in his last 13 series.

If the stars align themselves perfectly then maybe Platinum Heroes can max out with an ace match loss. However, it’s rare that everything goes perfectly for the underdogs, so I’ll pick PSISTORM to claim three points.

Prediction: PSISTORM + NAVI 5 – 1 Platinum Heroes + R8

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• Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/625930-wtl-2024-summer-week-3-recap-week-4-preview