by: Nakajin

After a week’s break to compete under the blazing Texas sun (figuratively, anyway), the WTL is back with more team-based action. We’re not quite done with the interruptions, as another extended break is soon due for the Esports World Cup. However, we have two weeks of competition coming up before the break, which should give us a clearer picture of who will be in the playoff race.

For this upcoming week, Friday will be the key day of games as both DKZ and BASILISK face an unusual amount of upset risk from Berserker and PSISTORM. The rest of the week looks more straightforward, but as always, expect the unexpected in the WTL.

Week 4 Recap

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

Twisted Fairy 2 – 4 BASILISK ft. ShoWTimE
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The opening match of week 4 was plagued by internet issues on the part of SCBoy making it a less-than-ideal viewing experience for non-Chinese fans. Still, we caught enough of the games to get a decent idea of what went down.

Trigger got BASILISK started on the right foot by defending against Classic’s one-base 3-Gate Stalker + Prism all-in, where he was aided by some iffy micro from Classic. The Korean Protoss pulled it back to 1-1 with his own defense against Trigger’s all-in on Site Delta, but the draw was already a satisfactory result for BASILISK.

Next, internet problems denied us the knowledge of how exactly Reynor crushed Stats’ 7-Gate all-in on Amphion, but I will make an educated guess and say a gazillion Zerglings and Queens surrounded some poor Stalkers. Stats approached game two with the opposite mindset, establishing himself defensively on four bases and teching up, but then went for a baffling move-out with a small army of Gateway units and Templars. Reynor welcomed the gift, and executed a 360 degree surround to end the game.

KeeN looked very much like a player coming back from an inactive spell in his first game against ShoWTimE, playing a by-the-numbers Marine-Tank all-in that was easily stopped by the defensive specialist. While that meant the final game would only be played for map score, KeeN did put in an encouraging performance when you consider there’s still seven more rounds to be played. KeeN vexed ShoWTimE with his Marine-Medivac movements on Post-Youth, exploiting the drop-friendly terrain between expansions. KeeN kept piling on the pressure, eventually breaking the typically steady Protoss. It was a nice win for KeeN, but no particularly befitting of the nickname ‘’Die Mauer’’ for ShoWTimE.

Mystery Gaming 4 – 3 Berserker eSports
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MYG continued their feisty underdog run with a win over Berserker to take them to a surprising 3-1 record.

At least the start of the match was good for Berserker, with DnS taking a 2-0 over SCV thanks to some sneaky Dark Templars and then a double-Stargate Phoenix build.

However, Coffee started the comeback for MYG by breaking his TvT slump against BattleB. Game one was a bit of a clownfiesta, as Coffee went for double proxy-Barracks Reapers on Amphion while BattleB went blind double-Barracks Reapers at home. In theory, it should have been a good scenario for the defending BattleB, but his reactions were a microsecond too slow in the initial 2v3 Reaper clash and things snowballed into a Coffee victory (the single “G” from BattleB was adequate in this 3-minute game). The second match was a more enjoyable affair. Coffee went for the SpeCial special by going up to two Starports early, while BattleB played a more conventional Marine-Tank style. BattleB did well to intercept and stop Coffee’s early Viking-Tank push before it could get in position, forcing Coffee to transition into the popular Diamond league TvT strategy of “when behind (or ahead, or equal), go mass BC.” A Coffee comeback actually looked somewhat promising for a moment, but BattleB had enough of a lead to belatedly crank out Vikings and put an end to the nonsense (Coffee retaliated with a single ‘’G’’ of his own).

The situation was still dire for MYG, but Coffee’s single map win was enough to set up a heroic save from Cyan. Mixu looked like he had a chance to close things out on Site Delta, starting with a damaging 4-Hatch Roach attack and transitioning into Roach-Hydra-Lurker. However, Mixu’s Lurkers were purely defensive as he had delayed his Hive, and Cyan was able to gradually stabilize and assemble a powerful high-tech army. Ultimately, Cyan dismantled Mixu in the late-game, utilizing warp-ins, recalls, and a series of DT sneak attacks. Mixu chose Post-Youth as the second map and went for a gold-powered Roach-Ravager-Bane all-in, but Cyan’s Glaive-Adept harassment hamstrung the attack before it could even get going. Mixu was forced into attacking anyway, but Cyan was more than ready on defense and sent the series to an ace match.

Cyan stayed on for the deciding battle, while Berserker selected DnS as their ace. DnS got out to an early lead by succeeding at a Pylon-Cybernetics Core block at his opponent’s in-base natural, but his slowplay of his lead (and some solid Blink-Stalker harass from Cyan) brought the two players back to roughly even as they achieved 4-base macro setups. Cyan proved to be much more agile with his mid-game army movements, yanking DnS around and seizing control of the map. This set up an advantageous main army clash for Cyan, where his quicker Disruptor tech allowed him to prevail.

Team Liquid 5 – 1 Starlight Twinkle
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The match-ups projected a straightforward win for TL, and unfortunately for SLT, the projections proved to be largely correct.

The opening game on Ghost River saw ReWhite try to play a mass Gateway unit style against Elazer, but his inability to apply significant early/mid-game pressure meant he was doomed against Elazer’s Hydra-Ling-Bane force. Then, Elazer wasted no time getting the 2-0, executing the “[European Country] Taxi” Queen rush on Goldenaura.

Clem was just as clean in getting a 2-0 against Krystianer. On Amphion, he won by scrambling the Polish Protoss’ early-game with a drop of six Marines and a Widow Mine, after which he swatted a two base Blink all-in to force the GG. In game two on Oceanborn, Clem threw the whole Terran arsenal of infuriating units at Krystianer, killing him with Reaper-Hellion, Cyclone drops, Cloaked Banshees, and a Tank push helped with a sprinkling of Marines.

With the series already decided, it was somewhat understandable that Cure wasn’t quite as ruthless against Wayne. SLT managed to salvage a map on the back of a game one Ravager-Ling attack from Wayne (clearly, Cure doesn’t read enough TL.net WTL recaps), while Cure closed out the series with a 30 minute mech win in game two.

Team Vitality 4 – 2 Shopify Rebellion
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First place Vitality took down second place Shopify in a critical first-half clash, sending Vitality three points clear at the top of the table.

Vitality were put on the back foot early, as Ryung couldn’t work his usual underdog magic against ByuN. The two started with some back and forth on Ghost River, with the 2016 world champ opening with some 2-Barracks Reaper harassment while Ryung retaliated with a 2-Base Marine-Tank push. Despite all this action, the game followed the usual Ghost River pattern and ended up stabilizing, with the two players macroing up and pondering their mid-game moves. Ryung opted to ‘just play like Maru’ and teched quickly up to Viking and Battlecruisers, while ByuN stayed true to his own style by staying on Marine-Tank-Viking. In the end, Ryung couldn’t find a safe Battlecruiser transition window against the aggressive ByuN, and GG’d out against his well-timed push. Ryung went for another two-base push on Crimson Court, this time going for a 2-Starport variety with Viking-Tank. It probably would have been enough to beat a lot of other WTL Terrans, but ByuN was just a little too solid on the day and secured his 2-0.

This put Vitality in the very unfamiliar position of needing to win four straight maps, but the back-to-back champions showed exactly why they are favorites to take a third title by achieving the comeback victory.

Scarlett almost made it 3-0 against Solar on Amphion, tunneling into his main with a Nydus Worm. However, Solar displayed some masterful Roach-Queen-Drone micro, and he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat after two minutes of defensive combat. Game two was just as tense, as Scarlett went for a 13-12 Ling-Bane all-in while Solar took the risk of defending his low-ground Hatchery. Again, Solar came out victorious in the micro-war, and he eventually hit a huge +1/Roach-speed timing to level the score at 2-2.

Solar’s clutch performance set up Maru to finish the job, as he flexed his TvP muscles against Harstem. The last series was a bit of a bop compared to the first four games, as the StarsWar 11 champion swept up the pieces with a couple of tank pushes.

OFFSYDE Esports 1 – 5 Dragon KaiZi Gaming
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For the second week in a row, uThermal decided not to run the risk of playing random and selected his main faction of Terran. It served him well on Ghost River, as he punished Oliveira’s early expansion with Reaper-Hellion while also parrying assorited counterattack attempts. Staying on bio against Oliveira’s mech/skyterran transition, uThermal was able to finish the game with Marine-Tank-Viking before Oliveira’s BC count got too high. Game two followed a similar overall pattern, but without Oliveira taking as much early damage. This helped Oliveira achieve put his skyterran composition together (though not without uThermal giving him a midgame scare), and he eventually rolled over uThermal with fleet (kudos for uThermal for his cute attempt at a Widow Mine counter).

Next up for DKZ was herO, who avoided stepping on the Firefly banana peel. On Amphion, herO punished Firefly’s Phoenix opening by sneakily going for his own double-Stargate Phoenix play, winning with a surprise show of air superiority. In game two, it was a 2-base Glaive-Adept + Immortal timing that did the job, putting DKZ on match point.

Rex did his best to be the hero for OFFSYDE in the final game, but his persistent attempts at Zergling runbys couldn’t slow down Jieshi’s series-clinching Colossus-Immortal-Archon push. Rex tried to salvage an extra map on Post-Youth, but we never got to see what his plan was as Adepts ransacked his economy early on.

Platinum Heroes + R8 3 – 4 PSISTORM + NAVI
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The Platinum Heroes put up a commendable fight in the final match of the week, forcing an ace match against PSISTORM and taking home a point.

It started with ShaDoWn getting the better of Spirit on Ghost River, with the Polish Terran’s 1/1/1 Marine-Tank push being stopped by Gateway units + Immortals backed by Shield Batteries. ShaDoWn found Spirit to be a tough nut to crack, but ultimately his early advantage snowballed into a victory. The Heroes had a chance to go up 2-0 in game two, as ShaDoWn punished Spirit’s fast low-ground expansion with a proxy Gate on Crimson Court. However, ShaDoWn’s attempt to finish Spirit with a low-econ Chargelot timing didn’t quite work out, and instead turned the game into a hectic, back and forth brawl. Spirit faced many brushes with defeat, but finally pulled off the comeback victory after landing big EMP’s on ShaDoWn’s Templars and winning the deciding battle.

The second match-up saw Goblin and Gerald trade maps in a game of Disruptor ping-pong, which put the series at 2:2 as MaxPax and Nicoract stepped up to play. It looked like MaxPax was going to get the easy closeout, as he made the overall score 3-2 with an especially bloody demonstration of his signature Blink-Stalker play in game one. However, Nicoract refused to squander the opportunity earned by his teammates, and clutched out a massive tie against MaxPax with a proxy-Marauder + SCV pull all-in on Post-Youth.

The shock win by Nicoract pushed the series to an ace match, and he was rewarded for his efforts by being sent right back out as the Platinum Heroes’ ace. As for PSISTORM, they went with the somewhat unexpected but still understandable choice of Spirit as ace, leaving MaxPax on the bench. Early on, it looked like Nicoract might pull off another big upset, as he dominated the early/mid-game phases of the game to take a 30 supply lead. However, one bad fight was all Spirit needed to equalize the game as he caught his opponent’s Tanks sieging up too late. Nicoract showed his TvT prowess by continuing to fight fairly evenly for Spirit for the remainder of the game, but eventually Spirit found the winning combination of drops + surprise Liberator tech needed to take the victory.

Weekly MVP: MYG.Cyan

Cyan’s 3-0 performance against Berserker eSports (2-0 vs Mixu, 1-0 vs DnS) makes him the clear winner of this week’s MVP award. While he played a great all-around StarCraft, his first game against Mixu deserves to be singled out for praise. Mixu put him in a rough spot with a big Roach attack, but Cyan stayed calm, made the most of his tech advantage, and ultimately won with superior multitasking and army movements in the late-game.

Cyan has quietly achieved a fantastic 7-2 record so far in the season, which is good for tie-4th most wins in the WTL. He’s the main reason that MYG—a team I believed were a shoo-in for relegation at the start of the season—have started with a 3-1 record. It’s unclear whether Cyan and MYG will be able to keep this momentum going, but they should be commended for such a great start.

I would be remiss not to give a shoutout to Nicoract as well. I’ve been quick to dismiss him in the past, but he really shined against PSISTORM. While pulling off a proxy-Marauder upset against MaxPax wasn’t exactly high art, he also pushed Spirit to his limits in the ace match. I’m awarding Nicoract an official TL.net Moral Victory™, and designating him as someone to keep an eye out for going forward.

Weekly MVP’s:

• Week 4: MYG.Cyan
• Week 3: SR.Scarlett
• Week 2: OG.Firefly
• Week 1: SLT.Krystianer

TL.net Moral Victory™ Recipients: KeeN, Nicoract

Preview: Regular Season Week 5

Friday, Jun 07 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Dragon KaiZi Gaming vs Berserker eSports

After his epic semifinal run at EPT Dallas, Oliveira seems to be taking the week off in WTL. That will give us our first glimpse of soO this season, in what could be a rather troublesome match for second place DKZ.

Jieshi vs BattleB is one of those rare cross-region matches the WTL has a knack for creating. It will be a good way to assess each players’ relative strength, while also proving pivotal on the day. The two played once back in 2022 in a WTL qualifier, which ended in a 1-1 draw. I think BattleB has improved more than Jieshi since then, but considering the starting map is the Protoss-friendly Dynasty, I’ll predict another draw.

DnS vs soO is also an intriguing match. I had serious doubts about both of them just a couple of months back, but the Frenchman is having a strong start to the WTL season while soO surged to an improbable GSL round of 8. ZvP seems to be the Achilles’ heel for soO at the moment, so I’ll predict the cheeky 2-0 for DNS. As for herO, he will be the clear favorite against Gungfubanda, although PvP being PvP, nothing is guaranteed.

These predictions would lead to an ace match, where herO would be the logical DKZ representative (unless Oliveira joins the party) while Berserker would have many options on the table. None of them look particularly appetizing against herO, but in the end, a 3-4 would still be a great result for Berserker here.

Prediction: DKZ 4 – 3 Berserker

PSISTORM-NAVI vs BASILISK

We’re entering uncharted territory, as for the first time in almost 30 weeks, BASILISK enters a match as the clear underdog. Indeed, the matchup draw has broken in PSISTORM’s favor, but they can’t start counting their points just yet.

Gerald and Trigger should know each other inside out after 62 prior duels, which happened to go 31-30-1. Not much thinking needed on my part here to predict a 1-1.

ShoWTimE probably let out a sigh when he saw this draw, as he’s recently looked lost in the PvT match-up. Since March, he’s only beaten 3 Terrans in 18 matches (Kelazhur, Moja, and Aquaeron). Even worse, ever since the last patch and map rotation, Spirit is 7-1 in maps against ShoWTimE. Spirit should come into the match full of confidence, and is even helped by playing on Oceanborn first.

The BASILISK and PSISTROM aces will butt heads to close it out. Amid a rough stretch in his career, Reynor can still find some solace in the fact that he has maintained his historical advantage over the best Protoss in Europe (7-0 in matches this year, 15-6 in maps). Will it be enough to give Reynor what could be a most needed 2-0? I don’t think so. MaxPax is notoriously hard to beat in WTL, and the Dane has not been swept in a BO2 in his last 25 appearances. With a loser map pick in his back pocket, MaxPax should be at least able to split the series and clinch a victory for PSISTORM.

Prediction: PSISTORM 4 – 2 BASILISK

Saturday, Jun 08 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Starlight Twinkle vs Twisted Fairy

After a roaring start to their season against BASILISK, Starlight Twinkle have fallen back to Earth. On the opposite side, Twisted Fairy are performing under expectations with just a single win, leaving both teams really needing to get a positive result.

The match, played between a trio of military returnees and a trio of foreigners with a knack for upsets, is a quandary for a poor TL writer to predict. Classic and Stats are the on-paper favorites against Wayne and Cham, but they’ve been worryingly inconsistent as well. As for KeeN and Krystianer, I’m afraid Keen’s recent 1-1 draw against ShoWTimE says more about the German Protoss’ poor PvT form than KeeN’s own abilities. Even if Krystianer lost his three last WTL PvT’s to Clem, Maru, and Coffee, I think he can get at least a 1-1 here—if not a 2-0.

In the end, I think the Twisted Fairies are probably slightly favored, but SLT has too many wildcards for me to say it will be a clean win. I’ll cautiously forecast an ace-match victory for TF.

Prediction: Twisted Fairy 4 – 3 Starlight Twinkle

Shopify Rebellion vs Mystery Gaming

Our second Saturday series is much kinder to me for the sake of making predictions. Lambo should sweep Lemon, Harstem and Coffee are bound for a draw, and ByuN should 2-0 Strange to finish our day.

Prediction: Shopify 5 – 1 MYG

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

Team Vitality vs OFFSYDE Esports

The team formerly known as ONSYDE Gaming finds themselves going up against their former ‘B-team’ in OFFSYDE Esports. Down in 11th place, OFFSYDE won’t find any reprieve in facing the league leaders. Their best chance is if Crank orders Maru to play against Rex like he was Serral in a grand final, but barring that, OFFSYDE will have to rely on Firefly’s WTL voodoo.

The path toward an ace match would be if uThermal picks Terran and gets a 1-1 tie against Ryung, and then Firefly goes FULL Firefly mode and takes a 2-0 against Solar. Unfortunately, Ryung’s best match-up happens to be TvT, while Firefly has taken a total of two map wins against Solar in their prior 27 meetings. But, hey, there’s a 3rd and 4th time for everything!

Prediction: Team Vitality 5 – 1 OFFSYDE Esports

Team Liquid vs Platinum Heroes-R8

TL will look to avoid the missteps that have plagued them in previous seasons and take care of business against the Platinum Heroes. All three Liquid players are favored in their match-ups, but we’ve seen TL drop the ball in similar situations before.

Clem has never been the cleanest TvT player and has plenty of 1-1’s on his record, and Kelazhur on his best day could possibly cash a check at the bank of draws. Cure is in a similar situation against YoungYakov. He should be heads and shoulders above YY, but he’s been worryingly inconsistent for Liquid so far in the WTL. While this is the match-up where TL should feel the most comfortable, a well-timed mid-game all-in might do the trick for the Russian Zerg.

Elazer versus ShaDoWn is the trickiest match of the bunch, altho Liquid still hold the advantage here. Elazer has a dominating head-to-head record against ShaDoWn, but the French Protoss has proven to be surprisingly resourceful in WTL play.

Overall, it’s one of these weird series where I’m going to predict the 6-0, but somehow I don’t feel all that confident about it.

Prediction: Team Liquid 6 – 0 Platinum Heroes + R8

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• Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/626733-wtl-2024-summer-week-4-recap-week-5-preview