With Day 1 over, Day 2 of the first week of SPL is just around the corner. Action resumes tomorrow, on Monday 30th at 04:00 CST. First game of the day is Samsung Galaxy KHAN vs Jin Air Green Wings (ex KeSPA Team 8).
Streams: Youtube, Twitch
Li nks: Team Liquid, Liquibets, Vods
Solar < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > sOs
Stork < Outboxer > Maru
Trend < Frost LE > Rogue (CliMax,Savage)
eMotion < Yeonsu LE > Terminator
Ace: Star Station TE
Flash < Bel'Shir Vestige LE > Sora
Stats < Outboxer > Hydra
Zest < Frost LE > Bbyong
TY < Yeonsu LE > herO
Ace: Star Station TE
With KHAN losing it's ace JangBi and coach January it seems that only dilemma about this matchup is how hard will they lose. Fielding slumping Stork and 3 rookies against Jin Air's star-studded lineup in Maru (ex Prime) and sOs (ex Woongjin Stars) looks like a trainwreck waiting to happen.
Next and last matchup of the day is probably the best matchup of the week with KT Rolster and CJ Entus going head to head. Both teams are championship contenders, specially after SPL format got changed from BO7 to BO5 which means Flash can once again carry the whole team alone to the finals (and put the F in KT once again). Only thing Flash needs is for one of his teammates to win a game and force it to acematch and Zest, Stats and TY are well capable of that. On the other hand, with coach Park joining CJ ranks their players seem to have rediscovered themselves and are stomping everyone, mostly falling out of individual leagues due to team kills. One thing is sure, this match can go both ways and will be a great match to watch.
First thing to grab the attention in this season's Proleague was the venue. The venue is amazing, well suited even for GSL/OSL finals (needs more seating capacity tho). SPOTV's touch to the Proleague comes in addition of Ace booths. The two booths are elevated above the regular booths and covered in a curtain so the viewers can't see the ace players of each team until the curtains drop. A touch that certainly adds to the suspension of waiting for the ace match.
Venue aside, the opening game of the season saw Team MVP obliterated (stomped, any adjective you want that describes ultra rape is fitting) by SK Telecom T1. There isn't much to write about, my only regret is that we didn't get to see Soulkey play. However, second game of the day was a real joy to watch, even going to the ace match.
Everyone expected IM to stomp Prime, perhaps not in the manner in which SKT T1 stomped MVP, but still - stomp was inevitable in everyones minds. The game kicked off as expected with Squirtle not having much trouble dispatching a CJ rookie, TerrOr. Even though Terror didn't play bad, he just couldn't cope with Squirtle's play, doing some really rookie mistakes (like forgetting to cancel 2 dead hatcheries). Next up was HerO against Jila and everyone expected an easy win for HerO, mostly because Jila (formerly known as GoJila in SC2 and Kal in BW) just recently got out of military. What happened was HerO losing his Mothership Core to a Phoenx and two Stalkers and that was pretty much all she wrote for HerO. Jila went on to 3Gate Stargate all-in and HerO typing GG in 8th minute of the game and Prime was back in this game. Even though HerO's PvP ain't really good, no one expected a build order loss against a guy who just got out of army. Next up was another PvP starring Creator vs YongHwa. What happened was another shock, not so much in YongHwa losing, but more in Creator cheesing. You could always count on Creator to play a straight up game. You could, at least. Early in to the game YongHwa found his base filled with cannons and abandoned the main and transfered the probes to his just completed Nexus on natural. Next up was YongHwa's turn to do something and possibly salvage the game, with Creator not having much units and MSC with no energy it looked as a possibility. Things were looking good for YongHwa, as he tried to snipe the MSC before it charge. Unfortunately for him, he sniped it too late. Creator pulled a clutch move, the milisecond before YongHwa sniped the MSC it charged and he successfuly threw down a nexus cannon to secure the map lead for Prime. IM sent out ByuL against yet another Prime protoss, Remember (aka Chance) in hopes to get the game to ace match. ByuL handled Remember easily with a really creative use of burrowed roaches and finished him off with hydralisks to get the game to ace match. Ace featured ByuL for IM and Creator once again for Prime. And once again Creator cheesed, this time unsuccessfuly as his 2gate proxy got scouted on time and handled easily by ByuL. Few moments later, the Prime protoss had no option but to gg out and lose the game for his team. Overall, Prime performed above expectations and showed that they're not here just to give free wins, like EG-TL once was.
Streams: Youtube, Twitch
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Edited by esdf at 09:07 CST, 30 December 2013 - 5130 Hits