GSTL Finals- MVP vs Prime

With all the hype this weekend about the IGN Proleague tournament taking place in Atlantic City, the GSTL finals happening Saturday night (Korea Time) should not be missed. It’s MVP vs Prime, two teams who have stories worthy of a potential E-sports movie.

Prime came out swinging in these playoffs, relying on two of their “lesser” known players, Creator and Annyung to slay 4 members of Startale. By the time it came for Bomber to come and play, MarineKing was their waiting, fully prepared to snipe the deadly Startale Terran.

In their match against TSL, the theme of this series was “down but not out.” Sorry MarineKing, you need to give your title of the “Comeback Kid” to your teammate Creator, who ran through gauntlet of TSL’s Terran lineup and Revival to 4-kill the seemingly undefeatable TSL. Prime wins and goes to the finals.

MVP’s tale starts off with a “David vs Goliath” theme, as they take on Incredible Miracle, a team that has someone relegated to trophy cleaning duties in their house. All hope looked lost when players not named DRG could not even beat IM’s starter terran, Happy, but thanks DRG and their new protoss hero Tails, they edge out a dramatic victory against the legendary IM team.

Waiting for them in the semi-finals was New Star Ho-seo, a team who took the whole league by storm by showing dominant results in the regular season with many players not known by the scene. However, MVP is a team that just beat IM, and they were not intimated by the new kids on the block. In this series, the MVP team rode the wave on a seemingly in-form Genius, who showed brilliant play in all 3 matchups, including an exciting post 1.4 patch PvP in his final game.

Storyline of the playoffs so far? It’s the Protoss man, Genius, Creator and Tails were all the star performers in the 4 sets of matches. Even though they don’t have any representation in the main GSL tournament, at least they reppin’ in the team league -_-

Predictions-

Prime’s strength nowadays comes from their zerg lineup, BboongBboong, Annyung, and Check. Also the coach of the team has a lot of faith with these players as he had no qualms in sending them in the TSL match (but only god knows why he was feeding them to JYP, the zerg killer). Their old stars of Maka, Anypro, and Hongun are not the main players anymore, but will serve more as a sniper role. Their ace is still of course MarineKing, but Creator has shown that he has the tenacity to win against the best players in the world.

While MVP might be called a “one-man team” by many, this is far from the truth though. DRG is the ace, but he has the support to help them lead to a victory. Genius looks to be in form, Keen is a solid terran, Guinea Pig and Tails have shown promising play but their consistency can be questioned. Look for Monster and Noblesse to make a special appearance in this match, as Monster is a mini-DRG and Noblesse is Code S material.

The Clash-

It’s a tough match to call as both of these teams are so evenly matched. In the battle of the aces, MarineKing just gave DRG a smackdown in the Arena of Legends. Also the ZvT god just lost a hearbreak series against Supernova in the GSL, people might have found a chink in his armor so to speak. For MVP to win, they need someone to take down the Prime’s Zergs and for Prime to win, they need to shut down DRG’s support, Genius or Keen, and they’ll claim the championship.

Mock Bo9 series

Check vs Vampire

Keen vs Check

Creator vs Keen

Creator vs Monster

DRG vs Creator

MarineKing vs DRG

Genius vs Marineking

Genius vs Annyung

Genius vs BboongBbong

MVP takes it 5-4, yeah I’m rooting for them but realistically speaking, I think they have a small edge over Prime. Cheers for a great set of games!

GSLTL

The GSL Team League starts tonight. Esta mafahan i tiket-hu, ya listo yu'!

For those who don't know what this means, the 8 best teams in Korea with players in the GSL will be competing against each other to see who is the best Starcraft 2 team in South Korea right now. All of the famous names will be on standby over the next few days and may be called forth to defend the honor of their team. The teams in question are:

The SCV Life (TSL) home to Clide, Killer, Alive, Rain and winner of GSL Season 1, Fruitdealer.

Old Generations (oGs) home to Nada, Ensnare, theWind, and winner of GSL Season 3, MC.

Startale (ST) home to July, Rainbow, Squirtle and the foreigner Torch.

Incredible Miracle (IM) home to winner of GSL Season 2 Nestea and winner of GSL Code S IMMvp.

For Our Utopia (fOu) home to Leenock, thebest, scf and choya.

Prime World Elite (Prime.WE) home to check, anypro, polt, maka and the always predictable unpredictable (2 time finalist but never champion) MarineKing.

Slayers home to really only Boxer (although training with him could make anyone badass).

And finally Zenex home to Kyrix, Byun Choa and ButterflyEffect.

I was searching online to see who people are favoring to win this Team League, and most divided the league into two tiers, with only 3 or 4 teams capable of winning the whole thing. OGS, ST and TSL were clearly favored, with IM close behind, although not for any depth of their team, but simply because they have the best Terran and Zerg on their team (although not much else after that).

For me, it's hard to pick who I think will win. I've only been following Starcraft 2 for a couple months now and don't have any real team favorites. So instead of picking the team which I like or think will win, I've decided to root for the team which I want to win, simply because everyone else thinks they can't win. I don't know much about the team Zenex, but they are my underdog choice for winning the GSLTL this week! I hope that I don't have magic powers of negativity and tragedy in the same way Artosis has, in which whatever he says will happen doesn't simply because the universe likes to make him look stupid.

Chatche'lu-Hu

I wanted HongunPrime.We to win the 3rd Open Season of the GSL, but he lost in the round of 4 last week.

Although I had never heard of Hongun prior to this season, there were five reasons why I wanted him to win.

1. He plays Protoss and at the start of Season 3, there were very few Protoss and I wanted all of them to win. The winners of the first two GSL season were Zerg, and I see Terran as the choice-race for the cheesy.

2. In his match against JSLZenith (T) in the round of 32, Hongun used Carriers to help win his second and deciding match. As the commentators Artosis and Tasteless made clear, no one had used a carrier yet in the 3rd GSL and so their amazement and shock at it being used was priceless. I still chuckle when I think of Tasteless yelling at the site of carriers being made, "What the hell is that? I've never heard of those things!" And after Hongun had won screaming in disbelief "I don't understand the world anymore!"

3. EGidra thinks he sucks and although he knows an infinite more about Starcraft 2 than I do, I instinctively feel like I have to believe the opposite of whatever he says.

4. He uses VR and  likes to rush them without sentries or much other support, and I as a fellow Protoss who uses VR like I'll get some incredibly rare achievement if I rely on them too much, I have to admre his "spunk."

5. I don't know why, but when I see pictures of Hongun looking intently at his computer screen while he's in the gaming booth, he looks like my brother Jack.