[ASL17] Recap Roundup

Before we get to the Grand Finals of the ASL take a stroll back through the season with our recaps.

Liquipedia

Remember the last time we had a PvP series during the knock-out stages? All the way back in ASL11? Mini vs Best? No? It was epic!
Actually, before you back to look, don’t bother. Mini crushed Best 3-0 in three short games, including, you guessed it, with proxy gates.

But surely this time it would be different! I had high hopes, even secretly wondering if Bisu could make another semifinal. Bisu’s PvP has historically been good and his micro has recently been sharp as shown in KCM. Furthermore the match-up can be very rock-paper-scissory and Snow has sometimes been nervy in the latter stages of ASL.

In the end, Snow was, if anything, even more dominant than Mini. Though thankfully, the series gave us two entertaining games. Although it pains me somewhat to admit it, Snow was better across most aspects of the game. Build orders were roughly a draw, and maybe Bisu had a slight edge in macro in the third game. But Snow dominated in micro, decision-making, army movement and engagements, pretty much the things that matter most after build orders. Let’s have a look how he swept Bisu aside.

Game 1 – New Dark Origin

Bisu opens with a sneaky heroic double 9-gate proxy, away from the usual scouting path, and carefully delays his scouting probe timing. Snow opts for the standard 10-gate in base. His probe pokes out briefly to see if there is anything at his natural, then heads home to warp in a cybernetics core.

Bisu’s delayed scout arrives and starts playing around, doing a little pirouette and attacking the gate. Meanwhile Snow has started gathering gas. And then Bisu starts a Pylon, in Snow’s base, right below Snow’s gate. Standard play. Shortly thereafter Bisu’s first zealot is on the way. Perhaps suspecting sneaky shenanigans, Snow also made a zealot first.

Behold the power of the working class.

With two gates to one Bisu should have a big production advantage, but his first zealot nearly gets killed by Snow’s amazing probe micro. Undeterred, Bisu’s continues with his completely normal building placement: two standard shield batteries in Snow’s main. Snow has clearly seen this before, but he doesn’t quite get his probes positioned in time, so the first dragoon ends up in jail.

Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go!

Meanwhile a a fierce micro battle is underway. Bisu picks off a couple of probes, and brings another one of his own to join the party. Snow keeps putting damage on Bisu’s zealots and also warps in his own shield battery.

Eventually the first dragoon manages to break out of the prison, by destroying Bisu’s pylon, which also supply blocks Bisu and unpowers his shield batteries. The (now rather old) revolutionist rebuilds it quickly, but this time Snow has units in position and the second dragoon spawns outside the lock-up.

The micro-battle continues with Snow losing a few more probes. But Bisu is not managing to build up his zealot count. And it gets even harder when Snow’s third goon arrives. At this point it looks like Bisu is running out of steam, but the observer shows us that Snow is only mining minerals, and only with five probes.

More zealots arrive, but when Bisu loses four of them for killing one goon, Snow can send his remaining probes back to mining. Bisu starts mining gas and also warps in a cybernetics core, at a fairly standard 6 min into the game. Around this time, Snow leaves his base for the first time with a scouting probe to find out if he has actually ahead or behind, while two dragoons start scouring the map for gateways.

Snow finds the gateways and thus the game enters its final phase. Bisu needs to hold on until he gets a few goons out. First five, then six zealots do a reasonably good job keeping Snow’s cavalry away, but get softened up slowly. Throughout Snow’s goon micro is probably the best I’ve ever seen. His control is incredibly crisp and almost never misses an opportunity to shoot without missing out on movement.

Bisu holds on until he gets four walking coffins himself, but Snow also has two gates and a robotics facility on the way. The final engagement is fairly one-sided. The zealots do very little damage and Snow crushes Bisu’s goon force with overwhelming numbers.

Build Order Advantage 0 – Snow 1

Wipeout

Game 2 – Apocalypse

Yep, dark templar are better than no observers.

Game 3 – Citadel

This time the opening gamble is a dead draw. On a fairly normal map, both players opt for 1-gate-robo with range. And with cross spawns we are virtually guaranteed a macro-oriented midgame. Both players continue along very similar paths, adding observatories and support bays and then a second nexus.

Somehow Bisu gets a slight supply lead. Snow adopts a defensive posture, while Bisu pokes out a bit without engaging. Both players warp in additional gateways and keep building up their dragoon numbers. The first combat unit dies 9:30 min into the game, when two scarabs connect on a retreating dragoon. The contestants spread a few scouting pylons across the map.

First blood goo!

Bisu probably has slightly more probes, while Snow has one additional gate for a while. Bisu’s army is larger and with two shuttles and four reavers he starts moving across the map to apply some pressure. But Snow’s reaver-shuttle control is much better and he also has the better position, so he wins the fight handily. Bisu retreats in time and the game goes on.

At the gates of Troy, without a horse.

With his new-found breathing space Snow is first to start his third Nexus. He also tries some harassment, but Bisu has left enough goons at home to prevent any damage. The revolutionist also tries to harm his opponent’s economy, but it doesn’t go well and he loses a shuttle with two reavers for not quite enough damage.

As if the drop was merely a feint, Bisu pushes into Snow’s third base, which was completely open. For a moment it looks like Bisu’s larger gaggle of goons will win easily, but then Snow’s first shuttle arrives. Bisu’s army gets split and the smaller portion ground up. Then his own shuttle arrives to put the outcome of the fight into doubt once more. This time Snow’s goons get pushed into a corner and eliminated. Crucially, Bisu lost his shuttle in the engagment, and then Snow’s shuttle arrives…

“Good odds for any Protoss.” – Dilios

Snow picks off both reavers. And although Bisu managed to snipe the shuttle in turn, he is outnumbered and Snow’s reavers do an enormous amount of damage. Another round of desperate reinforcements funnel straight into scarabs, with predictably gooey consequences. After this failed attack Bisu is quite far behind. Bisu’s third nexus is on the way, and he manages to hold on for a little longer. But once again Snow brings shuttles and reavers, and once again he out-micros Bisu. This time to end the series.

GG

Sharp looks to make his second ever finals since the very first ASL tournament back in 2016, 8 years ago, while hero, the man who is tied with FlaSh for the most ASL semifinal appearances at 7 times, looks to make his own second ever finals since ASL 4 in 2017. Which player will finally break through to the finals in their respective incredible runs to the finals? Let’s dive into an incredible Bo7 series!

Map 1: Citadel

Sharp spawned in the top right while hero spawned in the top left. In our first game of the series, it was going to be interesting whether the players were going to immediately throw a curveball, or if both players would settle into the series with a standard game. Things started standard, with Sharp going for the standard wall at the front with a 10 rax, while hero opted for hatch first into a normal 2 hatch lair. Sharp managed to get the first scout to see everything everything that hero was doing and could react accordingly. The first curveball of the game was thrown as Sharp attempted a cheeky bunker rush. Hero pulled just three drones to push back the delayed rush, but Sharp’s target firing with two marines managed to pick off one drone in exchange for a marine.

A worthwhile trade for Sharp.

Sharp would manage to send another scout back into hero’s base to see the spire being started. With this information, he could afford to delay scans and continue to develop his worker count. Soon, 5 minutes hit and Sharp pushed with his bio off of his 2rax to pressure hero. Hero managed to sneak 4 lings around the army to snipe a straggling medic, but the marines reached hero’s base in time before sunkens had finished morphing. Seizing the initiative, Sharp would stim forward to pick off both sunkens, but not before losing his initial bio ball. Luckily, he would manage to pick off a couple drones to make the push worthwhile.

Just before the sunkens morph.

Meanwhile, hero had established his third at the bottom left natural, which Sharp scouted with an SCV and sent a firebat down to harass the drones to deny gas mining. Hero would clear the lone firebat out, but Sharp would split off 4 marines from his bio ball and snuck them around the bottom right edge of the map to deal tremendous damage to the Zerg economy.

Having massively slowed down the Zerg economy, Sharp gained confidence and pushed into the center of the map to keep hero on his toes while teching into SK Terran. Once the first vessels were produced, Sharp would begin his push to the Zerg natural. While he applied pressure at the front, he would drop into both the natural and the main, dealing yet more economic damage to an already fragile Zerg.

Luckily, hero’s consume was finished in time and he would stop the Terran with his orange clouds. But Sharp was comfortably using irradiate to whittle down the Zerg while double expanding behind his immense pressure and building his airforce. The airforce would consist of 4 dropships, which he used effectively to dive into hero’s fourth to snipe many defiler and, importantly, the hatchery.

Alhambra Blitz Paratroopers are OP… someone please get this Civ 5 reference.

Sharp would not give hero any time to rest or prepare his defenses though, as he would again perform another quadruple drop into the main. This drop would not be nearly as effective as the first, but it did manage to snipe the spire and the ultralisk den before it had finished researching the carapace upgrade.

Unupgraded ultralisks are quite sad.

With the spire gone and hero’s defenses scattered, he would eraser the third base, again killing several drones before some leftover scourge cleaned up the vessels. Battlecruisers also arrived on the scene to wipe out hero’s overlord vision and continue to find incremental damage on the Zerg. But dark swarm would continue to deny any sort of ground attack. Hero would continue to cling on for dear life, but a final aerial drop into the fourth with copious firebats would finally seal the deal.

Sharp leads 1-0.

Map 2: Troy SE

Game 2 started with Sharp spawning at the bottom right while hero spawned crossmap at the top left. With crossmap, one would not have expected any early game pressure, but after hero opened with the normal 2 hatch lair, he built 8 lings and was determined to see if he could break Sharp’s front. Sharp’s scout did see the drone count at the natural just before hero’s attack came, but he was too slow to pull SCVs, and a very rudimentary wall at his natural meant Sharp could not hold off the first wave of lings.

The game ended quickly after, without any marines and lings flooding his base, Sharp with a little twitch of his mouth, GGed.

Series tied 1-1.

Map 3: Retro

Sharp spawned top right while hero spawned bottom left. Another cross spawn situation, and maybe Sharp was feeling a bit steamy from the last game and wanted to give hero some payback. And he did just that, opening with a center 8 rax. But with a brilliant read, hero sent his scouting drone crossmap, and spots the center rax.

You can’t fool me, I’m familiar with your game.

With the 8 rax coming, hero pulled all by 2 drones from his main to deal with the incoming marines and SCVs. A small skirmish erupts just outside of hero’s natural, and he ends up losing 3 drones in exchange for the first few marines.

With a center rax, Sharp continued his aggressive opener, going for a factory and starport. But Sharp went a different path from the typical 1/1/1 by adding a machine shop and researching mines before getting his command center, sacrificing economy to create space on the map. With his tech, he would then get his control tower and research cloak off 1 starport, before finally getting his science facility. It felt like Sharp was trying to make this game as chaotic as possible, but it also felt like hero had all the answers. He went into fast hive with evo chambers to go for a pseudo Crazy Zerg play, knowing that with all the investments into these different upgrades, Sharp’s eventual push would be delayed, opening up room for hero to quickly accelerate into the late game. A cheeky queen was also added to hero’s airforce, getting a parasite on a vessel and an ensnare on some wraiths before being picked off.

Queen might not have made the tournament, but his spirit lives on.

An already weird game continued to show different ideas and tactics from each player. Hero even went for defensive guardians to prevent any sort of potential marine bust through his natural, while Sharp continued producing vultures out of his factory, using mines as a soft counter to the ultralisks. Hero would have to carefully play minesweeper around the map to ensure that his ultras did not take free damage from the mini nukes. Finally, the stalemate of the game was broken, as Sharp maneuvered his army around the edge of the map to attack into hero’s 4th base.

The stalemate in the midgame meant the vessels were full on energy, and quickly dispatched all of the guardians with irradiate. Further, Sharp’s army was tightly lodged on the ramp into the 4th, meaning hero’s ultras couldn’t find a good surround without eating too much damage. Hero had no choice but to give up the 4th base.

Hero would get revenge though, moving his ultras around to flank Sharp’s isolated army and would finally clean it up. With his leftover army, hero moved to the north, attempting to stop Sharp from establishing his 3rd base. But he sent some of his ultras in piecemeal, and even with an upgrade advantage, the ultras got cleaned up by Sharp’s remacroed army. But hero’s pressure keeping Sharp on his side of the map gave him breathing room to establish that critical 4th gas at the 6 o’clock base, and hero also started his 5th base at the bottom right natural. Slowly but surely, hero’s wave after wave of 1-2 ultras with a group of lings traded with Sharp’s bio ball until it was reduced to small blood splatters on the ground.

Ultra/Ling D GOGO!!!

Sharp was forced to evacuate his 3rd, and was not mining. He rebuilt a new 3rd at the 3oclock, but hero’s economy had exploded, taking all of bottom right and was now leading in supply. One last desperate push by Sharp was unceremoniously stopped by hero, and he tapped out.

hero leads 2-1.

Map 4: Neo Dark Origin

ANOTHER CROSS SP- oh wait it’s a 2p map. Sharp spawned at the bottom right with hero spawning in the top left. A slightly favorable spawn for Sharp as he could more easily wall off his natural from this position. With the last 2 games being non-standard games, most expected this game to be a quieter opening, but both players were still content with throwing wrenches into each other’s game plans. Hero threw the first deviation from the norm by opting for a later gas for a 2.5 hatch opener. Sharp responded with a fast gas into factory, looking for a faster starport to go into valkyries. Once the spire popped, the first 7 mutas sprinted across the map, and managed to pick off several SCVs.

Gotta pay the muta tax.

Behind his pressure, hero had safely secured his 3rd base with no issues, and was ahead on supply. Things were not looking good for Sharp. He tried to move out a bit in front of his natural wall to prepare for some form of push, but hero smelled blood and jumped onto the army.

Sharp’s paltry force gets cleaned up.

With his entire army wiped, Sharp quickly conceded as the lings and mutas ransacked through his natural. A pretty deflating result that made Sharp look like an amateur.

hero leads 3-1.

Map 5: Apocalypse

Well it’s impossible to get a cross spawn on this 3p map, with Sharp spawning at the bottom right and hero spawning at the top. Hero with another tried and true hatch first while Sharp also opened with a standard wall at the front and a 15 CC. He added a fast 2nd rax, which hero’s overlord easily spotted from its perch. Sharp’s fast gas and academy saw him cutting SCVs from his natural CC; it really felt like Sharp needed to get damage done with his initial push. But no push came, and Sharp even went for double firebat behind to stop any ling backstab. Sharp’s opener was definitely concerning, as hero had gotten everything he wanted, a 3rd base on location and no pressure from Terran. And his mutas would completely dominate Sharp’s base, with a very late 3rd rax and simply not enough marines to deal with the mutas.

Total domination.

At this point, it really felt like Sharp let himself down. The game was going so poorly, an attempted push out was halted mid map as hero’s mutas simply flew back to prevent the marines from getting any closer, and once another few mutas joined the flock, hero dove the paltry bio ball.

A lackluster end.

Sharp’s head tilted, a sad look on his face as he watched his base get overrun by the Zerg. It really must be said that he played game 1 extraordinary well, but it felt like things changed after game 3, as Sharp’s performance swiftly fell off a cliff. On the other side, hero was taking deep breaths, realizing that he was finally going back to the finals. A match he had not played in since 2017! A fitting victory for, statistically, the second most successful player in ASL history. Will he finally break through and achieve his long awaited gold? We’ll just have to see!

hero wins 4-1 and advances to the finals!

After two amazing holds by Snow in the first two games of the series, we find ourselves on Blitz Y. The map is generally considered Protoss favoured (by former pro’s) for a number of reasons. The third base is quite close, which helps Protoss defend. There is a lucrative island, which is easier for Protoss to take. And Zerg seems to find it difficult to set up solid sim-cities. Overall this means that Soulkey has his back to the wall. If he loses here and goes down 0-3, he will have a monumental task on his hand to make it to the final. If he wins, this can be the way back into the series.

Both players opt for relatively save openings: overpool vs forge first. Scouting that it’s not a pool first opening, Snow starts his Nexus before warping in the first cannon. Soulkey responds by morphing only four zerglings, and getting a third hatchery in the top left on 12 supply, as he can’t afford to fall behind economically. Snow adds a gateway to his wall.

The swarm proceeds to develop a pretty standard 3-hatch spire into 5-hatch. Without scouting, Cerebrate Soulkey correctly senses that Protoss has acquired a stargate and starts evacuating his overlords. He also gets his second gas early and starts morphing five mutalisks as soon as the complete spire springs out of its cocoon. The Protoss pirates pop one overlord and the Executor sends out a small band of zealots, who return safely after stretching their legs a little.

Snow takes a defensive posture, with cannons at both bases, while waiting for his air force to hit critical mass and his fast templars to join the fray. Soulkey is already planning for the long game by adding a hydra den, his first evolution chamber and a sixth hatchery. The first dark templar halves two zerglings and continues to gather intelligence.

The Executor warps in additional gateways up to a total of eight, while his templar are slowly charging their psi batteries. The Zerg flyers are chilling over the island. Soulkey takes his fourth base on the high-ground near his natural and starts funneling hydralisks towards his enemy’s base. They are spotted by a control group of zealots who quickly charge back home. In the end the hydras don’t commit. Unsurprisingly, Snow warps in a robotics facility. The mutalisks get carried away chasing a defenseless DT, and get intercepted by the corsair fleet.

Pirates are strong.

Just after 11 min a proper Protoss army, on 1-1 upgrades, finally takes to the field. Around the same time the first clutch of young lurkers starts skittering around the map and takes up defensive positions. Soulkey has done a very good job managing his economy, evidenced by a rather small supply gap of only about 10.

The swarm does not contest the placement of Snow’s third nexus. The Protoss army has a little look at Soulkey’s fourth base, but there are perhaps just a few too many lurkers. Snow sensibly pulls back onto the high-ground near the 9 o’clock base.

A Fistful of Lurkers

Not content with relying on lurkers, Soulkey adds a bunch more sunken colonies at his natural and his third base. A small swarm of zerglings lopes around the left side of the map unscouted. The remaining mutalisks investigate Snow’s new base, but they are greated by photon cannons. The zerglings get cleared out by zealots and Snow starts warping in his fourth nexus. The swarm adds a queen’s nest.

After a rather long build-up Snow takes the initiative when his first shuttle drops two DT’s unscouted into the Zerg main. There are no overlords, but amazingly, the Cerebrate senses trouble and evacuates the drones very quickly.

“We gotta get out of this place.” – The Drones

Mutalisks counter into the bottom left corner, but the corsairs are back in time. Snow tries a storm drop, but Soulkey’s reactions are on point, so the templar only manages to electrocute two drones and two scourge. Moments later we arrive at the first key moment in the game. The shuttle gets spat out of the sky by a gob of hydralisks who have just arrived in the island for their summer holidays. Soulkey takes control of the island. The swarm ferries in more lurkers and immediately starts to morph two hatcheries.

“Can anybody here pass me a beer?” – Zerg Brown Gland

Snow shaves off a few lurkers with storms and starts assembling reavers. A probe warps in the fourth nexus at the mineral only base in the bottom left. The Protoss army keeps pressuring Soulkey’s third base. Both players hit max and Protoss’s second armour upgrade has also finished.

Covered by corsairs, Snow tries a 3-shuttle drop into the island with zealots and templars. This does a good amount of damage, but isn’t quite enough to take control. Another robotics facility gets warped in. Zerg assembles a sizeable force, including the first defiler, in the North of the map, aiming to take control of the mineral only in the top left quadrant. The swarm is now on 2-1 upgrades.

For a Few Lurkers More

Another storm drop fries a good number of drones. Snow secures the bottom left quadrant with many cannons and also adds a couple of gateways at the mineral only for good measure. Given that Zerg has evolved drop capabilities, the Executor orders some air defences to be constructed at the North end of the Protoss main base.

Let’s take stock for a moment. Both players are maxed. All bases except the 9 o’clock have been taken. Soulkey’s army is mainly on defensive duty. The bulk of his fighting power is in lurkers, with a smattering of defilers and significant zergling support. The Protoss army has taken up a forward position near the Zerg mineral only. Snow’s army still contains a reasonable number of dragoons and zealots, but he’s slowly building his templar and reaver count. However, the observer points out the second key point of the match: Snow isn’t mining any gas from his bottom left base. And since gas units are so critical to late-game Protoss power his army is somewhat weaker than it could be.

What’s missing?

Despite the gas handicap, Snow continues to get efficient trades with his reavers. He also finds a spot to storm the drones mining on the island. But Protoss is starting to mine out in the home quadrant. Snow knows he needs to take the 9 o’clock and he starts by warping in a pylon. Soulkey sends a few waves of units to disrupt those plans, but the reavers do a crazy amount of damage.

Bloodstains on the carpet

The third significant moment comes seconds later. As Protoss starts warping in the fifth nexus, Soulkey sends a large hydra-lurker-ling-defiler force towards the 9 o’clock high-ground. And Snow gets somewhat caught off guard. He has no reavers in place and his storms are a bit late. Once it starts raining air pollution the goon core of the army becomes largely ineffective, forcing the Protoss army retreat or get wiped out.

Air pollution beats cavalry

The Cerebrate senses that this battle is of primary importance and starts unburrowing units from elsewhere to reinforce the freshly conquered ground. In the end Snow never manages to reclaim the high-ground outside the 9 o’clock base. Now Soulkey has a large advantage. He holds both middle bases, which give him access to

three

extra vespene geysers and twenty mineral patches. And Snow is still not mining his fourth gas. This results in Zerg building up a sizeable bank, while Protoss is permanently gas-starved. Nevertheless, Snow continues to be efficient with his storms and reavers.

All these poor critters will die to two storms.

Snow tries to whittle down the Zerg garrison on the left side, but doesn’t manage to break through. He takes his frustration out on the poor innocent workers of the island by commanding his templar to unleash pain. To ward of the annoying storms over the ledge, Soulkey adds a few sunken colonies to the island. Of course he has a nydus network set up and there are plenty of guard-lings with a smattering of hydras and also a few lurkers. A wide shot of the island makes this look like some kind of campaign mission. And in many ways that’s also what the

next twenty minutes

of this crazy game feel like: one of those against the odds final missions.

Some campaign map

Throughout the next long period of engagements, Soulkey expertly exploits one of Protoss’ primary weaknesses by scourging observers over and over. He also catches the odd shuttle which makes the micro battle more difficult for Snow. On the plus side, Snow finally noticed that he wasn’t mining his fourth gas and corrects the error.

Emboldened by its superior economy, the swarm starts pushing South towards the Protoss mineral only. But the attacks never quite manage to punch through. Turns out that running into storms and scarabs is a good way to burn through a lot of resources, and, surprisingly, Soulkey’s bank actually starts drying up. There are simply too many engagements here to go over the details. There’s easily material for another 20 GIF’s. Oh yeah, by the way, you shouldn’t be reading this, you should be watching the game. At least let it run in the background.

A swarm of zerglings decide to hold a running competition around the Protoss corner of the map. Unfortunately, the local first born are exceedingly hostile, so this doesn’t end well. Soulkey tries a few small zergling-defiler attacks against Snow’s third, but the weather is very inclement, and the poor lings catch their death. The Protoss army is now on 3-2-3 upgrades.

Attention pivots more and more to the island base. Snow shoots down the sunkens with dragoons and starts ferrying in reavers to lay siege to the Wastern hatchery. Lurkers get despatched with storms. Dragoons provide anti-air cover and zealot-archon hold the narrow choke. Scourge try their best to disrupt Snow’s elegant waltz: shuttle-reaver-reaver, shuttle-scarab-scarab, shuttle-reaver-reaver. Johann Strauss would be proud.

Soulkey tries to flank the Protoss position, but his underlings get ground down by storms and reavers, just like “the time before that, and the time before that”, and…

The swarm is struggling to work out an appropriate response to this strange Protoss fighting style: float like a shuttle and sting like a reaver. Zerglings try another runby to take down the bottom left base, but, you guessed it, there is a reaver, in a shuttle. Another more sophisticated attack hits Snow’s third base, which looks undefended. But then the camera pans South and reveals a control group of goons and zealots, together with… three more reavers. Someone should go through this game and count the units. That would make a good PhD proposal in comparative ethology.

Next time we see the island, the swarm has been cleansed from the Western half. If you pay attention, you can catch a glimpse of the overmind’s

agony

, written in fleshy goo on the floor, even matching the colour pallet of a well-known masterpiece.

The Scream – Edzerg Munch

What follows is a completely insane battle over the island. Snow micros four reavers with

one

shuttle to blow away a surprisingly large Zerg force that trickles in via the nydus network. Between them, the four reavers are on something like a hundred kills. Every other word from the Korean commentators is ‘Arcade’.

Another series of large engagements take place across the map and Soulkey loses somewhere between 40 and 60 supply without really making any dent. He has to keep funneling units into his nydus at all cost. If Snow takes the island he wins. The shuttle micro is sublime, and Snow actually manages to build up a reasonable gas supply.

Soulkey drops to 155 supply and struggles to push Protoss out of the island. But Snow is almost completely mined out while Zerg still has plenty of minerals on the left side and on the island. Shuttles, reavers and scarabs are quite mineral hungry, and this becomes a serious problem for Snow. In a momentary lapse of attention, he loses two shuttles over the island. Four reavers and an archon win the first fight, and Snow does his best reaver stutter-crawl, but the Zerg reinforcements overwhelm the slow units. Soulkey finally score a big victory which gets him that much closer to taking the game.

Not so fast young man.

Snow tries to shuttle mine, but without reaver support zerglings under dark swarm easily prevent that. Both players drop down to 140 supply, then to 120. Soulkey has a lot more remaining mineral patches though. And in small fights, without serious splash damage, zerglings are quite efficient. Snow still has a number of reavers, but he can’t really afford to replace his shuttles anymore. We briefly see a 30 kill archon hanging around, probably waiting for the next total eclipse, ethereal eyes fixed firmly on the firmament.

“Get rich or die tryin’.” – 50 Minz

Snow seems to give up on taking the island and pulls all his forces together for one more attack on 9 o’clock. Five dragoons, two archons, half a dozen templar and four reavers get plagued and surrounded by lings with a few supporting hydras. The Protoss army narrowly prevails. But there are too many scourge, so the shuttle has to retreat, leaving the remaining units exposed. Once again, Soulkey snipes the last observer. So Snow has no way to contest the lurkers.

“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death”
– The Charge of the Light Brigade

Snow turns his attention to the island for the last time. He still has three reavers and a few assorted ground units. But maybe he is getting tired as he loses his shuttle. A reaver blows up a few more (still innocent) drones before zerglings tear through its armour. Both players have dropped below 100 supply now. Snow’s economy is literally running on vespene fumes, while Soulkey keeps making small numbers of zerglings. Another observer goes down, because there isn’t enough anti-air support left to counter the scourge, and with it Snows chance of taking this game goes up slowly evaporates into the cold dark void of outer space.

The last remaining Protoss units carry on camping on the narrow ridge outside the island. But without shuttles and against dark swarm there isn’t anything to do except storming a few more drones. Snow has literally run out of minerals and his last five templar are not enough to save the day.

Why must things come to an end?

After the game Snow looks, understandably, exhausted and Soulkey winces while shaking his hand to loosen up his wrist. What an epic game. This one is for the ages, and not just because of the length, but also because of the quality of the play and the non-stop action. And to top it all off, this was the lynchpin in a tight semi final of the biggest tournament.

Thank you Snow.
Thank you Soulkey.
Thank you ASL!

P.S.
I’m gonna watch the finals to support ASL, so that we can get more games like this in the future, and you should too. Nothing’s stopping you from playing this game on repeat in the background though…

* Yes, I realise that the tournament isn’t over. But I can only remember a single ZvZ that would’ve ever made it onto an ASL Top 10, namely Effort vs Action. Should the final produce a game worthy of this list, I promise to review it in detail and to update this list.

10. Royal vs Rain, Ro24, Group F, Losers Match on Blitz Y
Royal gets an early lead by locking his opponent in with a disguised 2-factory push. What follows is a master class by Rain in slowly and methodically dismantling the contain behind a distracting DT drop. Then the game stabilises for a while, before a nail-biting finish.

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9. Sharp vs hero, Semifinal A, Game 1 on Citadel
This is a very high quality TvZ. Throughout Sharp is quite aggressive. Terran nearly busts the Zerg natural just before the mutalisks are out, there are hidden marine run-by’s and many drops. We get treated to defiler vs vessel chess, erasers, ultralisks, battlecruisers and multiple simultaneous fights.

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8. Bisu vs JyJ, Ro16, Group A, Game 2 on Apocalypse
Bisu catches JyJ’s 14-CC with a forward gate build. He doubles down with an aggressive proxy robotics facility. But JyJ fights back and with virtually flawless defence against a reaver drop even manages to take a supply lead. Both players trade blows for a while until the game gets settled by a large battle.

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7. Bisu vs Snow, Ro8, Day 3, Game 1 on Neo Dark Origin
Snow showcases is phenomenal micro by implausibly hanging on against double-proxy gates with a one gate build.

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6. hero vs Rush, Ro8, Day 2, Game 4 on Radeon
herO really played some fun ZvT’s this season. This excellent game is much closer throughout than rank 9 above. herO fends off an 8-rax with just drones and gets an economic lead by not following up with zerglings. Rush eventually manages to even the odds with very damaging drops. Both players end up with large high-tech armies. There are many close fights and a furious finale.

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5. Best vs Light, Ro16, Group C, Game 2 on Apocalypse
This game was the biggest PvT of the season: a 25 min slugfest with almost every base getting mined. Light falls behind early due to a misjudged attack. Best responds by slowly gobbling up the map while Light is forced to max out slowly on three bases. When Light finally moves out he has a huge number of tanks and he trades very efficiently and takes down three bases in the first push. Best falls back on guerilla warfare with some very classy arbiter play, templars and suicidal zealots.

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4. Snow vs Soulkey, Semifinal B, Game 4 on Citadel
The first four games of this series were epic, and you should definitely watch them again. There just isn’t quite anything like a high-level PvZ series in which the Protoss is actually competitive. This is the most standard of the three PvZ’s on this list. Snow holds a 9-7-3 hydra attack and transitions into mass gates, while Soulkey needs to drone up as much a he can without dying. Unusually (although maybe not for Snow), Protoss goes for double-robo style. The first big attack fails, but somehow Snow manages to reload to take the game to the wire.

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3. Snow vs Soulkey, Semifinal B, Game 1 on Neo Dark Origin
What a way to start the second semifinal. Snow gets a great forge opening and nearly pulls off a cannon rush. But Soulkey just barely scouts it. After that Snow is basically blind with his tech delayed. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Soulkey has a special surprise drop play prepared. Snow looks dead, but somehow he has cannons just in time and his micro is once again fantastic. Soulkey comes back with mutalisks and puts Snows defence to the test once more and the outcome of the game comes down to tiny micro margins.

https://youtu.be/-hbch6psWPQ?t=1430

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2. Mini vs BarrackS, Ro16, Group B, Game 1 on Apocalypse
I was initially going to rank this game first, due to the much larger number of recommendations. But then I rewatched the game that was actually the best. But don’t get me wrong. This game was amazing and extremely entertaining. Barracks pulls off a great vulture drop into a tiny blind-spot that does huge damage, completely wiping out the probes in the Protoss main. Before the game really gets going Mini is on half the supply of Terran. GG-ing here wouldn’t be wrong. But Mini is a player who doesn’t know when he’s beaten and he knuckles down, slowly picking off vultures and dropships with stellar micro. But, despite his best efforts, Barracks’s army is too big to take on in an open fight. So Mini sends his shuttles across the map to destroy the comsats while spamming DT’s. This shouldn’t work. Barracks should have enough stuff, but somehow Mini keeps doing damage, blowing up mines with shuttle drop-and-loads, keeping Terran from mining and microing in two places at the same time. At 21 min, both players have a combined supply of 20(!). You’ve never seen anything like this in an off-line game. W. T. F. I love Mini.

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1. Snow vs Soulkey, Semifinal B, Game 3 on Blitz Y
Could a 44 min high-level PvZ ever be a bad game? Don’t be silly. Of course not. This is the standout game of the season. Mini’s DT shenanigans were hilarious, but this game actually mattered. Here we have easily the best PvZ since Action vs Best on Nemesis and quite possibly it might actually be better. Snow was probably ready for a long game, but he wasn’t ready for Soulkey taking the island quickly. And when Protoss also loses the 9 o’clock base, it looks like Zerg has a four base advantage. Undeterred, Snow spends about half an hour constantly microing shuttles, reavers and templars over the edge of the island, to deny Soulkey access to half the minerals. The efficiency of some of these exchanges is mind-boggling and the casual precision of the shuttle micro is truly awesome. This is one for the ages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hbch6psWPQ&t=3829s

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Writers: Simplistik,FlashFTW,Peeano
Graphics: v1
Editors: BLinD-RawR