WTL 2021 Winter – Week 1 Recap & Week 2 Preview

by: TheOneAboveU

WTL 2021 Winter blasted off into the Regular Season with a surprising set of results in Week 1 alongside some more expected outcomes.

Team GP stole the show with a monumental upset over championship favorites Dragon Phoenix Gaming, with Cham taking out both Zerg aces in Dark and Rogue. Suddenly, a playoff berth looks a lot more attainable for last season’s tenth place team.

In other notable results, PREP eSPORTS celebrated a flawless debut in the league with a 6-0 victory over Invictus Gaming, claiming the #1 spot in the rankings for now. Alpha X also put up a strong underdog performance, taking down the Afreeca Freecs by a solid 5-1 scoreline.

A change in the operating procedure of the league led to some discussion among the players and community, which we would be remiss not to mention. Teams can no longer pick players to send to a specific map, the pairings being randomly assigned to battlegrounds instead.

Officially, the measure was introduced to reduce the number of mirror matchups each week—a problem present since the Proleague days. While this is an understandable move for the sake of entertainment, it almost completely removes the line-up strategy aspect of the competition as well. Seeing such a key feature of Proleague-style team competitions removed is jarring for long-time fans of the format, and we’ll have to wait and see how the overall viewership of WTL reacts to this change.

Week 1 Results

Top 7 teams qualify for the playoffs.
Points are awarded as follows:

• 3 points for a victory in a series that does not require an ace match
• 2 points for a victory in a series that requires an ace-match
• 1 point for a loss in a series that requires an ace-match
• 0 points for a loss in a series that does not require an ace match

Team NV 4-2 Team Liquid
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NV.DongRaeGu took the wind out of Liquid’Clem‘s sails early on Jagannatha, defending the Terran’s attacks on his economy with minimal losses and then beating back his initial Bio-Mine move-outs. This allowed him to take complete control of the map and confine the Frenchman into the unusual role of defender as he harried him with relentless Ling-Bane-Muta aggression, eventually making a breakthrough and forcing Clem to concede. Overgrowth presented a similar picture with a failed Hellbat-Banshee push opening the match and DRG wearing down Clem from there despite taking some counter damage himself. Overall, it was an incredibly solid display from the ZvT specialist this week.

Trying to beat the odds against NV.Maru, Liquid’MaNa found some early success with a Warp Prism on Oblivion while deflecting a Bio move-out by his opponent with Force Fields at home. His downfall turned out to be an undetected drop a bit later in the game as he attacked the Terran with his two Colossi and their support units at his natural. The paratroopers took out critical infrastructure and laid waste to MaNa’s economy while the NV player managed to hold the frontal attack off with some losses. Blink Stalkers and a Speed Prism with Disruptors were MaNa’s recipe for Jagannatha, though his harassment failed to produce any grand results in this case. As a skirmish in front of Maru’s natural resulted in a fully fledged rout of the Protoss army, which suffered critical losses during the retreat, his aggression backfired on him as Maru had smelled blood and went right for the kill, keeping the pressure up until he had broken the back of MaNa’s defence.

Liquid’Harstem subsequently could not change the outcome of the series, but nevertheless managed some damage mitigation against NV.Bunny. Proxy Void Rays scored a quick win on Frost, a Blink attack left the Protoss in a commanding position on Oxide from where he could close out the game a bit later after a very solid performance.

Good Game Gaming 2-4 KaiZi Gaming
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GGG.Cyan and KZ.Spirit played pretty much the expected match on Jagannatha: perfectly aware of the defensive tendencies of the Polish Terran, the Chinese Protoss applied some successful pressure through Warp Prism harassment but otherwise expanded rapidly, abusing Spirit’s turtling and eventually defeating his Battlecruiser fleet. Changing the playbook on 2000 Atmospheres, the Terran found much more success by going on offense. By applying economic damage, he not only mitigated the damage taken through Cyan’s Oracles, but he also took a substantial lead and closed the game out from there.

GGG.Dream brought his team into the lead once again on Oblivion by getting his Reapers into KZ.TIME‘s base at an unexpectedly late moment, securing a stronger economy and forcing a reaction from the Chinese player. TIME tried to force the natural and erected a blockade after failing in that. Dream remained patient and skilfully outflanked the position via airlift, chasing TIME’s retreating army down and taking the game. Blackburn was virtually even for long stretches of the match, with both players focusing on their macro and economy. However, Dream tried to greed out more workers than TIME, giving the KaiZi player a critical advantage in army supply. This enabled him to break the Korean’s defence in a brave attack before the economic advantage could fully kick in.

KZ.Solar finally decided the series in favor of his team against GGG.Vanya, beating the Russian in Roach skirmishes on Frost and a Mutalisk knife fight on Jagannatha. Solar was actually on the ropes after losing a major air battle in the last match, but managed to backstab his opponent’s economy and ultimately take victory with the help of Viper and Infestors.

Alpha X 5-1 Afreeca Freecs
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Celebrating a successful WTL debut for his new team, αX.Classic managed to surprise AF.Trap with two Oracles on Jagannatha and devastated his Probe line. Being able to deflect his opponent’s desperate aggression in the aftermath, the Alpha X player wore the visibly agitated Trap down and took his first win in the league. However, he couldn’t quite repeat this feat on Overgrowth as Trap aimed for more decisive Gateway aggression this time and overwhelmed Classic’s forces.

Striking the next blow for the Golden Dragons was αX.Zoun, whose all-out Adept aggression on Oblivion completely overran AF.Armani‘s defences: not only did several Drones fall to the onslaught, even the third Hatchery fell under the might of the Glaives. Lightshade saw both players contend for air power throughout the game in the typical PvZ of today’s meta, Zoun eventually winning the game due to the superiority of his ground support and putting Alpha X on match point.

Securing the series for Alpha X was αX.RagnaroK, who took an early lead on Frost with some Zergling aggression and later Mutalisk harass, forcing AF.KeeN to remain passive for a considerable time. This was enough for the Zerg to collect an irresistible force of swarm units and close the game out. Repeating his favored recipe of Hellion-Banshee aggression, the Terran found a bit more success on 2000 Atmospheres, though this proved to be inconsequential as RagnaroK still managed to outmanoeuvre him repeatedly and win the war of attrition after a very tough 30 minute meatgrinder of a match.

Invictus Gaming 0-6 PREP eSPORTS
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Proving a master of playing around his reputation, PREP.Bly played a straight-up game on Jagannatha against iG.MacSed. He defended the Chinese player’s Adept push and found success with a devastating counterattack, all the while narrowly holding his own against his Dark Templars. A switch to Mutalisks sealed the deal shortly thereafter. Overgrowth finally brought what the fans wanted to see in the first place: a proxy Hatchery led to MacSed reacting with Cannons at home and on Bly’s side of the map. Hectic skirmishing in front of the Ukrainian’s natural pushed the balance of power in his favor, his superior experience in such situations proving decisive.

Oblivion featured PREP.Puzzle overwhelming iG.XY with Blink Stalker aggression, with the Terran being unable to hold onto his natural and throwing Marines away in an attempt to counter-harass the Protoss. The Chinese player found some more damage on Romanticide with Widow Mines, as his follow-up push from two bases destroyed Puzzle’s third. However, he decided to push on and got his army annihilated by the Korean’s forces without having much of an impact on their strength. Predictably, Puzzle used this opportunity to counter and closed out the series.

PREP.Has completed his team’s triumphal WTL debut with a proxy Dark Shrine on Frost, though iG.Coffee managed to hold off the first wave of Dark Templars. The follow-up Archon drop proved lethal, as all the Marines clumped up while firing on the tanking Zealots and were shredded by the Archons’ psionic blasts. Naturally, Has made things even weirder on Lightshade: a Gateway inside of Coffee’s main base threw the Terran off while the Taiwanese player expanded to the bottom left corner, which was scouted by an SCV. Coffee managed to do some light damage in both bases, but sacrificed valuable units to do so—punishment came in the form of deadly Blink Stalker aggression.

Team GP 4-3 Dragon Phoenix Gaming
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The upset of the week and already one of the biggest surprises of the entire season started out predictably enough with GP.Percival and DPG.herO trading maps. Both players opted for cheesy builds on Jagannatha with the proxied structures—a Gateway and a Factory plus Starport respectively—being placed in the same area. While the Terran defended herO’s aggression easily, his own Hellion drop succeeded in causing massive damage. Managing to even the odds with Disruptor drops, the Protoss almost turned the match around, but his army was wiped out in the key battle by Pervical’s well controlled Bio. Phoenix-Oracle from a hidden Stargate on Lightshade allowed herO to take map control and pressure his opponent, with the Protoss eventually coming out on top in a macro game thanks to some lethal storms hitting large chunks of the opposing troops.

Things started to turn into an unexpected direction entirely when GP.Cham managed to win a major upset against DPG.Rogue. Unable to make his Zergling aggression work on Oblivion, the Korean lost his third base to a counterattack by the Mexican, who kept on pumping out Ling-Baneling—a wise safety measure, as this allowed him to surround and crush Rogue’s desperate Roach attack. Unable to control his temper, Rogue gave his desk a good whacking after writing the ‘gg’. Cham opted for a more macro-oriented build on Lightshade, banking on his small army to keep Rogue busy while the additional Drones paid for themselves. Rogue fell for the bluff and kept his numerically clearly superior army at home for a long time. When he finally marched his host over to Cham’s bases, the Mexican was prepared to receive the attack and defended with ease, mustering a devastating counterattack with Nydus support to complete the surprise—while the elated Mexican cheered in front of his screen, Rogue’s desk had to endure another bout of abuse. In the previous season it had taken Team GP four weeks to score a point, now they already had one in the bag after the first round.

Victory, however, was not yet assured. DPG.Dark kept his team in the series against GP.Ryung, surviving the Terran’s double Barracks rush on Frost. Completely outpacing the GP player from there, Dark played it safe and dismantled Ryung after having taken three fourths of the map for himself while his opponent huddled in his starting corner without much of a plan. Ryung resisted a bit more on Overgrowth, killing a Hatchery here and there with his army, but the outcome was never seriously in question as Dark had firm control of the match with the correct tech in place for every eventuality and close to no Drone damage received throughout the game.

Even the ‘Final Boss’ was unable to stop Cham’s ZvZ rampage, however. Gambling it all on an early Pool, Dark failed to do crippling damage to his opponent and put himself far behind. While that is usually when he plays best, his Mexican adversary played the game out perfectly with the lead he had: overwhelming the Korean with Ling-Bane before the DPG ace was able to even complete his Baneling Nest, Cham secured Team GP’s first victory of the season.

PSISTORM Gaming 2-4 Shopify Rebellion
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Opening the last series of the week were PSISTORM.MaxPax and SR.ByuN—and both of them had some mischief in mind. The faceless Dane opened with his characteristic proxy Gateway, the Terran responded by proxying a Factory and lifting it into the Protoss main base, happily producing wave after wave of Widow Mines there. Worker damage on both sides mounted up, but the Rebel was able to amass a greater army while all this was happening, overrunning MaxPax’ tiny Colossus force to win Jagannatha. 2000 Atmospheres featured no proxy buildings and saw both players contend in a macro game with the Protoss being able to do critical damage to his opponent with strike forces of Dark Templars, which opened much space for his own army to manoeuvre and take out further bases. Winning the war of attrition, MaxPax evened out the series.

Following his modus operandi from last season, PSISTORM.SpeCial opened the game against SR.Scarlett on Oblivion with two proxy Barracks, following this up with Hellion aggression. The fire cars managed to grill a good number of Drones, while Thors, Cyclones and Battlecruisers were produced to deal with the pending Mutalisk threat. Inflicting more and more damage on the Zerg economy, SpeCial’s unrelenting flood of Mech unites eventually ground Scarlett’s resistance down. Jagannatha saw the Canadian Zerg score a win with a Roach-Ravager-Queen attack resembling similar offensives from ZvP. In this case, the Mexican’s Banshee-Hellion opener proved relatively ineffectual, his Bio play needed some more time to really come into full swing, so Scarlett’s attack was perfectly timed.

Perhaps inspired by his team mate’s success against Scarlett with Mech, PSISTORM.GuMiho attempted the style on Frost against SR.Lambo. Taking very little damage from the Battlecruiser opening, the German countered with a Corrupter-Ravager attack. The third base was pressured heavily, while the air force managed to snipe the main Orbital. Adding insult to injury, Lambo’s Corrupters even prevented +2 Attack for the Korean’s Mech to finish. Being in firm control of the situation, the Rebellion’s hero prevented GuMiho from making an economic comeback, wearing down his forces and eventually claiming victory. Lightshade proved to be an even more dominant showing by Lambo, who outpaced his Terran opponent in the macro game by such a large margin, his only real mistake of the match, which cost him about a dozen Drones, had absolutely zero effect. It seems like Lambo is continuing his WTL rampage.

Weekly MVP Award: GP.Cham

There can be little doubt about the Mexican Zerg deserving Week 1’s MVP Award: Cham defeated DPG.Rogue and thereby forced the ace match against Dragon Phoenix Gaming, already securing at least one point for Team GP this way. Outdoing even this achievement, he stepped up for the ace match himself and there claimed a map win over DPG.Dark to complete the shocking upset in favor of his own team—certainly one of the best days of Cham’s entire StarCraft 2 career.

This week’s honourable mentions go to NV.DongRaeGu for his unexpectedly clean victory over Liquid’Clem and Shopify.Lambo for securing the Rebellion’s first win of the season by taking out PSISTORM.GuMiho.

Week 2 Preview

Friday, Oct 08 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Especially after the Golden Dragons’ triumph over Afreeca we can expect them to fight a close battle with Team NV. αX.Classic will have his work cut out for him with a resurgent NV.Creator being fielded against him. The NV player has recently made a splash winning several ESL Open Cups in Korea and being strong in PvP specifically—looking at their previous series this year, which resulted in a 4-3 victory for the Alpha X player and a 2-1 win for Creator, a map-split looks like the most likely scenario.

Facing the toughest challenge of the series is αX.Zoun with NV.Maru. Despite strong PvT records and even a close win in Code S over the Terran earlier this year, the statistics do favor Maru quite a bit in this match-up. The Alpha X player has managed to steal a map from Maru in a previous season of this league, there is no reason to believe he is not capable of doing so again, though it’s going to be a rough ride.

The last pairing is a bit of a wildcard with αX.Astrea and NV.DongRaeGu clashing. Neither player can be especially proud of their recent PvZ records, very much opening this duel up in terms of possible results. From a 2-0 win by either player to a map-split everything seems equally possible. Preparation might be the key to securing the first map, as Overgrowth is the given battlefield and might open some creative liberties for the American.

Prediction: Alpha X 3-4 Team NV

Team GP’s victory over DPG was no doubt a massive one but does not significantly change the balance of power: they relied on the drastic overperformance of one player to achieve this result and for now we cannot know if he can keep this form up all season long or if this was a one-hit-wonder. GP.Prince goes into his match against the Dark Lord SR.Lambo as a clear underdog. Statistics are one thing speaking against him, the clash of styles is the other one: Relying mostly on proxy Stargate shenanigans with Void Rays or other cheese builds, he is the kind of Protoss that Lambo eats for breakfast every day of the week. The German should be able to bring his team into the lead here.

GP.Ryung and SR.ByuN will be meeting in an official match for the first time since 2017 with the Rebel going in as the huge favorite. His lack of strength in TvT was one of the great themes of the previous season, but it seems like the break has given him enough time to find some confidence in the match-up again. Ryung for his part was a semi-reliable point getter for GP last season, capable of scoring surprise victories, but his meticulous destruction at the hands of DPG.Dark last week clearly show his limitations. If ByuN plays it safe and solid, Shopify should be in tranquil waters at this point.

The match between GP.Cham and SR.Scarlett might answer the question if Cham is the Lambo of this WTL season—can he keep up his fantastic performances and become the carry of his team? While Scarlett holds an advantageous historical record over the Mexican and can rely on a very strong recent ZvZ record, Cham’s 50-5 in the mirror match-up during the time of monitoring is one hell of a statement. Still, even if Cham scores big once again here, will the result be able to change anything about the outcome of the series at that point? We’ll have to wait and see, but overall the Rebels are favored to score a clean win here.

Prediction: Team GP 2-4 Shopify Rebellion

Saturday, Oct 09 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Once upon a time TvT master PSISTORM.SpeCial might have enjoyed a significant advantage over the struggling Liquid’Clem, but those days are long gone now. Just a month ago the Frenchman claimed a solid win over the Mexican in the DH Season Finals Group Stage, setting the tone for their WTL duel. Clem looks to be in a good spot to send his team off to a great start.

After his very strong performance against NV.Bunny in the previous week, Liquid’Harstem should definitely be expected to score against PSISTORM.GuMiho. With their historical head-to-head record being quite outdated, their recent match-up statistics are our only reference to how this duel might go. Following these, the Dutchman is slightly favored over the Korean Terran with a map-split seeming likely.

Series between PSISTORM.MaxPax and Liquid’uThermal have been consistently even this year, wins being traded in equal amounts. Overall, this pans out great for Liquid. MaxPax on the other hand might be under pressure to score a clean 2-0 here to keep his team in the running—a very difficult task against the cunning Dutchman, who seems to have a good measure of his Danish opponent.

Prediction: PSISTORM Gaming 2-4 Team Liquid

Last week’s utter destruction of Invictus Gaming certainly showed that we’re back to the old, sleepy version of the Chinese team instead of the dangerous squad from the later stages of the previous season. Therefore, KaiZi Gaming should be in for a solid win and three points here. KZ.Spirit could not quite score a 2-0 over GGG.Cyan last week, but looks to be in a fantastic spot to do so against iG.MacSed, the statistics giving him overwhelming odds.

The same picture presents itself for iG.XY against KZ.TIME as well as iG.Coffee against KZ.Solar. There is always hope that Invictus can make things close somehow, but perhaps they need a few weeks of beatdowns again before showing some resistance.

Prediction: Invictus Gaming 0-6 KaiZi Gaming

Sunday, Oct 10 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

Sunday’s first series promises some close competition with GGG.Nice taking on AF.KeeN. Though the Korean can look back on a highly lethal record against his opponent, against whom he only ever lost a single series, his recent TvP form isn’t as promising. Contrast this with Nice’s attested ability to pull out some strong PvT performances and you’ve got the recipe for a map-split between the two starting players.

Clearly the most favored match for Afreeca is the one between GGG.Cyan and AF.Trap despite the latter’s map loss in the mirror match-up in the previous week. The Chinese’s own record in PvP does not look very hot either, ensuring the Korean’s position as massive favorite to take a clean 2-0 here.

The Chinese team’s ace GGG.Dream on the other hand might have a much harder time fighting his opponent AF.Armani, having suffered a 0-3 loss against the Zerg just a month ago and generally struggling to put in very impressive TvZ results recently. On top of that, the pressure on him may be much higher than on Armani, who can likely ensure his team’s victory with just a single map win.

Prediction: Good Game Gaming 2-4 Afreeca Freecs

After the disappointing loss to Team GP in the previous week, Dragon Phoenix Gaming have much to make up for. Last week, the two reliable forces of DPG.Cure and DPG.Zest had been given time off to prepare for their GSL Code S Grand Finals—what a luxury problem for the team to have. They have now returned, however, and should be able to lead their club to a recovery victory over PREP eSPORTS. PREP.ByuL is still looking to find his footing after his return to progaming, so it’s unlikely he’ll be match for Cure. The Terran surely focussed on his TvP in the last couple of weeks, but right now the gap between him and ByuL might be so big that the Zerg can’t take advantage of that.

Going by how enraged DPG.Rogue was about his loss last week, PREP.Puzzle will not be in for a very fun time in this match. The Zerg seems to be in a tough spot in ZvP right now, but it’s not like his Protoss opponent seems to be doing much better. These two Koreans never actually faced each other before, a rare situation for players from the same region nowadays. Bare any more surprises, the Zerg should have this one in the bag.

We can bet that PREP.Bly is going to have something special in store for DPG.Zest and we know from past experiences that the Korean can be vulnerable to shenanigans from the Ukrainian. Zest has been solid as a rock in WTL last season, though, and scored a clear 2-0 over the Zerg earlier this year. Playing many ESL Open Cups in other regions, he may well have learnt more about the kind of builds Bly throws at people, making him all the more ready to counter his trickery. DPG may drop the ball from time to time, but they always bounce back with an explosive performance.

Prediction: PREP eSPORTS 0-6 Dragon Phoenix Gaming

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Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/579070-wtl-2021-winter-week-1-recap-and-week-2-preview