WTL 2024 Summer - Week 2 Recap/Week 3 Preview

WTL 2024 Summer – Week 2 Recap/Week 3 Preview

Time Stamp: May 9, 2024 10:00 PM
Source Node: 2573635

by: Nakajin

We’re just two weeks into the new season of the World Team League, and things are already looking all sorts of crazy. Coming on the heels of Starlight Twinkle’s 4-3 over BASILISK in week one, week two delivered another shocking upset as OFFSYDE Gaming took down Team Liquid thanks to Firefly’s 3-0 over Clem. Also, BASILISK’s championship contender status already looks to be in danger, as the Serral-less squad dropped to 0-2 after losing to Dragon KaiZi Gaming.

Fortunately for BASILISK, Serral will be making his season debut in Week 3, and he’ll try to right the ship for his beleaguered team. The other feature match of the week will see Team Liquid go up against Shopify, with TL looking to wash off the sting of last week’s upset loss.

Week 2 Recap

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Top 7 teams qualify for the playoffs.
Bottom 2 teams must requalify.
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 Liquid 3 – 4 OFFSYDE Gaming
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Say what you will about Firefly in individual leagues, but the man is a bona fide miracle maker in the WTL. The team league folk hero added to his list of legendary feats, going 3-0 against Clem as he led OFFSYDE Gaming to victory.

The series started with TL catching a lucky break against former team member uThermal, who randomed into Protoss twice against MaNa. While I’ve only observed a small sample size of games, my non-expert opinion is that uThermal’s PvP is… …not so great. He left his front door wide open for MaNa’s initial Adept harass in game one, giving Mana a full scout on his plan to start with mass Phoenix. MaNa opted for an aggressive response with Blink Stalkers, and while he didn’t deal fatal damage, he contained uThermal and took a 3 to 2 base advantage. uThermal tried a last-ditch Immortal-Phoenix-Sentry-Probe all-in, but MaNa had no problem slapping down the attack. Game two saw Mana torment uThermal early on with Adept-Oracle, and then he locked in the 2-0 with a 3-base Blink-Stalker follow-up.

Things were looking amazing for TL leading into Cure vs Rex, with Cure favored to take a 2-0. The first game on Alcyone went as one would expect, with Cure macroing up and picking Rex apart with his bio in a straightforward game. Cure went for more conventional macro play in game two on Goldenaura, but was caught completely off guard by Rex’s decision to go for fast Mutalisks. The flying pests raided Cure’s unguarded mineral lines, causing enough confusion for Rex to get in some big Baneling runbys and take a 80 to 45 worker lead. Other Zergs would probably have used their considerable resource advantage to trade against the Terran army and finish them off with a remax, but Rex gave Cure a little too much respect and refused to take any head-on fights. In the end, however, Rex did not come to regret his cautious play, as he eventually added Ultralisks to his force and found the courage to destroy Cure in a game-deciding fight.

Firefly made sure that Rex’s best WTL performance in years (possibly ever) wouldn’t be in vain, as he proceeded to score an even bigger upset against Clem. Game one on Dynasty saw Clem go for an unusual 2-Barracks Reaper opening, and he made the dubious choice to exchange 4 Reapers for 4 Probe kills. Clem rather naively tried to follow-up by expanding to his gold base while going up to 3-Barracks bio, but the loss of all his initial Reapers left him vulnerable to Firefly’s immediate counterattack with Stalkers. Firefly caused Clem considerable pain even without Blink, and once the key upgrade was done, he picked apart Clem’s remaining units and forced the GG.

Both players got cheeky in game two on Alcyone, with Clem going for a proxy-Starport Hellion drop while Firefly went for a proxy Gate. Clem’s drop hit before Firefly’s frontal attack, and even with Firefly sniffing the attack out and placing units to defend at home, Clem managed to inflict 6 Probe kills. Clem looked to macro up normally from there, while Firefly decided to pull the trigger on a 2-base Chargelot-Immortal all-in. Unfortunately for Clem, he was completely unaware of Firefly’s plan and moved out with a small Marine-Tank force at the absolute worst time, essentially donating his army and the game to Firefly.

Liquid decided to put their faith in Clem for the ace match, while Firefly predictably took on the responsibility for OFFSYDE. Clem opted to get aggressive early once more, going for a Cloaked Banshee into a 1/1/1 push. However, Firefly slipped in a timely Hallucination scout, and adjusted accordingly by playing defensive 3-base with Blink-Robo. Clem’s move out with Marine-Tank made it seem like Firefly might have been a little too greedy, but it turned out Firefly had toed the line perfectly as he had just enough Stalkers to shut down Clem’s push. Firefly had no problem snowballing his economic lead from there, and he finished Clem off with a big Gateway unit + Templar attack.

Team Vitality 6 – 0 Platinum Heroes + R8
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With their sister team having set the tone in the previous match, Vitality/ONSYDE kept the good vibes going with the first 6-0 of the season against Platinum Heroes + R8.

The series began on the always interesting Post-Youth, with Goblin trying to surprise Solar with fast Tempests into a 3-Base Tempest-Stalker all-in. It was a nice effort from the Croatian Protoss but Solar read him well, making just enough Queens and Corruptors to stop the Tempests while maintaining a solid Roach-Ravager force on the ground. While Goblin’s Blink micro made things surprisingly dangerous for Solar, he eventually ran out of steam and GG’d out. Goblin went for a more traditional Oracle opener in game two, but again transitioned into a Blink-Stalker all-in off of three bases. Without the early game trickery, it was an easier hold for Solar, who stayed active with Zerglings to delay reinforcements while holding the line with Roach-Ravager. He even had the breathing room to sneak in a Spire and Mutalisks, which put Goblin in an even deeper hole. While Goblin did a decent job of transitioning into a normal-ish macro game from there, his inability to move off of a Stalker-centric composition doomed him in the end.

With Vitality leading 2-0, Ryung and YoungYakov took to the stage on Alcyone. While Ryung went for a standard 3-CC Hellion Banshee opener, YoungYakov went for an unorthodox play by teching up to fast Lurkers off of pure Hydra-Queen (no Banelings). The Hydralisk force managed to hold the line for a while, but Ryung caught Yakov flat footed with a big army rotation into the Zerg fourth as Lurkers were about to spawn. Yakov’s defense crumbled after he got caught out of position, and the newly hatched Lurkers were too few in number to make a difference. Ryung redid his Hellion-Banshee opener in game two on Site Delta, while Yakov went for a more standard Hydra-Ling-Bane strategy. However, it did nothing to change the outcome, as he once again GG’d out against Ryung’s 3-base Marine-Tank push.

With the series already won, Maru picked up the maximum map points for his team against Kelazhur. On Dynasty, the Brazilian Terran got the better of Maru in the early-game, shutting down Maru’s early Medivac-Tank harass while succeeding with his own Marine-drop. However, Maru flipped the situation by getting a decisive win in an early Marine-Tank-Raven skirmish, and dealt enough economic damage to snowball safely to a win. Kelazhur tried to salvage a point on Ghost River by going for 2-Barracks Reapers (1 proxy), and had a chance to make things very painful for Maru after he picked off the key first Reaper. However, Kelazhur didn’t have the ByuN-esque micro needed to convert this advantage into a quick victory, and had to content himself with taking a moderate early game lead. Of course, being temporarily ahead against Maru in TvT doesn’t mean much, and the turtle master was completely happy to sit back, assemble a Sky Terran composition, and win in a 26-minute game.

Starlight Twinkle 1 – Mystery Gaming
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TL.net’s week 1 MVP Krystianner took on Coffee to start the series, playing first on Post-Youth. Coffee’s proxy-Starport Hellion-drop opener was scouted by Krystianer, but he reacted too slowly when Coffee decided to abandon the drop and simply drive his Hellions straight up his opponent’s main ramp (Krystianer had opted not to wall his ramp). Coffee got 9 Probe kills for his efforts, and some follow-up Marine-Tank pushes (aided by nasty Liberator harassment) were enough to finish his opponent off. The two players proceeded to play mostly blind against each on Oceanborn, which resulted in Krystianer’s Colossus-drop and Coffee’s 1/1/1 push missing each other by a screen’s width as they crossed the map. Krystianer hastily recalled his Colossus back when his third base came under siege, but with Coffee’s Tanks already in position, he still ended up GG’ing out against the deadly attack.

Wayne and Cyan were up next, and the SLT Zerg began the series with a fast gold expansion on Alcyone. However, Cyan had his own tricks prepared in the form of a fast Dark Shrine, and three DT’s were able to hack down the single Spore Creeper at the enemy gold base before Wayne could respond. Not only did Cyan destroy the gold base, but Wayne’s late Lair meant the DT’s delayed him from taking a third base for quite some time. Cyan closed the game out fairly easily, transitioning into a double Archon drop and a Blink-Stalker push (Cyan celebrated his win by immediately scalding his tongue on an overly hot beverage). Wayne stayed committed to gold base strategies, choosing Post-Youth as map two and rushing to take both his half-gold and full-gold bases. Wayne was looking to play Ling-Bane, but Cyan had another counter in store in the form of Glaive-Adepts. While he didn’t inflict severe economic damage, he traded very well against the Zerglings while going up to 3-bases back at home. Wayne went for broke and attempted to bust Cyan with mass Ling-Bane, but Cyan had more than enough Sentries and Force Fields to halt the attack. Wayne played pretty well from behind, but his extremely late tech doomed him against the Protoss deathball.

Cham took a consolation point for his team in a very Cham-ish manner, defeating Strange with a quick Ravager-Ling attack. Strange had the last laugh, however, defeating Cham in a macro duel on Oceanborn.

Shopify Rebellion 4 – 2 Twisted Fairy
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Post-Youth week in the WTL continued to produce unorthodox strategies, as the series began with Lambo quickly taking both gold and half-gold expansions while Nice went for Stargate into fast double-Robo Immortals. We never really got to see what Nice was up to, as Lambo used his boosted mineral income to hit early with a Queen-walk supported by Roach-Ravager-Ling. Lambo killed Nice’s third base for free, and finished his splash-less opponents off with continued Roach-Ravager attacks. Nice picked Goldenaura as the second map with a Skytoss rush in mind, but Lambo was well prepared with a quick Spire. Lambo made Nice sweat a little with his Roach-Ravager-Corruptor army while the Carrier count was still low, but as we see so often on Goldenaura, Nice managed to survive on four bases. Eventually, Nice maxed out with a powerful Carrier-centric army and crossed the map to kill Lambo.

ByuN versus Stats was next in line, and the Shopify ace took a quick game one win by devastating Stats’ Probe line with a proxy Hellion drop (proxying both the Factory and Starport). ByuN then changed gears with an ultra-greedy 3-CC opener on Goldenaura, while Stats played a more conventional Blink/macro opener. ByuN made the first aggressive move once he had two Medivacs and Stim, sacrificing his units to cancel Chargelot research. This decision paid off a few minutes later when ByuN’s Marauder-heavy army engaged Stats’ Colossus-slowlot force head on. ByuN kited expertly and crushed the Protoss force, and then counterattacked to take the victory.

Classic started to get the ball rolling for a potential comeback on Dynasty, scouting then depowering the proxy robo of Harstem. However, Classic misjudged the situation and moved out of his defensive posture too quickly, allowing Harstem’s all-in to succeed despite its initial delay. Harstem took the early lead in Game two with Oracle and Blink Stalker play, but this time it was his turn to pay the price for overaggression. He kept trying to pressure Classic with Stalkers despite the growing Immortal and Void Ray count, allowing Classic to take a decisive victory in the field. Harstem would probably have stuck around for longer if the series wasn’t already decided in Shopify’s favor, but he decided to just concede the quick GG.

Dragon KaiZi Gaming 4 – 2 BASILISK-BIG
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This unusual clash between DKZ and BASILISK saw both teams go into the match with 0-1 records, and it ended up being BASILISK who suffered the ignominy of being winless through two weeks of play.

DKZ got a dream start as Jieshi upset BASILISK’s partner/mercenary player ShoWTimE with a 2-0 victory. Game one initially went smoothly for the German Protoss, who went up 20 supply in the mid-game due to Oracle harassment and effective Blink-Stalker skirmishing. However, Jieshi stayed composed on defense, and brought things back to even when ShoWTimE overextended with his Stalkers. The game seemed headed to a lengthy war between similarly matched Zealot-Stalker armies, but Jieshi decided to force the issue when he hit the key breakpoint of +2 attack ahead of ShoWTimE. The two engaged in a furious battle at ShoWTimE’s natural, where Jieshi’s upgrade advantage was enough to see him break through. While ShoWTimE temporarily stabilized with reinforcements, his loss of Probes sent Jieshi snowballing down the path to victory. Game two on Site Delta developed into another war between Zealot-Stalker armies, and once again Jieshi reached +2 attack ahead of ShoWTimE. And, once again, Jieshi forced a fight while he had the upgrade advantage, and defeated ShoWTimE’s army to take the unexpected 2-0.

This put all the more pressure on Reynor to get a positive result against DKZ ace herO, but he had to settle for a 1-1 draw. Game one saw herO go for a classic 4-Gate Glaive-Adept attack which got a solid 8 Drone kills to start. The follow-up Immortal-Adept attack made the situation even worse for Reynor, as herO forced the Roaches to commit to defending a frontal attack before shading Adepts into a naked main base. With Reynor on wobbly legs, herO hit with a third wave of Adepts before transitioning into a game-winning +2 Colossus-Stalker-Immortal push. Reynor extended his team’s life on Post-Youth, despite initially getting caught off guard by herO’s fast Tempest opener. While herO did a great job slowing down Reynor’s economy with his Tempests, his follow-up was far too greedy as he went for mass Void Rays without enough ground units to support. Reynor maxed out with a huge Corruptor-Baneling-Ravager-Queen force, which was able to partially ignore the Void Rays and deal fatal economic damage.

Last season, Trigger’s best performance was a 2-0 over Oliveira that won his team the match. Unfortunately for BASILISK, he couldn’t repeat that feat this time around. The match began with Oliveira risking a gold base expansion on Dynasty, whereas Trigger took his regular natural and went for 4-Gate Blink. Trigger did just enough damage at the gold base to make it not quite worth it, and he continued to pressure with Stalkers and Zealots when Oliveira tried to take his third. Oliveira found it difficult to cover so many different fronts at once, and Trigger exploited this continuously with stinging harassment. Trigger’s own economy was only growing more powerful back at home, and eventually he overwhelmed Oliveira with a superior force. However, Trigger failed to complete the rescue mission in game two, which saw a proxy-Starport Hellion drop (apparently, the build of the week) go up against a fast DT drop. Trigger was clutch in his initial defense as he evacuated his Probes into a Warp Prism, but unfortunately, he wasn’t quite as attentive on the re-drop and took huge damage. Meanwhile, Oliveira had the advance notice needed to shut down the DT drop, leading to a fast GG from Trigger.

PSISTORM-NAVI 2 – 4 Berserker eSports
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The initial match between Gerald and GunGFuBanDa ended up making all the difference, with GFBD’s 2-0 giving them their first win of the season. The German Protoss picked Gerald apart with Gateway units and an Oracle on Post-Youth, and then finished the 2-0 in a drawn out macro game on Goldenaura. The latter match saw Gerald play well despite having a resource disadvantage for basically the entire game, countering mass Zealot-Stalker with Disruptors and then Carriers with Tempests. However, resources remained the most important factor in the end, and Gerald eventually ran out of steam.

The two other series ended in draws, with DnS stealing an unexpected 1-1 tie against PvP maestro MaxPax by winning a Blink-Stalker duel. BattleB then sealed PSISTORM’s fate on the back of a rather silly basetrade that burst out on Dynasty, where Spirit was unprepared for an oddly-timed Cyclone strike through his backdoor. Spirit did at least manage to get a game back to reduce the hit on Psistorm map differential.

Weekly MVP: (Wiki)OG.Firefly

Oh Firefly, what a treat you are! Defying logic and expectations once again, Firefly has carried his WTL team to another famous victory.

This time, his victim was recent EPT Europe champion and Aligulac.com’s #1 ranked player Clem, who he defeated three times in a single night. None of the games were even particularly competitive affairs, with Clem’s early aggression falling flat all three times. Since the qualifier phase of the tournament, I had OFFSYDE pegged as one of the most intriguing and unpredictable teams in the league, and their upset victory against Team Liquid was exactly the kind of performance I hoped they might have this season.

Weekly MVP’s:

  • Week 2: OG.Firefly
  • Week 1: SLT.Krystianer

Preview: Regular Season Week 3

Friday, May 10 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

After an opening week upset against BASILISK, Starlight Twinkle had a come-back-to-earth moment last week against MYG. Now that they’re going up against the two-time champs, they may need to accept that this upcoming match will be more of a learning experience than a chance to earn any points.

Krystianer had some problems last week against Coffee’s TvP, which bodes very poorly for him as he goes up against Maru. Cham is SLT’s best hope to steal a map as he has a surprisingly decent 38% career win-rate against Solar, but a 1-1 is probably the most he can hope for. Even if Cham gets a map, it still seems pretty futile for SLT as Wayne is being subbed out for ReWhite this week. While the Chinese Protoss has punched above his weight class in the past, WTL’s patron saint Ryung remains the heavy favorite to defeat him.

Prediction: Vitality 6 – 0 Starlight Twinkle

The situation hasn’t quite reached red alert status for PSISTORM, but if they can’t get the W on Friday, it may be time to panic.

uThermal’s randoming makes every one of his matches an adventure, but the odds say that Gerald will draw favorable match-ups. While MaxPax gave up a rare PvP draw last week, he’s expected to get the 2-0 against Rex in their upcoming match. Sure, Rex is coming off of a 1-1 draw against Cure, but I can’t say he did it in a manner that seemed extremely replicable. Firefly and Spirit both played up to their reputations last week. For Firefly, that meant an unreal overperformance, while for Spirit it was a decent, but desperately un-clutch outing. I have a suspicious feeling that Spirit will take the draw, but after Firefly’s magnificent showing against Clem, he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I’ll put this as a 2-0 for Firefly.

A lot could depend on the random roll of uThermal, but considering two out of three match-ups favor Gerald (while it’s not clear he would be an underdog it PvT), I’ll say this match goes to PSISTORM.

Prediction: PSISTORM-NAVI 4 – 2 OFFSYDE Gaming

Saturday, May 11 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Matches

In a rematch of the Code A final, Twisted Fairy will hope to get their first points while Berserker will try to separate themselves from the rest of the mid-table pack.

Stats and GunGFuBanDa were scheduled to play in the Code A final, but the latter no-showed what was a mostly a no-stakes match. Despite some bad performances since the start of the season, I still have Stats as the favorite here on the basis of his recent Code S run. However, I might have to reconsider his level after this week. One thing is for certain: The Fairies really need him to take at least a map.

The very inactive but not retired KeeN rejoins the WTL this week, following an uninspiring warm-up in a WardiTV competition where he lost 0-2 to Cyan. It gives us little information about his current level ahead of his match against DnS, but assuming he’s been mostly inactive during the last five months, I have to favor the French Protoss.

Classic and BattleB will finish the series in a rematch from Code A. Back then, Classic took a 2-0 victory, and I see no reason to think it would be different this time around.

An ace match is entirely possible depending on Stats and KeeN’s form, with Stats and Classic being ace candidates for TF while Berserker could send any of their three players. However, with the ace match being played on Dynasty, I expect some form of PvP.

This should be a close affair, so I’ll predict the Twisted Fairies to win because it would have the most interesting effect on the standings.

Prediction:Twisted Fairy 4 – 3 Berserker eSports

After facing two of the strongest teams in the league, DKZ now enters what should be on paper an easier stretch of matches.

herO will have an opportunity to put the match out of reach early if he can get a 2-0 against Platinum Heroes-R8’s best player in Kelazhur. The best hope for Kelazhur is probably to inflict some early damage on a map with a quick rush distance like Ghost River, but if herO can enter the mid-game in a decent position, he should be the clear winner.

Oliveira will almost surely outpace and outmicro Russian Terran Nicoract, and if Jieshi can play anywhere close to the level he showed against ShoWTimE, a draw feels like the right call for him against Goblin.

Prediction: Dragon KaiZi Gaming 5 – 1 Platinum Heroes-R8

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

Rejoice, BASILISK fans, your savior is upon us. This match is our first hint about Serral’s availability during military service, as he makes his season debut on a Sunday matchday (although, he did miss last week’s match which was also on a Sunday).

BASILISK would have been favored to beat Mystery Gaming even without Serral, but after the disasters of the first two weeks, you can understand why BASILISK isn’t taking any chances. Despite all the trouble Reynor has had against herO lately, you still have to consider him a big favorite in a ZvP against Strange. Also, while ShoWTimE might have dropped the ball against Jieshi last week, I still give him the edge against Cyan.

That leaves us with Coffee and Serral. It might seem like a straightforward match, but with Serral having gone through four weeks of brutal basic training in the Finnish military, will he really have the mental energy needed to beat a tricky opponent like Coffee?

LOL, I’m just kidding, Serral will murder him. It’s high time BASILISK gets back on track, be it at the cost of MYG’s unbeaten record. Also, actual Finnish people, feel free to tell us about how strenuous/lax Finnish military training is.

Prediction: BASILISK-BIG 6 – 0 Mystery Gaming

The marquee match of the week features two traditional Western powers in the WTL, with Team Liquid going up against the Shopify Rebellion. With both BASILISK and DKZ slipping early, the door is open for either team to establish themselves as a major challenger for Vitality’s title.

Like a working-class World War 2 veteran returning to his North Carolina hometown and a rebellious heiress struggling to find her own way in a Nicolas Sparks novel, fate has brought Clem and ByuN back together again. It will be their 10th confrontation in the league, including 2 playoff matches and 3 ace matches. Byun currently has a very slight lead with 8 wins and 7 losses, but it’s safe to say that this match is basically 50/50. Neither seems to be able to take a convincing victory over the other, so I think it will be another 1-1.

Cure should be the clear favorite against Harstem in the following match, but the Dutch Protoss has a surprising 3-1 record advantage against Cure in the WTL (don’t ask about other tournaments). If Cure continues to underperform in the WTL, then a 1-1 tie could be on the table for Shopify.

By the time we get to SKillous versus Scarlett, there should still be plenty to play for. The Canadian Zerg may have let two crucial ZvP series slip through her fingers while trying to claim the EPT Americas throne, but she did look fairly solid overall in the match-up. However, with SKillous only having lost two PvZ series against non-Koreans in 2024 (against Serral and Lambo), Scarlett will need to play her best StarCraft if her team is to prevail.

While an ace match is possible (which would almost surely be Clem vs ByuN – Part 11), I think TL’s combined edge from the Cure and SKillous series will allow them to get the full three points.

Prediction: Team Liquid 4 – 2 Shopify Rebellion

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