Team League Reporter: The ends are nigh

After three straight weeks of all-killings, the things across the team leagues have slowed down to a steady pace. Yet the week is not without excitement, however, as the NASTL reaches a landmark point, already finding its top four that are to compete in the playoffs.



oGsTL VS SlayerS

The GSTL has given birth to many a great player during its seasons, this time nurturing the young and promising protoss Vines.

Individually, Vines hasn't been doing all too well, suffering a quick elimination in Code A November, but is already on his way to redemption, playing a crucial part in his team's victory for a second time now. Vines' contribution can be traced one month back to the first weeks of the GSTL when the protoss led the oGs charge against Zenex to destroy Line and Jjun, giving his team an important opening advantage. This performance, however, dwarfs in the shadow of his achievement from last week, when Vines scored four wins in a row against the feared roster of SlayerS, sending Boxer's team to the losers bracket of Group A.

Vines came as a second summon after TOP fell to Ryung's bio play, garnished with a nuclear galore. Vines did not show off with quirky build orders or otherworldly Gumiho-ey multitasking, but played solid and calculated style, each time knowing what it takes to snatch the win. Against Ryung, he abused to power of late-game maxed out death ball to tie the score, following it up with a simple 6-gate against YuGiOh and then easily defending Alicia's poorly executed 4-gate rush to force SlayerS into some decisive actions.

The latter included calling MMA - the most natural choice in such a dire situation. Truly, MMA does not enjoy the best TvP win-ratio but one could clearly understand SlayerS' reasoning. However, they would find that move unsuccessful as well, as MMA was punished by a 6-gate all-in attack that rendered his banshee tech nearly useless as the terran did not have the proper army composition - or size - to fight off the constant reinforcements.

Slayers were thus facing a lethal predicament - their ace player was dead and they were just one game away from a loss. Their fate was put in the hands of Puzzle, SlayerS' best pefroming protoss at the moment. Puzzle finally put an end to Vines' domination by orchestrating a beautiful blink stalker plus hallucinated colossus play to bring hope to the Slayers camp. As Zenio and Fin also met their death, the score was brought to a 4-4 tie. With Puzzle still on the line, oGs had no other choice but to resort to the assistance of InCa, the famed master of PvP. As per usual, InCa went for a DT build and caught Puzzle detection-naked, winning a very quick and easy victory.

oGsTL 5:4 Slayers
TOP	<	Ryung	@ Metropolis
Vines	>	Ryung	@ Calm Before the Storm
Vines	>	YuGiOh	@ Crossfire
Vines	>	Alicia	@ Belshir beach
Vines	>	MMA	@ Cloud Kingdom
Vines	<	Puzzle	@ Dual Sight
Zenio	<	Puzzle	@ Antiga Shipyard
Fin	<	Puzzle	@ Entombed Valley
Inca	>	Puzzle	@ Daybreak

StarTale VS Incredible Miracle

What is meant to be, it will be. And last week it was meant to be a protoss week (which was cool, as we so rarely get to see those). In round two of Group B, StarTale went against Incredible Miracle for the group's winners bracket final spot. With three of their star players over at New York for the MLG Winter Arena, IM had to rely mostly on their B-teamers. They opened with Seed, who lost a macro game to Bomber, and then switched to Happy, him being the only Code S player currently available for Incredible Miracle. Happy made use of his mech play to dominate both Bomber and Hack to swing the tides in his team's favor but StarTale were not done. Not at all.

ST called forth Squirtle - a protoss players that used to be really big in the past but now has been drifting in and out of attention, most recently making it to the Ro24 of Code A. Squirtle evened the scales by surviving Happy's banshee harassment and turning the game around after winning a huge battle in the center. Having eliminated arguably the best available player in IM's roster, Squirtle then made use of his momentum to crush Horror, Ready and Yoda in three quick games, shooting his team to victory.

StarTale 5:2 Incredible Miracle
Bomber	>	Seed
Bomber	<	Happy
Hack	<	Happy
Squirtle	>	Happy
Squirtle	>	Horror
Squirtle	>	Ready
Squirtle	>	Yoda

Next on GSTL: Groups A & B Winners Bracket Final

GSTL Winners bracket final
oGsTL	VS (March 9th)	MVP
StarTale	VS (March 10th)	Prime

Obviously, with the Code S grand final coming to our streams March 3rd, the GSTL will skip a week before the winners bracket finals are to be played. No worries, though - it only magnifies the tension and builds towards a greater satisfaction.

In Group A, Old Generations are going agaist MVP and I cannot be more worried about the former. oGsTL have had obvious troubles winning their matches, going 5:4 in both series, even in the one against ZeNEX which many predicted to be a one-sided slaughter fest. With MC and Nada out of the roster, oGs are experiencing the strong need for an ace player that can get things done, and by "things" I mean winning several games in a row against the stacked roster of Mvp. Thus far, the only member that has shown remarkable success in the GSTL is Vines, with Supernova being the second one with a slim chance of carrying his team to victory.

And when I say slim, I want you to know that I am the most positive about oGs' future I'll ever be. MVP are currently the most dreaded team in the GSTL. They recently saw two of their players make it to the same Code S grand final and are in possession of the best zerg (if not the best player) in the world DongRaeGu. Add to that Genius, sC, Keen, Monster and Noblesse and you get but a small part of the reason why MVP are shooting for a second GSTL title in a row.

When it comes to the other match, Prime finally shook off that silver curse that has haunted them for a long time, both in terms of MKP's individual achievements and their second place finish in the last GSTL. MarineKing now brings home an actual major gold medal from the MLG Winter Arena and is boosting the whole team's confidence. Still, StarTale are in possession of Bomber, who scored the first ever 5-man all kill in the GSTL, as well as Squirtle, who almost did the same last week. In addition, players like Ace, Parting, Sound and Curious make StarTale a very strong team in all match-ups. My prediction, however: 5:4 for Prime.



With just one week to go, the rest of the round robin of NASTL is just a formality as the top four to qualify to the playoffs are already settled. What remains is to determine the actual order of the group leaders.

As of week six, Liquid, Empire and Mouz are all equal in points with Mouz taking third just because they have one loss too many. Liquid and Empire, however, are neck and neck, still unable to prove who is the better team. Last week I would have given my vote to the Easterners as they were supposed to play #6 in the current rankings RoxKis but as it turned out, Empire had more troubles than expected. Beastyqt lost the first set for Empire but then Happy and Violet stepped in to take the lead for their team and with Kas coming out as fourth, Empire's victory seemed inevitable. As Kas lost to Titan, however, an ace match had to be played between the Russian protoss and the IEM Sao Paulo champion Violet. The Korean was once again solid and brought his team the triumph like he has many times before.

Team Liquid, on the other hand, went against FXO to take an easy 3-1 with Gumiho being the only one successful for the Korean team. Ret, Hero and Sheth contributed to Liquid's triumph, evening the points with those of Empire's and tying for first place in the group.

Nothing unexpected occurred at the other two matches. Evil Geniuses scored yet another loss, this time in a match without meaning against Quantic, dropping once again to the last place in the group after Puma did not show for his ace match. The walkover is a small comfort for Quantic, though, as they are still at the very bottom of the group with a score of 1-5 and have literally no chances of making it to the playoffs. Same goes for Team Reign as they squandered their last chance of top four finish, losing to Mouz 1-3. Understandable defeat, however, as it is hard to expect anything from a team that is officially disbanded. Still, kudos to all players from Reign who stuck around to at least finish their matches at the NASTL!



Next on NASTL: Week 7

NASTL WEEK 7
Quantic Gaming	VS (March 1)	Mousesports
RoxKis	VS (March 2)	Evil Geniuses
Team Empire	VS (March 3)	FXO e-Sports
Team Liquid	VS (March 4)	Team Reign

The most intriguing face-off shall be between Empire and FXO which has the potential to introduce some moving around in the standings before the reckoning is closed. This will be a very hard match-up for Empire as in the last week of NASTL group stage, they are going against one of the absolute top rosters in the world. Not to mention, Empire dearly need a convincing victory as their rivals for the first place - Team Liquid - will most probably trample Team Reign 3-0 or 3-1. It is sad that this match-up bears absolutely no meaning for FXO - they are stuck at fourth place no matter what happens. All they can do is shove a stick into Empire's wheels.

Mouz's opponents are the guys from Quantic, who have had a really bad NASTL experience. They only scored one victory against EG (which, as it turns out, is not such a great accomplishment nowadays) and are probably going to get defeated once again. Although Mouz's playoffs spot is secured, they have a real shot at climbing to second or even first place should Empire or Liquid lose their matches.

Finally, you may very well ignore EG vs RoxKis for obvious reasons.



After two consecutive all-kill weeks, IPL TAC 2 returns to a slower tempo with two matches for each bracket. After the fall of Mouz and Liquid in WBR 2 two weeks ago, the winners bracket was now occupied by four Korean teams. In the first semi final, oGs and FXO went set for set until TheSTC came forth and put an end to Lucky, Choya and Gumiho to sent his team to the WB final.

In semi final match #2, MarineKing hailed fresh from his Winter Arena victory to play a huge role in Prime's triumph over StarTale. MKP entered third after the fall of Annyeong and BboongBboong, taking four in a row before finally being stopped by Bomber. Prime's momentum, however, was already too big and they sent forth Creator to claim the spoils of victory.

The losers bracket round 2 saw the elimination of Team Vile and Mousesports from the tournament. Vile got blazed by TSL, who took their tradition one step further and went for an all-zerg line-up this week. Shine emerged as the hero for TSL, slaying four in a row to preserve his team's tournament life.

Mousesport's defeat came at the hands of Team Empire. Aristeo, Beastyqt and Kas laid the carpet for Violet, who entered seventh as the team's ace to slap down Bigs and Mana.



Next on IPL TAC 2

IPL TAC 2 (March 1-3)
Team Liquid	VS (LBR 3, March 1)	Team SCV Life
Team Empire	VS (LBR 3, March 2)	HoSeo
Old Generations	VS (WBR 4, March 3)	Prime

Although fairly unsuccessful in the GSTL, Old Generations are flourishing in the IPL TAC 2. Their victories over EG, Mouz and FXO have brought them to the winners bracket final where they face the talented roster of Prime. Prime themselves enter the series with a huge boost, caused by their ace's recent success. If Prime find a way to channel MarineKing power, this is a sure win for them.

In the lower bracket, TSL, Liquid, Empire and HoSeo are all fighting for their survival. The first match is tomorrow between Liquid and TSL and I would still, in any circumstance, give every advantage to Liquid. The foreigners are in possession of multiple zerg-killers in Hero, Ret and Zenio so in all logic, TSL are, technically speaking, screwed.

On March 2nd, Empire is facing HoSeo and this one is tougher to predict. Empire is currently one of the top two scoring teams in the NASTL, while HoSeo had the questionable privilege to be all-killed by Bomber in GSTL week 2 and then again by Gumiho in IPL TAC 2 winners round two. I wonder if Empire would want to give yet another all-kill present to HoSeo and open with Violet or Kas.