Dear takes the SouL team-kill

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Predicted to dominantly triumph over his team-mate (and by more than one media to that), Trap enters the quarter final against Dear having SC2 writers’ support behind him. Showcasing prowess in early and mid-game stages is what the audience watching the stream expects to see and it gets it… from the person on the other side of the ring.

Dear brings a DT/immortal opening for game one and as a result finds himself soft-contained by Trap’s stalkers and sentries. Warp prisms start flying out of his base in attempt to loosen the siege and by craning his immortals down to the low ground and combining them with his gateway army, Dear does manage to break out.

With the first jabs landing, the two players look towards transitioning into a more stable mid-game economy and naturals are put down but Dear smells blood and an attack command is triggered. His first wave is pushed back but the next engagements go dramatically in his favor. Having snowballed out of control, the “underdog” in the series snatches game one.



The units tab during Dear's first attack shows double the immortal and three times the zealot count in his favor

Game two is on Polar Night and Dear goes on to challenge Trap in a micro war, a seemingly dangerous endeavor considering the latter’s performance against sOs in the Ro16. Unlike sOs, however, Dear is on top of everything and never misses a beat. Bringing a blink micro mirror war to Trap’s main base with a gateway advantage sets the stage perfectly for Dear: the gap between the army counts increases with every single shot, Trap is pushed further and further into his own base despite the nexus cannon, his immortal is sniped upon spawning. It takes only a few second before Trap admits defeat for a second time in a row.

Trap finally lives long enough to play a longer game on Whirlwind but the end result is just as sour. His quicker expo into immortal tech gives him an early lead ahead of Dear’s slower expand behind a DT/immortal tech but his follow-up tech choices eventually bring his demise. Sprinting straight to colossi leaves Trap fatally open to Dear’s composition and the meaty immortal/archon/zealot hits him like a jackhammer, leaving him out of the competition with a 0-3 scoreboard.



Soulkey continues ZvP win streak

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While quarter final #1 being a rather short affair shocks nobody, it is not the case with quarter final #2 between Soulkey and Rain. The defending champion has come to the studio bringing along a perfect ZvP ratio in his last five matches and odds are thus with him, but nobody counts Rain out. The experts foresee a back-and-fourth match-up, the possibility of this being a five-game series not excluded. Soulkey opens the quarter final by proxy hatching Rain’s natural. Although the hatchery is destroyed as fast as humanly possible, the Protoss nexus is nevertheless severely delayed, an unfavorable position to be in as Rain especially with Soulkey setting up his bases on the other side of the map at the same time. The mid game thus finds the Zerg in the economic and supply advantage, swarm host tech on the way. Despite being against the ropes, Rain despairs not and his deathball pokes eventually reward him with a death fourth hatchery. This is not enough, however: Soulkey’s macro never skips a beat and Akilon Wastes is soon covered in locusts. Having free units and constant Zerg production knocking on his door, Rain surrenders the battlefield to Soulkey. Game two on Whirlwind sees one shaky and uncomposed Rain. The battle is once again between a stalker/colossus death ball and swarm host armada and the first few second of the deciding engagement do go well for the Protoss as he easily slices through the first lines of Zerg units. It is only midway through the battle that Rain realizes there is no observer with his army and locusts chew him to death before one finally arrives. With the macro scenarios not going well for him, Rain switches tactics and a 2-base timing is initiated on Polar Night. While this has worked for Rain in the past, however, it hits a brick wall here. His aggression is met by Soulkey’s massive roach/hydra concaves, a composition which has won him not one or two games in his career. The stalkers melt before the firepower of the Zerg and it is not long before Rain taps out. A 3-0 is given to Soulkey and the defending champions moves on to await the winner of soO and PartinG.

Down 40 supply, Rain is not long for this game



​Rotator photos: Daily eSports