The Team Liquid Starleague has become one of the biggest events of the year. TSL is known for changing the lives of many young pro gamers looking to make a name for themselves. This TSL will be no different in fact with the upcoming launch of HOTS this might be the tournament for someone to build their career

Finally the round of 8 is here, tonight we will cover the series between 4 players: First, Sting, Creator, and Hack. We'll be covering all the action from tonight. So make sure to check back for the latest updates!


Image courtesy of TeamLiquid



Series recap:

The series kicked off on Cloud Kingdom with Sting opening with the standard one barracks expansion and his opponent First going for a two Gateway, Robotics expand. Sting opts to hide a third expansion in the bottom right to gain a massive lead going into the mid game.
Both players sat passively waiting until their economy kicked in to set up their timings in the mid game. First noticing something is up with what Sting was doing and he began scouting around the map and poking at the front with his main army to understand what Sting was doing. Sting fell back and began teching and despite scouting the hidden third his army wasn’t able to punish the hidden base. Both players began posturing up with First building up his Collosus count and upgrading and Sting began racking up the Viking numbers while keeping up with upgrades. The engagement happened at the third base of First with the superior concave of Sting he demolished all the Collosus and retain the bulk of his army. Killing not only the third base but pushing into the natural and closing down the tech switch from First.

Game two was played on one of the most player favorite maps in the game, Daybreak. Sting started with a gas first before barracks, but First could not scout this because Sting was able to wall off before the probe could go up the ramp. Sting went for a quick cloak banshee build while First is going for a standard quick expand opening with a robotics facility. The banshee harass was slightly successful, but no game-ending damage was done because First was prepared with an observer. Sting seems to be going for a less than normal army composition which included Banshee, Raven, Thor and a sprinkle of marines. The first push by sting would be his last one. The composition was no match for the archon/immortal/zealot/stalker/sentry from First and Stings army was melted in just a short few seconds forcing Sting into a quick GG.

The map to start game three is Ohana, the Protoss player to do a rather unusual build, getting double gas with a robotics facility followed with another 3 gateways. Sting on the other hand decided to go with an economic oriented opening getting another base and teching to starport. First decided to be the aggressor in the game and attacked the Terran player in his natural base forcing him to lift his base and draw back with his forces in the main. After forcing the lift in the command center First decided to end the game and walk into Sting’s ramp but there were medivacs and marines which killed half of his army. As the war between the two players ended, Sting established once again his second base, Sting saw First was going for colossus and went for the deadly push with vikings, when he arrived near the Protoss base the only thing to defend it was one colossus and some gateway units which were easily destroyed to give Sting the victory..

Antiga Shipyard is the map where our players will duke it out, First this game was forced to be in a defensive position in the whole game, he went for an early expansion while Sting was doing a Hellion Medivac drop followed by 1/1/1 build with banshees, tanks and marines. The Terran player needed to do some economic damage with the banshees but they were easily defended by the Protoss player. When the time for the 1 base push came, Sting sieged at the front of the natural base of First, but the Protoss player with an amazing surround managed to target fire the tanks and then the stalkers were free to kill the rest of the Terran army, winning him game four.

Game number five was on Metropolis, First went for an early expansion with robotics facility followed by colossus tech. Sting as the previous game went for the cloaked banshees but the difference this time was that he did a lot of economic damage and saved up some time to get his 1/1/1 running. Luck was not on First’s side, because both of the players were in the middle of the map, but did not see each other and the game went to a base trade scenario, where First managed to sneak a base, but got scouted by a banshee and later on destroyed. With good supply advantage, Sting hunted down the rest of Firsts forces, winning him game five.

Entombed Valley is the map for game six, where First as game five expanded and then got an robotics facility, but Sting wanted to do some pressure and sneaked one proxy barracks near the edges on his natural base and one barracks in his main base. The Terran player snuck a squad of five marines to First’s natural base and then sent another squad of marines, while expanding behind those attacks. The game turned a little passive, as both of the players went for their third base, after this Sting started to put pressure on First with drops on the natural base and doing another attack at the third base, achieving great economic damage on the Protoss player. When Sting got his 200 supply army he took some SCVs to buffer some additional damage and went for an attack, with a good concave and micro, “gg” was given by First and Sting won the series.
Recap provided by: MMDollar



Series recap:

Game one versus Creator and Hack was played out on Cloud Kingdom. Both players started with standard economic buildings with one gate/barracks expands, but Hack throws a curve ball to his build and builds a ninja expansion just 30 seconds after building his first command centre at his natural. Hack is going for the conventional Marine/Medivac/Tank composition while Creator is going for quick Collosus with chargelot upgrades. Hack pushes up to Creators natural with his composition but is easily denied with the Collosus 9 range which results in Hack losing his entire army. At the same time Creator scouts Hacks secret expansion and warps in units to pressure Hack into lifting the command centre. Once Hack gets a handful of Vikings he engages at Creators third just before storm finishes for Creator, but the Chargelots/archon/stalker/Collosus was too much for Hack to handle losing most of his army. Creator transitioned into High Templars while Hack transition into making ghosts. The storms are great for Creator, Hacks third gets decimated and Creator takes a fourth behind the attack. The economic and army advantage is too much for Hack to handle and is forced into a GG.

Game 2 was played out on Ohana one of the more TvP friendly maps in the map pool. Hack goes for the less than conventional Marauder expand while Creator goes for 1 gate expand, but Creators hero Zealot was able to scout everything that Hack was doing. Hack tries to pressure Creators natural with a Bunker and few marauders, but it was not very effective, losing 3 marauders for only 1 sentry and hull damage on stalkers. Hacks mid-game composition is the standard Marine/Marauder ball with Medivacs, but Creator is going for quick Colossus with chargelot upgrade like last game. Hack breaks down the rocks to Creators natural and stims up both the ramps and is able to snipe a colossus and few sentries. Creator shifts gear and stops Colossus production and switches to High Templar tech. As the late game-approaches Hack is adding Ghosts into his composition to deal with the Archon/Zealot/Immortal/High Templar army from Creator. Both players met each other in the middle of the map and Hack landed some great EMP's and it looked like Hack was going to melt Creators army, but Creator comes in with High Templar and Zealots reinforcements allowing Creator to clean up Hacks army. After another warp-in Creator moved in for the kill and forces the GG from Hack.

With Creator ahead 2-0 the third map to be played in this Best of 7 series was Antiga Shipyard. Right from the start the game is already Funky with Hack placing a proxy factory in the bottom right corner followed up by Medivacs. On the other side of the map Creator is doing things differently by going 1 base blink stalkers which blindly counters Hacks proxy Hellion drop. Hack goes in for the drop but Creators reaction time is almost instant and was able to kill the Hellions and the Medivac and only lost 6 probes. Hack follows up with cloak-less banshees, but Creator is already prepared with Stalkers in his mineral line while Creator follows up with an expansion. Hack desperately tries to expand and build buildings, but Creators Blink Stalkers keep denying anything that Hack wants to do. Hack tries to macro up, but Creator is so ahead on macro and upgrades when Hack pushes into Creators full colossus army, Hack has to throw in the towel and accept defeat.

Game 4 is played out on Daybreak the player favourite map this is mostly due to the fact you can do a wide variety of strategies from cheese to macro. Both players start out normally with Hack going 3 quick command centres and Creator goes for the Standard 1 gate expand into robotics facility. Hack’s building up for a heavy Marine/Marauder/Tank push while Creator is opting for quicker upgrades with a slower Colossus tech. As Creator is getting up his third, Hack sieges up and starts pummeling the third base, but Creators immortals and force-fields rolls over Hacks army with ease. Hack goes for a mid-game drop at 12 minutes, but Creator is a step ahead of Hack and has blink stalkers waiting and completely denies the drop. At the same time Hack tries to stim into Creators third, but is easily denied with Creators colossus. Going into late game Creator is on 4 bases with his super death ball with 3-3 upgrades while Hack is adding ghosts and Vikings into his composition with 2-2 upgrades. There is an engagement at the rocks of Daybreak, Creators upgrades and position decimates Hacks army with ease giving Creator the 4-0 win over Hack.
Recap provided by: EggY