[SSL Autumn] A Case For Snow Pt2

Snow v Z
Last time I suggested that Snow’s PvT was incredible. And even though some meta changes have made it more difficult, I would still back Snow against every Terran remaining in the SOOP. Last season, Snow was eliminated by Soulkey in what turned out to be the best series of the tournament. This time around there are fewer Zergs to contend with, but Soulkey and hero are really good at ZvP. Jaedong has slowed down somewhat with age (as have we all), but as one of the greats he obviously understands the matchup-up well enough to be at least a challenge to any Protoss.

Should we be worried about Snow? Nah. He managed to avoid playing any Bo1’s or Bo3’s against Zerg, which can always go wrong somehow. The earliest he can hit a Zerg is in the Ro8. And if herO and SK turn up (or indeed get eliminated) then Snow will probably not see a Zerg until the semis. Of course this is where he tripped up against Soulkey last time. The series was going extremely well after Snow managed to win the first two games with incredible micro and impressive decision-making under pressure. And Blitz Y looked like a good map for him and with a 3-0 lead he should’ve taken it home. But somehow Soulkey managed to out-position Snow by securing both the middle bases. And although Snow did an amazing job squeezing every last amount of damage out of his minerals, he fell just short.

Let us go back to the very same KCM series that we reviewed last time. If nothing else, because there are two more insane games to marvel at. Week 6 kicked off with a rematch on Blitz Y and the players pretty much picked up where they left off in that semi-final. Here we go!

Snow vs Soulkey on Blitz Y
KCM Race Survival 2024 Season 3, Week 6, Game 1

If you’re reading this, chance is that you’ve watched the best match of ASL17. That game was truly phenomenal and you should probably watch it again. You know you want to.

This re-match is with switched positions, Snow in the top right and Soulkey in the bottom right. Neither player gambles with the opening: forge first vs overpool. A probe almost denies the natural hatchery. Soulkey morphs four zerglings and starts probe-chasing. Then he expands to the bottom left corner. Snow has enough intel to get away with making only one photon cannon. Having driven the probe out of his main base, Soulkey decides to administer a basic Protoss skill check and starts morphing a hydralisk den.

The first two zealots wander past the scouting overlord, forcing a few more lings to spawn. And, having successfully stretched their legs, they then stroll back home. Zergling speed finishes and the scouting probe gets destroyed shortly after. Snow is now completely blind and he hasn’t seen the main for a while. The Zerglings fan out across the map, to make sure there aren’t any other sneaky scouts, and then converge near the Protoss natural. The first few hydras hatch just before the first corsair arrives at the Zerg base. A few slither away to the West, perhaps to disguise their numbers or to skirt around the obvious scouting path.

Even before the corsair spots the hydra den additional cannons have started warping in. Snow continues to play standard by adding his citadel and a second gateway. When the now speedy hydras arrive, they find five zealots and three completed cannons with two more on the way. So they start spitting at the forge. Meanwhile corsairs kill an overlord.

The hydras pick off the forge and the gateway, but Snow passes the basic skill check. And for every forge and gateway lost, he warps in two more. Take that, Zerg!

Soulkey has seen enough so he pivots into a more economic midgame by spawning a few more drones and starting to grow two additional hatcheries. Space pirates shoot down two more overlords. Maybe triggered by getting supply-blocked Soulkey brings up a few more hydras and launches an attack on the Protoss natural.

This frees up a little bit of supply, mainly lings, and forces Snow to pull probes. Behind this corsairs nab another overlord. Zealots, with leg upgrades, rush out of the gateways and Soulkey is forced to back off. While all this is going on, Snow somehow finds the time to make some art in his base. (Yet another reason why he should win SOOP!)

There is now a full control group of zealots with speed and there are four cannons. Maybe a good opportunity for Zerg to transition? Nah, Soulkey brings up more units and has another nibble. Just making sure Snow hasn’t skimped on units.

High templars join the fray around the same time as spire finishes. The Zerg units retreat into defensive positions, which gives Snow the opportunity to get active on the map for the first time. A control group of zealots hit the Zerg third, just moments after most of the hydras have left. They kill a few drones and hydras and force the remaining workers to evacuate.

Zerg reinforcements arrive and the remaining zealots retreat. Soulkey has been paying careful attention to the corsairs. There are still only two and they are damaged. You know what that means. It’s time for another skill check! The reigning ASL champion hastily cobbles together an air force to check if Snow is ready to deal with a muta-switch. But, with impeccable style, Snow spots the aerial threat with a dark templar. This gives him time to start a cannon and to produce an additional corsair. The mutalisks force out two storms, but take some damage in the process, and then head into the Protoss main.

One corsair gets scourged, but the other two survive due to a beautiful storm. The mutas kill the cannon, but are too bruised to win the air battle. And with more bad weather and dragoons on the way Soulkey is forced to pull them back. Have you noticed a pattern yet?

Snow starts to secure his third on the high-ground South of his base. With some reinforcements, the mutalisks come back and we get treated to a brief flashback to the old days of archons trying desperately to squeeze through a mineral field to get in range. Snow manages to keep his corsairs alive and the air attack fizzles out again.

While Soulkey starts his fourth, same location, other half of the map, his hydra force snakes up the map towards the newest Protoss expansion. But there are too many defenders so they turn back. Meanwhile, another clutch of mutas hatch. Now up to a full control group they flap into the Protoss main once again. The supplies look scarily close for Snow, he’s only ahead by about ten. If his economy gets dented badly, or he loses too many templars, then he might get run over by the Zerg ground forces.

Dragoons briefly fall back to defend the main base, and this might have been an opening for the hydralisks. But the mutas pull back and the window of opportunity closes. A well-placed observer on the right edge of the map provides vision of the Zerg air manouvres. So the next mutalisk excursion is intercepted by corsairs. And there is also a templar hiding behind the assimilator.

Snow now has five corsairs and another beautiful storm catches some scourge to keep them all alive. They catch a stray overlord, but don’t fly any further out. The Protoss army is now on 2-0-2 upgrades, while Zerg still has no ground melee or armour upgrades at all. With Snow’s army growing, Soulkey’s position is starting to look questionable. We’re almost fifteen minutes into the game and the queen’s nest is only half complete.

On the positive side, Zerg has secured four bases, has a large army and solid economy. Soulkey adds additional sunken colonies and sim city buildings just to be on the safe side. The first few Lurkers finally hatch.

The huge Protoss army rolls around the map and behind this Snow starts to secure his fourth base. Squirreled away somewhere Soulkey must have his own massive army, because he has actually caught up with Protoss supply, both at 160. But after the early relentless aggression he’s become strangely passive over the last few minutes. Maybe he recognises that he is severely behind in tech, so he bides his time until defilers become available.

We get another glimpse of Snow’s main. The artistic layout has turned into an arrow-head pointing straight at the Zerg main, as if to say ‘We are coming for you!‘

When the cerebrate senses that most of the Protoss army is away from home, the mutalisks flit into the third again. But, of course, Snow’s corsairs are ready. There are enough scourge to secure a decisive victory, but stacked corsairs are hard to target. So the battle ends in mutual annihilation.

This is fine for Snow, who can now focus on his ground offensive. But there aren’t really any openings, so the army keeps marching around without engaging. A swarm of zerglings get across the map, but they just run past Snow’s fourth base. Maybe they were sightseeing, or maybe they are draft dodgers. You decide!

With his army maxed and templars overflowing with energy, Snow goes for his first full-scale attack. (At 17 min, when many Broodwar matches are already over.) Snow marches to the ramp outside of the Zerg third and starts inching forward with dragoons supported by a large number of psi-storms.

It makes sense to attack this location because it’s easier to fall back from and shorter for reinforcements. Of course it’s not exactly easy to break through the layered Zerg defenses. Feeling somewhat threatened, Soulkey orders a complete mobilisation and we watch streams of units converging from the other Zerg bases to flank the dwindling Protoss army.

The flanking manouvre relieves pressure and ultimately kills off most of the Protoss forces. Only four dragoons and a couple of high templars get out alive. Something like 140 units worth of supply were wiped out in that exchange. This puts Snow in some danger as he doesn’t have a critical mass of goons anymore. But Soulkey can’t capitalise because he ran out of lurkers. On the positive side, the defiler mound is done and Zerg is slowly clawing back the Protoss upgrade advantage.

Snow has started to take another base in the very top left corner. But the probe transfer is spotted by the lings that ran to the North earlier. They start clawing the nexus, but the probes fight back.

It looks like the nexus might fall, but there’s a cannon finishing off screen and some zealots arrive in the nick of time. Soulkey’s economy must be huge, because he overtakes Snow in supply briefly. Zerglings try to ambush some templars, but 1-1 lings are not super effective against 3-3 Protoss units.

The flipside of the big economy is that Soulkey needs another base, and quickly. He has so far avoided taking the more exposed base on the left side high-ground. But with defilers finally on the field, Zerg sets up a lurker line South of the centre that should cover it.

Snow throws a few storms at the defensive line and pulls back. His units temporarily get distracted by a few lings loping around. Then he swings around to the West to get a better angle of attack.

The attacking army gets greeted by dark swarm and plague. Snow’s units get in range of the hatchery, but pull back to the centre before they get surrounded. This is an opportunity for Soulkey to push a little closer to the middle, while at the same time getting ready to conquer the Easter Islands. Snow shaves off a few more lings and lurkers and takes up a position close to the Western base.

In the previous match, Soulkey quickly secured the island and later also managed to get hold of the Western base. This lead to about twenty minutes of Snow trying, and ultimately failing, to break the island with his astonishing shuttle-reaver play. And sure enough, the Zerg forces try to secure the nine o’clock base in this game too. Snow understands that he can’t concede both middle bases like last time.

Snow has decided that he should make all the good units, so he morphs a dark archon and parks it in his base for the time being. Perhaps this is an insurance policy against a drop from the island , or against another muta-switch. The battle in the middle continues almost constantly in the background, like the slow grinding attrition of trench-warfare in winter. Protoss forces hold strong with storms behind archons, and a sizeable supply gap opens up of about fifty.

Snow senses that the Zerg lines have thinned somewhat and seizes some more ground in the middle. Behind this attack he starts warping in buildings at nine o’clock. Both players have by now mined out their mains and naturals and resources at their third bases are starting to run low. Zergling upgrades are now at 3-2, with adrenal glands of course, and Snow is getting shield upgrades while he starts to build a bit of a bank.

A large family of genetically identical siblings head through the nydus network. They’ve been promised an island holiday! Plausibly drones actually enjoy chewing crystals, so maybe they are actually fine with the unrelenting work schedule. The nexus finishes at nine o’clock and two hatcheries are up and running at three o’clock, so both players get an influx of fresh cash to throw more units into the grinder.

Snow has been playing a diligent high templar game for 25 minutes, as prescribed by the conclave. But let’s face it, this is war, and a serious general will use any and all means to achieve victory. So it’s time to unleash the robots!

We briefly glimpse a 31 kill archon. I’m guessing the kills of the templars get added together? With new-found economic energy, the Zerg units push forward decisively, lurkers crawl from swarm to swarm, and take a position just at the entrance to the nine o’clock base. This is a critical moment in the game. And just when it looks like the weather has finally improved, more templars trickle in.

And then the first reavers crawl off the assembly line. The small pack of lings that had been chilling near the top of the map finally get bored. They dash into Snow’s top left expansion and, instead of trying to kill the nexus they do basically… nothing. Maybe they were Quakers? The battle in the centre of the map continues its seesaw momentum. Lurkers inch forward under dark swarm, shoot a few spikes and then get electrocuted. Lings try to support the attacks, but there are too many archons.

After a successful hold Snow pivots to the Eastern side and sends a few units into the Zerg base on the high-ground. The Protoss units there kill a few drones but get wiped out. This brings the supplies closer than they have been for some time. Most of the supply that dies is fairly low value zealots, so not a crippling disaster for Snow, but not helpful either.

Both players have exhausted the minerals at their third bases. This is a bigger problem for Soulkey, who probably needs to deny one of Snow’s bases to win. Protoss briefly runs out of observers in the centre and starts to lose ground even without having to deal with orange clouds. The swarm senses an opportunity and starts pouring units into the Northern half of the map.

Soulkey’s army takes up a position outside of nine o’clock, but he doesn’t quite have the material to push into the base. Three reavers and seven cannons behind a choke with storm support nearby require truly astonishing numbers of Zerg ground units to break. For evidence, consider Best vs Action on Nemesis! (https://tl.net/forum/brood-war/609886-asl15-ro8-preview-pt2-victory-cry) Having finally grown bored of guarding the main against thin air, the dark archon hovers over to the centre and maelstroms some zerglings. (Apparently, in English anything can be verbed.)

Freezing units is nice, but you know what? If someone else storms them to death, they get the kills! That’s not only annoying, but downright unfair. Tired of being overlooked for promotion based on dodgy stats, the District Attorney files some serious charges, and, sadly, the accused dies instantly from a heart attack. Finally, a measurable outcome.

Gravitic drive (Did you know that name?) is one of the useful upgrades Protoss is still missing, so a scourge takes down a shuttle. Another couple suicide into an observer. This is the prelude to a large group of Zerg units gathering for a big assault. Snow shaves off some units with storms, but some lurkers wrap around to cut off Protoss reinforcements to the left side of the map. There is a gap in the line and two control groups of lings get through all the way to the Northern edge of the map. They would easily overwhelm three cannons and an old zealot to snipe the top left base. But they’ve spent too much time on Twitch, so they engaging in some untimely ‘just chilling’ and get wiped out for little gain.

Soulkey’s economy is starting to slow down and from here on he doesn’t quite have enough minerals. Snow has a solid 65 supply lead and a better bank, plus something like five reavers at his most important base. Another Zerg attack goes awry when the DA subpoenas a defiler into submission. Should’ve filled out his tax return correctly that scamp.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen four feedback kills on a single unit in a pro-level game. If you can think of any other games do comment below please. Snow has a truly silly amount of high tech units now. There are nine high templars hanging around outside nine o’clock. How appropriate. Protoss shields are now also fully upgraded.

Soulkey has started mining from the left side of the island expansion and his poor drones promptly eat a tropical storm. Zerg has just about finished off the minerals on the South side. After another skirmish in the centre, Soulkey’s supplies have dipped to 100. He needs to make something happen. Snow is only mining at nine o’clock, so that has to be the target. But how?

In the event, the big attack never comes. The DA successfully petitions for another death warrant, now six. And Soulkey doesn’t have enough units anymore. A swarm of lings lopes around the map for a bit, but they are hit by blue fire, explosions and lightning everywhere. The Protoss army chases the lings South. The poor critters try to hide under the orange cloud, but Snow drops the hammer and crushes through. The last morphing lurkers get obliterated by storms and scarabs and Soulkey concedes defeat.

What an astonishing game. Was this maybe better than the previous encounter? I honestly don’t know. More DA, less shuttle action? Maybe the lower stakes make this game slightly less impressive, but let’s not be churlish.

What I find most interesting is that Snow got stronger as the game went on. There were a few early moments when Soulkey’s aggression could’ve given him a decisive lead. But after Snow fought off the mutalisks and took four bases he never really looked in any trouble. Remember that late-game PvZ is supposed to be hard and that Soulkey is a real master at it. Consider his ASL finals victory over Mini. While I wouldn’t give Snow a big edge over Soulkey in a series, I think all the other Protoss face worse odds. (Unless Mini can keep it together somehow… stranger things have happened, and it is autumn.)

Snow vs Action on Radeon
KCM Race Survival 2024 Season 3, Week 6, Game 3

After winning two extremely long and difficult games, Snow gets rewarded with a game against Action who likes playing long macro games, on a four player map. Protoss takes the initiative with a nine-gate opening, while Zerg goes for economy with eleven-hatch. The players are in vertical positions and the probe finds creep just when the first zealot has warped in.

Six zerglings hatch before the zealots get close enough to do damage, so they return home. Action starts his third hatchery at twelve o’clock. The scouting probe plays tag with a ling while its brood-siblings watch. Once the forge is up and running, Snow sends out three zealots. They get spotted by a ling, but still manage to walk all the way across the map unhindered and straight into the Zerg third base. Of course they are only there to greet the freshly hatched drones.

While playing with the zealots, one drone accidentally gets scratched, to death. When the lings find out about the play-session they lope over to get in on the action (hah!). Now its friends have run off, the probe heads into the Zerg main to see if anyone else wants to play, and spots the spire morphing.

The three zealots take up a position behind the minerals, but zerglings clear them out fairly efficiently. Given that there was no hydralisk den to be seen, Snow starts to warp in a second stargate, somewhat hidden in the very bottom right corner. The first corsair sweeps over the Zerg bases, finds a complete den and also notes that Action is in the process of adding more workers and production.

Zerg is fairly light on fighting units, so five zealots decide to poke across to the third again, to apply some pressure. They literally get shadowed by a pair of scourge and hydralisks hatch in time to keep everything secure. Four corsairs pop an overlord, so Action should know that more than one stargate is in play. But due to Action’s build the overlord speed upgrade finishes very early.

With nothing much to fear at home, the hydralisks shepherd the overlords South. Or is it the overlords calling the hydras? Snow knows what’s up and a line of five cannons is just finishing. The forge and gateway wall quickly get taken down. But, the first Protoss ground weapons upgrade is already finished, so it’s not a big deal. High templars start to trickle in through the warp.

Given that six corsairs have killed one overlord, that there is no significant Zerg air force, and that Snow is basically locked in, it’s fair to say that the opening went well for Action. So he is content to spawn more drones for the time being. Zerg is almost even in supply, which puts Snow in a difficult position. The executor has to get his forces out onto the map soon, so he warps in more production, going up to eight gateways for now. Another cause for Protoss worries is the very late robotics facility, still unfinished at ten minutes. Lurkers are going to be out soon.

So with leg upgrades finished, a band of zealots engages the hydralisks camping outside the Protoss natural. Action shows some cute moves by turning injured hydras into lurker eggs. The zealots push back the hydralisks, but get almost ground down in the process. The only three survivors run off towards the centre. Zerg is up seven supply. The fourth base is on the way, and the relevant tech is done. Meanwhile, Snow micros his three zealots to pick off a single hydralisks, because… he can. Let’s just say this doesn’t exactly help him to win the game. The first lurkers are out and set up the dreaded contain.

The first round of dragoons warps in, but there are already eight lurkers in place. There is hydralisk support behind, plenty of overlords and a few scourge. I can’t remember how many games I’ve seen where this is basically the end. Snow tries his best to get at least some value out of his corsairs and he finally manages to supply block his Zerg opponent, albeit on more supply than Protoss has…

A shuttle sneaks out via an un-surveilled route along the South of the map to drop one dark templar into the middle. This is a pretty good metaphor for desperation if you think about. The contain grows to thirteen lurkers. Against the odds the single dark templar makes it to the Zerg natural and the four remaining corsairs have made sure there’s no overlord.

On the one hand, DT’s aren’t actually invisible. They just can’t be targeted without detection and somehow Action spots the blur and the drones scramble for cover. On the other hand, knowing that something is happening and being able to deal with it effectively can be two very different things. That dark templar slices up twelve drones and forces a gob of hydralisks to slither home. Despite all this, Snow is still twelve supply down and remains under locked and key.

Time is running out, so here we go. Two observers spot for two control groups of dragoons as they start to engage the contain. Templars provide cover against hydralisks trying to snipe the observers. The Zerg army is on 2-0 upgrades, Protoss on 1-1. One observer goes down. A well-placed storm protects the second one from scourge. Some of the lurkers are clumped so further storms do a lot of damage.

However, the contain remains in place and it is far from clear that the Protoss army can break through. There are more than enough hydralisks to keep the dragoons in check. But then Action blunders.

The hydralisks push too far forward. And without lurker support, or good splitting, about twenty get blown away by two storms for the low cost of two dragoons. This evens the numbers between the walking Protoss tombs and the Zerg spitters. And with the lurkers having been pushed pack, the dragoons also manage to spread out to get more surface area.

With a fresh warp-round of zealots it looks like the contain might fall. But the zealots unwisely engage the remaining lurkers, which they mostly kill, instead of securing the right flank against hydralisk reinforcements. As a result the Protoss army does get pushed back temporarily, but Action doesn’t have have material to reinstate the blockade. Zerg has dropped to 87 supply and is particularly short on lurkers, so the hydralisks retreat.

I wonder if Action realised at the time just how close Snow was to mining out. The observer shows us some of the mineral patches at the Protoss main and natural. The ones in the main are down to 20(!), while at the natural most have dropped below 200.

Snow is so starved of resources that he has stopped upgrading. Action has also not expanded behind the fighting. And then the three lost Vikings (no, not the transformers from SC2) suddenly resurface at twelve o’clock and start murdering workers. Action is forced to evacuate the remaining drones. But he also overreacts by pulling back more hydralisks than he needed to.

Snow immediately moves out to finally secure his third base and tries to push across the bridge. Hydralisks have taken up position on the far side though. The storms are good, but this time Action dodges well and the dragoons are forced back. The hydralisks give chase, but run into fresh zealots. Another well-placed storm does huge damage.

We get a glimpse of the Zerg economy and it’s actually not looking very strong. Neither the fourth base, nor the main mineral lines are saturated and there are no drones on the main extractor. Action seems to have fallen into a low unit count equilibrium trap. If he drones he might get run over, but if he doesn’t drone then his army is too weak to win outright. So carries on truing to muddle through.

A few zealots break off from the main army and cause some trouble at twelve o’clock and three o’clock. They end up killing quite a few drones, certainly more than Action can afford to lose. Hydralisks skirt around Snow’s new expansion to pick off some Protoss units at the rally point. Action tries a double-pronged attack, but Snow splits his army well and wins the fight on both fronts. A DT sneaks out to have another go at the twelve o’clock drones. Sometimes workers just can’t catch a break, eh?

The next couple of fights go well for Action, whose low drone count sort of disguises his small-ish supply. Back to almost even supply, Protoss is now in danger of falling over. One lurker burrows just under the new assimilator and could potentially kill a lot of probes. But the targeting is off and most of them survive.

In the background, the dark templar has successfully wiped out the remaining seven drones at twelve o’clock and is now sneaking over to the overlord-free Zerg natural. Before detection arrives another six drones lie in pieces on the floor.

The hydralisks gather for another big attack. But getting over bridges can be tricky under fire, especially in bad weather. Eventually one group of hydras pulls the defenders away from the bridge and the others slither across as quickly as their bellies can carry them to sandwich the Protoss army.

Getting surrounded like this is very dangerous and despite a couple of decent storms the dragoons quickly get overwhelmed. But just then Action gets distracted by the DT, who had slipped out and is now back to terrorise the drones again. Snow lands a nice storm from behind with a fresh high templar.

Both players are really running on fumes now. Supplies are 74 to 51. Action sends all his remaining fighting units to Snow’s third base. The Protoss army consists of two dragoons, one archon, three fresh templars and the super ninja. Over the next couple of minutes we get treated to some of the smallest late-game fights we’re ever likely to see.

One archon and two templars against six hydralisks. Is this a UMS map? Action has taken out the last observer and he morphs a lurker adjacent to the nexus. But the egg is plasma-cooked by an archon. The DT finally gets cornered and dispatched. Action decides to roll the dice one more time and hatches some mutalisks. I think it’s fair to say that he missed his ogre-Zerg timing by a good ten minutes or so. On the plus side, the corsairs were wiped out several millennia ago.

Snow has the bigger economy now and his ground army is slowly growing. An observer makes sure that there really aren’t any significant numbers of drones left. A shuttle sneaks out onto the map. When the Protoss army has made its way to Action’s last mining base, the mutalisks strike and start destroying probes. One Archon is picked off easily by a few hydralisks. The hydralisks dodge the storms reasonably well and then snipe both observers. Behind this Snow loses most of his remaining probes. It’s hard to fight mutalisks with only ground units. And after these two exchanges, Action is once again in a decent position to win this game.

The mutalisk health gets slowly whittled down by successive psi storms and the occasional hit from an archon. Snow has scraped together all his remaining probes and sent them mining. All Action has to do is pull his forces together and end this farce beauty. But, remember that sneaky shuttle? That’s right, another dark templar strolls into the Zerg natural and wipes out the drones there, completely unnoticed.

Action executes another nice double attack. Some of his units poke from the West and draw Snow’s units out of position. Then two lurkers and and a few hydras hit from the North and destroy a good chunk of probes unopposed. The Protoss army turns around to deal with the lurkers. This should be the moment for the final sandwich (three sandwiches would be greedy).

But, oh no! One of the slices of bread has slipped off and has fallen to the floor, butter side down. And it takes too long to bend down and get the hydralisks back from the West, so the filling slips out and ruins the top. And finally the hydralisks slip on some leftover sauce straight into two lethal storms. What a culinary tragedy!

Having survived being gobbled up, Snow is now, once again, back in business. The DT is still looking for some more meat to cut into strips. The rest of the Protoss army gathers near the bridge to Action’s fourth base and then confidently pushes across. One injured lurker dies quickly. And with good storms the archons and dragoons win the fight.

Action can’t win a direct encounter, so he sneaks four hydralisks around to kill the last six probes. Meanwhile the Protoss army has split up and is hunting drones. Snow’s third nexus gets destroyed, but the archons corner the last drones in the Zerg fourth base. Down to thirteen supply, Action taps out.

Yeah. What a game. The last ten minutes of this game are actually properly insane. Let me see if I can summarise quickly what happened. So, I think, Snow snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, from the jaws of victory from the jaws of defeat, from the jaws of victory from the jaws of defeat. Or, if you prefer, Action snatched defeat from the jaws of victory from the jaws of defeat, from the jaws of victory from the jaws of defeat from the jaws of victory.

I hope you are now suitably convinced that Snow doesn’t need to be terribly afraid of facing one the remaining Zergs in the tournament. PvZ is tricky, so I’m not quite sure where I stand. I would love to see an epic re-match with SK in the semis. But it was epic because SK is so good, which might not work out for any of the Protoss contenders.

But if skill isn’t enough to guarantee victory, there is still one last advantage we can turn to…

The Legend of the Fall

OK. So maybe you don’t believe in Divine Justice, you heretic. Perhaps you can nitpick your way past the cold hard facts. (Look, his performance has dropped off in the last couple of months. He was beaten by RoyaL in a Bo5.) And possibly you manage to write off the amazing games we’ve reviewed. Somehow. (SK got a bad opening. Action threw the game. Yada yada yada.) But if you’re a proper Brood War fan, there’s one thing you can’t ignore. The Legend of The Fall.

Something happens in autumn that makes Protoss play better. The legend goes almost all the way back to the beginning. The first ever big Protoss title was of course won by GARIMTO, in the fall of 2000. Twenty four years ago. Can you believe that? What were you doing twenty four years ago? (I was still in school!) GARIMTO made another OSL final in the fall of 2001. He faced none other than the defending double champion, the great Terran Emperor himself. But GARIMTO won anyway.

In autumn 2002 Boxer was back in the final. These were the dark days of Protoss, not dissimilar from today, but one man stood up and grabbed the glory with both hands: Reach. Next autumn the other two of the Three Kings, Nal_rA and Kingdom, made the final together, starting a brief Protoss renaissance.

Skipping forward to the autumn of 2005, Boxer once again made a final (pretty impressive longevity). But autumn interfered again and Anytime was crowned the harvest champion. And almost exactly one year later, Anytime made his second OSL final. Unfortunately, for him, some players seem to transcend the Legend, such as Nal_rA, Bisu and Rain winning ‘out of season’, and the great champions NaDa, Jaedong and Flash can seemingly win against all odds.

But the Legend carried on. Stork made his first OSL final in the autumn of 2007, losing to Jaedong. He came back next fall to win the first Protoss OSL title in three long years. Movie made another autumn final in 2009, but we had to wait a further three years for JangBi to revive the Legend, and ultimately to transcend it by defending his title.

Somewhat sadly, ASL has been similarly bereft of Protoss titles. But note that both Shuttle and Mini won their titles in the autumn. And it has once again been three years without a Protoss victory. We have a fairly decent field with four former Protoss champions. And then we have Snow.

The stage is set. The competition is sure to be fierce. It’s time for Snow to stand up and be counted. To take his rightful place in the Pantheon. We know he’s more than good enough. He faces a difficult group straight off the bat (as do all the other players actually…), but I think he will prevail nonetheless. No, I know he will prevail. He must.

Vertumnus has spoken.

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