MVP, IM, and Prime are out. The ghost of STX Soul is in. With the Starcraft world on the brink of turmoil, who will emerge victorious in the final GSTL season of 2013?!

YOUR CONTENDERS


"Quick, someone photoshop Genius and San out of the picture!"

Symbol
BBoongBBoong
Sleep
Patience
VINES
SuperNova
Center
Neige

Last Season: 4th (4-3)
The eclectic group of randoms known as Azubu had a decent first season but failed to impress in a big way after finally putting the weight of a full team roster behind what used to be a one-man show featuring their former captain, Violet. With him, Genius, and San leaving the team, will do they do any better this season? Supernova is coming off his best individual league performance in a long time, barely missing out on a trip to Cologne for the WCS Season 2 finals; they'll need him to step up and become an anchor for this team after a disappointing 4-6 record last season.


"**** YOU HEART OF THE SWARM"

Leenock
Lucky
JKS
Supreme
GuMiho
TheBest
Kong
sC
Hurricane
Acou
ShowTime
Seed
Tassadar
Brave

Last Season: 6th (3-4)
Jesus, what happened to this team? Since the arrival of HotS, Leenock has gone from dominator of foreign tournaments to almost a nobody, falling out of WCS Premier League entirely and posting a dismal 1-4 record last season. Their fearsome Terran anchor and all-killer of Slayers in a GSTL championship last year, Gumiho, wasn't much better. Until somebody says "**** this ****" and starts winning some mother****in' games, it's hard to imagine FXO will perform much better this season than last.


"Buying championships since 2013"

Scarlett
INnoVation
Ryung
Heart
MMA
CranK
Alicia

Last Season: 3rd (5-2)
Well, one of the more talented teams in GSTL just got a whole lot better. Following Acer's signing of Innovation, regarded by many to be the best player in the world, and the disappearance of their top competition (MVP previously finished first in the regular season, and LG-IM won the championship) from the league, Ax-Acer is a now huge favorite to take the season 2 crown. Innovation already led STX Soul to a Proleague championship almost single-handedly; now that he's given a very strong supporting cast of Scarlett, Ryung (who already proved to be a worthy ace last season), and MMA to replace his former partners of Hyvaa, Trap, and Dear, it's hard to imagine he won't do the same thing in the GSTL.


"Will play Starcraft for money"

hyvaa
YoungJoo
SSanaEE
Last
Dear
Trap
HwangSin

Last Season: N/A
Innovation left, Mini retired, their sponsor dropped them, and the wandering band of Starcraft 2 players formerly known as STX Soul has now arrived in the GSTL. As the only (former) Kespa team to compete in the league, they may prove to be an x-factor; will the rigors of a Kespa training environment show them to be better prepared than their competitors? Hyvaa in particular is a player who has shown himself to be deadly in individual leagues when given proper time to prepare, with a wide array of all-ins that have caught many players (poor Fantasy) off-guard. Dear and Trap both posted winning records in a Protoss-dominated Proleague; will they find the GSTL easy pickings by comparison? It's difficult to imagine them winning a championship, but they could surprise.


"Does it even matter if we finally win a championship only after the good teams left?"

Life
Curious
Golden
Hello
SuHoSin
Pet
Bomber
Hack
SalvatioN
MisS
Aphrodite
Avenge
Booster
Balloon
HaJiHoon
Panic

Last Season: 5th (4-3)
While they have perhaps the deepest roster in GSTL following the departure of MVP, consistency proved to be a huge problem for StarTale last season. Following his tear through tournaments (both foreign and domestic) to end 2012 and a win at the MLG Winter Championship to open up HotS, their former ace Life has disappeared into obscurity, falling out of Premier League and going a dismal 4-4 in the first team league season. They tried to put Bomber into the ace role, but his 3-5 record wasn't any better. Will his win at the season 2 finals finally give him the confidence he needs to become an ace? Will StarTale play a single Protoss besides Avenge this season? And perhaps the most burning question of all: SuHoSin still plays Starcraft?

SCHEDULE

This started last night, so go catch the VODs if you didn't know! Looks like the broadcasts are on Tuesdays/Thursdays, aka late night Monday/Wednesday US time.

Round 1: All-Kill

Week 1: Ax-Acer vs FXO, StarTale vs Azubu
Week 2: Ax-Acer vs Soul, Azubu vs FXO
Week 3: StarTale vs Soul, Azubu vs Ax-Acer
Week 4: FXO vs Soul, StarTale vs Ax-Acer
Week 5: StarTale vs FXO, Azubu vs Soul


LET US GSTL!

wat is gstl?

Team league run by GomTV (the GSL guys).

I forgot to mention the map pool, which is interesting - there are 6 new maps this season. Whirlwind is the only holdover, three of them you're familiar with from ladder:

Polar Night
Yeonsu
Frost

And three of them are brand new for GSTL:

Tristram


Fruitland


Haeundae

That is one fruity ass map

ye

hyundai gonna be mad

in for lots of innovation fantasy points. great value @ 10pts obv

If anyone's curious why Wolf tried to set the record for number of times the word "lemon" is used in a broadcast, I went to the Korean server to investigate!



As promised, it is a Huge Lemon, although it's not quite the biggest lemon on the map (the ones nearer the watchtower are huge).

What happens when we kill it?!



I thought Wolf said 2000 minerals, but it's actually 500, and it only takes one worker to exhaust it.



Go drone, go!



500 minerals!

lol @ the fruitland map

i heard 500, weird if the players didnt know it.

wait, it's actually 500 minerals? i actually thought it was just a huge joke they were making.

Haha yep! It's legit.

i may have to rewatch the game with that in mind.

Wolf dropping some knowledge before game 1 (MMA-Trap on Fruitland): apparently the lemons respawn every few minutes!

Ugh, no lemons and my anti-team member wins! Noooooesssss

1. Choose Whirlwind for a PvT
2. Don't be prepared for doom drops, like, at all, even after your teammate got destroyed by them in the previous game
3. ???
4. Definitely not profiting

THANKS DEAR

Should have just sacked up and put Life or Leenock on my anti-team.

MMA sigh.

mma only thing keeping team RhymesWithGrape from having a stellar season aka having innovation/acer

At least MMA didn't get the all-kill, I have Hyvaa too so it could have been worse.

That last game was so sick but it's painful to watch Zergs bleed out like that

Hyvaaaaaaaaaa

llloooollll FXO

The random formerly known as LucyPrime gets two kills vs Seed and sC, Leenock manages to win one game before falling to mf'ing VINES r u srs??, and my boy Center

gets the job done.

It's kinda sad how pathetic this team is now though. Who killed Gumiho's confidence for him to be riding the pine over and over in these matches?

It breaks my heart that Leenock isn't tearing it up

Yeah Leenock and Gumiho making me sads these days as well