EPT
Last time I wrote about the Group Nominations, I attempted to predict how players will choose their opponents for the next round. It failed badly. With the exceptions of a few individuals like Mvp, they don’t use reason or deduction to make their picks. It’s all about spur-of-the-moment feelings, various personal delusions/beliefs, rivalries, and front-door deals. Considering how much time standard practice and GSL preparation takes up, it’s too much to expect the players to know every possibility and angle.
Round 1:
Any decision in Round 1 starts with a simple assumption: ephemeral advantage beats enduring advantage. The dual tournament format allows you to advance by winning only two matches, so it’s best to set up a group where you are favored against 2 competitors. The simplest way to accomplish this is to pick an “inferior” opponent whose personal biases are predictable.
Season 4:
DRG < Polt (did not advance)
Squirtle > Heart (did not advance)
Seed > Symbol (did not advance)
Mvp > JYP (advanced)
Season 3:
Mvp < Taeja (did not advance)
DRG > Ryung (advanced)
Genius > Naniwa (did not advance)
Squirtle > Symbol (did not advance)
Season 2:
Genius < Naniwa (did not advance)
MC < Maru (did not advance)
Parting > TheStC (advanced)
Mvp > July (advanced)
Season 1:
Mvp < Gumiho (did not advance)
Nestea < DRG (did not advance)
MC > Ganzi (advanced)
MMA > Oz (advanced)
Having to pick your next opponent is a sign of bad voodoo. Only six out of sixteen total players advanced to the Round of 8; only six out of ten advanced to the Round of 8 after beating their first opponent. This makes sense considering that these selected players were usually the worst and least experienced ones, so the leftover players in the winners match would be significantly better. However, a 60% success ratio is preferable to the 0% advancement ratio when you lose your first match. In short it’s important to pick on the lesser competition to increase your own chances at success.
Dongraegu (Z) picks Creator (P)
At first glance this seems unnecessary. Dongraegu does not want to deal with zerg and every terran is petrified at the thought of TvZ. He could choose Ryung, who was so despondent at the possibility of facing Life that he didn’t practice TvZ for his Ro32 group. Then he has the untested Bogus, first-time Code S player Hack, and the solid but unspectacular Yoda. The only terran who could beat DRG and take the group by storm is Polt.
Instead he picks Creator, one of his most recent victims back in the Ro32. DRG picking someone he beat in the Ro32? Wow, nobody could have seen this coming. Just imagine if that dude somehow beats him and it leads to Dongraegu getting knocked out of the tournament…
Dongraegu has always been a player whose skill level closely correlates with his confidence. When he is on, he is arguably the best zerg in the world; when he is off, he is a mechanically gifted champion who throws away advantages with the ferocity of a Nolan Ryan fastball. During his minor summer slump his interviews echoed the same catchphrases: I doubted myself, I didn’t know how I squandered my lead, etc. But now that he is on the upswing again, DRG figures it’s time to press the advantages of his race and temperament. He beat Creator once with some aggressive builds and can use that to play some effective mindgames.
Creator is not exactly pleased with being the first sacrificial lamb. Nobody really wants to play PvZ these days with how risky lategame engagements are against BL/infestor/corruptor. Creator has gotten through this dark period with carefully crafted build orders and rock-solid decisions in critical moments but don’t confuse that with confidence. He has been especially vocal about his distaste for the matchup and how strong zerg feels as an opponent. Combine that with DRG’s recent string of strong ZvP victories (with the exception of his 1-4 mauling in the OSL final) and it starts to make sense. Dongraegu wants to set up a situation where he is the favorite in the matchup and in his head. Creator will certainly not pick a zerg in the second round since it’s almost guaranteed that there will be a zerg in the last round; DRG gets a possible ZvT matchup as well. Boy this makes DRG look so intelligent.
Well, unless he loses and gets knocked out again.
Rating: 8.5/10. Get beaten once, shame on you. Get beaten twice, become the butt of jokes.
Life/Curious (Z) picks Soulkey (Z)
Life did not attend the Group Nomination so Curious was his stand-in. When Curious asked if anyone wanted to volunteer their services, no hands were raised. Leenock was hesitant on tempting fate twice; Hyun did not seem that confident that he could replicate his IPL Fight Club victory; Bogus and Hack admitted they didn’t see any way they could beat him. Rarely do you see so many people afraid of a 15-year-old kid.
Once again a terran would be the best default choice. Life is running on an 80% winrate in ZvT over the last three months. He is 53-10 in sets and 22-1 in BoX series against the top players in the world. Life is 7-0 against Taeja in the last month, 5-1 versus MarineKing and mauled Flash in their rematch in the semifinals of MLG Dallas. Most of those games were one-sided stomps. In addition to getting a fairly weak opponent, it’s almost certain that the terran would pick another terran to increase his personal chances of getting out of the group. So obviously the correct decision was selecting Soulkey.
I can’t help but doubt this was the correct decision from Curious. Soulkey looked very weak during his games in Group C, only displaying strong gameplay against a sloppy Maru. However there is reason to believe Soulkey will put up a serious fight against (arguably) the best ZvZ player in the world. Over the entire course of his MvP Invitational run Soulkey was 22-7 in ZvZ sets; at MLG Dallas he went 7-3 in ZvZ sets with wins over Idra, Hyvaa and Golden. His opponents were not the most proven but consistency is consistency. Soulkey will be a problem if Life does not adequately prepare.
Then again Curious dropped the tantalizing idea that it was Life’s idea all along. Is our new darling member of the Swarm succumbing to Dongraegu syndrome? Or has his recent clutch wins against Leenock and Sniper given him a big head? Or maybe he is that convinced that he can take advantage of any opponent’s weakness once he’s studied them over the weekend? Replays of Soulkey’s ZvZ are either old or in short supply, and Life has looked very susceptible in ZvZ lately. No doubt Life will have the mental advantage and momentum when the games start (Soulkey’s look of utter shock was the highlight of the night) but he needs to select his build orders more carefully if he wants to win this series in a solid fashion.
Rating: 7.0/10. Thank you for your reading powers, Curious. Tell Life to do more hatch-first builds.
Parting (P) picks Polt (T)
Parting’s braggadocio has always been a front for a relatively intelligent player with a fun personality. It’s hard to believe he is as insanely self-assured as he appears but Parting understands the importance of having other people believe it. He knows that the WonWonWon cannot guarantee victory against every zerg, but what’s the harm in acting like it can? At worst his opponents will dismiss his claims as cocky; at best he puts a seed of doubt in their minds which affects his play. And who knows? Maybe his sentry/immortal pushes are truly unstoppable. He is like a protoss version of iloveoov with the psychological games.
Once again Parting demonstrates the sneaky cleverness of picking a great player who is in a tough spot. Despite his boasting that no zerg can stop his unique 2 base all-in, it would be dumb to choose a zerg out of pride. It’s almost guaranteed that a couple of zergs will make it into the Round of 8 so Parting wants to be careful with revealing his builds. There are no more protosses left over.
Unlike Creator, Polt’s problems are physical rather than mental. Group C starts on November 14th, only 2 days after Polt theoretically returns from Lone Star Clash 2. Every other terran would have the time to prepare for Group C and devise specific strategies. Parting assumes that Polt will have to depend on his standard play and one of those funny harass builds he saves for a rainy day. He would love to face a terran in a macro PvT series without any funny timings and/or unit compositions. Add in the fact that Parting is 3-0 versus Polt in BoX series and he has every reason to take this safe approach.
His only real concern is that Polt may return riding a wave of confidence. Polt is easily one of the favorites at the TeSPA-organized event and has been playing exceptionally strong up to this point. Beating Hero and BabyKnight while losing to Oz and Rain at MLG Dallas is a pretty typical representation of his TvP: he can beat anyone but almost never strings those victories together into a strong tournament run. Lately his TvP has not looked championship-caliber either.
Rating: 9.5/10. Underhanded dealings are the best dealings.
MarineKing (T) picks Hack (T)
Every terran does not want to play zerg, and MarineKing is no exception. Ever since the queen buff his TvZ has been severely nerfed in terms of viable openings, and he has not quite mastered the various marine/tank or mech styles that are floating around. His bread and butter strategy remains marine/marauder/medivac with superb unit control. It remains a flexible way to deal with mutalisk play but struggles against the current trend of mass infestors in the midgame.
The remaining options are limited. The only other available protoss was taken, and MKP would not choose his teammate for the sake of an easier matchup. MarineKing’s TvT has been his best matchup by far over the summer and it’s the one where he knows he can win by making all the right decisions on a small scale. This leaves four terrans with pretty good TvT. In televised games Ryung has displayed the most consistent level of TvT mastery; Yoda is rumored to be the best IM terran during practice sessions but displayed dominance in the matchup; Bogus is best known as a ladder beast that showed proficient TvT in his GSL games; Hack has quietly done work as a TvT sniper since spring 2012.
So why Hack? Because this is Hack’s first time in Code S and you always bet against the newcomer. Hack has no hype train like YongHwa or Life and no significant results over the summer to catch MKP’s attention. He barely scraped his way into Group Nomination in the first place; arguably Roro would be here if he wasn’t so reckless with his ultralisks. Hack could knock MKP for a loop if he plays like a man possessed. Would anyone really hedge their bets on that?
Rating: 9.5/10. Here is a man whose smarts almost match his style.
Round 2:
Player 2 in the group has an odd decision to make. It’s very likely that he will never have to face Player 3 and it’s inevitable that Player 4 will be a great adversary. There’s the chance that Player 2 loses the first match and faces Player 3 in the losers match, and beating Player 3 allows Player 2 a chance to advance in the final match. But what if Player 1 loses the first match and faces Player 4 in the loser match, proceeding to get knocked down in Code A? And if Player 1 wins the first match to proceed to the winners match against Player 4, who beats Player 1 and sends him to the final match against Player 1? It’s hard to judge Round 2 decisions as their immediate importance ranges from “a lot” to “zilch”.
Soulkey (Z) picks Leenock (Z)
The decision to force an all-zerg group is fairly smart. Soulkey prides himself on his ZvT but there’s no way that Player 4 (the last person remaining, no less) will be a terran player. Bogus, Ryung, and Yoda are not well-known for their TvZ prowess while Hack has only impressed with the budding StarTale approach to lategame mech. Player 4 will be a zerg and one of the better ones. Choosing a terran as Player 3 almost guarantees Soulkey would have to face Player 4 in the event Soulkey actually beats Life. If Soulkey loses the first match he will face Player 3 and if it’s a terran, Soulkey will be confident in his chances. But then he would have to face another zerg in order to advance.
With all this in mind, why would you choose Leenock? The FXO ace is currently in the best form we’ve seen since last November, where he won MLG Providence and reached the GSL November finals. He has seemed to master both the explosive, odd builds borrowed from his contemporaries while successfully transferring his broodlord turtle strategies to his ZvP. His ZvZ, the craziest rollercoaster in the Korean scene excluding Bomber, looked impregnable right now.
I understand Soulkey’s primitive logic to a certain extent. He is in a bad place and wants to fight force with force. He can play ZvZ fairly well and doesn’t want to give Player 4 a possible free win. But the amount of other possibilities leaves no excuse. Hyun dominates online but drops entire tiers when he has to play in the GOM studio. Sniper is the worst zerg in terms of accomplishments and GSL runs. Symbol’s ZvZ can vary from strong to sketchy. He could have chosen any of these players and left the final slot up to chance. He might be banking that Leenock’s ZvZ cannot hold up under the weight of so many possible mirror matchups against such strong players.
Rating: 3.0/10. Damn elephants and their poor spatial recognition.
Polt/Shine (T) picks Bogus (T)
Like Life, Polt wasn’t available to add his thoughts to the discussion. His teammate Shine replaced him with an insatiable hunger for the blood of African mammals.
The good news is that Bogus (yes, his handle will always be BOGUS) occupies the ideal space that Player 3 ought to be. He’s build up a reputation as an online warrior with great natural talent but no important LAN results. Bogus displayed strong games against Keen and Squirtle but was completely surprised when Leenock brought strange pressure builds into the equation. He’s not strikingly good at TvZ and appears to be a solid standard terran overall. Overall he is talented enough to give his opponent problems but should not win against the zergs who would be left for the last spots.
I don’t believe Shine knew how good Bogus was at TvT though. The STX Soul player seems to have transitioned most comfortably to the mirror match with recent wins over Bomber, Happy, and Keen. These are not the most powerful opponents but as with Soulkey, the consistency of his play is something to be afraid of. Polt may not have to deal with Bogus at all but his recent inconsistency does not bode well against the KeSPA player.
Rating: 7.0/10. -1 for the name change.
Hack (T) picks Yoda (T)
Take MarineKing’s rationale and apply it to this match. MarineKing chose Hack for the latter’s inexperience but also because Hack had been vocal about his struggles with TvZ. Hack’s best matchup is TvT and he wants to test his luck on that matchup instead of the one where he loses 9 out of 10 games against Life.
Between Yoda and Ryung, it makes small difference which one Hack chooses pertaining to his own theoretical match. Both of them are quite acute at TvT and have beaten Code S players time after time before Season 5 started. Either of them would benefit from the relief of a 3 T group and the guarantee of no Leenock, Life, DRG, or Creator to battle. The only interesting detail is that Ryung is completely unconfident in the TvZ matchup while Yoda seems to have high expectations. If Hack wants to bet that one of them will grind it out and triumph over zerg X, it would have to be Yoda.
Rating: 6.5/10. I’d rather fight a Jedi Master than a Cerebrate.
Creator (P) picks Ryung (T)
This is such a simple and obvious choice. I have to applaud Creator for ignoring every emotional reason to select another player. It didn’t matter that Leenock single-handedly knocked Prime out of the GSTL or that Curious was responsible for knocking Maru into Code A. He got a terran and it was the weakest one. If Ryung happens to meet Creator in the winners/losers match, Creator is favored. The prodigy has the better recent results, better PvT history, and greater chance to get out of the group.
Rating: 9.5/10. Do I see a pattern with these Prime players?
Round 3:
No more ideas of good matchups and personal experience. Everyone left over is a member of the OP race and you have to figure out which one of them is the least OP. Fancy your chances against the Code S Reader? Willing to try your luck against TSLSymbol?
Ryung (T) picks Curious (Z)
What a bad position for Ryung. He has no choice but to set up his least favorite matchup. With the possibility of playing two TvZs and his worst career matchup, Ryung lacks the option of trying to mastermind any scheme which will allow him to get through. He can only hope that his fellow players get an unfortunate case of food poisoning.
This is the point where if you can’t gain an advantage, you create a disadvantage for everyone else. Curious is a very strong player who will probably smash Ryung in a Bo3. More importantly, he is good enough to smash Creator and Dongraegu as well. The potential matchups for Curious all favor him. Dongraegu wanted to avoid the possibility of ZvZ since he is not comfortable with it and Curious is one of the best ZvZ players in the world. Creator has to play against the most frustrating style of ZvP in the world: the slow crawl of the BL/infestor/corruptor deathball with mass spinecrawlers blocking every path and an opponent who won’t attack at all.
Rating: 9.0/10. Tunalocks finds her bowl of clam chowder and it’s just right.
Yoda (T) picks Hyun (Z)
Yoda doesn’t want Symbol, who has tossed him around in every encounter. Sniper versus Hyun would seem to favor Sniper but the IM practice bonjwa chose the harder opponent.
He is taking a significant risk. Any comparison between Hyun and Sniper favors Hyun if we are talking about pure skill. Hyun has dominated the best terrans online without a sweat and Yoda doesn’t have the stylistic advantages required to make him a favorite. Yet in the Ro32 he didn’t look like the owner of IPL Fight Club. Hyun made terrible mistakes in positioning, decisions and mundane base management which almost cost him the second spot in Group Nomination. If you’re an avid GSL watcher this is no surprise; Hyun has admitted that even during his MBCGame Hero days, he has had problems controlling his nerves onstage. Meanwhile Sniper has lower highs and lower lows but more reliability. Pick out any replay over the last six months and you’ll see the same solid gameplay that earned him much praise and expectation.
Of course that’s all it is, an assumption. Yoda could assume Hyun will drop the ball since he dropped the ball last time. The chances are equally good that Hyun will realize he should be winning these matches and stomp Yoda into the dirt.
Rating: 6.5/10. Stopped they must be; on this all depends.
Bogus (T) picks Sniper (Z)
Bogus doesn’t get much to ponder here. He has two options:
- I want to play the good ZvT player who recently got an all-kill over SlayerS and made the Ro16 for the first time in his career.
- I want to play the better ZvT player who is arguably a top 5 zerg in the world and made it to the Ro8 for the third time in his career.
Guess which one he picked.
Rating: 7.5/10. It could have been worse. He could’ve picked Symbol.
Leenock (Z) “picks” Symbol (Z)
Not much to say.
Rating: 10/10. It was like destiny brought them together.
