EPTGroup E introduces WCS 2015’s first Taiwanese player Sen. Joining him is American Protoss player puCK, French Zerg player FireCake, and currently one of the top players outside of Korea, ForGG. With all major matchups in this group, we shall look into each player’s performance in all potential matchups before evaluating player versus player probabilities.
puCK, currently under the Flipsid3 Tactics tag, has only been competing to rank as the top American Protoss for as long as he’s been competing. With up and coming players like Bails, Astrea, and Arium showing significant competition, and State taking in Kespa training, it has been a hard fought battle. Currently puCK’s best matchup will not surface in this group, totting a 78% win rate in PvP as of recent. Versus Zergs his performance has been decent, but in SC2SEA OSC Global All-Stars he fell to both Bly and CatZ, two players who were unable to qualify for WCS Premier League. Considering he will potential be facing a top tier Korean Terran, holding a 48.5% win rate in the match up throughout his career, and as of recent having a 30% win rate in PvT, he will have to go against the odd to pull through this strong group.
Our next player is most known for his long, drawn out Swarm Host style which back in the day took Europe by storm. Currently Punchline ESC’s FireCake has kept himself mostly to the French scene. From that, FireCake has been able to develop into a strong challenger in the ZvT matchup, but had a rough time qualifying, losing to MarineLorD and HeRoMaRinE. He’s also spent much of his time in France being Dayshi’s victim, currently down 17 games to him in official matches. The mirror match up maybe his saving grace, only having lost to Petraeus in the past four months, but versus Protoss, he’s only 55% successful, losing to lesser known French Protoss players. With FireCake present, we’ll most likely see a long day of Swarm Hosts, so grab your popcorn and enjoy.
Sen has been relevant since the days of Mvp and Nestea ruling the scene. He’s also the first non-Korean to win a premier event since 2012. He’s ranked number 1 in Taiwan, and has only lost to one non-Korean in the past four months. In fact, removing Koreans from his history, he posts a strong 73% win rate in all matchups. Making him the most consistently diverse player in the group. Overall we know how he can perform on home turf, but this is his first offline event outside of Taiwan since WCG 2013.
Finally ForGG. The man to defeat the World Champion in his first tournament since earning the title. Holding up a 61% win rate in TvZ, and a 73% in TvP, up there with Polt, he is probably most expected to win it all. Removing Korean players from those stats and they jump up to 90% and 81% respectively. ForGG hasn’t lost a series to a foreigner since June 2014. If ForGG doesn’t make it out of this group, it will be the upset of the Season.
How will these players match up against one another all coming from different Nations?
puCK < FireCake
Sen < ForGG
ForGG > FireCake
Sen > puCK
FireCake < Sen"
Source: OMW Productions
