[News]Potential Player Transfers for next season! - Page 7

Hard fact: A didn't make the post-season:

Since Air Force ACE is not involved with trades, that means A is one of:

Woongjin Stars
Hwaseung OZ
Samsung KHAN
eSTRO
hite sparkyz

Detail: The team is floating "two main players", at least one ace caliber, who had similar records the last two years.

eSTRO: Really (B) and hyvaa (C).
hite sparkyz: Leta (B) and HoGiL (C).
Hwaseung OZ: Jaedong (B) and HiyA (C).
Samsung KHAN: Stork (B) and Jangbi (C).
Woongjin Stars: free (B) and Guemchi (C).

Stars' ZerO and Kwanro are both tradable, but both performed much better this year than last, eliminating them from consideration in this case. Guemchi is only a borderline "main" player, but with over 30 games I'm counting him for the purposes of argument.

Since either hite or Hwaseung would essentially be committing suicide with these players leaving, and given what we know about teams' control over their players, I think we can eliminate them from the list. The same may be true of eSTRO, except for the following considerations: 1) management may consider Action to be their up-and-coming ace; 2) eSTRO was the consensus in popular opinion when it was announced a team was disbanding, so this "suicide" may not actually matter; 3) Really only emerged as an ace-caliber player last year, and is still around .500 for his career - if sold to a weak T team, eSTRO might actually be able to improve.

That leaves

eSTRO: Really (B) and hyvaa (C).
Samsung KHAN: Stork (B) and Jangbi (C).
Woongjin Stars: free (B) and Guemchi (C).

Obviously, the question is who needs these players? The major interested parties: D, E, F.

D is a team weak at B's race, also looking at G from team F.
E is looking at picking up B and C.
F is considering trading an ace G for B.

Nothing is specified about C, implying that C may be a different race than B. If this is true, then KHAN and Woongjin are not A. Then Really is B.

In this scenario, D is most likely Woongjin.
F could in this case be Hwaseung OZ (HiyA) or MBCGame (Light or Sea).
E in this case is one of STX, KT, or SKT, all of whom buy players somewhat regularly

Alternatively, D is STX. While they pick up players regularly, they tend to do it cheap - see Frozean last year - and Really is a huge improvement over any Terran they have without being too expensive. F in this case is probably Woongjin, who could reasonably trade either ZerO or Kwanro for Really and have a vastly improved team. E remains likely to be KT or SKT, with an outside chance that it's OZ.

I consider this to be the most likely situation. eSTRO management has been anything but stable over the years, they had issues with the match-fixing scandal, and may be more affected by Gretech than the other corporations who aren't in the esports business themselves.

We do have to consider than KHAN or Stars may be A. Ordinarily I would say that Stars are most likely, as they're both active traders and didn't have the greatest salaries before under Hanbit. Woongjin bought the team, and they've underperformed after Woongjin started paying more, so there would certainly be reason to cut salaries. On the other hand, Woongjin's had no particular coaching tensions that I know about, and free has been with Woongjin forever even with bad players and little pay, so in this case KHAN is more likely to be A.

Regardless, since free for Stork is an essentially pointless trade - they're the two best Protoss atm, differing mainly in style, we can assume KHAN and Woongjin will not be trading with each other, and apply the same considerations to both possibilities.

In either case, D is a team with a weak Protoss line. This eliminates CJ, KT, MBC (han), SKT, and STX, leaving as possibilities eSTRO, hite, OZ, and WeMade. eSTRO rarely, if ever, trades to get players, and has a potential star in Flying while Grape has also looked strong at times. Oz is an active trader, bu Anytime will be out of the Air Force soon, and Anytime/BackHo is good enough that an ace Protoss is probably unnecessary. hite does sometimes trade and also needs to rebuild, but Horang2 has developed into a go-to player this year; he's got nothing behind him, but given the usual format a 2nd Terran or a good Zerg would seem to be the biggest priority for them.

So the strongest candidate is probably WeMade: they went out last year and got Midas, and are one really good Protoss away from greatness. Let's call WeMade D.

E is probably SKT. I mean, who else just "recruits" players all the time? And neither Bisu nor BeSt are really really solid atm. But E is not the biggest concern.

F is the tricky one. In this scenario, they have an ace Protoss, but are willing to trade him to get another one. STX could fit here, as Calm is their major ace but Kal still plays an ace role; SKT is a possibility if they're willing to give up Bisu for, say, Stork. It pretty much has to be one of these two: Woongjin and KHAN trading makes no sense at all, as mentioned above; CJ. MBC, and WeMade all have a good Protoss, but not an ace (and besides, I'm guessing here that WeMade is D); OZ, hite, eSTRO, don't have Protoss aces by any stretch of the imagination. KT has two ace-caliber Protoss, but neither plays an ace role.

Of the two, I'd say the most likely F is STX: Kal has a bad tendency to lose ace games, making either Stork or free just that little bit of an upgrade that could get them to a grand final. Meanwhile, since Kal is just that little bit worse, A might be willing to do it to reduce the salary. (Note: I thought Kal had a pretty good salary by progamer standards, so maybe this is nonsense.)

A was a non-playoff team, and obviously not ace. B and C each have had similar records for their last two seasons. B is an ace-class player. This gives the possibilities:

A. eSTRO B. Really C. hyvaa
A hite sparkyz B. Leta C. HoGiL
A. Hwaseung OZ B. Jaedong C. HiyA
A. Samsung KHAN B. Stork C. Jangbi
A. Woongjin Stars B. free C. Guemchi

Hwaseung is by far the least likely, unless - which has not even begun to be rumored - the team is disbanding. As one of the superstars of the game, Jaedong has to be good for advertising.publicity, so I consider it very unlikely that the team is being disbanded or even sold. So I think we can assume not Hwaseung.

hite sparkyz, while hit hard by the match-fixing scandal and now branded as hite, is still owned by OGN. Depending on OGN's SC2 arrangements, it might make sense for sparkyz to be disbanding to make room for an SC2 team, but there has been no announcement of any SC2 proleague, so this is very unlikely as well - unless there is a 100% transfer to SC2, OGN will probably keep the team, and hite is also invested in other esports if I remember correctly.

Woongjin Stars would have definite reason to be looking to revamp the team. However, getting rid of free - arguably the top Protoss over the last months - doesn't make much sense unless they could get Flash, Jaedong, or Leta - no. Guemchi also isn't great trade-bait: WL bonjwa or no, he's a .500 player overall in PL, in the historically weakest race.

Samsung KHAN is clearly in some flux, and has been ever since January's marriage. If January is resigning/has resigned, it would not be surprising to see Stork and Jangbi - who have the necessary cred to do it - leaving, especially if Samsung doesn't want to pay. On the other hand, KHAN has been together so long, and so rarely trades, that this would be a radical departure from the norm.

eSTRO has had all sorts of issues. They've had talent but not really performed. They were also hit hard by the scandal. They've had coaching issues in the past. If management is looking to revamp the team, Really and hyvaa are the last "big names" (as much as that applies) from the pre-scandal era, and with Really being a Terran near-ace, they could probably get solid compensation for him from a Terran-weak team, of which there are several. This all makes them the most likely.

I therefore rank the scenarios for A/B/C as:

1. A. eSTRO B. Really C. hyvaa
2. Samsung KHAN B. Stork C. Jangbi
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3. A. Woongjin Stars B. free C. Guemchi
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4. A. hite sparkyz B. Leta C. HoGiL
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5. A. Hwaseung OZ B. Jaedong C. HiyA

"---"-breaks indicate that these are getting progressively less and less probable.

I'm rejecting the other teams as follows:
CJ Entus - only one ace, EffOrt. Neither sKyHigh nor Movie are true ace players, both tending towards matchup-specialist roles. Snow doesn't have enough history yet.
eSTRO - only one ace, Really. Action may be getting close, but hasn't challenged Really's hold yet.
hite sparkyz - only one ace, Leta. Any questions?
Hwaseung OZ - two ace-caliber players, but with a race split (Z/T) and no third.
KT Rolster - three ace-caliber players (Flash, Stats, Violet) but neither Stats nor Violet are established enough for a sensible KT to want to trade either. If they were going to, they'd want a Z ace, meaning trading partners would be Woongjin, STX, or *maybe* KHAN, all of whom already have P aces.
SK Telecom T1 - has three ace-caliber players, but would not be trading for a P or T ace.
STX SouL - could use a Terran star to compliment Calm and Kal, but none of the scenarios make sense: Kal for Stork is equal; Calm for Stork gives STX fewer racial options; Kal or Calm for Really is clearly a downgrade.

The KHAN option only makes sense as a "statement" move by eSTRO/IEG. While it would vastly improve their team - eSTRO would automatically become a contender - and the trade would also help KHAN, who don't have a good Terran, making the trade to acquire Stork in today's esports atmosphere would essentially be a big FU to Blizzard, saying that IEG is determined to stick with BW. Since IEG has never displayed that sort of go-get-'em attitude, I find this strikingly improbable.

The Woongjin option makes the most sense from Woongjin's point of view, but not so much from eSTRO's: even assuming Action becomes an ace player, dual-Zerg is nice but their present balance is better. On the other hand, both Kwanro and ZerO have been better overall than Really, so eSTRO might be willing to trade for a better player while Woongjin would accept a slightly worse one just to have a good Terran. I still think it feels unlikely.

A. eSTRO
B. Really
C. hyvaa
D. STX SouL
E. KT Rolster
F. Woongjin Stars
G. ZerO

How I filled in D and E: who would want Really and hyvaa, who would want Really and ZerO? In either case you're looking at getting a Z/T combo, although hyvaa's a 2nd-stringer and ZerO's an ace. I would say Samsung KHAN could use these players the most, although with great establishing himself they're more likely to look at hyvaa than pay ZerO. STX is another possibility, since they need a Terran, and they may be considering strengthening their Zerg line since neither hero nor July are playing at a high level consistently (and July is rumored to be switching to SC2). They also have management willing to spend money, making them the most probable option.

E, in this scenario trying to get Really and ZerO, almost has to be one of the big spenders - KT Rolster or SK Telecom T1 - since most teams already have either a strong T or strong Z line. I lean towards KT, if only because ZerO's on good terms with Flash.