Game of the Match: Larva vs. Sea (set 7)

The battle of the Proleague titans took an unexpected twist right from the start, when Lazy, MBC-s best performing player last season, got demolished by Midas. Midas proceeded to take offense from my Latvian chocolate comparison last week, and took out Pusan for good measure, only to be stopped by an interesting build from Tyson. Tyson's victory over Midas was the only non-Terran victory that day, however, as he was promptly taken out by sSak, who in turn fell to a rampaging Sea. SKT's players dropped one by one, sending out Bisu in a last ditch effort. Bisu proceeded to have his fast nexus taken down by just two marines and had to tap out in probably the biggest letdown of the week.






Game of the Match: Light vs. Shuttle (Set 7)

STX looked to have a pretty good shot at taking down KT in week two. Mini started out by destroying the only true KT player on the opposing team. KT then decide to throw out an STX player to destroy his own kind. Modesty proceeds to beat hero, Britney, and Terror, leaving STX at the brink of defeat. Being down 1-4, STX send out their ace player, Shuttle. He makes short work of the traitor and proceeds to beat Light in a PvT. Eagle takes the last set to complete KT's victory 5-3.

Stat breakdown
STX players: seven wins and six losses
KHAN player: one win and zero losses
Stars/MBC player: zero wins and one loss
KT player: zero wins and one loss

The conclusion is that KT didn't win, STX beat themselves.






Game of the Match: Sky vs. HoGil (Set 2)

In the last match of the week we saw Hwaseung Oz taking on Woongjin Stars where incidentally both had a 1-1 score prior to this team war. Unexpectedly, this was a debut of an old school player HoGil in SOSPA scene, who made quite an entrance by taking down two Oz players before he lost to Killer. We also saw remnants of the old Oz here with Killer assuming the role of Jaedong, a player which made the Oz seem like a one-man team. Killer managed to take three wins before losing to PianO who is supposedly practicing 13 hours a day. It certainly looks that way as he won all the remaining games which brought Woongjin Stars another win.



Pure has 1 win, and 18 losses: a 5.62% winrate.

PianO and ZerO, who debuted around three weeks later than Pure, hold very respectable winrates at 65.22% (30-16) and 55.56% (20-16), respectively. ZeuS and Britney sit at 25% (4-12) and 15.79% (6-32). StarCue, the infamous Headset Zerg, is 2-28: 6.67%.

Statistically, Pure is arguably worse than Britney and StarCue. StarCue. Let that sink in for a bit.

In all fairness, Pure isn't actually as bad as the numbers seem to suggest. He hangs around the low B ranks of the Fish ladder, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at. He's even managed to take games off of top-tier ex-pros on stream, such as HiyA and Killer. However, with four months into his stint on Afreeca, one would expect a former OSL semi-finalist to shape up much better than he has. So what gives?



The first problem lies with his preferred playstyle: safe, standard, reactive macro Protoss, with almost no cheese employed. Sort of like a Korean IdrA, who happens to play Protoss but doesn't rage quite as much. While this attitude would certainly earn the Sayle stamp of approval, Pure currently lacks the skills required to make this style work at the highest levels. His mechanics are adequate, but not exceptional; his decision-making and transitions are okay, but not great. Pure's play rapidly deteriorates after the early-midgame, and is simply outclassed most of the time.

The other problem is his exceptionally bad luck in leagues. Most of his opponents so far have been exceptionally strong players. When he has faced slightly weaker competition, Pure has often ended up as the victim of some clever strategy or cheese. His first and only break was when he was matched up against ZeuS, where Pure managed to quickly scout a fast Nexus strategy and crush it accordingly.

Four months in, Pure has definitely improved since his debut, but it has been at a painfully slow rate. It may be prudent for Pure to switch up his playstyle to something a bit more stylistic, or strategic. However, let's not forget that many of the current top ex-pros were also painfully bad when they had begun streaming. Killer, Movie and Hero all had a very rough time back when they had first started. Tyson went on an embarassing 12 game ladder loss streak in the D-C ranks. Shuttle started with a 9 game loss streak in SOSPA games and was 5-15 for his first 20 games. In addition, the environment back then was much easier than it is today. Perhaps things would be markedly different if Pure had begun streaming a year or two ago instead.

Regardless, it is fair to say that Pure's horrible record does him no justice. Should he continue to stick around, we may see him return to a form worthy of a former OSL semi-finalist. At this point, Pure has nowhere to go but up.

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WRITERS: mustaju, ArvickHero, Epoxide and 2Pacalypse-
GRAPHICS: KasPra
PHOTOS: dailyesports