EPT
The Ro24 finally concluded this past Tuesday and with it, the final fourth contestants have been decided. In group E, Ggaemo took first place showing that he is not to be underestimated while GuemChi came close to elimination by Pusan. Stork unfortunately lost both his games and was eliminated in last place, a shocking defeat for his fans. Group F was quite the bizzare group. While Last dominated everyone as expected, it was the weakest member of the group, HyuN who managed to advance over Movie and Larva. An unexpected result and yet another shocker for us all!
At the end of the night, the group selection ceremony commenced. It was a fantastic display of wits and lots of laughs were had as both sSak and Shine tried to control the selection ceremony and have it go in their favour. After several hours of intense negotiations which included talks of Mong's secret strategy vs terrans, Shine's record vs Bisu and so forth, the groups were set with Flash making a final switch to give himself the easiest group possible; a group that contains Shine, HyuN and Ggaemo. On the other hand, many consider group B, the group of death. It includes Sea, Bisu, EffOrt and Soulkey.
The Ro16 is set to start in . Read on for a recap of group E and F by BigFan and EsportsJohn respectively while Group A and B of the Ro16 were previewed by FlaShFTW and BLinD-RawR respectively. Now, let's get ready for some action!
At the end of the night, the group selection ceremony commenced. It was a fantastic display of wits and lots of laughs were had as both sSak and Shine tried to control the selection ceremony and have it go in their favour. After several hours of intense negotiations which included talks of Mong's secret strategy vs terrans, Shine's record vs Bisu and so forth, the groups were set with Flash making a final switch to give himself the easiest group possible; a group that contains Shine, HyuN and Ggaemo. On the other hand, many consider group B, the group of death. It includes Sea, Bisu, EffOrt and Soulkey.
The Ro16 is set to start in . Read on for a recap of group E and F by BigFan and EsportsJohn respectively while Group A and B of the Ro16 were previewed by FlaShFTW and BLinD-RawR respectively. Now, let's get ready for some action!
Table of Contents
Liquipedia
Zerg > Protoss
Advancees (yes, I made that up!):
#1
ggaemo
Having recently returned to the scene and in a group with 3 protoss players, GGaemi showed his mettle early on. In his first game against GuemChi on Camelot, he was solid overall. He deflected GuemChi's harass, macroed up and dropped GuemChi's main and expansion right as he moved out for an attack. The drops were so devastating that GuemChi lost his main nexus, most of his probes and soon after, the game when faced with a large hydra/lurker attack.
The second game in the Winners' Match against Pusan, who advanced after beating Stork, was on Circuit Breaker. GGaemo had a strong early game pushing back Pusan's small attack and great mid game picking off corsairs and keeping their count low before a big hydra attack off three base easily broke Pusan and ensured his victory!
#2
GuemChi
Having lost his first game to GGaemo, GuemChi had to fight hard in order to end up advancing from the group. His first opponent on Circuit Breaker in the Losers' Match was none other than Stork. Opening up with a 3 gate to Stork's 2 gate robo expand, GuemChi dealt him a big blow, taking out his expansion and 2 reavers before containing him as he grabbed his own. From there, Stork was playing the catch-up game. Despite taking a favourable engagement later on to keep his hopes alive, the economical advantage and the strong reaver/high templar army of GuemChi was too much for him to handle.
One down, one more to go! GuemChi faced off against Pusan in the Final Match on Outsider. Heavy reaver harass from both players early on was the norm as they tried to establish their economies. However, GuemChi differentiated himself through his strong defense and his reaver control, taking down Pusan's mineral-only expansion. This saw him pull ahead in the eco game and after some engagements, he took the game to advance in second place!
So Close Yet So Far:
#3Pusan
Up against Stork in his first match of the night, Pusan opted a faster nexus and went up to 3 gates compared to Stork's 2 gate robo expand build. With a stronger army, he pushed Stork back and took down his expansion to gain the economical advantage. Though Stork eventually got his expansion up and was working on evening things out, a lone dark templar from Pusan cleaned out his entire probe line at his expansion and more in his main. When the two armies clashed, Stork lost the engagement and tapped out.
Strikeout:
#4Stork
Disappointing performance all around. One can try and blame it on the match-up being PvP but Stork's sponmatches record this past month were extremely disappointing to see. His opponents did play well so hats off to them. In both games, Stork seemed to falter early on and had to try and catch up if he wanted to win. There's not much else to be said. Hopefully, he buckles down and works hard next ASL.
#1
ggaemoHaving recently returned to the scene and in a group with 3 protoss players, GGaemi showed his mettle early on. In his first game against GuemChi on Camelot, he was solid overall. He deflected GuemChi's harass, macroed up and dropped GuemChi's main and expansion right as he moved out for an attack. The drops were so devastating that GuemChi lost his main nexus, most of his probes and soon after, the game when faced with a large hydra/lurker attack.
The second game in the Winners' Match against Pusan, who advanced after beating Stork, was on Circuit Breaker. GGaemo had a strong early game pushing back Pusan's small attack and great mid game picking off corsairs and keeping their count low before a big hydra attack off three base easily broke Pusan and ensured his victory!
#2
GuemChiHaving lost his first game to GGaemo, GuemChi had to fight hard in order to end up advancing from the group. His first opponent on Circuit Breaker in the Losers' Match was none other than Stork. Opening up with a 3 gate to Stork's 2 gate robo expand, GuemChi dealt him a big blow, taking out his expansion and 2 reavers before containing him as he grabbed his own. From there, Stork was playing the catch-up game. Despite taking a favourable engagement later on to keep his hopes alive, the economical advantage and the strong reaver/high templar army of GuemChi was too much for him to handle.
One down, one more to go! GuemChi faced off against Pusan in the Final Match on Outsider. Heavy reaver harass from both players early on was the norm as they tried to establish their economies. However, GuemChi differentiated himself through his strong defense and his reaver control, taking down Pusan's mineral-only expansion. This saw him pull ahead in the eco game and after some engagements, he took the game to advance in second place!
So Close Yet So Far:
#3
PusanUp against Stork in his first match of the night, Pusan opted a faster nexus and went up to 3 gates compared to Stork's 2 gate robo expand build. With a stronger army, he pushed Stork back and took down his expansion to gain the economical advantage. Though Stork eventually got his expansion up and was working on evening things out, a lone dark templar from Pusan cleaned out his entire probe line at his expansion and more in his main. When the two armies clashed, Stork lost the engagement and tapped out.
Strikeout:
#4
StorkDisappointing performance all around. One can try and blame it on the match-up being PvP but Stork's sponmatches record this past month were extremely disappointing to see. His opponents did play well so hats off to them. In both games, Stork seemed to falter early on and had to try and catch up if he wanted to win. There's not much else to be said. Hopefully, he buckles down and works hard next ASL.
Unexpected Turns
The game started out pretty standard but quickly went off the rails when HyuN attempted a daring ling/lurker all-in. For a moment, it looked as if HyuN might break Last, but a second bunker finished just in time to hold, killing off all the lurkers and setting HyuN way behind. Despite the setback, HyuN stayed in the game and teched up to hive, but Last’s army was simply too powerful at that point.
NotLikeThis. Despite the fact that every Zerg so far has opened overpool on Camelot against Protoss, Movie attempted an uncharacteristic proxy gate in an attempt to pressure Larva. Predictably, this pressure was easily deflected, and the game continued on as normal.
Well, mostly normal. For some reason, Movie didn’t expect counter ling pressure and was caught off guard by 10 lings moving across the map. Without a cannon and only two zealots and probes to defend, Movie died shortly thereafter to mass slow lings.
Based on the previous game against Movie, it looked like it was one of Larva’s good days, but apparently it was not. Larva opened with a 9 pool but was unfortunately in cross spawns on Circuit Breaker. After suiciding his initial six lings, Larva had no pressure on the map and allowed Last to tech up to his heart’s content without even placing a bunker or a wall-off at the natural.
Larva was unable to slow down Last’s aggression and quickly found himself in an uncomfortable position unable to take a third. Micro and macro mistakes continually compounded, and Larva completely lost control of the game as the muta flock dwindled and he teched to hive off two bases.
Last didn’t give up on his constant cross map pressure, even making a few vultures to catch drones out of position. In suffocating style, Last bore down on Larva while expanding to the entire top half of the map. Larva held on for as long as he could, but Last just played perfectly and closed the game out in dominating fashion.
Movie’s first game of the day could be chalked up to a minor flub, but once again, a slow ling runby ruined his day. This time keeping the gate at home in his natural, Movie pressured with a few zealots but still fell prey to the same mistake. After defending the initial zealots, HyuN marched across the map with a handful of slow lings and took out the building cannon without a problem to win the game.
This was the final test for Larva, and he failed. Despite being nailed down as the weakest player in the group, HyuN showed uncommonly good game sense in his game against Movie which continued to shine against Larva.
Right off the bat, HyuN went for a risky hatch first against Larva’s gas first lair tech build—to put this in perspective, Larva had a lair on the way before HyuN’s spawning pool even finished. HyuN was able to easily deflect Larva’s speedling pressure and quickly pivoted to turtling with spores to counter Larva’s incoming mutas. Once again, Larva had too little too late. Amid a myriad of micro mistakes, he gave HyuN the opportunity to get his own mutalisks up on a superior economy. Panicked, Larva decided to forgo an expansion and spilled lings across the map in an all-in attempt, but HyuN’s economy was too powerful and he held with ease.
You’re stuck in here with me!
Welp, I really don’t know what to say. I can’t say I’m surprised to be honest. HyuN challenged FlaSh and got what he wanted, and then well, the other two picks are kinda funny. THEN, FlaSh created a group of death and brought in ggaemo into his group and from there everyone thought FlaSh could literally sleep his way through the group. Can someone potentially upset FlaSh? PDPOP MSL flashbacks are racing through my head right now, but we’ll see how everything goes down!
Game 1:
Flash vs HyuN on Andromeda
Andromeda is the new map being added to the ASL3, and ironically another statistically imbalanced map is making its way into the map pool. A quick stats check shows that TvZ is at 42.7% in the KeSPA-era, potentially a check on Terrans in the TvZ matchup? Regardless, FlaSh’s TvZ has been on a roll. Ever since he lost to Soulkey in the ACE match in the ATB finals, FlaSh has been crushing Zergs, refining his play again and making sure all holes in his game are fixed. He’s at an astonishing 72.7% in March and crushing strong ZvTers like EffOrt 10-2, Soulkey 11-3, and Jaedong 2-0. It’s difficult to pin point where FlaSh’s weaknesses are now that he’s gotten his oil change and updated his map hacks. HyuN on the other hand struggled to move out of his group and played a pretty abysmal game against Last, failing hard with his 3 hatch lurker all-in. I don’t believe that the map imbalances like stronger mutalisk harass and the extra mineral base for a 3 hatch Zerg will make too much of a difference, especially with the new 5 rax build that prevents muta harass.
Game 2:Shine vs ggaemo on Andromeda
Good old ZvZs. And this group is going to feature a ton of them. Shine’s best matchup was ironically ZvZ, as he had a pretty phenomenal 66% winrate in the mirror. Conversely, ggaemo had ZvZ as his worst matchup, coming in at 30%. Watching Shine’s games, he’s had this understanding of when to power out waves of zerglings and when to drone up. This is Jaedong-esque game sense and Shine has been proving he can pull ahead in mirrored build orders and even some disadvantageous build orders. Ggaemo on the other hand seems to be struggling hard with this matchup, not attacking with lings at the right time or failing to drone properly. Ultimately, the statistics speak for themselves though that being said, anything can happen in ZvZ.
Winner’s Match:Flash vs Shine on Camelot
The TVing OSL rematch between FlaSh and Shine, who has historically struggled against Terrans. The head-to-head says it all, FlaSh leads 6-1. On top of that, Camelot is a really Terran favored map though the changes does help Zerg a bit more. That being said, I’m extremely scared how FlaSh can prepare for these games since he only has one matchup to practice for, as well as the fact that he is getting scarily close to perfecting TvZ. Shine will need to really make something happen with a 2 hatch cheese build but FlaSh has been very good with his scouting especially on a short rush distance map.
Losers' Match:HyuN vs ggaemo on Camelot
HyuN has had better ZvZ games than ggaemo in the past. With a mediocre 47% winrate in ZvZ, he also does not have that killer instinct that makes great ZvZers. There's nothing much else to say, this game will be quick.
Final Match:Shine vs HyuN on Circuit Breaker
Same logic applies as the Losers' match here. Shine has had better ZvZ games than HyuN, admittedly both will show a better game than the losers' match as both have better ZvZ and have had a decent career stats (remember that 66% for Shine?) in the KeSPA era. Also, Shine did well against EffOrt in the Ro24 despite losing.
Flash and Shine to advance to the Ro8!
Game 1:
Flash vs HyuN on AndromedaAndromeda is the new map being added to the ASL3, and ironically another statistically imbalanced map is making its way into the map pool. A quick stats check shows that TvZ is at 42.7% in the KeSPA-era, potentially a check on Terrans in the TvZ matchup? Regardless, FlaSh’s TvZ has been on a roll. Ever since he lost to Soulkey in the ACE match in the ATB finals, FlaSh has been crushing Zergs, refining his play again and making sure all holes in his game are fixed. He’s at an astonishing 72.7% in March and crushing strong ZvTers like EffOrt 10-2, Soulkey 11-3, and Jaedong 2-0. It’s difficult to pin point where FlaSh’s weaknesses are now that he’s gotten his oil change and updated his map hacks. HyuN on the other hand struggled to move out of his group and played a pretty abysmal game against Last, failing hard with his 3 hatch lurker all-in. I don’t believe that the map imbalances like stronger mutalisk harass and the extra mineral base for a 3 hatch Zerg will make too much of a difference, especially with the new 5 rax build that prevents muta harass.
Game 2:
Shine vs ggaemo on AndromedaGood old ZvZs. And this group is going to feature a ton of them. Shine’s best matchup was ironically ZvZ, as he had a pretty phenomenal 66% winrate in the mirror. Conversely, ggaemo had ZvZ as his worst matchup, coming in at 30%. Watching Shine’s games, he’s had this understanding of when to power out waves of zerglings and when to drone up. This is Jaedong-esque game sense and Shine has been proving he can pull ahead in mirrored build orders and even some disadvantageous build orders. Ggaemo on the other hand seems to be struggling hard with this matchup, not attacking with lings at the right time or failing to drone properly. Ultimately, the statistics speak for themselves though that being said, anything can happen in ZvZ.
Winner’s Match:
Flash vs Shine on CamelotThe TVing OSL rematch between FlaSh and Shine, who has historically struggled against Terrans. The head-to-head says it all, FlaSh leads 6-1. On top of that, Camelot is a really Terran favored map though the changes does help Zerg a bit more. That being said, I’m extremely scared how FlaSh can prepare for these games since he only has one matchup to practice for, as well as the fact that he is getting scarily close to perfecting TvZ. Shine will need to really make something happen with a 2 hatch cheese build but FlaSh has been very good with his scouting especially on a short rush distance map.
Losers' Match:
HyuN vs ggaemo on CamelotHyuN has had better ZvZ games than ggaemo in the past. With a mediocre 47% winrate in ZvZ, he also does not have that killer instinct that makes great ZvZers. There's nothing much else to say, this game will be quick.
Final Match:
Shine vs HyuN on Circuit BreakerSame logic applies as the Losers' match here. Shine has had better ZvZ games than HyuN, admittedly both will show a better game than the losers' match as both have better ZvZ and have had a decent career stats (remember that 66% for Shine?) in the KeSPA era. Also, Shine did well against EffOrt in the Ro24 despite losing.
Flash and Shine to advance to the Ro8!
Group B for “Boy, this is one hard group to predict”
This group features easily the hardest group so far in the history of the post-KeSPA scene and which ever way we look at it we are going to lose two otherwise amazing players who would have advanced out of any other group.
EffOrt has returned to a zone pretty close to the one he had late 2015 going into the VANT Starleague, completely outplaying Snow and Shine in the Ro24. His odds against Sea (who is his opening opponent) are pretty good having gone 4-0 against him in March in Sponmatches. which would most likely lead him to a much anticipated winners' game against Bisu. Now, given that it's also being played on Camelot, which has been so Zerg favored in results lately, means that EffOrt definitely has an edge. This also doesn't consider that EffOrt has been owning Bisu in tournaments in general. Should Effort have to face Soulkey, I’d say EffOrt is definitely the one with the advantage after watching his clean game against Shine.
After easing out of the Ro24 on the back of his excellent PvP skills, Bisu actually has a group that might justify his PR rank, going up against both EffOrt and Sea who have both completely beaten him in a Bo5 in past seasons. This is quite hard. Even if Bisu is taking this seriously, he is going to have a hard time against either of them but, before that, he has to go up against Soulkey, who, while I do believe that Bisu will triump over him, will not be easy either. Soulkey’s ZvP is getting better and Andromeda is a good map to take advantage of for zergs. With EffOrt, the most likely advancee to the winners' match, it’ll be up to Bisu to show what protoss can do on a map like Camelot. However, even then, EffOrt is the player that Bisu wants to avoid the most in this group, since he does have more faith in his PvT even up against Sea.
Sea has the worst luck, after having an amazing run and road through ASL2 all the way to the finals. While he was seeded, he ended up in a group of absolute death against a zerg who stands up against the current state of the TvZ matchup. While he does have an advantage in the matchup, he has none against EffOrt right now and will probably drop to the losers' match against Soulkey against whom he should have a better chance even though I can already hear people yelling “But BR! What about that game against Flash in the ATB Finals?”. It was one game! If he does it again, then you can throw your verbal rocks at me. This leads to a final match against Bisu on Circuit Breaker. Bisu would most likely go over this time unless Sea pulls off a bunker timing like he did before, which he likes to do on this map.
Soulkey’s run and standing will be defined by the results of this group. Should he somehow manage to go through Bisu in the opening game, he’ll likely face EffOrt whose's ZvZ has never been better than it is today, or he drops a hard fought game and leads into a game against Sea. He will have to pull another miracle victory against him like he did against Flash. Granted Sea isn’t nearly at the same level, but TvZ today is no joke. Even a mid level terran is going to give a hard time for zergs and Sea is not a mid level terran although if he does manage to win, Circuit Breaker is a good ZvP map even if it's against Bisu.
EffOrt > Sea
Soulkey < Bisu
EffOrt > Bisu
Sea > Soulkey
Bisu > Sea
EffOrt and Bisu to advance to the Ro8!
EffOrt has returned to a zone pretty close to the one he had late 2015 going into the VANT Starleague, completely outplaying Snow and Shine in the Ro24. His odds against Sea (who is his opening opponent) are pretty good having gone 4-0 against him in March in Sponmatches. which would most likely lead him to a much anticipated winners' game against Bisu. Now, given that it's also being played on Camelot, which has been so Zerg favored in results lately, means that EffOrt definitely has an edge. This also doesn't consider that EffOrt has been owning Bisu in tournaments in general. Should Effort have to face Soulkey, I’d say EffOrt is definitely the one with the advantage after watching his clean game against Shine.After easing out of the Ro24 on the back of his excellent PvP skills, Bisu actually has a group that might justify his PR rank, going up against both EffOrt and Sea who have both completely beaten him in a Bo5 in past seasons. This is quite hard. Even if Bisu is taking this seriously, he is going to have a hard time against either of them but, before that, he has to go up against Soulkey, who, while I do believe that Bisu will triump over him, will not be easy either. Soulkey’s ZvP is getting better and Andromeda is a good map to take advantage of for zergs. With EffOrt, the most likely advancee to the winners' match, it’ll be up to Bisu to show what protoss can do on a map like Camelot. However, even then, EffOrt is the player that Bisu wants to avoid the most in this group, since he does have more faith in his PvT even up against Sea.
Sea has the worst luck, after having an amazing run and road through ASL2 all the way to the finals. While he was seeded, he ended up in a group of absolute death against a zerg who stands up against the current state of the TvZ matchup. While he does have an advantage in the matchup, he has none against EffOrt right now and will probably drop to the losers' match against Soulkey against whom he should have a better chance even though I can already hear people yelling “But BR! What about that game against Flash in the ATB Finals?”. It was one game! If he does it again, then you can throw your verbal rocks at me. This leads to a final match against Bisu on Circuit Breaker. Bisu would most likely go over this time unless Sea pulls off a bunker timing like he did before, which he likes to do on this map.
Soulkey’s run and standing will be defined by the results of this group. Should he somehow manage to go through Bisu in the opening game, he’ll likely face EffOrt whose's ZvZ has never been better than it is today, or he drops a hard fought game and leads into a game against Sea. He will have to pull another miracle victory against him like he did against Flash. Granted Sea isn’t nearly at the same level, but TvZ today is no joke. Even a mid level terran is going to give a hard time for zergs and Sea is not a mid level terran although if he does manage to win, Circuit Breaker is a good ZvP map even if it's against Bisu.
EffOrt > SeaSoulkey < BisuEffOrt > BisuSea > SoulkeyBisu > SeaEffOrt and Bisu to advance to the Ro8!
