Group A features Shuttle, Sky, Light, and Shine. This group is anything but, decided before going into the matchups. And even though Shuttle and Shine have had their moments in the ASL spotlight, all 4 have failed to make much of their appearance in the recent ASL. Here’s a breakdown of each player's success going into ASL 5:

Shuttle’s success since ASL 1 starts with his peak and is a downward slope. His results since winning ASL 1 are two eliminations in the round of 16 and one in the round of 24. Throughout those tournaments, he has shown a great weakness against Terran players during the group stage. When faced with a best of one and in an unprepared scenario, Shuttle does not perform well. Outside of the ASL, Shuttle has also had bad results. Since March 2016, Shuttle has put up a win rate below 50%.

Sky has only qualified for one ASL where he was promptly eliminated 0-2. In the past two years, he has only won two of his past 9 premier league games. Sky still rides the coattails of success during the Sonic era. Still, it is impressive that he has re-qualified for the ASL.

Light has qualified for three of Afreeca’s starleagues since his return to the scene. He has established himself in the post Kespa era as a group stage junkie. He is a well-established top 24 level player, but does not do well in unprepared best of ones. Despite Light's ability to qualify for premier leagues, his overall win rate is sub-fifty percent. He lost 2 of his three group stage appearances to groups with 2 or more Zergs, so stacking the deck is of no benefit to him.

Shine is late to the Afreeca party. Like Shuttle, he is in danger of showing that his finals appearance in ASL3 was a fluke and he is also on a downward slope. Shine lost his ASL4 group due to his inability to win ZvZ, so it’s impossible to throw out the slump card yet. With no new games in premier matches played by Shine since November, more analysis will have to be done should he advance out of this group.

Bringing all of the above data together, the next step is to address the maps and how they impact this group. Sparkle, the island map, is the first to be played. Shuttle has the micro advantage against Sky. Shuttle should easily win with good reaver and shuttle management. Sky only wins if he goes straight to DTs and Shuttle doesn’t go obs first. Light should also have an easy victory over Shine. No amount of tricks will help a Zerg against Light on an island map. Light has a huge mechanical advantage when it comes to dropships and marine micro. This will be an easy one for him.


Transistor, the three position map, is played for the winners' and losers' match. Based off predictions, Shuttle will be facing off against Light. Terran has some nice advantages on this map, but it is Light’s worse match up. Shuttle also at this time, can win this group by focusing on one skill, reaver harassment. As mentioned by Legionnaire in his map analysis, this is a big weak point for Terran natural bases. Shuttle is the favorite to win this match. Light should do his best to avoid standard play. Shine will be facing Sky on this map and has been great with Protoss players of all skill over the past two years. The map advantages for Sky are nullified as Shine is simply the better player.


The final map, Gladiator, features a premium matchup between Shine and Light. Both players have some clear map advantages going into this match. Barring bad spawn positioning, Shine could do really well here with strong mutalisk harassment in the early game. Meanwhile, should Light take little early game damage, he can exhibit his brilliant SK Terran style play to shut down the very hard to take third base for Zerg players. Once Light has full control of his dropships, this game will start to look very ugly for Shine. This is a tough one that comes down to a tie breaker. Considering Light’s inability to advance through group stages consistently and how pissed off Shine is going to be at Light for getting a win on an island map against him earlier, Shine will manage to eek one out in this group.



Shuttle and Shine to advance to the Ro16!