In Group C, we have a trio of hardened veterans—Sharp, Mind and Best—and Montmorency Modesty, who has recently returned to the scene and is the definite underdog.


Sharp vs Mind on Whiteout

Sharp has become all the rage the past several months, defeating Protoss prodigy Rain both in the semifinals of KSL Season 2 and in the wildcard match for the ASL7. In his first match, he has to face Mind the Scholar Terran. The two played fairly recently on the big stage in the quarterfinals of KSL Season 2 where Sharp unsurprisingly came out on top 3-0 due to TvT being his best matchup and Mind’s worst.

Sharp’s prospects look the same this time around. His TvT win rate in sponmatches is a very intimidating 67.6% since January, while Mind’s own percentage sits at a meager 28.6%. Whiteout is a map that arguably favors Mind’s preferred style of tactical plays and aggression in the matchup, but still, Sharp should comfortably take this to advance to the winners match.


Best vs Modesty on Whiteout

Best vs Modesty, on the other hand, is more difficult to predict. Modesty’s sponmatch record against Protoss is literally nonexistent. What little information we have about him are his games in KSL2 and in ASL7 so far where he’s faced mostly Terrans and played a single ZvZ against ggaemo. He has a history as a ZvZ sniper back in the KESPA days and was a feared ZvT player in the Sonic era. Notice that neither of these include ZvP.

Modesty has a penchant for specialized, designer builds, and we rightfully expect him to try to pull one again here, especially on Whiteout with its vast potential for terrain abuse. For his part, Best has been improving on his historically mediocre PvZ, which now stands at a fairly respectable 57.1% with a positive win rate against players like defending champion effort (12:7) and Action (4:3). It’s not like he faced much opposition this season, though. Between the most botched all-in in ASL history vs ZeLoT and then Sacsri’s poor DT defense, Best was able to breeze through the Ro24 without any problems.. What little data we have should still place him as the favorite here, but anything could happen in a Bo1.

Modesty’s almost alarming lack of any PvZ activity could very well mean he has a build personally designed to bring Best down. Still, I’ll go with recent experience and predict Best to weather the storm and advance to the winner’s match.


Winners Match: Sharp vs Best on Neo Sylphid

Just several months ago, pretty much everybody would have placed their bets on Best, who is one of the best macro PvT players since forever. His online statistics are evidence for his prowess against Terran with a win rate of 57.1% since January. A closer look reveals that he has more trouble in the matchup than we thought against top players. Best holds an even record against Flash (4-4), Light (2-2), Mong (2-2), and Rush (1-1) on Neo Sylphid and actually has a losing record vs Sharp (1-2). Sharp, on the other hand, has a 68.8% win rate against Protoss on all maps.

However, Neo Sylphid doesn’t lend itself to predictions that easily. The TvP win percentage is 49.8% in more than 1300 games so far. This could go either way. Sylphid is conducive to drop play, and we could definitely see the aggressive vulture play that Sharp used to defeat Rain as well as attempts at reaver harass from Best. In a more stable, longer macro game, Best should be the favorite. I believe Sharp still has momentum on his side, though, and will advance undefeated to the Ro8. Sharp > Best.


Losers Match: Mind vs Modesty on Neo Sylphid

Mind already easily defeated Modesty in the previous round of the ASL. TvZ has been his strongest matchup throughout his career, and a 72.2% win percentage since January only confirms that. Modesty has had some recent ZvT experience on the big stage, but he won just 4 of 12 total games vs Last (1:3) and Leta (3:2, 0:3) in KSL. History should repeat itself with another victory for Mind.


Final Match: Best vs Mind on Block Chain

Having Block Chain as the decider map in the Ro16 did raise a few eyebrows since the map is not quite figured out yet. There is a notable discrepancy between offline and online PvT win percentages on this map, though both estimates are seriously skewed. Offline PvT ratio is an astounding 71% (with a fairly small sample size), but sponbbang.com lists the ratio in online sponsored matches as 42.9% in a total of around 1000 games. But we—not to mention the players themselves—will have to make do with what we have.

Neither player has much to boast in terms of statistics. Mind has won 5 of his 14 TvP matches on this map so far with single game victories against opponents like Snow and Mini but losing the only game he played against Best. His Protoss opponent has a slightly better record of 10-12, and a closer look makes things look more reassuring since seven of those losses are against Flash. The map lends itself to shuttle/reaver harass (and drop play in general), as well as both arbiter and carrier plays, so expect Best to unleash any number of untold hardships on Mind and take this home.


Predictions:
Sharp > Mind // Whiteout
Best > Modesty // Whiteout
Sharp > Best // Neo Sylphid
Mind > Modesty // Neo Sylphid
Best > Mind // Block Chain

Sharp and Best advance to the Ro8!