Now that we're back in the thick of things, two things are readily apparent: Brood War is still alive and constantly evolving, and that predictions are meaningless. If you haven't watched last week's games, go watch them now, don't look at the scores. It's all confusing, it's all crazy, and honestly, we can't even blame the Bo1 format for unexpected results anymore.

On that note, we're diving into meaningless predictions for this week! We've seen that Ringing Bloom, while mostly "standard" in layout, causes some interesting early game shenanigans, and even though mid to late games appear mostly stable on the map, the instability of the early game seems to be giving us a huge divergence in gameplay when players aren't really sure if they're ahead or not or barely miss a timing by a hair. Whatever the case, we're looking forward to more StarCraft action!

Legends Never Die

Shuttle - BarrackS - Best - Sacsri

In this group, only one player really stands heads above the rest of the group, and that's Best. Besides being a regular in the ASL individual tournaments, Best has proven time and time again in the post-Kespa era that he's on par with the top Brood War players in modern times, even if he's yet to distinguish himself from the pack of competitors in a solo tournament. Behind him lags Sacsri, who is in turns a brilliant player with incredible execution and a facepalm failure depending on how well he's performing that day, and BarrackS, one of the newest staples at the pro circuit level. And finally, there's Shuttle, who just got back from the military.


Shuttle vs Barracks

In the first matchup, we're likely to see things go the way of Barracks. While the rookie still has some fine tuning to do with his playstyle, he's an overall more consistent player right now, even in one of his weaker matchups. Shuttle, while firmly one of the MVPs of the KCM race wars before his departure to the military, has really struggled to gain any ground since his big win in the first ASL. Quite simply, he just isn't up to par, and it seems like he's reached his fullest potential, so I'm not expecting anything big from him in this matchup.

Flash forward from the last few ASLs, where the standard of this matchup was reaver/shuttle vs +2 timing attacks, we've definitely seen a shift toward more aggressive openings from both players. In part, I credit Light for shifting the meta after completely dismantling Stork with his aggressive starport openers, but the reality is that this is something we've been seeing from Terran players across the board over the last year or so. Rather than attempt to match the Protoss in greed, Terrans have been finding holes with clever dropship usage, wraiths, and vulture runbys to do some damage early on and prevent the Protoss player from building enough economy to fully utilize their tech advantage against mid game mech armies. I'm not fully convinced that Barracks has the multitasking available to take advantage of some of the more technical builds, but he is known for his unique gameplay, and I think on a map like Ringing Bloom, he could cause some damage early on.

Shuttle, having just come back from the military, is probably very rusty. Added to the fact that he was always a B level player, it feels rather difficult to say if he'll outright win or lose against Barracks. The one advantage Shuttle does have over Barracks is that Shuttle enjoys messy mid games due to a unique style of his own, so if it gets into any situations where Barracks can't leverage his preparation, muscle memory for Shuttle might take over and overwhelm the rookie Terran. In a straightforward game between the two, I'd bet on Shuttle, but considering his hiatus, I actually favor Barracks.

BarrackS <Ringing Bloom> Shuttle


Best vs Sacsri

Simply put, Best should sweep this game without much of a problem. Best is far and away the better player on a good day, and considering Sacsri's tendency to faceplant without warning, Best also claims the award for the more consistent player (ironically).

Even though PvZ is historically Best's weakest matchup, I actually think it's seen quite a bit of improvement in the last few months. His usage of Dark Archons against the modern Zerg builds allows him to not only pressure greedy Zerg bases early on and stop hydra busts with dark templar but also opens up special timing attacks in the mid game that are not usually available due to the inconsistency of hitting storms. Having Maelstrom on his side allows him to guarantee the death of at least one group of hydras and completely shuts down mutalisk switches before they even begin. What used to be a once-in-a-blue-moon unit has become a staple of Best's ground-based PvZ, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it in this game either.

Sacsri's level is so hard to gauge due to his tendency to under- or over-perform. On a good day, Sacsri is Top 8 material, and on a bad day, he struggles to make a dent against good players. Where will he fall on Sunday? It's hard to say. Historically, he seems to do better in earlier rounds, so maybe god-tier Sacsri will show up, but then again...you never know. Either way, I feel comfortable placing Best as the favorite. If Sacri's strongest form is just matching Best, then it makes sense to just throw support behind the Protoss player.

Best <Ringing Bloom> Sacsri


From here, predictions get a little scattered. I wholly expect Best to take out Barracks and advance to the Ro16, but the rest of the matchups are fairly even. Sacsri vs Shuttle is pretty even, and if Sacsri makes it out, then he should be able to beat Barracks to advance second out of the group. If Shuttle pulls off one of his surprisingly good PvZs, he could potentially ride the momentum to beat Barracks in the rematch, but I still favor the Terran over him. All in all, it's hard to predict, but the safest set of event is that Sacsri will beat Shuttle and then go on to beat Barracks and advance in second.

Best and Sacsri to Advance to the Ro16!

You Could Be Royal

Mini - Sorry - hero - Killer

Mini, sOrry and hero not only play a lot of sponmatches but also tend to play each other a lot (or, at least, a lot more than others). Killer generally doesn’t play much, which makes it harder to gauge his current form. But considering how much these guys like to play with each other on a regular basis, expect a lot more mind games and unorthodox stuff being thrown at each other.

The Sponbbang stats I’m using is between 1-8-2020 to present


Mini vs sOrry

Mini’s opening opponent is sOrry, which honestly is a good matchup for Mini from what we can glean from the stats. While they have not faced each other in sponmatches this month, in August sOrry went 5-4 against Mini, which is a point to sOrry, but the better overall matchup win rate goes to Mini with 55% to sOrry’s 43%. In addition, it looks like Ringing Bloom is 55% in favor of Protoss in PvT, so overall it looks in favor of Mini, but sOrry shouldn’t be counted out just yet.

Mini <Ringing Bloom> Sorry


hero vs Killer

On the other side we have a ZvZ between hero and killer. The history these two have shared usually put Killer on the winner’s side, but times have changed significantly since the SOSPA days. Its hard to use stats to show who’s doing better since Killer barely streams or plays sponmatches, but he's not entirely inactive since he constantly takes part in KCM race wars by offering up losses for the Zerg side. hero, on the other hand, has been the most active player in the group and has massed so many matches, it's very easy to get a read on his skill level. However a 50% winrate in ZvZ is not something that instills confidence against Killer, who usually awakens in ZvZ. Still, I would put hero over Killer.

hero <Ringing Bloom> Killer


For the winners game, I give you the trifecta of statistical advantage for hero against Mini. hero is sitting at a 69% ZvP winrate over Mini’s 42% in PvZ, the head to head is 21-16 (57%) in favor of hero, and the map itself favors Zerg with a 55% winrate. Everything points to hero taking the game over Mini and advancing to the Ro16.

But also “aNYThinG cAn HApPen iN A Bo1”.

TvZ is sOrry’s best matchup, and he's done well against all the good Zergs, gathering a winning record against ZerO and Larva along with a tie against Soulkey and even hero (17-17). That is amazing for sOrry’s TvZ form. On the other side, Killer’s handful of ZvTs only show him having winning records against Sexy, Shinee and JyJ...yeah, sOrry is taking this. sOrry, not sorry.

Rematch between Mini and sOrry, and honestly I would like to see sOrry win. Polypoid is a better map than Ringing Bloom...it's more figured out. It's very hard to say who will win; my heart says sOrry, but my head says Mini, so I guess I'm going for Mini.

hero and Mini Advance to Ro16!