New Year, New Beginning, with that A brand new season of ASL and right off the bat we have the biggest names kicking us off with a Taek and a Bang.

ASL Season 17 Ro24 kicks off with an impressive lineup of top names making the climb to become the vaunted ASL champion and a lot of them are already in each other's way, like in the case of Group A alone with Bisu and Light facing off this early. between the stiff competition and the nature of the Ro24 being Bo1, expect the unexpected, no one is safe.

While Group A isn’t as powerful as the likes of Group C and D, Group A still boasts 4 respectable names in Light, ZeLot, Bisu, and Sea. With one finalist contender, one tournament hopeful and two dark horses, Group A has a lot to offer and may provide us with an early tournament upset that could shake up the future of ASL 17.

Light: Light is easily one of the tournament favorites, having an incredible run in the online events. He’s currently sitting at an outstanding 71.7% winrate and a whopping 100 ELO points higher than 2nd place, Best, on the ELO Board, and #1 in Proleague matches. That all being said, Light did get knocked out of the last ASL in the Ro24, but due to a missed hidden base scout, and an unlucky 8 rax against a cross spawn Zerg, and knocked out of ASL 15 in the Ro16 as well. His achilles heel is getting out of the group stages, where he has only advanced to brackets 5/15 times in the ASL, and out of those 5 times, 3 of them ended immediately in the Ro8. However, I predict that if Light can find a way to advance to the bracket, he will make a deep run. Look for the former ASL champion to make a glorious return to the podium.

ZeLot: 3 hatch hydra man has made his first ASL return since 2019 in ASL 8. Unfortunately, he’s going up against tournament favorite, Light, in the very first matchup. Not a great way to get reintroduced to ASL. Follow that up with potentially facing off against Bisu, the PvZ master, and you’ve given ZeLot a pretty miserable group. But if you’re going to be the best, you’re going to have to beat the best. That being said, ZeLot has not impressed, with a 33% winrate on the ELO Boards and also a dismal 1-4 record against Terran. While I’d love to see his 3hh shenanigans against more Protoss players, I’m not sure if he’ll have much success in this group.

Bisu: Bisu is looking to make a deeper run in this ASL, with his two previous attempts ending in the group stages in a similar fashion to Light. But Bisu has shown some resurgence as of late, rising to #6 in the ELO Board and a solid 4 kill in week 4 of KCM Race Survival. He’s also come up with some creative builds for the new maps in this season, notably playing a very aggressive forward gate gas steal in PvT on Blitz Y, which he has revealed a couple times in KCM. Maybe we’ll see that map drawn for the winner’s match against Light, though Light accurately defended it with a two rax and went on to win that game. Bisu still has a negative winrate in both PvP and PvT on the ELO Boards, which means he is definitely more susceptible to an upset than most other top players. I do expect Bisu in his current form to make a solid run into the bracket stage, but don’t be surprised if he gets knocked out early, anything can happen in the Ro24.

Sea: While Sea is mostly a variety/casual streamer these days, he’s still shown that he can produce some quality StarCraft to qualify into the ASL. But relying on his previous starpower from the KeSPA era is not going to be good enough for him these days, as seen from the fact that his ASL 16 performance saw him knocked out soundly in the Ro24, and he last qualified for ASL 6 in 2018 before that. He’s also only played 6 matches on the ELO Boards so far this season, showing that he’s not as dedicated to practicing this game as his fellow competitors are. While he’s a welcome old face to see, he’s only really here to collect a quick paycheck with another Ro24 exit.

Light and Bisu Advance to the Ro16!

As you know the Ro24 groups are made from the Afreeca points tier list based on all the prior seasons performances, the players in Group B strongly represent the 4 tiers.

No one exemplifies the feeling of getting back on the horse like BeSt, currently the highest ELO of protoss players in eloboard, boasting excellent PvT and PvZ against vastly better opponents than the ones he’s going up against this round, Action might be his only major challenger here.

Speaking of whom, Action is back from his retirement(all of one month). I swear some of these guys have as many retirements as professional wrestlers do. Luckily for Action there’s no ZvZ for him to worry about and 2 terrans against his near 75% TvZ he should cruise on by this group even if he loses to BeSt.

When you think of a Tier 3 terran, you think of sSak, you can count on him to make it into the ASL, he missed out last season but prior to that has made consistent Ro16 runs, sSak doesn’t even have the benefit of the Group A curse behind him on this one, I can see him lose to Action in the opener, beat TaeNgGu in the losers’s match and drop to BeSt or Action again in the final.

TaeNgGu is making his ASL debut, a regular in the Korea vs China circuit playing against most of the top players from china on a weekly basis, he got a bye to the finals of his qualifier bracket by winning the ACS for this season and made it in, I look forward to see him put on a good performance, win or lose.

Action and BeSt to Advance to the Ro16!

by.hero, Killer, Mind, and Stork face off in Group C. The round of 24 isn’t ground that by.hero must frequent often. He was seeded in 3 of his last 4 ASL appearances. Killer, however, seems to only enjoy success in the round of 24. Since he was a top Zerg player during the Sonic Era, he hasn’t found any success in the ASL era. Mind was season 15’s finalist, but in season 16 he had the same exact fate as Killer and they were both eliminated in the round of 16 Group B. Stork fared the worst last season, being eliminated in the first round. Furthermore, irony ensues when you see that Rush was responsible for eliminating every player in this group. Most likely, at least one winner in this group will have to face off against Rush again in the round of 16.

Map 1, Radeon, features hero vs Killer and Mind vs Stork. This is an absolute standard map. The advantages that play in the ZvZ will only favor Killer in the very early game. Unless the wool is completely pulled over Hero’s eyes, he has Killer completely out matched. Meanwhile, Mind versus Stork should shape up to be a close match. Based on Stork’s past few ASL seasons, he seems convinced that the only way to play PvT is through carriers. The great part is every version of his carrier builds are exciting. The negative is that every Terran is expecting it now. Mind will have to work for it, but defeating the Dino Toss is a challenge he will overcome.

The winner’s match will feature hero vs Mind. Mind is doing well in proleague, winning over 50% of his matches over the last two months. He did suffer a recent loss to ASL champion Soulkey, but that shouldn’t count against him. Hero has been eliminated the last two ASL’s by Jyj and Rush. Additionally, in ASL 15, he lost 2-1 to Mind. The struggles hero has in the Terran match are very real. This is a best of one and Mind seems just a little too strong for Hero to survive here.

The loser’s match falls to Killer versus Stork. Stork doesn’t lose often to low level players. He has a record of beating low level Zerg players such as Sacrsi and ivOry on a consitent basis. Killer falls right into that low level zerg tier. Stork also is crushing b-teir Zergs in the mega proleague too. He is 2-0 against Killer in the last month and stomped GGaemo too. This match should be his to take.

The final match has hero facing off against Stork. The last time Stork advance to the round of 16 was in October, 2021. It’s been four years since he has had any decent success in the ASL. It was ASL season 9 when he made it to the round of 8. Stork has yet to beat a decent Zerg player in the ASL era. Hero is one of the top 3 most consistent players in ASL history (and that’s even with him going into the army). He simply cannot be touched by Protoss as the best ZvP player in the modern era. Hero will win this match.

Mind and hero Advance To The Ro16!

---

Writers: BisuDagger, BLinD-RawR, FlashFTW
Graphics: v1
Editors: BLinD-RawR