The jump in intensity was immediately apparent going into the first week of the Ro16 which featured some excellent bouts already, but we’re far from done as we get to the latter half of the Ro16 with Group C and D action.

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Terrans are being put through the ringer in the Ro16 so far despite being the most dominant faction going into it. Group C features the best 2 terrans by far in the ASL with Rush and Light but can they overcome BeSt who’s currently on a roll and Shuttle who just wins matches no one expects him to?

Rush is the seeded player of the group making Ro4 last season losing to eventual winner Soulkey in a close series where Rush just couldn’t hold on to his advantage. However, one such as Rush who walks the kong line should have no fear performing in the earlier rounds like the Ro16 even with a tough group like this one, as evidenced by his sponmatch stats in March alone currently the highest Terran in Eloboard and overall #2 with a 63.6% winrate in all 3 matchups. If that wasn’t enough then the fact that he knows he’s opening up against Shuttle who doesn’t have the best record against him and he knows its going to be on Apocalypse, with so much going in his favor he should get into the winner’s game. Light would be his preferred opponent to get him out of the group but if he has to face BeSt in the winner’s game we might be looking at possibly the best series in the season.

Light does have avenues of practice that can keep him off playing many sponmatches so its possible that the data that we have doesn’t fully represent his performance, but his Ro24 group didn’t really show that he’s able to maintain form against Bisu, then again it was a Bo1 and Bisu has been in amazing form against Terran lately. Opening up against BeSt is clearly not what he wants but knowing that its on apocalypse might help him prepare to get to winner’s match at least, but if he’s going to face Rush in the winner’s match I can’t see Light beating him in a Bo3. but he could beat Shuttle and there is a chance that involves Shuttle for him to make it out of the group.

Shuttle is the weakest link by far, its bad enough that the group features 3 other competitors who have a much higher ceiling right now, its also Bo3s, but even if he has no realistic chance of making it out of the group he does have the potential to play a massive spoiler if circumstances play in such a way that BeSt and Shuttle lose their opening matches and face each other in the losers where BeSt is subject to his currently very middling PvP to get knocked out by Shuttle, he’d still lose to Rush and Light but he’d drag BeSt down with him.

I’ve already mentioned all of BeSt’s odds and pitfalls really, he just needs to overcome them all, his path is clear. He just needs to get through Light and hope to see Rush in the Winner’s game and should he fail, see Light again in the Final Game. PvT is no longer his best matchup but he is still 14-11 against the top terrans this month, its still a winning record compared to his PvP which is 4-8 and he has been avoiding it in general.

Rush and Best To Advance To The Ro8!

In Group D, we have a cast of “guys who were supposed to be amazing but haven’t really attained any results”. While Sharp and Snow hold very old ASL runner-up titles, their recent performance has been hit-or-miss, to say the least. Likewise, despite being consistently one of the biggest dangers in any tournament, both Mind and Action have yet to leave an indelible mark on the StarCraft scene. Let’s dive into the matchups!

Our first match of the night will be Sharp vs Mind, a TvT with two of the best defensive Terrans. Despite Sharp’s lukewarm performances in ASL, his TvT has always been a monster that could knock any Terran except maybe Flash from the tournament, so the night should start off strong for him. Likewise, Mind excels in slow positional games where he can use his strategic thinking to outmuscle his opponent in standstill situations. It seems like a fairly balanced matchup on skill, but Apocalypse introduces an automatic imbalance with its three spawn locations, so we’ll likely see some early control or cheese builds to get an early advantage before gobbling up control of the center of the map. I give the edge to Mind, who has a little more build flexibility than Sharp, but at the end of the day it will come down to execution.

The second match is destined to be action-packed or doomed to be sandbagged. Action vs Snow is liable to go either way. The volatile nature of Action’s over-aggressiveness coupled with Snow’s tendency to drop the ball at crucial moments in the game make predicting the winner here a challenge. On paper, they seem all but even. Even a recent sponmatch between the two yielded a 5-4 in favor of Snow, suggesting that the players are more or less completely even on a good day. Action has already demonstrated against Best that his ZvP can fall apart in seconds, but aggression on a map like Apocalypse can go a long way in securing a free win. It’s up in the air at this point, but for the sake of predictions, I want to believe that after a failed 9 pool into getting DT dropped into an all-in hydra bust with no drones, Snow might just barely survive and make it to the winners match.

If the winners match features Snow, Mind will get crushed. Mind had a bit of a resurgence in TvP during the carrier days, but in modern gameplay he just pales in comparison to Snow’s excellent reaver/shuttle control and Best-like gateway busts. I think we’ll probably see Mind crumple under the pressure of 3-base play. 2-0 Snow

In the losers match, Action has a huge edge over Sharp despite his relatively weak ZvT. He has already demonstrated that he can crush Terrans with mutalisks alone, and with the looming possibility of cheeses like lurker busts and crazy Zerg, Sharp simply doesn’t have the mechanical skill or repertoire to stand toe to toe against his opponent. Action might drop a game doing some sort of silly all-in or playing overconfident against a surprise bunker rush, but it’s still a mismatched skill rating. 2-1 Action

The final match of the night will feature Action and Mind, and honestly, I expect sparks to fly here. Mind has an excellent TvZ once he gets to three bases, but getting there against Action is always the problem. I expect a lot of pressure to come down on the Terran, and without outstanding valkyrie micro and staying on top of his production, I’m not sure Mind will be able to keep up with the pressure. At the end of the night, it’s going to be Action going on to yet another Ro8 for another chance to maybe finally make it into the Ro4. 2-0 Action

Snow and Action To Advance To The Ro8!

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Writers: BLinD-RawR, Alyssagreyop
Graphics: v1
Editors: BLinD-RawR