Milestone season for the ASL as we hit ASL 20. Following up one of the best seasons in ASL history will be hard but with the incoming new, familiar and even returning faces, I'd say we're still in good hands.

Liquipedia

Almost nothing like the sight of seeing something you were missing. I say almost because it does get topped by the sight of seeing someone you missed in the thing you were missing.

Larva is back in the ASL and he’s going up against Sharp, Stork and Ample.

Sharp is back on the full grind for ASL after being seeded into the Ro16 in ASL19 and then getting 0-2’d with no sets won in either series. Despite that I would say that he’s the favorite in the group, he’s been fantastic with TvZ and TvP over the last month online being very active in the major proleague scene. At least for this stage of the tournament that should be enough.

This is Larva’s first ASL since winning ASL11, giving up his ASL12 seed citing injury and then overall dropping out of the competitive side entirely over the course of the next 4 years only recently resurfacing as a competitive player online and taking the chance to qualify for ASL20. Even though his qualifier run mostly composed of Terrans including Mihu in his bracket finals, his online ZvT is an abysmal 28-84(25%) against his actual peers like Sharp and Ample and a 33-38 in ZvP(46.5%). Needless to say, while it is exciting to see him back, he’s going to have to really show up if he’s here to stay.

Ample has been hovering around the J-League and K-League tier in terms of online presence and sponmatches but so have the rest of the group, he doesn’t particularly stand out in any matchup but TvP but has been avoiding TvZ over the last month. A solid candidate to take 2nd spot in the group on paper, but in reality we need to take into consideration the last member of the group.

Stork is always a wildcard, he has the best preparation for group stages by far, last season his group was particularly tough having to deal with Queen and Jaedong when his PvZ wasn’t particularly strong at the time, but in this group maybe he has a better shot against Larva and Ample while most likely falling to Sharp if they face each other in the winner’s.

Sharp and Ample Advance To The Ro16!

I don't normally write previews, and we all know that it's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. So let me say that there is a good amount of variance here, and I don't have a great deal of confidence in any of the individual game guess forecasts. As far as this group goes overall, I feel that there are two fairly likely outcomes and then a number of close calls.

I'm reasonably confident that 1) Speed is gonna make it to the Ro16, and 2) TY isn't gonna cut it. I'm sort of on the fence about Bisu. He is overall more solid than JyJ or TY, but he can be vulnerable to early game shenanigans, and I can't remember the last time I've seen him win a long late-game PvT either. If his two weaker opponents don't 2-fact then they pretty much deserve to lose.

Let's have a little look at the players in seed order. As a recent-ish champion JyJ secured the group's top seed, placing just ahead of Bisu. (Unlucky for Bisu, as that forces him to play Speed, who he might have otherwise avoided. The seeding could have put all four Protoss in the same group!) The thing with JyJ is that he's basically done nothing impressive after winning ASL15. As far as Terran 1-hit wonders are concerned he seems to have fallen off the Champion's Cliff harder than anyone I can remember. TvP was never his thing, and it hasn't markedly improved. As far as I could gather the stats, he's 5-9 over the last three months, including 5-7 in MPL. Given that Bisu also has a negative record this might turn out not to be a lethal problem. If you remember back to ASL15, JyJ dominated in TvT. He pulled out some incredible early-game vulture play and proceeded to steam-roller Mind in one of the most one-sided ASL finals ever. But lately his TvT has been decidedly more ordinary, hovering around 50%. Another thing telling against JyJ is that he's the lowest player on elo ranking, by some margin, at 22, when the others are all hovering closer to rank 10.

Bisu is, without a question, the greatest Protoss of all time (maybe one day I'll write that ranking...), but he's rather a long way from his golden days now. Let's face it, none of us are getting any younger. That said, he's the only elo top 10 player in this group, at rank 9, and his PvT is still alright. Granted, it's a losing record in MPL at 9-12 over the last three months, but remember that this includes games against Flash, Light and Rush. He's also only once missed the Ro16 cut in ASL, in season 10. More worrying is that his ASL19 performance was rather shaky, including that game where he forgot to research storm. He also had to qualify on the second day after losing a tight series to ParalyzE, who isn't exactly a powerhouse. Of course PvP can be quite a gamble, so isn't a good indicator for how this group will go. On the positive side, he's been fairly active and seems to be doing OK in MPL. Having to face Speed in the first game is bad for him though, as he's probably favoured against the other day. If he loses, as I expect, then he's only one poor engagement from elimination.

Unlike JyJ (who imploded to form a blackhole) and Bisu (who is slowly fading), Speed's star seems to be rising. We all know he's good at TvP, as his ASL games against Snow have shown and he's got a solid 14-14 record over the last 3 months. If Speed can get into the mid-game he's more than even to beat Bisu. Although his multi-tasking advantage is probably not as large in this match-up as it as against, say, Snow or Best. But the real reason Speed is fairly likely to make into the Ro16 again is that his TvT is really good right now. TvT is probably the lowest variance match so even a modest edge usually translates into a big advantage. Frankly, unless the other Terrans can pull out some build order miracle, I don't see them beating Speed. The main uncertainty is around not having seen Speed play as much. He's played practically no MPL or K-League. That could mean he's been grinding the ladder hard of course, which might be a point in his favour.

Ty is a bit of an unknown quantity at this point in his career. He is ranked at 12 on eloboard, which is good. Both his TvP and TvT stats look middling, which should give him a shot, but that's not the whole story. He's played barely any MPL, and having a 15-8 TvP record in K-League probably oversells his current skill level. The big problem Ty has is that he looks weaker in TvT than the other Terrans, including a losing record in K-league. If he wants to make it to the next round, he'll need to raise his level. Alternatively, he can try to stay solid and hope for some comical blunders from JyJ or Bisu, which, frankly, isn't that implausible.

Another unknown quantity are the new maps. Dominator and the maps for the final game are all reasonably balanced, but there could be some surprises in the middle of the standard sandwich.

Match 1 - JyJ <Dominator SE> TY
JyJ is not at his best currently, but at least he's previously shown that his TvT can be great, while TY hasn't shown us anything remarkable.

Match 2 - Bisu <Dominator SE> Speed
Speed should play conservative and grind out a win over a solid, but somewhat unimaginative Bisu.

Winners - JyJ < TBD > Speed
Speed is simply better than JyJ at TvT right now, and this game will show us why.

Losers - Bisu < TBD > TY
If Bisu plays solid he will take this as he's still (just) a class above.

Final - JyJ < TBD > Bisu
Given JyJ's frailty in this match-up, Bisu should manage to squeak over the line.

Speed and Bisu Advance To The Ro16!

As the title suggests, the big name of this group is going to be Soma. He’s joined by Mini, sSak, and Saber in this fairly straight forward Group C.

Mini hasn’t had the best ASL results as of late, and his daily proleague results also haven’t improved, seeing the chaotic Protoss slide all the way back down to 13th on ELOboard. Mini will hope that his luck changes for this ASL20, as his last two campaigns have ended swiftly in the Ro16. In a Bo1 format, his chaotic playstyle could potentially work as a double edged sword, but luckily for him, he’s in a fairly comfortable group, with Saber as his first opponent. Soma is the player he’s going to need to keep an eye on, but he also has some insurance if he loses to Soma with sSak being a Terran that he will be favored against. He also won an impressive late game ZvP against Jaedong in proleague recently, so he may have some confidence heading into ASL.

While the big prize of Flash is not back to participate in the ASL, Soma’s long anticipated return to the pro scene after finishing his military duty has finally manifested itself. He cruised his way through his qualifier group (and did not stumble over the infamous BCM who has shocked many Zergs). Soma’s immediate return to proleague has already seen him shake off the rust quickly, especially playing several games against FlaSh, and he’s jumped all the way back into the top 10 on the ELOboard. His mechanics look as crisp as ever, and mainly his goal now is to reintegrate himself back into the meta to learn what he’s missed during his service. While he returns as the 2nd seed in this group, I fully expect him to be the favorite to emerge, especially since he’s able to dodge a ZvZ in the first round, with sSak being his first opponent.

sSak has seen his last 3 ASL campaigns end in the Ro24, and honestly I don’t anticipate this one ending any differently. While he’s been a consistent qualifier, he’s simply unable to get over the hump of beating any mid-tier players to push himself into the Ro16. And unfortunately for him, he’s locked into a group with two players with eyes set on deep runs into the ASL. It’s possible he could try to mix things up and catch one of two powerhouses off guard, especially Mini, but I don’t envision him being able to obtain such an advantage to close out the game.

Saber was your ACS qualifier this time around for the ASL, running a mini-ZvZ gauntlet of soO and Hm to qualify. However, while his ZvZ may have passed a test, there’s no telling how he’s going to do with his nerves in his first ASL match against Mini of all people. Plus, even if he does get Soma in a ZvZ, Soma’s ZvZ record is no slouch either, so he can’t rely on that to get him into the next round. As with most fresh faces to the ASL, sadly, Saber’s story is going to end like most other rookies, a short tournament that ends in the Ro24.

Soma and Mini Advance To The Ro16!

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