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Because I stay on-top of ladder activity(using cwal) of the pros and top amateurs for replay collection purposes, I tend to have a pretty good grasp on who is currently on the verge of breaking through the ASL qualifiers for the first time, or who is looking strong amongst the mid-tier pros and is looking to ascend to the next level. In prior years I was able to watch Speed evolve to a top terran, discover Noel/1127's witty play and consequent qualification, follow BTS and Paralyze shape up after their return from SC2, see Taenggu slowly play consistent vs the pros and qualify, and witness Skey showing signs of pro level performance.
But all the same I've seen player's have their decline too. JyJ's activity on ladder plummeted to not even 10% after he won ASL, Soulkey just playing meme off-race games after his 4 peat and falling off the throne, amongst others.
But to get to the point. For the upcomming Qualifiers I have a very short list of players I think will probably do well and have a good chance at qualifying for their first time.
Sky(P):
Note: Not to be confused with the Sky that has a liquipedia page.
Sky caught my attention for the 2024 SOOP Autumn qualifiers(asl18) when a new name suddenly made it to the Qualifiers finals to face-off against Light after beating Killer in the first round:
+ Show Spoiler +
After finding out who this person was on the ladder I kept track of their activity since then. Sky failed to really achieve much in the two following qualifiers. But Sky has been very active on the ladder grinding out maybe more games than anyone else at the top end of the ladder, racking up well over a 1500 combined games on his ladder IDs since the last reset. And not only does Sky play a lot, Sky's results vs pros have been improving over time. Anyone who watches ArtosisCasts can sometimes see Sky games vs pros and he tends to do fairly well, including getting some solid wins against top level pros.
https://cwal.gg/players/gateway/30/player/ImSky.
https://cwal.gg/players/gateway/11/player/IlllIIllIIlllII
Soo(Z):
 SoO
https://cwal.gg/players/gateway/30/player/lililllilillill
Soo came back from Starcraft 2 in the early months of 2025, and immediately started grinding out a large number of games. But up until maybe November Soo left me largely unimpressed, failing to put up performances that seemed to imply he was getting into the required shape to leave a mark in the upcomming qualifiers. But that changed for me in November when not only his ladder games vs pros seemed to show an improved performance, Soo also stopped getting bodied in sponsor games and in K-League, which he infrequently participated in. And ever since I've been seeing him get more wins vs mid tier pros, and sometimes vs the top tier pros. While I don't want to claim he's there yet, I think he could surprise us with a qualification if the qualifier brackets allow for it.
And that's it. In prior years I had my eye on more players who I felt really had a good shot for a first time qualification, but most of them have already qualified, or have showed a performance too weak or inconsistent for me to put them on my list.
Players who almost made it:
Rich, Airfou, HBQ, Promise, Mihu, XiaoShuai.
They just seem to fall short for me.
Rich is by all means already at the level to qualify. In fact he has been for years. But Rich doesn't play in the qualifiers ever. Rich has been better than some currently active protoss pros, but he refuses to compete. So I don't expect him to enter the qualifiers.
HBQ showed much more potential in prior years but seems be lagging behind this time.
Promise has been grinding hard and throwing money at spons to improve, but I have not seen the fruits of his efforts yet. I hope he can yield better results soon.
Airfou has been grinding for the last few years and has shown slight steps of improvement over time, but he just seems unable to translate it into a decisiveness that is needed to topple the pros. Some games he looks ready, but most he shows he still has a way to go.
Mihu looks strong in shorter games that don't go beyond 15 minutes, games where he can ride on his skirmish control. But he also seems to lack diversity and late game decision making compared to the pros.
Xiaoshuai is a pre minute 13 monster but seems to get picked apart after that lacking the speed to keep up with movement on the map as the numbers of units increase.
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JulyZerg, Fantasy, Dewalt
would like to see yabsab get a shot and gypsy try to qualify
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I would add Quickly to the list.
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On January 10 2026 19:37 zelevin wrote:
I would add Quickly to the list.
I had him on mine lasy year, but he seems to be doing worse now. If he had kept his form he would have been here.
On January 10 2026 14:04 RogerChillingworth wrote:JulyZerg, Fantasy, Dewalt would like to see yabsab get a shot and gypsy try to qualify
Julyzerg has been my biggest disappointment. He seems to be doing the worst out of the returners. Really wanted to see him improve and do well but it hasnt happened yet. Fantasy is definitely there skillwise but until he voices or shows a serious desire to commit to competing and streaming I am going to assume he has no intention to qualify yet.
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Curious about a few players who have been in ASL:
Have you kept up with Movie? I saw that he participated in kcm, maybe something else. How is he doing?
Also, do you know if ty/baby has been active?
Has Sea played at all?
I usually keep up with these things better, but I was out of the country for a whole month.
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On January 10 2026 22:02 zelevin wrote:
Curious about a few players who have been in ASL:
Have you kept up with Movie? I saw that he participated in kcm, maybe something else. How is he doing?
Also, do you know if ty/baby has been active?
Has Sea played at all?
I usually keep up with these things better, but I was out of the country for a whole month.
Movie has definitely shaped up over the past year. Start of 2025 he seemed completely washed up. But I think since around May he's been playing more, and seemingly more seriously. He's still weak at keeping up with high tempo scenarios where a game becomes chaotic, specifically in a TvP where a Terran timing attack turns into a long extended skirmish that seemingly has no end. He definitely gets outpaced in such scenarios. But otherwise he's in maybe the best shape he's been in since remastered launched. TY is completely inactive and I've got no further info on his state of play. Sea same story as TY. Completely out of shape.
Some other players who I think have really shaped up over the past months:
Ample: Ample went from largely doing UNI coaching to playing a bunch more sponsor games and spamming a whole lot of Ladder. He's reminding me of 2024 Ample and 2019-2022 Ample. In those years he seemed like the gate-keeper terran, standing inbetween the top terran you regularly see in Major or K league, and the ones you don't see much in there.
Tyson: Exact same story as Ample. More active and more serious. Started showing some really brainy play as compared to the years before where he'd pull YSC or Hyuk-like moves more often and randomly weirdly throw games. He seems to have had a reality check after getting dismantled by Light in ASL19 after throwing a 99% won game. Also losing in the first rounds of ASL20 qualifiers must have shaken him up quite a bit.
Kante/815: Spent 3 years coaching and slacking off. But has been grinding since October or something. Seems to be in a good shape but I am not sure it is good enough to qualify. He has evident fundamental weaknesses with his timings and macro. But his situational awareness and micro has always been great. Just very early-mid focused.
Mind: Mind fell off after his ASL finals appearance. But looks to be in good shape currently. Might surprise us with some solid brainy but by the book play in the upcoming qualifiers and ASL.
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It will depend if Sk and Flash Rain Effort actually decides to take part. That will close more spots to new comers. As for the new guys i think Soo has potential. Airfou could be one finalist but im not sure about getting the job done. I actually thought that Sky was the matchfixer. I played vs him a ton of games and honestly he is extremely powerful.His mmr for sure doesnt tell how strong that guy is. But i havent seen his pvp pvt matchups so idk how strong or solid he is as a player overall.
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On January 11 2026 02:02 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
It will depend if Sk and Flash Rain Effort actually decides to take part. That will close more spots to new comers. As for the new guys i think Soo has potential. Airfou could be one finalist but im not sure about getting the job done. I actually thought that Sky was the matchfixer. I played vs him a ton of games and honestly he is extremely powerful.His mmr for sure doesnt tell how strong that guy is. But i havent seen his pvp pvt matchups so idk how strong or solid he is as a player overall.
From the looks of it I don't think Soulkey will enter. He's not playing any Broodwar for as far as I am aware. FlaSh seems to be on a break of sorts so also got no idea what he's up to. That's definitely two spots that have opened up for others, in theory. In Practice it will probably mean a mid-tier pro gets in over any of the "challengers" trying to get in.
Airfou definitely seems like he's just a couple cm away from finishing the job. But he might surprise. Sky's pretty well rounded for all match-ups. I hope he can keep his act together in the Qualifiers. His PvP seems his worst, which might hint at maybe lacking precise unit control?
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I ve watched tulbo post some solid perf lately. Granted he s made it before (and threw with that shuttle on the turret...) but i d think he would have a shot at qualifying again.
Otherwise yeah not many options. Sky for me is a mystery, seen equally impressive games and downright stupid ones. Feel like old jaehoon in a way
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On January 11 2026 09:24 WGT-Baal wrote:
I ve watched tulbo post some solid perf lately. Granted he s made it before (and threw with that shuttle on the turret...) but i d think he would have a shot at qualifying again.
Otherwise yeah not many options. Sky for me is a mystery, seen equally impressive games and downright stupid ones. Feel like old jaehoon in a way
YSC largely makes mistakes that get exploited by top pros, but less so by mid tier pros and below. He's solid on everything but chaotic game state decision making. He will always have a solid chance given he gets a bracket where chaotic game states don't happen.
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I agree with Artosis about Paralyze,
I disagree that soO is ready,
And Ample doesn't show any weakness, in any match up, can beat absolutely anyone.
I think Ample is going to RO16 this year
Oh, and yeah, Shine will be back also.
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On January 12 2026 04:17 TornadoSteve wrote:
I agree with Artosis about Paralyze,
I disagree that soO is ready,
And Ample doesn't show any weakness, in any match up, can beat absolutely anyone.
I think Ample is going to RO16 this year
Oh, and yeah, Shine will be back also.
I actually feel Shine's doing worse than before 
Soo's giving me good vibes but I might be wrong about him. Only the actual competition will tell.
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Can we break this down to prep vs live? A lot of players have good live performance, but you need fundamentally superior skills to macro properly. Effort can also cheese from time to time, but Soma has both prep and live performance. Good prep, as in early game economic sense and late game macro kind of way.
Also a lot of criticism has been directed at Teolbo. Players can scale from grinders like fantasy to throwers like Rain. It does not make any difference to me. I look out for their best runs since both mistakes and performances are repeatable.
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SKY 조하늘 often participates in the CKW- CHN vs KOR Week competition. His performance is not particularly strong. You can search for "조하늘" or "SKY 조하늘" on the liquipedia.
By the way, I think for Chinese players, the possibility of mihu, xiaoshuai and zhanhun is the same. So, you left zhanhun out. However, European players like dewalt are a bit further away from the ASL main event. This is not because he is not strong enough, but because he has not played enough matches with South Korean players.
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On January 14 2026 00:25 jindi5 wrote:
SKY 조하늘 often participates in the CKW- CHN vs KOR Week competition. His performance is not particularly strong. You can search for "조하늘" or "SKY 조하늘" on the liquipedia.
By the way, I think for Chinese players, the possibility of mihu, xiaoshuai and zhanhun is the same. So, you left zhanhun out. However, European players like dewalt are a bit further away from the ASL main event. This is not because he is not strong enough, but because he has not played enough matches with South Korean players.
I feel based on what I have seen that Zhanhun does worse than Mihu ans Xiaoshuai vs Koreans. I also seel Sky does better vs Koreans than the Chinese. I think his style is bad vs the way Mihu and Xiaoshuai specifically play. But that should not affect him in Qualifiers, unless he gets Chinese in his Bracket.
I must add I dont follow the Huafu/Woniu China vs Kor battles. I dont have the time to stay on top of the Korean scene and the Chinese scene at the same level. Mihu always surprises me with his TvP.
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Scan looking good on the ladder -- I'll take him as my underdog to pull off an upset and sneak in
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/cfJWAXz.png)
