Time to wrap up the Ro16 with the final 2 groups as Light takes on a star studded Group C. Following that, all eyes are on Snow as he begins his ASL run in Group D.

Light begins his run facing off with one of the best TvTers against JyJ and then following that up with going against either Soulkey or hero. a hard group to call regardless since everyone is capable of making deep runs in the tournament.

Last week's elimination of BeSt and Shuttle has wiped down protoss count in the tournament, now only Snow is left to pick up their pieces, an absolute rough start to his tournament while the group is very doable for him we can never tell how and what Shine, Shinee and EffOrt have in store for him.

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A slew of contending hopefuls in this group, with a return from the former 4-peak champ, is sure to create lots of fireworks in this group. Arguably the strongest group in the Ro16, these players are sure to be in for the fight of their lives as they battle it out to see who can make it to the bracket stage.

Light - Seeded directly into the Ro16, the online king continues his good run of online results. He’s been on a tear in the Escore tournaments for Season 3, winning twice and finishing second in another weekly tournament to set himself up well for the final bracket. He’s also consistently top 3 in the ELOBoards as well, consistently being one of the better proleague performers. However, Light continues to sort of float in that tier of “just good enough” to get into the bracket stage without feeling like he’s putting up much of a threat to really make a finals run. We’ll see how he does with the new 111 meta taking TvZ by storm, but the fundamentally sound Terran really needs to add some edge to his game before we truly consider him a contender.

JyJ - JyJ finally finds himself in the Ro16 after 3 seasons of either missing out entirely, or getting wiped out in the Ro24 in pretty disappointing fashion. We’ve been waiting for a bit more inspired play from the young Terran. But even after what was a bit of a tricky Ro24 to emerge from, JyJ still has not shown me much of a resume to want to pick him advancing. He hasn’t played an official game in quite some time, the last registered game was on August 25th, and the times that he does stream, he’s usually not practicing very hard and just pub stomping on ladder.

Soulkey - Soulkey’s been back on the upswing after his last two embarrassing ASLs. He completely wiped the floor with his Ro24 group, showing that the hunger is back and he wants to make another charge to the top. He’s found himself in a difficult group, but I think he should have confidence. He’s been grinding his ZvT with a strong 10-6 win over Royal and 4-1 over Light recently. The map pool is also much more balanced for ZvT and we already know what Soulkey could do on unfavorable ZvT maps during his 4-peat.

hero - hero’s journey has been up and down as of late, and Mr. Consistent seems to have fallen into a slump. He’s also been deficient in his online play, going 2-8 in his last 10 and even accumulating some bad losses in a mini-3v3 proleague where he went 0-4. Being in this group is going to be a challenge, as the top 2 dogs are easily better than him (though ZvZ always has a chance for an upset). However, hero’s last few ZvZs have ended in embarrassment, losing to ggaemo in the Ro24, while also getting completely humiliated by Soma, 0-4, in what I would consider one of the worst ZvZ series of all time.

Light vs JyJ

Outside of FlaSh routing him in the last ASL, Light’s really always been a strong TvT player who excels in the group stage against his fellow Terrans. Against JyJ, I really don’t envision this being too much of a problem, though this map should still give us a fun and enjoyable TvT.

Light wins.

Soulkey vs hero

Crazier things have happened and will continue to happen, but given that there wasn’t really much of an upset in the last ZvZ group, I’d give the nod to Soulkey in this one. But really it just comes down to who scouts who first, especially on a 3p map.

Soulkey wins.

Light vs Soulkey

I think with Soulkey’s 4-1 performance (split between a 2-1 and a 2-0 over 2 Bo3s), Soulkey should have the upper hand here. Notably, Aiolos cannot be a map that they play on, which is Soulkey’s worst map. With the momentum on his side and a more balanced map pool, I’m going to pick Soulkey to advance here.

Soulkey wins and advances.

JyJ vs hero

Both JyJ and hero are both low on the totem pole right now. JyJ has a slight map pool advantage, but his lack of activity is more worrisome to me than hero’s lack of results. Even when Leta was getting smashed by Soma 1-17, getting good strong reps against better opponents can only help your chances of advancing, as we saw when Leta defied expectations again and advanced to another Ro8. I’m going to go with the guy who’s actually playing games here.

hero wins.

Light vs hero

If Light vs Soulkey was going to be close, I really don’t see how hero is going to put on a challenge against Light. Especially if Light pulls out some Leta-esque trickery, I think hero will be really unprepared for the tech builds that Light might have ready for him. But even straight bio would likely work here as well, as Light is just too solid right now.

Light wins and advances.

Soulkey and Light Advance To The Ro8!

Shine and Shinee pick back up as a duo from the Ro24. However just like any stage advancement the crop of opponents gets harder with them going up against EffOrt and the last stand of protoss this season Snow.

Shine: They call him the “Bag Of Builds”/BagZerg and he gave a taste of that in the Ro24. Starting with a clean dispatch of Action and especially that winner’s game against Shinee where he had the perfect answer to everything he had to offer starting from an 8rax. EffOrt being his opening match at least gives him the best chance to make it to the winner’s game just by virtue of it being a Bo1 ZvZ and anything can happen in those. He’d probably want to avoid Snow and hope that its Shinee that meets him in the winner’s match if he wants to advance 1st, if not well he better hope he meets effort again in the final game.

EffOrt: EffOrt’s Ro24 started with a loss to Queen but then recovered by eliminating Calm and Mini from the tournament in very swift fashion. EffOrt is the most likely to advance from the group overall if not first. Should he beat Shine in the opener his ZvT is pretty good in the current map pool to roll over Shinee for a 2-0 or the more likely and the one he wants is snow where he can show off his 61% winrate in ZvP in the current map pool. This is absolutely his group to win.

Shinee: Stuck between 2 rocks and a huge boulder is Shinee. He better have something prepared because he opens this group against the best PvT player out there right now. While it does get a little better if he were to face Shine especially if he learned from their Ro24 encounter and its going to be a Bo3, it once again becomes much harder again when it comes to EffOrt who would gladly toss him around like all the terrans he’s been practicing against lately.

Snow: Snow is starting off his season with a lot of pressure being the last stand of the protoss race in ASL22. A refugeetoss simply because he managed to win the wildcard series for Flash’s vacant seed. That being said overall it would be a surprise if Snow had to struggle in this group. Shinee is his opening match and as mentioned before Snow is overall among all protoss right now the best PvTer with a whopping 66% winrate overall both in proleague and individually. Thats consistently winning against the absolute best terrans, Shinee should stand no chance in that opening game. If he does end up facing Shine in the winner’s game its good and he’s going to 2-0 the group because his PvZ is good enough to beat Shine and advancing first is the priority.

However, on a personal note, he has about a 52-53% winrate in the matchup against the best zergs and is one of the few players that actually has a good winrate on the current map pool. I would like it if he did meet EffOrt in the winner’s game or otherwise in the group and make a statement to everyone by winning against him and giving confidence on his current PvZ(Also the games would likely be pretty good which is a bonus).

EffOrt and Snow to Advance to the Ro8!

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