[ASL20] Ro16 Group A

On September 08 2025 15:04 prosatan wrote:
Rooting for effort with all my heart , but i think SK and rush will advance...

maybe if effort played with flash many training games...

i agree with Sabu , he is amazing at his best , but i think he isn't close to his peak now..

On September 08 2025 19:03 thezanursic wrote:
I wonder if Soulkey gets Bonjwa consideration if he wins a few more ASLs.

On September 08 2025 19:01 Toshinou-Kyouko wrote:
is larva punching the pikachu plushie again

On September 08 2025 19:36 Simplistik wrote:
I didn't really catch the details. Did SK get blindsided by the valks?

On September 08 2025 20:11 iFU.pauline wrote:
My liquidbet...

On September 08 2025 20:13 prosatan wrote:
Who won first game? Please a bit of LR...

On September 08 2025 20:18 Peeano wrote:
Oh, oops, you mean Barracks vs Rush? No1 who cares to LR is really watching a TvT between these two, I imagine :/

On September 08 2025 20:19 prosatan wrote:

Yes Peeano, rax vs rush first game

On September 08 2025 20:23 Gorsameth wrote:
vulture wars, Barracks got a better run into the natural, snowballed into more vultures, killed rush.

On September 08 2025 20:58 RogerChillingworth wrote:
This all happened cuz Soulkey sucks hard ass.

On September 08 2025 21:21 SkelA wrote:
Soulkey never saw the expo? How is that even possible.

On September 08 2025 16:56 RowdierBob wrote:
Another cakewalk for SK.

SK > Rax
Rush > Effort
SK > Rush
Rax > effort
Rush > Rax.

SK is too good for everyone in this group. I don’t see how he trips up with the bo3 in the winners and losers.

On September 08 2025 21:39 RowdierBob wrote:
Flash can make his comeback now the SK peak has passed :D

On September 08 2025 21:40 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
Shit. SK reign in ASL just ended. But hey 4 ASL is unmatched anyway. And no shame in losing to Effort. Who better to end your reign i guess.

On September 08 2025 22:17 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
And effort is like. Lol i was playing last night 2v2 Fighting spirit UMS with Calm and Mini and just eliminated SK and Rush in ASL.

On September 08 2025 22:16 Zergxhx wrote:
King is back

On September 08 2025 22:18 Peeano wrote:
What if Effort faked his first game of the day just to take out SK?

On September 08 2025 23:09 Zografa wrote:
huh that was one poor performance from SK, no?

On September 08 2025 22:24 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
Lol apparently JD helped effort to practise and he didnt mention him in the interview, JD so mad right now LOL

On August 29 2025 17:40 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:

Soulkey did have periods where he looked amazing online, but these periods were never right before an ASL. Soulkey always gets into peak form whenever it is his time to play. Last four seasons he got progressively better online the deeper he got into the tournament, allegedly because his motivation increases along with his activity. What is different however is that after the first three wins he had a more dominant 2 months after in his online play. This time around the two months after he was not as dominant, and he was less active. We could take this as a sign of losing his competitive drive. I'd say it is too early to say, but it is not impossible.

Also his two only competitors over these past two years, Light, and SnOw, and for the last season a peaking Best who doesnt count for this specific comparison, are at their lowest points of activity in years. Whether this decreased activity will hurt their performance or whether it was just enough to stay in form is something we will find out in the ro16.

on paper this season is due to above reasons the perfect season for someone else to take the throne. SoMa, Bisu, Jaedong, Queen specifically come to mind with how the maps are rather zerg favored. Even Larva has a chance because his activity level is insanely high.

On September 08 2025 21:39 Peeano wrote:
SK 0-3 out in his own orchestrated group.

On September 09 2025 01:22 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:
I didnt call it, but I did have a hunch:

On September 09 2025 06:17 iopq wrote:
Can we discuss how the Ro 16 format is bullshit?

Why would it be bo 1 in the first match? The first match decides just as much as any other match (since it decides whether you go to losers or winners match) but it's randomly bo1

On September 09 2025 06:17 iopq wrote:
Can we discuss how the Ro 16 format is bullshit?

Why would it be bo 1 in the first match? The first match decides just as much as any other match (since it decides whether you go to losers or winners match) but it's randomly bo1

On September 09 2025 06:47 Gorsameth wrote:
very simple.

5 best of 3s take to long.

Assumptions (what I simulated)

4-player GSL group (5 matches: M1, M2, M3 winners’, M4 losers’, M5 decider).

Player A is the “target” (the strongest). A has per-game win probability p vs any other player.

Matches between non-A players are 50/50 per game.

All matches are Bo1 except the one you choose to be Bo3. Two variants:

Variant 1 (M1 Bo3, M5 Bo1) — first match is Bo3, decider is Bo1.

Variant 2 (M1 Bo1, M5 Bo3) — first match is Bo1, decider is Bo3.

I simulated many groups (200k trials each) to estimate the probability A qualifies from the group.

Results (probability A qualifies)
per-game p (approx. Elo Δ) M1=Bo3, M5=Bo1 M1=Bo1, M5=Bo3 difference (B − A)
0.536 (Δ≈25) 56.26% 56.43% +0.17 pp
0.570 (Δ≈50) 62.18% 62.27% +0.09 pp
0.606 (Δ≈75) 68.05% 68.20% +0.15 pp

On September 09 2025 07:00 iopq wrote:
I had ChatGPT do some simulations, so take it with a grain of salt, seems both variants are not that different

On September 09 2025 04:15 laurasad wrote:


But that is not really true. Soulkey had a mediocre online performance before his first title, an okay online performance before his second title. He actually had insane performance right before the maps for SSL/ASL18 were released, but struggled to adapt to those maps, specially against Terran. In response, he abused crazy zerg in SSL (third title). Before his fourth title he had a good performance but not clearly above everyone else, although he had been less active the prior weeks, but it was expected he would get back in shape after increasing his activity.

The main difference between ASL20 and all those other titles, I think, are lack of motivation to practice and hubris.

Lack of motovation: he barely played any BW in the last 3 weeks. And let's be clear: he streamed for more than half of those days, but he played LOL and random crap instead of practicing. He also has very few games in cwal. All in all. He didn't give a crap about practicing. What Simplistik wrote in the preview for the ro16 is just plain wrong: SK's lack of online practice is not because he practiced offline, he just didn't practice at all.

Not only was he inactive for the last 3 weeks, but also he lost to Best 2/7 before going inactive, and lost to bisu 3/4 just a few days ago in the only games between his inactivity period and ASL.

And yet with all his more than mediocre recent performance and lack of practice, he took for granted that he would go to round of 4, and even had the luxury of not picking his best option (Sharp, see group selection on tastosis) out of pity instead of selecting the player that would maximize his chances of winning.


I'm a Soulkey fan, but I'm glad he didn't win. He simply didn't deserve it. He had to be humbled and reality checked.

On August 29 2025 06:08 mtcn77 wrote:

Wait till you see him in the quarterfinals. This guy beat Flash at his peak. Soulkey will have a hard time running away from him in the brackets.

On September 09 2025 07:56 Kraekkling wrote:
the way SK dropped out today could have happened just as well in any of the previous seasons imo

On September 09 2025 06:17 iopq wrote:
Can we discuss how the Ro 16 format is bullshit?

Why would it be bo 1 in the first match? The first match decides just as much as any other match (since it decides whether you go to losers or winners match) but it's randomly bo1

On September 09 2025 04:15 laurasad wrote:
What Simplistik wrote in the preview for the ro16 is just plain wrong: SK's lack of online practice is not because he practiced offline, he just didn't practice at all.

On September 09 2025 07:56 Kraekkling wrote:
the way SK dropped out today could have happened just as well in any of the previous seasons imo

On September 09 2025 09:53 Stopthevirtualaddict wrote:

How so? He literally was ahead in every game he played. With quite a margin.
First game straight build order win with overlord even scouting efforts hidden base. Somehow didnt see it, eventhough we see in the life casting his screen switching to that overlord, creep visibile and suddenly send exactly at that point, on the height of the hatch his overlord to the right side back home or whatever. Even than
2nd game vs effort again literally quite ahead. Sees everything with overlord has build advantage decides to do a mass ling flood on a map with a tiny choke. Than gifts mutas randomly.
Vs barracks barracks does nothing and goes for valk push, the thing that literally vs popular 6-5 seasons ago. I honestly thought barracks was a moron for playing literally the easiest game for SK, the anti terran late game god.
But SK didnt even show up…

Even efforts game was strange, strange sunken placements …
I dont know what is going this season, but i find more than strange, the games we are having, like this isnt normal anymore…

On September 09 2025 10:46 mtcn77 wrote:

You have to understand he took the graceful fall. Notice, the worst thing that could happen right now is a Bo7 final game decider on Roaring Currents like in ASL 15. I think he didn't want his reputation tarnished. High level Starcraft is mostly mental fortitude and looks like Soulkey is afraid of losing in finals more than losing in brackets. He didn't want a rollercoaster of emotions on stage.

On September 09 2025 21:49 Miragee wrote:
How the fuck did Soulkey not see Effort's expansion in game 1? He even pulled back the overlord right when the observer showed that the creep was visible to him....

On September 10 2025 12:25 Simplistik wrote:

I can only assume he pulled back the overlord without seeing the creep. I personally think that's understandable. What is harder to justify is how long it took him to realise that there must be an expansion somewhere. He misread the game state rather badly.

On September 11 2025 05:21 Sabu113 wrote:
We all know this is the legend of the Fall.

On September 09 2025 21:49 Miragee wrote:
How the fuck did Soulkey not see Effort's expansion in game 1? He even pulled back the overlord right when the observer showed that the creep was visible to him....

On September 10 2025 22:58 Peeano wrote:

This 100%
I always feel it's funny when a pro needs to confirm it by scouting it and then even reacting like they got tricked. A hidden 4th can easily go unnoticed and make you lose the game, a 3rd likewise to a lesser degree, but a 2nd - especially in the case of ZvZ - you shouldn't be suprised by even if it's hidden.

On September 11 2025 18:15 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:

Soulkey's vision box did switch to the overlord for a second. He should have seen it. But chances are he jumped vision box to the overlord, but was looking at the minimap, not at the screen itself. Or he wanted to hide his knowledge of that expo from Effort for reasons, and it backfired. Tough to call but odds are in favor of him having missed it.

On September 11 2025 18:15 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:

Soulkey's vision box did switch to the overlord for a second. He should have seen it. But chances are he jumped vision box to the overlord, but was looking at the minimap, not at the screen itself. Or he wanted to hide his knowledge of that expo from Effort for reasons, and it backfired. Tough to call but odds are in favor of him having missed it.

On September 11 2025 18:46 goody153 wrote:

He probably just didnt see it like human error

You can completely see his reaction during the zergling scout near the end of the game where he clearly didnt know there was a base there

On September 08 2025 21:42 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Not to meme but I'm not sure Soulkey cared about winning another season.

On September 11 2025 05:21 Sabu113 wrote:
Guess SK didn’t need the money any more lol.

On September 11 2025 09:02 TMNT wrote:

This is the case where spamming apm at the beginning of the game actually hurts you, I believe. Go watch progamers' FPVOD at the beginning of a game and you can see how many box selecting and screen jumping they do. One move they often do is switch to the scouting worker/overlord for a split second and jump back to their main. You can see at that moment that Soulkey had his screen on the overlord for half a second then switched back to his nat, probably to move command the overlord back there. He probably didn't look at the left side of his screen during that moment at all to catch the creep, and the idea of scouting that base never crossed his mind, so he never went back to look at the fog of war again. Simple as that.

On September 11 2025 19:47 mtcn77 wrote:

That makes him a bit of a clown, actually.

On September 11 2025 22:49 goody153 wrote:

Human error is a thing even for the strongest players

On September 11 2025 22:59 mtcn77 wrote:

I call it overspecialisation, but this is different. Soulkey is a strategizer. Losing map control drops him to a level below jaedong. Jaedong has mechanics.