EPTDay Two Preview
FXOLucky vs 
Empire|Welmu: Welmu was rather lucky to make it out of the first round, as he inched by through a one game difference on map scores with Kas. He didn’t look particularly capable against Korean TvP master PuMa, and now he has the misfortune of going up against a ZvP specialist in Lucky.
Lucky has looked a bit shaky in ZvT lately, whether it was in the GSL, or just yesterday where he lost to Strelok 1 – 2. However, ZvP is Lucky’s specialty, and it’s the match his team most often employs him in. Though Welmu has done well to come this far, it’s really hard to say he has a chance against Lucky.
Prediction: Lucky 2 – 0 Welmu
aTn.ClouD vs mouzMaNa: Cloud has always been quite a skilled online player, but he's admitted to having a lot of problems with playing to his best when he's at a live tournament. On the other hand, MaNa has another kind of problem at live events, where he plays very well, but never well enough to win a gold medal.
While the combination of these two curses says that Cloud will lose here and MaNa will go on and take home another silver medal, we don't need voodoo to know that MaNa is the favorite. He's one of the best PvT players in Europe, if not the entire world. He's one of the few players on earth who has a winning record over TvP master PuMa over a large number of games, and Cloud isn't on that level.
Prediction: MaNa 2 – 1 ClouDSlayerS_Taeja vs TSL_Polt: This is an interesting match-up of momentum vs established strength. Taeja is more known for his TvZ and TvT, but he went on a monster TvT run to qualify for this tournament: 3 – 0 vs Dream, 3 – 1 vs aLive, and 4 – 0 vs Jjakji. Did he just get hot that day, or is that how good his TvT has become for real?
That's an important question against Polt, another player who used to have poor TvT, but put the pieces together to become a formidable player. Polt is a religious user of marine-tank, and he really shines when his opponent uses the same composition. He has an uncanny ability to pick only winning fights against his opponent's army, which gives him a unique edge over most players.
Taeja is a player who prefers to use marine-tank over mech, so this is to his disadvantage. While he got hot in the past few weeks, he's had time to cool down. Unless it's the start of a new trend for Taeja, Polt should put him back in his place.
Prediction: Polt 2 – 1 TaejaLiquid`HerO vs EG.JYP: What a convenient match-up, for prediction purposes. The two played just a few days ago in Code A, where HerO emerged victorious. HerO made a flawed decision to throw away one of the games, but his overall superior mechanics allowed him to almost brute-force his way to victories in the others. PvP is extremely volatile, and HerO was maybe three seconds away from losing his series against JYP in the GSL, so this rematch really is 50/50. But we have to predict a winner, so we'll pick HerO to repeat.
Prediction: HerO 2 – 1 JYPdignitas.BlinG vs Acer.elfi: BlinG has been one of the best rising Protosses to watch lately, especially in PvT where he already seems like he's a top tier player. Unfortunately for him, PvP is an unpredictable animal, and elfi is one of the matchup's most unorthodox players.
elfi made a name for himself late last year, scoring PvP upsets by 4-gating. It sounds pretty simple, but it was actually an oddly clever mind-game at the time, when 4-gate was being abandoned and forgotten by many players. Obviously times will have changed since then, but elfi will have some new tricks up his sleeve.
BlinG seems better on paper, but elfi just seems like a better tournament player – someone who knows how to get wins, even if they're ugly. Also, I have to pick at least one Finnish player to go through, so we'll go with the guy who likes cats.
Prediction: elfi 2 – 1 BlinGMill.Stephano vs TypeReaL: ReaL's tricky tactics are not some fluke, but a style of play through which he has achieved consistent success. He's flumoxed more than one progamer who was supposed to be his superior, and he'll be looking to do it again against Stephano.
However, I can't help but think that this particular opponent will be immune to ReaL's tricks. I'm reminded of ReaL's Sao Paulo series against Ret, a no nonsense, solid, safe, macro Zerg. Ret looked at ReaL's tactics, asked him "WHAT are you DOING?" smashed him thoroughly.
That's the kind of player Stephano is, who has simply seamless play, where there's rarely a gap for any unorthodox tactic to try and pierce through. Real will do what he can, but it's hard to think that Stephano will be troubled.
Prediction: Stephano 2 – 0 ReaLEG.PuMa vs dignitas.Bischu: Poor Bischu. He made it out of a pretty tough group with Lucky, Strelok, and Bly, only to have to face PuMa in a PvT. PuMa is the one player on EG who really lives up to the name of being an Evil Genius, at least in TvP. The 1/1/1 is certainly one of the most evil strategies in the world, and the way PuMa uses this strategy to play twisted mind games with his opponents is both evil and genius. It's easy to see how this one is going to end.
Prediction: PuMa 2 – 0 BischuMill.DieStar vs dignitas.SeleCT: SeleCT struggled some in the group stage, even though he made it out. He was looking distinctly more foreign than Korean, which makes this next match a lot closer than one would initially think. SeleCT's TvT has always been rather up and down, so you would expect him to beat DieStar. However, DieStar's in the the midst of a pretty good TvT stretch, so you can't count him out. Overall, DieStar just seemed a lot more comfortable in the group stages, while SeleCT was in bad condition. An upset might be in the works.
Prediction: DieStar 2 – 1 SeleCT
