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[IEM] World Championship - Day 1 Preview (S7)

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[IEM] World Championship - Day 1 Preview (S7)

Text byTL.net ESPORTS
Graphics byMeko
March 4th, 2013 12:44 GMT
  • .A
    Group A Preview
  • .B
    Group B Preview
  • .LP
    IEM World Championship on Liquipedia

Photo Credit - IEM

IEM Season VII World Championship: Day 1

Tomorrow, everything changes.

Or at least that's what we hope. While Wings of Liberty remains one of the finest competitive games in the world, there's no doubt that many people want things to change.

Some want Koreans to stop dominating. Others want better balance. Others yet want StarCraft II to rise and become the most popular esport in the world. And some just want difference for the sake of difference, to take the monotony out of a game that has grown stale over the course of two years.

HotS brings the promise of this change. At the IEM World Championship, we'll see if it can be fulfilled.


The IEM World Championship begins at 08:30 GMT (+00:00) on March 5th!

.A
Group A

kr (P)SKT_PartinG, kr (P)LG-IM_YongHwa, es (T)K3.LucifroN
[image loading] (Z)Acer.Nerchio, [image loading] (Z)Virtus.pro.sLivko, de (P)mouz.HasuObs


Round Robin. 1st place advances to round of eight. 2nd and 3rd place advance to round of twelve.

Wings of Binding

Group C - March 6
(T)Sting
(P)Socke
(P)MaNa
(Z)Snute
(Z)viOLet
(Z)VortiX

Group D - March 7
(Z)Golden
(T)IMmvp
(Z)TLO
(Z)Stephano
(T)Dream
(P)Grubby

While other KeSPA players will have been tied up playing WoL due to the primacy of Proleague, (P)SKT_PartinG has been in a unique situation where he was actually barred from playing in the current round due to a KeSPA rule that prevents new acquisitions from immediately playing for their teams. Though PartinG had Code S to worry about for the first three weeks of February, his elimination at the hands of Curious on the 21st left him with little else to do but prepare for Round 4 of the Proleague played entirely in HotS. While we don't know how much HotS practice PartinG got in during little over a week, his prodigious talent and incredible micro mean it's hard not to consider PartinG a favorite to advance from the group. Things might have changed, but the soul train is eternal.

The other Korean Protoss in the group, (P)LG-IM_YongHwa looks like he could be one of the players in the tournament least practiced at HotS. While his team LG-IM went on to win the HotS GSTL Preseason, Yonghwa was notably absent from duty in that tournament.. While that doesn't necessarily mean he hasn't been playing HotS at all – even the Code S occupied MC got a run out – it suggests that he had been focusing more on the WoL Code A and Up/Downs. That makes it all the more sad that a scheduling conflict with team sponsor events at CeBIT forced Yonghwa to forfeit his Up/Down group and travel to Hannover early. If Yonghwa can't get a good result at the WC, this week might end up becoming one of the worst of his career.

White Dudes Own Koreans?

It's not like the Korean leagues were the only ones still playing WoL, or that the international scene completely shut down in the lead up to HotS. The foreign scene continued to chug along in February with a series of smaller events, with pros looking to take their share of the last bits of fame and fortune left in WoL. Amid the scattered events, (T)K3.LucifroN had one of the best months of his career in the twilight of WoL, defeating players like Grubby, Snute, Slivko, and Scarlett while winning several thousand dollars. While not achieving the success of Lucifron, (Z)Acer.Nerchio and (Z)VirtusPro.sLivko were also active in tournaments like Vasacast and RSL4 in February, showing that they weren't all-inning entirely into HotS. Still, with the foreign scene known for being more lax than the Korean scene, it seems safe to assume that the foreigners will have had more time focus on HotS while competing in the occasional WoL tournament.

Will that be a big enough advantage to triumph over the Koreans, and perhaps cause some huge upsets in the group stage? On one hand, the trio of Lucifron, Nerchio, and Slivko were already some of the best the foreign scene had to offer in 2012, and were capable of taking a game or series off top Koreans. Add the HotS experience advantage to that, and it seems that foreign fans would have plenty of reason to be optimistic about their chances. On the other hand, we're still just in the earliest phases of the expansion, and common sense – as well as our archaic anecdotal experiences from the SC1 - BW transition – suggests that fundamentals from the vanilla version of the game will still be a huge factor in the early going. Group A will be our first glimpse into the post HotS world, and a sign of whether or not the winds of change are actually coming.

You'll notice I left out (P)mouz.HasuObs. As one of the best German players and a EU scene regular for most of the WoL era, HasuObs started to trail off towards the end of 2012. While he did qualify for the WC based on points he earned earlier in the season, it's hard to tell what kind of shape he'll be in this tournament, given his casting gigs and relative lack of tournament activity in the past months. But hey, if he says he is well prepared, we can take his word for it. Pencil him in as the wild card for this group.

Six Random Predictions

  • PartinG will go immortal all-in in every single game of a series.
  • HasuObs will play a 45+ minute game (in-game time).
  • Lucifron will kill over 50 workers in a game.
  • Slivko will lose yet another close, epic game at an IEM.
  • Nerchio will impress everyone with a creative strategy/style.
  • Yonghwa will go 5 - 0 playing almost entirely WoL strats.



.B
Group B

kr (P)SK_MC, kr (T)LG-IM_YoDa, kr (P)LG-IM_First (c)
ua (T)Empire|Kas, de (Z)XMG.XlorD, nl (Z)Liquid`Ret


Round Robin. 1st place advances to round of eight. 2nd and 3rd place advance to round of twelve.

The Preseason Champs

Ragnarok might have been LG-IM's top player in their recent GSTL Pre-season championship run, but it's not like he didn't have help. (P)SK_MC (a part of the LG-IM team due to their partnership with SK Gaming) and (P)LG-IM_First also made contributions to the team, each making a single appearance where they netted two wins a piece.

In the case of MC, he played exactly like you'd expect him to after being tied up with the GSL for most of the beta: he went all-in. MC went as far as making a mothership core to boost his early game presence, but otherwise seemed more than happy to bypass HotS subtleties and kill his opponents early. He punished NSH's Madbull for expanding too early in a PvP with a hidden pylon assisted gateway attack, and it was another gateway timing that took out the NSH Zerg Tible. All-ins have been MC's biggest strength for years, and in these early days of HotS, it looks like it could pay off big time.

In contrast, his teammate and IEM Katowice champion (P)LG-IM_First was more than willing to play macro games, and looked far more versed in the HotS arts. He dealt with Azubu.Sleep's use of mass swarm hosts very adroitly, and even brought some mothership-based PvT fast expand builds to the table. Considering that First hasn't had a GSL match to worry about since early February, perhaps this isn't very surprising. Always better playing abroad than at home, the IEM Katowice champion is definitely one of the favorites to become the World Champion as well.

The odd man out of the Group B LG-IM trio is YoDa, who like Yonghwa from Group A, seemed to have been excused from GSTL duty due to obligations in Code A. YoDa was known in WoL as a player who was great at standard play, and we'll have to see how that translates to HotS where it's not entirely certain what standard is.

Protect Home Turf

Unlike the Nerchio-Slivko-Lucifron trio above, the three Europeans in Group B didn't enjoy the best of success as WoL wound to an end. Three Koreans advancing wouldn't be a surprising result if we used WoL skill as our primary measure, and we'll learn how much of a wrench in the works HotS can be. (T)Empire|Kas stands out as the player who has the best chance of breaking the Korean hegemony in the group. He's a paragon of consistency and playing too many games, and god knows what new kinds of hyper-efficient, greedy builds he will bring to the table.

(Z)XMG.XlorD and (Z)Liquid`Ret are the long shot candidates in the group. In XlorD's case, he'll be looking to prove that his third place finish at the last HomeStory Cup wasn't just some fluke, and that he can continue to rise in up through the European ranks. Ret will be looking to prove himself as well, trying to climb his way back into the upper echelon of European players after experiencing a steep decline midway through 2012. He has a little bit of HotS momentum going for him as he enters the group, showing good use of swarm hosts to defeat Feast 3 - 1 in the MLG Winter Showdowns.

Six Random Predictions:

  • MC will all-in in over 75% of his games.
  • Kas will score a TvP series upset against one of the Koreans.
  • YoDa will lose a series to a foreigner.
  • Any XlorD loss will be followed by massive heckling from Stephano fans.
  • First will look more HotS attuned than anyone else.
  • Ret will have more than 105 drones in a game.



TeamLiquid ESPORTS

Writers: Waxangel.
Graphics: Meko.
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TL+ Member
DJHelium
Profile Joined December 2010
Sweden13480 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-04 12:58:49
March 04 2013 12:58 GMT
#2
If Lucifron has practiced HotS the "normal" amount, I think he will do really well this tournament. Top placing foreigner at least, beating more than one korean on the way.

Other than that, any of the LG-IM/SK players are of course a safe bet to win it.
#1 player in the world atm: J-god | Follow me on twitter! @DJHelium
opterown *
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
Australia54784 Posts
March 04 2013 13:12 GMT
#3
hyppeeeee
ModeratorRetired LR Bonjwa
TL+ Member
Zealously
Profile Blog Joined October 2011
East Gorteau22261 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-04 13:24:26
March 04 2013 13:24 GMT
#4
I hope you got everything wrong (except the MC part. MC allins best allins)
AdministratorBreak the chains
moskonia
Profile Joined January 2011
Israel1448 Posts
March 04 2013 13:26 GMT
#5
Since Terran and Protoss are doing good now (especially Terran), I predict all Koreans to advance!
DavoS
Profile Blog Joined October 2012
United States4605 Posts
March 04 2013 13:35 GMT
#6
LucifroN!!!!
"KDA is actually the most useless stat in the game" Aui_2000
EnumaAvalon
Profile Blog Joined February 2012
Philippines3613 Posts
March 04 2013 13:40 GMT
#7
Parting MC! Can't wait to add Parting to my FPL team
(._.) ( l: ) ( .-. ) ( :l ) (._.) They see me rolling. They hating.
trada
Profile Joined August 2012
Germany347 Posts
March 04 2013 13:54 GMT
#8
well written. I chuckled at the 6 random predictions and the events they refer to
~
DifuntO
Profile Joined November 2011
Greece2376 Posts
March 04 2013 14:05 GMT
#9
This is gonna be fun! First HotS tournament MC got this.
All I do is Stim.
Weavel
Profile Joined January 2010
Finland9221 Posts
March 04 2013 14:22 GMT
#10
So hyped for this! Hopefully they will avoid problems with the private server Blizzard is providing.
Life/Seed//Mvp/NaNiwa fighting! ZeNEX forever!
Ravensong170
Profile Joined June 2012
United States858 Posts
March 04 2013 14:58 GMT
#11
On March 04 2013 23:22 Weavel wrote:
So hyped for this! Hopefully they will avoid problems with the private server Blizzard is providing.


Yea I wonder how this private access to HoTS is gonna work out. Its a pretty good for Blizzard to actually step up to provide these to tourneys before the 12th(inb4 THEY ARE DOING IT FOR THE MONEYZ ROFLLMAONOOBHAXORZ).

otherwise I'm hoping to see Foreigners be able to put a good showing. They have had a longer period of time to prepare for HoTs than Koreans due to the lack of WOL tourneys out side of korea. (IPL6 apparently being sort of/maybe/probably/definitly cancelled would have been only major one.)
"what a terrible ass game, we should all kill ourselves." -EE-Sama
oneill12
Profile Joined February 2012
Romania1222 Posts
March 04 2013 15:30 GMT
#12
gogo hots at iem!!!!
StarVe
Profile Joined June 2011
Germany13591 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-04 15:37:35
March 04 2013 15:35 GMT
#13
On March 04 2013 21:58 DJHelium wrote:
If Lucifron has practiced HotS the "normal" amount, I think he will do really well this tournament. Top placing foreigner at least, beating more than one korean on the way.

Other than that, any of the LG-IM/SK players are of course a safe bet to win it.

What is the "normal amount"`?

He's pretty reserved in this preview, understandably so as the HotS switch caught him off guard quite a bit.

Rough translation from Spanish, probably some things wrong:


Don't quite know what to expect from this tournament, I've been playing HotS for about 2 weeks now and the truth is that my winratio is far worse than in WoL, especially in TvP I'm losing a lot more than before and there are 3 Protoss in my group. We'll see how it goes.


LucifroN and Kas are the (foreign) players from the first two groups who focused the most on WoL by far, so I don't know how competitive they will be in HotS now.
Crownlol
Profile Blog Joined October 2011
United States3726 Posts
March 04 2013 15:46 GMT
#14
So what's the broadcast schedule for this? Is it starting 8:30AM or PM? (3:30am or pm my time [EST])

Still, looks very exciting, great lineup.
shaGuar :: elemeNt :: XeqtR :: naikon :: method
StarVe
Profile Joined June 2011
Germany13591 Posts
March 04 2013 15:51 GMT
#15
On March 05 2013 00:46 Crownlol wrote:
So what's the broadcast schedule for this? Is it starting 8:30AM or PM? (3:30am or pm my time [EST])

Still, looks very exciting, great lineup.

AM, that'd be a quite ambitious schedule otherwise.
mrRoflpwn
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
United States2618 Posts
March 04 2013 15:59 GMT
#16
MC is gonna mothership core blink all-in ever game. Cuz hes a boss! Gogogo kratoss protoss!!
Long live the Boss Toss!
Ragnarork
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
France9034 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-04 16:01:54
March 04 2013 16:01 GMT
#17
Haha, those predictions are quite funny. I'll dully check their if it happens (or not) !

Predictions :
Group A : Parting first, Yongwha and Lucifron second & third (hesitating with Nerchio, but come on Lucifron, time to shine !)
Group B : Yoda first, MC and First second & third. Truly don't believe Kas has a shot at top 3, but we'll see, HotS may surprise us with players becoming suddenly a lot better than what they were on WoL's last months.
LiquipediaWanderer
Derity
Profile Joined May 2009
Germany2952 Posts
March 04 2013 16:19 GMT
#18
relevant:
tili
Profile Joined July 2012
United States1332 Posts
March 04 2013 16:42 GMT
#19
Weeeee

Stephano in a EU tourney :D
tuoli9
Profile Joined October 2011
Finland211 Posts
March 04 2013 18:16 GMT
#20
Really excited for IEM! MVP, please dominate again with some crazy new mech builds ok?
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