Symbol and Losira advance in final Ro16 group, Ro8 brackets finalized
The GSL finalist curse appeared to end with WoL, as last season's runner-up Azubu.Symbol joined defending champion RorO in the round of eight. It was the first time such an event had occurred since November of 2011, when MMA and Mvp managed to reach the Ro8 after gracing the finals stage in the previous season.
Symbol's first match saw him thoroughly school lone KeSPA player SKT_soO, thwarting his early pool rush to win game one, and then using an early pool rush himself to take game two. The second series against FXO.GuMiho would be slightly more difficult, but not by much. Symbol easily took the first game with a well executed roach-baneling all-in, and then dropped the second game after his mass-speedroach strategy failed in game two. Symbol decided to fall back on his trusty nydus worm tactics in the final set, going for a clever speedling misdirection into nydus attack that caught Gumiho totally off guard. Symbol improved to 12 - 3 when using nydus worms in the GSL and advanced to the Ro8.
Losira avenges loss against Gumiho to take second place spot
After suffering a painful Ro16 defeat to FXO.GuMiho last season, LG-IM_LosirA was able to exact revenge by eliminating his enemy from the tournament in the very next season. While he suffered an initial defeat to Gumiho in his first series of the night, Losira swept soO aside in the losers match to earn a rematch against the FXO Terran in the final match.
While the series didn't live up to the epic reputation of the one they had back in February, it did have the similar characteristics where Gumiho battered LosirA with blows from all angles, while LosirA put on the best defensive performance he possibly could. This time around, Gumiho had to admit he was bested. After Losira held off all sorts of relentless harassment and frontal attacks, Gumiho twice decided that his only choice left was to go all-in with SCVs pulled. Losira held off those desperation attacks as well, and advanced to the Ro8 with well-earned GG's.
Ro8 Picture
With the Ro16 complete, the quarter-final brackets were also determined.
While all the match-ups should definitely be high quality, the most anticipated match is definitely RorO vs. INnoVation, featuring KeSPA's best Zerg against KeSPA's best Terran. While the early elimination of Life and Flash has precluded a number of story lines, the possibility of Startale captain Bomber going up against his taunting ex-teammate PartinG presents itself as one of the most exciting finals cards.
i hope bomber wins and innovation doesnt. He's already so good and I wont want a kespa to win parting - sos innovation - symbol sos - innovation innovation
- Oh no, we don't get Roro vs Symbol repeat finals. Maybe a repeat semis? - Bomber vs Parting would be good haha. - Soulkey vs Roro for best kespa zerg? - sOs or Parting for first Protoss champion since Seed. And only third Protoss GSL champion ever. - Innovation or Bomber to place themselves as the new terran king in the post-GSLMVP-era. - Also quite funny that we got 4 zergs for this Ro8. How long until it becomes so standard that people just talk about Korea as the home of great zergs like they used to about terrans in 2011?
I think I'm hoping for Parting vs Bomber, Soulkey vs Roro or sOs vs Innovation finals. Yeah that's right, I'd be ok with a ZvZ finals. It's not the race, it's the players and their stories.
On May 10 2013 13:28 Bagration wrote: 4 vZ matchups. Could you imagine the rage if we have an all Zerg Ro4? :p
The irony is, LR threads by the end of WOL was full of absolute hatred for zerg and how "everything will change in hots and patch zergs will die." Then we have Symbol and Roro, the last WOL finalist return to the Ro8 despite being the last players to switch into HOTS. Both able to perform well in ZvT when supposedly the matchup is OP for terran again.
I'm not a zerg fan. In fact it's my least favorite race. But I'm glad the top zergs are doing well just to shut up the people who mindlessly parrot race OP without looking at the players.
On May 10 2013 13:28 Bagration wrote: 4 vZ matchups. Could you imagine the rage if we have an all Zerg Ro4? :p
The irony is, LR threads by the end of WOL was full of absolute hatred for zerg and how "everything will change in hots and patch zergs will die." Then we have Symbol and Roro, the last WOL finalist return to the Ro8 despite being the last players to switch into HOTS. Both able to perform well in ZvT when supposedly the matchup is OP for terran again.
I'm not a zerg fan. In fact it's my least favorite race. But I'm glad the top zergs are doing well just to shut up the people who mindlessly parrot race OP without looking at the players.
To be fair, objectively the zerg players that were kicking ass at the end were the zerg players that are good regardless. Symbol, Roro, Leenock, Soulkey and Life.
Hyun, DRG, Curious and Sniper appear to have dropped off a little, but otherwise the top of KR zerg play remained unchanged.
And powerful. KR zergs are honestly so scary nowdays. KR terrans don't hold the same strength as 2011.
PartinG fighting! Altho his match against Soulkey will be hard. PartinG does these unique, stylistic things, which makes him very counterable in these longer bo5 matches with tons of preparation. I fear Soulkey will take the victory.
sOs, on the other hand, should be pretty heavily favoured against KangHo.
INnoVation vs. RorO is a hard one to call. But it seems the only Zerg that can beat INnoVation is Soulkey. Not sure if RorO has the Soulkey magic tho..
Bomber vs. Symbol: Bomber always disappoints. Nuff said.
Losira winning it all would be great, championships belong to LG-IM ( and since he isn't the huge favorite it would look even more epic ) ! Then Nestea will win AM and MVP will win EU:D
Well. Bottom part of the bracket looks crazy, top part of the bracket looks even crazier. And that's with Flash, Life and Rain out. I would rate players like this: 1. Innovation (recently he was beatend by only two players - Rain 1:2 in BO3 in RO32 (then he destroyed Rain 2:0) and BO1 in SPL (last game) and Soulkey in BO1 in SPL, Rain is out and Soulkey's BO1 doesn't look that scary against what Innovation has to offer, Taeja also did win Innovation on BO1, didn't help him much next time they met).
2. Parting. I wanted to put him lower for three reasons, as a protoss his performance is very unstable, I actually believe him to be 3-4 currently (because his performance is very unstable) and I think that he performs best when he is underdog (for someone who won WCG and WCS, he is considered underdog pretty often, because his performance is unstable), but how can you put someone lower that this after he 2:0'd Flash and Life? Thats just not the way to go. I will be happy to see parting falling behind in openings, because as he has proven in the previous round, thats how he wins games (he was significantly ahead 2 first games vs. Life, and still lost, he was behind game 1 with Flash and 2 last games with Life and he destroyed them), he needs challenge. SoulKey is one of the few people remaining who can kill him, but also one of the few who will be challenging enough to be destroyed.
3. sOs-SoulKey. Yes, I do believe that Soulkey is stronger than RoRo and KangHo. And putting sOs anywhere below top-3 would be crazy, his style of play is one of the most entertaining in the world, he does stuff that looks crazy and works, his mindgames are breathtaking, he shows that Protoss can be played very differently, he reminds me of Bisu, who revolutionized PvZ in BW. And Soulkey is one of the most solid and scary zergs this days, he destroyed Innovation in SPL in a straight game, he simply outplayed Innovation, that means a lot, even in BO1.
4. Kang-Ho - RoRo. RoRo's SPL performance is astonishing, I love how he has advanced to RO8 proving everyone wrong in their beliefs that his finals against Symbol were some patch-finals, for some reasons it still seems that his game is not as solid as it was in WoL, and he is facing Innovation. He recently lost to him in SPL, so he is underdog in this match (this days anyone's vs. Innovation is underdog.) Kang Ho knows how to amaze, I'm not gonna analyze him, because he can do better than any predictions.
5. Bomber - Symbol. These too ending last indicates that this RO8 is pretty sick. Bomber is fan favourite, but his performance is not up to his own standards, and Symbol, he just does his job, I will be happy to see him advance all the way up to the finals, that will be the biggest upset in this GSL, Symbol is most underrated player in RO8, which is strange for last GSL runner-up.
Predictions: Parting > Soulkey sOs > KangHo RoRo < Innovation Bomber > Symbol
Did I just predict 4 best zergs after Life out? Wow.
The only quarterfinal match that is easy to call is Losira vs Sos, the rest is really close in skill imho. Excellent Ro8, though I really miss Rain in there.
I think we see Innovation v Soulkey or Roro v Soulkey finals. Not a very popular opinion but Parting did not look like championship material in Ro16, still scratching my head as to how he made it out. Also completely possible for sOs to take it all.
I actually think Soulkey is KESPA's best zerg and probably the best zerg in the world at the moment. I'm sure I'm in the minority here given Soulkey's lack of big tournament results (no wins, just solid GSL finishes).
On May 10 2013 13:28 Bagration wrote: 4 vZ matchups. Could you imagine the rage if we have an all Zerg Ro4? :p
The irony is, LR threads by the end of WOL was full of absolute hatred for zerg and how "everything will change in hots and patch zergs will die." Then we have Symbol and Roro, the last WOL finalist return to the Ro8 despite being the last players to switch into HOTS. Both able to perform well in ZvT when supposedly the matchup is OP for terran again.
I'm not a zerg fan. In fact it's my least favorite race. But I'm glad the top zergs are doing well just to shut up the people who mindlessly parrot race OP without looking at the players.
god there are so many awesome possibilities that could happen at the bottom part of the bracket 1st: Roro vs innovation 2nd: we could see a RorO vs Symbol rematch.. 3rd: it could be Innovation vs Bomber 4th: as stated before a Parting vs Bomber final man this season is great, I still wish life would have made it out but oh well..
On May 11 2013 05:45 opterown wrote: parting is kespa but remember the root of the argument was that bw progamers were in some way intrinsically better at games than sc2 progamers
Well, atleast this GSL won't be the result of a Terran nerf any time soon. Bomber will probably choke on the way to the final, and nobody would dispute the legitimacy of Bogus winning.
On May 11 2013 06:50 Noocta wrote: Well, atleast this GSL won't be the result of a Terran nerf any time soon. Bomber will probably choke on the way to the final, and nobody would dispute the legitimacy of Bogus winning.
I would be so happy if Bomber wins, but it seems really unlikely lol
Here's how it's going to go down. We'll get the Bomber vs. Parting finals that everyone wants to see, and Bomber will win in a close 4-3 series that has more manner mules than every professional game combined until this point. Then, next season, Bomber loses his ro32 group 0-4, and gets knocked into code B by some random practice partner.
EPT
Symbol <Star Station> 
GuMiho![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Waxangel/WCS2013/Korea_1/ro8bracket.png)
