EPTSeason One Finals: Ro16 Preview
MLG, GomTV, and ESL have had their turn. It's time to step up to the plate, OnGameNet. The Season One combined finals will take place in Seoul, South Korea, with one of esports' oldest and most venerated broadcasters taking the reigns.
Time Remaining:
Sixteen of the best players from the three regional tournaments have gathered, and now there is more money, and more WCS points on the line than anywhere else. Runner-ups and semi-finalists will seek to earn redemption on a bigger stage, while the champions will seek to prove that they are still a class above.
*Matches played GSL "dual tournament" style.
Group A
Woongjin_Soulkey (WCS Korea champion) 
EG.aLive.RC (WCS America top 4)
Liquid`TLO (WCS Europe 5th place)
EG.Stephano.RC (WCS Europe runner-up)Welcome to the opening group of the first WCS Season Finals. In this group, we have three colorful individuals and one individual without any color at all. Unlike group D, the only other group with a foreigner, this group seems like the one where a foreigner may actually be able to rise up and make it past the group stage of the tournament.
EG.Stephano.RC fell short against Mvp in the finals of WCS Europe as did Liquid`TLO, but they don't have to face the best WoL player of all time in this group.No, instead they get to face the Code S champion, the ace of the best team in the Proleague, and the only Zerg with a winning record against Innovation:
Woongjin_Soulkey. Now, Soulkey did look shaky during almost every stage of this season's GSL, which may raise some questions about his ability against absolute top-tier opponents, but looking at this group, Soulkey should feel at ease. While EG.aLive.RC hasn't looked terrible in HotS, his quality of play hasn't been at Code S level. With how good Soulkey has looked against Terran so far, aLive shouldn't be much trouble.As for the foreigner duo, Soulkey must be feeling confident against them as well. His control has always been stellar, and the ling-bling wars should go his way, meaning his opponents will either have to aim for the later stages, where Soulkey's macro-micro-everything advantage will kick in instead. Soulkey has been through a lot in his three Code S seasons, and his ZvZ has been proven to be championship caliber. But upsets have and do happen, especially in a format like this one where there isn't a lot of preparation time between matches. So if Soulkey does have any trouble at all, it will come from the two Zergs.
Stephano and TLO are in similar situations in this group. They are going head to head in the first match, and whoever wins is likely to face the terrifying prospect of playing Soulkey in the winners match. It's really unlikely they're going to beat him, so they'll probably have to step back and try to advance through the final match.
Regarding the head to head, I'm going say that Stephano vs. TLO is somewhat of a toss-up. While both players had plenty of chances to show off their ZvP and ZvT in WCS Europe, neither player played any ZvZ at all in WCS Europe. They don't even have that many ZvZ games outside of WCS, so judging their mirror match-up skill is pretty much guesswork. Stephano was always good at ZvZ in WoL, just not nearly as good at it as he was in his other match-ups. With Stephano having scheduled his retirement for somewhere around August/September, there is a possibility that the Frenchman's determination has taken a dip. On the other hand, he's a guy who's shown the ability to get rapidly better when there's money to be won.
TLO has also improved rapidly over the last half a year or so, and the WCS Season Finals is highest point he's ever reached. This is the most important tournament of his career. A strong showing here will not only show that he's a solid foreigner, it might go a long way towards proving that he has the potential to shoulder Stephano's burden of being the ”Korean-killer”. To do this, he'll need to start off by playing some great ZvZ.
With Stephano's track record in big tournaments, the advantage has to be his. He has the experience, and he has proven that he can rise to the occasion. If he cares enough about this tournament, and there's too much money on the line for him not to, we will get the best Stephano possible.
Lastly, there's the player we could have skipped in the preview without anyone noticing, aLive. The very definition of a "faceless Korean," aLive comes into the WCS Season Finals with little fanfare after a solid but not particularly impressive semi-final finish at WCS America. He tore Crank to pieces in the first round of the playoffs, but he fell without making too much of a fuss about it against Revival. After losing to Revival, beating Soulkey seems like an almost impossible task for Alive. Well-placed all-ins could do the trick, but Soulkey can play safe enough for that to be hard to pull off. No, aLive's best chances are against the foreigner hopes in this group.
Prediction:
Soulkey > aLive
Stephano > TLO
Soulkey > Stephano
TLO > aLive
Stephano > TLO
Soulkey and Stephano advance
Group B
LG-IM_Mvp (WCS Europe champion) AX.Ryung (WCS America top 4) LG-IM_KangHo (WCS Korea top 6) 
AX.Alicia (WCS America 5th place)While Americans and Europeans have been known to be fiercely proud and protective of their identity, there have been rare occasions where they have let outsiders into their ranks. For Jürgen Jong Hyeon, that moment came in the WCS Europe finals. After defeating Europe's final defender in Stephano, the foreign community realised that struggling would only make things worse. And so, we accepted Mvp into our ranks as a true foreigner. When all hope is lost, and the last European player falls, it is to him we will look. The accumulated filth of all our defeats and all our drama will foam up about our waists, and we'll look up and shout ”Save us!” But will he? Or will he whisper ”No”?
In Group B, we have four players who all lookcapable of advancing to the playoffs. Mvp comes in as the European champion, with the other three have proved their mettle with high finishes in their respective regions. While no player has shown the level of play to make them a favorite in this tournament, all four players have shown that at their best, they are more than a match for anyone.
The first match is a match of two Korean outcasts,
LG-IM_Mvp and AX.Ryung. Both have at one point in time laid claim to the ”Best TvT in the world” before migrating to the greener pastures of WCS Europe and America respectively. So where are they now? Well, Mvp won WCS Europe without looking like he was ever really in trouble after reaching the playoffs. The problem is, he only played Zergs. His only series played against a Terran was a 0-2 defeat at the hands of Lucifron, who did not manage to make it to the Season Finals.As for Ryung, he played two TvTs recently – in the Round of 16 just a few weeks ago, and beat both Polt and aLive (two respectable opponents) to advance. Add on to this Mvp's proven weakness in group stages where long term series strategy plays less of a role, and it becomes only fair to say that Mvp will be fighting from behind. Which, to be fair, is also where he has shown himself to be strongest.
Next up, we have
LG-IM_KangHo and AX.Alicia. After changing his name, Alicia, on the other hand, had a period at the start of HotS where he was tearing up qualifiers all over the place by beating players most would rank far above him. Since then, he has faded back into relative mediocrity once again, but still managed to qualify for the Season Finals by beating Moonglade and Snute in the consolation bracket, where he was put after losing 1-3 to HerO in the Ro8. So, what can be said about Alicia? His first opponent is a Zerg who has shown himself capable of going toe-to-toe with top Protoss players like sOs, whereas Alicia only just barely managed to claw himself past two foreign Zergs in the consolation bracket of WCS America. None of this speaks in Alicia's favor, and though he has time and again shown that his PvP is solid, that won't help him in this group.
While KangHo's ZvP looked somewhat off against sOs, his ZvT was solid as he fought off both Gumiho and Bomber to reach this stage – two players probably on roughly the same level as Ryung and Mvp on a normal day. With this in mind, a group of two Terrans and an in comparison somewhat unproven Protoss seems like a group that will suit KangHo well.
As for Alicia, the second spot in this group will be decided by how well he plays PvT. Mvp brought prepared strategies to bring down Sase in the group stages of WCS Europe, and Ryung was close to beating HerO in the semifinals of WCS America. If Alicia can bring himself to play at that level, which he has the potential to do, he might be the second player to advance from this group. If not, it comes down to a second TvT between Mvp and Ryung, where Mvp's superior composure and nerve control will benefit him greatly. Besides, he has the hope of every European behind him – with that kind of pressure, Mvp only plays better.
Prediction:
Ryung > Mvp
KangHo > Alicia
KangHo > Ryung
Mvp > Alicia
Mvp > Ryung
Kangho and Mvp advance.
Group C
Liquid`HerO (WCS America champion) Mill.ForGG (WCS Europe top 4) Woongjin_sOs (WCS Korea top 4) Azubu.Symbol (WCS Korea top 4)Hero, America’s last hope!
Going into the ro8 of WCS AM,
Liquid`HerO was distraught. While a Korean at heart, he could not help but feel for those poor slaughtered Americans who died in droves defending against the Korean invasion. If only MLG had taken his suggestion of making it an only NA tournament with himself as the sole Korean, this travesty could have been avoided! But then inspiration struck as he remembered of the King of Europe, Mvp. Just as Mvp defended the European cause, so too would Hero defend the American cause. With freedom blossoming in his heart, Hero would go on to win the championship, and become the defender of freedom in WCS Season Finals. Okay, that might not be true, but pretending that it is might be the best way to enjoy this all-Korean group.
HerO is one of the top contenders in this group. Even though the "will his nerves hold up?" stereotype is as incurable as the "TLO is such a creative player" cliche, he's long since proved he's actually pretty good under pressure, winning championships all around the world. On April 20th, he even exorcised the demons that haunted him at OnGameNet's studio in Yongsan, breaking his team and his own personal losing streak against SKT's Rain to win EG-TL a valuable ace match. Ever since that day he been on on a rampage, destroying WCS America opponents and defeating some of the best players Proleague have to offer. While this will be the hardest tournament he has yet to play, he has never been in better shape.
ForGG, France’s second son!
Mill.ForGG’s career has been one of getting second. Once considered the vanguard of the KeSPA onslaught, he lost his status as he was quickly eliminated in his Code S debut and people quickly lost interest and looked towards HyuN instead. ForGG went onto Europe to find his fortune and while he did well for himself, he was never able to take the highest spot as players like Taeja and Mana defeated him in grand finals. Even in WCS EU, he was overshadowed by both Stephano and Mvp. Stephano was clearly France’s favorite son and Mvp was clearly Europe’s favorite Korean Terran. With no choice but to content with second best yet again, ForGG looks to the WCS Season One Finals to finally be the only one standing in the spotlight.Unfortunately for ForGG he landed in a group of 2 Protosses and 1 Zerg. While both his TvP and TvZ are strong, neither are at the level of his top class TvT, the only match-up that's at a Korean championship level. He is clearly outclassed here by the other opponents here as the other three players have been consistently playing at the highest level in Korea. Before, he could ahve caught them off-guard with the European HELO style. But now, with players like TY and Cure reppin' the Old World Hellion style in Proleague, chances of ForGG surprising anyone are thin.
sOs vs Symbol, the semi-final that could have been
The last two players of the group are the two semi-finalists of the last GSL. If things had gone differently, these two could have very well played each other, but now we get to see the semi-finals that never was. It is also one of the weirdest matches possible. Both players are extremely stylistic and march to the beat of their own drum.
Woongjin_sOs, likes using creative builds, clever fakes, and a lot of Void Rays. One thing to note about sOs is that he has played two of the most terrible and mystifying series ever played in GSL: sOs vs. Losira and sOs vs. Soulkey. While the first series was odd because both players had strange unit choices and builds, the second was noteworthy in that everyone that has watched the second series just cannot comprehend how Soulkey almost managed to blow his 3 - 0 lead. sOs is just a hard player to pin down. It will suffice to say he knows how to win games, even though it's not always in the way you would expect.As for
Azubu.Symbol, he is the prophet of the roach. Many scoffed at his choice to try to roach bust Innovation 5 times in a row, but in the finals, Soulkey knew that Symbol was right. The Terran was playing too greedy and he too, went for some kind of baneling bust in four consecutive games against Innovation. And though Soulkey won his last game off of his standard muta ling bane style, it was Symbol's inspirational roach busts that got him there. And the roach bust spread from Korea to America to Europe, with players from all walks of life had learned the ways of the all-in. So while fans may look at Symbol and pick him as the odd man out of the final 4, he can and will do anything to win. As for Symbol’s match against sOs, anything can happen as Symbol has few ZvP games and has yet to truly choose a single style as his go to For all we know he could very well just do a nydus bust three times in a row as he is the current Nydus God with a record of 13-4. Predictions:
HerO > ForGG
Symbol > sOs
Symbol > Hero
sOs > ForGG
HerO > sOs
Symbol and HerO advance.
Group D
STX_INnoVation (WCS Korea runner-up) EG.Revival.RC (WCS America runner-up) Samsung_RorO (WCS Korea top 6)
Roccat.DIMAGA (WCS Europe top 4)Welcome to Group D, aka
STX_INnoVation's play room. Even with a 3 – 4 loss to Soulkey in the Code S finals, there's no denying that Innovation is by far the best TvZ player in the world, if not THE best player in the world. There's still no real answer for Innovation's relentless attack style, where his marine-medivac-mine can wear down any opponent with his perfect micro, macro, and multitasking. Only Soulkey has been able to defeat Innovation after he's got a three base economy going – once straight up, and once because Innovation choked under the pressure of a game seven. Innovation is going to need better composure if he wants to avenge his GSL loss and win the WCS Season Final, but that's something to worry about in the later rounds. Right now, in the Ro16, let's just contemplate how dead Innovation's groupmates are.
The best ZvT player of the bunch,
Samsung_RorO, got crushed by Innovation in the GSL quarter-finals. Innovation served up a three course meal of macro, cheese, and hellbat drops, and RorO couldn't stomach any of it. I'm pretty sure no one is going to object if I say the other Korean Zerg, EG.Revival.RC, is significantly worse than one-time GSL champion RorO. Granted, Revival is supposedly a lot better than his broadcast games show and is quite the skilled player in practice, but SURPRISE, this is a broadcast game. Finally, there's the lone foreigner of the group, the newly sponsored, always capitalized Roccat.DIMAGA. I would argue that he is better off than Revival against Innovation, having more big tournament experience and generally playing well under pressure. Unfortunately that still only makes him slightly less dead.While Innovation going through in first and the Zergs fighting it out among themselves for second place is the most likely conclusion, this wouldn't be StarCraft II if there wasn't at least one complicating factor. In this case, it's the fact that several players have shown Innovation does have one weakness: baneling busts. Even as Zergs struggle to scratch him in a macro game, Innovation has shown weakness to a variety of baneling backed attacks, from ling-bane only, roach-ling, or a large mid-game timing of speedroaches and speedbanes. Since he's the hottest player in the world at the moment, you can bet that his three opponents have all watched those games carefully and have some ideas on how they might score the unlikeliest of upsets. On the other hand, Innovation might realize that he's shown weakness in some high profile games, and seek to exploit it by playing safer than usual...
Going out on a limb, I feel like DIMAGA might be the one with the best chance to take down Innovation in a best of three. RorO is too proud and Revival is too inflexible, whereas DIMAGA is extremely pragmatic and would have no problem going for cheese three games in a row (just watch his series vs. Happy, another match where he was the underdog). Symbol managed to take two games off Innovation, and two games is all it will take in this scenario.
If we look past Zerg vs. Innovation, that leaves us with a ton of ZvZ. RorO looks to be the favorite in that department, having been a beast in both the old roach era and in the brief mutalisk era. Revival may have beat up on several foreigner Zergs in his WCS America run, but RorO is an opponent of a different caliber. As for DIMAGA, well, he hasn't really played much tournament ZvZ in HotS at all. AT this level of play, anyone has a chance in a ZvZ best of three, but RorO is the safe bet to come through in second on the back of the Zerg mirror.
Predictions:
Innovation > Revival
RorO > DIMAGA
Innovation > RorO
DIMAGA > Revival
RorO > DIMAGA
Innovation and RorO advance.
