EPT
Lecaf OZ vs MBCGame HERO
14:00 Korea Time on both channels
Last weekend, just one day before we got to see a Hanbit player (GGPlay) win a Starleague after so many years, the post season of the first round in this year's edition of the Proleague, we saw MBCGame Hero coming back from a 0-2 score to tear apart STX Soul with 4-2.
This week's match between Lecaf OZ and MBCGame HERO will determine who gets to play vs Samsung KHAN in the finals and it is a very interesting match, because it basically is a rematch of last season's (SKY Proleague 2006 Round 2) playoffs during which MBCGame HERO beat Lecaf OZ with 4-3 and then went on to win the whole thing.
Everything that happened up to this point can be found in the Shinhan Proleague Results & Standings thread. But let's have a look at Lecaf OZ and MBCGame HERO:
Lecaf OZ Accomplishments:
2006 SKY Proleague Round 2 third place
Last match & current streak:
3-1 vs OGN Sparkyz / 6 wins
Stats at the end of the regular season:
Overall 52-36
1v1 40-26
2v2 12-10
MBCGame HEROAccomplishments:
2007 2nd KeSPA Cup Winner
2006 SKY Proleague 2006 Grand Final Winner
2006 Proleague 2006 Round 2 Winner
2006 SKY Proleague Round 1 Runnerup
Last match & Current streak (incl. playoffs):
4-2 vs STX Soul / 8 wins
Stats at the end of the regular season:
Overall 53-34, 1v1 42-22, 2v2 10-12
As can be clearly seen the single accomplishment of Lecaf OZ looks rather pale compared to what MBCGame HERO has achieved.
Game 1 - fOrGG vs Sea @ Geometry
Surprise, surprise - Geometry is the map, so what is the matchup? Yes... TvT. By now the news of how much of a beast Sea has been in Proleague has probably reached most of you. For those who have missed it let me show you why Sea is the big, big favourite to take the 1-0 lead for MBCGame here:
He is 17-5 (6-2 TvT with losses to Midas and Firebathero) this season (including playoffs), while fOrGG is only 10-8 (5-6 TvT). He also already won twice vs fOrGG this season, of which 1 game was played on Geometry. Sea's stats on Geometry are 7-1 (lost to Midas, like mentioned above) and fOrGG's are 4-5.
Absolutely everything speaks in favour of Sea here!
Game 2 - Backho vs Pusan @ Monty Hall,
Backho hasn't played a single official PvP game in his career, actually he has only played 5 official 1v1 games in total and none of those were in Proleague. This season he has only played 2v2 with total stats of 1-5.
Pusan on the other hand is absolutely deadly in PvP, his career record of the matchup speaks for itself: 22-9 (70.97% win). With a perfect 4-0 record he is undefeated in PvP during the current Proleague season, coincidentally all four games were played on..., yes, you guessed it: Monty Hall.
I think Backho is royally screwed.
Game 3 - Dongrae/Shinhwa vs 910/Saint @ Vampire
Game 3 is where it starts looking better for Lecaf OZ as Dongrae/Shinhwa are 6-2 as a team this season, while 910/Saint are only 1-0, which was played during the playoffs last weekend.
As always 2v2 is hard to predict, but the larger experience of the Lecaf team could very well be the deciding factor here, so I'm going with them
Game 4 - Jaedong vs Light @ Tau Cross
Jaedong and Light have already played each other once during this Proleague season and Light won, but that game was played on Monty Hall - back when it was considered an absolute graveyard in ZvT, because Silver hadn't come up with his infamous build for it yet, so this is not really going to help us.
More importantly Jaedong's Proleague record features an impressive 15-7 (7-5 ZvT). Also he is undefeated on Tau Cross during his entire career (7-0, 3 of those vs Terran)! Light on the other hand is only 5-3 in Proleague and his all time record on Tau Cross is 4-4.
Tau Cross is almost perfectly balanced in ZvT (18-20), combined with the other stats speaking for Jaedong he should have the edge here, even though Light is anything but a pushover.
Game 5 - Anytime vs Bisu @ Nemesis
PvP no.2 of the day and this time it looks like a much closer call than the game between Backho and Pusan, as both Anytime and Bisu are very good players who have proven themselves.
Their all time record between each other is 2-2, but both of Anytime's wins date back to 2005. Bisu won the ace match vs Anytime in the playoff's of last season and thus threw out Lecaf out of the tournament, so Anytime will really, really look for revenge.
Anytime is 4-2 PvP on Nemesis (1 loss to Bisu!) and Bisu is 3-0, which maybe gives Bisu a small edge, especially if you take into account that he is simply really hot right now, but a lot of things can happen in PvP...
Game 6 - Bright[z-zone]/N.aCe)Ever vs Jaehoon/TheZerg @ Chariots of Fire
Another one of those hard to predict 2v2 games...
Bright & Ever have a perfect record of 4-0 this season, while Jaehoon & TheZerg are "only" 4-2 together.
What more is there to say? Well, the layout of Chariots of Fire allows for plenty of viable builds and cheeses, so I think whatever team comes up with the best unique build will take this game, I have no idea who it will be though
Game 7 (Ace Game) - ??? vs ??? @ Python
You cannot believe how happy I am to see Python as the map for ace instead of last week's Geometry (even though the match didn't last till ace), because it is one of the most balanced maps around: TvZ 23-20 (53.5%), ZvP 10-12 (45.5%), PvT: 14-17 (45.2%), giving the teams a lot of possibilities to prepare for a potential ace game. I dare not even predict who both teams would send out, because both teams have more than one viable option here.
Resume
The teams aren't fooling around here (they would be stupid to do so in playoffs): Lecaf are sending out their standard line-up (plus Backho, since they need an additional 1v1 player) and MBC decided to let the exact same players play as last week (with some shuffling around on the maps, since they are not the same as last week).
It is a well established fact that MBCGame's lineup has more depth than Lecaf's, which can be a huge advantage when you have to play best of 7 instead of best of 5 (like during the regular season) and even though I think MBCGame HERO has the advantage in this match the pairings really aren't too bad for Lecaf. Jaedong's game, both 2v2s and the game between Anytime and Bisu are all games that Lecaf could win.
I predict or 4-2/4-3 win for MBCGame or if they get really lucky a 4-3 win for Lecaf
And just like last week I'm going to end this post with a picture of the MBCGame HERO Coach (taken during last week's playoff match), because he seriously cracks me up:
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Carnac/pl20071po2/mbccoach.jpg)
