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Samsung KHAN vs Lecaf OZ
Saturday August 4th 19:00 Korea Time (12:00 CET, 6:00 EST, 3:00 PST) on both channels
Never before in Progaming have there been this many games played as during the now ending season and that mostly thanks to Proleague: 561 games (427x 1v1, 134x 2v2) in it alone! Can you imagine that? With this amount of games it has become almost impossible to follow everything, which makes the playoffs and the upcoming finals all the more interesting, because you can now focus on a few important games.
SKY Proleague 2005 Round 1 Final - SKT vs KTF on the Pusan beach
Proleague finals have been dramatic numerous times in the past, the potential for it to happen again is certainly there and it will take place on familiar grounds - the beach of Pusan. About two years ago the hyped Round 1 Final of the SKY Proleague 2005 between SK Telecom T1 and KTF MagicNs was played in the same spot (see picture above), SKTT1 won 4-2.
Samsung KHANAccomplishments:
2005 SKY ProLeague Round 2 Runnerup
2005 KTF BiGi KOREA eSports Winner
Last match & Current streak:
3-2 vs STX Soul / 2 wins
Stats at the end of the regular season:
Overall 55-34, 1v1 39-28, 2v2 16-6
In the following Proleague Round 2 of the same year Samsung KHAN for the first time manifested itself as respectable team league force: after beating GO (nowadays known as CJ) 4-3 in the first playoff match, they annihilated KTF with an unexpected 4-0 victory and thus made their first finals. There, however, SK Telecom proved too strong and took out Samsung 4-3 with iloveoov winning the ace match over Jju on Rush Hour.
They wanted to get back there - on the final stage - ever since. Of course, who wouldn't? It was denied up until this season, during which they made it very clear that they meant business this time by holding the first position of the ranking table for basically the entire season, except for the first 3 weeks or so.
Lecaf OZ Accomplishments:
2006 SKY Proleague Round 2 third place
Last match & current streak:
4-2 vs MBCGame HERO / 7 wins
Stats at the end of the regular season:
Overall 52-36
1v1 40-26
2v2 12-10
Lecaf's really legitimate ambitions for a Proleague title are about a year younger than Samsung's. They made their first impact only last season, where they placed third. Back then they lost 3-4 to MBCGame HERO in the playoffs, who eventually won the whole thing. Anytime had to suffer losing to Bisu in the ace match, but last weekend it was finally time for revenge. It was playoff time again and again it was Lecaf vs MBCGame HERO, who were said to be the favourite by most (including me), but after being down 0-2 they managed to come back to beat HERO 4-2 thus advancing to their first final ever. One of the four points came from Anytime beating Bisu!
Samsung's second final and Lecaf's first, no matter who wins it will be their first Proleague title and either way it will be a very well deserved one.
Now let's see who is lined up to play vs whom (TL.net did a good job predicting the possible matchups as well):
Game 1 - Jangbi vs Backho @ Nemesis
PvP was expected on both Nemesis and Monty Hall, but both teams only have one really good Protoss player, so the question was where would they be sent out. Now we know: not on Nemesis.
Jangbi has been pretty terrible this Proleague season, accumulating a 4-10 record (0-3 PvP), while Backho has only played one single 1v1 game (last week in the playoff match vs MBCGame HERO), which he lost.
With Jangbi's all time PvP record of 0-5 I don't think he can win, because even though Backho lost his game last week, he did look pretty strong in it, especially considering that his opponent was Pusan, who now has an insane PvP record of 23-9 (71.88%).
Game 2 - Firebathero vs fOrGG @ Geometry
Fucking Geometry. TvT like every game. Is anyone out there actually not tired of TvT on Geometry?
FBH goes into this match as the huge favourite, TvT is his strongest match up (20-13 TvT all time, 9-2 TvT in Proleague, 6-1 TvT on Geometry) and it is clearly fOrGG's weakest (8-14 TvT all time, 6-7 TvT in Proleague, 3-5 TvT on Geometry). However, last time they met (and it was in PL and on Geometry!), fOrGG did indeed win.
Still, the numbers clearly speak for Firebathero here.
Game 3 - Jihyun/Cuteboy vs Dongrae/Shinhwa @ Vampire
Neither of those players is really special in 1v1, so they were rightfully used for 2v2 tasks and they have been doing pretty good jobs.
Jihyun/Cuteboy went 5-2 (one of those was a forfeit, because one of the opposing players personally paused the game, which is prohibited) as a team during the season and Dongrae/Shinhwa went 6-2.
I don't dare to say who the favourite is here. Maybe a small edge for Samsung, because as a whole Samsung is better in 2v2, offering better practice opportunities, but the difference should not be big.
Game 4 - Stork vs Anytime @ Monty Hall
Stork is probably the player who has been the most busy this season. He made it to MSL finals, barely losing 2-3 to Bisu, to OSL semifinals and was also Samsung's most important player in Proleague, accumulating an incredible 15-4 (6-3 PvP) record and also winning all the five ace matches he was sent out to play. He also has an insane career PvP record of 31-17 (64.58%) and has generally been doing good on Monty Hall (10-4 overall, 4-2 vs Protoss).
Anytime on the other hand had a much lighter schedule, as he failed to qualify for OSL and MSL. He was used excessively in Proleague though and did really good, not just as good as Stork, but still good with a 14-7 (8-3 PvP) record. 6-4 on Monty Hall throughout the Proleague season (4-1 vs Protoss).
Anytime may have won their last encounter, which coincidentally was played on Monty Hall (they also played on Nemesis once earlier in the Proleague season and Stork won), but I still see Stork as the favourite to win this match. His PvP record his simply too insane and especially after having lost such an incredibly close series to Bisu in the MSL finals I just think that he wants the Proleague title more than anything else.
Game 5 - Freedom vs Jaedong @ Sin Peaks of Baekdu
The only non-mirror match-up of the day (except for maybe a possible ace game)!
This doesn't look good for Freedom. He is nobody (no matter what Haji or some Wc3 fans will say), while Jaedong is simply a beast and one of the main reasons Lecaf made it this far.
Career record of 4-5 (45.45%) meets all time record of 54-30 (64.29%). Proleague record of 1-0 (vs Mumyung! lol.) meets Proleague record of 15-7 (7-5 vs Terran plus the game he won vs Light in playoffs).
Freedom hasn't played an official game on Sin Peaks of Baekdu ever, while Jaedong is 10-3 on it, beating players like Nada and iloveoov in the process.
Anything but Jaedong coming out victorious would be a huge upset.
Game 6 - TT/Sigamari vs Bright/Ever @ Chariots of Fire
Sigamari (formerly known as Zerglee) is widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best 2v2 player of the pro circuit. His season record of 11-4 (8-4 with TT) speaks for itself.
But Lecaf's 2v2 team for Chariots of Fire is also very good. At first Lecaf's coach tried out various combinations on it, trying to figure out what pair worked best and in the end he came up with Bright/Ever who went undefeated as a team so far (4-0 during the regular season and 1-0 in playoffs).
Samsung Team is probably the slight favourite here, they don't have the best 2v2 record of all teams for nothing, but Lecaf is no pushover. In the end I think it will come down to who prepares the better build, because Chariots of Fire leaves a lot of room for specially customized builds and strategies.
Game 7 (Ace game)- ??? vs ??? @ Tau Cross
For a possible ace match both teams have two absolutely viable options: Stork and FBH for Samsung, as well as Anytime and Jaedong for Lecaf. They simply have been by far the strongest players for their teams. I don't want to go into all of the different possibilities, but if the finals indeed go to ace I expect one hell of a match.
Resume
No suprises in the line-up at all, the coaches are sending out what has been proved to work throughout the season. A lot of the matches are hard to predict as they only offer slight edges for one side (2v2 games, both PvP games), but I am expecting either a 4-2 win for Samsung or a match that goes to ace and then again anything is possible.
Notes
As mentioned on top the finals are being broadcasted by both channels, but what may be of interest - especially for the MBCGame HERO team whose favourites lost last week - is that the MBCGame HERO coach as well as Sea[Shield] will be commentating on the MBCGame station (news thanks to pfvoid). Anyone who has watched Sea on Starbrain knows how adorable he is
Photographers from FiFo are following (thanks to HonestTea) both teams at Pusan, where the final is being held (see top of the news post).
Other than just the happening of the finals itself there will also be a number of awards and prizes (thanks to pfvoid again) given out, namely:
- Free[gm] (Hanbitstars) for most 1v1 wins (17-7) - 2160 USD
- Max (Hanbit) for most 2v2 wins as an individual (13-5) - 2160 USD
- Max & Fantastic_Namoo (Hanbit) for most 2v2 wins as a team (11-4) - 2160 USD
- Sheis (Soul) for best rookie of the season (8-4) - 2160 USD
- Kim Gaeul aka [Oops]January (Samsung) for being the coach of the season - 3200 USD
- Stork (Samsung) for being the most valuable player of the season (15-4) - 3200 USD
Of course you will be able to follow it with live updates as it happens in our forum thread!
![[image loading]](http://image.fighterforum.com/showImage.asp?realFile=FFPHOT20070803235221010.JPEG)
