On June 09 2016 12:03 FrostedMiniWheats wrote: So how bout that hype? :p
imo this is the sleeper group that's going to give the best games. Group D only has Maru vs Zest going for it.
Maru vs herO and Zest vs herO
idk, I think Maru and Zest are too strong for him atm to make it interesting. Meanwhile, I think herO is too good for the rest of the group with maybe a slight chance Reality pulls through. Losira, as much as I like him, is just bad outside of ZvZ (and there's none of that here), and Super is hit and miss.
Therefore, it seems like an open and close group with Maru = Zest > herO for top 3.
On June 09 2016 02:35 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote: For a player who won arguably the most important tournament of last year (and 2014
That never happened.
I think these predictions should be pretty safe. Trust and Hurricane shouldn't really have a chance and Curious probably needs one of Classic/sOs/GuMiho to not be on point for most of the day to advance. Unless we underestimate him.
?
sOs won Blizzcon 2015 and the article is referring to sOs' 2014 IEM WC win, which given the 100k on the line and players attending could have also been arguably the most important tournament of the year. Personally, I think 2014 Blizzcon was #1 but IEM was up there.
In my eyes you can't possibly justify IEM WC > Blizzcon in 2014. Blizzcon had a much bigger overall prize pool (winner gets 100k just like IEM but everyone else also got a shitload of money) and the player lineup was at least just as strong, more than likely stronger. The entire year is built around getting to Blizzcon, and even the IEM WC gives WCS points.
For me, it's frankly not a case of "arguably". Life won the most important tournament of 2014 period. Just like sOs won the most important tournaments of 2013 and 2015 period.
Then the WC is second then?
In 2014 sure, that's entirely reasonable to say it was the 2nd most important tournament of the year (although you could actually make a case for GSL as a whole being more important than that one IEM tournament).
The IEM WC 2015 is a way more hilarious case, because near the end of the year, 6 Starleagues in, nobody really cared anymore that Zest won over 65k there, while people still talk about IEM Katowice 2014 from time to time.
It's probably because Zest's road was fairly weak. 3-2 over Hydra, 3-2 over an INnoVation in a series that included some heavily questionable games, 3-1 over Bbyong, 4-1 over Trap. It's definitely a worthy accomplishment and it's important to note how it was the point at which Zest stopped sucking in 2015, but it's not really as impressive as 3-1 TaeJa 4-1 herO in most people's eyes. It's also because the sOs vs herO series was so memorable while nothing in Zest's run stood out at all except for the series against INnoVation.
I still think Zest vs INnoVation is the worst played game between two GSL-champion tier players ever, by far.