My power rank with explanations - 32nd-28th - All the Terrans: RedArchon starts off against Curious, if he wins it'll already be the biggest shock of the tournament, then if you look at the brackets they're already up against the heavy hitters so early on if they somehow progress
27th-24th - All of the GamaniaBears roster including Sen - Sen was hugely popular and had a fear-factor about him, people were scared to play against him but lately he's completely disappeared from the spotlight and that fear-factor will have dissipated alot
I don't have any knowledge at all on the other Non-Koreans to have an opinion at all. Out of the Koreans I'd have Rain as the major Dark Horse for the tournament, not just because of his GSL run but as TT1 pointed out he has an extremely easy bracket, it's almost up til the Championship bracket where he actually faces someone known.
Judging by the bracket the first Korean drop out I predict will be Slayers_Miya then herO[join] followed by Liquid's Hero putting Seed and Creator as #1 and #2 respectively when they will most likely face each other in Round 2 is basically saying the loser of the match will destroy the Loser's bracket without a sweat and I'm gonna disagree on that.
Very nice Write-Up. Yes, you can argue about every position here and there, so I will not go into that and say: The PR here is reasonabe, BUT with PvP being the most upsetting matchup in the whole SC2 history, everything can happen at the top and everyone should keep that in mind while evalutating those preview articles. With the lack of terrans here, we'll see a hell lot of PvPs. And while this matchup is definately more than coinflipping it seems to become as random as this at times. I hope for Creator to win, but if luck is totally against him this weekend he could go out very early without making major mistakes.
On October 12 2012 08:51 snively wrote: 1 to 5 is all protoss
And they're by far the most skilled players in the tournament, too.
As far as SEA players go, all of them have been competitive in the scene for ages, and all three will pull out what TL calls 'cheesy bullshit' if necessary. Definitely the underdogs, but they're not newbies to competitions.
On October 12 2012 09:13 Ricemagical wrote: For your description of creator, I think you might mean orthodox rather than unorthodox since his builds are usually pretty predictable and solid
Oh right, typing in mid-night apparently messed up my reasoning, thx for pointing out!
Can't believe you'd put rain fifth after making semi's of GSL (Narrowly losing to the overall most successful player to have ever touched the game) and the finals of OSL (which has yet to be played and he could win)... If there was an overall power rank for the world right now not putting him in top 3 would be a disgrace, let alone not putting him top 3 on this list :\.
edit; and using lifetime PvP statistics over the fact that he just crushed 2 of the top protoss players in the world in PvP in Ro8 of both tournaments is a bit of a weak reason to put him behind the other four protosses... One of whom was one of the protosses he destroyed in the Ro8.
Creator: There are so many talented players here in Korea, and it’s such a great honor to take home the trophy. I plan on making a strong statement through the Asia Finals and the BWC. Luck has no place in my victory.
NOOOOOOO T_T pvp curse inc
he didn't talk about PvP specifically, so I think he's safe
On October 12 2012 09:48 Ftrunkz wrote: Can't believe you'd put rain fifth after making semi's of GSL (Narrowly losing to the overall most successful player to have ever touched the game) and the finals of OSL (which has yet to be played and he could win)... If there was an overall power rank for the world right now not putting him in top 3 would be a disgrace, let alone not putting him top 3 on this list :\.
edit; and using lifetime PvP statistics over the fact that he just crushed 2 of the top protoss players in the world in PvP in Ro8 of both tournaments is a bit of a weak reason to put him behind the other four protosses... One of whom was one of the protosses he destroyed in the Ro8.
i agree rain is probably top2 or 3 in the WCS power rank, but parting and hero aren't the best PvPers around (hero is historically weak) and i would favour creator, hero[join] and squirtle (if he can keep up his pvp - he's been a bit sloppy in it lately) over rain in a pvp right now i think. i'm not quite sure if he's cemented in top3 worldwide now either, let's wait until he sustains this a bit longer. not denying he's excellent, but don't hypetrain too much (look at what happened to bomber last year, etc - too many players have peaked really high but settled in a bit of a lower spot)
Creator: There are so many talented players here in Korea, and it’s such a great honor to take home the trophy. I plan on making a strong statement through the Asia Finals and the BWC. Luck has no place in my victory.
NOOOOOOO T_T pvp curse inc
he didn't talk about PvP specifically, so I think he's safe
I don't think Rain has proved himself yet in a weekend tournament. Let's not forget that he had a lot of time to prepare single match-ups during his recent runs. I think all things considered he still should be stronger than Parting though, so I don't agree with the ranking.
I'd put Rain a bit higher up (possibly even at #1 because of the brackets), and did you seriously not put all the Koreans in all the highest spots? Come on now.
On October 12 2012 10:31 Grumbels wrote: I don't think Rain has proved himself yet in a weekend tournament. Let's not forget that he had a lot of time to prepare single match-ups during his recent runs. I think all things considered he still should be stronger than Parting though, so I don't agree with the ranking.
rain's style should actually be stronger in a weekend gauntlet because he plays standard, standard, and more standard
I play Protoss. I love Protoss. But this has way too many Protosses. I hope Squirtle and Parting have got some new PvP skills with them, because they seem to really be suffering in that matchup lately.
EPT
.
Come on now. 
