WCS Korea - Season 3

Code S Ro32 - Group A Preview
Soulkey, Pigbaby, Swagger, PartinG


Progamer Pokedex
The return of irreverence

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by Zealously

Wait, what? Didn't WCS Season 2 just end? I guess this is just how things are in the post WCS world. Two days after the end of the previous season, and we're heading straight back into the thick of things with WCS Korea Season 3. As per the alternating-turns agreement, it's time for GomTV to take the reigns again, making this tournament an official Code S.

Group A: Soulkey, PigBaby, Swagger, PartinG

The StarCraft II scene is in chaos.

The dynasties of players like Mvp, DRG, Life and others may have led us to believe that order is an innate quality of the StarCraft II world, but that belief is being shaken. With all three regional title-holders falling at the WCS Season Finals, INnoVation revealing himself as a fellow mortal, and the unexpected rise of Bomber to the seat of champion, there is no predicting what might happen next. There are no sacred cows; every established power is in danger of being toppled in an instant.

On that note, let's talk about Woongjin_Soulkey. Soulkey has to be feeling pretty good at the moment, despite not making it to the Season 2 Finals. First off, watching his arch-nemesis Innovation not only fall to Taeja but to Naniwa as well must have felt good. Not only did it embarrass INnoVation, but if further dispelled his air of invincibility. Furthermore, Soulkey somehow came out as a winner in the WCS Korea region by virtue of simply not playing any games at the Season Championship. Maru, Rain, and INnoVation all ended up looking much worse for wear. First was basically just treading water at Cologne. Only Bomber significantly enhanced his reputation, and as a result Soulkey's relative standing in Korea has actually improved.

As for this particular group, it's a good place for Soulkey to keep shoring up his reputation. Although both his ZvZ and ZvT are more talked about, Soulkey is no pushover in ZvP. He went out to Sora in WCG, a victim of the hottest streak ever witnessed in Starcraft II, but fixable mistakes played a large part in his loss. This is not a particularly scary group in terms of PvZ ability, and a week of one match-up practice will have prepared Soulkey well for this group.

When you get down to it, the only player to consistently defeat Soulkey in Korea recently has been Innovation. With no Innovation in the group and his first opponent being Pigbaby, Soulkey couldn't have asked for a much better start to the season.

JinAir_Pigbaby, the player former known has HS, is still somewhat of an enigma. Rarely fielded in Proleague, he just doesn't have that many games on record – certainly not enough to really say what he's like skill wise. We can make some observations: he beat Ragnarok in Code A before falling to Gumiho, and he got out of his Up&Down group by beating Keen, Leenock and Avenge (but losing to Ruin). It's really impressive that Pigbaby could get things together so quickly and make it to Code S after being a fringe player in Proleague, but the question here is about staying power.

Matched up against Soulkey, there are four scenarios for the Jin Air Protoss:

1. He has maintained the level he showed in the Up&Downs.
   
2. He has improved further, continuing his rapid growth.
   
3. He has a few tricks up his sleeve.
   
4. He had a fluky, lucky run through Code A.

In three scenarios, Soulkey is a beatable opponents for PigBaby, but still a very tough opponent. With Proleague on hiatus, there is nothing to prepare for but WCS, which makes specific planning a little easier to do for players. Whether or not Pigbaby can bring something new to the table will decide if he goes to the winners' or losers' match.

Over in the other match, we have SKT_PartinG going up against a very unlikely opponent – MVP.Swagger (aka Killer aka Sangho). For a player counted out by many and one who only seems to receive ironic support because of his ID, Swagger has proven that he's both persistent and dedicated, and once again legitimately good. Beating Roro, Marineking (twice) and Curious to advance to Code S, Swagger's PvP seems to be his weakest point of his recent revival. Put up against Parting who might be the very best player Korea has to offer in the Protoss mirror at the moment, Swagger should be in for a very rough ride. We all know how dangerous it is to count a player out completely, especially when the match-up in question is a PvP, but the first match looks like a tough one for Swagger unless he pulls out a few tricks in a famously tricky match-up.

Speaking of swagger, there's PartinG, who seems to embody the concept of "swag." He remains one of the few Koreans progamers to consistently put out colorful interviews and ceremonies. Unfortunately for Parting, he's no longer a hot topic when Protoss is the subject. Having missed out on both Season Finals through early eliminations from WCS Korea, the WCS Champion of 2012 seems to have faded away a bit, partially assimilated into the Borg collective of talented but indistinguishable KeSPA Protoss players.

Outside the WCS, Parting has still kept himself relevant. He played an important role in SKT's successes in Proleague, and winning WCG Korea was an absolute godsend for maintaining his reputation as an elite player. Defeating a string of strong Protosses and INnoVation on top of that, PartinG can at least say he's the "best national WCG representative in the world."

The good play from Parting we've seen recently should be more than enough to get him out of this group. Getting past Soulkey in a potential winners' match duel will be the toughest challenge. If their respective WCG runs are anything to go by, the ensuing battle has the potential to be a great match.

Prediction

Soulkey > Pigbaby
Parting > Swagger
Soulkey > Parting
Pigbaby > Swagger
Parting > Pigbaby

Soulkey and Parting advance to the Round of 16

Progamer Pokedex: Redux

by monk

There was a time long ago when hundreds, not thousands of people read TL, and we were pretty certain progamers weren't among them. We could write whatever the f*** we wanted, without any sense of propriety or second guessing. Those days gave birth to the first Progamer Pokedex, an irreverant cult classic. It's time to bring those days back.


Soulkey is Zapdos! As one of the legendary Pokemon of the first generation, Zapdos was marketed as one of the strongest Pokemon in the original game. Numbers wise, Zapdos was certainly one of the strongest, lagging only behind Mewtwo, Mew, and Dragonite. And even among his legendary bird peers, Zapdos had the best stat distribution and most competitive value. Zapdos seemed to have it made as one of Generation I's premier Pokemon...if not for one weakness. The problem was that Zapdos was stonewalled by the literal stone walls of Ground/Rock types such as Golem and Rhydon, much like Soulkey has been thwarted multiple times by the stoned-faced INnoVation. To overcome this crippling barrier, Zapdos would eventually have to find some hidden powers...


Pigbaby is Tepig! As one of Generation V's starter Pokemon, Tepig showed a lot of promise when it was first announced. After all, it would be following in the footsteps of popular fire starters such as Charizard, Blaziken, and Infernape. And as a fire starter, its fully evolved form was guaranteed decent stats with a fairly diverse move pool. But in the end, Tepig disappointed many of us by being just a mediocre creature without much of a following. The problem was that Gamefreak wanted to give us a carbon copy of previously successful fire starters such as Blaziken and Infernape, but only just left us with a strictly inferior and less popular version.


Swagger is Ludicolo! Because it's some kind of sombrero-wearing dancing pineapple duck tree. (I swear someone was high when they came up with this guy.) What's got more swagger than that? Just look at his pokedex entry:

Ludicolo certainly doesn't look intimidating, which is maybe why we're all so surprised when he wins a battle. Still, Ludicolo's main purpose is comic relief and though he may unexpected win some fights, he'll always eventually go down.


PartinG is Charizard! One of the most popular Pokemon of Generation I, Charizard is as ferocious as they come. In the anime, Charizard was featured in a starring role, being the second most recognizable of the protagonist's Pokemon, after only Pikachu. Though Charizard started off as a lowly Charmander, as soon as he evolved and gained some fame, power, and prestige, he immediately began to misbehave and stray from the norm of a typical quiet obedient Pokemon. Spewing flamethrowers indiscriminately, often at his trainer, Charizard was never one to follow the rules.

The hidden truth about Charizard is that he was never really that strong; the anime just needed a cool and strong-looking Pokemon so that Ash didn't look like a complete wimp. Though depicted as a fainting-machine with his dragon-like look and bombastic roaring and flamethrowing, Charizard was never really much of a threat in the games. This was even eventually made apparent in the anime in an episode titled Charizard's Burning Ambitions. In this episode, Charizard and co. find the Charicific Valley, a hidden location where the most legendary of Charizard have trained before him. Ash's Charizard, always the showoff, proceeded to challenge each of them, though eventually finding himself the weakest Charizard in the valley. At the end of the episode, Ash's Charizard makes the decision to stay and train in the valley, where he currently resides.

Writers: monk and Zealously.
Graphics: shiroiusagi.
Editor: Waxangel.