WCS America - Season 3

Ro32: Group G Preview
Jim, Hero, Heart, Neeb

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Youtube

Jim, HerO, Heart, Neeb

by DarkLordOlli

The American Premier League continues with Group G. So far it's been Korean domination as not a single non-Korean has advanced to the Ro16 up until now. Well known and experienced world-travellers Liquid'HerO and AX.Heart are looking to keep the flawless record up while iG.Jim and FXONeeb will look to break it.

Chinese Overlords, Part 1: Jim

Mr. Bitter recently put a scary thought in my head - Chinese players are good at video games as well. There's not just Korea out there. Especially the iG-duo of Jim and MacSed have started to attend more tournaments when visas allows it, and have immediately begun picking up good results. Jim made the Ro8 last season in WCS America, advancing there over Heart's teammates CranK and Alicia. He then barely lost to Jaedong 2-3, showcasing an extremely aggressive, often timing based style with a strong focus on gateway units. His PvT also became known for phoenix/colossus, though he hasn't had a chance to show it off much as of late.

Jim had more time than anyone else in this group to prepare as he didn't have to play Challenger League - his Ro8 finish qualified him for this season. The real question is whether or not he took the time to extensively prepare for his first opponent Neeb or if he'll just assume that he can beat Neeb with standard play and focused on HerO and Heart instead. Either way, while there's definitely an upset possible in their series, Jim should come out ahead unless Neeb catches him by surprise or suddenly decides to be one of the best players in the world.

For all the Believers

Neeb found his way back to Premier League again, beating ex-teammate Drunkenboi twice in his statistically weakest matchup TvT. A word on Neeb's TvP: it's really hard to say much about it. He's played a total of 12 broadcasted series in the matchup in HotS, most notably defeating HuK 2-0 in Challenger League and perhaps most importantly losing 0-2 to Jim in a Qualifier. Last time around, Neeb fell short against Alicia and Minigun and the challenge certainly won't be easier this time around. Heart has shown himself to be a capable TvTer and both Jim and HerO are massively favored against him as well. Neeb is going to have to perform a miracle to make it out of this group - but why shouldn't it be possible? All his opponents will be playing cross-server, he had a lot of time to prepare his strategies and has the underdog label going for him. It's certainly possible that his opponents underestimate him or don't know much about him. With more and more Koreans spreading across the globe, Premier League won't become any easier. Neeb will have to keep proving that he belongs here and advancing from this group would be a really good way of doing so.

Heart of Gold?

AX.Heart heads into Premier League after having to team-kill his friend Alicia in the Challenger League. While it probably didn't seem like a big deal at the moment, that was before Alicia would subsequently be eliminated by MajOr. Heart probably won't want to let his mate's fall be in vain as he goes up against the Season 1 Champion HerO. There's little history between the two, only three broadcasted games all of which have gone in favor of the Liquid Protoss. Back in WoL, when Heart was terrorizing protoss opponents with various cheese builds backed by solid macro follow-ups, he picked HerO in the GSL Group Selections. Heart paid price for that choice as HerO showcased impenetrable defense against two consecutive cheeses, eliminating Heart.

After his GSL appearances Heart went missing for a while. Being on a foreign team in Axiom got him the chance to play in several foreign tournaments but his results didn't live up to what you would expect from a former Code S Terran. More recently though he seems to have stepped up a gear and changed his style a bit. He's still an extremely aggressive player but most of the time he'll start his offensive after building at least one Command Center - which was unthinkable in his WoL TvP unless he did it to mindgame his opponents. With recent victories over players like Innovation and Alicia, Heart definitely has it in him to cause a small upset by beating HerO who has recently expressed that he's not feeling as confident in his PvT as before.

A Restless HerO

Liquid`HerO is back in Premier League where he enjoyed his last big tournament win back in season one. Since then though he's fallen off a little bit. HerO went into Heart of the Swarm looking extremely strong, the new viable styles of Protoss seemed like they were made for him. Additional tools to harass with, minimal defensive requirements thanks to the mothership core, A WARP PRISM SPEED BUFF? But overall, very little has changed about HerO. His overall "middle ground" level has definitely improved a lot but he still leaves fans wondering about his consistency. At times he's the best Protoss in the world when he gets everything right the way he imagines it. There are times when HerO makes Protoss look disgustingly imbalanced. And then there are games where he seems borderline naive.

The most recent Dreamhack was another one of those tournaments. After playing amazingly through the group stages, dropping a total of one map, he then tried to be a bit too cute against Innovation and flat out died to two consecutive SCV pulls. His PvT looked fragile in those games and he seemed to agree with that, letting the Twitter world know that he would focus on practicing PvT a lot from now on. HerO practicing for a specific matchup hardcore is scary. He "officially" did this twice before in WoL - his PvT became the highest ranked of all time on Aligulac and his PvP became arguably top 5 in the world after preparing extensively for Rain.

But! He forgot his passport and had to spend a few days in the Netherlands, streaming most of the time. That gives Heart an even better shot against him as HerO definitely didn't have as much time to prepare. But it almost seems like it only depends on which HerO shows up. If Winter-HerO comes out to play, he might be too much for anyone to handle.


Predictions!

Jim > Neeb
HerO > Heart
Jim < HerO
Neeb < Heart
Jim > Heart

HerO and Jim advance!

Writers: DarkLordOlli
Photos: GHOSTCLAW
Editor: Waxangel.