EG.Oz, iG.MacSed, Acer.Scarlett, LG-IM_NesTea

by Waxangel

Given the fame and recognition all four of these players receive, it's surprisingly hard to say anything definitive about this group.

For one, Acer.Scarlett came back from a three week break at the beginning of October. She claimed to have barely gotten in any practice, but still managed to managed to take out puCK and CranK to advance from her Ro32 group. Is she just so talented that she can get by players on minimum practice, or is she the next coming of Mondragon (a former Acer Zerg who was famous for mind-gaming his opponents about his actual skill level)? In any case, she's had two solid weeks to practice since her return to active duty, so North American fans have plenty of reason to keep their hopes up for another good performance.

Then there's the other Zerg, the legendary LG-IM_NesTea. For a couple of years now, he's been an incredible difficult player to rate. At times he's looked completely washed up and done, and at times he's looked like he could scratch Code S again if he wanted. You would think that his recent wedding would have sent him into another spell of poor form, but he's actually been doing rather well as of late. It's true that he's become a bit of a gimmicky player who goes for base-races at every possible opportunity, but he happens to do that very well. Nestea defeated Goswser, Heart, TheStC, and ViBE as he made his way to the Ro16, and he is a dangerous player to underestimate.

Similarly, EG.Oz is also a player who has shown erratic form over the years. Some even speculated he was on the road to retirement before EG picked him up as Proleague support, and he took advantage of the new opportunity to come alive and take second place at IEM Shanghai and finish top eight in WCS America Season 2. He's cooled off somewhat in recent months, finishing Top32 at DreamHack Bucharest while grinding out some wins to reach the Ro16 of WCS America. There's no doubt that Oz is a championship caliber player in WCS America when he's hitting his stride and his creative builds are working for him, but at his worst he could be one of the weakest player in the the Korean contingent.

Amusingly enough, the one Chinese player in the group is the one who's had the most exposure. Even at the start of 2013, China was terribly secluded from the Western and Korean scenes, but the introduction of WCS America (not as good as WCS China, but it's definitely better than nothing) and a slew of online tournaments have helped us get to know their players better. That's how of all the players in this group, iG.MacSed comes in with the most games played in recent months. He's shown us quite a variety of builds against Zergs, from aggressive two-base all-ins or his own take on sOs' void-ray triple nexuses, so it will be imperative that his opponents get their scouting done well. MacSed defeated Sage and Revival to make it to the Ro8 of last season's WCS America, so we know he can beat Koreans when it counts.

Overall outlook and predictions

What a difficult group to call! Not only could all four players potentially make it if they're playing well, but we're starting off with dual-mirror matches.

Scarlett > Nestea
Oz > MacSed
Scarlett > Oz
MacSed > Nestea
Oz > MacSed

Scarlett and Oz advance.