Countdown:

MC vs. jjakji

by Waxangel

The 2011 GSL reunion begins with MC vs. jjakji, a match between two Code S champions from 2011. Neither has won a premier championship for quite some time – jjakji since Code S November 2011, and MC since the 2012 IEM World Championship. Neither will have been fully satisfied with the many high tournament placements they've achieved since then, and look to WCS Europe as their chance to finally win a title again.

In the quarterfinals, MC did his usual shtick and overcame a disadvantage on paper to defeat StarDust. With the recent PvP numbers favoring StarDust heavily, MC simply all-ined his way through with sharp timings to take the 3-1 victory. Standard MC.

Meanwhile, mYi.jjakji put an end to the recent VortiX resurgence by administering a brutal 3-0 beatdown in their quarterfinal match. In a WCS season where he had been less than convincing at times, dropping games and series to several foreigners, jjakji finally showed the kind of play that made us understand why he considers himself to be THE best player in the tournament.

On paper, this seems like another match where MC will be fighting from behind. A quick look at jjakji's recent TvP record tells you just about all you need to know, with jjakji boasting an intimidating 93-32 (75.38%) record on the year. On the other hand, MC hasn't played all that many PvTs at all, and his 13-9 record looks very modest in comparison to jjakji's.

Yet, there is one stat that goes very much in MC's favor: MC 3 – 1 jjakji in the IEM Sao Paulo semifinals. Alongside Rain and sOs, MC can claim to be one of the three Protoss players to beat jjakji in a best-of-five this year.

That victory was was achieved in typical MC fashion. After getting crushed in a macro game in game one, MC flipped the "f*** this" switch in his brain and employed three straight cheese rushes to defeat jjakji.

Some might say that's discouraging, as MC had to "resort" to cheeses after failing to win in a macro game. But in MC's case, you almost consider his all-ins his default, preferred strategy, while his macro games are what he mixes in to throw you off-guard. MC did what he's best at, jjakji did what he was best at, and MC won. And honestly, after watching games like this against Bunny, we'd rather MC NOT go macro.

sOs' win over jjakji at the IEM World Championship further suggests that well prepared, unorthodox builds are probably the right way to approach facing jjakji anyway. With a specially prepared gold-base all-in on Habitation Station, blink stalker all-in on Polar Night, and completely unexpected carrier build on Alterzim Stronghold, sOs was able to take a clean 3-0 sweep.

There are few players with better late-game army control in TvP than jjakji, and he can actually make the Terran deathball look scarier than the Protoss deathball. So why bother playing a standard game with him? Some might think it's too predictable of MC to go for all-ins, but if he were truly too predictable, he wouldn't be the #1 prize money earner of all time. His repertoire of all-ins is vast and his execution is impeccable. Unless jjakji can scout very thoroughly and make excellent reads, he's always going to be in danger of suffering a quick loss.

MC 3 - 2 jjakji

MMA vs. San

by Waxangel

The WCS Europe semifinals is a GSL champion reunion, but there's one player who's come to crash the party. It's none other than San, a player who has quietly lurked as a top title contender since the start of the tournament. MC, MMA, and jjakji might have better PR, but San is the one who actually has a championship in 2014. His title at ASUS ROG Winter ended his reputation as an online-only player who was destined to choke in live tournaments and established him as a top Protoss player outside the KeSPA fold. Last night's 3-0 stomp against Welmu served as a wake-up call to the viewers at home that the man without a GSL title might be the best player left in WCS Europe.

MMA comes in as the defending WCS Europe champion, but as we approach six months since he won that title, we have to ask that all important question: What have you done for us lately? MMA finished 2013 strong by blitzing Team Liquid and Axiom in the ATC finals, but he's had a quiet 2014. He's declined to participate in any major tournament outside WCS Europe, even though he's stayed extremely active in online cups. Predictably, MMA has been a killer in those online tournaments, but he has looked shaky in WCS Europe as he advanced in second place from both of his groups. Was MMA's 3-1 thrashing of Snute a sign that he's finding his rhythm at just the right time?

This head to head battle features both players at their worst. While TvP isn't a glaring weakness for either player, it does tend to pale in comparison to how dominating they can both be against Zergs or in the mirror match-up.

San is basically a hypnotist in PvZ, always finding a way to persuade opponents to make the wrong decision against his strategy. His all-ins are especially deadly, his all-ins fakes deadlier, and his fake-all-in fakes deadliest of all. Yet, he can't seem to get inside the head of Terran players in the same way, and generally prefers to play standard macro games. At doing that, San is fairly run of the mill – not particularly great nor particularly bad.

We haven't seen San play a long PvT series in quite a while, and there's every chance that he'll come into this match with a different approach and plan. With a night to think about the games and plan out some builds, we might see a cheesier, more devious San.

However, even if San decides to play the games straight-up, he still has a decent of beating MMA. TvP has been MMA's weak match-up since the early stages of his career. It's all part of the great mystery of bio: some players like Bomber have fantastic command over their infantry when playing against Protoss, but can't help getting slaughtered by banelings when they play against Zerg. Others like MMA can make banelings look absolutely silly, but have a fatal tendency of taking long showers in storms.

Terrans generally don't get to cheese much in TvP (one of their biggest complaints ever since losing the 1/1/1), but one has to wonder if MMA has a special build or two up his sleeve. He has rarely gone for fast hellion or widow mine drop play in his recent games, but in preparing for a five game series, you have to think that he has such a build in store on at least one map.

This feels like it will be a very close series, but I have to go with San in the end. MMA's late game play just doesn't inspire much confidence, even against a player like San who is not an extraordinary macro PvT player himself. Also, San has played far fewer PvT games on stream and has thus been able to hide his style better. His standard play, plus the potential for Protoss trickery, I give him the edge.

San 3 - 2 MMA

Countdown: or whenever EU ends.

Hyun vs. Alicia

by Darkhorse

The semifinals of WCS America kick off with a PvZ that few could have expected. With Taeja and Bomber in the upper portion of the bracket, most players in the world would have been underdogs. However, Hyun and Alicia took down the Terran titans in close 3-2 series which sets us up for an exciting PvZ to determine the first WCS America finalist.

AX.Alicia is showing off a level of play we haven't seen from him since the summer of 2012 when he took silver at two MLG events and NASL season 3. While playing in WCS America for all of 2013, he was unable to crack the top 4. However, 2014 seems to be agreeing with Alicia as he has taken down players like Oz, Revival, and Bomber on his way to the semis. Alicia seems to use no matchup as a crutch, having not dropped a single series thus far in all three matchups. Out of nowhere Alicia is now possibly the scariest player remaining in the tournament and is on one of the best runs of his career.

Alicia's has been excellent in PvZ this WCS season with a 5-2 record thus far. His two losses came from a mutalisk base trade on Frost against Courage and a brilliant roach/swarm host game from Revival on Heavy Rain. However, Alicia has yet to play a Zerg that really plays the matchup like HyuN. The Roccat Zerg often prefers overwhelming his opponents with roach/hydra busts, which is a style that Alicia has yet to face in the tournament. Alicia's hope of advancing to the finals hinges on his ability to handle these roach/hydra timings as well as the follow up mutalisk transitions. Alicia was probably not in anyone's top 4 at the start of the tournament, but he has proven that he deserves a spot in the semifinals and just might take the whole tournament.

Roccat.HyuN appears to be making the most of his first appearance in the bracket stage of WCS America. His 3-2 victory over Terran favorite Taeja was impressive to say the least, and has put the rest of the field on notice that this is the full-strength Hyun that reached top 4 of six Premier Tournaments in 2013. Hyun managed to defeat Revival, Byul, Heart, and puCK on his way to the Ro8, showing proficiency in all three matchups. It's been eight months since Hyun toppled Jaedong in the Dreamhack Valencia finals to claim his last Premier tournament title, but Hyun now looks poised to possibly pick up his second premier title.

If there is one roadblock to Hyun on his way to the championship, it is his ZvP. On some occasions, Hyun looks utterly dominant in the matchup, running over his opponents with overwhelming numbers using roach/hydra or ling/hydra compositions. That's when he's making perfect reads and building just enough defenses while droning up like a madman. If he can do that, few players can survive against the following deluge of lair units.

However, he is often susceptible to 2 base timings from Protoss, whether they are blink attacks, stargate pushes, or the infamous Soul Train immortal/sentry all in. Hyun also has a tendency to overcommit with his low-tech Zerg armies and can get punished for it as in his loss to puCK in the Ro16 (he would win the rematch). Hyun's loss to puCK in the Ro16 is certainly a blemish on his ZvP record, but his form in the matchup as of late has generally been good. He looked sharp at the IEM World Championship in Katowice where he notably defeated both HasuObs and Dear 2-0 before he narrowly lost 2-3 to CJ's herO. Even that series he would have won 3-1 if not for a botched base trade on Polar Night. If Hyun can secure himself a strong economy and advance to the mid game, Alicia will have a tough time keeping up with Hyun's overwhelming macro.

Overall Thoughts and Predictions: This series should be incredibly close and is very difficult to call. Alicia has looked crisp in his execution of various two base builds throughout the tournament in his PvZ's, using both blink and immortal/sentry to great affect. As stated previously, Hyun sometimes struggles with defending these types of builds. Alicia can certainly hold his own in macro scenarios, but I'd favor Hyun if a game manages to enter the very late stages, as his Alterzim Stronghold game against herO at IEM showed (and he didn't even really use swarm hosts!). I predict that we will see five games of varying lengths, but I think Hyun will emerge victorious by the slimmest of margins.

HyuN 3 - 2 Alicia

Revival vs. Oz

by stuchiu

“Honesty, I do feel that being a star matters more than skill in the foreign scene…from my standpoint I think skill is more important. I have to be skilled to achieve my dreams, and I think being skilled is what will earn me popularity and make a star.”

Evil Geniuses have always been straight forward about their relationship with Revival, Oz and Alive. When they were signed, there were no custom splash pages, no videos, no special hype when they were signed. They weren't big name champions like Jaedong or PuMa, nor established foreign stars like ThorZaIN or Stephano. They were hired help, used to fill out EG-TL’s bench during the joint team's ill-fated venture into Proleague.

Yet, also three flourished under the Evil Geniuses name. Alive earned several top finishes in WCS NA and made it to Blizzcon. Revival won his first ever Premier tournament and placed 2nd in WCS America. Oz reached his first ever Premier tournament finals, and like the others, placed well in WCS America. Given the precious opportunity to travel outside Korea and escape the brutal GSL system, they took full advantage of it. It was the EG blessing in action.

After Proleague ended, EG started cutting costs for their SC2 team and were forced to make some difficult decisions. The trio parted ways with Evil Geniuses with just as little fanfare as when they came.

“Personally, I expected that since I won a championship and took second place in another tournament that resigning would go smoothly. However, the conditions I was offered were so bad that I just declined and left the team. I always try to think about the position of the other side and I fully understood EG’s position as well. I achieved good results on EG, so I’m thankful to them.”

We doubt there's much bad blood between EG and their former players, if any at all. But we have to think that Revival and Oz were left feeling like they have something more to prove. They know they've have not succeeded as entertainers or stars, partly because that was never their goal. They've gone all in on pure skill and winning – the default mindset in Korea that does not always translate well overseas. The only victory condition for them is, well, victory.

Oz and CMStorm_Revival made their first big challenge earlier this year at the IEM World Championship. Unfortunately, neither was able to get further than the Ro16 as they lost their first matches. Though it was a discouraging start to their post-EG careers, they left with moral victories. Revival took jjakji to a game five, and could have won the series if not for an incredible mine barrage that destroyed dozens of mutas. Oz lost to the eventual winner sOs, but gave sOs the toughest challenge of his entire tournament run.

WCS America has been a different story. Revival was gifted a trip to the Ro16 after ByuL threw himself all the way back to GSL Code A, but he has not squandered the opportunity. Advancing to the quarterfinals, he defeated teammate and defending WCS America champion Polt 3-1. Revival played some of his best StarCraft 2 since his IEM Shanghai championship run, using all sorts of strategies to topple Captain America.

Oz also struggled in the Ro32 as well, only advancing after defeating a much diminished Nestea. However, Oz has been lights out since reaching the live, Ro16, crushing Heart and puCK in the group stage while sweeping Arthur in the quarterfinals.

To repeat an old cliche, Revival and Oz just want to show you their skill and good games. Only one will get a chance to do on the biggest stage.

Overall Predictions: Both Oz and Revival have an odd style of playing PvZ. Oz has always been a fan of fast 3 bases, blink stalkers macro games and blink stalker timings. On the other hand he’s also shown some strong basic collosus void ray PvZ as well. Also, Oz is a clever developer of builds, so we're almost guaranteed to see a special, map based cheese or cannon rush from him.

As for Revival, he’s shown a new style of ZvP all of his own design. Like Soulkey he likes to be aggressive with his swarmhosts. Unlike Soulkey though he only makes 10 and then fills out the rest of his army with roaches and corruptors as he constantly buzzes around harassing his opponent into death or catching them out of position. This style can be strong but can be weak when caught out of position, as Alicia did in the Ro16. It is hard to call, but I give Revival the edge as the last time the met Revival swept Oz fairly handily.

Revival 3 - 2 Oz.