EPTRound of 16: Group A Preview
by Waxangel
GSL's so-called "Global Tournament" kicks off tonight with the online, Ro16 group stages. Say what you will about the prize pool, the absence of international players, and the general lack of hype around the tournament: it's still going to be a highly competitive affair between some of the best players in the world.
Seeded players
Zest, 
soO, San, 
MMA, Oz, and Revival (who won the play-in match against Alicia) await in the live, Ro8 portion of the tournament. They will be joined by two players from the online Ro16 stage, the first group of which will be played tonight.The Ro16 is actually more like a Ro10, with ten players from the qualifiers placed into two groups of five players each. Each group plays out as a single round robin (best of threes), with the first place finisher earning a spot in the main, live tournament. We begin things with Group A, where
Hack, PartinG, Squirtle, DongRaeGu, and FanTaSy will play for the first spot.5.
ST_Hack We have to rank Hack last place in the group almost by default, if only because we haven't really been able to see him play. He grabbed our attention by making the top six of WCS America last year, but he's been barely noticeable since switching back to the Korean region in 2014.
The last time we saw him in a GSL booth was back in Code A Season 1 in January, where he was eliminated with losses to DongRaeGu and Sora. After barely hearing about him for three months, Hack then came out of nowhere to qualify for the GSL Global Tournament, beating Stats, Ryung, TAiLS, and Stork in the qualifier. On that qualifier performance alone, you have to say Hack has an outside chance of advancing from this group, which doesn't really have a stand-out favorite.
The worrisome thing about Hack is his lack of Proleague appearances. When Startale teamed up with Incredible Miracle in Round 2, Hack was actually the player I was most excited about. IM seemed like they desperately needed a Terran, with Mvp playing very limited minutes and UngNim not playing at all (UngNim was removed from the roster in Round 3). Hack, though not a huge star, was still a decent, mid-tier Terran in 2013, and someone I thought would slot in well on IM's roster as a rotation player. Without knowing the exact nature of IM and ST's arrangement, I can only speculate as to why Hack hasn't played. But if it's because he's not performing well in practice, then that's trouble heading into this group.
4.
SKT_FanTaSy After barely failing to qualify for Code S in last night's Code A groups, Fantasy will have a second chance at attaining some individual league glory in the GSL Global Tournament.
Fantasy's recent troubles make it easy to forget that he was ranked among KeSPA's better players at one time, transitioning to StarCraft 2 better than most in the early going. He was SKT's second most important player after Rain in the 2012-2013 Proleague, recording a 29-25 record, and played in two consecutive Code S/OSL tournaments in 2013.
However, he suffered a mini-slump in the second half of 2013, dropping down to Code B while getting frozen out SKT's newly reinforced super-roster in Proleague. Right now he's in the midst of making a recovery, earning starts for SKT in Proleague while qualifying for the GSL Global Tournament. His qualifier path was not the hardest, defeating NAKSEO, Departure, Hush, and Yonghwa along the way, but at least provided further evidence that he is finding some consistency again.
Unfortunately, even if Fantasy was playing at his previous highest level, he probably wouldn't make it out of this group. There's just not much that sticks out about Fantasy, except the occasional creative build or moment of atrocious macro (this doesn't happen so much anymore). At his best, Fantasy made the OSL Ro16, which isn't a high enough level of play to take the first place spot here.
3.
MVP.DongRaeGu DongRaeGu comes in after enjoying a nice little revival in Round 2 of Proleague, where he went 6-4 overall and helped team MVP to a second place finish. While 6-4 isn't an incredible record, the content of DRG's games were encouraging for fans who hoped he might become a title contender again. He looked extremely good in long, macro ZvTs, the match-up that was his greatest strength since his debut. He also showed resolve in tough situations, coming back from behind to win an ace match against Soulkey in a statement-making win for team MVP.
However, the good has come with some bad. Once famous for his defensive abilities, DRG now seems incapable of holding off any kind of early game all-in or pressure. Though he's certainly favored to beat Hack and Fantasy if he's allowed to drone up, you have to think that they'll try to exploit DRG's weak early game with a variety of timings. 2-rax proxies will be problematic in particular, given that the new maps are far from being figured out.
And of course, no Zerg can be happy about having to face PartinG and Squirtle, the two players who were most instrumental in bringing the Soul Train to the masses. Whether it's with the Soul Train or a different all-in, both are excellent at taking quick wins against Zergs. Unless DRG has significantly shored up his defenses, he'll have a hard time advancing from the group.
2.
IM_Squirtle Squirtle is my darkhorse pick in the group, which amounts to saying "I want to give you kudos without actually picking you to advance." The IM Protoss has been stuck as a mid-tier player for quite some time now, but occasionally destroys an opponent with a clinical two or three-base timing that reminds you that he was once a GSL finals caliber player.
Squirtle's qualifying path included wins against Life, EffOrt and hitmaN, which is not surprising considering PvZ has been his best match-up in recent months. Unfortunately, there's just one Zerg player in this group in DongRaeGu. While I feel that Squirtle will beat DRG, he will still need to prove his mettle in the other match-ups to take first place.
Alas, we haven't seen much of Squirtle's PvT lately, so it's hard to predict how he'll do against Hack and Fantasy. While he did get stomped 4-1 by TaeJa in the ZOWIE King of Iron (VOD) show match, most players would get stomped by TaeJa. In a more recent Proleague match, Squirtle did manage to defeat TY by playing well against an unorthodox marine-tank build.
Even if Squirtle can defeat the other players, the biggest hurdle standing between him and first place is the PvP against PartinG. Once an excellent PvP player, Squirtle has been in a huge rut in 2014, only having a 2-15 record in the mirror match-up. He's even admitted in interviews that the continued losses have affected his confidence, and it's a major obstacle he needs to overcome to win the group.
1.
SKT_PartinG PartinG is the clear favorite to advance. Of all five players, he's the only one who has consistently reached the Code S quarterfinals in the recent past, while everyone else has been hanging around in the Code B – Code S Ro16 zone.
That's not to say that PartinG is the runaway favorite, as he's had his share of problems too. For all his Ro8 finishes PartinG just can't seem to win a Bo5 series in Korea anymore, and some fans have started to question his status as a legit Code S title contender. His late game play has also looked suspect at times against the top tier opponents, and he's starting to look like a PvP and all-in specialist compared to more all-around players like Zest or Rain.
Still, as far as StarCraft 2 goes, those are first world problems to have. "I'm always finishing top eight but I can't seem to contend for the title. Sometimes I don't make the Proleague line-up on the team with the most stacked roster by far." Yeah, I'm sure the other players in Group A are crying PartinG a river.
