Life, Rogue, Hydra, Classic

ST_Life: Life recently returned from DreamHack Bucharest with a championship in hand, reminding everyone that he is one of the best Zerg players in the world. In tragically predictable fashion, Life then killed his momentum by going 0-2 in Proleague the following week, leaving the ST-IM coalition to pray that they will luck into a playoff spot. Short term consistency has never been Life's forte, even back in the days when he was picking up titles left and right. In between his first place finishes, there were inevitably some shockingly quick eliminations and poor GSTL performances scattered around.

That said, if you take a more long-term viewpoint, Life is actually going through a very good stretch of tournament results. Starting with his top 4 finish at DH Bucharest in 2013, he's finished fourth in three tournaments, second in one, and won two championships. It's no fluke that he reached the semifinals of Code S last season after five consecutive seasons of failing to make it higher than the Ro16. Life is getting things together.

One improvement that's especially relevant to this group is that Life's ZvZ is much improved. The period where ZvZ was wall between him and the Ro8 seems to be long behind him, with a 33-10 record on the year. As tough a group as this is, we like Life's chances to get through.


JinAir_Rogue: Like Hydra and MyungSiK before him, Rogue is a player we might have gotten a little too excited about after one strong qualifier run. But can you blame us? Just look at who he beat in the IEM World Championship Qualifier: Soulkey, Zest, Rain, and Sora. On top of that, Rogue was a revelation of a player in Proleague Round 1, earning him some well deserved hype at the start of the year.

Rogue has come down to earth since then, hovering around a .500 win rate in Proleague for the last two rounds. He's a talented player who seems like he should be accomplishing more, but for now he finds himself stuck in a rut. Code S presents Rogue with a golden opportunity to show us what he's really capable of.

Alas, the Zerg-heavy nature of Group D does not bode well for Rogue, who has only a 14-13 record on the year. Even worse, he's up first against Life, the very player who eliminated him in the first round of the IEM World Championship. With Hydra being a capable ZvZ competitor as well, Rogue is the player who needs the most match-up luck to make it out of this group.


CJ_Hydra: In talking about Rogue, we touched upon how we briefly over-hyped Hydra. For the CJ Zerg, the cause was his run in the IEM Singapore qualifier, where he defeated players like Dear, Classic, and Rain. However, Hydra full-on collapsed once the Proleague started, finishing Round 1 with a dismal 0-5 record. Despite showing good early game play, Hydra seemed incapable of winning any game that went longer than 15 minutes, and we were left to scratch our heads and wonder how the hell he managed that IEM Singapore run.

Thankfully for CJ Entus, Hydra has been making a good recovery, though he's a long way off from being hyped again in a similar way. What he is now is a solid third man for CJ Entus behind herO and Bbyong, putting up a 5-4 record in Rounds 2 and 3. The most impressive recent showing from Hydra came in last month's Code A, where he took out both Shine and Flash in dominant fashion to earn a Code S spot. With Zergs on the rise in Korea, this might be Hydra's chance to ride the wave to a first ever Ro16 appearance.

Hydra's ZvZ is a solid 22-12 on the year, which puts him in a good spot in this group. However, his ZvP stands at a poor 7-10, with three losses against Classic. An unorthodox strategy might be Hydra's best bet at getting past his initial opponent.


SKT_Classic: soO used to be the sneakily skilled player on SKT who was overshadowed by his more illustrious teammates. Two Code S finals appearances quickly changed that. The title of underrated-but-really-good SKT player now falls onto Classic. Rescued from the wreckage of STX Soul by SKT for his key contributions in STX's Proleague championship campaign, Classic has found a new position as SKT's ridiculously overqualified 4th/5th man with a 9-5 season record.

Classic has been thrown in head-first into the deep end at individual tournaments so far, but has still managed to take respectable finishes. At IEM Cologne, his first foreign tournament ever, he lost 2-3 in the quarterfinals against the vastly more experienced Polt. In the Ro16 of the last Code S, he was sent packing by teammates PartinG and Rain, who happened to be demi-gods in PvP.

With a 21-7 PvZ record on the year, Classic should feel confident about his chances of making it out of this group. As a note of caution, Zerg fans might want to avoid watching Classic's games. With a formidable arsenal of cannon rushes and weird builds, combined with an uncanny ability to win without hitting particularly great force-fields, Classic is bound to induce a lot of rage.


Predictions:

Life > Rogue
Classic > Hydra
Classic > Life
Hydra > Rogue
Life > Hydra

Classic and Life advance.