The Next ZvZerg Bonjwa
A ZvZ Power Rank

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by Soularion



The Taiwan Open for 2014 is rapidly approaching, with an insane amount of.. non-hype. It's understandable: everyone's favourite matchup ZvZ has crowded the bracket to the absolute limit and a lot of fan favourite Koreans failed early in the qualifiers. Still, it boasts an impressive prize pool and a surprising amount of great players. In attendance is the King of Summer, TaeJa, alongside a strong zerg lineup of Leenock, HyuN, Jaedong and TRUE with Red Bull Bomber as supporting cast.

The eight invited TeSL players are probably the most interesting. Has, being the only protoss, actually managed to gain a respectably high amount of hype. He almost beat Sen, falling in a back-and-forth series that went seven games. Combined with his infamous victory over Jaedong, Has might just be one of the favorites to make a deep run, aided by his position as the only protoss. Cheetos, AK, Slam, Fist and Python on the other hand all earn the title of "Meh". They're all part of the never-ending line of Taiwanese zergs who have earned somewhere between negative and decent success in TeSL, but with nothing notable between them, they're all lumped together as filler. Ian, a player that used to be part of the brand of 'Taiwanese Zerg Filler', has actually risen to be a bit more. He made WCS AM Challenger, only to get crushed by HerO 3-0, and got a respectable fourth place in the TeSL. It's clear that he's elevated himself above the meager middle of Taiwanese zergs, but he's still far from the top.

Sitting at the top of the Taiwanese zerg ladder is Sen himself. Sen has been relevant practically forever, and his decently inconsistent ZvZ (he took Scarlett to a close 5-game set, plus beat Check 4-2) is certainly the biggest x-factor in the entire tournament. At his best? He was crushing through lesser Taiwanese zergs, almost but not quite reaching up to the level of big foreign stars and Koreans. At his worst? He was losing to Suppy and XiGua to fail out of WCS America. With Sen's ZvZ being his worst, but really not that awful, of a matchup, it's likely going to make or break his performance. His ZvT, on the other hand, is absolutely unknown. He's played 9 games of it throughout all of 2014, mostly against lesser players who he beat up on. Sen comes into this as the soO of Taiwan, taking three 2nd places in a row to protosses in TeSL (twice to San, once to Daisy), and he's hoping for a first place to take home for once.

Joining this cast of eight misfits are four qualified players. Now, normally in qualifiers, you expect a couple upsets. Yeah, in the TWOP Qualifier, that didn't happen. Rather, we got treated to one of the most insane series of upsets we've seen in quite a while, earning the hilarity of viewers everywhere. Just a quick highlight reel before we go over the victors of bizzaro-qualifiers..

- Nado 2-1 Maru
- TerrOr 2-1 Hurricane
- Pet 2-1 Shine
- Terminator 2-1 Life
- Pet 2-1 Jim
- DeParture 2-1 Cure
- Pet 2-1 sOs

The eventual four to come out were Pet, DeParture, Leenock and TRUE. TRUE did what TRUE does best, cruising through a relatively easy bracket while everything exploded around him. Leenock was similar, doing what was expected of him while not really reaching for the stars nor falling to the ground below. However, Pet and DeParture are not the two zergs you'd expect to come out of a Korean qualifier. Really, this one had Solar, Life, sOs and Maru. Yet these guys got through? Well, DeParture had to fight through a decently difficult bracket. Wins over Avenge, Terminator and Cure were highlights in a performance that showed he was more than just a Proleague punching bag. Pet was even better, starting off his run with an upset over the king of upsets, Shine. Continuing it by beating Chinese superstar Jim and knocking out fan favorite $o$, Pet is not one to be underestimated going into the main event.

Joining this band of 12 weirdos are the four invites, consisting of Jaedong, HyuN, TaeJa and Bomber. Which is surprisingly stacked for a roster that, otherwise, managed to stay as non-stacked as humanly possible. These four have attended so many tournaments that there's really no point in talking further about them. They're the absolute favorites to take victory here and anything other than one of these four winning would be considered an upset to many.

While many a weekender has gone through the Power Rank treatment, this one will be a bit special: I'll be doing a 'ZvZ Power Rank'. This power rank will be in order of ZvZ winrates since April, roughly four months. It's not meant to be an accurate representation of ranking in the matchup, but rather a fun look at how a majority of these players will fare in the matchup we'll easily see the most of.

10. Python : 2-10 (17%)
Python hasn't had a good time against zergs. In the qualifiers before he got a seed via everyone higher in TeSL rankings than him retiring (no, seriously), he lost 1-2 to ntddt. (Who? is the accepted response here). So, where do his two wins come from? One is against this ntddt, while the other is against Cheetos. In a Bo7. Yeah, I'm sorry Python, but you're screwed.

9. AK : 18-23 (44%)
AK's ZvZ hasn't been completely without success (he did 3-2 Ian in the WCS America qualifiers, albeit placed pretty terribly), but it is hard to call it anything near good. The fleeting wins against Ian from time to time are countered by stuff like losing a Bo3 to Cheetos, or dropping a game to JoJo.

8. Cheetos : 13-16 (45%)
Speaking of Cheetos, it's not very surprising to see him this low. While in a power rank of best name, he'd probably be sitting pretty at #1, in ZvZ he's resorted to be pretty low. Still, he hasn't been without (limited) success. He lost 0-4 to Ian in TeSL, but has taken a game off NesTea since. A majority of his wins come from Rex (who didn't even make it here) and Python, with a Bo3 win against AK and Fist as icing to the relatively unimpressive cake.

7. Sen : 22-20 (52%)/Ian : 33-30 (52%)
Sitting at our (first of many..) ties is Sen and his lieutenant, Ian. Because there's no fair way to separate 'good' results against bad players and 'bad' results against good players, these two have suffered a majority of their losses while making their occasional wanderings into the international scene. However, in the TeSL, both of these guys have actually held somewhat impressive, albeit sloppy, ZvZ. Overall, this is around where people's ZvZ starts getting to the point where upsets are possible.

6. DeParture : 10-7 (59%)
As the only Korean under 60%, DeParture has to be pretty satisfied. Sure, he's gotten 2-0'd by both Leenock and hyvaa, but he's avoided narrow embarrassments by both PenguiN -and- TerrOr! Overall, all we know about DeParture's ZvZ is that it isn't absolutely awful but isn't great either. Not bad for a Code B Korean, I suppose.

5. Leenock : 40-26 (61%)
Leenock's ZvZ is, once more, much better than indicated. He's beaten the likes of Golden, RagnaroK, Sleep and VortiX recently, but his numerous losses to Life, plus recent losses to Sacsri and EffOrt, stand out just a bit more. Leenock is not to be underestimated, and he's just waiting for the perfect time to transform into the leenocktopus once more and- Wait, he drew TaeJa in the first round? Well, sorry, Leenock. Maybe another time.

4. Slam : 26-16 (62%)/Fist : 8-5 (62%)
This duo of decent Taiwanese zergs have managed to rake up a decent amount of ZvZ wins. What has managed to help Slam out the most is his habit of -CLEANLY- beating his opponents. Whenever he faces off against Python, Fist or JoJo, or Cell, or the numerous amateur zergs in Taiwan, he actually just demolishes them 2-0 instead of dropping games randomly. He's also put out a decent amount of international results recently, scoring big wins over Golden in the ATC and recently MaSa in WCS AM, earning him a place in Premier League. Fist, on the other hand, has barely played ZvZ or anything outside of the TeSL. However, he did 4-1 AK, plus he took a game off of Sen. So, a work in progress, maybe?

3. Pet : 15-7 (68%)/TRUE : 21-10 (68%)
Coming in third is the third tie, between Pet and TRUE. In reality, these guys could not be more different. Pet's accomplishments in ZvZ are, for the most part, based on beating players he should beat (mainly in Australia..), while losing to good ZvZers such as Action, Life and.. TRUE. Yeah, TRUE beat this guy 2-0 in the qualifiers to the event. On most power rankings, that would grant him a tiebreaker. But not on this one! Speaking of the wonderboy himself, TRUE's ZvZ is a strange, strange thing indeed. Sure, he beat soO in Proleague, and has historically been 4-5 with the Emperor of Kongs. However, he's also dropped a game to TerrOr and lost to Snute. It's impossible to say where he's really at in foreign events, but it's not impossible to say that he's a threat to anyone here in ZvZ.

2. Jaedong : 38-16 (70%)
In Brood War, Jaedong was known for his ZvZ. In Starcraft 2, it's been the same thing. His understanding of his own race over a decade long career has given him insight into the mirror that few have. Overall, he's boasting a 70%+ winrate in his imperial matchup and that hasn't dropped off recently. He's actually been near unbeatable, only losing to Life, HyuN and Impact in Bo3s or higher over the past few months. Still, his biggest weakness in ZvZ is his inability to close out series without looking a bit sloppy. Against Snute, Solar, Scarlett, Golden and even Stephano recently he's dropped a couple of games. Sure, this isn't embarrassing, but it puts an asterisk beside an otherwise godly ZvZ.

1. HyuN : 93-34 (73%)
In the land of zergs, there is only one true king. HyuN is an absolute monster in the year of 2014, or at least in WCS America. Outside of it, he hasn't looked nearly as impressive, yet still boasting 70%+ winrates in ZvT and ZvZ through the year. He's played almost FOUR HUNDRED games since April. Seriously. That's more professional games than some have played ladder games, for god's sake. He's sitting pretty at an insane 73% winrate in over 120 games, although he's in a bit of a rut over the past few days. He lost to roof, KangHo and Life in one-sided series, handing him 8 of his 34 losses. Despite that, his ability to crash his way through practically any opponent not worthy of his regal nature is by far the biggest thing going into this tournament. He doesn't just win inferior tournaments, he -demolishes- them. Looking through his match history is like looking through a cemetery of poor, poor European zergs, thinking they could earn a bit of money at a go4sc2 cup or something similar. Wrong. The big, bad wolf is here. And he's here to stay.

Overall, this tournament boasts an impressive amount of up-and-coming talent, combined with a couple of players itching for wins such as HyuN and Jaedong. While it might not be the most respected tournament, I'm sure HyuN/Jaedong/Leenock would be more than ecstatic to earn a victory in Taiwan. And they just might get one.

Oh, who am I kidding, we all know TaeJa's gonna win this anyway.

[Editor's note: For those who don't know, the phrase "next zerg bonjwa" is jokingly thrown around for players suddenly doing well out of nowhere. We don't actually believe any of these players are next zerg bonjwas.]

Writers: Soularion.
Graphics: lichter.
Photo: TWOP.
Editor: lichter.