EPTRed Bull Battle Grounds:
Muk-jji-ppa
Between Bomber’s victory in Atlanta and the anticipated continuation in Detroit, Red Bull Battle Grounds goes global with a different take on modern StarCraft competition. Rather than using seeds and brackets, six qualified players will be eliminating each other by picking their opponents... or their victims.
After 3 huge qualifiers, 6 players remain out of 96 initial contestants to fight over a $9,000 prize pool. With top tier players already eliminated, only the best players are left to certainly give us great matches.
For those who aren’t updated on how things work: each player will start out with 3 lives that they must maintain, otherwise they are eliminated. The highest seeds, or those who won their respective qualifier, will receive the advantage of choosing their first opponent, whom they will be facing in a best of 3. The loser will forfeit one of his lives and the winner will claim an extra $100 to add to their pockets. At the end of each day, the remaining players split the $2,400 of the daily prize pool; when only one player is left at the end of the tournament, he will receive an extra $100 for each remaining life.
[Editor's note: Muk-jji-ppa is a Korean variant of rock paper scissors]
The Players
PoltFalling short in Atlanta, previous GSL/WCS NA/MLG champion CMStorm.Polt is looking for redemption with strong play in all matchups. Lately, he has only shown weakness against his newfound nemesis MajOr and Bomber in Red Bull Battle Grounds Atlanta. That said, his TvT is far from shaky, and with improvements against ultra-aggressive styles (such as MajOr’s) he could prove to be a very deadly opponent for the contestants.
ImpactIt took him a while to make his mark, but 18-year-old Axiom.Impact suddenly popped up in the StarCraft scene as he placed second at DreamHack Bucharest. He showed great promise in ZvZ but also excelled in his other matchups, taking down players like Team Liquid’s HerO, Ryung, Jaedong and MC. Although the young zerg hasn’t been scoring too many upsets lately he did have some very noteworthy wins in the qualifier, dominating the likes of viOLet, MMA, Harstem, SuperNova and Symbol. In the end he only lost to Polt with a 1-2 score.
DongRaeGuThis is as old school as it gets, at least if you watched lots of GSL back in Wings of Liberty. After recovering from Scarlett’s protoss at MLG, DRG faced bad luck in the first qualifier, going out in the first round. He quickly picked himself back up and went on a killing spree in the second qualifier, knocking out GuMiho, Mvp, viOLet, Reality and Hydra. Although facing Solar in the finals proved to be a difficult task, he will have his chance for revenge shortly at Global.
HydraMaking it after the third attempt, one might think at first glance that Hydra doesn’t belong in the top six players. However, the results tell a completely different story. The CJ Entus player began his first qualifier by taking out Grubby but went down to WCS NA Champion Pigbaby 1-2. The second time, his victims were Bly, Heart, Trust and Journey, which he made look easy before facing DongRaeGu. On his final attempt Hydra mowed down XY, Revival, Hack, Scarlett, MC, MMA and Trust, only losing a single map. Apparently when things get rough, Hydra just gets rougher. You better watch out for this guy when he is down to one life.
MMAEven though MMA fell short in the final qualifier, Trust (and his replacement herO) couldn’t make it to the venue, meaning that the third/fourth placed MMA will get another chance against Hydra. That said, the Acer player took out Curious, MajOr and Bly before facing Hydra; the only reason for his failure in the earlier qualifier was the brick wall known as ‘DreamHack Valencia 2014 Champion mYi.Sacsri’ who, needless to say, is incredibly strong. MMA is a seasoned veteran and very dangerous in long series, so don’t be surprised if he fits right into this format from the get-go.
SolarA year younger than Impact, Samsung.Solar has been on a steady rise ever since his huge opening night in Proleague, where he took out sOs two times with completely different styles. This young progamer hasn’t been keeping his head low whatsoever as he took out huge names in IEM Shenzhen, falling one game short against Taeja in the final. He followed that up with a brutal 14-1 run in the Global qualifier, beating players like Armani, Byul, Gamja, SaSe, Dear and DongRaeGu. With no apparent weak matchups at the moment, Solar might just continue his road of destruction unless someone manages to stop him, which is no easy feat.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
With such strong players, it is never easy to tell who will be able to win, especially with a system such as this one. Looking at seeds and recent results shows strength in Solar, Polt and Hydra, who all placed first in their respective qualifier. Although MMA, DongRaeGu and Impact are strong players, their history with the aforementioned players could suggest some possible first picks. It wouldn't be a surprise if Hydra picked MMA, Solar chose DRG and Polt selected Impact, as they have already won against those players in a Bo3 recently. Between Solar, Hydra and Polt, it can go any three ways, especially since Hydra is one of those players that flashes hot and cold. If he plays well, he'll have a good chance, but Solar and Polt have shown before that they can string together series wins against the best players in the world.With the possibility of picking opponent, a new level of strategy opens up to the competition as the players have different strengths and weaknesses. With multiple lives per player and alternating pick orders, there's a good chance that we will see something like a game of rock paper scissors. So who is afraid of whom?
MMA > Polt > Impact > MMAOnce upon a time, the TvT order of power of Mvp > Polt > MMA > Mvp held true. However, things seem to have changed in HotS. MMA beat Polt 2-0 at DreamHack Winter, and he also won 2-1 against Mvp in WCS EU S1. He's now the king of that hill, not that it means much. Looking at the RBBG qualifiers, many of the players attending faced each other at one point or another, and Polt defeated Impact, while Impact swept MMA. It's not much to go on, but it might just happen.
Solar > DRG > Hydra > SolarWith 4 zergs at RBBG, a ZvZ rock paper scissor is inevitable. Looking at their match histories, Solar is 6-2 against DRG in HotS with series wins at the RBBG qualifiers, Code S Season 1, and IEM Shanghai last year. DRG has similarly dominated Hydra in HotS, with a 5-0 record from the qualifiers, GSL GC and Proleague. To complete the triangle, Hydra defeated Solar 2-0 in their only meeting at IEM World Championships.
While a system like this could result in some surprises, one thing is certain: only one man will walk away with that invite to Washington DC.
