EPTGSL Season Three
Code S
Group A Preview
Zest, Soulkey, Reality, Cure
Brackets and standings on Liquipedia
Group A:
The Road of Success
by Soularion
In Brood War and StarCraft II every player has a road that they take, an opportunity to become a big name among a sea of nobodies. Most fail along this road, yet the few that did are the ones that really get talked about. In Brood War these largely fell into two camps: the bonjwas and the Royal Roaders (with strong correlation between the two). But in Starcraft II, it's less elite. It's arguable that most players that reach the Ro8 GSL have proven themselves, especially in a season as packed as this one. Yet, a lot of the best examples of the Road of Success come from players such as Maru, Dear or Life - all of them royal roaders in their own ways. It's an interesting thing to watch, and everyone in this Round of 16 have walked their road already. Well, with the exception of three. One will be coming up in a future group, but we get the chance to see the other two in action during this group.
The Champions of the Future?
The first of these is
Jin Air.Cure, a youngster on Jin Air overshadowed for most of his career by players who were better, more noticeable and younger as well. During Cure’s pretty average BW career, it was the prodigy of prodigies himself - TY. Cure transitioned into SC2 and had some middling success during the 2012-2013 league, staying inferior to his teammate. With TY leaving right before 2014 Proleague, it finally seemed like Cure would get a chance to show his skill. And then Maru joined. The TY of SC2 overtook the actual TY in fantastic fashion. Both of the now-and-then Team 8 prodigies tore up Round 1 and continued to have overwhelming success through the Proleague season. With Maru being one of the biggest names in the entire world, it was time for Cure to step out of someone's shadow. He slammed the IEM Cologne qualifiers, 2-0ing his fellow teammate Maru and defeating Soulkey in a Bo3. However, Rain denied him a place at the actual event. Ever since then he's continued to grow. He took down TY in Proleague and made another strong run at IEM Shenzhen, only to be denied by the eventual runner-up Solar. But it was this season that marked his breakthrough. He beat Impact and Hydra to qualify for Code S, as one of the season's few possible royal roaders. Cure then beat MyungSiK and ParalyzE, both well-worn veterans, to advance to the Round of 16. With tremendous success in the Red Bull Online Final as well as solid upsets against Rain and Heart in other qualifiers, Cure is getting closer than ever towards having walked his own road. There are only a couple steps left, and this promises to be the hardest one yet.Samsung.Reality, on the other hand, hasn't blown up quite as explosively. Throughout Brood War he was roster filler at best, someone who rarely had much success and was largely unimpressive. He did show some promise early on in sc2, being one of the front line KeSPA terrans - that is, until HerO knocked him back to irrelevance during the 2012 WCS Korea qualifiers. Throughout 2013 he continued to be a middling terran, never bad enough to be laughed at or good enough to be interesting. None of this changed this season or during 2014 in general. He continued to beat players who were considered 'bad' or inexperienced while losing to most good players. After getting 2-0'd by sOs in Code A, that should've been the end of it. He should've been 2-0'd by IEM King herO and sent home.Yet, that's not what happened. Through a combination of SCV pulls and intervention of some deity, Reality braved the top-tier toss trio of herO, Super and sOs, and lived. All eyes were on him as he once more faced a high-level toss, this time in Trap, during Code S. Like everyone expected he lost 0-2, just like in Code A. Also just like Code A he came back, 2-1ing both Hush and Trap to advance to the Round of 16. For whatever reason, he defied all logic and -wasn't- picked early on, eventually picked by Soulkey to make Group A a little less stacked. However, there's something about Reality that seems to lurk beneath the surface: the power of patience. Some of eSport's best had to wait a looong time to come into fruition. For others, such as Life or most of the early sc2 champions, that wasn't true. Yet, players that are now considered some of the greatest, like Maru for example, had to wait years until they tasted gold. Perhaps Reality is just the same, waiting eons for his chance to strike. And, faced with the last chance at a near-impossible Blizzcon qualification and the general woes of being on the fifth place Proleague team, perhaps the time is now.
The Champion of the Past
The other two players in this group aren't players who are shy to the ways of the road - rather, they're two players who have walked it before.
SKT.Soulkey was a big up-and-coming zerg, heralded as one of the best during the twilight of Brood War. While his transition during the first SC2 OSL didn't work out too great, he made a strong Ro8 run in GSL Season 5 2012. Since then, he simply became stronger and stronger with every passing season: a Ro8 showing right before his GSL victory, another Ro8, and a Ro4 before failing to reach the quarterfinals in the first season of 2014. He racked up more Ro8s in a row than any other player in the history of sc2, being one of the most unquestionably solid zergs along the way. A Blizzcon triumph, unfortunately, was not to be – after a strong win over foreign hope NaNiwa, he lost hard to Bomber. Afterwards, everything started to change. He lost out in an insane group of death during the Ro16 of Season 1. He began doing not-so-great in Proleague. Then he failed to defeat his eternal punching bag Maru in the Season 2 quarterfinals. Now he isn't the unbreakable king of zergs anymore. soO has sucked all of the consistency out of him, leaving him as an (admittedly solid) husk of what he used to be. However, this group is a way to get back on his feet. If Soulkey wants to prove that he is once more the king of zergs, he'll have to do a whole lot more than simply get out of this group - But getting out of this group would be a good start.The Champion of the Present
KT.Zest is the best example of patience paying off with a success royal road. Through most of Brood War P7GAB was a solid rookie, a more than welcome addition to KT Rolster without being too spectacular. This was echoed through his debut in SC2, having a few strong performances during the 2012-2013 Proleague (and Round 1 of 2014) without GSL success. However, this all changed when he went up against SKT1. Zest demonstrated that he was the absolute master of the Telecom Rivalry, destroying the future runner-ups in a 4-0 rout that the vast majority of players could only dream of. Since then, he has looked like an unstoppable machine, demolishing most opponents he comes across with impeccable PvX play. His success is especially notable for revolutionizing the world of PvP against the solid protosses sOs and Rain. If anything strikes him as weak, it is that he can be out-mindgamed (as shown vs TRUE last season) and PvT is his most vulnerable matchup (demonstrated against Maru back in Season 1). However, anything but success here must be considered an upset for a player in contention for best in the world.Zest versus Soulkey seems to be a recurring match. Not only is it another attempt for Zest to torment SKT1, but he ended Soulkey's streak of Ro8s earlier this year as well. It's absolutely certain that Soulkey is gonna want vengeance, and it might add a little more hunger from him that we haven't seen in a while. Reality and Cure played recently in the KeSPA Cup qualifiers, with Reality defeating him 2-1. While it's tough to see Cure, who appears to quite adept in TvT, fall to someone such as Reality, it appears very possible. The clashes between the new and old are hard to predict, although a Reality vs Soulkey rematch is on the table to the dismay of many.
For all of this praise Zest deserves, something still feels a bit…strange in this group. This is the season of champions - 11 out of the current Ro16 players have been champions at one time or another, yet the class of the future seems to be growing with every passing tournament. This is when the old takes on the new, and it promises a sundering that we haven't yet seen in 2014. Believe me, this is only the beginning of what is sure to be an exciting, action-filled battle between the up-and-comers and the Hall of Fame-esque line up that many groups hold. Ultimately the freshman class of 2014-3 has many surprises, and victory in this group might just be one of them.
Zest > Soulkey
Reality > Cure
Zest < Reality
Soulkey < Cure
Zest < Cure
Reality and Cure advance to the Round of 8.
