EPT
Writer: Gemini
Graphics: opterown
Although the WEC originally looked to become one of the most stacked tournaments of the year, a series of miscommunications led to KeSPA completely pulling out of the qualifiers, thus opening the way for other players. While it may be disappointing that WEC will not host the likes of Flash and Maru this weekend, the players that will gather in Hangzhou are nevertheless respectable.
![[image loading]](/staff/Zealously/WECBrack1.jpg)
Confidence or uncertainty?
It's been a long time since people last regarded
Liquid'HerO as one of the best Protoss players in the world. Even with the known inconsistency that once catapulted him to great heights (before crashing, granted), the last year has not been kind to him. Back in 2011 and 2012, his good days consisted of winning tournaments while his bad one led to top 8 finishes. Recently, the results haven’t been coming as often for our handsome Liquid Protoss. However, with a recent WCS resurgence and a new house to practice in, he looks good going into the last quarter of the year.And where better to test his newly found confidence than in an eight man tournament not too far away from home? WEC 2014 takes place this weekend with a lineup of
Jaedong, Top, Snute, Jim, MacSed, Has, and puCK. This is the perfect opportunity to see if HerO can make a comeback into the top protoss rankings. Jet lag won’t be an issue, the need to prepare for 20+ different opponents isn’t there, and there are only two zergs. The cards look set for another Protoss victor, and with HerO’s PvP looking better with each tournament he enters, it’s up to him to decide if he wants to bring it or not. The only downside to this tournament is that it doesn't provide any WCS points, which HerO desperately needs if he wants to appear at Blizzcon. He was nearly guaranteed a spot last year with his WCS AM Season 1 win, but this time he’s cutting it a bit close. This tournament will hopefully serve as a further boost in his confidence so he can go deep in the current WCS season.For HerO, the biggest fear going into any tournament at the moment is his PvZ. Ever since he dropped out of WCS America Season 1 in the Ro32, PvZ has been his worst match up. Not counting his recent WCS AM S3 performance he sits at a 44% win rate vs Zerg. The problem stems from pure confusion, as the Liquid Protoss has been quite vocal on the fact that the matchup doesn’t quite make sense to him. Even when he wins and is asked if he’s finally figured it out he still says it was luck. He’s being suffocated with uncertainty. It makes sense, as well. Besides his patented stargate opener, he seems to do something different every game he plays which shows he’s really trying to find his own style again. As I mentioned earlier, luck is on HerO’s side with WEC as there are only two zergs participating and both are zergs that he is well versed in playing. He knows how to abuse Snute’s extremely greedy style as well as Jaedong’s hyper aggressive tech switches. Having said that, this won’t guarantee an effortless win, but even with his PvZ not being up to snuff, his knowledge of the players presented to him could be his saving grace.
With Liquid’Bunny no longer in the player pool HerO now only has two match ups to prepare for. Not only that, but HerO may have dodged a bullet with the Danish Terran being replaced by yet another Protoss given Bunny’s recent hot streak. A 2-0 vs the reigning WCS EU champion StarDust at Gfinity G3 is nothing to scoff at, and even HerO could realistically have been in trouble against his teammate. The Terran had been taking out top Protosses at nearly every tournament he entered and with HerO becoming bored with safer colossus openings and trying to play riskier with the high templar openings most consider dead, it seems like a stroke of luck that Bunny dropped out.
This leaves the plethora of Protosses for HerO to deal with and with a solid 59% PvP win rate since March, the chances look more than good on paper. He may not admit it himself, saying that “PvP is 50/50” but the results show he’s been doing the best vs his own brothers in the last few months and that only makes it better as he goes into this tournament full of protoss. Similar to his PvZ, his PvP in the past months has had a variety of openers. This most likely is a result of the match up being his weakest for a period of time in late 2013 to early 2014. He seems to like to fix his play by trying out a wild variety of openers to see what fits his style the best. He can do anything from the most aggressive 3gates you’ve seen to some of the greediest 1 gate expands you can sneak out. He should be feeling confident going up against any of the 5 other protoss in the tournament since he has a winning record over three of them and one of the others holds PvP as their weakest matchup. MacSed proves to be the only potential tough hitter for HerO as his PvP is one of his best matchups, but everything could easily turn on a dime due to how volatile PvP can end up being. HerO’s going to need to mix it up vs these protosses to eek out ahead, so long as he caters more to his opponent (like his past PvP’s seem to suggest) than to the matchup, he should be looked at as a strong contender for first place.
The stars are aligning for HerO as he enters a big stage in this nearly closed out year. It’s going to be up to him whether or not he makes use of his newly found confidence to once again shine as inspiration to protoss players around the world. Will he prove he truly is the hero we deserve? Or is he simply going to fall on his face and write another depressing blog again?
It’s not quite winter yet, but perhaps Hangzhou, China could use a bit of a cool breeze.
