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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.
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, Bunny 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.
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United States23455 Posts
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On September 05 2014 05:18 Darkhorse wrote:
dat liquid bias
dat css
Maybe you should have written something
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Typo on first line; double "regarded". You're welcome 
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Nice write-up! A respectable line-up, although no one super-high tier. Best of luck to HerO (and Jaedong)!
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um your divs are showing.
edit: nvm
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excited to see what snute is capable of here
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United States23455 Posts
On September 05 2014 05:19 Zealously wrote:Maybe you should have written something
Get off my case dad I have work and uni
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Austria24422 Posts
My man HerO gonna win this
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On September 05 2014 05:18 Darkhorse wrote:
dat liquid bias
dat css
Always <3
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On September 05 2014 05:22 DarkLordOlli wrote:
My man HerO gonna win this
I think Gemini is a bigger fanboy.
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You seem so harsh on HerO, but he still has been a solid Proleague2014 player... GL to him, usually nice show
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That Line-Up is so weak, it's incredible. Jaedong is in just a slump, HerO is known to have serious, private problems.. still I think HerO or Snute have the best chances to win this one, because the other ones are even worse. Maybe some chinese can pull something off, too bad Snute might be very tired..
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The land of freedom23126 Posts
Only question is - will HerO drop a single map considering current state of JvP.
Dat Gemini bias though, lol :D 1 mention of Snute in whole article, poor Jens.
teamliquidhero.net
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that's lot of money for first place... second is nothing to scoff at either
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no terrans = not watching
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Hero vs Snute finals would be basically a dream come true. :p
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United States97276 Posts
Looking like a Jim vs Snute final. Foreigner victory
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Russian Federation5 Posts
omg why not to take bomber instead bunny? no terrans = not watching [2]
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Weird write up.
HerO's v Z is worse than his v T and he knows Bunny about as well as he knows Snute, but somehow Snute, who has been going through even bigger Protoss names than Bunny, is barely mentioned as a threat were Bunny would have been ...
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And this is where I would put my terrans
If I had any
(insert picture of Fairy Oddparents' dad)
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I haven't read Liquid'HerO for a long while, almost thought he left Liquid for MVP lol.
GL to him I guess!
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Lorning
Belgica34432 Posts
On September 05 2014 05:18 Darkhorse wrote:
dat liquid bias
dat css
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United States15275 Posts
On September 05 2014 05:38 Kimb3r wrote:
That Line-Up is so weak, it's incredible. Jaedong is in just a slump, HerO is known to have serious, private problems.. still I think HerO or Snute have the best chances to win this one, because the other ones are even worse. Maybe some chinese can pull something off, too bad Snute might be very tired..
This is probably the first premier tournament where a foreigner is expected to win.
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Snute or JD to win. I think HerO is in a critical point right now
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United States23455 Posts
This tournament can only be awesome if it ends in one of three ways: Snute wins, HerO wins, or Has vs JD finals that goes to final game where Has hits him with a sick cannon rush and wins.
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im not a terran fan but the lack of possible matchups is going to suck...
you can only watch so many pvz's in a row 
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On September 05 2014 05:48 asongdotnet wrote:
that's lot of money for first place... second is nothing to scoff at either
I know right. It's crazy to think that second place at this tourney will get than Flash did for first at Toronto.
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United States23455 Posts
On September 05 2014 08:14 NexUmbra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2014 05:48 asongdotnet wrote:
that's lot of money for first place... second is nothing to scoff at either I know right. It's crazy to think that second place at this tourney will get than Flash did for first at Toronto.
This tournament is basically that random tournament in Korea last year that Xenocider won. He got 10k for that and Life got 10k for winning the WAYYYYY harder IEM New York
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I hope everybody gets paid for this. This is a lot of money up for grabs for a tournament with such a weak field. The organizers are sure to be losing money on this (unless there's just a shit ton of money in chinese eSports that I don't know about) and I just hope that doesn't fuck the players who made the trip.
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I assume we're counting this as a Premier
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I am really rooting for Snute to win this one. He has sick ZvP, and there are only Protoss players here(I don't count JD, he might as well lose to PUck sadly).
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I still completely believe that, if HerO asked, Gemini would be gay with him. LOL
That said, nice writeup.
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I miss HerO and his stylish harass-heavy PvZ in late WoL days
Good luck and hope he can win this
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Sick write up looking forward to this!!
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Always glad to see Jaedong in a tournament... except when he is slumping. If he loses to Puck (no offense intended), I really hope he takes a second look at the path his current career is taking.
also, no Terrans =/
would have loved to see Bunny in this
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your Country52798 Posts
Excellent article. Hoping as always that HerO can do well.
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I had to check liquipedia if Snute had left Liquid because no mention of him 
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some easy money waiting there... Go Snute!
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On September 05 2014 20:12 Razac wrote:
NoTerran=NoCare
In that case, perhaps you should adopt a second rule:
NoCare=NoPost. Don't make bad throwaway posts like this.
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I want the days of old when HerO was renown for his PvZ. It was my favorite matchup to watch and HerO played it is such an awesome way (HerO vs Leenock in GSL RO16)
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If Hero'd win this one that would make 2 tournaments this year (he won an IEM in february). It's certainly not been his year but that would not be bad at all imo
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Snute deserves this the most, with his hard work and consistency lately. After falling 3-2 to Flash in Toronto, this could be a big result and motivation boost for him. Also some payment for all the hard work. He needs it, and deserves it - go Snute!
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I would really want to see Jaedong do well, but i feel like he is going to disappoint, like always this year
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I was wondering why the author mentioned HerO so much, and then I realized it was Gemini ...
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On September 05 2014 20:12 Zealously wrote:In that case, perhaps you should adopt a second rule: NoCare=NoPost. Don't make bad throwaway posts like this.
He's right though. Not having all the matchups (or at least all races) in the tournament really destroys the hype for the tournament.
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EPT![[image loading]](/staff/Zealously/WECBrack1.jpg)
