After MSI, Blizzcon and HSC X, it is time for the annual Hot6ix cup to cap off the year for Korean Starcraft. While it doesn't quite have the prestige of a Blizzcon or GSL, it is nonetheless one of the most competitive tournaments of the year and celebrates all of the champions and runner-ups (All one of them) as they are seeded into the main tournament. Two spots are awarded to a fan vote and the rest are all qualifiers. This year is special because soO took up all 3 runner-up seeds allowing two extra players to qualify through.
Beyond the incredible Starcraft that is bound to happen when you pit the best players in the world against each other, these are the stories to look out for as we enter the group stages:
Before HSC had started, both Flash and PartinG were huge fan favorites and both had won the fan vote by a landslide. After the HSC X, no one can doubt that they have the pedigree to challenge and beat anyone attending the Hot6ix Cup. The two of them will be riding off a huge wave of momentum as they return to Korea to fight in the last Korean LAN of the year. If you've kept score, this will be the third LAN the two players will have attended with each other in the same number of weeks. At MSI, Flash got a strong Ro8 while Parting barely lost the finals. At HSC X, the two of them fought each other in one of the greatest finals of the year. Here the two of them can extend their rivalry even more if they can get out of their group stages.
2. The Fight for the Protoss Throne
Name the absolute best protoss in the world. Now look at your list and then look at the participant list at Hot6ix. In this tournament we have: Zest, Rain, Classic, herO, Stats, sOs and PartinG. These 7 are almost undeniably the seven strongest protoss in the world at this very moment. By the end of this tournament, only one will reign supreme. Probably Zest.
With half the participants being protoss players one can’t help but wonder when a protoss player will inevitably proxy 2 gate herO. Tune in to find out if it will be in the group stages, Ro8, Ro4 or finals!
Going into Blizzcon, soO was the player everyone predicted to get second. He then hit a brick wall in Taeja. soO has spent the entire year and a half being the eternal symbol of consistency reaching four consecutive GSL Finals and 1 DH Finals. But how many times can a player almost make it before he breaks? Will Taeja have finally broken soO after Blizzcon or will soO show the endless perseverance and strength that has marked his career outside a finals?
In one of the biggest signings of the year, Rain moved away from SKT and has now joined the EU team mYi. And since then he has been on a roll as he smashed his way through the IEM San Jose Qualifiers and Hot6ix qualifiers to get his spot in two of the last Premier tournaments of the year. For those who have kept count, mYi has recruited 4 Korean players: Stardust, Sacsri, Jjakji and Balloon. Besides Balloon, the rest had a huge result almost immediately on recruitment with Stardust and Sacsri both winning a DH and Jjakji getting a top 4 in WCS EU. For Rain this will be a statement to the world that even without KeSPA training, he will be a force to be reckoned with.
In the single worst year of his career, MarineKing has finally qualified for an offline tournament. This will be the first time we will have seen him in the studio since his elimination in Challenger last year to ZerO. Damn.
Speaking of people coming back from the brink of death, Soulkey has returned. After a long battle of disinterest and fatigue in the game, Soulkey was able to rekindle his competitive drive after leaving SKT to try out his hand at being a Korean on a foreigner team. Unlike Rain and Parting, he has yet to join any team, so this will be all the more important for him to show strong games and show that he is still one of the best zergs in the world.
When Bbyong started SC2 he was honestly terrible. He didn't follow any of the standard builds, his micro was meh, his macro was okay and his decision making was terrible. But this has been a trans-formative year for Bbyong. He went from the back of the bench to one of the best players on CJ Entus. And he did it without ever compromising his vision of the game. He is the most stylistic player on earth whether it be in TvT, TvP or TvZ. His sense of base trade and decision making in strange situations is among the best in TvT (Flash vs Bbyong on Waystation). His TvP is wild, especially against phoenix collosus where he goes thor bio marine. His TvZ has been all over the place from standard games to splitting his army in half for large dramatic battles across the entire mini-map. If there is any player's games you need to watch, it's his.
Great article, I'm really excited about this tournament, especially for out-of-studio venue that GOM has prepared. Hoping that Soulkey can scramble something and make a decent result.
soO should get the other 2 runner-up spots as extra lives. Might give him a fighting chance. Although it may be embarrassing if he gets to the grand finals and loses 3 consecutive bo7's to MKP.
Since it stopped at 9, 10 should be that no one else expects a player from GW to win and that Terminator is the unofficial representative for teams that were unable to have a player qualify(khan).
Nice writeup, that also reminded me this tournament is coming up really quickly. Should be a great tournament, with 4 KT players making it look promising.
Will also be interesting to see how MarineKing fares, though my expectations are rather low he might pleasantly surprise.
soO is already broken, Solar broke him at DH finals.
Soulkey is enigma right now, will he come back, is he forever gone?
In the end we'll have the all the best Protosses, a lot of the best terrans but not much Zerg relevance. I hope we ll ahve at least one Z in the Ro8...
On November 17 2014 20:09 Gwavajuice wrote: soO is already broken, Solar broke him at DH finals.
Soulkey is enigma right now, will he come back, is he forever gone?
In the end we'll have the all the best Protosses, a lot of the best terrans but not much Zerg relevance. I hope we ll ahve at least one Z in the Ro8...
soO shall never be broken until he finally wins a tournament. Then he will drown in the shadows. And yeah, Zergs being underrepresented a lot again.
I don't think soO is broken. He looked very good against TaeJa in the WCS global finals despite apparently being jet lagged. He might even be relieved he didn't get second place. Additionally, he's been back in korea for some time now, and he's been able to practice for this without anyone seeing any of his games since he qualified via GSL.
People really need to rewatch Bbyong's BC rush from last year's s3.
Artosis having these fools believe that Bbyong only became cool this year. Lies!
As for the Soulkey story, I'd like to add that he is the only Zerg who got in through the qualifiers. And he did it by beating Gumiho, so there's some slim hope for him yet. He also went 0-2 against Bbyong, I don't know if that means Bbyong has transcended to all new levels of godmode or if Soulkey's not really back in shape yet.
Artosis having these fools believe that Bbyong only became cool this year. Lies!
As for the Soulkey story, I'd like to add that he is the only Zerg who got in through the qualifiers. And he di^^d it by beating Gumiho, so there's some slim hope for him yet. He also went 0-2 against Bbyong, I don't know if that means Bbyong has transcended to all new levels of godmode or if Soulkey's not really back in shape yet.
Hahaha this is sick. Artosis's reaction at 7:28 is so good ^^
Zest is overrated imo. I could see him dropping out early. At the end of this tournament we'll end up even more confused as to who the best protoss in the world is, when Stats ends up as the highest ranking Protoss, losing in the finals to a terran.
On November 17 2014 20:09 Gwavajuice wrote: soO is already broken, Solar broke him at DH finals.
pls
I'm semi serious, he was on a 12-1 record and then went 0-3, solar sorta tilted him and I keep thinking he didn't play at his best against INno and Taeja...
I am beyond happy to see MKP return and looking AMAZING. He has the best bio micro w/ maru imo. He totally looked like he was in control the entire time.
On November 19 2014 16:32 Fuell wrote: Is there a more consistent player than PartinG? Protip: there is not.
PartinG is by far the most underrated god-tier player. He's been to 12 GSLs. 11 of them in a row. You know how many of them he dropped out in ro32? Once. That means 91.6% of the time, PartinG makes it to the ro16. 50% of the time, he makes it to the ro8 or higher. That's pretty astonishing.
EPT
Flash and 
PartinG
soO finally broken?
