EPTDay 4 Preview: Foreign Hope, Take 2
by The_Templar
When considering the global Starcraft scene, almost every fan finds themselves dividing players into two distinct categories. In one corner, there are the Koreans, who play in the most nurturing yet unforgiving environment on the Earth, prepare for their entire careers to compete with the very best, and want to win in any way possible. The best of these are nearly viewed as the rulers of the race they happen to play or even considered their own race. All other players, however, are often brought together into a single group and treated completely different. Since history has shown that foreigners have rarely performed at the level of those residing in Korea, those who competed in GSL were considered to be the non-Koreans’ hope, or their representative, no matter which country there were from. Today’s first matchup is a battle between the last of these and one of the most prominent players in the Korean region.
Even though many fans outside of Korea constantly look for a player to represent them, there has not been as much fanfare for the final non-Korean player in this tournament as there was for Scarlett. Indeed,
IG.Jim has been relatively ignored in this tournament even though they were both seeded into challenger league at the same time. Although Jim was semi-seriously referred to as “Jim-credible” during his WCS Season 2 Finals run in 2013, where he was unfortunately stopped by Visa issues, he rarely ever seemed close enough to taking a premier title to earn the title of “foreign hope”. His two top four finishes at WCG 2013 and IEM Shenzhen didn’t look particularly indicative of championship contention; Jim placed below every Korean in WCG and got crushed by 
Solar in IEM. In a tournament consisting of exclusively top Koreans, this is not a good sign.By contrast,
JinAir.Maru is a perfect example of how people imagine the normal progamer in Korea; he began his career at the age of 13 and stayed in his home country for years, quietly practicing and improving. In fact, Maru has only left Korea in order to play in tournaments that he qualified for by virtue of doing well in Korean tournaments. In addition to this, Maru did anything he could to win when it mattered most. His breakout tournament, WCS KR 2013 Season 2, featured his aggressive and extremely effective early strategies against both INnoVation and Rain in its final stages. In his followup tournaments, which took place in all three regions as a result of his success, Maru did often aim for longer games, but still used a very aggressive style in order to break his opponents quickly. While Maru did cool off significantly towards the end of 2014, not attending any Premier tournaments outside of Proleague and GSL ( and not winning any of the three seasons), he has remained true to the aggressive style that became his trademark, and he has remained a good player despite falling out of GSL Season 3 fairly quickly. So why haven’t we seen much of him in all of the tournaments popping up in Korea? Maru fell short in every recent qualifier he’s attempted except GSL and SSL, often losing to players that he shouldn’t be such as Trust and MarineKing. However, he’s had a history of being much stronger in mainstay tournaments like the GSL and should be able put on a fair display of skill against Jim.All signs point towards a Maru victory here. He recently defeated Zest convincingly in the only game we’ve seen him play recently, while Jim has recently been relatively crushed by
TaeJa, Center, TY, GuMiho, and KeeN along with various other Korean Terrans on different occasions. Is there anything Jim can do to reasonably upset his opponent? Both players have the advantage of having not travelled very much and generally staying under the radar. Almost all of Jim’s recent games, however, are from the Leifeng cup and are difficult to find outside of China, which may make him slightly more difficult to study than Maru. Another notable fact is that, last time Jim faced a Korean Terran in a live tournament in Asia, he managed to defeat TaeJa 2-0. While Maru is certainly favored, there is still a sliver of hope for Jim, however far-fetched (E/N: far-fetched is the only hope you have if you're cheering for the foreigner)The second match of the day is Dark versus PartinG.
SKT_Dark is on the upswing, with promising results in Korea and praise from both his peers and the casters that study him. He was the starter SKT in the team’s first week in the 2015 installment of Proleague, and defeated MarineKing to help lead SKT to a 3-0 victory over MVP. His games, additionally, look promising, as he’s brought extremely solid play to the table when we’ve seen him play. On the other hand, YFW_PartinG has been rather lackluster in Korea, but has recently found success in the international scene while on Yoe Flash Wolves. In addition to earning first and second place trophies at HomeStory Cup X and MSI Beat IT, he also placed in the top 8 in the Hot6iX cup and won the online 32 Boys 1 Cup tournament. While PartinG has a much better record against Zerg than Dark does against Protoss, many of PartinG’s wins are the result of playing much worse players, and he consistently has difficulty against some of the best Zerg players. Dark also has difficulty against championship players such as Zest and sOs, but is weaker against mid-tier Koreans such as Sora and Trust, meaning a player such as PartinG will be a difficult challenge.Tonight’s last match will pit
MyuNgSiKPrime against YFW_San. Both are solid players on their teams, and are expected to be reliable competitors in Proleague. While they seem to be of approximately equal skill, their paths have been wildly different. San has taken a higher-profile, international route, playing in WCS Premier league last year, which significantly contributed to his qualification, as well as various tournaments such as Redbull Detroit and the KeSPA cup. Meanwhile, MyuNgSiK has taken a lower road, quietly racking up some high placements in international online tournaments and underperforming in qualifiers. Despite this, MyuNgSiK might be an equal, perhaps even better player than San. The once-ridiculed player's latest notable result was a puzzling yet successful ace match apperance in Proleague, when ST-yoe faced Prime. San took the victory (against MyuNgSiK's team, one might add) and made it clear that he does not intend to be simply a benchwarmer in Proleague. As for this match, neither players’ record against protoss is inspiring; San only has two 2-1 victories against Patience and Terminator in the last few months while MyuNgSiK has suffered losses to players like Trap, Arthur, and MacSed. However, with the Korean scene being infinitely more vicious than the international one, a player considered bad in Korea often finds himself defeating those who found success across the globe. Despite almost never leaving Korea, MyuNgSiK has taken enough games off high-profile players to make himself notable and is definitely more than a worthy opponent for San.Predictions:
Maru 3-1 Jim
Dark 2-3 PartinG
MyuNgSiK 3-2 San
