SPOTV Starleague 2015 Season 1

Ro16 Group A:
Terminator, FanTaSy, Leenock, Super

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia
Starcraft II Starleague

Thursday, Jan 15 10:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)
by Brindled

Here are the facts. The S2SL group stage emerged from a few upsets that occurred in Challenger: Terminator defeated TaeJa and Stats defeated INnoVation. Leenock soundly beat YongHwa and FanTaSy reaffirmed our belief that MarineKing sucks at TvT.

Here are the questions. Will the upset train continue for Terminator or will his victory over TaeJa be seen as a fluke? Will Super be right in his prediction that the protoss in this group won't stand a chance, before realizing it was himself? Will Leenock regret swapping Dream for Terminator? Is FanTaSy actually a good player now!?

The only thing certain about this group is that it is difficult to analyze or predict. The odd group selection system of swapping players after they've been assigned to a group resulted in two mysterious protoss players thrown into the works, and it is now harder than ever to pick two players with an above average certainty of advancing. There are no known knowns in this group. There are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are things we don't know. But then there are also unknown unknowns—the things we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our great country Starcraft II and other free countries great games, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

Known Unknowns:
One thing we can count on is that Leenock, against the expectations or perceptions of many, has been very consistent in remaining in the top echelon of Starcraft 2 competition. He's been one of the longest tenured Code S players, and he occasionally still places in the top 4 of premier tournaments.



The Leenoctopus remains on the ocean floor with tentacles dug in, blending and only revealing himself when the situation appears advantageous to him. When faced with overwhelming odds, the Leenoctopus spews its ink (which vaguely resembles a pattern forming the words ‘GG’) and returns to the ocean floor where he remains, ever present, until next time. He's never truly knocked out into obscurity, with a few exceptions, and is always there. Oh and there’s the fact that he’s won the last 8 of his previous 10 games. In a row. Against people like TaeJa and sOs. 6 of which were against Protoss.

Still though, when observing trends with players like Leenock, his recent results may belie the potential tournament run he should be having. This is no longer 2012. In the year 2014, Leenock played 191 games with an underwhelming 55% win rate. It was just barely enough to keep him in the limelight of the pro scene with yet another top 4 placing at Dreamhack Valencia in July. While Leenock has floated just between the Ro16 and Ro32 barrier in Code S for the past 2 years, the S2SL is a different tournament. Will Leenock only maintain his consistency of good-but-not-great runs in this tournament as well, or will it be a different story in a different tournament? No longer in the GSL, the S2SL may be Leenock’s only chance to place high and once again carve out his territory.

Everyone else in this group, on the other hand, is a player with something to prove. Although FanTaSy is known as one of the best players from Brood War, he follows the trend of other Brood War greats of either not doing well in Starcraft II or playing very inconsistently. In FanTaSy’s case, he does both. His sub-50% win rate in 2014 does disguise match series wins against players like Solar, MarineKing, MC, and Life throughout the year. However, when it comes down to it FanTaSy usually can’t be counted on to deliver when the fans want him to the most. Good results are either a hit or a miss with him, as evidenced by his most recent performance in the GSL group stage—he both defeated and was defeated by Rogue, the latter event knocking him out of the group altogether. As much as some (including myself) would like this year to be FanTaSy’s year, I just don’t see it.

Now that we have the known unknowns out of the way, we must focus upon the unknown unknowns in the group. There are things about these players that we do not know we don’t know.



Unknown Unknowns:
Confused? Good. Terminator is a player who does overwhelmingly well against zerg, but statistically does very poor against terran and protoss. However, these statistics are from a staggering total of 69 games; he is the least experienced player in this whole group. Yet he is in the round of 32 of S2SL, and he reached it by taking down TaeJa in an inexplicable reverse-sweep. This collides with FanTaSy’s inverse law of success: the less well-known the opponent, the greater the likelihood that FanTaSy loses. Terminator's underdog status translates to plus or minus 5 to the Star Power differential of 70 (because his first game against FanTaSy will be his 70th pro game). Combine that with the law of transitive properties where if he can beat Taeja, surely he can beat a lesser Terran like FanTaSy. He is also on Jin Air Green Wings, which used to be called Team 8, so be sure to multiply by J8 (J not for Jin Air, but for Jaedong, who used to be on Team 8).

…

Point being, I clearly don’t know math. And I just don’t know what the kid is going to be like. He has the ability to beat high level players but I don’t know if he’s going to do it in this group, or if he’ll barely do it, or if he won’t do it at all. An unknown unknown.

Oh, but he won’t beat Super because Terminator isn’t good at PvP.

By the way, Super’s that one guy who won the tournament with the world’s weirdest name “Hey, Look, Koreans!” against Soulkey and carved his way up there by winning PvPs against people like Rain and HerO. Which is just about all we know of him too.

Predictions:
As the most experienced player in this group, I think Leenock has the consistency to advance from this group in first place. Terminator should beat FanTaSy because of the reasons stated above, and Super should beat FanTaSy because no one knows who he is and what shenanigans he's likely to pull. That means a date with Terminator in a PvP, and a crushing victory for Super appears to be the obvious outcome.

Terminator > FanTaSy
Leenock > Super
Leenock > Terminator
FanTaSy < Super
Terminator < Super

Leenock and Super to advance.

Writers: Brindled.
Graphics: shiroiusagi.
Editors: lichter