EPTSPOTV Starleague 2015 Season 2
S2SL Challenger League Day 4
INnoVation vs ByuL
Dear vs sOs
Macsed vs PartinG
Brackets andLeenock gs on Liquipedia
Starcraft II Starleague
Mirrors and Machines
by Destructicon and munch
INnoVation vs Byul
By his own high standards, INnoVation has been going through a bit of a crisis in the past month. After the initial satisfaction of his revenge 3-2 knockout of Life at the IEM World Championships, defeat to Zest in the very next round would have been a shock. The Protoss champion has been struggling for form throughout the early parts of 2015, and INnoVation will definitely look back at Katowice as yet another missed opportunity at a foreign LAN event. Things haven’t gone any better at home for the SKT Terran. Once regarded as the king of teamleagues, his unbeaten streak in Proleague was brought to an abrupt end by ByuL; since then, he has gone on to lose two more to Maru and Losira, while picking up a solitary bop over a struggling San.
On the other hand, ByuL is currently thriving in Proleague, leading a CJ Entus team that has stormed to the top of the rankings in Round 2. However, he has struggled to translate teamleague form to individual results, and indeed failed to qualify for Season 1 of the GSL, while falling out of the S2SL at the first hurdle. Season 2 might be where it all starts to click for ByuL, though. His tight victory over YongHwa last week has granted him his first spot in Code S for a year, and he’ll be confident of doubling his tournament commitments here. ZvT is by far his strongest matchup, and he looked in total control the last time these two players met.
Predictions
INnoVation may be on a poor run of form recently in Proleague, but his aforementioned victory over Life still clearly shows that his historical dominance in the matchup hasn’t completely deserted him. With the notoriously wacky CJ team behind ByuL, it’ll be interesting to see if he’ll bring anything more creative to the table beside his standard solid play. Frankly, the result of the match lies in INnoVation’s hands; perform to the best of his abilities, and it’s debatable whether any Zerg on the planet can cope with the pressure. Play at a level below that, and ByuL has a realistic opportunity to capitalize on the SKT Terran's weakness.
INnoVation 3 – 1 ByuL
Dear vs sOs
While it is now a fact of Life that
Dear may never regain his 2013 form, things are still looking up. To that end, his results so far have been rather promising. He is 7-6 in Proleague and is one of Samsung's most reliable players. He gave a brief glimpse of his past glory in the season 1 qualifiers for GSL and S2SL, where he even defeated the soon-to-be GSL champion Life. Despite being eliminated in the RO32 of GSL, Dear used the defeat to fuel his drive making a RO8 in the S2SL before his run was cut short (in a narrow series, no less) by Life. It's still a far cry from his double royal road Cinderella story, but it's still an improvement compared to his meagre 2014. However, Dear has already suffered a harsh setback, losing to Ragnarok in the GSL Code A. In losing to a opponent that most thought was bellow his level, Dear made it clear that although since have gotten better, he is no safe bet to make it anywhere. And it only gets harder from here, since staying alive in the S2SL demands that he vanquish a much more difficult and experienced opponent.After months of struggling with turbulence,
sOs seems to have finally hit clear skies. He has won most of his recent Proleague games, he has qualified for season 2 of both GSL and S2SL and due to his efforts has already made it through GSL's Code A. If he wins here, sOs joins Maru, Dream, Life and soO as one of the few players to be in the main event of both premier tournaments. While sOs has done well to steady himself so far, he'll need to come well prepared if he wants to navigate the jet stream that is PvP. sOs has made no indication that he finds PvP particularly difficult at the moment, and longer series have rarely been a struggle for him. It would be foolish to call the match clear-cut, but sOs has an uncanny knack for performing in tight spots, and few spots are tighter than an all-or-nothing PvP best of 5.This one is a bit tricky to call, its PvP, and both competitors have shown some degree of mastery over the match up in the past. sOs looks to be riding a wave of momentum, however Dear has managed to steady himself and make a deep run in the S2SL after being eliminated in the GSL. Ultimately though I think sOs' recent form is just too good to be stopped.
Dear 1-3 sOs
Macsed vs PartinG
MacSed really couldn't have gotten a worse opponent in S2SL challenger. He missed PvT and PvZ, the match-ups in which he could abuse the famed power of (Chinese) Protoss bullshit to its utmost efficiency, he missed weaker opponent like Symbol and instead he got the PvP maestro himself. Not only that, MacSed doesn't even have the advantage of momentum on his side as his WCS run was ground to a halt in the RO16 when he was knocked out by Snute and ShowTime. If he wants to have any chance in the world MacSed needs to pray to the powers of Has, InCa and Avenge to grant him inspiration and insight on how to best bullshit an opponent famous for his consistency and feared for his micro.PartinG on the other hand is riding his most gigantic wave of momentum since his 2012 WCS World Championship win. He has been tearing apart nearly all the recent tournaments he has taken part in. In the online setting he won a Olimoleague monthly finals and the TL Open Map Contest 5 and rarely looked challenged as he did so. He narrowly lost his GSL finals vs Life, but rebounded by destroying everyone in his S2SL qualifier run and following his qualifier success up with wins in the Gfinity Spring Masters and Copenhagen Games. MacSed is now simply the cherry on top of the cake. At risk of slighting Macsed, the last thing keeping Parting from making both individual leagues is a mere foreigner. Not a weakling by any stretch of the imagination, but on PartingG's level? Hardly. PartinG couldn't have asked for better.MacSed 0-3 PartinG
