SBENU SC2 Starleague 2015 Season 2

S2SL Challenger
Rogue vs Heart
ByuL vs Shine
sOs vs Solar

Brackets and Standings on Liquipedia
Liquipedia

Friday, Jul 03 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)
by munch

After a first day filled with protoss, Day 2 kicks off with a ZvT, featuring one of the most consistent players of 2015 alongside one still looking for his first meaningful run of the year.

While he was somewhat overshadowed by his more illustrious Jin Air compatriots last year, 2015 has seen Rogue truly break out to join Maru at the head of the pack. Three Round of 8 appearances out of four so far this year is a record anyone would be proud of, with last season’s 0-3 against Hurricane in the SSL Challenge the only blip on his record so far. He’s also stepped up his Proleague game, with an 18-9 record so far, and his massive 8 game winning streak took Jin Air to the brink of victory in Round 2. However, as PartinG and soO can probably tell him, consistency can only get you so far in the Korean individual leagues; if Rogue ever wants to be a champion, it’s that artificial barrier that he has to break, and last season's capitulation against Curious in the GSL has only contributed to the pile of evidence against him. As imposing as that challenge may be though, it’s not the one he’s faced with tonight. Rogue has drawn his best matchup here—his ZvT record stands at 68% in 2015—and despite his misstep last season, it’s hard to see him faltering again at the first stage tonight.

With Alicia and Ryung falling off since their Wings of Liberty heydays, Impact moving to the stacked SKT roster, and CranK stepping back into more of a coaching role within the team, Heart was supposed to be the shining hope of Axiom after the squad’s shift back to Korean competition at the start of the year. He certainly had a successful 2014; reinventing himself from the 1/1/1 lottery machine of 2012 to reach back to back semifinals and finals spots in WCS America at the tail end of the year. His TvZ was a highlight throughout, recording a 20-8 record in the matchup in WCS that year as he smashed through the competition. So it’s been somewhat disappointing to see him stall so far on his return to the homeland, with an appearance in the Season 1 Code S Round of 32 the sole fruits of his efforts so far. There’s a sense that Heart thrived as a big fish in a small pond last year, and his struggles this year have only added more wood to the fire. Whatever the case though, we have to remember that Heart arrived in America as an unheralded terran who few recognised as a serious threat; he left after exceeding everyone’s expectations and proving us all wrong. Perhaps he has one final evolution left in him.

Predictions

While Heart’s past TvZ quality and lack of recent televised play means that he’s a wildcard tonight, we’ve simply seen too much good play by Rogue in the matchup to imagine that he’ll be unduly threatened here.

Rogue 3 - 1 Heart


by lichter

Wow, what luck. Just when ByuL finally gets good, he has to face Shine in Challenger. The GSL Runner Up might just be the best zerg in the world right now, which makes him a prime victim for the always inscrutable Samsung Zerg. As you probably know by now, Shine revels in chopping down favorites before losing in embarrassing fashion against nobodies.

ByuL of course is far from a nobody. Though he was seen more as the glue guy on CJ as late as last season, he's really blossomed in 2015. He had a fairly decent shot at the Code S title in Season 2, but Rain proved to be a puzzle he couldn't quite figure out. ByuL is the type of player, at least in ZvP, that relies on trickery and cleverness in order to get around the problem of the late game, but that astuteness has so far been of little use in the mirror.

ZvZ of course is all about mind games and scouting. Also, roaches. Lots and lots of roaches. At 56% in HotS, ZvZ is actually one of his glaring weaknesses. Even one of his standout wins, a 2-1 against Life, comes with an asterisk as the KT Zerg has been struggling since his 0-3 clobbering at the hands of Dark. ByuL's propensity for cute tricks just doesn't seem to pan out against the swarm, and his even winrate demonstrate his head-or-tails approach to the matchup at times. On the one hand, that sounds pretty bad. On the other hand, his opponent is Shine.

Shine is basically still Shine. He sometimes sees daylight from the end of Samsung's bench, because fortunately for him Stork is crazy. There are times when he beats good players at random, like Cure to qualify for SSL Challenger this season. Of course, he also loses to people he has no right losing to, such as Bails and EnDerr this year. He didn't just lose to foreigners; he lost to non Premier foreigners. Youch. Long gone are the days when he was actually pretty good, going toe to toe against the best players in macro games. Now, we have no idea where he's at, which makes him thrice as dangerous.

In fact, ZvZ is actually Shine's worst matchup in HotS at a miserable 47%. The last time he played a game of any significance, he lost to Bomber in Code A. That doesn't sound so bad, but remember that it was at a time that Bomber had no idea what he was doing in TvZ. His last meaningful win was all the way back in March in Proleague against YoDa. Yet this all doesn't matter, because Shine is Shine.

So, why did we even bother writing this? Because Shine only has power when you believe that he doesn't.

Predictions:

Shine wins in supremely impressive games, because why not

ByuL 1 - 3 Shine



For some reason, SSL Challenger seems to really ensure that they come up with the most interesting matches possible. On the one hand, some favorites get knocked out before the main event because of really funky seeding. On the other hand, it makes writing about these matches a lot easier. One of the more interesting pairs is sOs vs Solar, because they are two of the most divisive players on the planet.

sOs, Divider of Opinions

Some people love him, some people hate him. Some people consider him to be a genius, some people consider him to be a madman.

He just considers himself a casual player that sometimes wins $100,000 tournaments.

And just when we think he's starting to care about winning more, he sorta just stops and, I dunno, goes fishing or something. It's become a routine for sOs to suddenly disappear for large chunks of the season, if not the year, only to abruptly make us notice him again. So far this year, he hasn't really done anything aside from a Code S semi final last season, so he's bound to win something soon, right?

His titles so far—BlizzCon, IEM WC, Hot6ix Cup—were all season ending tournaments, but sOs isn't quite ripe yet. He failed against Curious, one of his great banes, in KeSPA Cup, but there's likely to still be another KeSPA Cup next season. That's probably going to be his big shot at money this year, unless of course he wants another chance at 100K at BlizzCon. It's impossible to tell what sOs really wants, but when he feels motivated



But most of the time he just wings it.

Solar, Divider of Brain Cells

Honestly, I have no idea whether Solar is good or bad or somewhere in between. He can't possibly be mediocre, because every bit of evidence we have shows he can only be on one of the extremes. I've decided to list down the evidence for good and bad, because it'll probably be easier to make a judgment call once we have all the facts down.

Good
1. Number 10 rating on Aligulac, higher than herO, Zest, sOs, Polt, and others
2. Won Gfinity Spring Master II against Hydra in the finals
3. Is 9-1 in his last 10 ZvPs, his loss coming against Rain
4. Has 5 straight GSL appearances, 3 of which were Ro8

Bad
1. Hasn't won in Proleague since MARCH,
2. Has a 1-13 (7% winrate. SEVEN PERCENT) record in Proleague, which just might be the worst in HISTORY
3. Hasn't won a televised individual league match in Korea since February 25 against Dream and Rogue

So, there we have it. Based on the above, we can make the following inferences:

1. Solar rules online
2. Solar will win most of the foreign tournaments he attends
3. If it's Proleague, he sucks
4. If it's a televised Korean match, he will probably lose

Based on the above, it probably looks like Solar is dead. This is SSL, which is related to Proleague, and it's televised in Korea. It's not a foreign event and it isn't online. However, there's one more thing:



Yep, sOs has never beaten Solar.

Predictions:

sOs and Solar will each play 1 confusingly dumb game, and each play 1 amazing game

sOs 3 - 2 Solar

Writers: lichter, munch.
Graphics: shiroiusagi.
Editors: DarkLordOlli.
Stats: Aligulac