Dreamhack Tours

Dreamhack: Player Guide
Players to watch out for
The Main Contenders
Sunset on the Summer of TaeJa

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by TeamLiquid ESPORTS

As always, Dreamhack features a fascinating mix of top foreigners and almost-beatable-but-in-the-end-still-Koreans. To make things easier for you (and ourselves, because we too are lazy), we took the liberty of filtering out the most interesting of them and put them into two different categories.

Patience

In many ways, Patience is one of the most consistent players. Active at many foreign tournaments, always a contender for Code S and S2SL Challenge, all while achieving similarly good-but-not-great results, Patience is the type of mainstay often overlooked in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it's justified, if he hasn't made a noteworthy run since his 3rd place finish at DreamHack Winter 2013. But the sleeper inside of him that came out almost two years ago leaves room to think that maybe it's his time again. Maybe this will be the tournament he breaks the quarterfinals and displays some masterful PvT or PvZ to defeat a favored opponent. Or, maybe, the Dead Pixels Protoss will suffer the same fate of mediocrity he has at every DreamHack since that remarkable bronze.

San

San is one of the few active players to have attended the very first season of GSL. Even today, he is still finding success both internationally and in Korea, albeit limited as of late. He hit an astronomical peak last year, earning a top 8 finish at every event he played in, in part due to WCS Europe's weaker field of players, but has had no such luck upon his return to the Korean individual leagues. Despite average performances at IEM Taipei and DreamHack Tours to reinforce his overall average current state, his qualification for KeSPA Cup 2 is auspicious to how he'll fare, especially with fewer strong Protosses at Valencia to threaten his relatively weak PvP. Although these days San sticks more closely to well-refined builds, he is a very solid player and could easily improve on his Ro16 finish at Tours without someone like Rain to stop him.

Lilbow

Baguettes must be made of Zerg tears nowadays. The French Protoss has exploded onto the scene in the past three months. After two years of decent results, Lilbow has hit a period of exponential growth. With a record setting 2nd place finish at WCS S2, he put himself on the map as a new contender for the best foreigner honorific. His micro oriented style relies on strong timing attacks and mindgaming his opponent into putting themselves into unfavorable positions. If any foreigner is poised to take an event, it's Lilbow.

Bunny

What a man. Over the past few months, the Liquid Terran has slowly pulled ahead of his teammate Snute to take the title of best foreigner. His back to back Ro4 finishes are an impressive feat that hasn't been matched by any foreigner since Polt(I mean, are we considering Polt a foreigner? If not, then he's the only foreigner to do it). Though he's found less success outside of WCS, he's still faring at a high level. The Dane's playstyle has largely taken after Korean Terrans, with his mech slightly taking a backseat to more bio and drop oriented play. Bunny is looking for a rebound after a poor performance at HSC, so expect a strong push out of his group!

TRUE

is becoming quite the well traveled man. After staying in Korea for the first half of his SC2 career, the Korean Zerg is hitting the foreign circuit. With a new team, he seems to have a fresh outlook on the game. With janky, aggressive play, TRUE dismantles his opponents by picking them apart. He had a less than stellar KeSPA Cup, but his prowess still showed in his matches. With bold predictions about a likelihood of him taking an event starting to circulate, you could say that he's looking to prove that the hype is... TRUE. Dreamhack has always been where TRUE has shone (2 Ro4 finishes), so if there's any event for him to win, it's this one.

Curious

Ever since he succeeded in reaching the Code S Round of 4 by spanking Rogue 3-0, the magic seems to have gone out of Curious’s play. While falling out of the GSL to Rain is perhaps forgiveable, his failures in the qualifying stages for the third season of the SSL and in the first round of KeSPA Cup have represented somewhat of a regression to the mean following an eyeopening run of results. That blip aside though, it’s been a productive 2015 for Curious, and now he’s qualified for an international tournament for the first time since twin IEM appearances late in 2013. While last season’s success seems to have staved off the threat of imminent retirement for now, military service still remains an unavoidable blot on the future landscape for the veteran zerg, and we’re getting to the point where every competition could truly be his last. The lack of a truly top class protoss at Dreamhack should give him hope here, given his struggles with the recent ZvP meta, while the long list of zergs should go some way to feeding his favourite matchup. As Curious showed in the GSL, he’s intent on going out on top, having given everything he can to stamp his name in the SC2 history books. With the competition on offer here, equalling or bettering his Round of 4 finish at IEM: New York should be his goal, and it’ll be a brave man who bets against a player with nothing to lose.

HyuN

With the dual starleague system in place in Korea for 2015, an unfortunate casualty has been the weekend foreign tournament scene. While it seemed you couldn’t go a couple of weeks without a tournament springing up in the old system, it’s been rather more barren this year. For an illustration of that, it’s best to go to HyuN’s liquipedia page; he attended a mindboggling 26 premier events in 2013 and 2014 combined, not to mention innumerable minor and major events in his attempt to hoover up all the WCS points he could. The weekend warrior has been rather less prolific this year; his current count stands at 3. The curious thing about HyuN’s performance last year is that it played somewhat against his public perception. 2nd place at TWOP was the sole podium placement amongst a sea of Ro8 / Ro16 finishes at LANs, while he thrived in the preparation based format of WCS America. He’s demonstrated much the same this year, with decent if uninspiring play at Dreamhack Tours and IEM Taipei, combining with his brilliant preparation work in the league format. Dual 3-0s over much hyped ZvZers in Losira and Dark in the SSL Challenge were impressive, and truly showed HyuN’s potential when he knows the players he’s up against. With the concurrent IEM perhaps diluting the player pool this time round, perhaps we’ll see some special things planned from him.

Leenock

With a reputation for solid mechanics, good game sense, and solid play (when he's up to it), Leenock easily makes the main contenders list for Dreamhack Valencia. However, he hasn't had a good month leading up to this tournament. Since exactly one month ago, in fact, Leenock has not won a single match. With a loss streak of 7 in a row, one may wonder if Leenock will even go beyond his first match at Valencia, or even if he belongs on this list. Remember though, that the Leenoctopus has been around for a very long time and has historically done well for himself at Dreamhack. He has won a Dreamhack before even, at Stockholm in 2013. Also remember that the Leenoctopus never really is knocked into obscurity and is always, somehow, near the top when he comes back again. The Leenoctopus is consistent, at the very least. Consistent in having good-but-not-great tournament runs, but always lurking, always there. He wouldn't be my first choice to win the whole thing, but most definitely not my first choice of losing first. That alone is enough to be a contender.

FanTaSy

FanTaSy has always been "that guy." One of the remaining well known Brood War pros still in the professional Starcraft II scene, we all think he is going to do well whether we like him or not. As far as old, well known Brood War pros in Starcraft II go, that statement means something. Even though he's the guy we're always thinking of as a contender, he isn't exactly Old Faithful either. As much as we seem to automatically think he will do well, he quite often seems to fall short of the mark. Even as far back as his Brood War days, he was the same. In the Round of 4 of the very last Brood War OSL, Flash himself fell to the Existentialist Terran (because God is dead, get it?) only for FanTaSy to lose the crown to Jangbi. We know he is going to go far, and that he may miss the mark just slightly, but he isn't a Kong either. He doesn't do quite so well that he consistently makes it to the Round of 4 in premier tournaments in order to keep winning the silver. Yet, he is by no means a bad player at all. If Leenock is consistent at staying around, FanTaSy is the complete opposite of that. There is almost no consistency to his performance in Starcraft II, yet we always suspect he will do well. He's just "that guy." He is the only man on this list that can make us both assume he is going to be a main contender, and yet question his existence on this list at the same time. Existentialist Terran, indeed.

Sacsri

The vitality of the entire mYi team has been tangible as of late. Rain and Sacsri dismantled HomeStory Cup XI's best challengers to secure a team kill finals. Through their interviews it was obvious that the players are in a mutually beneficial environment with their team practice, and that has elevated Sacsri's play from a quarterfinals kind of guy to a heavyweight. Although his ZvT has been largely untested, it is the matchup in which he has historically had the most confidence and success. Under Rain's guidance, he was able to overcome one of the greatest obstacles in an already difficult matchup for Zergs currently against PartinG, and the willingness to play riskily and trickily he demonstrated will be valuable with this tournament's diverse lineup of Protosses. However, the most threatening players at this tournament overall seem to come from Sacsri's own race. Although lacking results like his ZvT, he did manage to beat Jaedong at HSC, the one matchup at which the EG Zerg seems to still excel. Sacsri may not look like the complete player we often label as a championship contender, but his tool set is definitely potent enough to give any player in attendance a run for his money.

GuMiho

GuMiho's undefeated run to the finals at DreamHack Tours was an impactful reminder of how good the Towel Terran is (and how Waxangel lived up to his title of "expert"), even when he's not having great success in individual leagues. Just to reinforce that, GuMiho went on a tear in HomeStory Cup XI until Rain shredded him in the semifinals. The abrupt ends to both of those performances are indicative of the one glaring weakness in GuMiho's play: TvP. However, a Zerg opponent in Code A as his only concern for showing special builds, the nine-tailed fox may come into Valencia with a set of strategies to undercut his flaws in the matchup. But beyond that, GuMiho's TvZ and TvT are absolutely ferocious, with his assortment of aggressive openings and flexibility to transition into mech or bio. Even the fragility of his TvP should not be misunderstood—if it takes players like Rain or PartinG to beat him, then he's still in a fantastic position against the majority of the players he may see at Valencia. It's hard to imagine a scenario where GuMiho doesn't threaten to win the whole tournament.

It's that time of year again. Those unfamiliar with the namesake of this special time should be directed here. To summarize: TaeJa's outstanding career is largely due to his remarkable performances at summer events. From 2012 to 2014, the Summer of TaeJa included a DreamHack, ASUS RoG, or HSC championship (or some combination of the three) with every cold beverage you downed watching your favorite game. TaeJa has won nine tournaments with $10,000 prize pools. It became a joke that no matter how incredibly successful he was...

... he could never win a tournament with a larger cash reward.

Well, fortunately for him, he did in fact go on to win DreamHack Winter that year, even though it wasn't as warm outside. But after 2014, it was obvious that TaeJa wasn't practicing as hard. He said as much before Blizzcon: he was just having fun, not spending himself or exacerbating his wrist problems. Despite the many times TaeJa said before 2015 that he wanted to retire, his recent performances are all but an unofficial retirement. Unable to break Code S Ro32 or S2SL Challenge early in the year and now failing to qualify for either in Season 3, it looks like we are finally in the twilight of TaeJa's career. But this is no eulogy. It's a mere observation that what was once the most inspirational phenomenon in StarCraft II is now noticeably absent. The Summer of TaeJa, in all likelihood, will never come back.

No amount of Liquid Bias™ could make us predict that TaeJa will win, or even make the quarterfinals, here at Valencia. But we still hope there's enough spark left in the aestival air to fuel TaeJa's fire one last time before dusk.

Writers: banjoe, Brindled, peanuts, DarkLordOlli, munch
Graphics: shiroiusagi.
Photo: Blizzard
Editor: DarkLordOlli, Jer99.