Points, Points, Points

sOs

What a month it’s been for sOs. Up til August it had all been a bit of a disappointment. Failure to qualify for either of the Season 1 Starleagues characterised his rather sluggish start to 2015, while his eventual top four placing for GSL Season 2 seemed somewhat fortuitous given the bracket he advanced through. His results in Proleague were hardly great either (19-16 pre-playoffs), and captured his career so far in microcosm as he went through patches of feast and famine with no real consistency. With a miracle result in the GSL Season 3 his only shot at a redemptive Blizzcon run, a mediocre year was spluttering to an undignified end.

That all changed with KT’s fateful decision to block Zest’s attendance at MSI MGA in late August. Suddenly, sOs flicked on the weekender kill mode switch that we last saw in action last December in the Hot6ix Cup, brutally scything his way through the opposition while only dropping a single map (his clinical dissection of INnoVation was a particular highlight). The crucial 750 WCS points gained elevated him to pole position in the race for the final two Blizzcon spots that are up for grabs (Rogue is all but guaranteed at #14), leaving him with the simple task of reaching the top 8 to finish the job. After the week he’s had, achieving the singular feat of reverse all-killing KT Rolster in Proleague on Tuesday, there shouldn’t be too many people rushing to write him off.

HyuN

The Starcraft scene is one that is constantly in flux. It’s hard enough for a player to establish themselves in a scene, let alone to maintain consistent results for months and years on end. So how the hell is it that we’re talking about HyuN’s chances for Blizzcon again? In recent times, there’s been no finer exporter of Korean perpetual dominance at foreigner events. If there’s money or WCS points on offer, chances are HyuN will turn up to hoover up all the loot. That all changed in 2015 though, and the reduced number of weekenders have eaten into his total haul for the year, not to mention the increased calibre of opposition in the WCS format following his forced relocation to Korea. He’s made it to this stage of the year without a single truly memorable run, but that’ll have to change here if he wants to keep his hopes for a trip to California alive. That’s something he hasn’t done at a weekend premier tournament since Dreamhack Valencia more than two years ago, and with the fresh Korean influx compared to the previous two Dreamhacks of 2015, success is looking unlikely for the Roach King. Even a win here won’t guarantee his Blizzcon ticket, and he’s hoping for an early exit from sOs or a loss in the GSL semifinals for Dear to bolster his chances. Still, few things in Starcraft would be as shockingly unsurprising as a HyuN special to close out the year.

FanTaSy

Much like HyuN, it’s puzzling how FanTaSy’s remained in contention at this late stage of the year despite a complete lack of truly notable results. There have been memorable performances aplenty—his brutal 3-0 over Rain at IEM Katowice, for example, or his determined comeback to shock eventual champion INnoVation at IEM gamescom—but in terms of extended runs in tournaments, nothing stands out as particularly impressive. What is worth noting though is the resilience he’s displayed all year, showing markedly better performances than last year despite leaving the supposed practice haven that is the SKT team house. It’s resilience best demonstrated by his match against soO in GSL Season 2—a performance he himself ranks as his greatest in his entire gaming career—hanging on by a thread in the game before pulling off some traditional FanTaSy low supply magic to seal the victory. Reaching the finals here would all but seal a spot at Blizzcon for FanTaSy—in itself a career milestone for the veteran terran, whose previous best finish in Starcraft 2 was his eventual semifinal placing at IEM gamescom earlier this year. With his accomplishments in Brood War still nagging away in his mind though, FanTaSy surely has greater goals in mind.

ForGG

Has anyone disappointed more in 2015 than ForGG? He ended 2014 on top of the world, crushing the newly crowned Blizzcon champion at Dreamhack Winter and giving us one of the greatest finals we’ve seen in Starcraft. Coming into this year, he was meant to be first amongst equals when considering the Koreans fighting for WCS glory, yet all he has to show for it is a set of sub-par eliminations. Results in the weekender circuit have hardly been promising either, with elimination by Heart in the Round of 32 at Dreamhack Tours his personal nadir. ForGG has the longest shot at a paid trip to California of any of the five attendees still nursing hopes for Blizzcon, and much like HyuN, he needs to win the whole thing to keep his dreams alive. He’s also dependent on factors outside his control, such as Dear losing in GSL or for the other four players on this list falling short early on. It’s also notable that this might be the last time we ever see him, with his time on Millenium possibly coming to an end following rumours of heading back home for his military service. As we saw last year in Jönköping, few players are more capable of surprising than ForGG with his back to the wall.

Dark

Our final member gunning for one last shot at Blizzcon is Dark. Unlike all his competitors here bar sOs, he’s probably played far better during the year than his position here suggests. Firstly, he’s competing in Korea, unlike ForGG, and while he’s still yet to make it to the playoff stages of a starleague, the consistency demonstrated to qualify for all six competitions on offer during the year is admirable. What’s more, his results in weekenders rival anyone in the world this year, with a pair of silvers in the two KeSPA Cups so far, alongside his monstrous qualification run and top four finish at IEM Katowice (wins over Stork, SuperNova, San, PartinG, MyuNgSiK, sOs, TaeJa, Maru). It’s becoming clear that outside of a few cases (his meticulously planned 3-0 against Life in KeSPA Cup 1, for example), his preparation has been his undoing, and much like certain teammates he’s often stuck to playing his game rather than adapting to his opponent. It does help that his standard ZvZ and ZvT is pretty great, although his ZvP still requires work. Fortunately then, his Blizzcon dreams will hinge on running the Dreamhack gauntlet, and he enters his second foreign tournament as a heavy favourite alongside sOs to take the whole thing. Complete victory is what he needs, as even a third silver medal of the year won’t be enough to guarantee him a spot in the top 16, and it would be fitting if he joined soO in banishing the SKT zerg curse in one of the last events of the year.