W1 Preview - Sunday Edition

Time for Sunday Proleague then! Saturday gave us some great matches; in particular, MC's return from retirement to beat down Zest will live long in the memory this year, while Patience's double bill of wins over Classic and Dark gave another boost to Afreeca's playoff hopes. Next up, MVP take on Samsung, while Afreeca return to the Nexon to face Jin Air. As promised, please enjoy the remaining two previews.

MVP vs Samsung

GuMiho <King Sejong Station> Hurricane

Hurricane’s been a bit invisible this season. Eliminated early in both Code A (2-3 to Soulkey) and in the SSL (1-2 Stats, 0-2 Patience), he’s barely been given a chance to shine. His lower bracket win over herO was another brief glimpse of promise in a career that’s been full of exciting games without much consistency. Two appearances in Proleague haven’t been rewarded either—dual defeats to RagnaroK and DeParture. All these years on from his debut as a player with ‘promise’, it seems he’s settled into life as a lower-tier player. Fortunately, we do actually have a lot of evidence for how he’s playing; unfortunately for Hurricane, it’s not all that flattering. He was eliminated in last place in his SSL Challenge group on Thursday, including a weak 0-2 defeat to GuMiho himself. While the MVP terran’s TvP was far from perfect on the night, he still held his own (0-2 Classic, 1-1 against sOs and Trust, 2-0 against Hurricane), and he should be favoured to pull off the repeat here.


Seed <Frozen Temple> Dear

It’s actually been a while since we’ve seen Dear. After earning his status as a top protoss and one of the best PvPers in the world in the first half of the year, all it took was one 0-4 from Zest to bring that all crashing down. Since that, we’ve seen a few games in Proleague (wins against MyuNgSiK and Seed as expected, losses against Zest and TY as expected) that have done little to change our view of Dear as a player close to the elite, but still lacking that final touch to be named amongst the top echelon of players. It’s unlikely that this game’s going to change that much at all—even after his scrappy 3-2 win in Code A over Sorry, Seed is the huge underdog here.


Ryung <Dusk Towers> Reality

Reality’s a player who’s gone somewhat under the radar so far in 2016. His failure in the SSL qualifiers to ByuN, and in Code A to SpeeD, perhaps earned him a reputation as a player fallen from his consistently threatening competitor in late HotS. Since those two crucial losses though, he’s got on with business as efficiently as usual for Samsung. Alongside Dear, he’s one of the team’s only contributors in Proleague (6-4 for the year so far), while he’s qualified for both starleagues in Season 2. His TvT is a slight question mark though—a 76% winrate for the past four months looks good, until you consider that Bomber and Bunny are the only two players of any quality at all that he’s beaten, while losing to ByuN and Cure. Ryung himself has looked great in the matchup that he’s historically excelled in, and will give Reality a stern test.


Pet <Overgrowth> Solar

Well, this should be pretty simple. Pet’s ZvZ has been poor for the year, whether in qualifiers or in online events. A sub-40% winrate against Korean zergs isn’t ideal coming in against a player who finished 3rd in the SSL just gone, and nothing in his messy 2-3 loss to HerO in Code A on Friday suggested that he’s improved his play recently. Meanwhile, this is Solar’s chance to give his proleague record a bit of a boost. A 4-4 record so far’s probably been a bit harsh on him; the gauntlet of players he’s had to run is one of the hardest sets of fixtures of anyone this year. Wins against Zest, Dark, Curious and Forte; losses to TY, ByuL, INnoVation and Maru. While it shows that he’s not exactly the zerg standing on the forefront of the scene that he was hyped up to be at the turn of the year, it’s nowhere near comparable to his bafflingly awful performance last year.


ACE <New Gettysburg> ACE

Stork’s had some incredibly confusing ace picks in his time (remember him sending BrAvO in against Zest?), but he should send out Dear here as usual should it get here. MVP have been similarly reliant on GuMiho, and it’s hard to see either team deviating from their preferences here.

Predictions

GuMiho > Hurricane
Seed < Dear
Ryung > Reality
Pet < Solar
GuMiho > Dear

MVP 3 - 2 Samsung

Afreeca vs Jin Air

Patience <Crux Frost> sOs

Afreeca will once more be the first team this round to play twice in a week; KeSPA have done them the kind favour of chucking them in against last round’s champions. Jin Air have opened up with sOs; Afreeca with Saturday’s saviour Patience. As ever, it’s all too hard to figure out exactly where sOs stands during this tumultuous year. An encouraging performance in the Round Playoffs against KT was undercut by his typical starleague underperformance in the SSL on Thursday; crashing out against Trust just when he needed to pull out a clutch win. Simply put, it’s too hard to put faith in him to come good here, whereas Patience is seemingly the exact opposite—a player who’ll never touch the brilliant heights of the game’s greats, but one good enough to put in performance after performance that’s just ‘good enough’.


Super <Dusk Towers> Maru

Two rounds in, Maru is still unbeaten in the Round Robin stage of Proleague. An 11-0 record at this stage is simply unbelievable, and it’s not like he’s done it the easy way either; a shortlist of the top tier opponents he’s beaten reads as: Dear, INnoVation, Solar, Stats, Dark; not to mention his exploits in the all kill format. With just one round left, the prospect of him completing an unbeaten season is fast becoming an inconceivably possible scenario. Super shouldn’t be taken lightly, however. A 2016 winrate of 74% is inflated by his online wins, of course, but he’s still looked quite good in the matchup when he’s played. That said, ‘quite good’ probably isn’t going to be nearly good enough.


Billowy <King Sejong Station> Cure

Billowy’s been another guy on the list of ‘players we haven’t seen enough of’. Failure in both the SSL qualifiers and a 1-3 loss to Rogue in Code A last season wasn’t a great sign; a 1-2 record in Proleague (win against RagnaroK) doesn’t tell us much; and neither does his successful qualification for Code A once more for Season 2, coming over fattle and MC. In contrast, he’s done well online—75%+ winrates in both PvP and PvT—although once more, those wins have come over lacklustre opposition. When TANGTANG is the best terran he’s beaten in the past five months, that number starts to mean a lot less. Cure himself has hardly looked convincing in the matchup—most recently drawing 1-1 with both Trap and Hush in his SSL group—but will likely prove too good for Billowy.


Symbol <New Gettysburg> Rogue

Symbol’s annus horribilis just keeps rolling on. Easily knocked out of Code A by Patience on Wednesday, it marks his fourth and final starleague failure for the year. Aside from any as-yet unannounced competitions, Proleague now represents his sole focus for the rest of 2016. He marks his return to a teamleague roster by being sent out at the first time of calling, and he’ll hope to rekindle some of the old GSTL magic he once delivered consistently for TSL. He’s up against Rogue—another player who’s arguably yet to emerge from his 2016 dip. That said, he is still in both starleagues going forwards, after his win over Hurricane. Rogue’s ZvZ has actually looked great this year, in contrast to his ZvP in particular; he is 4-0 in Proleague, with wins over soO, Armani, Impact and ByuL.

ACE <Frozen Temple> ACE

For whatever reason, Jin Air decided to send out Rogue for the ace match against CJ in the final match of Round 2; after his loss, it would be even more surprising if we didn’t see Maru send out if needed. As I mentioned yesterday, Afreeca are a team lacking in star quality; even if Patience managed to pick out the double win over Classic and Dark. It’s difficult to spot a hole in Maru’s game that could be exploited by any of the mid-tier players on Afreeca, and after his success, Patience will probably be given the nod again.

Predictions

Patience > sOs
Super < Maru
Billowy < Cure
Symbol < Rogue

Afreeca 1 - 3 Jin Air