A herO's Journey

CJ's hope has always been placed upon herO... But not this time. This time, the main herO was MC, who came out big for his new team. He grabbed three crucial wins over the core of the Afreeca lineup. One of the hardest aspects of all-kill teamleague matches is the unpredictability of the scenario, and MC certainly withstood a true test—taking out one of each race in Curious, aLive and Super. They’re not done yet though; there are no points given for 3rd place in the round playoffs. To leapfrog Afreeca and their 5 point advantage, CJ will need to qualify for the final. Jin Air stand in their way, and even though CJ emerged victorious in their round robin clash a couple weeks back, they will know that facing the Green Wings in the all-kill format is a completely different prospect.

Jin Air vs CJ

The Starters

sOs < King Sejong Station > herO
< New Gettysburg >
< Overgrowth >
< Frozen Temple >
< Frost >
< Dusk Towers >
< King Sejong Station >


Once more, herO is sent out first. It’s a choice I’m still a bit mystified by; perhaps herO feels that he’s at his best when he can know definitively one of the players he’ll be playing—the key difference between the round robin and playoff stages. The key statistic from yesterday still applies—herO has now played 13 all-kill matches, picking up a single win on 5 occasions, and a 2K twice. 7 wins in 13 matches is hardly an impressive ratio, and even more than yesterday, CJ need him to fire today.

For his part, sOs too needs to perform here. The rest of the Jin Air lineup has been curiously weak to protoss recently. Rogue’s three wins over Zest in Proleague have overshadowed an otherwise poor PvZ record; Maru’s dropped maps to Dear and Super in Proleague, while going 2-4 against Super, herO and Zest in SSL; Trap was recently destroyed 3-0 by sOs himself in Code A; Cure dropped matches to Hush and Trap in the SSL. Fact is, sOs is one of the best anti-protoss options open to Jin Air right now, even if his form has been erratic. He’s lost PvPs recently to Stats in Proleague, and Classic and Trust in the SSL Challenge, but if there’s one matchup which is open to the mindgames he excels at, it’s PvP. herO should be the favourite here, but the prospect of facing sOs tomorrow will worry herO far more than Patience did.


The Protosses

All-kill matches are all about snipes. There’s nothing more important than shutting down the other team’s biggest players, and so there’ll be players prepped specifically for certain matches. For example, Jin Air will definitely have a plan for herO in set 2 in the unfortunate scenario where they lose set 1, where they’ll even know the map to be played.

So let’s take a quick look at each team’s threats, and how the other team will look to counter them. Let’s start with each team’s protosses, and indeed the obvious players to kick off Jin Air’s planning are going to be herO and MC. We’ve already gone over how protoss seems to be a matchup that the team struggles with. Their Round 3 record against protoss is a solid 8-5, but that includes matches against weak opponents (Billowy, Blaze, Seed, Hush, for example). Chances are though that the best answer here is also the most obvious answer—send Maru in. For all MC’s heroics on Saturday, it’s still highly likely that shutting down herO early will gift Jin Air the game; why risk sending in a squad player to execute a snipe build? Even if Maru gets shut down after beating herO, it will have been worth it.

For CJ, it’s telling that ByuL was the player sat in the practice booth during map 1 of yesterday’s match against Afreeca. It’s likely that they see him as their answer against protoss, and that they were planning to send him against Patience should herO have lost. Equally, it’s probable that the same thing’s true here; if sOs beats herO, expect to see ByuL in map 2. The other protoss on the Jin Air lineup that we might see is Trap, unless they decide to send Creator for once. Statistically, his PvZ has retained its HotS lustre; the famous PvZ sniper has an 80% win rate this year. That’s off a small sample size though—10 games played—and wins over Shine, horror, RagnaroK and NoRegreT are hardly instantly indicative of top class talent. What’s more interesting is his struggles against terran, going 1-5 against Cure, Bomber and TY in his SSL Challenge group and losing to Bunny a couple weeks ago in Proleague. Bunny could well be sent again should Trap be sent out.


The Terrans

There’s one terran who stands out above all others when comparing both teams’ rosters. Maru has a staggering 95% win rate in offline TvT, and an 81% win rate in TvZ. It’s particularly fortunate that CJ’s current strengths lie in protoss then—his 52% win rate in TvP is surely where they’ll aim to punish him. It has to be noted though that the majority of Maru’s map losses came either in his 0-3 loss to Zest in Code A back in February, or in his SSL Challenge group. In Proleague, he’s been a more than respectable 9-3, with wins over Dear, Stats, Zest and Classic. It’s why sending him out against herO isn’t that bad an idea—he’ll know the map and opponent, just like in standard round robin matches. Still, you’d think that MC has been lined up by CJ to prep for Maru.

Elsewhere, Cure is one of Jin Air’s candidates for their 4th spot against CJ. He’s beaten both herO and Stats in the GSL this year (herO in last season’s quarterfinals, Stats in the Ro.32 stage a couple weeks ago). Still, both protosses seemed to underperform in those matches, and he’s still not been utterly convincing for me (see his dropped maps to Hush and Trap in his SSL Challenge group, for example). His TvZ has barely been seen (wins over soO and RagnaroK, loss to Leenock), while his TvT was memorably dissected by TY in their GSL semifinal. Still, Bunny’s TvT is pretty ordinary too, so Cure could well get a chance to shine here.

Bunny is the sole terran for CJ, and as described yesterday, he’s been pretty poor against terran and protoss, but cashes in against zerg. Nothing about that has been changed by yesterday’s match. Sending him out against Curious was a key indicator that CJ see him as their primary anti-zerg option, but losing also shows that he’s not a top tier performer. His widow mine drops were a callback to both early HotS TvZ, as well as to Bunny’s own mine-drop heavy style in the latter days of that expansion, but weren’t effective at all against Curious. Dragging Curious into a HotS style 4M vs ling-bane-muta battle was probably ill-advised, given Curious’ own strength with that composition, and it’ll be interesting to see what he brings should he be fielded against Rogue.


The Zergs

For Jin Air, it’s likely that we’ll see Rogue, and equally unlikely that we’ll see HyuN. Rogue has taken over the ace spot for the team in recent times, beating Zest and losing to Dear in their Round 3 ace matches. It remains to be seen whether Jin Air believe that he is their answer to protoss, or if they’ve developed a KT-style weakness to becoming predictable with ace match choices. His ZvZ is the best in Korea right now, and he’s dropped only one set all year (going 1-1 with Impact in the SSL). Meanwhile, his ZvT and ZvP are exactly average statistically. Those 50% winrates are actually quite kind; he’s looked poor against terran in televised games (0-4 against TaeJa and Journey in Code S S1, 0-4 against ByuN and aLive in SSL Challenge S2) and against protoss, aside from his strange mental edge over Zest. It’s notable that MC was the second player to be sent against Curious after Bunny’s failure; it’s likely that both will be ready to take out Rogue here.

Meanwhile, ByuL and RagnaroK saw no action yesterday (although as mentioned, CJ seem to rate ByuL’s ZvP), and so nothing’s changed—both are still mediocre Legacy zergs in my eyes. Rogue in particular should easily deal with both.


Predictions

Well, yesterday’s predictions started OK, but then spectacularly failed. herO only won a single map as expected, but MC went for broke to sweep the rest of the way. That’s going to be much harder here, although with CJ’s new double protoss axis it’s not entirely out of the question. Once again though, herO will be needed to pick up at least a couple wins; it’s unfeasible to expect another 3K from MC.

sOs < herO
Trap < herO
Maru > herO
Maru < MC
Rogue > MC
Rogue > Bunny
Rogue > ByuL

Jin Air 4 - 3 CJ