EPTNSL 2016 International
The Big Boy
The Regulars
The Chinese Contingent
Brackets and standings on Liquipedia
NSL 2016 International
With all the excitement surrounding IEM and the Proleague Round 3 Finals over the past week, it might have escaped your attention that there is a third event happening in Shanghai. The originally named Starcraft League was initially conceived as a teamleague for Chinese and Taiwanese teams last year. It’s where ByuN famously was given the chance to shine for the X-Team organisation, carrying them to success with a remarkable 21-1 record in the competition following his mid-season acquisition. It’s clear though that they have higher aspirations for their competition though, and much like the hotly anticipated Olimoleague monthly finals, NeoTV have decided to make the transition to hosting offline competitions.
It’s always nice to see variation between tournaments, to reduce the sense of repetition from seeing the same players play in the same format (hello Hydra vs Neeb in a knockout Bo5), and the NSL’s decided to change up the standard prize pool. To quote from Liquipedia:
- Prize money for Group Stage matches: 9,000 CNY, winner takes all if won 2-0, otherwise it is a 2/1 split.
- Prize money for Ro.8: 15,000 CNY, winner takes all if won 3-0, 4/1 split for 3-1, 3/2 split for 3-2.
- Prize money for Ro.4: 35,000 CNY, winner takes all if won 4-0, 6/1 split for 4-1, 5/2 split for 4-2, 4/3 split for 4-3.
- Prize money for Finals: 100,000 CNY, winner takes all if won 4-0, 6/1 split for 4-1, 5/2 split for 4-2, 4/3 split for 4-3.
Note: total prize pool is 410,000 CNY, or roughly 62,300 USD.
Suddenly, this gives players another reason besides sadism and pride to stomp their opponents into the floor, and it’ll be especially interesting to watch how players approach the final given the vast difference in potential prize money between the various scenarios.
It’s not just the prize money that’s different; there’s a clear divide in the player pool here too. While half of the players here are battle-hardened WCS regulars (with one exception…), there are quite a few local players looking to break out of the Chinese scene.
The Big Boy
There’s no doubt that
PartinG’s the big draw here. Hell, if he was coming into this event in the same sort of swaggering form that he’s showed any time since 2011, he’d be a crowd favourite, but this time is different. Aside from a couple extraordinary peaks, such as his late 2012 push to glory, or his dominance of PvT last year, PartinG has been a paragon of mid-tier consistency in Korea. His famous record in the GSL cuts both ways—it’s remarkable that he’s managed to cope with different expansions, metas and teams well enough to maintain relevance for so many years, but it’s also valid to question whether he could ever have achieved more.People struggle enough to achieve the NesTea award—staying in Code S for ten seasons—so to one up it by making the Round of 16 ten times in a row is a singular achievement that will probably never be matched. However, that has to be countered by looking at his record in the latter rounds—he’s only made one final and one semifinal. It’s clear that he’s much more dangerous in weekend competitions, and it’s his record there that’s truly fearsome.
Maybe that’s what he needs to kickstart his Legacy campaign again—hell, he wasn’t exactly disappointing the last time we saw him back at Dreamhack Winter. It’s not clear why he’s been a non-factor so far this year, with constant rumours that he’s trying to join a Chinese team. He didn’t even bother to qualify for GSL / SSL in Season 1, while losing 0-2 to Blaze and ByuN in the S2 qualifiers is hardly inspiring. Who knows if he’s even playing the game anymore—had he not been announced for this event, it would’ve been fair to assume he’d retired. Still, his presence gives this event the gravitas it needs. Should he blaze his way to the top off his trademark top 1 control, he’d truly drop the joker into the current Korean card game. There’s no doubt that we could all use some old school PartinG charm, whether inside or outside the server. Should he fail though, this could well be the last time we see him play. Fewer and fewer of the WoL greats are left; it’s time for PartinG to make his stand.
The Regulars
We’ve seen these players so many times already that there’s not too much to add on them, especially considering our upcoming coverage for the fast-approaching Summer Championships in two weeks time. Still, that’s not to say that this is a disappointing lineup.
Has is the headliner, as ever, and the fact that the NSL runs a group stage in the Round of 16 means we’re guaranteed at least two series of insanity (more potentially, given the fact that his group isn’t the strongest). He’s likely not the challenger that 
uThermal would have likely picked. The Dutch terran has dominated the headlines in Shanghai over the weekend, first with great TvZ, and then against Neeb in the final. As has been said before though, playing Has is practically a different matchup to playing any other protoss, and the IEM champion will want to take care to avoid slipping up so soon after his triumph.Group B sees
Bly join PartinG. One constant of Starcraft throughout its expansions is that the aggressive champions of the early months are slowly phased out in favour of more macro oriented cerebral players as the game becomes more understood. Of course, there are counterexamples—MC and Life, for example—but they’re such outstanding talents that they transcend those rules, while also being capable of more standard games. Since his landmark silver at Dreamhack Leipzig, Bly has dropped off the map, exiting early from all competitions. After failing to qualify for the WCS Summer Championships, this is the sole event on the horizon for the Ukranian zerg.Next up are two big hitters.
Snute was the first victim that uThermal claimed in his tournament run, and his inability to cope with mass reaper aggression will have been noted by MarineLorD. Both players have fallen painfully short this year—Snute with his remarkable 2 silvers and 4 top four finishes in Legacy so far, while MarineLorD’s silver at Dreamhack Valencia will have been tough to take. In that event, MarineLorD looked to have made a stunning return to form—3-0 Bly, 3-0 Stephano, 3-0 Neeb, 3-0 Snute—before being completely pantsed by Nerchio 4-0 in the final. That tells you two things; that Nerchio stands far apart from the rest of the foreign zerg contingent (in ZvT, at least), and that MarineLorD’s old weaknesses aren’t quite fixed yet. He still lacks the killer instinct to end games decisively, and while that’s fine against weaker players, it hurts him when the opposition is good enough to ride the wave.Finally, we’ve got
PtitDrogo and Scarlett rounding off Group D. Drogo’s PvT has been his weak link over the past few months—bopped out of HSC and IEM Shanghai by MaSa, and WCS Spring by Bunny, leading to a sub-50% winrate. Luckily, that’s not a factor here—it’s a pure PvZ group for him. Much like Bly though, Drogo has dropped off considerably since the start of the year—disappointing performances since his top 4 finish at WCS Shanghai in March have made it five events in a row without a top 8. For Scarlett too, this is a big event. Her silver at HSC was her first premier final since late 2013—a major disappointment given that she looked primed for success following the WCS reforms in 2015. We’ve barely seen her at all aside from that one standout event, with early exits across the board, including heartbreak in the GSL / SSL qualifiers. Ahead of WCS Summer, she’ll be looking to prove that HSC was no one-off success this year.The Chinese Contingent
Throughout the early days of HotS, China was always hyped up as the Next Big Thing. The success of their players in WCS America from 2013-14 led many to believe that they were the second strongest Starcraft region in the world. And yet, what was the result in 2015, with the eviction of (most of) the Koreans? Absolute carnage. With twelve attempts stretched out across the three seasons, China made the Round of 16 a mere three times, with none of those three progressing to the playoffs. A combined map score of 31-60 is a fair representation of the weakness of those players throughout the year. Hell, you could argue that Taiwan could’ve just sent Has by himself, and they’d still have outperformed China.
With Jim declined from his peak in 2013, there is no figurehead for the Chinese scene to rally behind, no leader with a target on his back for the rest of the scene to chase. It’s difficult to grow a scene with a bunch of mediocre players; if one player strives for greatness though, others will look to follow. China has the numbers and the infrastructure to pull plenty of talent into the Starcraft scene—their WCS qualifiers last year were full-blown tournaments in their own right in the shape of the GPL. All they need now is for a new star to rise.
There’s no doubt that some of the Chinese players at this event are more well-known than others.
TooDming and iAsonu are seasoned WCS campaigners after all, but neither is in top shape right now. Both were immediately dumped out of IEM Shanghai by ShoWTimE and Neeb, and although PtitDrogo’s clearly a step or two below the current kings of foreign protoss, he’s still probably not too worried about them. ZvZ is a different issue though—TooDming is currently the top ZvZer in China, as well as the champion of the recent GPL S2. The basic fundamentals of ZvZ aren’t changed too much from HotS, and TooDming’s adept at both ling-bane and roach play (as Scarlett herself learned in one of the standout moments of 2014).Beyond that though, the players start to become known only to fans of the Leifeng Cup.
Jieshi (AKA Mystery) showed us some entertaining games last year, notably baffling TooDming last year in the GPL (VOD here) with the same kind of mass oracle PvZ strat that Has deployed on viOLet last week. In 2016 though he’s been very quiet, sticking with online events for the most part. You’d suspect that Snute will run him ragged, given his struggles against zerg this year—Bly and Scarlett are the only two reputable zergs he’s beaten all year, and he’s been pretty much 50/50 against local opposition. Then again, with Snute famed for solid orthodoxy, tactics out of the norm could well be the way to go. It’s a similar story with PvT—holds his own against the locals, but is solidly outclassed by anyone else. Having to beat one of Snute and MarineLorD to make it out is going to be tough.The other player in the group will be the rookie
TIME. TIME’s not been around for very long, only kicking into gear in 2015, but he’s already developed a reputation as an up-and-coming terran. Unfortunately, he’s been dumped into the hardest group, and can’t be expected to do much here. He’s struggled against Jieshi this year (8-3 in favour of the protoss), while his strength in TvT is neutered by MarineLorD’s similar preference—the Frenchman sports a 79% winrate for the year, and is unbeaten since March. Still, he’s looked good enough on the times I’ve seen him in the Leifeng Cup, and hopefully he’ll show glimpses of why he’s so highly rated internally to a worldwide audience. Born in 2000 (something that terrifies me), he’s got plenty of time left to develop into a more threatening player.While we’re ticking off terrans,
Chick and Coffee are next up. XY might be the top terran in China right now (unavailable to play here due to sponsorship conflicts), but together, this triplet are regarded as the future of Chinese terran play. We’ve actually seen Coffee play offline this year already—he made it through the WCS Shanghai Open Bracket, before losing to PtitDrogo and Harstem in groups. Their problem though is that they share a group with PartinG. Since 2012, PartinG’s eaten terrans for breakfast, and he’s got a strong claim to be ranked the #1 PvTer in Starcraft history. He could ignore everything new that Legacy offered protoss, tech straight up to blink stalkers, and I’d still back him to beat the two terrans through blink control alone. Bly though is a very different proposition, and undoubtedly the player that Chick and Coffee will target to get out of the group. Finally, in Group A we have
Silky and Cyan. Neither is particularly noteworthy, although Cyan should at least be a player you’ve heard of. We saw him last year at IEM Shenzhen (eliminated 0-4 by herO and uThermal) as well as just this last weekend (eliminated 1-3 by Nerchio). His sole map win over Nerchio was pretty much Chinese protoss 101—open DTs, transition to mass blink stalkers with immortals, and add in a couple of disruptors for a Legacy twist. While uThermal probably has too much firepower for him, don’t expect Has to brush past him too lightly. Rounding off the group is the weakest and least well-known of the sixteen players attending this event. Silky was the beneficiary of XY’s forfeit, winning the CN qualifier to take the final spot in the competition. Still, given how mediocre the bracket was, he can’t be given that much credit. His online results are poor, especially in ZvT, and the rest of the group should make short work of him.Credits:
Writers: munch
Editors: munch
Graphics: munch
Stats: Aligulac.
Writers: munch
Editors: munch
Graphics: munch
Stats: Aligulac.
