Day 3 of IEM Katowice was another day of utter domination for Korea. It’d all started out so differently in Group A though, as HeRoMaRinE led the charge for Europe. Relegated to community streams (if that) for the whole day, the young German’s TvZ shone, taking out both Solar and Snute with 2-0s. His fellow European Snute was one of the disappointments of the day, although he can possibly feel a little aggrieved; losing three series to HerO, Solar and ByuN in tight 1-2s, and picking up a sole win over Ryung.
The two Korean terrans in particular set a blistering pace. Ryung’s TvT drove him to an early lead in the group, looking great against both ByuN and HeRoMaRinE, although his TvZ was perhaps a little shaky, while ByuN was much the opposite—recovering quickly from his initial loss to sweep the rest of the group and emerge as the #1 seed, locking down a place in the quarterfinals. Surprisingly, it was herO who looked the weakest member of the group; playing decidedly non-standard risky builds throughout the day.
In the end, it all came down to the last triplet of matches. HeRoMaRinE needed ByuN to beat Solar, while beating herO himself. ByuN held up his end of the bargain, but herO edged out the German with a clean macro game on Bel’Shir Vestige to eliminate him from the competition. While it was a tough loss to take, there were certainly a lot of positives that HeRoMaRinE can take from the day.
Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Next, Stats took on one of his former conquerers. Stats had previously been toppled at KeSPA Cup 2016 by Neeb, and if that win solidified what we thought about the resurgence of Foreign SC2 at the time, then Stats’ revenge here similarly caps the past few months of Korean dominance. Stats looked a totally different PvPer to his former self. Confident blinks picked off disruptors time and again, and he stomped to an easy 2-0 victory.
He continued his hot run against one of the most unfortunate players in the group. For HeRoMaRinE in Group A read jjakji in Group B; a player eliminated by his three 2-1 losses. After strolling through the opening two matches, Stats looked far shakier here, and it continued into his next two matches. A 2-0 loss to Harstem followed, who impressed today despite his 1-4 numerical record, as well as a loss to aLive—undoubtedly the big winner of the day. The former Afreeca star stealthily compiled an unbeaten 5-0 record, essentially invisible to main and community streams alike; impressive given the calibre of opposition on offer. With Ryung and ByuN showing weakness in TvZ and TvT respectively from Group A, and Stats and TY looking decidedly off-colour at times in Group B, aLive is definitely the most impressive player we haven’t seen so far this tournament.
ByuN and aLive advance to the Ro.8; Ryung, Solar, Stats, and TY advance to the Ro.12.
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
Eventually all will bow to the greatness of aLive's starpants. Praise the starpants.
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
You can never forget him after these
Also Korea rolls on is a little harsh on the foreigners. In the end Snute Heromarine and Harstem all took 5 maps each in super stacked groups. Solar moves on with 6 which is not that far off.
wow nice results. Really happy for ByuN. For once I predicted something correctly (aLive / Stats and TY out of group B) although I put them in the wrong order. I wasn't too far off for group A either, I believed in Ryung and Byun, but I really didn't expect Solar over herO.
So sad to miss those days of competition because of work. Fortunately I should be able to watch some games throughout the weekend.
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
Also Korea rolls on is a little harsh on the foreigners. In the end Snute Heromarine and Harstem all took 5 maps each in super stacked groups. Solar moves on with 6 which is not that far off.
Agreed, the bottom players in each group were super competitive; with a couple small differences here and there, the results could have been quite different. The Koreans were superior but it was hardly an 11-0 inno-style "rolling".
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
Also Korea rolls on is a little harsh on the foreigners. In the end Snute Heromarine and Harstem all took 5 maps each in super stacked groups. Solar moves on with 6 which is not that far off.
3-13 in matches against Koreans. Sorry, that's terrible.
On March 03 2017 07:20 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On March 03 2017 06:59 HolydaKing wrote:
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
Also Korea rolls on is a little harsh on the foreigners. In the end Snute Heromarine and Harstem all took 5 maps each in super stacked groups. Solar moves on with 6 which is not that far off.
3-13 in matches against Koreans. Sorry, that's terrible.
It's about what I expected. Granted I expected Heromarine and Harstem to do worse and Snute and Neeb to do better. They even made some series close where I didn't think they'd have a chance at all.
Overall it wasn't an amazing day for foreigners, but it wasn't completely terrible either.
Does Dark know who Uthermal is? (He didn't know that he will meet him in his group up until late Tuesday)
After watching yesterday's TvZ games of Byun, may be Uthermal will try out 3 rax reaper vs Dark, and I doubt if Dark will play safe enough to go for a pool first as otherwise Uthermal is quite good with reapers as well.
I don't see Uthermal taking a series vs Dark, but a single map will be nice as well.
On March 03 2017 07:20 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On March 03 2017 06:59 HolydaKing wrote:
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
Also Korea rolls on is a little harsh on the foreigners. In the end Snute Heromarine and Harstem all took 5 maps each in super stacked groups. Solar moves on with 6 which is not that far off.
3-13 in matches against Koreans. Sorry, that's terrible.
Matches are deceiving. You could say that Stats is 1-0 vs Innovation in matches in the GSL, but that's misleading because he won 3-2, which is a lot closer.
Also, Foreigners are 14-10 against Koreans in maps and 6-3 in matches against Koreans in group C.
On March 03 2017 07:20 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On March 03 2017 06:59 HolydaKing wrote:
On March 03 2017 06:50 munch wrote: Group B’s been called the Group of Death, with a triplet of ex-KT stars in TY, jjakji, and Stats, a pair of foreign protoss hopes in Neeb and Harstem, and fan favourite aLive, and it certainly lived up to expectations. It all started with a great series between Stats and TY, featuring a monster of a game 3 (check out the VOD here). In a day of pretty great SC2, it was by far the standout if you’re looking for somewhere to start your VOD recap.
Unfortunately not many know about his greatness yet, but nice joke.
Also Korea rolls on is a little harsh on the foreigners. In the end Snute Heromarine and Harstem all took 5 maps each in super stacked groups. Solar moves on with 6 which is not that far off.
3-13 in matches against Koreans. Sorry, that's terrible.
Matches are deceiving. You could say that Stats is 1-0 vs Innovation in matches in the GSL, but that's misleading because he won 3-2, which is a lot closer.
Also, Foreigners are 14-10 against Koreans in maps and 6-3 in matches against Koreans in group C.
EPT
HeRoMaRinE led the charge for Europe. Relegated to community streams (if that) for the whole day, the young German’s TvZ shone, taking out both 
Solar and 
HerO, Solar and 
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/munch/alive_hsc.jpg)
