EPT
The Weekly Preview
by TheOneAboveU![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/bird_blue_16.png)
- TheOneAboveUTime for a little breather after last week’s marathon schedule. With IEM Shanghai and GSL vs. the World coming up there are plenty of reasons to take a step back and enjoy the calm before the next storm. Only SSL Premier is following the regular schedule next week, with the other tournaments hitting the breaks until after the next few weekend competitions are done. With that said, let’s use the opportunity and take a more detailed look at the standings in SSL Premier.
The Frontrunner
Week 3 enabled
Classic to take the pole position away from his former team mate and all-dominating Machine INnoVation in a surprising turn of events. The Protoss player overcame Dear, who had his first disappointing week after his steady rise over the last few months, and thus stayed undefeated in series. INnoVation on the other hand had to accept his first defeat, as the third of the former SK Telecom T1 players in SSL Premier, Dark, was able to put a stop to the Machine’s reign of terror. This outcome mixed the cards anew.
Classic is now the only undefeated man left standing and leads the ranking. However, his pursuers are only one series victory and two to three map wins behind him—a lead which can melt quickly.
The Pursuers I: The ex-Telecom Gang
Right behind the new pack leader are the dethroned
INnoVation and 
Dark. While INnoVation had to concede defeat last week for the first time this season, he did sell himself dearly against his Zerg opponent, making Dark put in some work for his money. With his team’s victory in the VSL Team League, to which INnoVation contributed immensely, the hype train carrying the Machine has easily overcome the short-lived slowdown. What we expect for his match against Dear is nothing other than to bounce back in impressive fashion, especially because the Protoss player had to face some setbacks himself in the last week. He was eliminated from GSL by Bunny, conceding a map to Chinese Terran TIME in the process, and lost his first series in SSL Premier. Just a bad week, or the beginning of another slow descent into oblivion for him?
For Dark the victory over INno was the bounce-back from his loss to herO the week before. The Zerg will face ByuL in a ZvZ, so a rather messy affair is to be expected. The former CJ player had no luck so far in this season and is still waiting for his first series win, even though he only has this league to prepare for, since he didn’t even qualify for GSL. His situation is not as bad as the one of aLive, who couldn’t even take a single map yet, but a loss to Dark would put him at a 0-4 score—and that’s a deep and dark hole, from which climbing out is going to be extremely hard. Dark, of course, can only be happy about his rivals’ misery: An easy 2-0 win would get him that much closer to Classic and the pole position, and we all know how important this first place is, as it leads directly into the Grand Final.
The Pursuers II: The Splyce Gang
Like the sneaky snakes their team logo represents,Stats and Solar have taken up positions right behind the former SK Telecom T1 players, waiting for the right moment to strike and bring down their prey. After their team duel in Week 1, which Stats could decide in his favour, Solar has taken two victories in a row, beating ByuL and herO. In Week 4 another win is in reach, as the Zerg will meet poor, win-less aLive, who just doesn’t seem to be able to do anything right at the moment. His situation is even more dire than ByuL’s and a comeback would be miraculous.
Stats took one loss at the hands of Dear in Week 2, but has stabilized again in Week 3 against aLive, the league’s punching bag. A much greater challenge awaits him now, though: Classic himself. This PvP might turn the tides again, as it could mean the end of Classic’s leadership after only one week at the top of the rankings, or it might solidify Classic’s position. Those two Protoss players are connected by a deep rivalry, of course, as they played for the two Telecom giants back in the day: Overall Classic leads their personal record by a single map, while Stats has won more series against his rival, including their last duel. This should be the closest and most important match of the week!
The Catch-Ups
The two competitors with a 1-2 score,HerO and Maru, will confront each other directly next week, creating another very important duel. While the victor may be able to catch up with the middle field and join the pursuers for the first place, the loser will be in a precarious position—in danger to fall to the depths of ByuL and aLive. While both players have equal statistics so far, perhaps Maru’s records are a bit more worrying going into this TvP: He’s lost to both Dear and Classic so far, with the loss to Classic being especially rough, as he had a great streak going against the Protoss beforehand. With enough preparation, herO stands a good chance to profit from the Terran player’s recent losses…
Weekly Schedule
MON – SSL Premier –Dear vs. INnoVation / Maru vs. herO / Solar vs. aLive / ByuL vs. Dark / Classic vs. Stats
The Frontrunner
Week 3 enabled
Classic to take the pole position away from his former team mate and all-dominating Machine INnoVation in a surprising turn of events. The Protoss player overcame Dear, who had his first disappointing week after his steady rise over the last few months, and thus stayed undefeated in series. INnoVation on the other hand had to accept his first defeat, as the third of the former SK Telecom T1 players in SSL Premier, Dark, was able to put a stop to the Machine’s reign of terror. This outcome mixed the cards anew.Classic is now the only undefeated man left standing and leads the ranking. However, his pursuers are only one series victory and two to three map wins behind him—a lead which can melt quickly.
The Pursuers I: The ex-Telecom Gang
Right behind the new pack leader are the dethroned
INnoVation and Dark. While INnoVation had to concede defeat last week for the first time this season, he did sell himself dearly against his Zerg opponent, making Dark put in some work for his money. With his team’s victory in the VSL Team League, to which INnoVation contributed immensely, the hype train carrying the Machine has easily overcome the short-lived slowdown. What we expect for his match against Dear is nothing other than to bounce back in impressive fashion, especially because the Protoss player had to face some setbacks himself in the last week. He was eliminated from GSL by Bunny, conceding a map to Chinese Terran TIME in the process, and lost his first series in SSL Premier. Just a bad week, or the beginning of another slow descent into oblivion for him?For Dark the victory over INno was the bounce-back from his loss to herO the week before. The Zerg will face ByuL in a ZvZ, so a rather messy affair is to be expected. The former CJ player had no luck so far in this season and is still waiting for his first series win, even though he only has this league to prepare for, since he didn’t even qualify for GSL. His situation is not as bad as the one of aLive, who couldn’t even take a single map yet, but a loss to Dark would put him at a 0-4 score—and that’s a deep and dark hole, from which climbing out is going to be extremely hard. Dark, of course, can only be happy about his rivals’ misery: An easy 2-0 win would get him that much closer to Classic and the pole position, and we all know how important this first place is, as it leads directly into the Grand Final.
The Pursuers II: The Splyce Gang
Like the sneaky snakes their team logo represents,
Stats and Solar have taken up positions right behind the former SK Telecom T1 players, waiting for the right moment to strike and bring down their prey. After their team duel in Week 1, which Stats could decide in his favour, Solar has taken two victories in a row, beating ByuL and herO. In Week 4 another win is in reach, as the Zerg will meet poor, win-less aLive, who just doesn’t seem to be able to do anything right at the moment. His situation is even more dire than ByuL’s and a comeback would be miraculous.Stats took one loss at the hands of Dear in Week 2, but has stabilized again in Week 3 against aLive, the league’s punching bag. A much greater challenge awaits him now, though: Classic himself. This PvP might turn the tides again, as it could mean the end of Classic’s leadership after only one week at the top of the rankings, or it might solidify Classic’s position. Those two Protoss players are connected by a deep rivalry, of course, as they played for the two Telecom giants back in the day: Overall Classic leads their personal record by a single map, while Stats has won more series against his rival, including their last duel. This should be the closest and most important match of the week!
The Catch-Ups
The two competitors with a 1-2 score,
HerO and Maru, will confront each other directly next week, creating another very important duel. While the victor may be able to catch up with the middle field and join the pursuers for the first place, the loser will be in a precarious position—in danger to fall to the depths of ByuL and aLive. While both players have equal statistics so far, perhaps Maru’s records are a bit more worrying going into this TvP: He’s lost to both Dear and Classic so far, with the loss to Classic being especially rough, as he had a great streak going against the Protoss beforehand. With enough preparation, herO stands a good chance to profit from the Terran player’s recent losses…Weekly Schedule
MON – SSL Premier –
Dear vs. INnoVation / Maru vs. herO / Solar vs. aLive / ByuL vs. Dark / Classic vs. Stats
IEM Shanghai
by Mizenhauer - MizenhauerThe Defense
February 16, 2014. Since that daysoO has repeated as a GSL Finalist three times. Classic and INnoVation have won the trifecta of IEM, GSL and SSL. Zest won a trio of GSL’s, two being proper seasons and one Global Championship. ByuL made simultaneous Starleague finals and Maru earned an SSL trophy to pair with his OSL title, becoming the first dual Starleague champion. For all these towering achievements, over the last 1253 days, no one has been able to replicate the feat performed by herO in the winter of 2014: successfully defend as an IEM champion.
TY will be next in line to get his chance when his group kicks off IEM Shanghai. His victory over Stats at Katowice may not have been the most convincing performance, but in the end, he was the one standing when the dust settled. His campaign to return to those heights will start when he opens the tournament against underdog PenguiN, before taking on the winner of in-form Bunny and perpetually stout Dark. It’s a winnable group for TY, but he’s been largely absent as of late, his sole appearance being his GSL group in which he finished second among four players with far less success within Korea throughout 2017. On paper, TY seems far from the most dangerous player at IEM Shanghai, but it’s his tireless tenacity, not his current form, that makes the first title defense in over three years a distinct possibility.
Two Champs and The Upstart
Group B features the two most recent GSL champions; Stats andGuMiho, but it’s quite possible that the most threatening member is Rogue. After a difficult 2016, Rogue is finally putting the pieces together. Unlike Stats or GuMiho, he doesn’t have tangible proof of his success, but his win rate and MMR on ladder indicate that Rogue should have every reason to be confident.
Known to stumble on the brightest stage, Rogue’s dismemberment of GuMiho in GSL could be a shifting of the winds. GuMiho’s trip to Krefeld has given fans little insight into his current form, leaving them asking questions following his unspectacular GSL performance. Stats may have looked extremely solid in doing away with ByuN in his GSL group, but he has struggled mightily against Zergs as of late. His sub 50% record since the beginning of June paints a grim picture. As expected,iAsonu is on the outside looking in. The most likely result is that he is eliminated without any fanfare, but he’ll be eager to play the role of spoiler and send one of the three groupmates back to Korea empty handed.
Running Out Of Time
It’s almost frightening to think that the 2017 WCS Season is nearly over. It seems like just yesterday the community was clashing heads over the WCS announcement or discussing the first event, IEM Gyeonggi. With only a GSL, SSL and IEM Shanghai yet to be decided, the eight who will represent Korea at the WCS Global Finals are nearly determined. While soO is all but locked in for BlizzCon, herO andSolar are very much in the thick of things. herO sits tied in the final qualifying position with 4700 points. Maru and aLive are within 300 points of him and still have the opportunity to earn points in two of the three remaining events. Solar is hanging a big further down, 875 points behind the current cutoff. If he’s to make a return trip to California he’ll have to make some major strides in the latter portion of the season.
Solar and herO are both alive in GSL, SSL and IEM, a truly enviable position. Participation is no guarantee of results, however, and they will need to play to their utmost to punch a ticket to the year end event. The race for spots three and four in the WCS Korea Standings is nearing the finish line and no less than seven players have a chance to claim them. Unlike a Starleague which requires a player to maintain excellence over the course of many weeks, herO and Solar need only to capture lightning in a bottle to vault themselves into a safer stratosphere of the WCS Standings. IEM could play a crucial role this late in the game, but they will need to make the most of it if they want to keep their dreams of becoming the next world champion alive.
When King Ghidorah Only Needs One Head
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QayZt5V.png)
Earlier this year, casters dubbed the Terran quartet of INnoVation,ByuN, Maru and TY the Four Horsemen. Since then ByuN hasn’t put up any remarkable results, Maru has fallen flat with shocking regularity and TY has virtually disappeared. All the while, INnoVation keeps getting stronger. Stumbles in GSL disguised a slow return to dominance, but his dual final victories over Solar and soO have dispelled any question of who the best player in the world is.
The hype around INnoVation is reaching a fever pitch as the universe seems to align to his whim. INnoVation may have been placed in a group with two of his supposed equals, but Maru and ByuN have done little to give the community reason to believe they are on the same level. With TY missing, the three remaining members of the Four Horseman would be better described as the monstrous recreation of the seemingly invincible space monster, King Ghidorah. With three heads, each of them exemplifying the best attributes of the Terran race, it’s extremely possible that the winner of the tournament comes out of Group D. One wonder if it’s not a foregone conclusion, though. This time the Terran amalgam may only need its strongest representative, INnoVation to get the job done.
But for every seemingly invincible space monster, there is a Godzilla barring its path. For INnoVation that is TvT making his group a significant hurdle. He will have to fight off his rival heads if he’s to continue his quest to stomp out all resistance in Shanghai. With ByuN and Maru out of the way, it might be a leisurely walk to the finish line for the unassuming Korean who plays Starcraft like a lightning bolt wielding, gravity beam firing dragon.
February 16, 2014. Since that day
soO has repeated as a GSL Finalist three times. Classic and INnoVation have won the trifecta of IEM, GSL and SSL. Zest won a trio of GSL’s, two being proper seasons and one Global Championship. ByuL made simultaneous Starleague finals and Maru earned an SSL trophy to pair with his OSL title, becoming the first dual Starleague champion. For all these towering achievements, over the last 1253 days, no one has been able to replicate the feat performed by herO in the winter of 2014: successfully defend as an IEM champion.TY will be next in line to get his chance when his group kicks off IEM Shanghai. His victory over Stats at Katowice may not have been the most convincing performance, but in the end, he was the one standing when the dust settled. His campaign to return to those heights will start when he opens the tournament against underdog PenguiN, before taking on the winner of in-form Bunny and perpetually stout Dark. It’s a winnable group for TY, but he’s been largely absent as of late, his sole appearance being his GSL group in which he finished second among four players with far less success within Korea throughout 2017. On paper, TY seems far from the most dangerous player at IEM Shanghai, but it’s his tireless tenacity, not his current form, that makes the first title defense in over three years a distinct possibility.Two Champs and The Upstart
Group B features the two most recent GSL champions; Stats and
GuMiho, but it’s quite possible that the most threatening member is Rogue. After a difficult 2016, Rogue is finally putting the pieces together. Unlike Stats or GuMiho, he doesn’t have tangible proof of his success, but his win rate and MMR on ladder indicate that Rogue should have every reason to be confident. Known to stumble on the brightest stage, Rogue’s dismemberment of GuMiho in GSL could be a shifting of the winds. GuMiho’s trip to Krefeld has given fans little insight into his current form, leaving them asking questions following his unspectacular GSL performance. Stats may have looked extremely solid in doing away with ByuN in his GSL group, but he has struggled mightily against Zergs as of late. His sub 50% record since the beginning of June paints a grim picture. As expected,
iAsonu is on the outside looking in. The most likely result is that he is eliminated without any fanfare, but he’ll be eager to play the role of spoiler and send one of the three groupmates back to Korea empty handed.Running Out Of Time
It’s almost frightening to think that the 2017 WCS Season is nearly over. It seems like just yesterday the community was clashing heads over the WCS announcement or discussing the first event, IEM Gyeonggi. With only a GSL, SSL and IEM Shanghai yet to be decided, the eight who will represent Korea at the WCS Global Finals are nearly determined. While soO is all but locked in for BlizzCon, herO and
Solar are very much in the thick of things. herO sits tied in the final qualifying position with 4700 points. Maru and aLive are within 300 points of him and still have the opportunity to earn points in two of the three remaining events. Solar is hanging a big further down, 875 points behind the current cutoff. If he’s to make a return trip to California he’ll have to make some major strides in the latter portion of the season.Solar and herO are both alive in GSL, SSL and IEM, a truly enviable position. Participation is no guarantee of results, however, and they will need to play to their utmost to punch a ticket to the year end event. The race for spots three and four in the WCS Korea Standings is nearing the finish line and no less than seven players have a chance to claim them. Unlike a Starleague which requires a player to maintain excellence over the course of many weeks, herO and Solar need only to capture lightning in a bottle to vault themselves into a safer stratosphere of the WCS Standings. IEM could play a crucial role this late in the game, but they will need to make the most of it if they want to keep their dreams of becoming the next world champion alive.
When King Ghidorah Only Needs One Head
Earlier this year, casters dubbed the Terran quartet of INnoVation,
ByuN, Maru and TY the Four Horsemen. Since then ByuN hasn’t put up any remarkable results, Maru has fallen flat with shocking regularity and TY has virtually disappeared. All the while, INnoVation keeps getting stronger. Stumbles in GSL disguised a slow return to dominance, but his dual final victories over Solar and soO have dispelled any question of who the best player in the world is.The hype around INnoVation is reaching a fever pitch as the universe seems to align to his whim. INnoVation may have been placed in a group with two of his supposed equals, but Maru and ByuN have done little to give the community reason to believe they are on the same level. With TY missing, the three remaining members of the Four Horseman would be better described as the monstrous recreation of the seemingly invincible space monster, King Ghidorah. With three heads, each of them exemplifying the best attributes of the Terran race, it’s extremely possible that the winner of the tournament comes out of Group D. One wonder if it’s not a foregone conclusion, though. This time the Terran amalgam may only need its strongest representative, INnoVation to get the job done.
But for every seemingly invincible space monster, there is a Godzilla barring its path. For INnoVation that is TvT making his group a significant hurdle. He will have to fight off his rival heads if he’s to continue his quest to stomp out all resistance in Shanghai. With ByuN and Maru out of the way, it might be a leisurely walk to the finish line for the unassuming Korean who plays Starcraft like a lightning bolt wielding, gravity beam firing dragon.
