Will Neeb's Domination of the WCS Circuit Continue in 2018?

Neeb dominated the WCS Circuit in 2017, lifting the championship trophy at three out of four events. Though he ended the year with a disappointing group stage elimination at the Global Finals, his impressive play against eventual champion Rogue left many to wonder if the American Protoss simply got unlucky. Now, with the 2018 season set to begin at WCS Leipzig, fans and progamers alike must wonder: Will Neeb continue to reign over the WCS Circuit in 2018?

Days before WCS Leipzig, Neeb swept through the field at the American LAN tournament Cheeseadelphia to win the $3000 first place prize. TeamLiquid.net talked with SC2 commentator and North American scene insider Ravi “feardragon” Pareek, who was on site to watch Neeb’s pre-WCS ‘warm up.’

*Answers have been edited and condensed.

Neeb showed vulnerability amid his domination at Cheeseadelphia

"Cheesadelphia was a game of who can take a game off of Neeb. He lost two games: One game he lost to Masa, and the other game he lost to himself. Neeb still had some close games, not only losing that one game to Masa—which I think was a very legitimate game to lose—but he also had a close game versus Cham. If you go look at game one of the finals of Cheeseadelphia, Cham looked really solid there."

Potential weaknesses versus cheese?

"Even going back to WCS Challenger for Leipzig versus JonSnow, Neeb actually lost a game (JonSnow cheesed him out admittedly). He definitely still seems vulnerable to certain things. I think he sometimes tries to play a little bit too greedy. You'll see him sort of just fall over because he's trying to play with the utmost greed so he can get away with the utmost advantages later on. But he'll get punished for that sometimes. This might be one of the best chances to upset Neeb, because Protoss generally struggle the most in figuring out new maps and how to handle them."

Burnout before BlizzCon 2017 and lessons for 2018

"I actually got to talk with Neeb at Kings of the North, which was maybe a few weeks before BlizzCon, and he just was burnt out. He was actually telling people at that event that he just didn't want to play StarCraft. He hadn’t been playing StarCraft THAT much leading up to BlizzCon—maybe he did a bit after the event. But he had worked himself so hard for the entire year up until Montreal that he lost a lot of his motivation, I think, to keep practicing as hard. I think that had a lot to do with his performance at BlizzCon.

I'm actually expecting him to have a much better handle of it in 2018. His strongest suit is that he doesn't make the same mistake many times. I think Neeb is better prepared in 2018 outside of StarCraft, in terms of mental fortitude and everything else."

Neeb’s 2017 wasn’t about dominance. It was about being CLUTCH.

"It's really interesting because when you go back, I'm pretty sure all of the WCS events that he won, he lost at least one series in the group stage, except maybe Montreal. In retrospect, Neeb was never one of these huge dominating favorites coming into any of these events. But he was able to be clutch in those moments and pull it out. Neeb has dropped games to JonSnow and Masa, and he's lost an entire series to players like Nerchio recently. So there's very much this sense of mortality that's been shown for Neeb. But Neeb at these online events or smaller events is very different from Neeb at a WCS event."

WCS Leipzig begins on Friday, Jan 26 3:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00). Tune in at wcs.starcraft2.com to watch Neeb and the best players of the WCS Circuit compete for the first major championship of the year!

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