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4 Posts
Over the final weekend of January, the StarCraft II universe turned its eyes to Leipzig for the first WCS Circuit event of the 2018 season.
Day 1: Group Stages
As usual, the first group was largely a formality, with European favorites such as  Harstem and  Stephano moving on without facing much trouble.
The second group stage was a bit bloodier, but again the cream rose to the top.  DeMusliM, Guru and MaNa were among the victims, but PtitDrogo, DnS and HeRoMaRinE topped their groups to reach the final group stage.
Group stage #3 was where the rubber met the road, with seeded players from regional qualifiers such as Nerchio and Neeb joining the fray. The latter finished second in his group, booking a ticket to the playoffs alongside Serral, TRUE, Bly and more. It was also the end of the road for 16 players including Cham, Kelazhur, Zanster, but most notably Code RO16 player Scarlett who went 0-2 against Namshar to drop out of the event.
Day 2: RO16 to Quarterfinals
With the brackets drawn, the round of 16 kicked off with a PvZ between Elazer and Nice. Elazer was almost upset by the challenger from Taiwan, but managed to pull out a 3-2 victory. Neeb advanced to face Elazer in their quadrant of the bracket after defeating HeRoMaRinE 3-1.
ShoWTimE beat Namshar 3-2 and TRUE took out Bly 3-1, setting up a second PvZ quarterfinal. Serral and Nerchio swept MaSa and SortOf respectively, while SpeCial and Snute rounded out the Round of 8 with a 3-1 win over uThermal and a 3-0 over Lambo.
The second day of WCS Leipzig was far from complete though as Elazer and Neeb engaged in a blockbuster match that saw Neeb come out on top 3-2. ShoWTimE glided past TRUE by a 3-0 score, while Serral required the same amount of games to send Nerchio home. The final quarterfinal went the distance, but it was SpeCial who endured over Snute to complete the Round of 4.
Day 3: Semifinals and grand final
ShoWTimE fell behind 2-1 in the first semifinal, but evened the series on Neon Violet Square in a phoenix vs phoenix battle. He closed out the series in game five on the back of faster attack upgrades and a chargelot heavy army that ran over Neeb's stalkers.
Serral jumped out to a 2-0 lead after a nydus worm full of roaches and queens caught SpeCial unprepared. SpeCial won the next game with ghost/lib/tank, but his attempt at mech in game four was slapped back by hydra/bane as Serral continued his charge to the finals.
Grand Finals: ShoWTimE vs Serral
Game one took place on Neon Violet Square. Serral’s lurkers were unable to do any damage as ShoWTimE ramped up to skytoss. Serral remained mobile with a lower tech army however, running ShoWTimE ragged with multi-prong attacks before finally adding on corruptors to deal the final blow.
Game two on Eastwatch played out similarly to the first. Serral failed to do critical damage early, but was able to pull ShoWTimE apart with roaches and hydralisks. Corruptors once more administered the coup de grace to ShoWTimE’s small fleet, giving Serral a 2-0 lead.
Backwater took even longer to decide a victor, with Serral building an advanced army full of infestors, corruptors and ultralisks after failing to break a four base ShoWTimE. Serral's minerals approached 10k as he plunged in one final time. ShoWTimE's army was vanquished and his attempt to remax with stalkers was met by brood lords, putting him in a 3-0 hole.
Serral went for a ling flood with drops on Catalyst, but was shut down by ShoWTimE who took a sizeable worker lead into the mid game. A failed counterattack allowed Serral to kill the German Protoss' third, but ShoWTimE was still ahead 20 workers. He teched into storm, immortals and archons, wiping out Serral's lurkers as they burrowed between ShoWTimE's third and fourth. From there it was a simple matter of mopping up the remnant of Serral's army as ShoWTimE got on the scoreboard 1-3.
Serral went for a low economy lurker/ling attack in game 5 on Blackpink, but ShoWTimE, who had immortals and charge, managed to hold up 20 workers. Serral reloaded and went for another, but ShoWTimE once more held fast. With zealots ravaging Serral's main on the other side of the map, the Finnish Zerg conceded.
A flood of roaches bought Serral a 40 supply lead on Acid Plant, putting ShoWTimE in a defensive posture. Serral never let his foot off the gas, adding hydralisks and lurkers. ShoWTimE tried to weather the ceaseless pressure with high templars, immortals and archons, but Serral was too much. ShoWTimE left the game soon after, making Serral the 2018 WCS Leipzig champion and the first person to earn a spot at the WCS Global Finals.
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Looking not only at results but at his games, even before being champion, i think Serral will surpass Neeb as goat foreigner this year or next
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On January 30 2018 22:29 Uberfather wrote:
Looking not only at results but at his games, even before being champion, i think Serral will surpass Neeb as goat foreigner this year or next
GOAT Foreigner is so hard to determine based on the different "eras" of foreigner SC2. One could argue for Naniwa, Stephano or Neeb at this point. Serral would have to sweep WCS, win a korean tournament, or win Blizzcon to surpass Neeb in this era.
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I've never felt better typing "Torille!" in the twitch chat.
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It's amazing how a guy that loses so much in the early game, can still manage to win the game. Maybe the other zergs should start doing the same :D
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Congratulations Serral, finally a worthy title for your name!
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Serral has the highest Aligulac rating of all time. The does does make him Innovation but he is certainly a top 5 Zerg (Korea included).
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Where's that guy who always whines about spoilers? 
Jk, awesome job Serral!
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On January 30 2018 22:29 Uberfather wrote:
Looking not only at results but at his games, even before being champion, i think Serral will surpass Neeb as goat foreigner this year or next
? Neeb isn't goat foreigner by a long shot
Edit:
Thanks for the spoiler. I know there's an option to not show spoilers but I'm too lazy to enable that so instead I complain on the forums. Now this tournament is ruined for me, no point in watching the vods anymore.
Thanks TL.
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On January 30 2018 23:44 vult wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2018 22:29 Uberfather wrote:
Looking not only at results but at his games, even before being champion, i think Serral will surpass Neeb as goat foreigner this year or next GOAT Foreigner is so hard to determine based on the different "eras" of foreigner SC2. One could argue for Naniwa, Stephano or Neeb at this point. Serral would have to sweep WCS, win a korean tournament, or win Blizzcon to surpass Neeb in this era.
I've been watching SC2 since its inception and GOAT foreigner is far and away Stephano. His achievements are incredible. He walked onto to proleague and defeated herO and Bbyong on first his time there. At his peak, he was just not defeating an occasional top Korean (which was a big achievement for anyone at the time), he was beating multiple top Koreans in a row and won multiple tournaments that no one thought a foreigner ever had a chance at.
Neeb has really only done that once, the Kespa Cup. He has a long way to go.
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Honestly, I feel like people belittle Neeb's achievements way too quickly (and I don't even really like the guy). Seems to me that people putting Naniwa or Stephano higher are pushing a nostalgic narrative of a "higher skill era" before the region lock, and in the process forget the fact that Neeb won Kespa Cup and showed a dominance in his own region that no foreigner ever achieved. Off-shore and locally, Neeb just did more.
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On January 31 2018 02:14 VengefulTree wrote:
Honestly, I feel like people belittle Neeb's achievements way too quickly (and I don't even really like the guy). Seems to me that people putting Naniwa or Stephano higher are pushing a nostalgic narrative of a "higher skill era" before the region lock, and in the process forget the fact that Neeb won Kespa Cup and showed a dominance in his own region that no foreigner ever achieved. Off-shore and locally, Neeb just did more.
Previous foreigners couldn't locally dominate because there were no big region-locked tournaments.
Neeb's Kespa Cup win was the single biggest win from a foreigner ever but that's also his only achievement in non-regionlocked tournament. At every other global event he bombed out. It just doesn't compare to the consistency Naniwa and Stephano had who regularly went toe to toe with top-koreans. Comparing Neeb to them is laughable.
Even Huk and Snute might still be ahead of Neeb.
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I think that last claim is very hard to defend. For all their show of brillance against koreans, people like Naniwa, Snute or Scarlett were never nearly as consistent as Neeb is versus other foreigners. They bombed often against fellow non-koreans, so we cannot say that the absence of region locking was the only thing keeping them from dominating locally.
Also, some of Stephano's or Huk's tournaments wins were in tournaments filled in big parts or totally with foreigners, so the fact that these wins belonged in the pre-region lock era doesn't automatically means they are worth more.
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the only foreigner goat is polt because foreigners can't be good at starcraft
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I don't see the need to constantly argue over a subjective topic of who is the best foreigner... it really is just an opinion (for the most part) and one that is going to be hard to force another person to change.
In regards to the actual topic, I loved watching how strong Serral played and I think the game that he lost due to a failed ling drop showed how good he really is. Despite ending up losing, he almost came back to a point that I did not think possible. Who knows what the future holds but I am glad he played so well and the games were all really close until the final moments. Thank you good sirs!
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On January 31 2018 02:42 VengefulTree wrote:
I think that last claim is very hard to defend. For all their show of brillance against koreans, people like Naniwa, Snute or Scarlett were never nearly as consistent as Neeb is versus other foreigners. They bombed often against fellow non-koreans, so we cannot say that the absence of region locking was the only thing keeping them from dominating locally.
Also, some of Stephano's or Huk's tournaments wins were in tournaments filled in big parts or totally with foreigners, so the fact that these wins belonged in the pre-region lock era doesn't automatically means they are worth more.
IPL 3 : Stephano beat viOLet, inori, TheStC and Lucky on his way to win.
ESWC : 1 player per country so only one korean, Stephano beat MarineKing Prime
NASL : Stephano beats MC, Alicia and HerO
If that's not enough for you I don't really know what is.
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France13023 Posts
Yeah, Stephano still holds the top spot, and with region-locked tournaments it'll be hard for Neeb to have as many shots as Stephano.
However Neeb is still young so he has the time to become #1 foreigner, if Serral lets him tho 
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Nice congrats to Serral, he is a great Zerg I enjoy learning from
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EPT
2018 WCS Leipzig
