Kingdom Come: Serral Sweeps the 2018 Circuit at WCS Montreal

By: Wax

"Inevitable" is the word most associated with Serral's 2018 WCS Circuit run, but after the events of WCS Montreal, I couldn't help but be surprised anyway. 'He did it. The kid actually f***ing did it.' Four tournaments, four finals, four championships. A WCS Circuit GRAND SLAM.

Unlike Maru's GSL Code S sweep, there aren't eight years of precedent that tells you how historic it is (the last time someone even won TWO Code S tournaments back to back was in 2011). In fact, Neeb's WCS 2017 run where he won three out of four tournaments might even fool an outsider into thinking this kind of excellence is somehow normal.

But StarCraft II fans will know that this, is indeed, an unprecedented degree of domination. We know it because Serral's 2018 stats are right up there with Korean elites such as Maru, INnoVation, and Dark. We know because Serral's peers have admitted and bowed to his greatness time and time again. We know it because of the feeling in our guts when we watch Serral play on the Circuit—when we're thinking 'these guys don't stand a chance.'

Serral's WCS Circuit sweep has been unusually thorough. Typically, an all-conqeuring player still leaves you with a few questions you might respectfully pose; a few lingering doubts to reasonably have. In Serral's case, he's gone up against virtually all the top-tier players in the foreign scene and defeated them all. At WCS Montreal, he shutdown any speculation that the unpredictable nature of ZvZ could be his downfall. He won the tournament in an ALL ZvZ run, with Scarlett, Lambo, and Reynor all taking their best shots and coming up short.

For me, as with many, the most memorable moment of WCS Montreal was during the finals. Serral had gone down 2-3 against Reynor in the grand finals, and the backstage production staff had begun to murmur. 'Oh s***, is Serral actually shook?' was the vibe in the air as the camera zoomed in on Serral grasping his head with one hand. Uh, no? I could only shake my head at these silly casuals. They had followed the Circuit but hadn't seen Serral come back from 2-3 behind against Stats in the GSL vs. The World finals. Lo and behold, Serral came through with one of the most ridiculous comebacks of the year in game six before closing the series out in game seven.



At the end of the 2018 WCS Circuit, I'm left with two pressing questions: 'WHY?' and 'HOW?'

WHY wasn't Serral able to record even a single finals sweep? That's really the only 'blemish' left on his WCS 2018 resume. 4-2, 4-2, 4-1, 4-3, 4-3—everything but a 4-0 adorns his finals record. It's probably just variance—I figure we just happen to live in the sole, unique timeline of the multiverse where Serral didn't achieve a finals sweep in 2018. Still, there may be some underlying tendencies, habits, or patterns in Serral's series planning that have prevented him from utterly dominating a finals from start to finish. Finding those weaknesses (real or imaginary) will be an important homework assignment for anyone who will take on Serral at BlizzCon.

The other question is HOW did Serral get this good? The simple answer would be that he had a year of full-time practice after graduating from high school. Certainly, being able to devote more time to playing StarCraft II would have been beneficial. But it doesn't explain at all how Serral reached a level that's so much higher than his peers. Yes, the foreign scene has occasionally produced great players, but Serral is on a different level. Some of the funniest (and saddest) tournament moments from the 2018 Circuit were when MaNa's pre-finals interview was literally him asking for mercy, or when HeRoMarinE implied on multiple occasions that he had planned for the tournament right up to Serral. When Serral was asked how he managed to beat Maru in the GSL vs. The World team-match despite the limited number of top-tier Terrans to practice against in Europe (a complaint of EU Terrans themselves), he replied 'theorycrafting and thinking about how to play the game.' Thanks, Joona. I'm sure everyone took that advice to heart.

While we may not be able to understand the nature of Serral's abilities, at least we can still appreciate them. Let's take an event-by-event look back at this WCS 2018 run.

WCS Leipzig

Path: 2-1 vs Namshar, 2-0 vs Stephano, 3-0 vs MaSa, 3-0 vs Nerchio, 3-1 vs SpeCial, 4-2 vs ShoWTimE (17-4 map score)

The tournament that started it all and the only tournament where Serral did not enter as the clear favorite. TL.net's power rank for the tournament went Neeb #1, Elazer #2, and Serral #3. It was reasonable-ish at the time—Serral had been showing incredible form in online qualifiers, but had lost the WCS Europe Challenger finals 2-3 to Elazer. Also, Neeb had to be respected after winning three-of-four WCS Circuit tournaments in 2017. In reality, Leipzig turned out to be the beginning of many inconsistent performances for Neeb and Elazer. Meanwhile, Serral looked unstoppable on his way to his first major championship, capping things off by taking out ShoWTimE 4-2 in the finals.

WCS Austin

Path: 2-0 vs Clem, 2-0 vs TLO, 3-0 vs Kelazhur, 3-0 vs HeRoMarinE, 3-1 vs Lambo, 4-2 vs MaNa (17-3 map score)

During the five month gap between Leipzig and Austin, Serral furthered the divide between himself and the rest of the foreigner pack. He took top four at IEM, third place at WESG, and generally made anyone non-Korean look silly in Nation Wars V. I like to think that with a time machine, future ShoWTimE would go back and tell his then-self 'You're doing FINE. Serral is going to go beat everyone at GSL vs. The World. He's just that good.' It would have saved him a lot of grief after games like this (I guess time-traveler ShoWTimE could also just have mailed off Serral's military enlistment form a year early or done any number of not-so-lame things). Anyway, Serral lived up to his reputation at WCS Austin, rampaging his way to a second championship. MaNa did put up a spirited resistance in the finals, but nonetheless fell 2-4.

WCS Valencia

Path: 2-0 vs MaNa, 2-0 vs Bly, 3-2 vs Scarlett, 3-0 vs Reynor, 3-0 vs HeRoMarinE, 4-1 vs Has (17-3 map score)

After sharing the spotlight with MaNa at Austin, Serral had his thunder stolen again as StarCraft II's perennial joke-character Has made a miraculous run to the grand finals. That was probably a good thing, because otherwise than Has' run, Valencia was one of the more by-the-books tournaments in recent memory. With the exception of Has, everyone who was supposed to win mostly won. Valencia was probably Serral's best chance to pick up a sweep, but he dropped a game when his all-in ran up against Has' own cheese.

WCS Montreal

Path: 2-0 vs Stephano, 2-0 vs Denver, 3-1 vs JonSnow, 3-2 vs Scarlett, 3-2 vs Lambo, 4-3 vs Reynor (17-8 map score [shameful!])

At, WCS Montreal it almost felt like Serral was changing things up for the sake of it. After winning the first three Circuit events by crushing the opposition, he went Neeb-style at Montreal by clutching out victory after nerve-wracking victory.

While I can't say Serral's interview ability noticeably improved throughout the year, he did give us his own version of an "are you not entertained?" moment by delivering the WCS Circuit game of the year against Reynor.

Total: 24-0 in matches, 68-18 in map score (79.07% win rate)


And thus ended the reign of king Serral—at least as it regards the 2018 WCS Circuit. Serral's shocking championship run at GSL vs. The World proved that his skills are not for Circuit use only, and that he's a serious contender to claim the 2018 Global Championship. The wait between the final WCS Circuit/Korea event and the Global Finals is always hard to endure, but this year we've been left feeling particularly impatient.

Even in the face of all-encompassing darkness, the foreign scene has always had hope going into BlizzCon. Even in 2014, when no foreigner qualified at all, there was hope that the future would be brighter. Four years later, things are bright indeed. For the first time ever, the foreign scene looks ahead to BlizzCon with not just hope, but confidence.

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