Rogue dropped to #7 last month after getting swept by Neeb in the Code S quarterfinals and now he's barely hanging on to the #10 spot after suffering RO16 elimination in Super Tournament 2. Rogue gets some sympathy points due to being matched up against Maru in the Super Tournament (plenty of good players have been swept by the Code S three-peater), and receives some credit for his rather good online performances. Still, if Rogue didn't have the gravitas of being a double world champion, he may have been ousted from the PR.

It's been nearly a year since Rogue won BlizzCon and seven months since he lifted the IEM Katowice Trophy. Most of his championship aura has faded now and he looks to be in very rough shape. Last year, Rogue won the Super Tournament right before BlizzCon, foreshadowing his championship run in the Global Finals. This time around, he has no momentum at all. Rogue will need to make a drastic turnaround if he wants to mount a credible title defense.

Would you look at that, Solar is back! We have to go all the way to back to May to find any mention of Solar in the Power Rank, and even then he only warranted a CBNC mention. Frankly, there’s a very good reason for that. Solar’s semifinal run in Super Tournament 2 was his best result of the entire year, topping his top eight finish in the first Super Tournament.

Solar was in desperation mode in Super Tournament 2 as he contended against soO, Trap, sOs, and GuMiho for Korea's final ticket to BlizzCon. Unfortunately, he was stopped short of his goal as sOs defeated him 3-2 in the semifinals. With one more map win against sOs and a series win against Classic in the finals, Solar could have secured his spot in 2018's grand finale.

In online competitions, Solar put up a very healthy win-rate in tournaments both large and small, but he was ultimately bested by the secretive sOs who played in no online competitions at all. Solar earns himself the #9 spot after a month of solid performances, but it will hardly be of any solace after missing out on BlizzCon.

Call him a madman. Call him a genius. It doesn't matter: sOs is going back to the Global Finals.

Despite having a very mediocre year overall, sOs scrapped together enough points to earn Korea's eighth and final BlizzCon seed with a miraculous Super Tournament 2 run. sOs started off by confirming GuMiho's exit from contention by defeating KeeN in the Ro16. Then, he did the impossible and eliminated freshly crowned 3-time Code S champion Maru in the Ro8. That left him to face Solar in the semifinals in a head-to-head deathmatch with a Global Finals spot on the line. sOs initially went down 0-2, but he came back with an incredible reverse-sweep to snatch the last ticket up for himself.

With seemingly unstoppable momentum, he quickly secured a 3-0 lead in the finals against Classic. However, after making such an unlikely run, sOs suffered just as dramatic of a collapse, allowing Classic to come back with a 4-3 reverse sweep of his own. sOs may not have won the tournament in the end, but he secured his place in the Global Finals, a competition he has already won two times in his career.

The Jin Air Protoss was never the favorite headed into either of his BlizzCon championships—is another unexpected sOs-triumph brewing? Will he really shatter everyone’s hopes and dreams in Anaheim to claim his third world championship? Everything is possible with sOs. All we can say for certain is this: sOs is very hungry once more and now he hunts the biggest prize of all.

The bad boy of the Korean scene is very much like the moon: he waxes and wanes as the weeks go by, only unveiling his true form on rare occasions. Dark’s lackluster Code S Ro16 elimination in August saw him drop all the way to #10 in our previous Power Rank, but here he is once more, climbing the ranks.

For Dark, September’s big opportunity was the second GSL Super Tournament of the year. It was smooth sailing for Dark all the way up to the semifinals, where he met his mortal frenemy Classic. Dark swaggered his way to a 2-0 lead in the series, only to suffer an embarrassing reverse-sweep (Classic went on to nab the trophy with another reverse-sweep in the finals). The Super Tournament run encapsulated Dark's 2018 in a nutshell: overwhelmingly strong at his best and a serial choker at his worst.

Alongside Rogue and INnoVation, Dark is one of the players we're quick to give the benefit of the doubt in the Power Rank, as they've been #1 worthy in the past. Dark's Super Tournament Ro4 finish signaled a partial recovery, which was enough to warrant a rise in the standings. We're anxious to see if the best version of Dark will show up at BlizzCon.

Stats remained true to his “online Stats” nickname in September, posting a 4-6 record in online events, with three wins coming over elite competition like domickc, yryf and WayTeh. By now we’re well acquainted with online Stats, but we can rely on Stats to reveal his true abilities in the events that matter most. Month in and month out, the Splyce Protoss repeats the whole song and dance, and has become richer and more renowned for it.

It wasn’t like that this time around. After losing to Zest in the Code S quarterfinals, Stats suffered quarterfinal elimination yet again in Super Tournament 2, losing to Solar as he made a desperate lunge toward BlizzCon. It was Stats' second loss to Solar that month—not a bad result given Solar’s result form. But overall, Stats was disappointing in September and he was a far cry from the player who took Serral to seven games in the GSL vs. The World finals.

The lack of positive results over the past month do little to inspire confidence when it comes to Stats’ chances at the WCS Global Championship. Recent struggles aside, Stats is still one of only five players to win a tournament on Korean soil this year. Should he summon up a bit of his old form he’ll have a fair shot of redeeming himself after last year’s BlizzCon disappointment.

Zest's slip to the #5 spot in this month’s ranking is affirmation of the age old maxim(?): don’t get stuck in traffic. Whereas GuMiho was plummeted into Close But No Cigar purgatory after losing in qualifiers for Super Tournament 2, Zest didn't even get to play at all after a particularly difficult commute. With that in mind it’s a little cruel that Zest’s standing would fall.

We can't forget about the beating Maru administered to Zest in the Code S semifinals, even if Maru beatdowns have become so routine that we no longer count them too harshly against the recipients. But it’s hard not to recognize the performances by the players ahead of Zest: TY, who gave Maru his toughest match of the year in the Code S finals, and Classic, who stormed in from out of nowhere to win Super Tournament 2.

Other than that, Zest remained active on the online circuit. He beat some people (Stats), lost to some people (Solar three times), but overall posted a very positive record. Popular opinion suggests that Zest isn’t as good as his results signify, but he’ll still go into BlizzCon as one of the players most likely to make waves. He still can’t beat Solar, but he’s gone a way to shoring up PvZ, his weakest match-up. The fact that he’s showed good results against the other two races means that he’s well positioned for a deep run.

September turned out to be quite a bittersweet month for TY. Starting strong, he took victories over Classic in the ONPOONG Masters and against Neeb in GSL Code S, finally qualifying him for another Code S Grand Final. Here, he again started very strong, keeping his nerves against the onslaught of Maru’s proxy strategies. Things went all downhill from there, however. His record-chasing opponent simply didn’t stop with the proxies, brute-forcing more and more cheese down TY’s throat to even out the series. TY regained control and got to match point, but in a very typical TY fashion he simply couldn’t close it out. Game 6 on Acid Plant basically was decided in the Splyce Terran’s favor before he choked and essentially handed the map back to Maru. The final game ended with TY tapping out after failing to hold against Maru's desperation attack.

It was TY’s big chance to overcome Maru, to keep him from winning his third GSL in a row and making history for himself, but he blew it. For now, he’ll continue to play second fiddle to the Jin Air Terran.

The loss clearly had a bit of an impact on TY’s mentality, since he stopped competing online again (with the exception of the ONPOONG Masters where he promptly lost to Solar). Most concerning is his early elimination at the hands of Creator in Super Tournament 2. Creator—who played in just a single Code S this year—is not someone a recent GSL finalist and BlizzCon contender should lose a Bo5 to. Maybe we can shrug it off and say TY was taking it easy after the Code S finals. But if not, he must quickly recompose himself if he is to have a chance of winning the WCS Global Finals.

After a lengthy hiatus from our Power Rank and being successful in general, Classic is back and making an impact just in time for BlizzCon! September saw Classic record some decent online results but it was the Super Tournament where he truly shined.

He didn't qualify in very convincing fashion (2-0 SuperNoVa, 0-2 Solar, 2-1 Cure) and hardly anyone expected him to be a strong contender for the trophy. After a dominating win over FanTaSy and close call against Creator, Classic scored his first impressive victory by defeating nemesis Dark in the semifinals. Down 0-2 to start, Classic heavily utilized Adept-builds to reverse-sweep the Zerg master. On the other side of the bracket, sOs had once more managed to shock the StarCraft world by securing a BlizzCon spot and reaching the finals.

Initially, it seemed as if Classic would choke away another championship opportunity in 2018 after sOs went up 3-0. The Jin Air Protoss seemed unstoppable, his victory almost confirmed. Classic, however, kept his cool and turned his fortunes around. One map after another, he picked apart sOs’ PvP gameplan, eventually completing a reverse-sweep against his second opponent in a row.

The moment was significant in that it was Classic's first major title since 2015. However, his ability to stay calm and under such intense pressure may be our biggest takeaway from Super Tournament 2. Classic started 2018 looking like one of the best players in the world, but his reputation crumbled after a number of un-clutch performances in important matches. Now, with adamantine nerves to match his considerable skill, Classic suddenly looks like a very deadly opponent for anyone to face at BlizzCon.

The Finnish Phenom puts in another flawless month without a single series loss. Serral winning his fourth WCS Circuit championship was almost inevitable, the fulfillment of a preordained future. It's true that Serral looked a bit more vulnerable than usual as the all-ZvZ gauntlet of Scarlett, Lambo, and Reynor pushed him to his limits at Montreal. But ultimately, Serral proved once again that even when he faces immense pressure, he'll come out victorious every time.

After WCS, Serral took some more dominant victories at the QLASH Invitational finals and in online competition as well, quickly erasing any doubts about his ZvZ left over from Montreal. It took four people to finally beat the Finnish Zerg in a 4 vs. 1 archon mode show match, which pretty much sums up everything we need to know about Serral's power before BlizzCon.

Other players might be wary about having such a giant target mark stuck to their back—the foreigner who takes down Serral would become a legendary giant-killer, while the Korean who defeats him would become a righteous avenger for GSL vs. The World. In Serral's case... the only reason he wouldn't welcome the challenge is because he doesn't think it's a challenge at all.

Serral won't be the underdog in any match-up in the near future, not even at BlizzCon with half of the field being elite Koreans. Even against Maru, he'll be able to go into the match as an equal.

What can we say? A month ago, we were scrounging for ways to make Maru seem vulnerable, to make Code S slightly more interesting. Headed into a quarterfinal match against GuMiho, we speculated that TvT might be Maru's worst match-up. But he barely had to lift a figurative finger as he swept the Towel Terran 3-0, setting up a rematch against Zest in the Round of 4. Maru dropped just a single map against the Scythe Esports Protoss in their second meeting in two seasons as he continued his march towards history.

Maru had made it known over the past few months that TY was the player he feared most and. While the Splyce Terran proved to be a sterner test than any Maru faced all year in GSL, Maru clutched out the seven game series, becoming the first player to win three consecutive Code S titles in the process.

Maru’s achievement was historic, but he still had one more tournament to play in before he could prepare for BlizzCon. He 3-0'd Rogue in the opening match of Super Tournament 2, but lost in a very peculiar team-kill type situation that brought sOs one step closer to qualifying for BlizzCon (a feat sOs ultimately accomplished one match later). Some might point out Maru's poor performances in the two Super Tournaments and GSL vs. The World as a weakness, but others might say he conserves his best efforts for tournaments where big prize pools and StarCraft II history are on the line.

With GSL competition having taken its bow for the year, there’s no doubt that Maru is the best player in the world. As the favorite heading into BlizzCon, it would be no surprise if Maru claimed his fifth title of the year and became Jin Air’s third WCS Global Champion.