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Reynor defeats Serral 4-2 to win WCS Summer 2019

Forum Index > SC2 General
65 CommentsPost a Reply
1 2 3 4 Next All
TL.net ESPORTS
Profile Joined July 2011
4 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-08-04 11:10:05
July 15 2019 02:11 GMT
#1


2019 WCS Circuit: Summer


The WCS Circuit welcomed a new king as Reynor defeated Serral 4-2 in the grand finals of WCS Summer to end the Finnish Phenom's streak of major WCS Circuit championships at five. In lifting the trophy, the seventeen-year-old Italian Zerg avenged his 3-4 loss to Serral at 2018's WCS Montreal—a tournament where he could have won his first major title if he had not erred and allowed Serral to pull off an impossible comeback in game six. It seemed like Reynor would eventually get his due when he defeated Serral 4-3 in the finals of the trimmed-down 2019 WCS Winter: Europe tournament, but Serral's decisive 3-0 sweep of Reynor in the semis of last month's WCS Spring suggested that the Finn still reigned supreme in full-scale WCS Circuit events.

Indeed, the first three-and-a-half games made it look like Serral would easily put the upstart in his place. Having shown composure far beyond his age in the past, Reynor made the uncharacteristic error of forgetting Roach speed in both games one and three, which Serral ruthlessly punished for two easy victories (Reynor managed to take game two after fending off a two-base all-in from Serral). Serral looked like he was well on his way to a 3-1 series lead midway through game four, building a daunting late-game advantage with cunning counter-attacks and Nydus tactics. However, it only ended up setting the table for Reynor to repay Serral's incredible comeback from WCS Montreal with one of his own. With just one thing on his side—a larger 200/200 army due to having his Drones whittled away by Serral—Reynor gathered his forces and took Serral down with a desperation haymaker. "I tried the YOLO move, F2 A-move, and it worked." said a laughing Reynor in his post-finals interview.

The comeback seemed to swing all of the momentum in Reynor's favor, with Serral being the one looking uncharacteristically sloppy afterward. Game five went Reynor's way after Serral forced a disastrous Roach-Ravager vs Roach-Ravager fight into his opponent's awaiting army. Then, Reynor closed out the series in game six, with his handful of mid-game Mutalisks giving him just enough of an advantage to overwhelm Serral with a follow-up Roach-Ravager attack.

With his first WCS Circuit title (two, if including the ambiguously stationed WCS Winter: Europe), Reynor won $20,000 in prize money and a direct seed to the WCS Global Finals for his first place finish ([view WCS standings]). And, if anyone had previous balked at such an inexperienced youngster being dubbed the rival of the most dominant player in WCS Circuit history, then Reynor now seems to have fully earned that designation.


Serral's Streak Broken

For Serral, the loss marked the end of an unprecedented run of success that began in January of 2018 at WCS Leipzig. After defeating ShoWTimE to win his first WCS Circuit title, Serral went on to win four more for a consecutive total of five, blowing past Neeb's previous best of 3-of-4 titles in WCS 2017. Starting in WCS Leipzig 2018 and up until his loss to Reynor, Serral had won thirty-five consecutive matches in offline, combined-region WCS Circuit championships (excluding WCS Winter: Europe) with a total map record of 98-25.

In hindsight, the end of Serral's reign was portended at WCS Montreal 2018, and not just by his close call against Reynor in the finals. Lambo and Scarlett also took Serral to full-length series in the playoffs (Bo5's), and even the North American underdog JonSnow managed to steal a map. Although Protoss and Terran pros seemed resigned to losing against Serral, the top Zergs of the Circuit seemed to have a puncher's chance—something Reynor proved correct at WCS Europe: Winter.

Outside the few minutes after winning the 2018 WCS Global finals, Serral had always been understated and restrained in victory. In defeat, he was very much the same. After scratching his head and offering Reynor a congratulatory handshake, Serral left the stage. His subsequent Tweet suggested he was not especially perturbed: "Not this time, a bit sad about game 4 and 5 which I pucked up but otherwise a fine series."

Reynor's Path

With top Protoss players such as ShoWTimE and Neeb drawn into Serral's side of the bracket, WCS Summer became an opportunity for Reynor to reaffirm his ZvT chops. After taking out MarineLorD and uThermal in the group stage, Reynor took an impressive 3-1 victory over WCS Spring runner-up SpeCial in the quarterfinals. His come-from-behind victory on King's Cove was particularly notable, where he withstood constant pressure from SpeCial before finally assembling a late-game composition that could deal with the Terran's mech army. In the semis, Reynor defeated top EU Terran HeRoMaRinE, making up for an 0-3 loss at HomeStory Cup 19. Oddly enough, the tightest margin of victory for Reynor was a 3-2 against Nerchio in the round-of-sixteen, a point that the acerbic Polish Zerg was quick to point out after the grand finals.

The next offline event on the WCS Circuit will be ASUS ROG 2019 (August 1-3), with Reynor, Serral, and many of the top Circuit players competing alongside a handful of WCS Korea players. After that, GSL vs. The World is set to follow on August 15-18. The final WCS Circuit championship of the year will take place in Montreal during September 6-8 at WCS Fall.
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TL+ Member
NoS-Craig
Profile Joined July 2011
Australia3094 Posts
July 15 2019 02:17 GMT
#2
Very impressive performance by Reynor. I just assumed Serral would stomp everyone again but Reynor gets another up on Serral. I was hoping Special would get further but shit happens.
Artosis loves Starcraft
Xain0n
Profile Joined November 2018
Italy3963 Posts
July 15 2019 02:38 GMT
#3
Very nice writeup, I appreciated the paths to the finals being highlighted.

Nerchio undervalued his ZvZ in his tweet, he played well and had Reynor on the ropes.
RealityTheGreat
Profile Joined January 2018
China564 Posts
July 15 2019 03:11 GMT
#4
So why Serral all-in?
Betrayed, forgotten, abandoned.
Fran_
Profile Joined June 2010
United States1024 Posts
July 15 2019 03:13 GMT
#5
Italia! Italia! Italia!
seemsgood
Profile Joined January 2016
5527 Posts
July 15 2019 03:35 GMT
#6
On July 15 2019 12:11 RealityTheGreat wrote:
So why Serral all-in?

Cuz his coin told him so
ZvZ aint a shitty match up for no reason
Xain0n
Profile Joined November 2018
Italy3963 Posts
July 15 2019 03:42 GMT
#7
On July 15 2019 12:11 RealityTheGreat wrote:
So why Serral all-in?


To add variety and unpredictability I guess, the idea was good.

ZvZ involving Serral are always at least very tense, although nothing is better than Reynor internalizing Alphastar's teachings and winning the game pretending ramps just don't exist.
DreamlnCode
Profile Joined December 2018
United Kingdom77 Posts
July 15 2019 03:53 GMT
#8
Those were some crazy games, congratulations to Reynor.

Looks like there's some stiff competition between EU Zergs atm.
MockHamill
Profile Joined March 2010
Sweden1798 Posts
July 15 2019 04:29 GMT
#9
We now have two non-Koreans that can win Blizzcon.
Kalera
Profile Joined January 2018
United States338 Posts
July 15 2019 05:04 GMT
#10
This tournament had a lot of really entertaining games, even in matches with lopsided scores. Congrats to Reynor and his meteoric rise.
Brained
Profile Joined December 2012
Germany58 Posts
July 15 2019 05:53 GMT
#11
good news for sc2!
Hell, it´s about time
Zerg.Zilla
Profile Joined February 2012
Hungary5029 Posts
July 15 2019 06:10 GMT
#12
...a sad day indeed
(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) ~Keep calm and inject Larva~
Fezvezfez
Profile Joined October 2017
58 Posts
July 15 2019 06:31 GMT
#13
The problem I have with Reynor is that he's too damn cute. He smiles and makes thumbs up and laughs when he wins instead of being a robot.
Legan
Profile Joined June 2017
Finland402 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-07-15 06:42:31
July 15 2019 06:40 GMT
#14
Congratulations to Reynor. It's good that Serral's streak broke, but I would have liked it be done by a Terran or Protoss and that the finals would have been little more tighter to make it clearer that others are catching up and not just Serral slumping. I hope and kind of expect that we get this top 8 to GSL vs The World. Maybe Elazer is replaced by Lambo or Scarlett.
Creator of Gresvan, Tropical Sacrifice, Taitalika, and Golden Forge
showstealer1829
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Australia3123 Posts
July 15 2019 06:51 GMT
#15
As I keep saying every WCS might as well just be Reynor and Serral flipping a coin 7 times. At least then we wouldn't waste three days to see the same result. But hey, the same two guys in the WCS finals every time isn't the problem. Let's all nerf Protoss out of the game instead
There is no understanding. There is only Choya. Choya is the way. Choya is Love. Choya is Life. Has is the Light in the Protoss Dark and Nightmare is his chosen Acolyte
stilt
Profile Joined October 2012
France2747 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-07-15 06:56:57
July 15 2019 06:54 GMT
#16
This is a nice rivalry and an incredible feat imo.
Henceforth, it seems like the wcs are decided by one of those two.

Edit : I didn't expect this considering their last encounter.
HotDOSBuns
Profile Joined February 2018
Canada172 Posts
July 15 2019 06:56 GMT
#17
Unfortunately could not watch this live but that just means it was a beautiful day of catching up.

Congrats Reynor! Impossible not to root for this kid. Maybe not the craziest finals but still a good time. GGs
MockHamill
Profile Joined March 2010
Sweden1798 Posts
July 15 2019 07:11 GMT
#18
I do not play Zerg so I am not sure, but to me it looked like Serral played better than Reynor, but lost?

Am I missing something, or is that correct?
UnLarva
Profile Joined March 2019
458 Posts
Last Edited: 2019-07-15 07:56:21
July 15 2019 07:55 GMT
#19
On July 15 2019 16:11 MockHamill wrote:
I do not play Zerg so I am not sure, but to me it looked like Serral played better than Reynor, but lost?

Am I missing something, or is that correct?


Following just my impression, it felt like Reynor was most of time little bit more reactive and concentrating to micro than Serral, while Serral had generally better 'plans' and macro-game. Regardless, Reynor kicked Serral's arse so beautiful it didn't leave much questions or room for speculations who was better this time.

First time for long time I felt there was some kind mental collapse on Serral's side, that then accumulated faster than Serral managed get grip again to his game.

However, if assuming 1000 games series between these two zergs I still consider Serral better when insane volatility of ZvZ is rendered out from results, maybe 400-600 for Serral.

However, Reynor is clearly done a lot of work with studies on Serral's game (probably more than anybody else due his personal experiences and past matches), so it isn't exactly surprise he was the guy to decrypt Serral. Reynor's composure looked much more relaxed than Serral's, even after he noticed his idiot mistakes with roach speed. Without those mistakes it could've been even more clear win for Reynor.

In ZvP and ZvT match Serral is still ahead Reynor.

Furhermore, sometimes I feel Serral GG too easily nowdays in situations that could be recoverable, particularly during mid-end games inwhich he would benefit from his skill. Almost like he would use energy saving tactics too often for avoiding over-lengthy macro games when actively trying go to those kind games would highly likely give better result for him (as we've seen already).

Maybe that wasn't good strategy against Reynor in his mind, but there should never exist reasons to drop games by pre-mature GGs in any BO7 Grand Finals.

GG Reynor!
Part-time Serralogist
HsDLTitich
Profile Blog Joined October 2012
Italy830 Posts
July 15 2019 08:41 GMT
#20
Still thinking about the F2 A-move yolo moment in game 4
I used to organize tournaments for ESL Italy and referee Go4SC2s, WCSs, and IEMs for ESL SC2.
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