EPTIEM Katowice 2020: Round of 24 Preview
by WaxOur IEM Katowice 2020 group stage previews continue with Groups C & D. While Groups A & B featured three previous IEM Katowice champions, the latter two groups might somehow contain even more star power. Let's open these groups up and take a look!
Group C: Elazer, Maru, Solar, Patience, INnoVation, TrapStart time: Friday, Feb 28 10:45am GMT (GMT+00:00)
A Tale of Two Terrans.
Roughly one year ago, INnoVation reminded us that he is, still, indeed, motherf***ing INnoVation by defeating Serral to win the $150,000 first place prize at WESG. While INnoVation's seismic victory over the Korean-Killer was the most memorable part of the tournament, that triumph overshadowed another symbolic victory for the Machine Terran. It so happened to be that Maru had also participated in WESG and had also advanced deep into the playoffs. Only, in the case of Maru, he was vanquished by INnoVAtion in the semifinals, one step away from that long-awaited dream match against Serral.
What a stark contrast! Maru, three-time (at the time) Code S champion: fails to even earn a chance to defend the GSL's honor against a rampaging Serral. INnoVation, a player who sucked for an entire year: punches Serral in the mouth when you give him $100,000 to make it worth his while. A Chinese community meme succinctly summed up this difference between the two players: "INnoVation: Has his own theme song. Maru: Does not."
Of course, this is an extremely inaccurate, subjective, un-nuanced, and stupid way to describe the difference between the two great Terran players of our time. And yet, it's something we all sort of understand in our guts, and it explains how INnoVation can win TL.net's community greatest-of-all-time fan contest after, as mentioned above, sucking for a year. No matter how many records Maru breaks, and no matter how many superhuman feats of micro he performs, there will always be a feeling that somewhere out there in the world, locked behind a pair of unblinking, disinterested eyes, there lies a brute force to rival him.
Poland can into RO12?
Off the top of my head, it's a real short list of non-Korean players who have won a major tournament in their own country: Neeb winning WCS Austin is the only recent example that comes to mind—if you look back into ancient history, there's a few other examples like ThorZain winning DreamHack Stockholm,Sen winning at the Taiwan Esports Open, or Stephano winning ESWC 2011 (remind me if I've left someone out).
What I mean to say is: Polish fans shouldn't get too optimistic about Elazer getting out of his group. I mean, even Serral couldn't win the ASUS ROG tournament that was basically created for him to win, suggesting StarCraft II actually has a homefield DISadvantage. Still, I can't help but think about Elazer's crazy run to the GSL vs. World finals last year and hold out hope for a playoff run. The Polish fans have been barred from attending in person due to corona virus concerns—it would be great if they got something to cheer for.
Fun and Games
There's something funny about Solar campaigning for the removal of region-lock as he heads into the IEM Katowice group stage. Year after year, it's been the tournament that shows us the skill-gap between Korea and the rest of the world might not really have closed that much. I mean, look at his group-mate Patience—he's hard-stuck in the Code S Ro16, but he comes over to Europe and immediately knocks out a far more popular foreigner and two-time BlizzCon participant in HeroMarine. Doesn't that show us why the non-Korean scene needs to be insulated?
Then again, maybe it exactly proves Solar's point: that the system is grossly unjust, and that fairness—unlike viewership or profitability—should be treated as being inherently valuable. Hmm, I guess that wasn't so funny after all.
You've arrived in a weird place as a player where you're just as known for your extremely vocal super-fan (as PtitDrogo so aptly put it: "More annoying fanbase than Rick and Morty, and there's only one guy"), as you are for reaching two Code S finals in a row. But I guess that's just how it is for Trap, an excellent, solid player who hasn't taken over any of the niches claimed by others. 'Best all-around Protoss' has been claimed by Stats. 'Most handsome Protoss' belongs to Zest. 'Most evil' surely belongs to sOs.
As we all know, those last two categories can never be challenged for. But Stats sure does seem vulnerable on top of what used to be consistency mountain. A few more series wins in Katowice, and who knows? Maybe we'll be calling Trap the paragon of Protoss.
Group D: Cure, Serral, TY, sOs, Lambo, HurricaneEstimated start time: Friday, Feb 28 4:15pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
The player to keep an eye on.
Well, it's pretty obviously Serral, the biggest star in all of competitive StarCraft II. Even if he wasn't as super-dominant in 2019 as he was in 2018, he was pretty much the consensus strongest player at every tournament he attended. The road to the championship quite literally went through Serral, with nearly every tournament Serral attended either won by Serral, or won by the player who beat Serral (BlizzCon being a notable exception).
Thus, it's basically a requirement of any SC2 fan to check in on Serral in his first major competition since December and see if that pattern will still hold in 2020. It's not just about counting the number of wins he notches—it's about seeing how he wins those games. Will he look as dominant as he did before? Or will he have taken a step back into being merely an incredibly good player?
The player to keep an eye on, if you think you're cooler than other StarCraft II fans.
Cure has been an online terror in previous years, but he really took it up a notch this pre-season. Since the November balance patch, he's racked up 96–22 match record for an absurd 81.36% win-rate while rising to to #2 in the Aligulac.com rankings (#1 after Serral got removed for 'inactivity'), which makes me comfortable calling him the unofficial Bonjwa of the pre-season.
But how much does performance in the mostly-offline pre-season actually matter?
That's the question hipster fans on TL.net have been asking for months. Terran fans, in particular, might even be more interested in seeing offline Cure's form than that of Maru or INnoVation. Indeed, online-Cure at his best has looked like INnoVation-lite (or INnoVation-deluxe, depending on what mood INnoVation is in), overwhelming his opponents with explosive macro and unending waves of unit in the mid-game.
Personally, I'm a bit skeptical about Cure's chances at IEM Katowice. For one, it was concerning that the wheels fell off the Cure-wagon at the very end of the two of the biggest events he played in. Once, against Stats and team "NoZergGG" in the finals of AfreecaTV's BJ Destruction match (a GSTL-esque tournament that gets view Western views due to being an AfreecaTV exclusive), and later, against RagnaroK in the finals of the WardiTV 2020 tournament. Second, he's admitted to performing poorly in live, high-pressure situations like the GSL.
Then again, he did qualify for this tournament through the EU server qualifier, where he overcame Korea-to-Europe ping, defeated a slew of top foreigners, and went 2-3 against Serral despite the abhorrent conditions. Winning with a 300 ping disadvantage doesn't exactly translate to a 300 MMR advantage in a live environment, but it's a ridiculous feat that I can't get out of my mind.
Quick hits on everyone else
Back when Hurricane made his completely unexpected run to the Code S Season 2 semifinals last year, Dark made a quip about investing in 'Hurri-Coin.' I'm assuming Dark was just being polite, because he proceeded to destroy Hurricane in their semifinal match and sent his value plummeting (he didn't make it out of the Ro32 next season). IEM Katowice 2020 marks the first significant rebound for Hurri-Coin since then, as he's advanced to the RO24 from the open bracket. Still, this market feels way too volatile for my tastes—I think a more prudent place to put my esports dollars might be Lam-bonds.
After all, it's hard for me not to be at least a little bit biased toward Lambo, as he's frequently available to drive clicks to this website. He does appear to be playing some good StarCraft at the moment—after drawing some relatively soft matches against HateMe and Blue in the first two rounds of his RO76 bracket, he delivered one of the bigger upsets of the RO76 by taking down Trap in the qualifying match. I'm all for a deep playoff run from Lambo, as I'm supportive of anything that will give him a loftier podium from which to critique Korean play (preferably on this website).
There were jokes aplenty when TY took on a side gig as GSL caster halfway through 2019, but the long pre-season has turned him back into a full-time progamer. Though his online results haven't been as monstrous as Cure, he's quietly put up a match record of 53–20 for a 72.60% win-rate. You know, the kind of the stats you assume a top-tier competitor would put up if they had to focus on online competition for lack of other options. TY got a bit lost in the midst of last year's Zerg-mania, so it's time to see if he really belongs back in the title mix.
Finally, we have sOs, the winner of the infamous winner-take-all version of IEM World Championship back in 2014. For ruthlessly cheesing his way to that victory, as well as paydays at BlizzCon 2013 and 2015, sOs has earned infinite "you can never count him out" credit. I don't care that all those achievements were in Heart of the Swarm or the fact that sOs never got out of the Code S group stages in 2019. For all I care, he could be retired for 15 years and be stuck in Bronze League, and I'd still consider him one of the most dangerous competitors on the planet.
The player to keep an eye on.
Well, it's pretty obviously Serral, the biggest star in all of competitive StarCraft II. Even if he wasn't as super-dominant in 2019 as he was in 2018, he was pretty much the consensus strongest player at every tournament he attended. The road to the championship quite literally went through Serral, with nearly every tournament Serral attended either won by Serral, or won by the player who beat Serral (BlizzCon being a notable exception).
Thus, it's basically a requirement of any SC2 fan to check in on Serral in his first major competition since December and see if that pattern will still hold in 2020. It's not just about counting the number of wins he notches—it's about seeing how he wins those games. Will he look as dominant as he did before? Or will he have taken a step back into being merely an incredibly good player?
The player to keep an eye on, if you think you're cooler than other StarCraft II fans.
Cure has been an online terror in previous years, but he really took it up a notch this pre-season. Since the November balance patch, he's racked up 96–22 match record for an absurd 81.36% win-rate while rising to to #2 in the Aligulac.com rankings (#1 after Serral got removed for 'inactivity'), which makes me comfortable calling him the unofficial Bonjwa of the pre-season.
But how much does performance in the mostly-offline pre-season actually matter?
That's the question hipster fans on TL.net have been asking for months. Terran fans, in particular, might even be more interested in seeing offline Cure's form than that of Maru or INnoVation. Indeed, online-Cure at his best has looked like INnoVation-lite (or INnoVation-deluxe, depending on what mood INnoVation is in), overwhelming his opponents with explosive macro and unending waves of unit in the mid-game.
Personally, I'm a bit skeptical about Cure's chances at IEM Katowice. For one, it was concerning that the wheels fell off the Cure-wagon at the very end of the two of the biggest events he played in. Once, against Stats and team "NoZergGG" in the finals of AfreecaTV's BJ Destruction match (a GSTL-esque tournament that gets view Western views due to being an AfreecaTV exclusive), and later, against RagnaroK in the finals of the WardiTV 2020 tournament. Second, he's admitted to performing poorly in live, high-pressure situations like the GSL.
Then again, he did qualify for this tournament through the EU server qualifier, where he overcame Korea-to-Europe ping, defeated a slew of top foreigners, and went 2-3 against Serral despite the abhorrent conditions. Winning with a 300 ping disadvantage doesn't exactly translate to a 300 MMR advantage in a live environment, but it's a ridiculous feat that I can't get out of my mind.
Quick hits on everyone else
Back when Hurricane made his completely unexpected run to the Code S Season 2 semifinals last year, Dark made a quip about investing in 'Hurri-Coin.' I'm assuming Dark was just being polite, because he proceeded to destroy Hurricane in their semifinal match and sent his value plummeting (he didn't make it out of the Ro32 next season). IEM Katowice 2020 marks the first significant rebound for Hurri-Coin since then, as he's advanced to the RO24 from the open bracket. Still, this market feels way too volatile for my tastes—I think a more prudent place to put my esports dollars might be Lam-bonds.
After all, it's hard for me not to be at least a little bit biased toward Lambo, as he's frequently available to drive clicks to this website. He does appear to be playing some good StarCraft at the moment—after drawing some relatively soft matches against HateMe and Blue in the first two rounds of his RO76 bracket, he delivered one of the bigger upsets of the RO76 by taking down Trap in the qualifying match. I'm all for a deep playoff run from Lambo, as I'm supportive of anything that will give him a loftier podium from which to critique Korean play (preferably on this website).
There were jokes aplenty when TY took on a side gig as GSL caster halfway through 2019, but the long pre-season has turned him back into a full-time progamer. Though his online results haven't been as monstrous as Cure, he's quietly put up a match record of 53–20 for a 72.60% win-rate. You know, the kind of the stats you assume a top-tier competitor would put up if they had to focus on online competition for lack of other options. TY got a bit lost in the midst of last year's Zerg-mania, so it's time to see if he really belongs back in the title mix.
Finally, we have sOs, the winner of the infamous winner-take-all version of IEM World Championship back in 2014. For ruthlessly cheesing his way to that victory, as well as paydays at BlizzCon 2013 and 2015, sOs has earned infinite "you can never count him out" credit. I don't care that all those achievements were in Heart of the Swarm or the fact that sOs never got out of the Code S group stages in 2019. For all I care, he could be retired for 15 years and be stuck in Bronze League, and I'd still consider him one of the most dangerous competitors on the planet.
