After a 64-player open qualifer and a 24-player group stage, we're left with just twelve players as we head into the most unforgiving phase of IEM Katowice. The playoffs are upon us, with thousands of dollars and hundreds of EPT points on the line in each single-elimination round.
Round-of-24 recap
Group A: Business as usual
Dear surprised many fans and experts alike by narrowly clinching the group A's RO8 spot over bigger stars like Dark and Stats. But despite eating a clean 0-2 loss to Dark, Dear made sure that was the only set he ever lost two-zip, showcasing dominating form to dismantle Has, Stats, PartinG and Special
WCS Global Champion Dark suffered a surprise 0-2 loss to PartinG's all-ins to open the group, but otherwise looked red hot as he chased the #1 seed. Ultimately, his initial loss to PartinG made a big difference, and he was forced to settle for the #2 spot in the group. Foreign Terran hope SpeCial's history of heartbreak continued at IEM, as once more he finished just below the RO12 cut-off with a 2-3 record (losing to the top three of Dear, Dark and Stats). Stream star PartinG also fell short at 2-3, ultimately wasting a strong first impression against Dark. Has came, cheesed, and didn't really conquer (he went 0-5), but at least he entertained us by pushing Stats to the verge of defeat with cheese before losing 1-2.
Group B: Manner, please
The most prominent story in Group B was the rise and fall of BlizzCon runner-up Reynor. After taking out ShoWTimE and Armani to jump out to an early lead in the group, he declared that he'd be favored to defeat the remaining Korean Zergs as well. Unfortunately for Reynor, he was thoroughly schooled by the veterans from Korea, suffering losses to Rogue, soO, and not-even-a-Zerg Zest. His losses to Zest and Rogue could be excused, however, as they ended up being the top two players in the group. Rogue took the #1 spot with a record of 4-1 and tournament-best 9-2 map score, while Zest also put up a 4-1 record (with a more modest 9-4 map score).
Instead of Reynor, ShoWTimE ended up being the European player who shined in the group. He followed the opposite trajectory: after losing his first two matches to Reynor and Rogue, ShoWTimE reeled off a streak of wins against Armani, Zest, and soO to qualify for the RO12 in dramatic fashion.
Rogue's performance may not have been a surprise, given his Code S win and top-eight BlizzCon finish last year. But Zest's strong showing was a welcome surprise for Protoss fans, as he bounced back from a tepid 2019 where he struggled to be more than a middling player for a few weeks at a time. On the other hand, 2019 champion soO struggled to rediscover last year's magic, and joined Reynor and Armani in the elimination zone.
Group C: Terran Terrors...
Group C was the group that followed popular predictions most closely, with three Korean players advancing—two of them being the greatest Terrans of the modern era. INnoVation looked to be the favorite to advance in first place after three consecutive victories against Patience, Solar and Elazer, but his narrow loss in a TvT brawl against Maru was a turning point. Maru, after suffering an early loss to Trap, kicked things into overdrive, and notched four consecutive victories to overtake INnoVation and finish in first place.
Speaking of Trap, the Jin Air Protoss managed to both impress and disappoint. He defeated both of Group C's top finishers in INnoVation and Maru, but his strong PvT fell in heavy contrast to his weak PvZ as he lost to both Solar and Elazer. Unfortunately, Trap was unable to defeat last-place finisher Patience in his 'neutral' match-up, and was eliminated with a 2-3 record. That left Solar to claim the the third ticket out of the group, scrapping by with a 3-2 match record and 7-6 map score.
Group D: Rock you like a Hurricane
Group D turned out to be the most closely contested group of the RO24, with five players unsure of their fates headed into the final round of games. Serral looked like he might take the only 5-0 of the group stage after winning his first three matches against Lambo, sOs, and Cure, but he was struck by lightning out of nowhere—a 0-2 jolt from a roaring Hurricane. Still, the Finnish Phenom managed to survive that brief scare, defeating TY in his final match to secure a 4-1 record and first place.
Hurricane's upset against Serral wasn't just a cute underdog story—it was a vital win in a scrappy run that saw him rise from the losers' bracket of the RO76 and reach the RO12 playoffs. His wins against Serral, combined with wins against sOs and Lambo, allowed him to barely edge out TY for #3 in the group (IEM's controversial tie-breaker rules where # of total map-wins takes precedence over head-to-head came into play).
Online darling Cure got off to a solid start by defeating Lambo and Hurricane, but his IEM group began to look more like a GSL group as time went along. After losing his third match to Serral, Cure had to endure a tiring, marathon TvT against TY which ended in a painful 1-2 loss. Perhaps exhausted by that series, Cure then lost his final match to an opportunistic sOs, who was ready to snatch away the RO12 spot from his former teammate.
This bracket is terrible. The bottom half is extremely stacked while the top half is basically a free trip to the finals for Serral. Hope Dear or Zest surprise me. I have almost no faith in Innovation upsetting Serral.
soO was so closed to qualified, I actually thought he could repeat last year's story. All he need is a 2-0 against showtime, but showtime performed better than he usually does. I also thought ty locked his place, but esl's irule s a bit weird, therefore he need a win against serral to lock his place. Looking forward to sOs and the terrans to perform well and win it all
On February 29 2020 08:07 sneakyfox wrote: I'm as happy as the next guy to see Harry Kane advancing, but honestly it makes no sense that he advances over TY.
TY both has the higher map win percentage as well as winning 2-0 against Hurricane in their match.
Really hope ESL fixes this in the future.
Yeah it's kind of a bummer, this should be adressed :/. But it's hard to have a fair system tho.
On February 29 2020 08:07 sneakyfox wrote: I'm as happy as the next guy to see Harry Kane advancing, but honestly it makes no sense that he advances over TY.
TY both has the higher map win percentage as well as winning 2-0 against Hurricane in their match.
Really hope ESL fixes this in the future.
Totally agreed. The rules are the rules, but the rules are dumb. Hurricane had 1 more win in 2 more games played, counting statistics should not be the basis for evaluation unless the sample size is the same.
On February 29 2020 08:11 JJH777 wrote: This bracket is terrible. The bottom half is extremely stacked while the top half is basically a free trip to the finals for Serral. Hope Dear or Zest surprise me. I have almost no faith in Innovation upsetting Serral.
Am I the only one who thinks this isn't entirely true? One side of the bracket is always gonna be stronger, but I really don't think it's very drastic in this scenario. Showtime looked really strong in his games, Hurricane literally beat Serral, and Innovation, Zest, and Dear all look like they are back around top form, which says a lot because they all had ridiculously strong peaks.
On February 29 2020 08:11 JJH777 wrote: This bracket is terrible. The bottom half is extremely stacked while the top half is basically a free trip to the finals for Serral. Hope Dear or Zest surprise me. I have almost no faith in Innovation upsetting Serral.
Am I the only one who thinks this isn't entirely true? One side of the bracket is always gonna be stronger, but I really don't think it's very drastic in this scenario. Showtime looked really strong in his games, Hurricane literally beat Serral, and Innovation, Zest, and Dear all look like they are back around top form, which says a lot because they all had ridiculously strong peaks.
The most recent big event was Blizzcon. The top half of the bracket has 1 player that made top 8 in Blizzcon. The bottom half of the bracket has 3. The bottom half of the bracket has Stats and Maru who are the only non Zerg players to have won a premier event in the last 11 months.
Showtime did impress in his group and a Protoss beating Serral is always impressive. Those results don't suddenly make them comparable to Stats/Maru/Dark/Rogue though.
On February 29 2020 08:11 JJH777 wrote: This bracket is terrible. The bottom half is extremely stacked while the top half is basically a free trip to the finals for Serral. Hope Dear or Zest surprise me. I have almost no faith in Innovation upsetting Serral.
INno beat Serral at the height of Serral's powers in last year's high-stakes WESG finals - I think the stakes are high enough now and he's been practicing hard enough that an INno victory is possible again. Also, Hurricane just beat Serral in the group stages and they're both on the same side of the bracket...wouldn't call it a free ticket for Serral.
On February 29 2020 08:11 JJH777 wrote: This bracket is terrible. The bottom half is extremely stacked while the top half is basically a free trip to the finals for Serral. Hope Dear or Zest surprise me. I have almost no faith in Innovation upsetting Serral.
Am I the only one who thinks this isn't entirely true? One side of the bracket is always gonna be stronger, but I really don't think it's very drastic in this scenario. Showtime looked really strong in his games, Hurricane literally beat Serral, and Innovation, Zest, and Dear all look like they are back around top form, which says a lot because they all had ridiculously strong peaks.
The most recent big event was Blizzcon. The top half of the bracket has 1 player that made top 8 in Blizzcon. The bottom half of the bracket has 3. The bottom half of the bracket has Stats and Maru who are the only non Zerg players to have won a premier event in the last 11 months.
Showtime did impress in his group and a Protoss beating Serral is always impressive. Those results don't suddenly make them comparable to Stats/Maru/Dark/Rogue though.
All fair points, but that was also like 4/5 months ago
I hope they changed the rules regarding ties after this event. TY absolutely got robbed. It makes zero sense that map score takes precedence over head to head results. Basically he got punished because he played fewer games. Either look at head to head first or change total map wins to win percentage.
On February 29 2020 08:11 JJH777 wrote: This bracket is terrible. The bottom half is extremely stacked while the top half is basically a free trip to the finals for Serral. Hope Dear or Zest surprise me. I have almost no faith in Innovation upsetting Serral.
Yeah the bottom bracket is hell, this is just terrible.
TY wins every game (maybe unless the game 1 against sos) he should win and people think he is overrated.
The only difference between group c & d is the top zerg is Serral instead of solar. So unlike Maru and Inno, TY cannot get 2 wins from zerg. the others are the same (lose to top p, win against other players)
I agree with those saying that the top half of the bracket is substantially easier, on average, than the bottom half. However, if TY had advanced instead of Hurricane, as should have happened, I think the brackets would have been much more nearly even. The bottom half would still have been stronger, but not by nearly as large a factor.
I know Aligulac is not perfect, but I'm happy to use it in lieu of a better barometer. The average rating of the players populating the top half of the bracket is 2742, compared to 2851 for the bottom half. If TY had advanced with his 6-5 score instead of Hurricane with his 7-6 score (I'm still wrapping my head around the sheer idiocy of the rule that dictated that Hurricane advance), the average rating of the top half of the bracket would have been 2834, much closer to the bottom half's average of 2851.
We would also have had 3 terrans, 4 zergs, and 5 protosses rather than 2, 4, and 6 respectively. Additionally, there would only be 3 guaranteed mirror matchups in the Ro12 and Ro8 as opposed to 5 guaranteed mirror matchups. For all of the above reasons, I'm sad Hurricane advanced over TY. All the same, we should be in store for some great games, so I'm excited for the next two days!
On February 29 2020 14:32 MockHamill wrote: Only 2 Terrans in the top 12. When was the last time terran took a large portion of the top spots in a tournament?
The Homestory Cup that happened immediately after Blizzcon 2018 on a brand new patch had Terran over represented. I feel the Z/P lineup there was weak though and they were still adapting to the patch while the T players didn't have to adapt as much. Serral still ended up winning there regardless. Besides that not since 2017.
On February 29 2020 15:33 Crocolisk Dundee wrote: Hurricane won more maps than TY. Hurricane won 7 maps, whereas TY won 6. A 1:2 match loss is better than a 0:2 match loss in the ESL system.
A 1:2 loss should be better than 0:2 loss. Problem with Esl system is that 2-0 win and 0-2 loss is worse than 2-1 win and 1-2 loss, which doesn't make any sense.
Ties are broken in the following order: 1.Overall map difference 2.Overall number of map wins 3.Match wins amassed between the tied participants ('Mini-League')
They should change order of 2. and 3. rule, to fix it.
On February 29 2020 15:33 Crocolisk Dundee wrote: Hurricane won more maps than TY. Hurricane won 7 maps, whereas TY won 6. A 1:2 match loss is better than a 0:2 match loss in the ESL system.
A 1:2 loss should be better than 0:2 loss. Problem with Esl system is that 2-0 win and 0-2 loss is worse than 2-1 win and 1-2 loss, which doesn't make any sense.
Ties are broken in the following order: 1.Overall map difference 2.Overall number of map wins 3.Match wins amassed between the tied participants ('Mini-League')
They should change order of 2. and 3. rule, to fix it.
I dont understand this. Can someone help me?
If a player wins 2-0 its the best, 2-1 is worse, 1-2 is more worse and 0-2 is the worst for the statistics in the groups, right? Why are ppl saying (like the quoted statement), that winning 2-0 is worse then winning 2-1? Am i missing something or is that just wrong?
On February 29 2020 15:33 Crocolisk Dundee wrote: Hurricane won more maps than TY. Hurricane won 7 maps, whereas TY won 6. A 1:2 match loss is better than a 0:2 match loss in the ESL system.
A 1:2 loss should be better than 0:2 loss. Problem with Esl system is that 2-0 win and 0-2 loss is worse than 2-1 win and 1-2 loss, which doesn't make any sense.
Ties are broken in the following order: 1.Overall map difference 2.Overall number of map wins 3.Match wins amassed between the tied participants ('Mini-League')
They should change order of 2. and 3. rule, to fix it.
I dont understand this. Can someone help me?
If a player wins 2-0 its the best, 2-1 is worse, 1-2 is more worse and 0-2 is the worst for the statistics in the groups, right? Why are ppl saying (like the quoted statement), that winning 2-0 is worse then winning 2-1? Am i missing something or is that just wrong?
It's not that 2-0 is worse than 2-1, but over two matches winning 2-0 then losing 0-2 is worse than winning 2-1 then losing 1-2 because in the first case you have a 2-2 overall map score and the second you are 3-3, and under ESL tie-break rules 3-3 is better than 2-2.
People are complaining about ESL using map wins as a decider if map difference is the same.
It would be hilarious if they change the ruling and next katowice the fan favorite also suffers from the new "fair" system that the comunity advocates for now.
Lets face it, ppl complains about the ruling because of the names involved and it is sad.
On February 29 2020 17:17 Argonauta wrote: It would be hilarious if they change the ruling and next katowice the fan favorite also suffers from the new "fair" system that the comunity advocates for now.
Lets face it, ppl complains about the ruling because of the names involved and it is sad.
The rules are rules. If Harry Kane had not advanced, nobody would complaint. I would have liked to see TY or Cure go trough, but they did not.
1 Zerg already save in semis says everything about the current balance. Inno also didn't Look String vs Solar and Maru at least ein the group,after His game vs Trap I already thought won't make it. Anyway we geht another ZvZ final wheeeey interesting 😒
On February 29 2020 15:33 Crocolisk Dundee wrote: Hurricane won more maps than TY. Hurricane won 7 maps, whereas TY won 6. A 1:2 match loss is better than a 0:2 match loss in the ESL system.
A 1:2 loss should be better than 0:2 loss. Problem with Esl system is that 2-0 win and 0-2 loss is worse than 2-1 win and 1-2 loss, which doesn't make any sense.
Ties are broken in the following order: 1.Overall map difference 2.Overall number of map wins 3.Match wins amassed between the tied participants ('Mini-League')
They should change order of 2. and 3. rule, to fix it.
Or even simpler, just have
1. Map win percentage 2. Match wins amassed between the tied participants ('Mini-League')
If it were up to me players tied in map score would always play a tie breaker. I'm neither okay with arbitrarily deciding that 7-6 is superior to 6-5 (also not with 6-5 superior to 7-6 should they change this ruling at some point to accomodate the fact that 6-5 is in fact a superior winrate), nor with nodding someone through because they maybe barely beat somebody 2-1 once at the start of the group where neither of them was warmed up.
On February 29 2020 17:47 Geo.Rion wrote: Funny how there are still people who believe we will ever get a Maru vs Serral. Havent u learnt ur lessons by now?
Yeah this bracket is tailor made to be an excuse for Maru not to make the finals.
On February 29 2020 18:03 Elentos wrote: If it were up to me players tied in map score would always play a tie breaker. I'm neither okay with arbitrarily deciding that 7-6 is superior to 6-5 (also not with 6-5 superior to 7-6 should they change this ruling at some point to accomodate the fact that 6-5 is in fact a superior winrate), nor with nodding someone through because they maybe barely beat somebody 2-1 once at the start of the group where neither of them was warmed up.
That would theoretically be most fair, but it would be really difficult for production. If there is another group afterwards, the whole scheduled gets pushed back by the additional nail-biter match that people would surely want to watch. Or if it's the later group, the schedule might go too far into the night. Plus those players would have a disadvantage the next day by having played a possibly exhausting match at a point when they where already tired.
I think in that case it would be better to just go with head-to-head.
On February 29 2020 18:03 Elentos wrote: If it were up to me players tied in map score would always play a tie breaker. I'm neither okay with arbitrarily deciding that 7-6 is superior to 6-5 (also not with 6-5 superior to 7-6 should they change this ruling at some point to accomodate the fact that 6-5 is in fact a superior winrate), nor with nodding someone through because they maybe barely beat somebody 2-1 once at the start of the group where neither of them was warmed up.
That would theoretically be most fair, but it would be really difficult for production. If there is another group afterwards, the whole scheduled gets pushed back by the additional nail-biter match that people would surely want to watch. Or if it's the later group, the schedule might go too far into the night. Plus those players would have a disadvantage the next day by having played a possibly exhausting match at a point when they where already tired.
I think in that case it would be better to just go with head-to-head.
Just take the day off from after the open bracket and put it after the 4 groups
Also they have multiple streams, half the decisions for every group don't happen on the main one. The tie breaker could be played on C for example if it's between groups. C would probably be in game 1 of the first series of the next group before there's significant delay. Or entirely off-stream.
Wow Serral has made it to every Ro8 of the playoff of Katowice since 2017 (with a first place in group stage every time!!!). That's 4 consecutive IEM Katowice with mostly Koreans competing! He's the only one who has accomplished this feat including Koreans, so it really is a testament of Serral's strength and consistency. The next best finish for foreigners goes to Neeb being eliminated in the group stage twice and making it to the Ro8 once in the same time frame.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/ept2020_21/katowice2020/ro12bracket1_0.png)
Dear surprised many fans and experts alike by narrowly clinching the group A's RO8 spot over bigger stars like Dark and Stats. But despite eating a clean 0-2 loss to Dark, Dear made sure that was the only set he ever lost two-zip, showcasing dominating form to dismantle Has, 
