Stories continued to be built up in week nine of the ESL Open cups with a player strengthening his dominance in Europe, the Americas being torn apart by a diverse field of competitors, and another new winner emerging in Korea.
If you're looking for some inspiration to spice up your ZvP, Armani is the man to study. His run to win the Korean server cup included victories against last week's winner HerO, the Jin Air duo Trap and Creator, as well as IEM Katowice finalist Zest. This is Armani's first win on the Korean server, but he was already able to win an ESL Open cup on the NA server before. This week's Korean cup also stands out by including pretty solid Korean participation for the first time, perhaps showing that the Koreans are warming up to the idea of playing for a small amount of points.
In Europe, HeroMarine continued to dominate and took his fifth ESL Open cup victory, this time beating Clem in the finals, thus completing his revenge for the lost bout in Cup #3. The European cup goes on being a treasure trove of little stories: besides HeroMarine's dominance and revenge story, we saw Clem once again beating a German player in the semi finals in ShoWTimE, and we had Cure participating and breaking into the top 4 as the first Korean to ever do that. Despite his practice in playing on the EU server from Korea, Cure could not overcome its' defenders this time, however. Europa hält stand!
Speaking of Europe, the NA server once again had to bow to European might, as uThermal was able to defeat TLO in a Team Liquid teamkill scenario in the finals of the Americas cup, marking the second finals in a row without a player from the two American continents participating. SpeCial was the last surviving NA player this time, but he succumbed to TLO in the semi finals.
ESL Open Cup winners earn $100 in prize money and 10 ESL Pro Tour points. Players who finish second earn 5 ESL Pro Tour points. Week #10 of ESL Open Cups is set to take place on March 15th.
On March 10 2020 05:01 HolydaKing wrote: What the hell, TLO beat Mana and Special without losing a map and then almost beat uThermal?
Heromarine really loves to win these cups.
Yeah Tlo played out of his mind, would def watch those semi's back on Pigs/basetrades or other channels as especially the 2nd game between special and tlo had so many momentum swings it was insane.
Uthermal was also down 20 or so workers in his 2nd game v Clem before making a miracle comeback to win it 2-0. And then in the final TLO used some sublime roach ravager control against bio which I barely ever see work but he managed to win 2 games with it. He then also got close to winning the series as uthermal was all inning on 3 bases in the last match while Tlo just got his 5th up and just had to hold on for a bit longer.
But some great pre splits to negate ling bane surrounds and some clutch bane snipes in the end got Uthermal over the line. Best NA esl cup to date imo.
On March 10 2020 21:31 ZugzwangSC wrote: TLO really impressing here.
Armani has definitely been a Zerg player on the rise.
Weekly Cups are a lot of fun, man.
Yeah, Armani has the chance to be the 1st returning pro, who has a bigger impact on the scene after his military and not before it Would be amazing news for the Kr scene. Well unles you count Chance in there as well, but I m not sure, if I d even count him as pro, before he went to military, as he just poped up now.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/ept2020_21/eptbanner734.jpg)
Armani is the man to study. His run to win the Korean server cup included victories against last week's winner 
