As the Koreans finally reclaim the top positions of their own ESL Open Cup, the German menace HeroMarine begins to expand onto other servers to establish his tyrannical rule far from home—but with villains come saviors.
Another week, another winner: the tenth Korean server cup goes to RagnaroK, who was able to defeat Trap in the finals. The Chivo player had some tough ZvPs to play on the way to the finals after initially beating TaeJa in the first round. This cup marks the first time that the top 4 is entirely consisting of Korean players, a quite noteworthy fact after ten weeks of lackluster participation.
On the European server HeroMarine once again ran the show (pushing a name change to "Big Gabe Weekly" on his stream and social media), despite meeting resistance by a very big name in the form of Reynor, who played the cup for the first time to challenge the the German's streak. Big Gabe had a fantastic day, however, and his TvZ looked stellar, going through Denver, Lambo, and then Reynor with a mix of bio and mech play. His greatest challenger was actually souL, who was able to bring the German to the brink of defeat, but was unable to close the series out. This is HeroMarine's third victory in a row, bringing his gold medal count to six. We shall see next week, if Lambo's and Reynor's entreaties to Serral to come and stop the rampage of Big Gabe bear any fruit.
Not content with his victory in Europe, HeroMarine went on to also play his way into the finals of the NA cup, wishing to become the first player to win on more than one server in the same week. However, his nemesis Clem had also found the path to the finals and was able to claim the NA title for himself after a closely fought TvT duel. The Liquid player had already taken out American hope Future and his team mate uThermal in TvTs before meeting HeroMarine and was able to successfully transfer his momentum into the finals. Thus, he thwarted HeroMarine's great plans, and started the next chapter in this interesting rivalry—to be continued...
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 #11 of ESL Open Cups is set to take place on March 22nd.
I'm loving the foreign Terran rivalries popping up. This UThermal, Clem, Big Gabe triumvirate is gonna be sweet on the circuit, as well as guys like SpeciaL and Poltu and Future.
On March 17 2020 13:20 ssg wrote: Feel like they should double the points these are worth considering how much talent plays in these
The EPT Point System is not the WCS System. There are 52 Cups on 3 Servers, so 156 cups in total. 15 points each means 1560 + 780 in Total for 1st and 2nd place respectivly. Winning a Katowice was 1200 points, not 4000. 2nd got 840 instaed of 2100. So these open cups allready pumps out more points than a single offline event does
Edit: looking at the standings, you can see how much these Cups add up with Heromarine. He s 9 places above Impact, who had the same placing as him at Kato, but didn t get a single point from the Cups so far: ESL Pro Tour/2020/21/Circuit/Standings
One of my favourite aspects of these cups are the player streams. The HeroMarine vs. Lambo match was great because you had both POVs available. I really wished that Reynor would've decided to stream his run as well. Also, HeroMarine cosplaying ByuN on stream with his playlist made for a 10/10 viewer experience.
Somehow these cups make me feel like the time when the StarCraft 2 Beta came out and everyone played in the Go4SC2 cups - big names, small names, just everyone.
On March 19 2020 06:12 ShowTheLights wrote: Viewership for these ESL Open Cups are HORRIBLE
Zero chance they aren't losing money for this and will cancel/ cut down on these open cups
Any, uh, numbers or statements from ESL you can actually back this statement up with? Because Wardi, for example, is extremely happy with the viewer numbers for these cups, and I can't imagine ESL/Apollo having unrealistic expectations when it comes to these weeklies. They certainly are much more successful right now than Go4SC2s were at the end.
On March 19 2020 06:12 ShowTheLights wrote: Viewership for these ESL Open Cups are HORRIBLE
Zero chance they aren't losing money for this and will cancel/ cut down on these open cups
Any, uh, numbers or statements from ESL you can actually back this statement up with? Because Wardi, for example, is extremely happy with the viewer numbers for these cups, and I can't imagine ESL/Apollo having unrealistic expectations when it comes to these weeklies. They certainly are much more successful right now than Go4SC2s were at the end.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/ept2020_21/eptbanner734.jpg)
HeroMarine begins to expand onto other servers to establish his tyrannical rule far from home—but with villains come saviors.
