First time victors emerged in Week #23 of the ESL Open Cups with Bunny winning the Korean edition, and fellow Korean Solar claiming his first victory on the American server (his fourth overall). In Europe, Reynor returned to wrestle the crown from last week's winner HeroMarine, ten weeks after his last successful run.
With GSL coming up again, we return to a familiar picture in the ESL Open Cups KR, as participation rates sink a bit lower once more, and some players take the tournament a bit less serious than others. sOs participated for the first time, but when clashing with Scarlett, the two agreed to an off-race duel instead. That gave us two bizarre TvTs (which went 1-1) and one reverse-race PvZ, which Scarlett was able to win by blind-countering sOs' in-base-proxy Hatchery into Muta play (apparently the only ZvP build he knows). soO took things a bit more seriously and was able to defeat Scarlett in ZvZ, which also was not without its cheeses, as the dreaded 12 Pool Drone pull made another appearance. In the other semi-finals, Bunny got a walkover win over Zest, who had to forfeit to play a different tournament. Considering that Bunny dropped maps to both MacSed and Cyan in the earlier rounds, it seemed like quite the lucky break. Even so, Bunny dominated soO 3-0 in the finals, which makes it hard to begrudge him his first ESL Open Cup victory.
In the ESL Open Cup EU, the competition was as intense as usual. Almost the entire elite of the region assembled once again, with ShoWTimE being the only regular participant who remained absent. But in his stead, Reynor returned, and plowed through his bracket, meeting Clem (who else?) in the semi-finals and overcoming him with some very solid ZvT, mostly relying on strong Muta-Ling-Bane play to secure the series. On the other side, HeroMarine made his way into the finals, taking a clean win over Lambo, though he struggled a bit in the previous rounds, dropping a few maps during the Bo3s. In the finals, the Big Gabe relied heavily on Hellbat-based early game plays to try and get an advantage against Reynor, with this early game dynamic oft deciding the outcome. HeroMarine was able to kill Reynor outright with one attack, and was able to gain an advantage on their last map, but Reynor's Mutalisk play kept the mostly Mech-based HeroMarine busy for too long, allowing the Italian to come back and win with his renowned counterattacks. Reynor's ZvT is certainly looking deadly again.
Another new winner emerged in the ESL Open Cup AM, with Solar making an almost perfect run to claim his first title on that server. The Korean Zerg continued his great form from Stay At HSC #2 and 3-0'd SpeCial in the finals, after having defeated Nice 3-1 in the semis. The Taiwanese player had defeated two Korean Protoss players before falling to Solar. SpeCial had a pretty tough road to the finals, dropping a map to TLO and then meeting AM cup regular Clem in an epic TvT Bo5, which went all the way to the last game until the Mexican was able to close it out in his favor. Solar, though, continued to demonstrate the strong ZvT that allowed him to beat INnoVation at SAHSC, and put on a dominant showing in the last series of the cup.
ESL Open Cup winners earn $200 in prize money and 10 ESL Pro Tour points. Players who finish second earn 5 ESL Pro Tour points and $100. A top 4 finish guarantees at least $50. Week #24 of ESL Open Cups is set to take place on June 22nd.
On June 17 2020 10:52 ShowTheLights wrote: Does anyone actually watch these?
Used to watch the EU one, when it was still on Sundays.. Now it s a bit tougher for me I usually catch a few games but can t realy watch all of it. I realy enjoy the recaps though, as there is so much Action every week and some amazing storylines.. Obviously it s mostly for the EU one, as that s by far the most competitive.. Can understand,if you d skip it, as the Kr one never had more than 2-4 good Players appart of one or two exeptions
On June 17 2020 10:52 ShowTheLights wrote: Does anyone actually watch these?
I usually watch EU ones, i dont know why KR doesn't have a lot of good players joining in. NA is just literally EU vs KR battleground unless someone really good shows up from NA
On June 17 2020 10:52 ShowTheLights wrote: Does anyone actually watch these?
Why is the only thing you post in these ESL Open threads about how low the viewership is? (hint: IT ISN'T) A lot of people watch them. Why is that a problem for you?
On June 17 2020 10:52 ShowTheLights wrote: Does anyone actually watch these?
Not enough time to watch all of them, but I did catch heromarine streaming his way to the finals of this last one. It was really fun to watch him play in tryhard mode without commentating everything he was doing.
On June 17 2020 10:52 ShowTheLights wrote: Does anyone actually watch these?
Wardi pretty much always gets 4k+ viewers and thats his stream alone, Rotti is now also casting them and always gets 1000+ and then the French cast that gets 1500-2000, Polish cast that gets around 800-1200 and then prob another 1000-1500 from all the other casts together. NA and KR is less popular but yes loads of people watch these. And then I havnt even counted the thousands of people that watch streamers (pro gamers involved) streaming these cups. Loads of fun
On June 18 2020 08:21 mcfii wrote: How come Serral doesn't play?
He has said before that part of it is how late they run. He doesn't stay up too late and likes to keep a regular sleep schedule.
Thanks for the answer. I'm curious how many he would win if he did though its refreshing to see European Champions other than him.
Thats not really the main reason though, the first 15 cups or so started at 2 PM CEST which is quite early. Anyhow Serral barely plays online cups, and these cups only give 10 pts for the winner. Serral knows he doesnt need points from these cups as he will reach the global finals easily with just performing well in the big tournaments.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/ept2020_21/eptbanner734.jpg)
Bunny winning the Korean edition, and fellow Korean 
