The ESL Open Cup Korea celebrates a first-time winner for a second week in a row: soO was able to best the competition and conclude the tournament as the victor. There was nothing new in Europe, as the private ping-pong match between HeRoMaRinE and ShoWTimE continued. This time around, Big Gabe seized the trophy. The Americas edition saw a 'home' server player triumph once more, with Neeb taking advantage of a relatively soft pool of players to take first place.
Silver surfer soO now has an ESL Open gold medal to his name! The Afreeca Zerg had to go through his Code S semi-finalist team mate DongRaeGu, giving the returner another ZvZ loss to think about, teamless Hurricane and Big Boy PartinG to take the title. PartinG apparently decided to try his luck on the Korean server instead of the American one for once, but the decision didn't exactly pay off. Cup #31's participation was solid, but lapsed a bit compared to the usual field, perhaps because of the start of the Gold Series Team Championship 2020 Fall Season, which had regular participants like Cure, Trap and Solar engaged in team matches.
Weeks since someone else than HeRoMaRinE or ShoWTimE won the ESL Open Cup EU: Six Seven. The German duo dominated the field again, meeting for their first personal clash in the finals ever since Cup #22. Curiously, this week Big Gabe was able to win the tournament without dropping a single map, the exact feat die Mauer had achieved two times in a row in earlier cups. ShoWTimE's long win streak was finally broken by Clem in the semis, who managed to get close to beating the Protoss this week by taking two maps. It seems like simply dominating the competition isn't enough anymore for the two Germans, HeRoMaRinE is now likely trying to beat his countryman's streak to one-up him.
The American server got a brief respite this week, with no big-name Koreans coming over to take everybody's lunch money. Neeb was able to take hold of the opportunity and secure another victory for himself, the first since almost three months. Surprisingly, he met MarineLorD in the finals, who managed to eliminate the previous week's winner Astrea in the semi-finals. In a curious twist, military returner ForGG gave the tournament a shot, but was defeated early on by Future.
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 #27 of ESL Open Cups is set to take place on July 13th.
Thanks for the article, Showtime vs Clem was a great joy to watch. Heromarine finally managing to beat Showtime was cool as well. Didn't watch the other cups at all but it's nice to have an overview for what happened there.
Didn’t expect HeroMarine to just 3-0 ShoWTimE, but he watched his series vs Clem because he qualified for the finals pretty fast so I guess that helped (less tiring to 3-0 Mana than barely beating Clem 3-2 I guess as well).
On August 12 2020 17:45 Poopi wrote: Didn’t expect HeroMarine to just 3-0 ShoWTimE, but he watched his series vs Clem because he qualified for the finals pretty fast so I guess that helped (less tiring to 3-0 Mana than barely beating Clem 3-2 I guess as well).
Nice to see the Lord getting in shape again!
Well MLord pretty much "only" had to beat one good player in Astrea to get to the finals. But yeah, decent result for him nontheless compared to how he s doing in the past 12 months at least.
Damn, Big Gabe not dropping a single map this time. It feels like he and Showtime and Clem are constantly battling it out as the top 3 EU players after Serral/Reynor.
On August 13 2020 14:44 Kitai wrote: Damn, Big Gabe not dropping a single map this time. It feels like he and Showtime and Clem are constantly battling it out as the top 3 EU players after Serral/Reynor.
well, if you are result-oriented partizipations / victorys than showtime and heromarine are clearly above clem
On August 13 2020 14:44 Kitai wrote: Damn, Big Gabe not dropping a single map this time. It feels like he and Showtime and Clem are constantly battling it out as the top 3 EU players after Serral/Reynor.
well, if you are result-oriented partizipations / victorys than showtime and heromarine are clearly above clem
This is true, but I also take into account what the pros themselves say on streams and in interviews about how skilled they think their colleagues are. Results on paper don't always tell the full story. Unfortunately for me, it's hard to go back and link the sources for those sorts of things, so I'm merely stating my perception/opinion based on what I've observed from both mediums.
I feel like Heromarine is probably better than Clem at TvP and maybe at TvT as well, while Clem is clearly better at TvZ. Considering the best Zergs don't play in the European ESL Open cups, it's not too surprising Heromarine is doing way better than Clem in these.
On August 14 2020 01:57 HolydaKing wrote: I feel like Heromarine is probably better than Clem at TvP and maybe at TvT as well, while Clem is clearly better at TvZ. Considering the best Zergs don't play in the European ESL Open cups, it's not too surprising Heromarine is doing way better than Clem in these.
I would say Clems TvP is also better than Gabe's considering the Frenchman has taken a decent amount of series and games off Koreean tosses which Gabe has a horrible record against. Clem is also 12-5 in series against showtime this year while gabes record against Tobias is 4-7 (2020)
I think it has more to do with consistency and also the TvT matchup you mentioned as Clem lost multiple series against uThermal and Gabe himself in these cups.