Aiming for victory in all three regions, Solar secured wins in the ESL Open Cups on the Korean and American servers in Week #42, being stopped only during the semi-finals in the European edition by a triumphant Reynor. It's the closest anyone has ever climbed toward achieving the ESL Open triple crown!
Solar's reclamation of the Korean ESL Open Cup title from Dark, who had in turn taken it from him three weeks ago and since then defended it, can't be called anything but deserved when comparing the two finalist's brackets. While Dark struggled heavily to battle through a full-Chinese bracket of Cyan, TIME and MacSed, who all forced a full-distance-series out of him, Solar contended with Zoun and Trap for advancement, taking them both out after some heavily contested games. Solar and strong ZvP? Checks out! Contrasting both of their runs until that point, the final series was a one-sided affair, with the KaiZi Zerg coming out ahead clearly and gaining revenge for the defeat in the previous week. This was to be the start of a long—a very long—ESL Open Cup campaign for Solar.
Italian boyband memberReynor decided to give a live performance in the ESL Open Cup Europe this week, streaming his very successful and dominating run from beginning to end. While Vanya did take a map off the QLASH player in the quarters, the Russian Zerg wasn't able to follow through on his win and complete the upset. Reynor stayed alive to chart a course to the finals, taking down Solar, who had tried to claim victory in Europe, but as always these days the old world proved too much of a bastion to be conquered from outside. Naturally, Clem made his way to the ultimate series on the other side of the bracket, but since MaxPax had already been taken down by HeRoMaRinE, who in turn fell to Elazer, he was thus denied his lucky charm. Putting on a dominating performance in the finals, Reynor secured himself a sixth gold medal, the first one since June.
Not being put down by his loss in the European expedition, Solar returned once more to terrorize the American edition of the ESL Open Cup. Taking out Golden, Nina and Gerald, Solar met his compatriot and GSL semi-finalist Armani in the finals. The Afreeca Zerg resisted his opponent a bit more than Dark earlier in the day, but in the end Solar made it another ZvZ finals win, shortening the gap between him and PartinG for most gold medals in the American cup to just one. While Solar almost winning the triple crown is the headlining story this week, the NA edition had another strong candidate to offer: almost unknown Terran Dolan made a name for himself by coming very close to defeating none other than DongRaeGu in a very entertaining David vs. Goliath-series (VOD).
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 #43 of ESL Open Cups is set to take place on November 2nd.
How long did Solar have to be online to do this? There are so many games and you need to be available for some time before playing. How long are breaks between regions?
The play time makes the double 1st + one semi more impressive.
Solar vs Reynor on very bad conditions with laggy games..otherwise probably triple crown even though Reynor is a bit too good for everyone at the moment.
On October 28 2020 20:22 atchosvk wrote: Solar vs Reynor on very bad conditions with laggy games..otherwise probably triple crown even though Reynor is a bit too good for everyone at the moment.
Doubt it, even without lag reynor would of been the big fav, and then in the final v clem who has beaten him before.
Dark and Solar are 10th and 12th respectively in the KR rankings so it makes sense that at this stage the open cup has become a more important source of points.