EPT
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Week #105 was the last edition of ESL Open Cups to give out EPT points, and both
ShoWTimE and Lambo were in action as they scrambled to lock in the #6 spot in Europe and the IEM Katowice group stage seed that comes with it.In one of the more dramatic ESL Weekly runs of the 2021/22 season, the German Protoss was not only able to directly eliminate Lambo from the EU cup with a 2-1 victory in quarterfinals (preventing him from gaining any points in that cup), but also secured his place over Lambo by winning the EU cup outright. The 10 points from the victory gave ShoWTimE a 752-740 points lead on Lambo—a margin too wide for Lambo to cover even with a win in the NA cup. Once Elazer was eliminated a day later in DHM Last Chance (where he could have technically overtaken ShoWTimE in the standings with a grand finals run), ShoWTimE 100% locked in his Katowice RO24 seed.
Meanwhile, Korea saw a repeat of the finals from cup #104 with
Solar beating herO once again (albeit with a 3-1 score this time instead of the previous 3-0) for a back-to-back victory. herO got some consolation in the NA cup where he won a back-to-back title of his own.[ESL Open Cups will no longer award points for the EPT 2021/22 season. Cups will continue to be held and award prize money as before, but will only resume awarding points once the EPT 2022/23 season begins.]
KR cup: The KR cup had a limited number of participants as usual, but there were still strong players such as ByuN, Percival, Ryung and SpeCial for the Terrans, Armani and Solar among others as Zerg representatives, and several Protosses like Zest, Classic, Creator, herO and Nice. An old school player also made a surprise appearance in the form of TRUE, who returned after almost two years without any competitive match results. Not surprisingly, he lost 2-0 to SpeCial in the first round.
Other than that, the bracket played out relatively predictably, with herO beating Percival and Zest 2-1 to go face Nice in the semifinals. The Taiwanese Protoss pulled a big upset earlier with his 2-1 victory against ByuN, but could not beat herO and lost their BO5 by a 1-3 score. The bottom side of the bracket had a minor upset with SpeCial managing to defeat Classic 2-1 (the Protoss had beaten Creator 2-0 the previous round), but the other matches went as expected. Indeed, Armani took out Ryung 2-1, but could not go past Solar who beat him by the same score. Solar went on to defeat SpeCial in a convincing 3-0 semifinal series to book a finals rematch against herO.
Solar was once again able to defeat herO, but the DPG Protoss offered more resistance than in their last encounter by avoiding a sweep. In game one on Curious Minds, Solar punished herO's attempt to go for a Void Ray style by killing the Protoss third with a Queen-Ravager-Ling push before the 7-minute mark. While herO preserved most of his air units, he couldn't deal sufficient damage back to Solar and conceded defeat 3 minutes later. herO hit back on Hardwire, winning a 16-minute long macro game which featured a ton of low-econ action. Solar won game three on Berlingrad, using runbys to slow down herO's attempt to put together a Void Ray-Tempest composition. A maxed out attack with Corruptors, Roaches, Ravagers, and Queens was enough to force herO to GG. The last game on 2000 Atmospheres was quite close and could have gone either way. herO went for a mid-game 'timing attack' with a mix of just about everything—Carriers, Voids, and Phoenixes in the air, and Disruptors, Stalkers, Zealots, and Adepts on the ground. His attack became a desperate all-in as Solar once again managed to successfully harass him with ling runby's, and herO was forced to surrender the cup title once his frontal attack sputtered out.
Upset(s) of the day: Nice beating ByuN 2-1 was the biggest upset of this cup for me, and it was a bigger one than you might think at first glance. The Taiwanese Protoss only had around 11:89 odds of winning according to Aligulac.com, and had an incredibly poor record of 2-28 in matches against Byun headed into the bout (10-63 in maps). With the victory, Nice snapped a fourteen match losing streak that had been going since February of 2021. Another small upset was SpeCial with the 2-1 victory over Classic.
*****
EU Cup: As mentioned in the introduction, the European cup sealed the fate of ShoWTimE and Lambo due to Elazer being unable to advance past the RO16 in DHM: Last Chance. Besides ShoWTimE going on his epic run, a lot of other interesting things happened as well.
Clem did not have any Zergs in his path, but that might have been a good thing considering the TvZ upsets he's given up lately. He still had a rather easy path to the semifinals thanks to his top seed, beating Polish caster/observer Indy 2-0 in the RO32 and fellow Frenchman DnS by the same score in the RO16. Looking at the bracket beforehand, one could have expected SKillous or even Creator to face Clem in quarterfinals, but the German terran BattleB pulled off a pair of upsets by defeating both Creator and Skillous 2-1 victories. Unfortunately, that would be the end of his surprise run, as he lost 0-2 versus Clem.
Lambo beat PtitDrogo 2-0 among others to face ShoWTimE in their absolutely crucial quarterfinal match. Die Mauer came through in the clutch, winning a 2-1 victory to deny Lambo a chance of any points from Europe.
The bottom side of the bracket also had its share of unexpected results—notably, HeroMarine was unable to defend his title because of Harstem channeling his powers in a new year. The Dutch protoss had a cool run, eliminating Krystianer 2-0, HeroMarine 2-1 and underdog protoss MindelVK 2-0 (who pulled off some upsets to go this far) before getting stopped by none other than ByuN, with a 1-3 loss in the semifinals. In his path to the semifinals, ByuN had defeated Rattata 2-0 and MaNa 2-1, and topped that with his victory against Harstem for a very strong cross-server performance. Another impressive result would be MaNa beating MaxPax (now one of the cup favorites) 2-1, which is a notable upset given how strong the Danish Protoss is in the PvP match-up.
The unexpected finals of ShoWTimE versus ByuN started with a Terran victory on Glittering Ashes. A strong bio-raven-mine attack against the Gateway-Phoenix army of ShoWTimE hit at the right moment, and the combination of armor shred from the Raven and great mine detonations forced ShoWTimE to GG. The stakes were high for the German protoss who needed a victory to be 100% safe against Lambo in their Katowice qualification race, and he delivered in the following games of this finals.
ShoWTimE won game two on Berlingrad with his Colossus-Phoenix army by deflecting a multipronged attack attempt from ByuN, keeping good tabs around the map. Colossi were able to defend his third against Mines and a few troops, while he prepared a deathtrap for Byun's 4-Medivac drop into the main. ByuN's drop was crushed, and he GG'd out due to the catastrophic losses. On Pride of Altaris, the game went to the late-game with ShoWTimE able to take a fourth base on the gold, and destroy ByuN’s army in a frontal fight with his superior force. Finally, ShoWTimE beat ByuN on 2000 atmospheres in the same fashion, crushing his opponent's army in a frontal fight with 4 Colossi and a few Phoenixes against a Ghost-Bio army that lacked the Vikings to challenge the Colossi. ShoWTimE therefore won the European cup with his 3-1 victory over ByuN, finishing 12 points ahead of Lambo.
Upset(s) of the day: The final point-giving cup of the season was rich in upsets, and the biggest one for me was German terran BattleB beating both Creator and Skillous 2-1. The victory over Creator was not that unlikely given the server advantage, but pairing it with a victory against the third top ranked protoss in Europe was a nice achievement. Before this match, Skillous had beaten BattleB in nine BO3 series and only conceded a single BO1 defeat in return. MaNa beating MaxPax was also a solid upset, as well as MindelVK over Spirit, and Harstem over HeroMarine (all with a 2-1 score).
*****
NA Cup: Since ShoWTimE won the European cup, Lambo could not catch up to him even if he were to win the NA cup, so both players decided not to play it. There were still some European players not afraid to play at very late hours (it starts around 1am in most western EU countries), notably Clem and MaxPax.
The Frenchman often participated in the NA edition if he did not win EU, and this time it was worth it. Clem only TvP all the way through to the finals, consecutively beating Rhizer, Classic, and Nice without dropping a map to qualify for the semifinals. MaxPax qualified for the semifinals on the same side by beating notably Creator 2-1 and Solar 2-1, but was defeated in that stage by Clem in a narrow 3-2 series.
In the previous cup, herO had beaten SpeCial and Zest on his path to gold, and this time he beat them once again, further establishing himself as one of the ESL Open's stronger players. herO’s run started with a 2-1 win in PvP versus Canadian protoss trigger, followed by 2-0 matches against SpeCial and ByuN before meeting his teammate Zest in the semifinals. Astrea had a promising start with a 2-0 victory against DongRaeGu in the RO16, but Zest was too strong and beat the American protoss 2-1. herO gave himself the opportunity to defend his title by beating Zest 3-1 to face Clem in the finals.
herO won the first game on Berlingrad in a low eco game with a lot of action, but Clem tied things up on Glittering Ashes with a proxy-Hellion drop that dealt good economic damage. herO attempted a counter-attack but could not break through, and Clem got even more damage done with an unscouted Marine drop before finishing the game with a bio-tank push. Clem then took the lead in an action-packed match on 2000 Atmospheres, which began with herO proxying a Gateway behind Clem’s natural expansion minerals. The game evolved into another exciting macro battle, with Clem able to snowball a lot of profitable skirmishes into an insurmountable advantage.
herO was pushed to the verge of defeat on Hardwire, but pulled back to win at the end of a back and forth game. The deciding game on Blackburn featured more unorthodox openers, with Clem opening up Marine drop + Hellion pressure off one base while herO went for a fast gold base (unscouted) and Adept-Phoenix. herO managed to hold off Clem's harassment pretty well, and his gold base advantage allowed him to build a more powerful army. It was too late for Clem by the time he scouted the base, and he had to GG out to give herO a back-to-back NA cup win.
Upset(s) of the day: The NA cup played out pretty predictably, with barely any result that could be considered an upset. The closest thing to be called an upset would be Astrea eliminating DRG 2-0, which but it's not terribly surprising given DRG's relative weakness in the match-up. MaxPax beating Solar 2-1 might have been an upset a few months ago, but the two players are much more closely matched now.
by Poopi
European Server Cup #105 (Click for full bracket)
Americas Server Cup #105 (Click for full bracket)
