EPT
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With many of the ESL Open Cup regulars still tied up at IEM Katowice (or at least traveling/taking a break on the Monday after), week #111 provided yet another opportunity for outsiders to get involved in the title mix. While
MaxPax and Classic ended up being victorious for the second straight week in Europe and Korea, the Americas cup saw KeeN come out as the surprise winner—even with Clem having returned from Katowice![ESL Open Cups have temporarily stopped awarding EPT points. Cups will continue to be held and award prize money as before, but will only resume awarding points once the EPT 2022/23 season officially begins.]
KR cup: With most of the top koreans players in Poland for the World Championship, only a few of KR players that could not qualify or were eliminated early decided to take part in EPT Cup #112. The notable Protoss players in contention were Classic, herO (who had been eliminated early in the RO36 of IEM Katowice) and MacSed, while Terran had GuMiho and HonMonO to rely on. Meanwhile, Zerg had Armani, GogojOey, and TRUE among its familiar names.
Having so few strong players meant that there was barely any competition before the semifinals. The bouts between more evenly matched competitors saw GuMiho beat MacSed 2-1 in the RO16, while Armani beat TRUE 2-0 in the quarterfinals. The semifinals saw Classic defeat GuMiho 2-0 in PvT, while Armani took down herO 2-1 on the other side of the bracket. Armani drew first blood in the grand finals, but Classic hit back with three straight wins to get his second straight Asian Cup victory.
Upset(s) of the day: Armani beating herO 2-1 was kind of a big upset: the DPG Protoss was favored with 76:24 odds according to Aligulac. It could be assumed that herO was playing from Korea on equal conditions, as ESL offered to fly players home early after elimination.
*****
EU Cup: The European cup was also less stacked than usual, but it still had a number of strong players participating. The obvious favorite was previous winner MaxPax, while #2 seed Gerald and recent semifinalist Rattata also seemed to have favorable paths laid out ahead of them.
Not surprisingly, MaxPax easily beat relatively unknown players YourBroChris, threepoint and Boboop in all three match-ups (PvP, PvZ and PvT respectively) without dropping a map, before facing a tougher semifinals challenge in ArT (who notably beat countryman MaNa earlier as well as Canadian protoss DisK). The Polish Protoss couldn't put up much more resistance, however, and MaxPax continued his undefeated run with another 2-0.
There were still some close matches throughout the earlier rounds, with the young French Protoss arrogfire beating the recently hot Trigger 2-1 in the RO16, while German Protoss GunGFuBanDa beat French Zerg Denver 2-1 in RO32. Rattata defeated GunGFuBanDa 2-1 afterwards as well as arrogfire 2-0 to face Gerald in the semifinals, who himself had defeated three Terrans consecutively without dropping a map (namely Poryphorion from Canada, CuKu from Romania and MilkiCow from Russia). Rattata won his semifinal clash against Gerald by a 2-0 score, but couldn't stand in the way of MaxPax completing a perfect, undefeated run in the finals. The mysterious Dane took a 3-0 sweep, clinching his second EU Cup in a row for his sixth overall.
Upset(s) of the day: ArT beating MaNa 2-1 was one unexpected result, with the other big upset being arrogfire defeating trigger 2-1 (albeit with server advantage). Aligulac saw the Frenchman as quite the underdog with just around a 25% chance to win.
*****
NA Cup: The NA Cup was interestingly the most stacked cup of the three, which is something that doesn't happen often. Indeed, several strong players participated: Classic, Cyan, Gerald, trigger, GuMiho, KeeN and Rattata to name the most notable ones. Even Clem was back in action after his outing at IEM Katowice.
As the first seed, Clem had a relatively easy road towards the finals, and he did not lose a map until the semifinals. There, Korean Protoss Chance managed to take a map, but couldn't steal the whole upset in a BO3. Chance had a very nice run of his own before that: he beat arrogfire and trigger 2-0 in the PvPs, and also toko down GuMiho 2-1.
In the lower side of the bracket, Rattata got upset by Canadian protoss Maplez 1-2, but KeeN proved too strong in the following round. KeeN, who had curiously declined his IEM Katowice RO36 spot, made an undefeated run up until the semifinals, taking out Cyan, HonMoNo. KeeN then faced off against Classic, who had notably defeated the 2nd seed Gerald 2-0—although dropping a map to underdog UK Terran Raza in ro16 beforehands. Perhaps this map loss to Raza was a sign that Classic was not feeling it that day in PvT, because KeeN surprisingly upset him with the 2-0 victory.
Most observers would have predicted Clem to crush and destroy KeeN, but the Korean Terran was on fire that day and was the one sweeping Clem with the impressive 3-0 victory. KeeN thus got his first gold medal in the EPT cups at the end of a perfect run!
Upset(s) of the day: KeeN's entire run was the biggest upset for me, particularly his dominating victories over Classic and Clem. Aligulac gave him around a 38% chance to beat Classic, and just 27% against Clem.
by Poopi
