EPT
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In week #115, Solar was able to win in a particularly stacked KR cup—his first win on his home server since week #109. He also became the only non-Protoss to win on the KR server during the off-season period, with Zest, herO, Classic, and Creator having won 8 cups out of 10 so far.
In Europe, Clem's post-Katowice campaign continued to build steam as he won his second EU cup in a row. He has dominated the off-season in general, winning six out of ten EU cups—while only participating in eight (his other two results were top four). The competition was fierce in NA as well, but SpeCial managed to win it all in a rare victory for the local NA players.
[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: After a rather poor turnout in week #114, the Korean Cup featured much better competition in week #115. While a relatively low number of players participated, the names involved were eye-catching: Astrea, Trap, Solar, Dream, GuMiho, Creator, Has, herO and trigger just to name a few. Also, Cure made a return to his old stomping grounds, proving he's still a formidable force in open cups. He cruised through his side of the bracket, beating TRUE (2-0), GuMiho (2-0), and herO (2-1) to qualify for the finals. herO had made a solid PvP run up to that point with wins over Bistork and Has, but couldn't overcome the online beast that is Cure.
The competition was also fierce on the opposite side of the bracket, with Code S level matches popping up in the RO16: Dream defeated Creator 2-1, but in turn was defeated 0-2 by Trap (the Freecs ace had defeated Astrea in the previous round). However, it was Solar who would come out on top on this side of the bracket. Recovering from a surprise upset against Cyan in last week's cup, Solar took down trigger (2-0) and Trap (2-1) to advance to the finals.
The finals ended up being a tight five game contest with Cure going up 2-1 at the halfway mark. However, Solar kept his cool and rallied with two straight wins, sealing a 3-2 victory. It marked Solar's 30th total ESL Cup win across all regions, solidifying his #4 position in the overall win total standings (Cure trails him at #5 with 22 wins, while Clem, HeroMarine, and Zest are ahead of him).
Upset(s) of the day: There was not a single obvious upset this week in the KR cup. Therefore, we'll give credit to Solar for getting quality victories against closely matched opponents in Trap and Cure.
*****
EU Cup: There is a very interesting phenomenon happening in the EU cup: TIME and SpeCial are participating very often and obtaining good results, despite the trio of Clem, HeroMarine, and MaxPax lurking as huge threats. If TIME was playing cross-server on Europe as the rules dictate, then this week's run was one of his most impressive yet.
Once again, MaxPax's #1 seeding gave him an advantage as he started on the opposite side of the bracket from Clem and HeroMarine, but it was TIME who triumphed in there instead. Indeed, he beat PtitDrogo and MaxPax both 2-1 as well as arrogfire 2-0. His semifinals versus SpeCial was also difficult but TIME prevailed with the 2-1 victory. The earlier rounds of the bracket featured some upsets as well, with Rattata taking out Neeb (perhaps not an upset given Neeb's switch to part-time status), only to be defeated by BattleB in turn.
Meanwhile, HeroMarine and Clem had their expected clash on the other side of the bracket. HeroMarine got to the semis with notable victories over Botvinnik (2-0), GungFuBanda (2-1), and SKillous (2-1), while Clem picked up wins against former teammate Harstem (2-0) and Spatz (2-1). The frequent EU Cup clash between Clem and HeroMarine ended in Clem's favor this time, with Clem taking a 2-0 victory. The victory broke their previous tie, putting Clem ahead 17-16 in EU Cup matches.
TIME's amazing run continued up until game three of the finals, where he continued to defy the odds and take a 2-1 lead. However, in a repeat of the Korean cup, the trailing player came back for the victory, with Clem persevering and taking the 3-2 win in the end. With several dominant performances in this off-season period, Clem is inching closer to HeroMarine in total cups won. He now has 37 wins (all regions) compared to Big Gabe's 41, while Zest is still #1 with 44 wins.
Upset(s) of the day: There were numerous upsets in week #115. The biggest one was TIME's whole run in general. Just beating PtitDrogo and arrogfire cross-server was already a good result, but the victories against SpeCial and MaxPax, as well as the close call against Clem made it spectacular.
The chain of upsets with Rattata beating Neeb and BattleB taking down Rattata stood out as well (again, Neeb's change to part-time status might have made Rattata the favorite). Another impressive result was young French Protoss arrogfire defeating both MaNa and goblin without dropping a map. Finally, some of the lesser known players got wins as well, with Trifax beating DisK while Spatz took down DnS.
*****
NA Cup: The NA edition of the cup was fairly competitive this week, even with Clem once again skipping NA after winning in EU. However, MaxPax and SpeCial decided to double up on the same day and play in another cup. Of course, strong Korean players were in contention as usual, with Cure, herO, and GuMiho joining the fray.
MaxPax dominated his Protoss opponents for the early part of his run, beating US players Slayer and Rhizer 2-0, and then beating fellow EU Protoss goblin 2-1 to advance to the semis (goblin had defeated ForJumy 2-1 the round before). Cure also had a strong run versus Protosses, beating Maplez and Nice before squaring up with MaxPax in the semifinals. Cure proved to be the better player on the day, defeating MaxPax and moving onto his second grand finals of the week where he'd try to make up for his 2-3 loss to Solar in the Korean cup.
SpeCial and herO matched up in the other semifinal of the cup, having defeated GuMiho and trigger in the previous round. NA players often struggle to go deep in their home server cup, but this time around, the Mexican Terran was able to beat herO 2-0 and move on to the grand finals.
According to some viewers the finals between Cure and SpeCial was a crazy match with plenty of back and forth action, but ultimately it was the NA player who ended up going all the way. Just like the Korean cup, Cure went up with 2-1 lead, but ended up blowing it again in a five game series. The victory gave SpeCial his fifth overall cup winl, tying him with Trap and Armani.
Upset(s) of the day: SpeCial's run was very nice, defeating strong Korean players in GuMiho, herO, and Cure (playing with a minor server advantage after having returned to Mexico). He was probably around even with Gumiho and the slight underdog against herO and Cure, so this is definitely impressive. Also, kudos for NA Terran Epic for taking a map off herO as well.
by Poopi
