EPT
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Week #119 was very similar to the previous one, with
herO winning the KR cup once again and MaxPax maintaining his utter domination in the NA region. The only change was in the European cup, where Big Gabe resumed the Clem-HeroMarine dynasty after a brief interruption by Reynor last week. The victory gave HeroMarine his 42nd cup victory, putting him just one behind 1st place Zest at 43 total wins.Korean Cup: Dark decided to call it quits in the KR cup after failing to win it three weeks in a row. While perhaps it was due to Code S ramping up to its later rounds, it didn't stop some other GSL players from adding their heft to the cup. In particular, Protoss had GSL RO10 players Creator and herO in the mix, alongside others such as MacSed, Nice, Zest, Zoun, and Chinese Protoss ReWhite.. Zerg was still relatively well represented with MeomaikA, Rex, Solar and TRUE, while Terrans had a lot of strong players in TIME, Percival, GuMiho, Cure, and ByuN among others.
You might wonder why I mentioned the relatively unknown player ReWhite, but he actually made a splash by beating MCanning (2-0) and Zoun (2-1) before forfeiting out of the tournament. Nice was the beneficiary of the forfeit, having defeated Percival in the previous round. However, his good luck ended there, as he lost to Cure 0-2 in the following semifinal round. Cure himself had a good run up to that point, beating Rex (2-0) and TIME (2-1) before that. On the opposite side of the bracket, the competition was even more fierce with a lot of strong players clustered there. herO beat Creator 2-1, Solar 2-0, GuMiho 2-1 (the Terran was on fire after beating both Zest and ByuN by 2-1 scores), demonstrating his strength in every match-up.
The finals between Cure and herO was a close, five-game series, with Cure even putting himself on match point with a 2-1 lead. However, herO remained steadfast and showed why he's the hottest online player of the last couple of weeks, coming back with a 3-2 victory to secure back-to-back KR cup victories.
Upset(s) of the day: The biggest upset of the day for me was ReWhite beating Zoun 2-1. The Aligulac rating difference between the players was nearly 1300 points at the time of the match, which would have given ReWhite around a 5% of winning. While it doesn't quite qualify for the biggest upsets of all time list, it's definitely one of the biggest ones in 2022. It is a bit unfortunate he forfeited versus Nice, as he could have attempted to make a miracle top 4 finish. GuMiho beating Zest might seem like an upset if you're going by their past reputations, but given GuMiho's good play in online tournaments lately and Zest's overall slump since winning the Super Tournament, this match was probably fairly close.
*****
European Cup: Reynor did not return to defend his title, leaving Elazer and Rattata as the top-billed Zergs. Meanwhile, Terran had the usual juggernauts of Clem and HeroMarine leading the charge, as well as other strong players such as uThermal, SpeCial, and Spirit among others. Protoss had the longest list of notable participants according to Liquipedia, with MaxPax, ShoWTimE, and SKillous standing out among the names.
HeroMarine was the top seed and had a very smooth ride to the finals, beating MilkiCow, Elazer, and SpeCial without dropping a single map. The eliminated players had good runs before running into Big Gabe; Elazer notably beat Kelazhur while SpeCial won versus goblin 2-1 and Gerald 2-0, but neither of them stood a chance versus HeroMarine on his favorite day of the week. On the bottom side of the bracket, Clem had a very difficult run: winning versus BabyMarine, Krystianer, and uThermal (who notably beat Rattata) 2-1 in every encounter. On the other hand, SKillous demonstrated the quality of his PvP with wins against both MaxPax and ShoWTimE, respectively 2-0 and 2-1, and was able to defeat Clem 2-1 to reach the finals.
Winning against Clem might have been a good sign for SKillous before facing HeroMarine, but HeroMarine was far too strong for him and simply won the finals 3-0, thus achieving a perfect run and reclaiming his throne. As said previously, this allows him to become very close to Zest with just one gold medal less.
Upset(s) of the day: There weren’t many major upsets on the day. While SKillous beating Clem 2-1 was a nice result, it wasn't really shocking compared to the usual upsets included in this section. Really, SKillous beating Aligulac's #1 ranked PvP player MaxPax was the true upset of the day in my opinion, but we have to remind ourselves that MaxPax only reaches his final form during NA hours…
*****
American Cup: On that note, MaxPax earned yet another NA cup victory in Week #119. The NA cup was a bit less stacked than usual, with Solar being the strongest Zerg representative, ByuN and SpeCial holding it down for Terran (Clem usually plays in the NA cup if he loses in EU, but it seems like he decided to skip that custom this week), while Astrea, DisK, and herO joined MaxPax in hunting the cup victory for Protoss.
Canadian Protoss DisK had a very strong run, beating Vindicta 2-0 and more impressively a 2-0 against Solar to reach the semifinals. SpeCial had a similar run, beating an American Terran Dolan 2-1 in the RO16 before scoring a big 2-0 upset against the red hot herO. After such a big win against the PvT specialist, it wasn't surprising that SpeCial then beat DisK 2-0 to reach the finals.
On the bottom side of the bracket, Astrea reached the quarterfinals only to meet the final boss two rounds early: MaxPax who won relatively easily 2-0. The Danish Protoss then beat ByuN (who notably won against Gerald 2-1) once again in the semifinals 2-0 to meet SpeCial in the finals. The Mexican Terran looked very dangerous after his good TvP run against both herO and DisK, and he proved his mettle by taking two maps off of MaxPax. However, he couldn't topple the NA king in the end, and MaxPax prevailed with a 3-2 victory to win his fourth NA cup in a row. It also marked his 11th total victory on the NA server, and 17th victory on all servers combined (#6 in the medal count).
Upset(s) of the day: DisK beating Solar 2-0 was the biggest upset for me, but the entire run of SpeCial was also very good, although he had a slight server / timezone advantage against some of his non-NA opponents. MaxPax being so strong lately in NA makes his wins seem expected, so it would take the surprise participation of an elite player for him to earn a true 'upset' in this setting.
by Poopi
