EPT
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Week #120 saw
herO win his third Korean cup in a row while HeroMarine achieved back-to-back perfect runs in Europe. On the other hand, the Americas cup was finally won by someone else than MaxPax after four straight victories by the Dane (in perhaps an even more impressive record, he won 8 out of 10 cups during weeks #110-#119). ByuN was the one to win the NA cup in the end, although he did not eliminate MaxPax himself.Korean Cup: There were less participants than usual in the KR cup, but one player in particular stood out: soO played for the first time since week #32! After a few weeks of tuning up since finishing his military service, the Zerg tried his luck in the EPT Cup and gave us a glimpse at where he stands. ByuN, Cure, Classic and herO were the other Code S-caliber participants in this lightly attended edition of the cup.
Cure had a relatively easy path to the finals: his opponent forfeited in the RO16, and then he beat Rex and Classic (who notably defeated Prince 2-0) without dropping a map to qualify for the finals. On the other side of the bracket, herO did not dominate as much, with 2-1 victories against both Coffee and soO (who defeated ByuN and MacSed 2-0, which is impressive for a returnee).
However, having a rockier path didn't stop herO from winning yet another KR cup, and in dominating fashion at that. He took a 3-0 sweep over Cure to win his third KR cup in a row, tying him with Trap and Creator with 5 gold medals in the Asia/Korean region (tie 6th place)—although quite far behind #5 Dark who has 10 victories.
Upset(s) of the day: Among the few matches played, soO beating ByuN 2-0 seems like the biggest upset to me, especially after he returned to Starcraft 2 so recently. Aligulac has them almost even as there's no decay for inactive players, so soO got to resume from his relatively high place in the standings.
However, there had already been rumblings about soO's quick recovery after returning from the military, so it may turn out this wasn't that surprising a result after all. In fact, he beat ByuN already in the King of Battles 3 qualifier two weeks earlier.
*****
European Cup: The European cup was once again very stacked—even though Clem did not participate, Reynor came back to add some top end punch. Alongside Reynor, other strong Zergs such as Elazer and Lambo showed up, while HeroMarine, SpeCial, uThermal, and Spirit were notable among the attending Terrans. Finally, the Protoss contingent was large as usual, with ShoWTimE, MaxPax, and the previous week's champion SKillous at the fore.
Funnily enough, the top 4 was almost exactly the same as the previous cup, with SKillous, Special, and HeroMarine returning to the top four. The only change was ShoWTimE in for the absent Clem.
Reynor was the #1 seed in the event, and he beat terran Nicoract and Harstem relatively easily (2-0 each). However, he could not beat defending champion SKillous and lost 0-2. The dynamic between those two players is quite interesting, as Reynor defeated SKillous in every single encounter in 2021, but has lost all four matches against him so far in 2022. SKillous is dominating Zergs left and right nowadays, with a 22W-2L record in the last two months (91.67% winrate), and also beat Elazer 2-0 before his match versus Reynor.
PtitDrogo had a good run, defeating trigger 2-1 in the PvP and Lambo 2-1 in the PvZ before losing versus SpeCial (who previously won against GunGFuBanDa) 1-2. The Terran could not overcome a third Protoss in a row though, and lost 0-2 against SKillous in the semifinals.
The bottom side of the bracket was dominated by the German pair of ShoWTimE and HeroMarine, probably the two biggest favorites there. In this cup, ShoWTimE defeated Krystianer and Spirit 2-1 each, before losing 0-2 against HeroMarine in the semifinals.
Big Gabe actually only played TvP from the RO32 onwards, and beat Rom, MaNa, MaxPax and ShoWTimE without dropping a single map. The finals versus SKillous was similarly one-sided, and the German terran simply swept his opponent 3-0 to win the EU cup yet again. Not only this is a back-to-back victory, it is also a back-to-back perfect run as HeroMarine won cup #119 without dropping a map either. This allowed him to tie Zest for first place with 44 gold medals overall.
Upset(s) of the day: Since SKillous has been dominating Reynor for the entirety of 2022 and is not that far behind in rating, my upset of the day would go to PtitDrogo for beating Lambo who he had around four-to-one chances against according to Aligulac.
*****
American Cup: Clem did not participate in the EU cup, but he took part in the NA one later in the night, alongside ByuN, Cure, Kelazhur and SpeCial as notable Terrans. Armani and Solar represented Zerg while Astrea, Classic, MaxPax and Zest were the most notable Protoss representatives.
NA's resident tyrant MaxPax defeated Kelazhur 2-1 in the RO16, but was finally stopped by Solar in the RO8 in a close 1-2 loss. There were other high-level matches in that side of the bracket due to harsh seeding, with Clem beating Classic 2-1 only to lose to ByuN 0-2. ByuN was the ultimate survivor in that half, defeating Solar 2-1 to reach the finals.
In the bottom side of the bracket, SpeCial proved a worthy competitor and notably defeated Code S champion Cure 2-1 in the TvT mirror before losing 1-2 against Zest (who previously won against Gerald and Krystianer 2-0 each) in the semifinals.
This set up ByuN vs Zest as the final match—this was a common ESL cup finals clash some months ago, but with the incredible NA domination of MaxPax and herO's all-around surge had prevented this match from occurring for a while. This time around, ByuN almost swept Zest by going up 2-0, but the Protoss was able to take a map to avoid the embarrassment (a 3-0 in NA would have made week #120 a 3/3 sweep of sweep finals). Still, ByuN took the fourth map to win 3-1, claiming his fifth medal in NA (tying SpeCial at 5th most won in the region).
Upset(s) of the day: The upset of the day was Solar beating MaxPax, especially considering MaxPax's aura invincibility in the NA cup with 8 championships in the last 10 cups. A shoutout goes to SpeCial for winning 2-1 against Cure as well.
by Poopi
); gotta click the individual links
