EPT
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Week #126 saw
ByuN win his second Korean server cup of the 2022-2023 season, HeroMarine achieve another back-to-back win in Europe, and MaxPax return to his winning ways in the Americas cup. One of the biggest surprises of the weekend was Serral actually deciding to compete in the EU cup—seemingly because of his early exit in DHM: Europe—but he only suffered yet ANOTHER quick elimination in the RO8. Amusingly enough, this makes Lambo and Reynor the only two Zergs to have more than one victory in the history of the EU cups.Korean Cup: There was a surprisingly high number of participants in the Asia region, with 28 players compared to the 18 of last week in cup #125. Zerg was well represented with soO, Solar, MeomaikA, and Rex at the fore, while Terran had previous cup winner GuMiho joined by ByuN and SpeCial as notable representatives. Finally, there were a lot of Protoss players to go around, including Classic, Creator, herO, Jieshi, trigger and Zest.
This particularly high number of players allowed for a RO32 bracket without too many byes, but things went pretty much as expected. The only first round exit for high end players was soO, who lost to Classic 1-2 in the RO32. Classic himself could not defeat NightMare in the next match, losing 1-2. The chain of eliminations went on, with NightMare himself losing to Solar in quarters. herO had a nice run to meet Solar in the semis, beating both trigger (2-0) and SpeCial (2-1). He went down 0-1 against Solar to start, but won the next two games to reach the finals.
The bottom side of the bracket saw ByuN and Zest come out as the last two survivors. ByuN's run included wins over Code S players GuMiho (2-1) and Creator (2-0), while Zest's softer bracket had him eliminate both Rex (2-0) and Percival (2-1). Similarly to the other semifinals, ByuN dropped the first map but came back with two wins to advance.
The reverse-sweep story continued into the grand finals as well (VODs: Cranky Ducklings or Steadfast). ByuN went down 0-2 to start, but he wasn't shaken by facing the EPT Cup monster herO. He stayed calm and knocked out three straight wins, getting his 6th ever gold medal in the Asia/Korea region, right behind his opponent of the day herO who currently has 7 total.
Upset(s) of the day: NightMare beating Classic is my chosen upset of the day as Aligulac tells me his current chance of winning that match is around 30% (and thus would have been lower at the time of the match). Other than that, Classic beating soO was slightly surprising as you might think Classic would be favored with more experience after military service. That match came about due to soO's poor seeding due to being a recent returnee, so we shouldn't see those kinds of clashes if he keeps racking up points by getting solid results.
*****
European Cup: The European cup did not feature Clem, who seemed to be taking a well deserved break after winning the championship in DHM: Europe over Reynor. The Italian 'Protoss' did not play either, putting off his off-racing adventures for a week. However, Serral did try his luck in that EPT cup, which is a particularly rare occurrence. It was likely due to his extremely early elimination from DHM: EU (by his standards at least), where he suffered a shocking upset at the hands of HeroMarine. Other than him, there were a lot of strong players from each race, too many to cite them all, but notably: Elazer and Rattata for Zerg, HeroMarine, Kelazhur, and SpeCial for Terran, and MaxPax, ShoWTimE, and SKillous for Protoss.
Serral was the top seed and had a relatively easy bracket (vs MindelVK and Kas) until the quarterfinals where he faced MaxPax. The Danish Protoss notably beat Rattata 2-1 before facing Serral, and Rattata can take comfort in the fact that he was able to take more maps off MaxPax than even Serral! Indeed, the 2022 IEM World Champion lost 0-2 against MaxPax.
After toppling Serral, MaxPax went on to face SKillous in the semifinals. SKillous had a strong PvP run in the cup, beating arrogfire (2-1) and Harstem (2-0), and getting fortunate with a bye against goblin. Unfortunately for SKillous, those Protosses aren't as deadly in the match-up as MaxPax (currently ranked #2 in PvP on Aligulac), and SKillous could not win a single map in that semifinals.
The bottom side of the bracket had quite the strong quarterfinal line-up, with ShoWTimE going up against Kelazhur while Elazer faced HeroMarine. ShoWTimE took a narrow 2-1 win against Kelazhur, while HeroMarine kept his TvZ momentum going with a 2-0 against Elazer. Die Mauer took the initial map off Big Gabe in the semis, but the German Terran eventually won the series 2-1 to qualify for the finals.
While MaxPax had beaten HeroMarine two times in recent BO3 matches, had also lost all three of their BO5 encounters in 2022 (all by 1-3 scores). This final had the same outcome, but this time MaxPax couldn't even take a map (VOD). HeroMarine won in a sweep, winning his 46th cup overall across all seasons. Thus, HeroMarine continued to pad his lead against Zest in the overall win total rankings with 46 to 44.
Upset(s) of the day: The biggest upset was obviously MaxPax eliminating Serral 2-0. The secretive Protoss player might be ranked #3 in Aligulac PvZ ratings, but he was still given around 20:80 odds to win a BO3 against Serral due to the Finnish Phenom being the highest rarest ZvP player by an absurd margin. After an exceptional run at Katowice, Serral seems to be back in the realm of mortals for the time being.
*****
American Cup: As is customary, the NA cup had a mix of strong players from all three regions. The main player missing was previous cup winner Neeb, who did not try to defend his title. Creator, herO, MaxPax, and SKillous stood out for Protoss, ByuN, Future, and Vindicta were the strong Terrans, and Zerg had Rattata, and Solar to lean upon.
Solar was the top seed but his run to the finals was slightly rocky with maps dropped here and there: 2-1 against Future, 2-0 vs Rattata, and 2-1 against SKillous. SKillous had a good run overall, notably taking a 2-0 against the fearsome herO. He also won the first game vs Solar in the semifinals, but Solar was able to take the next two maps to qualify for the finals.
The bottom side of the bracket was dominated by European players, with ForJumy getting as far as the semifinals with nice victories over Nice (2-1) and even against Creator (2-0). The other semifinalist was MaxPax, who beat Gerald 2-0 and ByuN 2-1. Although ForJumy had a good run, MaxPax is rightfully feared for his strong PvP and simply defeated him 2-0 to face Solar in the finals.
It was a tough battle for the NA crown, but MaxPax came out on top with a narrow 3-2 victory (VOD). This victory in the NA cup allowed him to tie PartinG at #3 spot in NA with 12 gold medals, behind #2 Solar at 16 and #1 Zest at 23.
Upset(s) of the day: There were some impressive upsets in PvP this week, with both herO and Creator eliminated by SKillous and ForJumy respectively. While the Aligulac odds difference wasn't too great with both players being given around 5 to 1 chances, I'll give the 'award' to ForJumy this week as he's a lesser known player who didn't carry as heavy expectations.
by Poopi
