Serral wins AfreecaTV Champions Cup #2

by Wax



Serral's run of great form in the 2023/24 season continued in AfreecaTV Champions Cup #2 as he put up an imperious 13-2 map record on his way to the championship. The Finnish Phenom got to demonstrate his skills in all three match-ups, taking down Classic (2-0) and ShoWTimE (2-0) from the Protoss faction, defeating RagnaroK (3-1) and Reynor (2-0) in mirror matches, and capping it all off with a 4-1 win against recent AfreecaTvT runner-up Cure.

The grand finals saw Cure pick up where he left off from his GSL Code S group, going for ByuN-inspired 2-Barracks Reaper play to start the series. While this was this was fatally punished by Serral's Baneling bust in game one, Cure executed the strategy to perfection to pick up a tying point in game two.

With the middle stretch of games set to be played on Gresvan, Altitude, and NeoHumanity, it seemed that Cure might take a more slow-paced and defensive approach. Instead, it was a chance for Serral to show his all of macro might in the mid-game, as he took a trio of swarming victories over Cure before the feared Terran map-split ever became realistic.

The Champions Cup may have come to an unremarkable end with Serral winning it all, but there were plenty of notable upsets prior to that point. Classic showed Reynor the door in the Group B, Glaive-Adepting the Italian Zerg out in the decider match. MaxPax reminded us of his online power by beating both ByuN and Maru in Group C, but in turn was taken out by a resurgent RagnaroK in the playoffs. ShoWTimE eliminated both herO and Clem from the tournament in Group D, but had the misfortune of being paired against Serral in the playoffs.

Thus, while ACC2 suggests that Serral will be the player to beat at next week's Gamers8 tournament, the rest of the field seems wide open.

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Writer: Wax
Photos: AfreecaTV
Statistics: Aligulac.com and Liquipedia