HomeStory Cup 24 - Info & Preview

by Wax

After rocking out at a music festival in HomeStory Cup 23, TakeTV is bringing back its signature tournament with another whimsical theme: professional wrestling. What could that mean? Well, if you recall, the last HSC had a live band playing throughout the tournament. Following that logic, then perhaps we'll see some live prowrestling performances throughout the show. I'm sure many players will be relishing the chance to settle balance debates with a steel chair to the cranium, instead of harsh words on the internet.


Jokes aside (or was it a joke?), sources tell me that there will at least be some cringetastic promotional videos prepared. If we get to see RotterdaM in a wrestling singlet, then that might make the whole concept worth it in itself. Other than that, I'd love to see entrance music and walkouts return. TL.net forum-goers already enjoy criticizing progamer play—maybe now they'll get a chance to bash their taste in music as well.

Streaming Schedule

December 1-2 start time is 12:00 GMT (+00:00) // December 3 is 13:30 GMT (+00:00)

• December 1: RO24 Groups A & B (6 player round-robin)
  
• December 2: RO24 Groups C & D (6 player round-robin)
  
• December 3: Playoffs (8 player single elimination)

*Main stream will have the option to switch to secondary game. E.g. if main game ends quickly, or if there is downtime.


*Main stream will have the option to switch to secondary game. E.g. if main game ends quickly, or if there is downtime.

Tournament Preview

Serral is the number one player of interest headed into this event, as he's coming off a fantastic championship run in EPT Europe. He put up a 8-0 match score (21-5 in maps), and also defeated both of his regional rivals in Reynor and Clem (x2). Throw in the fact that he's 115-8 in matches for the entire EPT 2023/24 season so far, and that he's #1 in the Aligulac.com rankings with 200 point margin on second place (translation: by a lot), and it becomes tempting to proclaim him the prohibitive favorite to win HSC 24.

Well… that's kind of how the situation looked ahead of June's HSC 23, where Serral ended up getting 3-0'd by Reynor in the quarterfinals. Indeed, the competition at the top of Europe is always tighter than the most recent results make it seem—you can never count out Clem or Reynor in a single BO5 against Serral (MaxPax might be getting there as well, but that's a story for another day).

On paper, Clem's prospects on against Serral don't look good. He lost twice to the Finnish Phenom in EPT Europe (including the grand finals), and is 2-6 in all BO5+ matches against Serral in 2023. Yet, going by the eye test and looking at the content of the games, I feel like the gap between the two players is minimal—maybe it's a slight advantage to Serral. Since there are no Korean Terrans to get in Clem's way, there's a good chance we'll get to see if I need to have my eyes checked.

Reynor is a bit trickier to rate at the moment, due to his Rogue-like tendency to dip in and out of form. After getting bounced from EPT Europe in a 1-3 losers' final loss to Clem, the Italian rapscallion Tweeted that he hadn't worked hard enough for the tournament due for some out-of-game reasons, and said that "championship Reynor will be back eventually." I don't think 12 days after EPT Europe constitutes "eventually," so we might not see Reynor in his best form at HSC 24. Then again, sometimes going into a tournament without any pressure can be better than hundreds of hours of stressful practice (for pros, not us plebs), and Reynor has had success in the past under similar circumstances. It would really be the most Reynor thing ever for him to win his third straight HSC after multiple interviews about how out of form he is.

As for the rest of the players… ...HSC hasn't been conducive to upsets in recent years, at least not in terms of the championship (Serral and Reynor won the last six). However, there's been room for surprises just beneath first place, such as when Astrea went through ShoWTimE, Clem, Zoun, and ByuN to finish runner-up at HSC 22.

Who could go on such a run this time around? Well, obviously I have to mention Astrea himself, who's coming off of winning EPT Americas. Then, there's the EU tier-2 crew who have vied for the 4th place spot after the Serral-Reynor-Clem trinity in recent years: ShoWTimE, HeroMarine, Elazer, Lambo, and new club member Spirit. ShoWTimE and Elazer are the two who stand out the most at the moment—ShoWTimE for actually reaching the top four of the latest EPT Europe (thanks to a big PvP win over MaxPax), and Elazer for pushing Serral to a game five in the playoffs of the same event. However, that's hardly a guarantee that they'll be the ones who perform best at HSC. This will be a familiar refrain to long-time TL.net readers, but any of these EU stalwarts could get hot in the tournament and break into the top four.

One long shot candidate to go deep is SKillous. He can't match the aforementioned EU players in terms of career results, but one could argue he's on the same level in terms of peak ability. He was THE breakout player of the previous HSC, going 5-0 in a tough group including Solar, HeroMarine, Gerald, Trigger, and Fjant. While consistency can be a problem for SKillous, he does have a decent chance at challenging ShoWTimE and Spirit for top two in Group C.

I was considering naming the NA duo of trigger and Scarlett as wildcards, but their group draw is rather brutal. They're both in the same group alongside HeroMarine and Reynor, so my prediction is that many EU > NA jokes will flood Twitch chat in the near future.

Who else to namecheck? Oh, I guess shoutout to Harstem, because he reads this site sometimes. I hope you get to make Carriers on Radhuset Station!

---