HomeStory Cup 26 - Info & Preview

by Wax
TakeTV is giving us something to be very grateful for this Thanksgiving, bringing back live StarCraft II competition after a nearly two-month hiatus with HomeStory Cup 26 (BGE Stara Zagora being the prior event). Not only will HSC26 be a welcome return to offline play, but it promises to be an extra special edition featuring one of the strongest rosters in tournament history. Clem, Serral, Reynor, and even Maru are vying for the title, and we may end up with a world championship-caliber final four.

HSC 26 will also be notable as the first live tournament played on the newly released 5.0.14 balance patch. While plenty of players competed in test server tournaments, now we'll get to see how the more reclusive top players like Serral and Maru fare in the evolved battlefield.

Schedule and Players

Schedule: November 29-30. Start times: November 29-30 games begin at 12:00 GMT (+00:00) // December 1 games begin at 12:15 GMT (+00:00)i

• November 29: RO24 Groups A & B (6 player round-robin)
  
• November 30: RO24 Groups C & D (6 player round-robin)
  
• December 1: Playoffs (8 player single elimination)

Streams: TakeTV (main English stream) + check TL.net sidebar when live for community and non-English streams

Players and Initial Groups: Detailed match order and stream schedule

Tournament Preview

RO24 Group Stage

HSC begins with the RO24 group stage, with two players advancing from each group of six.

Group A: GuMiho, Lambo, NightMare, SKillous, BattleB, Fjant

Depending on the draw, first round groups can sometimes be little more than a formality for the top seeded players—a way for them to warm up while viewers ease their way into the tournament.

Thankfully, Group A has taken a diametrically opposite shape, with the quartet of GuMiho, Lambo, NightMare, and SKillous thrust into a bloody battle for survival right out of the gates. Aligulac.com sees these four players' chances of advancing as being almost dead even, clustered tightly together in the 22-27% range (alas, that gives Fjant and BattleB around a 0-1% chance of advancement)..

One would think that defending HomeStory Cup champion GuMiho would have better odds, but the Towel Terran has had relatively mediocre results during the off-season period after the Esports World Cup. While there's no doubt that GuMiho has the highest ceiling of the four, it would hardly be shocking to see him get eliminated early after his inconsistency rears its ugly head.

Inconsistency is the story for SKillous as well, with his breakout 2023/24 campaign (top 4 at HSC 24, StarsWar 11) also been dotted with disappointing early eliminations (top 12 EPT EU Spring, BGE Stara Zagora). If everyone plays at their best level, GuMiho and SKillous would be my clear picks to go through, but I get the feeling things won't be so straight-forward.

Between NightMare and Lambo, I'm picking the German Zerg to create a minor upset. While both are disadvantaged in having played less PTR tournaments than GuMiho and SKillous, I think Lambo is a quick study and can take maximum advantage of the new maps and balance during this limited, early-patch window.

Prediction: GuMiho, Lambo to advance


Group B: Maru, ShoWTimE, Spirit, Kelazhur, Gerald, Moja

Group B is a more 'conventional' HomeStory Cup group, with the top seed virtually guaranteed to advance while the remaining players scrap for the last remaining RO8 ticket.
Maru, who almost never travels abroad for less than a $10,000 first place prize, will finally be making his HomeStory Cup debut (it seems like it's a combined business trip after first visiting the Vitality team HQ in Paris). As much as I'm looking forward to his games, I'm also looking forward to how TakeTV production tries to get him to break out of his shell of boringness (alas, Crank is not coming to HSC to facilitate this).

With Maru being a near lock for the RO8, it's looking like ShoWTimE and Spirit will be in direct competition for the other advancing spot. There's a good chance this comes down to the head-to-head match between the two, with the winner advancing with a 4-1 record and the loser going out at 3-2. Stylistically, I feel like Spirit's strong late-game play should match-up well against ShoWTimE's 'Stalker-Robo-till-I-die' style of PvT, but in practice, ShoWTimE has been getting the better of Spirit (18-15 head-to-head map score in 2024). Aligulac sees ShoWTimE as a slight favorite with a 57.11% chance of winning, but that's a pretty thin margin in a best of three.

Of course, there's a small but very real chance that one of them trips on the landmines known as Kelazhur and Gerald. While it's hard to see either of the underdogs advancing themselves, they both have the potential to ruin someone else's chances (especially in mirror matches).

Ultimately, I'm going to defy Aligulac and say Spirit advances over ShoWTimE in this group. I just don't think ShoWTimE creates enough chaos with his mass Robo + Gateway units composition to beat consistently strong defensive Terrans, which I believe Spirit to be.

Prediction: Maru and Spirit to advance (apologies to Moja who is being given a sub-1% chance of advancing according to to everyone's favorite stats website).


Group C: Clem, Reynor, HeroMarine, DnS, MaNa, Mixu

Reigning world champion Clem may enter HomeStory Cup as the fan favorite to win the entire tournament, but he faces a surprisingly thorny initial group. Through a curious quirk of seeding, Clem must face Reynor—his most dangerous non-Terran opponent—right from the start. Clem looked like he might never lose a TvZ again after 5-0'ing Serral in the finals of the EWC, but it took just a few weeks for Reynor to make Clem look mortal again. After fighting Clem to a combined 3-3 draw in the online World Team League playoffs (three series that went 2-0, 1-1, 0-2), Reynor also put up a spirited fight against Clem in the offline BGE Stara Zagora tournament where he conceded a 2-3 loss.

While Reynor has been much less active since the September BGE event, (even taking a trip to Korea for what I assume wasn't primarily SC2 practice), I don't think a little bit of rust is going to significantly decrease his threat level to Clem. The man has already won a previous HomeStory Cup where he professed to be out of practice, and he's just a BO3 away from stealing the #1 seed in the group.

The other, more underrated threat to Clem is HeroMarine. Now, this may seem ridiculous when you consider Clem has an enormous, 36-6 match record advantage against HeroMarine since 2023. However, most of that margin was racked up in smaller online events where Clem's TvT vulnerability is rarely exposed. When it comes to high-stakes, offline tournament play, Big Gabe actually came out victorious in their last meeting in the group stages of EPT Dallas.

Now, none of this is enough to make me say Clem is in any serious danger of getting eliminated. But, for someone who won the last two live SC2 events and has a tsunami of momentum behind him, it's definitely a trickier group than expected.

Prediction: Clem and Reynor to advance.


Group D: Serral, Ryung, Harstem, Elazer, ForJumy, BabyMarine

As if Serral needed the help, he's drawn the safest, least perilous path to the RO8 of all the top seeds in the group stage. You can't even make the obligatory 'you never know in ZvZ' argument, as Serral has won his last twelve matches against Elazer. No, I don't think it's particularly notable that he's barely played any tournament games since September, this is Serral after all. The normal rules don't apply to him. Not only will I pick him to advance, but I'm going to go ahead and say he does it with a perfect 10-0 map score (now that I've jinxed it, watch him lose to a 8-Barracks all-in from Ryung because he doesn't know how the rocks work on one of the new maps).

Fortunately, we still have a tight race for second place to entertain us, with Elazer, Harstem, and Ryung all having a realistic shot at making their way to the RO8. Aligulac gives Elazer a slight advantage, but unlike in Serral's case, I AM a little concerned about the fact that he's been one of the least active players in PTR tournament play. I'm going to throw Protoss a bone and say Harstem advances, though I doubt that's going to stave off any balance complaints from the community (but seriously, the Protoss line-up is just really thin at this tournament. Don't read too deeply into Protoss' performance).

Prediction: Serral and Harstem advance.

The Championship Picture

On paper, Clem should be the clear favorite to win it all. He's coming in with back-to-back victories at the Esports World Cup and BGE Stara Zagora, and he should be more acclimated to the new patch and maps than his less-active peers.

However, there are some clear holes you can poke in Clem's championship case. The obvious one is his long-time problem match-up of TvT. While it's become less of a glaring flaw in his game than in the past (beating Maru 3-1 in the Gamers8 quarterfinals did a lot to repair his reputation), it remains the match-up where he's most prone to getting upset. In fact it caused his last HomeStory Cup run to end in the semifinals, with GuMiho handing him a 1-3 defeat. If both GuMiho and Maru can make it to the RO8 in this tournament, it will take some fortuitous bracket draws for Clem to dodge them both. If Ryung—a famous 'Clem-killer' in the WTL—somehow manages to make it to the RO8 as well, then Clem could be in for a very difficult Sunday.

The other thing to consider is that Serral could still be the best player in the world. After Clem's combined 8-0 over Serral at the Esports World Cup (5-0 in the finals, 3-0 earlier in the bracket), it was tempting to say that Clem had decisively and incontrovertibly taken the upper hand in the match-up. However, as visceral and impactful as those EWC games were, it's probably unwise to read too deeply into them. The Clem vs Serral match-up has a long history, with the momentum swinging back and forth over the course of several years. This is very different from a match-up like Serral vs Maru, where repeated beatdowns over multiple tournaments have made it clear where the two stand in relation to each other. Just remember that before EWC, Serral took an equally convincing 3-0 over Clem at IEM Katowice. If the two were to collide in HSC26, I can see Serral snatching back the momentum.

Maru's championship case is basically contingent on dodging Serral. Clem and Reynor are mildly favorable match-ups for him, while he really should wipe the floor with anyone else who manages to make the RO8. However, the Serral match-up is just so bad for Maru that it makes it impossible to evaluate his overall chances. While I can't predict a Maru championship in a tournament that Serral is playing in, I feel like he might have the best odds of taking second place?

Reynor is the final player I'm giving a serious chance to win the championship. No he hasn't been all that active, but as mentioned above, that hasn't stopped him from winning HSC before. Also, his post-EWC play has seen him stop overthinking things and try to freestyle a bit more—that kind of unpredictability could serve him well.

Prediction: Serral wins HSC 26

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