Weekly Cups (Dec 30-Jan 5): MaxPax and Clem Roll

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January 06 2025 04:45 GMT

2024 Off-season Community Weekly Cups
Week of December 30-January 5

by Wax

There was plenty of competitive StarCraft II played on both sides of the New Year's divider, with Clem, MaxPax, and Krystianer coming out as the big winners during the week of Dec 30-Jan 5.

Dec 30: WardiTV Mondays #16 (partial bracket shown)

We kicked the week off with an especially stacked version of WardiTV Mondays, featuring Clem, MaxPax, and several of the top Korean players besides Maru. The end result was Clem showcasing his skills on both sides of the TvP match-up, taking down Gerald, Classic, and herO in TvP before switching to Protoss to sweep Cure 3-0 in the finals (VOD). Clem played yet more solid all-around macro PvT, looking more Stats-esque than the Chintoss himself.

One upset to note was Zoun's 2-1 over MaxPax in the quarterfinals, with the recent military returnee starting to make some noise after being discharged in September of 2024.

*****

Dec 30: PiGosaur Cup #13 (partial bracket shown)

PiGosaur has been the cup of upsets over the past few weeks, but this time around we got the rather 'standard' ending of herO vs MaxPax. Last week, herO had managed to snap his 14-match losing streak against MaxPax in the finals of WardiTV Mondays #15, but as it turned out, it wasn't the momentum-changer that herO wanted. MaxPax got right back to dominating herO, taking a 3-1 victory to claim the cup (VOD).

*****

Jan 3: LiuLi Cup Grand Finals - Global Qualifier

While it wasn't a weekly cup with its own prize pool, the Liuliu Cup Global Qualifier was worth spotlighting due to Krystianer's impressive run. Playing for the final ticket in the $7000 LiuLi Cup main event, Krystianer went through Gerald, Zoun, Creator, and ByuN to lock in the lucrative opportunity for himself (VOD).

*****

Jan 5: HupCup #3

The HupCup has slipped through the cracks in these weekly reports, but we're starting here with tournament #3. The $500 cup featured some notable differences from other competitions of similar size, being played in a partial double-elimination format while also tweaking the existing map pool (replacing the 'retro' maps of King's Cove, Abyssal Reef, and Neon Violet Square with the trio of Starchild, Erreholm, and Talisman).

As one may expect from a tournament with the rigor of double-elimination, we ended up with Clem facing off against MaxPax in the finals. Interestingly enough, it was the first time the two had met in cup competition in nearly a month—an unusual drought for the frequent foes.

In any case, the finals (VOD) was worthy of the two best TvP players at the moment, going all five games in a series of exciting matches. MaxPax clutched out a 3-2 victory in the end, achieving a streak of four straight BO5's won against the French Terran.