Master's Coliseum #8

Playoffs - Final Week

Jan 16-19, 12:00 GMT (+00:00)

by Wax

Master's Coliseum #8 has come down to its final weekend, with four straight days of must-watch StarCraft deciding the champion. Serral remains the favorite to claim the championship, but recent events suggest the remaining five contenders might have what it takes to bring down the Finnish Phenom.

The Super Six: Championship Weekend Preview

Headed into the final weekend of MC8, I have to talk about Serral, MaxPax, and herO as a key PvZ trio.

Ten days ago, when Clem was shockingly eliminated in the group stage, it seemed like Serral had become the prohibitive favorite to win the championship. After all, it had been nearly a full year since he had lost to a player not-named-Clem, when Maru defeated him 2-1 in the group stage of the previous season of Master's Coliseum. If you counted only the seven other players to reach this season's playoffs, it had been over seventeen months since Serral had dropped a series against any of them, going down 0-3 to Reynor at HomeStory Cup 23. It made me wonder if I should just write the recap article two weeks in advance, with a blank space left open for whoever Serral's grand final victim happened to be.

Then, over the course of a few days, something utterly unbelievable happened: Serral lost in ZvP. Twice. On January 9th, he ceded a 1-2 series to herO in the group stage of the LiuLi Cup (VOD), and on the following day, he lost 1-3 to MaxPax in a Basilisk Big Brain Bouts showmatch (VOD). It was the first time in over two years that Serral had dropped consecutive ZvP series, the last occurrence being in 2022's AfreecaTV Champions Cup where he lost to… …MaxPax and herO!

Indeed, the two best PvZ players in the game managed to make Serral look mortal once more. Well, not just mortal—they might have even made him look weak. Both herO and MaxPax both took single maps with the committed mid-game attacks that we've seen from them countless times, but what was much more impressive were the comprehensive late-game macro game wins they obtained. In those bouts, they were able to pressure Serral by ground in the mid-game, safely build up massive economies behind that, and then add-in Tempests to complete their late-game deathballs. What's more, Serral didn't look like he could do anything to slow them down. Playing reactive, defensive Zerg has been the key to Serral's greatness, but in these recent losses, it looked more like he was playing the classic 'do nothing into lose' strategy.

All this leaves me greatly confused headed into this weekend. Is this just a temporary blip from Serral, like the couple of months in 2023 where he was vulnerable in ZvZ? Or have the individual small changes to Overcharge/Stalker/Immortal/Colossus/Tempest/Mothership/Hydra/Queen in the 5.0.14 patch combined to cause a big aggregate shift in the PvZ match-up? I don't think this weekend will give us a definitive answer to those questions, but it's clearly the best chance Protoss players have had to bring Serral down in a very long time.

If Serral can be felled, then MaxPax would have to succeed him on paper as the favorite in this four-Protoss playoffs. For years now, MaxPax has been far and above the best PvP player in the world, scoffing at any notion that the Protoss mirror is a coin-flip. Even though the 5.0.14 patch has weakened his signature Stargate fast expansion (a real shame—it was just cool for there to be a build that only a single player had truly mastered), his superior feel for PvP and fantastic mechanics have kept him in a tier of his own.

The question for MaxPax remains whether or not he'll be able to play at his best in the higher rounds of a big tournament. As I've said in multiple previews, his two EPT Europe runner-ups are somewhat deceiving—he breezed past all the opponents he 'should' have defeated, but folded when he met top-tier competition. In contrast, during the last two Master's Coliseum events, he bowed out in the top 6 and top 8 with losses to herO, Dark, Cure, and Serral.

I'm very much a believer in weekly cup dominance as a predictor of future success, as we've seen Zest, Cure, and herO tease their recovery from a slump/military with great showings in online play. MaxPax is just too skilled and talented—he will challenge for a title in a big tournament eventually. However, seeing is believing, and I'm just not confident that this particular event will be where he breaks out.

In that case, maybe it's herO who's the sneaky favorite? Well, I've had mixed feelings about his play during the off-season. Though herO has won a lot of cups, they've generally been the ones where MaxPax and Clem didn't participate. Also, after seeing him eat one too many Stasis Wards in the mineral line, I started to wonder if he just couldn't keep up with the younger, faster players in the scene anymore.

But, then, just before those doubts could take root, herO had a recent week where he earned that aforementioned 2-1 win over Serral in the LiuLi Cup as well as a 3-2 win over Clem to win the PiGosaur Cup. What am I supposed to make of that? Honestly, in this mature stage of the competitive scene, minor ebbs and flow in form don't seem to matter quite as much as before. For top players, as long as they maintain a reasonable baseline level, they have the potential to play championship-tier StarCraft in any given series.

On that note, let's talk about Reynor for a sec. Has he done anything noteworthy in StarCraft over the last couple of months? Not really. Do I still have to say he's a championship contender out of sheer respect for his career? Absolutely. Moving on.

Finally, we have our two lower bracket players in Astrea and Zoun. Given their disadvantageous starting position and the power level of the upper bracket players, it's pretty unrealistic that they'll challenge for the title. However, they might be able to throw a wrench in the works for one of the favorites.

A PvP upset probably isn't happening, as MaxPax and herO showed us the match-up's pecking order in the first round by taking convincing sweeps against Zoun and Astrea. However, if there is something funny going on with PvZ at the moment, I'm eyeing the potential Reynor vs Zoun match as the scene for an upset. Zoun is just four months back from military service, but he's recovered a remarkable amount of his abilities in that time. Back during his heyday, he was what I call a serial confounder, passing through the scene unassumingly before doing something completely inexplicable like eliminating Maru from Code S or Serral from HomeStory Cup. If there's any of that surprise KO potential left in Zoun, then Reynor could be in danger.

As for Astrea, neither Serral nor herO is a particularly appetizing match-up. Still, I want to give him props for his 1-2 against Serral in the group stage. Before Serral lost to herO and MaxPax, Astrea actually took a game off of him in a pretty similar fashion, seamlessly transitioning his mid-game pressure into a late-game deathball win. Winning a full BO5 is too much to hope for, but he can definitely make Serral work hard for the win.

Predictions

Despite some very real short-term concerns, I have to give Serral the benefit of the doubt—which I believe everyone else in the SC2 scene is doing as well. As mentioned in my 2023/24 EPT Awards, Serral is in the midst of a stretch of extreme dominance, winning seven out of the last ten Liquipedia-premier tournaments he competed in. This has a real chance to become the greatest long-term run we've ever seen, and a couple of bad games isn't going to make me think that it's coming to an end.

herO 3 - 1 Reynor
Serral 3 - 2 MaxPax

Reynor 4 - 2 Zoun
MaxPax 4 - 1 Astrea

herO 4 - 3 Serral

MaxPax 4 - 2 Reynor

Serral 4 - 2 MaxPax

Serral 5 - 3 herO

Serral to win Master's Coliseum #8

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