EPT
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2024 Off-season Community Weekly Cups
Week of Feb 10 - Feb 16
by Wax
The community tournament world was especially busy last week, with our regularly held cups joined by a handful of special events (and possibly a new weekly?). All the same, Clem continued to be the dominant force in online competition, taking taking first place in three events.
*Partial brackets may be shown.
Feb 10: WardiTV Mondays #21
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The week began with
Clem winning his third WardiTV Monday cup in a row, although it wasn't in the overpowering fashion we've come to expect from the French Terran. Liquid teammate MaNa managed to take a map off of him in the RO16, while SHIN also drew blood in the RO4 (hitting with some nasty Zergling backdoors during Clem's 2-Medivac harass window).herO made it tough for Clem in the finals as well, nearly earning a reverse sweep before conceding his 2-3 loss to the king of cups. Interestingly enough, herO took his two maps with mostly macro play, whereas his proxy/aggressive tactics fell short against Clem's stalwart defense (VOD).
One notable upset in the lower rounds was SKillous' 2-0 over MaxPax, which broke a 7-game head-to-head losing streak for the Liquid Protoss. Maybe it's just me, but MaxPax seems to be losing slightly more PvP's than he used to—perhaps something to keep an eye on (he's still by far the best PvP player right now).
*****
Feb 10: Monday Night Weeklies #3
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Clem would double up a few hours later in Monday Night Weeklies, completing an all-TvP run with wins over LetaleX, Rodzyn, MaNa, ShoWTimE, MaxPax, and herO. The finals was a rematch from WardiTV Mondays, with Clem taking a 4-2 victory over the Korean Protoss this time around (Clem starting with a 1-0 winners' bracket advantage). While herO cut back on the cheesy tactics, getting four wins against the World Champion in macro games still proved to be too tall an order (VOD).In an amusing side note, MaNa stole another map off of his teammate, and was the only player besides herO to win a map against Clem in the entire tournament.
*****
Feb 10: PiGosaur Cup #18
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Clem might have gone for the Monday triple in the era of the ESL Open Cups, but he decided to sit out the PiGosaur Cup and leave it to herO and MaxPax to fight for the title.
MaxPax was victorious in a 3-1 series, where he showed that his Stargate expansions are still quite potent by using them to take three wins (VOD).*****
Feb 13-14: LiuLi Cup #34
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The conclusion of the Olimoleague Winter season left a hole in the mid-week section of the calendar, but the LiuLi Cup came rushing in to fill the gap. While previous LiuLi cups have typically been 1v1 showmatches, it switched things up to hold an eight-player tournament with ~$600 on the line (about the size of ESL Opens and other weeklies). While it's possible that this was just a one-off event, StarCraft II fans will certainly be hoping that this becomes a regularly held competition.
The cup trinity of Clem-MaxPax-herO were not in participation, and this opened up the road for a Zerg to finally win a weekly for once.
SHIN gave a strong performance where he defeated Cure (2-0), Rogue (3-0), and Classic (4-1), showing why he had been one of the more prominent Zerg in the earlier days of the patch (VOD (Chinese)).*****
Feb 15: Korean StarCraft League #69
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The bi-weekly KSL returned this week, once again pitting Korea's top players against each other (plus a few international visitors).
herO finally got a win on the week after being twice thwarted by Clem, but not without Dark giving him a tough, five game fight in the finals. Even Protoss-imba crusaders might have had some fun with this series, as it mostly involved large ground armies headbutting each other (VOD).*****
Feb 15-16: WardiTV Backers' Brawl
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The week concluded with the WardiTV Backers' Brawl, with the extremely handsome and wise StarCraft II fan Andrew putting up $1000 in order to support the competitive scene.
After two earlier losses to Clem on the week, herO finally got his revenge with a 3-2 win over his nemesis—only, it happened in the winners' final. Unfortunately for herO, the loss only seemed to enrage Clem, who responded with disproportionate force in the grand finals by taking a four-map sweep (VOD).
