PiG Sty Festival #5 - Playoffs

by Wax

The PiGSty Festival is back after a one week break, and now it's time for the playoffs! After a group stage where the favorites struggled to assert their dominance, the championship picture looks to be wide open. Can MaxPax repeat his landmark performance from January's LiuLi Cup and win another one for Protoss, or will the traditional powers lock down another title?

Group Stage Results

Group A (Part 1 - Part 2): Serral took first place in Group A as expected, but it was hardly smooth sailing for the #1 Zerg. Serral dropped maps to both Trigger and Cure, which is somehow a bad result compared to the impossibly high standard he's set for himself (going perfect in groups is a pretty common occurrence for the Finnish Phenom). The Cure loss came against a well-executed 3-rax, reminding us that even the best players must respect the ever-present threat of cheese. The trigger loss saw Serral lose a snowballing macro game after making a poor mid-game read, pumping too many defensive units when he should have teched/droned. While it's unwise to read too deeply into one game, one can't help but think that pre-patch Serral could have shrugged off a medium-sized mistake and won anyway. Meanwhile, SHIN paid off his solid play in various cups with a good result in a larger event, claiming the second place ticket to the playoffs.

Group B (Part 1 - Part 2): Another one of the championship favorites showed some vulnerability in Group B, as Clem ceded the first place spot to Zoun. The surging Protoss player pulled off a very tight hold against Clem's 2-base push to get his first win, and got a second win on the board with some solid macro play. Combined with some of the success herO has been having against Clem lately, it feels like the Liquid ace might be losing his overpowering edge in the TvP match-up.

Group C (Part 1 - Part 2): As mentioned above, herO's form in weekly cups has been fantastic as of late, so it was no surprise to see him buzzsaw through his opponents to clinch first place in Group C. ByuN just barely managed to secure second place, clutching out a late-game against Rogue on Erreholm to win the decider match by a 2-1 score (Rogue's inconsistent Hive play is probably the strongest indicator that he's a long way from recovering his peak form).

Group D (Part 1 - Part 2): Group D gave us the big surprise of the tournament, with Maru flopping out in last place without even a single map win (series losses to Classic and Dark). Some instances of incredibly poor micro/focus against Dark were particularly worrisome, making one suspect Maru is not giving StarCraft II his full attention at the moment. With Maru unable to be a legitimate threat, online-menace MaxPax had no trouble getting through the group with a perfect record. Classic scored a minor upset by advancing in second place, showing good all-around macro play.

Playoffs Preview

Mar 14-16: 09:00 GMT (+00:00) start times



Taking a look at the PiGSty playoffs bracket, I have to ask myself an unfamiliar question: Wait, is Protoss the favorite to win? While the goalposts for what constitutes a "major" tournament win for Protoss will inevitably be moved by various interest groups, there's no denying that the faction is at its strongest point since herO won DreamHack Atlanta back in 2022.

One big reason is that Protoss is finally getting some lucky rolls of the dice in terms of how the competitive player pool is made up. The young prince MaxPax is finally reaching the peak of his potential, winning January's LiuLi Cup with three, symbolically important wins against the 'old' guard of Reynor, Serral, and Clem. Also, while some top Zerg/Terran players like Maru, Dark, and Reynor don't seem to be fully locked in at the moment (Oliveira just flat-out retired), herO has been quite active and actually seems to be very motivated to take advantage of the current malaise in the SC2 scene. And, finally, maybe luckiest of all, Protoss has been blessed with Zoun's incredibly fast recovery after military service. Players' ability to shake off military-induced rust is almost completely random, having little relation to their pre-military skill level. Thus, while Rogue is still languishing in mediocrity, Zoun has risen to fringe championship contender status in the span of a year.

A more controversial reason may lie in balance shifts following the 5.0.14 patch in November. I don't want to draw any drastic conclusions here, because it's hard to disentangle the lowered interest/participation of players like Maru, Reynor, Dark (who's said to have military service coming soon), etc. from actual changes in balance. However, I do have to point out Serral's recent vulnerability in the ZvP match-up. After previously serving as a one-man ban on Protoss championships during 2023-24, the Finnish Phenom has abruptly become mortal in ZvP. The trouble began in January's Master's Coliseum 8, where Serral had to survive several tough matches against both MaxPax and herO to take the championship (with MaxPax even beating him in the upper bracket). Just a week later, Serral's struggles came to the fore once more in the LiuLi Cup, where MaxPax knocked out the Finnish Phenom on his way to the championship. Serral only played one more ZvP since then—his 2-1 over Trigger in the group stage of this very tournament—and despite being a victory, it was not a ringing endorsement of his ZvP. It's not like MaxPax, Zoun, or herO will be licking their chops at the prospect of facing Serral, but unlike in 2023-24, they'll know they have a real, fighting chance.

Another major impediment to Protoss success in recent years has been Clem. While the big picture statistics show that Clem has had a winning record against virtually all Protosses in recent years, there have been stretches where a top Protoss player found a short-term advantage against him. That's exactly what happened for MaxPax in the lead-up to the LiuLi Cup finals, taking a number of head-to-head victories in smaller cups that culminated in his big win. Clem has recently gotten his thunder back against MaxPax by beating the tar out of him in multiple matches, but he now finds himself challenged on another front by herO. After spending most of the post-EWC off-season as a punching bag for Clem, herO has recently established himself as a real threat to Clem just in time for the PiGSty playoffs.

Ironically, the Protoss who's giving us the most cause for concern might be Clem himself! Statistically, you can't critique his decision to switch to Protoss against Terran opponents, as his 40-6 match record since the switch is as good, or even better, than any similar stretch of games where he played TvT. However, it's concerning that three of those losses have come within the last week (1-4 Cure, 0-2 ByuN, 1-2 HeroMarine), suggesting that Terran players might be figuring him out at an inopportune time. With Clem facing ByuN as his initial opponent in the lower bracket, we'll see his PvT put to a crucial test.

When I add all those factors up, and take a look at how this bracket has panned out, it does seem that Protoss are indeed the collective favorites to win. Good on you guys! However, I still believe that Clem and Serral have the highest peak levels of play in StarCraft II—after all, Clem is still the reigning world champ, Serral did win Master's Coliseum in the end. Since Serral starts with an upper bracket advantage, he's still my pick as the single player with the best odds of winning it all.

Predictions:

• Serral wins PiGSty Festival #5
  
• MaxPax wins his upper-bracket series against Serral
  
• Clem loses to ByuN and considers switching back to TvT
  
• Classic plays the longest game of the playoffs and it's disgusting
  
• Zoun is held back by his weak PvP
  
• None of PiG's sponsor giveaways succeed on their first try

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