EPT
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Weekly Cup Competitions
Week of June 23 - June 29
by Wax
herO sat out cup competition for the second straight week, leading to a European sweep as Clem, Reynor, and MaxPax won the trio of competitions. Reynor's run in Monday Night Weeklies was especially laudable, as he looked to be close to peak form as he took down Solar, Classic, MaxPax, and Clem.
Reynor then gave us some information about players' EWC preparations in a post-tournament interview with Rotti, revealing that both he and Clem would be training in Korea ahead of the world championship.
*Partial brackets may be shown.
June 23: WardiTV Mondays #41
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The week began with an all-TvP rampage from
Clem in WardiTV Mondays, as he defeated Lancer, ShoWTimE, Astrea, and Code S champion Classic on the way to the title. Astrea was the only player able to take a map off of Clem, winning a war of attrition through his passive, static-defense heavy PvT style. The finals against Classic was a fairly one-sided sweep, but was somewhat notable for Classic's use of Stargate openers. Classic and other top Protosses have heavily favored Robo openers in PvT, but perhaps they are searching for ways to keep the TvP king on his toes (VOD).*****
June 23: Monday Night Weeklies #19
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Reynor has been largely disappointing since returning to full-time StarCraft II, but his fantastic run in Monday Night Weeklies suggested he'll be back in world championship form by the time EWC comes around. Despite suffering an early ZvZ loss to Solar in the upper-bracket, Reynor made a tremendous lower-bracket run where he beat HeroMarine, Classic, Solar, MaxPax, and Clem to clinch the title (VOD). Reynor's 4-0 sweep against Clem in the finals was his most impressive performance, overpowering Clem in three macro games before finishing him off with a Roach timing. Even though Reynor later said it didn't seem like Clem was at his best, he surely had to be pleased at being the first player to take a 4-0 sweep against Clem since… …he did it himself back in 2021!.
In terms of purely in-game content, Reynor's BO1 win against Classic may have been just as magnificent. Reynor managed to pierce the super-defensive style that even Serral struggled against, using BL-Infestor to outlast the Protoss deathball.
*****
June 24: PiGosaur Cup #37
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The trio of cups concluded with
MaxPax winning the PiGosaur Cup, taking down Clem 3-1 in the finals. As with most Clem series (or most TvP series for that matter), much hinged on early game offense/defense. Clem managed to take game one easily after dizzying MaxPax with a Mine-drop and Banshees, but MaxPax shored up his defenses to take the next three games (VOD). . Results aside, a particularity worth pointing out was Clem's one-time use of a Cyclone-mech strategy on Torches, showing us the kind of strategic experimentation that's going on ahead of EWC.
