RSL Revival Season 1- Championship Week

by Wax

The inaugural season of the RSL will come to a close this weekend, with the six surviving competitors playing out the remainder of the playoff bracket. The first place prize of ₩3,000,000 KRW is certainly nothing to scoff at, but more importantly, it will serve as one of the final check-ups before everyone heads to EWC to compete in the 2025 world championship.

Players, Format, and Schedule

We pick up midway through the RSL's double elimination playoffs, with just six of the original sixteen players remaining.

• Thursday, Jul 10 10:00am GMT (GMT+00:00): Lower bracket semis (BO5) - SHIN vs ByuN // Clem vs Reynor
  
• Friday, Jul 11 10:00am GMT (GMT+00:00): Upper bracket finals (BO7) - Classic vs Cure
  
• Saturday, Jul 12 10:00am GMT (GMT+00:00): Remainder of lower bracket (BO5 & BO7) - TBD x2
  
• Sunday, Jul 13 11:30am GMT (GMT+00:00): Grand finals (BO7) - TBD

Streams: Twitch.tv/tastelesstv

Championship Week Preview

The RSL is an intriguing tournament in its own right, and many fans will be eager to see how the ambitious and controversial league concludes its first season. However, like most tournaments in these past few weeks, RSL can't help but be overshadowed by the impending $700,000 bonanza at EWC. Thus, the world championship implications will be at the front of my mind as RSL Season 1 reaches its conclusion.

There's usually not much reason to check in on Clem, as the reigning world champion typically dominates these kinds of online competitions. While his focus can sometimes wane in the smaller weekly cups (he still wins a ton of them anyway), he's typically locked in and playing close to 100% when the prize money gets turned up a notch. That's why it was so shocking to see Clem suffer at 1-3 upset last week at the hands of Classic, an opponent he had defeated in twenty-three consecutive matches prior to that.

The loss to Classic was probably just a blip, and I still see Clem as the favorite to win the title (despite his disadvantageous position in the lower bracket). Still, if Clem gets knocked out in the next couple of rounds, or struggles more than expected on his way to victory, it may set off some minor alarm bells.

Conversely, it bears watching to see if Classic can keep up his great play in his last few RSL matches. The veteran Protoss is peaking at the absolute perfect time, winning GSL Code S and continuing to look strong in a variety of online events in the lead-up to EWC. I wouldn't say an RSL title would be enough for Classic to leapfrog herO as the #1 Protoss headed into the world championship, but it could definitely put him on equal footing.

Personally, Reynor is the player I'm most fascinated by among the remaining six contenders. The former world champion has been underwhelming since returning from his spring sabbatical, and a string of mediocre tournament performances left me to wonder if he would have enough time to get back into his familiar, title-contender shape. A handful of strong performances in recent online cups—including an incredible 4-0 against Clem in Monday Night Weeklies—should have caught everyone's attention, but it's hard to know how deeply to read into such isolated results. A strong losers' bracket run in RSL would go a long way toward convincing me that the real Reynor is back.

With apologies to ByuN, Cure, and SHIN, they're just not quite as interesting to me as individual players. I just can't see any of them actually winning RSL, or significantly changing my evaluation of them at EWC.

However, I do find the three to be quite fascinating collectively, as vehicles for the greater parity we've seen throughout the scene. We've continued to feel the shockwaves from DreamHack Dallas ripple throughout competitive SC2, with the top contenders looking the most vulnerable they've been since early 2023. SHIN has already thrown a major wrench in the works by upsetting herO, while Cure and ByuN will have chances to create more chaos. For the sake of keeping StarCraft II interesting, I hope these three have a few more upsets left in them.

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