Who will win EWC 2025?

On July 15 2025 04:55 lokol4890 wrote:
Maru. Statistics don't lie. Lost gsl s1 but won dh, lost gsl 2 and now will win ewc

On July 15 2025 07:11 TeamMamba wrote:


Maru has no chance. He has proven he does not have the “it” factor at the world stage. Even when the road to the championship was given to him on a silver platter. He still managed to get stomped by TIME.

His road to the top 8 is probably the easiest.

I’m cool to have Serral, Classic , reynor, or dare I say a toss Clem (only if he plays toss for all matchup) to win it all

On July 15 2025 06:55 ejozl wrote:
But, god I hope it's Rogue.

On July 15 2025 03:53 starfarmer wrote:
we will get a protoss world champ and after that protoss will be nerfed into oblivion

On July 15 2025 15:23 MJG wrote:

Zerg wins a World Championship? It's a normal thing to happen.

Terran wins a World Championship? It's a normal thing to happen.

Protoss wins a World Championship? Everyone loses their minds.

On July 16 2025 07:07 feardragon wrote:
Trigger or Astrea

On July 16 2025 09:51 Waxangel wrote:
You could argue ByuN rode a favorable/abusive meta to his world championship, but no one seems to begrudge him this cause he was very popular. If Classic wins, I would hope people still appreciate the championship similarly

On July 16 2025 09:10 CicadaSC wrote:

It's who you think will win not who you want to win. Being from NA I like those guys too but come on. If you genuinely think they will win I would love to hear the argument.

On July 15 2025 07:22 Poopi wrote:
I think Classic has the best shot, protoss is super strong atm and he got good PvP so should be able to beat herO.
herO is not as proficient as Classic in PvZ nowadays so I don't see him beat Serral, so I don't see him as that good of a candidate
Serral is a favorite too, solid in every match-up albeit not as invincible in ZvP anymore, and might lose to Clem or another zerg
Maru has a decent shot if he gets a bit lucky bracket wise, if he can avoid Serral he has a good shot versus the other top dogs except maybe herO, and decent shot vs Classic as well
Clem is one of the favorites but dunno if his PvT is enough versus Maru? And he can lose to Classic or Serral

So I think we might have an interesting EWC with lots of candidates

On July 17 2025 20:29 Balnazza wrote:

And three of the Top 4 in that tournament, including the winner, would come from the lower WCS Standings...so maybe there is a shot for Astrea afterall?

On July 18 2025 00:17 Mizenhauer wrote:


you don't say?

On July 18 2025 09:13 Poopi wrote:

Rogue 2017 and Serral 2018 were also zerg favored, but not as much as zerg 2019 so people thought it was fine

On July 18 2025 09:20 WombaT wrote:

Zerg was so OP in 2018 they didn’t even make a single GSL final

On July 18 2025 09:20 WombaT wrote:

Zerg was so OP in 2018 they didn’t even make a single GSL final

On July 15 2025 12:18 CicadaSC wrote:
HOT TAKE: Serral is NOT a favorite. He showed weakness at Dallas. Now, Clem and Reynor are both in Korea and have been for some time. Who is Serral going to practice ZvT or ZvZ with? No offense but the others he can play with on EU are not on their level. If he was already looking shaky I don't see this helping him. I think Clem and Reynor over the past month, have been looking vulnerable as well. Some say it is because they are hiding builds and to that I have no comment. Maybe it is the case and that's why they've been losing, maybe it's something deeper. We can't know that. Though, I think Maru has to be considered a favorite. The last big lan that had all the players, he won. BGE didn't have all top players, and neither did GSL. They were hard tournaments yes but the roster wasn't as thorough as DreamHack Dallas.

Maru #1 fave.

On July 18 2025 09:35 JJH777 wrote:


Zerg was so UP in 2018 they won the most money even if you subtract Serral's earnings completely.

Rogue played so bad in every GSL that year. Especially the ro8 match vs Neeb. I think his GSL mental block was real or he would have made at least one finals.

On July 18 2025 18:47 Charoisaur wrote:

I mean, Zerg was clearly the best performing race from 2019 to 2022 even disregarding Serral. He wasn't even the best Zerg for large periods during those years.
For 2017-2018 and 2023 onwards I agree though that Zerg was pretty balanced (some say UP currently but I think that's just as baseless as saying they were OP in 2018 considering many other Zergs still make deep runs).

On July 18 2025 22:04 WombaT wrote:

I think other Zergs, relative to Serral were at their strongest when ZvP was at its most imbalanced. Which includes part of the period, if not necessarily all of it, that you’re talking about.

If you’re already the ZvP GOAT (and IMO have the strongest single matchup the game’s seen) and close to invincible in the matchup at times, playing in an imbalanced meta is a boost, but not a huge one.

It does however help other Zergs quite a bit to reliably beat Toss, and at times some of those Zergs may have been as good or better at ZvZ, or indeed ZvT than Serral.

Now, it’s hard to tell how the pendulum has swung. In theory Serral being so good at ZvP should give him that edge back, given overall Toss have got a bump in the matchup. But his mastery of the attritional late game seems really bloody hard to pull off reliably.

On July 18 2025 06:45 RogueTheGOAT wrote:

I mean, nobody wrote an article calling him a patch Terran.

On July 17 2025 19:23 jodljodl wrote:


Off the top of my head, I don't think so. It's awesome, isn't it?

On July 18 2025 22:42 dysenterymd wrote:


Because ZvZ has been Serral's weakness in the past, I think people are severely underestimating Serral's ZvZ right now. Yes, it's a volatile matchup, but Serral has lost a single ZvZ in 2024 and 2025 combined (to Dark) and is a ludicrous 24-3 in maps against Reynor since losing to him in HSC 2 years ago. Not to say he can't lose, Solar was very close recently, but imo ZvZ is Serral's best matchup. Classic, herO (okay maybe not herO, he's looked lost v Z recently) and maybe even Zoun are much more dangerous to Serral than Reynor and Solar.

On July 18 2025 23:06 ejozl wrote:

According to the goat of goat rankings byun in 2016 had one of the strongest years ever, due to winning the most money when other terrans absolutely did not.

On July 19 2025 00:59 Poopi wrote:

I mean Rogue is a far bigger patch zerg than ByuN is a patch terran imho, since Rogue basically only started winning when zerg became super strong (hydra patch in 2017, even Elazer got a semifinals at BlizzCon). ByuN was also good at TvT with tankivacs, he beat TY and other strong terrans at the time. Later on his wrist issues and terran being relatively bad prevented him from winning other tournaments, not that he was himself not good enough. Only Maru could win in forever most of the times for terran.
Terrans and protoss couldn't really become patch T/P anymore because they were nerfed super quickly, while zerg kept on being strong so we even forgot about calling them patch Z since Z just stayed strong for 3 or 4 years straight, ever since 2019 (2017 and 2018 they were slightly stronger than other races, but it was manageable)

On July 18 2025 23:23 WombaT wrote:

On one patch and he’s never won another Premier since. He won a major which I think arguably could have counted to be fair.

There arguably isn’t another player with a more compelling case to be a ‘patch player’ than Byun. Still an incredible player, and still one of the great StarCraft 2 stories, absolutely a patch player.

Unlike other patch players, it wasn’t a meta that covered a lack of skill, but accentuated an area he was atypically, incredibly good at.

On July 19 2025 02:58 RogueTheGOAT wrote:

That very much describes Scarlett and her IEM PyeongChang win.

On July 19 2025 04:36 onPHYRE wrote:



Rarely is a take so bad it matches your username. To call Rogue a patch Zerg is ridiculous and insulting to a player that has an argument for GOAT and is top 3 of all time.

On July 20 2025 04:05 sc2turtlepants wrote:
Think it's time to finally get another Protoss world champ! I'm picking a Mary v Clem TvP finals where Clem defends his title. Also Mary finally ends his losing streak vs Serral this tourny

On July 20 2025 06:28 rwala wrote:
I don't know if any Koreans (or folks who speak Korean) are watching Crank's stream these days. He often has insights into what kind of form Korean players are in, especially Maru and Byun re: their ongoing injuries. Byun's injuries are more openly talked about since they seem to have some psychological triggers, but Maru's are less talked about. My uninformed perspective is that his injuries have significantly influenced his play over the last few years. There was some time after he had surgery or injections that he seemed to be back to normal but recently it's clear that he's in pain when he plays--he's constantly grabbing his shoulder like he used to back when he was injured. I believe Crank may have said at some point recently that Maru got a delay or exemption from his military service due to his shoulder injury.

Maru's play the last couple years gives me later career Mvp vibes in that it feels like he somewhat reduces extremely fast and micro-intensive multiprong attacks in favor of more strategic eco-boost gambles and sharp timing attacks. He seems to also mostly have given up on his late game turtling strategies. Some of this is surely due to meta shifts (in particular the harsh ghost supply increase). But I wonder how much of it is an honest acknowledgment that his normal aperture of being able to play almost any style of play very effectively is somewhat reduced due to his injuries.

That was a long post to basically say that I wouldn't be surprised to see Maru underperform expectations. I'm really excited to see what Classic, Rogue, and Reynor can do. Hero, Clem, and Serral I expect to be on point.

On July 19 2025 20:22 calyonrhodes wrote:
I haven’t been this excited for a tournament in a long time. This year, many players have a genuine chance to win, unlike last year’s EWC where Clem just felt unstoppable.

On July 20 2025 05:07 Antithesis wrote:

Clem winning the title with his Protoss off-race would actually be hilarious. Finally, another WC title for Protoss, but one achieved by a Terran main. If I were a Protoss player, this would trigger me into oblivion, haha.

On July 20 2025 19:51 EEk1TwEEk wrote:
LOL GSL season 2 runner-up isn't an option in this poll )))

Go Rogue!

On July 20 2025 14:40 PremoBeats wrote:


Iirc, he felt unstoppable during it, not before... especially after it was clear that he probably wouldn't face any Terrans throughout the tournament and his first win against Serral, who didn't lose a single match since winning Kato with a 20-1 map score.

On July 21 2025 00:46 Antithesis wrote:

Yeah, saying that Clem "felt unstoppable" or entered EWC 2024 as the clear favorite is retrospective bias.

The overwhelming favorite for EWC 2024 was Serral, who won both major events leading up to EWC, Katowice 2024 and Dallas 2024, without losing a single series. Also we must remember that Serral's Katowice 2024 win even included a clean 3-0 sweep over Clem himself.

Clem became the favorite when it turned out that his TvZ was in peak form even by his standards and that he could avoid TvT altogether.

On July 15 2025 07:09 dysenterymd wrote:
One of these players will win:
Serral, Clem, herO, Classic, Maru

Reynor tier:
Reynor + Zoun**

Can do some serious damage and make a deep run, but won't win:
Cure, SHIN, Rogue, Solar

Might have an okay run but won't pull any big upsets:
Showtime, Trigger, Astrea, ByuN, Zoun

On July 21 2025 06:04 Agh wrote:


Pretty much agree although I do think the Zergs not named Serral have a miniscule chance to win. Much more Solar and SHIN though.

Cure is going to crash out unless he found a magical TvP solution, and Showtime just needs to win 2 series against people he's beaten fairly recently to make the bracket.

Also think Zoun belongs in Reynor tier

On July 21 2025 00:46 Antithesis wrote:

Yeah, saying that Clem "felt unstoppable" or entered EWC 2024 as the clear favorite is retrospective bias.

The overwhelming favorite for EWC 2024 was Serral, who won both major events leading up to EWC, Katowice 2024 and Dallas 2024, without losing a single series. Also we must remember that Serral's Katowice 2024 win even included a clean 3-0 sweep over Clem himself.

Clem became the favorite when it turned out that his TvZ was in peak form even by his standards and that he could avoid TvT altogether.

On July 21 2025 15:45 PremoBeats wrote:
I don't think one or two Pros predicting the eventual outcome is the same as Clem being perceived as "unstoppable" pre-EWC.
The bookie odds for Serral were catastrophically low and he was the clear favorite going into Riyad, having basically defeated every top 10 player in the tournaments leading up to EWC and clearing Kato and Dallas with only 3 map drops, while Clem was bested several times.
Do you know if that video/stream was pre-bracket-announcement? Because I remember that it was talked about how good it was for him to avoid all Terrans that got seeded into the Terran-bracket.

On July 21 2025 15:45 PremoBeats wrote:
I don't think one or two Pros predicting the eventual outcome is the same as Clem being perceived as "unstoppable" pre-EWC.
The bookie odds for Serral were catastrophically low and he was the clear favorite going into Riyad, having basically defeated every top 10 player in the tournaments leading up to EWC and clearing Kato and Dallas with only 3 map drops, while Clem was bested several times.
Do you know if that video/stream was pre-bracket-announcement? Because I remember that it was talked about how good it was for him to avoid all Terrans that got seeded into the Terran-bracket.

On July 21 2025 22:18 rwala wrote:


I don’t remember. And I agree he wasn’t perceived as unstoppable. I just think sometimes (but not always) pros have an expert understanding of skill level or skill potential that transcends conventional wisdom.