EPT
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Weekly Cup Competitions
Week of July 28 - August 3
by Wax
It turns out the only thing more relentless than Serral attacking with Hydra-Bane is SC2 community members putting on tournaments, as they delivered a packed slate of cup competitions mere days after the conclusion of the world championship. While the majority of the top-end competitors decided to take the week off, infamous cup addicts like herO and ByuN jumped right back in the fray.
*Partial brackets may be shown.
July 28: WardiTV Mondays #45
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The previous cup recap predicted that MaxPax would pick up a few easy cup wins due to players being busy at EWC, but I wasn't counting on
herO's semi-deranged commitment to playing as many online cups as possible (and I mean that in the most positive way possible). The cup king of the 2024/25 off-season picked up right where he left off, taking down MaxPax 3-2 in the finals of WardiTV Mondays to become the first cup champion of the new off-season period. In a somewhat shocking turn of events, MaxPax broke up his usual routine of trying to force a Void Ray fast expansion in every single PvP game, throwing in a Blink-Stalker expansion and even a 1-base Proxy-Robo all-in (gasp!). Even though MaxPax narrowly lost the series, it was an intriguing development for the former #1 PvP player who had become too predictable in the latest patch (VOD).
*****
July 29: PiGosaur Cup #42
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herO's attempt at weekly double was thwarted in the PiGosaur Cup, as Shameless scored a massive 3-0 upset against him in the semifinals. Unfortunately, all the streamer VOD's I could find were covering the ByuN vs Percival semifinal instead, so I can't say how Shameless pulled off this impressive feat (perhaps a TL.net reader has a tip on a Russian stream where it was shown?).
In any case, herO's shock elimination opened up the doors for fellow cup aficionado
ByuN to come out on top, as he ended Shameless' run with a 3-1 finals victory. While Shameless managed to take the first map with a solid defensive/macro performance, ByuN put on a TvP clinic in the next three games by taking a trio of late/mid/early-game victories (VOD). *****
July 30: uThermal 2v2 Circuit: Warm Up Cup #4
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Zerg-Protoss continued to dominate the uThermal 2v2 Warm Up weeklies, with the team of Jumy-YoungYakov beating ShoWTimE-Elazer 3-2 in the finals of cup #4 (VOD). While Zerg-Protoss' recent success owes a lot to the absence of the stronger Terran-Protoss teams, it was notable that Jumy-Yakov also took a convincing 2-0 against the established T-P duo of uThermal-Goblin in the semifinals.
Not only did Jumy-Yakov take advantage of Z-P's strong early offense, but they also showed some impressive transitions and mid-game play when the games went long (even pulling off some theorycrafty Fungal-Storm combos). While it's hard to know if Z-P's recent hot streak will hold up when teams like Spirit-ShoWTimE/MaxPax re-enter the fray, it's definitely a meta-shift to keep an eye out for at the $10,000 main event.
*****
August 2: Korean StarCraft League #78
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While only true sickos like herO and ByuN entered the Monday-Tuesday cups, by Saturday's KSL, we saw a few more EWC players such as Rogue, Cure, and Classic feel rested enough to start competing again.
Unfortunately for them,
herO showed everyone he's still the king of cup competitions, clinching a weekly double in the KSL. The finals saw herO give Classic his second runner-up finish of the last few weeks, winning in a delightfully cheesy 3-1 series (VOD).*****
August 3: WardiTV European League
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(Check the Liquipedia page for the giant 24-player Swiss stage table)
Finally, the week saw WardiTV's month-long European League competition come to a close on Sunday night. Well, it was more like "European League but also ByuN, Scarlett, and Percival for some reason," but since
MaxPax ultimately won, I won't nitpick the title any further.Unfortunately, the grand finale had some cold water thrown on it by HeroMarine's forfeiture, leading to the proceedings being directly decided in a BO7 between ShoWTimE and MaxPax. Once again, MaxPax varied up his openers considerably beyond his signature Void Ray expansion, and ultimately took a 4-1 victory in the finals (VOD).
