Maestros of the Game - Play-in Stage Preview

by Wax

We're just a couple of months into the off-season, and the community has already banded together to put together another high-end event. This time, it's ComebackTV and the French community who are bringing us Maestros of the Game, a hybrid online/offline event with a $20,000 prize pool and a final-four showdown in Paris.


The entire suite of top-tier players has been invited, with Serral, Clem, Classic, herO, Reynor, and Maru all seeded into the RO16. But first, the tournament begins with the play-in stage, which channels the spirit of old WCS Challenger/Code A events as players engage in a series of 1v1 duels to earn spots in the main event.

Play-in Stage Preview

Start times: August 30-31, 16:00 GMT (+00:00)

ShoWTimE vs Cham

A clash between a top 12 finisher at EWC and a non-qualified player may look like a big mismatch on paper, but ShowTimE vs Cham might be a bit closer than it appears at first glance.

Cham doesn't stand out in the current SC2 landscape because he plays a low volume of games, but he's shown that he's still a very capable player in recent tournaments. He was the biggest surprise performer next to Classic in RSL Season 1, upsetting both Solar and SHIN to take 1st place in his group. It wasn't just ZvZ coinflipping either—he beat his opponents more or less straight-up with stylish Mutalisk-centric play.

More relevant to his match-up against ShoWTimE, Cham gave Astrea an elimination scare in the EWC Americas qualifiers by pushing him to five games in the lower bracket of the qualifiers. While it didn't seem like he had much of a chance in longer games, being adept with early/mid-game timings gave him a puncher's chance. While it's clear that ShowTimE is the favorite given his superior pedigree during the 2025 season, I wouldn't be surprised if Cham made him sweat a little.

Prediction: ShoWTimE 3 - 1 Cham

GuMiho vs Ryung

GuMiho won the unofficial award for 'most missed player'[/i] at EWC, with the fan-favorite Terran failing to qualify for the world championship on account of his poor TvP. While all Terrans have struggled with the match-up in the 5.0.14 patch, GuMiho was especially heavily affected among the high-profile players.

Luckily for GuMiho, he gets to play his strongest match-up of TvT in his first MOTG match (although one could argue his mech-powered TvZ is actually his best MU right now). His opponent is no pushover, as he faces a fellow, long-time TvT powerhouse in Ryung. The 34-year-old Terran may have been slowly declining for years now, but as far as the fundamentals of Marine-Tank tactics have never changed, he's always had a high TvT floor to fall back on.

I think GuMiho should win this series handily, probably taking a number of fast wins with Raven/Viking pushes the early-mid/game. However, I get the feeling that Ryung has it in him to force GuMiho into an old fashioned Marine-Tank bloodbath, where he'll get to show that his tactical understanding of TvT transcends eras.

Prediction: GuMiho 3 - 1 Ryung

Zoun vs Spirit

TL.net's Zoun 2025 hype train was temporarily derailed in the RO12 of EWC, ended by a Roach-Queen timing from Reynor on Last Fantasy. Still, I'm ready to start shoveling more coal in the engine and laying down some fresh track for the second half of the year. Losing 2-3 to Reynor is hardly a bad way to go out of a tournament, and I still think Zoun has some of the highest upside potential of anyone in the scene.

A match vs Spirit should be a good warm-up for Zoun as he looks to make a run to the top four in the main event. Unfortunately for Spirit, he joins GuMiho in having been especially vexed by TvP in this current patch cycle. It's just exceedingly difficult for Terrans to beat top-tier Protoss players without being a strong all-in threat, and it's worked out poorly for the macro-favoring Spirit. I can see Spirit picking up a map if Zoun drops the ball while defending against some early-game Mine/Banshee harassment, but it's hard to see him winning in straight-up games.

Prediction: Zoun 3 - 1 Spirit

Rogue vs MaNa

While I took a personal interest in Zoun's post-military trajectory, I imagine most of the SC2 fanbase was more interested in getting on board the Rogue hype-train. It ended up being more like a roller-coaster, with Rogue taking us through exhilarating highs and gut-wrenching lows.

The 'old' Rogue made his glorious return in the Code S Season 2, where combination of shrewd all-ins and clever mind-games allowed him to upset herO in the semis and come within a map of defeating Classic for the championship. However, he showed little of that edge at EWC, and he ended up being eliminated from the group stages by Cure in a 0-3 sweep.

Given Rogue's fluctuating form, this upcoming match against MaNa could be surprisingly thorny. The Polish Protoss already scored a big upset against Rogue earlier this year, 2-1'ing him on the back of his trademark cannon rushes back at DreamHack Dallas (Rogue did win the rematch 2-0). While I'm picking Rogue to win in the end, I think MaNa will make himself quite the nuisance.

Prediction: Rogue 3 - 2 MaNa

SHIN vs Creator

The rising tide has lifted many Protoss boats during the 5.0.14 patch cycle, but the poor steamship Creator hasn't been able to benefit. It's hard to diagnose exactly why Creator somehow got worse in the new patch—maybe his nonconformist streak prevented him from fully assimilating into the new meta, or perhaps he's just not as focused on StarCraft II in general. In any case, it means he's in for a hard time against SHIN.

Although SHIN's off-season momentum from late 2024 didn't fully carry over into 2025, he still ended up having a very solid season with a top four run at DreamHack Dallas as his standout result. While he wasn't able to address his long-standing weakness in the late-game, he doubled down on his identity as a strong mid-game player who also has a penchant for unusual all-ins. Considering that Creator himself was never that great of a late-game PvZ player, it's hard to see how he's going to win this series.

Prediction: SHIN 3 - 1 Creator

HeroMarine vs trigger

Rising Protoss player Trigger enjoyed a mini-breakout season in 2024/25, displacing Astrea to qualify for EWC as the #1 player out of the Americas region. However, it's notable that most of his 'breaking out' occurred in online play, while his offline tournament play left much to be desired. I found it rather telling that both Rogue and SHIN commented on his nervousness in post-match interviews (in GSL and EWC, respectively).

Thus, I'd easily pick HeroMarine to beat Trigger in an offline event, as Big Gabe only grows more massive as the stakes are raised. Even though HeroMarine has somewhat capped his ceiling by becoming a part-time player, you almost never see him underperform in a given event. However, this match happens to be online, where Trigger has been a very capable player—incidentally, he happened to upset MaxPax 2-1 in the LiuLi Cup August Monthly as I was writing this preview.

This match is very hard to call, and even Aligulac.com has it near dead-even with Trigger having a narrow 51.50% to 48.50% win-chance advantage. I'll take those 1.5 percentage points and predict a Trigger victory, but this one is basically a toss-up.

Prediction: Trigger 3 - 2 HeroMarine

Bunny vs SKillous

I've always had a fondness for high-ceiling players with consistency issues, which makes this match-up especially intriguing to me. It wouldn't have been surprising to see either of these players earn spots at EWC if they got hot during one of the online qualifier days, but as it played out, they both low-rolled and were forced to spectate the tournament from home. I'm not going to be glib and say there's much redemption to be had in MOTG after missing out on EWC, but I'm glad that at least one of these players will get a chance to show the viewers what kind of StarCraft II they're really capable of.

This is another tough match to predict, and I could actually see it being one-sided in either direction depending on who's in better form on the day of the games. Bunny is an excellent aggressive/all-in player, and he could easily take a 3-0 if SKillous' defensive micro isn't on point. On the other hand, SKillous can be as precise and meticulous as any other Protoss when he's feeling it, and he could snowball his way to dominating macro wins if things go his way.

Prediction: Bunny 3 - 2 SKillous

Lambo vs Astrea

I have to think the organizers intentionally curated the play-in matches in this particular order, as we have another near coin-flip match to close out the weekend (Aligulac.com has this one at 54.65% to 45.35% in Astrea's favor). Unfortunately, I don't know if this one is 50/50 in a particularly entertaining way, as a quick review of their head-to-head matches during the EWC 2025 cycle shows they fit into the dull 'Protoss survives to/dies before late-game' binary of contemporary PvZ

I'll give Lambo the slight edge in terms of predictions, as I was quite impressed with how he honed his ZvP for his EWC global qualifiers run. I have to imagine that at least a bit of that preparation has carried over until now, which could help him topple Astrea once more.

Prediction: Lambo 3 - 2 Astrea

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