The arrival of the 5.0.15 PTR patch shook up cup competitions, with both live-version and PTR tournaments being played. While this didn't change up the list of winners a great deal—MaxPax, Classic, and Clem were all victorious on the week—we also got a rare Zerg winner in Solar (who won the live-version PiGosaur Cup).
WardiTV Mondays was played on the live version of SC2, but it still ended up being one of the more surprising tournaments of the week. herO was upset in the early going by ByuN, who defied an ocean of balance complaints to win in two fairly straight-up macro games. However, whatever was proved or disproved in that series was soon upended in the semifinals, where Shameless scored a 2-0 upset of his own over ByuN.
Elsewhere in the bracket, Rogue took down another top Protoss in Classic, leaving MaxPax as the sole surviving warlord of the weekly cups. In the end, MaxPax had no problem sweeping up the pieces, as he took down both upset-makers in Rogue and Shameless to win the weekly title (VOD).
In contrast to WardiTV Mondays, Monday Night Weeklies dived straight into the new PTR. Amusingly enough, the update to the PTR dropped midway through the tournament, introducing the key tweak of upgrading Storm from unusably terrible to 'maybe-kinda-okay-ionno.'
The lack of Zergs made this mostly a testing ground for PvT, where we saw many Protosses not bother with Storm at all. That included MaxPax, who must have triggered a wave of balance hot takes following his 1-2 winners' final loss at the hands of ByuN. However, MaxPax soon reminded us that Protoss had done fine with Robo-centric play during the early days of the 5.0.14 patch, as he bounded back from the lower bracket to crush ByuN 3-0 and then 2-1 to clinch the weekly championship (VOD).
Wardi wasn't one to miss out on PTR action, following up his regular Monday cup with a PTR event on Tuesday. While the tournament featured more Zerg representation than MNW, most of the Zergs were eliminated early and left the later rounds to become another TvP testing bed.
The TvP trends from MNW persisted for the most part, with most players abandoning the optimized Storm builds from the live version of SC2 and trying out a variety of openers. However, no one could find an answer against Clem, who defeated Rex, Harstem, MaxPax, and herO to take first place. With Clem already having recovered his TvP mojo in the live version of SC2 (defeating Classic and herO in Maestros of Game), he may end up becoming one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new patch (VOD).
Ironically, it didn't take any PTR changes to produce a rare Zerg cup win, as Solar went the distance in the live version PiGosaur Cup. The highlight of Solar's run was a five-game brawl against ByuN in the semifinals, with the two macro-favoring players slugging it out in a series of bloody games (ByuN did throw in one cheese for good measure). After that, Solar's 3-0 upset of MaxPax was somewhat anticlimactic, as he managed to hit his mark with consecutive Hydralisk and Roach-Queen timings (VOD).
The week in cup play finished with Classic winning the LiuLi Cup, besting MaxPax 3-2 in the finals. The first four games centered around cheese and proxies, resulting in the two top PvP tying 2-2. The final game was decided in the skies, with Classic winning the Phoenix war to take the weekly title (VOD).
Clem using the weeklies to pretend that PvT was unplayable so that Protoss would get nerfed, only to drop the ruse once good money was on the table in Paris, wasn't something I had on my bingo card...
Clem using the weeklies to pretend that PvT was unplayable so that Protoss would get nerfed, only to drop the ruse once good money was on the table in Paris, wasn't something I had on my bingo card...
On September 29 2025 20:20 FanOfClem wrote: Clem using the weeklies to pretend that PvT was unplayable so that Protoss would get nerfed, only to drop the ruse once good money was on the table in Paris, wasn't something I had on my bingo card...
It's weird that it's supposed to be a news post, but you mention cup #52 while #53 was already played yesterday. Yesterday's KSR is also missing (its results I can't find anywhere on this site). Thus we have to look them up manually.
On September 30 2025 13:40 RandomPlayer wrote: It's weird that it's supposed to be a news post, but you mention cup #52 while #53 was already played yesterday. Yesterday's KSR is also missing (its results I can't find anywhere on this site). Thus we have to look them up manually.
That's because these are last week's tournaments. Yesterday's tournaments will be in this week's post, which will be posted at the end of this week.
On September 30 2025 15:35 RandomPlayer wrote: What if you make the post not based on calendar weeks but based on "last 7 days" instead? It would make more sense since Monday has many cups.
They did focus on the seven days prior to writing the article.
The dates are in the title of the thread, and this was posted before yesterday's cups took place.
On September 30 2025 15:35 RandomPlayer wrote: What if you make the post not based on calendar weeks but based on "last 7 days" instead? It would make more sense since Monday has many cups.
They did focus on the seven days prior to writing the article.
The dates are in the title of the thread, and this was posted before yesterday's cups took place.
The TL writers don't have a time machine.
Yes, yes, continuous time is a concept that has vexed human beings for years.
TBH, Tuesday-Tuesday as the article period would prolly feel more "recent" for the extremely hardcore fans of SC2—it's legitimately something to think about.
Doesn't really matter to me. If I was forced to give a preference it would be Wed/Thurs with current weekly structure. But if I was doing it I would sacrifice the extra handful of days if I wanted them
But I appreciate the consolidated recaps and results