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After a month without any meaningful Starcraft, the EVER OSL Offline Preliminaries were finally upon us on the 30th of September. Every player who didn't manage to get seeded into the OSL had to fight their way through a 8(or 9)-man bracket in an unforgiving single elimination, Best-of-3 format in order to qualify for this season's OSL Round of 36. It's the stage of the tournament where the most upsets are bound to happen, with the unknown rookies and B-teamers eager to prove their skills against the established pros, striving to beat them by any means possible.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the qualifiers had its share of surprises once again. Many players who were supposed to get into the OSL somehow managed not to, and we also have ourselves a couple of new, definitely unexpected Royal Road candidates. I'm sure you all are eager to know wether or not your favorites made it in and who managed to fail miserably, so here are the results of the preliminaries, with my personal(and biased) comments.
Quick version
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Results of the EVER OSL Offline Qualifiers:
Group A
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Group Finals:
Lomo 0-2 
MovieMovie advances to the OSL Ro36!Although this group didn't have any of the top names in it, it still was quite competitive with Lomo, Movie and to some extent SoO all having a chance to win the group. The only real surprise in the group was 45[Name] beating SoO. The rest of the group was pretty straight-forward. In the group finals, Movie managed to defeat Lomo 2-0. This can without a doubt be attributed to Lomo's lack of practice time due to his vacation in Canada with his best friend.
Group B
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Group Finals:
GuemChi 2-1 SangHo WLWGuemChi advances to the OSL Ro36!This group didn't have many surprises. Which is quite sad in and of itself, since Midas, once the best Terran in the scene, lost to SangHo of all people, and I don't think of it as an upset. GuemChi was, at least to me, the favorite to win the group, and that he did. GuemChi and SangHo seem to be clashing quite a bit lately; Who could forget their epic elimination race PvP from a few months back? A new rivalry in the making, perhaps.
Group C
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Group Finals:
HoGiL 2-0 SeaHoGiL advances to the OSL Ro36!Group C's biggest name is definitely Sea, who almost all the foreigners and even some Team Liquid moderators love. Given HoGiL's subpar ZvT and Sea's always solid TvZ, Sea definitely was the favorite to win this group. However, it seems like Sea has decided to start failing in the individual leagues a bit earlier than is typical for him, and hence we instead get to see HoGiL in the Ro36. Admittably, HoGiL's run was pretty nice, going 6-0 while playing against all three races. Still, I'd much rather see Sea in the Ro36 than HoGiL, who's just another Zerg to me. Sure, his ZvP is decent, but in this era where the Protoss are suffering in general, that's not going to help him much. He's just going to lose to any decent Zerg or Terran he comes accross.
Group D
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Group Finals:
Pusan 2-0 M18MPusan advances to the OSL Ro36!This is a group that should make
Group E
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Group Finals:
Spear 1-2 Jaehoon LWWJaehoon advances to the OSL Ro36!I'm positive that most people expected UpMaGiC to advance from this group; I sure did. However, things don't always go as planned, and both him and FailFist lost to mediocre Protoss players in the semi-finals. This gives us an "exciting" PvP group finals, and we somehow get to see... Jaehoon in the Ro36. Seriously, Jaehoon? Well, I'd take Jaehoon over Spear any time of the day, but he still is really bad, and I can't help but think that Ro36 is the furthest he gets.
Group F
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Group Finals
FrOzean 2-1 Major WLWFrOzean advances to the OSL Ro36!Oh god. FrOzean? CuteAngel? In The OSL? Oh god! That's all I can say. The overwhelming favorite to win this group was Iris, but he somehow lost to a relative rookie in Major, who FrOzean somehow managed to beat. It truly is painful seeing FrOzean advance instead of Iris. There are a few other players of note in this group, namely GosI[Flying], who after all-killing MBCGame Hero in the STX Masters hasn't really done much, and these qualifiers aren't an exception to that. Tempest was pretty hyped as an amazing macro player a while back, but he really hasn't done anything useful yet, and continues that trend here.
Group G
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Group Finals
RorO 2-1 July LWWRorO advances to the OSL Ro36!The only players here who I'd have given a decent chance to qualify into the OSL were RorO and July. Rightfully, they also played in the finals. Unfortunately, July's ZvZ has been quite terrible as of late, and hence, for the disappointment of many, RorO advances instead of him. I'm sure that July would give us a far more entertaining OSL with his amazing ZvP. RorO is quite mediocre in just about every way, and I don't expect him to get past the Ro36. Besides these two, there really weren't other notable players other than Sair, but he's always been quite subpar and his performance here isn't impressing yet again.
Group H
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Group Finals
sKyHigh 2:1 815 LWWsKyHigh advances to the OSL Ro36!In my opinion, the biggest favorite here by far was sKyHigh. To most people, the most noticeable player in this group is BoxeR, but I really didn't think his form would be good enough to defeat sKyHigh's monstrous TvT (9-1 last 10). 815's ZvZ is awesome and his ZvP is quite good, but his ZvT is clearly his weakest match-up. It's unfortunate to the BoxeR fans, but this group went as expected; sKyHigh defeating both BoxeR and 815 to claim a place in his first OSL. He's definitely a potential candidate for the Royal Road.
Group I
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Group Finals
Pure 2:0 maestroPure advances to the OSL Ro36!This was a pretty subpar group, with Pure taking it as would be expected. Much hasn't been playing well for a while now, and losing to the horribly named maestro (don't steal other people's nicknames!) wasn't as big of a surprise as it would have been a year ago. aMeBa, also known as Ace, won a few games for MBC in the proleague just before the end of the season, and was hyped quite a bit. It'd have been nice to see how he would do in the OSL, but at least for now we'll just have to content with seeing him in just the Proleague, if there. ToSsGirL is a girl, and hence everyone likes her. It's too bad that she really isn't on the level of most of the players in even this subpar pool.
Group J
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Group Finals
LuCifer 1:2 RuByRuBy advances to the OSL Ro36!When looking at these results, I almost couldn't believe my eyes. Kal's best match-up used to be PvZ, yet he somehow manages to lose to... Just? Just who is he, anyway? This was one of the biggest upsets in the entire preliminaries. With Kal out, there really would be 3 people with a chance in this group; Miracle, RuBy, and LuCifer. Ruby joined ACE a while back, so you'd imagine that he wouldn't be able to perform as well as he used to. Still, he manages to defeat both the up-and-coming Miracle and Lucifer, who was hyped as one of the best new Protoss-players, until Jaedong completely destroyed him in the Arena MSL. A highly surprising group at least to me, hopefully Ruby won't just get rolled over like he has done in the past leagues he's been in.
Group K
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Group Finals
free 0:2 Reality Reality advances to the OSL Ro36!Reality! I couldn't believe that the results of this group could be reality. Free should have had a complete lock on this group, with Reach and Modesty the other players with a sliver of a chance. But Free gets 2-0'd by Reality! Really? A largery disappointing group overall, with Reach losing to some no-name and with Free failing to get into yet another OSL. I really hope that Reality isn't in reality just another s2 who really doesn't do anything but lose to any decent player. However, he did manage to defeat Free, so there is hope that he won't be a total waste of time. At least I hope so...
Group L
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Round of 8
sAviOr 1:2 Bubble WLWherb 0:2 ggaemoIrOn 0:2 herO[jOin]Someday 2:0 PianORound of 4
Bubble 1:2 ggaemo WLWherO[jOin] 2:0 Someday Final Round
ggaemo 2:0 herO[jOin]Group Finals
ggaemo 2:0 herO[jOin]ggaemo advances to the OSL Ro36!This group's results make me so sad. sAviOr, after saying how he's going to win a Starleague, manages to lose to someone called Bubble. Bubble. Seriously, Bubble? The group was suited to you so well and you manage to lose to Bubble. Well, albeit being the biggest upset of the group, it's not the only one. PianO somehow managed to lose to Someday. Then again, his TvP is abysmally bad, but I didn't think it was that bad. Maybe someday we will hear something more about Someday. Because of these upsets, the player advancing from this group is ggaemo! He's Oz's second best Zerg... sadly, their only Zerg player is Jaedong, so ggaemo is kind of like a B-teamer. A truly depressing group, let's hope that ggaemo doesn't get overrun by everything and everyone. You can always hope...
Group M
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Group Finals
Horang2 2:0 TurNHorang2 advances to the OSL Ro36!This group's favorite to win was definitely Horang2, although Yellow definitely was the player most people were cheering for. Sadly, he managed to disappoint us with (yet another) horrible performance, losing 2-0 to someone called Moon. And no, it's not the WC3 pro, either. Another upset was TheZerg losing 2-0 in the first round to another no name. Not a good group for Zergs, apparently. Well, luckily currently the best and most deserving player got through, and hopefully we will get to enjoy some more of his entertaining,
Group N
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Group Finals
Light 2:0 YoonJoongLight advances to the OSL Ro36!This is another group where the favorite had no problems in getting through to the OSL. After getting a walkover against Wuk, who he most likely would have destroyed had they played, he went undefeated against the newcomer SKT Zerg n.Die_soo, and Shuttle. Shuttle is most famous for his miraculous semi-final run in the GOM Season 1, but he really is just a worse version of BackHo. Which is why I really don't understand how Baby managed to lose to him. After his series against JangBi, I really thought his TvP would have been more than enough to take on Shuttle.
Group O
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Group Finals
fOrGG 2:1 NaDafOrGG advances to the OSL Ro36!During his MSL run, I really started liking fOrGG's play. His terrible micro and amazing macro would always make me think about iloveoov, even though I wasn't around back when he dominated. That's why, it really was quite disappointing when he started losing everywhere. So Oz got rid of him, like they've done to all of their good players besides Jaedong. I really hope forGG starts performing like he used to now that he's getting used to KT. Most of the reason for his slump is the fact that he totally forgot to play TvP, though, and by the results of this group, you really can't judge wether or not that has changed at all. Nada was the fan-favorite of many, but he's been playing so badly as of late that this group as well was taken by its clear favorite.
Group P
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Group Finals
Really 2:0 KillerReally advances to the OSL Ro36!Really has been here quite a few times. He seemingly easily gets through a subpar OSL qualifier group, and then completely fails to deliver with his predictable extremely standard hardcore macro style. I really was looking forward to CJ's new hope of Protoss, Snow qualifying, or even the amazingly named Killer. Instead, we get eSTRO's "Ace" player, who really is like a Flash that's not good; He'll easily defeat bad and terrible players, but will lose to every better player. I really don't see Really getting too far in this league, either.
Group Q
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Group Finals
Luxury 2-0 TesterLuxury advances to the OSL Ro36!Ever since his MSL victory, Luxury has been slumping like crazy, losing just about everywhere instantly. However, lately he has been playing a bit closer to his full potential, and his effortless qualifying into this fall's EVER OSL definitely reinforces the thoughts that he might be coming back to at least a decent form, even though the group wasn't the most difficult. KT is looking really strong this season, by the way, and it'd be a complete shock if we didn't see them do well in the upcoming Proleague. Besides Luxury, there really weren't any other notable players. You might want to mention Tester, who's been playing terribly for eSTRO for years now, but overall it was quite a lackluster group.
Group R
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Group Finals
Calm 2-0 SaintCalm advances to the OSL Ro36!The last couple of groups really haven't had any surprises in them, and this group definitely doesn't change the trend. The recent MSL-champion Calm had no trouble taking this group and securing his place in his first OSL. It's quitea shocker if you think about it; Calm is such a good player, but still hasn't ever been into the OSL. The furthest he has ever gotten before was the OnGameNet Star Challenge back in 2007. A potential Royal Roader, without a doubt. Casy was the favorite of many people in this group, but his TvP has always been depressing, and the trend continues here, as he loses to a rookie Protoss 2-0.
Group S
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Group Finals
HyuN 1-2 BarracksBarracks advances to the OSL Ro36!If the few last groups were quite predictable as far as the advancing players go, this group definitely was the complete opposite. The biggest shock in the group was definitely brought upon us by TheRock failing to qualify into the OSL, where he has been about 4782082 times. Seriously though, BeSt somehow lost to DDONG, whose name, I've heard, literally means "poo" in Korean. Oh, how far the silver medallist from just over a year ago has fallen. Even in the KeSPA rank, he is behind BackHo of all people, essentially endangering his position as one of the Six Dragons. Because of this gigantic failure, we now get the horribly named Barracks(who ret actually managed to beat in iccup a while back) into the OSL Ro36. Despite being a Royal Road candidate, I really don't think we're going to see anything special out of him in this OSL.
Group T
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Group Finals
Hyuk 2-1 greatHyuk advances to the OSL Ro36!Huyk used to be the laughing stock of most of the community for quite a while, mostly because of him blowing advantages in ridiculous ways. He's known to have a lot of problems with his nerves, but he finally seems to have gotten them together, ever since he managed to all-kill STX Soul in the STX Masters Cup Finals. On paper, great was the favorite here, but it really doesn't come as a surprise that Hyuk managed to defeat him; Hyuk used to be an almost successful ZvZ-sniper back in the day, after all. Xellos dropping out of course disappoints the fans of the old-school players, but he really isn't on the level of most of the top players anymore, and I for one am excited to see what Hyuk has to offer for us in this upcoming OSL.
Group U
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Group Finals
JangBi 2-1 NoticeJangBi advances to the OSL Ro36!After the shocking Group S, we're back to the predictability. JangBi clearly outclasses everyone in this group. HoeJJa and Notice are the other two players of note. Notice did really well in the beginning of this year, and was looking like a new STX star in the rising. However, he's been doing a bit worse recently, and might just turn out to be just another mediocre player like Lucifer for example. HoeJJa also caught many people's attention with his creative play, utilizing burrow effectively, but he really hasn't been able to do anything significant in any league yet. His most notable achievement up to this point is his Ro8 spot in the GOM Season 2, where he got completely destroyed by Bisu.
Group V
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Round of Eight
firebathero 2-0 Dear
Hydra 2-1 Tazza
MVP 2-1 Sacsri
tHuNdeR 0-2 Violet
Round of Four
firebathero 2-0 Hydra
Violet 0-2 MVP
Final Round
firebathero 2-0 MVP
firebathero 2-0 DearHydra 2-1 TazzaMVP 2-1 SacsritHuNdeR 0-2 VioletRound of Four
firebathero 2-0 HydraViolet 0-2 MVPFinal Round
firebathero 2-0 MVPGroup Finals
firebathero 2-0 MVPfirebathero advances to the OSL Ro36!Firebathero. Love him or hate him, but he definitely gives some highly entertaining interviews. He has been slumping heavily for quite a while now, but at least this season's OSL starts kindly for him. He even managed to beat a Protoss! The rest of the group was pretty lackluster, with MVP being most well-known for always having his mouth open like a fish, and Tazza once beating Bisu but doing nothing otherwise. No surprises here.
Group W
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Round of Eight
Mind 2-1 KT.MGW)Protoss
Suny 0-2 PerfectMan
Orion 2-1 Firebat
yCh[z-zOne] 2-0 Anytime
Round of Four
Mind 2-0 PerfectMan
Orion 1-2 yCh[z-zOne]
Final Round
Mind 2-1 yCh[z-zOne]
Mind 2-1 KT.MGW)ProtossSuny 0-2 PerfectManOrion 2-1 FirebatyCh[z-zOne] 2-0 AnytimeRound of Four
Mind 2-0 PerfectManOrion 1-2 yCh[z-zOne]Final Round
Mind 2-1 yCh[z-zOne]Group Finals
Mind 2-1 yCh[z-zOne]Mind advances to the OSL Ro36!Another group with the favorite winning, but I'm actually quite sad about that. I've had my eye on yCh ever since his epic game against Free, and I really would have liked to see how yCh manages to do in the most prestigeous Starcraft league in the world. Even though he managed to beat Mind in the first game, Mind will be the one advancing. Well, let's hope that Mind actually plays as well as he should and makes a deep run this time around. When he's playing at his best, he really is one of the most entertaining Terran players to watch.
Group X
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Group Finals
HiyA 1-2 ShineShine advances to the OSL Ro36!This is the group that HiyA really should have won, he couldn't have hoped for an easier group. Instead, he fails in yet another individual league, leaving Jaedong awfully lonely in yet another Starleague. Shine isn't a bad player and he's played some good games, but he really is quite a subpar player. Then again, I think I still prefer him over HiyA in this Starleague, just because I like mediocre Zergs more than mediocre Terrans. Apparently, now that the Terran Shine retired, Shine[KaL] can finally be called just Shine. Progamers with their creative nicknames...
Race Distribution of the Preliminaries
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/Picon_small.gif)
7![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/Zicon_small.gif)
7![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/Ticon_small.gif)
10As we can see, the results are a lot more even than in the last preliminaries. What is this, Protoss isn't extinct? In fact, it is no longer a massive amount of Zergs infesting the Starleagues, but we rather seem to be getting quite a few Terrans, with a couple of complete newcomers as well. It's kind of interesting how it's this even in the OSL compared to the MSL preliminaries, I wonder if the maps have something to do with this?
We're finally done with each group! First, see the most interesting parts of the winners' interviews here, and then let's see who the players we are going to see in the EVER OSL are:
Seeded into the Ro36
ZerOgo.goLetaCanataFlashStorkBisuby.heroEffOrtBackHoHwasinKwanroThrough Preliminaries
MovieGuemChiHoGiLPusanJaehoonFrOzeanRorOsKyHighPureRuByRealityggaemoHorang2LightfOrGGReallyLuxuryCalmBarracksHyukJangBifirebatheroMindShineSeeded into the Ro16
JaedongYellOw[ArnC]fantasytype-bTeam Distribution
(6)hite SPARKYZ
(4)CJ Entus
(4)KT Rolster
(4)Samsung KHAN
(4)SK Telecom T1
(4)STX SouL
(4)WeMade FOX
(3)Hwaseung OZ
(3)MBCGame HERO
(2)Woongjin Stars
(1)Air Force ACE
(1)eSTRO
Race Distribution of Top 40 of EVER OSL
101416As we can see, the lack of seeds really hurts the Protoss even though there were just as many Protosses as there were Zergs advancing from the preliminaries. Even so, the race destribution isn't that bad, and with the exception of a couple of Protoss players I won't mention, this OSL is stacked with just about every top player you could ask for, and is hence shaping up to be one of the best OSLs EVER.
So after all of this, how did the OSL Round 1 groups turn out? Well thanks to GTR, here are the groups;
Group A, 10/14
Game 1:
fOrGG vs PusanGame 2:
Canata vs WinnerGroup B, 10/14
Game 1:
Really vs ShineGame 2:
Bisu vs Game 1 WinnerGroup C, 10/16
Game 1:
Calm vs RealityGame 2:
BackHo vs Game 1 WinnerGroup D, 10/21
Game 1:
JangBi vs BarracksGame 2:
Kwanro vs Game 1 WinnerGroup E, 10/21
Game 1:
sKyHigh vs ggaemoGame 2:
Stork vs Game 1 WinnerGroup F, 10/23
Game 1:
Light vs MovieGame 2:
hero vs Game 1 WinnerGroup G, 10/28
Game 1:
Mind vs HoGiLGame 2:
Flash vs Game 1 WinnerGroup H, 10/28
Game 1:
firebathero vs JaehoonGame 2:
ZerO vs Game 1 WinnerGroup I, 10/30
Game 1:
Luxury vs GuemChiGame 2:
Hwasin vs Game 1 WinnerGroup J, 11/4
Game 1:
Horang2 vs FrOzeanGame 2:
EffOrt vs Game 1 WinnerGroup K, 11/4
Game 1:
Pure vs HyukGame 2:
Leta vs Game 1 WinnerGroup L, 11/6
Game 1:
RorO vs RuByGame 2:
go.go vs Game 1 WinnerItalics denote a Royal Roader
Of course, TL will give a full preview for the OSL Round 1 sometime this week - but until then, speculate away!
