[OSL] Day 6

I want Paralyze to win, but I am going to try to be as objective as possible. Kal is good. Very good. Sure, he can’t seem to break into the next level and assert himself as a contender for “best in the world” but he is very consistent against opponents not named “Lee”. Just looking at his PvP, Kal is winning the games he is supposed to and only losing to the best. In his last 15 he is 10-5, with losses against PvP sniper Horang2, Protoss legends Stork and Bisu (twice), and once against the rookie brave, who has been very impressive lately. He cheeses well enough, and he has had a lot of success this season defending against all-ins. And we have Paralyze, with no PvPs to look at. Even if we look at his non official games, there is still far fewer games than vs zerg or terran. The qualifiers aren’t pretty for our fuzzy hero. He is 3-3, and against far easier competition then he will be playing today. The only experience he has had against other starleauge qualifiers is in a best of 3 against snow, which he lost 2-0. Another aspect to consider: in the beginning of round one, Park needed a specialist for central plains. The plains were known for a largely disproportionate number of PvPs, so Park needed to pick a player that was good vs toss. He picked Sun instead of Paralyze. Now Sun did have success, but it is certainly not a bode of confidence for Paralyze’s PvP. Kal is just too consistent and too good for me to see the upset here. Kal wins.
But here are two things that will help Paralyze’s quest to walk the royal road. The first is that between Park, Doctor. K, Bisu, and Best, Paralyze has the best resource of protoss knowledge ever, and most of those guys don’t have anything else to do right now. The second is that Kal is the smugtoss, and it was smugness that led flash to lose to two different SKT players already.

Ok, Significantly shorter this time. Jaedong is Jaedong. Sure, he dropped a game to Hiya, but team kills involve some weird head games that come from hundreds of games against each other, that spectators rarely understand. A good example of that is Zero vs Free from last season. Anyway, Jaedong is fresh off of an 11 game zvz win streak, that was interrupted by a wild game vs zero (Definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.) Hogil probably gets my vote for “most improbable birth in both MSL and OSL.” Hogil is atrocious at ZvZ. It’s hard to figure out how someone can have a 29% win rate in a matchup that is almost a coin flip. This is the most lopsided matchup of the night. Jaedong wins.

Oh sea. It may be the haircut, and it may be spending too much time with your prize from the selection ceremony, but something is just not the same since that night. He is 2-6 and look just outclassed in a lot of those games. It is important to note that none of those are against terran. That’s good in the sense that maybe the TvT spark is still there, but bad in the scenes that he is out of practice. I don’t like mind. Is it because of is completely dull play style? Is it because he is on a team I don’t like? Is it because his head looks like a balloon with glasses drawn on? I don’t know. I’m just glad I wasn’t a fan of brood war when he won an MSL, because I might have just quit starcraft then. Mind seems to teeter along the precipice of “mid-level player that can pick up some wins,” and “over the hill player who should be replaced by young talent soon.” This is probably the closest matchup of the night. I’m going to use the TvT records to pick a winner, and 3-1>1-2 . Sea wins the match I am least excited about.

Free and Modesty are some of the many surprises this season. Modesty went from sub .500 and a 4 game loss streak to roll into a seven game win streak that spans over all matchups and ability levels. Free on the other hand is slumping hard. I never understood why free was good in the first place, but it is gone for now. To be honest, I haven’t seen enough modesty or free games to make a good prediction here. Things are made even more sticky by the fact that this game does not change the results of the group, and we don’t know if either of these players decided to skimp on the practicing. I just have too much of a problem giving modesty the nod. Free wins. change my mind after seeing that the game is on pathfinder. Free will spit between defences for muta harass and a hydra bust, but wont be able to deal with either. Modesty wins