[SPL] Team 8 vs Samsung Khan

As an Australian supporting the underdogs is a natural instinct. Hence today, I shall be supporting Samsung Khan to win it.. No but really, having such a deep lineup team8 hasn't been performing at all. It feels like the team is similar to Team USA's bid for Olympic glory in 2004. I remember the commentators saying that there was 1billion dollars sitting on the US team bench and yet they played badly and got the bronze. I attribute this to their changing their name from the "Dream Team" to "Team USA". On a lesser note a lack of cohesion amongst team members could also have influenced their play. When you have a team full of winners, they don't play for the team, they play for themselves.

There is no pressure for players to perform if they are just hitting their performance criterion and winning games here and there.

BUT when there is team spirit players go out of their way to win because they don't want to dissapoint their team mates who worked so hard to help them practice!

I think this will come with time for team 8 but not this season. Hopefully some team spirit is built up and team 8 gives us a strong showing next season!

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Here are the predictions:

BaBy « Ground Zero » JangBi
All things considered, this mu heavily favours Jangbi both with recent form and H2H count (4:2). But knowing this, Baby will cheese like a swiss man that just ran out of chocolate! It will be epic, surgical and efficient. gg no re!


Killer « Chain Reaction » Shine
Shine is a zvz sniper with a whopping 66% winrate in the mu. Given Chain reaction is prone to zvz I feel that this would be advantageous to Shine against anyone but the dong in team 8. I don't think they'll send jaedong out unless they're 2 down or until the 5th match. But then again, the mu is such a cointoss so you never know!

Sea « Electric Circuit »TurN
Sea has been performing badly this season mostly due to getting protoss almost every time and korean players just seem to love cheesing him. But given that this game goes to the midgame ( I believe in you sea! ) I think that he has a really good chance of winning!

Jaehoon « Sniper Ridge » Stork
Even though stork has never come out on this map because stork thinks this map is imba I'm sure january will convince him that it's actually stork favoured! That's right, it's perfect for carriers and the like and I know birdtoss can pull it off (even if SKT protosses can't)! Anywho, I think this match might be a pvp and so stork clearly the victor.

edit: Stork has come out on this map and is currently 2:0 pvz...whoops...research fail. Albeit, stork hasn't been sent out on this map since the start of the season! Hence my stance on January convincing him to go out on snipers ridge still stands!

Jaedong « Outlier » Grape
If anyone remembers the epic MSL matches between Grape and Jaedong you'd be as excited as me for this mu! They were absolutely epic games and I'm sure if it comes down to the ace match we'll see something similar! My heart says jaedong but my brain says Grape on this one given Jaedong's recent lack of performance this season. All we can be sure of is that it will be a game to remember!

8th 3: 2 Khan







NB: Winning spelt wrong but who cares!