Spring Arena Draft Review

By: Waxangel

Oh, MLG, you do know how to please your geeky audience. The format for MLG Spring Arena II included this juicy little tidbit.

2. All Winners Round 1 Matchups will be set by the Players seeded #1-15. Starting with the #1 Seed, Players must choose their Winners Round 1 opponent from the Players seeded #17-32. In Winners Round 1, the #16 Seed will play the Player not chosen.

Yes, a draft! If only we had bothered to read the rules sooner, we would have commenced with non-stop draft coverage, including a mock draft page we updated daily based on the latest results and rumors, and video segments with at least four talking-head pundits speaking over each other. Alas, the draft has already concluded, and all we can bring you is this belated review that has the unfortunate benefit of hindsight.

+ Show Spoiler [Player Seeding] +

#1: MvPDongRaeGu

Pro's Pick: dignitas.BlinG
TL's Pick: ESC.GoOdy

Seeing that Bling is A) a foreigner, B) not known for his PvZ, and C) a foreigner, there's very little to fault about DongRaeGu's pick. Actually, Seiplo fits all of those criteria as well, but there's probably not a significant difference from DRG's perspective. Perhaps he just saw that Seiplo was from Sweden and figured “well, those guys aren't as bad as the rest.”

The real question here is WHY DIDN'T HE TAKE GOODY!?!?!? Goody was the only foreign Terran available for him to pick, and ZvT has historically been DRG's best match-up. Does this mean that DongRaeGu isn't confident in his ZvT lately? Or maybe he just thinks MLG maps are bad for ZvT? If this is because Goody beat Nestea once, a very long time ago in TSL3, then I'm going to jump off a building.


#2: coL.GanZi

Pro's Pick: ESC.GoOdy
TL's Pick: ESC.GoOdy

Since leaving SlayerS, Ganzi has been looking very good in all three match-ups, and it wouldn't have been surprising to see him pick an opponent from any of the three races. Even so, with a lot of Korean Terrans complaining about TvP lately, it's understandable that Ganzi preferred Goody over Seiplo. With Ganzi coming off an impressive victory against Polt in Code A, and some sharp TvT performances in Spring Arena 1, this is a pretty good pick.


#3: coL.Heart

Pro's Pick: Ai.Seiplo
TL's Pick: Ai.Seiplo

To no one's surprise, Heart decided to take the last remaining “foreigner Koreans have never heard of” in the pool. Though it's always a bit of a surprise when a Terran player picks a Protoss these days, Heart has looked strong against all his Protoss opponents in MLG so far (PartinG, HuK, MC, etc) so his confidence seems well founded.

Though I can't argue with Heart's choice of Seiplo, I wonder if Grubby might have been a better pick. The Korean pro-gaming logic seems to be “if I've never heard of him, he's probably not good.” While that makes some degree of sense, Koreans are occasionally ambushed and upset by players they've never heard of (Scarlett, Illusion). At least with Grubby, Heart would have had an easier time researching his opponent through a plethora of VODs and replays.


#4: FnaticRC Oz

Pro's Pick: Grubby
TL's Pick: SlayerS_Ryung

With Ryung (generally not a winner of TvP) and IdrA (generally not a winner of tournaments involving Koreans) still left on the board, Oz's choice to go with a PvP was a daring one. Oz must still believe that he has de-luckified PvP, even though the trust of the GSL faithful has wavered ever since he got 0 – 3'd by PartinG while trying things like Forge FE and gas-first proxy DT. Oz beat Grubby once back at Winter Championship, but even then, Grubby managed to take a game to make it 1 – 2. As with any Korean-foreigner pick, Oz is still the favorite, but this one has a lot of upset potential.


#5: dignitas.SeleCT

Pro's Pick: FnaticRC Rain
TL's Pick: EG.IdrA

It's kind of weird to see SeleCT as the #5 seed going into this tournament. He left to train at the FXO house while he was on top of the NA scene, proceeded to actually regress during his time at a pro-gaming house in Korea, and has yet somehow managed to top NA's Arena qualifier over a number of Koreans. I don't want to get my hopes up over the qualifier run, though, because I remember what happened to Drewbie at Winter Arena. So perhaps SeleCT is very good, perhaps he's very bad – it's hard to tell.

At his best, SeleCT was a destroyer of Protosses, and it wouldn't have been surprising to see him pick Inori in the past. However, TvP has changed, and I suppose SeleCT has as well. I think Rain and IdrA were the two reasonable choices for SeleCT at this spot, and SeleCT's choice of the Korean was a curious one indeed.


#6: EG.ThorZaIN

Pro's Pick: TSL_Inori
TL's Pick: TSL_Inori

ThorZaIN is one of the best foreigners in the world, capable of beating top level Koreans. What's interesting about it is that he's reached that level by doing his own research, forming his own opinions about the game, some of which are distinctly non-Korean. We may never see a 16 CC from ThorZaIN in TvP, or reactor hellions + cloak banshee in TvZ, but he seems to be fine without such Korean staples. Thus, even though he's challenging conventional wisdom by picking a Protoss and a Korean in Inori, I feel like he must have a very good reason. ThorZaIN has shown us some strong TvZ against players like Stephano, Monster, and viOLet, which made me think perhaps Ret would be a good choice, but if ThorZaIN thinks he has found a TvP playstyle that works for himself, then I'm excited to see it in action.


#7: Mill.Stephano

Pro's Pick: SlayerS_Ryung
TL's Pick: EG.HuK

Much like the player himself, Stephano's pick is a bit of a head-scratcher.

First off, isn't he more of a Protoss killer? Yeah, it's true that he's pretty much an everything killer in the West, but his ZvP was always more famous than his ZvT. Nevertheless, Stephano probably knows his match-ups better than we do, and we've seen a player's results in tournaments mislead the fans as to what match-up a player actually likes on multiple occasions (hi HuK, Sheth). [Tangent: On the other hand, can we really say that players' subjective confidence/comfort in their match-ups is a good predictor of their actual tournament results?]

But even if ZvT is Stephano's best match-up, why Ryung? Ryung's famous weakness is TvP – his TvZ is still pretty decent. Why not Dream, who's a far less proven player than Ryung, and has also never attended a foreign event? While Ryung hasn't had the best success, he's still a veteran of the international circuit at this point, whereas I wouldn't be surprised if this will be the 15 year old Dream's first time on an airplane.


#8: aTn.Socke

Pro's Pick: EG.IdrA
TL's Pick: EG.IdrA

It's surprising to see IdrA fall beyond the halfway point in the draft. While I think IdrA's decline in pure skill has been a bit exaggerated, it seems pretty clear that his already lacking 'mental' (the blanket Korean term for confidence, composure, etc.) has fallen to critically low levels in 2012. Maybe IdrA was having just a particularly low moment, but basically admitting you have no passion left for the game and declaring defeat in public DOES NOT MAKE US OPTIMISTIC ABOUT HIS CHANCES.

Koreans say that sometimes, when you're up against a wall, and you've fallen into a rut, you have start over from the beginning, and rediscover the heart with which you began.

Anyway, thanks to Socke! I often used him as the fill-in player when I needed to make a “well, IdrA will just lose to a European Protoss's 200/200 army” joke, and finally, for the first time since NASL Season Two, people will actually see what I mean.


#9: TSL_Symbol

Pro's Pick: MvPDream
TL's Pick: MvPDream

Korean players tend to be tighter knit that foreigners, all living together in a metropolitan area around the size of San Diego. While unknown foreigners will certainly go first in any draft, I was wondering how long the bond between countrymen would hold once Koreans were forced to decide between their weaker kinsmen, and pricklier foreign opponents.

Well, apparently, not even Korean brotherhood can overcome one's distaste for ZvZ. With no more non-mirror foreigners left (HuK's practically Korean), Symbol showed that he'd rather crush a fifteen year old kid's dreams than face the battle-hardened Ret. Have a heart, Symbol! Don't you remember the days when you were Dream's age, when you were getting brutally crushed by veterans in Brood War qualifiers? All kidding aside, it was a pretty obvious pick for Symbol, who is coming off a close series against MMA at the Iron Squid grand finals and victory over Jjakji in Code A.


#10: coL.Killer

Pro's Pick: Liquid`Ret
TL's Pick: EG.HuK

Killer can't be terribly happy with this pick, but that's just how it is once you're down to just seven players to choose from. Killer squeezed into the Arena by playing in the NA qualifier, but in Korea, he's been showing less than Code S level play. All of the remaining Koreans are arguably Code S class, and HuK in particular has been Killer's tormentor in the GSL. That left just Ret, whose brutal dismantling of Code S Protoss Genius at DreamHack Stockholm must be fresh in Killer's mind. Still, I think that despite some painful losses at HuK's hands in the GSL, Killer was better off going into PvP with some coin-flip builds in this situation, than trying to defeat Ret in a straight up match.


#11: Clash.MoOk

Pro's Pick: LG-IMLosirA
TL's Pick: FXOLeenock

Losira is single-handedly proving that the standard process of going from an online-only monster to a major tournament player can actually be reversed, something that should strike fear into the hearts of pro-gamers who think they have things figured out.

For the Zerg preferring Mook, this came down to a choice between viOLet, Losira, and Leenock. viOLet has beat plenty of great Protoss players in big tournaments, so I assume he was quickly removed as an option. When it comes down to Leenock or Losira, Leenock actually has a way worse ZvP record. But, since Leenock has been to two major tournament finals, I suppose that's why Mook went with Losira.

The thing is, while you can still say “I don't care about the stats, you can't count this guy out when it really matters.” about players players like Nestea or MC, I don't think you can apply that to Leenock just because he's been to two finals. He rode to the GSL November finals on the back of his ridiculously good ZvT, and won MLG Providence because he was riding a gigantic wave of momentum. The fact remains that he's never overcome his weak ZvP in an important situation, and it's still a flaw in his game.


#12: BLASTTefel

Pro's Pick: FXOLeenock
TL's Pick: EG.HuK

What? Who? You can read more about Tefel in our upcoming, convenient scouting report, provided by tree.hugger and x6's Ver.

While Symbol hated ZvZ enough to choose to eviscerate Dream over playing Ret, Tefel has chosen to take on a strong ZvZ player in Leenock, rather than take one of his pale-skinned brothers, and a guy who's spent the better half of last week packing and flying in HuK. At this point, I'd like to believe that Tefel is not only a good-guy foreigner who refuses to team-kill his brethren, but also a daring soul who would rather take on a challenge than make a purely rational, soulless pick. It may not be true (because, you know, I conveniently called HuK a Korean when it suited the narrative), but it can't hurt to be positive about a player who's making his American debut. Keep in mind, if he ends up doing well, we might just have to keep him.


#13: SlayerS_Alicia

Pro's Pick: Empire|viOLet
TL's Pick: Empire|viOLet

If Alicia came in with the attitude of “F*** PvP” – whether that meant Protoss vs Protoss or Protoss vs Polt – then he really didn't have much choice at #13 in the draft. I thought he looked okay against Terran players recently in the GSL, but it's totally understandable that he'd still want to avoid a TvP player of Polt's caliber. I guess this does mean Alicia thinks he had a better than 50% chance against viOLet (though I'm not sure I agree), as he would have otherwise just picked HuK and tried to make PvP devolve to its most random form.


#14: x6.Sleep

Pro's Pick: EG.HuK
TL's Pick: EG.HuK

I thought that Spring Arena 1's unmitigated disaster was a reflection of where HuK was at as a player, but perhaps his 1-6 record was only the result of a particularly bad day against a pool of very strong players. HuK was still on the board while players like Ryung, viOLet, Leenock, and Losira were getting taken, which is no mean feat.


#15: SlayerS_MMA

Pro's Pick: SK_MC
TL's Pick: TSL_Polt

Pick your poison?

If MMA picked MC, then he would have had to play his worst match-up by far in TvP, against one of the most unpredictable and dangerous tournament players in MC. On top of that, MMA has looked weak while defending large two-base attacks from Protoss, something MC is very good at.

If MMA picked Polt, then he would have faced a player who had his number, with a favorable 8 – 4 record including a famous 4 – 0 sweep in the GSL Super Tournament finals.

It's easy to interpret MMA's choice as simply avoiding Polt at all costs, but I think that counter-relationship is pretty exaggerated. Polt only truly dominated MMA in the summer of 2011, and thereafter the two have been on fairly even footing. What's more likely is that MMA has confidence in his TvP (despite his recent tournament results), and has noticed MC's recently wavering PvT skills as well.


#16: Acer.Bly

Auto-Pick: TSL_Polt

The very best part of any sequential draft/group selection is getting to see who goes last. It's often very revealing about who the players themselves consider to be the best, something that can be very different from what we'd expect from the just big tournament results. For example, GSL November showed that all the players knew to avoid Jjakji before most viewers in the west even knew his name, as he went second to last in group selections (MKP went last). As we all know, Jjakji went on to win that the championship.

So despite his unfortunate early defeat in Code S, his loss to ThorZaIN in the DreamHack Stockholm finals, and the fact that he is facing Up/Down matches in the near future, this draft tells us that players are still f***ing terrified of facing Polt. Maybe the draft pool wasn't the most intimidating one we've ever seen, but getting chosen last behind players like MC, viOLet, and Leenock is something Polt can be proud of.

While Bly was going to have tough time against any opponent that fell to him, I feel that Polt is one of the less-bad players Bly could have faced. While Polt is definitely as skilled as Leenock or MC, Bly will enjoy the fact that there's a TON of Polt TvZ VODs and replays to go through, thanks to Polt's fervent activity in the foreign scene. Sheth sniped Polt with a well prepared counter-strategy at MLG Columbus, and there's no reason Bly can't do the same.