Table of Contents

Losers R1: Day 1
Recap


Losers R1: Day 2
Preview


Players, brackets, and schedules on Liquipedia

by Fionn

Results from Live Report Thread by opterown.
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Elephants Rising
– All three KeSPA players advance over their GOM counterparts to advance to the next round of the losers bracket.

Game over. It's done. Let's pack up, everyone. The elephants have stampeded, and there's nothing left but rubble. We've been waiting for this moment for the past year, and it finally happened. The GOM players couldn't hold a candle to the impressive powers of the KeSPA Seven and got crushed in their wake. All we can do now is wonder what jobs DongRaeGu and MarineKing will get now that they have no place in this new, KeSPA dominated world.

Wait.

You mean that I'm jumping to conclusions? Just like how everyone jumped to conclusions last week when the KeSPA Seven went 2-5 and some of the most hyped up players got completely steamrolled by their competition? Oh, I guess you're right.

People, yes, Jaedong, Effort and Fake Hero all showed up big last night and gained important victories in their careers, but anyone who is screaming that the end is nigh needs to calm down and look at these results reasonably. Does it mean that the strongest KeSPA players are improving daily and catching up? Yes. Does it mean that by this time next year every single player in Code S will be from a KeSPA team? No.

Let's take a look at each of the three victories that the KeSPA players secured last night.

Jaedong vs. sC

Jaedong, like we all expected with him being a superhuman freak of nature, improved mightily between his series with Alive and his match against sC. His creep spread was still top notch, his decision making was much better, and he was even able to come back from a disadvantage when he could have folded.

Dropping the second set to a perfectly played TvZ by his opponent sC, Jaedong was able to take game one and game three in spectacular fashion. With a glamorous baneling mine hit on the remaining bio army of sC on his own ramp, Jaedong secured his first major series victory in Starcraft 2 and secured more chances for his throngs of fangirls to scream loudly.

But how impressive is a win currently against sC? Even his biggest supporters who thought he had the talent to become a GSL champion one day, would tell you that this is not the same sC that was a force to be reckoned with in Code S a year ago. We all know of his chronic collapsed lung, and now there's talk of general lack of practice surfacing. You can't say he is anymore than a fringe Code A player at the moment. His skills might have been Code S, but with Code Z lungs, his career hasn't lived up to what it could have been.

Elephant Meter: 3.5/5


Jaedong didn't do anything a good Code A Zerg couldn't have done to sC, but we can see how much he is progressing in a short amount of time. He still not might be ready to tackle the aLive's of the world, but it won't be too long until he is one of the better players in the world. Out of of all the big named KeSPA players, Jaedong might be the one who has embraced the new community and game the most, and it truly shows in his games.

Effort vs. DongRaeGu

Alright, it's official: DongRaeGu is in a major slump. Can't deny that Effort played a brilliant ZvZ series and that his micro control in the final set was on one of the highest levels we've ever seen, but DongRaeGu could have won this series if his head was in the right place. Ever since losing terribly to Hero at IPL Hot Imports Night, and then traveling back to Korea for his nightmarish semifinal losses to MC and Leenock, he has been a shell of his former championship self.

When he lost to Leenock and MC, you wouldn't have been surprised if it took him off his game, but not like this. This is now his sixth major loss in a row, and he continues to slide against opponents that he would have wiped the floor with a few months ago. Effort lived up to his 6-0 ZvZ hype in Proleague, displaying immaculate micro and strong decision making, but this is DongRaeGu we're talking about. He ran lings into banes that he shouldn't have, and he was always a second or two behind Effort when it came to critical moments.

Elephant Meter: 4.5/5


If this was DongRaeGu at full strength, not the broken man that bears his name after the Busan Nightmare, it would be a 10/10 without question. Next to Reality beating Symbol in the WCS Qualifiers, this is the most impressive victory for a KeSPA player so far in Starcraft 2. Factoring in that Symbol played uncharacteristically awful against Reality, you can say this is the scariest a KeSPA player has looked up to this point since they switched over.

Before getting too ahead of ourselves, we need to be reminded that Effort's ZvP against HerO in the first round was atrocious. Out of all the KeSPA Seven in their opening round games, Effort looked the worst going up against his GOM opponent. Before we start crowning him a Code S player and preparing his $50,000 championship check, let's see if he can start looking credible in his non-mirror match-ups.

With a match against Gumiho tomorrow, we will get to see Effort's ZvT in action. If it is close to what his ZvZ is currently, then Gumiho should be sweating already. If it is on par with his ZvP that he's shown us so far in his short-lived SC2 career, then Gumiho can possibly sleepwalk his way into the next round with how good his TvZ has been recently.

CJ_Hero vs. YuGiOh

Fero (Fake hero/Faux hero), for the second straight week, put on an above average performance. He was close to knocking out Puzzle in last week's games, and he mauled YuGiOh last night in an unbearably bad series. Unlike the other two, it's hard to really pinpoint how good Fero really his. His PvP was good, but that's PvP; whenever someone says that PvP isn't luck based, that player goes on a terrible losing streak (on that note, Creator's interview might have been the cleverest anti-jinx ever). Now in his first real PvZ test, his opponent played like he was going to be thrown in jail for life if he lost.

Elephant Meter: 1/5


YuGiOh played awfully, was scared throughout the series with indecision, and at times seemed like a player who forgot what he was doing inside a booth. The most disappointing thing is, YuGiOh is a really good player, but hasn't been able to show it the past two weeks. People make jokes about how he is the King of Code A, but YuGiOh has been able to show at times that he can beat Code S-level players in incredible matches if in the right mindset.

Out of all the GOM players so far that had to play against KeSPA opponents, YuGiOh has been the most shaken with the pressure of losing. In his four games against Reality and Fero, he just couldn't muster any of the skills that he has shown against top level players in the past and got rolled over unmercifully. With his elimination of the tournament confirmed, you could see how distraught he looked in his booth to be the first player to not only lose to two separate KeSPA players, but not even pick up a single victory.

Looking at the next round, Fero will be put into another PvP against Tails, a player who has gotten this far by really not doing so hot thus far in the tournament. It's a series that Fero can win after seeing his games against Puzzle, but even if he does, it will still be hard to gauge how good he really is until he goes up in a PvT or PvZ against a player who doesn't look scared half to death.

In conclusion, six months from now, like it or not, there will more than likely be KeSPA players in Code S and fighting to be called best in the world at their race. On the other hand, there will also more than likely be KeSPA players who were great at Brood War and even after six months, still suck at Starcraft 2 and are nothing more than Code B fodder.

People are looking into the future and only seeing two extremes: either all the best KeSPA players in Brood War take over the GSL, OSL and the foreign tournaments, or the elephant was a lie and they won't be able to adapt to a new game after being behind the eight ball for two years. With Heart of the Swarm coming out possibly in a few months, things are going to change, but not to the radical extremes some people are hoping for.

Some KeSPA will rise to the top. Some will fall to the bottom. Right now, let's sit back and enjoy the show as we see what happens next.

Oh, and Hero Lost
- Touching down only two hours before his games against Creator, Hero loses in a close 2-1 series to be sent down to the loser's bracket.

After all the excitement between the KeSPA players in the lower bracket, we all forgot about the last match of the Ro16 winner's bracket between Hero and Creator. The games were surprisingly good after all the hate PvP has been getting lately, but the result was no shock. Hero, a player who has never been the best at PvP, even in its coin flip form, wasn't able to fight off the exhaustion like Seed did last night and lost to Creator by a 2-1 scoreline.

While all the talk of WCS Korea so far has been about elephants, Creator is quietly advancing through the first two rounds. He was able to beat DongRaeGu in the Ro32, and now with a win against Hero, he is in the quarterfinals of his first major Korean tournament and is living up to the hype he had last season as a royal roader in Code S. With his PvP looking sharp, he has a chance of making it to the finals with Puzzle in the next round, and likely Squirtle after that.

Hero will get some relief in the second round of the loser's bracket, getting his best match-up PvZ against either Soulkey or Coca. Both would be tough opposition for Liquid's top Protoss, but Coca hasn't been very strong lately against Protoss, and Soulkey's ZvP so far in the hybrid league hasn't been anything earth shattering.