WCS Korea Season II

Group E Preview
KangHo, JangBi, Life, FanTaSy

Group F Preview
RorO, First, Leenock, hyvaa

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Twitch

Games Begin in:

We're halfway through a rushed Ro32, and so far it's been business as usual – with the exception of Maru toppling last season's finalist in sOs. The second week of Ro32 games features plenty of more stars from both the KeSPA and eSF sides, with players like Life, Leenock, PartinG, and Rain all vying for spots in the Ro16.

Currently Qualified For Ro16: KT_Flash, Woongjin_Soulkey, STX_INnoVation, CJ_Bbyong, SKT_soO, MaruPrime, STX_Trap, AzubuSymbol

Group E: KangHo, JangBi, Life, FanTaSy

by CosmicSpiral

1. Samsung KHAN_JangBi

Out of the four competitors, JangBi comes into tonight’s group looking the most consistent and with the best recent showings on his side. The popularity and ubiquitous appearances of Flash and Jaedong in individual tournaments make it easy to forget about the two-time OSL champion, who is sitting on an 18-10 record in Proleague and a 68% total winrate in HotS. Going 16-4 in his last 20 games is even more impressive when you consider that Jangbi hasn’t gone to any foreign events and mainly faced Proleague mainstays like Soulkey and Rain.

He is perhaps the best Protoss player that no one talks about. Jangbi possesses the basic macro, micro, and multitasking that any pro needs to be considered a starter in Proleague. However, he distinguishes himself by amazing crisis management, perfect transitions between tech, and the uncanny ability to control a battle so it always ends in his favor. His playstyle is like an efficient amalgamation of other successful Protoss players: the patience and multipronged warp prism aggression of Rain, the meticulous execution of Parting, the defense and persistence of a summer 2012 Creator. One can even compare his relentless aggression at the slightest opportunity to Life’s swarm style.

Everything is coming up Milhouse for JangBi in this group. His first opponent, KangHo, has lost 7 out of his last 8 ZvP games while JangBi’s PvZ stands at 15-3 (and hasn’t lost since May 4th). JangBi should also be favored if he happens to meet Fantasy in the winners’ match. Both players have fairly mediocre records in the PvT matchup but while Fantasy continues to alternate between wins and losses, JangBi has recently snapped out of a bad slump with solid wins against Flash and Gumiho. Unless he suffers a colossal meltdown or a truly bizarre string of bad fortune, he should be the favorite.

2. StarTale_Life

Life’s middling performance at Dreamhack Summer was shocking for those who expected him to make it to top 3 or win it all. The agonizingly close loss to Sjow would be forgivable if it was a mere blip on the screen. The Startale prodigy has had multiple scattered losses between his first GSL win and his heroic showing at MLG Spring Championship, and each of them prompted a questioning of his long-term results right before he won another tournament. But this time, it looks less like an aberration and more of a trend.

Life had been tested and found guilty of running the same ZvT build over and over, one whose late mutalisk timing was countered by Sjow’s 3 base power push of bio/firebat/medivac. All the micro and positioning in the world didn’t overcome the fact that Life was caught with his pants down right before baneling speed and mutalisk production started; the fact that he lost to Ryung in the GSTL for the exact same reason after getting a decent early lead ought to make Fantasy salivate.

How much will this matter in a Bo1 format? The answer lies in how much Life is willing to defy expectations in order to get the win. Once he was regarded as the most dangerous and unpredictable ZvT player in the world: when he wasn’t terrorizing players with ling/muta harassment, he was getting away with unsuccessful 10 pools and outstripping his opponents with sheer decision-making. His willingness to use unorthodox builds like fast 2 base muta, 2 base infestor with fast +1 armor, and fast zergling speed rushes (which eventually became a widespread staple in the matchup) made him unpredictable and dangerous to take risks with. Right now he is in danger of being too predictable in his overall best matchup.

On the comforting side, even in his worst slumps Life has never dropped out of the Ro32. Those games were in a different format but speak to his consistency as a player. The greatest threat to advancement is meeting KangHo: Life’s ZvZ has been very shaky in HotS and the result could be a coinflip. Fantasy should not be a great challenge as long as Life attempts to play reactive and not like the adorably awkward android he was at Dreamhack. Otherwise he should be favored to get out unless he has to face both Jangbi and KangHo more than once.

3. SKT_Fantasy

On KeSPA Terran Transition Scale that ranges between “HAHA, Light still only knows TvZ” and “Innovation domination,” FanTaSy comes in somewhere in the middle at “only 20-17? I expected better”. Not all Brood War players take to SC2 immediately but Fantasy’s apparent mediocrity comes as a surprise considering HotS was supposed to play to his strengths. HotS design was supposed to do away with the tedious deathball attitude and encourage activity. So far we haven’t seen the insane multitasking, dropship play, and control that defined his unorthodox play back in Brood War. Recently he has found his stride, winning 8 out of last 10 games in both SPL and the OSL Up-and-Downs.

Fantasy’s TvZ is notable for its inclusion of tanks during the midgame. In defiance of the regular bio-mine + medivac composition he will sometimes skip widow mines altogether and exclusively make bio-tank + medivac, usually on maps where both third bases are close to each other. It has served him well against the increasing number of roach strategies in TvZ, but Life is not the type of player who dedicates himself to roach armies. Fantasy is 3-0 on Bel’Shir Vestige but only played one game against each race; Life is 9-4 with a 3-1 record in ZvT. Crucially Life lost his last game to Sjow and you can bet Fantasy has analyzed that game thoroughly.

Fantasy has a fairly good shot to get out of his group. His best chance is to avoid Jangbi altogether and hope he gets KangHo at a critical juncture. Beating Life would be a huge burden off his shoulders and will guarantee him a spot in Set 5 no matter what happens. However, Fantasy has not displayed world-class TvZ up to this point in time and he will need to play on that level if he wants to get to the Ro16. In the end I expect him to fall just short.

4. LG-IM_KangHo

I want to give nananananana catmannnnn KangHo a chance. The artist formerly known as Losira has struggled to find his place in the world since his 2nd place finish in GSL July. Sometimes he looks good enough to be the Korean Grubby line, other times he’s touches the pinnacle of wretchedness, yet he has never regained the former glory that has us dubbing him Nestea’s heir. Make no mistake: his Ro8 run in the last GSL was a beautiful fluke and nothing more. He got lucky to face TRUE twice in the Ro32, barely scraped into the Ro8 off Gumiho’s errors and Bomber went full Bomber in the 4th~8th placement matches. The artist formerly known as Losira has yet to find his groove in HotS, a game that honestly exposes his worst faults as a player.

Unlike Jangbi, Losira is all Ralph Wiggum tonight. He faces a terrible matchup against the Samsung player, whose PvZ excellence perfectly contrasts Losira’s ZvP mediocrity. If both players go into a traditional game Jangbi would be the overwhelming favorite. KangHo could attempt to do cheese but Jangbi has shown that he can handle any unexpected circumstance and come out on top. Stylistically KangHo matches up poorly with Fantasy as well: the latter’s preference towards tanks and marauders in the midgame would smash the roach pressure that Losira likes to use. Losira’s best hope is to meet Life twice and take advantage of Life’s less than stellar ZvZ. With the way this group is set up it’s a very small possibility.

JangBi > KangHo
Fantasy < Life
JangBi > Life
Fantasy > KangHo
Life > Fantasy

JangBi and Life advance

Group F: RorO, First, Leenock, hyvaa

by Waxangel

Champions in Limbo: RorO and Leenock

It's a little hard to tell where Samsung_RorO and FXOLeenock stand at the moment. As former champions – RorO of the GSL and Leenock of many internationals – there's no doubt that they are the ones headlining the group. But despite their reputations, the Zerg duo looks surprisingly vulnerable.

Even though Leenock won DreamHack: Stockholm not too long ago, it wasn't that impressive a win if we're comparing it to the most competitive Korean tournament. The toughest opponents he beat in Stockholm were HerO (WCS AM champion), Gumiho (failed to make Code S), and NaNiwa (WCS EU Ro16), who altogether might roughly simulate a Code S Ro32 group.

Leenock's results after DreamHack weren't exactly inspiring: A 2 - 1 win over Swagger that should have been 2 - 0, a very bad 0 - 2 loss to BByong's MMM aggression, and a poor 1 - 1 outing against Startale in the GSTL, a tournament he had traditionally been strong in. Fortunately for Leenock he pulled himself together in time for his Up/Down group, going 3 - 1 to advance to the OSL, looking dominant against Maru, DRG, and Ruin. But even in the Up/Downs he had one worrisome defeat, as he just couldn't keep up in pace with Bunny's constant MMM attacks. This isn't to say that Leenock is going to be eliminated from this group (especially since there are no pesky Terrans), but he just hasn't shown us his old, dominant, auto-advance-from-Ro32 level of play in HotS so far.

RorO also looks potentially weak, although he is still the overall favorite to top the group. After placing top six in the last GSL, you'd think he'd far and away the favorite to advance. However, his Proleague results have been merely mediocre over the past couple of months where he's barely held a 50% win rate, while JangBi has supplanted him as the team's ace. Also, it doesn't help his image that he lost 1 - 3 to Soulkey in the season finals as he heads into a group with three Zergs. Maybe we're not giving enough credit to a player who was a Code S champion just three months ago, but we've seen many abrupt falls from grace from other GSL champions. After sOs' elimination from the OSL last week, any player who isn't in absolutely dominant form right now has to be questioned.

Looking for the Upset: First and Hyvaa

Before modern elephants made the transition to StarCraft II in the great KeSPA migration, proto-elephants (Mastodons?) like ForGG and LG-IM_First were leaving their KeSPA teams and trying and get a head start in SC2. Despite showing high level play in international tournaments (he's won an IEM championship! and runner-up'd at two MLGs!) and in team leagues, First's inability to reach Code S has held him back from being fully recognized as a top class player – a trait he shared with teammate Yonghwa for a while. After eight tries, First finally made it into the big leagues this season. Things remained difficult for him till the end, as he only made it through his Up/Down group after playing through two rounds of tie-breakers.

First has a decent shot of upsetting the established order and pushing himself into the Ro16. He can play standard PvZ fairly well, and could probably take Leenock or Hyvaa in a macro game. He also isn't afraid of going all-in, and he could take an easy win or two if his opponents make some fatal misreads. The main issue for First is that this is his first time in the OSL, and he might crumble under the pressure like he has countless times before in Code A.

On the other hand, STX_hyvaa has been to the OSL many times before as an underdog in Brood War, and almost seems to relish causing chaos and upsetting the status quo. He was never a title contender in Brood War, but he frequently found ways to sneak into the Ro16 of the OSL, often angering the fanbases of popular players by putting an end to their Starleague dreams (in fact, it was hyvaa who snuffed out Soulkey's final hope of OSL glory in Brood War).

Hyvaa is already looking to make sure his reputation holds up in SC2 as well. His groupmates have plenty of reason to fear him already, as he used all-in builds in every single one of his broadcasted Code A games where he defeated First and YoDa. Interestingly enough, he is reported to have played long macro games in his un-aired series against Terminator, almost as if he deliberately wanted to show his cheesy side when he had the spotlight. There's something up Hyvaa's sleeve, and he may very well continue his role as the ultimate spoiler.


Overall outlook and predictions

Picking RorO and Leenock to advance is the safe path, but I can't help but gravitate toward hyvaa and his mastery of the dark arts. Considering the trail of tears he's left behind in Brood War (Jaedong, RorO, Soulkey, Leta)... No, it would just be too easy if RorO and Leenock got through without trouble. In the OSL, the hyvaas and Shines of the world must have their glory as well.

RorO > First
Leenock > hyvaa
RorO > Leenock
hyvaa > First
hyvaa > Leenock

RorO and hyvaa advance.