WCS Korea Season II

Group G Preview
PartinG, Yonghwa, Squirtle, SuperNoVa

Group H Preview
Bomber, Hurricane, Rain, Keen

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Twitch

Games Begin in:

It's the final day of the Ro32, and only four more players will advance to the next round. It will be an important day for Protoss fans in particular, as Trap and First have been the only two Protoss pros to advance so far. With players like Rain, YongHwa, Squirtle, PartinG, and Hurricane competing, there's a great chance that we'll end up with an even racial balance, but those pesky Terrans will be more than ready to throw a hellbat into the proceedings.

Currently Qualified For Ro16: KT_Flash, Woongjin_Soulkey, STX_INnoVation, CJ_Bbyong, SKT_soO, MaruPrime, STX_Trap, AzubuSymbol, LG-IM_KangHo, SKT_FanTaSy, LG-IM_First, STX_hyvaa

Group G: PartinG, Yonghwa, Squirtle, SuperNoVa

by stuchiu

2012: All Happier Time for Protoss

At the end of WoL, three Protosses stood above all others: SKT_PartinG, CreatorPrime and SKT_Rain. They choose the WCS Global Finals as their battleground and threw themselves in a bloody fight for the right to inherit MC's presidential palace. When the dust settled, a new hiearchy was established: Creator won WCS Korea, Rain stormed WCS Asia, and Parting became the World Champion. Afterwards, PartinG went on to take WCG and runner-up in the Blizzard Cup, solidifying his position as the last great Protoss of WoL.


However, the conductor's time in the limelight was not to last as HotS was released and changed the world order once more. While both Zerg and Terran have found strong new leaders in the forms of Innovation and Soulkey, Protoss reluctantly looked to sOs to guide them. Although sOs was a great player in his own right, he was too stylish and too inconsistent to hold onto power, and thus he fell to Maru in the first round of the OSL. With MC continuing his exile in Europe, this leaves just two Protosses in Korea to fight for the crown: Rain and Parting.

All Aboard!

For SKT_PartinG this will be yet another chance to regain his position on top of the Protoss world. While his PvZ has fallen off in recent weeks as he collected several losses against RorO, this group will only have Protosses and Supernova. PartinG should feel great about his chances against all potential opponents, as he has been doing extremely well in both PvP and PvT (8 - 4 and 7 - 2 respectively, minus the results from the wee-after-release MLG Dallas). While Squirtle and Yonghwa are certainly dangerous opponents in a PvP, PartinG's unpredictability and willingness to use any strategy should give him the edge in this Bo1 format.

The most important aspect of Parting’s play that differentiates himself from the other two Protosses from this group is his incredible execution and his ability to make comebacks. Time and time again, when seemingly completely down and out of a game, Parting has been able to make miraculous comeback after miraculous comeback using only his superb micro and crisis management to carry him through games that almost no one else could win. While he probably won’t be needing his comeback factor, it is another contributing factor to why Parting will be the odds on favorite to make it out of this group.

Fighting for Shotgun

The fight for second place should end up being between LG-IM_Squirtle and LG-IM_YongHwa. There's a lot the two have in common: Both have been playing since the WoL beta, both made names for themselves in the early days of GSTL, and both spent nearly a year in anonymity before reemerging in 2012 as formidable Protoss players. For Squirtle, he would go on his legendary IPL4 run followed by his Code S Season 2 run, only to lose both finals to a Terran opponent. Yonghwa, while never doing well in GSL, would single-handedly win all of the games for LG-IM in GSTL and win the WCG Korea finals over MKP. Now, they're even on the same team together.

These days, both players have been rather non-descript. After losing his Code A match to Rain, Yonghwa fought through the Up/Downs where he won his spot in the OSL. Meanwhile, Squirtle just came off a long tour in Europe where he had decent but still disappointing results, getting 3rd in the Millennium house cup and getting to the Ro16 in Dreamhack before getting knocked out by TLO. While it wasn’t the most glorious of tours, it did reveal that his PvP was solid enough to beat down all of the EU Protosses (sans Nightend). Beyond that it is difficult to say where exactly Squirtle and Yonghwa actually are in terms of skill level. Both can play incredibly well when they're hot, but both players often seem to play below their skill level in the GSL. Now that they're in the same group, it looks like only one of them will advance. It's a close decision, but I’ll give Squirtle the advantage as he’s had way more experience at this level of competition.

The odd man out

It must be difficult to be Azubu.SuperNova. Once one of the most solid and consistent Terrans in the GSL, he was just one season away from getting the coveted Nestea award for ten consecutive Code S appearances. But happiness and Supernova were not meant to be together. He was denied his Nestea award as he dropped all the way down to Code B. He moved to a foreign team after the dissolution of oGs, only to have mTw dissolve their sc2 division.

Sensing that fate had it out for him, Supernova quickly underwent plastic surgery to change his looks and escape the eyes of the esports gods. And for a time it worked as he was able to get onto team Azubu and be hailed as one of the best Terrans in the HotS beta. But tragedy struck as in his first debut match in HotS, he became the first and only player to die to collapsible rocks. Despite that Supernova soldiered on and he would make it back into Code S and be able to go to Dreamhack and play there as well. But much like oGs and mTw, Azubu left him in the cold as his DreamHack Summer participation was abruptly cancelled.

And now after all of that misfortune, all of that time fighting to get back to the place he knows he belongs, Supernova will have to fight off three of the strongest Protosses in Korea. It will be extra hard work as all three of them are well known for their PvTs. While Supernova is the clear underdog in this group, he does have a small chance. While on any given day, the other three players in this group clearly outmatch him, Supernova has three things going for him.

First he is the only Terran in the group, and only has to prepare for one match-up. Second, it is a bo1. Third, Supernova is extremely clever and unorthodox, making it hard to just play normally against him. Supernova plays SC2 like other people plays dominoes. He sets up his pieces all around the board and then tips over the first piece. This causes a chain reaction with his aggression and multitasking kicking in as he quickly tears apart his opponent with never-ending attacks and harassment. The biggest problem for Supernova is getting that first domino to fall. In TvP especially, Supernova has always needed to be the player to set the tempo of the match and have a successful first strike. When he ends up playing a slow-paced macro game, things usually don't go so well. So it will be up to Supernova to find a way to crack the defenses of these three very solid players. If he can do it just two times out of three, he might just slip by.

Overall Predictions:

Parting > Yonghwa
Squirtle > Supernova
Parting > Squirtle
Yonghwa > Supernova
Squirtle > Yonghwa

Parting and Squirtle advance

Group H: Bomber, Hurricane, Rain, Keen

by pigscanfly

Match 1: Bomber vs. Hurricane



When this was written, we were still playing WoL and ST_Bomber still had an impressive 62.75% overall win rate with a monstrous 76.06% win rate vs. P. Now, he holds an unimpressive 50% win rate, with his 100% win rate from 5 TvTs against Taeja boosting his below average performance in non-mirror matchups. Despite this, most of what was said about Bomber remains true. If the Bomber-who-is-a-damn-good-player shows up – with his monstrous macro that involves bludgeoning you to death with waves and waves of units, a deep run in the tournament (if probably not an actual podium finish) is highly likely. However if Bomber-who-is-awful appears, expect to cry yourself to sleep and wish you hadn't wasted your time watching him play.

His opponent for the night, FXO_Hurricane is enjoying his Code S debut. While he’s been around since the beginning of 2012, he has no results to speak of him, with most of his top level matches taking place in either Code A or GSTL. Hurricane is 7-1 in PvT in HOTS, though the sample size is too small to draw any conclusions from— particularly since three of those matches were victories against a heavily slumping Marineking in the marathon Up & Down tiebreakes that Hurricane had to endure to get to Code S. Furthermore, Hurricane’s single PvT loss came against Bomber in the GSTL. I expect Bomber to still have just enough to with stand the Hurricane and take the victory.

Match 2: Rain vs. Keen

Now, whether Bomber can beat SKT_Rain or MVP_Keen is a different matter altogether. Commander Keen has never fulfilled the major promises shown at the start of his career. He has bounced between Code A and the fringes of Code S, having been in Code S eight times since 2011 with only single Ro8 and Ro16 performances to show for it. Keen has shown himself to be an average Code S Terran, but not much else to distinguish himself than zany ceremonies he doesn't perform anymore.

Although Rain is the much more accomplished player, he has actually made little impact in Code S since his Ro4 debut run and his fateful decision to give up his spot the following season to play in MLG. Yet, unlike the rest of the members of this group, Rain has shown himself to be a real winner, with victories in the inaugural season of Starcraft II OSL and in the 2012 WCS Asia. Rain’s 14-11 record in HotS PvT looks better when you realize that 6 of those 11 losses came against INnoVation, against whom he holds a 3-6 record. That isn’t too bad, considering this is INnoVation we’re talking about( 21-5 in PvT, meaning more than half of his losses have come against Rain). Rain also has an impressive 19-9 record in Proleague where he has beaten the likes of Flash and Soulkey. Rain’s great unit control and fantastic drop defence in PvT should serve him well against Keen, and I expect the Kespa player to have the upper hand. Rain also has plenty to prove, with sOs stealing his thunder lately and challenging him for the position as top Kespa Protoss, and with a resurgent Jangbi threatening to reassert the old Brood War order. With both of them flubbing their lines and exiting the OSL in the Ro32, this is a great time for Rain to capitalize.

Overall thoughts:

Rain should be too much for the rest of the players in his group. Even if he loses one of his games, I still expect him to make it out of this group eventually. Bomber will make it out of his group, simply to build up the expectations of thousands of Bomber fans (like myself) and then cruelly dashing them against the rocks and shattering them into millions of itty bitty little pieces. Or maybe now that I’ve predicted him to get out, he won’t. WITH BOMBER, WHO KNOWS WHEN HE WILL DISAPPOINT???

Until Keen improves his play by one more level, he is likely to continue to bobble between Code A and Code S. Keen’s TvT has always been a weakness since his days of picking Nada in his group and losing to him. Bomber on the other hand, has always had very strong TvT and I expect him to be able to beat Keen. Either way, I don’t see Keen beating both Bomber and Rain or either of them twice. Hurricane is slightly unfortunate to be a group with and excellent vs. P players in Rain, Keen, and (at least in WOL) Bomber, though it is doubtful that he would get out of any of the other groups either. Again, I err on the side of caution in predicting that since he hasn’t accomplished much yet, he will be dumped out of Code S at the first hurdle.

Overall Predictions:

Bomber > Hurricane
Rain > Keen
Rain > Bomber
Keen > Hurricane
Bomber > Keen

Rain and Bomber advance to the Ro16.