WCS Season II Finals

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WCS America's Koreans outshine their countrymen on day one of the Season II Finals

by Waxangel

Many fans predicted the usual Korean domination on the first day of the WCS Season Finals. It turns out they would only be half right. Four Koreans did emerge in first place from the four Ro16 groups, but not the Koreans that were expected. EG.Jaedong, Liquid`TaeJa, and EG.aLive, players hailing from the oft mocked WCS America region, took top honors in their groups as they marched onto the Ro8.

Meanwhile, STX_INnoVation, defending WCS champion and the symbol of the vaunted and supposedly unbeatable KeSPA training system, fell out of his group in fourth place. Although he played fantastically in a narrow defeat to TaeJa, his 0 - 2 defeat to NaNiwa could not have been more shocking. The WCS Korea champion did not do much better, as MaruPrime suffered an embarrassing 0 - 2 loss to aLive to begin the group. Though he saved face with a 2 - 0 win against MMA, he still faces elimination as he goes up against Scarlett tomorrow.


Still, no matter what WCS region the players chose to play in, it seemed like Korean training was as big a factor as ever. Leave aside the fact that Jaedong, TaeJa, and aLive all train in Korea (two of them in a team house)—the only two international players who still have a chance at advancement are the ones who have practiced for significant amounts of time in Korea. The Europe based NrS.Welmu and Grubby were eliminated in last place in their groups, while the Korean ladder tested Alliance.NaNiwa and Acer.Scarlett scored wins over INnoVation and MMA to keep themselves afloat until day two.

Cheers to the Victors: Jaedong, Bomber, TaeJa, aLive

EG.Jaedong: Jaedong gave me pretty much everything I wanted. He advanced from his group, showed overall improvement against Protoss, and still managed to throw in an epic failure game to keep the "Jaedong vs. Protoss" storyline alive. Jaedong brutalized Rain and MC in four games, and was brutalizing MC for about 50% of a fifth game before he threw it all away with an awful ultralisk attack. Never change Jaedong, never change.

ST_Bomber: It's funny that Bomber went kind of under the radar. He had an extremely good OSL run where he crushed players like Flash, INnoVation, and First. Instead of going for the silly tricks that saw him lose to Rain in the OSL semi-finals, he just stuck to his guns and SCV-pull-timing'd everyone to death for a 4 - 0, first place finish in the group. Okay, his play was more nuanced and sophisticated than that, but that's the gist of it.

Liquid`TaeJa: TaeJa tried to downplay his skill like he sometimes does, but he ended up advancing in first place anyway with a narrow victory over INnoVation and a brutal stomp of Duckdeok. Along the way he played the best game of the year.. Maybe check that out?

EG.aLive: The invisible Terran went about his usual business, attracting virtually zero attention even as he defeated much more well-known and popular players in Scarlett and Maru. Sometimes I wonder if he sold his soul for his StarCraft skill, thus rendering him half invisible to the people of the world. It's now on Chobra to make him say something memorable or entertaining.

Words for the Fallen: Welmu, Grubby, INnoVation, MMA

NrS.Welmu: Welmu had a decent showing despite being the first player eliminated from the tournament, going 1 - 2 against both MC and Rain. It was hard to say that MC or Rain looked decisively better than Welmu (well, except that one game where he kept impaling his units against Rain's force-fields on a ramp...). Welmu was able to take a game off MC in a straight up macro game, and another one off Rain through a lucky-ish DT rush, and it seemed that with one or two more lucky breaks that he could have taken a series off either player. Alas!

Grubby: Grubby's 0 - 4 and out was painful to watch, mostly because he was going up against two extremely good TvP players in Bomber and Polt. Given the level of TvP play those two have shown us, you can't really blame Grubby for the result. The worst thing we can say about him is that he didn't play wildly above expectations.

STX_INnoVation: What the f***?

Acer.MMA: Although it was no shame to lose to a strong TvT player like Maru, MMA looked sluggish and out of sorts in his match against Scarlett. Poor anti-air defense saw him take damage from mutas in both of his losses against Scarlett, and it never looked like he was really applying effective pressure. For a player whose TvZ was greatly revitalized in HotS, it was a disappointing performance.

Coming Up Next: Ro16 Final Matches

Winners advance to Ro8

Group A: MC vs. Rain: A best of three PvP can really go any-which-way, making this one extremely hard to call. Rain didn't look particularly convincing in victory against Welmu, even dropping a pretty disappointing game where he let DTs de-power his robotics facility. Given Rain's PvP losing streak in the last few weeks, I'm going to give MC a very narrow edge here.

Group B: First vs. Polt: After Polt had bullied every Protoss he played in his last few tournaments, it was surprising to see how thoroughly First was able to beat him in their first clash of the group stage. First was able to reach the late-game mostly unhindered in both games of his 2 - 0 victory, and Polt didn't have any answers for the deathball. I don't think Polt needs any drastic change of plans here. Just play your usual MMM style, take your new-found knowledge of First's style, and try to make a dent time around. Predicting a narrow victory for Polt.

Group C: NaNiwa vs. duckdeok

rock paper scissor ROCK! duckdeok : PAPER! dang. rock paper scissor ROCK! duckdeok : PAPER! dang. WELL PLAYED.

— Johan Lucchesi (@NaNiwaSC2) August 23, 2013

I flipped a coin to get the result, it said NaNiwa wins.

Group D: Scarlett vs. Maru

This is quite an interesting match, with Scarlett having impressed greatly in recent ZvTs, while Maru hasn't shown us any TvZ games in about a month. His last series was a 3 - 1 victory over Symbol in the OSL quarter-finals, which was a run-of-the-mill stomp where Terran used unrelenting macro aggression to throttle the life out of a hapless Zerg. Given how well Scarlett has shown she can play standard muta-ling-bane ZvT, there's the possibility of some really exciting games if both play straight up. On the other hand, Maru is also known as one of the finest purveyors of cheese, against which Scarlett doesn't do quite as well. I'm hoping for at least one great game, but in the end I think Maru will take the series.

Writers: Waxangel
Photos: GHOSTCLAW
Editor: Waxangel