Azubu.Symbol, MVP.KeeN, Samsung_Reality, STX_Trap

by CosmicSpiral

Predictions for tonight’s group are trickier than they appear. While Symbol would have been the overwhelming favorite back in Season 1, he is currently stuck in a deep rut that threatens to send him down to Challenger League. Reality might dispel illusions of being less than Code S material as he comes in off a couple months of strong play. Trap is overshadowed by disturbing rumors about his team, but he has a chance to leave that behind and form his own identity outside of SPL. And then there’s Keen, the meddling kid that always manages to ruin someone else’s good time. He’s good enough to give the rest a scare but will that translate into his first Ro16 showing in over a year?

There’s no question that the Zerg hierarchy is in turmoil right now. Just look at the Zerg lineup this season to see how Heart of the Swarm has turned expectations upside. You’ll see familiar names like Soulkey and Dongraegu but more likely you’ll notice a lack of names that you implicitly associated with the best players in the world. Life, Leenock, Curious and Roro are sweating it out in Challenger League; Jaedong, Nestea and Hyun decided that it was easier to snag foreigner money than battle their comrades. Instead they are replaced by newcomers with wilder gameplay and sometimes flimsy results. TRUE and Songduri got here on the back of enemy mistakes and liberal amounts of all-ins. soO has been a regular but unimpressive fixture of the Premier League. Hyvaa will definitely put on a show and break some hearts, but his chances at cracking the Ro8 remain slim. KangHo still suffers from some debilitating flaws in his playstyle and Sleep has only shown himself to be great in the mirror matchup. There is little hope (with the exception of hyvaa) that they will be able to outfox the veterans.

Azubu.Symbol is one of the few remaining old-timers, proud but struggling to find his rhythm in the current metagame. Like many other Zergs he has seemed to hit a wall when confronted with Protoss ingenuity and the death march of the Terran megapush. Over the last few weeks he has looked distressingly mortal in any series outside WCS Korea, particularly against Protoss. He has also lost to all three of his groupsmates at some point in the last two months: Reality in the IEM Shanghai qualifiers, Trap in OSL, and Keen in GSTL. Now that’s not to say Symbol is doomed to meet his ex-TSL friends down in Challenger. He has the benefit of incredible tenacity, great planning, and a remarkable record of consistency that suggests he will meet his doom further in the tournament. Symbol has never fallen out of the Ro32 in his entire career (OSL, GSL, and WCS Korea combined) and that is the greatest comfort he can take into the booth.

Meanwhile MVP.KeeN might be tempted to sacrifice some loved ones to an unholy power if he fails to get out. Keen has been a faithful gatekeeper of Code S since October 2011, which was the first and only time he made it out of the group stages (he promptly lost to some guy called Polt in the Ro8). Ever since then he has been trapped in his personal rendition of Groundhog Day. In pursuit of the same singular goal Keen has dropped the ball in a dazzling number of ways that must court frustration and despair. He knows he’s better than this, we know he’s better than this. His games in Season 2 showed a player who can burn brilliantly but mostly burns out too fast, which has now become the story of his career. It’s a Sisyphean task he undertakes but with every new season comes the hope that he might make his breakthrough.

Samsung_Reality and FanTaSy seem to be opposites in more than name alone. While Fantasy continues to ponder all the ways he can lose a won game, Reality seems equally determined to take every victory he can possibly take. Since June 5th Reality is 33-15 with a 17-6 record in series, quite impressive for someone dismissed as a run of the mill Terran. Many of those games were against relative unknowns, but he has a few notable wins over Creator, Ryung, Trap and Symbol. So it’s all the more remarkable that his games are fairly unremarkable. He’s not catching people off guard with a love of proxy 2 rax or doing wild 2 base hellbat pushes. Reality is the living breathing blueprint of the standard Terran, someone so boring that it circles around into fascination. His ubiquitous nature makes him the dark horse of this group, as unremarkable Terran players have always had a tendency to advance in the GSL.

And with the fate of STX Soul a perpetual cloud over his head, STX_Trap cannot afford to lose focus for a second. If worst comes to worst he cannot rely on other teams to have the wisdom to recognize him, hyvaa, and Dear as the ignored pillars of STX’s success. Every game this season must be an audition—this is the stage where Trap can showcase his considerable potential for anyone willing to invest. We know his PvZ is top-notch and his PvP can alternate between inspired and insipid, but tonight will test the strength of his PvT. It’s not terrible by any stretch of the imagination but Trap has always seemed to shy away from the turtle macro games that Terrans loathe. Instead he preferred tricky builds that would end the game early such as fast Dark Shrine and 2 base sentry-immortal all-in. Neither Keen nor Reality are pushovers in the matchup and Trap will need more than clever proxy strategies if he has to face both of them to advance. His best chance is if he defeats Keen and gets to meet Symbol in the winners match.

Predictions

While Reality and Trap are the two players with the best recent records, statistics often get thrown out the window when it comes to big tournaments. Performance in the Ro32 is largely a matter of planning and composure and newcomers are notorious for losing their composure when it counts. Symbol was always able to make it through no matter how poorly he was performing at that time; likewise Keen never failed to choke no matter how much the odds were stacked in his favor. In a less important setting I would give my nod to Reality but I don’t think he can handle the spotlight at the moment.

Symbol > Reality
Trap > Keen
Symbol < Trap
Keen < Reality
Symbol > Reality

Trap and Symbol advance.

Progamer Pokedex: By Popular Request

by monk

There was a time long ago when hundreds, not thousands of people read TL, and we were pretty certain progamers weren't among them. We could write whatever the f*** we wanted, without any sense of propriety or second guessing. Those days gave birth to the first Progamer Pokedex, an irreverant cult classic. It's time to bring those days back.


Symbol is Dugtrio! Dugtrio was once simply a group of three of the closest Diglet friends that there ever was. They did everything together, sharing innovative digging techniques and supporting each other in their respective times of need. But one day they learned that their families would be moving far away from each other and that they might not ever see each other again. So the lead Diglet came up with a plan to avert this crisis. They found some tape and permanently joined themselves together, selling themselves as a single awesome Pokemon. With their forces combined, Dugtrio became the most power digging machine on the planet, creating holes and secret tunnels all over the map.


Reality is Kabuto! Having been revived from a mysterious fossil, Kabuto arrives into a brand new world set many years in the future. Though he had been somewhat of a formidable predator in the past, the entire landscape of the earth has changed before him. Kabuto quickly adapts to his change in scenery, perhaps faster than most fossils would, but still he is not satisfied with his results. In order to truly dominate his new environment, Kabuto would have to become something more... perhaps a giant sickle wielding rock monster?


Trap is Plusle! Though he can hold his own against weaker opponents, Plusle really shines the most when fighting on a team. This is perhaps because while in the presence of the other electric rodents on his team (and there are lots), Plusle's power increases thanks to his ability, Plus. That being said, Plusle certainly isn't a unique Pokemon and you can't help but think he was created solely for the purposes of making the star of the show, Pikachu, look good when he supports him in their adventures together as a sidekick.


KeeN is Jynx! Jynx has had a unique and odd history in the world of Pokemon. Of the first 151, she is perhaps the one with the most striking and shocking designs, often described as a pastiche of tacky stereotypes. With her seductively wiggling hips, she was always attracting a show, both after and during battles. It eventually got to the point where she became more known for her seductive gyrations than for her battling prowess.

Recently though, Jynx has had to turn it down a few notches in her shock factor. Perhaps she decided she needed to focus on actual battling and that all the showmanship was all just a distraction from her real goal of becoming the very best. So Jynx painted over her skin and recolored her hair. The result is perhaps a more politically correct version of her former self, but also certainly a less interesting one as well.

You can read the Progamer Pokedex for Group A here.