EPTWCS America - Season 3
Ro16: Group B Results
MacSed and Oz advance
Ro16: Group A Preview
HyuN, HerO, Crank, Hack
Brackets and standings on Liquipedia
VODs on Youtube
Ro16: Group B Results
With the WCS Season Three finals taking place place in Canada,
Acer.Scarlett had her hopes for a triumphant homecoming crushed on Tuesday night. Or to be more specific, run over by a train. 
EG.Oz channeled the spirit of PartinG as he immortal-sentry all-in'd Scarlett twice to send her crashing out of WCS America, and by extension the Season 3 Finals and Blizzcon as well.Although one foreigner hope went out, another one had a chance to shine.
iG.MacSed, the oft overlooked Protoss player from China, took out both Oz and Scarlett to advance as first place in his group. MacSed looked dominant on the night, and even he himself admitted to being surprised at how things went so easily. | Ro16 - Group B | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | iG.MacSed | 2 - 0 |
| 2. | EG.Oz | 2 - 1 |
| 3. | Acer.Scarlett | 1 - 2 |
| 4. | LG-IM_NesTea | 0 - 2 |
Detailed Group A results from Live Report Thread by FrvPssn.
+ Show Spoiler [Click for Detailed Results] +
First Match
Oz < Akilon Wastes > MacSed
Oz < WhirlWind > MacSed
Oz < Derelict Watcher > MacSed
MacSed won 2-1
Second Match
Scarlett < Bel'Shir Vestige > NesTea
Scarlett < Whirlwind > NesTea
Scarlett < > NesTea
Scarlett won 2-0
Winner Match]
Scarlett < Derelict Watcher > MacSed
Scarlett < Whirlwind > MacSed
Scarlett < > MacSed
MacSed won 2-0
Loser Match
Oz < Bel'Shir Vestige > NesTea
Oz < Frost > NesTea
Oz < Polar Night > NesTea
Oz won 2-1
Decider Match
Oz < Frost > Scarlett
Oz < Bel'Shir Vestige > Scarlett
Oz < > Scarlett
Oz won 2 - 0
MacSed and Oz advance to the Ro8
Oz < Akilon Wastes > MacSedOz < WhirlWind > MacSedOz < Derelict Watcher > MacSedMacSed won 2-1Second Match
Scarlett < Bel'Shir Vestige > NesTeaScarlett < Whirlwind > NesTeaScarlett < > NesTeaScarlett won 2-0Winner Match]
Scarlett < Derelict Watcher > MacSedScarlett < Whirlwind > MacSedScarlett < > MacSedMacSed won 2-0Loser Match
Oz < Bel'Shir Vestige > NesTeaOz < Frost > NesTeaOz < Polar Night > NesTeaOz won 2-1Decider Match
Oz < Frost > ScarlettOz < Bel'Shir Vestige > ScarlettOz < > ScarlettOz won 2 - 0MacSed and Oz advance to the Ro8
Scarlett got off to an encouraging start in the group, easily deflecting two of NesTea's aggressive openers to win her first series 2 - 0. Off in the other match, MacSed had more luck with his early attacks, taking a 2 - 1 victory against Oz on the back of a proxy-stargate and a fast 3-gate build. Things began to go awry for
Scarlett in the winner's match. MacSed opened up game one by going for a fast third base into double-stargate, only to abruptly switch course into a massive gateway unit all-in. The surprise attack caught Scarlett off-guard, giving her no choice but to GG out as her infestor tech was too late to stop the attack. MacSed went on to knock Scarlett off balance yet again in game two, dealing a crippling blow with a rush to dark templars. Scarlett put up some token resistance, but had no choice but to GG out when MacSed's army came marching in to collect the surrender.Scarlett would have another chance to advance in the group in the final match of the night. Oz would be her final opponent, having come up after defeating NesTea 2 - 1 in a close series in the loser's match. Although Oz had taken a rather orthodox approach to facing Nestea, it seemed that PartinG's wandering soul found a temporary home inside Oz's body for the match against Scarlett. Two clinically executed "Soul Train" immortal-sentry all-ins were just too much for Scarlett to handle, and the Canadian Zerg had no choice but to surrender the series.
Ro16: Group C Preview
Liquid`HerO, Quantic.HyuN, AX.CranK, 
ST_Hackby Waxangel
Group C features three players who were very recently in action at IEM New York, giving us at least some insight into where they stand at the moment.
Let's begin with Quantic's
HyuN, who finished in the top four of IEM after suffering an incredible reverse-sweep at the hands of NaNiwa. It was a series where we learned that HyuN was fully confident in taking NaNiwa's void ray style head-on in a macro game, droning up heavily before using hydras, roaches, queens, and infestors to batter him with brute force. We also learned that he had no qualms about taking big economic risks as he opened 3-hatch-before-pool in every single game. HyuN's decision to go for the "surely he wouldn't think that I'd go three-hatch a fifth time!" mind game ended up losing him the series to NaNiwa's proxy-gates in game five, but you can't really blame him for the decision.You have to wonder how HyuN will play against HerO and Crank, knowing that they will have watched the NaNiwa series. Just the fact that both of them are relatively cannon-rush happy seems to force a change of approach for HyuN. And knowing they've studied his games vs. NaNiwa, HyuN must have some kind of counter-to-a-counter move in mind as well.
Outside the NaNiwa series, HyuN only played ZvZ's at IEM New York, and played them quite well at that. He went 3-0 in series and 7-3 in maps, but that won't help him in this Protoss and Terran group.
Next, there's Liquid's
HerO, who was having a pretty nice IEM New York until the quarter-finals. HerO looked strong as he took out NaNiwa and qxc in the group stages, but Life handed him a 3 - 0 thrashing in the quarters. In two games, HerO was unable to survive Life's early-mid game timings, and one game you could call a half-throw after HerO took a poor engagement from an advantageous situation. The overall verdict? HerO's living up to his usual stereotype: Excellent, but not consistent.ST_Hack is the third player in the group who comes in after playing in IEM New York. Unfortunately for Hack, most people will remember him as the guy who lost to NaNiwa twice after failing some SCV-pull all-ins. He does happen to fall a bit into the "generic Korean Terran" mold, but generic Korean Terrans tend to do well in tournaments and have a chance in any fight. He's not as strong as HerO and HyuN overall, but he can definitely beat them in a Bo3 series of macro games if he's in good condition.And finally we have Axiom's player-coach-manager-scout-cook-driver in
CranK. He looks to be the underdog of the group, not having done particularly well in the last couple of months. But then again, another Axiom player in Heart already showed that past results can only matter so much, and that even the best players in the world can be upset by some inspired play from an underdog. Predictions
HyuN > Crank
HerO > HacK
HyuN > HerO
Crank > HacK
HerO > Crank
HyuN and HerO advance.
