EPTCode A Becomes the Up/Downs
by Waxangel
The GSL is back, and it's returned with some changes. Despite ridding itself of the pesky "WCS" tag in its name, the format of Code A has been modified to fall closely in line with the new WCS Challenger system.
Instead of being run side by side with Code S, Code A is now completed in its entirety before Code S begins. Instead of being a complicated, multi-round tournament, Code A is now a series of twelve double-elimination groups that directly decide who will be in the next Code S. Simply put, Code A is now a huge version of the old Up/Down matches.
While we miss the old Code A format where it was a rather compelling sub-tournament in itself, the do or die, one round nature of the new format does offer its own brand of excitement. On to the games!
Group B: EffOrt, Curious, Sleep, Ruin
Wednesday, Jan 15 4:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)* Due to some complications from GomEXP (yes, they're called that now) waffling on whether or not to show all the Code A groups, Group B will be played earlier than Group A. Oh well!
It feels like it's been ages since we've seen the non-Proleague players in action. In fact, a couple of months actually is ages in StarCraft reckoning, with it being more than enough time for players to improve dramatically or completely fall off a cliff.
CJ_EffOrt is the player we've seen the most of lately in this group, as he's been fielded regularly by CJ Entus in the Proleague. Playing only ZvZ's up to this point, EffOrt is 1-2 with a win against ByuL and losses to Soulkey and Shine – a rather pedestrian record. However, ZvZ has traditionally been EffOrt's best match-up, so we'll see if that helps him in this Zerg heavy group.Then there's
ST_Curious, who was in action a month ago at the Numericable M-House Cup where he placed third place after getting swept by Jaedong in the the semi-finals. A demoralizing loss, but does it really have any relevance now? A consistently solid and inconsistently brilliant player, Curious always seems to find a way into Code S. Last season was his first time out of Code S in nine seasons, and you have to feel that the Gatekeeper of Code S will make his return.The third Zerg of the group is new KT Rolster recruit
Sleep. After spending much of his early career as a mostly non-descript player, Sleep broke out in the second half of 2013 by making it to the Ro16 of Code S and performing well for AZUBU in GSTL. Now that he has been recruited by KT Rolster, we have to wonder if he has even more potential than we thought. Finally, we come to our lone Protoss player in
IM_Ruin. The least accomplished player of the group, Ruin spent all of his 2013 season stuck in Code A. Not surprisingly, he's been placed behind Squirtle, HerO, Trap and Yonghwa on the IM depth chart for Proleague, only earning one start in four matches (a loss to TY). It will be tough for Ruin to win against these Code S caliber players, but he does have the advantage of only having to prepare for one race match-up.Predictions: It's hard to really say who's going to win ZvZs between evenly matched players, but going by gut feeling I have to say Curious the gatekeeper will somehow find a way through. After that, I have to go with Sleep. In the absence of recent broadcast games, I'll trust that the KT Rolster scouting department knows what it's doing.
Curious and Sleep to advance.
Group A: sOs, Shine, Classic, Gumiho
Wednesday, Jan 15 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)One big question looms over Group A: How good is
JinAir_sOs? After becoming the darkhorse champion of WCS 2013, sOs has failed to live up to the title of world champion. He looked so-so as he was knocked out of DreamHack Winter in 12th place, and he has begun the new Proleague season with a dismal 0-4 record.Some might say that sOs' unorthodox style was bound to get figured out, but a look over his Proleague losses show there's no simple explanation for what's going wrong. Here's a very simple summary of the games:
- Loss to Solar: Doesn't plug wall, dies to speedlings.
- Loss to Solar again: Overcommits to stargate+gateway pressure for not enough gain, never really recovers after that.
- Loss to
TY: Double expands successfully but gets outplayed in a macro game. - Loss to Dream: Dies to an in-base proxy barracks.
All in all, they're results that could be interpreted as just an unlucky streak of games. However, if sOs fails to make it back to Code S, then some serious reassessment may be in order.
sOs gets a relatively easy draw in his first match, facing MVP's
Shine. Once looking like a worthy initiate in the great order of TSL Zergs, things didn't pan out for Shine as he spent all of 2013 in Code B. So far in Proleague, Shine has been benched behind both DRG and Sniper. It's one thing to be passed over in favor or a resurgent sniper, it's another thing to be placed behind a slumping DRG.On the other side of bracket is
SKT_Classic, the single player SKT decided to salvage from the wreckage of STX SouL. Though SKT may have come to regret not picking Dear instead when he went on to win back-to-back WCS titles, you can see why they picked Classic at the time. He had a superior winrate to Trap or Dear (albeit with less games), and just looked like a guy who had a great grasp of all of Protoss' nasty tricks. He's proved as much by going 2-0 in Proleague as SKT's resident Sejong Research Station (unique PL map) specialist, employing a hidden dark shrine and a cannon rush to take his wins. And finally there's
GuMiho, a player us TL writers are openly big fans of. So it follows that it was painful to watch Gumiho play in 2013, as he failed to be that chaos-loving, fantastically entertaining player he was in 2012. If we had to guess what the problem was for Gumiho, it's that HotS gave Terran very specific tools that pushed everyone to try and play Gumiho's aggressive, multi-tasking heavy style. Once his unique style became the norm, his advantage was lost. While we hope he can return to Code S and give us more action-packed games, we can't help but feel that he has been surpassed by mechanically superior Terrans.Predictions: Despite his poor performances as of late, sOs still deserves to be picked here. After that, we have to go with the clever Classic. SKT and its Proleague-first philosophy might have hampered his preparations, but he should be able to pull this one out.
sOs and Classic to advance.
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