SSL Losers' Bracket Day 1

Stats against other South Korean players in Legacy of the Void:
aLive vP 14-17 (45%) in maps and 6-6 (50%) in series, overall 75-54 (58%) in maps and 32-20 (61%) in series
MyuNgSiK vT 23-14 (62%) in maps and 9-4 (69%) in series, overall 48-29 (62%) in maps and 19-10 (65%) in series

Starting us off with the recently added loser’s bracket will be aLive and MyuNgSiK, two players who used the early phase of Legacy of the Void very wisely. Both were able to find ways to utilize the new tools of the game that play right into their hands. Unfortunately one of them will be gone for good from SSL after this series—as it is rather unlikely that another loser’s bracket will be added to save them from elimination.

This series is also important in another way. aLive will be the first former SBENU player to debut under the banners of the Afreeca Freecs. His team had recently lost support from their former sponsor due to the company’s financial turmoil, but was rescued by Afreeca. As seen in similar cases before this one, such chaos can have a very deep effect on the affected players, weakening their performances drastically. Hopefully for aLive he was able to brush off the time of insecurity without being influenced all too much.

The terran was able to surprise everyone in Code A earlier this year by advancing into Code S over none other than zerg monster ByuL, showcasing his aggressive marine tank pushes. Unfortunately his next opponent is a different kind of alien, SK telecom T1’s latest recruit MyuNgSiK. Looking at the stats aLive clearly is vulnerable to protoss at the moment, exemplified by his “elimination” last week—a short series against Classic without much resistance from the terran.

Now Classic’s new colleague must finish aLive to keep his own tournament life going and he probably will take up similar measures to get the job done. MyuNgSiK was already a dangerous player before getting picked up by SKT, but every week of training with his new team will make him even more of a deadly and unpredictable killing machine. Most importantly though MyuNgSiK might finally get the support he needs to fix his nerves and his oftentimes questionable decision making that has cost him valuable series in the past.

Prediction:

Both of them met each in two LotV Bo3s last year, resulting in a combined 2-3 score in favour of MyuNgSiK. This stat doesn’t tell us anything of use—their match-up stats on the other hand do speak to us: MyuNgSiK is doing well against terrans, flourishing in the still prevalent chaos of the new expansion. His opponent is doing similarly well overall, but the one match-up which matters right now—TvP—is his grave weakness.

aLive 1 - 2 MyuNgSiK



Stats against other South Koreans in Legacy of the Void:
herO vP 5-5 (50%) in maps and 2-2 (50%) in series, overall 21-8 (72%) in maps and 9-2 (82%) in series
Hurricane vP 3-4 (43%) in maps and 1-2 (33%) in series, overall 39-28 (58%) in maps and 18-10 (64%) in series

herO is one of these shocking names we find in the loser’s bracket. Who would have ever expected him to be here in the first place? The reason is an old ghost haunting the CJ player: The protoss versus protoss mirror match-up. Even though herO is without a doubt one of the best protoss players to ever take a shot at the game and has proven that his PvP can indeed count as one of the best in the world, this is not a consistent state of the matter. Ever since the gruelling defeat at the hands of sOs at Katowice in the infamous winner-takes-all 100,000 USD final herO’s mirror match-up has had visible cracks.

Yes, his excellent mechanics give him a great advantage over most of his opponents. But his mentality and decision making oftentimes seem to lack—which is surprising when you consider what calibre of player the Smiling Assassin is—a certain calmness. If sOs’ brilliant and ice cold mind games were the reason for herO’s long time weakness or not doesn’t really matter all too much of course. What matters is that in the CJ players’ armour in PvP is the part you can easiest dismantle. Patience used this fact to send herO here after all.

Hurricane himself isn’t as big a name as the famous herO of course. While he did win HK Esports Tournament once upon a time, he has barely survived so far and is only known as a very solid player. FXO and now SAMSUNG count on the protoss in team leagues and he mostly repays the trust with good performances. PvP is no exception with almost 60% win rate over the course of Heart of the Swarm. The start of Legacy of the Void might not have been as glorious for him—or in fact for both opponents speaking of PvP—but the small sample size of results both of these players have in the mirror so far really doesn’t mean anything.

Predictions

A PvP best of 3 between two players we haven’t seen a lot in this match-up yet… Yes, we might as well throw a coin. The CJ protoss certainly is the better StarCraft player than his counterpart, surpassing him in mechanics and probably simple, raw talent—but Patience was able to topple herO before, so Hurricane upsetting here really wouldn’t be all too surprising. Last week he took as many maps from Stats as herO did from Patience.

herO 2 - 1 Hurricane



Stats against other South Koreans in Legacy of the Void:
soO vT 4-3 (57%) in maps and 2-1 (66%) in series, overall 14-7 (66%) in maps and 6-2 (75%) in series
INnoVation vZ 4-3 (57%) in maps and 2-1 (66%) in series, overall 10-7 (59%) in maps and 5-2 (71%) in series

One short peek at the stats already says a lot about their importance for this match: They are absolutely useless. The bulk of SK telecom T1’s StarCraft 2 team hasn’t competed in a lot of tournaments yet, only playing the qualifiers they couldn’t let pass. This makes it difficult to assess their forms and the styles they use. At least we have seen soO and INnoVation playing one series against terran/zerg in SSL already, because they got sent here by opponents playing these races.

soO got steamrolled by ByuN, the king of the beta who’s still going strong and actually showed up to his match (which was probably even more shocking than soO falling into the loser’s bracket), showcasing why many Koreans argue that terran is actually stronger than zerg in their region at the moment. INnoVation on the other hand fell in an equally short TSL-memorial series to RagnaroK—featuring the usage of roaches and nydus networks. It’s an interesting and sad match at the same time, since one of these huge superstars will be eliminated from the tournament after this best of 3, while the survivor remains one of the hot candidates to make a championship run through the loser’s bracket.

Making out the favoured player in this constellation is difficult indeed, as both could very well just execute similar builds to what killed their respective opponent last round. Executing a nydus build isn’t a complex affair and INnoVation is notorious for falling to the simplest of cheeses because of the lack of scouting and the amount of greed he sometimes shows. The terran on the other hand has always been a TvZ beast and has probably studied and practiced ByuN's style, while fixing his own mistakes on the side. Whatever the result, we’ll have one dead and disappointed fan favourite.

Prediction

Favourites have fallen left and right so far, stats sample sizes are still too small to make good conclusions and the game itself is a chaotic mess: It’s not a nice job to predict matches at the moment. Both players have possibilities to take fast wins with reaper or nydus shenanigans, heavily depending on scouting and denying of information—especially because on top of everything else this is also a teamkill match. Since a lot of people are saying terrans are favoured over zerg at the moment INnoVation might be a slight favourite.

soO 1 - 2 INnoVation



Stats against other South Koreans in Legacy of the Void:
Soulkey vP 28-12 (70%) in maps and 12-2 (86%) in series, overall 95-66 (59%) in maps and 39-18 (68%) in series
Trust vZ 8-15 (35%) in maps and 3-6 (33%) in series, overall 18-18 (50%) in maps and 8-6 (57%) in series

The most one sided and clear match—on paper at least—is Soulkey against Trust. Why on paper? Well, because favourites didn’t fare that well so far, so any kind of favoured status should be taken with a grain of salt. Soulkey’s return to competitive SC2 has been a pleasant one thus far, raking in a great amount of victories in online tournaments and qualifiers. Losing to Solar, probably still the best Legacy of the Void player all in all, is no shame, especially in a mirror match-up.

The former champion is in an interesting position now, sticking to his foreign team without the chance of really cashing in on the benefits of such an arrangement (travelling around the globe). As a “solo enterprise” Soulkey might be at a disadvantage in practice, not having a teamhouse at his disposal, and the pressure to do well is enormous: Without an individual league participation and a Proleague partnership he’d literally have nothing else to do than play in online cups for half a year.

Fortunately for him his ZvP has so far been almost flawless, only losing a mere two out of fourteen series against protoss opponents, while his opponent Trust only was able to decide a third of his PvZ series to his favour. Now, as with the other matches the sample size really isn’t that big and not all too trustworthy, but Soulkey has the advantage of being able to analyse Trust’s match against ByuL from the round of 16 and should count as the better overall player.

The protoss has been a sniper for CJ Entus the longest time of his career and only recently transferred to KT Rolster, maybe lacking a good deal of confidence and all around refinement in his play. Qualifying for SSL was a good result for him already. Eliminating Soulkey certainly would gain him a lot of prestige and would boost his morale.

Prediction

Denying Soulkey the status of the favourite here would be foolish, as all signs do indeed favour him over Trust. The stats—as meagre as they might be—clearly show his match-up skills being superior. His experience in elimination-scenarios should give him a further edge. As a former champion Soulkey knows how to handle the pressure and keep his mental state stabilized. However Trust is in good company at KT now… and together they just might find the build that wins this best of 3.

Soulkey 2 - 0 Trust