SSL finally resumes with the Ro16 as the players enjoyed their Chuseok break, but now they're well prepared and are ready to proceed into the fire.

Liquipedia

Although we saw some questionable play in this group, most of the games were certainly entertaining. Ultimately, only one player really delivered a convincing performance, amongst a slew of upsets.

Match 1 - Best vs Speed, on Dominator
Best comes into this match having qualified for every single ASL and more often than not making the round of eight. Speed on the other hand has only qualified two times before and has never won a game. Best gets the slightly faster expansion, due to cancelling dragoon range, while Speed goes for a save factory first. And this is almost the last thing that will go well for Best in this ASL. The first vulture drives past one badly positioned dragoon, in second gear, and kills two probes. Another one of those graceful dragoons stumbles into the first mine.

Protoss follows up with a DT drop. There are turrets and mines, but the invisible men get a surprising amount of work done by killing two supply depots, a machine shop and a turret. This could've gotten Best back into the game. But the lazy Protoss bouncers let another four vultures in, which kill something like eight probes and get a full scout. When the camera pans back we realise that Speed lost a factory. Look, I know DT's are invisible, but the fires they start can actually be seen. You can hear them too. That whooshing sound? Also, how often do you see a machine shop built on top of a machine shop ruin?



Best techs to fast arbiters and expands. Speed gets his third and kills a few probes. The first recall destroys a bunch of depots. Best executes one of his trademark suicide attacks, this time into the Terran natural. It trades OK, but it definitely wasn't the best use of his resources. But at least he's on five bases, although somewhat low on probes and vultures kill a few more. Best denies Speed's fourth base a few times, but he's not very efficient about it.

Terran keeps getting vultures out onto the map and eventually secures his fourth base. Speed's upgrades are strong and his supply is high. Another small recall triggers the Terran command to order a move-out. The large 3-2 mech army instantly blows through the Protoss third. And then the natural.



Meanwhile a few more recalled units are busy tidying up the Terran main. And a small contingent of Protoss forces wipe out the SCV's at Speed's fourth base. A few Terran units have killed another Protoss base and the bulk of the tanks move into Best's main. Freshly warped in zealots almost win the fight, but defensive matrix saves the day. Speed's vessel use is quite good throughout the game, with some very good EMP's. Best is down in supply, with his gateways under attack. The recall has finally fizzled out and he's only mining on two bases, with no production across the map.

Speed is almost mined out at his last base. But Terran can re-cycle their CC's in a pinch, while Best nearly loses one of his two remaining mining nexuses. Speed has just enough supply and production to make a lot of vultures and saturate the map with mines, while Best lost a lot of tech buildings, and without observers he struggles to defend across the map. A defensive recall saves one nexus, but the other one goes down. Speed now also has more income. One more push across the map to kill the last Protoss expansion seals the deal.

Quite an impressive showing from Speed. This was definitely a tricky game to manouvre and he played it straight up. Best will have some regrets about his lacklustre defence. Due to the constant probe losses he didn't have the resources to play like he did on Apocalypse against Light last season.


Match 2 - Action vs Sea, on Dominator
Action has recently made it consistently through the Ro24. Whereas Sea hasn't managed that in rather a long time, but he has been practicing more, and hard work, or at least some work, can sometimes pay off. Actions opens with three-hatch mutas. Sea walls off with two marines and goes for two-factory goliaths.

Sea tries the old one-slow-vulture attack, but slow-lings actually catch it. Terran's defenses are solid. Turrets are ready well ahead of time and the Zerg flappers struggle to find any angle. Action bleeds a few mutalisks for free while sharking around. And then loses a few more when he has a go at the massed goliath force with turret backup.



Meanwhile two vultures prevent the drones from mining at the Zerg third and a few more hoverbikes raid Action's main. Sea is already ahead, so he expands and gets a science facility, while churning away at those upgrades. Maybe scans have shown Sea that Action is eco'ing up and that he can probably a-move his way to victory. So he does. Action trades his natural for the Terran third. A small number of hydralisks are, apparently, unable to stop a mech push.



When the hydras are all dead, the mutalisks find it much easier to die to the goliaths. And they do. I honestly don't know why Action looks so confused after the game. Has he not played against mech in a while?


Winners - Sea vs Speed, on Minstrel
Sea gets a couple of early wraiths to be annoying, but otherwise the openings are pretty similar. Speed gets a faster third and, just like against Best, trades a bunch of vultures for worker kills.



Sea manages to secure the middle with a small group of siege tanks, but he doesn't have the resources to put on any significant pressure. He tries to manouvre around the bottom of the map, but walks into a group of siege tanks, which puts him further behind. Both players are busy assembling a significant air force. And both also expand to their respective vertical corners. It looks like we're heading for a split map scenario.

But Speed as other ideas. He circumvents Sea's central position and lays siege to his opponent's natural. But tanks don't shoot up, so they get whittled down slowly by wraiths. The air units exchange a few shots, but decide to leave it at a little skirmish for now. The decisive engagement happens when Speed attacks Sea's fourth base. The defending tanks quickly get overwhelmed by the attacking army. The air forces arrive and 10 seconds later all the planes, except two, have been shot down.



Sea's fourth base falls. And, to add insult to injury, Speed proceeds to destroy a bunch of tanks with spider mines. Show-off. And that's that.

As far as this round of 24 is concerned, Speed as been one of the two most solid players. The other being Stork, but we'll come to that. Bisu, Rush and Light didn't really get a chance to show their stuff. And everyone else has been at least somewhat shaky. So, well done to Speed. I think he might cause some more upsets this season. It remains to be seen if he will have enough for another Terran underdog title à la JyJ or Royal. But that might be stretching it a bit.


Losers - Best vs Action on Deja Vu
Probably neither player expected to be in this match, and definitely not with this opponent. Although they probably did prepare for playing each other. Since this is Deja Vu, it would've been great to get something similar to their ASL15 quarter final, which was one of the best PvZ series of the last few years. Alas, it was not to be. Best opens forge first for what looks like sair-DT, but...



The wall wasn't blocked correctly with probes, so Action gets to see everything. But maybe with good micro Best can still get some damage done?



Sadly, Best throws away his corsairs. And then compounds the error by suiciding his DT's for three drones. And the game is pretty much over. The mutalisks immediately pounce on the exposed Protoss main. Best struggles for several minutes to regain control of his main. Action keeps the pressure up and takes his fourth. They both know this is a formality. Perhaps with ASL15 still on his mind, Action decides to toy with his prey for a while and sets up a lurker contain. Against a Protoss who doesn't have a robotics facility and is two bases and fifty supply down. Fifty.



I'll leave it you, dear reader, to imagine how the rest of the game goes.


Final - Action vs Sea on Monty Hall
The return of Monty Hall, one of the weirdest, but most thematic maps in StarCraft history! Remember, always change your pick when the goat gets revealed... Let's hope the players have been paying attention during their statistics classes.

Action expands across the bottom and goes for mutas. Sea expands across the top and decides that he should get a lot more goliaths, because he's actually in love with them. Vultures once again do some damage. The expansions on this map are very exposed. Lots of space for hydras? Nah. Oh, and Action throws away a few more mutalisks, which, once again, go for a counter attack when the push comes.



To Action's defence, his economy is much better this time and he has a bunch of queens charging up. But with the mutas out of position he has to buy time, so he spams sunkens and sends his flyers to kill another Terran base. The tanks have just gotten through the sunkens and killed the macro hatchery when the mutalisks return.



And this time they do win the fight, but only barely. Sea brings down some reinforcements, but the queens are finally ready to spread the love and so we get to see our first few broodlings in the SOOP!



When the attack fails it looks like Action has this game in the bag. Sea is almost mined out in his main and at eleven o'clock so he retakes the centre expansion. If Action can deny that he probably wins. So he goes for it. A few hydras die to mines along the way. A few more get shelled by siege tanks, because the queens are a little slow and Terran holds.

Then the observer shows us that Terran might actually have the better economy, because there are only very few drones mining. And vultures kill a few more of those. Not to be outdone by those bikers, Action throws away a few more hydras in yet another ill-advised attack on the left side. Sea marches down the middle of the map, eats a few broodlings, and obliterates the remaining hydralisks. And that. Is that.

Perennial TL favourite Sea makes his return to the group selection ceremony for the first time in six years!



And the biggest loser of this group is... the ASL player ranking system.
Every single game was won by the lower tier player.

Match 1 - Light vs teolbo (huro/YSC), on Dominator
This was a fun game. It seems like Mind has been responsible for some of the more interesting Protoss builds we've seen so far. Hopefully he will continue to be involved on the correct side, that is the Protoss side, of the racial divide going forward.

teolbo opens with a very slightly forward gate into core and two zealots, who briefly take control of the Terran ramp. Light doesn't fancy getting locked in, so he orders his workers to provide cover for a few marines and a vulture, and pushes the Protoss units back. teolbo follows up with a proxy pylon on one of the high-ground pizza wedges close to the Terran base. The pylon is there to power a second gateway and a robotics facility. In an amusing Benny Hill moment Light just barely fails to spot the forward buildings not once, not twice, but three times, first with his scouting SCV and then with a vulture.



Light knows that something must be going on, so he starts a bunker and keeps training marines. The dragoons start their daily target practice regime at the bunker shooting range. Once the vulture has finally found the proxy location, Light immediately starts to construct an engineering bay. But teolbo isn't hanging around waiting for his first reaver. Instead he starts shuttling units into the Terran main. The attack is somewhat wasteful, but still kills one tank, a bunch of marines and causes a lot of general havoc.

Once the reaver joins, the situation gets even more dicey for Light. He loses another tank and his SCV line is in danger. With the second reaver out, teolbo pivots to the natural. The Protoss siege units take control of the ramp and quickly blow up the bunker. Light is all but dead...



And then teolbo loses his shuttle and both reavers to a stationary anti-air building that he can see. Four dragoons against three spread out tanks. Not even Snow could make something happen here. But, instead of trying to hold the ramp to stall for another shuttle, teolbo decides to throw his goons, and thus the game, away.

Cool build. Amazing missile turret.


Match 2 - Shine vs Jaedong, on Dominator
So far we haven't had many mirror matches, but here we are, the first ZvZ of the season. Jaedong opens nine-pool into quick ling speed against Shine's eleven-hatchery. The donglings arrive at Shine's natural before he has any lings of his own. Shine only has seconds to decide what to do with his hatchery and he decides to let it finish. The donglings immediately go to work, but a decent drone drill together with Shine's first zerglings barely safe the hatchery.



Three donglings squeeze into Shine's main and rip apart a drone and then have another bite at the natural hatchery, which survives again with 88 hit points. The others fall back towards Jaedong's base, but decide to turn and fight. Shine wins with two zerglings left over.

Two donglings get through and chew another few health off the hatchery, which drops to 71 and then a little later to 55. Jaedong's next attack has too many lings and the hatchery finally explodes in a cloud of blood.



The hatchery killers lope onto Shine's main and we see that there were zero drones mining, neither minerals, nor gas. Still facing dongling pressure, with only five or six drones and not enough minerals to build spores and with mutalisks on the way, Shine concedes.


Winners - Light vs Jaedong, on Deja Vu
Both players open fairly standard, twelve-hatch into lair vs rax-expand into quick academy. Seven marines, one firebat and a medic move out early. They arrive more or less unopposed at Jaedong's still morphing third hatchery at the bottom right natural and force a cancel. And, just like that, Light is ahead. He makes it look so easy sometimes.

The first few mutalisks immediately apply pressure, killing a small number of marines and SCV's. But there aren't enough flappers to really make a dent, so Light holds fairly comfortably. The mutalisks take their frustration out on one of the wall depots. Light's infantry is so eager to engage that they help tear down the building to get into the fight.



Jaedong sends his air force past the natural into the Terran main base, and this time they do decent damage, delaying the factory and picking off a number of marines funneling up the ramp in single file. On the second pass the mutalisks also kill a good number of SCV's and then get out after taking relatively little damage. After this exchange Jaedong is up in supply and his third base is once again morphing.



Light gets two starports and Jaedong's queen's nest is about to complete. The next couple of exchanges are less good for Zerg, but nothing crippling. And then Light suddenly remembers that he's got dinner plans. He sends all his bio straight to Jaedong's natural, kills the sunken colony, tears through the freshly hatched lurkers and wipes out the late arriving mutalisks. Boom, group done in under twenty minutes of playtime. Time to go grab that bibimbap. If Rush has left anything...

Jaedong might have some regrets here. He managed to claw back a bad opening, but then lost track of the marines in the middle of the map and got out-positioned before he could get into the midgame proper.


Losers - Shine vs teolbo, on Deja Vu
teolbo appears to be badly shaken by his loss to Light. At least I'm not sure how else to explain the openings. He tries a blind twelve nexus in PvZ. Against Shine. That goes pretty much as well as you would expect. When the first zerglings have been cleaned up, Protoss has eight probes left.



Shine follows up with hydras, as we would expect. teolbo manages to warp in three cannons. He tries one on the high-ground, but it gets spotted by the overlord that's still in his base and is thus easy pickings for the hydras. Protoss had more resources to warp in another two or three cannons, but didn't use his time wisely. He also didn't pull probes which might have helped. All in all, a rather unfortunate showing from teolbo. He's quite a decent player, but off-line nerves is a real thing apparently.


Final - Shine vs Jaedong, on Radeon
And another ZvZ to finish up the group. This time we get cross-spawn and more similar builds. Jaedong opens eleven-hatch into speed, while Shine gets ever so slightly greedier with twelve-hatch into lair. Both players make lots of lings. With speed done, the donglings barrel into Shine's natural. It looks like Jaedong's swarm is slightly bigger so he commits to the attack, but Shine holds comfortably with a single well-placed drone.

Jaedong keeps up the aggressive posture, but there is a sunken colony, so he can't really get anything done. Shine's spire finishes significantly earlier, but the relatively long distance means he doesn't quite have a window to do damage. During the ling-shenanigans Jaedong has taken his second gas much earlier which puts him in a good place to catch up to Shine's slightly faster mutalisks.



A good number of donglings make it into Shine's natural, but, instead of eating drones, they give in to their newly found desire to chew structures and proceed to tickle the spire until it starts bleeding. The cerebrate manages to control his brood, just before they get completely wasted, to kill a drone or two, which can be big in this match-up. We get a very tentative air engagement, but neither player feels ready yet. The observer shows us that Shine only has two drones mining from his natural geyser, while Jaedong has three, and so the gas advantage keeps growing.

Shine snipes one of those drones, but his flyers get caught on the way out and his scourge connections look inefficient. Jaedong just about wins the ensuing air war. Shine starts a spore colony at his natural and two in his main, and also adds more drones. I can't decide if Shine thinks he's behind and this is his way to catch up, or if he thinks he's in a good position to transition to late game here.

We get another neutral engagement. Jaedong responds to the situation by starting his third hatchery at six o'clock. This puts Shine on a countdown. He either needs to contest the hatchery or get his own. Teching will probably be too slow. He decides to expand. And then his air armour upgrade finishes.



In hindsight, this is the moment for Shine to make something happen, because Jaedong's upgrades are late. Shine snipes one drone at the Tyrant's third and circles around. Jaedong's main is open and Shine might win a fight with his better upgrades, but for no apparent reason the mutalisks turn back towards the middle of the map.

The mutas swing back for another raid on the drones at the third. We get a scourge exchange, but it seems to go poorly for Shine again. And then the window of opportunity closes. Jaedong's air armour upgrade is finished. He now has more mutas, more drones, and his gas advantage keeps building.



Both players have unusually large numbers of scourge. Shine tries to hold on with another spore at his third base, but against two control groups of mutalisks that isn't really enough. Jaedong commits to take down the colony which forces Shine to engage.



And seconds later the group is finished with another TL favourite advancing. Jaedong makes it through to the group selection for the first time in three seasons. Let's see where his crisp muta-control can take him in a field made up of 50% Terrans.

Match 1 - JyJ vs free, on Dominator
This time we get a normal PvT start, which is in some ways disappointing, but also reassuring. Maybe we can get a few longer games. Free opens gate first into core, JyJ barracks first into factory. Both players find each other first. The construction worker at the natural is unfazed by the skirmish right next to it. The zealot manages to trap the first vulture against the marines and destroy the vehicle before it can get out onto the map. Two marines survive and force the dragoon to retreat.



Free expands as well and starts warping in a robotics facility and a second gateway. Like seemingly all the Protoss executors he has also been infected by the observer-first-virus, so he adds an observatory to his natural wall.

After killing the zealot and heavily damaging the dragoon, and knowing that any reaver can't be quite ready yet, JyJ orders a move-out. Two tanks, five marines and two SCV's, with a vulture following behind hit the high-ground outside of the Protoss natural.



The Terran platoon seems to catch free by surprise. The injured goon falls to the first volley of focus fire. The other Protoss walkers waste a round of shots on SCV's and then retreat into the natural in surprisingly orderly fashion. But this was probably a mistake. The Protoss wall shields the siege tanks, and without range upgrades the dragoons are incredibly ineffective. In desperation, free destroys one of his own pylons. Two observers are out and range is finished. But there are still plenty of mines, vultures and marines buffering and siege mode is done.

The dragoons dive in and destroy one tank, but the other one survives. A shuttle appears, but, unfortunately for free, it's empty. JyJ's control is better than free's and he takes control of the natural. A little shuttle manouvre to kill the tank fails. And when vultures get into the main and start laying mines the game is pretty much over.

Protoss eventually clears the attack, but is miles behind. Perhaps flustered by his bad start to the tournament, free slumps in his chair and proceeds to mis-micro his units for a little while longer before throwing in the towel.


Match 2 - Mind vs Stork, on Dominator
And we get fairly standard openings again (obs first obvs). Both players get their natural expansions at roughly the same time and neither is able to put on any pressure. Mind gets the better scout. Shortly after his second factory starts he sounds out a couple of vultures and four marines. The dragoons retreat after picking off one vulture.

And just like JyJ last game, Mind's troops move out when the second tank is fresh of the assembly line. The Terran units skirt around the middle, narrowly avoiding the first observer. But the third tank just driving off into the distance is pretty suspicious and Stork orders his spotter to keep tabs on it.

In stark contrast with free, Stork knows exactly what's happening. He sees the attack coming, his dragoons have range and there are more of them. Mind tries to lay some offensive mines in the middle of the dragoons, but Stork holds perfectly.



The goons immediately move to counter as they have the shorter path to the Terran natural. Mind tries to sneak three vultures through, but Stork blocks them expertly. The dragoons arrive before the tanks manage to get back home, and it looks like a fresh minefield is going to buy just enough time. The tanks slip back into the natural and siege up, while an SCV barely manages to narrow the choke by starting an engineering bay. But Stork has recovered his PvT mojo and he makes his goons positively dance.



The tanks get taken out and the dragoons are battled back slowly by some courageous SCV's. (V for Valiant I guess.) Behind this Stork's third base is nearly up and running and a reaver shuttle is inbound. Mind's tank micro is good, and he kills the air-dropped dragoon and just barely pushes the reaver out. But it doesn't matter. Stork is almost fifty supply up and his fourth base is on the way.

To keep the crowd entertained, Stork throws in a little double-shuttle-arcade show that kills four depots, two goliaths, a bunch of mines and a vulture. Mini and Snow would be proud.



The second shuttle visit forces the tanks to pull back to defend. This leave the door open for the much larger Protoss army to just waltz through the natural and finish the game.

Winners - JyJ vs Stork, on KICK BACK
JyJ opens slightly greedier with a gasless expansion to Stork's nexus after core. And with cross-positions there isn't really anything Protoss can do about it. Stork likes his build and goes obs first again and then warps in his third expansion.

JyJ thinks the modern meta is too slow, so he throws down two more factories for a total of four. The observer just barely spots the third factory past the missile turrets and so more gateways start warping in. But is it in time? The first six tanks are already on the move. And instead of slowing down the push, the dragoons turn around to pick off a sneaky SCV scout.

The siege tanks get in position on Stork's side of the centre. A squad of goons circle round the middle to cut of reinforcements and just barely avoid a couple of dangerous mines. JyJ builds some missile turrets and starts creeping towards the Protoss base. Normally the best Protoss can hope for his to slow the push down. But, once again, Stork's control is better and he actually manages to push the Terran advance back.



The upshot is that JyJ has three tanks stranded on Stork's side of the map and no way to get units across. So he's forced to retreat. Stork in turn pulls his dragoons back and sends his double-reaver-shuttle to start causing trouble in the Terran base. Dinotoss must be in the zone because he detonates some mines with perfect shuttle micro.



Mines explode. Vultures explode. Tanks explode! SCV's explode. JyJ loses control of his main mineral line, and his army is across the map to try to do some damage. But instead of getting anything done, the unsupported tanks get run over by superior numbers of zealots and dragoons.

GG!

I hope I'm not jinxing anything here, but... Stork is back!


Losers - Mind vs free, on KICK BACK
It looks like free hasn't recovered from his beating as he's still slumped very low in his chair. Or maybe he's practicing to be invisible. And you know what that means...

Exactly, citadel first! And maybe this can work, because Mind is fully walled in, probably expecting dragoon pressure. So there won't be any mines on the map. And likely he's rushing to siege mode, so who knows if detection will be in time. I wonder free's build was somewhat ad hoc, because the nexus messes up the gate timing, so he doesn't get two DT's out at the same time. And that means...



Nice DT, but it doesn't do enough damage, because... You know this thing about Terran buildings? Where they can be repaired? Yeah. Don't ask. So Mind gets way ahead economically with three command centres before his second factory. The hapless executor pivots into fast arbiters.

Nothing much happens for a while except that Terran keeps getting further ahead and takes the supply lead around ten minutes. Three minutes later a nearly maxed 2-1 mech army moves out. Behind this mind expands. Free has four arbiters with a decent amount of energy. But honestly, when was the last time you've actually seen this work? Me neither.

Mind gets a good tank spread, and great buffering with his vultures. Free basically doesn't get any value out of his stasis attempts and gets run over. That was almost a free win for Mind (hah!).


Final - JyJ vs Mind, on Radeon
To finish the group we get a re-match of the ASL15 final. If you don't remember how that went, I can't blame you. Mind got crushed, so it wasn't very interesting. Both players open fairy safely with gas. They are in close positions and scout each other last.

Mind missteps by sending a tank out on the map in vision of JyJ's barracks. Four vultures sneak around and hit Mind's natural. They kill both marines, a couple of vultures and a few SCV's while Mind's tank is staring at the stars in the background.



JyJ is pretty good at TvT so he grabs this opportunity with both hands. And Mind hands the game to him a platter, but trying to move out with fewer units.



More vultures, tanks and SCV's get killed. Mind tries to take some forward position to split the map, but vultures come round to deny his third base. The rest of the game is basically like watching Mind slowly suffocating, pretty horrible.

Another vulture move-out is caught. Mind's first dropship flies straight into two wraiths. The units get out, but tanks are in position. And the third base gets denied again. JyJ gets a bunch of cloaked wraiths, which trade reasonably with Mind's air force. But Mind can't afford to trade even slightly favourably, because he is fifty supply and a base behind.

Mind sets up a few tanks on the far side of the map and JyJ rolls over them. If there is actually a way to make this sound interesting, then I don't know what that way is. Sorry. Good that we don't have loads of Terrans in the Ro16...

Mind, well, sets up a few tanks on the far side of the map and JyJ, well, rolls over them. No fourth base for Mind. And instead of carrying on with doing his best Sisyphus impression, Mind finally gg's.

So, just to recap. Mind spent a good amount of time helping various Protoss players practice for PvT. His PvT builds are scary, but they don't get executed well. Then he loses to Stork with an ill-advised attack. He gets a free game gifted. And then his tank is out of position for ten seconds and his ASL run is over.

Life sure can be cruel.

This SSL has already shown that the map pool has been a very difficult place for Zergs, with Jaedong being the lone Zerg who managed to escape the Round of 24. However, Soulkey, the back-to-back defending champion, will be surrounded on all sides by Terrans eager to knock the champ from his throne. Will he escape the graveyard of bad Zerg maps? Or will he succumb like his fellow swarm users?

Soulkey
History is obviously on Soulkey’s side. The current b2b champ has a pretty good record against the Terrans in his group as well. In ASL 16, Soukey managed to get through all three Terrans on his way to the gold, beating Sea in the Round of 24, JyJ in the quarters, and Rush in the semis. Of course, the matches against JyJ and Rush have been more equal in previous ASLs, but Soulkey’s current form is clearly head and shoulders above these other two tournament hopefuls. And he’s got the ZvT to back up the confidence going into this group, boasting a lifetime 58% win rate against the human race on the eloboard. Any trickery that Sea can throw at him might have been revealed when Sea opted for mech in both TvZs against Action in the round of 24, meaning Soulkey is likely well prepared to deal with such a tactic, especially when he was the former mentee of the prolific queen user, ZerO.

Going into the Bo3 section of the group stage, it will be interesting to see if Soulkey can dodge notoriously bad ZvT maps such as Minstrel. If he can, I trust in his ability to showcase his skill and to take games off the other Terrans on the more standard maps. But if he were to get knocked into loser’s by Sea, it would definitely be an uphill climb to take down the other Terrans in the group to advance as the 2nd seed. Both Rush and JyJ have excellent TvZ winrates, especially Rush who has an absurd 60% lifetime winrate on eloboard.

Sea
It’s tough to take Sea seriously, who advanced to the finals through two TvZ games using mech. He’s rarely in ASLs these days, and when he does make it, he reacts to won games as if he’s won the entire tournament. That being said, considering he’s against Soulkey in a bo1, anything can happen. Still, even if he gets by Soulkey, his TvT skill leaves much to be desired, as seen in his previous ASL run, where he completely floundered against Light. It was just a clear skill gap between him and a superior Terran, especially in a matchup where there’s nowhere to hide. The same happened against Speed in the round of 24, where Sea just looked a step behind Speed the entire game. And against both Rush and JyJ, the latter of who won a TvT to secure his ASL win, it’s hard to find a path out of the group for Sea.

Rush
Statistically, it’s hard to argue against Rush, who has a 60% TvZ and a 54% TvT on eloboards. And truth be told, Rush has consistently looked to win this tournament in the past 4 years since beginning to make the bracket stage consistently. However, it has always felt like he’s been missing something small to push him over the finish line to finally claim his gold. Now, in a Terran-heavy group (and tournament in general), perhaps it’s his time to break through with his incredible TvT, a matchup in which I give him a substantial edge over both Sea and JyJ. Against Soulkey, the pair have been trading games back and forth in proleague. In an extended series with potentially unfavorable Zerg maps included, Rush may stand a chance to knock off the best Zerg in the world.

JyJ
It somewhat feels like JyJ got pushed into a very unlucky group, as Rush can sometimes be considered a simply better version of JyJ (though JyJ won his TvT ASL final, while Rush lost his). He has also had some inconsistent results, not managing to string together successive bracket appearances (ASL 15 and 16 was the only time where he’s made the bracket stage in back-to-back tournaments). Further, JyJ seemingly doesn’t partake in quite as many proleague games as his contemporaries, instead practice in other ways (out of the top 10 players, JyJ has the 2nd fewest games at only 30 for the month of September). That being said, in ASL 15 when he went on to win the tournament, he played in a similar Ro16 group with 3 Terrans and 1 Zerg, where he beat Rush 2-1 to advance to the bracket. Perhaps JyJ can draw inspiration from that tournament win, as he seeks to make it back to the bracket after missing out last year.

Prediction
Soulkey > Sea

Rush > JyJ

Soulkey > Rush

Sea < JyJ

Rush > JyJ

Soulkey and Rush Advance To The Ro8!

Group B features hero, BarrackS, Jaedong, and Bisu. Hero is clearly the strongest in this group. He has the best record of reaching the round of 8 out of any player in this tournament. Hero has the ability to play against any of the three races, which means he should have no problem. Despite losing the ASL17 finals to a Zerg, his ZvZ skill level remains very high. Last season, he defeated both Rush and Sharp while only dropping two maps. Hero hasn’t lost a ZvP in his last three seasons, including a 2-0 victory over Bisu in ASL 15. With this kind of consistency, Hero is heavily favored to advance from Group B.

Bisu is the second-highest rated player in this group, but that comes with no guarantees. Bisu broke his "round of 8 allergy" last season by overcoming both JyJ and Mong. These two victories showcase his dominance over second-class Terran players. If you're not a top-tier Terran, your chances against Bisu are bleak. This looks especially bad for Barracks, who will be discussed below. However, Bisu has clear weaknesses against certain Zerg players, and both Hero and Jaedong fit that description. Bisu simply can’t win a BoX series against Hero. If they face each other in a multi-game match, it's almost an automatic loss for Bisu.

For his PvZ versus Jaedong, history doesn’t bode well either. Bisu has a 60% win rate against Jaedong in the Kespa era, but his individual league record against him is only 25%. Yet another Zerg that spells tragedy for the Protoss god.

Jaedong has a decent argument for being the second-best player in this group based on his recent online performances. But let’s be honest: his two wins over Shine aren’t exactly the most impressive results to draw conclusions from. Going back the past two seasons, Jaedong didn’t even advance past the round of 24. However, in ASL15, Jaedong made a great run before being completely dismantled by Hero. For him to advance in this tournament, Jaedong will need to go full SOOPSuxBallsWithoutMe mode.

BarrackS has never made it to the quarterfinals, and advancing from this group would require him to defeat one of the best Zerg players in the modern era and two legendary figures in Brood War. Last season, BarrackS went 0-2 against Hero, and it seems likely that history will repeat itself here.

Match Predictions
Match 1: hero vs. BarrackS (Radeon)
The opening match features Hero against BarrackS on the map Radeon, which historically offers Terran players only a 46% win rate. Not only will BarrackS have to overcome the inherent map disadvantage, but he will also have to face Hero, who has dominated him in the past. Given Hero’s ZvT expertise, an upset here would be a massive surprise.

Prediction: hero wins.

Match 2: Jaedong vs. Bisu (Radeon)
This matchup between Jaedong and Bisu could be exciting, but in the grand scheme of the group, the result may not carry much weight. With Hero expected to win the Winner’s Match regardless, this contest is more about who will get an easier path to the Final Match. For the sake of intrigue, let’s predict that Jaedong falls to Bisu here, setting up an interesting rematch scenario later.

Prediction: Bisuwins.

Winners' Match: hero vs. Bisu
Despite Bisu playing Protoss with honor, it will be his undoing against Hero’s relentless zergling runbys or hydra all-ins that will take out too many of his probes. There is no other path Bisu can follow and as the Mandalorian's say it best, "This is the way". Hero is likely to take this with a decisive 2-0.

Prediction: hero wins 2-0.

Losers' Match: Jaedong vs. BarrackS
BarrackS may be the underdog in this match, but Jaedong’s current form against Terran players leaves much to be desired. Light already demonstrated Jaedong’s weaknesses in ZvT, and it’s possible that BarrackS could exploit the same vulnerabilities. Jaedong’s harassment skills aren’t what they were in his prime, and BarrackS may be able to take advantage of this to win the series.

Prediction: BarrackS wins 2-0.

Final Match: Bisu vs. BarrackS
Bisu’s historical dominance over second-rate Terrans comes into play here. While BarrackS is no pushover, Bisu has only lost to top-tier Terrans like Ample and Mind in recent seasons. His record in PvT during the round of 16 and round of 24 has been near-flawless since 2020, and this match should follow that trend. Bisu’s fundamentals in PvT will likely carry him to an easy win here.

Prediction: Bisu wins 2-0.

Conclusion:

hero and Bisu Advance To The Ro8!

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Writers: Simplistik, BisuDagger, FlashFTW
Graphics: v1
Editors: BLinD-RawR