What year is it again? - sAviOr is reborn
We're back underway. What seventh level of hell inspired that Lunar New Year holiday? Anyway.. Winner's League is upon us all like WoW nerds on Blizzcon tickets. It's about time that we start to examine what's good. I expect the games to come fast and furious on our heroic progamers in the coming months. Who will be able to handle the pressure? Can it finally be time for 2009? Is sAviOr ready? Ma Jae Yoon, Kim Taek Yong, and Shin Sang Moon are on everyone's minds. Can they live up to the enormous expectations of their fans? Stay away from the pizzeria July, because it's time to play.
This Week at a Glance
Well, this is a bit odd. There has been quite a bit of movement downwards for teams that I frankly just thought would step their game up for this format. MBCGame and eSTRO have been awful. There aren't really any words to describe the play from MBC so far. eSTRO has always had trouble in Proleague, but a few shining stars last round like Really and SangHo have yet to make their impact on WL. Some teams on the rise include WeMade Fox, CJ Entus, and KTF MagicNs. With twenty matches having gone by, CJ and FOX are undefeated thus far. KTF was just immeasurably poor in the first two rounds, but some of their lesser named players have stepped up huge. Can CJ stay on top another week? It only gets tougher as the Starleagues start to really weigh down on your top performers. Backups will be called to carry their weight in the coming weeks. Let's see what these teams are made of.
Compared to last week, this week has been much more stable. As you can see, every match has produced at least one streaking player riding their momentum to pick up multiple victories. HiyA managed to have another massive performance this week with his All-kill on STX. He's going to be a contender this year, you can write that down wherever you like. sAviOr. Man, what can I say? I really did not expect it. You can flame me all you want, but I thought sAviOr was finished. I'm not ready to proclaim him a double starleague winner just yet. His three wins were two ZvZ's and a bit of a fluky win over Leta. That being said, I've got another (what.. fifth.. sixth?) reason to watch Starcraft now. Jaedong is just blowing away the competition. He managed to falter against Free on Tau Cross in one of the better matches of the week, but I'd be scared if you have Jaedong in your Starleague group.
What does this even show you? I'm sure you're asking yourself something along those lines. To be fair, it isn't like statistics are a barometer for the balance of the maps. The point of this display is to allow the reader to witness a concise window into what the coaches are thinking, a bit of the recent map history, and a little more depth into the game we love. Rush Hour 3 shows up statistically as the Terran haven we all knew it was. Coaches are putting out more Zergs and Terrans lately as you can tell they are getting more appearances and running into each other rather often. Toss seem to be falling back on Andromeda and Medusa at the moment, two maps that could surely swing away from them in a heartbeat. We'll know more as the weeks progress and you can check out the R&S thread for the full league statistics if you're so inclined.
Players of the Week
A really nice week of games to be honest. Many of them from players we expect to show class and consistency. They just haven't been. I'm happy to see it return. Tau Cross managed to bring three of the five best games of the week. Hopefully we continue to see some of the better maps brought into swing if they're needed. I'd rather see epic games than new maps every league for the most part. Hope everyone enjoyed themselves this week. See you next time!
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