Group A: (4/14 17:00 KST)
Hydra 2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16
Light 2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16
ggaemo 1-2 Eliminated
Tyson 1-2 Eliminated

[VOD] Hydra < Monte Cristo > Light
[VOD] Tyson < Circuit Breaker > ggaemo
[VOD] Hydra < Dante's Peak SE > ggaemo
[VOD] Light < Dante's Peak SE > Tyson
[VOD] ggaemo < La Mancha > Light

Group B: (4/16 13:00 KST)
Leta 2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16
Hyuk 2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16
great 1-2 Eliminated
Classic 0-2 Eliminated

[VOD] great < Circuit Breaker > Classic
[VOD] Leta < Dante's Peak SE > Hyuk
[VOD] great < La Mancha > Leta
[VOD] Classic < La Mancha > Hyuk
[VOD] great < Monte Cristo > Hyuk

Group C: (4/19 18:00 KST)
ZerO 2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16
Horang2 2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16
RuBy 1-2 Eliminated
HyuN 0-2 Eliminated

[VOD] ZerO < Dante's Peak SE > HyuN
[VOD] Horang2 < La Mancha > RuBy
[VOD] ZerO < Monte Cristo > RuBy
[VOD] HyuN < Monte Cristo > Horang2
[VOD] RuBy < Circuit Breaker > Horang2

Group E: (4/14 19:30 KST)
Mind 2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16
Stork 2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16
firebathero 1-2 Eliminated
free 0-2 Eliminated

[VOD] Stork < Monte Cristo > firebathero
[VOD] Mind < Circuit Breaker > free
[VOD] Mind < Dante's Peak SE > Stork
[VOD] firebathero < Dante's Peak SE > free
[VOD] Stork < La Mancha > firebathero

Group F: (4/18 18:00 KST)
Calm 2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16
Neo.G_Soulkey 2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16
Fantasy 1-2 Eliminated
RorO 0-2 Eliminated

[VOD] Calm < Circuit Breaker > RorO
[VOD] Fantasy < Dante's Peak SE > Neo.G_Soulkey
[VOD] Calm < La Mancha > Neo.G_Soulkey
[VOD] RorO < La Mancha > Fantasy
[VOD] Fantasy < Monte Cristo > Neo.G_Soulkey

Group G: (4/16 15:30 KST)
Grape 2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16
hero 2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16
Snow 1-2 Eliminated
Dear 0-2 Eliminated

By nbaker

Great and Classic play the first game of Group B on Circuit Breaker. Great spawns in the 11 o’clock position and Classic spawns at 7. Great 12 hatches and then gasses before spawning pool, opting to cut his economy a bit in order to get mutalisks out very quickly. The vertical positions are ideal for Great’s build, allowing him to send his mutalisks straight towards Classic’s natural cliff and harass the mineral line. Classic scouts Great’s build, but feels comfortable playing standard and puts up a command center after his first barracks while watching to make sure Great doesn’t go for a of speedling all in. Great makes 8 zerglings, which he uses to chase out Classic’s SCV before it can see the spire (not that Classic, having seen the lair, doesn’t know what’s coming) and take map control while putting up a third at the 1 o’clock main. Great’s first mutalisks finishes and he immediately sends them to Classic’s natural, but Classic, with excellent timing, finishes his turret defenses just as the mutas arrive and Great is forced to back off with only two worker kills.


Great continues to make mutalisks while starting his fourth hatchery in his main. He waits until Classic moves out to attack his third and then starts chipping away at the medic marine force with some nice terrain positioning, eventually cleaning up the attack with a mutaling flank.


At this point, Great feels comfortable to continue droning at all his bases and starting lurker tech, making up for the initial hit his economy took from his fast tech build. Classic is forced to overproduce turrets after losing his army and has to keep any newly produced marines in his base for defense. Still producing drones and researching upgrades, Great uses his existing mutas to pull the marines away from their turrets and picks off several more, further delaying any attack Classic was hoping to effect.


Eventually, Classic is able to defend long enough to amass a sizable medic marine force supported by a vessel and two tanks. He circumvents the lurkers Great left positioned at Classic’s double bridges and moves around them. Rather than engage, Great moves in to counter, but finds three bunkers at the natural choke and is forced to stand down. Classic ignores the lurkers outside his natural and moves in to kill off Great’s natural while most of the zerg’s army is out of position. Great burrows 4 lurkers, too many for Classic to micro his marines around, so the terran player is forced to siege his tanks and chip them down. This, however, buys Great the critical time he needs to get his main force back into position and pull off a beautiful flank between the double bridges, dominating Classic’s entire army.


Classic changes tactics, starting his third at his min only and mixing vultures into his army composition, but Great’s lurkers continue to delay any kind of aggression, while allowing him to take a fifth base at 12 o’clock. Classic kills off the fifth, but Great simply re-expands to 3 o’clock while continuing to macro from all his hatcheries. Classic takes his fourth at 12 and starts to enjoy a little more military success in the center, allowing him to kill off 3 o’clock and land a rather ineffectual drop in Great’s main. Great makes the questionable decision to go lurkers and ultras against a Terran with tons of vultures and science vessels, but is able to expand twice for every base Classic can kill and eventually pulls so far ahead economically that there is no need to have a cost effective army.


He overruns Classic’s fourth and keeps going, into Classic’s third and natural. Classic, with two bases to Great’s eleven and no army to speak of, leaves the game.

By nbaker

Zero spawns at 11 o’clock and Ruby spawns at 5. Zero does some clever metagaming and, knowing that Terran is 0-2 vs Zerg on the map and have gone 14 cc in both games, decides to send a 9 drone scout. The drone would see any proxy barracks and arrive at Ruby’s main base in time to allow him to put a 3rd hatchery up before his spawning pool. Ruby chooses the standard approach, building a barracks before his command center, which is equally safe for 3 hatch before pool on Monte Cristo, so Zero is able to win a slight economic edge in the early game. Ruby builds an engineering bay after his second barracks to research an early +1 attack. Zero’s extra drones from his early hatchery allow him to expand to his third at 7 o’clock without delaying his mutalisks, which he sends to Ruby’s natural. Ruby’s +1 marines do well against Zero’s mutas, but he pulls them out to far and Zero is able to run a few zerglings plus his mutas into Ruby’s natural and kill off several reinforcing marines and carve a path into Ruby’s main mineral line.


In modern TvZ fashion, Ruby positioned his turrets around his main rather than tightly at his minerals, leaving Zero wide open to kill off scvs until Ruby can get his main army back, at which point Zero simply exits without sustaining casualties to his air force. Meanwhile, Zero has been droning up and teching to lurkers and, with Ruby’s army pinned back, can safely transfer a bunch of drones to his third. Zero burrows five lurkers with mutalisk and zergling support between Ruby and his third, while sending more lurkers and zerglings to the other side of Ruby’s natural in hopes of landing a big flank that will protect his fourth base. Ruby, however, does not take the bait, choosing not to chase Zero’s army as it falls back. Zero tries to backstab with his flanking force anyways, but Ruby is in position and forces it back with tanks and vessels, killing off many of the lurkers in the process.


Zero is not afforded the luxury of killing off Ruby’s army, but his strategy works nonetheless; Ruby is delayed from attacking long enough for Zero to start his fourth and get his defilers out. Ruby pushes through the upper lane, but backs off when Zero casts dark swarm over burrowed lurkers. He tries attacking via the lower lane, and finds defilers and lurkers in position there as well.


With no science vessel present, Zero postures to be aggressive in the lower lane, putting up a dark swarm just outside of Ruby’s natural, but mines from Ruby prevent him from getting his lurkers under it. The mines backfire somewhat, as Zero detonates them on some marines, using individual zerglings under the swarms, but ultimately Ruby’s defenses hold. Ruby, meanwhile, uses this temporary stalemate to expand to 3 o’clock. Zero starts his ultralisk mound and takes his fifth base to the left of the center, securing it with lurkers and swarms while also taking advantage of clearing out the center by starting to chip down the destructible temples, which will free up another lane for him to flank and defend his fifth. Ruby puts a halt to this with his science vessels and expands to 1 o’clock, while actively using his vessel to irradiate all the gas units he can find. Zero gets his first control group of ultras out and tries to break Ruby, attacking down from his side of the map into Ruby’s natural. He manages to kill off a lot of units, but doesn’t hurt Ruby’s infrastructure as his ultras quickly succumb to irradiates and tanks. Zero manages to plague a squad of medic marines, but Ruby nicely micros his medics to block the marines and keeps most of them alive.


Zero follows up the attack by dropping drones at both 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock, looking to pull far ahead economically by going up 7 bases to 4. Figuring he should make further use out of his investment in drop tech, Zero loads up several overlords full of ultras and zerglings and defilers and attempts a drop in Ruby’s main. Ruby predicts Zero’s play and builds a turret wall facing 12 o’clock, but Zero still manages to get some units down. They are cleaned up without dealing too much damage, but Ruby does lose several neglected supply depots, which sets back his production until he can rebuild them.


Zero stays aggressive, attacking from the upper lane into Ruby’s 3 o’clock base, killing off most of the barracks units there with great defiler usage before his attack his halted by tanks. Zero, who is up 3 bases on Ruby, doesn’t need to kill off the Terran’s bases. By picking off the infantry units, Zero is preventing Ruby from doing anything but defend at a time when he needs to be attacking to keep up in the game.


Ruby’s solution to this problem is to build another command center and a nuclear silo, hoping that by nuking Zero’s expansions he can reduce the Zerg player’s economic edge without map control. He sends his first nuke to Zero’s 12 o’clock base, but Zero predicts it and sends his drones through the nidas canal before the nuke hits and loses virtually nothing from the attack.


Zero also plays very cleverly in the middle of the map, once more burrowing his lurkers near the destructible temples. Ruby takes the bait and moves his science vessels to irradiate them, but Zero has a flock of scourge positioned nearby and takes out several vessels for free, severely limiting Ruby’s ability to get back in the game by irradiating his gas units.


Ruby re-nukes 12 o’clock, but Zero once more is able to transfer is drones before the nuke hits. The hatchery is killed, but Zero’s drones are able to mine happily at his fifth while he re-expands to 12. Ruby manages to land another nuke and kill off Zero’s nidas canal before he can re-transfer is drones, but Ruby loses almost his whole army once more as Zero attacks into the space between Ruby’s natural and third, killing off most of the Terran’s tanks and marines. Ruby is starved for minerals and is forced to distance mine from his fifth while he waits for his command center to finish building. Zero mounts another attack between Ruby’s natural and third and once more takes down the spine of Ruby’s army, leaving only defensively positioned tanks.


At this point, Zero smells blood in the water and starts mass producing ultras and zerglings from all his hatcheries, streaming them into Ruby’s third and natural without worrying about positioning or defilers. Ruby manages to kill off wave after wave, but Zero’s production is infinitely more than he can handle and eventually all his defenses fall, leaving the Terran no choice but to GG.

By conTAgi0n


After having lost to him in the first game of the night, firebathero faces off against his old teammate Stork once again in the final match of Group E. The map is La Mancha and the two players spawn in cross-positions, FBH in the upper left as the blue terran and Stork in the bottom right as the purple protoss.

firebathero goes for a rax FE build while Stork opens 12 nexus. Both scout the upper right location first, probe and SCV entering the natural choke at the same time. FBH’s SCV turns around to head straight for Stork’s base as soon as he sees the probe, putting his scouting a good 20 seconds ahead of Stork’s, whose probe takes the time to check the upper right location before sending his probe in the correct direction.

The SCV enters Stork’s base to see the 12 nexus and core timing, but misses the very fast forge Stork places in his natural to get an early start on plus one attack. Stork’s probe sees only the barracks and natural cc before taking a wrong turn and getting gunned down by FBH’s first two marines.

Stork gets his robotics facility before dragoon range for fast observers. firebathero puts down two factories with machine shops to research both vulture upgrades simultaneously. When they complete he boldly tries running two vultures straight past Stork’s forces guarding his choke while two of the five dragoons are out of position chasing a scouting SCV. One of the vultures makes it through, snagging a couple probe kills and laying down mines in Stork’s main. Getting a little bit sloppy, Stork loses a dragoon and zealot to mines while cleaning up the vulture.


Stork narrows off his choke with pylons to help prevent any further vulture shenanigans and moves out with his first observer and the bulk of his dragoon force to apply some pressure, leaving four back at home to block any more vultures from getting in.

firebathero, however, is not about to give up on vulture run bys just yet. Sneaking four vultures into position above Stork’s natural, he waits for Stork to pull two more goons from his choke to clear some mines and goes for it once they stray just a little too far.


Mines kill one of the defending goons and force the other out of position, and the two surviving vultures pick off another seven or eight probes before Stork’s dragoons show up. At the same time he manages to snipe Stork’s probe at the 6 o’clock before it can lay down Stork’s third.

FBH builds a command center in his main to float out to his third behind his vulture aggression and Stork starts his third while teching to arbiters. Stork’s third is up and running just a hair behind firebathero’s. FBH sacs a pack of vultures to kill another batch of probes at Stork’s new third.

Perhaps feeling a little to sure of himself after such a comfortable start to the game, FBH pushes out to set up an aggressive position on the southwest center ridge. Stork waits just long enough to gather his forces in the open space south of the southeastern ridge and attacks while FBH is still sieging up. The cards are all stacked against FBH: he has no detection on the ridge but scans to deal with Stork’s first arbiter, he’s lost a lot of vultures harassing while Stork has conserved almost every military unit he’s made so far, and Stork has a slight upgrade advantage at 1-1 to 1-0 for FBH.


The predictable result is a clean route for Stork of an army that would have been perfectly adequate for defending the advantage that FBH had managed to accrue in the early game. Stork sets up a fourth at the bottom left main, blocking some more attempted vulture harass with a tighter wall-in on the ramp.

After replenishing some of his tank count, FBH pushes out again to establish a more modest position on the northwest center ridge closer to his corner of the map and starts a ninja expo at the upper right main.

Stork gathers together his army after marching around the map clearing mines south of FBH’s tank line. He stasises a clump of vultures and a vessel to the south of the tank line at the cost of an arbiter and marches his army counterclockwise around the center of the map to attack from a better angle.

With his plus 2 attack finished, Stork’s superior army crashes against a still modest tank line that is completely undefended, all FBH’s vultures either still frozen or simply out of position. With good storms and another stasis, Stork kills all the tanks there and then easily handles FBH’s scrambled reinforcements. FBH’s late science vessels cost him again in this battle, as he had no EMPs ready to support his army with.


Stork expands to the 3 o’clock and then finds the hidden expo in the upper right. He shuts it down with an archon and a few zealots and takes another expansion at the bottom left natural. FBH’s expo at the upper right main had been running for long enough to be mildly profitable and he already has a new command center floating down to the more easily defendable 9 o’clock.

FBH again sets up on the northwest ridge and Stork picks another fight, this time engaging from the south. FBH is better prepared for this fight, his tanks sieged up on the high ground and his supporting units up in front, but Stork wins again easily with some more nice stasis and storm usage.

Stork follows up with an attack on the 9 o’clock. After three major engagements however, Stork’s main army is looking a little frayed and the attack fails to do much damage to FBH’s entrenched position besides catching a few SCVs with storms.


The action dies down for a bit as FBH contents himself with defending the open space outside his natural while macroing up a new army. Stork’s remaining army makes another sweep around the middle of the map clearing mines.

Despite the blows he has taken, firebathero has the economy to rebuild, and now at 3-3 upgrades is looking formidable again. After bringing his army back around the center over the northeastern ridge, Stork wisely backs off without engaging as soon as FBH to sieges up.

Stork expands to the upper right main and brings his army back down to the southwestern ridge to clear some newly placed mines. FBH takes this opportunity to push to the northeastern ridge. As he does Stork’s army comes back around to engage.


Stork lands a couple good stasises but firebathero also catches a lot of dragoons with EMP. This time FBH comes out with the upper hand after trading armies, barely finishing the last of Stork’s army with reinforcements while a small army waits to come out of stasis. He maynards SCVs to the upper right natural expansion and lays siege to Stork’s 3 o’clock from outside the wider entrance to the base with his tanks.

I can only imagine that FBH was still in the dark about Stork’s much more vulnerable base in the upper right main at this point. Stork had no way to defend there while FBH held the natural. Shutting down that base would have left Stork at three mining bases while FBH sat on two in a good position to take a third.

Instead though firebathero once again pays the price for being unnecessarily aggressive. Stork’s zealot-heavy wave of reinforcements reaches the tanks before vultures arrive. Protoss units are at an advantage in these smaller encounters and there are no vessels around to help against Stork’s arbiter. When stork sieges his next set of tanks outside his own expansion at the upper right natural, Stork easily sweeps them with his rapidly expanding army and kills FBH’s base there.


firebathero has no army left and has only one base still mining against Stork’s four. Once the hopelessness of his situation sinks in, FBH ggs without dragging it out any longer.

By ]343[

Fantasy's command center lands in yellow at 11, while Soulkey spawns in red at 8 on Dante's Peak SE. These two have had quite some history--last time they met in the group stage of the PDPop MSL, Soulkey thoroughly outplayed the Crown Prince; Soulkey even consumed some ultralisks in response to Fantasy's notoriously bad GG timing.

Dante's Peak was originally a Zerg heaven, but the balance of the revised map is still up in the air. Fantasy might've still thought there was the Zerg slant though as he forward 8raxed about 1/3 of the way down the map. Soulkey presciently opened with an overpool expand, and his first overlord doesn't see a barracks in Fantasy's main or an expansion. His lings head out, and Fantasy ends up being the one defending despite his early barracks.

After Fantasy takes his gas and floats his barracks home, he plops down two factories. Soulkey is unaware, but begins a 3rd hatchery in main and a sunken at the nat before morphing lair. Fantasy's scout sees it all, and notices a morphing hydra den to simcity. Fantasy upgrades speed while pumping vultures, hoping to do some economic damage; Soulkey sees the vultures and uses his spire and evo chamber to simcity as well. Fantasy, with map control, expands and build two scanners and an engineering bay.

Soulkey's muta micro manages to snipe quite a few SCVs at the natural before being driven off by four goliaths, and he takes a 3rd. Overlords move into position to spot mines. The mutas delve into the main for a tour, but get no shots off as a number of charon-boostered goliaths drive them off. Fantasy's mines and vultures are rendered remarkably ineffective as hydras block the ramps to Soulkey's 3rd and mutas roam around sniping vultures. Fantasy contents himself with a 3rd, and later 4th and 5th factories and science facility while defending from mutalisks. Soulkey expands again.

Fantasy goes about mining up the map, while Soulkey's hydras and mutas chase afterward to defuse them. Soulkey has 3 evolution chambers and takes a 5th, and takes some minor (miner! get it?... -.- damage to his hydra count as he defends from vultures. Fantasy pushes out enough to secure his 3rd base, but suddenly a herd of overlords is spotted moving into Fantasy's main!


The doom drop is held off, but it's really a feint! Soulkey attacks with muta/hydra into Fantasy's defensive line at his 3rd, doing some decent damage, but then all the hydras die to mines.


Both sides are content to nurse their wounds and macro up, continuing to play the endless I mine up / you kill mines game. But as Fantasy starts floating to his 4th, the observer finds...


Queens! Fantasy moves his tank line east, but Soulkey attacks at the west end with his hydras, forcing Fantasy to return to defend his 3rd. After some more hydra-vulture tango and macroing, Soulkey denies Fantasy's 5th with zerglings and attacks into the tank line at Fantasy's 3rd again, losing all his hydralisks.


Fantasy takes this opportunity to push; Soulkey tries to distract Fantasy by sniping his 4th, but Fantasy pushes anyway and destroys all the tech in Soulkey's natural and main. Soulkey chips away at the tank force with broodlings and hydras, but doesn't manage to do much damage.


At this point, Soulkey looks dead; despite having 4 bases, Fantasy's army is far larger, and SK has to rebuild his tech.


But a group of lings and an ultralisk stop mining at one of Fantasy's two mining bases at 1 and denies the expansion at 2 yet again; Fantasy takes 12 in response and pushes toward Soulkey's remaining bases. Soulkey's defilers get sniped, Fantasy takes out Soulkey's 4th mining base, and Fantasy moves into position with a huge tank force...


Soulkey attacks with queens, a defiler, ultralisk drops, and zerglings. Suddenly two-thirds of the tanks disappear!


Fantasy is not worried, however--his 4th mining base is up. He is content to just sit and macro up another metal death ball. Soulkey pokes into 1 with some hydra/ling but is repelled; but he's not so far behind anymore as he takes three bases simultaneously, taking advantage of Fantasy's passiveness.

Soulkey continues to threaten Fantasy's tanks with spawn broodling and hydras; Fantasy tries to EMP the queens with limited success. Fantasy finally does something after a few minutes, using his signature vulture harass to do a bit of economic damage,but Soulkey deftly defends. Fantasy moves a few tanks forward to siege what should be his next base at 9, but Soulkey holds him off; Fantasy takes inner 1.5 instead, desperate for another mining base.

Fantasy's next push toward Soulkey's base at 3 is obliterated by broodlings and ultralisk drops, while all his vessels are scourged. Soulkey has control of the game now.


Fantasy continues to attack 9, but Soulkey's swarms, hydras, and ultras defend. Soulkey suddenly counter-attacks with a large number of ultralisks, having thinned the tank numbers with queens, and infests the CC at inner 1.5! Fantasy retaliates by finally destroying the hatchery at 9.


He moves to re-secure inner 1.5 with a freshly produced horde of mechanical units, but Soulkey attacks again with ultralisk drops and swarms to push the tank line back. But Fantasy manages to hold inner 1.5 and take control of 9 again, sieging part of the mineral line at 8.


But a beautifully executed attack by Soulkey from the center demolishes Fantasy's neat mass of tanks, breaking into Fantasy's last mining base at 2 and stopping mining. Fantasy takes 9 in an effort to stay in the game, but Soulkey's 7-kill queen and mass of ultralisks and hydralisks breaks down the tanks at 2.


Soulkey's coup de grace begins, fittingly, with queens, and ends with Fantasy's last base covered with swarms and ultralisks.

The games will all be epic, macrofests that would make iloveoov proud. However, 20 minutes into each game...

Flash and Bisu to get through

+ Show Spoiler +

Sea < Jaedong
La Mancha is imbalanced, but that will just make Jaedong practice harder. I wouldn't be surprised if Jaedong goes for some kind of speedling pressure, which Sea is traditionally weak against and ends things in the early game. Either way, Jaedong is too good to lose to Sea when it means going down a game in a group with Flash and Bisu.

Flash > Bisu
Say what you will about WL finals, Flash is better than Bisu. It's hard to say how Monte Cristo will work as PvT map, but the fact that there are only two big lanes to attack through and the abundance of terrain bodes well for Flash's conservative TvP style. Bisu's only hope is to pull off some very creative early game aggression, but Flash will be expecting this after WL and, while both players are excellent match preparers, should be able to hold anything off. Expect Flash to split the map and wait for Bisu to charge his dragoons into a tank line.

Flash > Jaedong
Jaedong's an amazing player, but Flash is better. He's proven this over and over again in the past year and he will prove it again in game 3. However, if there is a map that Jaedong can beat Flash on, it's Circuit Breakers. JD is 5-1 vs Terran on the map and 10-2 overall. The double bridges outside each natural and big map fit well with Jaedong's hive tech play. Moreover, Flash might be practicing more for TvT given the imbalance of La Mancha. In spite of all of this, Flash is going to win. He's going to 14 cc blindly, magically scan Jaedong's stopped lurkers, drop all over the map, and macro until he wins. We've seen Flash do it before, and he's going to do it again here.

Bisu > Sea
This one's tough to call. Circuit Breaker is a pretty good map TvP and Sea has always been solid in that match. Bisu, meanwhile, has not, but he has been doing well this season. Circuit Breakers is unquestionably an arbiter map, which Bisu is much stronger with than carriers. In the end, the fact is that Bisu is playing hotter than Sea right now and should be able to win if his multi-tasking is up to par by recalling everywhere and expanding all over the map.

Bisu < Jaedong
Jaedong has learned his lesson. He's not going to go mass mutalisks against Bisu's zealot corsair build again. Jaedong hates losing and he lost a humiliating game to Bisu which kept his team out of the WL finals. He's going to be playing his hardest and, with his skill and the fact that Dante's Peak SE is 18-8 ZvP, that should be more than enough to advance him to the ro16.

Jaedong < La Mancha > Sea
Sea’s TvZ is undeniably solid, especially his bio into mech play, but he’s clearly the underdog against Jaedong. Furthermore, Sea is less likely to pull an upset here than in proleague, as Jaedong seems to gain a lot more from pressure and preparation than he does. The map favors Sea, but T>Z maps seem to be par for the course for Jaedong.

Flash < Monte Cristo > Bisu
I can’t decide if it’s too easy to overestimate or underestimate Bisu in this match. Bisu sniped Flash in the SWL finals with a build tailored specifically to Flash on Aztec, not by showing himself capable of outplaying Flash’s TvP. At the same time, Bisu’s PvT is stronger than he gets credit for, and with his strong execution he is more than capable of taking a game off Flash with a well-crafted strategy. I think the largely untested Monte Cristo will help Bisu with this, so I will predict an upset in this match.

Jaedong < Circuit Breaker > Bisu
I predict another upset and make no mistake, Jaedong > Bisu would be an upset. Jaedong on his A game can go toe-to-toe with Bisu, and after his resounding defeat in their last encounter, I expect Jaedong will have prepared himself thoroughly for the Revolutionist’s newest tricks. If Flash beats Bisu though, he’ll go 2-0 regardless of whom he faces in this match.

Sea < Circuit Breaker > Flash
By far the closest thing to a safe bet in this group. Ssak and Classic fluked wins against him last time, but Flash won’t make the mistake of underestimating his opponents in this group.

Flash < Dante’s Peak > Bisu
I think Bisu can upset Flash once, but I don’t think he can pull it off twice. Flash is the stronger player in this matchup and when it comes down to it, he’ll pull through. If Flash faces Jaedong in this match instead, the match will be closer but the outcome will be the same.