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Savior, the defending champion, thinking about new ways to make ZvP look imbalanced at the group drawing ceremony
The first Pringles MSL edition ended with Savior winning 3-1 over Nal_rA, whose count of major titles is now 2! It was the third Zerg championship title in a row, which may sound a bit surprising, because except for Nal_rA winning once, all the previous KPGA and MSL titles had been claimed by Terrans. After all it is here that the two legendary Terrans NaDa and iloveoov made their biggest impact.
Let me introduce you to everything you need to know about this upcoming MSL. The system itself has not changed since last season, so you may look it up in one of TLnet's earlier newsposts.
From left to right, top row: BoxeR, Midas, Kingdom, Chojja, Jju, Shark, NaDa, Terato
bottom row: Silver, Nal_rA, Savior, XellOs, DaezanG, YellOw[Name], Pusan, Bifrost
The Players
The four best players of last season were automatically qualified (they are also seeded each into one group):
- 1st - Savior (Z)
- 2nd - Nal_rA (P)
- 3rd - Midas (T)
- 4th - Kingdom (P)
- BoxeR (T)
- Chojja (Z)
- NaDa (T)
- XellOs (T)
- JJu (Z)
- SiLvEr (Z)
- TerAtO (P)
- PuSan (P)
- YellOw[Name] (Z)
- DaezanG (P)
- Bifrost (T)
- Shark (Z)
As one can see the result is a pretty even race distribution witch five Terran, five Protoss and six Zerg players. Lets just hope the racial balance lives up to its expectations for once.
The team distribution looks like this:
- SKTelecom T1: 3
- OGN Sparkyz: 3
- MBC Hero: 2
- KTF MagicNs: 2
- CJ Entus: 2
- Pantech Ex: 2
- Samsun KHAN: 1
- Hanbit Stars: 1
- Lecaf Oz: 0
- STX-SouL: 0
- eNature Top: 0
I'm a happy Zergling, kekeke ^_^
The Groups
Like always, MBCGame held a group selection ceremony, for pictures of it, look here:
The groups were drawn and then some players were switched around following a system, which Live2win explained last season in this WGT news post.
This is what the final groups look like:
- Group A: Savior vs. Terato, Yellow[name] vs. Bifrost
- Group B: Nal_rA vs. Boxer, Silver vs. Pusan
- Group C: Midas vs. Jju, Daezang vs. Chojja
- Group D: Kingdom vs. Nada, Xellos vs. Shark
'Oh God, I need to get out of here'
The Maps
As usual the map pool consists of a mix of maps from previous seasons, as well as new maps.
We know Arcadia alread, since it has been used last season. Blitz and Longinus are completely new maps and the fourth map - New Peaks of Beakdu - is on loan from OGN, where it's former version was used last season.
The map pack, with Melee versions, Observer versions and Training versions, as well as the pictures can be downloaded here.
The Opening Matches - Week 1 and 2
Week 1 - August 24th
- Savior (Z/CJ) vs. Terato (P/OGN) @ Longinus
- Yellow[Name] (Z/OGN) vs. Bifrost (T/OGN) @ New Peaks of Baekdu
- Nal_rA (P/KTF) vs. BoxeR (T/SKT) @ Blitz
- Silver (Z/Pantech) vs. Pusan (P/MBCgame) @ Arcadia
Week 2 - August 31st
- Midas (T/SKT) vs. Jju (Z/Samsung) @ New Peaks of Baekdu
- Daezang (P/Hanbit) vs. Chojja (Z/KTF) @ Blitz
- Kingdom (P/SKT) vs. NaDa (T/Pantech) @ Arcadia
- XellOs (T/CJ) vs. Shark (Z/MBCgame) @ Longinus
XellOs shoing an emotion? I don't believe it!
Personal notes of mine
In no more than two days we will now witness what may become the start of Boxer's last Starleague ever. As everyone should know by now, he will start his mandatory service in the Korean army in September and since he has not been able to qualify for the OSL, MSL is all that is left. I really, really hope he can display something special. The
What's also interesting to see, is that iloveoov for the first time ever did not qualify for the MSL. But not only that, he also failed to get into OSL, while NaDa, who was absent for so long over there, is now back.
Looking at the first round matches I must say that I am very exited. Much more exited than I could possibly be about the upcoming OSL. It's just the beginning and so many classics -know ones, as well as potential ones- are already coming up: Boxer vs. Nal_rA, the duel of the strategic masterminds, NaDa vs. Kingdom, Midas vs. Jju, two extremely hungry players, XellOs vs. Shark, wow. And it goes on. This will be interesting.
Credits
Thanks to Live2win, HonestTea and many more for the original input.
Let the games begin.
This tournament is shaping up to be the most entertaining of all the new ones. 
