We've got ourselves quite a playday today, as both the Dual Tournament and the Survivor Tournament will hit on the same day. In fact, both MBC and OGN are slated to show two games each at the 6:30 PM korea time slot. It's going to be a somewhat ugly experience for fans who want to watch both leagues take place.
Well in any case, let's take a look at tonight's games.
Let's take a look at Survivor first, since we already saw the first ODT games last night. The format will be a mini double elimination bracket with the top two finishers advancing to MSL.
Group A:
April 5th - 6:30 Korean
@ Longinus 2
Even though Pusan made a somewhat unconvincing and bland showing agianst UpMagic yesterday, he did manage to play decently. And he is still Pusan, while pepe is well, still pepe. Pusan won't have to practice a different matchup or a different map for this one, and pepe certainly won't be able to match the level of play UpMagic showed yesterday. I shouldn't get too much opposition when I say Pusan is heavily favored to take this one.
@ Longinus 2
Alright, so we have on one hand a guy who went 2-0 during Superfight 5 against Savior and Jaedong, and a guy who went 0-3 in two Starleagues on the other. On top of this, we have a map that was griped about constantly by zerg players regarding the ZvT matchup. Do we really even have to discuss this?
So if things go as expected, we will have ourselves a nice matchup between Iloveoov and Pusan. From what I understand, Blitz is a map favoring Terran over Protoss. Add to that the way in which Oov is playing currently, the way he showed terrain abuse during the Preliminaries, as well as the manner in which Pusan died to UpMagic yesterday on a map with somewhat comparable ramp structures, and we come up with the conclusion that Oov is going to be favored here. However, I don't think we've seen a TvP from Oov yet, and Pusan will be playing the same matchup 3 times in a row and should be pretty sharp in controlling his units. Let's hope that this match happens tonight.
It's probably going to be Child vs Pepe, so the real question is, "Does anyone care what happens here?"
Here, it's most likely going to be Pusan/Oov vs Child/Pepe. Well, if the round 1 matches repeat, then there's no reason to think that the results will change, as RLT is known to be T>Z and P>T. If instead we see a Oov vs Pepe or Pusan vs Child, well let's just say that Pepe or Child are still going to be underdogs here.
Well that's it for Survivor; let's move on to ODT.
We once again have ourselves four bo3's tonight. The marquee names will be playing in the evening, while the lesser players will be seen in the afternoon. It is somewhat frustrating that it is the better players' games that will be conflicting with the survivor games.
ODT Week 1-2
(April 5th)
1pm Korean
First set: Neo Arkanoid
Second set: Hitchhiker
Third set: Longinus 2
An epic matchup between the destroyer of KTF's proleague record and a Lacaf Terran whose record even Child would cringe at. I'm more interested to find out whether anyone's going to watch this, rather than the results themselves. In any case, if Dongrae manages to win in convincing fashion, I'll be willing to believe that he's improved significantly over the last 4-5 months.
First set: Longinus 2
Second set: Neo Arkanoid
Third set: Hitchhiker
The more familiar player to our ears has to be Jy, as he has been playing in both the major and minor leagues this past year. Looking at his most recent vs Terran matchups though, he has lost to Hiya, Nada, Hwasin, while defeating Yooi. His opponent Lomo is largely unknown to us. However, the evidence we do have is that he defeated Clon, Magma and Jju, who are all skilled zergs. The win over Jju in particular makes it difficult to predict the results of this match. Jy may have to try to take the first 2 maps if he is to win, since Longinus II is a playground for Terran unless the Zerg excels at defiler play.
6:30pm Korean
First set: Hitchhiker
Second set: Neo Arkanoid
Third set: Longinus 2
A top level terran's worst matchup (Light) goes up against a lesser terran's best matchup (Shine). Shine got possibly the best opponent he could have hoped for in Light, and will have a good chance to advance. Meanwhile, this is the ideal challenge for Light to see if he has what it takes to potentially join the upper echelon of terrans. He's not going to be able to get away with a weak TvT forever.
First set: Neo Arkanoid
Second set: Longinus 2
Third set: Hitchhiker
Is it just me or does July look like a Godzilla-like monster in that pic? Ah sorry, back to discussing the matchup itself. July has historically had a strong ZvZ, but his recent shaky form in all matchups prevents me from unequivocally proclaiming him as the favorite. Well actually he is still the favorite, winning mirrors against Jy, Child, and GGplay in Shinhan 3 groupstages. But believe it or not Silver has a decent record in the mirror matchup, just about splitting his games vs Yarnc, beating Jju, and taking a game off of Savior in the Pringles 2 finals. The questions that'll start to be answered in this matchup are (1) "what is July's current form?" and (2) "does Silver have what it takes to get to the next level?".
For those of you debating whether to watch Survivor or ODT, my suggestion is to tune into the Light vs Shine game, then move onto the Survivor games. The first Survivor games should be walkovers, and there's no real reason to watch unless you want to see Pusan/Oov winning in simple fashion. On the other hand, the Light vs Shine game should be a well-contested match that could answer some questions about either player's future in progaming.
Happy viewing!