The good news for Terran players:JinAir_Maruadvanced!
The bad news for Terran players: It was a struggle all the way.
Maru started his night off by getting dominated by SKT_Classic, who put on a solid defensive performance and fended off all of Maru's relentless attacks. Once Maru's ghostless style rant out of steam, it was all too easy for the SKT Protoss to sweep up the pieces with his templar backed armies. Classic had little trouble taking out CJ_Hydra in the proceeding match, able to strike just before Hydra was able to establish a turtling position with swarm hosts and brood lords.
Despite a discouraging loss to Classic in his first match, Maru was able to take a 2-1 victory against Symbol to earn a shot at second place against Hydra.
Maru barely escaped elimination at the hands of Hydra in the final series, dropping game one and very nearly losing game two to a big muta-ling attack as he attempted to take his third base. Despite going down forty supply, Maru was able to rally back in an intense back and forth game tie the series 1-1. With everything coming down to just one final game, Maru did not hesitate to pull out his trademark two-rax all-in card. The risk ended up being well worth it as Maru easily finished Hydra off to advance to the Ro16.
Ro32 Group G: Dark, Dear, Life, Yonghwa
Countdown:
by Waxangel
The high level of play in Code S means that every group is going to be unpredictable and that ever player has a chance to win. However, this is the group that truly deserves to be called the group of chaos. Here we have gathered four players who are either inconsistent, heavily shrouded, or a combination of both.
Let's begin with the player who is mysterious because we know so little about him. SKT_Dark was once a SlayerS player who showed us a few good games in the GSTL and NASL, after which he got signed to SKT as a practice partner. He was invisible for nearly of 2013 until December when he finally broke out, fighting his way to Code S and earning a spot on SKT's Proleague roster.
That said, he got through what was arguably the easiest Challenger League group (Pet, Dark, Rogue, Seed) where he played entirely ZvZ's. So while he'll probably be even or better against Life, we can't really say much about his other match-ups. He's yet to earn a start for SKT in the Proleague, but that hardly means anything when Soulkey and soO are starting ahead of him. For what it's worth, Dark did have a nice run in the IEM Sao Paulo qualifiers. Whatever level of play Dark shows in his Code S debut, we wouldn't be surprised.
Dark's opponent will be mouz.Dear, the player in Group G who had by far the best year in 2013. It bears saying this over and over: Dear's back to back wins in Code S and the WCS Season 3 Finals were an insane achievement. We have absolutely no qualms calling him the best Protoss of 2013.
2014 however... We've seen players affected by a move to an international team in a variety of ways. Some like INnoVation and MC declined slightly from their peaks but still retained championship form. Others like Jaedong and TaeJa had their best results with international teams. In Dear's case, it seems like joining mousesports has stripped him of his soul. His second place finish at ASUS ROG Winter was one of the most deceptive tournaments runs ever, as he made mistake after sloppy mistake in disappointing games. Those mistakes went punished at IEM Cologne where he was eliminated in the Ro16 by jjakji.
That's not to say Dear is finished. He might just have been in dreadful physical condition before or been suffering from a mental lapse after successfully signing with a foreign team. Almost all players go through ups and downs. You can't expect every strategic trend to work in favor of a player, or for them to be able to maintain full concentration every single month of the year. It's the guys like Soulkey who are weird. However, there's no doubt that Dear's recent play has been very worrisome, and we're not convinced that he will have recovered his form just in time for this group.
This is the perfect time to bring upST_Life, another player in this group who once won consecutive tourneys and was considered the best player in the world. Life is the cautionary tale for Dear. He's who Dear will become if he can't get out of this funk: A once great player who has settled at being 'pretty good' for over a year.
Life hasn't got any worse since he won three championships in 2012. It's just that other players have improved faster than him. Life's ling micro was once unparalleled, and opponents simply could not keep up with his constant runbys. While Life's play hasn't exactly become commonplace, it's just not anywhere near as special as before.
Unlike Dear, we have more reason to believe this is who Life is going to be for the rest of his career. Like any once-great player, he occasionally shows glimpses of his old form. Hell, he even won IEM New York. But even so, we know he's not the dominant force he was before. And we definitely know he's a player who can drop out in the Ro32.
Finally, we have this group's greatest enigma in IM_YongHwa. We're on year four of calling Yonghwa a talented player who suffers from a terrible individual tournament jinx. While it's a little depressing to see Yonghwa fail to make it beyond the Ro32 of Code S for this long, the silver lining is that he technically has been making progress. Though that the speed of progress has been so slow as to be almost imperceptable, Yonghwa has moved up from being stuck in Code B to being stuck in the Code S Ro32.
For all of Yonghwa's stagnation in individual leagues, he's always been a crucial part of IM's line-up in team leagues and is no stranger to scoring all-kills against far more accomplished players. With Protoss being the strongest it has ever been, this is a prime opportunity for Yonghwa to make another break through and reach the Ro16. It's almost as if the universe knows this and has finally decided to help him out for once: the balance patch won't go live until after his group is played out.
Overall thoughts and predictions
You know, we could have set up a channel called "TwitchPlaysTeamLiquidPredictions" and got a reasonable prediction for this group. Every guy in this group has the ability to "PLAY LIKE A GOD TASTELESS!" or just flop miserably. Literally no outcome would surprise us. Ah well, let's give it a shot.
Dark > Dear Yonghwa > Life Yonghwa > Dark Dear > Life Dark > Dear
This is so hard to predict. I would like seeing Life advance of course but I don't feel confident in his ZvP. Dear SHOULD be the favorite but he has been struggling. I'm still hoping for Yonghwa to really break out in an individual event. Dark is the wild card. Word on the street is his is incredibly skilled. Solar even said that he thinks Dark is #1 KR GM right now.
I'll predict Life/Dark but I wouldn't be surprised to see it go another way. I would be pretty happy with almost every result but this is the one that would make me the happiest.
On February 26 2014 11:34 Redrot wrote: Bullshit. Life is still a very good player, and I expect him to go out first unless Dear magically hits his top form again.
On February 26 2014 11:34 Redrot wrote: Bullshit. Life is still a very good player, and I expect him to go out first unless Dear magically hits his top form again.
You don't have to be a bad player to not make it through.
- Life is at ~ 23.41 % chances for top 16 points of Season 1 ~ 50.15 % of the time Life wins and their chances go up to ~ 46.69 %. ~ 49.85 % of the time Life loses and their chances go down to ~ 0.00 %. ------------------------------------------------- - YongHwa is at ~ 10.76 % chances for top 16 points of Season 1 ~ 56.17 % of the time YongHwa wins and their chances go up to ~ 19.16 %. ~ 43.83 % of the time YongHwa loses and their chances go down to ~ 0.00 %. ------------------------------------------------- - Dark is at ~ 2.13 % chances for top 16 points of Season 1 ~ 28.11 % of the time Dark wins and their chances go up to ~ 7.59 %. ~ 71.89 % of the time Dark loses and their chances go down to ~ 0.00 %. ------------------------------------------------- - Dear is at ~ 83.40 % chances for top 16 points of Season 1 ~ 65.57 % of the time Dear wins and their chances go up to ~ 98.82 %. ~ 34.43 % of the time Dear loses and their chances go down to ~ 54.04 %.
Both Life and Dear have looked disastrous lately but i would still count them over Yongwa or Dark. Pretty fickle group indeed, no outcome would surprise me.
On February 26 2014 14:40 JunkkaGom wrote: Interested in prediction? Come watch new show made by GOM,You Bet!
Thanks for the link, Translator John! One thing I have to say is that it'd be helpful to specify what is meant when Dark is said to have only played 7 matches in his career. Is that like, 7 matches in GSL, or I dunno? 'Cause his official tournament matches are much greater in number
On February 26 2014 14:40 JunkkaGom wrote: Interested in prediction? Come watch new show made by GOM,You Bet!
Thanks for the link, Translator John! One thing I have to say is that it'd be helpful to specify what is meant when Dark is said to have only played 7 matches in his career. Is that like, 7 matches in GSL, or I dunno? 'Cause his official tournament matches are much greater in number
Yeah I think it's 7 matches in GSL. Thanks for pointing it out
Life needs to find his own style again Hoping this new patch with buffs to hydras will be an opportunity for him to find a playstyle that fits him. He invented hydras in ZvP, so maybe he can bring them back again after they disappeared with him.
I think this group will be decided on who decides to show less terrible play. My bets are on that all four will show average and boring games.
Life is pretty damn good in ZvP despite P having the upper hand in every matchup. So i say.. Dear>Dark Life>Yonghwa Life>Dear Yonghwa>Dark Dear>Yonghwa
Well, i guess if the nerves don't get to him, it is more than possible that Dark will advance. Let's hope his ZvP is good. I really don't want to see another protoss advance.
Life hasn't got any worse since he won three championships in 2012. It's just that other players have improved faster than him. Life's ling micro was once unparalleled, and opponents simply could not keep up with his constant runbys. While Life's play hasn't exactly become commonplace, it's just not anywhere near as special as before.
Wouldn't say that, tbh. I just think right now, the passive Zerg style is really strong, while being aggressive seems... bad in ZvP. Life still tries to make it happen, but it doesn't work anymore.
Has anyone made a video clip somewhere of that epic TERRRRAAAAAAAAANNN!!!!! victory scream of Tasteless after Maru-Hydra game two? Please please somebody make it! I don't have access to the VODs. That was such a fun and awesome moment!
The players that I expected to make it trough did make it trough, but not in the order I thought they would, regardless I'm very happy, I get to see more of Life!