Impact in ZvZ vs Koreans: 3-10 (30%)
Solar in ZvZ vs Koreans: 45-30 (60%)

When Solar dispatched of Soulkey in the Starcraft II Starleague, it further solidified his place as one of the protagonists of Legacy of the Void. Soulkey himself had been sweeping online cups alongside the Samsung zerg, and their unfortunate meeting in the Ro16 meant that one of them head to descend to the lower bracket. It was Solar that reigned supreme, and by all indications he should be favored against any player he could possibly meet. His control of the fast tempo of LotV is unmatched, and he seems to have a keen sense of the pace of the economy better than other zergs who often either run out of bases or run out of breath when on a prolonged offensive. That makes Solar especially dangerous in matchups that allow him to be the aggressor, and his ridiculous ZvP stats (82% vs Koreans, holy shit) attest to that. ZvZ is another matchup that involves a lot of mid game pressure based around ravagers, and there are few as good as Solar in managing that dance.

With a winrate half of Solar's, albeit with 17% of the games, Impact has a lot of work to do to make it into Code S. He was already beaten by Solar in one of the GSL Pre-Seasons, and he also dropped sets against Life and DongRaeGu. That's a pretty good stable of zergs to lose to, and he did make up for it by beating Curious on his way to Code A. Impact has always been a player that was considered talented, and during his time on Axiom he had some impressive performances in team leagues and weekenders. However we've hardly heard from him since his move to SKT T1, though that is understandable. It's kinda hard to get some screen time on a team that's stocked with champions from every race.

One interesting tidbit to note is how Impact has dropped off from online leagues almost entirely. While he was a staple of Olimoleagues in the past, he has yet to participate in one since December. Big names usually avoid playing in online leagues in order to preserve build orders and tendencies, but Impact already has very few opportunities to shine. On the other hand, Solar continues to plow away at those online cups, and the practice has definitely done him well. Perhaps Impact needs a little bit more time to get going in this new expansion. Or, perhaps, he'll have a few tricks in store for Solar in the most important match of his recent career.

Predictions:

Solar is on a different plane than Impact right now, and arguably, always has been. However, Solar has shown a weakness against well prepared builds in the past, especially in Proleague, and the brain trust of SKT T1 might serve Impact well. A keenly planned series is likely Impact's only chance of advancing into Code S, especially since this looks like another one of Solar's hot streaks.

Impact 1 - 3 Solar



Slowly but surely, Classic is creeping up on the list of the greatest protoss of all time. It's not a fact that a lot of people want to admit, but Classic certainly has the results to back it up. He has now won a pair of starleagues, and it doesn't look like he's going to stop anytime soon. Once considered a fluke of a champion, Classic is on the verge of cementing his place as one of the best players of his generation. If he should win again this year, it would make him the only player to win a premier Korean starleague in three consecutive years. His teammate INnoVation is the only other contender for that streak, but INnoVation is already out of SSL while Classic is in the winner's Ro8.

Like his other SKT T1 teammates, Classic has so far been laying low. Gone are the days when he had to rely on online cups for exposure, and his the only PvT we've seen was against aLive. He had no trouble getting rid of the revitalized terran, and Classic's all around excellence looked right at home in LotV.

Opposing him is a man that has spent the last 4 and a half years trying to shed the label of a lucky champion. While his transfer to KT should give him more stability, and perhaps a greater collective mind to aid him in strategy, that is also what was said when TY became the team's #2 terran. Yes, TY has finally found his footing in Legacy of the Void upon Flash's retirement, yet it took quite a bit of adjustment for TY to finally flourish. Perhaps jjakji can learn something from TY's initial struggle in order to make the most of this new opportunity. Originally, it was believed that TY's strength lay in his mechanics, and he tried his best to play a style that you'd attribute more to the likes of Cure or even Flash himself. He tried his best to out-micro his opponents and batter them with larger armies and head-on collisions. However, we've now discovered through LotV that TY is actually quite adept at employing his own strategies and pushing forward the meta. His late game expertise displayed against Patience was the latest evidence. If jjakji wants to use TY as the blueprint for his success, he must accept that in order to resuscitate his career, he needs to find his own way to play instead of pigeonholing himself into someone else's.

That, of course, is much more difficult to ascertain. Looking back at his Code S triumph in 2011, jjakji didn't particularly have anything special in the traditional sense. He just knew how to survive long enough to have a shot at winning. Two expansions later and he has hardly shown us glimpses of that former magic, and he does not even have an identifiable style anymore, unlike his more relevant terran kin. So far, jjakji has not shown any indication that he's on the up-and-up. Though he has a solid record in TvP (13-7), his only notable win was against Creator, while every relevant protoss he's faced (Patience, Dear, Creator) has beaten him in turn. By all indications, it seems like it may take a while for jjakji to reap the benefits of a stable and structured teamhouse, but with only 2 seasons this year, he'll regret not making the most of every opportunity.

Predictions:

TvP is in a weird place right now. Though protoss might be favored in the early and mid game, TY showed that terran has all the tools to destabilize protoss as the game goes long. The liberator was a key component in his strategy, but will jjakji use a similar response or look for one of his own? Classic isn't the kind of protoss to just sit back and macro, however, as he possesses one of the most well rounded skill sets among his protoss brethren. If jjakji isn't prepared to defend an all in or two, the Chintoss might just smell blood and end this quickly. Fortunately for jjakji, he's the type that knows how to survive.

Classic 3 - 2 jjakji



Legacy of the Void competitive record:
RagnaroK: 47-36 (12-4 in ZvP)
Super: 15-14 (3-6 in PvZ)

After a lengthy winter break, the Korean Starcraft year is finally beginning to click into gear. We’ve already seen everybody in the top 16 of the SSL play at least once, and with Code A coming to a close next week, the general outline of how the new world order is shaping up in Legacy of the Void is starting to become a bit clearer.

That said though, there’s still precious little information to go on. Take RagnaroK for example—all we’ve seen from him so far is a pair of roach rushes / nydus plays that dumped INnoVation into the lower bracket in SSL. While his execution was decent enough, it tells us practically nothing except that RagnaroK was smart enough to target a player’s history of weakness to early roaches, as well as his proclivities for greedy openings. RagnaroK’s always tilted more towards aggressive openings than long, drawn out macro games, and the sole Best of 3 that we’ve seen so far has done nothing to change that perception.

His record in ZvP may look good on paper, but that conceals the weak opponents he’s mostly faced so far. Losing to Hurricane and going 1-1 in series against Zest in the GSL Preseason Week 2, as well as a 2-0 victory over MyungSiK in early December, are the only notable results in the matchup we have. However, with the rate at which the LotV metagame is developing, matches that were played over a month ago should have little relevance to how this match in Code A will play out today.

Similarly, Super’s a player who we haven’t seen at all in Legacy of the Void. 2015 was his best year as a progamer. Reaching the quarterfinal stage in a starleague for the very first time is a major milestone to be ticked off the list, as he finally began to emerge from the limbo that is the Code A / Code S barrier. However, as with many players who peaked last year, the switch to the new expansion threatens to reset all that work and progress. He was traditionally a strong PvPer in HotS, reliant on a variety of potent timing attacks, and with the aggressive nature of Legacy of the Void, it’s possible that those traits might transfer well to PvZ in this new landscape.

Predictions

RagnaroK didn’t need to be particularly good against INnoVation in the SSL, but the decisiveness that he displayed in his two all ins was pleasant to see in a player who’s often struggled to show his best. It’s possible that Super can show us something new, but I’ll go for the CJ zerg here.

RagnaroK 3 - 1 Super



Legacy of the Void competitive record:
Life: 33-16 (7-2 in ZvT)
Bunny: 21-16 (8-6 in TvZ)

For the second year in a row, Life returns to the GSL following a strong comeback performance at BlizzCon. Life has always been one of the major outliers of Starcraft. Most players never make it to the top; the ones who do typically peak once before returning to a less transcendent level. Along with Mvp, Life is one of the only players who has gone through multiple waves of form in the past—falling off before recovering to peak levels seemingly at will.

So, what Life is going to show up today? He’s certainly looked pretty decent so far from his Preseason games, although as the two Preseason winners in herO and MyuNgSiK both dropped out of the SSL last night, that’s clearly not a 100% reliable identifier of strength right now. However, his Week 1 run to the final was solely based off ZvP and ZvZ, while interestingly Bunny was the player who eliminated him from Week 2 in the opening round.

That victory was primarily built off Bunny’s excellent harassment throughout the series. Hellion run bys were a constant threat for the new Afreeca signing, while liberators also saw plenty of play. Despite his traditionally excellent ZvT, Life has always had some confusing weaknesses to certain terrans. Bbyong’s array of hellbat timings caused him no end of problems in Heart of the Swarm, and given the still murky understanding of the optimal play styles in Legacy, Bunny could well have something special in store for Life. With such a new game, it’s certainly possible that new play styles and strategies could be developing independently, contained to each team house, and the CJ terrans could team up for something funky.

We’ve already seen several examples of previously Code B tier players rising up in Legacy—the MVP pair of Forte and DeParture have made Code S for the very first time along with KT terran SpeeD—and given that Bunny’s already beaten Life in a streamed GSL game (albeit one played online), it’s not something that’s entirely impossible here. The CJ terran is another player yet to make Code S, with only a pair of Challenger appearances in 2013 and a Code A spot in 2014 to his name, and he’ll certainly be looking at this match tonight as a chance to push on.

Predictions

As odd as the Code A results have been so far, it’s difficult to change how we generally predict. Life is a player who has won everything there is to win in StarCraft, and to predict an upset here would just be rolling the dice. He might be more vulnerable now than if we were still playing Heart of the Swarm, but he’s still the clear favourite.

Life 3 - 1 Bunny