Winners Round 3
Recap

Losers Round 4
Preview

Players, brackets, and schedules on Liquipedia

Winners Round 3: Recap

by Fionn

Results from Live Report Thread by opterown.
+ Show Spoiler [Results] +

Stealth Elephants
- Four Protoss advance to the winners semi-finals, securing places in WCS Asia

"It's all over! KeSPA is sooooo much better than the GSL players now!"

"No KeSPA players tonight? Not watching. I only watch for the elephants."

"Another victory for KeSPA! It's an elephant stampede!!!"

While everyone was busy hyping up the KeSPA players like they were the saviors of Starcraft 2, people were missing the real overarching storyline of this entire tournament. With the KeSPA players kicked ass in the loser's bracket, and everyone rushed to declare that Jaedong, Effort, and the rest were unstoppable super forces that would take Code S in no time, people missed the real super group in WCS Korea: Protoss.

For as long as Starcraft 2 has been out, there have been talks about how weak Protoss is. About how they had to be carried by a single player, MC, who was the only one of their race who could win a GSL. Now, in the summer of 2012, there is no question that Protoss is the strongest race in Korea. It's only happened twice before in a major GOM-sanctioned Starcraft tournament, but the final four of the WCS winner's bracket are all from the same race.

The past two times it was Terran dominating the brackets, once during the Super Tournament (Polt/MMA/TOP/MKP) and another time in the October season of Code S (MMA/Mvp/Happy/Ganzi). Seed, Parting, Creator and Squirtle are making history, making up for a year when MC was the only Protoss people believed had it in him to become a GSL champion. Now with Seed holding the GSL title, Creator destroying everyone in TSL4, and the Startale Protoss duo inching closer and closer to their first major title, the Protoss has a real chance of dominating 2012 like Terran in 2011.

Already guaranteed two of the top three spots in the tournament, there is a chance that the top five or even top six could be completely Protoss. Polt, Curious, and Alive are the best chances to stopping this from happening, but it seems unlikely that any of the current semifinalists would get knocked out by anyone coming from the losers bracket. The only top Korean Protoss missing from the equation is MC, but he forfeited after his first series to compete at IEM.

Seed's revolution continued, beating Polt, a player who was supposed to be his hardest non-Protoss threat in the tournament. He fell down early in the first game, having his DT's defended, but fought back even with a worse economy, relying on better map awareness, control and decision making. Having lost a game where he blew an advantage, Polt went for a weird all-in in the second game and got shutdown without hurting Seed in anyway. What was supposed to be the main event of the night turned out to be Seed telling the world to forget TaeJa, but instead look towards himself as the best player in the world. With his GSL championship, IPL team title, and his performance in this tournament, could you argue otherwise?

Creator turned sixteen a few days ago, and he gave himself a birthday present by beating Puzzle 2-0 and making it to the winner semifinals. Already making a huge name for himself in the current TSL4, getting to the semifinals without a single map loss, he is now making a strong case to be considered one of the best Protoss in the world. People have already been calling a top player for a while, impressed by his insane win rate on ladder and great record in online tournaments, but this is the first time he's been able to transfer his skills from the online circuit to the booth. Always being one of the best players in team league, this is his chance to win a major individual championship, get a seed in the Global finals, and lock himself in as the best U-18 SC2 player in the world.

For the Startale Protoss duo, they continued their strong performances. Parting had to feel the sting of a team kill for the first time, beating his teammate Curious in a sweep, and Squirtle fought off his old WeMade Fox temmate Roro to progress into the semifinals. Squirtle had a harder time than expected, having to make a comeback in third game against the only KeSPA player remaining in the winner's bracket, but he stayed calm and got through the series with only minimal injuries. Both Squirtle and Parting have been royal road candidates this year for Code S, but neither was able to grab the title. Parting got stomped by eventual champion of his season DRG, and we all know what happened between Squirtle and Mvp in their epic finals.

Looking at the final four, you would give the edge to Squirtle, stating how out of this world his PvP statistics are, but all four have shown good results in PvP lately. The lower bracket still houses some big names like mentioned beforehand, but it's going to take a real heroic effort out of a non-Protoss player to break into the top four of the tournament.

Speaking of the lower bracket, Rain won his rescheduled loser's bracket series against Jaedong to advance into the final twelve. Having the OSL group selections tonight, he was able to get his match moved back a day and didn't disappoint the schedule makers by delivering another strong showing. Jaedong is still green in some areas, and while he might be maturing at an insane pace, Rain showed that it might take a few more months until the Tyrant is at the place people expect from him.

With the victory, Rain now gets to face Curious for the second time. Only two weeks removed from his 2-0 loss to the Startale Zerg, it'll be interesting to see how far he has progressed in so little time. It will also be interesting to see how Curious will handle Rain, now having been able to see Rain play against him and other opponents. The KeSPA players are getting better, but they are also losing their mystique and giving GOM players the opportunity to scout out their styles as well.

A year ago, people would ask, 'Who is going to be the Protoss hope!?' Now, with this new era upon us, we're all going to have to ask ourselves, 'Who the hell has a hope against Protoss?' I hope you enjoy PvP, because we're going to be seeing a lot of in Korea until the Heart of the Swarm Beta comes out.

Losers Round 4: Preview

by Waxangel

CJ_EffOrt vs CJ_herO

How poetic is it that Effort, a player whose most famous Brood War achievement is slaying God, is also the player who inflicted the most grievous wounds upon GomTV's pantheon? By dismantling DongRaeGu and Gumiho, he has earned Code S level respect from many.

For Effort's opponent and teammate, herO[Join], his accomplishments just don't measure up. He was only able to defeat YuGiOh and TAiLS, players who showed poor games and poor composure, deserving of being bottom eight in the entire tournament. At a cursory glance, the winner of this match should be a foregone conclusion.

Of course, things are more complicated than they initially appear. Let it be known that Effort came into this tournament with a 0 – 3 ZvP record in Proleague, and only added two more games to the loss column when he lost to Liquid's HerO. CJ_Hero is only 1 – 1 PvZ in Proleague, and his victory against YuGiOh might have come largely in thanks to his opponent's poor nerves, but that's still better than having a 0% win rate in the relevant matchup.

Protoss is still the dominating force in the KeSPA Proleague's SC II games, and they have a 32 – 24 advantage on Zerg right now. GomTV vs KeSPA matches have many complications to factor in, but in this KeSPA vs KeSPA duel, Protoss victory is an easy prediction.

Prediction: Hero[Join] 2 – 1 Effort

FnaticRC aLive vs SlayerS_Miya

Miya actually won a series in his supposed best match-up last week, beating ST_Hack to stay alive in the losers round. It wasn't the best performance ever, and Miya wasn't even that pleased in his interview, but it's still an important step forward for a player who has kept the faith of SlayerS' managemforwarent through several losses. He's a player who's expected to be great if he ever gets over his nerves issues, but there's still a ways to go for him to overcome his reputation as a choker.

One of his most high profile losses came against the opponent he will play tonight. Going up against FnaticRC in the GSTL, Miya was sent out as the first sniper against aLive. Even getting a favorable map pick for himself in Whirlwind, Miya looked lost and without a plan as aLive steamrolled through (Ryung would salvage the series for Slayers).

aLive looked like he was struggling a lot with TvZ after the queen patch, but GSTL Season Two allowed him to show that he had recovered his form significantly. Wins against BBoongBBoong, Monster, CoCa, and Miya showed he had figured out how to play the changed match-up where he couldn't rely so much on early pressure. aLive TvZ still isn't as impressive as his other match-ups, but he's definitely a strong player, or at least one who has shown he's better than Miya.

While we look forward to the day Miya's famed in-practice skills come to light in front of a live audience, his record so far tells us the winner of this match isn't hard to guess.

Prediction: aLive 2 – 0 Miya

SAMSUNG_Reality vs Liquid`HerO

Two opposing forces are at work here. A) Reality's awful TvP that saw him somehow lose to Puzzle after he perfectly executed a counter-blink-obs build on Antiga and took an almost insurmountable advantage vs. B) HerO's nerves that returned against Soulkey, sapping 30%+ of his regular skill away.

There's something tragically funny about HerO's situation in this tournament. He overcame his nervousness in the GomTV booth and in international live events to become a good (though not exactly clutch) player, only to have yet something else to worry about get tossed at him in KeSPA players.

KeSPA players are improving week by week, so it would be surprising to see Reality blow a game as spectacularly as he did against Puzzle, but that match really left a bad impression. HerO's in the same region as Puzzle in PvT ability, and if they played ID-blind on ladder, HerO would be a big favorite to win. Now that he has played Soulkey and knows KeSPA players are just ordinary creatures of flesh and blood, and knows dumb comments on PlayXP can't actually jump out of his screen and punch him, HerO should be able to play much better. And even if he hasn't gotten over his nerves issues here, he should still be able to scrape out a win anyway, like he did against Soulkey last week.

Prediction: HerO 2 – 0 Reality

[WCS KR] Winners R3 Recap/Losers R4 Preview

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Winners Round 3: Recap

Losers Round 4: Preview