The open qualifier wrapped up today with HyuN and Dear making it through. The cast combination of Ret and iNcontroL was not good and I spent much of the event watching Take's stream instead. I think Geoff is a good supplementary caster, but the laconic Ret is unwatchable and the observing was awful. The pair spent most of the games talking about how they were already over and added no excitement to the cast (as Rif kingz noted). Here's the bracket (all best-of-five's, featuring 9 Protoss, 4 Zergs, and 3 Terrans):
herO
HyuN
Aligulac has herO was the overwhelming favourite (76%) and as he's 21-3 vs Korean Zergs in best-of-three's or better (his last loss was to Solar back in July) I see no reason to argue (HyuN has beat Dear in a BO3 recently, but other than MC in June has no significant wins over Korean Protoss in BO5 in HOTS).
San MC
Aligulac picks San to win (69%) and MC hasn't beaten a top notch Korean Protoss offline in a BO5 since herO last March; on the other hand San is 50-50 in the matchup, but I am going to go with the odds here.
Polt NaNiwa
Aligulac gives the edge of Polt here (52%), but a disinterested NaNiwa, the fact Polt hasn't lost offline to a foreign Protoss since last April, and that Polt won the only offline match between the two (twice in June) tends to overwhelm NaNiwa's semi-recent offline success against Innovation and MMA (both in August), so I go with the odds here.
Dear HerO
Dear is Aligulac's slight favourite (54%), and neither player has a particularly good PvP record against Koreans offline; HerO, however, has lost 7 BO3/BO5's in a row, including twice to Dear, so the odds make sense to me.
Revival jjakji
Aligulac overwhelmingly gives this to jjakji (85%), although his offline results against Korean Zerg's in HOTS is mixed (5-4); Revival hasn't played a BO3 or more against a Korean Terran since June and is 1-1 in his only matches (beating Polt and losing to Innovation). While jjakji's ZvT is a little better than Revival's, it's not enough for such overwhelming odds. I'll go with Aligulac because I see nothing in Revival's history clearly shows he'll win, but this could be a lot dicier than the odds suggest.
Oz sOs
sOs is Aligulac's overwhelming favourite (82%), although like the match above there's enough in Oz's track record to suggest he could do well here (he's 3-1 in BO3/BO5 offline matches vs Koreans in PvP, whereas sOs is 12-6). The pedigree certainly goes with the odds however, so I'll again bow to Aligulac.
Taeja StarDust
Aligulac gives the nod to StarDust here (60%), which seems largely born of him beating Taeja at ASUS ROG in January. Overall StarDust is 3-3 in the relevant match-up, while Taeja is 10-4. While Taeja can occasionally be inconsistent, I expect him to be in top form for this tournament and go with the upset.
Rogue Life
An odd mirror match-up given how many Protoss are in this round, Aligulac has Life as yet another overwhelming favourite (82%). Given Rogue's lousy record offline vs Korean Zergs (1-4), it's not hard to see why Life (who is 11-5 in similar circumstances) is given the nod, although it's worth keeping in mind Rogue beat Soulkey to get here and that if you take away his three losses to Dark his ZvZ stats are much better. It's hard to go against a more established player however, so I'll let Life's reputation sway me.
If the above is correct [is was], here are the matches that would follow:
herO San
Aligulac gives this one to herO (58%) and given he's 9-3 in the relevant match-up (vs San's coin-flip numbers) I agree.
Polt Dear
Aligulac has Polt winning here (63%) and while Dear was once unbeatable in this match-up he has lost his last three against Terrans while Polt is 6-3 lately. This could be close, but Dear has a habit of choking in tournaments since he won his WCS title, so I'll go with Polt.
jjakji sOs
jjakji gets slight odds from Aligulac (54%), even though sOs has a better percentage in the relevant matchup (68% vs 58%). I haven't seen sOs play in awhile, but I think he'll win this.
Taeja (Aligulac incorrectly picked StarDust) Life
Aligulac gives Life a big edge here (60%; StarDust would get the edge [56%] if they are right that he makes it here), despite Taeja being 11-1 in the relevant match-up including beating Life twice the last time they played (November; in fairness, Life is also good in this circumstance, being 16-4 ). I think Taeja wins here.
Assuming all the above plays out as expected [it did]:
herO Polt
Aligulac has this at nearly 50-50, with Polt getting the smallest of edges; Polt beat herO at IEM Sao Paulo back in January (BO3), but that (and a loss to Bbyong) are the only ones for herO of late (6-2) so I'll go with the "upset".
sOs ( jjakji was picked incorrectly by Aligulac) Taeja ( StarDust was picked incorrectly by Aligulac)
If all of this turns out [both Aligulac and I were wrong, as sOs made it through instead of Taeja/StarDust] the final would be:
herO sOs ( Taeja was my incorrect pick, as was jjakji for Aligulac)
Aligulac has herO as the favourite (58%)--they both have strong records in the relevant match-up so this is a tough call, but I'll side with the odds [instead sOs crushed herO 4-1].
So those were the predictions. I finished 13-2, Aligulac 11-4.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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