[ASL14] Ro8 Preview Pt.2 : Vacant Throne

We’re kicking off the other Side of the bracket with a battle to determine who really is the next Top terran to take the currently vacant throne between Light and Rush, absolute masters in just just their overall Terran play but also in the Terran vs Terran matchup.

In the final Ro8 match Snow and hero face off as both players have sharpened their skills in the Protoss vs Zerg matchup through the season against multiple opponents, this will be a clash to see who takes home the crown for PvZ/ZvP.

The One below The One

There is a war amongst Terran players in this ASL. Light is King John, here to hold the Terran crown while Flash, King Richard, has gone to fight for Kingdom and Glory. Rush, assuming the role of Robin Hood, is here to show the world Light is but an imposter, unworthy of the Terran crown. In the first season of Flash’s absence, Rush got his first chance to show Light as a fool. He knocked Light out of the group stages. In response, Light grew into an unstoppable force, paving his way to an ASL 13 championship. Since Rush’s victory, the two players have avoided playing each other in offline matches. Each player has grown stronger and more refined in their game than they have ever been. Now it’s time for Rush to serve justice for all layviewers and players alike.

Over the last 3 months, Light has won nearly 70% of his TvTs. His incredible winrate in TvT continues to underperform against Rush. Light has only won 20% of his games against Rush in that same time frame. Rush has a much lower overall winning percentage versus Terran. The silver lining, Rush has competed in 60 more online matches than Light. The extra practice is going to pay off tremendously as they face off against each other.

Butter comes out as the first map between the two. This two player map is well suited for the risk-taker style player. From what we’ve seen lately, Rush is willing to become that risk taker. He is much more likely to disguise an aggressive opening that will catch Light off guard. With even the smallest advantages going Rush’s way, he will take map one.

Allegro seems so much more like a Light map. Light plays excellent in the map splitting game. Time and again he has put Flash to the test when he can establish his half of the map. No matter the spawns, Light will surgically split this map and weaponize his macro engine to wear down Rush. As “GG” is called the irony here is that Light picked map 1 and Rush picked map 2. It feels like these players are picking maps for their opponents rather than themselves. Map 2 goes to Light.

Back to the 2 player maps, Light has an opportunity to prey on Rush using the map Odyssey. This time Light’s map pick and preparation will pay off for him. Rush has a bad record online with Odyssey. Not only does he lose online in the TvT matchup on that map, but he’s losing a lot to all races on Odyssey. This map is a golden opportunity for Light to go up 2-1.

The fourth map is play out on Vermeer. This is Rush’s map pick and the last remaining logical map pick Terran could make. Therefore, this map offers no advantage to Rush. Looking back at Rush’s boX matches, he does not have a history of losing easily. Several times he has let a player win two maps only to bounce back and take a win. But he is facing Light who is on the verge of historic winning percentages versus Terran and Protoss as a non-Flash player. Light is going to show on the fourth map that he will not suffer from the honey moon slump (he was recently married) and once again advance to the quarterfinals.

Light Advances to the Ro4 3-1!

Super hero: Snow Way Home

Snow and hero have already had some impressive shows in the PvZ matchup so far just in this season alone so much so that we are guaranteed to see an excellent series from both players.

hero has always been a ZvP specialist, the way he dismantled Mini by taking advantage of Neo Arkanoid in a way that really showed how one sided the map is in ZvP. On top of that mentioning in his post match interview that his build had a 100% success rate on the map till that point.

Snow is also coming off a few big wins in the matchup having gone through Shine in the Ro24 and then absolutely carving up his Ro16 group based on his games against Soma and ZerO, his only loss coming against ZerO in the winner’s game on, you guessed it, Neo Arkanoid, but the rest of his games absolutely showed how much knowledge and control he has over the matchup easily ranking up there with Bisu.

Interesting to note that Snow and hero’s head to head in online games overall sits right now at 80-80, with hero being Snow’s biggest rival overall in his online play and sponmatches. The last few times that Snow and hero faced off online, however Snow went 7-2.

In their ASL history however, hero has won all but 1 encounter thus far with their last meeting in the ASL11 Ro8 where hero won against Snow 3-1.

Unlike the other PvZ in the Ro8, this series features both Allegro and Neo Arkanoid, but what is important is the placement of Neo Arkanoid being the 5th and final map, meaning that not only did neither player choose to pick it but that neither player chose to ban it either and should the series go to game 5 it stacks the entire series in favor of hero. Allegro being on the pool does give Snow some breathing room but the core of the series will be decided on who wins the other maps, but it must be stressed that Snow must prevent a game 5, to avoid playing against big odds.

All in all with the map advantage and their offline history, I’m sticking with hero, but I will not be surprised if Snow manages to crack hero without getting a chance to see Neo Arkanoid.

hero Advances to the Ro4!

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