Zest extend his lead as the winningest open cup player of all time, claiming three more gold medals for a total of 43 (HeroMarine is second place with 40).
In week #108, Zest was able to win both the North America and Korea cups—the eighth double of his career (compared to the four of Cure). In Europe, Clem continued his run of good form with a second victory in a row—a welcome reprieve after a couple of months without a cup victory.
Back in week #107, herO was finally able to beat his recent KR cup nemesis Solar to win his second Korean Cup. The European Cup went to Clem, while Zest was victorious in NA.
[ESL Open Cups are no longer awarding points for the EPT 2021/22 season. Cups will continue to be held and award prize money as before, but will only resume awarding points once the EPT 2022/23 season begins.]
Week #108 Recaps
KR Cup: The Korean cup had almost all the usual set of players participating, except herO who did not try to defend his title from the previous week. Also, ByuN was not there to represent Terran, leaving this task to Gumiho and SpeCial. Solar had more Zerg company than in the previous week, with RagnaroK participating as well. Overall, Protoss had the most representatives with Classic, Creator, Cyan, Has, Nice and Zest standing out as notable participants.
Given the low number of participants and a FF in his favor, Zest started the cup in quarterfinals already, and just had to beat Classic (which he did 2-0 in the PvP, after Classic eliminated Creator 2-1) to qualify for the semifinals. There, he would face RagnaroK, who had notably defeated American protoss Ranger as well as Nice 2-0 to get there. The Alpha X Zerg gave Zest a run for his money, but ultimately fell short as Zest won 3-2 to get to the finals.
On the other side of the bracket, we saw SpeCial and Gumiho beat their Protoss opponents NightMare and Has respectively to meet in quarterfinals, with the Korean Terran winning this encounter 2-1 for a spot in the semifinals. The last semifinalist was Solar, who had defeated Chinese Protoss MacSed 2-0 in the previous round. Similarly to the other semifinal, this match between Gumiho and Solar went the distance—the Terran player took a 2-0 lead, but got reverse swept by Solar to lose 2-3 in the end.
The finals was a close five games series as well, but unfortunately for Solar he ended up losing 2-3 for the second straight week, ceding the cup title to Zest.
Upset(s) of the day: There wasn’t a single major upset in this week of open cup, therefore I will consider underdogs taking 2 games in a BO5 against their opponents as the biggest upsets. RagnaroK narrowingly lost 2-3 against the GSL: Super Tournament champion Zest, which is a nice performance, and Gumiho also nearly beat Solar with a close 2-3 loss in semifinals.
*****
EU Cup:The European cup was very stacked as is usually the case, except that ShoWTimE didn’t participate (perhaps deciding to rest after his insane race for EPT points in the last few weeks) but was replaced by another German protoss that we did not see much recently: GungFuBanda. He showed up in good form, beating Brat_OK and PtitDrogo 2-0 and 2-1 respectively, but lost 0-2 against the eventual winner Clem in quarters (Clem previously beat BabyMarine and Krystianer respectively 2-0 and 2-1 in TvT and TvP). MaxPax managed once again to reach the semifinals, using his great PvP to beat arrogfire and trigger 2-0, and then with a 2-1 victory against Harstem (the TL protoss notably beat cup #107 finalist SKillous 2-1 to get there). The Clem vs MaxPax semifinal ended the same way as in week #107, with Clem winning in a clean 3-0 sweep.
On the other side of the bracket, HeroMarine reached the semifinals without much trouble, beating DnS 2-0 and Spirit 2-1 to get there and meet Reynor. The italian zerg had a close bo3 versus goblin, but beat Rattata 2-0 and was too strong for Big Gabe that day, defeating him 3-1 in their semifinals meeting. Clem was a different beast and the French terran won 3-0 in the finals versus Reynor, almost doing a perfect run. With this gold medal Clem achieved a back-to-back victory in EU, having won the previous cup, and is now at 33 gold medals overall, still noticeably behind HeroMarine (40) and Zest (43), but comfortably ahead of #4 Solar (28 gold medals).
Upset(s) of the day: Despite the high number of participants, there were not many upsets in the European edition. Kas beating MaNa 2-1 therefore takes the crown, with the Ukrainian terran considered the underdog with 33% chances of winning according to Aligulac. Krystianer taking a map off Clem is also a mild upset, especially considering the otherwise perfect run of the French terran this night.
*****
NA Cup: As usual, a lot of strong Koreans players and some Europeans players participated in the NA edition. We had Astrea, Creator, MaxPax, Nice and Zest among others as Protoss representatives, while ByuN, Rattata and Solar stood out for the Terran and Zerg factions.
The bracket played out quite predictably, as Zest and ByuN met in the semifinals after Zest defeated American Protoss PattyMac and Russian zerg Rattata 2-0 each time, while ByuN beat Canadian and Taiwanese Protoss trigger and Nice without dropping a map either. Zest looked to be in imperious form, only letting ByuN take a single victory on Berlingrad, winning their encounter 3-1, to qualify for the finals and have a shot at defending his title.
On the other side of the bracket, MaxPax once again demonstrated his good form with not only a 2-1 victory over one of the top NA players Astrea, but also a convincing 3-1 against Solar (who beat Creator 2-0 in quarters) in their semifinals bout. The finals was a whole other task though, as Zest defended his title rather easily and was merciless with a 3-0 victory to get the double victory as well as the back-to-back NA gold medal.
Upset(s) of the day: Aligulac favored MaxPax over Solar, but I still think him winning 3-1 against the Zerg is actually an upset worthy of being mentioned—especially after the good performances of Solar in DH: Last Chance.
Week #107 Recaps
KR cup: The Korean edition had even less notable participants than usual, with Solar as the only strong Zerg representative. Meanwhile, ByuN, SpeCial, Gumiho and Percival fought on for Terran, while Classic, Cyan, herO, Nice and Zest were the key Protoss players in contention.
herO confirmed his strong performances of late by beating Classic 2-0 and Zest 2-1 in PvP, before showing his strong PvT skills against ByuN (who beat NightMare 2-0 to get there) in the semifinals with a narrow 3-2 victory. On the other side of the bracket, Cyan pulled off the upset against SpeCial beating him 2-0, while Percival beat Gumiho to meet Solar but couldn’t take a map off the Zerg. Cyan did not manage to beat Solar even once either and lost 0-3 in the semifinals.
The finals matchup of herO vs Solar happened for the third time in the span of four weeks in the KR cup, with Solar winning 3-0 and 3-1 in cups #104 and #105 respectively. This time though, herO finally managed to overcome Solar. After being down 1-2 with the victory on Hardwire and losses on Curious Minds and Berlingrad, herO was able to win the next two maps to win the KR cup #107, his second gold medal in KR.
Upset(s) of the day: There were not many participants and barely any upset: the closest thing would be Cyan beating SpeCial 2-0 in the quarterfinals. The Terran was the big favorite with 80:20 odds on Aligulac, but I don’t think it is that big of an upset especially in bo3.
*****
EU Cup: The European edition had once again a lot of strong participants, and the seeds allowed for consistency in the matchups. Indeed, ShoWTimE and MaxPax met in quarters like they often do, while SKillous was once again able to meet Reynor and eliminate him in the quarterfinals as well.
Contrary to the previous cup, MaxPax eliminated ShoWTimE (who beat Harstem) with a 2-0 victory to meet Clem in the semifinals. While the German protoss was able to stop Clem last time, MaxPax could not do much against the French Terran who convincingly beat him 3-0. Combined with his superb offline run in France’s live Underdogs event and his destruction of the top KR Protosses in WTL playoffs, Clem’s TvP is looking quite deadly once again. In any case, that probably meant Clem was happy with his unexpected finals opponent: SKillous.
The Russian Protoss had a wonderful run, defeating in the earlier rounds YoungYakov and before facing Reynor in the quarterfinals. Skillous managed to take out the world champion once again with a 2-0 victory, and defeated HeroMarine as well in the quarterfinals with a 3-1 score (Big Gabe notably beat Krystianer and Cyan in the same matchup).
Unfortunately for Skillous, his huge run was stopped there by a dominating Clem. SKillous was able to win the first game on 2000 Atmospheres with mass Zealots, but Clem won every other map, even against the early Carrier fleet of Skillous on Berlingrad. The victory ended a lengthy EU Cup drought for Clem, a good sign for him as IEM Katowice approaches.
Upset(s) of the day: the run of SKillous was the biggest upset for me, especially his victories against Reynor once again (2-0) and even a 3-1 win against HeroMarine in bo5 no less. As one of the top TvP players in Europe alongside Clem, HeroMarine had around 81% chances of beating SKillous in bo5 according to Aligulac ratings, so the 3-1 victory was even more impressive. Shoutout to ForJumy for beating MaNa 2-1 as well, and Brat_OK for beating Goblin on the same score .
*****
NA Cup: The American edition was quite stacked, with a lot of strong Koreans participating as well as MaxPax and Astrea. Zest had his first big challenge in quarterfinals with a match against herO, who notably defeated him in the KR cup, but he was able to take his revenge and win 2-1 (herO previously won versus Creator 2-1 as well). ByuN won his TvP matches (2-1 over trigger, 2-0 over Krystianer) until the semifinals, but could not do much against Zest who beat him 3-1.
MaxPax was one of the favorites to go at least to the semifinals, and he notably beat Gumiho 2-0, but the Taiwanese protoss Has was on fire and beat both Hellraiser and MaxPax 2-0 in two consecutive PvPs, to face Solar in the semifinals. The Korean zerg managed to beat Astrea 2-0 in quarters, and barely won against Has in the subsequent semifinals—much credit must go to Has for making Solar’s life so difficult, despite Solar being the heavy favorite.
The finals was a good demonstration of strength from Zest, once again winning the NA cup with his 3-1 victory over Solar. He also happened to win the GSL Super Tournament against Maru a few days later, showing that ESL Open Cups don’t seem to affect his tournament preparation much at all.
Upset(s) of the day: The big upset for me in the NA edition was Has with his 2-0 victory against MaxPax, one of the best in the PvP match-up, which was definitely an impressive performance. Then, he followed that up with another nice showing against Solar, losing a close 2-3 series.
by Poopi
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