ESL Open #138: MaxPax doubles, Solar wins Korea

In week #138, MaxPax reigned supreme in Europe and the Americas with a cup double, even winning the latter cup with a perfect record. Meanwhile, Solar won the Korean cup after a runner-up finish in the previous week.

Korean Cup

In a departure from the norm, Protoss was the underrepresented faction in Week #138 with Chance, Jieshi, and trigger being the notable contenders. On the other hand, Zerg had Dark, Scarlett, and Solar as its top players, while Terran had a strong contingent led by ByuN, Cure, GuMiho, and SpeCial.

There was a huge upset in the RO16, with the mostly unknown Korean Protoss FarmY eliminating Cure 2-0.

In the first game of Cure vs FarmY, the underdog Protoss managed to defeat his opponent by staying on one base and proxying several buildings—a Robo, Gateway, and a Dark Shrine—for a super-fast DT drop. Cure was unable to deal with the attack and had to concede the game. On the second map of Moondance, FarmY actually took a second base, but then went for a Zealot factory all-in that hit as early as 4:48 with a Prism. Cure had a Bunker, but that was not enough to save him. After some back and forth fighting, FarmY managed to win the second game to take a stunning 2-0 victory (VOD).

FarmY ended up losing to ByuN in the next round, with ByuN then taking out SpeCial to advance to the finals. GuMiho penned an upset of his own on the other side of the bracket, defeating Dark 2-1 in quarterfinals. However, he couldn’t carry that momentum any further, as he was stopped by Solar in the semis.

The finals of ByuN vs Solar started with a proxy 2-Barracks from the Shopify Terran on Cosmic Sapphire. However, Solar scouted and defended well, gaining a slight advantage as a result. The game went on until the later phases, where Solar overwhelmed ByuN with Ling-Bane-Hydra-Viper to take the win.

ByuN was able to hit back on Waterfall, setting up pushes with good Tank positioning that let him take game-winning trades. However, that was the only point ByuN would get on the board, as Solar took the next two games to win the series 3-1.

Upset(s) of the day: FarmY beating Cure was by far the biggest upset, totally overshadowing GuMiho’s victory over Dark. The odds were ridiculous with the Protoss having less than a 1% chance of winning according to Aligulac. Even if he had to use cheesy builds to get his win, FarmY deserves kudos for managing to defeat a Code S champion.

*****

European Cup

The European cup was Protoss and Terran heavy, but lacked the top-tier Zergs that we typically see. In fact, DIMAGA and Aristori were the most notable Zergs to reach the RO16.

The upper half of the bracket seemed like it was going Clem’s way as he beat both DIMAGA and trigger 2-0 to reach the semis, but there he ran into a formidable opponent in SKillous. Clem ended up being the victim of a minor upset, with SKillous advancing on to the finals with a 2-0 victory. Meanwhile, MaxPax dominated his half of the bracket, not even giving up a single map loss as he defeated Gerald, HeroMarine, and others to reach the finals.

The finals between SKillous and MaxPax (VOD) was a super close, five game series. MaxPax won the first game after taking an early economic lead with Phoenixes, assembling a Phoenix + ground unit composition that took out SKillous’ Stalker-Disruptor force.

SKillous won the next map of Moondance, successfully securing four bases while keeping MaxPax pinned on three. This income advantage allowed SKillous to take more map control and more bases over time, ultimately overpowering his opponent to tie the series 1-1.

The two players continued to trade games back and forth for the rest of the series, meaning that MaxPax was able to take the fifth and final win. With the 3-2 victory, MaxPax is now the top EU cup player of the 2022/23 season with 7 victories, while Clem and HeroMarine trail with 6 each.

Upset(s) of the day: HolyHit beating uThermal 2-0 in the RO32 was quite an impressive upset to me. Even if uThermal is technically retired from full-blown competitive play, Aligulac still only gave the German Protoss around 100 odds to win a BO3.

*****

American Cup

Possibly because of travel to TSL9 in the Netherlands, notable NA cup regulars such as ByuN, Solar, GuMiho, and even Classic were absent (in fact, the most notable Korean player turned out to be NightMare). The top performers were mainly Protosses, with only the Terrans Epic and Vindicta managing to reach the quarterfinals as non-Protoss players.

Both finalists MaxPax and Gerald had a perfect run to the finals, defeating only fellow Protosses on their way. MaxPax beat Nina and trigger among others, while Gerald notably won versus Rhizer and NightMare.

Unfortunately for Gerald, MaxPax is the current king of PvP and was able to achieve another perfect run with a 3-0 sweep over the Polish Protoss. This PvP ride gave MaxPax his 15th ever victory in NA, which gives him the 3rd most wins behind Solar (18) and Zest (23).

Upset(s) of the day: No significant upsets seemed to happen this week given the particularly weak field.

by Poopi