ESL Open Cup #136: ByuN, Clem, Cure win

Last week’s open cups saw ByuN win the KR cup for the third time in a row, Clem retake the title in EU, while Cure won his first NA cup since cup #122 in May.

Korean Cup

Reynor declined to try his luck in the Korean cup last week, but there were still several strong competitors from every race: namely Dark and Solar for Zerg, ByuN, Cure, GuMiho, Ryung, and SpeCial for Terran, and Classic, Creator, and herO for Protoss.

Unlike the past few weeks, there were a number of notable upsets on the road to the finals. The most recent Code S champion herO beat Chance 2-0 as expected, but then lost 1-2 vs Ryung in the quarterfinals. Instead, it was Classic who made it out of that side of the bracket, continuing his run of impressive form in recent events. He beat both Solar (2-1) and Creator (2-0), before then taking down Ryung (2-0) to reach the finals.

The opposite side of the bracket was a bloodbath as well, with Dark taking down Cure, only to then lose to ByuN in the semis (VOD). ByuN beat Dark on the first map of Stargazers by playing standard Marine-Tank-Medivac on 3 bases versus an aggressive Dark who tried to bust through with Roach-Ravager and a Nydus in the pocket expand of ByuN. However, ByuN’s healthy Tank count and advanced upgrades allowed him to defend rather easily and win. The second map of Inside and Out was a much longer macro game which almost went in a split map scenario, and eventually ByuN overwhelmed Dark with a very high number of Ghosts to counter the Lurker-Hydra based composition of his opponent.

That gave us a finals between ByuN and Classic, and it ended up being pretty one-sided as ByuN took it in a 3-0 sweep (VOD). That gave him his third Korean cup victory in a row, as well as a perfect run without a single map loss.

ByuN won game one on Inside and Out by taking good trades over and over in an action packed macro game, destroying bases or high tech units from Classic until the Protoss was forced to GG. On Waterfall, Classic switched things up and opted for a Phoenix-Zealot composition which did not work out too well, as ByuN was able to trade very efficiently against the Zealots in his first big push, and mustered up a big enough army to deal the killing blow in the next push. Finally, the last game was fairly short as ByuN managed to harass Classic successfully with Tank-Marine on one side and a Widow Mine drop on the other. His economic advantage was large enough for him to straight up kill Classic a few minutes later.

Upset(s) of the day: ByuN beating Dark would have been a rather big upset if it was in an offline GSL, but I am not too surprised at these kinds of results in online cups where Dark is not as scary and ByuN has been showing superb play. However, Classic’s run was quite impressive, with solid results over good players of each race—namely Solar, Creator and Ryung. However, most of those matches were around 50:50 according to Aligulac, so I’m going to go with Ryung over herO as the upset of the day.

Even though herO has cooled off in the EPT Cups, he is still a very strong opponent and outside of Ryung’s league with a 80:20 advantage according to Aligulac. However, Ryung still seems to have a magic touch in TvP that allows him to defy such numbers.

*****

European Cup

The European Cup was stacked as usual with the strong core of regulars competing. There weren’t many upsets up until the quarterfinals, with the favorites advancing without too much trouble.

The quarterfinals brought a few upsets, notably with Lambo defeating the previous cup winner MaxPax 2-0. This was surprising given MaxPax’s dominance in the ESL Open Cups, but Aligulac actually rated the two players quite closely and Lambo had the head-to-head advantage on the year. Not content with just a single ‘upset,’ Lambo went further and defeated HeroMarine 2-1 to qualify for the finals. Once again, this match-up was actually pretty close in terms of Aligulac rating, and the two players were tied at 4W-4L in 2022 series.

On the other side of the bracket, Clem took down SKillous and Spirit 2-0 to qualify for the finals and face Lambo. Clem also had a chance of pulling off a perfect run in the finals, but Lambo ruined that by making him work hard for a 3-2 victory (VOD).

The first game between Clem and Lambo was a decently long macro game, and the Zerg managed to overwhelm his opponent with a lot of Ultralisks against low-tech bio without Ghosts or Liberators. The second map of Data-C was also quite close, with Lambo opting for a Lurker composition while Clem was able to tech to Ghosts. An attack from Clem with cloaked Ghosts was enough for the Terran to win after he sniped a crucial Overseer, with Lambo’s backup Overseers being too far away to help in the battle.

Game three saw Clem try to use Stargazers’ particular layout with a pocket expand to his advantage, committing hard to a Marine-Tank drop into Lambo’s main. However, this did not really work out against Lambo’s defense, and he was able to take a huge economic advantage which he turned into a win. The fourth map also produced a short game, with Lambo trying to end it early using a Roach-Ravager all-in at around 8 minutes. However, Clem was perfectly prepared with Tanks and Marauders behind a good building wall, and won to tie the series 2-2.

The final map of Moondance was going Lambo’s way for some time, as he had 5.5 bases (including a pocket expand) and superior economy with a similar army compared to Clem’s 3.5 bases. However, Lambo continued to butt his head against a Planetary Fortress-defended base without much success, and was left vulnerable after one too many failed attacks. Clem seized that opportunity perfectly and launched a counterattack that was enough to kill Lambo before he could stabilize.

With this victory, Clem improved to 43 gold medals overall, right behind Zest at 44 and HeroMarine at 47.

Upset(s) of the day: Although he was not that big of an underdog according to Aligulac, Lambo’s run was very impressive with wins over MaxPax and HeroMarine and a close defeat versus Clem. In season 3, these three players won 16 out of the 19 possible cups, which makes Lambo’s run easily the biggest upset of the day for me.

*****

American Cup

Contrary to the previous cup that had Reynor, Dark, and Solar, this cup was lacking in the notable Zergs department. However, Terran and Protoss had strong representation as usual, including ByuN, Cure and GuMiho for Terran, and MaxPax, Nice, NightMare, and trigger for Protoss.

ByuN’s strong online form continued in the top side of the bracket as he took care of business against Arrogfire and BabyMarine to reach the semis. His opponent was a bit of a surprise, as GuMiho advanced 2-0 over MaxPax in the quarterfinals. However, GuMiho couldn’t keep his hot streak going against ByuN, losing 0-2. On the other side of the bracket, Cure showed his PvT skills by running through Jason, NightMare, and trigger to reach the finals.

The final ended up being pretty one-sided (VOD), as the original ESL Open Cup monster Cure took a clean sweep over the recently dominant ByuN. The first map saw both players go for proxy 2 rax, and it ended with a Reaper vs Reaper fight that Cure was narrowly able to win. The second map of Data-C produced a more standard macro game from both sides. Cure seemed to be getting ahead with his more high-tech composition focused on Vikings and Ravens, which was successfully nullifying ByuN’s aggressive Marine-Medivac-Tank style. However, the game took a very chaotic turn toward the end, with Cure running out of expansions while ByuN successfully took a hidden base. Ultimately, ByuN couldn’t keep the base running for long enough to overcome Cure’s army advantage, and Cure was able to use his superior composition to win the game.

The last game on Stargazers saw Cure open with proxy-Marauder, which ByuN defended against reasonably well. This didn’t stop Cure from successfully containing ByuN on two bases later on, while mining from three bases of his own. This advantage was enough for him to win the game a few minutes later, and get his 10th gold medal in NA, just ahead of his opponent ByuN who has 9.

Upset(s) of the day: GuMiho beating MaxPax is a small upset according to Aligulac with less than 42% chance of winning for the Terran. Given the lack of any other notable upset in the bracket, this will be my upset of the day.

by Poopi