ESL Open Cup #146: ByuN doubles, MaxPax wins EU

Week #146 saw ByuN win a Korea-Americas double, beating Dark and Solar to win the respective cups. In Europe, MaxPax beat both DH: Europe finalists in Reynor and Clem on his way to winning his 16th regional cup.

Korean Cup

There were several strong players participating on the week, with Dark leading the way for Zerg, ByuN and GuMiho as Terran representatives, and Classic, herO, and Nice standing out for Protoss.

Both the round of 16 and the quarterfinals went as expected, but things heated up in the semifinals with some big matches. After losing their last encounter in a KR cup, Dark was able to take his revenge on GuMiho with the 2-0 victory to qualify for the finals. Meanwhile, ByuN defeated herO 2-0 in his own semifinal match to set up a rematch from the BlizzCon 2016 finals.

ByuN didn’t have 3-Rax Reapers on his side this time around, but he was still able to take the victory in four maps (VOD). On Cosmic Sapphire, Dark sacrificed a lot of ling-bane on ByuN’s side of the map without achieving much, while ByuN dealt some nice damage with a counter drop at the same time. The following 2-2 timing push from ByuN was enough to kill Dark. The Zerg player won the next map of Stargazers in an action-packed bout that was almost 20 minutes long. Dark got slightly ahead by surviving ByuN’s harass attempts and took the majority of the bases while constraining ByuN on 4 or 5 bases for the whole game. Ultimately, the Terran player ran out of steam and was forced to tap out.

However, ByuN was the one who took control in game three, taking more bases than Dark forcing him to defend with barely any Creep. ByuN poured on the relentless attacks until Dark had to GG out. Finally, ByuN won on Waterfall for the 3-1 victory, defending a Roach-Ravager-Ling all-in for a relatively quick win. ByuN was well prepared with Tanks on the high ground while Dark had no vision of them—good shift focus fire from the Tanks and stimmed bio was enough for ByuN to crush the fight and win the game.

Upset(s) of the day: There weren’t any big upsets when taken individually, but ByuN beating herO 2-0 and Dark 3-1 was an impressive performance worth noting.

*****

European Cup

MaxPax had a hell of a run in this cup, beating both Clem and Reynor to win it all. Reynor himself had a strong run until the finals, getting some off-race TvZ victories in the earlier rounds (vs Fjant and YoungYakov) and taking down HeroMarine in the semis.

The finals (VOD) started with Reynor winning the first map, where he used great Muta harassment to take out more than 30 Probes. MaxPax was forced into a desperate counter-attack on Creep, and Reynor was able to clean it up with Queens, Lings, and Mutas to get the victory.

Still, MaxPax had plenty of fight left in him and he won the next three games straight. Game two saw him defend Reynor’s ling flood with a ‘fake’ third base, using his good simcity and micro to win fairly quickly. Next, MaxPax beat Reynor on Data-C using a mass Stalker-Zealot style off of four bases. Finally, on Moondance, MaxPax started with Glaive Adepts and transitioned into a Blink-Stalker and Disruptor attack. Reynor took some big Disruptor hits when finally engaging with his Roaches, and the bad trades accumulated over time until he was forced to surrender.

Upset(s) of the day: DnS beating Spirit 2-1 and Brat_OK winning 2-1 vs Gerald were good wins for the underdogs earlier in the bracket. Also, MaNa had a nice run where he beat SKillous 2-1 and took a map off of Big Gabe. Other than that, most matches had expectable outcomes.

*****

American Cup

EU cup winner MaxPax didn’t go for a double like he sometimes does, which turned the week’s Americas cup into a Code S show. The four best Korean players participating—namely ByuN, soO, Solar, and GuMiho—all managed to reach the semifinals. A few of the other players put up a fight: notably Nice who took a map off soO in the quarterfinals, uThermal who did the same to ByuN, and JuggernautJason who went down 1-2 to Solar in the RO16.

The intra-GSL battles in the semis saw ByuN beat soO 2-1 while Solar beat GuMiho 2-0, setting up ByuN vs Solar in the finals. The finals ended up going down to the wire, with ByuN scratching out a victory in five games (VOD).

ByuN won first on Stargazers, outlasting Solar in a longer macro game. ByuN managed to whittle down most of Solar’s army throughout the course of the game, and then forced the GG with a big medivac drop into the Zerg main. Solar kept his focus, however, as he won the next two maps. He won a macro rematch on Cosmic Sapphire, and then defended against a 2-base all-in on Waterfall. However, ByuN had plenty of resolve as well, and he won the fourth map of Data-C to tie the series 2-2. Finally, he used a 2-base all-in to finish Solar on Inside and Out, using his Tanks to control the key bridge. As a result, ByuN secured yet another NA-KR cup double.

Upset(s) of the day: Outside of Jason taking a map off Solar or threepoint doing the same with ShaDoWn, no result could really be considered a big upset.

by Poopi