ESL Open Week #94: NightMare, Clem, Zest win

In EPT Open Cup Week #94, RagnaroK won his third ever cup in the Korean edition, Clem reclaimed the throne in Europe with his 23rd victory, and Zest prevented the French Terran from doing a double by beating him in the finals of the American cup.

KR cup: This edition was not really stacked; maybe because of the various tournaments and qualifiers going on at a similar time. Thus, it was the time to shine for players who don’t typically make deep runs.

ByuN was actually the name that stood out the most among the participants, but he was defeated by an undaunted Leenock in an almost hour long BO3 match in the quarterfinals. However, Leenock himself fell to another ambitious challenger, losing to eventual finalist NightMare. The Team NV Protoss reached the finals with wins over MacSed (2-0), Cyan (2-0), and Leenock (an impressive 3-0), but ultimately lost against RagnaroK to get his 3rd silver medal.

In the finals, RagnaroK won the first game on Curious Minds through a successful Queen walk versus his opponent’s Stargate opener, taking a big economic advantage and converting that into a win later. NightMare managed to hit back on Glittering Ashes in a 30 minutes-long game, using clever movements and recalls to defeat RagnaroK with a Carriers-Tempests-Void Ray force. On Pride of Altaris, RagnaroK used some Mutas to force NightMare to make Phoenixes instead of more Void Rays, and followed with a delayed, 10-minute Queen walk ‘timing’ with Ravagers which was decisive enough to end the game. Perhaps pissed off by all these Queen walks, NightMare decided to use a ground-based army with Archons, Zealots and a few Void Rays for a quick timing attack in game five. However, RagnaroK was able to keep his Protoss opponent penned in his base with a big Roach-Ravager army, and forced an early GG with a small squad of Mutas that caught NightMare off guard and out of position. Winning 3-1 in the finals, this was the first victory of RagnaroK in the 2021/22 season of the ESL Open Korea cups, and his third gold medal overall in the tournament.

Elsewhere in the bracket herO managed to beat his Protoss rival Classic 2-1 in a battle of ex-military players, before losing against Has 1-2 in the same match-up. Unfortunately for Has, RagnaroK was on a roll in ZvP, beating relatively unknown korean player fork 2-0, Creator 2-1, and stopping the Taiwanese Protoss player’s run with a 3-0 victory.

Upset(s) of the day: Leenock beating ByuN 2-1 in the quarterfinals was a big upset, even in a BO3 setting which is a bit volatile. ByuN was comfortably in the top six of Aligulac.com’s TvZ rankings, while Leenock was barely in the top twenty for ZvT. At the time of the match, Aligulac gave the Korean Zerg a mere 10% chance of beating ByuN in BO3.

*****

EU cup: The European cup, on the other hand, was quite competitive—especially on the Terran side. Clem came back after a one week hiatus (he skipped cup #93 right after his SAHSC#4 victory), while HeroMarine, SpeCial, and ByuN also joined the proceedings.

Ultimately, it came down to another classic battle between Clem and Reynor, with Clem winning by a narrow 3-2 margin. Reynor made a somewhat spotty run through the bracket, dropping maps but ultimately taking out players such as Gerald (2-1), ByuN (2-1), and Lambo (3-1) to reach the finals. Clem was in better form, beating MaNa (2-0), Elazer (2-0), and SpeCial (3-1) to meet Reynor in the finals.

Obviously, this was not an easy match for either side. Clem won the first map using his usual style of grinding down the Zerg with multiple efficient trades and small skirmishes, but Reynor struck back in game two on Hardwire. The Italian Zerg proved he could match his opponent in mechanics, overcoming him with his favored Lurker-style combined with strong counter-attacks. Clem brought back the game into his comfort zone on Berlingrad, once again winning through great trades with Marine-Medivac-Mine. Again, Reynor went blow-for-blow with Clem, tying the series 2-2 on Glittering Ashes. Despite Clem’s never-ending aggression, Reynor was able to defend his bases perfectly. Once Reynor had a strong army and economy, he ended the game in one fell swoop by killing a cluster of Marines with the help of Widow Mine friendly-fire, combined with a huge attack into Clem’s vital fourth base.

Despite giving up match point to Reynor, Clem was unfazed and sealed the deal on Curious minds. He used map topology to his advantage, killing Reynor’s fourth base with a very well placed Tank while trading super efficiently. This led to a piercing drop into the Zerg main, which killed Spawning Pool. Barely even able to defend his main, Reynor GG’d out against the powerful Bio + Tank army that soon came knocking.

With this EU cup victory, Clem is now even closer to Zest in the global EPT Cups win tally, with 30 gold medals compared to the 33 of Zest. Of course, HeroMarine still leads with 37—all obtained in the EU Cup compared to the server-trotting Clem and Zest.

Other players making notable runs included Lambo, who defeated Bly (2-0) and HeroMarine (2-1), as well as MaxPax who continued to be a powerful PvP force with wins over Spatz and GungFuBanda. However, he fell to SpeCial in the quarterfinals, with the Mexican Terran having had a relatively soft path up to that point. Elazer beat Russian players Brat OK and Skillous (the #93 AM cup finalist) before losing against the eventual winner Clem 0-2.

Upset(s) of the day: DisK beating PtitDrogo was a statistically notable upset. The Aligulac predictor gave the Canadian Protoss only 27:73 odds of beating his French opponent, with only around a 12% chance of winning in a 2-0. With many European and Korean players dominating the NA cup, it’s nice to see NA players do some marauding of their own. Another example was SpeCial beating MaxPax 2-1, taking out the rising Danish star on his home server.

*****

NA cup: As has been the case in the past, Clem was not satisfied by just winning the European cup that night, and he tried to go for the double by participating in the NA cup as well. His first big challenge came in the quarterfinals in the form of Creator, but he passed the test with a 2-1 win. Clem proceeded to destroy Solar 3-0 in his best match-up to qualify for the finals.

SpeCial did double-duty as well, and managed to beat ByuN 2-0. However, it only amounted to doing Zest a huge favor by taking out his nemesis—Zest then ‘repaid’ the favor by defeating SpeCial 3-2 in the semifinals. Despite dropping two maps to SpeCial, and also losing an earlier map to Gerald, Zest came through with a 3-1 victory over Clem in the finals to claim the American Cup.

In the first game on Berlingrad, Clem stayed on 2 bases forever but was unable to deal serious damage to Zest. Meanwhile, he took economic damage from Zealot harassment at home, and was forced to GG after a failed, desperation all-in. In the next game, Clem managed to deal decent economic damage to his opponent with a proxy-Starport Hellion drop, and this allowed him to kill Zest with a 4 Tank+bio push several minutes later. On Hardwire, Zest won the game with Phoenix play into HT/Archon tech and good storms. Finally, Zest managed to assemble a scary army of Carriers on Blackburn, with the capital ships giving him the 3-1 victory.

This AM cup victory allowed Zest to take the first place in AM gold medals, with 16 against the 15 of Solar.

Upset(s) of the day: SpeCial beating ByuN 2-0 and barely losing to Zest 2-3 in the semi finals was the upset of the day for me, especially after a good European run from him as well. Beating ByuN is not the hardest thing to do in TvT since it’s his worst match-up these days, but it is still noteworthy, and being close to beating Zest in a TvP is also impressive. An honorable mention goes to American Terran Kozan for taking a map off of Solar.

by Poopi

Korean Server Cup #94 (Click for full bracket)

European Server Cup #94 (Click for full bracket)

Americas Server Cup #94 (Click for full bracket)

Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/580203-esl-open-week-94-nightmare-clem-zest-win