GSL vs the World bracket for next week:



- Brutal draw for some of our top foreigners - Serral, Neeb, Scarlett all up against Rogue/Innovation, Dark, Classic in the first two rounds
- Maru has perhaps the easiest path to the finals ever: Soo = lol, Zest = the guy he just 4-0ed in the finals, semifinals is probably where he's most likely to meet his match

i actually think serral has the easiest route, obv drawing a foreigner first is a big win but the rest of the games are pretty win-able. zvz? what even happens there? no one knows. maru otoh has 3 probable matches that could be code s level, and i dont put it past scarlett to win (sorry neeb)

sooo and zest are both super scary imo, some of the best players of their respective races. Has is going to take this down you heard it here first.

Group H spoiler

I'm not saying that soO or Zest are comparable with Maru. They aren't. Nobody is, except maybe Rogue. Maru is in terrifying form, and well on his way to becoming a bonjwa. But you weren't claiming that Maru was better than these guys, you were claiming that these guys were the worst in the tournament (easiest path to the finals) which they aren't. They are both StarCraft end bosses. soO has been in more GSL finals than anyone else, and your point that Maru did well against Zest in the GSL finals is really just proof of how good Zest is. He was in the GSL finals. He made it very end of the toughest SC tournament around. QED, he's a great player. He's a former GSL Champion, a driver of the PvX meta, and absolutely one of the toughest Protoss players around, or par with sOs or Stats any day of the week.

^^ that and maru v zest he had some very specific builds for that match up. an error here or there and its a 4-3 to someone. and in these bo5s theres no way to chalk it up as easy wins vs people who are capable of pulling out some crazy stuff themselves.

but it should be interesting

I guess there's two different interpretations of "easiest path to the finals" and we're talking about different ones.

If Maru makes the finals without dropping a map and the other half of the bracket has much more competitive matches, that's what I meant about having the easiest path to the finals.

That is not to say that one cannot come up with an easier path to the semis than Soo and Zest; one easily could.

thats fair, i think we'd agree that the best player on one side, then the next best 4 of 5 on the other (throwing stats somewhere into the middle) could be called easier. i have a hard time putting any foreigner into the discussion. scarlett can be ok, and serral gets soooooo much hype for staying overseas but we'll see.

id really like to see him get smashed over and over so people will stop saying hes so good. but if he loses round two they can just make excuses for him.

i would think dark or stats has easiest road to semis, then everyone will have a probably difficult round into finals. but lescooooo maruuuuuuuuuuuuu

I am a big believer in Serral and super excited to see him play against top Koreans. I actually think Serral vs Rogue would be a pretty even match. I think Serral could beat Innovation too, but it's hard to tell how good Serral's TvZ is because there is a big gap between top foreign terrans and top Korean terrans.

I agree with goofy that Maru has a pretty easy path to the finals. Soo just lost to Special and Keen, so i don't like his chances against Maru. Obviously if Soo plays his best he is capable of beating anyone, so it wouldn't be the biggest upset ever if he beat Maru. If he plays like he did in code S he is going to get stomped into the ground tho. I really like Maru's chances against Zest and Stats too.

- GSL vs the World is in 25 hours hyyyyyyyyyype
- New maps time!

Say goodbye to:
Catalyst ()
16-bit
Darkness Sanctuary
Redshift

(I had 2 of those vetoed and didn't love Redshift, so not an awful list of maps to get rid of)

Say hello to:

Fracture LE



Seems standard/unobjectionable, maybe a short attack distance for midgame pushes


Blueshift LE



Also seems fairly standard


Cerulean Fall LE



Seems like high ground siege tanks will do quite well in attacks on Zerg 4ths on this map


Para Site LE



Also kinda weird - for bottom right player, the 6 o'clock third (not the super forward one, which probably is not tenable?) seems vulnerable on the low ground, but I always hate being forced into taking a third (the 4 o'clock one) that makes a triangle out of your bases such that warp prisms/medivacs can force you to dance between your 3rd and main


Anyway on the whole these seem not that bad

i will miss redshift, such a great map. pro tip : never take the gold.

Maru/Soo

pretty sick first series

who the **** picked this music

anyone else on for day 2 live?

just gonna say, koreans do it better

I'm here

Serral-Kelazhur:

since the 2nd half isnt a spoil, why couldnt has vs neeb be round 1

omg rogue spits hot fire