The first matches in the Round of 16 in the Korean qualifier for the World Cyber Games starts tomorrow; with two top tier matches with Jaedong, free, July and Luxury.
free vs. Jaedong
Jaedong was directly seeded into the Round of 16, and will go up against Hanbit Stars's star player free. Jaedong was last seen losing in the Arena MSL 2008 grand final where he lost to fOrGG, and is surely looking for a successful run in the World Cyber Games to redeem himself. The maps for the encounter: Othello, Blue Storm and Troy are a tad Protoss friendly based on previous match results in leagues, but on the other hand Jaedong has a better record on the maps than free has.The only qualifier in the World Cyber Games StarCraft that is harder to win than the grand final: WCG Korea.
free was placed against sAviOr in the Round of 32, and was able to take out the 'Zerg Maestro' with a 2-1 score. He ended up losing on Andromeda, but could come back winning on both Othello and Blue Storm which bodes well for the upcoming round for the Hanbit Stars player. Other than his recent WCG play, he was a familiar face in the Proleague when his team played. With various results in the Proleague plus getting eliminated by Much in the MSL quarter final, free is no where up to par with Jaedong in stardom.
The overall record between Jaedong and free speaks in favor for Jaedong, who holds a 5-3 record over his upcoming Protoss adversary. No matches between each other as of yet this year, but last the last time the two faced off was in last year's Proleague where free defeated Jaedong on Python.
July vs. Luxury
The reborn God of War July had a good start in the World Cyber Games, taking out Rock in the Round of 24. The former Zerg superstar made a superior comeback in STX SouL and closed this season with an OnGameNet StarLeague title and became the only player except for Nada to win the OSL three times. July will now enter a Zerg mirror match, going up against the semi finalist loser Luxury. Looking at the players' scores on the three maps to be played tomorrow, Luxury has the advantage, not only a better but also more official matches played on them.The two Zerg players have played each other three times prior to this battle. Once in the last OnGameNet StarLeague, where July ended out on top. The two previous games were in an earlier OSL, and in the 2007's second round of Proleague, where in both Luxury was the victor.
Catch the matches on Daum and YaoYuan tomorrow morning at 05:30.
Links
Fomos.kr - Source
TeamLiquid.net - Source
