[TSL 4] Day 1: And so it begins

Major vs TSL_Hyun
[GOSUBET]



"HyuN is underrated, he's probably the best zerg in TSL."

Those were the exact words of Major himself in the interview after his qualifier win. As a part of the team that lives and breathes Symbol as the battering ram of their zerg line-up, HyuN must feel ecstatic after reading this statement. One should also have in mind that Major's word were anything but shallow - during his time in Korea, the Mexican terran has been close friends with many of the TSL players and a frequent practice partner of theirs so along comes the question what does he know that the community doesn't? How is HyuN better than Symbol?

A part of the answer lies in our replay section that currently has more replays of HyuN winning tournaments than anybody else. Since the start of 2012, HyuN has pouched 22 gold medals at ZOTACs, Antec Attacks, GGA Cups, et cetera. All he does is train, play, win and temper himself in a shell of online tournament experience. The competitive machine that he is, HyuN does not just disappear after failing to qualify for Code A or doing bad at DreamHack like many compatriots of his tend to do.

To balance it all out comes his painfully average ZvT record that lists embarrassing recurring losses against players such as TheBest, to say nothing of the ones against top terrans like Kas, Polt, Keen and ByuN. HyuN is clearly not in his comfort zone playing ZvT and he's been dealt an unfortunate hand in his round one opponent.

Fortunately, Major is as far from the consistent heavy-hitter as one can be. Interchanging between good results, bad results and bad manner, Major has been emerging to the surface and sinking back to the dark depths of the scene like a spinner dolphin, though lacking all their grace. He went to Korea carrying the personal praise of Artosis, indicating in this manner that nothing will go smoothly for him: the Artosis curse was just to real to ignore.

With TSL 4, Major will be looking to regain his status as a formidable player - a reputation he never truly succeeded in setting in stone.

Prediction: HyuN 3-2 Major

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ST_Curious vs Mill.Lalush
[GOSUBET]



Oh, why is this so easy to predict?

On the left side we have StarTale's Curious - a GSL regular, a Code A champion, a member of one of the best Korean pro-teams and a player with 70%+ win rate in mirrors, currently one of the best ZvZers in Korea. On the other side there's Lalush - someone who will be playing his best (yet not outstanding) match-up but lacks a convincing ZvZ victory in any major tournament to back those stats up.

Nevertheless, the moderate volatility of the zerg mirror combined with the Korean curse from TSL 3 might smile upon the Swede. Highly unlikely, though, and he'll be going home with 99.9% certainty.

Prediction: Curious 3-1 Lalush

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K3.Vortix vs FXO.BabyKnight
[GOSUBET]



Where did Vortix come from? How did he evolve from someone whose biggest accomplishment in StarCraft was someone's brother to a player that just until recently was has sixteen wins in his last twenty games against names of the caliber of Happy, Vines, Kas, Golden, Select, HasuObs, Lowely and Socke? And most importantly - where will his momentum stop as it most likely won't be in the Ro32.

Indeed from the looks of it, Vortix will be logging in today for a decisive victory against BabyKnight. The Spaniard's ZvP is bordering 70%, while his opponent's is at the appalling 45% and he's surfing the wave created by his recently acquired fame with confidence after all killing Empire (who were the terror of international leagues a few months back) and going 11-1 through EU/NA qualifiers #7, a tournament that threw the most motley combination of renowned Korean and European players his way.

Even with all that in mind, BabyKnight is not to be discarded that easily. Recently coming out of an 8-game PvZ win-streak, the former DotA player is known as one of the most persevere ladder grinders in all Europe. His four TLOpen appearances placed him second in the EU/NA ranking just one point below Dignitas' SeleCT. Although with a horrible win percentage, his PvZ record lists victories against Golden, JonnyRecceo, Lowely and UK's WCS champion Ziktomini. There is no question that ever since he switched to SC2, the Dane has been working hard to prove that MOBA players aren't completely incompetent outside their "one unit, five buttons" area of expertise.

That "decisive victory" from three paragraphs ago might not be that decisive after all.

Prediction: Vortix 3-2 BabyKnight

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Liquid`Ret vs ST_Squirtle
[GOSUBET]



There were exactly two people that I cared about in this tournament and both of them are facing each other in the very first round.

God damn it!

What is there about Ret that hasn't been written in thousand articles already? We know about his overdroning abuse, we are aware of his inconsistency and - with Stephano, Nerchio and Dimaga doing so well in ZvP - it seems he's the only zerg outside Korea who just can't have a good vP streak going. The small exception were HSC V (although iNcontroL and ReaL aren't precisely the pillars of the protoss race) and his victory run through TLOpen EU #5 but those remain minor flukes: in his entirety, Ret's ZvP is unstable as Dr. Octopus's fusion reactor.

On the other side of the arena is StarTale's Squirtle, who aside from delivering some serious tournament uppercut recently is also - for all Ret's misfortune - a protoss, and one of the best to that. IPL 4 and Code S Season 2 furthermore proved that Squirtle knows how to plan and play out a long series and TSL's Best-of-Fives are to give him an additional edge.

No matter how I look at this, Ret is not going to survive a five-game series against the Korean and just like Dr. Octopus' said machine, he will fall apart halfway through.

Prediction: Squirtle 3-1 Ret