“Is sanZenith SC2’s Verbal Kint? Leading us all to believe he’s no threat at all, barely even deserving of Code S, but really he’s a legendary ruthless kingpin, capable of mass murder?”
sanZenith's win was so shocking, the banner after the match mistakenly said NesTea won.
This season, the GSL is establishing the standard for surprise upsets in StarCraft II. Imagine if before the season started I told you that IMMvp, IMNesTea, SlayerS_Boxer, MarinKingPrime.WE, and TSL.FruitDealer would all be knocked out in the first round of Code S, that ST_Squirtle would get 2-0’d in his first match of Code A, and that sanZenith would emerge from the round of 32 looking like a possible contender. You’d call me insane right? Three former champions, a two time finalist and the emperor himself, all on the brink of dropping to Code A while “sadZenith” cruised through to the next round? No way.
It shocked me too. I bet if you watched my face during these games I’d have the same expression that I had the first time I saw The Usual Suspects and it was revealed that Kevin Spacey was Keyser Soze. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.” Is sanZenith SC2’s Verbal Kint? Leading us all to believe he’s no threat at all, barely even deserving of Code S, but really he’s a legendary ruthless kingpin, capable of mass murder? NesTea even picked san to be in his group, saying something to the effect of “I want an easy win” and san played right along explaining that he didn’t expect advance. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. I just hope that san can continue his Soze-esque domination because it’ll be wildly anti-climactic if he gets knocked out next round after I likened him to one of the coolest bad guys in movie history.
Of course, he wasn’t the only player to surprise us; the sheer quantity of underdogs that pulled though in the first round is staggering. I could heap praise on half a dozen players for exceeding expectations and putting their names in the mix with the best in the entire world. But when it comes down to it, the rest of the upsets pale in comparison to what sanZenith pulled off by knocking out NesTea and Boxer in what turned out to be one of the best groups in the entire tournament. Remember, this is the same guy who accidentally blocked his natural with a cannon in the GSL Open season two - my new theory of course is that this was just like how Verbal Kint pretended to have cerebral palsy. Why would you ever be scared of someone can hardly move half their limbs or builds photon cannons where their nexus should be?
Now he’s 3-0ing a group of NesTea, Boxer and Ensnare. Not only are all three very high caliber players, but san beat them in impressive fashion. Against NesTea, he put on a lot of early pressure, prompting Artosis to explain that he was all-inning because he knew NesTea was the better player. But san managed to transition into a macro oriented long game, fended off some great attacks by NesTea, and beat the season two champion in a very intense game. He then rolled over Boxer with a phoenix-collosus-stalker death ball and topped off the group stage with an epic win over Ensnare. I guess that’s just what happens when you underestimate Keyser Soze.
The first-second place tiebreaker game can sometimes be sort of meaningless. It’s not like the number one seed from a group is guaranteed an easier route from the round of 16 onward. But that didn’t deter san and Ensnare from throwing everything they had at each other. The match highlighted both players’ lightning-fast and precise control, with feedbacks being used to counter EMPs which were countering storms. Ensnare used a couple nukes, landing one to slaughter 15 or so probes. San used hallucinated phoenixes to warp in dark templar on high ground and later even added some hallucinated colossi to the battle. It was phenomenal play from both players, but san got the well earned win. His dismantling of the group may have been a gigantic upset, but it was no fluke. If he continues to play at this level, he’s going to be tough to stop. But then again, I said the same thing about Mvp after his dominating performance last season. That’s the great thing about upsets like this, you never see them coming, but you also never forget them.
