Moon has a tough NGL-ONE schedule ahead. PHOTO BY: LIAM FITZPATRICK
This weekend's match against Hyeong Ju "Check" Lee is one of many very tough and win-needed clashes for the Night Elf specialist. A win tomorrow, 2-1 or 2-0, would make him jump up to rank six, and thereby surpass Dmitriy "Happy" Kostin, Zhou "TeD" Zeng and Deok Man "Soccer" Yun who already have their 18 matches noted down.
Jae Ho "Moon" Jang, who penned a lucrative three-year contract with WeMadeFOX, worthy of 390,000€ in the start of March, has had a rough first half of 2009. Aside from his $1,000 consolation check for ending fourth place in the Extreme Masters Invitational tournament in Asia (in which only four took part), his only notable top placement is the recent runner-up spot in the preliminary for the ESWC Open Games.
Expectations astronomic - ranked 10th in NGL
Being the second best paid progamer in Korean eSports, the expectations on Moon are of course astronomic, and while he has performed well in recent GomTV World Invitational, his results in the NGL-ONE has been of varied results. As of today, with 17 matches played, Moon is ranked in tenth place and holds an 10-7 win-loss record.
A win tomorrow is needed to keep the offline playoff dream alive, as an extremely tough conclusion of the league awaits for Moon. Sky (#9), ReiGn (#4), Lyn (#1), Grubby (#2) are what's left for the WeMadeFOX player to scoop points off of.
A player who is two matches behind, is Moon's coherent rival Xiafeng "Sky" Li. If Moon wins against Check, he will jump over Sky as well, but the Chinese Human has a good chance in coming back and jumping ahead in the rankings with two more matches pending. One is against Moon himself, while the other is against June "Lyn" Park.
Check has nothing to play for
In the opponent's corner, Check has nothing to play for, other than the fact of increasing his positive record against Moon (3-1, Moon's win came six months ago in the NGL-ONE finals). Ranked dead last in the league with a -7 score and a -7 win-loss record, Check is presumably coming in to tomorrow's match unmotivated.
SK-Gaming.com statistics reveal that the Night Elf mirror matchup are the both players' worst, but a mirror match should open up for spectacular mind games and micro management lockdowns between the two.
Links
GosuGamers.net - GosuBet
NGL-ONE.com - Ranking