By this point, those of you who've watched a lot of GSL games will have seen enough of the top Korean players to become familiar with their play and root for some of them, but as non-Koreans it's hard not to root for the foreign players. GSL 1 had four foreigners qualify to the top 64, but GSL 2 had only three. With the competition becoming fiercer than ever, it wouldn't be shocking to see the diminishing trend continue. A further blow is Liquid`TLO, the only foreigner besides IdrA to qualify for both GSL 1 and 2, returning to Germany rather than play in GSL 3. Fortunately, more well-known foreigners than ever before are going to be participating in qualifying this year. I'm going to run down the foreigners known to be participating in the qualifiers tomorrow and on Tuesday, separated by a rough guess as to their likelihood of advancing.
Sure Thing
EG.IdrA
Loner
Sen
As Tester and oGsTOP found out last time, there aren't actually any sure things in GSL qualifying. Not because, as you will often hear, the brackets are random...they clearly are not. But there are enough good players participating that the path to qualification often leads through a player who's a GSL veteren himself. Still, IdrA and Loner have proven their ability to stomp all but the top tier of players. As for Sen, this is his first GSL, but Taiwan's best player has been one of the best Zerg players since the beta. My only fear is that having only arrived in Korea recently, he may still be adjusting (I'm not sure if he's been laddering on KOR remotely, like for example SeleCT has been).
Good Chance
SeleCT
Liquid`HuK
Liquid`Jinro
SeleCT and Huk have extremely good records in foreigner tournaments. SeleCT, of course, is not really a foreigner, just a product of the foreign scene since he was living in the US when SC2 came out. Unlike other new players he shouldn't have issues adjusting to Korea. Jinro is coming off his win at MLG Dallas and he's played in both previous qualifiers. This is his chance to demonstrate to the Korean community how much his game has improved.
Outside Chance
Liquid`Ret
Liquid`Haypro
EG.INcontroL
KiWiKaKi
Artosis
There's reason to doubt each of these players. My guess is that Ret still needs a little more time before he'll be competitive at the very top level. KiWiKaKi has done well in MLG and IEM, but he's going to have to adjust to Korean opposition. Haypro and INcontroL haven't had the sort of success in foreigner tournaments that would suggest they can do well. Artosis has been there before but can he really compete given his lack of practice time? So, plenty of reason to doubt, but hopefully at least one of these guys can prove me wrong. Team Liquid's sponsor Heosat and manager Nazgul predicted all four of their players would qualify, and while I'll believe it when I see it, there's hope that I'm selling some of these guys too short.
Long shots
TorcH
Tasteless
Tasteless probably has the raw talent to be a fringe GSL player, but so far there hasn't really been any evidence he's put in enough practice time. It seems like it's always Artosis who recognizes players from the ladder, not Tasteless. As for TorcH, GSL 1's Cinderella story is back for GSL 3. Most people, myself included, assume his qualifying for GSL 1 was an artifact of the lesser quality of that tournament. If he manages to win in the much stronger GSL 3 qualifiers, we'll have to reexamine that.
That still isn't every foreigner who will be there. There are always a random assortment of students, tourists, and American military personnel who show up to compete. Maybe one of those unknown players will be GSL 3's TorcH? We'll find out soon enough.
What exactly is the format of the GSL qualifiers? Is it one best-of-3 that everyone plays, or a series of them? How does it work exactly for each of these groups that people get lumped in?
ReplyDeleteThe four groups are really for determining the start time of players' games. Really the players are sifted into 64 independent tournaments. Each tournament has a single winner who goes on to the GSL round of 64. Games are played as best-of-3s with fixed maps: X'el Naga Caverns, Metalopolis, and Scrap Station. Generally each player has to win 4 rounds to qualify, but sometimes there are no-shows in the first round (and even second round in previous GSLs).
ReplyDeleteThere's a widespread belief that the players are allocated randomly, and that it's only luck that prevents, say, FruitDealer and NesTea from ending up in the same bracket and therefore guaranteeing one person to be eliminated. In fact, the brackets are clearly not random, and players are separated based on GomTV's best guess about skill levels.