[SSL Autumn] Ro16 Preview Pt2: Garnish
Don’t forget to also check out Simplistik’s Why Snow will win Part 2 as we head into Group C where he starts his SSL run.
Blue Goop Soop (with a side of Escargot)
Group C will be seeing plenty of dead dragoons, and thus lots of blue goop to make our soup with a side of plenty of slugs. The lone Terran, Speed, finds himself surrounded on all sides by monstrous PvT players. Can he find a way to make the goon soup, or will he be lost in the Protoss sauce?
Snow must be very happy to find a group without any Zergs, which is naturally his weakest matchup. Plus, a full Terran/Protoss group means that he can flex his reaver control in this group. Let’s not forget that his opponent for the first match, Speed, got absolutely embarrassed in the last ASL by Snow, who completely ran circles around Speed with god-tier reaver control. I expect the same to be done in his PvP matches against Rain and Mini. On paper, this group should be Snow’s to lose, as his PvP and PvT winrates clear both Rain and Mini, who are in essence, slightly worse versions of Snow going by winrates. Plus, Snow has been tearing it up in proleague this month, with an impressive 67% winrate. However, it really comes down to whether Snow has gotten over his offline woes and can shed the stigma of being a choker when it comes to the premier tournaments. Last season was a breakout performance by making it to the semifinals, losing to the eventual winner, Soulkey. But perhaps this is the tournament for Snow, with so few Zergs left and plenty of opportunities to demonstrate his superior reaver control. I fully expect Snow to be able to come out victorious in this group.
Speed must have nightmares from his first match against Snow, and he must have been living a nightmare when he saw Snow pick him into his group again. Poor Speed must try to be as resilient as possible to overcome the immense pressure that is Snow’s control, in addition to the other Protoss players in the group. However, if his match against BeSt was any indication of Speed’s dramatic improvement since the last ASL, he should put up a much better fight this time around. He was very solid defensively against BeSt’s attempts to attack him in their match on Dominator, and he kept his cool even in the face of the barrage of stasis and recall that BeSt threw at him. I would say that Speed’s match against BeSt will best serve him in a game against Rain, but perhaps not as easy to defend against more aggressive Protoss like Snow and Mini. While he does only have one matchup to prepare for, each Protoss offers slightly different ways to play the matchup, and thus he will still need to diligently practice different scenarios to ensure he’s ready for whichever Protoss he’ll have to face.
Maybe Rain has put down the League of Legends for a little bit to focus more on this SSL, as he’s shown quite a decent performance so far, beating ZerO in the final match of this Ro24 group. He’s even increased his proleague matches played, having 50 so far at the time of writing this, though there are some worrying concerns. He’s 8-17 in PvT this month, and only 2-2 in PvP. I have to say that out of all the Protoss, Rain is someone with incredible potential, but maybe lacks the work ethic to fully utilize the potential that he has. In honesty, I think this SSL will still continue to show that Rain isn’t fully taking this game seriously. I really do wish he would return to his peak form in 2018/2019, but if he doesn’t, I find that he’s going to have some struggle in this group. I expect him to have the most difficulty against Speed in PvT, since his style most similarly mirrors that of BeSt, who was dispatched by Speed. His lifetime PvP is still nothing to scoff at, boasting a 64% winrate on the eloboards, and a 76.5% winrate in tournaments. But that was bolstered by the Rain of old, not the current version of Rain who has not found success in the ASL since his last deep run in ASL 13.
Mini’s erratic style is going to be the most difficult to prep for in this group. Against Scan he pulled out a more aggressive 2 gate that, while Scan did prepare reasonably well for, still managed to get damage done and led him to comfortably winning the game. Against sSak, he lucked out by getting a crossmap 12 nexus which led into a comfortable win as well. But I have to say that his build order choice against Bisu was head scratching to say the least. 3 zealots in a PvP? That doesn’t sound right at all, or maybe he was expecting something different from Bisu. Regardless, Mini’s reaver control has also been very solid, which he showed off in his game against Scan. And most have been talking about how his PvP is at its peak right now alongside Snow, which was one of the reasons for the development of the pure goon/reaver meta rather than a more traditional style where reavers are phased out in favor of templar tech later in the game. Eloboard also shows that his lifetime PvP winrate sits at 62%, so Mini is very confident in his ability to throw off his opponents and find small advantages to take control of the game.
Predictions:
Gazpacho
Group D is set to be a long one as it once again features 3 terrans in 
Sharp, Royal and Light all of whom are exceptional TvT players in their own right with their own subtle differences in playstyle when it comes to it, but there is also 
Stork who stands as the only protoss player of the group, having his own advantage of needing to only practise one matchup for the group, he could prove to be a big spoiler to the Terrans.
Sharp made Top 4 in ASL17 securing his seed directly into the Ro16 for SSL, Sharp remains active as a K-League player who occasionally participates though not very successful in the major proleague games. Sharp comes into this group with some confidence having just 3-0’d BarrackS in the PSL Round 3 Semifinal and having watched BarrackS play his heart out so far this season in SSL, that’s saying something. Sharp’s TvT style is more aggressive than the average TvT player looking for early openings to exploit getting advantage in the late game mostly through Vulture harassment tactics.The last question that remains is his PvT as his opening match is against Stork. In the last 2 months he holds a 45-35(56.2%) winrate, putting him on a good footing against Stork.
RoyaL unfortunately didn’t get a chance to face off against Rush in their Ro24 group having completely skipped the TvT to take on Motive and win the revenge match against 
Sacsri after losing to him in their opener, his only major offline showing in TvT recently have been beating BarrackS in the PSL Round 2 2-1 and Scan in PSL Round 3 3-0, he will be facing Sharp in the PSL Round 3 Finals but that takes place on Oct 5th, well after this group(you could say this serves as a preview for that). Being more of a Major Proleague regular, while his stats may look worse than Sharp’s, RoyaL is playing against tougher competition than Sharp does regularly. RoyaL takes a more measured approach to his TvT, usually preferring to play Fantasy style towards the late game trying to get science vessels for d-matrix as quickly as possible. RoyaL’s TvP is currently is best and most practised match up in the last 2 months running 86-82(51.1%) win rate against some of the best protoss and he’s beaten Snow 3-2 in the PSL Round 1 Finals, RoyaL will have no issues facing up against Stork.
Light cruised through his Ro24 group beating huro and Jaedong without much issue. Light is currently the #1 ranked player in terms of results over the last 2 months and is probably the biggest threat in the group so long as he’s able to perform in an offline environment because its happened time and again that even the best performing players can and will fall on any given day when taken out of their regular environment and put in front of the fans, but lets say we do get the version of Light that we see online, we’re talking about a terran thats 13-5(72.2%) in TvT and an even more impressive 85-38(69.1%) in TvP. If he’s prepared for the group in terms of actual practice and mental fortitude he is going to be unstoppable.
Speaking of preparation, no one shows up for an offline series like Stork does, known for historically showing some of the most defiant displays of skill when most people would consider him the weakest threat in the group. If you take that and the fact that Stork only has to practice PvT, we might be looking at a powerful player who might not only play spoiler for a certain player but the whole group by advancing, maybe beating light might be tough but RoyaL? Sharp? Definitely doable looking at just his Ro24 group against Mind and JyJ on top of that he has an online winrate of 59-41(59%) winrate in PvT.
All in all this group could really go multiple ways, with everyone having a good chance to advance, I personally would like to see Light and Stork make it through so thats what I’m going with.
Light and Stork To Advance To Ro8!