Weekly Cups (May 27-June 1): ByuN goes back-to-back

Weekly Cup Competitions
Week of May 26 – June 1

by Wax

The week of May 26 – June 1 saw the two post-Dallas weeklies go to Firefly and ByuN, while Clem won the month-long May Mayhem competition.

*Partial brackets may be shown.

May 26: WardiTV Mondays #37

MaxPax seemed like a shoo-in to win the travel-day edition of WardiTV Mondays, as nearly every strong cup player was occupied getting back home from DreamHack Dallas. Instead, Firefly came up with a huge upset, taking down the mysterious Dane 3-2 in the finals.

Firefly took a mixed approach to handling MaxPax’s Stargate expansion openers, using both all-ins and his own macro strategies to defeat the top PvP player. While MaxPax’s predictable play is still successful against most opponents, one has to wonder if his recent PvP slide means it’s time for him to vary his openers up (VOD).

*****

May 27: PiGosaur Cup #33

It’s rare for anyone outside the Clem-herO-MaxPax trinity to win a cup at all, let alone win two in a row. But ByuN achieved just that on Tuesday night, taking down the off-racing Clem to win the PiGosaur Cup for the second straight week. TvP fans should be glad to learn that ByuN didn’t have to lean entirely on all-ins, as he managed to win a macro-ish game on Pylon. However, dirty tactics were definitely required to complete the 3-2 victory, with ByuN winning the final two maps with proxy-Marauders and a Cure-esque 3-Barracks/1-Factory all-in (VOD).

*****

May 4 – June 1: May Mayhem

Clem wouldn’t go winless on the week, picking up the $500 first place prize in May Mayhem. The 3-0 finals against ShoWTimE saw Clem quickly jump ahead 2-0 with a series of Marine-Tank pushes, and take the series-clinching win after surviving a basetrade.

The crypto-sponsored event also ‘featured’ one of the weirder tournament formats we’ve seen in StarCraft II, playing the grand finals first and then following up with TWO placement matches for ranks #2-4. In a scene that’s largely rid itself of 3rd/4th place matches, it was certainly an unusual choice (VOD (playoffs)).