Weekly Cups (June 16-22): Clem strikes back

Weekly Cup Competitions
Week of June 16 – June 22

by Wax

A short ‘break’ week without offline events was still packed with online competition, as the usual weeklies were joined by a handful of special events. With herO taking the week off, Clem and MaxPax split the spoils in 1v1 competition, while the team of Jumy and YoungYakov found success in 2v2.

*Partial brackets may be shown.

June 16: WardiTV Mondays #40

WardiTV Mondays saw herO take a rare week off from cup competition, but also featured a rare appearance from Reynor to make up for it. Unfortunately Reynor, he couldn’t quite emulate herO’s winning ways as he was eliminated by Solar in the RO8.

The finals came down to Solar vs Clem, a match-up that has generally seen the Korean Zerg put up a respectable fight before losing in the end. This clash followed the same pattern—Solar impressed in game one by winning in a late-game macro duel, but gave up the next two maps after crumbling against Clem’s early/mid-game pressure. Solar forced a game five with a well-executed Ravager all-in, but a failed Nydus cheese in the deciding game sealed the victory for Clem (VOD).

*****

June 16: Monday Night Weeklies #18

The competition intensified a few hours later in Monday Night Weeklies as MaxPax joined the fray. However, this didn’t impede Clem at all, as he actually improved upon his performance from WardiTV Mondays to win MNW with a perfect 12-0 map record. This included two BO3 victories against MaxPax in the winners’ and grand finals, where nothing seemed to go right for the mysterious Dane. Whether it was two base all-ins or mine-drops, MaxPax just didn’t have an answer for Clem’s early aggression and had to settle for second place (VOD).

*****

June 17: PiGosaur Cup #36

Moving on to Tuesday, the PiGosaur Cup showed how matches between top players can look extremely different depending on the day. The finals saw MaxPax and Clem face off once more in a rematch from Monday Night Weeklies, but this time, MaxPax actually got to cook after getting out of the early-game without much incident. As a result, not only did MaxPax make the series competitive, but came out of it with a 3-2 victory (VOD).

*****

June 19: WardiTV !TR Invitational

Wardi delivered some bonus mid-week content with four top players facing each other in a mini-competition. Clem came out as the ultimate victory, going through a TPZ trio of MaxPax, ByuN, and Reynor along the way (VOD).

*****

June 20: uThermal 2v2 Tour: Last Chance Qualifiers

uThermal’s 2v2 tour hit its penultimate stop, holding a last chance qualifier to the $10,000 main event in August. The duo of Jumy and YoungYakov clinched the final ticket, besting Gerald-Nicoract 3-1 in the finals (VOD).

*****