White-Ra vs Thorzain, Saturday 12:00 CET, STREAM(CLICKABLE)
The Beast from the East will have to resort to his special-est tactics. Even despite his struggle with carpal tunnel syndrome and the fame he acquired at such a young age the TSL3 winner Thorzain is in the shape of his life. Sure he suffered unexpected losses to the lesser known Spaniards @ ESL's event in Valencia, but his last loss to protoss came from the hands of MC himself.
For White-Ra on the other hand still fresh is the loss to Select at MLG. A loss that displayed the weakness that he, and many of the older generation of StarCraft 2 pros suffer- lack of ability to deal with multi-pronged harassment.
The bottom line then is - while Thorzain does rely mostly on strong macro and timing, he still displays amazing defense against anything unusual. Rarely does anything throw him of - anything but special tactics. In lifetime matches White-Ra is 1 up on the Swedish terran. Granted that doesnt say much when you have to face a Korea-ready Thorzain in a best of 3, but it is a clear evidence that this match up is nothing but a complete coin flip.
Round of 8GGDBTLPD vP/TMoney Lines 02:48 PST
White-Ra162-97 (63%) 145-84 (63.32%) [email protected]
Thorzain58-34 (63%) 48-30 (61.54%) [email protected]
Nerchio vs Socke, Saturday 12:00 CET, STREAM(CLICKABLE)
Lately, like most Protoss, Socke has experienced somewhat of a slump. His match history in the past few weeks has been filled with red. The + column starts, however, with victories over the ZvP expert Sheth and.. Nerchio himself. The German protoss is 5-5 in lifetime matches against the Polish zerg in two best-of-fives that went to the ace match.
Yes Protoss have seen some trouble with the new infestor style ZvP. But Assembly finals of yesterday, if anything, show that it is far from one sided or unwinnable.
It is Nerchio's job to show that it is. Nerchio, by many regarded as a top 3 Zerg in Europe, during the first few months of the year has shown dominance unprecedented for a zerg. The one thing he lacked was a significant offline victory.
For one reason or another Pole seemed to be comfortable in his home state of Poland, and despite the pleas of many fans he was determined to stay there.
So blizzard brought the fight to him. On the home field Nerchio would have the advantage of local support as well as lack of travel fatigue(or in case of his opponent probably even some remainders of jetlag after traveling to MLG). But lacking the offline experience of the German, who has competed on stage as large as WCG since 1998, might turn out to be his downfall.
The zerg player, usually very emotional online, might not be able to handle the pressure of playing in front of the live audience in Warsaw. For that reason, and for coming into this match on a win, we strongly believe that Socke is the favorite to advance in this match up.
Round of 8GGDBTLPD vP/TMoney Lines 02:48 PST
Nerchio167-68 (71%) 103-55 (65.19%) [email protected]
Socke202-112 (64%) 97-67 (59.15%) [email protected]
The Beast from the East will have to resort to his special-est tactics. Even despite his struggle with carpal tunnel syndrome and the fame he acquired at such a young age the TSL3 winner Thorzain is in the shape of his life. Sure he suffered unexpected losses to the lesser known Spaniards @ ESL's event in Valencia, but his last loss to protoss came from the hands of MC himself.
For White-Ra on the other hand still fresh is the loss to Select at MLG. A loss that displayed the weakness that he, and many of the older generation of StarCraft 2 pros suffer- lack of ability to deal with multi-pronged harassment.
The bottom line then is - while Thorzain does rely mostly on strong macro and timing, he still displays amazing defense against anything unusual. Rarely does anything throw him of - anything but special tactics. In lifetime matches White-Ra is 1 up on the Swedish terran. Granted that doesnt say much when you have to face a Korea-ready Thorzain in a best of 3, but it is a clear evidence that this match up is nothing but a complete coin flip.
Round of 8GGDBTLPD vP/TMoney Lines 02:48 PST
White-Ra162-97 (63%) 145-84 (63.32%) [email protected]
Thorzain58-34 (63%) 48-30 (61.54%) [email protected]
Nerchio vs Socke, Saturday 12:00 CET, STREAM(CLICKABLE)
Lately, like most Protoss, Socke has experienced somewhat of a slump. His match history in the past few weeks has been filled with red. The + column starts, however, with victories over the ZvP expert Sheth and.. Nerchio himself. The German protoss is 5-5 in lifetime matches against the Polish zerg in two best-of-fives that went to the ace match.
Yes Protoss have seen some trouble with the new infestor style ZvP. But Assembly finals of yesterday, if anything, show that it is far from one sided or unwinnable.
It is Nerchio's job to show that it is. Nerchio, by many regarded as a top 3 Zerg in Europe, during the first few months of the year has shown dominance unprecedented for a zerg. The one thing he lacked was a significant offline victory.
For one reason or another Pole seemed to be comfortable in his home state of Poland, and despite the pleas of many fans he was determined to stay there.
So blizzard brought the fight to him. On the home field Nerchio would have the advantage of local support as well as lack of travel fatigue(or in case of his opponent probably even some remainders of jetlag after traveling to MLG). But lacking the offline experience of the German, who has competed on stage as large as WCG since 1998, might turn out to be his downfall.
The zerg player, usually very emotional online, might not be able to handle the pressure of playing in front of the live audience in Warsaw. For that reason, and for coming into this match on a win, we strongly believe that Socke is the favorite to advance in this match up.
Round of 8GGDBTLPD vP/TMoney Lines 02:48 PST
Nerchio167-68 (71%) 103-55 (65.19%) [email protected]
Socke202-112 (64%) 97-67 (59.15%) [email protected]
