The draw for WCS Premier went off without a hitch and the groups are quite varied, from a soft Group D to a difficult Group E. The first two groups take place in California, with a dynamic Group A and a less exciting Group B. As always, I'll go through Aligulac's numbers and see what the odds say about who moves on to the R16 (I ran these numbers two weeks ago as well and I'll note changes were they occurred).
Group A
Jim vs Kane - the Canadian is favoured (64%) and his top-8 finish last season certainly emphasizes that (granted, pre-patch results); the two have never played before, but the Chinese player's PvZ has not been impressive of late so I'll stick with the odds
Bunny vs Petraeus - the Danish Terran is favoured (57%; it was 54%), losing to his opponent recently, but Bunny is the better player and Petraeus was not impressive at DreamHack, so I'll stick with the odds
Losers
Petraeus vs Jim - the Zerg player is an overwhelming favourite (72%; it was 74%), despite Jim holding a 5-0 record against him (and a lot of Petraeus' positive ZvP numbers being built off of B-grade Europeans); that said, Jim hasn't been impressive in the match-up lately, so I'll stick with the odds
Winners
Kane vs Bunny - the Canadian beat his opponent in the R16 last season, but the Dane is still favoured (63%; it was 62%); other than showmatches Kane hasn't lost to a Terran in 2015 (a match-up not dependent on the old swarm hosts), so I'll go with the upset
Finals
Bunny vs Petraeus - see above (although it's worth remembering in WCS re-matches the loser was 5-2 last season); if this is Kane instead of Bunny, then Petraeus is favoured (65%; it was 66%); given the paucity of the Canadian's ZvZ results the only argument to make is that the Canadian is the better player
For Aligulac it's Bunny and Petraeus, whereas I have Kane and Bunny (the latter echoed by Team Liquid).
Group B
TooDming vs StarDust - the Korean is heavily favoured (69%; it was 70%); the two have never met before and the sample size from StarDust recently is much too small to make anything of, but TooDming has never beaten a Korean of his calibre (Arthur is as close as it gets), so I won't argue with the odds
ForGG vs Sen - not surprisingly the Terran is massively favoured (73%), having crushed Sen last season in WCS; the Taiwanese player has one significant win over a Korean Terran (Bomber back in August), but it has been almost a year since ForGG last lost to a foreign Zerg, so I find the odds convincing
Losers
TooDming vs Sen - the Taiwanese player is the favourite (65%), having won the only previous meeting between them (2-0 back in 2013); Sen also has a much stronger track record in ZvZ, so all things being equal he should win here
Winners
ForGG vs StarDust - the Terran is once again heavily favoured (75%; it was 73%), with a good historical edge against the Protoss player (8-5); StarDust is only 1-8 in his last BO3 vs Koreans Terrans, while ForGG's only recent losses are against Rain and San; I like the odds
Final
StarDust vs Sen - the Protoss player is favoured (57%; it was 59%), the two never having met before; Sen hasn't had a significant result against a Korean Protoss since 2013, so I'll take the favourite
It's no surprise the two Koreans are favoured and despite StarDust being a beatable opponent I don't think either foreigner is well-matched against him, so I'll stick with he and ForGG (TL agrees).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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