The Round of 32 has come and gone in WCS Europe and it's time to reflect on predictions as well as make some for the Round 16. Aligulac was 12-4 in its projections, getting only NaNiwa, ForGG, Bly, and Genius wrong (so missing Bunny, BabyKnight, BlinG, and Grubby). I successfully predicted Bly would not make it, but my alternative (Happy), also failed. I incorrectly went for HasuObs over Snute, so I finished at 11-5 (having largely agreed with Aligulac). In terms of racial performance, Protoss were 7-6, Zergs 4-7, and Terrans 5-3 (Koreans went 6-2). The R16 groups are below:
There's no surprise that Aligulac projects Mvp and MMA to win this group (74% and 56%). Mvp is on a 17-1 streak against foreigners in the relevant matchups (his only loss was to PiG in September), so there's no reason to doubt him. MMA has been a bit more vulnerable against the same competition (6-3 lately), losing to ParanOid, Minato, and VortiX (the latter at ASUS ROG). VortiX has had some success against Korean Terrans, so the possibility exists he can knock out either player, but I think it's unlikely and go with the odds here. Bunny, while his TvZ is good, does not have a great track record against top players of any kind.
Aligulac see's jjakji and Snute moving forward (90% and 42%), although the gap between Snute and Dayshi is tiny (41% for the Frenchman). I see no reason to argue with jjakji, so the point of interest is the other player going through (Grubby is far too erratic to be considered). Both are very good in the match-up, but Dayshi is better (83% vs 73%) and has not lost to Snute in HOTS yet--so I'll go with the Frenchman.
Group C
The first of two Protoss-dominated groups, Aligulac has StarDust and Welmu going through (78% and 62%). TLO benefits from having only one match-up to prepare for and PvP is notoriously fickle, but BabyKnight is clearly the odd man out as he's very inconsistent against other Protoss. I find TLO extremely hard to read--beating Genius recently (granting the lag), but losing to Harstem and HasuObs. Welmu and StarDust are equally good at PvP (71%, the later's is just against foreigners) and both are strong in PvZ, so given all that I'll go with the odds here.
Group D
The second heavily Protoss group, I see no reason to argue with Aligulac's projection that San and MC will move forward (81% and 64%)--BlinG does have a wing over StarDust recently, but otherwise no wins over strong Koreans and his PvZ has been awful of late (1-7); Nerchio only has StarDust and Genius as a meaningful wins over Korean Protoss which bodes ill for him.
If the predictions are correct, Mvp, MMA, jjakji, Snute, StarDust, Welmu, MC, and San will make it through (although I have Dayshi instead of Snute). That would be 4 Protoss, 3 Terrans, and 1 Zerg (or 4 and 4 in my opinion).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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