As predicted ROOT Hydra won season two of WCS, where his most significant challenge throughout the season was Lilbow. There's really nothing surprising about the ROOT player's win--as nice as it is for him, he's the best Korean playing in the WCS system and should have won last season as well. That said, there were plenty of interesting stories in Toronto, but before delving into them here's how predictions went:
Myself: 14-1
Aligulac:12-3
TL: 7-2 (they made no specific R8 or R4 predictions; for the finals I'm using the majority opinion--they had the right winner, although none had the right match-up)
Overall for the season Aligulac was a remarkable 24-7, I was 23-8, and TL was 18-7 (a substantial increase for all three over season one).
In terms of balance:
PvT: 4-3
TvZ: 4-3
ZvP: 3-3
Map scores:
Coda (14): PvT 2-3 ZvP 2-2 ZvT 2-3
Echo (11): PvT 3-3 ZvT 1-2 ZvP 2-0
Iron Fortress (8): PvT 3-2 ZvP 1-1 ZvT 1-0
Expedition Lost (7): ZvT 2-1 ZvP 1-1 PvT 2-0
Vaani (6): ZvT 2-2 ZvP 0-2
Cactus Valley (5): PvT 0-1 ZvP 1-2 ZvT 0-1
Inferno Pools (2): PvT 1-0 ZvP 1-0
No obvious balance problems in these results, but it's interesting that Vaani has completely lost its popularity and the now-departed Echo was the second most popular followed by Iron Fortress, the Kespa map. Here's the overall balance for the season (excluding, as usual, Hydra's stomp of Zeal; I've put the maps that are disappearing for season three in italics):
Coda (49): ZvT 12-8 PvT 4-9 ZvP 8-8
Echo (35): ZvT 6-10 ZvP 5-3 PvT 5-6
Vaani (35): ZvP 8-6 ZvT 10-5 PvT 2-7
Iron Fortress (23): ZvP 6-4 ZvT 4-1 PvT 6-3
Expedition Lost (19): ZvP 5-5 ZvT 5-2 PvT 2-0
Cactus Valley (14): PvT 4-2 ZvP 2-3 ZvT 1-2
Inferno Pools (5): ZvT 0-1 ZvP 2-0 PvT 2-0
As popular as Vaani was, you can see the reason for its decline given the edges in TvP and ZvT; Coda's retention makes a lot of sense; Iron Fortress seems to be a bad map for Terrans and a good map for Zergs, although more games on it will help make that clear; Inferno Pools remains one of the worst additions to the WCS map pool and pros will be happy to see it go.
The major surprise of the weekend was ForGG falling out in the R16--not even winning a series. It's hard to say if he was overconfident, too predictable, or if there was something else at play, but it's a major failure for a player many expected to get to the finals (if not win it all). Less of a surprise, but also of note, was Jaedong dropping out in the R8. The Tyrant lost to both Koreans he played and did not look good in either series. Speaking of Koreans, StarDust's struggle against Terrans continued as Bunny dismantled him in the R8. As for the foreigners (can they be foreigners at their own tournament?), TLO was unable to repeat his success against Polt, Ret was sadly unable to repeat his magic from the R32, and "The Year of Harstem" must wait at least one more season (again). That said, it was a remarkable weekend for Lilbow, who benefitted from an easier bracket (one earned by beating Hydra in the R32); he was 10-1 in maps prior to the final and gave the Korean a run for his money (I think if he was calmer we could have seen game seven or even an upset). It's the most remarkable run by a foreigner in a very long time and here's to hoping the Frenchman can keep it up in the future.
A little more generally, the venue was good and the crowd was loud, but there was plenty of space for a bigger audience and I think confusion over whether the event was sold out or not prevented some people from coming (rain all weekend and a varied schedule on Sunday didn't help either). I don't think SC2 fans need to get too concerned about the attendance, regardless. Quite a few streamers, pros, etc were there making for ample opportunity for those who wanted autographs or simply to meet SC2 personalities (streamers attending that I saw: DesRow, Lycan, Rifkin, ZombieGrub, Temp0, CombatEx, Kaitlyn, Tiger Lilly, Poizon, Koshkiisc, The Dark Lorax, and SC_Tris; I imagine there were many more).
I only saw the final of the Redbull Archon-mode tournament (where Scarlett and HuK kept doing the same failed strategy over and over again--congrats to MaSa and viOLet), but it seemed to go over well.
As for the casting, it was good and I enjoyed iNcontroL's conversations with people on the street (ESL has posted all three of them). I thought instead of what seemed like a random rotation of casters they could have lined them up with their preferred race--Nathanias for Terran, ToD or HuK for Protoss, etc. Not the biggest of deals, but it may have added just a touch more insight.
Finally, because this picture cracks me up, here's GunGFuBanDa:
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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