Intel-Averatec Classic aka TG-Sambo Classic aka the GOM tournament grand finals tonight (18:00 Korean time):
Flash (T) v. Jaedong (Z), the final fanboys who can’t bear the thought of other players being better than these two have been waiting for.
Map order-
Blue Storm (36.2% TvZ)
Othello (63% TvZ)
Katrina SE (50% TvZ)
Colosseum (75% TvZ)
Blue Storm (36.2% TvZ)
Just based on maps, Jaedong should win on Blue Storm (twice) and Flash should win on Othello and Colosseum; of course map balance/imbalance isn’t the only thing that decides a series, but if everything more or less plays out according to map balance, Katrina SE is the swing map; assuming both win their favored maps, whoever wins on Katrina takes the gold.
Blue Storm… Jaedong has been brilliant on this map in the past, and while they adjusted the map to make it a bit more friendly for T/P (causing P to run away with the new iteration of the map), he certainly hasn’t been a slouch on the new version. Flash is no slouch himself on Blue Storm; the two have split games on Blue Storm. Jaedong is 13-9 (most of his losses coming this season, only ONE individual league loss on Blue Storm)… Flash is 13-7 (most losses from last season). Worth noting since Jaedong’s ZvT “slump” coincides with the introduction of heavily T-favored maps, including a rebalanced Blue Storm- last season, Z ran the show on Blue Storm to the point that the recent surge of T wins against Z on this map have only brought the overall TvZ winrate to 36%.
BUT… this season, T is 53.8% on Blue Storm 1.2 (contrast to 32.1% on Blue Storm 1.1). Worth noting.
Othello and Colosseum are Zerg burial ground. Those two maps helped seal Jaedong’s fate against fOrGG before reaching the relatively untested (but seemingly balanced) Athena, and if Flash is smart he’ll abuse these maps for all they’re worth. Flash is a brutal 10-2 on Othello… and a much more human 6-5 on Colosseum. Lecaf wisely didn’t play Jaedong a lot on these maps, but he’s 4-1 on both (all games in individual leagues, with the single loss on each coming from fOrGG).
Katrina SE should be the determining match, and how appropriate that is. Katrina is the map that Jaedong finished off Stork to walk the Royal Road, turning into a ZvP beast to rival July. Katrina is the map where Flash broke through from cheese Terran to ULTIMATE WEAPON, unleashing his metal TvZ strats and his double armory builds that finally broke the Katrina 2base carrier autowin button. Flash 13-2 on Katrina- losing his first game to Pusan (coincidentally he hasn’t played Pusan since) and losing a game to Jaedong. Jaedong went 10-2, both of his losses coming from Flash himself.
But this is Katrina SE, a map Flash hasn’t played on this season (why would he? KTF would just play him on Othello for the auto-win when possible, Colosseum for the edge if not), and a map that Jaedong is undefeated on this season. Do I think the difference between both versions will be huge? No, but it’s rather telling that Jaedong’s only losses on either version of Katrina have come from Flash.
The maps HEAVILY favor Flash but Jaedong has won way more than he’s lost on these maps as well.
Neither player is at the dizzying heights of their dominant streaks, but they aren’t exactly sucking either. Jaedong is still OSL cursed with his OSL run ending in offline prelims thanks to an up-and-coming Protoss (han, who is incidentally still in the running for an OSL berth) but both players are seeded into the MSL and pretty much smashing their way through WCG, and both players dispatched their GOM semi opponents with ease.
So get hype and let’s hope these guys deliver something better than their respective performances against fOrGG ;(