ESL Open #225: GuMiho, Clem, MaxPax win

Week #225 gave us our first ‘full’ week of weekly tournaments in several weeks, with the ESL Open Cups, Kung Fu Cup, and KSL all being played (while many other smaller cups and showmatches are played every week, for the sake of this round-up, only tournaments with a traditional single-elim format and regular participation of high-level players are counted).

The Korean cup gave us a minor surprise, with GuMiho going through SHIN, Classic, and Solar to win the week. There was quite a bit of luck involved, with GuMiho benefitting from both advantageous seeding and upsets lower in the bracket (possibly due to the semi-random seeding introduced in Week #220). HerO defeated Dark in the RO8, only to be eliminated himself by Solar in the RO4. Another cup favorite in ByuN was defeated by Classic in the RO8, while Reynor ate the biggest upset of the week by losing 1-2 to NightMare in the RO16. All this allowed GuMiho to sweep up the remaining pieces and claim the weekly prize.

Conversely, the European proceeded in predictable fashion, with MaxPax and Clem yet again clashing in the finals. Both players reached the finals with perfect map records, and Clem ended up being the one to complete his perfect run by taking a 3-0 against his rival.

MaxPax proceeded to redeem himself in the following Americas competition, defeating herO 3-1 in the finals to come out as the weekly champion.

In non-ESL cup competitions, Classic won Kung Fu Cup Summer #1 (3-1 vs Reynor in the finals), while herO won KSL #49 (3-0 vs Dark in the finals).

ESL Open: Korean Cup (partial bracket shown)

*****

ESL Open: European Cup (partial bracket shown)

*****

ESL Open: American Cup (partial bracket shown)

*****

Kung Fu Cup Summer #1 (Partial bracket shown)

*****

Korean StarCraft League #49 (Partial bracket shown)