StayAtHomestory Cup is brand new StarCraft 2 event organized and headlined by Dennis “TaKe” Gehlen. With the HSC 2020 tournament put into question, the StayAtHomestory event is designed to serve as a soft replacement and to keep the competitive spirits up.
The event is scheduled to take place online, between April 10th – 11th. The tournament has a prize pool of $5,000 and features 32 players, many of whom are among the world’s best. So this is not some low-tier competition, even though the prize pool might lead you to believe that. This is an event that brings together Dark, Serral, Zest, INnoVation, ShoWTimE and many other big SC2 names.
In total, the tournament will feature 11 Protoss players, 9 Terran players and 12 Zerg players. So we’ll definitely have a chance to enjoy every single race match-up multiple times.
Because it involves 32 players, StayAtHomestory Cup will be played in 3 stages. Group Stage 1 divides the 32 players into 8 groups of 4. The top 2 players from each group advance to Group Stage 2. This second stage has 4 groups of 4. And again, the top 2 players from each group advance to the Playoffs Stage. This third and final stage of the tournament will be played using the Single-Elimination format, which consists of Quarterfinals, Semifinals and the Grand Final. During the first two stages of the event, every match will be Bo3.
As I have already mentioned, StayAtHomestory Cup will take place in 3 stages and feature 32 players. These players will be divided into the following 8 groups.
This group will likely be dominated by soO and INnoVation. The first of these players is ranked 5th in South Korea while the second one is ranked 17th. Keep in mind, however, that a 17th ranked Korean player would easily be in the top 8 when playing against non-Korean opponents. So in the INnoVation vs. Kelazhur matchup, INnovation will still have a huge advantage, even though he’s ranked 17th in Korea while Kelazhur is ranked 19th for non-Korean players.
In Group B, Elazer and Zest should have an easy life against Bunny and Namshar. Elazer is ranked 7th outside of Korea while Zest is ranked 16th in Korea. Bunny (ranked 25th in Korea) might have a chance against Elazer, but the skill difference is still considerable.
Dark is definitely going to have a field day in this group, as he’s the best player in Korea while the other three are non-Korean players with much lower ranks (17th – 21st). But the second place in the group will be disputed and it’s hard to tell who will win that contest.
Serral and PtitDrogo are the big favorites here. Both of them are high ranking non-Korean players. PtitDrogo is sitting at number 9 and Serral really needs no introduction, as he’s the only player in the history of the game who has managed to truly stand up to the Koreans and steal important trophies from them. There have been others as well who tried to defend the rest of the world (you might remember the Stephano vs. Mvp WCS Season 1 Europe Finals from 2013), but only Serral has been able to do it.
This group almost certainly belongs to Neeb and Solar. The first is ranked 3rd for non-Korean players while the second one is ranked 15th in Korea, which makes him much better than the other two competitors. There’s a tiny chance that uThermal will beat him, but it’s highly unlikely.
Reynor is second only to Serral as a non-Korean Zerg player, so I fully expect him to qualify. As for Lambo, he’s currently sitting at number 12 outside of Korea. He also plays Zerg, which should give you a great ZvZ matchup when he competes against Reynor. The other two players in this group are much lower-ranked, so I don’t think they stand much of a chance.
HeRoMaRinE is easily the strongest player here, being ranked 6th outside of Korea and one of the best Terrans in the world. I’d give 2nd place to TLO, but we’ll have to see who the 4th player is. If they add a strong Korean to this group, I think that will settle the issue.
ShoWTime looks stronger than ever and he’s been around for a long time. He’s currently ranked 8th outside of Korea but he will face some serious Korean opposition in this group. Both Cure and TRUE are strong players and even though they may not be in the top 20 in their region, they’re still highly skilled and could easily eliminate him. As for MaNa, he’s no real threat and should finish 4th.
The big favorites of StayAtHomestory Cup are Serral, Dark, soO, Reynor, and Zest. There are others as well, but these 5 have won between themselves many important competitions in recent years and one of them is more than likely to be crowned champion here.
Park “Dark” Ryung-woo and Won “PartinG” Lee Sak forfeited their spots before the event commenced. They were replaced with Clément “Denver” Coste and Adrien “DnS” Bouet resepctively.
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