Jjakji's return

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Coming into today’s group, Jjakji’s chances of making it out – let alone in first place – weren’t that high. He did manage to survive a group with Flash, First and Hyvaa but it was no secret to anybody that the once NSH captain and now a mYi member was no longer in his prime. Ever since his 2011 Code S championship, Jjakji has been performing increasingly worse in Korean tournaments and as a result spent an entire year down in Code A.

Seeing him get his first Ro16 Code S appearance since forever was thus a bit surprising but two series later, Jjakji would prove his success was not a fluke and he might be returning to his previous form, at least partially. His opening series was against SKT’s soO, the first game of which he won through reapers alone. Game two ended up a titanic ZvT on Frost which had soO getting a mid-game supply lead by consecutively destroying armies of Jjakji which happened to be a pinch too small to fight off the initial muta/ling platoons of the Zerg.

As the game entered the later stages, however, things started turning around for Jjakji as soO started cracking under the 4M pressure. Suffering widow mine hits all over the map was only one of soO’s problems as Jjakji had set his eyes on several key tech structures of the Zerg and through medivac drops managed to snipe down first the spawning pool and then the ultralisk cavern. With the production of his core units shut down, soO was in a no-win scenario and a GG was typed.



By the 40th minute, soO is running out of steam before Jjakji's unrelenting 4M

Defeating soO’s ZvT late game and his ridiculous win percentages was an impressive feat but Jjakji did not stop there. Qualifying for the winner’s match placed him face to face with the scariest player in his group, the Season 1 champion Innovation. Losing game one was quick for Jjakji: Polar Night’s topography allowed Innovation to put himself in a better position and slice Jjakji’s jugular while he was away on the map, trying to harass his enemy’s natural.

The former champion was quick on the recovery, though, and a marine drop dealt good SCV damage early on. Although Innovation managed to stabilize and make up for the economic disadvantage, having his army out of position allowed Jjakji to rush in, snipe the tanks guarding his natural and tie the score.

Game three began with mirroring banshee openings and once again Jjakji made good use of his early aggression. Constantly pressuring Innovation and not allowing him to survive till late game where he is most comfortable, Jjakji laid a deadly siege around his opponent’s natural, using his banshee to keep Innovation’s tank count lower. Once Jjakji’s tanks reached critical mass, Innovation was done for.



Innovation drops game two after carelessly losing his tanks



soO takes second over Innovation's body

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