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Trap's and Dear's last 5 PvP matches SouL.Trap SouL.Dear Trap 2-1 sOs GSL Dear 0-2 sOs WCS S3 Trap 0-2 Rain GSL Dear 1-0 Swagger GSL Up/Down Trap 2-0 sOs GSL Dear 0-1 sOs SPL Trap 1-0 Squirtle GSL Up/Down Dear 1-0 Zest SPL Trap 0-2 YongHwa OSL Chall. Dear 0-2 Flying OSL Chall.

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If the PvP match-up wasn't ripe with volatility, this would've been an easy match to call. Although lacking any significant individual results of his, Trap has been performing fantastically this season and the Protoss mirror in particular. The SouL player managed to beat Squirtle on his way back to Premier league and after suvriving the Protoss-heavy Ro16 Group B has made his first ever step into premier StarCraft 2 playoffs.

What's even more impressive is that Trap has done all this playing his two worse match-ups, namely PvT and PvP. His Ro32 group of Keen, Reality and Symbol might not have been the most scariest of groups but he proudly stood atop of it nonetheless, happy to make a second Ro16 in a row, despite the community not paying him much attention (a reasonable reaction considering it was still the Ro32).

His reward on first sight looked a sour one. Ro16 Group B not only featured Rain - still one of the favorites to take the entire Code S home - but also had sOs with his 72% PvP win rate and one of Code S' veterans Keen who also had vP as his strongest match-up. With all three players more highly profiled than him, the SouL Protoss was against all odds.

As we now know, Trap's run through the Ro16 was a bright manifest on how much he has improved since OSL and the days of the Proleague. His two matches against sOs showcased Trap's colorful palette of build orders, varying from micro-intensive stalker rushes, to proxy stargates, to soft contains, to flawless handling of late-game deathballs.

It is that adaptability that Trap's team-mate Dear will have to fight off. A tall order by itself, the challenge before Dear is made tougher yet by the fact that his opponent lives and practices within the same team house. He will not only have to overcome his shaky PvP record - including two losses from sOs, a player who Trap beat convincingly twice - but go one step further and try out-mindgame his opponent. The latter is especially important if Dear is ever to prevail as Trap showed times and times again that he is no stranger to standard PvP scenarios and will preemtively counter responses with great efficiency.

Prediction: Trap 3-1 Dear

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