PSISTORM At IEM Shanghai & Cheeseadelphia 5

Articles, News, Tournaments

We had another busy weekend with players competing on two different continents. We had GuMiho compete in IEM Shanghai while TRUE, PiLiPiLi, JonSnow and PengWin played at Cheeseadelphia 5.

At Shanghai, GuMiho was placed in Group B with iAsonu, Stats and Rogue. He first faced the Zerg Rogue, despite losing the first map on Odyssey, he was able to take the second map on Ascension to Aiur. Being only one map away to advance to the winners match, Rogue was somehow able to create some advantages and took the map and the series. Knocked down to the losers match, he faced the Chinese Zerg iAsonu, being on his opponents home turf, GuMiho was unable to break the zergs defenses and strategies and lost the series 0-2. Having flown from Germany straight to China, we do understand that GuMiho might not have been playing at his best, but this is still an upset and a disappointing result. We hope he will take these two or so weeks before GSL to rest up and come back in top shape. GGs!

Back in America, all 4 of our players playing at Cheese were able to make it to the Ro16 without any problems. Collectively, they lost 9 maps (PengWin contributing 6 of those losses) and won 31, with TRUE not dropping a single one. In the Ro16, we had the amazing luck of PiLiPiLi facing off against PengWin, while JonSnow played Cuddlebear and TRUE played omgabanana. JonSnow won 3-0 versus his Terran opponent, PiLi showed no mercy towards his manager and 3-0’d him and TRUE 3-0 his Protoss adversary. In the Quarterfinals, JonSnow defeated Bails 3-0, PiLiPiLi dispatched PandaBearMe 3-0 and TRUE took out Semper 3-1 in closer-than-they-looked games.

In Semi-finals, JonSnow faced off against the formidable MaSa, up until this point, he only dropped a single map against Suppy in the previous round. Despite great effort and some close moments, JonSnow was unable to overcome the Canadian-Korean Terran and lost the series 0-3. Meanwhile, TRUE and PiLiPiLi had to face off after cleaning up their sides of the brackets. PiLiPiLi started off strong taking the win on Odyssey, but then TRUE decided there was no time for fun and games and took the next three maps in quick succession, taking the series 3-1 and moving on to face MaSa in the finals.

In the Bo7 series, TRUE had a tough opponent ahead of him, to reach the finals, MaSa went 15W-1L in maps while TRUE only went 15W-2L. These two players were the obvious heavy hitters of the tournament and their series should be an interesting one. Well that’s not what happened. MaSa completely dominated TRUE and took the series 4-0. Somehow, someway, the Canadian-Korean Terran simply knew how to deal with TRUE in every single aspect, not a single timing or a all-in worked. Despite the shut-out score, the series was not as one-sided as one would think, TRUE did have moments where it seemed he could take a map, but MaSa always found a way to crawl back in it. With PSISTORM taking 2nd, 3rd and 4th at Cheeseadelphia 5, it was still a successful event for us, even without the win. GG’s!

We are glad our players enjoyed their weekend at Cheese, they even had a very welcoming AirBnB host