Today starts the Ro16 in Visible Cup. I'll try to sum up the tournament untill now and then focus on the upcoming matches.
Visible Cup is a 1v1 tournament open for everyone except Hidden Cup 3 participants hosted by robo and Lidakor. It was originally planned for 64 players with a possible extension to 128 player bracket in case of more signups. There were actually 176 signups when the signups closed and organizers decided to include all players and extended the bracket once again. After 5 weeks of intense games in a single elimination format, we have last 16 players left. To demonstrate how close and competitive the level is, lets start with a look at Ro32, which was played as Bo5. Out of 16 matchups, 1 ended with AW, only 3 matches went 3:0, 5x 3:1 and the rest - 7 matches had to be decided in game 5, 3:2.
Before reading further I'd recommend taking a look at the brackets: https://challonge.com/visiblecup . In my preview for the Ro16 I'll use the seeding from there and also current ratings and position on the leaderboard from: https://aoe2.net/#aoe2de-leaderboard-rm-1v1
I'll put the matches in the same order as in brackets from the top to the bottom. All matches will be played as Bo5 with 1st game Arabia and then Home Maps from HC3 Mappool, Hidden Pick Civ, no repeat.
Match 1: _Barles_ (seed 1, rating 2055, rank 29) vs Demonsheep (seed 16, rating 1884, rank 85]
One of the favorites to win the tournament, Barles is the only player left in the tournament who didnt loose a single game so far without an AW. In Ro32 he played against Scotty and won 3:0 in a convincing fashion.
His opponent DemonSheep had a significantly tougher way to get there, in Ro32 he had to defend 16th seed against his countrymate Herg (seed 17) and their match was only decided in game 5.
Barles is definitely a favorite here, DemonSheep should be the toughest opponent Barles had to play so far. I predict 3:0 for Barles, I'd not be surprised at all to see DemonSheep taking 1 or potentially 2 games, his win over Barles would be a big upset though.
Match 2: DracKeN (seed 8, rating 1952, rank 57) vs Nili_Aoe (seed 9, rating 1941, rank 62)
Both me and Nili are among the tournament favorites and our match should be very close. I played Running (gavagai) in Ro32 - someone who's now at 31st rank on the leaderboard, and he forced me into game 5 after taking both of his HMs in a dominant fashion.
Nili is potentially the most round-skilled player in the tournament given his DM and recent TG performance, he dropped 1 game in both Ro64 vs eC_Gurke and in Ro32 vs JackK, I hope he'll drop more games vs me.
I'll try to defend seed 8, I expect very close match although I should be more prepared while Nili has to focus more on BoA, I'd expect this to decide the games. I'll be greedy and predict 3:1 for me, but our series doesn't have a favorite.
Match 3: saymyname/Yellow (seed 4, rank 2009, rank 42) vs gkt_cloud (seed 13, rating 2021, rank 37)
Battle of 2 AoE veterans, both playing at very high level for many years. Saymyname (aka Yellow) has to be considered among the favorites because of his experience, knowledge and achievements. Couple of years ago he'd be considered among top 10 players, finished 5th in CoT in 2013 (only behind Viper, Jordan23, RiuT and DauT). So far he only lost 1 game - in Ro32 against Swedish TG superstar Ganji.
Gkt_cloud on the other hand had to play all 5 games to advance against GodOfTheGodless. As rating implies, this match has a potential for a close series and upset, although Id expect saymyname to have the upper hand and win 3:2.
Match 4: PROject_Belgium (seed 5, rating 2095, rank 22) vs Sobek (seed 12, rating 2028, rank 36)
PROject_Belgium is the second player who didn't loose a single game so far, but that's partly because of his tournament way: R1 - bye, R2 - AW, R3 - 3:0, R4 - AW. We can only speculate how much that's a coincidence and I'am sure admins are investigating this aswell. Belgium shouldn't need such tricks though, he's one of the favorites and also a winner of Aspiring Experts - very similar tournament that happened 1 year ago on Voobly.
His opponent Sobek isn't participating in tournaments too often, he lost 1 game in Ro64 against VIK_Dench and another game vs PL_Rex in Ro32. Bugum should be the favorite though, despite Sobek having good chances I'll predict PROject_Belgium 3:1 Sobek.
Match 5: VIK_Vinchester (seed 2, rating 2142, seed 14) vs Sitaux (seed 18, rating 2031, rank 34)
One of the most interesting matches in the Ro16 due to multiple reasons. Vinchester might be seen as the biggest favorite of the tournament, he has the highest 1v1 rating, amazing past 1v1 results (finished 2nd in Arabia Invitational in 2016) and also recent (being the only player in the tournament who qualified into Red Bull Main Event). On the other hand he was basically eliminated in Ro32 against StonePleaseAoE (seed 34), who took 2 games from Vinch and had a huge lead in game 5 (being 70 vs 45 pop and 110 vs 60) on El_Dorado. Vinch managed to get a miraculous comeback - likely the only player in the tournament with the skill to pull it off, that game went for more than 1 hour of Castle Age vs Castle Age Indian War with skirms, CAs, pikes, longswords, camels, Lightcavs, monks, mangonels and even Elephant Archers.. Surely the series and the game of the tournament, credits to both players.
Sitaux was supposed to play seed 15 - Daniel in the Ro32, but as Dlam gave an AW in the early stage of the tournament, Sitaux played seed 79 instead and didn't face any issues advancing further. He lost a game in previous round against OnLeKe though.
This match is very interesting for one more reason - Sitaux and Vinch met 3 months ago in Fair Civs Cup, Sitaux as a huge underdog was down 2:0, but pulled a big comeback and eliminated Vinch 3:2. Surely, Vinch has to be seen as the favorite, but given his Ro32 result and upset happening the last time they played.. I predict 3:2 for Vinch, but I'd not be really surprised by any result.
Match 6: St4rk_ (seed 7, rating 2097, rank 21) vs AngelinaJolie (seed 10, rating 1945, rank 60)
St4rk is for me the biggest favorite to win the Visible Cup. He always performs great in tournaments, Hidden Cup mappool should suit him a lot and he also showed great performance in RedBull event, only loosing to TheMax in both qualifiers. In Ro32 he played against Kamigawa and won 3:1.
AJ dropped a game in Ro64 vs Cl3m3nt, but then took a very convincing 3:0 win against Inc in Ro32. Unfortunate bracket for both players to face against each other in Ro16 + winner will play against the winner of Match 5. I'd favour St4rk and I predict 3:1 for him, but I'am sure AJ will make it a close match.
Match 7: _Hallis (seed 35, rating 1904, rank 75) vs K4SVA (seed 14, rating 1892, rank 82)
Hallis is the lowest seeded player making it into Ro16, on his way causing 2 upsets. He eliminated nC_Andorin (seed 30) 3:1 in Ro64 and then Hoang (seed 3) 3:2 in Ro32 in a very weird series. First 2 games Hoang went for hoang rushes and get 2 convincing wins, despite being Franks against Indians on Slopes map. After that, Hoang completely changed his playstyle and started to play meta, boom-ish play with little aggresion. Hallis was happily accepting such playstyle (where Hoang absolutely doesn't shine) and took 3 very convincing wins (on 2 Hoangs Home Maps) when he just outboomed Hoang and finished the games in early imp.
K4SVA also had to play all 5 games against Vodka_L, in a very high level match. Given their games in Ro32 and also Kasva's huge practice, I'll call 0:3 for K4SVA, although Hallis might surely take a game or two.
Match 8: Cica_Zhou/Straydog (seed 6, rating 2046, rank 31) vs Janik (seed 11, rating 1946, rank 59)
Match that has potential to be very interesting as it will display huge difference of playstyles. Straydog is likely the most aggresive player in the tournament, so far being succesful and only loosing 1 game in Ro32 vs Luca.
Janik on the other hand is a meta player, especially strong on water maps - Islands is the likely pick as his HM. I'd expect Janik to win both of his HMs, but he needs to win 1 more game in the match and Iam not sure he can do it. My predtiction is 3:2 for Straydog, but the matchup doesn't have a favorite for me.
Visible Cup is a 1v1 tournament open for everyone except Hidden Cup 3 participants hosted by robo and Lidakor. It was originally planned for 64 players with a possible extension to 128 player bracket in case of more signups. There were actually 176 signups when the signups closed and organizers decided to include all players and extended the bracket once again. After 5 weeks of intense games in a single elimination format, we have last 16 players left. To demonstrate how close and competitive the level is, lets start with a look at Ro32, which was played as Bo5. Out of 16 matchups, 1 ended with AW, only 3 matches went 3:0, 5x 3:1 and the rest - 7 matches had to be decided in game 5, 3:2.
Before reading further I'd recommend taking a look at the brackets: https://challonge.com/visiblecup . In my preview for the Ro16 I'll use the seeding from there and also current ratings and position on the leaderboard from: https://aoe2.net/#aoe2de-leaderboard-rm-1v1
I'll put the matches in the same order as in brackets from the top to the bottom. All matches will be played as Bo5 with 1st game Arabia and then Home Maps from HC3 Mappool, Hidden Pick Civ, no repeat.
Match 1: _Barles_ (seed 1, rating 2055, rank 29) vs Demonsheep (seed 16, rating 1884, rank 85]
One of the favorites to win the tournament, Barles is the only player left in the tournament who didnt loose a single game so far without an AW. In Ro32 he played against Scotty and won 3:0 in a convincing fashion.
His opponent DemonSheep had a significantly tougher way to get there, in Ro32 he had to defend 16th seed against his countrymate Herg (seed 17) and their match was only decided in game 5.
Barles is definitely a favorite here, DemonSheep should be the toughest opponent Barles had to play so far. I predict 3:0 for Barles, I'd not be surprised at all to see DemonSheep taking 1 or potentially 2 games, his win over Barles would be a big upset though.
Match 2: DracKeN (seed 8, rating 1952, rank 57) vs Nili_Aoe (seed 9, rating 1941, rank 62)
Both me and Nili are among the tournament favorites and our match should be very close. I played Running (gavagai) in Ro32 - someone who's now at 31st rank on the leaderboard, and he forced me into game 5 after taking both of his HMs in a dominant fashion.
Nili is potentially the most round-skilled player in the tournament given his DM and recent TG performance, he dropped 1 game in both Ro64 vs eC_Gurke and in Ro32 vs JackK, I hope he'll drop more games vs me.
I'll try to defend seed 8, I expect very close match although I should be more prepared while Nili has to focus more on BoA, I'd expect this to decide the games. I'll be greedy and predict 3:1 for me, but our series doesn't have a favorite.
Match 3: saymyname/Yellow (seed 4, rank 2009, rank 42) vs gkt_cloud (seed 13, rating 2021, rank 37)
Battle of 2 AoE veterans, both playing at very high level for many years. Saymyname (aka Yellow) has to be considered among the favorites because of his experience, knowledge and achievements. Couple of years ago he'd be considered among top 10 players, finished 5th in CoT in 2013 (only behind Viper, Jordan23, RiuT and DauT). So far he only lost 1 game - in Ro32 against Swedish TG superstar Ganji.
Gkt_cloud on the other hand had to play all 5 games to advance against GodOfTheGodless. As rating implies, this match has a potential for a close series and upset, although Id expect saymyname to have the upper hand and win 3:2.
Match 4: PROject_Belgium (seed 5, rating 2095, rank 22) vs Sobek (seed 12, rating 2028, rank 36)
PROject_Belgium is the second player who didn't loose a single game so far, but that's partly because of his tournament way: R1 - bye, R2 - AW, R3 - 3:0, R4 - AW. We can only speculate how much that's a coincidence and I'am sure admins are investigating this aswell. Belgium shouldn't need such tricks though, he's one of the favorites and also a winner of Aspiring Experts - very similar tournament that happened 1 year ago on Voobly.
His opponent Sobek isn't participating in tournaments too often, he lost 1 game in Ro64 against VIK_Dench and another game vs PL_Rex in Ro32. Bugum should be the favorite though, despite Sobek having good chances I'll predict PROject_Belgium 3:1 Sobek.
Match 5: VIK_Vinchester (seed 2, rating 2142, seed 14) vs Sitaux (seed 18, rating 2031, rank 34)
One of the most interesting matches in the Ro16 due to multiple reasons. Vinchester might be seen as the biggest favorite of the tournament, he has the highest 1v1 rating, amazing past 1v1 results (finished 2nd in Arabia Invitational in 2016) and also recent (being the only player in the tournament who qualified into Red Bull Main Event). On the other hand he was basically eliminated in Ro32 against StonePleaseAoE (seed 34), who took 2 games from Vinch and had a huge lead in game 5 (being 70 vs 45 pop and 110 vs 60) on El_Dorado. Vinch managed to get a miraculous comeback - likely the only player in the tournament with the skill to pull it off, that game went for more than 1 hour of Castle Age vs Castle Age Indian War with skirms, CAs, pikes, longswords, camels, Lightcavs, monks, mangonels and even Elephant Archers.. Surely the series and the game of the tournament, credits to both players.
Sitaux was supposed to play seed 15 - Daniel in the Ro32, but as Dlam gave an AW in the early stage of the tournament, Sitaux played seed 79 instead and didn't face any issues advancing further. He lost a game in previous round against OnLeKe though.
This match is very interesting for one more reason - Sitaux and Vinch met 3 months ago in Fair Civs Cup, Sitaux as a huge underdog was down 2:0, but pulled a big comeback and eliminated Vinch 3:2. Surely, Vinch has to be seen as the favorite, but given his Ro32 result and upset happening the last time they played.. I predict 3:2 for Vinch, but I'd not be really surprised by any result.
Match 6: St4rk_ (seed 7, rating 2097, rank 21) vs AngelinaJolie (seed 10, rating 1945, rank 60)
St4rk is for me the biggest favorite to win the Visible Cup. He always performs great in tournaments, Hidden Cup mappool should suit him a lot and he also showed great performance in RedBull event, only loosing to TheMax in both qualifiers. In Ro32 he played against Kamigawa and won 3:1.
AJ dropped a game in Ro64 vs Cl3m3nt, but then took a very convincing 3:0 win against Inc in Ro32. Unfortunate bracket for both players to face against each other in Ro16 + winner will play against the winner of Match 5. I'd favour St4rk and I predict 3:1 for him, but I'am sure AJ will make it a close match.
Match 7: _Hallis (seed 35, rating 1904, rank 75) vs K4SVA (seed 14, rating 1892, rank 82)
Hallis is the lowest seeded player making it into Ro16, on his way causing 2 upsets. He eliminated nC_Andorin (seed 30) 3:1 in Ro64 and then Hoang (seed 3) 3:2 in Ro32 in a very weird series. First 2 games Hoang went for hoang rushes and get 2 convincing wins, despite being Franks against Indians on Slopes map. After that, Hoang completely changed his playstyle and started to play meta, boom-ish play with little aggresion. Hallis was happily accepting such playstyle (where Hoang absolutely doesn't shine) and took 3 very convincing wins (on 2 Hoangs Home Maps) when he just outboomed Hoang and finished the games in early imp.
K4SVA also had to play all 5 games against Vodka_L, in a very high level match. Given their games in Ro32 and also Kasva's huge practice, I'll call 0:3 for K4SVA, although Hallis might surely take a game or two.
Match 8: Cica_Zhou/Straydog (seed 6, rating 2046, rank 31) vs Janik (seed 11, rating 1946, rank 59)
Match that has potential to be very interesting as it will display huge difference of playstyles. Straydog is likely the most aggresive player in the tournament, so far being succesful and only loosing 1 game in Ro32 vs Luca.
Janik on the other hand is a meta player, especially strong on water maps - Islands is the likely pick as his HM. I'd expect Janik to win both of his HMs, but he needs to win 1 more game in the match and Iam not sure he can do it. My predtiction is 3:2 for Straydog, but the matchup doesn't have a favorite for me.
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