Starting this season for the OSL and MSL, I, along with other staff members - and hopefully members of SC2GG - will be blogging about this season's OSL and MSL. You can expect to find more articles day-in and day-out from SC2GG's contributors as we cover the new season of Starleague. This entry is a bit bigger then what most entries will be, but you can expect more articles like this down the line. Enjoy!
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Mandatory firebathero celebration video.

Ironically, firebathero won't be in this season's MSL (for the first time in over two-to-three years in fact), but there are a ton of other great players - new and old - that will be participating in this season's MSL. Here is the current list of 32:

The Swarm

Kwanro, ZerO, Calm, Jaedong, EffOrt, Hyuk, type-b, Saint, firefist, by.hero, July, Crazy-hydra, Shine, hyvaa, sAviOr, Hogil

The Men. And Bogus.

Canata, Iris, Hwasin, Flash, RuBy, fOrGG, Light, Bogus

The Dragons Plus 1...2...3

Bisu, Stats, Movie, BeSt, Stork, Kal, JangBi, GuemChi

Player Impressions

I think the first thing that obviously sticks out is the fact that there are sixteen Zergs in this season's MSL. When sAviOr said "I will destroy everyone in 2009", he obviously was talking about the swarm. Some of the faces are really surprising: July, despite being the legend that he is, hasn't seen any Proleague play for the majority of the year, firefist came completely out of nowhere, and Crazy-hydra, who has been playing just okay in Proleague, is the obvious odd man-out here, and most likely will be cannon-fodder for the rest of the 31.

Perhaps even more surprising is BeSt, who has failed at life in the MSL offline prelims for years until this point. He's become weary of the OSL track it seems, and - surely inspired by fellow SKT1 teammate Canata's unlikely run up the MSL last season - has qualified himself into the Nate MSL this season. The MSL has been kind to Bisu, maybe it'll be BeSt's opportunity to get gold. Then again, with sixteen Zergs here, maybe not...

Despite the absurd amount of Zergs in this season's player pool, I really feel that the Protoss and Terran lines are quite strong this season, and should be able to overcome the wrath of the swarm and balance things out by the time the Round of 16 swings around.

Group Selection Predictions

If you've never seen a MSL Group selection process, basically it works from the bottom up. It starts with a preset group based on rankings, including last season's top eight along with the winners of the MST groups. Based on a too many statistics to list here, each player will go up and place their spots in the preset MSL groups. From there, the drama begins. The top sixteen will play bait-and-switch while they either place themselves in a better group, or screw others. The higher you are ranked on the list, the more opportunities you get to swap players. This goes on until the top seed makes the final swaps.

The Group Selection process has always been one of the wildest, most drama-filled events of the MSL. I expect this one to be no different, although the lack of firebathero sexiness will surely make me weep. Courtesy of p4ndemik over at TL, here are the initial groups:

Group A: Calm vs A2, A3 vs fOrGG
Group B: Kwanro vs B2, B3 vs Hwasin
Group C: Iris vs C2, C3 vs Flash
Group D: Jaedong vs D2, D3 vs July
Group E: Canata vs E2, E3 vs Stork
Group F: Bisu vs F2, F3 vs sAviOr
Group G: ZerO vs G2, G3 vs Kal
Group H: EffOrt vs H2, H3 vs JangBi

While this may be the initial groupings, definitely expect to see dozens of changes by the end of the night. Here are a few of my predictions for the Round of 32:

The zzzZZ Group

Prediction: Pick three Zergs and insert one that knows what he's doing.

There's no doubt that there will be a ZvZ group, and unless you get Jaedong, EffOrt, and Calm into one - which will surely not happen - we'll most likely be seeing a group like type-b, hero, Calm, Shine or something boring like that.

The "LOL, Oh Hell No" Group

Prediction: BeSt, July, ZerO, sAviOr

I have a feeling BeSt will want to A. Prove that his PvZ is better then most people know it isn't and B. Defend his honor by facing July in a rematch. I expect him to fail at both lol.

July and sAviOr are both going to be in a position where they want to prove their ZvZ's as well, especially against ZerO who has slaughtered sAviOr over and over again. ZerO, as... floaty as he may seem from time to time, is no idiot, and will be more then welcome to the idea of putting himself in a group with two aging Zergs and BeSt.

The Group of Death

Prediction: Jaedong, EffOrt, Hyuk, Stork

Oh mama. We've got a huge storm brewing between these four players. Jaedong has been absolutely bombarded with questions over his ZvZ, and will most definitely be wanting a deadly group to strut his stuff in. Hyuk is really in no position to avoid this, and since he's defeated all three of these players, will most likely be trapped no matter what happens. Stork's in the same scenario. EffOrt is really going to be the key player on whether or not this group happens, but with Jaedong ahead of him in the final selections, I don't know if he'll be able to avoid this confrontation.

Other possibilities

Of all the things that go down, expect Bisu to force a rematch with Shine, and maybe also put himself in an all-Zerg group in the process. He's the kind of guy that doesn't let losses slide by and with the seemingly less-favorable map pool for the MSL this season, I think you can count on seeing this happen.

Then again, anything can happen when it comes to the MSL Group Selection.

"the lack of firebathero sexiness will surely make me weep."

Amen to that.

What we need is one of the younger/newer players to come out and brashly challenge and insult the might of the swarm just like Magma did to the dragons a couple of MSLs ago... that was the most entertaining MSL selection. I think Stats is the man for this

Sorry, some quick fixes:

Hyuk twice - removed a Hyuk (he's just so good now, had to post him twice to make sure people realized it of course...x.x)
ZerO colored as Protoss - back to his true colors
Bisu omitted - Resubmitted

Thanks to skincrawler for point these out.

There are also only sixteen Zergs listed, as opposed to claimed seventeen. If it's supposed to be seventeen and someone was omitted, however, then there's something wrong somewhere else as there are eight Protoss and eight Terrans.

Otherwise, very nice writeup! I always get excited to pick apart the groups in the rounds of 32 and 16.

Sad to see Luxury not being in it :[

16 Zergs, my bad. Thanks!

Anyone know who was omitted?

It's the 16 Zergs, plus 8 Terran and 8 Toss = 32.

Oh. I misread, I thought Garlic said that someone was omitted because there were more than half zergs.

"Then again, with seventeen Zergs here, maybe not..."

missed one