Korea’s no.1 in the ESL Pro Tour 2021/22 standings, Cho “Trap” Sung-ho will clash with North America no.2 Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn in what the esports bookmakers have billed to be a one-sided affair.

Although Trap is 5-1 in the head-to-head with Scarlett, the offered betting odds seem a bit exaggerated. That’s nothing unusual, considering that the bookmakers traditionally favour Korean SCII pros over Western players.

Scarlett might have beaten Trap only once in her career, however, she has won at least one map against the Korean in all but one of her six h2h bouts. What’s more, Scarlett usually does well into Protoss (63.64% win rate). Scarlett with a map handicap is a great bet at solid odds.

The sole Oceanic representative at the tournament, Sean “Probe” Kempen, will meet a formidable opponent in his opening group match, where he’ll face Korean no.3 Cho “Maru” Seong-ju. As the betting odds would suggest, Probe is not expected to win.

However, that doesn’t mean we’re ready to fade the Australian no.1. Probe enters the Season Finals with a 12-1 record, and while he hasn’t faced any top-tier players during that stretch, it’s the momentum that counts.

It’s also important to mention that Probe generally does well against Terran (61.14% win rate), which is one more reason why we like the Aussie with a map advantage at big odds.

Riccardo “Reynor” Romiti and Joo “Zest” Sung-wook last met in April, when the Italian SCII pro won 1-0. It marked his second consecutive win against Zest, following a commanding 4-2 victory in the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2021 finals.

Reynor is now 7-5 up in the head-to-head with the Korean SCII star and 2-2 on the year. Zest won the first two meetings in 2021 with 3-0 and 2-0 but has struggled to emulate that success in their last two outings.

Reynor and Zest promise to produce an exciting and close affair; however, it’s fair to view Reynor as the most likely victor. He is in much better form than Zest, who has been dropping maps against much weaker opponents of late.

Most recently, Zest struggled to edge past North American no.3 Max “Astrea” Angel (3-2) at ESL Open Cup #77 Americas, where he also lost to European no.13 Leon “goblin” Vrhovec (1-2). Results like that make it difficult to side with Zest over The Italian Stallion.

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