GogojOey has defeated Azure to claim victory in Cranky Duckling’s 18th Grand Platypus Open. This win marks his second consecutive victory, after his previous win over Azure in last week’s 17th Grand Platypus Open matchup.
This week’s tournament was an interesting one, with a relatively-balanced combination of the three races. The tournament featured four Zerg players, three Protoss players, and two Terrans. The roster for this week’s tournament was as follows:
- Azure (Terran)
- FanetoFiness (Terran)
- Bistork (Protoss)
- Ranger (Protoss)
- JusticeSimon (Protoss)
- Chase (Zerg)
- Vivid (Zerg)
- Demi (Zerg)
- GogojOey (Zerg)
One thing that sticks out for this week is the return of Demi, who by far has the most wins of the Grand Platypus Tournament. The Zerg main returns after a small hiatus, but his return wasn’t as triumphant as one might’ve hoped. Demi holds the honor of having won all fourteen of the first Grand Platypus Open tournaments consecutively.
( * )< Congratulations to GogojOey for taking down Azure in a close 3-2 and winning Grand Platypus Open #18!
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— CranKy Ducklings (@CranKyDucklings) February 15, 2020
In fact, Azure was the only player able to even take a map or two off of Demi in those days, though he was never able to claim the crown himself. He’s struggled to do so since Demi took his hiatus as well, with this being his second consecutive runner-up to add to the pile of almosts.
Now with Demi back, some may have thought that the tournament was going to go straight back into his pocket. He seemed untouchable for those first fourteen wins, and it only made sense that he would be reestablishing supremacy.
Instead, he lost to GogojOey in the semifinals of the upper bracket, losing 2-0 in a best-of-three and being sent to the loser’s bracket. There, he defeated Vivid before playing against Azure, whom he lost to 2-1 in the final of the loser’s bracket. Not only did Demi fail to win on his return – he lost out in both brackets!
Azure and GogojOey, however, faced each other twice. After being knocked out in the Winner’s finals match by GogojOey in a 2-0 defeat, Azure faced off against Demi in the Loser’s final to earn a spot back into the Grand Finals. Winning against Demi and taking the spot, he lost again to GogojOey, though in a much closer 3-2 series this time.
It’ll be interesting to see how the weeks go with the previous champion now possibly returning to the Grand Platypus Opens. Will Demi be able to re-establish his dominance on this tournament as he did for fourteen consecutive weeks, or have Azure and GogjOey only given him a taste of what’s to come if he continues to compete? Either way, it looks like the tournaments just got even more interesting!
