ISAC 2022 Chuseok Special Review
ISAC is back in person for the first time since Covid began, and boy is it great to watch it again. This one is a little different, partly because there are so many idols that debuted since the last one, and partly because we have new sports, and a new team system. This time around they split all the groups into the white and blue teams, and the overall winning team would be the team with the most gold medals at the end of the day. I like the concept of this system, it’s like having a country to root for in the Olympics. I will have a critique of the system at the end though, because, while it is a good idea, it still has some room to improve.
Additionally, I want to warn you that there will be heavy SPOILERS all over this article, so if you have any interest in this event, I would recommend watching it before seeing how your opinion differs from mine. If you just want the results and some commentary and don’t care about spoilers, this is the article for you. I will be dividing the article by events, and the events by rounds.
–BALL RELAY–
This is a little fun event to show the two team concept off. Each team has a ball that has to be passed up and down the lines that they form with every idol (and staff member that’s playing) making contact with the ball. At the end the last member must run up and light a fire, like the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
Result: Blue Team Wins
Honestly, the winner was apparent within the first 3 rows of idols on each team, not particularly exciting, but a nice fun way to start the show and have everybody get to participate.
–MEN’S ARCHERY–
Same as always, kpop group vs kpop group, each submits 3 archers who take 3 shots, and on the 10th shot the teams get to pick their best player. In the event of a tie they basically do another single shot from whichever player they think will perform the best.
SEMIFINAL 1: NCT (White Team) vs The Boys (Blue Team)
Carrying out the costume tradition of archery, The Boys have a nice fun energy. Style doesn’t get wins though, and after the first archers from each team, NCT have a 4 point lead. This momentum gets even stronger and the match is a complete blowout, which is to be expected, NCT have won in this event before.
Results: NCT 84-63 The Boys
SEMIFINAL 2: Ateez (White Team) vs Stray Kids (Blue Team)
The first two archers look close until Stray Kids hits a 2, and after the first archers Ateez is up by a whopping 7 points. After the second set Ateez extended the lead to 20 points and ended the match with that same margin. Ateez are smart, competitive, and athletic, it's no surprise to see them excel here.
Results: Ateez 81-61 Stray Kids
FINALS: NCT vs Ateez
If you were paying attention, both of these squads are on the White Team, so White team is now guaranteed a gold, tying the overall score. And with how close their final scores were in the semifinals, this is setup to be a fantastic match. Of course, the first archers are neck-and-neck, tying at 26 points. But then Yunho from Ateez looked shaky in the second set, clearly looking like some nerves got to him and NCT shot ahead with a 7 point lead, Shotaro is incredibly good. The gap did close in the final four frames, but ultimately NCT was just too overwhelming and took the gold.
Results: NCT 82-77 Ateez
Interesting note here, the team in lane 2 won every single time, is this a curse? We’ll find out in the women’s match.
FINAL RANKINGS FOR MEN’S ARCHERY
1. NCT
2. Ateez
3. The Boys
3. Stray Kids
White Team 1-1 Blue Team
–MEN’S DANCE SPORT–
A brand new event to ISAC, competitive ballroom dancing, specifically, Latin, and I am so pleased to see it. Each idol is paired with a professional dancer to perform a 2 genre mash-up from any of the Latin ballroom styles. Scores are out of 30.
DANCER 1: INTAK of P1Harmony (White Team)
INTAK tackles the Pasodoble and Cha-cha-cha. This is a cool combination of dances, the Paso is heavy and grounded, strong, aggressive, the man should lead well here, meanwhile the Cha-cha-cha is light and quick, footwork is key, the dance is playful. His Michael Jackson theme is a ton of fun, and you can see the joy in his performance. I will say that the dancing was built to highlight him as an individual and I think he lacked power and was not really leading in the Paso.
Score: 25.4
DANCER 2: Eun Sang of Younite (Blue Team)
Rumba and Cha-cha-cha is a slightly less compelling combo than what we saw previously for me, as I love a good Paso, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad overall. Eun Sang is great at looking like he feels very little tension, but he is a little bit posier and does more acting in his dancing, I would have liked to see more unique steps shown.
Score: 24.0
DANCER 3: Jae Chan of DKZ (White Team)
Jive and Cha-cha-cha is basically the highest energy, fastest combo possible in this competition, and good footwork is particularly important here. Jae Chan doesn’t quite have the deft footwork to handle some of the moves, you can see it pretty clearly against his partner, but he does have a good relaxed vibe. The highlight here is when he pulls out the staff and does DKZ’s Lupin dance, which is always so smooth to see, although sadly the commentators did not pick up on the reference.
Score: 22.9
DANCER 4: Kim Dong Han of Wei(Blue Team)
Paso Doble and Rumba, probably the slowest combination possible, but that doesn’t mean easier, slow ballroom exposes weak technique, lack of power, and bad leadership from a male dancer, and I think for idols it probably is the furthest departure from what they are used to when done traditionally. Dong Han gives a truly traditional Paso, cape work, controlled lifts, and great leadership as a partner. It’s powerful and exactly what I want to see when watching a Paso. His Rumba is also solid, and honestly, I think this was easily the best dance from the male idols.
Score: 25.0
FINAL RANKINGS FOR MEN’S DANCESPORT1. INTAK
2. Dong Han
3. Eun Sang
4. Jae Chan
White Team 2-1 Blue Team
–WOMEN’S DANCESPORT–
The only fully connected section, and the only event where I could have told you the winner without it even happening.
DANCER 1: Sullyoon of Nmixx (Blue Team)
Rumba and Jive, going from the slower sexier genre to the quick and kicky one is always a good time. That said, you can really see that Sullyoon is a 4th gen idol dancer here, footwork is a little weaker, and it looks like they scripted a kick section for her partner where she was just posing, which is okay for a performance, but not good when she’s the only person being scored. Her hand positioning is beautiful though, and you can see that she has some potential.
Score: 22.8
DANCER 2: Kwon Eun Bi (White Team)
Paso Doble and Jive, a good combo, and Eunbi is the only woman that went for Paso, and I think there’s a key component to that. A good Paso that highlights the strength of the female dancer is tough, it’s a very powerful dance, there needs to be aggression, and the place that a woman dancing Paso can show the most strength is in lifts, which requires a high degree of strength and control. There is a lift with a slide throw out of it that she nails. The Jive then ends with a lift that stops on a pretty impressive hold. Eunbi does a great job of looking pretty loose and natural while not dropping any of her technique, and her strength is the best among the female dancers, at least based on what the others show. Her final score is slightly below INTAK’s, but honestly I think she outperformed him.
Score: 25.1
DANCER 3: Tsuki of Billlie (Blue Team)
Cha-cha and jive seem to fit Tsuki from what little I’ve seen of her, I’m not really a fan of Billlie’s music and her facials are way too much for me despite their popularity. Tsuki is fantastic, and the performance is extremely cohesive. I personally actually wanted a little more separation in the feeling of the two genres, but given the time she had to train for this, Tsuki’s performance is just fantastic and that’s more a nitpick on the choreographer. She does great in fast sequences, and her footwork and body movement is on point, her build is great for Latin ballroom, like Eunbi, she clearly has a little more strength in her frame, and she uses it well. You can tell that she genuinely feels she has a chance of winning after receiving this score, but the next dancer is inevitable.
Score: 26.9
DANCER 4: Xiaoting of Kep1er (White Team)
Rumba and Cha-cha for the professionally trained ballroom dancer. Yes, professionally trained, Xiaoting is basically a cheat code in this particular competition. That said, that shouldn’t detract from how incredibly beautiful her performance is. Xiaoting has fantastic lines, precise footwork, great partner trust, and all the acting to show just how skilled she really is. If you want to see the best in today’s competition, look no further, she clearly has professional skills, and it’s a joy to watch.
Score: 29.2
FINAL RANKINGS FOR WOMEN’S DANCESPORT1. Xiaoting
2. Tsuki
3. Eunbi
4. Sullyoon
White Team 3-1 Blue Team
–ESPORTS–
Esports are back with Survival Shooter Game (definitely not totally just PUBG mobile), it’s become an ISAC staple and is a personal favorite. This time around there are three rounds: solos, where all 48 players are on their own, duos where the groups are split into two 2-person teams, 24 total, and squads, where all 12 participating groups have a full 4 person roster working together. Notably, there is a special squad that is not a set kpop group called United Team, which is typically dominant in this competition, it features mostly ex-Wanna One members. I will only be writing the top 4 for results here as listing all 48 people, or even all 12 squads feels a little excessive.
SOLOS
I think solos are the least interesting to watch in a survival shooter game, on both an ISAC and professional level, there’s just more skill in playing teams in my opinion. That said, the ending to this game is nuts, it comes down to 3 players shooting at each other in a triangle shape, which leads to about as unclear of an ending as is humanly possible.
Results:
1. Lew of Tempest
2. Ha Sung Woon of United Team
3. Wonjin of Cravity
4. Sion of Younite
DUOS
This was an exciting match, with some fun moments. The whole thing was pretty quick, and the winners had an incredible 9 kills. And Mia’s shed hiding moments was the true highlight of the endgame.
Results:
1. Bic and Huijin of MCND
2. Verivery
3. Everglow
4. Ateez
SQUADS
Squads is the real magic and there are some great moments here. Taerae riding off into the sunset after the rest of Tempest is killed immediately is great, he has some fun shenanigans on his own while driving around and has a very real impact on the game. Cravity crossing a river swimming, no boat in sight, just to assault Team United was also bold and exciting.
Results:
1. Younite
2. MCND
3. Ateez
4. Tan
–WOMEN’S 60M DASH–
There has been a format change to the 60m for both Men and Women. In previous years there were 4 qualifier heats with the winners moving on to the finals as well as the 2 non-winning runners with the best qualifying time. Now there are just 6 qualifier heats with only winners getting to go onto the finals. I won’t cover these in too much detail as there’s less than 10 seconds to commentate on.
QUALIFIER 1
Go Eun of Purple Kiss (Blue Team) wins this qualifier by a hundredth of a second, but there are some dramatic falls from other racers.
QUALIFIER 2
This is an incredibly close race between 3 different people, although Jiwon of Cherry Bullet (White Team) pulls a tiny bit ahead in the last second or so to grab the win.
QUALIFIER 3
Continuing Jiwon’s tall girl dominance, Monday from Weeekly (Blue Team) pulls out a solid win to get to the finals, she’s pretty athletic and was a decently safe bet for this heat.
QUALIFIER 4
Huiyeon of Lightsum (White Team) has basically no competition in this heat and wins with almost 3 tenths of a second lead over second place.
QUALIFIER 5
May of Cherry Bullet (White Team), the gold medalist the last time we had an ISAC 2 years ago put up an unbeatable qualifying time to reach the finals.
QUALIFIER 6
Hwiseo of H1-Key (White Team) proves to be an Athletic Girl and wins this heat to be the 6th finalist.
GRAND FINALS
May proves that she is just the best runner among active girl group ISAC competitors again, and crushes the competition, although her own group mate, Jiwon, puts up a great performance alongside Go Eun and Monday who stepped it from their qualifier. Also, May definitely could have had a better time, she slowed up and had a little showboating at the last second, which I respect in friendly competition.
FINAL RANKINGS
1. May
2. Jiwon
3. Go Eun
4. Monday
5. Huiyeon
6. Hwiseo
Note: The broadcast looks to have accidentally switched Huiyeon and Hwiseo’s times on the final chart, but the order is correct.
White Team 4-1 Blue Team
–MEN’S 60M DASH–
QUALIFIER 1
Seong Hwa of Ateez (White TEam) puts up a strong, near sub-8 second performance for the win.
QUALIFIER 2
Soul of P1Harmony (White Team), whose only previous record apparently said that he likes potatoes, had a good win in this round to keep moving ahead, and a tie with Seong Hwa’s time in the first heat.
QUALIFIER 3
Ateez strikes again, this time with Woo Young (White Team) taking the win. I mentioned during archery that this group is fairly athletic and competitive, this should be no surprise.
QUALIFIER 4
Eunchan from Tempest (Blue Team) edged out Kangmin of Verivery in a photo-finish, very exciting qualifier round.
QUALIFIER 5
Seung Hun of CIX (Blue Team) quite literally fell his way into success, flying across the finish line in very dramatic fashion.
QUALIFIER 6
D1 of DKB (White Team) put up an absolutely incredible qualifier time to win this heat in a race that wasn’t particularly close.
GRAND FINALS
Woo Young of Ateez put up the best time of the day, pushing himself to absolute greatness in this race. The finals are a good time to do your best, so he appears to have paced himself well throughout the day, and had a fantastic start off the block. Even D1’s near repeat performance of his qualifier run couldn’t win the day.
FINAL RANKINGS
1. Woo Young
2. D1
3. Seung Hun
4. Soul
5. Seong Hwa
6. Eunchan
White Team 5-1 Blue Team
–WOMEN’S ARCHERY–
United Team is also taking place in archery this time around, represented by Choi Yena and Jo Yuri, soloists and ex-I*zone members, and HYNN, basically rookie soloists. Also a reminder, that the team in lane 2 has won every match for the men’s side, so let’s see if that continues.
SEMIFINAL 1: United Team (Blue Team) vs. Ive (White Team)
The first set is a close one, with Ive leading by 3 after a solid few shots. Despite some very sloppy shooting, the lead stays exactly the same heading into the last full archer, at 3 points to IVE. It gets all switched up when HYNN clutches up and gets United Team a 4 point lead heading into frame 10. This lead is just too big for Ive to get past with how consistent HYNN had been and the United Team goes to the grand final.
Results: United Team 65-63 Ive
SEMIFINAL 2: Brave Girls (White Team) vs Itzy (Blue Team)
Honestly, I’m going to cut to the chase here. The first two members of Itzy literally put the game into a pretty bad position, with Yuna starting the last four frames at a 7 point deficit. The game ends in a tie at 52, but Brave Girls win the bonus frame to reach the finals. Tiebreaker shot points are in parenthesis in the final score below.
Results: Brave Girls (10) 52-52 (6) Itzy
FINALS: Brave Girls vs United Team
Heading into this match you may expect the United Team to crush Brave Girls, they had 13 more points in their 10 frames of semifinal gameplay. That said, if you’ve been paying attention you’ll also notice that Brave Girls are once again in Lane 2. After the first set Brave Girls had a 4 point lead, and after the second they managed to accelerate to a 12 point lead, which is much bigger than what HYNN had to overcome before, but does she have the ability to turn the tides a second time? Ultimately, no, and Brave Girls picked up a huge win, and after all these years, their first ever ISAC gold and even tied for the highest scoring archery match of the day with NCT’s semifinal performance. Lane 2 won every match this year too, so we’ll need to watch out for that again next time.
Results: Brave Girls 84-66 United Team
FINAL RANKINGS FOR WOMEN’S ARCHERY
1. Brave Girls
2. United Team
3. IVE
3. Itzy
White Team 6-1 Blue Team
–FUTSAL–
This small-scale version of Football (Soccer for the Americans) is back after over half a decade, and sadly, this match shows one of the two major reasons it was removed. See, Futsal resulted in a few injuries back in the day, but it could also be fairly one sided, and one of those things happened today. Also due to the teams being just the Blue Team vs the White Team, this is a single match event.
THE MATCH
Each team is coached by a former professional Football player, and has access to a ton of groups from which to build their roster. One would expect this to allow for a decent amount of parity, but to be blunt, the only reason this isn’t the biggest stomp of this entire ISAC is because Xiaoting was in dancesport. There are some impressive acrobatics displays after some goals, with great handsprings and flips, and some genuinely great shots and passes along the way. Captain Kim Jae Hwan of the White Team deservedly won MVP, he was dominant, participating in more than half of his team’s goals with a combination of goals and assists, and had the fanciest play of the game.
Results: White Team 10-4 Blue Team
If I was to provide feedback here, it would be to remove Futsal again, they were happy to have no injuries this time around, but it doesn’t mean it may happen again, and frankly, they’ve had a number of other events that they’ve tested that are more interesting, specifically ssireum, my favorite ISAC event, and other favorites like bowling.
Medal Race: White Team 7-1 Blue Team
–WOMEN’S 400M RELAY–
The classic ending event is back again, one of the best that ISAC has to offer. Rules are the same, it’s a 4x100 relay, 2 qualifiers, top two teams from each qualifier move to the finals.
QUALIFIER 1
This qualifier is fascinating for a few reasons. The first is that Laboum’s second runner doesn’t realize that she can leave lane 4 and just completely falls out of the race. The second is during the second hand off-between the second and third runners, there’s a bit of a shuffle and Kep1er incurs a disqualification due to obstruction of path, leaving their lane to take the handoff. Because of this the 2nd team became the first, and the third team ended up qualifying as the second finisher.
Results:
1. Brave Girls (White Team)
2. Nmixx (Blue Team)
3. Laboum (Blue Team)
DQ. Kep1er (White Team)
QUALIFIER 2
There’s also a big surprise in this qualifier, too. Based on the 60m dash the group that I would bet on in the relay would be Cherry Bullet, they have the two fastest runners after all. That said, the rest of the team isn’t quite on that level, and ultimately they failed to qualify coming in 3rd and leaving the door open to some ISAC rookies to move onto the grand finals.
Results
1. Weeekly (Blue Team)
2. Rocket Punch (White Team)
3. Cherry Bullet (White Team)
4. Everglow (Blue Team)
FINALS
Coming into this race the clear favorites are Weeekly, the only true race winner to make it due to Kep1ers disqualification, and the home to top speedster Monday from the 60m dash. But you can’t write off the others just because of one qualifier, if starts, turns, hand-offs, or straight-aways improve they could move into first. That said everything goes according to plan, Weeekly captures a big lead off of the very first leg and never lets it go, giving them a nice gold medal on their first ISAC. NMIXX also managed to get 3rd, outplacing Brave Girls who had beat them in the finals, just to prove that the qualifiers don’t tell the future always.
FINAL RANKINGS
1. Weeekly
2. Rocket Punch
3. NMIXX
4. Brave Girls
White Team 8-1 Blue Team
–MEN’S 400M RELAY–
The final event of this ISAC, it’s sad to see it end, but the relays are so fun that we don’t have time to be upset.
QUALIFIER 1
Soul of P1Harmony falls almost immediately, but also has an incredible recovery in terms of his lap time. In fact, there are so many falls and the whole race is so messy. P1Harmony actually managed to win the race in the closest finish in ISAC history, a mere one one-thousandths of a second. It was incredible to watch, a very fun race.
Results:
1. P1Harmony (White Team)
2. DKZ (White Team)
3. AB6IX (Blue Team)
4. Wei (Blue Team)
QUALIFIER 2
Verivery seemed to be making an attempt at the P1Harmony strategy, also taking an immediate fall, let’s see how it pays off. Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it, Verivery gets second and qualifies despite the instant fall, is this actually just a weird strategy that shouldn’t work, or the weirdest luck ever. Either way, the race winner was Ateez, who looked extremely clean and calculated, never really looking unstable even on the turns, which is super rare in ISAC men’s relay.
Results:
1. Ateez (White Team)
2. Verivery (Blue Team)
3. Oneus (Blue Team)
4. TNX (White Team)
FINALS
This race is very interesting because the two teams for the first qualifier are absolute wild cards, how do they perform in a super clean race, same goes for Verivery, we haven’t seen their peak either. Ateez’s consistency is their biggest asset, but potentially their biggest weakness as well, as far as it seems, we know what their capabilities are. Consistency is key as it turns out, and Ateez has 4 really good runners with a few 60m sprint aces up their sleeve too, they race another clean race and take a clean victory for their second gold of the ISAC, the only team to do so, and with a Silver in archery to boot.
FINAL RANKINGS
1. Ateez
2. Verivery
3. P1Harmony
4. DKZ
White Team 9-1 Blue Team
–FEEDBACK ON THE EVENT–
I am so happy to have ISAC back, it’s one of the best things in kpop from a fan perspective. This event had a lot of great things, and a few things that need tweaking.
To start with the good, the new guest commentators did really well, especially in the relay and in dancesport. The old guests were also great, we love seeing running curses getting flung, and they have the best of the best for esports. Also, speaking of dancesport, an absolutely fantastic addition to the lineup that I would love to see more of, maybe the best random new introduction since esports. I also like the new format for the 60m dash qualifiers, the six heat system makes for a more interesting and easily consumable show, you no longer have to stay aware of 2nd and 3rd place times. I also like the white and blue system a lot, having the overarching teams have more impact feels fun.
For what can be improved, I’m going to leap right off of the team system with the fact that the teams need to be much better balanced in the future. I’m not sure how they were formed this time around, but there needs to be better methodology. Additionally, I think having 4 teams again would work better, and that silver and bronze medals should be tallied too, and esports should count towards the medals. Futsal also needs to go in my opinion, they removed it for a reason and if it’s going to be a stomp like this one it honestly isn’t worth watching, even though I always will anyway. Additionally, because Futsal is only played by men, it means women get one less event, which needs to be balanced out.
Events that should be added back in are ssireum for futsal, it’s just a far more entertaining test of physical prowess. Additionally, I’d like to see the return of pitching or something easy to consume as well as something simple for the boys that balances out the events across both boy and girl groups. I also wouldn’t mind the return of extended track and field events like the old days, since we’re already doing a throwback to futsal.
Either way, this was a blast of an ISAC, and I think everything was also a little rough around the edges due to not having an event in a while. I expect the next one to be even better, and as always will be anticipating it. Thanks to all the participants for the great show, and congrats to all the winners who did amazingly.
