EPTFirst off I'll start by outlining five players who I think are going in with a lot of momentum; the heavyweights of WCS Europe.
The Heavyweights
Stephano
I think Stephano is the obvious choice here and he's a lot of people's favourite to take the entire thing and make a deep run at the world finals. Since the start of the year he has nearly an 80% winrate against protoss players, with recent wins against Hero, Genius and MC. Certainly in ZvP he's probably the favourite against any European Protoss. In terms of his other matchups, he still looks pretty iron tight.
After taking out Taeja in the IPTL and with roughly a 70% win rate since the start of the year, there aren't many terrans that he'll be afraid of. When we look at his ZvZ, we start to see the potential for some upsets. Stephano's ZvZ since the start of the year is hovering around 60%, which is still an impressive margin, but it's not anywhere near as high as his other matchups, and looks like the place he's most likely to lose a series. A recent poll showed that most people see Stephano's success as a result of his fantastic ability to engage, and in a matchup dominated by the infestor and its fungal growth ability, he'll be hard pressed to make those perfect engagements.
Taking a look at his bracket, Stephano has a pretty good run ahead of him, with only 5 zergs in the same half of the tournament as him; Ziktomini, Darkforce, Lowely, Eeel and Jonnyrecco. In ZvZ he stands a strong chance against any of them except for perhaps Darkforce. Given his brutal effectiveness in both ZvP and ZvT, his brackets look promising for a long run and a chance at grabbing one of the six European seeds.
Nerchio
Nerchio is probably the other "big" contender in a lot of people's minds. He's posted great results this year with a win at Homestory Cup 5 and a second place at IEM Cologne. His tournament results certainly aren't as good as Stephano's, but he's shaken the reputation he had for only being an online player. However, he recently took the top foreigner spot on TLPD, and with between roughly 65% and 70% in every matchup he could prove to be more well rounded than Stephano.
Looking at Nerchio's bracket, he doesn't seem to have the same luck that Stephano has. His first opponent is Sortof, who could well be an underdog at WCS Europe. He can also hit Vortix, Mana and Demuslim early on, with the potential to face Ret, Grubby or Whitera in round 4. If he gets taken out by any of them, he may need to rely on a strong losers' bracket run to make it to the global finals.
Mana
Another player on everybody's minds going in to this is Mana. Mana recently lost to 2 top tier terrans in Code S, losing in his best matchup and being dropped to Code A to play against FXOasd, another terran. Given the enormous amount of practice that he's undoubtedly put in to the PvT matchup, Terran players will most likely not want to face up against him. His PvP is also very consistent, with recent wins against Choya and Nightend. Although he's appeared shaky against MC and Feast, he should be able to take down a lot of the european protoss players.
His PvZ could well be a point of weakness, and with Nerchio as a potential round 3 opponent and bly as a potential round 2 opponent, he'll need to hope that his PvZ is in top shape if he wants to make a strong run. The WCS European finals have 13 zergs in total, and some of the best ZvP in the world. If Mana isn't careful he could drop out rather early.
Thorzain
Thorzain hasn't been looking all that impressive since his great victory at Dreamhack Stockholm, and his once mighty TvT has dropped to under 50% since the start of 2012, but he still has the chance to be a massive competitor in the European finals. His TvP is still pretty tough at around 60% and his TvZ is hovering just below that, but with his team recently picking up Stephano, he could increase his skill in that matchup by a substantial amount.
The only hole in that plan is that his bracket puts him up against Stephano as early as round 3, where he'll be an enormous underdog. In the meantime, he'll have a tough TvP against Nightend and a TvZ against the winner of Jonnyrecco and Lowely. He's still a favourite against a lot of the players at WCS Europe, but up against the other heavyweights he'll have a tough time breaking through.
Vortix
Vortix is a relatively new player on the scene, at least compared to the other favourites at WCS Europe, but he's posted really impressive results so far in 2012. His IEM Cologne run to the semi-finals, where he was only just edged out by Mvp in a close 3-1 series showcased some of the best ZvT in Europe and some of the most impressive decision making overall. His ZvT win rate this year is just under 70%, rivalling Stephano's, and any unlucky terrans will have a hard time beating him.
He also has a respectable ZvP, but his ZvZ will probably be his weakest matchup going in to the tournament, and the Achilles heel which could make his run shorter than expected. His brackets could also be a problem, potentially, with either SortOf or Nerchio in round 2, in which he'll play his weakest matchup, and the potential for other top players throughout his bracket. He's another player that could need a strong losers' bracket run to take home a seed.
The Underdogs
Whilst Stephano, Nerchio, Thorzain, Mana and Vortix are probably the favourites, there are also loads of really strong players who may be overlooked but stand a strong chance to make a deep run and get one of the seeds to the world finals. Following is a run down of five players that I think could do a lot better than expected:
Darkforce
Darkforce is the definitional underdog. He's never the favourite in any tournament he enters, but always performs slightly better than expected. He took out Nerchio in the TSL4 recently, showcasing some fantastic ZvZ, and so he has a decent chance at sniping one of the favourites if he goes up against them. His brackets don't make that too easy for him, but if he drops to the losers' bracket he has a chance of facing Nerchio fairly early on if the Polish zerg also drops down. It would surely be a fantastic rematch and a chance for Darkforce to make a strong run.
Other than ZvZ, his matchups are fairly solid, but nothing spectacular. He stands a decent chance against most of the players at WCS Europe, but with either Happy or Lucifron in round 2 he could be facing an early dropdown.
Titan
Titan is one of those players who seems to go in waves of success and averageness, with big streaks against top tier players and then losses to fairly mid tier europeans. He's been looking fairly solid recently, getting close to qualifying for IEM Guangzhou (and only losing to a walkover) and showcasing high level PvP and PvZ. In a tournament with a lower percentage of terrans, he should have a decent chance at making a good break.
He has the potential for Socke in round 2, and if he can take him out then he has a decent run to a potential Stephano confrontation in Round 4. Even then, the concept of Titan grabbing a world finals seed isn't at all infeasible and just relies on him sniping a couple of the other underdogs in his better matchups.
Happy
Happy's been a player that has always had a lot of potential, but hasn't really delivered the results. If his match statistics translated in to tournament wins, he'd be rolling in gold medals by now. As it stands, he has no major tournament wins and tends to perform fairly unspectacularly. In the past year, his once legendary TvZ has fallen short, dropping to about 55% and becoming arguably his worst matchup, whilst his TvT has skyrocketed to around 70%.
If he's able to regain some of his previous success in TvZ, he'll be able to shoot through this zerg heavy bracket and chop down any terran players that he meets, which should be handy because he'll be going up against Lucifron in round 1. If he can beat the winner of Darkforce/Ziktomini in round 2, he has a fairly good bracket up until round 4 where he has a strong chance of going up against Stephano. Despite this, its entirely possible that he'll be getting one of the seeds if he's able to perform in TvZ.
Sortof
Sortof's been looking really solid lately, with big wins against Lucifron, Demuslim, Inori, VINES and JonnyREcco. But his most spectacular result recently was his 3-2 victory over HerO at Assembly Summer. With ZvP and ZvZ seeming like strong matchups for him, he has a good chance of making a really deep run and even a glimmer of hope for taking out some of the big boys.
However, it's a glimmer of hope he'll need, because he's pulled Nerchio in Round 1. If he wants to get a really good finish with potential for a WCS finals seed, he'll either need to pull out all the stops against Nerchio or make a really deep run through the losers' bracket. If he can do either of that, he may be better poised to be a Swedish champion than Thorzain is.
Socke
Calling Socke an underdog seems really weird on paper. He has a history of taking out Koreans at big LANs and of always taking solid finishes. Arguably, he's one of, if not the, strongest player in Germany. But he's still going in as an underdog. His 2012 hasn't been particularly strong and he doesn't have the same name value as Stephano or Nerchio.
However, he has a history of big runs and surprise victories for a reason, and it's likely that he'll be able to make a repeat performance of that at the WCS European championship. Socke has a decent bracket and could well take out any of his opponent's up until the really late stages of the tournament, where he even has the potential to beat down some of the heavyweights.
So who's going to win?
Well, I've said the 10 players I think that we should keep an eye on, and ultimately the answers are fairly bland and boring. Stephano goes in as the massive favourite, but he could well get sniped by Nerchio, Darkforce or Sortof in a direct confrontation. However, given the luck of the brackets, the only one he has a chance of playing before the final four is Darkforce, arguably the least likely of the three to take him out. The chances of Stephano grabbing a seed to the world finals are astronomical. But will he win?
Given some bracket luck I see Nerchio dropping to one of the other big players in his bracket some time before the fourth round, and then making a run through the losers' bracket. Realistically, I could see it being Mana or Vortix that takes him down, but it could just as easily be Sortof. But given Nerchio's glorious history of taking down the player that knocked him down later on in the tournament, he should be able to push through to a seed and a spot in the final four.
My prediction is something like: Nerchio vs Vortix in the 4th place match, with Nerchio winning, Nerchio against Mana in the 3rd place match, with Nerchio taking a very close win, and then a Nerchio/Stephano finals.
Nerchio vs Stephano: Who wins?
Stephano has a great record against Nerchio, with 10 wins against 5 losses. This year they've only played 4 games, with Stephano winning all of them. But given that these 2 are the favourites, they'll undoubtedly have something special prepared for each other. Looking at their history in preparation leagues, Stephano has a recent win at NASL3, and Nerchio has a disappointing performance at TSL4.
Looking at it on paper, statistically, Stephano has to be the winner. But I can't shake the feeling that Nerchio will take the finals. If Nerchio is coming from the losers' bracket like I've predicted, he'll need to win 2 Bo3s in a row to take the championship, so he'll have a tough road, but it isn't impossible.
My prediction: Nerchio 2:1, 2:1 Stephano.
Seeds to the World finals:
1. Nerchio
2. Mana
3. Vortix
4. Ret
5. Happy
6. SortOf
(Stephano Titan and Socke already have seeds from national qualifiers, but I think they'll finish 2nd, 5th and 7th respectively.)
Alternative Prediction:
Stephano never turns up to the event. Confused, everyone just goes on without him. Nerchio loses one set to Sortof in the first round, rage-quits and leaves. The casters' brains start to boggle as Naama comes out of nowhere to Marine/SCV rush every game to make his way to the world finals as European Champion.
