I wrote this Dreamhack preview as part of my application to be a TL writer. I figured I'd blog it as well since Dreamhack is in 2 days! I did research on the top 20 players going, but these guys were so impressive they took up all the room. :D


This week, 44 avid starcraft 2 gamers will travel to Valencia, Spain. It’s going to be a beautiful, sunny weekend, but despite the weather forecast these players are not coming for the beach. It would be safe to wager that they’re not coming to see the famous castles and cathedrals of Valencia either. They will meet up with 51 Spanish starcraft players to form a line up of 95 players for Dreamhack Valencia. The Venue, the Feria de Muestras Valencia, is an event center which boasts huge, modern spaces capable of holding up to 20,000 people. This will be Dreamhack’s third event of 2014.



The player lineup is likely Dreamhack’s weakest of the year with only 12 Koreans attending and no KESPA players. The previous 2 events, Dreamhack Summer and Dreamhack Bucharest, had 16 and 17 Koreans respectively. Many of the top contenders including Taeja who won Dreamhack Summer with an unprecedented 16-0 map score will be at IEM Shenzhen which is taking place the same weekend. This leaves some hope for the foreigners as there will be four guaranteed spots for non-koreans in the playoffs.

Even though only 12 Koreans are participating, every one of them has an impressive resume of domination when it comes to participating in events outside Korea. Many of the Koreans are repeat offenders when it comes to making deep runs in Dreamhack. This is also true for Redbull’s Bomber. However, if you want to find Bomber’s last Dreamhack run, you have to look back to Dreamhack Summer 2011 where he took third place. Back then, Bomber was well known for his supreme confidence, dropping several mules at a time on his opponent’s army while the game was still even! Bomber doesn’t just play starcraft. He plays to entertain his fans. At MLG Raleigh 2011, following his top three performance at dreamhack, he took the gold. Since then, it’s been a bit of a bumpy road for the 26 year old Korean Terran player. He won the 2013 WCS season 2 finals, but was without a tournament win for nearly a year until last weekend when he won the Red Bull Battlegrounds Atlanta 3-1 over Polt. Now, all eyes are on Bomber. Literally. His series against Pigbaby in the WCS America finals where he lost 3-4 has 73,500 views, nearly three times more than the WCS Europe finals. Some might say that’s because Pigbaby used Carriers and Tempest in the series, but the truth of the matter is that Bomber uses a large variety of unique builds as well. He is one of the only Terrans who still plays builds which haven’t been seen since Wings of Liberty such as Marine, Tank, Medivac and three Barracks combat shield pushes in TvZ . When asked why he uses such builds, Bomber replied “because zergs don’t suspect it.” Fair enough. There’s no question Bomber is still riding the high from his recent victory and this should allow him to come into Valencia with a clear head. He’s going to need more than that though if he wants to win this tournament as his opponents will be equally, if not more, ferocious as the ones he faced in WCS America.

One of these players is mYinsanity Stardust who is on a hot streak himself after winning the WCS Europe final 4-0 over San. His map score in WCS Europe premier league was an incredible 18-6, fitting for a champion. Yet, it wasn’t always glory and respect for Stardust. Following his 3-2 win at Dreamhack Summer 2013 over Jaedong, many people questioned him as a player because he wasn’t flexible in his choice of builds. At the time, he was using a double forge build which empowered his chargelot, immortal, sentry unit composition(later dubbed the Stardust build http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/418094-stardusts-12-minute-pvz-gateway-pushes). He hit with 2-1 nearly every PvZ he played. A few months later, the starcraft community nicknamed him Cheesedust due to his affinity for 2 base all ins and proxy stargate openings. Fast forward to today and Stardust has evolved more in one year than many players do in their entire careers. He plays Macro builds, but can still pull out well executed cheeses. That’s the mark of a great player and that’s what makes Stardust a force to be reckoned with.

While Stardust has been enjoying success in the past year, the young star yoe Flash Wolves Leenock has been making waves since he was 16 years old. Now 19, Leenock has been a mainstay in GSL and he has at times been considered the best Zerg in the world. Many might say his glory days have gone and past. Indeed, his last major tournament win was Dreamhack Stockholm 2013 more than a year ago. But, there is something to be said for consistency and Leenock has been competing with the best players in the world since Starcraft 2 was released. While many of his compatriots moved to WCS America and Europe in search of easier competition, Leenock has stayed in Korea. He’s the only Korean at Valencia who is playing in Code A, a tournament with an infamously hard qualifier. In fact, he was recently in Code S where he was eliminated by Innovation and CJ entus Hero. That was back in May so what about his current form? It looks good. In the last week he competed in the Dragon Invitational #3 where he beat Ryung, Sleep, and Ragnarok, before losing 2-3 to Life in the finals. Last month at MLG Anaheim he was taking care of business when he ran into two brick walls. Those brick walls go by the names of Stardust and Bomber. He lost 1-2 to both of them, ending his tournament run. A player like Leenock won’t accept defeat so easily. Make no mistake, he is preparing himself for a rematch. He’s going to have to adapt his builds if he wants the win though. A player like Leenock is surely capable. The question is: does he have enough time?