DH Masters Summer: LatAm Qualifiers Preview

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CranKy Ducklings

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June 17 2020 16:04 GMT

2020 DreamHack Masters: Summer - Latin America Qualifiers
Preview

by (Wiki)

Light VIP

CranKy Ducklings have been covering the Latin American scene for the majority of 2020. Now that we are headed into the first DreamHack Masters event, we thought we would catch everyone up on who to look out for in the qualifiers.

El Italiano:

Ryu - Liquipedia

We first started casting Sentimiento Latino with #78 and immediately Ryu left an impression, one that lasted with us to this day.

Going into 2020 we were excited to continue to watch him grow as a player in the spiritual successor Battle of the Americas, however he only played in the first iteration and nothing more.

Fast forward 5 months, Sentimiento Latino is back and the CranKy Ducklings have returned as the main English stream. We followed Sinner the entire tournament, seeing one of the few regional Terrans perform well, and then we were absolutely shook when Ryu dismantled his opponents and took the tournament without dropping a map. There are criticisms regarding his residency and whether he represents Peru. Despite that we can all agree he is a strong player, and the CranKy Ducklings want to see the street fighter duke it out with the best in the region.

El Cham-pion:

Cham - Liquipedia

We have been the main English stream for Battle of the Americas since its inception and if we take anything away from our time casting it, it’s that there is only 1 true champion.

For the people who haven’t been keeping up with the online tournament scene, Battle of the Americas features the best not only in Latin America, but the US and Canada too. There have been 19 iterations of the event out of which Cham has won... 12.

For the past 2 years Cham has consistently placed 3rd in WCS Copa América. Now with his recent form and with ESL rebranding, can he break the curse?

El Pollo Loco:

JimRising - Liquipedia

When you think of JimRising, what comes to mind? Content creator? Streamer? Washed up pro? Troll? What if I told you... best in the region.

Jaime hasn’t competed in Sentimiento Latino in over a year, so when he signed up for Sentimiento Latino #86, everyone wanted to watch his run and see how he performs against the Latin American pros. His games weren’t clean or decisive, but he was persistent... and he kept winning. The hype was real when we suddenly found ourselves in the finals and when DarkUnnamed typed the final GG of the series, we all rushed to Jim's stream and saw him literally flex on his opponent.

He is a showman at heart and has the StarCraft skills to back it up.

The Cham Killer:

Pacomike - Liquipedia

Previously I mentioned how Cham has been almost unstoppable in the online tournament scene. This is the tale of someone who didn’t show the world that Cham could bleed.

There was excitement in the air, Battle of the Americas #12 had some strong American Terrans sign up to fight amongst themselves for the chance to face Cham in the finals and challenge him for his crown. Cham was still in the round of 16 and we thought nothing of it, no one did. It was taking unusually long though and we were already casting the first semifinals. This is when DARKING told us. He told us something that stopped and completely derailed the cast.

"Pacomike 2-1 Cham"

Cham had just won his 10th Battle of the Americas in a row and in an insane turn of events he was taken out by a fellow Mexican pro, the best Protoss in Latin America... and no one was there to see it.

El Chileno:

Darkness - Liquipedia

We’ve been casting La Espira tournaments for a few months now so when DARKING told me about a Chilean only tournament Rebirth of StarCraft, I thought sure, it's restricted to just Chile, a small tournament will be fine...

It was anything but small.

200 sign ups + 150 check ins + 3 admins = 8 hours of insane StarCraft. Basetrades, proxies, blink DTs, returning legends, it had it all. I’m relatively new to casting the Latin American scene but was familiar with players such as Halfbreed and Jarppi, one of which came back this year just to compete in this tournament. Someone who I didn’t know was Darkness. And now I do.

We started the broadcast following Sagan, which led us into a hype match with the returning player Jarppi, which led us into Dastan who was hours away from his birthday. The tournament peaked when Darkness was up 2-0 vs Dastan in the finals, then midnight strikes in Chile, Dastan is 26 and he brings it back 2-2 which leads into an insane proxy Dark Shrine for the ace match. After a long 8-hour tournament, Darkness is finally crowned the best in Chile.

After the stream ended, Yoda and I agreed that this was the best tournament we had seen in months, and it’s one that I will never forget.

El Huevo:

eGGz - Liquipedia

The week after Pacomike was dubbed the Cham Killer, eGGz followed suit THIS TIME on stream. Battle of the Americas #12 marked the end of an era, eGGz once again showed that Cham was mortal and no longer the dominant force. But it didn’t end there.

The 2 Cham Killers met in the following tournament Sentimiento Latino #84.

The tournament went the only way it could have, they started in the opposite halves of the bracket and blazed their way through to finally meet in the finals. Only 1 would walk away victorious and Pacomike had the edge in the match up. Could eGGz do what Cham couldn’t and beat Pacomike in a ZvP?

Yes.

We hope you are as excited as we are for the upcoming qualifiers! If you want to check out the predictions from other personalities, take a look at the full article in Spanish over at La Espira's website.

The first qualifier begins on Wednesday, Jun 17 9:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00), so in

Join us for live English coverage on our Twitch channel.

Writing: Light_VIP | Proofreading & editing: Kuro