FP image Cologne Cathedral photo by Ahgee, via wikipedia

by Waxangel

After a long hiatus, the Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge returns with its seventh season. As has become traditional, the season opens off in Cologne, Germany, at the Gamescom convention. The defending season six champion MC is back, and he's brought some of his GSL winning friends in tow. Mvp and Nestea will brave the open brackets, a new feature that has been added to the IEM format for season seven.

Day one of the tournament entirely dedicated to the open brackets, so here's a preview! Also, seeing as this is IEM, expect someone to cancel in the next eight hours.



Bracket A

(Top Two Advance)

The Favorite: ST_Bomber

This is the kind of tournament Bomber is made for: A rapid fire gauntlets where no one knows who they will face next until a few hours beforehand, and opportunities at specific preparation are close to nil. In terms of pure mechanics, no one in this tournament comes close to Bomber, so expect many foreigners to lose in hilariously one-sided matches, and for the manner mule count to go up to the hundreds by the time Bomber's work is done. Of course, once he's done owning the open bracket and the group stage, he's all but guaranteed to choke out in the elimination tournament stage.

The other favorite: NaNiwa

A beast in PvP and PvT, NaNiwa has a very fatal flaw in PvZ. In his last five major tournaments (GSL, TSL, DreamHack, DreamHack again, WCS), he's been knocked out by a Zerg player (DRG, JonnyREcco, Nerchio/Slivko, DIMAGA, SortOf). Fortunately for NaNiwa, Bly is the sole Zerg player in this eight man bracket, giving him a very good chance of making it out of the open bracket.

The dark horse: LG-IM_YongHwa

Unlike poor, poor, ST_Sound, YongHwa will actually get a chance to stay relevant after taking second place at a HomeStoryCup. He's the underdog against both Bomber and NaNiwa, which is very relevant since these groups are small enough that there's a high chance you'll have to play the best players to get through. Though it's hard to see him ever beating Bomber, he could make it through in second place if he can flip well against NaNiwa.

Obligatory foreigner props: Acer.Bly

For being an entertaining match caster at HomeStoryCup, being nice to our guys at MLG Arena, and having the best team uniform (Team Acer), all of our foreigner props for bracket A have been awarded to Bly.


Bracket B


(Top Two Advance)

The favorite: FnaticRC Oz

Oz is a player that goes through repeated cycles of playing well, followed by a mini-slump. Through a number of MLG and Code S tournaments in 2012, he's fluctuated between being Ro32 cannon fodder to cracking the top four. Right now, he's back on the upswing, recently taking a Tie-4th position at MLG Summer Arena and qualifying for the OnGameNet Starleague after beating many good players in a gazillion rounds of qualifiers and sub-tournaments. With good but not spectacular recent performances, it's questionable as to whether Oz will make a championship push in the later stages of the tournament, but in this eight man group, he's the best player.

The part where I explain why Mvp won't win, against my better instincts

With four GSL Championships, LG-IM_Mvp is clearly the best Starcraft II player of all time and a living legend. All those in attendance at IEM Cologne should take care to not even step on his shadow, lest they disrespect him.

That said, Mvp is terrible when he's not playing in the GSL. We all saw how limited he was at HomeStoryCup V, where intelligence and experience alone could not overcome a noticeable decline in mechanics. With the pain in his arms preventing him from practicing as much as he'd like, he gets left further and further behind with every day that passes.

Also, Mvp despises international air travel, and it's not hard to tell he's in Cologne mainly in order to fulfill sponsor obligations to LG. Mvp is a professional, and he'll tough it out and do his best to perform as long as he's there, but it's unrealistic to expect a great result.

The other favorites: Grubby, ST_AcE

How much must it suck to be AcE? Instead of getting chances to show off his strong PvT in this rare international opportunity, he'll be stuck flipping PvP coins and hoping he can make it out of his group. On the other hand, how great must it be to be Grubby? With at least two Koreans guaranteed to be in each group, he gets to flip PvP coins against Oz and AcE when getting infinitely manner muled by Bomber was also a possibility.

For viewers, the clearly superior scenario is Grubby getting eliminated while AcE advances. That way, Grubby gets to cast IEM for four days, and AcE gets to keep performing his famous ceremonies. If Grubby should knock out AcE to advance to the group stages, he owes us some ceremonies of his own to make up for the lack of his S-class casting.

Bracket C


(Top two advance)

The Favorite: LG-IM_NesTea

Nestea suffers from the same open-bracket debuff as Mvp, but to a much lesser extent. He's clearly at his best when he has time to prepare for his opponent, but unlike Mvp, he doesn't suffer such a dramatic drop off when he competes in a short duration tournament. IPL4 back in April is probably the best demonstration, where he defeated many Code S class players to come in third place. He even beat the eventual #1 and #2 players in aLive and Squirtle in the earlier rounds of the tournament, but fell to them once the tournament went to the final few rounds. This should be a walk in the park for Nestea, unless his "TBA" ends up being GoOdy.

The other favorite: EG.PuMa

Between mid 2011 and early 2012, PuMa was the king of international tournaments. After getting picked up by EG after he won NASL Season One, he was sent around the world by his new employers and he repaid them handsomely by putting a ton of trophies in their cabinet. However, 2012 has been an entirely different story for PuMa, with the arrival of even more Koreans (MC and Polt in particular) on the international scene slowly pushing him out of title contention. Even so, he's probably the second best player in this group, and it's hard to see him not making it through.

Obligatory foreigner props: aTn.Socke

Well, if he can pull off anything like his MLG Winter Championship streak (consecutive wins against PuMa – DeMuslim – Crazymoving – TheStC) or recreate his form from MLG Spring group stages (wins vs Heart, DRG, and Oz), then this group shouldn't be a problem at all, right?

Also, even though national pride is outlawed in Germany, I'm sure Socke will feel some kind of motivation to give the host country a better chance at a high finish, considering HasuObs is presently Germany's only representative in the group stage.


Bracket D


(Top Two Advance)

The Favorite: SK_MC

The revolution led by the guerrilla Seed has forced the Protoss President into exile, but fortunately MC's political allies in Germany have granted him asylum. He will have a chance to recover his office come the next GSL season, but until then he must bide his time and recover his strength. What better place to begin than the tournament where he last tasted gold?

Though he's recently suffered defeat at the hands of a trio of new generation stars in TaeJa, Seed, and Stephano, MC is clearly the best player in the player pool at IEM Cologne. Of his main competitors, Mvp and Nestea have shown weakness when traveling abroad, Bomber can be relied upon to choke as soon as he's playing for more than trivial stakes, and PuMa was dethroned by MC himself earlier this year. MC actually has the toughest open bracket group of the other preliminary contenders, but it's hard to imagine that he'll fail to progress to the group stage.

The other favorites: EG.JYP, Mill.ForGG

By placing third place at ASUS ROG Summer, his first international tournament ever, fOrGG comes into this tournament as an interesting sleeper Korean among a list full of more familiar names. He's been unable to beat top tier opponents in the GSL, but there's only three or four of those players in this tournament, which means there's a good chance fOrGG will finish in the money.

fOrGG is already looking better than JYP, with his third place debut already tying the best result JYP has had in his months long stint with Evil Geniuses (third place at HSC4). However, in this particular group, they seem to have equal chances. fOrGG is a better player overall, but he probably won't beat MC. On the other hand, JYP's excellent PvP means he has a better chance against MC if it comes down to that.

The dark horse: K3.LucifroN

TL writers have been hyping up LucifroN for quite some time, and tree.hugger in particular has been waiting for the day Lucifron has a break out performance in a big tournament so he could unload the biggest "I told you so" ever known to man. Alas, Lucifron has been consistently absent from almost every high profile tournament, although he did win 1st place at The Gathering (a Norwegian LAN with 0 Koreans, that conveniently overlapped exactly with IPL4).

Finally, we have a chance to see him perform in the spotlight, against Koreans whom every foreigner is fated to be measured against. Let's see how it goes.

Obligatory foreigner props: White-Ra

Regardless of the result, we all win when White-Ra plays.