Nv.mOOnGLaDe, Grubby, Liquid`Snute
MVP.Dream, Liquid`TLO,

Tarson

Round Robin. 1st place advances to round of eight. 2nd and 3rd place advance to round of twelve.

Group A is stacked, and there's numerous ways the group could play out. Zerg has dominated the foreigner scene for quite a while now, and the trio of mOOnGLaDe, Snute, and TLO initially look to be strong candidates to make it through. Snute's win at HSC VI has temporarily elevated him into that Nerchio/Vortix/Scarlett tier, and a good performance here will solidify that status. TLO has made huge strides in recent months, and he's gaining a lot of respect as a player who has the skill to match his popularity. As for MoonGlade, he's always going to be a bit of an unknown going into tournaments due to his region, but a good tournament outing at MLG Dallas showed that you can't underestimate him just because you don't see him that often.

However, there's a twist to this tale, as Blizzard decided to grace us all with a balance patch just days before the tournament, taking away Infested Terrans' ability to benefit from Zerg upgrades. This comes as a boon to the non-Zergs in the group, especially for Grubby compared to his Terran compatriots. PvZ is the match-up where Zergs have most abused the egg-throwing that attracted nerfs from Blizzard, while Terran's main gripe is more about fungal growth. Other than a pair of epic wins against Nerchio and Ret at WCS Europe, PvZ hasn't traditionally been Grubby's strong suite in tournaments, and he'll welcome all the help he can get.

Dream is a Korean Terran, which should explain a lot in itself. Every other nationality/race combination has suffered periods of terrible decline, but 'Korean Terran' is some kind of special breed that always knows how to hang around. They can cry "IMBA!" as loudly as any of the other races, but they're always sneaking into the title picture in the GSL or raking in prize money at some international tourney. Dream might not be the most distinguished member of those ranks, but fear him nonetheless.

Alas, Tarson seems to be destined to play the White-Ra role in this group. While he's sure to be one of the fan favorites – especially so in Poland – it's going to be tough to hang against a Code A Korean, three excellent European players, and the king of SEA. Still, with the home country support and the blessing of Mvp upon him, perhaps Tarson could hope to squeeze in at third place.

c.Siphonn, Acer.Bly, K3.LucifroN
SKT_PartinG,

mouz.MaNa,

d.Tefel

Round Robin. 1st place advances to round of eight. 2nd and 3rd place advance to round of twelve.

How apt! PartinG has become one of KeSPA's elephants, just in time to become this specific tournament's elephant in the room. Even if Stephano hadn't cancelled his participation, there wouldn't be a player in the entire tournament who could really rival PartinG's stature. With a Proleague ban until HotS and Code S not starting until February, the WCS and WCG champion has decided to spend his free time helping foreigners part with even more of their money.

While it's true that he isn't as dominant a force as the old DRG, or even present day Life, PartinG has a special, MC-like aura about him. His play isn't always solid or mistake-free, and he has a reliance on all-ins (even more so in PvT nowadays), but he undeniably gives off the aura of a winner, a player who knows how to get it done when the stakes are at their highest. While MC hasn't performed well as of late, the foreigners at this event should be very afraid of PartinG picking up where the original Prize Money President left off.

With PartinG is penciled in for one spot in the top three, that leaves a very tight race to take the other two spots. It would be great to see the Polish players MaNa and Tefel go through, but LucifroN and Bly could very spoil the party. Lucifron, Bly, and MaNa have all been in the championship picture in 2012, so it's probably going to be two of the three qualifying alongside PartinG. MaNa in particular is someone to watch out for if he does make it to knockout bracket. While he hasn't been as consistently good as some of the other players in the tournament, he has put together championship winning runs when everything clicked.

Finally, there's Siphonn, who we can't give much of a chance to get through. If you exclude viOLet, there hasn't been a USA based player who made it past the group stages since DeMuslim at IEM Sao Paulo. And if we're counting only players of American nationality, then we'd have to go all the way back to IEM Guanzhou 2011, where IdrA won the championship. However, this does happen to be a three Protoss group, so there is at least a small shard of hope for those hoping to spam the stream chat with 'USA! USA! USA!' if Siphonn can benefit from SC2's most volatile match-up.

c.jookTo, aTn.Socke,

Acer.Nerchio
LG-IM_YoDa,

VERDI,

Mill.DieStar

Round Robin. 1st place advances to round of eight. 2nd and 3rd place advance to round of twelve.

It's rare for someone who's not a Korean to win a major tournament in his own country, but Nerchio has a real chance at making it happen. Most people would rank him as the second best foreign player after Stephano, being one of the few to fend off Koreans and prevent European prize money from leaving the continent. While PartinG is the hands down favorite to win it all, Nerchio definitely has a shot to defeat him, and he shouldn't be intimidated by YoDa, First or any of the others. Nerchio did have a few bad results to end the year (eliminated early at WCS, IPL5, and Iron Squid II), but it's hard to see him not making it to the bracket stage of Katowice.

Alongside Nerchio, YoDa is the other strong favorite to make it out of the group. While he has barely any international tournament experience, he's a Code S level Terran, making him an instant championship contender. If we look at Terrans with similar GSL resumes, a modest projection for YoDa would be for him to perform along the lines of ForGG or TheStC. However, jet lag and international stage fright could factor in (e.g. Monster's choke job against ThorZaIN at DreamHack Stockholm), so not all hope is lost for our foreign friends.

The remaining four players all have a decent case to be considered the third best in the group. VERDI lived up to his dark horse billing in the open bracket, defeating Paranoid and Ret. Socke is Socke, and has the ability to play pretty damn well when he chooses (but never when we predict him to). DieStar might not be well known internationally, but has a pretty solid hold on the 3rd best Polish player spot after Nerchio and MaNa. jookTo is a Korean, and a Zerg.

If the StarCraft gods were benevolent, they'd let DieStar go through for being Polish, European, and Terran. However, we know them to be cruel, so expect JookTo to make it to the bracket stage and knock out Vortix and Snute in ZvZ's.

ST_Golden, K3.VortiX, Empire|Kas
LG-IM_First, ESC.Daisy,

Acer.ParanOid

Round Robin. 1st place advances to round of eight. 2nd and 3rd place advance to round of twelve.

Group B is the most top heavy group, but Group D is the group of death in terms of parity. You could pick any combination of three players to make it through, and it would seem reasonable enough. Even the least known player of the group in ParanOid has a decent crack at it, as he'll be able to play two ZvZ's. Conversely, that's bad news for Golden, whose ZvZ has sometimes been a liability. The three Zerg composition is also a problem for LG-IM's First, who might otherwise be a favorite to win the group. PvZ has always been First's Achilles heel in tournaments, and it wouldn't be a surprise for the Code A player to go out early.

On the other hand, VortiX has more often been the beneficiary of ZvZ than a victim (well, except that one, very famous time against Stephano). Throw in the fact that the ever solid Empire|Kas has recently picked up some great TvP victories against Korean Protosses in MC and Seed, and the chances of a depressing all-Korean top three in this group are mercifully low.

Finally, in the interest of giving everyone at least a little mention, it bears saying that Daisy was quite impressive back in November at MLG Dallas, defeating soO, Scarlett, MoonGlade, and HuK. He showed why he once had a spot on the Prime team, and perhaps this will be the tournament where he continues where he left off in the US.