WCS Europe Season 1 - Premier League

Ro32: Group C Recap
Strelok and ThorZaIN advance


Ro32: Group D Preview
Mvp, Siw, DIMAGA, Socke


Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by Wunder

Results from Live Report Thread by SinCitta.
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The Ambitious Terran
- Na`Vi.Strelok advances from group C in first place.

The newly minted Na’Vi Terran caused some upsets in Dreamhack last weekend and he continued to upset last night as he advanced first in his WCS EU group, defeating fan favorites Liquid`Ret and EG.ThorZaIN.RC. The Ukranian Terran crushed through both with powerful mech play, going 4-0 in the group and utilizing hellbat drops relentlessly while defending well against the pressure of both players.

Strelok started off against Liquid’s Ret, and played an aggressive mech style, using both hellbats and the medivac boost to drop repeatedly at multiple locations. Game two on Star Station saw Ret suffer the most, as Strelok got an early lead with a runby of hellions and reapers which dealt a good amount of economic damage. When Ret eventually teched up to broodlords, Strelok simply split his mech army in half and it seemed as if his two separate armies were two bio balls, destroying expansion after expansion and causing Ret to crumble under the pressure.

Strelok then moved on to face the Spoon Terran and it was a clash of wills as Thorzain opted for the traditional marine tank while Strelok continued to use his mech style adapted for use against a Terran opponent. Their first game on Newkirk Precinct was the most notable as Thorzain secured an early lead with a hellion drop netting a handful of workers, but Strelok trudged on with his mech composition and managed to outmaneuver Thorzain as the game went late. In the decisive manuver of the game, Strelok skirted around the Swede’s tank line in the middle of the map, catching him exposed during a transition to ravens. Strelok set up a contain outside of Thorzain’s natural, securing additional expansions and using hellbat drops to gain an economic lead. Thorzain eventually broke out with a raven - banshee combo, but the game had already swugn too far into Strelok's favor. The Ukrainian Terran was able to amass a new force that was supplemented with Thors, and Thorzain had to GG out against his own signature unit.

Time for Terran

It seems as if the era of European Terrans has arrived once again, as ThorZaIN clinched second place in the group, with two 2 - 1 victories over the Protoss TitaN. After a somewhat disappointing run in Dreamhack Stockholm last weekend, Thorzain was on the verge of elimination from WCS EU as well the RoX.KIS Protoss took the first game of their series in the final match of the night. Backed into a corner, Thorzain threw out his trump card: a proxy hellion drop. It started with a proxy barracks and it was clear Thorzain had a build order worked out, as he then proceeded to make a reactor and a factory, and then finally a starport. The build was a huge success, as even though Titan scouted Thorzain’s main and saw no barracks, he wasn’t prepared for what eventually came, and the hellions rained fiery death upon the probes, which allowed Thorzain to boost ahead in economy and take the second game.

The Swedish Terran then began the third and final game the same way, with the exact same build. Even though Titan went for a nexus first against this aggressive opener, he actually defended it a lot more efficiently than in the previous game, only losing 9 probes to the hellion drop. The game stabilized from there, as Thorzain took his small lead and ran with it, getting a third command center and every infantry upgrade known to man. Titan opted to try and claw himself back into the game, and tried a DT drop to even out the worker count. Although Thorzain had turrets ready, the Russian Protoss found a crack in the defense and managed to equalize the worker counts as he took a third base and teched to Colossus. But Thorzain was not about to let the series slip out from in between his fingers and burst into a flurry of drops and feints, managing to take out the nexus in Titan’s main as well as his robo bay. Pulled in two different directions, Titan could not hold on and was summarily drawn and quartered by the EG Terran as he dismantled both the main base and the third of the Protoss. It was an EMP shower and a firing range for Thorzain’s ghosts as templar and colossus alike evaporated under the torrential downpour of bullets.

The night is dark and full of terrors

With both Terrans advancing from this group, one thing was clear: The Lord of Light was with both Strelok and Thorzain, as hellions and hellbats alike roasted many an evildoer. What was left was the charred corpse of both Zerg and Protoss as only one can win the game of drones.

Liquid`Ret: Having gotten a harsh group in Dreamhack Stockholm, Ret had to prove himself in this group if he wanted to produce results at the end of this month. Alas, it was not meant to be, as both Strelok and Titan outclassed the Liquid Zerg. Though Ret showed determination in the second game against Titan, with a nice comeback against Titan’s secret double stargate. He seemed to confuse himself as well, making questionable decisions against both Strelok and Titan, such as showing a hydralisk den while starting an unscouted spire against the Protoss (Ret assumed his spire had been scouted, but omniscient referee vision revealed that it had not), but then simply making roach hydra rather than continuing down the path of the mutalisk, which would have destroyed Titan’s immortal based composition.

RoX.KIS.TitaN: While the Russian Protoss ended up being put in the Challenger league, he showed great games against Thorzain and in the world of if’s and but’s it wouldn’t be out of this world to think that Titan could have advanced over Thorzain if he hadn’t made that crucial mistake in game 1 where he decided that engaging a larger Terran army after securing the economic lead would be a good idea. Still, his games against Ret showed he had a strong PvZ and that he should be a force to be reckoned with in the Challenger league.

Writers: kollin and Wunder
Graphics: shiroiusagi
Editor: Waxangel.