While WCS Europe can't match WCS Korea's historic, absurdly stacked group of death, it does bring us a very solid group with strong players. First and foremost there's Alliance.NaNiwa, who needed one weekend in his home country of Sweden to take back the 'best foreigner' crown from Stephano. NaNiwa was a mystery coming into DreamHack: Stockholm, with many wondering how he measured up in HotS after a long time away from live tournaments. The answer: very, very well. NaNiwa made a famous run to the DreamHack finals, defeating players like MC, YuGiOh and Jaedong, before finally losing to Leenock in an extremely close 2 - 3 final. It was like seeing NaNiwa who had reached the Code S Ro8 twice in a row return right before our very eyes.
That should strike fear into the heart of NaNiwa's first opponent, c.Shuttle. Typically, the reaction to facing a Korean Terran would be "f***, he's probably really good," but instead Shuttle comes across as a player the Europeans will consider to be more like themselves. Of course, he is a good player, or else he would never have broken through the brutally hard WCS Europe Qualifiers, but he has no results to suggest he's like one of those Koreans. Take the Korean flag off his name and take a look through his match history—could you really tell him apart from a middling European pro? In fact, Shuttle is in the strange position of being the only Korean in the group, yet also being the least favored player to advance. His three opponents are some of the best in Europe, and Shuttle hasn't proven he can play on that level... yet.
On the other side of the bracket we have Liquid`TLO facing Empire|Kas. The two have interesting contrasting stories behind them, as TLO was once a very popular player in spite of a dearth of tournament results, whereas Kas has never enjoyed much popularity outside of Europe despite always being considered one of the best players on the continent. In TLO's case, he has improved his skills massively over the course of the last year or so (his recovery from a wrist injury being a factor), going from first round elimination candidate to a player lurking just outside the title picture. Unfortunately, we can't say that Kas' PR has improved at such a pace—Bitterdam will have to redouble their efforts at promoting the Ukrainian Terran.
The relationship between the two is an interesting one, with TLO surprisingly having an extremely favorable record over Kas. Considering that Kas has a near-even or better record against almost every Zerg in Europe not named Stephano and VortiX, it's a surprise that he has somewhere around a combined 5 - 15 record (depending on what kind of games you want to count) against TLO in 'official' games. Either TLO's style totally counters Kas', or this is one of the weirder statistical aberrations in StarCraft. Whatever the case, this is the most high-stakes match the two have faced in, so perhaps Kas will have thought deeply about the reason behind it and will have found the solution.
Final thoughts and prediction
NaNiwa is the favorite in this group, but he's also the most exposed due to his deep run at DreamHack. Fortunately for NaNiwa he didn't have to show much PvT, but he did have to reveal a lot of his PvZ play in his Zerg heavy run (which even included TLO). His gateway-expand openers and myriad follow-up strategies might have caught his opponents with their pants down at DreamHack—a peculiar 2-immortal, only zealot all-in was especially effective—but TLO will be more ready to face him now.
Shuttle is the wild card in this group, and if he can show the level of play expected from a Korean, he can really shake things up.
If the TLO-Kas relationship isn't just an aberration, then this group becomes somewhat easy to call: NaNiwa's the favorite, Shuttle is the opposite, and TLO edges out Kas for second place.
NaNiwa > Shuttle TLO > Kas NaNiwa > TLO Kas > Shuttle TLO > Kas
I would like it if you had the time of the match in this previews, I get that it's usually the same day it comes up but sometimes it's not (at least EU) and I feel it would be nice.
Thanks you for all your previews, it's something I look forward to every day!
To call a group easy to predict with players so evenly matched is kinda dangerous. I think naniwas chances against kas if he faces him are not very good. Shuttle might not be the favourite in this group but his chances are still pretty decent.
I hope your predictions end up correct in the end, Wax. Nani and TLO are two of my favorite players, but even I know Shuttle has a good chance to win out too.
This group is going to be really close, I think. Yes, Nani was godlike at DH but he didn't play a single high-profile PvT and said himself that it was by far is worst match-up. So don't be too sure he is going to stomp everyone (although he is ofc the favorite). Also TLO has been improving a lot lately. He 3-0'd his group of Nerchio, Sase and ForGG at DH. Kas 3-0'd his group of Hero, Zenio and Happy at DH, so he is definitely in shape, too. And I can't say much about Shuttle but he's a Korean Terran, so I will not count him out.
On May 02 2013 21:34 Overslyzed wrote: TLO was a decent terran but lost all my respect when he switched to zerg...
Completely agree + Nani easy 999-0 this group ( literally cant loose to these scrubs imo! )
Definitely debatable. TLO has been doing really well, and his ZvP has been looking sharp. Aligulac shows that it's been rising since the release of HotS. The swarm host has really been working in his favor.
with two terrans in the group I really doubt Naniwa will make it out. But we'll see. It wouldn't be the first time that Naniwa says he's weak at a certain matchup, only for in the next tournament to rape that race into oblivion.
I've said this once...please put broadcasting times in these posts (EST, KST, and UK times). Those of us who don't keep up with the scene religiously but want to catch some games don't really have easy access to the information. I think esports will grow a lot more if this information is unified and readily available. Thank you!
I'm fearing for Naniwa tbh. The games vs TLO in dreamhack were pretty close, and now his gateway opening is known. Also, he said himself that PvT is his worst matchup by far. Anything can happen in this group.
This is definitely one of the harder groups. I mean, they're all very hard groups, but all of these players are looking very strong lately.
I feel like Naniwa/TLO will be the most interesting match. Naniwa busted out some crazy good PvZ openings at Dreamhack, but now, TLO has had a good week to study those openers. He already took a game off of Nani at DH, and Leenock showed that those openers aren't infallible. In addition, TLO 2-0'd both SaSe and JYP in DH Group Stage. He's looking really solid.
EPT
Alliance.NaNiwa, 
c.Shuttle, 
Liquid`TLO, 
