by Kollin

Alliance.NaNiwa

Ladies and gentlemen boys and girls, Naniwa - the unfiltered, Swedish, totally-not-on-EG, Dreamhack runner-up - is here. He has certainly reestablished his position at the top of the foreign scene, as he came one game within winning the championship at a Korean dominated Dreamhack: Stockholm. While Nani did lose his match against TLO 0 - 2 in the Ro32, that's not really a mark against him given the kind of form TLO has been showing us lately. And anyway, Naniwa beat him by the same scoreline back at DreamHack. It's not as if Naniwa's PvZ is lacking, as his gateway-first play took out multiple top Zergs and was quickly copied by players all over the world.

Furthermore, Naniwa's non-PvZ matchups aren't looking too shabby either. The newly crowned King of the North (we're not sure who is in charge of awarding this title) also has proved to be his usual strong self against Protoss players, as he took out ToD and MC at DreamHack. The one worry is his lack of a PvT record, with just wins over Clarity's Shuttle to go on as of late. However, even a surprise loss to Happy in his first match won't be anything NaNiwa can't overcome.

It's the Ro16, and every player will be a challenger for the others to beat, and NaNiwa is no exception. However, he has distinguished himself above nearly all the other competitors with his extremely impressive run at Dreamhack. While Nani does sometimes slip up, as proved by his loss to TLO, the Swedish toss has one of the best track records of all the players left in the tournament when the stakes become higher and the pressure starts to mount. Upsets can and will happen along the way, but Naniwa is our pick to take first in this group.

Empire|Happy

The sole Terran in this group is Happy, a Russian Terran that tends to not get much attention considering he is one of the strongest foreign Terrans right now. He didn't do quite as his first round opponent NaNiwa at DreamHack, but he did place in the top 32 with wins over Thorzain and Nightend before falling out of a tough group with HerO, Zenio and teammate Kas.

Happy has always done well in miscellaneous online tournaments that foreigners (and Hyun) often compete in, recently placing top 6 in the EIZO Cup where he beat Socke, Nerchio and DIMAGA . The problem with Happy is that he hasn't made any headlines in premier tournaments. WCS Europe 2012 was his big chance last year, but he crumbled in important matches and barely missed out on reaching the Global Finals in China. This is no easy group, but if recent online results are anything to by, Happy has a pretty good chance of seeing himself to the Ro8 and becoming one of the new Terran stars of HotS.

Na`Vi.BabyKnight

Over the past year or so, Babyknight has risen from being an okay Danish Protoss that was more known for being an ex Dota-player, to a mainstay in the European scene. He currently finds himself back on Na`vi, the team where he started his whole Starcraft 2 career, and has done well for them by coming in the top 4 at the ESET UK Masters tournament. However, he had a very down performance at Dreamhack, where he lost to Fuzer, ForGG and Oz while showing some strangely poor play.

His WCS EU group on the other hand was a whole different story. Babyknight beat two top foreigners, in Grubby and Stephano, to take first place in the group. While beating Stephano in PvZ nowadays might not be as impressive as it would be 6 months ago, it is still impressive and shows that Dreamhack might just have been a very off-tournament for BabyK. Either that, or he has a problem facing foreign Terrans and their high HPM (hellbats per mineral), but even if that's the case there's just one Terran in this group.

K3.VortiX

Vortix has to be feeling good about himself. Not too long after Stephano called him a patch zerg, VortiX is doing as well as ever while the French Zerg has announced his impending retirement. This puts Vortix on the fast track to become the new #1 EU Zerg, especially with Nerchio is falling off in terms of results. WCS EU will be Vortix's chance to succeed Stephano once and for all, with this group being another chance to show that he belongs to a different class of player.

VortiX is the only player in this group who did not compete in Dreamhack Stockholm so there's less data to go on in live events, while VortiX's results from online events such as ATC are good but erratic. He did take easy victories against monchi and Dayshi in his Ro32 group, they are not of the same caliber as the opponents in the Ro16. Even though we haven't seen him in a big live event for a bit, we can't forget that this is the same player that came second in WCS EU last year, and then came top 8 in the following grand finals.

Overall Predictions

Despite his little stumble against TLO last round, Naniwa is still far and away the favorite to take this group. His PvZ was looking extraordinarily strong at Dreamhack, and there's no reason to doubt his other match-ups. Happy is a gem hidden beneath the mountains of Russia and is one of the best foreign Terrans in the world right now, he just has yet to show it. While both Vortix and Babyknight are strong players in their own right, neither of them look strong enough to take down the Nani-Happy wombo combo.

Happy > Vortix
Naniwa > Babyknight
Naniwa > Happy
Vortix > Babyknight
Happy > Vortix

NaNiwa and Happy advance.