DreamHack Summer

Preview, Part 1
All about Korea

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by TeamLiquid Writers

Now that we've looked at the Koreans in Part 1 of our preview, it's time to move on to the rest of the field. Yes, there are dozens of non-Korean players gathering in Jonkoping to try and earn their shot at glory, while the Koreans are presumably looking on and saying "Aww... aren't they cute?"

As usual, this preview has been written with the player list that was most recent at the time. Cancellations and replacements are frequent at DreamHack, and some of the players listed may end up not competing.

Players that won't win, but you should look out for anyway

by kollin and Waxangel

You know, it's not all about the championship contenders and players surrounded by a permanent aura of drama. It's also about the rising stars, the peculiar players, and the guys who are competing under unique circumstances. Here's a short list of players to watch out for.

The Outsiders: x5.PiG and PandaTank

The Australian scene is an untamed wild shrouded in mystery, a savage land about which we barely have any information. Hell, it even has King Kong inhabiting its jungles. While we all know about mOOnGLaDe due to his frequent travels and exploits, the rest of the Australian pros are stranded on their continent for most of the year. That's why it will be interesting to see PiG—the 2012 WCS Australia champion—go abroad for the first time in HotS. PiG actually did travel to a few IEM's in WoL, but it's probably best to say no more about those ventures. It's now time for a much needed check-up.

Then there's Pandatank, the sole African pro who spends his time competing on European servers that are roughly 9,000 km away from him (that's about NA-KR distance with what we imagine is worse internet infrastructure). Unfortunately, competing in a live environment doesn't have the DragonBall Z effect of shedding 80kg of weights for Pandatank, as he had respectable but not especially good performances when playing at ESWC and the WCS Combined European Qualifiers last year.

In any case, their trip to DreamHack is a rare opportunity and calls for a careful scientific experiment. We demand that DreamHack capture these two alive, chain them to computers, and force him to play StarCraft 2 for 12 hours straight so we may glean some knowledge about these rare creatures. Oh, right, that's already going to happen.

EG.Xenocider.RC, featured streamer.

The fifteen year-old Terran Xenocider has received much attention in the last couple of weeks, being signed to to Evil Geniuses as a part of their effort to acquire up-and-comers and not just ready-made stars. He has a fairly sparse tournament record so far, but that's forgivable for someone who's only just begun to come into his own. In the games he has played so far in WCS and SHOUTcraft America, he has shown a distinctly multitasking heavy style, centered around getting ahead with a lot of drop play and never letting his opponent back into the game.

Xenocider has a surprisingly heavy burden on his shoulders, even though he has explicitly been picked up as a player in development. There are dozens if not hundreds of players who would covet an EG contract, and it's all up to Xenocider to prove that he truly deserves it.

New Premier Leaguers CW.Bunny & Mill.Dayshi

The influx of new talent into the European top tier has slowed considerably compared to the earlier years of StarCraft II, but HotS has thankfully brought a few new players into the fold. The Terran duo of Bunny and Dayshi broke through the arduous WCS Europe qualifiers to make it into the Season 1 Premier league, and then survived the Challenger League to make it right back into Season 2. Consider that 28/32 of Season II's Premier division players have been premier tournament regulars since 2012 (if not 2010), and you'll know that Dayshi and Bunny are already welcome sights solely because we haven't seen them 32,809 times already (cue the hipster French fans in the replies).

Their first outings in the Premier League didn't go so well as both were eliminated in the Ro32. Dayshi's previous DreamHack challenge didn't go that well either, as he went out 0 - 3 against HuK, Leenock, and Sjow at Stockholm. However, that was more than a month ago, which is enough time to make a difference in StarCraft. Both players have kept putting up good online results in the meanwhile—Bunny getting through the HSC 7 EU qualifier, while Dayshi all-killed Korean team MVP in the Acer TeamStory Cup. Bunny and Dayshi have shown they can be stand-out names on a results table—but can they become big new faces on the big stage as well?

Honorable mention: d.Tefel, who made his first WCS Premier League a few weeks ago.

Blood Castle: XMG.ToD

The former War3 pro turned SC2 pro turned mostly-caster turned player-caster has made a resurgence in HotS. After casting WCS EU's first season of the Premier League to critical acclaim (I am a critic, and I give him acclaim), he qualified for season 2 by making it through a difficult qualifier and even more difficult Challenger League bracket. Taking down Socke, Slivko and then the Spoon Terran himself in Thorzain, ToD had perhaps the most unexpected AND most impressive qualifying run of the new Season 2 players.

ToD had fallen off considerably toward the end of WoL, and his transition to a caster role made it seem like his situation wasn't about to improve. But then again, if you look at how other European Protosses like Grubby and HasuObs manage both casting and playing at a high level, maybe it's no surprise that ToD is now looking the best he's ever been, in both worlds.

Players Who are Cursed

by stuchiu

It is known that the StarCraft gods are merciless and cruel. They punished the hubris of a self-proclaimed King by allowing him to make consecutive GSL finals, only to strike him down over and over again. They find the weakest and feeblest of teams, and give them the gift of long life. They take the words of StarCraft's most beloved pundit, and turn them into a vile and twisted curse. Not all the players at DreamHack have divine favor on their sides, and some of them have run afoul of the gods. As much as we pray for their success, we know that the gods will not listen.

The curse of silver: LG-IM_Squirtle

Breaking the non-Koreanness here for a second: The former Startale player has one of the most severe cases of second-place-itis. At least MKP has won MLGs—Squirtle has never ever won a big LAN event inside or outside of Korea. While his curse ran strong during his days on Startale, his departure to LG-IM has seemingly made his ex-teammates unite to prevent him from ever getting first place. Even at the small, M-House tournament in France, Curious was sent by Startale to deliver a message to Squirtle: we do not forgive and we do not forget (conveniently for Curious, ForGG assassinated Squirtle for him). Going into this Dreamhack, Squirtle was ready to make a real run for the gold as he was one of the best players participating, if not THE best overall. All of Azubu suddenly cancelled their participation, leaving Squirtle as the only Starleaguer left standing. So of course, Life announced his participation 3 days before the tournament.

Newly marked for death: coL.viPro

After HotS, Vipro really made a name for himself as an important piece for K3 as he was one of the major contributors to their ATC season. While the one-two punch of Lucifron and VortiX were undoubtedly the team's main strength, they couldn't have achieved an unexpectedly great 6 - 2 record without viPro's contributions. However, los hemarnos Durán jumped ship to mousesports mid season, leaving just viPro, LoLvsxD, and the mercenary Socke to defend the broken team. Despite being considered free points the rest of the way, Vipro and Socke proved everyone wrong as they crushed an Acer team including MMA and Nerchio. Rather than having their heroics rewarded, the StarCraft gods responded with cruelty, having Karont3 disqualified from the ATC for good. I get the feeling they're not done punishing viPro just yet, and they've already drawn him into a three Protoss group including the Korean Arthur. If he makes it past the first round without getting cheesed out, look for him to get tossed in a group with three more Koreans.

The curse of everything: mouz.LucifroN

Above all others, there is Lucifron. Already considered one of the most unlucky players in Europe for having to play against his brother in practically every tournament he enters, his luck somehow took an even worse turn in HotS. At DreamHack: Stockholm, the event where he was supposed to take his place as the best player in Europe, he was eliminated from the group stages by the toss of a coin. Moving on to WCS EU, his luck proved to be awful as ever, as he drew the player he called the best player in the tournament, the 90%+ TvT winrate ForGG. Knowing his luck, he will probably draw the 3 strongest Koreans in his group stages and get knocked out, but he could also find new, even more creative ways to get unlucky.


Bonus: Most likely to be coin-flipped out

Due to the immense amount of good-will DreamHack has with the community, they can somehow justify having a coin-flip as the official solution to double tie-breakers and get away with it. At Stockholm, Lucifron was the victim, losing out to Strelok and YuGiOh. Here are our top candidates to get flipped out at DH: Summer.

mouz.LucifroN - It would be freaky if it happened again, but Lucifron is the unluckiest player in Europe.

Bischu - The second player on the coin’s hit list. Bischu was the first ever victim of the Dreamhack coin toss. He was awarded with his very own coin toss tournament which he lost as well. This one would be a nice nostalgia kill for the coin.

prOp.SjoW - Another prime target for the coin, Sjow is one of the original trio of players to make the first ever tiebreaker at a major SC2 event (check Group B of the 2011 IEM World Champs). Alongside Socke and Squitle, SjoW played four rounds of tie-breakers until Squirtle was finally declared the winner. Since Sjow has just recently returned to SC2 with a renewed sense of optimism, the coin would relish knocking him out of the tournament.

Ence.elfi - If the StarCraft gods appreciate irony, then they might look to take out the master of the coinflip match-up in a literal coinflip.

Everyone Else: The (almost) No-Snub List

by Waxangel

Here is where we talk about (almost) everyone else, in our effort to placate all of the fans from various countries. Sorry BYOC #3 and his closest friends, you guys don't count.


prOp.Cytoplasm, ICAWW.MorroW, prOp.RunA, mouz.hOpe, Fnatic Miniraser : Who on this list is the most insulted to be grouped with the others?

Mill.DieStar: Listed to placate Polish fans.

Mill.Feast: Happy 20th Birthday!

Fnatic NightEnD: NightEnD is the sole reason I know that Romania is the 9th most populous country in Europe, because I looked it up due to so many people complaining when we forget to mention him.

ESC.GoOdy: Strelok has become so much more successful with mech in HotS that it's insulting to call him GoOdy 2.0. It's now on GoOdy to show us that he can keep up, or he'll be replaced entirely as the mech posterboy.

Mill.Goswser & EG.Suppy.RC: It would be incredibly ironic if the Americans saved Europe, but alas, it's not going to happen.

Fnatic.Harstem: Is Harstem's triumph over Ret at the DSCL finals a sign of his ascent, or that of Ret's decline? Taking place in the vacuum of a relatively weak Dutch scene, it was hard to tell. I love it when we get near-instant checkups like this on rising players.

EG.HuK.RC: Huk's still the most baffling player out there. He was already in Code S once this year, and made it to the Top16 of the last DreamHack. A North American player shouldn't be capable of these things! We'd all like to tell him to stop gateway all-inning, but how can we when it's been working (kinda) so far?

mouz.MaNa: Looking at MaNa's career path, I have the weirdest feeling about this tournament.

Months of obscurity -> Assembly Summer '11 runner-up
Ro32 elimination at DH Stockholm '12 -> DH Summer '12 champion.
Failure to qualify for WCS Global Finals -> Wins ESWC over Stephano + DH Bucharest Ro4.
Ro64 elimination at DH Stockholm '13 + Ro32 elimination in WCS Europe -> ???

Hey, the DH Winter champion already defended his title. Who's to say the Summer champion can't do it too?

Alliance.NaNiwa: Last DreamHack, NaNiwa had one of those terrific runs that reminded us that he always has to be in consideration as a top foreigner. Defeating TLO, SortOf, and Jaedong to reach the final, NaNiwa then just barely lost 2 - 3 to Leenock in the grand finals.

Things got rocky for NaNiwa almost immediately after, as he dropped out of the Premier League Ro16, lost to Tefel in the Challenger League brackets, and just recently secured qualification for the second season of the Premier League. It does look bad on paper, but that kind of swing isn't really that unusual. The only foreigner who was ever a perennial title contender was Stephano in his prime, a very unusual outlier. The other foreign champions all have to deal with being inconsistent to some degree. NaNiwa's form may come and go, but over his entire career, he's one of the most successful players against Korean pros.

Liquid`Ret: Like most players eliminated early from WCS Premier, Ret hasn't been receiving much attention, but he did string together a good Challenger League run against Bischu, MaNa, and Vortix to requalify.

VPBenQ.sLivko: People couldn't have been in more of a hurry to declare Slivko a PatchZerg and dead after he dropped out of the EU Premier League Ro32, but he has put the haters in their place for the moment, fighting through the Challenger League and regaining a spot in the Premier Division. It feels dirty, but I'm cheering for the former master of spine-brood lord-infestor turtling to succeed in HotS just to irk people even further.

Liquid`Snute: Snute was the best non-Korean player in WCS America. Uhh... I guess that's good? We know Snute is one of the best players hailing from Europe, but for the most part we're still waiting to see if Korean training can take him to another level.

WW.SortOf: Being on the SortOf bandwagon is getting a bit tiring. He seemed like the next big thing when he was getting 2nd place at WCS Sweden and going to Korea to train, but he seems to be stagnating at a "pretty good" level. I think he's capable of getting another high finish, like he when he reached the NASL S4 semis, but this time I'll lay low until the results are there.

EG.Stephano.RC: Even with a retirement date set and his skills declining from his peak, Stephano continues to maintain his position on top of the foreigner world. After a disappointing showing in the WCS Europe Ro32, he made a dominating run to the finals where he was only stopped by the greatest tournament player of all time in Mvp. To recycle our words for the umpteenth time, he's just a player who gets things done.

This tournament presents some mixed fortune for Stephano. He has shown some weaknesses against very fast, very multi-tasking oriented Korean Terrans, and there seems to be just one player who can him trouble in that regard in Gumiho. TaeJa is a difficult opponent for other reasons entirely, but his drop and multi-task play has diminished considerably due to his wrist injuries. Unfortunately for Stephano, there are a ton of strong Zergs in this tournament, and he's going to have to get extremely lucky with brackets on confront his worst match-up if he wants to make a deep run.

d.TargA: Listed to placate Norwegians.

EG.ThorZaIN.RC: ThorZaIN had some disappointing exits from both WCS Premier and DH: Stockholm, but at least he left us with two awkward but strangely entertaining videos (Video 1 | Video 2.)

Liquid`TLO: TLO fought his way to his best ever finish at a major tournament by taking 5th at WCS Europe. At this rate of improvement, he's on pace to win every single major tournament by 2015. Hey, it could happen.

Writers: kollin, stuchiu, and Waxangel.
Graphics: shiroiusagi.
Banner Photos: 7mk.
Editor: Waxangel.