WCS Europe Season 2 - Premier League

Ro32: Group E Preview
BabyKnight, Welmu, Ret, ThorZaIN


Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Youtube

This week we head into the second half of the online, Ro32 groups, where eight more players will earn spots at the live, Ro16 stage of the tournament. After a Korean heavy first four groups, the remaining four will be exclusively European with the exception of ForGG, who's kinda European anyway.

Qualified for Ro16 so far: Mvp, MMA, Tefel, Stephano, MC, MaNa, HasuObs, duckdeok

Group E: BabyKnight, Welmu, ThorZaIN, Ret

by: Kollin

1. NaVi.BabyKnight

Babyknight is the typical European Protoss. He can safely get up to three bases and assemble a fearsome deathball, he can all-in with precision and grace, and he can occasionally beat a good Korean player in a big match. With his strong all-around play, BabyKnight has risen up the ranks and has been hovering just outside the championship tier of Europe for some time now (top six at WCS EU '12, top eight in the previous WCS Premier League). While strong Koreans and elite European have been his bane, neither of those are in his group. ThorZaIN and Ret are not the players they used to be and a PvP against Welmu is a 50/50 proposition, which makes BabyKnight the favorite to top this group.

However, he still faces much danger in the unpredictable maelstrom that is the PvP matchup. With BabyKnight and Welmu being fairly evenly matched on this front, the result could swing either way and put a hitch in the quiet Dane's plans. ThorZaIN should not prove to be too much of a problem though, as recently his TvP has been quite poor and BabyKnight should be able to roll over him barring creative strategies from the Swede. Ret should be a harder challenge, but BabyKnight is in better form than the Dutch Zerg at present. Barring the usual variance of competitive StarCraft II, BabyKnight should be able to advance.

2. Liquid`Ret

Long gone are the days where everyone would expect Ret to make deep runs in tournaments with his distinctive, drone-heavy macro style. In 2011 no one could seem to find a way to match his super greedy but surprisingly safe style, but as players learned more about timings and deception, Ret became a more ordinary player.

While Ret is still excellent at getting away with minimal defenses and droning up as well as flooding his opponents with endless lair units, he still lacks that engagement finesse that seems to elude all European Zergs but Stephano. On days when things are clicking, he can swat aside his opponent's harassment and easily trample them with a superior army. When things go wrong he can often be seen wastefully throwing his armies into a meatgrinder, ensuring quite a few grimaces from the Dutch fans. Ret's recent 0 - 3 exits from both HomeStory Cup and DreamHack show, he's currently in one of those modes where nothing really seems to be going right for him.

And yet, this is a weird sort of group where I think Ret can prevail. While BabyKnight will be hard to beat, ThorZaIN is in a similar situation as Ret where he is just not performing well in recent weeks. On top of that, Welmu has struggled to make an impact in premier tournaments despite performing well in smaller tourneys. It's a close race for second place between Welmu, Ret, and ThorZaIN, but I give Ret the slight edge to go through.

3. NrS.Welmu

Welmu comes into this group from the Challenger League, where he had a relatively soft group containing an out-of-form Nerchio and the relative unknown Darkhydra. While Welmu's performances in various online tournaments have been strong as always, good live tournament results always seem to elude him (even though he did end WoL as the best Finnish player). Even though this round of the tournament is online, Welmu faces an up hill battle to get out of this group.

However, Welmu does get the nod over ThorZaIN at least, as the Spoon Terran has been playing really bad lately. There is of course, the unignorable chance that weak, vulnerable version of Ret shows up, or Babyknight draws the short end of the stick in PvP build order battles. With a win over BabyKnight in the initial match, Welmu would stand a very good chance of making it to the Ro16.

4. EG.ThorZaIN.RC

Thorzain - like Ret - has fallen far since his glory days in 2011 and 2012, and almost nobody expected the TSL3 and DH: Stockholm '12 winner to become so mediocre. The famous girlfriend curse seems to be in full effect as it's hard to consider ThorZaIN a title contender anymore. It's time for ThorZaIN to go lament with DongRaeGu and Stork, or ask Polt how to balance being in a relationship with performing at a championship level.

The high tempo of HotS doesn't suit the Spoon Terran's playstyle. While he definitely gets the most out of being slow and methodical, it just doesn't seem like he's utilizing Terran's full strength compared to players who are constantly active. Sure, ThorZaIN can hellbat drop with the best of them, but he's not in the 24/7 business of keeping his opponents miserable and permanently on their toes.

The recent results have not been good, as ThorZaIN was eliminated from MLG, HSC, and DreamHack Summer in the earlier rounds. While he has beat some notable players like DIMAGA and Lucky, the losses are stacking up far quicker than the wins.

Writers: kollin
Graphics: shiroiusagi
Banner photo: ESL
Editor: Waxangel.