WCS Europe Season 2 - Premier League

Ro16: Group A Recap
HasuObs and Grubby advance

Ro16: Group B Preview
Stephano, Duckdeok, Welmu, Lucifron

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Youtube

Europe Holds: Mvp eliminated as HasuObs and Grubby advance

by stuchiu

Detailed results from Live Report Thread by Yello
+ Show Spoiler [Overall Results] +

Going into this group, most people were pegging the reigning European champion LG-IM_Mvp as the sure bet to make it out of the group whether it be in 1st or 2nd place. And while Mvp played well in all of his games, he could not overcome the resolve of the Europeans. mouz.HasuObs and Grubby handed Mvp a pair of stunning defeats, eliminating the legendary Korean pro and earning spots in the Ro8.

HasuObs' performance on the night was particularly dominating, following up some spectacular online performances in July with a great live performance in ESL's Cologne studio as he took out both Grubby and Mvp to advance in first place.

HasuObs takes first place

Hasuobs' first series saw him live up to his reputation as a late game player, playing marathon games against his opponent Grubby. The first game took over an hour of game time to complete, but did not lack for action the entire way. HasuObs looked to be able to end it in the early mid-game after he cornered and massacred Grubby's army after a key mothership core snipe, but a unit grouping mistake saw his counter-attack fall apart and allow Grubby back into the game.

Both players took the time to expand across their sides of the map and try to assemble their ultimate armies. Grubby had a flair for the dramatic, transitioning into carriers out of tempests, while HasuObs opted for a stalker-immortal-archon force in response. The players fought all across the vast expanses of Whirlwind as they took alternating swipes at each others' armies and bases. In the end, Grubby was able to edge out an advantage with his commit to harassment, using his economic advantage to put together a deadly counter-composition that forced HasuObs to surrender.

Not to be outdone, HasuObs returned the favor in game two by defeating Grubby in another drawn out game. After a rare late-game base trade, Tempests proved to be the key to HasuObs' victory, allowing him to dictate the engagements and control space as both players recovered. HasuObs safely secured new expansions while being able to punish Grubby for his own attempts. Grubby went for one last attack, GG'ing out after his force fell apart against HasuObs' solid defenses.

Deciding not to torture the ESL production crew by sending them back home at 2AM, HasuObs finished Grubby off in game three in a much faster game. Fortune favored the German as he was able to do early damage with an early 2 stalker MSC move out and kill a good amount of probes. After deflecting the proxy-oracle harass that followed, HasuObs was firmly in the driver's seat. Grubby went for a desperation base trade, but had to GG out when HasuObs recalled back to defend after leveling his base.

The winner's match saw German’s natural born son HasuObs take on the adopted hero Mvp. HasuObs took a surprisingly easy lead in the first game, as he defended handily against Mvp's poorly microed widow mine-reaper harass. HasuObs only needed to safely build up on his lead to in order to secure his victory.

The second game saw the roles reversed as Mvp easily held against HasuObs' aggression to recover a point. HasuObs went for a peculiar forge and 5 gate build off two bases, but botched his execution by allowing a clearly scouted hellion runby to take the wind out of his sails. HasuObs had no choice but to go through with his gateway attack, but it fell miserably short of success.

The final game was the longest and most dramatic of the series as Hasuobs went for a peculiar phoenix-chargelot-templar strategy off of two bases. Although HasuObs wasn't able to attain his intended goal of busting Mvp right away, he managed to kill off Mvp's third base while transitioning into double-robo colossi. This proved to be the game winning move for HasuObs as Mvp simply wasn't ready to deal with colossi when the two players clashed again. Storms and lasers ripped apart Mvp's army in the final engagement of the game, forcing the GG that sent HasuObs through in first place.

Grubby comes from behind

Grubby's path was much more perilous as he would have to go through two very tough matches against both Liquid`Ret and Mvp after losing his initial series against HasuObs.

The losers' match against Ret started off badly, as he dropped the first game with an overaggressive gateway attack that was easily stuffed. Game two saw Grubby get off to a much better start, as his early phoenixes did massive damage. Ret tried to recover, but had to tap out to the colossi-stalker army that followed. Grubby then earned a final match against Mvp by defeating Ret on Neo Planet S, using strong gateway harassment to take an early lead and wrapping it up with stalkers and colossi late.

Group A would come down to Grubby vs. Mvp in the end. Once more, Grubby started the series off badly as he lost a deflating first game to a large hellion marine attack that he didn't see coming. Unfazed, Grubby hit back in game two with oracles, using them to abuse Mvp’s proclivity to move out early with his marines and kill a massive amount of SCVs.

The last game of the night saw Mvp go for early aggression once again. This time, Grubby shut the attack down with a cannon and immortal, and from there he was able to pressure Mvp with an immortal sentry force while harassing Mvp’s main with a warp prism. Grubby pulled further ahead by executing a vicious backstab when Mvp tried to move out, causing havoc in Mvp's base before recalling back with his MSC. From there, Mvp was too behind to play a normal game and opted for an SCV pull all-in. However, he could make not pierce Grubby's unwavering defenses, and had no choice but to end his European campaign early.


Quick Takes

Liquid`Ret: Emotional moments go both ways. While Grubby was elated to win such a famous victory against Mvp, Ret was crushed after failing to make it to the Ro8.

LG-IM_Mvp: While Mvp was eliminated surprisingly early, it wasn't that surprising considering he had always had trouble in the group stages, even in Korea.

HasuObs: As if winning in spectacular fashion over both Grubby and Mvp wasn't enough, HasuObs was also able to catch a fly that was annoying both him and Grubby with his bare hands, without even killing it. For this act we dub him St. HasuObs the merciful, patron saint of turtles.

Group B: Stephano, Duckdeok, Welmu, Lucifron

by Waxangel

Is this it? Could we really see Stephano's final matches as a professional gamer come Tuesday night?

At least his tweets and interviews seem to point in that direction. One final run in WCS Europe, and then it's on to retired life as a university student with an embarrassingly big bank account.

That's a major event, considering that Stephano is the best foreigner ever, one of the best players to play the game, and the one who had the biggest individual influence on how the Zerg race is played. Yet, we're really not making that big a deal out of it.

Maybe it's because we don't really believe him. The World Finals at Blizzcon offers a shot at $100,000 to the winner, and that's enough to bring anyone out of retirement into semi-retirement. Stephano has delayed his retirement in the past, having talked about retirement since 2011 but continuing to ride his talent and success well into 2013.

I'll fade into darkness. But I shall be remembered. I'm very lyrical today. It came in a casual talk with my BFF (Sorry Coco)

— EGStephano (@EGStephanoRC) August 1, 2013

As for Stephano himself, he doesn't seem to be treating these matches with any more weight than he normally does. That's fitting for a player who always seemed to take pro-gaming more casually than the rest, and had an uncanny knack for achieving great results without the most practice.

I think I do know why we're not making a big deal out of this. It's because we don't believe that this is the end. We don't believe that Stephano would somehow drop out ignominiously in the Ro16 of a European tournament, in a no-Zerg group at that. Not before he gives us a grand finale, one last hurrah. We believe he will 'go out on top' - the ultimate conceit a fan can have.

Maybe it's just a dream, a fantasy. But isn't that what Stephano's career was all about? Making foreign dreams come true.

---

MVP.duckdeok comes into the group looking to repair his somewhat maligned reputation. Playing from Korea to Europe in the Ro32, he was forced to resort to cheesy tactics to earn his ticket to the Ro16. Or maybe he just really likes to all-in people! We'll learn the truth soon enough as he'll soon get a chance to play in a lag-free environment.

Duckdeok isn't a particularly well-known Korean but he is a very competent one. Expect him to bring the usual Korean Protoss package, with a good mixture of devious all-ins, infuriating turtle play, and way better sense for engagements than most foreigners.

NrS.Welmu: Welmu enters the Ro16 as the best player from Finland (except Elfi; no one is better than Elfi), looking to do his country proud in Europe's biggest competition. Once a regular fixture in the lower group stages of European tournaments, Welmu's steady improvement in 2013 makes it no surprise that he's one step away from earning a spot at the regional finals.

Although Welmu's online play has been quite strong (defeating BabyKnight and Ret in the Ro32 of this tournament), he's been struggling to get a noteworthy result in a live setting. He did have a decent showing last weekend at ASUS ROG where he nearly defeated Hyun and reached the Ro16, so perhaps there's reason to be optimistic about his chances here as well.

mouz.LucifroN: I have no shame about being a bandwagon hopper, and I'm ready to ditch Lucifron for Happy depending on what happens this week. While players like Lucifron and Dayshi got all of the hype coming into HotS about being the hope for European Terran, it's actually been Happy who has been beating Koreans at live events (with recent wins over San and MC at ASUS ROG). Lucifron also happened to lose to an American in Goswser back at ASUS ROG, further derailing the hype train.

So the story here for Lucifron is the same old stuff: Massively hyped, definitely very talented, but still looking for the big result to bring it all together. While I still maintain that his great multi-tasking and variety of builds makes him the closest thing Europe has to the Korea Terran Robots, but it's getting awfully painful waiting for the results to come in. Well, here's to hoping again!


Prediction
Duckdeok > Stephano
Lucifron > Welmu
Duckdeok > Lucifron
Stephano > Welmu
Stephano > Lucifron

Duckdeok and Stephano advance

Writers: stuchiu and Waxangel
Graphics: shiroiusagi
Banner photo: ESL
Editor: Waxangel.