The Canadians have emerged victorious from the SteelSeries World Cup. After a disappointing fourth place finish in Season 1, Canada finally took home the gold. For the second season in a row, Poland has finished second, losing to Spain in Season 1. Canada, led by uT)Choblar(WGT), managed the team terrificly as they had the harder road to the finals. How did they get there and what happened when they did? Here is a recap of Canada's road to the gold.
Round of 16
Canada 3-2
Romania The score looked grim for Canada. Down to 2-1, they needed to win the final two matches to advance. Romania took the lead with wins from xLo.Shaman and RPG.AnDrEi but Canada would come back. xLo.Oldy won the first match for Canada, defeating at the time, his teammate MgZ)Ryko. In the last two matches, MYM.Testie and Target[Light] came through for Team Canada, defeating xLo.Rek and xLo.Jack respectively. With the win, they would play one of their deepest rivals: America.
Round of 8
Canada 3-2
USA Just like in the previous World Cup match, the beginning did not look good for Canada. Idra[Media] and aAa.Crayon led the match off with wins for America. Up 2-0 and with an aresonal of players left, it looked like it was over for Canada. But it would not be the case. MYM.Testie defeated ToT)iNcontroL( and MgZ)TT1 took down xLo.HungTran. With the score tied at 2-2, the last match would be between ToT)Xiaozi( and xLo.G5 with the winner advancing. Xiaozi took home the win in a convincing 2-0 match.
Round of 4
Canada 3-1
Peru The king of upsets - Peru, was next on Canada's list. Taking down top ranked Spain and then Germany, they were anxious to defeat Canada. Canada thought otherwise. They sent out their top three players in the first three matches: ToT)Xiaozi(, MYM.Testie, and xLo.IefNaij. The three won, all 2-1, against LRM)Darki[gH], LG)Castro, and LG)Handy. One more match was played and xLo.Fenix defeated gH-Worked. As Canada had already won, the last one was not played.
Championship
Canada 3-2
Poland Replay Pack Going into the match, Canada felt confident. They had their strongest line up planned: ToT)Xiaozi(, MYM.Testie, xLo.IefNaij, xLo.Oldy, and MgZ)TT1. But due to a last minute change, Testie was unable to come. Combine this with interview of Poland's manager, Cyru, who was very unsure of his own team, predicting Canada would win easily, and Canada had quite the confidence. The match started out great for Canada as ToT)Xiaozi( defeated teammate ToT)Hullah( 2-1 to give Canada the 1-0 lead. But xLo.Gohan easily put away Choblar, who had to play in Testie's absence, to tie the match. Oldy then gave Canada the lead back with a 2-0 win over ToT)Gosia(. Two matches were at 1-1: LRM)MIStrZZZ vs MgZ)TT1 and MgZ)MoonShine and xLo.IefNaij. IefNaij finished his third game first and emerged from the battlefield victorious. Minutes later, MIStrZZZ and TT1 entered the channel. MIStrZZZ had won and saved Poland some face.
A replay pack has been created of Canada's matches against USA, Peru, and Poland. Unfortunately, the replays against Romania are unavailable. Download it here.
WGTour: You're the Season 2 World Cup Champions! How does it feel? Choblar: It feels great! Although Poland didn't send their top lineup in the finals, all the players on their roster are respectively great players. For us to beat Poland, who is known to be the strongest nation (or.. was... until now? ) is already a great victory, but to do so in the World Cups is even better! USA and Poland are both extremely strong rivals of ours which we have a losing record against them in friendly nation wars. It's great knowing how strong we can be when our minds are set to the goal.
WGTour: Both Canada and Poland's top player, Testie and Draco respectively, did not play. Do you think that takes away a bit from the championship match? Choblar: Yes definitely. Testie vs Draco would have been a highlight match that hundreds would've wanted to see. Many players asked me before this match was even set if Testie would be matched against Draco. You can't really call it the best against the best if the top player in both nations don't show. But in another view, both players don't play in regular nation wars, so I guess it's fair this way when we use a regular lineup instead of a team created just for special events. It shows how strong our regular Team Canada lineup is on average.
WGTour: Your team will now take home 5 SteelSeries 3H. How will you distribute the prizes? Choblar: Well as a joke I told fkc)Guta (Peru leader) that I will kick someone off Team Canada and claim their prize as my own. He said he will do the same with LG)Rage who can't speak English well and can't complain . Although it doesn't seem like a bad idea, unfortunately all my players speak English so I can't do that. The prizes will go to Testie, XiaOzi, IefNaij, Oldy and TT1 as this was stated to the team before we even started playing.
WGTour: Canada had quite a few close calls. At any point did you think you might get eliminated in the tournament? Choblar: Before the finals, USA was my biggest concern as somehow we always come across them and have a losing record against them. But in this event, most of the nation captains have been great and compromising. They were able to accommodate my players who have different timezones and generally my expected lineup was able to play. With a top lineup, there was nothing to worry about.
WGTour: Congrats on your victory. Good luck...next season? Choblar: Thanks! We will definately play if there's a next season and we won't let any Canadian fans down!
Thanks to ToT)Incontrol( (USA leader) and fkc)Guta (Peru leader) for their understanding of rescheduling a few matches to accomodate this for my players. If it hadn't been for reschedules, the scores might be different for us. Really appreciate it! And Pol-Cyru (Poland leader) for always having NWs with manner, respect and straight forward NWs without any problems. Thanks to the Team Canada players for your hard efforts. There is finally something to show for it, the title and prizes! If there were more prizes, I'd give one to everyone on the team. Thanks to DKnight and WGTour NW admins for this very fun event!
Will the World Cup Season 3 continue next year? Only time will tell.
MYM.vhallee: Yes, the match vs. Canada was pretty strange from what I've heard. Tell me what happened there.
xLo.Zeratul: It was a strange game match indeed where our opponents abused of my good manner which somehow resulted in us loosing the meeting.
xLo.Zeratul: Basically at the hour of the nw, Canada's leader, Choblar, came to me asking to postpone the nw for 30min since they were playing some other friendly nw at that time. I agreed to it. After 5min Iefnaij was free to play so he went against Shaman, obviously Shaman won and it was 1-0 for us. After they were done and came to channel we started playing. Andrei went against TT1 which he won in about 5 minutes resulting in TT1 accusing Andrei of hack, spamming the channel with injuries to our nation and then forfeiting the second game which made it 2-0. Things were going better than ever when Ryko was leading 1-0 against Oldy. Xiaozi couldn't make it and Choblar asked me to postpone his game until tomorrow, which I refused and he replaced him with Target[Light].
Things started to get ugly when we were waiting for Testie to come, he was late more than an hour, ReK wanted to take a fw like all of the team but I was too confident that Ryko and Jack won't lose to inferior opponents and the match is almost won. So I told ReK to go play Testie where as expected he lost. Jack somehow lost 1-2 to Target[Light] and Ryko was 1-1 vs Oldy.
That's the point when the outcome of the nationwar was uncertain. Suddenly Ryko's internet connection starts to lag and he can't play with Oldy. Canada wants immediate replace or free win. I ask Choblar for some common sense after all we waited for them and he says he won't agree to postpone it since I refused to postpone the game betwen Jack and Xiaozi (who didn't come). Xeris the gosu admin, came to tell me I have to replace him or he'll grant Oldy a free-win. Seeing there's no chance Ryko can play that from home and the gosu Oldy won't want to postpone this, Ryko says he'll never give w/o to Oldy since his chances were better and in the middle of the night (it was 00:30 over here) he went to an internet cafe where he couldn't even install his stuff (keyboard, mouse etc).
Given the conditions Ryko had to play, decreased Ryko's chances to winning dramatically and in the end he lost. This is one of the reasons I quit leading the team after. I consider it's mostly my fault since i've been too mannered and all the team paid for it. What can I say, fair play is not a wanted thing in the starcraft community.
MYM.vhallee: Soon after this match you decide to leave the team, and it is considered to be a consequence of this loss. Are there any events that put some pressure onto you to call it quits?
xLo.Zeratul: Well, beside this loss in which I had such a big fault, my passion for doing this was starting to "melt". Our team also became old and their passion for the game was just not the same anymore and I believe it was the right time to do it, I hope the next leader/s who will take care of Romania A will bring some new spirit to it and achieve better results than us. There were no external pressures for this matter.
When I see a lot of "of course he won" "inferior opponents" from a nation leader, talking about well-known players...well, is it just me, or the ex-ROM-A leader has no justice talking about manners, when he puts sentences like that together?
Naib, i just stated my/our opionion about the games. There's no drama and never was , just stated what happened and why we think canada didn't deserve to win the whole thing.
EPT![[image loading]](http://wgtour.com/syndrom/WORLD%20CUP%20SEASON%202.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.wgtour.com/flag/Canada.gif )
![[image loading]](http://www.wgtour.com/flag/Romania.gif )
![[image loading]](http://www.wgtour.com/flag/United_States.gif )
![[image loading]](http://www.wgtour.com/flag/Peru.gif )
![[image loading]](http://www.wgtour.com/flag/Poland.gif )
We will get you guys next time!
, just stated what happened and why we think canada didn't deserve to win the whole thing.
