WCS Europe Season 3

Ro32 Group B Recap
Happy and duckdeok Advance

Ro32 Group C Preview
Mvp, Vortix, Showtime, Noname

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Youtube

Happy and duckdeok Advance

by Plexa

While most groups in WCS EU have two clear favorites, Group B was a three horse race between Happy, TLO and the reigning champion duckdeok. Happy quietly dominated the group without dropping a map while duckdeok defeated TLO twice, with a collective score of 4-1, to come out in second place. TLO's early exit brings an end to his WCS Grand Finals hopes and brings the finals one step closer to being all Korean.

Ro32 - Group B
1.	Happy	2-0 (4-0)
2.	duckdeok	2-1 (4-3)
3.	TLO	1-2 (3-4)
4.	SaSe	0-2 (0-4)

Detailed results from the live report thread by Lorning
+ Show Spoiler +

duckdeok vs TLO
duckdeok <Bel'Shir Vestige> TLO
duckdeok <Akilon Wastes> TLO
duckdeok <Whirlwind> TLO

duckdeok wins 2-1!

Happy vs SaSe
Happy <Akilon Wastes> SaSe
Happy <Bel'Shir Vestige> SaSe
Happy <> SaSe

Happy wins 2-0!

Winners' Match
duckdeok <Whirlwind> Happy
duckdeok <Akilon Wastes> Happy
duckdeok <> Happy

Happy wins 2-0!

Losers' Match
TLO <Bel'Shir Vestige> SaSe
TLO <Whirlwind> SaSe
TLO <> SaSe

TLO wins 2-0!

Final Match
duckdeok <Bel'Shir Vestige> TLO
duckdeok <Akilon Wastes> TLO
duckdeok <> TLO

duckdeok wins 2-0!

---

Happy and duckdeok advance to WCS EU Premier RO16!

duckdeok and TLO opened the night with a passive macro game - duckdeok taking a fast third and TLO taking a fast fourth in response. TLO was able to gain a clear advantage with his zergling/baneling composition after he shut down duckdeok's third. While duckdeok's follow up all in attempts looked scary at times, TLO had ultralisks pop just in time to take the first game. The second match saw duckdeok open with a gate first 4 gate aggression after expansion. TLO misread the situation and was quickly overwhelmed by zealots and took significant damage. A follow up immortal push sealed the game for duckdeok. The final game saw TLO taking a significant advantage by shutting down duckdeok's early third attempt. Unfortunately, duckdeok's counter aggression off of two base caught TLO by surprise and he was forced to concede.

The first game between SaSe and Happy was decided by a supply depot. Happy chose to build his first depot in a somewhat unconventional location which happened to be just in vision of Sase's proxy 2 gate. Once he knew what he was up against, Happy had little trouble fending off the cheese. In game 2 Sase managed to trick Happy into thinking that he was going to all in when in actuality he went for a very quick third base. Despite the setback, Happy made excellent use of multi-pronged attacks and fought his way into an advantageous position. A last ditch base race attempt by Sase was not enough to save the series for him.

In the winners match Happy's cheeky marine pressure was able to thwart duckdeok's fast third attempt. Noticing the lack of units, Happy continued to pressure with marines until he was able to get a substantial number of probe kills. The rest of the game seemed almost routine for Happy as he exploited duckdeok's lack of units through multi-pronged drop play. In somewhat typical duckdeok fashion, duckdeok opted for 2 base gateway all in in the second game. Vigilant scouting by Happy alerted him to this fact with enough time to erect extra bunkers to defend. After ramming his protoss ball into mines a bunkers a few times, duckdeok called a quits.

Sase continued his cheesy trends from his first series into the losers match, opening up against TLO with a cannon rush. The rush only barely failed to kill TLO's natural hatch. Sase tried to finish the job with some follow up DT tech but ultimately the hatch still stood. With many resources invested into failed hatch snipes, TLO was able to take firm control of the game and never looked back. In the second game Sase opted for some duckdeok-esque zealot pressure, but TLO was able to hold without taking significant losses. From there TLO was able to trap Sase on two base and crush Sase's eventual maxed push and take the match.

The final series of the night had duckdeok's immortal all in go up against TLO's mutalisk build. While the mutalisks were successful in being able to ward off the immortal all in, it came at the cost of TLO's third and a bunch of drones. Moreover it left him with a lack of units, so when duckdeok came knocking with a followup army of stalkers he had little to say in reply. The final match of the night was a repeat of game 2 from their first meeting. For the second time, TLO was unable to stop duckdeok's zealot aggression and was forced to tap out.

As mentioned in the introduction, TLO is now almost certainly out of the WCS Grand Finals at Blizzcon. With TLO out and Naniwa very unlikely to make it, only Grubby has a decent shot at providing some non-Korean representation at the finals. duckdeok currently resides at #14 on the rankings and his spot at Blizzcon is by no means secure. His victory today has inched him one step closer to that end goal. Happy is still quite far away from a ticket to Blizzcon as he is sitting on 1150 points at #33. However, with his play today it stands to reason that Happy could be a contender for one of the coveted top 5 spots this season and that might be just enough points to get him over the line.

by Zealously



Calling Mvp inconsistent is always an uncomfortable thing to do. Ever since his first appearance in GSL Open Season 2, Mvp remained an important presence in the Starcraft II scene. Whether he wins by dominant and straight-up macro play or nigh-magical second level mind games, Mvp has very rarely been in a state where he is unable to eke out wins against most players. But at the same time, Mvp has, since his injuries first began to impair his ability to play the game, taken a fair amount of losses to players most would say he should beat. Whether it's the power of composure in tight spots, game sense or pure game genie magic, Mvp seems at his best against players he actually shouldn't be able to beat.

On that note, Group C may actually be one of the worse groups for Mvp. ShowTime and Noname are both largely nonames on the professional stage. Historically, the group stage of any tournament is the stage where Mvp is most likely to fall out. Another thing to note is that Mvp, once he wins something, takes some time off being #1. It happened after 2012 GSL Season 2 (he came back in season 4 to reach the finals where he lost 3-4 to Life), and it may very well be what we're looking at in Europe as well. After a great Season 1 with a top notch season finals performance, Season 2 for Mvp was lackluster in comparison. If Mvp follows his pattern of winning again once people start to forget about him being kind of really good, he should be able to do quite well for himself in this group. He is sitting quite comfortably at #8 (3500 points) in the WCS rankings, but falling out of the Round of 32 puts his spot at Blizzcon out of his hands, something no pro-gamer should be comfortable with. With Blizzcon being the largest and perhaps most significant Starcraft II tournament of all time, advancement from this group is crucial for Mvp.

While it seems like the King of Wings has all but secured a spot at Blizzcon with his top 4 finish at the Season 1 Finals and first place in WCS EU, the remaining three players in this group all require some degree of miracle work to make it that far. Out of the three, VortiX is in the best shape at #37 (1000 points), still far away from the all-important 16th spot. The Duran Zerg made it to the Round of 8 last season and narrowly fell out of the Round of 16 in Season 1, netting him enough points to ensure that a spot at Blizzcon is somewhat realistic, but remains very difficult to achieve. As for this group, it seems very doable for Vortix. Having played around 60 televised matches over the last month across WCS, various other tournaments and qualifiers, Vortix has amassed a pretty good record against players like Crank, MC, Mana, Babyknight and Kas – players you would favor over Showtime and Noname on most days of the week. To add to this fact, Vortix gets to play his two better match-ups, ZvT and ZvP, while avoiding ZvZ entirely in this group - a surprisingly lucky break for the guy most thought would have to play five Bo3s against his brother to decide who would advance out of this group-

Speaking of those two, let's talk about their chances in this group. At a glance, this group seems like easy money for the two more accomplished players Mvp and Vortix. But in mind that both Noname and Showtime legitimately made it out of Challenger League – something a lot of good players fail to do. Make no mistake, Mvp and Vortix are huge favorites in this group – they've both shown better play in the last few months than the two underdogs in the group and have both results and experience, but Showtime beating San in the Challenger groups shows that an upset here isn't completely inconceivable. Is it unlikely that Showtime will beat Mvp? Very much so, but so far the theme of Season 3 (across all three regions) seems to be something along the lines of "rise of the underdogs", with the unexpected players rising up to take spots in the Round of 16 at the expense of more accomplished players.

And let's not forget, strange things do happen when playing online. While Noname and Showtime can't realistically make it to Blizzard's Grand Slam at the end of the year, this group offers stiff competition and as such also a place for them to prove that they can be significant threats in the European scene. Just as Mvp has showed us, will and wit are potent tools for a progamer, but I feel like they still won't help the two underdogs to get out of this group.

Prediction
Vortix > Noname
Mvp > Showtime
Mvp > Vortix
Noname < Showtime
Vortix > Showtime

Upcoming Groups
Sept 10: Grubby, Genius, Starbuck, LucifroN
Sept 11: Welmu, BlinG, sLivko, ThorZaIN
Sept 12: HasuObs, Shuttle, TitaN, Nerchio

Writers: Plexa, Zealously
Graphics: shiroiusagi
Banner photo: ESL
Editor: Plexa.