Photo Credit - Header: jjcb via flickr

After Shanghai and New York, Intel Extreme Masters heads to Singapore for its third stop on the Global Challenge circuit. While some stars are headed to Sweden for DreamHack, and others to China for WCG, IEM Singapore has attracted its own fair share of top players. Already seeded into the group stages are...

Group A
.	XiGua	0 - 0
.	Mvp	0 - 0
.	TBD	0 - 0
.	TBD	0 - 0

Group B
.	KingKong	0 - 0
.	Happy	0 - 0
.	DongRaeGu	0 - 0
.	TBD	0 - 0

Group C
.	herO[jOin]	0 - 0
.	Scarlett	0 - 0
.	Bomber	0 - 0
.	TBD	0 - 0

Group D
.	Hydra	0 - 0
.	Grubby	0 - 0
.	Hack	0 - 0
.	TBD	0 - 0

But before that, there's the business of filling up those TBD's. Sixteen players have been assembled down in the open bracket stage of the tournament, five of which will earn spots into the main, Ro16 tournament. Let's take a look at who's contending!

The open bracket is best-of-three, double elimination style.

Looking at the first open bracket, the main thing that pops out is that it's fairly even. Sure, two Koreans are probably going to make it out in the end, but it's hard to tell which two it will be, and there probably aren't going to be that many one-sided matches in the group.

Click to see full bracket

Part of the reason is because the Koreans in the group are on the 'weak' side, as far as one can say Koreans who are worth investing flight money into are 'weak.' Still, you have to admit that IM_NesTea, ST_Avenge, and IM_Squirtle haven't really done much this year, with only Yoe.San having shown glimpses of being a championship class player. The rest have generally been good-but-not-great in HotS, though we have to give Avenge a special mention for being a skilled all-in slinger in the wild west of the GSTL.

San, runner up at ASUS ROG Summer, is the favorite out of the eight players in the bracket, but he's suffered from consistency issues since what seems like the beginning of time. He has a self-admitted 'propensity to throw games,' which is certainly worrisome. A deep run at Singapore is as much a possibility as is a deflating open bracket exit.

As for the foreigners, we have local player Flash.Blysk starting with a match against Nestea. He actually did manage to make it through the open bracket in last year's IEM Singapore, but both the format and player list back then was much more forgiving. If Singapore is anything like the recent IEM New York in terms of the success of locals, then he'll probably soon be a spectator (albeit, one with a nice backstage pass).

Then there's the European duo of d.TargA and Mill.Feast, who happen to be matched up in the first round. Targa made an impressive run to the Ro8 of the previous WCS Europe Tournament, and had a better-than-it-looks-on-paper exit from the Ro32 of the recent HomeStory Cup. Does that he can make it through a sea of Koreans? Probably not, but we'll see. Meanwhile, Feast is coming back after taking a break for a couple of months. We doubt that he completely forget how to play StarCraft in that time, but tempering expectations might be wise in this kind of situation.

And finally there's x5.PiG, who I'm sure Australian fans are extremely pleased to hear isn't in the group stage because he lost the ONE SEA qualifier spot to KingKong. However, PiG does come in with some momentum having defeated KingKong, Arthur, MacSed and Tefel to win the recent SEA Championship Series. The opponents that await him in the qualifying bracket are definitely more difficult, but it's not like they are the INnoVations and Soulkeys of the world either.

Compared to bracket #1, bracket #2 is slightly more... stratified, shall we say?

Click to see full bracket

At the very high end we have some legitimate contenders to take the entire tournament in ST_Curious and MVP.Dream. Both of them can play macro games as well as anyone (remember, Curious out-macroed both sOs and INnoVation not long ago) and they are both favorites to come out of the bracket.

Then we have wildcard Koreans are EG.Oz and CJ_EffOrt, who have both run hot and cold for most of their SC2 careers. One thing we can say about both of them is that they have a tendency to get caught up in some very entertaining games, regardless of whether they win or lose, so their games should be the ones you follow if you don't have any other preference.

Fnatic SaSe is more of a mystery than a wildcard, having moved to Taiwan to compete in TeSL and play on the Korean server. We remember him best from his days as a top foreigner back in 2011, but his 2013 WCS Europe performances have left much to be desired in comparison. Nonetheless, he has done fairly well in the few weekend tournaments he has been able to go to this year (top 16 DH Stockholm, top 12 MLG Anaheim), so perhaps a tournament like IEM Singapore will play better to his strengths.

Also coming along from Taiwan is Taiwanese player Yoe.Has, who we honestly don't know much about. His Aligulac record suggests he's one of the better players in Taiwan, and at least his team Yoe Flashwolves thought he was worth sending off to Singapore alongside San.

And finally we have the long shots in Singaporean player Revenant and the Korean-American d.SeleCT. As much as we like the players from the underdog regions of StarCraft 2, it's just not likely (understatement) they're getting out of a bracket with mostly Koreans. Even so, we're curious to see what kind of play they will bring.