Countdown:

by Waxangel

WCS America suffered its group of tears on Wednesday which saw the beloved Jaedong go down in flames. Now it's Europe's turn to face the pain as the immensely popular TLO and Grubby have been put into the same group. They are competing against Genius and Kas for spots in the Ro16, leading us to forecast a shower of "I don't have any reason to watch this tournament anymore" complaints once the group is over.

The first match of the night will have LoveYourGirlFriend.Genius go up against Empire.Kas in what could be an upset to start the evening. Typically, European Terrans struggle against Protosses, and even more so against Korean Protosses. However, LoveYourGirlFriend.Genius is fighting with the weight of KR-EU cross-server lag bearing down on him. Lag didn't stop him from getting through the Ro32 last season, but San's cross-server loss to Dayshi in Tuesday's Group D is a warning that must be heeded.

Conflating the uncertainty from the lag factor is the fact that LoveYourGirlFriend.Genius hasn't actually played an official recorded tournament game in 2014. With almost every Protoss pro playing better than ever, could we simply assume that LoveYourGirlFriend.Genius has also improved?

But we could just as easily assume that he comes into the match after having spent a little too much relaxing during the off season. If that's the case, LoveYourGirlFriend.Genius is in for quite a bite of trouble. Despite being one of the more vocal Protoss detractors in the European scene, Empire|Kas's record against Protoss during their recent period of dominance (arbitrarily picking Dec 1 as the start) is perfectly fine. His anti-toss rhetoric is actually amusingly similar to Dayshi's, right before Dayshi went on to defeat San in WCS Europe. Have some confidence in yourself, man!



The other initial match of the group is a ZvP, but you could almost call it a mirror-match. Liquid`TLO and Grubby are eerily similar players. Both are hugely popular due to their nice guy personas, both are seen as exemplars of professionalism (or whatever passes as professionalism in this industry), and both have made admirable, steady improvement over the years. Starting as players without the results to match their fan support, they've become well established in the European tournament scene. Another similarity they share is that they've both had had semi-breakout moments where they reached the top four of major tournaments. Unfortunately, neither one has been able to sustain that level of play.

TLO has the momentum right now, coming in off a deep tournament run at IEM Sao Paulo where he finished in the top four after taking out Bomber 3-2 in the quarterfinals. Grubby has his own sort of momentum as well. He's had a quiet 2014, skipping a couple of big European tournaments that he very likely could have gotten spots in if he wanted. However, he's been undefeated in online WCS events in the new year, with a 7-0 series record through the qualifiers and and Challenger.

Overall thoughts and predictions

There's one Korean player in each of the WCS EU Ro32 groups, and they've typically been the favorites to take first place. However, with LoveYourGirlFriend.Genius coming in with a two month void of tournament games and facing KR-EU lag, it's hard to say who the strongest player is in this group. In this last group before the upcoming balance patch, we'll go with our gut and take the two Protosses to advance.

LoveYourGirlfriend.Genius > Kas
Grubby > TLO
Grubby > LoveYourGirlfriend.Genius
TLO > Kas
LoveYourGirlfriend.Genius > TLO

Grubby and LoveYourGirlfriend.Genius to advance.