WCS Europe 2014
Premier League

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MC, Nerchio, BlinG, San

by Waxangel

Six players have confirmed their spots in the quarterfinals. Now it's time to find out who the final two contenders will be.

If we asked MC, he might say that the Ro16 has saved the best for last. After all, he's the top earning player of all time in StarCraft 2, and his accomplishments in in international tournaments are rivaled by few. Yet, we can't help but feel that WCS Europe Season 1 just won't be his tournament. He's coming in off a string of poor results: Harstem and Bunny eliminated him from SSC, San eliminated him from IEM, and Welmu handed him two defeats to eliminate the so-called "Bounty Hunters" from TeamStory Cup.

However, we must also consider the fact that MC has spent the last two years repeatedly shutting up the doubters. His temporary dips in form have invariably been followed by a deep run through a tournament or a convincing victory over a top Code S player from Korea. Lest we forgot, it's been just seven weeks since he won the online Warer.com invitational against players like INnoVation, Bomber, HerO, and HyuN. At the same time, we must also consider the fact that it's been almost two years(!) since the boss-toss last won a major, live championship. MC will probably make a deep run in this tournament, but I'm still skeptical about his chances of going all the way.

One of the biggest threats to steal the title from MC is a player who is similar to himself. The position of "next MC" all but belonged to PartinG, but the Soul-Toss betrayed his destiny to accept SK Telecom's golden shackles instead. Now, we should start looking to yoe.San as a potential new heir. He's a Protoss who possesses an uncanny all-in instinct, plays extremely well against foreigners, and has acquired a taste for foreign cash. The outward swagger isn't quite there yet, but you only need to talk to San a little (take our word for it) to know he could be a splendid provocateur if he put his mind to it.

With San recently shaking off his reputation as an online-only star to put in great performances at live tournaments, he must be considered the top title contender left in WCS Europe. However, not even San the Man is immune to the volatility of PvP, and the rest of the EU field will be hoping that this 3 Protoss group will bring his run to a premature end.

The two Europeans in this group will be ruing the fact that they've been drawn together with MC and San. Even worse, they can't even complain about it now, since that pesky VortiX defeated four GSL titles worth of Korean in Mvp and MMA to make it to the Ro8.

We're still a bit surprised to see d.BlinG here. 2013 was a quiet year for the British Protoss player, and his run to the Ro16 felt like it came out of nowhere. Unexpected as it was, BlinG's run through WCS Europe so far has been impressive: he defeated Krass 3-0 in Challenger and took out both StarDust and Happy in the Premier League Ro32. What are we to make of that? They are his very good results amidst a sea of okay results, and it's hard to say with certainty what kind of contender BlinG is. At least in this Protoss-heavy group, he will have a puncher's chance.

The other foreigner hope in the group is Nerchio, a once top-foreigner who has regressed toward the middle since 2012. Sadly for Acer.Nerchio he hasn't been a member of the recent European revival movement, losing almost every meaningful match he's played vs a Korean player in 2014. To make matters worse, he expressed that he had been having difficulties with PvZ when he advanced from the Ro32, saying he had to throw a potpourri of different builds and looks at German Protoss ShoWTimE to get by him.

Although the circumstances suggest that Nerchio will be eliminated, he does have the advantage in having had 3 weeks to practice for this Protoss only group. 3 weeks is an eternity in pro-gaming time, and the Nerchio we see in the WCS Ro16 could be a far more confident ZvP player than the one we saw in the Ro32. Now that you've read this Nerchio, feel free to leave a word or two in the comments section.

Overall Predictions:

MC > Nerchio
San > BlinG
San > MC
Nerchio > BlinG
MC > Nerchio

San and MC advance.