WCS Europe/America
Premier League

Brackets and standings:
Europe • America

VODs:
Europe • America

by peanuts and Waxangel

The first day of the joint WCS Europe/America quarterfinals produced saddening results for fans who hoped for a European champion. After an impressive March where he stomped over several former GSL champions, mouz.VortiX finally hit a mYi.jjakji sized wall in WCS Europe. The Korean Terran came back with a vengeance after losing to VortiX in the VasaCast finals, repaying the Spanish Zerg with a 3-0 sweep.

In his winner’s interview, jjakji claimed that he had under-prepared for the match. His play told a different story. In an intense first match on Frost, jjakji played impressively with a drop-heavy style, slowly whittling away at the Spaniard. Although Vortix was able to match jjakji initially, he found himself getting worn down by well placed mines and incessant drops as the game dragged on. Losing more and more of his army, the game ended with a suicidal, last-ditch attack into jjakji's fortified lines.

In the second match, Jjakji decided that long games weren’t worth his time, going full BitByBit with a marine and SCV train to end the bout. jjakji proceeded to close out the series in another quick game, stalling Vortix with hellion and banshee harass before finishing him off with a fast marine-hellion push. With expertly controlled hellions picking off his banelings, VortiX had no choice but to concede the sweep.


mYi.StarDust was unable to join his teammate jjakji in the semifinals as he was defeated 3-1 by MC in the other WCS Europe quarterfinal match of the night.

Stardust seemed to be in a good position headed into his match against MC, having a far better record in PvP on the year. He seemed to be well on his way to topping his previous best WCS Europe finish of 6th place after taking the first game of the series with ease.

However, the BossToss would not die so easily, and responded by tying the series with a fast cannon rush into all-in 3-gate aggression. Realizing that Stardust had responded weakly to his cheese, MC played for another quick win on the next map, going up 2-1 with a proxy 2-gate in Stardust’s main. In the final game, MC dipped into his old bag of 2-base all-ins to finish StarDust off. With a massive blink stalker ball serving as a distraction, MC pushed in with immortals and sentries to focus down StarDust's natural. Holding off one final push from StarDust, MC took the series victory and advanced to the semifinals.


With the European portion done for the day, the broadcast moved onto WCS America. The action kicked off with the elimination of a fan-favorite as RedBull.Bomber was defeated 3-2 by Axiom's Alicia in a back and forth series. Having suffered an upset at the hands of Arthur and his all-ins earlier in the tournament, Bomber was forced to relive that painful experience.

The Axiom Protoss started the series by taking advantage of Habitation Station's gold base, taking game one with a void ray + gateway unit all-in. Bomber tied up the series in game two by crushing Alicia's overextended stalker-colossus force, but then dropped game three after falling behind to Alicia's blink stalker harassment. Alicia was unable to preserve his lead, allowing Bomber to tie up the series once more after a bizarre, failed 4-gate attempt.

With a semifinal spot on the line, Alicia put his faith into one last all-in attack. After using his mothership core to pull Bomber's army out of position in defense of a phantom blink stalker attack, Alicia revealed his true plan in a mass gateway all-in. With Bomber's troops hopelessly out of position, Alicia's head on attack was able to decimate Bomber's natural and end the series.


The night's games concluded with one more fan-favorite Terran being eliminated from the tournament. Roccat.HyuN finally broke his long losing streak against Liquid`TaeJa, defeating him 3-2 to take his first ever series victory against the Liquid ace.

TaeJa seemed to be strolling toward victory after the first game on Frost where he overpowered HyuN with constant wave of marines, medivacs, and Thors. However, HyuN proved that he was capable of matching TaeJa in a macro game by taking game two, and then jumped ahead to a 2-1 lead with a roach timing in game three. TaeJa then evened up the series in game four with a 2-rax cheese rush, leaving the series to be decided on the fifth and final map.

HyuN ended up clinching his semifinal spot with a brilliant game five performance. Despite falling behind after losing his fourth base to TaeJa's mid-game push, HyuN defended tenaciously and clawed his way back into the game. Taking advantage of some indecision from TaeJa, HyuN was able to eventually complete his comeback and force the final GG with waves of of muta-ling-bane.

Writers: peanuts, Waxangel
Photos: ESL
Editor: Waxangel