by Waxangel

With WCS Premier League on hiatus for another week or so, various organizations have rushed in to fill the StarCraft tournament void we're all feeling in our hearts. DreamHack stepped up to the plate last week, delivering to us another fine spectacle from Bucharest.

This weekend, we have a duo of tournaments from both the USA and Germany. Lone Star Clash returns to us after over a year in their first HotS offering, while TakeTV has put together a brand new tournament in the TakeTV Ultra Invitational.

Southern Showdown: Lone Star Clash 3

Day 1: - Liquipedia

After a lengthy hiatus, Lone Star Clash finally returns to the StarCraft 2 scene. Played out of Austin, Texas, Lone Star Clash features a unique mix of fan-favorites and top players that's hard to see at your ordinary tournament. In some ways, you could even call it the Texan HomeStory Cup – there's plenty of crowd-pleasing in the earlier rounds, followed later by tough competition between the true title contenders.

Here's the list of players who will be competing:


The roster assembled at LSC3 is interesting for a number of reasons. Obviously, there are a number of players we're just happy to see again – when's the last time you saw White-Ra compete in a serious tournament? However, LSC also serves as a timely "check-up" appointment for a number of still-active players we haven't seen for a while. Here are a few questions we'd like to see answered this weekend:

Can Stephano Defend His Title?

One of EG.Stephano's achievements that doesn't get touted so often is that he is the defending, two-time champion of Lone Star Clash. Both LSC 1 and 2 occurred during Stephano's Korean-killing prime, and the Frenchman defeated Polt and Bomber to claim his two championships.

Incidentally, both CMStorm_Polt and RedBull.Bomber have been invited back alongside Stephano. Unlike Stephano, neither of them has been quasi-retired for the last nine months, and they should be able to wipe the floor with him if they meet again.

Or will they? There's a considerable amount of mystique around Stephano's natural talent and ability to play well without practicing. Stephano was so extraordinarily good in his prime that his recent re-qualification for WCS Europe Premier League wasn't so shocking as it was purely amusing. However, if he can defeat Bomber, Polt, or any of the other top Koreans at Lone Star Clash... ...That would drop some jaws.

How Good Is Seed?

During his Code S championship run during the summer of 2012, Seed looked like a player who would be challenging for titles for a long time. Instead, he drove straight off a cliff and ended up in a burning wreck at the bottom of Code B. It's hard to say what the exact reason was – we can cite complacency, a changing metagame, or just sheer dumb luck – only Seed knows for sure.

Now, the one-time Code S champ finds himself with a rare chance at redemption. By winning LSC qualifier #2, he has earned an all-expenses paid trip to compete at LSC3. While it wasn't the toughest qualifier, with the majority of KeSPA players sitting it out due to LSC3 falling on a Proleague weekend, Seed still had to defeat formidable opponents like Symbol and Yonghwa to make it through. In a player pool where the majority of players were picked for their popularity over their skill, Seed seems to be guaranteed a high finish.

However, it's still questionable as to whether or not he has what it takes to go all the way and win a championship again. Polt, Bomber and Jaedong have all vastly outperformed Seed in HotS, and even players like Heart and viOLet have to be considered favorites over Seed at present. This is an great, unexpected opportunity for Seed, but it will by no means be an easy tournament for him.

What Has Korea Done For State?

Many foreigners have gone to Korea for training, but not all of them have benefited from their stay. Where players like NaNiwa, Jinro, and HuK had successful stays, others like Stephano, ThorZaIN, and SaSe didn't enjoy any significant gains in terms of tournament results.

The American State.Prime is the latest player to make the Korean pilgrimage, and seems to be in it for the long haul as he has joined Prime as an official member. As of now, it's hard to say what kind of effect the Korean training has had on State. So far, he's made only one appearance in Proleague, losing to a proxy-gate from Classic. He hasn't been able to make it through any qualifiers either, whether online or live.

LSC3 will be the most thorough examination of State we've had in a long time. Going up against Jaedong, Heart, and SeleCT in the group stage, it will be a golden opportunity for State to impress the viewers – if he's gained the requisite skills in Korea.

What Unexpected Player Will Do Well?

Given that this is just a 16 man tournament and there's a very wipe gap between the top and bottom competitors, there's plenty of room for an underdog player to make a surprise run to the semifinals. And by "underdog," you know we actually mean "foreigner" (we're excluding Stephano because he's in his own category).

Given the racial make-up of the tournament, MajOr has a decent chance to go far. LSC3 is heavy on the Korean Terrans, and MajOr has shown in various tournaments that he can do very well against them. He defeated TaeJa in a Bo3 in the last WCS America (TaeJa won the rematch), defeated Bbyong at IEM, and played a close 2-3 series against jjakji at the Vasacast tournament. If MajOr draws the right brackets, then a deep run is in the picture. Of course, he needs to get past his Ro16 group of viOLet, Armani, and HuK first...

Just because of the way the groups have been drawn, we may actually see ROOT.Petraeus finish highest among the foreigners. While Groups A, C and D all have at least two Koreans, Petraeus finds himself facing Bomber, Stephano, and White-Ra in Group B. If the kiwi doesn't fall to special tactics or swarm hosts tactics, then we could see him be the lone foreigner to reach the quarterfinals.

Not-Quite-HomeStory Cup:
The TakeTV ULTRA Invitational

Day 1: - Liquipedia

Remember that video TakeTV put up a while back, saying that he desperately needed it to get to 60,000 views? Well, unlike Facebook likes or Twitter retweets, this has actually resulted in something tangible: TakeTV will be holding a 32 man tournament this weekend with a $6,000 prize pool in what you might call a miniature version of HomeStory Cup. While there won't be any official TakeTV streams in English this time, there will be community casters streaming some matches in English.


Patience, CPU, First, Harstem, MC, HasuObs, ShowTime, KnowMe, ToD
PrimeLoT, GunGFuBanDa, BabyKnight, Socke, Honor

KrasS, DeMusliM, Revenge, kauP, YoDa, Dayshi, HeRoMaRinE

Golden, Snute, SaltTheWound, Lambo, TLO, TargA, Ret, roof, HyuN, Delphi, Hanfy

TakeTV Ultra definitely trumps LSC in terms of having the niftier trophies, unless LSC has secretly prepared championship belts behind the scenes. As with LSC, there are a few points of interest we'll be paying close attention to.

How Will The 'Bounty Hunters' Fare?

Things haven't gone exactly as planned for the group of Koreans in Germany known as the "Bounty Hunters." They started off in a rather inauspicious way, getting all-killed out of the Acer TeamStory Cup qualifiers by Team NewRoSoft's Welmu. If their team name implied that they considered European tournaments to be easy pickings, then it was a humbling reality check.

While MC went on to win WCS Europe Season, YoDa and First haven't exactly been lighting it up. Neither was able to make it to the Ro16 of last week's DreamHack Bucharest, as YoDa lost to Golden and Jaedong while First lost to Bunny(!) and Zanster(!). Even though they have successfully made it through Challenger and into the WCS Europe Premier League, they've hardly looked like players who will challenge for the championship.

It's surprising how little of an impact YoDa and First have made in recent tournaments, considering that they've both won European tournaments in the past. First won IEM Katowice 2013, while YoDa won the IEM 2013 World Championship. While you might be able to explain YoDa's slump on a poor adjustment to HotS, it's hard to make any excuses for First who finished in the top four of the WCS Season 2 Finals last year.

MC will be a top contender to win as usual, we're curious to see if First and YoDa will be able to break out in this tournament.

Something Something Foreign Hope

This almost feels like a European tradition now: A foreigner reaches the quarterfinals, get's people's hopes up, and gets crushed by the next Korean he faces. The last WCS Europe was an especially painful experience. Welmu, Snute, and VortiX all reached the quarterfinals with a ton of momentum behind hem, but were all utterly destroyed in the quarterfinals. So, who will break our hearts this time?

Well, XMG.ToD is the foreigner of the moment, having defeated Jaedong and Golden at DreamHack Bucharest and having made it back into the Premier League. He's playing extremely well at the moment, which almost guarantees a tragic loss to [insert Korean here] down the line at the TakeTV Invitatioanl. Liquid`TLO proved his heartbreaking credentials back at IEM Sao Paulo, defeating Bomber 3-2 in the quarterfinals before getting curbstomped by 3-0 by herO in the semifinals. Maybe he can do it again!

Can Protoss Win A Protoss Stacked Tournament?

The racial balance will be rather skewed for this tournament, with 14 Protoss players, 7 Terrans, and 11 Zergs (still better balance than Code S). While you might think that would result in another Protoss win in a year full of Protoss champions, recent results suggest that the winds of balance have shifted. HyuN took home the trophy at WCS America Season 1, and Life soon followed that up by winning DreamHack Bucharest. DreamHack was especially notable in that only four Protoss players made it to the Ro16, while none made it to the semifinals. That's the first time in 2014 there were no Protoss players in the top four of a premier tournament.

Roccat.HyuN is obviously a top contender to win it all, but don't sleep on Ai.Golden who has looked better than ever since coming out of retirement. Liquid`Snute also has a fighting chance, coming in as the champion of SeatStory Cup, the last major tournament to be held in TakeTV's Krefeld studio.

Terran fans can go back to their corner and resume their weeping.