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United States124 Posts
Day two of WCS AM Challenger League ended relatively early with Slam and Seed sweeping their way into Premier League and Jaedong getting a walkover. The highlight of the night came in the form of Arium, the 14-year-old American protoss who defeated Courage for his Premier League debut.
The day’s opening match saw  MacSed rout Ryung with relative ease. Ryung started off well by taking the first game on Foxtrot Labs, but things soon spiraled out of control for the Axiom terran. In the next three games, MacSed busted out the phoenix/colossus style that Chinese protosses popularized last year. This composition worked beautifully against an aggressive Ryung, who could not come up with an answer to save his Premier League spot. Ryung follows CranK as the second Axiom player to lose his Challenger match. Meanwhile, the ever-consistent MacSed has now made it to Premier League in all three seasons this year.
In the closest match of the night, 14-year-old Arium defeated Courage 3-2 in a bizarre PvZ showdown. After four quick games, Arium won a long macro game 5 that started with a failed 8-gate all-in. Playing from behind, the young American made some good calls and kept his poise in the intense rubber match. He held on against Courage’s mass mutalisk switch and eventually prevailed with his own mass pheonix play. Though Arium has shown great potential, he still has much to improve on before he can go toe-to-toe with the best players in North America.
In a somewhat surprising result,  Slam took down MaSa 3-0 for his first berth into Premier League. The Taiwanese Zerg played excellent, standard ZvT against his opponent for the first two games and then went for the killing blow in game 3 with a ling/bane bust. Slam has been key to yoe Flash Wolves’ success in the TeSL but now has his first real opportunity to distinguish himself in an individual league. Sadly, Canadian fans will not be seeing one of their brightest players in Premier League action this season. While MaSa has shown great improvement this year, he just couldn’t get the job done tonight.
The only PvP of the night was played between Top and Seed, which the former GSL champ took with a clean and quick sweep. No matter what Top tried - be it proxy oracle or fast expand - Seed just looked to be one level above his opponent. In these games, we caught a glimpse of the potential that Seed showed when he defeated MC in the 2012 GSL S3 finals. The new Dignitas recruit was clinical, decisive, and committed nominal errors in all three games. Perhaps switching from WCS KR to AM may be exactly what Seed needs to revive his once promising career.
To many fans’ disappointment, KingKong was a no-show in the final series of the day, giving Jaedong a free ticket to Premier League.
WCS America Premier League Players
Seeded from Season 2 (16)
Pigbaby, Oz, Alicia, Arthur
 Bomber, TaeJa, Heart, Polt, MajOr
Revival, NesTea, viOLet, Check, HyuN, TooDming, XiGua
Challenger League Winners (10/16)
HuK, Shana, MacSed, Arium, Seed
hendralisk, Guitarcheese, Slam, Jaedong
Neeb
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
is Arium the next zerg bonjwa
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I think you had to be at least 16 to compete in WCS?
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On July 23 2014 16:17 LongShot27 wrote:
I think you had to be at least 16 to compete in WCS?
Only in Europe - they tape that in Germany, which has some very distinct child labot laws.
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Fucking joke of Blizzard to not give the players more than a few days from qualifying to when they play, KingKong won both Oceania spots yet got fucked because he had to play so soon.
BOO BLIZZARD BOO
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WCS AM is my liquibets' russian roulette 
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Does anyone know why KingKong didn't show up?
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Go MacSed!!! Too bad Courage and Top fell...
We'll see how Gemini fare tonight. Jim should make it to Premier no problem.
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Someone needs to call the exterminator because there are way too many bugs in premier league right now.
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On July 23 2014 19:13 Yrr wrote:
Does anyone know why KingKong didn't show up?
This was posted on reddit taken from his teams facebook:
It is much to our regret that x5 KingkOng was unable to play his WCS Challenger matches today. With such late notice for the match against Jaedong he was unable to take time off school. He did hope to be able to make it home in time after class but the WCS scheduling is such that it was never a sure thing. Unfortunately ESL were unable to offer a change of date prior to this.
It is the biggest shame that a player who technically qualified for both Oceania spots for Challenger League did not get a chance to show himself on the big stage. We are sorry for all the fans who were disappointed to not be able to watch the match and dearly hope you understand the pressures a player is under when he is not a full-time gamer and has other commitments he cannot shy away from.
Sam is dedicated to his schooling and is an absolute beast when he is able to dedicate time towards StarCraft. We admire and respect him for that. We wish EG.JaeDong the very best in Premier League.
I wonder, why they call him Sam though.
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On July 23 2014 20:53 Xoronius wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2014 19:13 Yrr wrote:
Does anyone know why KingKong didn't show up? This was posted on reddit taken from his teams facebook: Show nested quote +
It is much to our regret that x5 KingkOng was unable to play his WCS Challenger matches today. With such late notice for the match against Jaedong he was unable to take time off school. He did hope to be able to make it home in time after class but the WCS scheduling is such that it was never a sure thing. Unfortunately ESL were unable to offer a change of date prior to this.
It is the biggest shame that a player who technically qualified for both Oceania spots for Challenger League did not get a chance to show himself on the big stage. We are sorry for all the fans who were disappointed to not be able to watch the match and dearly hope you understand the pressures a player is under when he is not a full-time gamer and has other commitments he cannot shy away from.
Sam is dedicated to his schooling and is an absolute beast when he is able to dedicate time towards StarCraft. We admire and respect him for that. We wish EG.JaeDong the very best in Premier League.
I wonder, why they call him Sam though.
I will never criticize someone for prioritizing their education, but damn that is disappointing. Such a shame that they weren't given more notice or at least given the ability to reschedule for legitimate reasons given the short notice. With this being the last WCS season this year, and just being over half way through the year, I'm not sure what the big rush was to start this immediately.
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On July 23 2014 20:53 Xoronius wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2014 19:13 Yrr wrote:
Does anyone know why KingKong didn't show up? This was posted on reddit taken from his teams facebook: Show nested quote +
It is much to our regret that x5 KingkOng was unable to play his WCS Challenger matches today. With such late notice for the match against Jaedong he was unable to take time off school. He did hope to be able to make it home in time after class but the WCS scheduling is such that it was never a sure thing. Unfortunately ESL were unable to offer a change of date prior to this.
It is the biggest shame that a player who technically qualified for both Oceania spots for Challenger League did not get a chance to show himself on the big stage. We are sorry for all the fans who were disappointed to not be able to watch the match and dearly hope you understand the pressures a player is under when he is not a full-time gamer and has other commitments he cannot shy away from.
Sam is dedicated to his schooling and is an absolute beast when he is able to dedicate time towards StarCraft. We admire and respect him for that. We wish EG.JaeDong the very best in Premier League.
I wonder, why they call him Sam though.
Sam is his adopted English name. I don't know how the system works so don't ask me if that's a legal name or what >_<
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Arium is 14 and has no summer school
Kong has summer school and cant play
dat Challenger league express scheduling
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On July 23 2014 16:33 Circumstance wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2014 16:17 LongShot27 wrote:
I think you had to be at least 16 to compete in WCS? Only in Europe - they tape that in Germany, which has some very distinct child labot laws.
fair enough
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/shiroiusagi/wcs/wcs_na_lr.jpg)
