EPT
Destiny I - Preview
When Destiny I was announced, fans were delighted as Destiny stated he wanted to have big names play in the tournament. His promises were not broken and some high caliber players are now participating, fighting for their shot at the Destiny I title. Even though Scarlett withdrew her participation due to wrist issues moments prior to the Ladder Invite event ending, we now have our final groups and the online tournament is ready to go.
MajOr and Polt both played each other recently in a best of five at the IEM Toronto Qualifiers. What most did not expect from that series however, was that MajOr would end up sweeping it 3-0. TvT has generally been his staple matchup, but that victory was about something else entirely. MajOr has been improving considerably in both quality of play and results as of recent, something he showcased at NationWars II. All killing France, as well as playing two excellent games against Snute in the finals, MajOr truly looked to be one of North America's best players. He still favors early mass-hellion harassment into mech play and even though there are no zerg players in the group, he still finds ways to mech it work against both protoss and terran. Polt, despite losing in the qualifiers for IEM, showed that one loss to MajOr wouldn't keep him down as he went 4-0 in his WCS group, taking out both Jaedong and MacSed with relative ease. As a potential matchup in this group, MajOr vs Polt would be one to look out for if you enjoy TvT. After a few emotional tweets earlier this week,
Minigun seemed to be in a bit of a slump on the ladder. That slump did not last long however, as he was one of the players who qualified through ladder ranking. After failing to re-qualify for WCS following his unfortunate surrender back in May, Minigun has not been too active in the StarCraft 2 tournament scene and it will be a pleasure to have him back. We're not sure about his overall level at the moment, but recently reaching GM with a random account can't hurt. 
JonSnow is another North American Ladder hero who qualified through the system of ladder invites. Consistently being trialed in the WCS qualifiers, JonSnow has been sparking up here and there, taking out notable names online. If nothing else, he'll at least be familiar with all his opponents' playstyles. So while he's still the least favored to advance from this group, counting him out entirely would be unwise. 
It seems as though
HerO's 'real life issues' have finally been solved as he recently tweeted he will stay at the MVP house and play in next season's Proleague tournament. An impressive run through the IEM Shenzhen Open Bracket, followed by a harsh group stage defeat won't be good enough for a player with HerO's achievements. Let's see what being able to practice properly will do to his form. Life, our fourth invitee, comes into this with a recent major tournament title on his back. The recent tournament hosted by BaseTradeTV called "The Big One" proved to be child's play for Life as he took the title with relative ease, going 13-2 in map scores. His Code A group did not look as good however as failed to make it through and will have to try his luck in Code B next season. The competition here is of course not as harsh as it is in the GSL, so we're counting on Life to bounce back here. Our two ladder invites who were (un?-)fortunate enough to be placed in this group are
Kane and Guitarcheese. Kane has been rather impressive lately, being active in GM on the KR server. He was one map away from qualifying for IEM Toronto, taking down players like HuK and hendralisk on his way. And, perhaps most importantly, he took three maps off HerO in their Bo9 showmatch. Guitarcheese on the other hand did not even attempt to qualify for IEM. He was busy plowing his way through in WCS, not only qualifying but also making it to Premier League for the first time in his career. Though he lost in the Ro32, he did not go down without a fight as he beat Arthur and placed third. If he were to bring this type of convincing play to this tournament, Guitarcheese may put up a better fight than many would expect from him against the other three players in this group. 
Snute is still in very impressive shape and was one of the invited players for this tournament. As the key player for Team Norway in NationWars II, Snute proved he was too much for MajOr to handle. Not only that but he made it to the semi-finals of the Gfinity G3 tournament last weekend, only falling to the eventual champion and teammate; Bunny. Add to that his recent string of results in IEM Shenzhen, qualifiers and ATC, and you've got yourself arguably the best foreigner in the world. INnoVation however has proven before that he is Snute's Kryptonite as they are 2-9 in lifetime matches against each other. INnoVation was a big threat in the Acer Team Story Cup this year and continues to be one of the big 'power house terran players'. With a solid 4-0 Code A run and his two favorite tools, hellbats and widow mines, making a comeback, INnoVation is set to wreak havoc. Adonminus and Petraeus are the two players in this group who qualified through ladder. Adonminus also recently earned his spot in WCS EU through the Ladder Wildcard qualifier but unfortunately fell to Happy in Challenger League. What this means is that Adonminus has top 16 GM accounts on both EU and AM. Being Israel's only competitive professional StarCraft 2 player in WCS, Adonminus has nothing to lose and all to win at this tournament and it will be interesting to see him play as he is known for having a very unusual playstyle. Petraeus is arguably New Zealand's second best player after iaguz and he's shown that his play can be excellent. Having reached top-three in the WCS AM SEA Qualifiers twice in a row, Petraeus hasn't found himself in WCS since S3 back in 2013. This tournament however could be a perfect opportunity for him to step back into the spotlight. 
The final group is one full of classics. Most of these players have been in the scene for a very long time and all of them are still competing at a very high level. The two invites in this group were
MC and viOLet. MC continues to be one of StarCraft 2's best players and he's not planning to stop any time soon. Coming off a 2nd place finish at Dreamhack Valencia, MC heads into this with his mind set on gold. The WCS S1 first place trophy is not enough for someone like the Boss toss and a win here, though it may be a fairly small tournament compared to some of those he's won in his career, would only do him well as he could continue to back up his big words with big results. viOLet on the other hand is arguably the opposite of MC in many ways. Having been away from the scene for a fairly long time, he's only now starting to restructure his solidity. Permanently living in the US, viOLet made sure to perform extra well at MLG Anaheim back in June, placing third. For someone who was competing for MLGs, IPLs and NASLs not too long ago, that won't be good enough though. viOLet's standards are higher and hopefully he can show his old self here.What makes this group so interesting is that there is no extremely dominant players. Arguably all of the players in this group are on the same playing field (except for perhaps MC).
HuK and Apocalypse come into this as the Ladder Invitees. HuK continues participating in almost everything that's within his reach. Even though he has not had any recent noticeable results in later tournament stages, he still shows excellent protoss play and frequently gives big names a run for their money. He will be sure to up a great fight in this tournament as well. Apocalypse has been rather distant from the scene for a while and it's rare to see him play outside of team leagues. Coming into this he's perhaps the most unknown player in terms of play and present play-style. It will be nice to see him play again as he used to be consistent in WCS AM Premier League. 
