We’re reaching boiling point in the WCS Points race. With the final two matches of the GSL and SSL coming this weekend as well, the BlizzCon standings could be decided as soon as Sunday, save for the possibility of one final upcoming twist at KeSPA Cup. Several players in attendance are fighting to gain enough points to gatecrash the top 16, while others are still jostling for ideal position. With the group seedings already announced for the Global Finals, players will be eyeing up their preferred opponents, adding further intrigue to the tournament ahead. Adding another dimension is the eye-raising format used; a 10 man format that requires some players to win three matches to make the finals, while others need only two.

There’s no information confirming the seeding process, but on the surface, it appears that it’s been done wholly by WCS rankings. ShoWTimE and Neeb get the best spots—up against the winners of the Bo10 stage—as #2 and #4 seeds respectively, while uThermal faces Hydra (#11 vs #6) and Has is matched with Snute (#13 vs #5). Scarlett has been placed in the Ro10 as the #15 WCS seed.

Seeding by WCS rankings is a process that makes sense for certain tournaments. It would be understandable for admins to use them at the WCS Season Championships, for example, due to the nature of the Season Championships as emblematic of the WCS campaign, and due to the completeness of the 32 player bracket. In a competition like Copa International though, with its incomplete bracket, and staggered prize pool that gives increased incentives for losing in the Ro8 ($2,500 and 300 WCS Points) compared to losing in the Ro10 ($1,000 and 150 WCS Points), it’s a plainly idiotic decision with no possible justification that ensures that the rich get richer. If you really think you can’t conjure up the six players required to form a complete bracket, why not change the format? Two 5-player groups leading into the main bracket would prove a welcome change from the proliferation of single elimination bracket tournaments we’ve seen recently. We can only hope that the rewards structures at future tournaments are set out a bit more fairly.

Note: All WCS points totals listed below already include the minimum totals guaranteed from the Copa International i.e. 300 for the top six players, and 150 for the remaining three.

Further Note: We actually wrote this before both the KeSPA Cup announcement on Tuesday and the release of any qualifier details, so while all participants here will be looking to bank the maximum number of points possible in Mexico City, there’s still technically one final chance for players to sneak into the top 8 right at the death. While that might be true though, clutching a final handful of points in KeSPA Cup will be harder than doing the job here, and it'll be a brave player who leaves themselves with work to do in Korea at the end of the month.

Players qualified for BlizzCon

#2 ShoWTimE (4345 Points)

Aside from the obvious incentive of the $50,000 on offer, ShoWTimE has little to play for here besides pride. Already qualified for BlizzCon, he has no chance of catching Polt for the #1 seed, while only Neeb has a chance to challenge him for second place. Still, there’s a slight sense of underachievement about ShoWTimE so far this year. Besides his landmark title at WCS Spring, he’s ended each event in the past 8 months with some degree of regret. First round exits at WCS Winter and Summer in particular highlighted the volatility of the single elimination bracket format that WCS has adapted, while he was beaten by Nerchio and Neeb at DH Valencia and IEM Shanghai.

Much like a cluster of players at the top of the WCS rankings, ShoWTimE has racked up a handful of promising results without ever exerting his dominance on the scene, as evidenced by the fact that no one besides Harstem has picked up multiple titles this year—and even that win in Shanghai was slightly tainted by the lack of many major WCS regulars. It all adds up to a scene where there’s no clear #1 player; should ShoWTimE win here, it’ll be a perfect way to make his case before the biggest event of the year.

#4 Neeb (4250 Points)

Neeb’s rise from bit-part terran to protoss race-switcher to King of NA Starcraft has been one of the stories of the year. Unfortunately, equally so has been his inability to convert respectable finishes into championship wins. There’s no doubt that he’s one of the most feared players on the WCS Circuit, and that from a pure gameplay standpoint he can stand toe to toe with anyone in the scene. He’s one of the most consistent onliners in the foreign scene (regularly holding his own in the Olimoleague against Korean opposition, and winning the most recent weekly event), while his winrates over the past three months (76% overall, and 70%+ winrates in all three matchups) point to a player at the top of his game.

So why can’t he win? Why has he repeatedly lost when the pressure’s on? His loss in the DH Austin Finals to Hydra—a player against whom he otherwise holds a 24-10 map record in 2016—was just the start, but then came losses to MarineLorD (DH Valencia), uThermal (IEM Shanghai), and Polt (WCS Summer). He’s stated repeatedly that he copes poorly with the pressure of the later stages of competitions, but should he feel that now, what’s he going to be like at BlizzCon? Alternatively, if he picks up a win now, then that year-long question of ‘When will Neeb win a title’ will have been answered, and we might see a Neeb unburdened come the opening stages in Burbank.

#5 Snute (3705 Points)

Much like Neeb, Snute will be caught in two minds when asked to sum up his year so far. His results as a whole have been spectacular this year—two silver medals at WCS Winter and WCS Shanghai, and three top 4s at DH Austin, HSC XIII, and DH Valencia, not to mention his win at the Neo Starleague International. Still, it’s a list lacking one thing—a big win. Those five near misses have been combined with first round exits at both WCS Spring and Summer.

Weirdly, Snute stands on the other side of the divide to practically every other player in the WCS region. We’ve seen for years that he can compete against the best that Korea has to offer in one-off matches (KR Protosses in particular—how many other zergs can claim high profile wins over Rain, Classic, sOs, Zest and herO?). Competing against his fellow WCS competitors though has been a different story. He’s had the odd success in this new era (GPL 2015 International / NSL 2016) in smaller events, but he’s yet to truly beat the best that his region’s got to offer in a premier tournament. Ticking that box off here would sum up his 2016 efforts nicely as he heads to BlizzCon.

#6 Hydra (3435 Points)

Has there been a more disappointing highly-ranked player this year than Hydra? Maybe he's regressed as a player since 2015, or maybe the rest of the field really has improved, but Hydra has looked far from the menace that he was last year. His scattergun approach to WCS point hoarding has resulted in plenty of mediocre finishes, but with so many results registered in tournaments all over the world, he’s scraped together enough to be relatively confident of a repeat visit to BlizzCon. His season-defining event was undoubtedly his win at DH Austin, but even that came against a weakened player field, and his subsequent second round exit at WCS Spring to Neeb a mere week later rather took the shine off his triumph. Still, there’s no arguing with his pedigree, and with his prediliction for the unusual, he’s going to become more and more of a threat once the high-profile year-end events roll by.

Players that might make BlizzCon

#11 uThermal (2380 Points)

Liquid’s newest signing has a grand opportunity to mark his debut in style. uThermal’s rise over the past couple of months has been meteoric, from his last-chance invite to IEM Shanghai following PiLiPiLi’s forfeit, to his ultimate triumph in his first premier final. Prior to August, he wasn’t even in consideration for a BlizzCon spot, but now he has a real chance to gatecrash the top 8. Two matches can shape the rest of 2016 for him—he likely now has to beat Hydra and ShoWTimE to qualify for BlizzCon. Match 1 against Hydra in particular will be one of the ties of the opening round—revenge for his loss against the Korean at DH Valencia in his best matchup—while a potential match against one of the most consistent protosses in the foreign scene will be a tough follow up. Still, it’s been a miraculous couple of months for the Dutch terran so far, and it’ll be a brave man who bets against him extending his streak of fortune.

Players that can’t make BlizzCon

#13 Has (1650 Points)

There’s little more that needs to be said of Has really. He remains exactly the same player he’s always been—a protoss who strikes his own way in the Starcraft world. He’s a fine upholder of the one-base protoss legacy of past cheesers, and there’s practically no one in the world more watchable than the Taiwanese player. He’ll never be the best player by any metric (his attempts to transition to multiple bases have been comical in the past), but there are few players as dangerous in a one-off match against an unprepared opponent. Then again, does such a thing exist? In a scene where non-Korean Asian players in particular rarely share the spotlight with the more successful EU scene, or the more mouthy NA scene, Has has stood out as a beacon of success in the WCS world. Every player or fan in the SC2 scene is aware of everything he stands for; is there a greater compliment that we could pay the man?

#15 Scarlett (1380 Points)

It’s been a strange year for Scarlett. In terms of her results and standings, there’s no doubt that she’s fallen far from 2013-14 heyday. Early exits across the board are a long way from the dominance that she used to exert in Korean-saturated events, one of the lone stars shining in the foreign scene. Purely in comparison to what we used to expect, it’s been a disappointment.

Then again, let’s be honest—it’s been a long time since that Scarlett came out to play. She had no impact on the scene last year at all, whereas in 2016, it seems more and more like she’s improving, little by little. We’ve seen her first concentrated batch of events in two years (and probably practice too, given her public liaisons with Dota in the recent past). Making the finals of HomeStory Cup XIII is undoubtedly the big sign that fans will point to in expectation of a revival, but just as important was her top 8 finish at WCS Summer. Wins over Nerchio in particular at both events show that her ZvZ is still as honed as ever, and coming into this event, there are expectations surrounding the Canadian zerg for the first time in a while. She might not be able to make BlizzCon anymore (bar a miracle run at KeSPA Cup), but a win here would be an effective statement about her ambitions moving into next year.

#28 iaguz (640 Points)

After becoming a stalwart of the WCS scene last year, we’ve seen rather less from iaguz this year, given the difficulty (and expense) of flying to events from Australia. The WCS Spring and Summer Championships have been his only two offline showings. He’s not looked great at either tournament—aside from a win over HuK—and it begs the question of whether his inability to attend events with the same regularity as the rest of the foreign scene has prevented him from reaching the same peaks of 2015. Then again, judging by his twitter and blog posts, he seems desperate to find any game that’s enjoyable enough to distract him from more Starcraft. Still, iaguz can always be relied upon for his entertainingly no-bullshit approach to interviews that contrasts with much of the scene, as well as his magnificent facial hair, and it’ll be fun to see what sort of shape the Aussie arrives in.

#31 Cyan (375 Points)

After his breakout performance at the NSL International last month, Cyan’s rocketed to the front of the queue of promising Chinese talents. His 0-4 loss to Snute in the Grand Final might have been a sign of the gaping chasm he still has to close to approach the players topping the scene, but an offline run including wins over Has, PartinG and Scarlett is still one of merit. Still though, we’ve seen many players who’ve been impressive in one event before tanking in the next, and it’s undeniable that the competition at this event will be far more intense (given PartinG’s massive drop-off in form over the year). Should he repeat the feat and place highly once more, the Chinese scene might finally have a player to be proud of on an international level for the first time since Jim’s exploits in 2013-14.