The upsets continued into IEM Katowice's playoff stage, as reigning WCS Global Champion Serral was eliminated in the quarterfinals. soO—who had narrowly avoided being eliminated himself in the group stage—scrapped his way to a 3-2 victory over the Finnish Phenom, getting one step closer to a long-desired major championship. soO's victory over Serral on Year Zero was one of the highlight matches of the day (and 2019 so far), with soO extracting the GG with just a handful of roaches remaining.
herO's underdog run in the tournament continued as he defeated both Trap and Dear in 3-0 sweeps, seemingly insisting that two-basing is still very much in-style in Legacy of the Void.
Stats and Dark claimed the other two semifinal spots, eliminating Neeb and Solar respectively. While Stats took care of business in a quick 3-0, Dark was forced to battle his way through an epic, game-of-the-year tier match before securing his spot in the semis.
Terran struggles were another hot topic of IEM Katowice, with Solar's 3-0 sweep of TY in the RO12 eliminating Terran from the tournament entirely. Combined with Maru and INnoVation's elimination in the group stage, StarCraft II fans were left to wonder if the Terran massacre was just a freak occurrence or a symptom of deeper issues in the current state of the game.
IEM will conclude on Sunday, Mar 03 10:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) with the semifinals and grand final. You can catch up on the games at IEM's official Youtube channel.
This made my day, so happy to see Stats and Soo advance. I was kinda hoping that Stats would be the one to take down Serral, but I should probably just be happy Serral isn't around to eliminate him.
no matter who loses in the finals - it will be heartbreaking herO and Stats have lost IEM Katowice in the finals before and soO and Dark of course have their history of getting 2nd... Tomorrow will be a sad day
On March 03 2019 07:24 Charoisaur wrote: no matter who loses in the finals - it will be heartbreaking herO and Stats have lost IEM Katowice in the finals before and soO and Dark of course have their history of getting 2nd... Tomorrow will be a sad day
and on the glass half full perspective, it's going to be a very happy day for someone tomorrow (soO)
at least everyone is getting paid this time. It's not like IEM Katowice 2014 where even 2nd gets nothing (herO ;; )
Stats is definitely my favourite player of the remaining four and I would be happy if he won. But seeing soO win a championship in his final year would be epic and more well deserved than anything.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Waxangel/iem/katowice2019/iemkatowice2019banner.jpg)
Serral was eliminated in the quarterfinals. ![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/iem/katowice2019/finalbracket.png)
