IEM Katowice 2020 is ready to move on to the 24-player group stage of the competition (Feb 27-28), with twelve players able to fight their way out of the live, RO76 open bracket in Poland. The round-robin group stage will take place over two days, with the top 12 players moving on to the single-elimination playoffs (Feb 29-Mar 1).
Day one of RO76 matches saw Patience, sOs, soO, Armani, INnoVation, and Has advance to the RO24—they were followed on day two by soO, SpeCial, and Hurricane from bracket #3, and Lambo, Dear, and Trap from bracket #4.
While no result matched Has' qualification in terms of pure surprise factor, Nice came close to making it a Taiwanese duo in the group stage by making it all the way to the final qualifying match of bracket #3. Though he narrowly lost to Hurricane, the series was one of the most entertaining of the RO76.
In bracket #4, Lambo upset Trap in one of the winners bracket qualifying matches, forcing the two-time Code S finalist to the losers bracket. Trap was still able to qualify in the end, taking out uThermal in the final qualifying match.
A: Dark, Stats, Parting B: Rogue, Reynor, soO C: Trap, Inno, Maru D: Serral, Cure, TY
Maru has a tough group, his nemesis Inno and teammate Trap. Also he is quite prone to losing to Patiences bullshit so he will need to be wary to scrape through.
A: Dark, Stats and Dear B: Rogue, Reynor and Showtime C: Maru, Innovation and Solar D: Serral, Cure and TY.
I won't able to watch much on thursday at all, it really fits me well that there is one PvP and one ZvZ group on thursday and then two groups with perfect racial balances on friday for me to enjoy. =)
I really hope Maru is in form because everyone looks sick good, it almost feel like everyone improved at a faster rate than usual.
A: dark, stats, dear B: rogue, zest, reynor C: maru, trap, solar D: serral, cure, ty
Group A feels like dark and stats all the way, and then just a 4 way free-for all depending on who shows up in form and who get memed by Has. D seems to have the clearest top 3 vs bottom 3, unless sos manages to bring something really special.
The average skill levels of the groups seem quite even, all things considered. Groups B and D are probably the toughest, with Group C close behind and Group A right on its tail. It seems like Groups A, B, and C each have one very clear underdog while Group D has two very clear underdogs (Has, Armani, and Patience for A, B, and C, and Lambo and Hurricane for D). Serral seems by far the most likely player to advance to the Ro12, although Dark, Maru, Cure, Reynor, and Stats also seem like pretty safe bets.
Assuming Serral, Dark, Maru, Cure, Reynor, and Stats all advance to the Ro12 and Hurricane, Patience, Has, Armani, and Lambo are all eliminated, that leaves three players fighting for one remaining spot in Group A, four players fighting for two remaining spots in Group B, four players fighting for two remaining spots in Group C, and just two players fighting for one remaining spot in Group D.
In any event, there should be loads of awesome games over the next few days – can't wait to see these players fight it out!
It's hard to look at these groups and not feel like we're in one of the most competitive eras of SC2. I mean all of these groups are really sick, though it's crazy to think of how scary they would have been with Scarlett, Time, Taeja, Neeb, etc. Another Terran or two would have been nice, tho as long as we don't have a bunch of ZvZs only from the Rof12 on, I'll be happy. (I count 5 T, 8 Z, and 10 P by the way.)
Love the "every win counts" mentality this year! I mean not only do you get 200 bucks for every win, but also the price pool distribution is so flat that basically every win gives you another 500 $ on top
A:Dark, Sats, Parting B:Rogue, Showtime, Soo C:Trap, Maru, Solar D:Serral, TY, Cure I want to belief in the concept, that only with consistent practise you can stay on top Level. That s why I hope, that Reynor is failing in the group stage here and gets punished for his off season 2 month non stop partying. So he comes back even stronger afterwards.
Shit all the terran action happens on friday and I have little free work time that day, will be tricky to manage Maru got kinda screwed but he should qualify if he doesn't lose to players he shouldn't lose to I guess? Group 3 seems free for Serral / TY / Cure unless sOs manages to steal a bo3 from either of them, so in a sense it's not very interesting, but seeing how Serral deals with TY / Cure (and Cure especially since that qualifier) offline is the cool part
Damn this tournament is so stacked. Even the qualifiers were brutal af. It's crazy that players like Neeb, HeroMarine or RangnaroK didn't even make it to the group stage.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/ept2020_21/katowice2020/katogroups.jpg)
Nice came close to making it a Taiwanese duo in the group stage by making it all the way to the final qualifying match of bracket #3. Though he narrowly lost to 
