EPT
A few weeks ago, the preliminaries for MBCGame were held. It would be very important for the players to do well here, as the format MBCGame used would change dramatically. Previously, MBCGame would have the top 4 players in the previous league get seeds, while the rest of the progamers had to play through a large tournament for a spot.
MBCGame decided to change to a format somewhat similar to Ongamenet's. 16 players will play in the Major League, the main tournament. Another 24 players will play in the Minor League, where the top finishers will gain places in the next Major League.
MBCGame's New Format
The top 8 Major League players will receive automatic seeds in the next league. The top 4 players in the Minor League will also receive seeds in the next Major league. The remaining 4 slots in the majors will be fought for by the 9th~16th place major leaguers and 5th~8th minor leaguers.
The bottom 4 Major League players, ranks 13~16, will be paired up against the 5th~8th place minor leaguers. The winners of these games will go on and be paired up against the 9th~12th place major leaguers. The 4 winners of those games will receive the final 4 slots in the Major League. The 8 losers in this process receive spots in the Minor League. The remaining 16 slots in the Minor League are filled through a large, unbroadcasted preliminary.
The Prelim!
This preliminary was a 96 man, best 2 of 3, single elimination tournament. With 4 seeded players in the Major League(Nal_ra, Nada, Zeus, Chojja), the tournament would decide the remaining 12 players.
The brackets were first divided into 24 groups of 4 players. The 24 winners of each group would go on to play the final round of the preliminaries. The 12 winners in the final round receiv a places in the Major League, while the losers t
ake a spots in the minors. This part of the preliminary is being broadcasted on TV, and will be finished by the end of August.
The 24 second place players in each group played vs the 2nd place player in the next group for a slot in the Minor League. The 12 minor leaguers decided here would join the 12 minor leaguers decided above to fill the minor league.
The results for the 24 groups are listed first, and after that, the results for the matches between the 2nd place players.
Maps
The bars below the player names indicate which games the player won. The order of maps was the same for both rounds: Jim Raynor's Memory, Plains to Hill D, Dark Sauron.
Brackets!
Group 1 contained no surprises, Yellow easily coming out on top. Yellow continues to be the most consistant player ever.
Kos wins his group as expected. Legionnaire drew his worst matchup and was knocked out first round.
Yooi had the easiest group ever. First he got a bye when Junwi didn't show up. Getting past the terran-killer without even playing, his next opponent was none other than a female progamer (pretty sure by looking at the name!).
Wow, surprise! -_-.
Same here. Both female players got byes, as if it mattered T_T
After some disappointing losses to toss on OGN, Elky makes it up and then some. Both Arang and the up and coming Terato were eliminated.
3rd place WCG Korea finisher Silent_Control takes his group like he should have. Had he been eliminated, Korea's chances at this year's WCG would have looked even darker than they already are.
TheMarine is still alive and kicking! While his best performances have been confined to iTV as of late, maybe that's up for change (too bad he lost to control in the next round t.t)
Jju is one of the up and coming zerg users. After some good performances in Team League, it looks like he's finally going to show up in the big leagues. He's making his way through the OGN and MBCGame prelims at the same time! Grrrr...was on a roll recently, but he was stopped, at least on MBCGame.
Xellos wins vs people worse than him, yawn -_-
No surprises! Oh wait, TheBoy has shown up after a couple of years! But he lost -_-. I said no surprises :O
Finally, what we might call an upset! While Lee loses to a relatively unknown ogogo, Enough also loses to an unknown T.3)Friend. T.3)Friend makes an impact on his debut, eventually making it to the Major by defeating Sync.
And here is the BIG upset. Boxer loses to a new player, and a ZERG player at that. And he didn't even go to Dark Sauron, 2-0. Boxer doesn't seem like he's out of shape, he just recently pulled off one of the most unbelievable comeback wins ever on OGN. Is Silver THAT good? To top it off, he beats Gorush, a ZvZ expert. He's made it into the Major League, it will be interesting to see how he does.
It was hard to call, but not because of the excess of skill. 2 old players who never do well on TV, and two newcomers. Sayoo lost vs Silver later, so I guess we won't know exactly how good he is until he shows up again.
Alongside Jju, Julyzerg is another Zerg user suddenly making himself known. July is doing well in the OGN Challenge League as well.
ILoveoov, the only one who has greatly benefitted from joining Boxer's team. A veritable wrecking machine on KTF Ever, he's finally going to make his debut in singles competition.
Very surprising how Eji managed to defeat Jinanm 2-0. His PvZ performance in the Team League has been very disappointing, yet he manages to beat Jinnam. Maybe Eji is one of those guys who chokes on TV 
Ack -_-;; Rage's performance in the previous Starleague was fairly disappointing. Granted, he had to play Xellos and Chojja, but his games were not the prettiest.
Junior wins, though one might have expected Gundam to win this group. His TvZ is always on and off, pulling off some spectacular wins and some miserable losses. Junior is Junior, yet another solid zerg from Soul.
I guess Kingdom is good, since he qualified. It's just not that obvious, since his two OGN games were won by early rushes, and his Team League performances were sub par -_-.
Whoa, Reach lost to Sir@Soni! I remeber hearing that Reach said he was back in shape... Dark Sauron, it sure is balanced :O
Quite a surprise -_-. I thought Chrh had joined the "washed up progamer" club for good. And what's up with Black? After being so impressive half a year ago, he's quietly disappeared from the earth.
The rule in OGN applies to MBCGame as well, the Jang brothers can't qualify together for the same tournament. When Jinnam lost, Jinsu must have felt reassured that he would win. ForU lost, can't be helped ;( This was one of the few groups where there were 2 players who could both be considered strong candidates to win.
Korea's only WCG hope, HOT-Forever beats a bunch of unknowns. Maybe it's a comeback -_-!
The results for the 2nd place games will be in plain text -_-. The winners here are in the minor league :O
[Oops]Cloud defeated Ogogo 2:0
Doggi defeated [nc]..navy 2:0
Terato defeated Tossgirl 2:0
Breeze[Akuta] defeated TheWind 2:0
Ggon defeated Grrrr... 2:1
Eliza[Sou] defeated TheBoy 2:1
ArtOfTerran defeated Gorush 2:1
Mumyung defeated Autumn 2:0
Jinnam defeated [NC]..Shinya 2:1
V-Gundam defeated Salmosa 2:0
Sonic)Black defeated Reach 2:0
Sinji defeated [Kor]-Rain 2:1
Notable players who are eliminated from both tournaments: Junwi, Grrrr..., Boxer, Reach, ForU
Argh, I should have done this report before the final round of prelims started being broadcasted on TV -_-. Rar! :D
just one thing...I strongly disagree that koreas chances for wcg are "dark". All three of their players are probably the strongest in the tourniment with possible the exception of Elky.
leg
