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Stephano Wins WCS Europe
Tournament Recap


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Players, brackets, and schedules on Liquipedia

EG.Stephano.RC was already widely regarded as the best player in Europe, and now he has Blizzard's official seal of approval. Dropping just one series in the entire tournament, Stephano came out in first place at the Blizzard World Championship Series European Final. In the end, it came down to a close series against Spain's K3ǂVortiX, but having the advantage of coming through the winners bracket, Stephano was able to absorb an initial 1 – 2 loss in the grand finals and clinch the championship by taking the final set 2 – 0.

No one would have blamed Stephano if he had come in less than 100%. He had secured a lucrative financial future after signing with Evil Geniuses earlier this month, and he had already confirmed a spot at the WCS World Finals by winning the WCS France championship. On top of that, he wasn't in the best physical condition, having arrived at the tournament just hours before opening on Saturday after an unfortunate flight delay. It seemed like a lackluster performance like his tie-12th finish at MLG Raleigh could be a possibility. Instead, it was 'to the bank' yet again, as he took home $24,000 first prize.

That's not to say Stephano walked over the competition, even though he was confident enough to declare the tournament over when he won the winners bracket on the first day. He was given stiff competition by K3ǂVortiX and K3ǂLucifroN, the brothers from Spain – incidentally the the 2nd and 3rd place finishers at the tournament. Stephano barely escaped with a win against Lucifron in the winners semi-final on day one, while VortiX was the only player to take a series against Stephano in the entire tournament. Even so, after seeing Stephano's incredible tournament record over the last year, there was a sense of inevitability when he celebrated on center stage to close the show. With the World Championship coming in mid-November, don't count out more celebrations for Stephano before then.


The brothers Durán

The other huge story from WCS Europe were the breakout performances from the brothers from Spain, K3ǂLucifroN and K3ǂVortiX. Though they had long been recognized by their peers and close followers of the European scene as skillful players, they lacked the results at major tournaments to earn them mainstream validation (even Vortix's recent top four finish at IEM Cologne went surprisingly unnoticed). With 2nd and 3rd place finishes at WCS Europe, they have been thrust into the spotlight.

VortiX took the runner-up spot on the back of solid Zerg vs. Zerg ability and skillful management of his hive army. Defeating national champions like Bly and BabyKnight during his run, Vortix ended being stopped by Stephano, and Stephano only.

Playing mostly ZvZ in the tournament, VortiX had few opportunities to show his stylish, unpredictable attacks at the lair phase of the game. That contrasted heavily with his brother Lucifron, who commanded the audience's attention by showing entertaining TvZ mech play in several games. By mixing in a healthy number of banshees into a normal mech style and showing a chilling fixation on killing drones, Lucifron came out of the tournament looking like a European version of multiple GSL champion LG-IM_Mvp. Lucifron combined with Stephano to produce one of the game-of-the-tournament candidates, a jaw-dropper on Cloud Kingdom that saw the two players stay neck and neck until Stephano triumphed in the final confrontation of the game (see best games below).

Though Vortix was upstaged by his brother at WCS Europe – in spite of his higher finish and head to head victory – he may get the last laugh come the World Championship in November. With LucifroN being known to only play Starcraft II full-time during breaks from university, VortiX will have a chance to prove without a doubt that he is the better Durán.

Hidden depths

It wasn't just the Karont3 brothers who demonstrated the depth of Europe. FXOLoWeLy, FXOBabyKnight, and Empire|Happy – other skilled players without major tournament results – also made a huge impact on the tournament, defeating many more well-known opponents to finish in the top eight.

Lowely in particular had an impressive run, defeating JonnyREcco, ThorZaIN, SortOf, BabyKnight and Happy to finish in fourth place of the tournament (he would lose to Lucifron in the losers final). BabyKnight had a strong run as well, going through Seiplo, White-Ra, and Ret to tie for sixth place. Both the Belarusian (technically, he won the combined European Nationals) and Danish national champions were able to book flights to the world finals with their great showings.

Russia's Happy had a great run through the losers bracket after a round one loss to Lucifron, going through three national champions in WW.Ziktomini, RoX.KIS.Titan and aTn.Socke to reach the final eight before losing to Lowely. With only up to seventh place winning spots in the World Finals, he was forced to play yet another national champion in Nerchio in a tie-break match for 7th/8th place. Unfortunately for Happy, his run ended there, with a heartbreaking loss to Nerchio in an off-air game.

Grubby pushing the line

Having shown huge improvement since first starting his StarCraft II career, fan-favorite and WarCraft III legend Grubby had been stuck on the border between 'good' and 'really good' for the few months leading up to the tournament. Like some of his much lesser known peers mentioned above, Grubby used WCS Europe to make his case that he belongs in the top tier.

Taking a tough loss to VPBenQ.sLivko in the first round of the tournament, Grubby fought his way up through five rounds in the losers bracket to take a tie-sixth place finish and a spot in the world finals. Grubby had one of the most tumultuous runs in the tournament, and was on the verge of elimination several times. In losers round three, Grubby had a huge scare against Italy's TRI.StarEagle, losing multiple nexuses against his opponent's relentless drops. Down over seventy supply in game three, Grubby needed a perfect engagement to win – one which StarEagle miraculously decided to offer Grubby as he walked through an endless shower of psi storms.

It only got more difficult for Grubby as he fought Liquid`Ret and Acer.Nerchio in the next rounds, but he pulled through by the skin of teeth. Despite being massively outgunned by dozens of Ret's brood lords, Grubby managed to best his countryman by destroying all his buildings, while against Nerchio, he very narrowly won in a game where both players were reduced to long-distance mining only.



Favorites fall

With the less established European Stars taking the coveted world finals spots, that meant many of the favorites were forced to go home without realizing their dreams. Most notably, the host country of Sweden failed to have any of their three representatives reach the top even, with EG.ThorZaIN.RC, WW.SortOf, and Ai.Seiplo all being eliminated by the top twelve. WCS Sweden runner-up SortOf went the furthest by reaching the final twelve, but was eliminated by Lowely 1 – 2 in a match with a top eight finish on the line.

Ret and mouz.MaNa also fell from the competition, failing to live up to their reputations in the past year of being some of the best Europeans around. German and Russian national champions Socke and TitaN were also eliminated early, but it was less of a surprise as they had already clinched World Championship spots due to being national champions (the national champions of countries with sufficiently large StarCraft II playing populations were awarded direct seeds) and had less on the line. Popular players like Tt.White-Ra, and EG.DeMusliM fell as well, though they were not considered favorites heading into the tournaments.

Looking ahead: World Finals

Looking ahead to the world finals, European fans have reason to be cautiously optimistic. Seven of the ten South Korean players at WCS Asia (a maximum of seven Koreans might qualify for WCS worlds) are Protoss - and Stephano might be the best ZvP player in the world. In addition, European Protosses having shown in the past that they're completely capable of gambling with Koreans in the notoriously volatile PvP match-up. However, the Europeans will have to look out for the stage-shy Curious and impressive-but-shrouded KeSPA Zerg RorO, who could be the surprise players of the tournament. Of course, other national champions such as Taiwan's Sen and Canada's Scarlett should not be overlooked either.