EPTTable of Contents
From Valencia...
The lessons of Valencia...
...to Bucharest
...probably won't matter much.
Check out DreamHack Bucharest on Liquipedia
From Valencia...
At this stage, there's little dispute. Austerity is becoming a real serious problem. Nobody should be talking about cuts in social spending or economic migrants. At this rate, they're all the continent has left to maintain global competitiveness.
Oh, you thought I was talking about the European debt crisis? Nope, we're talking StarCraft here. In Valencia, Spain, the European StarCraft scene was embarrassed in a way that we haven't seen in a long while. It's usually MLG's and other North American event that get mugged by Koreans. Meanwhile, Europe sits comfortably, protected by a latency advantage, more people, better internet, and a flexible school regimen. When Koreans come to European tournaments, they usually place well, but they rarely become the story.
That all changed one month ago on the shores of the Mediterranean. Three of the top four at DreamHack Valencia were Korean, and it was an extraordinary thing that it wasn't a clean sweep. The finals was all Korean. Don't be fooled by the occasional words of Spanish from the guests, they were there to take a lot of Euros out of the country without so much as an adios.
So what happened? Should we freak out?
Honestly, I'm ambivalent. Throughout this year, we've seen foreigners make small but noticeable progress against Korean opposition. But recently, it's felt as though the true cream of the crop of the Korean scene has begun to float to the surface. With the recent mass escape from the local elephant reserve, the competition has reached a brutal stage. Players who fail to distinguish themselves from the GSL pack in the next few months of 2012 could well see their careers come to an end. The teams are under intense pressure, some could fold. But from this furnace, the Korean scene is going to emerge stronger and more punishing than any point in the post Columbus 2011 era. The Koreans at Dreamhack Valencia weren't the KeeNs and Vampires we've seen in past events. This was just the opening salvo to an invasion that seems determined to reach European shores as well as American.
That being said, if the foreign scene couldn't keep things close, they still managed to make things entertaining in Spain. VortiX did very well to defeat viOLet and stretch TheStC. SaSe defeated Moon. Those two are among the small group of foreign players who still look like they could appear in the rapidly intensifying cauldron of pain that we call Code A without making themselves look ridiculous. These are good results from them. Players like Sage, Moon, and Violet are players that foreigners have to keep beating. If our best begin to drop to Koreans with no GSL experience, then we know we're doomed all over again.
There were a number of other wins as well, which I'd really try not to read much into. NightEnD defeated the eventual champion TaeJa in the first group stage. JeaL defeated HerO in a PvP. Elfi beat Violet and BlinG and TargA beat forGG in groups. But TaeJa won, forGG took second, and HerO took top eight. Despite the random and encouraging successes early on, it never looked like the Korean players were particularly troubled. Once they seemed to get out of second gear, the Koreans rolled.
The foreign hero of the tournament was a huge surprise. TargA deserves his own paragraph because of his startling top four finish. It's hard to know exactly what to make of it. On one hand, the Norwegian Zerg wasn't particularly overwhelming. His cheese against HerO was the most exquisitely executed cheese I've seen in SC2, but it didn't convince me that TargA was the better player. In part, this is also because TargA's been around for a while and we can see his past results and trajectory. One thing though. TargA is not accurately described as a patchzerg. His preferred style isn't the kind of passive hive-tech play that has distinguished the recent Zerg revival in the foreign scene. He's a player who was good before the patch, and isn't much changed after it. Overall, Valencia was a phenomenal tournament for him; one that ought to give him some well deserved attention heading into Bucharest. But it was also a very lucky tournament for him. For my money he still has work to do before he is in the best EU Zerg conversation, or before he even is able to claim the title of best Norwegian Zerg. But it was entertaining to be sure. I look forward to his recruitment by EG.
Beyond SaSe and VortiX performing as expected, and TargA being sneaky, there was only one more source of life on the foreign side of things.
Stephano's first tournament with EG was a win, as anyone could have predicted. True to the parameters of the world famous EG curse, Stephano entered his second tournament almost certain to lose. But what nobody could've foreseen was the manner in which he'd do it. If there's anything we know about Stephano, it's that he has nerves of steel, and his decision making is faultless in all kinds of high pressure situations. So when his brain apparently exploded mid-series vs ForGG, we saw something that we had never seen before; Stephano went full foreigner. It was like witnessing a unicorn jump the fence around your vegetable garden and devour all your tomatoes.
In a weekend of troubling but understandable indicators for the foreign scene, it was the complete vacation that Stephano took from his senses that was the most worrying. It portended a world without Stephano, which is frankly a scary one for the foreign scene. Will the premonition come true? I sure hope not.
I also hope Nerchio is practicing like hell.
...to Bucharest
For all the questions that were posed to the foreign scene at DreamHack Valencia, and all the redemption that must be earned, DreamHack Bucharest won't offer any. We're looking at one of the strangest tournament line-ups in a long time, seriously lacking in Koreans, but at the same missing some of the biggest names in the European scene.
With the two last seeds into DreamHack Winter on the line, you'd have thought at least a few top level Koreans would have shown up, but instead we can look forward to seeing TheStC, Sage, and FnaticRC's Rain as the only Korean representation at the tournament. Murky circumstances forced the ex-oGs quartet on Apex Gaming to drop out of the tournament, but even had they taken part as planned, it would hardly have constituted a murderer’s row with zero Code A Koreans.
For the foreigners, TargA will be the only hero of Valencia in attendance again. Instead of line-up headlined by Stephano, Vortix, Lucifron, and SaSe, the most notable players at Bucharest might be Nerchio, MaNa, Ret, elfi, and NightEnD. That's not a line-up to dismiss, but something feels just plain wrong about the fact that Nerchio is the only WCS World Finals qualified player in the entire tournament. Wasn't DreamHack supposed to be Europe's best tournament?
We're going to have to wait until November, for MLG Fall, IPL5, and the WCS World Finals until we have any of our Korea vs. World questions answered. Still, the fact that Bucharest has a fairly soft line-up for a major international tournament brings up a few interesting storylines of its own.
First, there's Nerchio to consider. The question in eSports is always "what have you done for us lately?" (for players; casters can coast). When Nerchio won HomeStoryCup 5 in July followed by a second place finish at IEM Cologne in August, it looked like the online King was finally making a real case to be considered the best foreigner. Unfortunately, all it took was one below-par performance at WCS Europe – where Nerchio placed seventh while Vortix and Stephano took second and first – for the attention to quickly shift away. Still, as we head into Bucharest, people seem to have remembered that quiet Polish guy again, alongside the fact that he's really good.
It's no stretch to say that Nerchio is the favorite to win it all. The skill required to win 4 – 1 against Yonghwa and 3 – 0 against MC doesn't magically disappear in two months, and the player pool at DreamHack is certainly weaker than the ones Nerchio faced in Cologne and Krefeld. TheStC is the most dangerous player Nerchio will have to face (excluding the inherent randomness of ZvZ), and Nerchio is blessed by the fact that the Korean's worst match-up is TvZ.
The second, and probably the most important thing to consider, is that this is a gigantic free-for-all. There's no telling who could make their way into the top four, let alone win it all. It's almost a once-in-a lifetime opportunity for the players present to not just make some cash, but really elevate themselves into the spotlight.
Obviously, most would first look towards the good but inconsistent duo of Ret and MaNa, who already have championship experience and a history of success at foreigner-heavy tournaments. They're going through their cyclical spells of mediocrity at the moment, and this seems like exactly the kind of opportunity they'd take advantage of.
But there's so many other players who could break out as well. Players like NightEnD, Cloud, Beastyqt, TLO, Seiplo, etc. have been around the scene forever, but have yet to catch a break in a major tournament. How about the oft-joked-about elfi? Quietly, he's been incredibly solid in the last few months, finishing inside the top sixteen of multiple tournaments. This will the softest tournament he's been at in a while, and it could be his chance to medal for the first time at a major tourney.
Of course, they'll need to fight off some of the newer players who will want to take this rare opportunity as well. Players like SortOf, Fraer, and Harstem (at DreamHack, no less) all broke out this year, but it doesn't take long before you become just another veteran player who's easily lost in the shuffle.
And then there's all the guys I didn't mention. Sure, there's some degree of hierarchy among foreigners, but this is as close to an even playing field as anyone's going to get. I'm sure the competitors are praying for a collapse in the Korean scene that will make sure future tournaments are more like this one, but until that happens, this is everyone's best shot.
On a final note, we can't leave out the possibility that the Koreans do it again. TheStC is looking an awful lot like a new, improved version of PuMa, Sage is respectable at least, and as poor as he was in the past, Fnatic's Rain has actually become pretty decent now that he's been training in Korea again. If the Koreans win again, then that means Europe was more top heavy than we thought. Disappointing, but it would be something we could live with. If the Europeans win, then that will be worth a cheer, but nothing to draw conclusions from before the November tournaments come around.
In short, the most pressing questions will remain unanswered, but we might learn a lot about some things we hadn't bothered to think about before.
