WCS Europe Season 3

Ro32 Group E Recap
Welmu and Thorzain Advance

Ro32 Group F Preview
Hasuobs, Shuttle, Nerchio, Titan

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Welmu and ThorZaIN Advance

by lichter

It was a surprisingly quick day considering we had Spoon Terran and Anachronistic Zerg in the same group, but only one of them advanced as they met a second time in the final match after Welmu advanced first looking strong. Thorzain, despite becoming a part-time player because of medical school, proved good enough to take the other spot in the Round of 16 in a bunch of one sided games.

Ro32 - Group E
1.	Welmu	2-0 (4-1)
2.	ThorZaIN	2-1 (5-2)
3.	sLivko	1-2 (2-4)
4.	BlinG	0-2 (0-4)

Detailed results from the live report thread by HammerKick
+ Show Spoiler +

Welmu vs BlinG
Welmu <Akilon Wastes> BlinG
Welmu <Derelict Watcher> BlinG
Welmu <> BlinG

Welmu wins 2-0!

sLivko vs ThorZaIN
sLivko <Akilon Wastes> ThorZaIN
sLivko <Bel'Shir Vestige> ThorZaIN
sLivko <> ThorZaIN

ThorZaIN wins 2-0!

Winners' Match
Welmu <Whirlwind> ThorZaIN
Welmu <Bel'Shir Vestige> ThorZaIN
Welmu <Polar Night> ThorZaIN

Welmu wins 2-1 and advances to the Round of 16!

Losers' Match
BlinG <Bel'Shir Vestige> sLivko
BlinG <Derelict Watcher> sLivko
BlinG <> sLivko

sLivko wins 2-0!

Final Match
ThorZaIN <Bel'Shir Vestige> sLivko
ThorZaIN <Derelict Watcher> sLivko
ThorZaIN <> sLivko

ThorZaIN wins 2-0 and advances to the Round of 16!

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Welmu and ThorZaIN advance to WCS EU Premier RO16!

The first set started on Akilon Wastes and ended up being a short one. Bling chose to go with a quick stargate and an oracle, but Welmu rolled the right build with 3gate pressure. Bling opted for an expansion behind his oracle play, but Welmu's stalkers were able to move in and force a cancel. While Bling was able to take out 14 workers with his oracle, he has nothing at home to defend Welmu's swelling ball of units and succumbed to the pressure. While this game looked pretty bad for Bling, you could argue that it was just a build order loss. Bling seemed to have faith in his build as he used it again in game 2. This time, however, Welmu decided to expand after his gates instead of applying pressure. It seemed like a good turn of events for Bling, but Welmu was prepared for the harass and the oracle proved useless. In response, Welmu put up a DT Shrine while Bling expanded himself and moved into adding void rays. The DT tech caught the Brit off guard as Welmu was able to take out 13 probes with his DTs. Bling desperately counter attacked, unable to stop the DTs, but Welmu's forcefields isolated the voidrays from the rest of Blings army and crushed it. It was a relatively easy first win for Welmu, whose positioning and defense looked solid against shenanigans.

Thorzain vs sLivko was the second match of the day and no one would have blamed you for going to get a coffee or something for what should have been a long series. Thorzain has long been known as the Spoon Terran, while sLivko's old-school BL-Infestor style is just odd in today's metagame. Their first series of the night ended up being a fast one as the players took turns being aggressive. The initial game saw sLivko act as the aggressor, selecting to use the good 'ol roach bane bust. Unfortunately for the Russian, Thorzain saw the roaches walk down the ramp and began preparing 5 bunkers at home. The bunkers proved to be sufficient to hold, and despite being on an equal number of bases, sLivko was unable to catch up in tech as Thorzain macroed, attacked a few times, and won. It was uncharacteristically ruthless by Tzain as he didn't waste much time in disposing of sLivko after gaining such a big advantage, and that new killer instinct showed itself again on Bel'shir Vestige. Instead of using a standard quick 3CC build, the Swede opted to get an early factory and stim. It was quite unlucky for sLivko as his overlord in the natural failed to see the late 3rd Command Center, and he also missed two medivacs full of marines move out with 6 hellions. It caught the Zerg completely off guard, killing a lot of units as well as 23 drones. This advantage once again proved too much as the Spoon Terran pressured nonstop, denying sLivko's fourth repeatedly until he finally called gg. Thorzain's ability to turn small gains into quick wins was refreshing, and perhaps the Spoon Terran has become Scalpel Terran since the last time we saw him.

The winners match had a close scoreline, but the games were rather one sided. Welmu's curve-ball on Whirlwind started the set, a proxy 7gate (yes, 7 of the gates were proxied), failed to break Thorzain in time before stim and medivacs, and a counter attack simply won it for the Swede. The two gave us a macro game on Bel'shir Vestige, and the Protoss tied it at 1-1 after Protoss' greed went unpunished. Welmu's excellent positioning consistently denied drops the entire game, allowing him to hit a strong 3/3 attack that rolled over Thorzain's army. Their final game on Polar Night was another quirky one from Welmu with an unscouted proxy oracle strategy. It should have been disaster for Thorzain, but despite seeing it so late, he only lost 10 SCVs for the investment of about 5 oracles. Overconfidence proved to be Scalpel Terran's undoing, however, as he failed to spot Welmu's 2-base Colossus attack until the lasers started frying his units. With only 1 bunker and no vikings, Thorzain couldn't hold and gave Welmu passage into the round of 16.

After looking strong in his first match, Thorzain still had a good shot at advancing with Welmu, especially considering how easily the two winner's match players dispatched the two in the loser's match. Bling and sLivko met to determine who'd face Tzain later on, and it ended up being another one sided series. Game 1 on Bel'shir Vestige saw Bling go for shenanigans, using sOs' cannon rush to cancel the natural. The Brit followed it up with a Soul Train that sLivko didn't scout at all, but poor micro from Bling allowed sLivko to surround his army and the attack fell flat on it's face. The game still reached a base race, but with mutas out and a fortified 3-O'clock base, it was never close. The next game showed more of the same from Bling, this time opting for zealot-phoenix pressure which again did nothing. This allowed sLivko to get a 10-minute hive and vipers. Bling's transition into colossus proved too late as the Zerg swarm slithered across the map, yanked the colossus, and destroyed everything, giving sLivko a rematch against Thorzain. While Bling's games today were disappointing, he admitted that he was not playing his best games and was feeling the pressure.

To open the final series of the night, Thorzain decided to 2rax. Yup, Spoon Terran is definitely dead. Welcome Scalpel Terran. Thorzain even faked a second CC at his natural after his bunker rush killed 10 drones, and then Bit-By-Bit'd his way to victory. While game 1 was another quick one from Thorzain on a day of straightforward games, the last game of the night ended up being the best by far. A long, back and forth game on Derelict Watcher started with a roach bane bust, exactly the same as their first game, but this time killing 30 SCVs. The game stabilized allowing Thorzain to claw back in, but great engagements by sLivko repeatedly pushed Thorzain back. A big attack at the Zerg fourth attempted to make that crucial difference for Thorzain, but more expert surrounds by the Russian crushed all of his army. It looked like the Swede was dead, and Kaelaris and Apollo both gave him a dire diagnosis, but Thorzain brought out the Spoon and Scalpel and turtled his way back to a respectable army size. During this time sLivko was able to build his desired Broodlord/Ultra army, but this gave Thorzain the opening that he needed and he sliced right in. Furious drops and harass pulled the lumbering Zerg army apart denying base after base, and eventually sLivko's economy dried out despite his fearsome army. Stuck on 3 bases with no mining, sLivko tried one last attack in the middle of the map, but Thorzain had too much. It was an epic, well deserved comeback and a fitting game to see Thorzain move through to the Round of 16.

by DarkLordOlli



Stringing things together

WCS EU is going full steam ahead and the Ro16 is slowly assembling. WCS EU has been a good opportunity for veterans to shine again. Unfortunately, many fan favorites have been unable to capitalize on this opportunity with players like Starbuck and Showtime stealing the spotlight. This group is another one full of well known faces, but will it be the same story as the others?

It’s Finally Time… right?

The first two players going at it will be the teamless Korean Terran Shuttle, who has travelled the world in search for a permanent stay at a foreign team ever since leaving the sinking ship NSHoseo, and mouz.HasuObs, a player who’s always been around and has basically always played the same way – but now it’s working. Whatever it is that fuels his recent success, be it an increase in practice time, better motivation, better mindset in the game or, as a few would suggest, the overall strengthened viability of standard, safe macro styles of Protoss, HasuObs has to be feeling good right now. His PvT feels like a European version of Rain’s as HasuObs feels more than comfortable dragging the game out and relying on his game management to win games for him. HasuObs has proven that he can go head to head even with Korean Terrans, taking games off MMA, Ryung, Center and most notably topping last season’s Ro16 group over Mvp.

Shuttle meanwhile has been rather silent but always kind of around. Upon leaving NSHoseo he joined Legion which didn’t end well as the team disbanded. Shuttle then went to FXO NA, only to leave them less than a month later and find his way to Team Clarity. It seemed as if Shuttle had finally found the home he was looking for but it wasn’t meant to be either.
His stats against Protoss opponents in Heart of the Swarm shows barely above 50% winrate for him, with most wins coming in qualifiers against players that can hardly be counted among the best of their race. Considering these trends, I can't help but favor HasuObs in this first match.

Attack on Nerchio (yeah.)

The second match of the night promises to be a good one as Acer.Nerchio clashes with RoX.KIS.TitaN. The Polish Zerg was rather quiet for a long period of time in Heart of the Swarm, participating mostly in online leagues for his team, and not achieving the best results initially. But you have to keep in mind that Nerchio's practice schedule is a mystery to us all. For all we know he could have been focusing completely on his studies during that time. More recently though he's picked up the slack and has started to produce results again that begin to resemble the ones he had before the big switch to HotS. As far as Protoss goes, he sits at an overall 60% winrate, however he's beaten some big names in the last two months - CranK, MaNa, Grubby, MyuNgSiK, newly found MVP-badass Super and WCS EU Champion Duckdeok. With probably the biggest Dreamhack ever coming up as well as the SC2L finals, Nerchio would certainly jump at the opportunity to pick up some momentum - especially in this online round where he should feel right at home.

RoX.KIS.Titan has been notably absent from the scene as well. That's not to say that he's been physically absent but his results have fallen far from where they used to be in WoL. Unfortunately for him, this concerns especially his PvZ matchup which, don't ask me how, was a very reliable one for him. Now in HotS though where Protoss is arguably a lot better off against the Swarm, Titan only has a 34% winrate to show for himself in PvZ. Most recent results show losses to Starbuck, DRG, Goswer, Revival and Bly. There's no beating around the bush, Titan will need to step up his game not only to get through Nerchio who's been on a resurgent run but also to compete with other Zergs of his calibre or above should he make it out of this group. Considering the winrates and overall form though, Nerchio should be favored in this match.

Predictions!

The Europeans have a decent shot at eliminating another Korean tonight!

HasuObs > Shuttle
Nerchio > Titan
HasuObs < Nerchio
Shuttle > Titan
HasuObs > Shuttle

Nerchio and HasuObs advance!


Upcoming Groups
Sept 17: MMA, TAiLS, BabyKnight, KrasS
Sept 18: MC, FireCake, StarDust, Kas

Writers: lichter, DarkLordOlli
Graphics: shiroiusagi
Banner photo: ESL
Editor: Plexa.