WCS 2014
Challenger Season 1

Day 4 Matches

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by tree.hugger

This week, Europe will become the final region to conclude its Challenger League and finalize its Premier League roster. Just six spots remain to be claimed before the Premier League's opening day on February 18th!

Cascade.Adonminus vs mouz.HasuObs

It's hard to think of a player who came out of left field quite like Adonminus. One moment, life was proceeding as normal. The next, some random Israeli protoss was qualified for Challenger. Usually, if you look hard enough, you can spot the up and comers before they make a big splash. Usually there's a few weekly cup wins here and there, or a good qualifier run or something. Not so for Adonminus, whose first TLPD games are from WCS. One moment he wasn't even a blip on the radar. The next, he was a name to be known and a force to be contended with. But while qualifying for WCS was an impressive achievement for a complete no-name in 2013, it's time for all of last year's surprises to start solidifying their place in the scene. And Adonminus hasn't really shown the level where we'd expect him to stick around for a while. What does count in his favor are wins against BabyKnight last year. What counts against him is basically a lack of any other supporting evidence to his skill.

Adonminus has drawn a fairly difficult opponent for this first round. HasuObs is a name known to almost any Sc2 fan. Despite never achieving elite success, the German Protoss has been around since virtually the very beginning of Sc2. Chances are, you've watched a lot of HasuObs games, whether you remember them or not. Chances are, you don't remember them, actually. Solid, but never spectacular. Macro-focused without being overwhelming. HasuObs is basically the perfect player to never ever lose in Challenger regardless of any issues in Premier. Add to that the fact that he's one of the most steady PvPers in the foreign scene. Adonminus is pretty decent at the match-up too, but he lacks the experience and consistency of HasuObs.

Prediction: HasuObs wins 3-0


RoX.KIS.LiveZerg vs Fnatic.Harstem

I readily admit to loving the underdog vs favorite nature of most of the WCS Europe matches, if only because it's a great chance to see which newcomers are ready to make the jump from the national level of play to the international level. But variety is the spice of life, and in the second match-up of the fourth group, we get a match with much less of a clear power dynamic. LiveZerg is a very good Zerg player. In the past, he has been one of the best Zerg players in Europe, although he's slipped a few spots in the totem pole by now. His opponent is Harstem, who has been a very bad player in the past. But 2013 was really a coming out party for the Dutch protoss, and he now deserves to be ranked among the better players in Europe, perhaps just below a certain Swede and two Finns.

I find both of these players to be of roughly equal ability at this point in time, even if their trajectories seem slightly opposed. It's hard to call a clear winner in terms of skill in the match-up as well. While LiveZerg has a history as a ZvP destroyer, their recent table of results are fairly similar in terms of the calibre of opponent. Neither can claim to be elite practitioners of this match-up, but both are clearly very very strong. Interestingly enough, Harstem picked LiveZerg as one of the opponents he wanted to face.

So ultimately, I'll place my prediction cred on the player who feels like they have a bit more momentum, and that's Harstem. But I do so with not much confidence. And a quick summary of esports betting sites is showing really ridiculous odds in favor of Harstem, so given the right odds, I'd put my Dongcoin on LiveZerg.

Prediction: Harstem 3-2


MǂDayshi vs hOpe

The third match of this round of WCS EU matches is another one where the outcome is a bit in question, but it's a different flavor of competitiveness. Unlike the match before, neither Dayshi or hOpe have ever really been playing much better than they are right now. These are two relatively new players who are just starting to come into their own. hOpe is just coming off a year in which he was picked up and dropped by a Mousesports organization that feels very confused about their identity. Either way, it was hOpe's most successful year to date, and he'll be hoping to build on that in 2014. The Swedish Zerg is a small fish in the big pond that is Sweden, but he's certainly a strong player at the national/continental level. In 2014, the goal will be to break into the international level, and winning a Premier league spot would go a long way towards achieving that.

Dayshi is a step ahead of hOpe in his development. Already a force within the French scene in 2012, the terran has stepped out of the shadow of Stephano upon the Zerg's retirement, and while he hasn't lit the world aflame, he has filled the void better than most would've expected. It certainly helps that Dayshi plays the race that he does, where it's definitely a bit easier to stand out. It's also a huge benefit that his best match-up is TvZ, which is the most useful match-up to be an expert in. Unfortunately for hOpe, that's they match-up of this series. While both of these players have promising futures, Dayshi is close to a year ahead of his Swedish adversary, and should take this match with comfort.

Prediction: Dayshi 3-0


Wolves.Bunny vs Vega.VERDI

In terms of name value, the final match of day four is probably the weakest draw of the bunch. But in terms of what's going to be the best to watch, my money is on this series. Bunny came out of nowhere to qualify for WCS last year, but struggled to build on that success throughout 2013, consistently falling short of expectations at LANs and within the WCS framework. But it's a testament to his skill that he begins 2014 battling with Happy for the distinction as the "top foreign terran". That title might be SC2's equivalent to the wooden spoon award, but the truth is that the Dane is on the rise in a real way. He has two problems; TvT and inconsistent performances. Those will probably preclude him from moving past a Ro8 for the first half of the year, but they are eminently fixable issues.

His opponent is VERDI, and he might be good enough to spoil the party. While not a wizard at PvT, this is VERDI's best match-up. The Russian Protoss has been around a while, improving at an almost glacial pace, but nonetheless lurking in the shadows as an opponent capable of making you sweat. He shouldn't beat Bunny, really, but it's hard to say for sure. VERDI is the Prototypical spoiler. He'll never make it on a podium, but he's enough of a mass to knock someone promising off kilter. Either way, this series should be fun to watch. Bunny could very well 3-0, or he could flounder and drop the series at 2-3. I'll put myself out there just enough to say that a VERDI rout is the least likely possibility. But everything else is on the table.

Prediction: Bunny 3-1

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Players currently qualified for Premier (20/32)
Protoss: MC, Genius, Stardust, NaNiwa, Grubby, BlinG, Lilbow, Welmu, ShoWTimE
Terran: MMA, Mvp, Happy
Zerg: VortiX, Nerchio, TargA, FireCake, Starbuck, Slivko, TLO, Bly

Writers: tree.hugger.
Editor: Waxangel.