WCS Europe Group E is in the books and featured one upset versus predictions. I missed the games live, but thankfully the VODs are up so game descriptions are below.
BlinG 2 StarDust 1
One of two upsets, unpredictable PvP gave the win to the otherwise unremarkable British Protoss. Game one BlinG went for a proxy dark shrine into an expand; StarDust figured out the DTs late and took some damage; both players then got blink and StarDust's aggression was held off easily; the Korean tapped out after BlinG destroyed his army. In game two both players went for DTs (BlinG again with the proxy), but StarDust took minimal damage while BlinG took much more; the British Protoss evened things up with a DT drop, but then went for a risky third base which StarDust attacked with his larger army and won the game. In the final match StarDust went for blink while BlinG went for an early expand; BlinG's immortal production was good enough to halt the four-gate and won him the game. Decision making and scouting determined the series and there was no luck involved with the result.
Happy 2 
Bly 1
A predicted result. Game one Happy went for early aggression and managed to get his hellion/reaper force into the main and killed a bunch of drones; Bly went for the usual muta/ling style; Happy attacked with 1/1, getting even further ahead; Bly held off the following attack as Happy went for a marine/hellbat/mine composition; Happy then lured Bly's army far away from his bases and hit him with a secondary army, but couldn't quite snipe a hatch; Happy did the same thing again and this time took out Bly's natural; Happy then added thors and simply rolled over Bly's army. In game two Happy again went for three barracks and again did significant damage with hellions (this time in the natural); Bly built roaches and was able to save his third as Happy attacked it with his army; Happy's follow-up killed the third and defended his natural from a roach runby, but Bly's muta/ling army was able to overwhelm Happy's and killed his natural while the Terran dropped and killed his fifth--Happy had no way of defending his main with Bly camped outside it and was forced tap out. In the final game Happy went for a quick three CC's and e did good damage with his reaper opener; Bly stayed on roach/ling for a long time, allowing Happy to do further damage with drops; mutas slowed down the aggression so Happy went for a frontal push with his full army (including thors), before again splitting his forces; ultras (and brood lords) were added to Bly's composition and Happy lost most of his army taking out Bly's fourth; Happy was able to take out the fifth with a drop and forced a cancel on the fourth; as Bly was moving towards an attack Happy killed the fifth yet again; more and more infestors were added to Bly's composition and he attacked Happy's sixth and forced him to abandon the base; Happy built up a huge raven/viking army and in the final confrontation was able to crush Bly for the win. I was surprised that Bly did not attempt early aggression against Happy, although the Terran's conservative openings likely would have stopped it.
BlinG 2 Happy 1
The second upset of the day as Happy was unable to handle BlinG's style. Game one BlinG went for a fast three bases off a stargate, with his oracle accomplishing nothing; Happy responded with an attempted drop, but it was spotted and he was forced to withdraw; BlinG took a quick fourth which Happy scouted immediately--his army (including hellbats and ghosts) killed the base; BlinG made the tech switch to colossus (from zealot/archon) before Happy was into full viking production and the Protoss shredded the bio army and won the game. In game two BlinG went for the same three quick bases with a stargate and this time his oracle did some damage; Happy attacked the third, but was forced back; Happy then dropped the second and attacked the third which killed a bunch of probes; Happy repeated the tactic, dropping the main instead of the second; BlinG pushed forward with his army, but didn't accomplish much; Happy went for a two-pronged attack on the third and fourth, with both were deflected, but a subsequent attack on the fourth killed it; BlinG then took half his army and suicided it into Happy's army, losing all his colossus (whether this was a mistake in strategy or simply a mistake I wasn't sure); Happy killed the third and the fourth (again) and BlinG tapped out shortly afterwards. In the final game BlinG went four-gate which Happy did not scout, assuming it would be another stargate opening; the Terran just barely held off the push, but lost a ton of SCVs in doing so; BlinG saturated his natural while Happy delayed retaking his own; BlinG added blink and a third, but his next push didn't break Happy; the Terran did some successful counter aggression until Happy took a bad engagement, losing a ton of units due to force fields; BlinG teched to colossus and his army ran over Happy. This is a series Happy could have won, but BlinG played well and deserves full value for the win.
StarDust 2 Bly 1
A predicted result as StarDust is a monster in PvZ. Game one Bly went for a roach/ling attack that StarDust did not see coming and lost to immediately. Game two StarDust went stargate as Bly set up a big ling attack, but for whatever reason did not push forward; StarDust cancelled Bly's third with void rays, then faked a third causing Bly to triple expand (up to five bases) and drone heavily; the Korean moved out with his colossus/void/zealot army and Bly had too few units to stop him. In the final game StarDust went for phoenix/zealot pressure which did a lot of damage to Bly's third; the Protoss transitioned into colossus, complimenting it with warp prism harass that didn't accomplish much; Bly responded with roach/hydra/viper; Bly's attack was poorly executed as he only focus-fired one of three colossi he pulled and proceeded to lose his entire army; Bly transitioned into infestor/ultra as StarDust added a fourth and killed Bly's fifth; more passivity allowed Bly to add brood lords while StarDust added tempests; finally the two armies fought and Bly could not hang on as StarDust rolled to the win (he already had phoenix for the inevitable muta switch). Each of the games featured excellent strategic decisions by the winners (even if Bly's was cheese) and were fun to watch.
StarDust 2 Happy 0
I thought this would be a closer series, but besides fulfilling predictions it wasn't as dynamic as hoped (Happy struggled to adapt to a Protoss playing standard)--the second game was quite good, admittedly. Game one StarDust opened normally, but hid his robo to provoke Happy into taking unnecessary precautions (which he did); Happy sent a double drop right over StarDust's army and lost a full medevac and then a pile of SCVs to warp prism harassment; Happy pulled his SCVs for a two-base all-in and got steamrolled. Game two StarDust opened standard again (going up to colossus and then storm), as Happy went three racks and added hellbats to his composition; Happy made a successful drop (killing off some probes) and was able to harass with them for quite some time; Happy added ghosts as he killed all the colossi in the first fight between armies; StarDust harassed the third with zealots and forced a lift while Happy went into the main and landed his vikings, doing significant damage, but losing all his air units; a subsequent drop killed StarDust's main; the Protoss added a few colossus to his zealot/archon army and storm-dropped the third and sent zealots to the fourth; Happy dropped the fourth, but only delayed mining time there--losing a bunch of ghosts to feedbacks while he wasn't paying attention; StarDust went for a zealot attack with storm on the fourth, distracting Happy who let his entire bio force get stormed in a choke while threatening the Protoss third and Happy tapped out abruptly. I think Happy could have stayed in the final game longer, but was either on tilt or simply didn't like his odds going forward.
StarDust and BlinG move forward as surprises continue in WCS.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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