WCS Europe Qualifiers

The community-casted WCS EU Qualifiers have come and gone and included some interesting results.  There are some foreign-language VODs on Youtube and all of BaseTradeTv's casts are on Twitch, but there's no comprehensive grouping of them, so for those looking its going to be a hodgepodge of availability.

In the first qualifier Verdi went through a number of strong players (Golden, ToD), MaNa had a slightly easier road (Noname and DIMAGA), as did Patience (First, MorroW), but no one had more luck in the bracket than surprise qualifier Krr (who faced no player who'd previously been in Challenger or Premier).

In the second qualifier two more Koreans made it: Golden and First pushed through this time (notable defeats over Tefel for the former and SortOf for the latter); also qualifying was elfi (no significant opponents) and Stephano (back from retirement apparently, going through on his first attempt; DIMAGA and DeMuslim fell in his wake).

 

The third qualifier saw uThermal (MorroW), YoDa (no major opponents), DeMuslim (ibid), and ToD (MiNiMaTh, along with two epic PvP's against GunGFuBanDa) make it through.

 

Finally the Wildcard qualifier (which, unlike NA, was not full of Koreans) featured a pretty light lineup with most of the heavyweights already through; Tefel (no major opponents), MiNiMaTh (who didn't face big names, but had a difficult bracket), MorroW (beating Noname and Socke), and Harstem (no major opponents) move on.  The best match of the day was early, with DieStar holding off an all-in on Alterzim from KnowMe.

 

Overall 8 Protoss, 4 Terrans, and 4 Zergs made it through to Challenger (so the overall balance is 14/7/11).  Of the four Koreans who qualified, YoDa, First, and Patience tried and failed to get in last season via the Wildcard (they were eliminated by DIMAGA, DieStar, and MaNa); Golden hadn't played in the WCS since getting knocked out of the America season two qualifier by Hendralisk.

 

Thoughts: all the big name Koreans made it through (only German-based Revenge failed).  The following players came closest to qualifying: GunGFuBanda (three times!), DIMAGA, SortOf, HeroMarine, DaNa, JonnyREcco, souL, DeViL, Lambo, and hOpe.  Others who made it one step from the final match  (not including the above): GenjiTakiya, Adonimus, Serral, Ourk, AlastOr, Revenge, CheeseKing, Elroye, Socke, RainMan, UniQFazer, Snitchables, Ret, sLh, Adelscott, ABomB, and Psionic.

 

Here are previous Premier/Challenger players who tried and failed to qualify (seasons in brackets; for Premier players I didn't include their Challenger appearances):

Premier: DIMAGA (1-2), Ret (1-2), SortOf (1-2), ThorZaIN (1-3), Socke (1), Strelok (1), KrasS (1), Beastyqt (2), and Noname (3)

Challenger: Adonminus (3-4), HappyZerg (3-4), uzer (1, 3), AlaStor (2), sLh (4), Mekar (4), ABomB (4), HeroMarine (4), DieStar (4), Zanster (4), Lambo (4), hOpe (4), Revolver (4) and JonnyREcco (3)

Past Premier participants TitaN (1-3), SaSe (1, 3), and Feast (1) did not participate.

 

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)