Power Rank: WCS Leipzig 2018 Text by TL.net ESPORTS Written by: Soularion.



Editor's note: For over a decade, the TeamLiquid.net power ranks have delighted and enraged the StarCraft community. Though the rank has often been determined by committee, this has not always been the case. For WCS Leipzig, the first stop of the WCS 2018 circuit, we return the power rank to the hands of an individual. Soularion, take it away!



#37: Yours



As one of the two players with a <50% career win rate to qualify for WCS Leipzig, Yours won his seed from the Oceania region after Seither canceled his participation. His biggest offline upset is a 2-1 over Blysk. Something tells me he won't get particularly far.



#36: GogojOey



GogojOey shares the honor of having a <50% career winrate with Yours, but differentiated himself by qualifying for Leipzig without needing another player to forfeit. Joey beat Has 3-2 in his first ever offline event (the Taiwan/Hong Kong/Japan/Macau qualifier) to secure his spot. While he's gotten a couple of alright online upsets in his time (iaguz, Nice), getting 4-0'd by Nice in the qualifier keeps him snugly at the bottom.



#35: Optimus



To call Optimus a rising star may be slightly optimistic, but he certainly took a few steps to finding himself over the course of 2017. He beat Zanster and played Serral competitively at WCS Austin, played well against Harstem and TRUE at Valencia, and beat Snute at the TING Open. Still, his lack of any significant offline upsets (so far) and online inconsistency earn him a low ranking.



#34: Cyan



Cyan's always occupied an odd spot in the Chinese scene, never irrelevant but never a consistent contender either. Recent times haven't been particularly kind to him, as he fell out of GPL Season 4 to TooDming and hasn't exactly seemed dominant online either. We’ll give him some benefit of the doubt: His last Western matchups offline have shown him beating both Kelazhur and Scarlett in tight, extended sets.



#33: XY



Even in the Chinese scene, XY is an enigma. Not only has he been around forever, being a staple contender in the scene since 2012, but he's been remarkably consistent the entire way. Yet, he's still never seemed dominant, unlike Jim, XiGua or even TooDming. Part of this has been due to his inability to rise when it comes to journeying west, never making it to a major circuit event since WCS Spring 2016.



#32: Rail



Rail is almost impossible to predict. This is his absolute first WCS event (though he’s played in many DreamHacks), and he has as many good wins over the past few months as he has poor ones. His two offline events recently saw him beat Reynor, play against Probe decently, and then get 3-0'd by Minato. Who can really say how well Rail will do?



#31: Nice



Nice is rising, guys. Originally considered a player who was only around due to a fortuitous second seed given to the Taiwan/Hong Kong/Japan/Macau region, Nice has actually started to dominate domestically. Not only that, but his few bouts with players from other regions have seen him go 3-3 against Hurricane in GSL qualifiers as well as play Snute closely in OSC Masters. It's difficult to say if he's anywhere near good enough to play well at a WCS event—his two prior outings featured losses to Arctur, Jig and NoRegreT—but he's certainly been in good form recently. Nice, man.



#30: Lambo



The European scene has been a bloodbath for years, and the current 'mid-tier' of European players might be the most volatile class ever. Lambo showed potential last year, even winning a series against SpeCial at WCS Austin. However, with his disappointing result at WESG (losing to DeMusliM and Majestic) and consistent inconsistency at WCS events, Lambo earns a low spot.



#29: MaNa



If there's one word to use to describe MaNa, ‘resilient’ may be it. Being a long-time veteran means that he's faced plenty of turmoil, but unlike most, he's overcome it quite well, even making a famous WCS finals run. LotV hasn't been kind to MaNa, however. Despite being a solid match for mid-tier players, he's routinely routed by the WCS Circuit’s elite players.



#28: souL



'European Terran' may be the most mocked region/race combination in StarCraft (aside from American anything until Neeb came along). The Euro-Terrans might have hit a new low in 2017. With MarineLorD and Bunny effectively leaving the scene and uThermal having a poor year, the future was briefly left in the hands of players such as souL and HeRoMaRinE. It may have worked out for the better. souL had a couple consistent tournaments, beating Cham at Valencia and Probe at Montreal, and now might be the time for a breakout performance.



#27: Stephano



It's been an interesting road back for the Best Foreigner Ever. On one hand, his results haven't been half bad, but on the other hand they fall apart the more they're scrutinized. Sure, he might be playing solidly, but whenever he faces elite competition he's tended to crumble. The best offline upset he's gotten since returning was a 2-0 over Harstem, and it's difficult to rate him highly when he hasn't actively punched above his weight class.



#26: Guru



Of all the players on this list, Guru may have had the most ridiculous debut of them all—at the 2016 Spring Championship, he eliminated Snute and took a 2-0 lead on eventual champion ShoWTimE before being reverse-swept. This is Guru’s first time returning to WCS since that event. Lately, he beat uThermal and Neeb at HomeStory Cup, only to lose to Harstem. Seriously, how do you rank this guy?



#25: PtitDrogo



How did it come to this? Last DreamHack Leipzig, PtitDrogo was a champion. Now he's getting eliminated by PiLiPiLi and looking like a mess. He still gets a fair share of decent online results, but with such painful failures fresh in one's memory, PtitDrogo may be the most motivated out of anyone to get off to a fresh start in 2018.



#24: HeRoMaRinE



The second bannerman of the European Terrans after souL, HeRoMaRinE now stands as one of the most experienced Terran players in the scene. His recent form is quite questionable, featuring big losses to the likes of Harstem, DnS, Stephano and Clem. However, for his semi-final finish in his last WCS event (the 2016 Summer Championship), he earns some leeway.



#23: TLO



Ah, TLO. What a heartbreaking 2017 it was for Team Liquid's captain. Not only did it feature encounter after crushing encounter with Neeb, but it was capped off by a brutal thrashing by Has at Montreal that prevented him from exiting the group stages for the entire year. His form against top players is inconsistent, as it has been forever. Plus, he lost to RotterdaM during the WCS Europe qualifiers, so that has to sting.



#22: TIME



At long last, TIME rules the Chinese scene. Not only did he win GPL, but he also dominated Kung Fu Cup's SuperLeague with 4-0 sweeps over Has, Nice and TooDming. Close matches versus Neeb and a top three placing at WESG (over a largely-trolling Maru) mark TIME as a player to watch out for. However, his prior outings in WCS weren't particularly fruitful, and players from non-Korean Asian regions have historically struggled in WCS, which brings TIME’s rank down a tad.



#21: Zanster



Zanster's surprise trip to the GSL for qualifiers wasn't a success (he lost four Bo3s in a row, all 1-2), which capped off a pretty disappointing few months for him. Really, he's never lived up to his potential since his deep run in Season 3 of WCS 2015. While we've seen plenty of encouraging signs—his confident win over SpeCial in Montreal, actually winning a set vs Snute in November—they've always been undercut by disappointment. Perhaps if we keep our expectations for Zanster grounded, we might end up being surprised.



#20: JonSnow



With the American scene showing a significant resurgence in 2016, JonSnow remained one of the few notable players without a defining run. WCS Montreal provided plenty of opportunity, and he looked genuinely good in a tough group against uThermal and Harstem, but he narrowly lost out of a chance to really make a splash. On top of that, his domestic performances have slipped, featuring many narrowly avoided upsets and no big wins for him either. He gets the nod over Zanster and TLO mainly due to his good games at Montreal.



#19: Namshar



What's with Swedish Zergs and overperforming? Miniraiser may be the more dramatic example from the past, but Namshar’s quietly been building up quite a reputation. His recent wins against TRUE and Elazer at the IEM qualifiers add another notch to his belt. Of course, he just as easily lost to the unheralded Krr during WCS qualifiers. He gets the nod over JonSnow and Zanster due to coincidentally defeating them at Valencia, but it’s not much of a difference between the three.



#18: Bly



Bly, Bly, Bly. The one player you can absolutely never count out at any point. It was at Leipzig 2016 where he made one of his most memorable runs, shocking Hydra and viOLet to make it all the way to the finals. There’s always potential for a similar performance, for one of the most unpredictable strategists in the scene. For one, he beat ShoWTimE and SortOf during qualifiers, and his play at the IEM qualifiers wasn't half bad either. However, since DreamHack Leipzig 2016, he's also only won a single offline series against players who are placed higher than him on this ranking.



#17: SortOf



By this point, the excitement of 'Hey, SortOf is actually pretty good, guys' may have dulled a bit. SortOf didn’t make any huge runs in 2017, but it was clear that the Swedish Zerg had hit a patch legitimately good form. His qualification to Code S this year (despite going 1-6 against Maru) shows that perhaps he can continue that run of form this year. At the end of the day though, results are results: he lost in the group stage of WCS Montreal, went 1-4 in GSL, and went 0-6 in HomeStory Cup.



#16: MaSa



MaSa is another player who can get into good form but never convert it into big results. On paper, he’s the same player he's always been: good domestic results, decent offline results, occasionally forcing Scarlett to work to earn her title of the best Canadian. At the same time, his best result last year was top 16 in WCS, where he lost 2-3 to Kelazhur and 0-3 to Elazer. It will take some match-up or bracket luck to take the next step forward.



#15: Probe



Similar to Cham, Probe has steadily improved over the years and now represents a real threat from a historically weak region. He has a series of respectable runs last year (which put him in the top 16 of WCS), but he’s suffering from questionable form lately (losing to HuT and Has at WESG qualifiers). The difference between Cham and Probe is in consistency, and the fact that Probe lost their head-to-heads at WCS Austin and Cheeseadelphia. It's easy to predict Probe having some entertaining, tight matches against better players, but it's also easy to predict those players ultimately winning.



#14: Harstem



“The Year of Harstem” is a meme that will never die, but it all paid off for Harstem in 2016 when he won a pair of championships in GPL and HomeStory Cup. He didn't do bad at the most recent two HomeStory Cups either, although it wasn’t too surprising that he went 1-12 against WCS Korea visitors ByuN and Impact. 2017’s WCS Montreal looked like an opportunity for him to finally break out in WCS as well, but he was unable to close out his 2-0 lead on Scarlett in the elimination round. He’s found himself right back where he's always been: on the verge of a breakthrough. But hey, he’s done it once—so you never know which tournament (or year) Harstem will finally make his very own.



#13: Cham



One of the most profoundly underrated players of last year, Cham racked up an impressive resume as a breakout player. He beat SpeCial at Copa America, beat Snute in a Bo5 at WCS Jönköping, and looked strong in defeat against Nerchio at WCS Montreal. Of course, it can be hard for an upstart player to keep momentum going, and Cham’s recent form hasn't been great. He got crushed by a combined 0-6 against Kelazhur and SpeCial—his regional rivals—during qualifiers, and lost the Cheesedelphia finals to Neeb pretty badly as well.



#12: DnS



DnS is certainly the star of this ‘off-season.’ Technically, his rise began at WCS Montreal 2017, where he defeated Zanster and SpeCial on his road to the RO16. He continued to pick up steam in the TING Open, where he defeated the likes of Snute, Harstem, Scarlett and Neeb to win the entire online event. Beating any of those players would have been an upset, but DnS took out all of them in one shocking run. He didn't stop there either, going to GSL qualifiers and taking a set off of TY for good measure (he narrowly missed qualification). There’s something to be said about DnS' recent success being related to the design patch, but it's hard to argue against such an exceptional run of form.



#11: ShoWTimE



As the first foreign champion of the revamped WCS system and BlizzCon quarterfinalist, ShoWTimE's 2017 came as an utter shock. Even though his gameplay was okay, his results slipped so drastically one would be forgiven for assuming he played badly as well. However, he's bounced back quite well recently, and he's managed to consistently win over players such as Nerchio and Namshar, so perhaps the consistent champion has returned to form. It'll be tough to believe until he performs offline again, which drags his ranking down when he'd probably be a bit higher off of online form.



#10: Scarlett



Scarlett's GSL endeavors finally paid off this year as she eliminated the reigning BlizzCon champion Rogue to advance to the Ro16. She’s looked great in the WCS qualifiers as well, taking out TRUE and Semper. Looking at her recent form, you get the sense that she may have finally figured out her long-time ZvZ issues, as she's gotten a series of good results in the matchup. So why isn't she higher ranked? She's gone 2-10 against Neeb in the new year, went 0-6 against SpeCial to end 2017, and has played few games against Europe's top tier. Considering that Scarlett topped out in the quarterfinals of WCS last year, it’s fair to start her at #10 in 2018.



#9: Kelazhur



Kelazhur was last year's surprise competitor at the Global Finals, earning his spot with consistently high finishes throughout the year. Though he didn’t actually accomplish much at BlizzCon, it's hard to blame him considering his group. Since then, he hasn't exactly done much of note. He lost to JonSnow and Neeb at the “I Got DQ'd from PyeongChang Invitational,” got 7-1'd by SpeCial in the WCS regional qualifiers, and has only played in a few small online tournaments otherwise. While his current form is a mystery, it would be unfair to rank him any lower given his consistency for all of last year.



#8: uThermal



In 2016, uThermal came upon opportunity after opportunity, and he took advantage of them to win a championship. The success dried up in 2017, as he only made one quarterfinals and ended the year with two back to back group stage exits in WCS. So why is he still so high on the list? In the balancing act between past results and recent form, he deserves to be rewarded for the latter. In the new season, he's performed consistently well in online events, playing close matches with elite players such as Elazer and Serra while dominating those he ‘should’ beat. Considering he's qualified for all three major upcoming tournaments (WESG, WCS, and IEM WC—only Nerchio and Elazer have done the same) it's tough to hold 2017’s disappointment against him.



#7: TRUE



TRUE may silently be the most consistent player in the WCS circuit, an astonishing paradox considering his chaotic playstyle. He made the semifinals three times last year, and lost every time. On one hand, it's a testament to how good of a player he is mechanically to be able to consistently outplay more ‘honest’ players. On the other hand, it's an indictment of how he has hit a wall due to championship contenders catching onto his tricks. He's done little to nothing online either, aside from getting trashed by Scarlett in the WCS qualifiers, and looking inconsistent during IEM qualifiers. He gets the vote of confidence because of the five WCS events he's been to, he's only failed before the semifinals a single time.



#6: Snute



Snute’s WCS curse is real, and every tournament it hurts more than the last. It was bad enough when he ended a great 2015 season with a poor showing at BlizzCon. But since then, he's lost in the finals of two WCS circuit events, and has often played below the level he shows in other competitions. He certainly looked elite at HomeStory Cup XVI, crushing aLive and Impact before losing narrowly to Solar, which shines as the best overall result of his off-season. Snute seems to be a lock to keep contending for WCS circuit championships for the foreseeable future, and his unstoppable work ethic helps keep him at the top of this list.



#5: Nerchio



Where'd Nerchio go? Maybe his trash-talking grew stale, or maybe it’s just become less credible over the years. The player who was once the hottest foreigner on earth has now grown quite cold. It makes me very happy to realize that he's slowly begun warming up, putting together one of the better off-seasons in WCS. 4-kill in Shoutcraft November, getting deep in WESG qualifiers, crushing Snute to qualify for WCS, getting a stupidly hot run through IEM WC qualifiers—he's definitely on fire right now. Even the criticism of him losing back to back to Serral got erased, as he got his vengeance on his path to the IEM World Championships. Expect a real return to form for Nerchio here. Meaning, probably not a championship, but a close call.



#4: SpeCial



It’s none other than the Hero of BlizzCon himself. SpeCial rebounding from a poor WCS Montreal to win against Stats and TY at BlizzCon might've been one of the bigger surprises of the whole year... But to tell you the truth, that would undersell his year as a whole. Not only was he one of the few foreigners who could tangle with Neeb (he was the only foreigner to win a BO5 against Neeb in 2017), but he routinely made deep runs in tournaments. He even had a great series with Stats at GSL vs the World, which might have portended his BlizzCon. SpeCial cruised to an easy qualification to Leipzig, dropping a grand total of one game. It's going to be extremely interesting to see if he can match, or even rise above, the expectations set of him after his BlizzCon upsets. It'd be tough to imagine, but then again, his rival Elazer's done all that and more.



#3: Serral



Serral is growing into the monster he's always been promised to be, and yet seems further away from the promised land than ever. We're seeing Serral at his best. We're seeing him tear apart the WESG qualifier, 5-1 Snute in IEM qualifiers, win 10 straight Bo1s somehow, go on a 14-0 streak in WCS, crush Maru and Creator in IEM WC qualifiers… And we still haven't seen a championship. It's the only thing missing. Serral has the prophecy, hanging over his head for years now, that he'd be one of the best foreigners to come. He has the skill. He has the ladder domination. He has the online domination. The only thing he needs to do now is step up and seize what is rightfully his, to raise that trophy to the sky; and it is the one thing that has consistently eluded him, as evidenced from his brutal loss to Neeb last year. It'd be incredibly easy to claim Serral as the hottest foreigner in the world right now, except for...



#2: Elazer



Elazer is insane. After eliminating Dark at BlizzCon, he went on a scorching run during the 2018 pre-season. He qualified for WESG over ShoWTimE, 5-0'd him again to qualify for IEM PyeongChang, swept through WCS qualifiers without dropping a set, and qualified for IEM WC with a huge win over Stats. He is the only foreigner to get through all four qualifiers, where few have even made three. And unlike contemporaries such as Snute or Nerchio, he doesn't have a bad 2016 weighing him down. Elazer is a champion in prime form, and with so many tournament opportunities the next couple months, he could easily as the best player outside Korea.



#1: Neeb



But, at the end of the day, there's only one person who can sit at the top, and that's Neeb. Sure, he didn't make the Blizzcon playoffs. Sure, he's dropped games to other top players in online competition. And sure, he got embarrassed by DnS in the finals of the TING Open. But he's Neeb. He won three championships last year, including WCS Montreal, which was perhaps the most dominant domestic performance of any foreigner ever. And he only seems to be getting better. So what has he done now? Since his 3-4 loss to Nerchio in the Corsair Cup, he has gone on a 23 series winning streak. He's barely even dropped single games. Just look at the scorelines since: 3-0 JonSnow, 3-0 NoRegreT, 3-0 MaSa, 3-0 Scarlett, 3-0 Bly, 3-1 Scarlett, 4-1 Scarlett, 3-1 MaSa, 4-1 Cham. Have we ever seen a foreigner as dominant over his brethren as Neeb?





WCS Leipzig begins on Friday, Jan 26 3:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) . Tune in at wcs.starcraft2.com to watch Neeb and the best players of the WCS Circuit compete for the first major championship of the year!





As one of the two players with a <50% career win rate to qualify for WCS Leipzig, Yours won his seed from the Oceania region after Seither canceled his participation. His biggest offline upset is a 2-1 over Blysk. Something tells me he won't get particularly far.GogojOey shares the honor of having a <50% career winrate with Yours, but differentiated himself by qualifying for Leipzig without needing another player to forfeit. Joey beat Has 3-2 in his first ever offline event (the Taiwan/Hong Kong/Japan/Macau qualifier) to secure his spot. While he's gotten a couple of alright online upsets in his time (iaguz, Nice), getting 4-0'd by Nice in the qualifier keeps him snugly at the bottom.To call Optimus a rising star may be slightly optimistic, but he certainly took a few steps to finding himself over the course of 2017. He beat Zanster and played Serral competitively at WCS Austin, played well against Harstem and TRUE at Valencia, and beat Snute at the TING Open. Still, his lack of any significant offline upsets (so far) and online inconsistency earn him a low ranking.Cyan's always occupied an odd spot in the Chinese scene, never irrelevant but never a consistent contender either. Recent times haven't been particularly kind to him, as he fell out of GPL Season 4 to TooDming and hasn't exactly seemed dominant online either. We’ll give him some benefit of the doubt: His last Western matchups offline have shown him beating both Kelazhur and Scarlett in tight, extended sets.Even in the Chinese scene, XY is an enigma. Not only has he been around forever, being a staple contender in the scene since 2012, but he's been remarkably consistent the entire way. Yet, he's still never seemed dominant, unlike Jim, XiGua or even TooDming. Part of this has been due to his inability to rise when it comes to journeying west, never making it to a major circuit event since WCS Spring 2016.Rail is almost impossible to predict. This is his absolute first WCS event (though he’s played in many DreamHacks), and he has as many good wins over the past few months as he has poor ones. His two offline events recently saw him beat Reynor, play against Probe decently, and then get 3-0'd by Minato. Who can really say how well Rail will do?Nice is rising, guys. Originally considered a player who was only around due to a fortuitous second seed given to the Taiwan/Hong Kong/Japan/Macau region, Nice has actually started to dominate domestically. Not only that, but his few bouts with players from other regions have seen him go 3-3 against Hurricane in GSL qualifiers as well as play Snute closely in OSC Masters. It's difficult to say if he's anywhere near good enough to play well at a WCS event—his two prior outings featured losses to Arctur, Jig and NoRegreT—but he's certainly been in good form recently. Nice, man.The European scene has been a bloodbath for years, and the current 'mid-tier' of European players might be the most volatile class ever. Lambo showed potential last year, even winning a series against SpeCial at WCS Austin. However, with his disappointing result at WESG (losing to DeMusliM and Majestic) and consistent inconsistency at WCS events, Lambo earns a low spot.If there's one word to use to describe MaNa, ‘resilient’ may be it. Being a long-time veteran means that he's faced plenty of turmoil, but unlike most, he's overcome it quite well, even making a famous WCS finals run. LotV hasn't been kind to MaNa, however. Despite being a solid match for mid-tier players, he's routinely routed by the WCS Circuit’s elite players.'European Terran' may be the most mocked region/race combination in StarCraft (aside from American anything until Neeb came along). The Euro-Terrans might have hit a new low in 2017. With MarineLorD and Bunny effectively leaving the scene and uThermal having a poor year, the future was briefly left in the hands of players such as souL and HeRoMaRinE. It may have worked out for the better. souL had a couple consistent tournaments, beating Cham at Valencia and Probe at Montreal, and now might be the time for a breakout performance.It's been an interesting road back for the Best Foreigner Ever. On one hand, his results haven't been half bad, but on the other hand they fall apart the more they're scrutinized. Sure, he might be playing solidly, but whenever he faces elite competition he's tended to crumble. The best offline upset he's gotten since returning was a 2-0 over Harstem, and it's difficult to rate him highly when he hasn't actively punched above his weight class.Of all the players on this list, Guru may have had the most ridiculous debut of them all—at the 2016 Spring Championship, he eliminated Snute and took a 2-0 lead on eventual champion ShoWTimE before being reverse-swept. This is Guru’s first time returning to WCS since that event. Lately, he beat uThermal and Neeb at HomeStory Cup, only to lose to Harstem. Seriously, how do you rank this guy?How did it come to this? Last DreamHack Leipzig, PtitDrogo was a champion. Now he's getting eliminated by PiLiPiLi and looking like a mess. He still gets a fair share of decent online results, but with such painful failures fresh in one's memory, PtitDrogo may be the most motivated out of anyone to get off to a fresh start in 2018.The second bannerman of the European Terrans after souL, HeRoMaRinE now stands as one of the most experienced Terran players in the scene. His recent form is quite questionable, featuring big losses to the likes of Harstem, DnS, Stephano and Clem. However, for his semi-final finish in his last WCS event (the 2016 Summer Championship), he earns some leeway.Ah, TLO. What a heartbreaking 2017 it was for Team Liquid's captain. Not only did it feature encounter after crushing encounter with Neeb, but it was capped off by a brutal thrashing by Has at Montreal that prevented him from exiting the group stages for the entire year. His form against top players is inconsistent, as it has been forever. Plus, he lost to RotterdaM during the WCS Europe qualifiers, so that has to sting.At long last, TIME rules the Chinese scene. Not only did he win GPL, but he also dominated Kung Fu Cup's SuperLeague with 4-0 sweeps over Has, Nice and TooDming. Close matches versus Neeb and a top three placing at WESG (over a largely-trolling Maru) mark TIME as a player to watch out for. However, his prior outings in WCS weren't particularly fruitful, and players from non-Korean Asian regions have historically struggled in WCS, which brings TIME’s rank down a tad.Zanster's surprise trip to the GSL for qualifiers wasn't a success (he lost four Bo3s in a row, all 1-2), which capped off a pretty disappointing few months for him. Really, he's never lived up to his potential since his deep run in Season 3 of WCS 2015. While we've seen plenty of encouraging signs—his confident win over SpeCial in Montreal, actually winning a set vs Snute in November—they've always been undercut by disappointment. Perhaps if we keep our expectations for Zanster grounded, we might end up being surprised.With the American scene showing a significant resurgence in 2016, JonSnow remained one of the few notable players without a defining run. WCS Montreal provided plenty of opportunity, and he looked genuinely good in a tough group against uThermal and Harstem, but he narrowly lost out of a chance to really make a splash. On top of that, his domestic performances have slipped, featuring many narrowly avoided upsets and no big wins for him either. He gets the nod over Zanster and TLO mainly due to his good games at Montreal.What's with Swedish Zergs and overperforming? Miniraiser may be the more dramatic example from the past, but Namshar’s quietly been building up quite a reputation. His recent wins against TRUE and Elazer at the IEM qualifiers add another notch to his belt. Of course, he just as easily lost to the unheralded Krr during WCS qualifiers. He gets the nod over JonSnow and Zanster due to coincidentally defeating them at Valencia, but it’s not much of a difference between the three.Bly, Bly, Bly. The one player you can absolutely never count out at any point. It was at Leipzig 2016 where he made one of his most memorable runs, shocking Hydra and viOLet to make it all the way to the finals. There’s always potential for a similar performance, for one of the most unpredictable strategists in the scene. For one, he beat ShoWTimE and SortOf during qualifiers, and his play at the IEM qualifiers wasn't half bad either. However, since DreamHack Leipzig 2016, he's also only won a single offline series against players who are placed higher than him on this ranking.By this point, the excitement of 'Hey, SortOf is actually pretty good, guys' may have dulled a bit. SortOf didn’t make any huge runs in 2017, but it was clear that the Swedish Zerg had hit a patch legitimately good form. His qualification to Code S this year (despite going 1-6 against Maru) shows that perhaps he can continue that run of form this year. At the end of the day though, results are results: he lost in the group stage of WCS Montreal, went 1-4 in GSL, and went 0-6 in HomeStory Cup.MaSa is another player who can get into good form but never convert it into big results. On paper, he’s the same player he's always been: good domestic results, decent offline results, occasionally forcing Scarlett to work to earn her title of the best Canadian. At the same time, his best result last year was top 16 in WCS, where he lost 2-3 to Kelazhur and 0-3 to Elazer. It will take some match-up or bracket luck to take the next step forward.Similar to Cham, Probe has steadily improved over the years and now represents a real threat from a historically weak region. He has a series of respectable runs last year (which put him in the top 16 of WCS), but he’s suffering from questionable form lately (losing to HuT and Has at WESG qualifiers). The difference between Cham and Probe is in consistency, and the fact that Probe lost their head-to-heads at WCS Austin and Cheeseadelphia. It's easy to predict Probe having some entertaining, tight matches against better players, but it's also easy to predict those players ultimately winning.“The Year of Harstem” is a meme that will never die, but it all paid off for Harstem in 2016 when he won a pair of championships in GPL and HomeStory Cup. He didn't do bad at the most recent two HomeStory Cups either, although it wasn’t too surprising that he went 1-12 against WCS Korea visitors ByuN and Impact. 2017’s WCS Montreal looked like an opportunity for him to finally break out in WCS as well, but he was unable to close out his 2-0 lead on Scarlett in the elimination round. He’s found himself right back where he's always been: on the verge of a breakthrough. But hey, he’s done it once—so you never know which tournament (or year) Harstem will finally make his very own.One of the most profoundly underrated players of last year, Cham racked up an impressive resume as a breakout player. He beat SpeCial at Copa America, beat Snute in a Bo5 at WCS Jönköping, and looked strong in defeat against Nerchio at WCS Montreal. Of course, it can be hard for an upstart player to keep momentum going, and Cham’s recent form hasn't been great. He got crushed by a combined 0-6 against Kelazhur and SpeCial—his regional rivals—during qualifiers, and lost the Cheesedelphia finals to Neeb pretty badly as well.DnS is certainly the star of this ‘off-season.’ Technically, his rise began at WCS Montreal 2017, where he defeated Zanster and SpeCial on his road to the RO16. He continued to pick up steam in the TING Open, where he defeated the likes of Snute, Harstem, Scarlett and Neeb to win the entire online event. Beating any of those players would have been an upset, but DnS took out all of them in one shocking run. He didn't stop there either, going to GSL qualifiers and taking a set off of TY for good measure (he narrowly missed qualification). There’s something to be said about DnS' recent success being related to the design patch, but it's hard to argue against such an exceptional run of form.As the first foreign champion of the revamped WCS system and BlizzCon quarterfinalist, ShoWTimE's 2017 came as an utter shock. Even though his gameplay was okay, his results slipped so drastically one would be forgiven for assuming he played badly as well. However, he's bounced back quite well recently, and he's managed to consistently win over players such as Nerchio and Namshar, so perhaps the consistent champion has returned to form. It'll be tough to believe until he performs offline again, which drags his ranking down when he'd probably be a bit higher off of online form.Scarlett's GSL endeavors finally paid off this year as she eliminated the reigning BlizzCon champion Rogue to advance to the Ro16. She’s looked great in the WCS qualifiers as well, taking out TRUE and Semper. Looking at her recent form, you get the sense that she may have finally figured out her long-time ZvZ issues, as she's gotten a series of good results in the matchup. So why isn't she higher ranked? She's gone 2-10 against Neeb in the new year, went 0-6 against SpeCial to end 2017, and has played few games against Europe's top tier. Considering that Scarlett topped out in the quarterfinals of WCS last year, it’s fair to start her at #10 in 2018.Kelazhur was last year's surprise competitor at the Global Finals, earning his spot with consistently high finishes throughout the year. Though he didn’t actually accomplish much at BlizzCon, it's hard to blame him considering his group. Since then, he hasn't exactly done much of note. He lost to JonSnow and Neeb at the “I Got DQ'd from PyeongChang Invitational,” got 7-1'd by SpeCial in the WCS regional qualifiers, and has only played in a few small online tournaments otherwise. While his current form is a mystery, it would be unfair to rank him any lower given his consistency for all of last year.In 2016, uThermal came upon opportunity after opportunity, and he took advantage of them to win a championship. The success dried up in 2017, as he only made one quarterfinals and ended the year with two back to back group stage exits in WCS. So why is he still so high on the list? In the balancing act between past results and recent form, he deserves to be rewarded for the latter. In the new season, he's performed consistently well in online events, playing close matches with elite players such as Elazer and Serra while dominating those he ‘should’ beat. Considering he's qualified for all three major upcoming tournaments (WESG, WCS, and IEM WC—only Nerchio and Elazer have done the same) it's tough to hold 2017’s disappointment against him.TRUE may silently be the most consistent player in the WCS circuit, an astonishing paradox considering his chaotic playstyle. He made the semifinals three times last year, and lost every time. On one hand, it's a testament to how good of a player he is mechanically to be able to consistently outplay more ‘honest’ players. On the other hand, it's an indictment of how he has hit a wall due to championship contenders catching onto his tricks. He's done little to nothing online either, aside from getting trashed by Scarlett in the WCS qualifiers, and looking inconsistent during IEM qualifiers. He gets the vote of confidence because of the five WCS events he's been to, he's only failed before the semifinals a single time.Snute’s WCS curse is real, and every tournament it hurts more than the last. It was bad enough when he ended a great 2015 season with a poor showing at BlizzCon. But since then, he's lost in the finals of two WCS circuit events, and has often played below the level he shows in other competitions. He certainly looked elite at HomeStory Cup XVI, crushing aLive and Impact before losing narrowly to Solar, which shines as the best overall result of his off-season. Snute seems to be a lock to keep contending for WCS circuit championships for the foreseeable future, and his unstoppable work ethic helps keep him at the top of this list.Where'd Nerchio go? Maybe his trash-talking grew stale, or maybe it’s just become less credible over the years. The player who was once the hottest foreigner on earth has now grown quite cold. It makes me very happy to realize that he's slowly begun warming up, putting together one of the better off-seasons in WCS. 4-kill in Shoutcraft November, getting deep in WESG qualifiers, crushing Snute to qualify for WCS, getting a stupidly hot run through IEM WC qualifiers—he's definitely on fire right now. Even the criticism of him losing back to back to Serral got erased, as he got his vengeance on his path to the IEM World Championships. Expect a real return to form for Nerchio here. Meaning, probably not a championship, but a close call.It’s none other than the Hero of BlizzCon himself. SpeCial rebounding from a poor WCS Montreal to win against Stats and TY at BlizzCon might've been one of the bigger surprises of the whole year... But to tell you the truth, that would undersell his year as a whole. Not only was he one of the few foreigners who could tangle with Neeb (he was the only foreigner to win a BO5 against Neeb in 2017), but he routinely made deep runs in tournaments. He even had a great series with Stats at GSL vs the World, which might have portended his BlizzCon. SpeCial cruised to an easy qualification to Leipzig, dropping a grand total of one game. It's going to be extremely interesting to see if he can match, or even rise above, the expectations set of him after his BlizzCon upsets. It'd be tough to imagine, but then again, his rival Elazer's done all that and more.Serral is growing into the monster he's always been promised to be, and yet seems further away from the promised land than ever. We're seeing Serral at his best. We're seeing him tear apart the WESG qualifier, 5-1 Snute in IEM qualifiers, win 10 straight Bo1s somehow, go on a 14-0 streak in WCS, crush Maru and Creator in IEM WC qualifiers… And we still haven't seen a championship. It's the only thing missing. Serral has the prophecy, hanging over his head for years now, that he'd be one of the best foreigners to come. He has the skill. He has the ladder domination. He has the online domination. The only thing he needs to do now is step up and seize what is rightfully his, to raise that trophy to the sky; and it is the one thing that has consistently eluded him, as evidenced from his brutal loss to Neeb last year. It'd be incredibly easy to claim Serral as the hottest foreigner in the world right now, except for...Elazer is insane. After eliminating Dark at BlizzCon, he went on a scorching run during the 2018 pre-season. He qualified for WESG over ShoWTimE, 5-0'd him again to qualify for IEM PyeongChang, swept through WCS qualifiers without dropping a set, and qualified for IEM WC with a huge win over Stats. He is the only foreigner to get through all four qualifiers, where few have even made three. And unlike contemporaries such as Snute or Nerchio, he doesn't have a bad 2016 weighing him down. Elazer is a champion in prime form, and with so many tournament opportunities the next couple months, he could easily as the best player outside Korea.But, at the end of the day, there's only one person who can sit at the top, and that's Neeb. Sure, he didn't make the Blizzcon playoffs. Sure, he's dropped games to other top players in online competition. And sure, he got embarrassed by DnS in the finals of the TING Open. But he's Neeb. He won three championships last year, including WCS Montreal, which was perhaps the most dominant domestic performance of any foreigner ever. And he only seems to be getting better. So what has he done now? Since his 3-4 loss to Nerchio in the Corsair Cup, he has gone on a 23 series winning streak. He's barely even dropped single games. Just look at the scorelines since: 3-0 JonSnow, 3-0 NoRegreT, 3-0 MaSa, 3-0 Scarlett, 3-0 Bly, 3-1 Scarlett, 4-1 Scarlett, 3-1 MaSa, 4-1 Cham. Have we ever seen a foreigner as dominant over his brethren as Neeb?

Credits and Acknowledgements



Writer: Soularion

Editors: Wax, Hexhaven, Hushfield

Photo: Robert Paul

Digital art: Writer: SoularionEditors: Wax, Hexhaven, HushfieldPhoto: Robert PaulDigital art: Hushfield