Group D

Last Terran standing … again! MMA is the only Terran to remain inside the World Championship Series Europe with ForGG getting eliminated last night by Nerchio. This is the last group of the Ro16 before we have our players set for the Quarter Finals which get played out next weekend.

Starbuck is the youngest player that we have in the World Championship Series coming in at only 16 has really started to make a name for himself over the last few months with his 2-0 over Grubby and 2-1 over Lucifron in the ro32, how can he perform tonight? He enters a group with the regining champion of the WCS EU, MothertruckingMMA and a scary Russian, Titan. This is going to be good a one.

MMA

Finally, I am super excited for MMAs games tonight, after so long down in the dumps we have a player who has reached two semi finals over the last couple of months! I managed to catch him briefly last night and the first question I asked is how is he feeling and his how is his condition, he smiled at me and said great, hes feeling really good.

Remember that not only is this important for MMA in his search for a win but he is VERY close to being in the top 16 seeding for Blizzcon, a win tonight helps his cause, if he finds another Season Finals here… then he could be going back to a beautiful place, an arena full of happy memories of his glorious 4-1 victory over Mvp.

His first game of the night is against Starbuck, who has displayed his ability to use weird aggressive strategies for some fast wins and as we remember the ro32, the last game from the Lucifron vs Starbuck series, he showed us he can play the game long, fighting up until he gets 3/3 upgrades and Ultralisks. The big problem with Starbuck is his experience, basically, he has none. MMA will clearly know Starbuck is going to be aiming for a cheap win somewhere in their series, Team Acer have a good setup with Cella helping out the players with giving information on their opponents and I am sure MMA will be playing very defensively tonight to start things off.

If MMA doesn’t advance tonight ?!?!?! ………………………. ???

Titan

An interesting story for Titan, if you didn’t watch the ro32, in the winners interview we had with him he said something along these lines:

“If I didn’t qualify for the the ro16 I was going to take a step back from playing StarCraft, play it as a hobby rather than my job”

This is MASSIVE!! I 100% understand the reasoning behind it for Titan as well. For a long time, before WCS even went live with Season 1, Titan was practicing 10hours a day, going to the gym, eating good and working his ASS off to be one of the best. In Season 1 he failed to advance from the Ro32 and this is obviously very demoralizing when you are working very hard. In Season 2, when he advanced from the ro32, in the winners interview then, he was so happy, that his hard work had paid off and he got the chance to play in Cologne for the ro16. He almost advanced into the ro8 if it wasn’t for just one mistake against MC losing him the final map of the series going 1-2 and being eliminated. So coming into Season 3 and failing in the ro32… Makes sense now?

He enters this group with a very difficult task to advance, playing against Duckdeok in his first game of the evening, a player who won his championship in WCS on PvP games pretty much. Though Duckdeok has since became a little bit predictable in his play style, Naniwa was able to finally understand how to beat him and showed that in the Season 2 finals. Has Titan prepared in a similar manner? Has Duckdeok changed up since the last time we saw him?

Titan vs MMA is going to be very difficult of course, I am not sure about his game against Starbuck if they were to meet, Starbuck is a terror against Protoss but I question his performance due to lack of experience playing offline. Good luck Comrade.

Duckdeok

If history was to repeat itself, the reigning champion is meant to lose tonight, as our first champion Mvp was eliminated by my co-caster this evening, Grubby, in the ro16.

We haven’t seen any activity from Duckdeok outside of the WCS, his last offline games were in the Season 2 Finals over a month ago. He did however beat up on TLO in the ro32, once again only just advancing out of his group to make it to where he shined last season.

His first game tonight will be against Titan, I feel this game can go anyway, even though Duckdeok probably is the stronger player, he has been more exposed than Titan, lots of information on how duckdeok likes to play PvP will give Titan help and even up the series. Lets say Duckdeok loses vs Titan and has to play MMA or Starbuck and if Starbuck can perform and deliver with his very strong ZvP… there is a chance that we do lose our reigning champion, what a scary thought.

As a champion there is no room to bath in ones glory as you are the one wearing the target.

Starbuck

Well well well, congratulations Starbuck on making it into the Premier league. Fantastic performances in the ro32 beating Grubby and winning the rematch vs Lucifron, he gained a lot of fans over the last few weeks and is in a position to win even more tonight if the Slovenian dream comes true.

I have to mention it again, coming into this tournament at only 16 years old, he will go FACE TO FACE with a StarCraft legend, MMA. I hope he approaches this group like StarTale Life would, not give a $£%!. Most of us reading this have all been 16 years old, at this point in your life you simply don’t need to worry about things an older person would, making a living, finding a girlfriend, work etc.etc. Hopefully all that is going through Starbucks head is pink unicorns, rainbows and how to play SC2.

He will face up first tonight against MMA, a player who will try to make Starbuck dizzy with drops, move him out of position and simply out play him. I think we are all expecting something crazy coming out from Starbuck, but what is it? Roach baneling allin? Speed roach, speed baneling? Normal games? What is it?? That’s the big question coming in tonight’s game against MMA.

Against Protoss, he said he is confident to face anybody and is eager to play that matchup, so lets hope he delivers!

A difficult night for the youngster but this is where heroes and legends begin, this could be your time.