Hi and welcome to the very first Power Rankings of StarCraft2 players in the so-called Southeastern Europe! Before we start with the content, let me introduce this new series of articles and bring you some background as to why the heck am I writing this. If for some reason you don’t care for explanation and would just like to do some StarCraft2 reading, be my guest and jump to the Power Rankings section you can find below. Otherwise, continue to tag along, but whatever the case, enjoy your read!

Introduction

It all began with an idea of ex-Yugoslavian Power Rankings for my blog page, but what started off as a top10 list of players from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Slovenia, soon turned out to be a power rankings of the whole ‘Southeastern’ part of Europe. So, the countries that I will include in this monthly series of Power Rankings are: Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and all of the ex-Yugoslavian nations (with a focus on Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, which are at least the most active ones). First off, before you go all nuts and start asking questions, let me explain that there is not a single league or tournament, online or offline, that is connecting ALL and ONLY these countries, and that there is nothing in common to all countries that are taken in the consideration for the rankings – some are Slavic, others are not, while some are on the Balkan, whether Hungary is not even in South or East Europe by any of the multiple definitions that we know of. There are just three similarities: the climate (more or less), flora (phytochorion) and the fact that none of them is recognized as a force among the general StarCraft2 public. Sure, Romania has NightEnD, and there are a few other notable names that come to our mind, but no more than just a handful. As those countries, their tournaments and especially players don’t receive a lot of the international spotlight, I chose to start this Power Rankings to give them what they deserve, and to bring a bit of a unique and different content to the StarCraft2 fans from all over the World. With that in mind, the mentioned countries seemed proper to consider, and so here you have it – the very first Southeastern Europe Power Rankings!

The Power Rankings

The power rankings are based on the recent performance of eligible players on all tournaments and with a focus on local or national events in each of the considered countries. The bigger and more competitive the tournament is, the more impact it has on the rankings. Just to start with and to show respect to notable players, the first ever power rankings for this region are going to be effected by older results and achievements, but in the future, the most important things for players to stay among the very best of the region will be competitiveness, achievements and readiness to play on international and local tournaments.

DISCLAIMER: this is a bias ranking, based solely on the author’s opinion, and it does not reflect the true relations and match-ups’ between the ranked players.

10. Dénes ‘Breach’ Orosz

Recognized as the most successful and best StarCraft2 player ever from Hungary, Breach has to be hungry for the upcoming tournaments to start so that he can regain the recognition that he lost in the finals of the last Hungarian online cup, against WordiX early in September, and with SteelSeries Arena Season 3, Hungarian Pro League and MondoCon Live Invitational #7 on his calendar for October, he will soon have a chance to do so. In October, it is his SteelSeries Arena S3 Ro32 group (A) that is going to be a true test for the Hungarian Terran, as he looks to advance to the next stage for the third time in a row. With Pajack from Slovenia, Giantt from Bulgaria and a well known Polish Zerg Tefel in the same group, he will have to prepare and play as good as he possibly can, but he at least shouldn’t have a lot of problems against the Slovenian Zerg Pajack in the first round. All in all, he could rise a few spots if he goes far at SteelSeries Arena, while he has to win one or both national tournaments if he wishes to stay among the 10 best players in this region.

9. Andrei ‘DeathAngel’ Nodea

Showing up for 2013 DreamHack Bucharest in his home country is a no-brainer, but other than that, he was not participating on any of the tournaments in September that I could find. Anyhow, he managed to advance to the Group Stage #2 at DreamHack with an ease due to no shows, but got knocked out of the tournament by Oz, Ret and HuK. He also dropped a map against stakimaN from Bulgaria in the first group stage, which indicates that he is somewhat not the same DeathAngel he used to be: in-form and deadly Zerg who once stood toe-to-toe with NightEnD and even outed him on occasions. Either he has to start playing some SC2, or I have to do a better research of the Romanian community – but the truth is probably somewhere in between the two facts and I sure would like to see him compete at weekly, monthly (ESL, Zotac) and seasonal events (WCS Qualifiers) to be able to place him accordingly. 9th spot may be an understatement for the second best player in the history of Romania, but you have to play to be seen.

8. Tomislav ‘CheeseKing’ Matić

The youngest Grandmaster from Croatia was finally looking to shake off the inconsistency that plagued him in the past, and while it looked good in the beginning, he eventually lost the title of the best Croatian player in the dying days of the month. He started off September with a second place on Tech-lab.si SC2 Cup, losing only to his teammate Starbuck. Meanwhile, he secured an important victory over Creed in a decisive team match of the group stage on RaidCall ESL Euro Series Summer 2013 against RoX.KIS, but was unable to help his team when they played fnatic in the quarter finals of the same tournament, where Naama got the better out of the Croatian Protoss. He also tried his best at the first WCS qualifiers and made it to the Ro64, but lost to elfi and was knocked out of the competition. Then came KSET E-Sports LAN 3 and instead of living up to the hype of being the favorite, he lost prematurely in the semi finals to frozz and ended up with a 3rd place decider, which is still to be scheduled and played. Nonetheless, he made up for underachieving with his SteelSeries Arena Season 3 group play, where he lost against CRODeny to begin the night, but fought back in style and advanced through wins against Zanster and CRODeny in the deciding match. The inconsistency still seems to keep CheeseKing from reaching his full potential, who is either playing really well and winning a bunch of respected and known players, or dropping maps against the likes of Targma and sPlico and losing to the Croatian Terran duo of frozz and CRODeny.

7. Roko ‘frozz’ Marinković

Coming back from inactivity is usually a longer process than one might think, especially on the high level, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for the Croatian Terran. frozz was one of the most active players in the region during the last month or so, as he attended countless online tournament, including weekly and monthly events as well as WCS CL qualifiers. He did lose both of his team league games in September with a score of 1 to 2, first against LiveZerg from RoX.KIS, then to NightEnD in the quarter finals of the RaidCall ESL Euro Series, and he looked shaky on SteelSeries Arena as well, just narrowly defeating Deumos from Slovenia after losing to Monty to clinching that second place in his group to advance. But when it came to playing offline at KSET E-Sports LAN 3, he outplayed a somewhat nervous CheeseKing and ended up with a second place. And let’s not forget on that third place at Tech-lab.si SC2 Cup that took place in the early September, where he did lose against sPlico, but got back at him in the decisive third place decider after losing the semi finals to Starbuck. In the upcoming months, it could go either way for the Croatian fan favorite, yet if he stays as active as he is, there is no real threat of him falling out of the power rankings.

6. Aleksandar ‘Beastyqt’ Krstić

The most known Serbian player officially retired from StarCraft2 and allegedly switched to League of Legends, and he did forfeit his games on SteelSeries Arena Season 3. But he didn’t earn his place so high up on the list just because of his past achievements or recognition, he did it after winning the Semi Pro tournament by beating RiSK (aka GenjiTakiya) in the finals, therefore ending his SC2 career with a 1st place finish (sounds nice). Beastyqt is also a first representative from this region on WCS Europe: Premier League, as he made it there in the Season 2. But as long as he remains retired, he will be dropping of the rankings as the next month comes and goes.

5. Dimov ‘BateToshko’ Todor

The ‘other Bulgarian Zerg’ is really active and showing good results as of late, almost making it to the WCS Europe Season 3 Challenger League, only to be denied by elfi in the Round of 16 after beating the likes of NeOAnGeL, DarkHydra and DieStar on the way. Attending DreamHack in Bucharest showed us he is serious with competing, but losing to Revenge, ToD, Ryung and HyuN was somewhat expected. He would have been placed higher in the rankings if not for the recent Bulgarian LAN On! Fest 2013, where Giantt defeated him when it mattered the most in a close best-of-five series. Now, with Vorpal Bulgar Challenge scheduled from 19th to 20th of October in Sofia, he will look to qualify via two open brackets that are taking place a week before the main event, and considering his current form, he should make it out of the Bulgarian-only competition. The rest (his placement at the event, and his power ranking) is up to him, but his most logical and doable goal should be beating Giantt to take the name of the Bulgarian champion.

4. Matija ‘Ptak‘ Vragović

The Croatian Brood War legend Ptak waited a long time for a chance to finally show who is the boss in Croatia, and after some loses on local online tournaments, he just had to do it on KSET E-Sports LAN 3 with all the top players from Croatia in attendance. He succeeded to do so without dropping a single map, sweeping frozz in the finals with a convincing 3 against 0 to claim the Croatian crown. Bottom line is that we all know Ptak has what it takes to win, and he has been doing it for a long time, yet we don’t see him competing on the international level at all. Any player that is as experienced as he is knows that you have to put a lot of effort to be really good, so maybe it’s not worth it for him, as he just looks to be the best in Croatia and nothing more. We sure would love to see him play on the larger scale, especially now after he showed us that he still has something left in the tank, and as long as he remains active in his own community, he should have a place on this rankings.

3. Danail ‘Giantt‘ Lazov

Giantt is one of those players that doesn’t compete on the international tournaments as much as one would hope, but much like Ptak he looks to win everything on the local scene. He did so at On! Fest 2013, where he got past BateToshko, who is really performing good as of late, and EtherNaL in the finals to claim the first place. Now, he will be looking to win the Vorpal Bulgar Challenge, which is going to be a quite exciting and competitive tournament with elfi and Dayshi among the invited participants and ToD casting the event. However, he also qualified for the SteelSeries Arena Season 3 through the international qualifiers, where he faced and won against the likes of CRODeny and Thorminator, but he will have to advance to second group stage if he wants to stay this high on the power rankings, and with Tefel, Breach and Pajack in his way, he should be able to make it with only Tefel being more favored.

2. Matic ‘Starbuck‘ Dejak

Starbuck is the youngest player in the rankings and the Slovenian Ace (or Coffee Zerg) just got back from Cologne, where he played with the big boys on the big stage, so the 2nd place should not really surprise anyone. His Ro16 on WCS Europe Premier League is the farthest anyone in this region of Europe came since Blizzard took over the WCS, and he was doing well on other tournaments as well. He kept things ticking for Team MiA on RaidCall ESL Euro Series, beating the likes of SjoW, TITAN and Nerchio, and played a vital role in their journey to the quarter finals, where MiA was knocked out by fnatic. In the beginning of September, he also won the Tech-lab.si Cup, where he faced and won against the Croatian duo of frozz and CheeseKing. While he looked like a rookie and got outplayed in that Round of 16 of WCS Europe: Premier League by MMA and TITAN (big stage too big?), he at least got to play on LAN with the 16 very best players in the most prestige tournament in Europe. The upcoming days will tell us where the youngster from Slovenia really stands, as he tries to get back to Premier League. He will also participate on SteelSeries Arena in group H with GrayWarden, Rivaille and Bunny, and it nothing goes wrong, he should make it to the next round. The expectations are high from his fans, and if he can regain the momentum of being the ‘Korean killer’, his future looks bright. We all know how he won against Genius in two very unconventional games and how he outplayed Grubby and LucifroN, but we also saw him crumble to the forces of MMA and TITAN. It’s up to him to show us what he is really capable of, and if he gets a hold on this professional gaming thingy, his trip back to the Premier League is not far ahead – it could go either way. We will soon find out.

1. Silviu ‘NightEnD‘ Lazar

The Romanian Protoss is the most recognized and successful professional player from the Southeastern Europe, at least for now with Beastyqt retiring and others lacking the consistency of results in the past few years. NightEnD was one of the most productive players in September, who qualified for the WCS Challenger League after defeating CatZ, KnowMe, MLorD and VINES to get the spot. He had to play Kas in the Challenger League Round of 40 and squeezed in a shaky 2 to 1 victory, but proceeded to losing versus San in the next round (spoiler, happened in October!). Regardless, he will continue to look for his place in Premier League through the Ro32 group stage, and that might be enough to keep him on the 1st spot in the rankings. On DreamHack Bucharest, he was unable to get past 2nd group stage with MMA and Snute is his way. He received an invite for Fragbite Masters, where he was grouped with San, TargA and Kas, beating the Zerg from Norway twice to advance, after losing to the Korean Protoss in a winners’ match. Now he’ll have to deal with HasuObs, uThermal and Nerchio in the second group stage, starting off with a mirror match-up against Hasu. Last but not least, he won an important match for fnatic in teamleague RaidCall EES against frozz when their teams met, helping fnatic reaching the semi-finals. Much will depend on his results at WCS Challenger League and Fragbite Masters, but he looks to be in a good shape.

What to keep an eye on?

A lot is scheduled to happen in the month of October, and it’s not only the WCS with Starbuck and NightEnD fighting for that first place on the power rankings, it’s really much more than that. We’ll see the first group stage of SteelSeries Arena Season 3 unfold, where we’ll be able to watch quite a few players from this region competing and trying to advance. National tournaments are planned as well, like the Vorpal Bulgar Challenge in Bulgaria, MondoCon Live Invitational #7 and Hungarian Pro League in Hungary, Slovenian Gaming League in Slovenia, and Fragbite Masters with NightEnD. Add all the ESL Go4SC2 and Zotac cups in the mix and what we have is an interesting and exciting October before us.

Who to keep an eye on?

There are a few names that could make it to the rankings next month, and the first ones in the line are WordiX from Hungary, MetHiX from Bulgaria, Darkthorn and GaZe from Romania, GrayWarden and ParadoxX from Serbia, VonComet from Slovenia, Deny from Croatia, and RobbyG from Romania/Hungary/UK, whatever suits you best. All of them will have a chance at the local tournaments, and anyone could pull off a surprise and pop up on the radar. There are other players as well, like EtherNaL, who is focusing on his studies, but could get right back in the top10 if he does continue to play and compete.

If you are willing to help me improve this series of monthly power rankings, than please write me an email to treachtv@gmail.com (all links to various tournaments are more than welcome)!

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