Today the WCS Europen Premier League Season 1 continues into day 2 of the round 16. We looked at Group A yesterday, now lets take a closer look into Group B, which I feel is the closest group of all 4.





Ro16 of WCS Europe Premier League Group B:

Vortix - Team Karont3



Happy - Team Empire



BabyKnight - Natus Vincere



NaNiwa - The Alliance



The Group Matchups

Vortix vs. Happy

BabyKnight vs. NaNiwa





Vortix - Today is the real test and challenge, succeed or fail.

Juan Moreno Durán, one of two Durán brothers, he is only 19 years old which makes him the 2nd youngest competitor in the European Premier League. He also is only playing part time as next to this, he has school commitments, even having to ask for a reschedule of his ro32 matches because of exams. Despite his age, he managed to have a fantastic 2012, being a WCS European Finalist and grabbing a spectacular top 8 finish at the Battlenet World Championship.

There were many people crediting his results to the era of Zerg dominance towards the end of Wings of Liberty and so far in Heart of the Swarm, we have yet to seen what he is truly capable of. I would as far to say, he had one of the easier runs into the ro16 by taking wins from Monchi and Dayshi. Today, the challenge in on.





Happy - Online king, offline choker?

Dmitry Kostin, a former highly successful WC3 player who made a swift and easy switch into StarCraft. He has an incredible string of results when he plays in online tournaments, he is one of the best performers there!! Though every single time he competes offline he very rarely performs up to that standard and simply put, he chokes. He has a large weakness that could hold him back today, which I feel his oppositions will want to take advantage of and pile the pressure on.

He has a major tendency to fall into a robotic trap of repeating his strategies over and over which can easily be exploited, the chink in his armour can be found here today. This is another tournament where he comes in as a possible favourite due to his monstrous persona within online scene, will he live up to the legacy he has built himself?





NaNiwa - Overall tournament favourite?

Johan Lucchesi, with his recent high, top 2 finish at DreamHack Stockholm Open, he is coming into this as arguably the best Non-Korean world wide. He has had his ups and downs throughout his career, from back to back round of 8 finishes in GSL Code S, the hardest StarCraft league, to breaking down in almost tears when dropping out of unexpectedly low finishes at international tournaments. Through thick and thin, NaNiwa is one of hardest workers, one of the most dedicated StarCraft professionals the world has seen. Nothing other than winning is acceptable. Coming into this group as the clear favourite today, its time to shine and continue to bring in those big results to impress and claim throne to the best non-Korean StarCraft player.





BabyKnight - A star in the making?

Jon Anderson advanced through the round of 32, he was placed in one of the hardest groups with Krass, Stephano and Grubby and very surprisingly he advanced through in first place. Today he has to fight again in a difficult group, starting up against the King in the North, Naniwa, if he is able to conquer three European legends in a row, he makes a very a good argument for advancing and winning the entire tournament.

Though remember he didn’t just land in this position today, he has been single handedly been putting Denmark on the map when it comes to StarCraft. Funnily enough, BabyKnight made his name through the World Championship series last year qualifying for the Battlenet World Championship finals all the way from the Denmark nationals! He career kept on rising as he started travelling to international events, increasing his popularity. Today is going to be hard, what other way could it be?