DreamHack Winter 2012 is coming closer and that means the finals of the StarCraft II tournament are coming closer too. This time the tournament will have 24 competitors, qualified through the points they have earned in previous Eizo Open visits. The 20 players that qualified are:





EG.ThorZaIN Liquid’TLO TSL.Polt Quantic.SaSe Mouz.MaNa Quantic.TheSTC mTw.DIMAGA aTn.Socke Liquid`Taeja Liquid`Ret Mill.ForGG Liquid`HerO Acer.Nerchio NaNiwa Acer.Bly roxkis.Fraer EG.Stephano MVP.Monster TargA WW.StarNaN

The last four players will qualify by winning the last minute BYOC tournament at DreamHack Winter.

The favorites

Since there are so many fantastic players at this tournament, we will only highlight a few.

EG.ThorzaIN is our first player. ThorzaIN was the first foreign Terran to win a major tournament (DreamHack Stockholm) in eleven months. Although this is a very impressive achievement, ThorzaIN hasn’t won anything after his DreamHack victory, making it hard to predict what he has in store for DreamHack Winter.

Mouz.MaNa is an interesting player as well, as he won DreamHack Summer and then departed for Korea. MaNa participated in the GSL up/down matches, where he impressively made it to GSL code S. He immediately fell down to code A, where he got kicked out by FXOasd. After his time in Korea, MaNa also participated in DreamHack Bucharest where he finished as a semi finalist. The Polish Protoss certainly has the quality to go a long way in DreamHack Winter 2012.

Liquid`Taeja is one of the best players on the planet, and a clear favorite for this tournament. The last half year Taeja won the 2012 MLG Summer Arena, ASUS ROG 2012 and DreamHack Valencia while reaching the semi finals in the MLG Summer Championship and GSL Season 4. Taeja will most likely reach at least the semi finals, but StarCraft is a game full of surprises.

EG.Stephano is generally considered to be the best foreigner. He has been practicing in Korea for some weeks now and is looking for another big tournament win under his belt. Last Summer he made it to the semi finals at DreamHack Summer 2012 while he finished as a quarter finalist at DreamHack Valencia. Stephano also won the NASL S3 and the WCS European finals, making him a serious contender for the DreamHack Winter 2012 title.

Liquid`Ret might not be a clear favorite for this tournament, but he still is one of the best foreign Zergs out there. Ret reached the semi finals of DreamHack Stockholm, finished second in the WCS Netherlands and placed fourth in the NASL S3. We might look slightly biased to list Ret in the favorites section, but that’s because he is a favorite for us, as most of the Dutch DreamHack visitors come via Intel Pack4DreamHack.

The Packers

LLL.PoYo is one of those players where you don’t know what to expect. The BYOC tournament will start on the first day of DreamHack and PoYo will probably be tired because of the long bus trip. However, PoYo performed really well in the DreamHack Winter 2011 BYOC’s, where he finished second and third. This doesn’t mean he will do good here, but it certainly gives him the BYOC experience.

mCon.NEEK is one of the lesser known players in the scene. Being a Protoss in team Mouse Control, NEEK supported his former teammate Harstem at DreamHack Summer, where Harstem made his breakthrough performance. NEEK improved a lot since his last DreamHack and he is ready to prove that Harstem wasn’t the only Protoss talent that Mouse Control had to offer.

AT.Giant is another relatively unknown player in the StarCraft scene. Giant participated in the Dutch ESWC qualifier where he managed to beat Patjuh but then fell to Harstem. Giant is eager to show his skills to the world and DreamHack Winter is the perfect method for doing just that.

The finale of the Eizo Open promises to be one of the best Esports events of the year. We are looking forward to it, and so are our Packers.