All of the Chinese players have been eliminated and the Ferrari dream is dead. It's now down to Kolento and Hawkeye to split the spoils.
It's been an even competition thus far in Hangzhou, China. Four Chinese and four European players made it through the Ro16, which was also the dead of some of the tournament favorites. Europe has to say goodbye to Thijs "ThijsNL" Molendijk who's still having trouble repairing his results in the last weeks. China, on the other hand, lost their Gold Series winner Lovelychook, one of country's most promising rising stars.
Both regions remained equal after the quarter finals as well. Aleksandr "Kolento" Malsh and Apostolos "Hawkeye" Karaikos delivered for Europe while SleepyShaman and Wang "TiddlerCelestial" Xieyu stood tall for China. Despite the balance of power, however, the hosts weren't in the position they probably expected to be - they were the stronger team on paper and they had that extra Ferrari incentive.
Two jittering semi finals were the death knell for China. In five games, Kolento ousted SleepyShaman, getting godly draws on his Druid against Sleepy's face Hunter. The moment the double [card]Druid of the Claw[/card] landed for Kolento, the Chinese knew he was out.
The second semi final was equally nerve-wrecking. TiddlerCelestial had switched from his quirky mage to a more standard Mech build but that only lost him the first two games. Tiddler managed to finally sneak out a win in game three and retire his underperfoming Mage and pulled out a Paladin in a tight race against Hawkeye's face Hunter. Both players down to their final points of life, it all came down to Tiddler's [card]Knife Juggler[/card] plus [/card]Muster for Battle[/card] juggles. Tiddler missed by one and that was the end of China.
Between themselves, Hawkeye and Kolento will split more than $34,000 as they make sure Europe stays undefeated against China.
Front page photo: Adela Sznajder / DreamHack
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