Photo: Netease
The two powerhouses have been neck and neck in the rankings for months and a battle between them will open the StarLadder playoff phase tomorrow.
At press time, Cong “StrifeCro” Shu and James “Firebat” Kostesich stand as the best, most consistent players in North America. Their GosuRanks are mere one point apart, virtually indistinguishable. That will change tomorrow, as the final stage of StarLadder’s kick-off season begins.
On paper, the Cloud 9 player has the advantage, having beaten Firebat in five of their last eight encounters, the most recent one being a 3-0 at the HouseCup #3 playoffs, but the advantage stops there. Even though StrifeCro had a great May, both him and Firebat are coming off of a slow June. With StarLadder not ending until July, they won’t be able to wrap up the month with a championship.
Although the NA rivalry is one of the highlights of the quarter finals, other matches too attract attention. On July 1st, Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy meets Jon “Orange” Westberg in a clash of European titans. On the same day, Aleksandr “Kolento” Malsh and Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk will face each other for the ninth time since summer of last year.
The latter is also a particularly interesting match-up. Up until DreamHack Winter, Kolento seemed to have ThijsNL’s number but things took a turn-around with the coming of the new year. In their last four meetings, ThijsNL has come out on top four times. While none of those games were at a particularly high level tournament and mostly taken during Kolento’s low-form periods, it’s one sick streak for the Dutchman against the reigning Challengestone champion.
The games being tomorrow, June 30th, at 17:00 CEST.
More on Follow @GosuGamersHS
