In comes the last Global Challenge for the sixth season of Intel Extreme Masters. Players, casters and fans all stream towards sunny Sao Paulo in Brazil as $21,000 and seeds to the World Championship in Hannover are put on the line.
By old IEM tradition, there shall be some StarCraft 2 days to remember by tournament's end on Saturday. The magic of eSports competition is always different at those ESL events as Carmac & Co are persistent in maintaining a diverse player pool that
Step back, chill, relax. Your friendly neighbourhood Nydra is here to lead you through and out of this vortex of insane eSports awesomeness. But first, let's gaze upon the groups themselves for a while.
| IEM Sao Paulo Groups | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D | |||||||||||||||||||||
 DarkForce |  DeMuslim |  Bigs |  Dakkon | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Supernova |  Feast | Violet |  Ret | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Illusion | Tunico | Potiguar |  Slivko | |||||||||||||||||||||
 KiLLer | Xlord | ReaL |  Snute | |||||||||||||||||||||
Ready? Good. Let's move on.
When the Sao Paulo groups were first announced a few days ago, oGsSupernova was the only Korean invite hailing directly from the Mecca of StarCraft. As it's the case with any Korean-trained player, he was automatically nominated as the best candidate for the Brazilian gold. Although still lacking a major win, Supernova is one of the most consistent Code S participants back in his homeland, recently finishing first in his GSL 2012 group, consisting of MC, Leenock and ForGG. The Korean terran also enjoys a very positive TvX statistics, having numbers close to or at 60% in all match-ups.
During the group stage, the Korean shall be challenged by one of Germany's strongest players DarkForce; American 15 y/o terran sensation Illusion; and top three IEM New York finisher KiLLer. True, on paper, no one should be able to defeat Supernova and, in fact, dropping but one game will be a bit of a surprise for me. There are many solid reasons why people bet big on Supernova to make it to the fop eight and, very possibly, much further: each one of his opponents have had very shaky performances, in spite of the long careers of some of them. DarkForce and Killer have been around for a decent amount of time but, sadly, have accomplished close to nothing should you not count the occasional ZOTACs, Go4SC2s and whatnot. Ironically enough, Supernova's biggest threat is the young Illusion, who in a recent interview shared that he is not as scared of Supernova as he is of DarkForce.
A cocky statement, definitely, and I would be surprised if Illusion trumps a Korean that had survived the once terran-dominated GSL on multiple occasions. Thus, overall, the battle in the group will be most ferocious for the second place where the young terran has strong chances as he comes in full of confidence after his well played ONOG Invitational run. Yet, there is still the major factor that Illusion is still new to the big stage and in a situation like this, the tournament experience of Killer and DarkForce might prove decisive.
In the recent history of StarCraft 2, Feast is probably the only player that rose from being completely unknown to a topic lingering on everyone's tongue in such a short time. People started mentioning him in interviews and even MMA, who did not have the easiest times against Feast in Ukraine, personally praised him, saying that he could be a really good player if he practices hard. The Belgian protoss is making the next step of his brilliant IEM record as, after an astounding run at Kiev, he is once again on IEM grounds, ready to prove that he was not a one-hit wonder.
To his luck, the competition in Group B looks a bit stale, the only real threat for the protoss being EG's Demuslim. However, it is no secret that the once mighty Brit has been having a hard time and has not had a steady win streak in any match-up for ages. Funnily enough, over time DeMuslim has grown into the complete opposite of the group title I wrote above. Had his opponents not been Xlord - who is still on a very irregular practice schedule, and Tunico - who currently only holds the title of local eSports hero, the EG terran would be toast.
Oh, by the way, let me revise this last sentence. If the long months of following IEM have thought me anything it's that you should never count out local superheroes. EVER!
At the beginning of the article I wrote that Supernova was hailing in as the only Korean invite. This is no mistake, don't mind the Korean flags in front of ReaL and Violet, who by the way are so favored to crush this group that it makes my job incredibly easy and this section of the preview incredibly short.
Violet soon moved out of Korea as he left his former team MVP and joined the European powerhouse of Team Empire. Did this hinder his play, you might wonder. Well, not at all, I say to you with full confidence. Violet has since successfully fought for his new team's dominating position, crushing faces at the team leagues and also having personal success at the HomeStory Cup IV, finishing fourth and leaving players such as MarineKing, Real and Dimaga trailing behind.
While on the subject of ReaL, the Korean protoss is also Western-bound, competing for the German-base team Type. Although also relatively unpopular prior to HomeStory Cup, ReaL left a strong vibe on the scene, finishing first during the initial group stage with a perfect 6-0 in a group that consisted of Attero, Dimaga and Adel. His deeper run into the tournament only built up his resume further and now ReaL enters Sao Paulo knowing that he can easily defeat the best that the Western world has to offer. Potiguar and Bigs should be pieces of cake but I fear he is bound to fall to Violet. After all, the latter enjoys a 75% ZvP win rate, which is plain ridiculous.
Are you bold enough to predict Group D? Are you that ballsy indeed? Because if you are, I dare you take in from me and try to guess how the six ZvZs are going to develop.
Logic points to Ret being the obvious group winner and deservedly so. No one else in the group has more tournament experience than the Dutch and is still in the top three of Zerg players outside of Korea, no matter what the majority of the community has to say.
The second place in the group will be as tricky as a zerg mirror (pun very much intended). Slivko has a rich experience in fighting zergs in weekly cup finals and even beat Snute at the last IMBAlonian Star Cup, yet the Norwegian zerg is always full of surprises and utilizes some very quirky play, even in ZvZ. It will be very, very close competition, believe you me.
What for Dakkon? Well, the Brazilian has the one advantage that he will most likely be researched very little. If he has some secret techs or ingenious cheeses, now is the time to bring them on as I fear that when it comes to standard solid play, all of the other three will have the experience advantage.
We are in for a very interesting IEM, as per usual. The tournament favorites are sketched out and so are the underdogs. The competition starts in a few minutes with groups A and B and, if I am to give personal opinion, I would say that at the end of the day Supernova, Killer, Feast and Demuslim shall be the first to qualify for the playoffs.
But then again, IEM never goes according to plan. Remember Feast. Remember Gatored.
Remember to never underestimate the homefield player. EVER!
