Art by: Blizzard Esports
Sixteen of the finest StarCraft players in the world are battling it out for a chance to play in the main event of the WCS 2016 Global Finals taking place at BlizzCon on the 4th and 5th of November.
Though sixteen contenders entered the groupstage this weekend only eight will get the chance to compete for the world championship at the Anaheim Convention Center next week. The competition began on Thursday, where scarcely anyone was surprised to witness Dark and Stats win their matches against PtitDrogo and Snute respectively. Group B saw Neeb take down Patience in a nail biting PvP, whilst Zest beat TRUE, who, despite being a Korean player, secured his spot in the WCS Global Finals through the WCS Circuit, rather than WCS Korea, in a 2:1 PvZ victory. The day ended after PtitDrogo dismantled Snute with a 2:1 score and Patience defeated his countryman TRUE in quick 2:0 fashion.
Day two left the community rather confounded, as the first match of the day proved to be an upset of the biggest proportions. Contrary to all predictions Dear was unable to keep up with ShoWTimE, who beat the Korean favourite with a 2:0 score. The group proceeded without further delay with ByuN dispatching viOLet in convincing fashion and then the latter losing to the Protoss GSL champion in the loser's match.
The highly anticipated Group D, dubbed the 'group of death' by many, commenced with TY barely managing to take down Nerchio 2:1 and the up-and-coming Zerg Elazer defeating the 5 time premier champion Solar, sending him straight to the loser's match. The Korean failed to beat Nerchio in the same matchup. The foreign player opened the series with an aggressive build that was based around dealing damage to the economy of Solar, thus putting Nerchio in the lead. The former Samsung Galaxy player's fate was sealed in game three on Galactic Process, where he was outpositioned by the ESG representative on multiple occasions. Poland is now guaranteed to have one competitor in the round of eight.
The groupstage will resume today at 5:30pm CEST with the winner's matches of each group, and conclude tomorrow, when the final eight of the tournament is determined.
