The American and Asia-Pacific quaifiers have finished, meaning that the full lineup for the WESG global final next month has been decided.
At the start of November, Blizzcon put an end to WCS in a thrilling event as the world’s top 16 WCS players met in California to battle for a $200,000 first place prize. However, that wasn’t the end of ridiculous prize pools in Starcraft this year, as the WESG Global Finals in December boasts a huge $402,000 shared between those who can prove they’re some of the best in the world.
WESG, Alibaba’s first foray into esports, hopes to find the best players in the world and bring them to Shanghai for a LAN event that is set to be one of the biggest tournaments in China, if not the world in 2016.
The format is a bit different to the WCS/IEM global events where rather than just a regional qualifier, WESG first had its participants qualify by country, selecting one or two ‘national champion(s)’ who would then fight to make it through the regional qualification event. This would leave the top 24 in the global finals not as just players from the game’s biggest scenes but as a the best players from many different countries. The result of this slightly different structure is a combination of talent and diversity.
This weekend, the last of the five regional events, the Asia-Pacific qualifier concluded, giving our players a few more weeks of practice before flying off for this absolutely huge tournament.
Asia-Pacific Qualifier
The 16 hopefuls, who had won their regional preliminaries, battled for just 6 spots to China and going into the event everyone was hoping to avoid the two Korean representatives, TY and Maru. As expected, the two demolished their competition, with no-one being able to take a map from TY all tournament, while Maru was only defeated by TY himself in the event’s finals.
While there are several high profile players from Korea and Taiwan in the event, there was also a chance for countries with smaller scenes to showcase their skills on the big stage. Players like DetonatioN gaming’s PSiArc from Japan and Mongolia’s Sioras put on a good display, making it out of the groups and showing that they could compete with some of Asia’s best.
However, it wasn’t quite enough to reach the top 6 and the remaining places were filled as follows:
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TY (def. Maru 3-0 in the finals)
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Jin Air Greenwings Maru
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Invictus Gaming XY
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Rex (Taiwan)
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Invictus Gaming Jim
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PsiStorm PiLiPiLi
Americas Qualifier
The American event in late October saw 11 players from North and South America hoping to claim one of six places, with fierce battles in the final stages as players fought for the highest place finish they possible.
The 6 players moving on from the American Qualifier are:
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Team Expert Scarlett (def. MajOr 4-3)
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Invasion eSports MajOr
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Ting Neeb
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ROOTGaming Kelazhur
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ROOTGaming Cham
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TryAgain EriK
So at last, after several months and an extremely thorough selection process, the representatives of each region have revealed themselves, and will meet in Shanghai in December to play for their share of the collosal prize pool and the knowledge that they beat the best in the world.
Joining the players from America and Asia-Pacific are those selected from the Africa-Middle East, Chinese and Europe-CIS qualifiers.
Africa-Middle East
Drager
Meltdown Stephano
Zerghamdi
China
Invictus Gaming iAsonu
Europe-CIS
Euronics Nerchio
True eSports Elazer
MyInsanity Beastyqt
DeadPixels Namshar
Millennium Marinelord
Invasion eSports Harstem
Millennium ShoWTimE
The event will be streamed in English and Russian by Starladder and is available for viewing here. The date and time for the global finals is still to be determined so stay tuned for an update with more information about this huge event.
