WCA day two ends: The top four is set with Rdu, Gaara, LiBo and Tiddler

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14:46 CET - The top four is set with Rdu, Gaara, LiBo and Tiddler

As the quarter final dust settles, WCA 2014 becomes a China versus Europe semi final affair.

Although coming off of a strong showing against HuLu in the Ro16, Ekop fails to continue the momentum into the top four. Playing LiBo's Shaman results in a speedy 3-0 loss as the Chinese repeatedly stumbles upon the exact draws he needs to finish off the Cloud 9 player.

In the second quarter final match, another 3-0 was scoreboarded as Gaara tramples Darkwonyx with the power of Priest. Game one is a lengthy Priest mirror - technically won by Gaara a few turns before it actually ends - which finishes just before Kripparrian's stream dies for several minutes. As it comes back online, Darkwonyx has summoned his control Paladin to counter the Priest but that plan too fails as Gaara overwhelms the board. Down to his final deck, the Swede puts his faith in the Shaman - already a bad match-up for him - only to see the Priest out-healing his pressure and stealing his [card]Al'Akir the Windlord[/card] for an extra puch at the finish line.

In one of the unstreamed series, the all-Chinese faceoffs between TiddlerCelestial and KowFox results in a win for the former, who adds another respectable finish to his list of achievements after winning his BlizzCon CN bracket in August. In the other, it was worldwide #1 player Rdu adding even more points to his account as he 3-2's Kitkatz, breaking the 1,280 ranking mark as the first player to do so.

11:49 CET - Rdu pummels through Comm to be the first into the top 8

#1 GosuRanking player Rdu continues his streak of tournament wins. After topping Deck Wars S2 finals last month, the Romanian prodigy secures at least a top 8 finish in the $190,000 WCA tournament after blanking Comm in the Ro16.

The series opens with a Druid mirror in which Rdu is behind for almost the entire game. Comm's hand is enormous and Rdu's resources are exhausted, him being down to just a [card]Savage Roar[/card] in hand and no board. This is where luck comes to save the youngster - a [card]Force of Nature[/card] draw off the top giftwrapped the first game for Rdu, who would've been dead the next turn.

The next two games end up much more one-sided affairs. Game two has Comm on control Warrior trying to catch-up with Rdu's [card]Wild Growth[/card] opener. Slow on drawing the much needed [card]Execute[/card]s, the Chinese struggles to deal with Druids threat which come one after the next and the game is now at 2-0.

Game three snowballs equally fast. Comm's Shaman loses control of the board early on and is pressured into the read in a matter of few turns. Despite having a full hand of cards, there's no combination allowing Comm to deal with nature's infestation and Rdu advances with a flawless 3-0.

09:15 CET - Comm's [card]Bloodlust[/card] overruns Island

Comm opens with a very strong Druid play against Island's Rogue and disposes of it fairly easily forsing his opponent into his Hunter deck. The earlier turns of the second game also gointo Island's favor until Island drops a [card]Cult Master[/card] and trades his minions for a clean board and quite a few cards. Comm heals himself up with [card]Ancient of Lore[/card] to mitigate the incoming pressure somewhat but Island already has [card]Eaglehorn Bow[/card] and [card]Leeroy Jenkins[/card] to give him an exact lethal for exact mana.

Game three had Comm on Shaman against the Shaman of Island. The Shaman gets a powerful start with [card]Earth Shock[/card] and [card]Flametongue Totem[/card] and Hunter's board is cleaned up. Just as Island starts to re-develop it, a crippling [card]Lightning Storm[/card] wipes it again. A [card]Bloodlust[/card] and [card]Winfury[/card] combination are the explosive finish of the game, propelling the former SC2 pro to a 2-0 score in his group.

08:28 CET - Tiddler, HunterMing to playoffs as more results come in

ThatsAdmirable 2-1 Hyped
Tiddler 2-0 Monk
Forsen 2-1 HuLu
Kungen 2-1 Reynad
HunterMing 2-0 Ek0p
LiBo 2-1 Lothar

Additionally, LiBo and IceFox from Group A played likely the fastest series of the tournament as LiBo's Zoo ended the enemy Priest and Mage in under ten turns in total.

06:12 CET - Rdu flawless in Group G

On the Chinese main stage stream, Rdu takes on Amaz with Priest against a control Paladin with [card]Onyxia[/card]. Despite being in a bad late-game match, Rdu does fairly well and keeps the Paladin board clean, dealing with every thread and silencing Amaz’s [card]Sylvanas Windrunner[/card] before she can swing the board. Amaz’s resources are eventually exhausted and he’s forced to drop the [card]Onyxia[/card] against Rdu’s massive hand. What follows is a [card]Holy Nova[/card] into full board clear and Rdu is way ahead. Amaz’s last hope is [card]Tirion Fordring[/card] but the Paladin legend gets Faceless’d and silenced and Rdu comfortably pushes for lethal next turn.

Rdu is happy to see a Hunter coming out of Amaz in game two. By T6, Amaz is already out of gas in his hand and if that’s not enough, a [card]Cabal Shadow Priest[/card] comes to steal his Leokk. More board clearing comes from the Priest and even though the curious choice of [card]Gladiators Longbow[/card] buys Amaz some time, his turns are counted.

05:40 CET - Reynad with narrow win vs HunterMing, keeps his chances

Reynad decides to give his aggro Rogue another try and faces HunterMing's Handlock. Getting a favorable match-up and a good starting hand allows the Tempo Storm captain to push for a lot of damage early on and get HunterMing down to 12 but the Chinese still holds a number of taunters that can stall out the Rogue. For an unknown reason, however, HunterMing passes on dropping a [card]Sludge Belcher[/card] and leaves his door wide open to a [card]Leeroy Jenkins[/card] charge to the face, giftwrapping the game for Reynad.

Game two starts very poorly for reynad, drawing two [card]Arcane Golem[/card]s, a [card]Sap[/card] and [card]Eviscerate[/card] against HunterMing's Mage and thus having no good early game plays. On T8, the Mage still has more than half of his health and an overwhelming board so Reynad just concedes.

The blind pick format has Reynad now playing Warlock against HunterMing's Mage in a match-up into Jaina's favor. Perfect decision making comes from the American, however, carefully playing around Mage's secrets, flooding his hands with useless [card]Duplicate[/card]d [card]Anchient Watcher[/card]s. Still, the Warlock eventually drops down very close to [card]Fireball[/card] range and HunterMing does whatever he can to stall for just one more turn. A void attempt as a yolo Life Tap gives Reynad the victory Leeroy.

05:10 CET - Rdu escapes the Group of Death

More results incoming from the off-stream games:

Rdu 2-1 StrifeCro
TidesofTime 2-0 Amaz
YouLove 2-1 Noxious
Massan 2-0 Blue (Having already secured his playoffs spot, Blue conceded to Massan in order to keep his other decks secret)

04:45 CET - Savjz keeps his tournament life against Alchemixt

Depite being considered heavily favored against Handlock, Miracle suffers another loss to Warlock as Alchemixt brings it out against Savjz. Continuing with the hard-counters, Alchemixt takes out his Hunter and really puts the pressure on. By T6, Savjz is down to 13 with no sign of [card]Molten Giant[/card]s. Even though he eventually stumbles into one, coming back from a single digit live on T8 against Alchemixt's 20.

It's a Priest for Savjz against Alchemixt's Hunter in game three. The American gets great draws, finding both his [card]Savannah Highmane[/card]s before Savjz gets his [card]Shadow Word: Death[/card]s and the Liquid players is forced to deal with Hunter's beats by trading into them. Getting both Death's after just right after the Highmanes are disposed of gives Savjz two dead draws and his life total is threatened by a sizable Hunter board but a [card]Holy Nova[/card] comes just in time to wipe it clean and prevent next turn lethal. With 1-1 in series, Savjz is still in the run.

04:40 CET - Noxious beats Gaara in WCA upset + more results

Due to the stacked schedule, a lot of games were played on stream, their results disclosed by Kripparrian in a reddit thread:

Blue 2-0 DongZong
Gnimsh 2-0 Massan
Noxious 2-1 Gaara
Kitkats 2-0 YouLove
Rdu 2-0 TidesofTime
Amaz 2-1 StrifeCro
Comm 2-1 MagicWind
Blue 2-1 Gnimsh

04:10 CET - [card]Malygos[/card] eliminates Massan

Massan opens handlock against DongZhong's Druid and shuts down the Chinese very quickly. Argus'd up [card]Ancient Watcher[/card] and [card]Twilight Drake[/card] create an impassable mid-game wall protecting TSM's player's life. After DongZhong finally manages to clear the way, a [card]Molten Giant[/card] is immediately dropped and taunted up, checkmating the Druid there and then.

DongZhong goes on Miracle Rogue for the second game which seems like a good match-up for Massan at first. The Chinese starts going aggressively for the face which allows the Korean to drop two [card]Molten Giant[/card]s and clear the board with [card]Shadowflame[/card] on T7. A move that actually costs Massan the game - not healing up invites DongZhonn to play [card]Blade Flurry[/card] into double [card]Eviscerate[/card] for 11 damage and exact lethal.

It's a Miracle vs Priest in game three and DongZhong is pretty lucky, getting a [card]Gadgetzan Auctioneer[/card] and a large number of spells to cycle through. Eventually, the Chinese finds his [card]Malygos[/card], two [card]Sinister Strike[/card]s and [card]Preparation[/card] for a 16 damage burst and the same situation from game two repeats: not expecting the Dragon, Massan decides not to heal up and receives exact lethal. This being his second loss in the tournament after the 0-2 to Gnimsh, Massan is now out.

03:10 CET - Darkwonyx starts day 2 with a win for the west

Ailv opens with a weird deck against Darkwonyx, running an old-shool freeze Mage with [card]Ancient Mage[/card] in it. Ailv stalls for many turns in a row preparing for a big [card]Alexstrasza[/card] into spell burst but Darkwonyx's board grows so huge she's forced to burn some of her direct damage on minions to stay alive. Not drawing a single [card]Ice Block[/card] costs here the game nevertheless and Darkwonyx takes the lead.

Ailv takes out a control Warrior for game two but once again faces a gigantic board from Darkwonyx. A couple of [card]Power Word: Shield[/card] keep Swede's minions sage and Ailv is forced to [card]Brawl[/card] which leaves a beefy 6/7 [card]Loatheb[/card] alive. Two turns later, the game is over.

Author

Radoslav "Nydra" Kolev