Photo: Tuomas Siitonen
The east has been trying to conquer the west for quite some time now. Yesterday, they finally did it.
Usually, cross-scene competition is associated with China taking on whoever they can find. The country has been trying to win a tournament against the west since the earliest days of Hearthstone but has been coming short almost every time, WCA 2014 one of the notable exceptions. On Monday, Korea decided to copy a page out of that book and challenge four of Europe’s and NA’s best players in a team death match.
This isn’t technically the first time Korea takes on “the world”. In the spring of 2014, the $15,000 OGN Invitational had players like Savjz, Trump and Artosis go against former StarCraft pro players Yellow, GoRush, Gerrard and Grrrr but with the underdeveloped Korean scene at the time, few could argue that was a high-level tournament. This latest OGN Special Match, however, was different.
The four representatives of South Korea were chosen from the recently concluded OGN Korea Masters, a 16-man tournament with more than $24,000 prize pool where Han Seul “Seulsiho” Jung, Hyun Soo “Flurry” Cho, Jin Hyo “LookSam” Kim and “Palmblad” came out victorious. The western quartet on the other hand consisted of Janne “Savjz” Mikkonen, Jon “Orange” Westberg, Cong “StrifeCro” Shu and Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy, established champions all.
The format consisted of three rounds of team play. The first four matches of the so called “Survivor Round” were pre-set, after which the winners of each team would play each other until every player on the opposing team got eliminated. Orange and Savjz were the stars of the international line-up as they picked up a losing 0-2 score and turned it around into an eventual 4-3 .
The rules changed in the second round into winner-stays-on. Savjz was chosen to go first for the world and got a good 2-0 lead for his team. Then, Looksam happened. The bronze finalist from the OGN Masters single-handedly eliminated the Finn and then the entire line-up of the west, tying the overall score between the rosters 1-1.
That meant one thing: time for the dangerous and volatile final match where all games were a Bo1.
Savjz started well in that one too, winning three in a row for the west after Orange’s defeat in the opening match, but Korea was not ready to fall. Although Looksam was already eliminated, Korea had another player capable of a reverse 3-0. Korea masters runner-up Palmblad dominated Savjz, Lifecoach and StrifeCro, putting the final score to 2-1 in Korea’s favor.
The Koreans will split the $12,000 first place prize to get $3,000 each. The western players will earn $1,000 less per person.
More on Follow @GosuGamersHS
