Xixo, Crane, Orange and Gaara are among the tournament favorites.
20 players enter, only eight will leave. This weekend, prepare for the WESG Europe LAN qualifiers in Kyiv which will determine each continent’s contingent which will travel to Shanghai, China and challenge the rest of the world for the $300,000 pot.
It’s been a long period of qualifiers in Europe, spanning across the entire September. With single elimination brackets as the format and with limited spots available for each country, it meant go big or go home. The ruthless competition left many of Europe’s finest players out of the running but a few made it through.
Sebastian “Xixo” Bentert is easily the most favored person to take the lion’s share of the $17,000 available for the Kyiv qualifiers. The German has been on fire the whole year, easily the most consistent player of 2016, and succeeded where his main rival and compatriot Jan “SuperJJ” Janssen failed to make it to the Ukraine capitol. Right beside him in terms of renown is former Archon and new Alliance star Jon “Orange” Westberg who’s been searching for a tournament win since the ASUS ROG Anniversary Tournament in January.
Of course, the list doesn’t end there. Complexity duo Simon “Crane” Raunholst and Mateusz “Loyan” Roszkowski will once again compete shoulder to shoulder after they stormed the HCT European Championship in the Spring. Clawing his way into recovery is also Petar “Gaara” Stevanovic, hungry to prove himself at a major LAN after missing Truesilver Championship 3 due to visa issues.
A trio of casters will bring the entertainment to the English audience: Marcin “Gnimsh” Filipowicz and Jakub “Lothar” Szygulski – who most recently partnered for PGL Bucharest will join forces with Jan “Ekop” Palys on StarLadder’s main stream.
The group stage will take place on October 6-7, starting at 09:00 CEST each day. Full coverage including schedule, standings and news is available in our event coverage hub.
