After a day of playoffs action, the World Cyber Games find their first StarCraft 2 grand finalist. Come tomorrow Korea will face China in a Bo3 series to find out if the legacy from BroodWar would be continued or the flawless so far Xigua can break the ten-year win streak.
Europe, China and South Korea. Those were the regions whose representatives managed to make it to the quarter finals. The host country saw all its three players qualify for the next round although not without some turmoils along the way. Moonglade managed to take the first game out from MarineKing and the Korean was in danger of falling out of the tournament but he succeeded in swinging back and snatch a 2-1 victory in the end.
Mvp faced Chinese protoss MacSed in the Ro16 and then Bling in the quarter finals but both were 2-1 victories with the Korean even dropping the first set to BlinG in their match. Regardless, the heavy favorite to win the whole tournament survived the initial matches and made it to the very end.
SuperNova was the only one to walk out with a 2-0 in the Ro16, defeating German terran Goody in the first match. The oGs player then suffered a backslap by Titan in the quarter final and with a 0-2 loss to Titan his tournament life was over.
As expected, Mvp will fight for the WCG gold come tomorrow
Photo by: Fomos.kr
The Round of 16 also followed the short life of the Canada vs Eastern Europe storyline. HuK, who topped his group 6-0 the previous day, suffered defeat at the hands of Kas. The Ukrainian himself, who started with a very shaky performance in day one, jumping over the group stage after a three way tie-breaker, unleashed his inner beast, sweeping MarineKing 2-0 after having dealt with the EG's protoss. Kas would eventually lose to grand finalist Mvp 0-2, despite playing on par with the Korean in the second game and proving to be a harder nut to shatter than Mvp might have expected.
Kiwikaki, who also did not have the easiest group stage experience, had to say goodbye to WCG after being destroyed by Titan. The Russian protoss remains one of the bigger surprises of WCG, coming out of a killer group with players like Killer, Idra and Orly.
No matter how one spins it around, however, the absolute star of World Cyber Games 2011 bears the name Xigua. The Chinese zerg remains the only player still undefeated in the tournament, graduating 6-0 from a group that hosted Happy, Welmu and Kas and making three 2-0s in a row in the playoffs against Snute, fellow Chinese zerg F91 and finally Titan. Xigua's run was nothing short of excellent and the big question currently circling the community is can the Chinese dethrone South Korea and break its win streak by crushing Mvp in the grand final.
As far as results go, Xigua is currently the best contender in the tournament
Photo source: Fnatic.com
| WCG 2011 playoff results | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Round of 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  MarineKing | 2-1 |   Moonglade | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Kas | 2-1 |   Huk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mvp | 2-1 |  MacSed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 BlinG | 2-1 |  Killer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Xigua | 2-0 |  Snute | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Darkforce | 1-2 | F91 Titan2-1 | Kiwikaki Supernova2-0 | GoodyQuarter Finals | Kas2-0 | Marineking Mvp2-1 | BlinG F910-2] | Xigua Titan2-0 | Supernova Semi Finals | Mvp2-0 | Kas Xigua2-0 | Titan | ||||||||||||||||||||
The bronze final is an all-European one with Kas going against Titan. The Ukrainian is 7-and-3 in his last vP games but Titan's overall run does not exclude the possibility of a bronze medal for Russia at all. The answers to all will come tomorrow, at 06:00 CET when the final two matches of the World Cyber Games 2011 are scheduled to begin.
