Reality the only KeSPA player to survive the WCS Korea preliminaries

Over 250 players from every pro-team in South Korea gathered yesterday to play the preliminaries for the WCS South Korea nationals.

As the first tournament to openly pit KeSPA and GSL players in large numbers as well as being the most anticipated WCS national tournament thanks to the high density of StarCraft talents, WCS Korea writes stories of its own even in the preliminary round.

Players came by the hundreds to fight for the 16 qualifier seeds and knowing that only the winner of each preliminary bracket will earn a spot at the national finals. Although the KeSPA players suffered defeat almost all over the board, the GSL teams gave notable casualties of their own as many renowned players and even champions will not be making it to the finals.

With only the top ten in GSL ranking getting direct seeds into the next stage and with the season 3 having just a couple of matches before completion, for many of the GSL champions and team aces the preliminaries were the only chance to make it to the Ro32. Yet very few of them survived the harsh competition.

Notable GSL drop-outs
Jjakji (1-2 in Ro8 to Light)
Bomber (1-2 in Ro8 to Dear)
MMA (1-2 in Ro8 to Inori)
MarineKing (1-2 in Ro8 to Horror)
Byun (0-2 in Ro16 to Terious)

San (0-2 in Ro4 to YuGiOh)
Inori (1-2 in Ro4 to Dreamertt)
Ace (0-2 in Ro4 to TheBest)
YongHwa (0-2 in Ro8 to Leenock)
Killer (0-2 in Ro4 to Avenge)
JYP (0-2 in Ro4 to Tree)

July (1-2 in Ro16 to Crane)
NesTea (0-2 in Ro8 to Snow)
Zenio (0-2 in Ro16 to 박근일)
Moon (0-2 in Ro8 to Coca)

KeSPA players also did not have it light with them getting only six direct seeds (criteria most likely based on excellent performance in the SK Planet Proleague) and their current heavy hybrid training schedule. Although many of them made it as far as the semi-finals (or even the bracket final), Samsung KHAN's Reality was the only one to prevail over a GSL player.

Notable KeSPA drop-outs
Light (1-2 in Ro4 to Hack)
Leta (0-2 in Ro16 to Dear)
Flash (1-2 in Ro4 to Sniper)
Sea (1-2 in Ro16 to Life)
SkyHigh (0-2 in Ro4 to Heart)
Baby (1-2 in Ro16 to Sound)
Fantasy (0-2 in Ro8 to Pet)

Jangbi (1-2 in Ro4 to Dear)
Movie (0-2 in Ro8 to Bogus)
Bisu (0-2 in Ro16 to Moon)
Stork (1-2 in Ro4 to Ragnarok)

ZerO (0-2 in Ro4 to Tassadar)
Hoejja (1-2 in Ro8 to Harrier)

With the preliminaries over and all direct seeds handed out, WCS Korea nationals have its full player list:



The tournament itself starts on August 6th and will run for three weeks until August 25th.