Were you not entertained?

The grand competition of Europe is over. The most motley and possibly the best StarCraft continent on the planet crowned its champion, a curly entity with happy-go-lucky demeanor. And if winning a tournament was something uncharacteristic of Stephano that could've been the story of the weekend but as it was there were a plenty of other people that stole the show.

The blue and yellow of defeat

Just like the WCG, a WCS continental is as much about personalities as it is about country flags. Not only does one expect Thorzain to do well, one expects Sweden to do well.

Oddly, the Vikings of StarCraft did not successfully raid the Europe continentals as predicted, and part of the reason might very well lie in their own national finals. If examined from the fun and dangerously ironic side of things, WCS Sweden ended up being a sort of an auto-goal for the northerners and, although it was a fair and square trial, it’s safe to say that this was not the ideal line-up that arguably the best SC country on the continent would’ve wanted.

Apart from Thorzain who managed to win the nationals and dissipate the talks of the curse at least for a little while, the Swedish line-up frankly came out as unconvincing. Mostly playing the role of a weekly cup king, Seiplo severely lacked big tournament experience if one does not count Copenhagen Games and SortOf, albeit inarguably good, was getting the results of the typical up-and-comer: just enough to get people talking but never to the point of being considered an actual threat.

With just one player in the top 16 (said up-and-comer himself), it is safe to say that the Swedish line-up lacked a Naniwa or a Sase and although this is by no means to say that thing would’ve been different, it does sound like a trio more likely to weave a story different that this one.

Bottom line, this roster was not the one Sweden needed.

Fools, you only made him angrier!

Speaking of Nerchio, his adventures were no less entertaining. After losing to SortOf in the very first round, Poland’s finest took the elevator down to the lower bracket bound to compete away from the spotlights of the main stream.

So what does a zerg champion do when he’s down on the ground? Not readily accepting death, that’s for sure. Instead, Nerchio goes on a tear and 2-0’s Noticimus, Thorzain, DeMuslim and Bly. As I was writing this paragraph Saturday evening, I was almost certain that it would end with “and this is how Nerchio became champion”.

That was shortly before his dramatic loss to Grubby (who inked an entire ode of his own) and the falling to the consolation match. The ravaging beast was once again lying defeated, barely crawling to the very last spot for China and very unreminiscent of the player that raided HSC V and IEM Gamescom.


In a hereby untold story, Grubby ended both Nerchio and Ret - a feat
so awesome it sucks the color out of this photo

Triumph of the little man

It is not this writer’s intention to be rude or anything but nobody – and I mean nobody - gave a damn about Lowely prior to this WCS. Even Lowely himself acknowledged that, saying on stream that most people probably don’t even know what and where Belarus is. Even WCS's host mispronounced the name of the country, bringing all this to a cute level of hilarity (or maybe I am just easily amused, we'll never know).

To be fair towards to the community, there were good reasons for the FXO zerg to be unknown. He did well in NASL 3’s group stage at first but once he failed to make the playoffs he disappeared off the radar. Winning WCS Combined Europe did not help because, well, it is a tournament that features countries with progaming populations in the single digits.

That was the old Lowely, however. The new Lowely does it all different. He beats JonnyREcco and Thorzain, chugs down three more wins in the lower bracket, finishes fourth in all Europe and banks $1,800 after a weekend’s work.


Lowely chilling on the couch with a smile after a busy weekend of being boss
Are you not entertained?

Is this not why you watched WCS?

We know for a fact that you were. If one Spaniard can entertain millions of people than surely two Spaniards playing StarCraft against enemy hordes and each other are surely able to please 60,000 or so nerds. ”Panem et circenses” is what eSports crowds want and the Duran brothers came along to deliver.

Lucifron’s and Vortix’s stories are worthy a chapter of their own, considering the duo was essentially comprised of a long forgotten Wings of Liberty beta star and an up-and-comer who needed to prove that IEM Gamescom was not a lucky break. What makes it cool was not that they won a lot, however, but rather the way they did it.

For Lucifron, WCS was the battlefield on which he could come out of his little brother’s shadow and prove to the world that there’s one other terran in Europe that can actually play that game well and in an attractive manner. As the hours went by, Lucifron got more and more fans and by Sunday he did not even have to kill 100+ drones in every game to make people scream in exultation.

Vortix, on the other hand, had some difficulties topping his IEM run until he made it to the finals. If that was not an achievement by itself, Vortix made sure he’s the only one to take a series off of Stephano, take a revenge for his brother and himself and push the final into a second Bo3. By that time it didn’t matter anymore that he lost.



Yet all this would’ve been incomplete without the wicked twist of fate, turning man against his brother. Royal-roaders, triumphant underdogs or slump-breakers are all fun eSports scenarios but a brotherly showdown at the end of the mile beats they anywhere, any day.

Europe and its many faces

Fortunately, nothing is over yet as all those storylines are soon to flow into the grandest of finals.

With two zerg powerhouses of tried and tested quality, two brothers that are keen on beating the odds, one legendary eSports figure, one darkest of underdogs, one Dota pro gone SC2, a vessel of furor teutonicus and one Russian (...), Europe already assembled its Whedon-y gang of characters.

In November, they go on trial against the armies of the rest of the world.