In the wake of WCS Europe Ro16, the league of the old continent is facing a problem their American colleagues are painfully familiar with – the growing number of Koreans. Although subtle to the point of imperceptibility, the inflation is a fact, stealing more and more precious Ro16 spots each season. Three were the Koreans in Season 1 growing to four in Season 2 and now a total of six of them are to play this week for a shot at the playoffs.
Additionally, the second group stage of Europe’s Season 3 has another problem as the Europeans that are left are not exactly the names one recalls when thinking of European StarCraft. Players like Naniwa, TLO, Lucifron, Grubby and HasuObs met their death in the Ro32 and left – with a couple of exception - a colorful mob of underdogs, nonames, semi-pros and owners of fluctuating careers. Although all of them pulled some hard punches and shocked out not one or two notable favorites to get here, the foreign viewership has all the right to be worried, especially considering who will be representing South Korea in the Ro16.
Small consolation is that at least two Europeans will reach the playoffs and this is where Group A comes to the forefront (scheduled for today at 18:00 CET), along with one particular player that poses special interest, namely Empire’s Happy.
To put it lightly, Happy is a strange bird, his specialty being the bizarrely-sounding somewhat deep tournament runsTM. Boasting top eight finishes – as much as you can boast with that, of course – at 2012 WCS Europe, 2013 WCS Europe S1 and 2012 Assembly Summer, Happy has quietly become a player one should actually follow, despite being one lacking any significant achievement. Able to channel strong performance when he feels like it, Happy is a player who can become a threat to anyone (and that’s only half of an exaggeration) and was personally responsible for the elimination of many a bright European player throughout the three seasons of WCS Europe. On a good day he will go 4-0 in a group of duckdeok, TLO and SaSe (or, even more impressive, BabyKnight, Vortix and Naniwa) and will look like the foreigner with the best chances of success.
Here is where Happy’s curse comes to stop any further advancement. Known for his struggles in scoring higher than top eight in premier tournaments, the Russian Terran definitely has troubles to solve. Group A of the current WCS Europe is a good place to start as the pairing ceremony was somewhat kind to him. Happy opens against Targa – a player who hasn’t been performing well the entire 2013 and only now made it to Premier league – and thus has a real shot at taking an early advantage in the group. The remaining players in the group are Welmu, against whom Happy has a 6-2 record in Wings of Liberty, and StarDust who lost 0-3 to the Russian in the EnerJ June final.
Consequently, if one is to consider TargA an easy opponent for Happy (and with 71% TvZ win-rate one really should), the Empire Terran is down to playing his second best match-up against players whom he’s already beaten before. Even if StarDust’s recent form is to be taken into account, destiny seems to be favoring our Ro8 man, who hours before the start of Ro16 truly shapes up as one of Europe’s biggest hopes.
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