WC3L Qualification Round One

The WC3L Qualification is about to start and after some days ago the thirty participating teams have been announced, yesterday the brackets became official. While plan-B and Clan-IT both are in round two already, because they come from the playdowns, 30 other teams that just have been selected by the WC3L staff have to fight in the first round. Teams such as World Elite or Ninjas in Pyjamas are seen as the clear favourites for reching top four and therefore qualify for the nineth WC3L season.

The thirty teams of the qualifier have been chosen by the WC3L Staff after they applied for it. The admins chose the teams wich they expect to be good enough to compete in the qualification and that also seem to be prefessional enough for playing in the WC3L.

Some old and new faces got the chance this season's qualifier. Teams such as DkH, rS, 3wD or CNN all have participated in the WC3L so far and others like es4x or AoD tryed themselves in the qualification before. On the other hand there are completely new teams again this qualifier, like JP, WE or NiP. But being "new" to the WC3L doesn't mean to be not that good, NiP and WE are the biggest favourites for a spot both.

The first round of the qualification tournament

aLw vs. Guardian idle vs. ecl SGC vs. QPool TmG vs. SomE faculty vs. es4x eGe vs. rS AU vs. WE CNN vs. AoD SK06 vs. Fx 3wD vs. GaB tZ vs. NiP u5 vs. xE 4gl vs. JP DkH vs. G2H

The tournament system

The qualification tournament will be played in a double elemination grud, with the exception of the first round. The first round will be played in single elemination, wich means that it's very important to every team, because there won't be a second chance after a lose. The top four teams of the tournament will qualify for the WC3L Season IX.

Predictions

(Please note that these predictions are the editors own opinion, they may be different to your own one.)


aLw vs. Guardian

aLw is not very known to the international WarCraft 3 scene and seem to be an underdog this qualification. With 14 players in their WC3L roster they got quite a big lineup, but the players mostly are pretty unknown. On the other hand Guardian got players such as uc- or their latest additions Paladyn and ToRReN who are pretty strong. It looks like as if G] will manage to win against aLw.

idle vs. ecl

idle's most known and probably best players are Tharkas and LiiLD.C who are pretty good players while ecl again is a russian team with lots of unknown names to me. Again I'm with the more known team/players and predict a win for idle.

SGC vs. QPool

Although SGC has been qualified for WC3L in the past, they seem not to have a big chance against QPool. Frido might be a name some remember but overall SGC has not as big names ad QPool with their koreans Ohjie and Shy. Qpool are seen as one of the teams that might become top four, and a win against SGC is a must.

TmG vs. SomE

SomE has got some good and talented players in their lineup, next to the well known former jNg player MysT. They might have a small chance against TmG but with players such as the korean HomeRunBall who qualified for WCG this year, or the other koreans like WinNeR aswell as the well known russian human player Caravaggio, TmG seems to be the favourite here.

faculty vs. es4x

Players like HoRRoR or Cr4fty will be known to german WarCraft 3 fans and to some international ones aswell. faculty got a good lineup but es4x, who were a big favourite last season's qualifier, got players like Swen and Kemper. It may become close but in the end es4x seems to be the favourite.

eGe vs. rS

eGe is quite unknown to the european WC3 community atleast, but they did good in WPL. rS on the other had got themselves the former KoD team with players such as StrifeCro and ShrieK. Since rS beat eGe clearly in the WPL Playoffs, they seem to be the winning team in the WC3L Quali again.

AU vs. WE

The winner seems to be clear before the match started to nearly everyone. World Elite is next to NiP one of the teams that are considered to make it easily into the WC3L. Players such as ReMinD, SoJu, Sky, Sweet and many more seem to be unbeatable sometimes. Although AU suprised at WPL they won't have a chance against WE.

CNN vs. AoD

AoD, one of the best german teams that's not in the WC3L yet, and CNN, one of the best polish teams next to fX. Quite an interesting match is coming up that may end pretty close. For AoD known players like Freezer will fight for the win, while the restrengthened CNN added oldschool player BigEr to their roster. It's hard to predict a winner here, but maybe CNN got a small advantage, depending on the shape of their players.

SK06 vs. Fx

Again a match between two of the top teams in Germany and Poland. SK06 got a lot of talents in their roster. Although they kicked one of their best players names like Fisch or ReaL are known to the community. Fx got also very good players like TeRRoR or NightWOlf, who have been one of the best in CNN during the last WC3L season. Fx seems to be the better team here, although SK06 may have a chance to suprise.

tZ vs. NiP

After WE the next very big favourite: NiP. The former mouz players from Korea, GoStop FarSeer and Rainbow mixed with some unknown but most probably also very good koreans will for sure take a win here, although tZ will give their best.

u5 vs. xE

Again two american teams facing each other. u5 just won the WPL by beating the favourite TmG, so they are my favourite here. Players like IncInerator, Qazzi, PaTo and NilknarfLP, who beat HomeRunBall in the WPL Final, seem to be in good shape. xE's players on the other hand are quite unknown to me, so they are hard to predict.

4gl vs. JP

4gl's players RistA or Sharky may be known bay some, but they seem not to be the favourite against JP, who just won the BWCL Playoffs against 3wD. DieSeL, OMA.S.Jack and Star will be known to most, and they also are the reason for me to predict a clear win for JP.

DkH vs. G2H

Ravage, or PoDoX from DkH are all very good players who will give G2H a hard time. G2H on the other hand finished third in the BWCL Playoffs by losing to 3wD in very close matches. Their players DiG1ty or Ro(n)iN are for sure able to challenge DkH, so it will become a very close fight that i can't predict.


(I didn't predict 3wD vs. GaB due to obvious reasons. I for sure hope for a win of my team, and I won't be able to write an objective prediction here probably.)

Links
WC3L.com - WC3L Page