Extreme Masters Finals

Extreme Masters is a European-based league that has been going on for numerous months, and now we finally get to see the final eight battle it out. The LAN finals is being held tomorrow at the CeBIT halls in Hannover, Germany. It has been a long way here, with qualifiers, main round, relegation, and re-qualifying, and we saw a number of high class games.

The groups, predicted by 4K^FuRy and n!Kiske

The groups are interesting. The first group contains two Human players in the form of Fire and ToD, along with the Night Elf player LiiLD.C and and the Orc player Grubby.
- I think Grubby will have a hard time in that group with the extreme Human player ToD and Fire who has shown good performance lately, says Gamingeye editor Kiske, also playing for n!faculty. Though he still picks out Grubby and ToD as the favorites in the group, even if he saw some private replays with LiiLD.C taking down Grubby.

Another Swede, FuRy, failed to qualify for the tournament and is of course rooting for his team mates.
- It can be a tough fight between ToD and Grubby for the win there, but never count out LiiLD.C, though.

Moving on to the second group, both of them think that it's very hard to predict because Night Elf mirror matches can go either way. Kiske believes in Deadman and Creolophus to advance but also mentions HoT with being one of the favorites. FuRy strongly believes in his team mate Creolophus.

Extreme Masters Group Drawing
Group A	Group B
LiiLD.C	DIDI8
ToD	Creolophus
Grubby	HoT
Fire	Deadman

The players

Initially, NightWOlf was supposed to be playing, but due to getting ill the Extreme Masters administrators held another qualifier with Ciara, Miou, Grubby and Insomnia to fill the empty spot. In the end Grubby came out victorious and secured his place in Group A. Below we have a close-up on the players and how they ended up in the LAN finals.

SK.Deadman
Andrey "Deadman" Sobolev won a major in 2006, the KODE5. After the cutback on the Korean players of SK-Gaming, Deadman is together with HoT their main pillar. Deadman qualified for the offline finals after defeating Ciara in the Relegation match. He had an up and down season, losing against NightWOlf and Fire, but he should be considered one of the stronger cards in the finals despite that.
Extreme Masters Match History
SK.Deadman	<	SK.Fire	0-2
SK.Deadman	>	Firestrike	2-0
SK.Deadman	>	mouz.SaSe	2-0
SK.Deadman	<	srs.NightWOlf	0-2
SK.Deadman	>	mouz.Giacomo	2-1
SK.Deadman	>	MYM]Ciara	3-0

4K^ToD
Yoan "ToD" Merlo won the WEG Masters in 2006, and ended second place in both World Cyber Games and KODE5. ToD won his first match in Extreme Masters against Protois, but then he lost to ElakeDuck. After that he wrote in his blog that he was going to stop playing in the European league. However he continued anyway, and now he is qualified for the final. Taking down Miou in a Human mirror match in the relegation, ToD looks very strong and should be considered one of the top favorites of winning the league.
Extreme Masters Match History
4K^ToD	>	mTw-Protois	2-0
4K^ToD	<	fnatic.ElakeDuck	1-2
4K^ToD	<	4K^Grubby	1-2
4K^ToD	>	WE.JuSt.DIDI8	2-0
4K^ToD	>	SK.Miou	3-0

WE.JuSt.LiiLD.C
Daniel "LiiLD.C" Claesson is one of Sweden's hottest players at the moment. He won the DreamHack Winter 2006 tournament taking down ElakeDuck in the Grand Final. After the German-based team ID-Gaming was disbanded, LiiLD.C quickly found himself another team - World Elite Europe. The Night Elf player won all his matches but one in the group - the one against Insomnia. LiilD.C is strong in Night Elf mirror, proven here. It will be interesting to see how well he can cope with the other superstars, but as FuRy said told GosuGamers in an earlier interview, you should never count out LiiLD.C.
Extreme Masters Match History
WE.JuSt.LiiLD.C	>	mouz.HasuObs	3-2
WE.JuSt.LiiLD.C	>	MYM]ThomasG	2-0
WE.JuSt.LiiLD.C	>	mouz.TitaN	2-0
WE.JuSt.LiiLD.C	>	SK.Miou	2-0
WE.JuSt.LiiLD.C	>	hG[EFC]	2-0
WE.JuSt.LiiLD.C	<	SK.Insomnia	1-2

SK.Fire
Andrew 'fire_de' Regendantz proved himself a sturdy opponent in last year's ESWC and in the European Battle.Net Season 4 Finals, but he has no offline title to brag with. He looked immensely strong in the group stage of Extreme Masters, losing only to NightWOlf. He is known for Mass Towers, and he sure knows how to use them. He was put in a tough group, with Deadman, Insomnia and SaSe to mention some. But showing that he is very eager to win this. If his Human Towering skills are on top, then the rest of the opponents should definitely watch out for the German on Fire.
Extreme Masters Match History
SK.Fire	>	Bu.Hero	2-1
SK.Fire	>	WE.JuSt.DieSeL	3-2
SK.Fire	>	SK.Deadman	2-0
SK.Fire	<	srs.NightWOlf	0-2
SK.Fire	>	mouz.Giacomo	2-1
SK.Fire	>	mouz.SaSe	2-0
SK.Fire	>	Firestrike	2-0
SK.Fire	>	SK.Insomnia	3-1

4K^Grubby
In the start of the league Grubby was considered one the absolute favorites. However he started out bad with losing to DIDI8, which was just before his Korean-televised match against Moon. After that Grubby showed what the Flying Dutchman was capable of, and took down Protois, ToD and ElakeDuck. DIDI8 topping the group, Grubby ended in second place. He then played the relegation match against HoT and lost 1-3. Though after NightWOlf announcing his departure, Grubby ended up winning the re-qualification group. Watch out for Grubby. As the only Orc player, he will surely slice and dice some of the Night Elf players.
Extreme Masters Match History
4K^Grubby	<	WE.DIDI8	0-2
4K^Grubby	>	mTw-Protois	2-1
4K^Grubby	>	4K^ToD	2-1
4K^Grubby	>	fnatic.ElakeDuck	2-0
4K^Grubby	<	SK.HoT	1-3
4K^Grubby	>	SK.Insomnia	2-0
4K^Grubby	>	MYM]Ciara	2-1
4K^Grubby	>	SK.Miou	2-1

4K^Creolophus
Creolophus dominated his group, winning all his matches. The newest 4Kings player proved the he is not to play with, taking down the WCG bronze medalist HoT in the final group stage round. He has been showing great skill lately, not only in WC3L but also winning the inCup Winter Season Final. He has a very important role in 4Kings as the top Night Elf player. He is located in the Night Elf group (B) which he should feel pretty comfortable with.
Extreme Masters Match History
4K^Creolophus	>	oXz.Edko	3-0
4K^Creolophus	>	TCT.DaVe	3-0
4K^Creolophus	>	Hum4niC	2-0
4K^Creolophus	>	SunShinESWE	2-1
4K^Creolophus	>	MYM]Ciara	2-1
4K^Creolophus	>	SK.HoT	2-1

SK.HoT
HoT, HoT, HoT. The Ukrainian Night Elf player is also located in the Night Elf group (B) and should be considered one of the stronger ones. However losing to Creolophus in the group stage and not having the best records when it comes to fighting Night Elves, he could have a hard time. But of course taking down Grubby in the relegation match is a sign of strength. DIDI8, Creolophus and Deadman beware.
Extreme Masters Match History
SK.HoT	>	rC.HoBBiT	3-0
SK.HoT	>	ieS.Lose	3-1
SK.HoT	<	MYM]Ciara	1-2
SK.HoT	>	SunShinESWE	2-0
SK.HoT	<	4K^Creolophus	1-2
SK.HoT	>	Hum4niC	2-0
SK.HoT	>	4K^Grubby	3-1

DIDI8
DIDI8 managed to end first in his group which gave him a free-ride to the LAN finals. The Bulgarian superstar recently announced that he does not play too much these days and is more in to team managing. After qualifying he said that he achieved pretty much everything he wanted to achieve in his career. It will be interesting to see what he can do against his Night Elf contestants. He qualified from a really tough group, taking down Grubby, Protois, ElakeDuck and NapS. Losing only to ToD, DIDI8 ended in the top position. He should be strong enough to defeat at least one of the players, but reaching the playoffs can be tough.
Extreme Masters Match History
WE.JuSt.DIDI8	>	4K^Grubby	2-0
WE.JuSt.DIDI8	>	mTw-Protois	2-1
WE.JuSt.DIDI8	>	fnatic.ElakeDuck	2-1
WE.JuSt.DIDI8	<	4K^ToD	0-2

Links to more information GosuGamers.net - Full Event Coverage ESL.eu - Extreme Masters