The second of three qualifiers for the Intel Extreme Masters in Gyeonggi, Korea has been played out today and provided four players with spots in the tournament, which will be held from December 14th to 18th and start off the 2017 season for WCS Korea.
The first bracket already set the tone for the day: Upsets were in the air, as shown by the runs of Bly and Has into the Round of 16, but the big surprise had to wait for the final match of the bracket: The hot favourite TY was defeated by Trust, after already being ahead by one map. The Protoss came back with a very solid macro game on Echo and relentless blink aggression on Daybreak, however, to dash Terran hopes and secure the first ticket to Gyeonggi for himself. After yesterday's elimination by Leenock, TY has once again been knocked out by a former team mate.
Speaking of his former team mate, Leenock was successful on his second qualifier run today after his elimination at the final hurdle yesterday. The Zerg player defeated GuMiho, a foreign contender in Scarlett, and the surprisingly strong Forte to claim a spot in Gyeonggi. This bracket also saw one of the biggest upsets of the day with Forte eliminating Maru without dropping a map to the Jin Air Terran.
One far bigger upset still waited in the third bracket, though: Not only did (ex-CJ) Bunny pave a way into the finals for himself, but also an unexpected foreign hope—Chinese Zerg iAsonu. He beat Saturday's conjuror of chaos TAiLS, followed that up with wins over two big names in ByuL and Trap, before he triumphed over Bunny with heavy roach-ravager aggression. Thus, iAsonu is the first (and so far only) foreigner to qualify for IEM Gyeonggi.
A bit of normality at least was established in the last of the four brackets on Day 2, as two big favourites in soO and INnoVation battled their way into the deciding match. There, a rather one-sided ZvT series ensued, which INnoVation was able to decide in his own favour with some very solid bio-mine-liberator play against soO’s ling-baneling-muta composition.
Trust, Leenock, iAsonu and INnoVation will join herO, Solar, Losira and Classic, who won their tickets via the first qualifier, as well as ByuN, Dark, Zest and Stats, who have been invited based on their success in the 2016 season of WCS. Four more spots are still available, so all of your favourite players have one more chance to qualify, if they haven’t done so yet.
The last qualifier will take place on Tuesday, the 29th of November, so tune in to one—or several—of the various streams broadcasting the games.
Writer: TheOneAboveU
Editor: munch