WCS Ro32 Group C, D, E, F Recaps

Let's just say what we're all thinking: the WCS Ro32 weekend in Europe was pretty weird. Group C was fairly normal by any standard, but groups D, E and F were all full of tension and drama, often for the wrong reasons.

At the end of WCS's first European stop, a varied set of players advanced to the Ro16. ForGG predictably dominated his group and had little trouble sweeping his opponents aside. MaNa, Bunny, FireCake and Serral defended their continent, while Kane became the first North or South American to advance. PiG joined him as the first Australian, and Has surprised everyone by placing second in Group F.

The first group of the weekend ended up being the best. It had a TvT, a PvZ, a PvT, and two TvZs for fans of each matchup, and it included players that had never faced each other before. Coupled with a team kill in the winners' match, it was considered by many as the toughest group in the Ro32.

Bunny and MajOr played a thrilling mirror, but MajOr’s reluctance to leave a sufficient defensive force in his main proved key, where banshees reigned supreme as MajOr’s mineral lines were gutted again and again. Bunny's teammate MaNa sliced viOLet in half with 2base gateway timings in a more straight forward set, leading to another Liquid face off to determine advancement. Game 1 on Overgrowth featured a seemingly endless immortal / blink all in, but the Polish protoss eventually had enough to break the terran defense. A well orchestrated gold-fueled colossus push sealed the deal for MaNa, escaping the group with surprising ease.



Bunny had to be content with the final match, where he faced viOLet after the Surgeon Zerg had dispatched of MajOr. It was a disappointing group for the Mexican, who many had tipped to be one of the foreign hopes. That title will have to be passed on to the two Liquid players, as Bunny followed his friend soon after. The opening game of the deciding match began with a damp squib—Bunny crushing through an overly greedy viOLet, but game 2 on Vaani Research Station gave us one of the highlights of the night. Endless waves of ling bane muta and marine medivac clashed together, but as the game wore on, Bunny’s 3/3 eventually began to take its toll on the zerg horde, and a relieved Liquid terran made it 2/2 for Liquid on the night.



It was another great start for another weekend of WCS action, but the next two days of the competition essentially became an argument about swarm hosts. The unit featured heavily in both groups, as three zergs (Kane, PiG, FireCake) advanced along with ForGG.



We recommend just looking at the results, unless you really, really, really like swarmhosts. Or ForGG.





















Yet the most anticipated group was still to come. NaNiwa was back in Premier League, and everyone knew it would be one of the more interesting groups of the season. It turned out to be one of the most heated groups of the season, both in game and in forums. Of course, only our Beloved Rambling Granpa Stuchiu can tell such a tale.

The Coronation

In order for a player to rise, someone must fall in his place. That is the nature of competition in any game or sport and holds even more true in SC2. Competitions are held in bracket formats with the winners eliminating the losers who are left to ponder their existence as they wait for weeks to months to play in another tournament. And while many were hoping and praying for a return of NaNiwa as the King of the North, it was not meant to be. The competition has become too fierce and despite getting back to #1 EU GM, there were gaps in NaNiwa’s play that let him fall victim. And in his place rose two young stars: Serral and Has.

The Rise of Serral, Prince of Finland

On 2012-6-6, at the age of 14, Serral attended his first ever LAN at Dreamhack Summer. He made it out of the first stage second to Nerchio before dropping out in the second group stage to White-Ra, Snute and SortOf. No one was surprised, that is if they knew he was even there. For Serral it was his first step into the SC2 competitive arena, the one he had seen his brother (Protosser) play in over and over and over again.

And that first step wasn’t enough. Despite not having much of an impact, he kept on practicing, kept on playing and kept on participating until he had his first major breakthrough in 2013. In his second group he played one of the most exciting series of the tournament in his series against SuperNova. And while the score was 2-0, Serral showed very real skill and the potential to become a real powerhouse name in Europe.

But potential is often a lie. We want to believe that a player can perform at their best all the time, but the truth of the matter is most players can never play at their 100% all the time. They have off days when their practice or form or mentality or builds don't work. The pressure gets to them, they had a bad night’s sleep. A million things can happen that can throw you off your game at any moment. Which was why ASUS Winter ROG 2014 was such a surprise. Because after losing to TaeJa in the first Bo5, he came back in the loser’s match to defeat Happy 3-2 in an extremely close series and then nearly ended TaeJa’s tournament life early in the deciding match of the group before TaeJa clutched it out 3-2.

And that has been the story of Serral’s career so far. A young brilliant player just on the cusp of making it through. Lost to MC twice 1-2 at DH Summer, lost to Nerchio 1-2 at DH Valencia, made it to Premier Ro32 in WCS EU 2014 Season 3. Lost to TRUE and Daisy in DH Moscow. While many fans thought of it as a meteoric rise akin to Life, it was anything but. Serral grinded his way through loss after loss getting into hard group after hard group. But he persevered and those years of losing in close series and hard groups has finally paid off. He not only won today’s group he exceeded it.

In both his series in Group F, Serral was caught by surprise in the first game. Suppy used an old Scarlett build by going muta into fast hive into broodlords. Naniwa faked an old sOs void ray gateway build, while actually going for three base carrier. In both cases Serral was able to sniff it out and punish them both with fast nydus play. But what was truly impressive was the second game of each of his series. Suppy once more tried to do the Scarlett ZvZ muta -> BL build. NaNiwa tried to put on early pressure and crack Serral’s defense. In both instances Serral reacted perfectly. He cut off Suppy at the beginning as he constantly attacked and harassed and severed Suppy’s economy. While Suppy was dealing with the harass, Serral got a larger and larger bank until he finally closed out the game with a remax of mutas. Against NaNiwa he shut down the offensive, punished NaNiwa’s slow reactions to re-wall, and played the perfect tempo SC2 as he constantly stayed exactly one step ahead of NaNiwa the entire game.

While it is too early to say exactly how or where Serral could be among the ranks of WCS EU players, today he showed a transcendent form. One that showed his ability to improvise reactions to strange builds he likely hadn’t played against before. And even more impressively, assimilating that knowledge and coming back even stronger in the second game. While this is just the opening stages of WCS EU, with his performance today Serral is a player to watch out for. A worthy successor to the Finnish line of great SC2 players Elfi, Naama and Welmu.

The Rise of Has, The King of Cheese

“In the name of Has of the House Yoe, First of His Name, Lord of the Pylon Walls, The Most Sanctified Oracle, Humbler of Tyrants, The Great Wolf, and Protector of the Faith, I, Has, The Holy Cannon and Warden of the East, sentence you to die.” - Has of the House Yoe

There are many things you need to know about Has to understand Has. Imagine you are 16. In your first ever match against a Korean you are faced off against MMA, one of the greatest SC2 players of all time. What do you do? Do your hands get shaky, do you remember a build order, maybe you think to yourself "I want to play a macro game to show off to the world that I can play at his level and beat him."

What does Has do? In Iaguz’s immortal words he does this:


This game left such a profound impact on MMA that nearly an year later at Blizzcon, Wax asked him about Has’ chances of beating Flash in the MSI Beat It. MMA said if Flash did not know what was coming, there could be a very real chance of Has taking out Flash. Has lost that series as Flash was very aware of who he was facing and scouted so strongly the NSA were envious of his skill.

Yet in that story, there lies a very real kernel of truth about Has. Has will do whatever it takes. He came to win by hook or by crook. He does not care about how he looks to the fans. He came here to win by any means necessary. Has doesn’t care about who he plays or where. He will do anything in his power to win and if that means making a 6 pylon wall against Jaedong or praying that Jaedong won’t make a single source of detection against mass proxy dts, so be it. No matter how large the legend or how great the player, he gives them all the same amount of respect he’d give to any random ladder player: none at all.

And in many ways Has made it out of the group in a completely opposite fashion of Serral. If Serral won the group looking like the Prince of the new age, then Has won it looking like the villain. Where Serral reacted to and found openings in his opponents play to exploit, Has forced his opponents to react and create openings. In game 1 Suppy predicted Has’ cheesy shenanigans and deflected both the cannon rush and the follow up Soul Train. In game 2 however, Has showed his predilection for mind games as after Suppy scouted the robo, he instantly canceled it and went all in with a 2 base gateway attack catching Suppy off guard.

Game 3 was a Has masterpiece. In that game Has went for his usual warp prism sentry zealot aggression that did massive damage as he kept forcing Suppy in uncomfortable position after uncomfortable position. He attacked at the 3rd, took down drones and threatened to and partially succeeded in forcefielding the ramp. He was able to do enough damage to then clean up the game with a soul train while holding off Suppy’s base trade attempt.

Yet it was Has’ last series against NaNiwa that proved his mettle. NaNiwa is a veteran known for his experience and ability to stay composed and play at his best. Yet it was the young player Has who kept his cool. While NaNiwa was still reeling a bit from his loss against Serral, Has kept calm when by all rights he should have been a nervous wreck. Here he was playing against the player who had beaten him fairly soundly 2-1 in the first series. He had just barely won his series against Suppy 2-1 in the losers. He was playing against the #1 EU GM player who had already seen his tricks. Yet Has stayed utterly calm and proved his mettle over NaNiwa.

In G1, Has proxied a stargate and went for oracle harassment. It was caught out by NaNiwa’s phoenixes and both expanded with Has going for blink while NaNiwa went for robo immortals. The big difference maker here was Has’ aggression. Has was able to snipe the MSC disabling Naniwa’s access to the nexus cannon before backing off. This opened up an opportunity and when NaNiwa sent his phoenixes across the map to scout, Has struck near instantly and rolled over his opponent. In game 2, Has proxied a gateway and attacked. Naniwa made a semi-reactive decision to go for 1 base collosus as he saw a large amount of stalkers and guessed that Has would research blink. Has double mind-gamed and instead went for a stargate. He made enough phoenixes, gateway units and a void ray, while backstabbing with an oracle to force NaNiwa into an all-in situation before holding off the attack on 1 base.

In a game where NaNiwa was the experienced veteran, it was Has who forced Naniwa to play his game. It was Has who kept his cool and didn’t let the pressure affect him. It was Has who found the strength to get back up after his earlier loss. And it was Has who moved on as the winner.

While many scoff and write-off Has as a simple cheeser, that is far from the truth. The largest difference in skill between Has and NaNiwa is the mid-end game decision making. NaNiwa clearly outclassed Has the few times they got to that stage. However skill and game sense are not just the only factors here. The reason Has won wasn’t because of his aggressive tactics, but also his dedication, practice and mentality.

Has isn’t more skilled at the early phases of PvP because of talent, but because of his practice, his experience. Think about this. NaNiwa has just come back to competitive SC2 after nearly a year off. In that time how many PvPs has he played? A few hundred, maybe a thousand. And how many of those were decided by early game decisions? How many were proxy gates? Has has been playing non stop since the latter half of 2013 until now. That is nearly 2 years. In that time he has played tens of thousands of games. How many of those were PvPs, how many of them had Has stuck in a weird situation because he had forced a cheese that his opponent either predicted or scouted?

Even their mindsets were different coming into Premier league. NaNiwa had started playing SC2 again for recreation. Before he knew it he was in Premier. In his own blog he says he just wasn’t mentally prepared for the pressure of living up to what he once was. Has on the other hand saw the groups and instantly thought he was going to go out in 3rd or 4th place. Yet he could not give up because just as NaNiwa was upholding the pride of the Europeans, Has was upholding the pride of the Taiwanese. As the last Taiwanese player left, Has knew his shortcomings and tried to force games that emphasized his strengths as a player so he could take win from the other players in the group.

The difference between Has and NaNiwa that night is simple. Has’ dedication and mindset had trumped NaNiwa’s. In the year since Naniwa was gone, he played LoL and Heroes of the Storm. By the time he came back, he wasn’t fully committed mentally to become the best player in the world. Has on the other hand had been constantly practicing for that one year, constantly trying to get better and improve himself and win. The difference between the two of them was what they did in their one year. You may not like Has, you may dislike the way he plays, but you cannot take away the work he has put into this game; you cannot take away his desire of victory and you cannot take away his Ro32. He earned his victory against one of the greatest foreigners of all time and he offered an entire year of his blood, toil, sweat and tears to do it.

Best to the Rest:

Suppy: While it was an unfortunate early exit for the NA Zerg, he acquitted himself well. He was in a good position game 1 before he got caught by the nydus. And he very nearly defeated Has, a player who was strong enough to defeat Jaedong after Jaedong’s second place at WCS Blizzcon 2013.

Naniwa: Another unfortunate exit in the ro32, Naniwa wasn’t as mentally prepared for competition as he thought he was. While his boast of being the top foreigner in just 2 weeks was hyperbolic, Naniwa has proven that in just 2 months time he can get to Premier League and the top of the EU ladder. And with his renewed interest in SC2, he will be one of the players to look out for in 2015.