General update

So this weekend the 2012 Dreamhack Open: Valencia will take place.

If you haven't seen it they did a pretty cool trailer for it a while ago: Dreamhack Valencia 2012 Trailer

64 great players (mostly europeans) will battle for the 22,000 $ prize pool along with the honor and seeds for the Dreamhack winter.

We feel that it's a bit sad that our local hero FXOBabyKnight wasn't invited to Valencia, even though he just finished in fifth place at the WCS Europe finals, but I guess there isn't a lot we can do about it.

Anyway, of the europeans competing, besides Stephano we would say that home favorites Vortix and Lucifron should probably be expected to go far.

But as usual the small bunch of koreans participating will make it hard for any of them.


Oh and btw don't forget to vote for BabyKnight here: GSL world championship - european poll

You can vote until sunday and he desperately needs your vote. Currently he isn't in the top 16 which he needs to be to qualify for the tournament, where the 16 players with the most votes will battle for the chance to represent the world against korea.


And if you didn't have a chance to go the WCS Europe Finals last weekend and experience what many people called the most awesome SC2 event so far, here are some cool pictures for you that our friend Jack Heinonen took at the event.

WCS Europe Finals - We have a champion

So it's official.

We have a Sc2 European champion and his name is Stephano!

A majority of people in the community would probably already have agreed before the WCS Europe finals that Stephano was the best SC2 player in Europe, but to those few who didn't, Stephano certainly proved his worth.

Stephano beat Vortix in the grand final and took the 1st place trophy without ever really having looked truly threatened this weekend.
The fact that Stephano's original airplane from America to Sweden was extremely delayed so that he didn't arrive until shortly before his first game only made his dominance even more impressive.

An essential thing to add is that it's actually the first time that a European champion of a sport also has the coolest hair in Europe.

A very important part of what the players were fighting for in Stockholm were the seeds for the WCS world finals in Shanghai in November.
The 6 european players that managed to qualify were Vortix, Lucifron, LoWeLy, BabyKnight, Grubby and Nerchio along with Stephano and Socke who had already qualified earlier.

Congratulations to them all.

Stephano dancing everyone's pants off

 Stephano giving high fives while scouting for possible groupies

Stephano proudly waving the flag of his homecountry USA (no wait, is that right?

BabyKnight getting his prize thinking that it is hopefully the first of many to come

WCS Europe Finals update

SPOILERS BELOW:

Unfortunately it is over for our danish hero BabyKnight.

He went up against teammate LoWeLy who is from Belarus in what turned out to be a pretty depressing series. At least if you're a BabyKnight fan.

FXOBabyKnight vs. FXOLoWeLy

In the first set BabyKnight went for a typical Forge Fast Expand. Lowely had a few zerglings trying to run through BabyK's wall at the natural.
BabyK placed a quick pylon to protect his natural until the cannon could finish.
He then wanted to cancel the pylon after the zerglings were gone but accidentally cancelled his Nexus.
This seemed to throw BabyK completely of and he then forgot to cancel the pylon at the wall so that he was completely walled in, and had a lot of structures in an awkward place.
From here BabyK probably felt that he was far behind so he decided to take a very quick third.
This was very risky and probably not wise, as LoWeLy had gone for an aggressive 2 base build.
LoWeLy decided to put constant baneling/zergling pressure on BabyK's third and natural and for a while BabyK was able to defend, but LoWeLy was enough ahead that he could just keep sending units.
Eventually LoWeLy just took his fourth and fifth and BabyK could do nothing and even though BabyK got some colossi out, it was enough.
LoWeLy took the game easily.

Second set was on Ohana and this time BabyK didn't do any major mistakes but you still had a feeling that he was probably somewhere in his head still regretting the mistakes from the first game.
BabyK went for three bases relatively quick, but LoWeLy once again stayed on 2 bases for a long time to get some aggression going.
He put on some baneling/zerglings pressure, and then later dropped zerglings in BabyK's main with overlords. He did this a couple of times and every time BabyK had to passively warp in stalkers to try and save his probes.
BabyK never really felt safe enough to move out and LoWeLy simply took a lot of bases all around the map.
Eventually BabyK moved out and did have some decent engagements, but LoWeLy's economy and map presence was just way better and the game never really got close.
BabyK typed in GG WP and sadly that was the end of his WCS run.

LoWeLy vs. BabyKnight = 2 - 0


But the most important thing was that he managed to qualify for WCS world finals in Shanghai and he can certainly be proud of his results this weekend.

We went to our local Barcraft at CafeAE in Copenhagen to watch and cheer for BabyKnight.

It is of course always fantastic to watch SC2 at a bar with other nerds, but today the general mood suddenly turned somewhat blue as everyone was naturally a bit disappointing that BabyK didn't perform better.

But that's how it goes sometimes, and as the grand final gets nearer the mood will definitely improve again as people get drunker and get to enjoy some great final matches.

Stephano just beat Vortix 2 - 0 in the winners bracket final and he is now waiting in the grand final for either LucifroN, LoWeLy or Vortix again if he can make it back from the Losers bracket final.

Whoever meets Stephano in the grand final will have a very hard job ahead of him, as Stephano is certainly looking like a WCS Europe Final Champion. But let's see, everything can happen...

WCS Europe Finals day 1 Summary!

In the upper half of the winners bracket Vortix played some fantastic ZvZs and ended up in the 1st winners Bracket semifinal against our dear BabyKnight. Unfortunately for BabyK it was Vortix that came out on top in a pretty close series.

Vortix vs. BabyKnight = 2 - 1


In the lower half of the winners bracket Stephano lived up to expectations and tore his way through a list of very good opponents. He won his first three games 2-0 and it wasn't until he met Lucifron in the 2nd winners Bracket semifinal that he was actually challenged.
He did take the series though and knocked Lucifron into the losers bracket, even though Lucifron had played a really good tournament so far.

Stephano vs. Lucfron = 2 - 1


In the losers bracket the 4 players making it to round 5 were Nerchio, Grubby, Happy and LoWeLy.
Most people had probably not expected Nerchio, with his good results recently, to end up in the losers bracket, but seeing that he did it was probably no surprise that he ended up making it far.

So Nerchio and Grubby are now playing in the 1st losers bracket semifinal in what is turning out to be a fantastic series.
After that Happy and LoWeLy will play in the 2nd Losers bracket semifinal.
The winners of these two games will then face BabyKnight and Lucifron to see who can get to the losers bracket final.

Who ever reaches that final will then have to battle for a chance to play the winner of the winners bracket final between Vortix and Stephano in the Grand Final.

And then we will have our selves a European Champion!

BabyKnight vs. Ret (WCS Europe Finals - round 3)

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!

We just witnessed an epic 3rd round series between FXOBabyKnight and LiquidRet!
Apart from being a series between two of our absolute favorite foreigners we also had the pleasure of watching a BabyKnight series being casted by our favorite casting duo Tastosis, which was something we do not believe has happened earlier. At least we haven't witnessed it before.

1st set on Taldarim Alter.

BabyK went for a economic pylon-nexus-pylon opener and Ret of course also did a very macro-orientated build as he always does.
Ret quickly got up to three bases and around 75 drones.
BabyK did a small push on Ret's third but it was only a small push that he didn't invest a lot in.
While he did this he took his own third and also got a dark shrine and some other tech.
Babyknight also had a neat couple of gateways on top of his ramp outside his natural so that Ret would be able to do a run-by into his natural.
Babyknight send two DTs in the natural and main of Ret.

He killed some drones but didn't really do much damage, and BabyK didn't warp in more.
Instead he focused on getting some archons and a lot of gateway units in general.
Ret took his fourth but Babyk scouted the exact timing of it with an observer.
From there Ret went up to 95 drones (which was maybe a bit too many) and also started building some spinecrawlers at his fourth.
BabyKnight pushed at Ret's fourth when he was around 160 supply.
Ret did have infestors but not any broodlords yet.

BabyK used perfect forcefields and good blink micro and was able to win the big engagement at Ret's fourth.
From here BabyK could take out Ret's fourth and move on into his third and Ret could do nothing to stop him.


2nd set on cloud kingdom.

Ret did his usual macro opener quickly going up to three hatcheries.
At first it looked like BabyKnight would do a somewhat similar build as in game 1 with a quick +1 attack upgrade.
He cancelled this upgrade however and went for a stargate instead.
The stargate however was pretty late, and from this point on he actually looked a bit flustered.
Like he had originally intended one build and then changed his mind without really being sure if this was the right call or not.
He never did any real damage with his void rays or phoenixes either.
He tried to take his third but Ret denied it and Ret actually kept denying it for a long time.

BabyK then started producing Colossi but they were very late as well and Ret was already taking his fifth base.
BabyKnight was finally able to take his third, but he then cancelled it and went for 2-base all-in instead.
At this point though Ret's supply was way bigger than BabyK's.
And as it turned out Ret had far too much and no micro could save BabyK's army whose big push was never able to truly threaten Ret.

And since it was a BIG all-in BabyK was forced to GG.
So the series was tied and at this point we were almost shitting our pants on BabyK's behalf.
Going on to the third and deciding match must have been pretty damn nerve-wrecking.
For both of them of course, but since Ret is a lot more experienced he will certainly have tried more situations like this the past.


3rd match was on Ohana

Once again it was a very quick +1 attack for BabyKnight again.
At the same time he was setting up for a very economic build preparing to take his third quite early.
Ret once again did his usual macro style, and you gotta hand it to that guy. He never cheeses!
They both macro'd up for a while with BabyKnight getting his third and Ret getting his fourth both relatively unharassed.
Eventually when Ret was at max supply and Babyknight was around 150, BabyK tried to move out on the map to try and pressure at Ret's fourth.
But Ret at hidden a big bunch of zerglings that he sneaked into BabyK's third and natural just after BabyK had left the base.

BabyK managed to return and clean them up pretty fast, but not without taking quite a lot of damage.
He then moved out again and at this point Ret was nearing completion on his greater spire so he desperately wanted to delay BabyK's push until he could get broodlords out.
Therefore he tried to do another run-by with zerglings but this time BabyK had expected it and he took them out immediately.
He was then finally able to move out for his long awaited push.
Because Ret was at max supply and because he needed his corrupters against BaByK's colossi, Ret didn't morph any broodlords.
At the first big engagement it was actually pretty hard to see who would come out on top for a long time, but BabyK used perfect forcefields and micro with his Colossi to deal massive damage.

Ret then did a new run-by with zerglings that killed a lot of probes at BabyKs third.
BabyK cleaned it up eventually and at this point in the game Ret had a lot more workers than BabyK but having won the engagements BabyK's army was way scarier.
BabyK then pushed at Ret's fourth and Ret's weaker army could not stop this push so he lost his fourth.
BabyK had also re-saturated his third again so their economy was similar, both of them being on three bases with their mains being pretty much dry.
BabyK then went for a big push outside Rets third and at this point Ret actually build a bit too many corrupters.

He was able to take out BabyKs colossi easily but BabyK had quite a big ground army that Ret didn't have an answer to.
So when BabyK kept bringing new gateway units, all of Ret's corrupters were rendered useless.
In the end Ret tried to pull out all his drones but that was in no way enough to stop BabyK's army who thus took the game and the series.
And what a freaking amazing series!!!

FXOBabyKnight vs. LiquidRet = 2 - 1

Congratulations to BabyK who has now secured his spot in the WCS world finals in Shanghai!

The feeling of relief that must have gone through BabyK's body when he was finally able to take off his headphones and fathom that he had actually made it to the WCS world Finals must have been undescribable.

In the interview after the game BabyK once again proved that he is no entertainer nor salesman. 

But the questions that were thrown at him were fucking retarded so his taciturnity was understandable and in our opinion actually made him seem even cooler.

I mean what kind of retarded question is, "If you were a car what color would you be?".

Can't believe he was actually asked that.

Anyway. Now BabyKnight can play the rest of his games at the WCS Europe finals without pressure as he has surely reached the goal he must have been aiming for. 

We wouldn't mind him taking a top3 though, so we'll keep cheering for him.

BabyKnight vs. WhiteRa (WCS Europe Finals round 2)

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!

We were so thrilled about the fact that BabyKnight had to play WhiteRa in the second round of the Winner's bracket. A very well-mannered legend against an upcoming well-mannered hero.

1st set was on entombed valley.
BabyK spawned in the top left corner and WhiteRa in the bottom left corner.
Whitera went for a robo and then a warp prism.
Babyknight went for 3 gate with blink and observer.
WhiteRa then went for an early zealot drop with his warp prism.  He dropped two zealots in BabyK's main and spawned 2 additional zealots.
BabyK had already moved out on the map so he didn't have any defense in his main but he reacted very quickly and moved his probes away from harm.
Then he hurried back with his army and he managed to blink in and snatch WhiteRa's warp prism.
From there he went towards WhiteRa's main.
He blinked up the ramp and took out WhiteRas two immortals.

WhiteRa had a colossus on the way but BabyK managed to take out all WhiteRa's other troops and then when the Colossus popped out it was all alone and WhiteRa could do nothing but GG.


2nd set was on cloud kingdom
BabyK went for the exact same 3 gateway, blink and observer build again.
Whitera went for a robotics producing immortals along with 3 gateways into expansion.
BabyK managed to take out WhiteRa's first observer as it was unfortunate enough to arrive in BabyK's base just when BabyK's own observer came out of his robo.
From there BabyK pushed out on the map looking to use his blink stalkers to harass both WhiteRa's main and natural.
At this point WhiteRa had two immortals along with some sentries and other gateway units, and for a while he defended really well taking a stand quite aggressively preventing BabyK from accessing both his main and natural..
BabyK didn't really lose any stalkers though because of his good blink micro, and at some point Babyk was able to take out WhiteRa's second observer.
This triggered BabyK to blink into WhiteRa's main where he took out a decent amount of probes and a pylon.
Then when WhiteRa got back with his army, BabyK retreated again going for some harassment at WhiteRa's natural.
BabyK constantly used beautiful aggressive blinks forward to snatch immortals and sentries.

He then lured WhiteRa back into the main again, only to return to the natural this time bringing a sentry that he used to block the ramp.
At this point WhiteRa's army was trapped in his main, and BabyK could safely take out WhiteRa's natural and since the expansion was the only advantage WhiteRa had left there was nothing to do but GG.
Hurray!!!

BabyKnight vs. WhiteRa = 2-0

Naturally BabyK was extremely relieved afterwards.














Since the game was played on the main stage, BabyK had to do an interview after his win.
BabyK isn't exactly experienced on big stages and although he didn't look like he felt at home up there as the center of attention, he still managed to create a few laughs.

  

Next opponent for BabyK is the cool Zerg player Ret, so he will probably have to use a different build than his PvP blink stalker build :)

BabyK has beated Ret before but generally PvZ isn't his strongest matchup. 

Hopefully BabyK can ignore this fact and take out Ret once again.

 

BabyKnight vs. Seiplo (WCS Europe Finals)

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!

So the first round of the WCS Europe finals is underway and we of course had to watch the FXOBabyKnight vs. AiSeiplo game.

In the first set BabyKnight went for blink stalkers and Seiplo went for a stargate and then robo build.
Babyk blinked unto Seiplo's ramp and did a perfect force field that trapped part of Seiplo's army. Furthermore he was able to snipe Seiplo's single immortal.
From here it was pretty much game over. Seiplo's had a bunch of Phoenixes, but they weren't able to help out much against BabyK's stalkers.
So Babyknight took the first game on account of perfect micro and execution.

In the second set both went players for blink stalkers, but Seiplo did a really quick blink build order whereas Babyk went for an early robo as well so his blink was a bit slower.
When Seiplo moved out BabyK actually seemed to fall apart a bit in the engagements.
There were a couple of times where he actually won the initial engagement but then got greedy and blinked forward too aggressively which Seiplo punished him for.
Therefore Babyk never felt calm enough to get his immortal production running and as they both expanded Seiplo was able to deny BabyK's expansion without BabyK even cancelling it. From here on Seiplo was far ahead in economy and army supply.
BabyK tried to push on Seiplo's natural but couldn't do any real damage and Seiplo took the game on account of a cool build order, but also because of some poor engagements on BabyK's part.

Third set was on Ohana and a really nice game.
Seiplo did a greedy but cool 1 gate expand and then robo.
Babyk went for blink stalkers once again and boy oh boy does he love those blink stalkers.
BabyK never scouted the expansion so this was good for Seiplo who had time to get some immortals out. Seiplo however decided to get extra greedy and build a robotics support bay as well.
When BabyK arrived at Seiplo's natural he was able to snipe all of Seiplo's immortals by using perfect blink micro. On top of that BabyK was a lot more patient than in game two and he kept moving back every time his stalkers were threatened.
Seiplo tried to defend the best he could but new stalkers kept streaming in for BabyK who didn't make a single mistake in any of the engagements.
Eventually his army supply was simply way bigger and he was able to expand himself while taking out Seiplo's expansion and pushing into the main.
So HOORAY! BabyKnight took the series.
But Seiplo is a really cool player and we hope he can do well in the loser's bracket.

BabyKnight vs. Seiplo = 2-1

WCS Europe finals

Today's the big day!

The WCS europe finals in Stockholm will begin in less than an hour and we are excited as hell.

The 32 best European players are fighting for the honor of calling themselves the best european player. On top of that they are all there to fight for their share of the 60.000 dollar prize pool and more importantly the six seeds for the world finals in Shanghai later this year.
Check out the brackets here

Above everyone else we are of course cheering for our danish hero FXOBabyKnight!
To honor him we've created a small "dramatic chipmunk"-inspired video, and in our unbiased opinion he is even cuter than the original chipmunk.

Apart from BabyKnight we will also be cheering for two following really cool Nordic players.

WWSortOf

FnaticNaama

But most of all we are just looking forward to seeing a ton of great games.

Check out the main stream here

Oh and if you haven't heard blizzard just announced that the prizepool for the world finals in Shanghai will be a neat 250.000 $ with 100.000 $ going directly to the winner.
Not bad at all for the nerd who ends up winning it.
Especially since we all know that nerds only need money for two things.
Computergear and energydrinks.

Nordic participants found for the WCS European Championship

So it has been decided who is going to represent Scandinavia in the WCS European Championship.

From Denmark it's our great FXOBabyknight. This is no real surprise, but still very nice that he was able to deal with the pressure and qualify. He is a great player and a cool guy, and we will definitely be cheering for him.

From Sweden it was EGThorzain, AISeiplo and WWSortOf who qualified. All of them great players, however it cannot be denied that it was a big surprise that neither Naniwa nor SaSe managed to qualify. Not to take anything away from the three other players but SaSe and especially Naniwa certainly didn't play up to their best at the Swedish Nationals.
It was nice to see Naniwa battle Thorzain since it's a natural rivalry (as they are the two best Nordic players based on results) but Thorzain was certainly the best player on that day. In the game Naniwa lost to SortOf it actually felt a bit like Naniwas head was somewhere else completely.

From Finland it was FnaticNaama who qualified. He is a very promising Terran and in the final of the Finland nationals he took out the protoss player Elfi who really played great as well.

And finally it's going to be Noticimus who will represent Norway. This fine Protoss looked very strong against both Zerg and Terran, as he managed to take out players like Snute and Seriously.

So we will have three Protoss, two Terran and one Zerg representing Scandinavia in the WCS European Championship which will take place on September the 15th to 16th and we believe all of them has potential to do well.

Generally though, Stephano will probably enter as the overwhelming favorite. But know knows. If all the other 31 players gang up on him they might have a chance :)