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!