Reckoning in Hanover: IEM World Championship preview

We are a couple of days away from the final Intel Extreme Masters even this season. On March 6th we pack our luggage and head for Hanover but before that there is an important task to be done - pre-examine the line-up of the World Championship and weigh out who has the best shot at the $35,000 first place prize.

Text by: Radoslav "Nydra" Kolev and Andrei "procyonlotor" Filote

Group A

MMA, Violet, JYP, Socke, Strelok, dKiller

Nydra's take

You can't have easier to predict group that this and but a skim through the rest of the pools is a proof enough for this statement. Group A harbors the last two IEM champions - MMA from Kiev and Violet from Sao Paulo - and, in case you find that insufficient, has lured EG's JYP just for the fun of it, although fun is not what the foreigners here will be experiencing.

MMA is the obvious favorite and why wouldn't he be? His performance at Kiev and recent top eight finish at GSL 2012 Season 1 were negative enough answers to the question "Will MMA finally enter a slump". His aura of power is pulsating ever so hard and none of the other five is strong enough to break it. Truly, Violet has acquired even more fame than before with his Sao Paulo triumph and top six finish at the MLG Winter Arena but he remains, despite all, a zerg and MMA eats those in one bite, spits them out and concots environmentally friendly bio stim packs out of their bodily fluids. His weakest match-up continues to be TvP but there is just no point rising an eyebrow in doubt - Socke and even JYP are too far below MMA in skill level for statistics to make any difference and, in fact, the latter has stated on multiple occasions that he greatly struggles when facing terrans.



So is there any thrill in Group A at all you might ask. Well, there certainly is. Is it possible for JYP beat Violet for the second place despite his inconsistent performance, can any foreigner take a series away and will MMA's stat be 10-0 or 10-1 are all queries up for debate.

procyonlotor's take

One king and two pretenders. MMA is a man with nothing to prove. This group is a Gordian knot and it is his for the cutting, so long as Violet and JYP don't find the resources to get in his way. Granted, Violet is coming in with IEM Sao Paulo on his shoulders, but it could be argued his run was somewhat easier than what he is expected to face here. After all, MMA is the man who makes zergs think double spawning pool is a wise choice.

It's easy to look at the three foreigners - Killer, Socke, Strelok - as fillers, but they are all players who demand respect and the past has shown that each of them is capable of pulling an upset. Certainly the mirror matchups’ volatility will go in their favor. The only question is: who will it be, if anyone?

Group B

MC, Elfi, Sound, WhiteRa*, HasuObs, Nerchio

Nydra's take

I'll just put this out in the open: Group B is by far the best group of IEM Hanover! Among the very straightforward A, Korean-heavy B and the very balanced overall D, group B stands out as the one with the strongest foreign presence, intimidating enough to question the what would otherwise be undisputed MC superiority.

This does not come to say that MC is in any kind of disadvantage here. Having recovered his position as the best and most consistent protoss player in Korea, MC flies to Hanover having the monstrous 71% international win-rate to back him up, peaking at 74% in PvZ.



The other top contender, Nerchio, is like the European equivalent of DongRaeGu (although without umpteen major golds). Unlike many foreign protosses, Nerchio is extremely comfortable in his ZvP - he was the guy that said he could defeat HerO when no zerg would think that possible and whenever in shape he always displays increcible stability throughout all stages of a match-up.

And what of Sound you ask? There was a time when the combination of South Korean flag and the ability to train marines would automatically breed a champion but this becomes less and less true each day. Sound's tale began at Homestory Cup and while he made it very clearly that he has the skill to trample zerg players, his 0-4 loss against MC in the final and the close series with Real in the Ro8 shows that he has apparent troubles in TvP. Having four of them at one place is the ultimate test and opportunity to prove that he was not just a one-hit wonder.

procyonlotor's take

Group B is filled with dangerous players looking to prove themselves. There are no assurances here but a lot of maybes as the standings might be reduced to a brawl with no one being quite immune to the rest of the competition. MC is a favorite, but the PvPs he will have to play set him against the cunning of elfi and Hasuobs’ comfortable late game play, which might lead MC’s 3 - 0 loss against Genius into a deeper end. We have long known WhiteRa and Nerchio as two who have it in them to kill everybody else but consistently fail to keep up the slaughter once it begins. Sound is the least known player here, but he is a Startale terran and the second place finisher at Homestory Cup IV, so he is nothing to take lightly.

Group C

Puma, Dimaga, Mana, Killer, Zenio, Select

Nydra's take

It is so rare to see so many Korean flags and not be excited to the appropriate level. Maybe I've grown spoiled from watching lots of Code S but it is very hard to articulate any superlatives towards either Killer, Zenio or Select. Of the entire Korean party, Puma is the only one with real chances for a #1 finish in the group, although he has not been too much of an excellent performance during the recent team leagues. Still, Puma is a player who always plays magnificently at international events: two NASL golds, second place at DH Winter, bronze at Assembly Winter 2012, top one in Cologne and top three in Guangzhou are more than enough advocates for Puma's prowess. His terrifying 1/1/1 play almost certainly guarantees him victories against both Mana and Killer and, frankly, SeleCT will also be not much of a real challenge with his 0-2 loss to Puma at Assembly standing there as a direct proof.



Dimaga and Zenio are the only two that can give Puma a hard time. The Ukrainian is a very strong contender for the #1 in the group and if he can live through the two ZvPs there is a strong possibility that he shows the Koreans how we do it in Europe. Zenio is a wild card and his record does not speak convincingly in his defense. Liquid's zerg is currently in a black ZvT series, having won just four sets in the last twenty played and should he fall to Select and Puma it will be a real torment walking out of the group.

procyonlotor's take

There was a point in which Select was one of the most terrifying terrans you could face, but now he is the clear underdog. This group is likely to be dominated by Puma’s ruthlessly sharp play, but it would be foolish to discount Mana, who is no stranger to straight up beating Koreans, and Zenio, who is a Code S zerg, something Puma has not yet achieved. Dimaga is a wild card. We know he’s great; we know he has a winner’s charisma. The grim reality, however, is that he could pull a rabbit out of the hat, or he could stare at his shoes all tournament long. Our last player is Killer, once a regular in Code S, now respectfully Code A. He’ll be able to bully some hapless foreigners but he’s going to have a tough time against the elite.

Group D

Idra, DarkForce, Supernova, Kas, Real, Feast

Nydra's take

This is one of the more interesting pools, although still shadowed by the line-up in Group B.

Sao Paulo saw the much hyped first international appearance of Supernova, but the Korean terran actually had a much harder time than people expected and literally got destroyed by Violet in the grand final. Does that mean he's not the scariest contender in the group? No! Is it for a fact that the oGs terran will make it effortlessly to the playoffs? Yes! Who are the other two to follow him there? Now that's a tough question.

Kas would be the most solid person to put gambling money on. After a long time of dominating the scene, Kas is still considered the number one terran in Europe. He made the crowd in Kiev shout his name after he wiped the smile of Zenio's face and doned him a gloomy expression. He rivals the likes of MMA and MarineKing in his understanding of how TvZ works and having two zergs in the group makes his job all the more easy. He was nicknamed "The Destroyer" and you can be sure that such an alias is not awarded lightly to just anybody.



Next on the list are Feast who rose to fame after eliminating HerO in Kiev to reach the playoffs and scoring another top eight IEM finish in Sao Paulo after having a much easier group. With Feast it's really the question if he can keep his mojo running and despite all the praises with which the communty has adorned him I will go ahead and give him a negative based on simple examination of his tournament history. True, he lived through his group in Kiev but all he did was beat qxc, who as we all know haven't been doing all too well, and two-one HerO in a PvP. In Sao Paulo he won a group with DeMuslim, Xlord and Tunico in it and, let's be honest, all three of them are so far away from Supernova and Kas in terms of skill that it's not really worth mentioning. Real and DarkForce have very similar chances, although still bigger than the last contender.

It is unusual to see Idra considered a darkhorse but, funnily enough, there he is. Greg travelled to Korea to live and train with the guys from Slayers but all he did was make it very difficult to be a fan of his. He went one-and-six during his GSL run, 1-4 in MLG Winter Arena and is in the negative in every match-up since the beginning of '12. Idra stated in a recent interview that practice takes time to kick in and one should not read too much into a loss or two but time did pass and so did the point when the losses were indeed one or two. Idra's future is looking very grim.

procyonlotor's take

Everyone in group D except Darkforce is thanking their lucky stars DongRaeGu couldn’t make it, but even with the charity of the Starcraft gods, this group is no fly-through. Once again, a Korean is the clear favorite (i.e. Supernova), but that could easily change if Idra can bring his beastmode to bear. Kas and Feast are two top Europeans. One has been around for a while, and the other is newly ascended, but both have so far failed to up the ante in a global theater. This may be their chance.

In conclusion

IEM Hanover is slated to be another Koreans Own White Dudes affair, though I would argue we would be justified to expect resistance. For those of you interested in seeing the West finally overcome the East, look to Nerchio, Kas, and Mana, and keep an eye on Feast, but don’t get your hopes up. IEM has not seen a non-Korean champion since Idra dominated Guangzhou but as we established earlier, this ship sailed a long time ago. Seeing how the heavy hitters are distributed, we are likely to experience a very Code S vibe once past the quarter finals as there will probably be no stopping MMA, MC, Supernova, Puma or Violet.

Finally, stay tuned to GosuGamers during the whole IEM Hanover as we will be on CeBIT grounds, reporting straight from the hot spots of the World Championship.

* - It was announced later today that WhiteRa will replace Ret in group B due to the zerg being ill.