With one exception (see below) all the Challenger qualifiers are now complete (you can see some of the VODs of EU/NA via Basetradetv and gXxshocks, along with some from SEA via Anthony Carapetis). Sixty of sixty-four players are decided; two regions having played their Challenger matches already (SEA and China, which gives us 6 out of 32 Premier players). The racial split among the 60 qualifiers is 23 Zergs, 19 Protoss, and 18 Terrans (so a much healthier Zerg scene than the current GSL, for whatever that's worth). As always, if you spot any errors or omissions, please let me know!
EU Qualifiers
Day 4 (187 players)
Snute (Z) - beat fellow Zergs Tefel and Petraeus to qualify
MaNa (P) - knocked off Terrans DeMuslim and Happy to qualify
Majestic (P) - beat Dayshi, sLivko, and TLO to qualify
Welmu (P) - struggled through Bly's awful Internet and Fraer's cheese to qualify
Majestic is a real surprise, as the Spanish player makes it to Challenger for the first time. On the fail side, Harstem lost to GunGFuBanDa and Nerchio lost to Fraer.
Day 5 (177 players)
Happy (T) - beat Adonminus in an otherwise easy path to qualify
MorroW (T) - knocked out Tefel on his way to qualifying
FireCake (Z) - beat SortOf, ret, and DeMuslim to qualify
Nerchio (Z) - played through an easy bracket to qualify
Lillekanin and ZhuGeLiang played the longest and most boring game of SC2 I've ever seen, after which the Danish player was disqualified for violating rules during it. This was the same day that GungFuBanDa tried to bribe his opponent (jeysen), both of whom were suspended for the season.
Day 6 (182 players)
PsiOniC (P) - beat Krr, ShoWTimE, and Strelok
Harstem (P) - qualified at last, beating StarNaN on the way through
BlinG (P) - beat TLO, DeMuslim, and Lamboking to qualify
Ret (Z) - knocked out hOpe, elfi, and miniraser to qualify
Both TLO and DeMuslim continued to struggle; PsiOniC is the surprise here.
Day 7 (16 players selected by their performance through the previous qualifiers)
ShoWTimE (P) - lost no games beating Complain, TLO, and Serral
Bly (Z) - went through Fraer, Petraeus, and Miniraser
Serral (Z) - despite losing to ShoWTimE, he was able to overcome Petraeus to qualify
TLO (Z) - finally made it, although had to do so through the losers bracket (narrowly beating Miniraser)
I went through Aligulac's prediction model prior to the matches yesterday (the full version is at the bottom of the post to avoid clutter here), and the site predicted Dayshi, ShoWTimE, TLO, and Petraeus to qualify. Dayshi was bounced very early and it's incredible to think how much his game has slipped in order to fail seven straight times. Petraeus came close, but his exclusion is another surprise. The popular DeMuslim is another notable failure, while Miniraser, Zanster, and Adonminus are former Premier players who did not qualify. In terms of how the second week's qualifiers matched up with Aligulac's (unfinialised) foreigner rankings, 8 of the 12 got through (Dayshi, Petraeus, Zanster, and the suspended GunGFuBanDa did not). In terms of the racial balance, EU finished with 10 Protoss, 9 Terran, and 9 Zerg.
NA Qualifiers
Day 3 (107 players)
Polt (T) - didn't lose a match in qualifying (knocking off Minigun)
Xenocider (T) - also didn't lose a match, beating hendralisk on his way through
Guitarcheese (Z) - Suppy was his most notable opponent
State (P) - beat HuK and ViBE to qualify
Scarlett chose not to play despite quite soft brackets, waiting for the even softer ones of day four. HuK's failure on the day was the biggest surprise.
Day 4 (106 players)
Scarlett (Z) - made her way through an easy bracket to qualify
Semper (T) - a surprise qualifier, he beat Drunkenboi to get through
Suppy (Z) - went through Goswser to qualify
HuK (P) - took out Jon Snow and Intense to qualify at last
So what players of note didn't get in? DesRow, Minigun, Goswser, ViBE, and hendralisk. Only hendralisk's failure surprises me, as both the other Zergs have come out of retirement, Chad Jones off of illness, and the Remax host hasn't been on form in months. My prediction for EJK went down the drain; I also erroneously included Arium as a possibility last time, but he's too young to participate in WCS. The racial mix from NA is 6 Zergs, 5 Protoss, and 5 Terrans, with Semper (aka Hale) the biggest surprise qualifier.
The first Latin American qualifier featured a huge upset as Catz was knocked out the first day by Venezuelan ByRada (who subsequently lost in the qualifying match against JimRising); MajOr, as expected, rolled through (not losing a game). Catz made it through yesterday (although he should have lost to Cham), as did Kelazhur.
The first stage of the Taiwan, Hong Kong, & Macau Qualifiers are complete, with Has, Mamba, Rex, Sen, AK, Fist, Ian, and GogojOey reaching the second stage. The name players of the region all made it through save for Slam, who doesn't appear to have participated. The qualifying matches will be played on Tuesday.
The Challenger matches in China have come and gone, with surprise participant Clavie crushed by XiGua; iAsonu beat XY, Jim knocked out TooDming, and MacSed beat Top.
SEA also finished it's Challenger matches, as PiG beat KingKong and Iaguz took out Enderr. The first series was pretty one-sided, but the latter was very close.
For pedants and the curious: the full Aligulac prediction of the Last Chance qualifier for EU:
TLO over Lambo
ShoWTimE over Complain
Hanfy over StarNaN
Serral over Adonminus
Dayshi over Zanster
Miniraser over DeMuslim (closest percentages of the pairings)
Bly over Fraer
Petraeus over Tefel
Winner's Bracket
ShoWTimE over TLO
Serral over Hanfy
Dayshi over miniraser
Petraeus over Bly
ShoWTimE over Serral
Dayshi over Petraeus
Loser's Bracket
Complain over Lambo
Adonminus over StarNaN
Zanster over DeMuslim
Tefel over Fraer
TLO over Complain
Hanfy over Adonminus
Zanster over miniraser
Tefel over Bly (close percentages)
TLO over Hanfy
Zanster over Tefel
TLO over Serral
Petraeus over Zanster
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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