The SK Gaming player is Battle.net tournament’s all-time favourite, winning three out of five previous titles before losing grip to the title to lovable Norwegian legend Creolophus in the intensive overall final last season in BlizzCon.

Qualifying from one of the hardest regional finals by knocking out FoCuS, Moon and Susiria with three clean sheets, the 22-year-old is poised for his fourth title of the Warcraft III maker’s tournament.

Although some of the top-notched players like Grubby, Moon and ToD as well as renowned Night Elf killers FoV, Lucifer and ReiGn ceased to qualify, with young breed like Happy and LucifroN as well as old-schoolers like Check and Lyn, it is unlikely that he will breeze through the tournament in the coming two days.

Here we are to analyze these eight contestants and see who are the real deal in this competition.

mTwAMD.Check

Qualifying routine to the finals:
2-1 vs. FoCuS
2-1 vs. SocceR
0-2 vs. Lyn
2-1 vs. ReMinD
2-1 vs. Lyn
2-1 vs. Lyn

Five latest matches:
2-1 vs. Macsed
0-2 vs. Grubby
2-1 vs. Sky
0-2 vs. ToD
2-0 vs. dArk

After joining mTw together with his former BET team-mates earlier this year, the 22-year-old has yet to catch up with his performance in WC3L last season. The mTw captain has merely won 50% of his solo games as well as 50% of his 2v2 games with WhO. When the majority believed he had slowly found his touch in his prime time after winning the Korean finals of Battle.net Season VI with a series of close wins, he abruptly lost to ReMinD and SoJu in NiceGameTV League shortly afterwards and was consequently eliminated in the group stage. When he is on fire, he is capable of beating the likes of Lyn, ReMinD and Sky, but he could also lose to players like DeMusliM and apm from time to time. You never know him.

Happy

Qualifying routine to the finals:
2-1 vs. ToD
2-0 vs. LucifroN
2-0 vs. SaSe
2-0 vs. SaSe

Five latest matches:
1-2 vs. Sting
2-0 vs. Neytpoh
2-0 vs. SaSe
2-0 vs. SaSe
2-0 vs. LucifroN

The Russian player could be the only Undead hopeful in BlizzCon, but he could be the one who brings Undead nearest to the first place in an international event in two years’ time. He performed more than well in the European finals in Spain dropping only one single map against ToD in the whole competition and brought home a prize cheque for USD 5,000 as well as a paid trip to California, in spite of being without a team for more than four months after parting way with Mousesports. Though he lost qualification for WCG Global finals to Sting in national qualifier later, he still is one of the major title contenders in Anaheim.

srs.SonKiE

Qualifying routine to the finals:
2-0 vs. ShrieK
1-2 vs. KiWiKaKi
2-0 vs. Kowi
2-0 vs. apm
2-0 vs. KiWiKaKi
2-1 vs. NilknarfLP
2-1 vs. NilknarfLP

Five latest matches:
2-0 vs. YanE
0-2 vs. FiX
2-1 vs. NilknarfLP
2-1 vs. NilknarfLP
2-0 vs. KiWiKaKi

Results speak for SonKiE being the best player in North America, but rather ironically he proved himself through an even overall final against NilknarfLP, whom has almost retired for a year. As the player himself confessed that the lack of access to good practice hindered the Americans from breaking into international professional scene in the interview with Malystryx, it lies such a question mark on his BlizzCon trip. Will he take the first win for North American players in two years?

ALTERNATE.SaSe

Qualifying routine to the finals:
2-0 vs. KnOfF
2-0 vs. Grubby
0-2 vs. Happy
2-1 vs. LucifroN
0-2 vs. Happy

Five latest matches:
2-0 vs. Bonecracker
1-2 vs. ReiGn
2-0 vs. FoV
0-2 vs. Shy
2-1 vs. VortiX

The 21-year-old Swede has been considered to be among the top tier players since his victory over Moon in WEG and was invited to various tournaments lots of times, but he failed his fans in most occasions and hasn’t made any major achievement apart from a championship of DreamHack Summer 2008. However, his recent performance indicates he is on the way back to top. He not only secured himself a place in BlizzCon with two successive defeats of KnOfF and Grubby, but also became the driving force that help ALTERNATE taking the 7th place in WC3L this season. He is in a tough half bracket with Check and Lyn, but he is capable of scoring gold should he maintain his recent run.

SK.Lyn

Qualifying routine to the finals:
2-0 vs. Susiria
2-1 vs. Moon
2-0 vs. Check
1-2 vs. Check
1-2 vs. Check

Five latest matches:
1-3 vs. Moon
0-2 vs. infi
2-0 vs. XlorD
2-0 vs. Axslav
2-3 vs. Grubby

The Korea Orc player sliced past Moon in the Korea finals with a magnificent comeback and claimed USD 2,000 for his runner-up, but it was the only notable performance from him in four months. You can hardly compare him with the vigorous Lyn we saw in the first half of the year. ESWC 2008 champion WhO said he was still living in the shadow of Lyn in a post-event interview, but he is clearly closing the gap between the two rapidly. Lyn still has what it takes to scoop his fourth title this year, but it largely depends on how fast he can collect himself from his current mysterious slump.

x6tence.LucifroN

Qualifying routine to the finals:
2-1 vs. LiiLD.C
0-2 vs. Happy
2-1 vs. Creolophus
2-1 vs. ToD
1-2 vs. SaSe

Five latest matches:
2-0 vs. VoshiX
2-1 vs. Shocker
3-2 vs. Satiini
2-0 vs. Quaix
2-1 vs. Filthy

Playing on home soil, the soon 17-year-old Spaniard became the youngest Warcraft III participant in Battle.net tournament after taking the third place in European finals. The achievement has since then brought him lots of fame, and his performance shows that he deserves it. Playing for WICKED in online leagues like ESL Premier League and WPL, he has yet to taste the bitterness of losing. However, participating in offline event is another story and it is interesting to see if he can turn into a real challenger for the title.

SK.ReMinD

Qualifying routine to the finals:
1-2 vs. SocceR
2-0 vs. FoCuS
2-0 vs. Moon
2-0 vs. Susiria
1-2 vs. Check

Five latest matches:
0-2 vs. Sky
2-0 vs. Boo
2-0 vs. Sonik
0-3 vs. Fly100%
2-0 vs. ToD

ReMinD has little chance to demonstrate his strength this year as a large number of the individual tournaments so far were invitational, but he has so far lived up to the expectation, qualifying with defeats of FoCuS and MYM duo and taking the third place in WC3L player ranking this season. The player has a tradition of performing particularly well in Battle.net season finals so he has quite a good chance taking gold if he manage to surpass Happy in the first round.

KiWiKaKi

Qualifying routine to the finals:
2-0 vs. HolyHuman
2-1 vs. SonKiE
1-2 vs. NilknarfLP
0-2 vs. SonKiE

Five latest matches:
1-2 vs. VeryB1gman
0-2 vs. ReiGn
2-0 vs. Sting
0-2 vs. SonKiE
1-2 vs. NilknarfLP

The Canada representative at WCG Global final has slowly lost his love with the game and embraced poker since he joined Serious Gaming from mTw, and the consequence is obvious: he is no longer competent on the international stage. He has lost most of his games in second tier leagues like WPL and it will not be a surprise if he is eliminated from the competition without a single win. But well, he wouldn’t present at BlizzCon in the first place if not NilknarfLP claimed to forfeit his place.

First round prediction

Check vs. KiWiKaKi

The match appears to be the most one-sided one in the first round. Not only because there is such a huge skill gap between the two, but also the racial advantage will play his part in this match-up. Check has lost to a Orc though, but it was not such a big upset to lose to Grubby on Gnoll Wood. Unless KiWiKaKi has something up his sleeve like Bonecracker did against WhO in ESWC Grand finals, it is expected to see Check begin his campaign with a comfortable win.

SaSe vs. Lyn

One of the closest matches and the outcome will likely have an impact on how the whole tournament will go. In spite of losing to Moon by a large margin in the consolation final of NiceGameTV League, Lyn is a rather consistent player in the Orc vs. NE match-up, winning as much as 60% of the games. SaSe in the meantime has won merely 54% of his games against Orc players, but he defeated Grubby with a resounding 2-0 win and more importantly, he is in a good form. The stakes may be on Lyn, but the game will possibly keep everyone in suspense till the last minute.

Happy vs. ReMinD

Another series of close games in the making. The nightmare of Night elf player, Happy has 73% win ratio in the UD vs. NE match-up on paper, while his Korean counterpart has only 38% win ratio. It has always been the obvious weakness of ReMinD, but Battle.net season finals seem to have something special that gets his adrenaline going. In the playoffs of the fourth season finals, he was able to wipe Sweet off in the quarter-finals and later on won the whole competition with a victory over Lucifer. ReMinD will also opt for Orc for racial advantage at times and managed to defeat players like TeD and Susiria. Both sides will have an equal shot pulling through a narrow win and thus going far in the tournament.

SonKiE vs. LucifroN

The young Spaniard was previously seeded to play against Check, but has got to play against SonKiE instead, thanks to a seed reshuffle caused by NilknarfLP’s exit, and this leaves him a possible better start. He has quite a good stats against Human players and it was the victory over ToD in the qualifier that sent him to the finals. Furthermore, as Fly100% said an interview recently, Human players are hammered by the weakened towers in the current patch, while SonKiE is a known tower builder which means he just has a handful of chance to have a flying start. He is playing on home soil though, which may help a bit, but it is questionable how far it will take him to.

Who is going to be the dark horse in BlizzCon? Who do you think will triumph after all? Have your say below.

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Photos by PlayXP and mymTw