The ESWC 2011 Grand Finals are fast approaching and will run from Friday Oct 21st to Sunday 23rd. Full Schedule

All games minus the finals will be BO3 - the finals will be BO5. The top 2 from each of the below groups will make it in a single elimination bracket. I get to put my theorycrafting hat on and talk about who I think could be making it out of the brackets, there are a lot of lesser known players, but everyone was a lesser known player at one point or another.


ESWC 2011 Group 1
Jung-Hoon 'MarineKing' Lee (T)
James 'Moutas' Moutafidis (Z)
Sergey 'Pomi' Rodionov (P)
Hayder 'HayprO' Hussein (Z)
Bruno 'KeNzy' Wafo-Tapa (Z)
Aurélien 'AureS' Sannier (T)

I am definitely favouring MarineKingPrime to make it out of his bracket. The remaining spot could almost go to any of the other players. Pomi and HayprO I feel will be the front runners for the final spot, HayprO's favoured matches from what I've been of the opinion of were ZvZ and ZvT, and all the opponents save Pomi fit into that so we'll have to see how Pomi fairs against the 3 lesser known players in the bracket.


ESWC 2011 Group 2
Min Chul 'MC' Jang (P)
Jesper 'Bischu' Johansson (P)
Tim 'merz' Olsson (T)
Aleksander 'ALF' Yatsenko (Z)
Marc 'uThermal' Schlappi (P)
Michael 'Blight' Ramot (T)

MC has been performing absolutely stunningly lately nobody can deny this, fresh off a 2nd place finish at the recent MLG Orlando only dropping series to his ex-roommate and training partner HuK. The two-time winner of GSL without a doubt in my mind will make it out of the group, if anyone takes a series off him, that'll be the other person out of the bracket. Though, there are some pretty good competition in this bracket and who knows what could happen, Bischu and Merz have always been consistent players, both able to take games off the top performing players. ALF and Blight are names that keep on popping up as well, this could their tournament to burst into the limelight.


ESWC 2011 Group 3
Gregory 'IdrA' Fields (Z)
Carlo 'ClouD' Giannacco (T)
Olivier 'Orly' Bellemans (Z)
Aleksandr 'Bly' Svusuyk (Z)
Tomáš 'Harpner' Bruštík (P)
Daigo 'nemuke' Ozaki (T)

This group I'll be watching with a lot of interest, ClouD, Bly and Orly have been been around for a while performing very strong but haven't yet been able to take down any tournaments, that hunger will certainly be pushing them. IdrA has recently soared out of his mini-slump to once again be a contender for top American player, and even in his slump he was feared.


ESWC 2011 Group 4
Marcus 'ThorZaIN' Eklöf (T)
Jonathan 'DarKFoRcE' Belke (Z)
Aaron 'CocoA' Deir (T)
Andrey 'LiveZerg' Guldiashov (Z)
Felix 'Spoon' Petitzon (P)
Jan 'Evuser' Zelnik (P)

ThorZain, Darkforce, Cocoa, LiveZerg all in a group? Whoo! Unlucky for them, but as a spectator I cheered! Darkforce has been looking scary recently, LiveZerg and Cocoa too, but perhaps slightly less credit for it, but no less scary thats for sure. ThorZain has been called the best foreigner by a large number of the Korean pros, and he has certainly earned their praise for his stunningly play, and he along with MC are my favourites to fight it out in the finals.


ESWC 2011 Group 5
Ilyes 'Stephano' Satouri (Z)
Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen (P)
Silviu 'NightEnD' Lazar (P)
Artem 'sLivko' Garavtsov (Z)
Souaib 'cArn' Hanaf (T)
Miguel Angel 'Leugim' Villegas (Z)

Stephano has been recently been receiving no end of complements for his really solid looking Zerg play, and certainly not unwarranted complements. Grubby, once a force to be reckoned with within Warcraft 3, has got something to prove now that he is playing SC2 - he certainly got up to a high level really fast, but he needs that little push to get him to the cream of the crop. Nightend and cArn are more of these consistent players you always see in these tournaments, but never seem to be able to take them down - certainly great players in their own right, but the passion to prove they've got what it takes is definitely there, and as I said earlier, everyone was a lesser known player at one point or another.


ESWC 2011 Group 6
Arthur 'Nerchio' Bloch (Z)
Eugin 'Strelok' Oparyshev (T)
John 'Seiplo' Seipel (P)
Nick 'Axslav' Ranish (P)
Jens 'Snute' Waller Aasgaard (Z)
Sergio 'ZhevZ' Villegas (Z)

Nerchio and Strelok are my definite picks for making it out, Axslav though has some really scary protoss play, but I feel the timings Nerchio and Strelok like to use should be able to pick him apart pretty easily. Strelok is a really nice guy, and the Terran from the Ukraine certainly has the talent to back him up. Nerchio, previously a Random player who has settled on Zerg had been performing fantastically for a while and seemed to drop slightly, but what has been happening lately is zergs with his style taking a slight dip and come out of it soaring, so here comes Nerchio! Watch your heads!


ESWC 2011 Group 7
Jeffrey 'SjoW' Brusi (T)
Giacomo 'Socke' Thüs (P)
Anton 'LoWeLy' Plebanovich (Z)
Rafal 'ParanOid' Kontowicz (Z)
Marko 'Jarlaxle' Paunović (P)
Nickunj 'raZiel' Bansal (T)

Socke is always a top contender at any event he goes to, his Protoss play is fantastic and well-refined. SjoW the same, they work really hard and it shows, SjoW also back from training in Korea, lets see how his training has paid off. Lowely and Paranoid have been battling hard for the praise of consistency SjoW and Socke have, and they've got something to prove.


ESWC 2011 Group 8
Grzegorz 'MaNa' Komincz (P)
Samuli 'Elfittaja' Sihvonen (P)
Diogo 'sYz' Barbosa (Z)
Han Sang 'biGs' Cho (Z)
Turushan 'Sleeep' Aktay (P)
Deni 'Deny' Antolos (T)

I say this sort of tongue in cheek, but ignoring the fact that MaNa and elfi are in this group, this is likely the easiest of the groups. Hah! MaNa and elfi are stunning players, both of them performing magnificently lately especially elfi's recent games last weekend. sYz has been around for ages but hasn't been able to pull off any really big wins, but is definitely one to keep an eye on, he is most likely to pull off any upset here I feel.



There are many players in each of the groups capable of pulling an upset, and with most of them being much less known players, they have the 'element of surprise' as it were - they'll be able to train for their opponents having a large number of resources such as replays and previous tournament games to go off of, while the 'favourites' will have to rely on their solid play.

Nobody would be shocked to see players like ThorZain, Stephano, MC or IdrA in the finals, but people to watch out for this weekend are some of the consistent players who're about to have their time to shine. My 'dark-horses' - ones to watch: HayprO, Grubby and elfi. Either way, this weekend should lead to some fantastic games, especially in the single elimination bracket after these group stages.