Marcus 'ThorZaIN' Eklöf has won the first stop of the Dreamhack EIZO Open in Stockholm defeating Seong Hun 'Polt' Choi in the finals 3-1. The ‘Spoon’ Terran surprised many by defeating the code S Terran in convincing style.

With the Swedish crowd chanting his name and an amazing atmosphere in the Ericsson Globe Annexet he took down the Korean Terran in a tense TvT. With nearly 60,000 people viewing the main stream of Dreamhack and a crowded live venue. These certainly are impressing numbers considering MLG Spring Arena #1 was also live during the Semi-Finals and Finals.

The Swedish Terran came a long way, looking nearly unstoppable as he cleared through group stages 1,2 and 3 with ease only losing a single match versus Naugrim on Saturday. This new format of having several group stages proved a little unneccesary as no real mistakes were made by the top players versus the less known local swedish players. Group stage 3 did see two top players go out, Lee ‘PuMa’ Ho Joon and the swedish Protoss Johan ‘NaNiwa’ Lucchesi who has been doing so well in the GSL this season already reaching the RO8.

After reaching the RO16 on Sunday Thorzain was up against fellow Swede Cytoplasm but had no problem taking the Zerg out in 2-0 fashion. After that Socke and Monster felt the same wrath of the Spoon Terran, nicknamed for his slow play often choosing mech for defensive or containment purposes and outlasting his opponents.

His opponent in the finals was TSL.Polt. Upon their 3 previous encounters Polt won two times with 3-0 and once 3-1 so statistically Polt was favorite to take this match. But with a mix of some unusual fast expands and solid patient mech play Thorzain proved that he is still one of the best European Terrans. Polt had no reply to his style especially on the last map, Shakuras Plateau where he contained Polt on 2 bases and held a strong siege line outside his base whilst expanding behind it with a third and fourth base. He wore down his opponent bit by bit with multiple drops. Polt did finally break the hold but lost too many units in the fight causing Thorzain to have a far better economy and production then his opponent forcing him to tap out minutes later.

The winner of the TSL 3 last year wanted this win badly he stated in the post match interview as it was nearly a year ago since his last big tournament win.





Point System

Beside prize money players also fought for valuable points. These points which will be earned during the upcoming three events: Dreamhack Summer, Valencia and Bucharest and will determine the 24 qualified players for the fifth and final stop at Dreamhack Winter 2012. The first and second place will automatically get a direct seed into the Grand Finals in November during Dreamhack Winter. Besides that due to a collaboration of MLG and Dreamhack. The winner, Thorzain receives a placement and a fully paid trip to New York City for the MLG Spring Arena #2 taking place May 18-20 to compete amongst 32 of the world’s best players.

Dreamhack Open: Summer

The next stop on the Dreamhack Open tour is Dreamhack Summer from 16 till 19 of June. And we here as SK Gaming can’t wait for the next awesome event. We will keep you updated on any further news about the participating players when it is announced.


This post was written by trial editor: Mithax

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