Unlike a typical preview article where I just give you a brief introduction about the player, I will instead give some much better insight. Each and every player has their own strengths and weaknesses, so I thought it would be interesting to talk about those. This will hopefully help you familiarize yourself more with the competition.

The 2007 national finals has some of the strongest talent to date. However, not all of the players competing have put forth a similar amount of effort in their practice schedules. Several have even announced their plans for retirement if they are unable to advance to Seattle. This is not surprising with Starcraft II on the horizon, many are awaiting its release before they choose to dive back into the original.

Tyler "NonY" Wasieleski
Strengths: He’s consistent – online and offline he has been able to show that solid play that we have taken interest in. To beat this player you will have to take advantage of his mistakes. However, this will not been an easy task for his opponents to pull off.

Weaknesses: He doesn't highly excel against one particular race - while he is very solid against all of the races, he might not be as good as an opponent that highly excels against Protoss. All I can say is that he better hope that his opponent makes enough mistakes, so that he can gain enough of an advantage to win the game.

Biggest Threat – LzGaMer. As a protoss player this is the player that you don’t want to play against. He has arguably the strongest Zerg versus Protoss in all of North America. While NonY is very good against Zerg, I just don’t feel that he is skilled enough in this matchup to take down an LzGaMer that is playing well.


Jacob "NaW-LzGaMeR" Winstead
Strengths: He’s underrated – I am still shocked that many think this gamer has no chance in advancing from his group. He has drastically improved his play since last year in just about all aspects of his play. Honestly, I would go as far as saying that he has the highest chance of moving onto the semi-finals in his group. He has spent a majority of his time practicing against various Korean semi-professional and professional gamers and maintains a positive winning record against most of them.

Weaknesses: His mirror matchup - his Zerg versus Zerg without a doubt his biggest weakness. Although, you could say that ZvZ is all about luck, then he is very unlucky. While he usually executes his builds properly, he just tends to have problems adapting to his opponents that do not try to mimic his build.

Biggest Threat – iNcontroL. Unless LzGaMeR decides to not go Zerg against iNcontroL then I could see him having some problems. iNcontroL has shown in the past that he is very skilled in mirror matchups. LzGaMeR will need a lot of luck on his side of he wants to have any shot at beating him.


Geoff "ToT)iNcontroL(" Robinson
Strengths: He's unpredictable - his unpredictability will make it tough for his opponents to predict his strategy. In one game he could play very standard while in another game he could use a very unorthodox build. You just never know what this player will do in any given match.

Weaknesses: He’s inconsistent – in some games he can take down some of the strongest non-Koreans and in others his play is almost laughable. If his inconsistent play kicks in during the finals then I really don’t see him putting up anything better than mediocre results.

Biggest Threat – Skew. At the Pacific regional these two players ended up not playing each other, but iNcontroL had several problems of his own against FroZ who most would say is not as good against Zerg as Skew is. Since iNcontroL was defeated by FroZ several times, I would assume that he will certainly have a tough time against Skew also.


Alex "Skew[Media]" Brola
Strengths: His Terran versus Zerg – this is one particular matchup in which he highly excels at. Fortunately for him, there are two Zergs in his group. If his play is on during this event it will be very tough for either iNcontroL or LzGaMeR to take him down.

Weaknesses: He gets nervous playing on LAN – while he has shown time and time again why he’s one of the strongest gamers online, he just hasn’t been able to show similar results on LAN. Several weeks ago at the Pacific regional he finished in dead last, but luckily was given another shot to qualify in the Atlantic online qualifier.

Biggest Threat – NonY. While Skew is fairly decent against Protoss and Terran, he isn’t amazing. His win ratio against various Protoss users is substantially lower than his win ratio against Zerg. I strongly believe that this match will be a huge test for Skew and could very well be his most important match in the group.


Adolfo "eVaDe[Clean]" Castillo
Strengths: He’s patient – his style of Terran tends to be very reserved. He lets his opponents make mistakes, so that he can find an opening in their play and take advantage of it. His opponents will need to be very careful not to make too many errors against this gamer.

Weaknesses: Low motivation – his motivation to advance to Seattle will most likely be very low due to him not having much interest in Starcraft altogether. However, he might still put a decent fight to try to win those prizes.

Biggest Threat – Himself. I say this because he has claimed to have lost his love for Starcraft and just does not enjoy playing it anymore. He has also stated that he has rarely practiced in the past couple months which could severely hurt his chances in advancing past the group stages.


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