Ever since competitive StarCraft began, Russia has always been a hotbed where you could find talented players. Sure, maybe not Korean caliber players, but certainly individuals who could hold their own.

Many Russian teams have come and gone, but none have managed to hold a monopoly of the best Russian and Ukrainian players like Team RoX

The rise of a legend

One player, more than any other has shown that Russian players were among the best in the world. He goes by the name of Andrey "Androide" Kukhianidze. He is legend in the international community because he proved that the professional gamers could be beaten by amateurs, in not just one game, but many. This was proven at the World Cyber Games Grand Finals in Singapore back in 2005.

Kukhianidze conquered his opponents including the professional gamer Do Hyun “Silent_Control” Na all the way to the finals. Even though he lost, he gave all non-Koreans hope that maybe one day they would have the opportunity to stand atop the wearing a gold medal around their neck.

Since that time, though the Russian has slowly faded away, trying his luck at just about every World Cyber Games final, but never showing similar results. That is of course until now.

So far in Day 1 he has gone undefeated in Group A. To anyone, this is a phenomenal achievement. The funniest part of this is the fact he didn’t even initially qualify.

Visa issues return

It seems like a World Cyber Games final cannot go by without several players being prevented from securing a visa. Victor "localhost" Lopatin and Pavel "BRAT_OK" Kuznetsov, members of Team RoX were unable to receive a visa to travel to Germany. Fortunately for their teammate and winner of WCG Russia, Sergey "Pomi" Rodionov, got a visa.

Two adequate replacements were found in Igor "Bruce" Utkin – the leader of Team RoX and the familiar face Kukhianidze. Both of these players not only accepted to travel thousands of miles away to compete on short notice, but they did so very well by advancing.

The unlucky one

Dima “DIMAGA” Filipchuk snuck behind two heavy favorites at WCG Ukraine to earn a ticket to Germany. However, it appears his luck stopped in his home country. He was placed in one of, if not the hardest group at the event along with being filled with five players competing with the same race.

He fought valiantly, but due to Valentin "Ace" Vaczi earning a walkover against Jose “CaStrO” Castro he would not be able to get another shot at advancing in a tiebreaker. An unfortunate event for the newcomer, however, he can still be happy that so far two of his teammates have moved on to the next round.

Pomi earns his shot

Rodionov will earn his shot at Day 2 of the World Cyber Games. In his first WCG appearance, he will have the honor of playing the likes of Chan Soo "Luxury" Park, Yin "loveTT" Liu and James "JohnRambo" Foo. Advancing from Group E will be a major achievement in itself.

Assuming he advances, Team RoX will make up almost 20 percent of the round of sixteen. This is an achievement that only the Templars of Twilight can possibly match at this point in the tournament. The only difference is all of RoX's players hail from one country, Russia.