Winning is nothing new for the Ukrainian, he has done a lot of it. With the lack of skilled terran's in Europe, Oparyshev has remained a prize commodity for those looking to improve their game without having to adjust to a Korean sleeping pattern.

He and his fellow countrymen and teammate Oleksii "White-Ra" Krupnick have tag teamed their through the Ukrainian World Cyber Games preliminaries in past years, until 2008.

Several months ago Oparyshev wasn't sure if he would be going to Germany to represent his country. The fact was he didn't even qualify. The up-and-comer Dima "DIMAGA" Filipchuk ended his hopes and surprised the entire community with a win at WCG Ukraine. Oparyshev didn't lose hope. He was told that a spot would be allocated to him if he paid for his entire trip, which he agreed.

In Germany, he was placed in a reasonably difficult group, which included the young Lithuanian powerhouse Vytautas "Arew" Graiciunas and teammate of the Ukrainian along with Carlo "ClouD" Giannacco - a possible contender for a medal.

Oparyshev tore through his group without dropping a single game. His first place finish in the group would earn him a relatively easy first round in single elimination play against the Russian protoss Igor "Bruce" Utkin.

He took down the Russian without much problems. He was then placed against Xian "Legend" Luo in the quarter-finals. Luo is a former professional gamer for SK Telecom T1 and arguably the best player in China. While Oparyshev had a slightly harder time with this individual, he was still able to dominate him in the third game, moving him into the semi-finals.


Eugin "Strelok" Oparyshev (Photo by GosuGamers)

His chance for gold would end here. He was scheduled to play Chan Soo "Luxury" Park, the superstar from KTF who made relatively short work of the Ukrainian in two games. Even though, he was technically eliminated, a third place finisher was still yet to be named. Yin "loveTT" Liu was his opponent for the bronze medal who had taken one game off Byung Goo "Stork" Song and defeated Christoph "Mondragon" Semke and Tyler "NonY" Wasieleski earlier in the day. At this point it appeared as though only a professional could take down Liu.

In a battle for third place, Oparyshev got right down to business and absolutely demolished Liu in both games. He went above and beyond what was expected from him.

For Eugin, tomorrow will not look so bad once he sets foot atop that medal stand, hoisting the Ukrainian flag up in the air. After first looking down at that bronze medal and glancing to his side, it will all sink in. He is standing next to two of the best players in the world. Two guys who play StarCraft for a living, bring in thousands of dollars in endorsements alone, and have thousands more fans that would give almost anything to stand a few feet away from them. He will then realize what he has truly achieved.