InCup Summer Finals

InCup’s summer season came to an end on Monday with Lyn of World Elite emerging victorious over SK’s Sweet. The Korean rounded off a good weekend for Orc players after Grubby won the WSVG London stop. With two players having won two cups in the regular season, as opposed to Lyn’s one, spectators might have been surprised to see HoT and Satiini out of the final but Lyn’s play was superb. He dropped just three maps all tournament, from a potential fifteen, to claim his first InCup seasonal title. The result also finishes off a good year for Lyn in InCup, having finished third in the regular summer season and second in the spring first place seemed like a natural progression almost.

HoT and Satiini, who both had two summer season victories, will be kicking themselves after this tournament and will be wishing they could kick Supplant. The Ukrainian was sent to the lower bracket in round one, making it to round four there before Supplant eliminated him. Satiini fared a little better, making it to round two of the upper bracket (where Supplant knocked him down too) and made it to the lower bracket final, where he lost to… wait for it, yep, Supplant.

Lyn’s opponent in the final, Sweet, had a similarly impressive run in the tournament but Lyn proved to be his undoing twice. They met first in the upper-bracket final, which Lyn won 2-0. After defeating the red-hot Supplant in the lower final Sweet came back for revenge against his fellow Korean and almost had it. Coming from the lower bracket he had to win two best-of-threes and got off to the best possible start, winning the first set 2-0. In the second set, however, he fell apart, losing 2-0 and giving Lyn the €500 prize money.

WSVG London

This event was one of the most difficult to predict of the whole year. The player pool might not have been the strongest and the maps were pretty standard but the list of players on the Lanwar page was unbelievable – and I mean that as literally as possible. When the players were actually signed in we were left with an impressive list of European talent. Giacomo, Creolophus and Grubby started out as favourites and, unsurprisingly – with a little re-arranging of the order – that was the top three.

The Dutchman’s play was impeccable this weekend. He didn’t drop a single map throughout the whole tournament, winning every game 2-0 on his way to cool five grand in USD. What makes this more impressive is the wealth of talent he had to face. After a BYE in the first round it was WC3L players all the way for the Orc superstar. He saw off SaSe in round two, team-mate Creolophus in round three, and Giacomo in the final, all in dominating 2-0 style. The only question left unanswered by his form over the weekend is his mirror match-up. This seems to be his weakest game right now and he will undoubtedly be putting in extra practice against Orcs before the grand finals roll round.