Recurring favorites Lyn and Lucifer need to be content of taking the 2nd spot for their groups. Miou managed to take top fave Lyn down with a 2-0 score.

On Group D, Lucifer takes a backseat to hanf, who isn't even considered a top contender in this tournament. This talented German just showed that he has what it takes to defeat the bigger name players. He is certainly a player to watch out for in the next rounds.

KaKi isn't exactly a German player, but hails from Canada. He managed to defeat FoCuS to take the top spot as well.

From the four Koreans participating in the tourmament, only Susiria managed to take the top seed, defeating both Nilknarf and ShrieK to get him there.

Hero of the Day: Miou or KiwiKaKi?

Okay, they aren’t exactly heroes, but they were certainly the underdogs in their respective matchups. What’s more surprising? Miou shutting Lyn down, or KiwiKaKi coming out victorious 2-0 against Orc brother FoCuS?

Let’s break it down into smaller parts:

Miou vs Lyn
- Miou is strong in Germany, but doesn’t have a lot of experience against South Korean progamers.
- Lyn has beaten stronger Human players before, such as Sky.
- The infamous Human_owns_Orc adage.

KiwiKaKi vs FoCuS
- FoCuS continuously improves, from his online performances.
- FoCuS recently beat Grubby in the WC3L, making waves.
- Orc mirror isn’t KiwiKaKi’s forte.

Personally, I think Miou winning against Lyn is more of a surprise. Lyn should have more considerable experience against any kind of Human player, especially since he’s more used to going against players such as Sky and ToD. Human might be a hard matchup for him, but Miou has significantly less experience than the last two names I’ve mentioned. Miou deserves it, hands down, while Lyn needs to try harder.

As for KaKi, good for him! FoCuS has been getting a lot of attention from his great online performances, but it seems that KaKi can pull it off on LAN. Who’s the better Orc, plus Lyn the picture? We’ll see in the next days.

Hello, Shortround. And Goodbye.

WCG 2005 2nd place winner Shortround makes an appearance on the tournament, “coming back” from retirement just to compete for fun. He’s well known for taking top places in big tournaments, above people who are “incredibly in shape”, while he comes in and out of inactivity.

This time around, the outcome won’t be as favorable to him as it was in the past. He was completely dominated by hanf and Lucifer, but he doesn’t really lose anything from losing.

Lucky for hanf and Lucifer that they managed to defeat him… or they’ll be the laughingstock of LA.

Last American Standing

Four Americans are quickly eliminated in the first day of the tournament, which isn’t really a surprise. The closest call was SonKiE in group A, almost qualifying out of his group but was beaten out by map score. He almost beat Lyn on Lost Temple, acquiring Mass Teleport for his Archmage and killing off both of Lyn’s level 5 heroes.

But Lyn managed to catch SonKiE completely off-guard while he was trying to finish off Lyn’s base. Lyn made Wind Riders that SonKiE could not counter with his Spell Breakers.

The last American standing is Nilknarf, who qualified ahead of ShrieK, who was in the same group. Nilknarf recently lost the chance to represent the United States for the WCG in Seattle, but now it becomes another chance for him to prove that the USA has what it takes to compete with the big players.