ESWC Master of Athens 2008 Day 1 Recap
The ESWC Master of Athens began yesterday in Athens, Greece. Only two games are being played over the period of 2 days which is Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne and Quake 3 Arena. Each game consists of 4 Greek Champions and 12 International Players which are invited. All 16 will be participating for the prize money of 30,000 USD and the top 2 for each game will book a place in next year’s ESWC Finals.
Day one has ended and the top 2 players from each group will go through to the Second Group Stage. Unfortunately, all Greek players are out of the competition, leaving only the International players in the second group stage which will commence later today.
Starting with the Quake 3 Arena tournament, Champion of the ESWC Finals in San Jose California is back to hold his title as the best Quake player. Alexey "Cypher" Yanushevksy will be showing the world what skill he has in the game. The Belarus player wins all 3 games in his group leading the table ahead of Swedish player Spart1e.
Other group sees Chinese International RazerJ taking the lead in his group after winning all 3 matches with Serious Gaming member AV3K coming in second place. Swedish player Fox also won 3 games in front of US player Rapha. Finally, Group A sees Austrian player Noctis taking 3 games leaving K1LLSEN , the German in second place.
All this players will be going into the second group stage later to battle out for who will go into the Semi-Finals and the Finals. The second group stage is as the following:
| Group A | Group B |
| Noctis | Cypher |
| Fox | RazerJ |
| AV3K | K1LLsen |
| Spart1e | Rapha |
In the other game, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, both German players Spicy and Yaws did not make it for the Masters, leaving group A and B with 3 players. Group A saw Champion of the ESWC Finals, mTw.AMD.Who come in second place behind teammate Check. In group B, Korean Night Elf king, MYM]Moon fell to the Toddler, GG.Tod in the last match making him fall to second behind French rival Tod. Group C saw the Orc player Grubby beating Remind 2-1 to gain first in front of Remind. The last group saw the Korean Orc, Lyn taking first place ahead of GG.Hot from the Ukraine. The group stages will be a tough one especially group A.
| Group A | Group B |
| GG.Tod | Check |
| MYM.Grubby | Lyn |
| mTwAMD.WHO | MYM.Moon |
| GG.Hot | SK.Remind |
Day 2 will commence at 12.00 (GMT +3) continuing for where they left of and eventually end with the finals TODAY!
Photos from the events:
Cypher and Av3k with their leader.
Group Photo. All 32 players.
The reigning champion? Tod during the match vs Moon which he won.
Final Day Recap
The final day of the ESWC Master of Athens so many disappointments. The final day came to an end at around 2200 hours GMT +2 in Athens, Greece.
As said, the Prize money for the competition is 30,000 USD and the top two for the two games, Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne and Quake 3 Arena will have a place at the ESWC Finals in France next year.
So starting of with Quake 3 Arena. The groups are as the following in the end:
| Group A | Group B |
| AV3K | Cypher |
| Spart1e | Rapha |
| Fox | RazerJ |
| Noctis | K1LLsen |
In the end, the top 2 will be fighting each other in the semi-finals. However, there were disappointments in this game. Firstly, World Champion Av3k was drawn against Rapha and Cypher with Spart1e. Things turn out real bad for both Serious Gaming players when Av3k lost to Rapha 2-0 and Cypher, the ESWC Champion also lost 2-0 to Spart1e. The 2 gamers, being the best in the world has lost. Both of them battled for 3rd place which saw Av3k taking it from his teammate, score 2-1. The finals were played later and Rapha was crowned the Master of Athens beating Spart1e 2-1.
Over in the Warcraft 3 scene, there were also disappointments. The group are as the following in the end:
| Group A | Group B |
| GG.Tod | MYM.Moon |
| mTwAMD.WHO | Lyn |
| GG.Hot | SK.Remind |
| MYM.Grubby | Check |
Disappointment for Dutch player Grubby as he only managed a win. The top 2 advanced into the semi-finals. The brackets are GG.Tod vs Lyn and MYM.Moon vs Who. GG.Tod fought against the toughest Korean player in the tournament but only managed a win and failed to advanced to the finals losing 2 games to Lyn. Moon, from a recent interview said that he is going to win this tournament. But spills the first game to Who but strongly hold on to himself and take back 2 more to play Lyn in the finals, score 2-1. Third placing when to Tod who pulled 2 games out of 1 from Who the ESWC Champion and what a disappointment for him. The finals saw Lyn having no mercy beat Moon 2-0 and claim the title.
Our local WC3 player the 1st runner up in WCG.MY 2008 SiN[Pin.zz] were following very closely on the tournament.
For him who was also an Orc user, it was mere luck that the Orc races were lucky through out the tournament:
”It was just lucky for Orc to win. Orc usually cookie cut all the time where Orcs only go with one strategy which is Raider and Spirit Walkers. But Orc has no change in the new patch. There were no nerf and buff towards the Orc race but there are nerfs like the Staff nerf and Tower nerf which may affect that specific race. And the new maps that are released supports Orcs but not all maps do.”
Congratulations to all the winners.
Sources:
www.eswc.com/masters/athens2008
www.sk-gaming.com
By Triz.Tz
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