The StarCraft II Final 8 have been selected

As BlizzCon opens this weekend the StarCraft II World Championship Series is set for a blistering finish. The Opening Week matches have been taking place and narrowing the field considerably. There have been some surprising turnarounds and winners, as well as fan-favorites coming out on top as predicted. It’s down to just 8 players now and they’ll go head to head on the BlizzCon stage this weekend to see who will emerge as World Champion.

As expected, Serral, Maru and Stats have all made it into the top 8. These three players have had a strong showing this season, and pulled off some truly spectacular tactics to leave their opponents in the dust. They’ve showed no sign of slowing down either as they’ve each emerged with 2-0 victories from the groups. They’ve still got the quarter and semi finals to get through before any of them can vie for the top spot on Sunday, but if their opening week matches are anything to go by it’ll take some incredibly strong opponents to knock them out of the running.

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Fans have been itching for a Serral vs Maru match and with both players still in the competition, this may well happen. It’s anyone’s guess as to who would win between the two at this point, so as the lineups are drawn we’ll just have to see if we get what we hope for. A win by Maru would see another year of Korean dominance, but if Serral takes the title he’d bring the StarCraft II championship home to the rest of the world.

For over a decade Korea have been the undisputed champions when it comes to StarCraft II, but a win by Serral would put the rest of the globe firmly back in the arena as competition. Not to mention giving young gamers and even pros back the hope and belief that they too can make it to the world stage in StarCraft II.

Not to be outdone, there were some other great matches and even a rare upset that saw SpeCial knock Classic out of the running completely with a stunning 2-0 victory. Meanwhile Rogue, StarCraft II’s World Champion last year has once again made it to the top 8 so there is still everything to play for.

There have also been some truly interesting tactics at play as well, particularly from the likes of sOs. In a jaw-dropping match up against HeRoMaRiNe he went 20 minutes without a single splash-damage unit in their PvT game. Despite this, he still took away the win and the series proving that there are still new and innovative ways to win at the game.

The final rounds are set to be truly exciting, and the ultimate winner is still anyone’s guess. Opening Week’s line-up gave us just a glimpse of what the final 8 have in their arsenals and judging by those matches, we’re likely to see some off-the-wall and truly astounding games this weekend.

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