At IEM Sydney, StarCraft II pros from the Oceanic and South East Asian regions battled for a place at the World Championship Series finals to be held at Austin, Texas.
The final match of the WCS Challenger OCE-SEA qualifiers came down to two players, Sheldon “Seither” Barrow and Ryan “NXZ” Jones.
It was Terran vs Zerg in this final match but the lead-up to the final wasn’t without drama.
StarCraft 2 WCS IEM Sydney
In a stunning upset early on in the competition, NXZ knocked regional favourite Sean “Probe” Kempen into the loser’s bracket. Probe’s Protoss army was stunned by the strength and strategy of NXZ’s Zerg.
To add insult to injury for Probe, he was knocked out completely by a 2 proxy factory build courtesy of Terran opponent Nik “HuT” Hutton.
NXZ and Seither had no trouble making their way through the competition and into the finals but it was Seither’s Terran play that sealed the win for him. Along with the glory, Seither takes away the majority of the $10,000 AUD prize pool and earns his place at WCS Austin.
NXZ will join Seither in Austin where they’ll both be competing for a share of $101,000 USD and 12,600 WCS points.
WCS Austin is the second of four WCS majors being held in 2018. IEM Leipzig was the first event with Valencia, Spain and Montreal, Canada following on from Austin.
The series culminates in the WCS Grand Finals to be held at BlizzCon 2018
To check out the action from IEM Sydney you can watch video on demand on Twitch.
