StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm

Starcraft 2: WCS Europe Season 1 group play kicks off tonight

Phil Savage at

With the qualifiers now finished, the 32 players competing in the first season of the European leg of Starcraft 2's World Championship Series have been announced. The pros have been split into eight groups, with each group battling on a different night over the next three weeks. The first group - featuring SaSe, ForGG, sLivko and Bunny - kick things off tonight, from 6pm CEST/5pm BST.

Each group will fight five best-of-three matches, using the following format:

  1. Player #1 vs. Player #4
  2. Player #2 vs. Player #3
  3. Winners of these matches will then face each other
  4. The losers of the initial matches face each other
  5. The loser of the 3rd match and the winner of the 4th match will face each other

The two players to win two games overall will move forward to the 16-player second stage, with the losers dropping to the Challenger League.

Play will continue tomorrow, with the Group B battles, then resume next week with Groups C-E fighting from Tuesday to Thursday. See the full timetable and player list below:

You can watch the WCS, for free, at the official WCS Europe stream. Do any of the upcoming match-ups take your fancy?