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IEM Katowice 2022 – Final four players set for Sunday

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It will be a foreigner-filled final four at IEM Katowice, with (Wiki)Reynor, (Wiki)HeroMarine, (Wiki)Serral, and (Wiki)Rogue fighting through day one of the playoffs to earn spots in the final day of the tournament.

The surprise of the day was clearly HeroMarine, whose previous best finish at a world championship-tier event had been top 12 at last year’s IEM Katowice. This time, he blew past his own personal record by reaching the semifinals. Big Gabe needed two, hard-fought victories against (Wiki)Zoun and (Wiki)Solar to get there, but he was able to clutch out victories in the end. His third game against Solar on Hardwire was particularly notable, with its frantic basetrade ending making it one of the candidates for most entertaining game of the tournament (VOD). With IEM Katowice 2022 producing an unusual number of exceptional matches, it will be hard to pick just one such game. It turned out to be a good day for HeroMarine in more ways than one, as his signature Series profile video also debuted at IEM.

Interestingly enough, HeroMarine was relatively pleased by his semifinal opponent: the reigning IEM Katowice champion Reynor. While HeroMarine has terribly one-sided records against some of the other title contenders, he’s historically been able to take Reynor to close matches and has won a number of BO5 series against him. As for Reynor, he survived a very close call against (Wiki)Dark to reach the semifinal round. The series between the two ZvZ masters delivered back-to-back thrillers on Hardwire and Berlingrad (VOD), with Dark using his mastery over Lurkers and Vipers to earn two impossible comebacks against an impatient Reynor. Fortunately for Reynor, he adapted to Dark’s defensive style in game five and beat him at his own game.

After going 10-0 in the group stage, Serral was faced with the considerable challenge of facing (Wiki)Maru in the quarterfinals. The Team NV Terran had come into IEM as one of the top title favorites, and had also defeated Serral months prior in the online King of Battles 2 finals. However, Serral had the upper hand in their first major live match, taking a convincing 3-1 victory. As it turned out, late-game Maru is still virtually invincible—Serral’s sole loss came to Maru’s clinical Ghost-mech play on Hardwire (VOD). But with a Baneling bust on Blackburn, and overwhelming mid-game Ling-Bane play on Pride of Altaris and Berlingrad, Serral was able to win the dream match and move onto the semifinals.

Rogue ended up being the only player to hold up Korea’s pride in the tournament, though he earned that status by default due to coming out of an all-Korean quadrant of the bracket. The two-time IEM World Champion’s run wasn’t entirely convincing, as he was heavily pressured by two Terran underdogs in (Wiki)Ryung and (Wiki)Bunny. Yet, he was still able to eke wins out in the end—a testament to his much-renowned ability to perform under pressure. Rogue’s best performance probably came on Blackburn against Bunny, where he overcame a poor start and eventually picked his opponent apart with Lurkers (VOD).

Other players who authored noteworthy matches included (Wiki)Dream, who earned the distinction of actually outplaying Maru and beating him in a late-game TvT (VOD), and (Wiki)Zoun, who fully leveraged the might of Disruptors to come from behind against HeroMarine (VOD).

IEM Katowice will conclude with the semifinals and grand finals on Sunday, Feb 27 9:45am GMT (GMT+00:00).

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