Our four StarCraft II World Championship Series Season One semifinalists for Europe and America have been decided after a great second day here in the ESL Studios in Cologne, Germany.

WCS Europe: the Foreign Hope fades

Hopes were high ahead of the WCS Europe quarter finals with three foreign hopefuls in the form of Snute, Welmu and VortiX battling it out for a spot in the semifinals. Yesterday saw VortiX fall short as the Korean Terran legend Jjakji dominated the series 3-0, kicking the Spaniard out of the competition. Today saw Snute and Welmu fall in similar fashion: Snute fell to MMA (3-1) and Welmu lost out to San (3-0).
 

 

WCS America: Captain America, not the hero of the day

 Alicia and HyuN were joined today by Revival and Oz, as the Zerg and Protoss (respectively) knocked out their opponents in convincing fashion. The clear favorite in the first WCS America matchup of the night between Polt and Revival was undoubtedly the American Terran player. However, the two-time WCS America champion was no match for the Zerg player, losing out on a semifinals appearance with a 3-1 defeat. A PvP closed out the day with Oz decisively beating Arthur 3-0 in three quick games.

Cheerful Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Competition

For more photos visit our Flickr.com Gallery!

Viewers at home went head-to-head with our studio audience for a chance to win a copy of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. In order to win a copy of the game (fashionably modeled by Rotterdam, Apollo and Carmac above), StarCraft II fans simply had to send 'Cheerfuls' - artwork in the form of memes, gifs, drawings, etc. The best from the web then went up against the best our studio audience could offer, with this being our winner:
 

@esltv @PaulChaloner MMA, our saviour! #WCS pic.twitter.com/9nJOQbN3tZ

— Tjerk 'Whiz' R (@Whiz_SqC) April 11, 2014

Congrats to him and a very big thank you to everyone who took part. There will be more opportunities over the weekend for those eager to get their hands on the new Blizzard Entertainment game, so stay tuned!

Action continues tomorrow at 20:00 CEST over on Twitch.