German Protoss player Dennis "HasuObs" Schneider kicked off his personal EPS Winter 2012 season in style. The 24-year-old mousesports player won the first out of five ESL Pro Series tournaments and successfully took revenge on hanfy, who defeated him during the Summer season.

Benefiting from a BYE in the first round, Dennis "HasuObs" Schneider was set to face Biphy in the second round. Struggling as usual versus Zerg, HasuObs saw himself trailing by one after the first map, but managed to come back on map two and three to take a 2-1 victory. In the third round he met the Austrian-based player monchi, who just won the IeSF event due to his outstanding PvP play. In a back-and-forth game, it was HasuObs who came out victorious, shutting down monchis streak with on three maps to advance to the semifinals.

 

The semifinals saw a match what is normally supposed to be a Grand Final: Two of Germany's strongest Protoss went head to head, as four-time EPS Champion HasuObs took on Socke from Alternate aTTaX, who has won the Pro Series twice. On both maps, ESV Ohana RE and Cloud Kingdom, HasuObs defeated his former arch rival Socke to advance to the Grand Finals.

 

With HasuObs coming from the second part of the bracket, reigning EPS champion Hanfy claimed his Grand Final spot by defeating the likes of RINE, Cloud and GoOdy to rechallenge HasuObs in the Grand Final of the first ESL Pro Series Winter 2012 tournament, after both players went the full distance in last season's Grand Final, with Hanfy winning his first ever major championship over HasuObs.

 

Motivated by his 2-1 PvZ victory earlier in the tournament, HasuObs won the first map over Hanfy on Cloud Kingdom, before Hanfy stroke back on ESV Ohana RE to tie the game at 1-1. Deciding map Metropolis went to HasuObs in the end, who celebrated his victory in the first out of five ESL Pro Series Winter 2012 tournaments, by taking revenge on the player who defeated him not long ago for the Summer title.

 

Yesterday's tournament victory puts HasuObs on the leading position of this season's ranking, while all players are preparing for the second tournament coming up soon.