The very first day of the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship is in the books and we saw both mousesports players advancing to the playoffs. First off, IEM EU Champion Cooller won his group in QL, meanwhile IEM gamescom winner MorroW placed 3rd in SC2.

IEM European Champion Anton "Cooller" Singov found himself in a tough position, fighting in a group with IEM American Champion and reigning IEM World Champion Shane "rapha" Hendrixson from SK Gaming aswell as one of the top duelers Alexej "Cypher" Yanushevsky from serious-gaming and oldschool Quake 3 legend Paul "czm" Nelson. With two quick and impressive 2:1 victories over his archrivals rapha and Cypher, Cooller seemed to be in top shape as he surprisingly lost to Swedish player Spart1e from fnatic who was absolutely on fire the whole day, knocking Cypher off the tournament. By winning his remaining two matches against czm and dandaking with ease, Cooller placed first in Quake Live group B to enter the semifinals directly, while Spart1e takes second place and rapha on the last playoff spot.

 

In StarCraft 2, Stefan "MorroW" Andersson kicked off his tournament with a good start by securing a promising victory over Polish player Tomasz "Tarson" Boron, before losing to White-Ra (1:2), Korean player Ace (0:2) aswell as US American rival IdrA (1:2). By taking at least one map off of both White-Ra and IdrA, MorroW secured his playoff spot with a 2:0 victory over qxc, while Korean player Ace delivered an impressive shutout, not giving away a single map to his competitors and IdrA convincingly taking second position with a 4-1 record.