The IEM Season XI World Championship's first day of the StarCraft II group stage didn't produce many surprises, as the results went according to seeds for the most part. Byun "ByuN" Hyun Woo won Group A and underdog Han "aLive" Lee Seok moved on from Group B. The world championship, broadcasted from Katowice, Poland, is the third and final event of the season and the first global event for the World Championship Series.
The favorites from Group A were Team expert's ByuN, Splyce's Kang "Solar" Min Soo, and True eSport's Kim "Ryung" Dong Won. ByuN emerged from the group as the overall victor with a group-leading (4-1 overall, 8-3 on maps) record and automatically qualified for the quarterfinals and allows him to skip the Round of 12. The two runner-ups who also advanced out of the group were Solar (3-2, 6-7) and Ryung (3-2, 8-4). While ByuN was the star of the show, it was Ryung who looked every bit his superior. Ryung started his run with a victory over the micro-machine ByuN and only ran into issues against the last-place Zerg player, Team Liquid's Jens "Snute" Aasgaard.
The favorites from Group B were Splyce's Kim "Stats" Dae Yeob and Jun "TY" Tae Yang. The victor from the group was surprise underdog aLive" and his ridiculous (5-0, 10-2) record. While most of the spotlight was on Stats, TY's momentum after a victory at World Electronic Sports Games, or even the western sensation Ting's Alex "Neeb" Sunderhaft's chance to be the Korean slayer, it was aLive's beautiful control and dominating Terran play that ended the show. The runner-ups, Stats and TY will fight in the Round of 12, while aLive will move straight into the quarterfinals.
