It was sad news for Australian StarCraft fans on Monday night as Sean “Probe” Kempen of Legacy Esports lost in straight sets in the IEM Katowice open bracket.
Facing a tough bracket in arguably StarCraft’s most prestigious tournament, Probe lost 2-1 to Russian Protoss SKillous, before losing to Russian Zerg player Vanya, 2-0 in the losers bracket.
The quick elimination means that alongside the two losses, Probe finishes just outside of the prize money distribution, sadly walking away with $0.
Preparing myself to be dominated by some young Russians.
— Sean Kempen (@Probe_SC2) February 24, 2020
Playing first game in 5 minutes 🙂 pic.twitter.com/51SgE6kdz1
After the results Probe took to Twitter to state his thoughts.
“Sorry for always disappointing,” he said.
“But we grow from every fall. The season has just begun”.
Probe’s opening opponent was the highly ranked SKillous and in a fantastic long opening game we saw what the Australian Protoss was capable of, taking the game to his opponent and eventually overcoming him in a 15 minute long game.
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It was sadly to be the highlight of the day, with SKillous taking the next two maps with an aggressive, proxy immortal based strategy.
It dealt decisive damage both games, forcing Probe into the losers bracket to face another Russian, this time the Zerg player named Vanya.
After game one saw Probe lose to swarm host and roach aggression, he took a significant worker lead in the second game.
Economically ahead, Kempen just had to hold the impending attack from his desperate opponent to survive in the tournament.
Hold our Australian Protoss did, but he took too much damage in the process, forcing him all in.
That last ditch attack fell agonisingly short, as Probe was eliminated from bracket B alongside names such as Liquid TLO, Korean Zerg Impact and 3x WCS champion of 2017, Neeb.
The IEM main event begins on February 27th, 22:00 AEST.
Follow Probe on Twitter
