This morning we saw the opening salvo of the WCS Global Finals, and what a remarkable series of games we’ve had so far. The morning began with a highly anticipated match between our two European finalists, ShoWTimE and Elazer. Elazer is often touted as the underdog in this tournament, as he came to BlizzCon without a top-4 placement in his tournament history. In his match against ShoWTimE, he quickly showed that he should not be underestimated. Play for play, the Polish competitor matched his German opponent in very close matches, and ultimately managed to seal a 3-1 win with some very aggressive early-game attacks in the final game.

In the next set, the American Neeblet faced the top-seeded Korean Dark. Coming fresh off an astounding win in the KeSPA Cup, Neeblet was the favorite for many viewers to win the entire championship. However, that awesome performance earlier this year earned the attention of all the WCS Korea players, and Dark was ready for Neeblet’s play. In each game, Neeblet made powerful attacks with perfect control and did a lot of damage, but Dark managed to hold on through the aggression and come back hard with flawless counter plays. In the end, Neeblet lost the series 0-3 to Dark’s impeccable preparation.

The third match of the day pit the two best Terran players in the world against one another. Byun and TY are the only two Terran players in the WCS Grand Finals, so this was a highly anticipated match. Byun has a reputation for playing perfect games, and today he showed why. He constantly harassed and abused TY’s workers, putting his opponent impossibly far behind. As the games went on, Byun never let up and rarely made a mistake. TY played exceptionally and gave us some of the closest, tensest games of the day. But in the end, Byun took the series 3-1.

The final match was the only full 5-game series of the day. The two remaining Protoss players in the tournament squared off to see who would face Byun in the semifinals. Zest tried some risky aggressive plays against Stats in two of the games; one of them worked very well, the other backfired. In the other three games, both players showed off their impeccable control and skill as they fought in deadly back-and-forth battles. At the end of the day, Stats emerged victorious in the series, winning 3-2.

During the final day of BlizzCon competition, we’ll see Elazer (Zerg) versus Dark (Zerg) and Byun (Terran) versus Stats (Protoss). The winners of each match will then do battle to determine the world champion! Don’t miss the conclusion to the 2016 WCS Global Finals tomorrow as we find out which of these four amazing players will take the trophy and the $200,000 first place prize. Check out the up-to-date brackets at blizzcon.com, and watch the finals live on Twitch at twitch.tv/starcraft.