Intel Pack4DreamHack Summer is approaching fast. One of the most popular competitions on DreamHack is the StarCraft II competition. We at Intel Pack4DreamHack love to give Dutch players a chance to compete against the greatest players in the world. This Summer we will be bringing six Dutch StarCraft II players that will compete in the DreamHack Open. Today we want to introduce them to you.

Meet the players:

Marc ‘uThermal’ Schlappi – LowLandLions

uThermal is a 17 year old Dutch gamer and the youngest of the Benelux players. He got in touch with Starcraft II thanks to his brother, who bought the game for him and played several games with him. His gaming career started with the Protoss race, but he switched to the Terran race as soon as he found out that you are able to use hands as well. “My favorite tactic as Terran is 11/11. Zerg and Protoss have to be annihilated as soon as possible”. Marc hasn’t got high expectations for this upcoming DreamHack event, although his ambitions are great: “Normally I would say i’d want to reach first place, but I’m not playing the way I want to play right now, so I’ll be happy with second place as well ;)!”.

uThermal will be playing in a group against Life (Z), Lizalfo (Z) and Miken (Z).

Jonathan ‘Jona’ Stelma – LowLandLions

Jona, 19 years old, is a Zerg player for the Benelux team LowLandLions. Being an active player, he doesn’t really have a favorite tactic. “I choose the options where i have the room to outplay my opponent with multitasking and unit control”. Jona started playing StarCraft II when some of his friends mentioned the ability to make money with playing StarCraft. “I was a very competitive gamer with Left4Dead and GunZ: The Duel. The idea that you can play games and live as a top-sportsman spoke to me”. He hopes to get a lot of tournament experience at DreamHack since he doesn’t feel confident enough to get good results offline. “Online I’ll take games from top European players, but on offline events I’m not yet at the same level. I hope to get a lot of practice on events like these”.

Jona will be playing in a group against Apelsinjuiec (Z), HyuN (Z) and MorroW (T).

Lars Douwe “Giant” Schuitema – AT Gaming

Giant is a 21 year old Protoss player from Enschede, the Netherlands. He started playing during the beta and over the years he has played all races available, but ended up with Protoss in the end. “The choice for Protoss came due to playing WarCraft III for a year, and I got used to playing with units that had more hitpoints”. Lars says he doesn’t have a specific strategy he likes. “I’m an all-round player, i’ll use any strategy to defeat my opponent. Especially with Protoss vs Protoss I have an advantage, since I know many set-ups there are. I can always be a surprise”. Lars Douwe hopes to get through the first Groupstage. “It requires some luck, and I hope luck will be on my side during DreamHack”.

Giant’s Group is not known yet.

Ferry ‘Darkomicron’ van de Pol – Mousecontrol

Protoss player Darkomicron from Mouse Control is 19 years old and is very psyched to be able to join this DreamHack tournament. Last year he won an Intel Pack4DreamHack ticket, but unfortunately he was too late to compete. He managed to beat teammate PoYo just last week, so we can conclude that he is ready to try this international step. “There are many tactics that I use. I can play a long game as well as a quick rush. Mainly I try the extreme approach, which is either very aggressive or very defensive. It depends on what the opponent is doing.”. Darkomicron is aiming for a place at the RO16, although he realizes that this achievement is not easy to obtain.

Darkomicron will be playing in a group against BabyKnight (P), PandaTank (P) and qualitY (Z).

Tom ‘PoYo’ Brekelmans – Mousecontrol

The 22 year old Terran player PoYo recently made the transition from LowLandLions to Mouse Control, making Mouse Control’s player roster even better. PoYo started focusing on Heart of the Swarm during the beta. Looking back at the Benelux events this year, that decision paid off really well. For instance: while others were struggling to obtain good results, PoYo easily managed to win every single game at The-Party 11. “My goal is to get through the second group stage, which will be pretty hard as there are a lot of good players. My first group however looks relatively easy.”

PoYo will be playing in a group against Katniss (P), Najzmajs (Z) and Sting (T).

Jeroen ‘Weiman’ Weimar

Jeroen Weimar is 24 years old and lives in Houten. This will be the fourth time that Weiman will participate in DreamHack. He has played competitive games ever since he had a working internet connection. “I play the Terran race since StarCraft: Broodwar, simply because it’s the human race and you start the singleplayer with them.”  He likes to play games that slowly move to an exploding point with lots of action. Weiman is pretty realistic about the upcoming DreamHack tournament: “I’ll be glad with any game that i’ll win from a higher level opponent.”

Weiman will be playing in a group against Huk (P), Goatswarm (Z) and SaltTheWound (Z).

Other Dutch players

Besides all of the players listed above, two other Dutch players are joining the DreamHack Open at DreamHack Summer 2013 as well. The well known Zerg player Jos ‘Ret’ de Kroon from Team Liquid is up against SjoW in Group 29, while Protoss player Kevin ‘Harstem’ de Koning from Fnatic has to beat Snute in Group 17. While Harstem only joined the professional scene recently, after he joined us at Intel Pack4DreamHack Summer 2012, he managed to beat Ret a few weeks back during the Dutch StarCraft League finals.

We are wishing all of our players, as well as Ret and Harstem, the best of luck during this soon to be legendary StarCraft II tournament.

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