The ESWC Masters of Athens event is the first in a series of Masters events held in the run up to the grand finals in 2009. Anticipation of the event is at fever pitch, as is usually the case with an ESWC event.

The reputations of WhO and Check, both of mtw, tower over their two competitors. With WhO having just come off an ESWC win and Check finishing fourth at BlizzCon this past weekend, the odds are certainly stacked in favour of the mTw duo.

Grubby of MYM, SK Gaming's Remind,hG and the Greek player Iblazatar are in the 3rth group Though it's always possible, the chances of an upset here are quite slim. Millenium's hG is a somewhat formidable night elf opponent, but it would take a herculean effort to overcome his group C opponents.

Finally, group D harbors SK Gaming's Lyn , Sase of ALTERNATE, Hot of Gravitas and the Greek attende SegaL. Of the three top seeds there's really no telling who might qualify, all of these players are capable of winning the event, let alone qualifying from their group.

GROUPS :
 

Group A
Du Seop "Who" Chang
Hyeong Ju "Check Lee
Marc "yaws" Foste
Achilleas "ElementWarrior" Tsiamntas

Group B
Jae Ho "Moon" Jang
Yoan "Tod" Merlo
Irakli "spicy" Budia
Gearge "Vankor" Sefetzis

Group C
Manuel "Grubby" Schankhuizen
Sung "Remind" Kim
Mateusz "hG" Pietrzak
Kostasr "iblazatar" Christidis

Group D
June "Lyne" Park
Kim "Sase" Hammar
Mykhaylo "Hot" Novopashyn
George "Segal" Chronis