The 34th episode of The Innervated podcast comes in the wake of the HCT Winter Preliminaries, which resulted in the complete and total defeat of the pros.

Several months of playing community cups and grinding the ladder in the EU region were wrapped up with the HCT Winter preliminaries. The gruesome double elimination bracket welcomed many a great name, though none left it alive.

Thus, in one month, Europe will crown its first 2016 champion and it will be a name few have heard of, a stark contrast compared to last year’s stacked top 8 in Prague. Naturally, the dramatic shift of power did not take well with the pro playing community and salt was sprayed all over Twitter. Are there valid reasons to criticize how the tournament was set up, though, or is this all a product of shattered dreams?

We’ll cover every single aspect of HCT EU Winter and cover more topics as The Innervated returns tonight at 21:00 CET / 15:00 EST on twitch.tv/gosugamers.