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?The tournament is played through and a winner is found! Mousesports went through the entire lower bracket, mastered all of it and claimed the final against Virtus.pro.
Mousesports dropped down to lower bracket after their very first match of the playoffs where Fnatic beat them 2-1. They had to run uphill through the entire bracket, but they did so convincingly and was not ever really close to getting eliminated. After taking their vengeance over Fnatic they went up against Virtus.pro in the grand final.
The German squad played with great discipline, using their dual-carry strategies as so often seen before. But even if you can predict it, does not mean you can beat it as proved in this series. Virtus.pro did however throw mouz off their guard in game three where they played overly aggressive using Axe and Skyrwath. The Russians tried a similiar melody in the fourth game but in the end their lack of a reliable carry spelled doom for them as the farmed mousesports took the championship.
Check out all VODs of the tournament here (including highlight videos of the group stage) and the hardware giveaway here, where you stand a chance in winning a fully loaded gaming PC or other gear from Corsair still. The competition closes at 03 CEST / 9pm EST / 6pm PST, so last chance to enter!
Corsair Gaming Summer Tournament, top3
?1st - $6,000 - 
mousesports
2nd - $2,500 - 
Virtus.pro
3rd - $1,500 - 
Fnatic
Match report - Virtus.pro vs mouz
?Game 1
Black got a match-up he loves playing, solo Anti-mage vs solo Dark Seer. As always he went aggressive at first, cutting through Dark Seer's mana eventually making him totally dry. Without mana for Surge, Black could easily chase him down and kill him. It wasn't first blood though as top lane went rough for mouz, giving up a few kills. A quick rotation by ArsART and NS also resulted in FATA dying mid. VP played the expected early-mid heavy game plan, opting to push all tier one towers. After taking top and then moving bot to annoy Black and take his tower, they went mid. However, FATA now had his dagger and initated on Naga. VP was caught terribly by surprised and the entire team was cleaned up. VP finished Mekansm on Chen and tried again, this time they stayed alive through it all, taking three mouz heroes and two towers.
They quickly took out remaining tier 2 towers after that, placing them at the tricky situation to break highground and push tier 3. They used the Sleep to undo Batrider's initation but stuck around too long after it and mouz cleaned up a few heroes. Black was slowed down after a great start but getting back up again with Manta and Battlefury at minute 25. A decent looking fight for VP eventually went awry as they once again stayed around too long vs the mobile heroes of mouz, suddenly AM turned around and threw down a huge mana void. After spawning again, VP went to claim a Rosh kill. However they could not finish him quick enough, mouz intercepted and killed the by then low-hp heroes of VP followed by claiming Roshan for themselves. It seemed as the mouz-fortress had done it again, successfully farmed up Black without losing too much in the process. After a period of mouz avoiding pushing, they eventually went in bottom and VP seemed helpless. First game of the final went to mouz.
Game 2
Weaver by cRazy overcommited middle and was brought down solo by FATA, putting VP in the back seat for game 2. Lifestealer went jungling and paS rotated bottom to take his lane with Rubick. Early Sentries by FATA scored him the second blood as well. To make up for his sort of delayed Battlefury last game, Black got one after 9 minutes this time. VP had plan in mind though, maxing Desolate first on Spectre as well as Vanguard as his first item. With the great prolonged chase power of that combined with Weaver and Chen's creeps, VP managed to find five kills top lane. And two of those were on Black, who bought back and went down again.
Spectre got his Relic a bit after that, going old school Spectre (Vanguard, Phase, Radiance). Before he could finish the Radiance, he got ganked up and killed by mouz though. As in the previous game, VP were trying to push the issue without hitting their timer, Radiance was still not up on Illidan and they kept losing fights, prolonging it even longer. And it kept happening, Illidan litteraly got stuck on the same networth for over 10 minutes while mouz kept ganking him. Only KSi were gaining networth at this point. The Radiance was eventually finished at minute 31 but VP already lost mid barracks by then as a consequence to constant pick offs. Alchemist were out of control and the rest of mousesports were too far ahead. Game two went to mouz as well.
?Game 3
The third game started in a crazy fashion, with VP drafting Axe as their final support hero, sending the trilane offensively for some extremely aggressive Dota. VP found first blood before creep spawn and then the kills just started rolling in for both teams. The score was 8-8 at minute 5. Axe opting for not skilling Berserker's Call came back to bite him in the bottom as some kills slipped out of their hands and into mouz' hands. Black securing an early triple kill, definitely a hectic game. Hard to predict the game as VP won some, lost some but they kept the train steaming, always hunting kills and towers. What they needed was QoP joining in all the crazy dives, which he did to great success after a while.
Seemed as if VP were doing decently and looked to keep fighting for survival the finals, but with their shady line-up, it was still too soon to tell. Mousesports had the more reliable late game but the crazy aggression from VP kept all their towers up. What felt like some desperate fun-strat at first was proven to be strong in the hands of the Russian squad. But they still had to push highground vs Batrider / Naga. Beautiful play all around by VP, using skills not often seen, such as Axe's and Skywrath's arsenals. Black kept getting punished when he poked his nose out but a stolen Sonic Wave by Rubick prevented VP from pushing base. Big items such as Hex, Orchid on QoP and Hex, Daedalus on Prophet combined with the Silence of Ars-Art punished the heroes of mouz multiple times. VP caught them by surprise this game, and a while after losing mid barracks, mouz called "gg", they couldn't deal with the chaotic and constant aggression.
Game 4
VP picked similiar heroes the fourth game, Prophet, QoP and Axe. This time though their over-aggression failed and they gave up two kills early when tower diving. Usually when you have a trilane around Razor, you need a good start for that lane, which is something VP did not achieve this game as they massively lost the lane. However, KSi and cRazy were doing okay, even managing to snipe the bottle-crowing courier. After the shaky start, VP shaped up more accordingly but their lack of stuns lost them a few kills where the victim just teleported out. Illidan was also incredibly poor as the underfarmed long lane Razor. QoP and Prophet were doing fine but as usual, the dual-carries from mouz were finding farm. The wild card role once again fell upon Axe but like last time, he did not skill Berserker's Call until after level 7. Mousesports went diving hard to kill Razor again but got punished for it, lost two supports and a tower (but successfully killed Illidan). At approx minute 20, Black's King Bar (get it, eh?) as well as FATA's Mek were finished, perhaps mouz did hit the threshold necessary to put an end to VP's clownery with that.
Worth mentioning is that mouz at numerous times just teleported to safety in the middle of team fights and 4-man ganks due to the lack of disables in VP's line-up. The lack of right-click was really taking it's toll for VP, they were losing more and more engages and mostly found trades in single pick-offs. Mainly cRazy and stable play from KSi kept VP in the game, although it had to be said Axe and Razor were doing decently too despite Razor being massively underfarmed. The Sonic Wave from paS (stolen from cRazy) were doing a great work though, ironically mainly to kill off QoP. Virtus.pro were still defending their base and grabbing kills for themselves, however they still lacked a carry so head-on 5vs5 was troublesome. Mouz were leading with about 13k xp but only 3k gold. VP get the gold tight but mouz still had momentum in most of the fights, gems were dropped left and right. Roshan kept dying to mouz as well. It was mouz' game to lose and after a good clash where they prevented impact from both Axe and Prophet, they took mega creeps 51 minutes into the game. GG was called, mouz takes the title!
Hardware giveaway
Corsair was also generous enough to run a hardware giveaway throughout the competition where the first prize is a fully loaded gaming PC. In addition, there are lots of other products up for grabs, such as M95 mice, K95 keyboards, V2000 headsets and MM800 mousepads. To sign up, all you need to do is follow this link, like Corsair on Facebook and enter your email address. In addition to the hardware prizes. The contest will stay active for a few more hours, last chance to join!
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