picture courtesy of DotaPit
Ten teams entered the battle for the $300,000 and 300 qualifying points up for grabs in the Perfect World Masters. The event is split in two phases: an elimination group stage followed by a double elimination playoffs bracket.
Over the course of two days, November 19-20, the ten teams have been split in two groups of five where the last place in each group results in an early exit from the tournament. Group A consists of Vici Gaming, LGD Forever Young, SG e-sports, Vega Squadron and CompLexity Gaming, all disputing their first rounds of matches today. The group stage is played in a best-of-two round robin format and a clean 2-0 victory is awarded 3 points while a draw score brings just a point.
Vici Gaming had a perfect start on day one, securing the maximum points available with their victories over SG e-sports and Vega Squadron. In their series against the Brazilians, VG went with two heavy team fight oriented drafts and Zhang "Paparazi" Chengjun took the spotlight with his Sven in game one and with an 18-1-13 K/D/A Chaos Knight in game two.
Their bo2 series against Vega kicked off with a bit of an extended pause as one of the Sharks computers had to be replaced. Unfortunately, lag issues and all sort of other problems plagued the first day of group stage, but VG managed to keep themselves well composed and they annihilated Vega Squadron with two pushing drafts. Game one featured a Luna - Death Prophet combo which was extremely hard to deal with as the Chinese started the assault of the buildings extremely early. Game two was a bit more balanced, however, VG had again a better objective game with a bloodlusted Gyrocopter in the front lines and Death Prophet clearing up from behind with her Exorcism.
On the second place in group A are LGD Forever Young who managed to break the Tiny-Io combo of compLexity Gaming in their opening game and then defeated the NA squad in game two with a perfectly played Tiny by Du "Monet" Peng who finished the match with 13-0-8 K/D/A.
However, the day didn’t continue with another clean victory for the Chinese team who were surprised in game two vs SG e-sports by an Arc Warden-Death Prophet-Underlord pushing strategy.
Despite their loss against LFY, coL secured a very dominant 2-0 victory over Vega Squadron which places them third in the Group A and gives them a bit of maneuvering space tomorrow, when all the remaining series will be played.
Vega Squadron and SG e-sports have a big day ahead of them as the bottom two teams in the group, SG e-sports with only a point next to their name while Vega are still to land any win. The bottom team in the group will have to wave goodbye to the Perfect World Masters playoffs, but who will that team be, we will find out tomorrow, November 20 when the group stage will end.
Perfect World Masters Day 2 group A schedule:
20th November, 03:00 CET Vici Gaming vs LGD Forever Young
20th November, 08:00 CET Vega Squadron vs LGD Forever Young
20th November, 10:30 CET: Vici Gaming vs compLexity Gaming
20th November, 12:30 CET compLexity Gaming vs SG e-sports
20th November, 13:00 CET Vega Squadron vs SG e-sports
