Cloud 9 have become the first team to qualify for the Dota 2 Asia Championships after coming through a five game thriller against Fire. They join the eight invited teams in Shanghai at the end of the month, with the European and Asian qualifiers due to begin over the next few days.
Going through the winner bracket with ease, Cloud 9 were able to defeat eHug and Fire in shut-out victories in the opening rounds, but their grand final rematch against Fire was far from easy as it entered a fifth and final game. Cloud 9 began the final with a one game advantage following their winner bracket success but that was quickly taken away in the first game of the evening with a dominant performance from Chris 'Ush' Usher and Brian 'FLUFFNSTUFF' Lee on Tiny and Io respectively. Cloud 9 quickly regained their lead in the following game by replicating the combination, this time with Johan 'BigDaddy' Sundstein on his trademark Io.
But an hour long epic saw both teams involved in a base race but Fire made sure they forced Cloud 9 into a fifth and final deciding game. Despite an early advantage for Fire, a dominant Jacky 'EternalEnVy' Mao's Lycan and good initiations from Armand 'Bone7' Pittner's Batrider proved too much to handle for the newly formed American team, and forced Fire to call 'GG'. Cloud 9's next involvement in the tournament will be the Round Robin stage in China against the other fifteen teams beginning on January 29th.
The teams currently confirmed to compete are:
NewBee
Vici Gaming
Invictus Gaming
LGD-Gaming
Evil Geniuses
MVP.Phoenix
Rave
Team Secret
Cloud 9
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