A good start so far for the western powerhouses of Secret, Evil Geniuses and Cloud9. Rave surprising a bit and TI4 champions NewBee struggling. It's just the first day out of five and it is still early to make any calls though.
Read quick summaries about the played games:
- Day 1, part 2: Round Robin, round 4-6
- Day 1, part 1: Round Robin, round 1-3
- Day 0: Wildcard qualifiers
Summaries for round 7 - 9 will be provided below.
ROUND 7
Vici Gaming vs. MVP.phoenix: 1-0
After taking down one of the TI4 finalists, MVP tried to take on the other but wasn't quite as successful this time around. Vici Gaming played organised and didn't allow MVP to shine with their chaotic style. As the game went on, MVP had one promising fight which could have been the start of a possible comeback but Vici cut the process short and didn't allow further slips.
In what was overall a great match and a great showdown, Cloud9 started off well with plenty of map control. EHOME opted for the big 5on5 team fights, but Cloud9 avoided those to get pick-offs and farm. However as the late game approached, EHOME clawed their way back into the game with clutch individual moves all over. Cloud9 did not have the line-up to handle the core Warlock of Mushi, the Golems were too much and they had no quick damage against them. EHOME won and Cloud9 got their first loss so far.
NewBee had a decent start to the game, getting a severe kill score lead. However, Evil Geniuses didn't suffer too much from it, they farmed up their core heroes without too heavy casualties. Once late game was reached, the cores of Lone Druid and Shadow Fiend combined with Enigma's Black Hole, EG turned it around completely and won it without seemingly too much of a struggle.
ROUND 8
HyperGloryTeam shakes off their victory-less record and claims a much needed win versus CDEC who keeps looking a bit inconsistent. HGT got more of the map, and CDEC played too passive. It was hard to team fight against HGT's Brew, Doom and Jugger and it didn't exactly become easier as the game went on either.
Big God vs. Natus Vincere: 1-0
Big God have been a bit inconsistent so far, it's been a mix of good flashy plays and questionable laning phases. In this game however, they kept it tight from early on, not giving Na`Vi too much space too fight with. Na`Vi went for the reliable Io + Bristle combination, it went decent but it wasn't enough and the rest of the team fell behind.
Team Secret vs Hellraisers: 1-0
Hellraisers opted for a split push line-up but with a twist to it, such as going for team fights instead (with Crimson Guard on Anti-Mage). They successfully shut down the enemy safe lane but Zai played out of his mind as the offlane Puck and carried to game to victory together with s4.
Team Secret group photo from Secret's Facebook
ROUND 9
Rave's aggressive line-up and style was too much to handle for MVP. Rave dictated the pace of the game and a Broodmother pick-up enabled them to relentlessly pressure their regional rivals. MVP tried to come back through teamfights but it never worked out for them as the farm disadvantage proved to be too back.
LGD-Gaming vs. Evil Geniuses: 0-1
LGD opted for a support Morphling to throw EG off guard but the pick never paid off. EG ran over LGD with a Drow Ranger centric draft and despite the Chinese's best effort to come back, it was all on EG.
TI4 champions NewBee redeem themselves in a convincing fashion by crushing TongFu with an aggressive and push heavy line-up. TongFu did not get their heroes online fast enough and fell to their opponents quite quickly.
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