Day 4 is halfway through and NewBee and MVP.Phoenix are one game away from elimination. At the same time, Natus Vincere appears to be stronger than ever and establishes themselves in the top 5.
Read quick summaries about the played games:
- Day 4, part 1: Round Robin, round 27-30
- Day 3, part 2: Round Robin, round 23-26
- Day 3, part 1: Round Robin, round 19-22
- Day 2, part 3: Round Robin, round 16-18
- Day 2, part 2: Round Robin, round 13-15
- Day 2, part 1: Round Robin, round 10-12
- Day 1, part 3: Round Robin, round 7-9
- Day 1, part 2: Round Robin, round 4-6
- Day 1, part 1: Round Robin, round 1-3
- Day 0: Wildcard qualifiers
Grab a quick glance of the venue and get an impression of the atmosphere on site:
A tour of the DAC Hotel with Sheever! :
Round 31
Evil Geniuses vs. CDEC-Gaming 1-0
The North-Americans picked a very map control orientated line-up. Together with a Beastmaster Hawk and a Treant Protector, EG was able to keep crucial vision up on the map for SumaiL to roam around and grab quick kills. The youngster created a lot of space for his team, not only by finding easy pick-offs, but also because CDEC focused him a lot. The Chinese did well to keep up in farm for the longest time but EG outplayed them in teamfights and was able to shut down CDEC's cores. EG slowly pushed into their enemy's base and CDEC was unable to repel them.
EHOME opted for a support Riki for Mushi with inflame taking on the midrole as Invoker, a move that did not work out well for EHOME. While inflame did well in his midlane, Vici Gaming was able to win the other two lanes and with smart rotations and well coordinated ganks quickly grabbed a big advantage. EHOME's line-up was unable to bring the fight to Vici, being underfarmed and completely out of sync, the former LV-Gaming squad struggled to catch a break and eventually fell apart bit by bit, admitting defeat early.
The game started off relatively fast as multiple kills and ganks were had in the early to mid game phase. However, the game slowed down after that, with both teams looking for openings via multiple smoke ganks, when they thought they found one, they fought. From the mid game to the 40 min mark, both teams was still even as no one team could consistantly win teamfights. It was not until the thrid rosh at which Newbee lost two fights trying to deny HGT of the Aegis, Newbee suffered four dead at the end of that and a die-back from Morphling. Pushing this fact, HGT went in for the kill and suceeded.
Round 32
LGD-Gaming vs. Hellraisers 0-1
This game was an entertaining display of the classic CIS aggressive style, and its effectiveness against late-game lineups. Using Warlock, Juggernaut and Night Stalker as their cores, HellRaisers quickly took control of the game, dominated their lanes and grabbed a 7-minute Roshan. By minute 15, LGD were already defending their base against a continuous assault, unable to find proper farm on any of their item-dependent cores. The second Roshan of the game sealed the deal for the Chinese, as HellRaisers used the Aegis advantage and breached the Dire base, forcing the awkward 'GG'.
Big God vs. Rave 1-0
Both teams went for familiar strategies with Big God going for five strong ultimates against Rave's snowball heroes. Big God's early rotations and laning went rather smoothly, with Rave being unable to find important kills despite the abundance of crowd control in their lineup. Being behind by a large margin, Rave decided that Blink Dagger initiation was the way to go in order to surprise the Chinese and get hold of the game once again. Nevertheless, Big God seemed prepared and ready for anything thrown against them, winning almost every teamfight until the 32-minute GG.
TongFu decided to run one of their common teamfight strategies with Troll, Axe and Phoenix as their cores, much like Secret who went for the unusual Juggernaut for Zai. The Western team started with a huge advantage, as a 3-0 fight in the first two minutes of the game resulted in a triple-kill for s4's Puck. While TongFu did show some signs of life by minute 9 with two successful assaults against Arteezy, the situation quickly went out of hand. Secret's immense aggressiveness, using two early Blink Daggers and the damage boosts provided by their picks overwhelmed TongFu, with the Chinese being hunted all around the map. The GG was called by minute 25, yet another stomp for Team Secret in the groupstage of DAC.
Round 33
Invictus Gaming vs. Natus Vincere 1-0
This was a duel for the fifth place of the group leaderboard, and iG went for a heavy burst damage lineup built around Ferrari_430's signature Templar Assassin. Surprisingly, Na'Vi responded with the fragile Luna, basing their lineup on the auras provided by their heroes. As expected, the arrival of June's Blink Dagger was the launch of iG's assault against both Dendi and XBOCT, with the two Ukrainians falling several times to the dreaded Culling Blade. Due to their gold disadvantage and inadequate damage output, Na'Vi attempted to stall the game long enough for their cores to recover, and they seemed to be successful for a large period. However, a disastrous fight by minute 45 allowed iG to demolish both the middle and bottom barracks, giving no time for Na'Vi to recover their five-man squad and launch a proper defense.
NewBee decided to use Axe, Void and Shadow Fiend as their cores, a teamfight lineup that is theoretically able to control EternalEnvy's Juggernaut. The Chinese did show some good movement early in the game, but C9's solid resistance resulted in a quite even mid-game. It was then that C9's split-pushing power started showing, preventing NewBee from pushing properly despite the well-farmed Shadow Fiend on their side. Approaching the 50th minute mark, this already action-packed game turned into a continuous battle for map domination, and it was C9 better execution that truly made the difference for the Western squad. The mediocre performance of Rabbit on Faceless Void was also catalytic to C9's victory, as he seemed to struggle against the two Scythes of Vyze during his attempts to land a decent Chronosphere. With their loss against Cloud9, NewBee are officially eliminated from the tournament.
MVP.Phoenix vs. HyperGloryTeam 0-1
Another Troll and Axe pickup by HGT, two heroes that excel in the early engagements required to take down MVP.Phoenix's four-protect-one lineup. The presence of Chen and Skywrath Mage gave a temporary edge to MVP during the laning stage, as they managed to find some important kills against ZSMJ's Troll and HGT's supports. Once again, it was the Axe and his Blink Dagger that turned the tides for the Chinese, as he quickly turned into the nightmare of MVP's squishy supports. Despite losing their middle-barracks relatively early, the Koreans did manage to survive for quite some time, and QO's Medusa purchased several luxurious items that could have carried his team to victory. Nevertheless, he was caught and slain during the last fight of the game by minute 42. With QO being unable to buyback, HGT found the opening and took down one more set of barracks, giving MVP their 12th loss of the groupstage.
Round 34
It was EHOME that landed first blood in this evenly contested match. EHOME picked up an Anti-Mage, Batrider and Shadow Fiend to take on the Americans and it was YANG's Anti-Mage that kept the Chinese in the game. But with his 21st minute death the ascension of EG began, and while Anti-Mage attempted to split push, EG lurked around their base waiting for the right chance to claim a big team fight. Those opportunities came and EG were able to break into their base and after some strong defenses, EG secured another victory after 43 minutes.
CDEC-Gaming vs. Vici Gaming 0-1
It was a game of dominance from Vici Gaming who started well and looked at ease throughout the game with big performances from Super's Ember Spirit and fy's Io, both ending the game without a death. Their draft of including Tidehunter and a hard carry Sniper, seemed too much for Mikasa's Juggernaut and Maybe's Troll Warlord with both players only 3 kills between them. CDEC simply had no answers against the combination leaving Vici Gaming to pick up their 10th victory, while CDEC remaining in the bottom four places.
Though Na'Vi picked up first blood and seemed to assure their dominance with a lineup that included Troll Warlord, Outworld Devourer and Warlock, this game was closely fought and descended into the late game. The kills were fairly even throughout the game with Jeyo's Queen of Pain being the main damage output for Rave, with assistance from Faceless Void and Clockwerk. After 30 minutes, Funn1k's Warlock tore through the middle barracks with his Golems and after securing a Refresher Orb and Aegis on XBOCT's Troll Warlord, Na'Vi lost four attempting to end the game, but a second attempt secured mega creeps and the 'GG' to give the Ukrainians another victory after 42 minutes.
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