Photo courtesy of Perfect World
OpTic Gaming's TI8 invite dreams are still alive as they and ViCi Gaming survived another day in the lower brackets at China Supermajor.
The fourth day of the main event at the China Supermajor was a quick one of successive 2:0 sweeps across the board. After the surprising domination of the teams in the upper brackets earlier, all eyes were turned on the lower bracket elimination series with everything on the line for these teams.
What was expected to be a closely contested matchup with grit and raw emotion between OpTic Gaming and TNC Pro Team, turned out to be a disaster for the SEA team. Both of the drafts for OpTic were on point, but more important was the fact that both drafts for TNC were terrible. In the first match, it was thanks to the incredible Chen send-backs that gave OpTic the early lead and advantage in crucial fights.
The second match was just all OpTic's from the first moment, with heavy domination right out of the gates. OpTic showed up and played to win, sending TNC home to compete in the qualifiers for their chance at TI8.
Newbee continue to struggle as they have in the second half of the Pro Circuit 2017-2018 season. Facing off against their fellow Chinese peers, Newbee just couldn't seem to find their footing today. The mid-lane went terribly bad for Newbee in the first match as Zeng "Ori" Jiaoyang dominated on the Bloodseeker. The rest of the laning phase went equally wrong for Newbee, creating lots of opportunities for Vici Gaming to gain their advantage and build up their lead. Paired with a perfect game for Zhang "Paparazi?" Chengjun, ViCi Gaming were able to always remain in control and take the game with ease.
For the second match Newbee took a page from VG's book, putting Bloodseeker mid which didn't work out as well for them. Although they had a slight lead early, one bad team fight in midgame was all it took for them to completely lose their grip and the game.
Tomorrow there will be no games and the action will resume on Saturday, June 9th, at 10:00 local time/04:00 CEST with the lower bracket elimination series between OpTic Gaming and Virtus.pro.
