SL XII Day 2: Cloud9 last Western team standing versus China's iG and VG

posted by woodshrew,

The penultimate day of StarLadder XII drew to a close after an extremely early exit for Secret and strong results by Cloud9 now leave us with only one Western team left standing against the formidable iG and VG in tomorrow's final showdown. Both BurNing and IceIceIce have been on form in their respective teams meaning Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao's squad will have their work cut out for them tomorrow. Find out what went down today inside.

C9 are one match away from the Grand Final

The Calm: The Upper Bracket Semi-Finals...

Vici Gaming vs Cloud 9

The last European squad remaining in the Upper Bracket met a familiar foe to open Day 2. Their storied past has seen C9 suffer bitter defeat against VG back at TI4, and surely

Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao understood the significance of this series.

Their series was characterized by the support play. In Game 1,

Xu 'Fy' Linsen's Earthshaker and

Lu 'Fenrir' Chao's signature Rubick contained C9's aggression, with timely saves and teleports to prevent dives. While C9 was able to prevail in several teamfights, Vici's cores overwhelmed their foes with superior farm. Cloud 9 could no longer hold their base and gave away the first match. Game 2 was a role reversal:

Johan 'BigDaddyN0tail' Sundstein and

Rasmus 'rASmus' Fillipsen carved their way through the VG line-up and gave C9 the early lead. Vici kept their composure, and behind

Chen 'Hao' Zhihao's massive Troll Warlord, seiged Cloud9's base to the point of surrender.

Invictus Gaming vs Team Malaysia

iG and MY both entered the second day off the back of convincing Day 1 performances. Some considered

Invictus Gaming top contenders, while

Team Malaysia* proved themselves as fearsome underdogs, after dismantling the favorites in Team Secret.

Game 1 was yet another match featuring a disgustingly strong old Dwarven rifleman. However, iG had plenty tricks up their sleeves: a first ever Mekansm on Luna! A chaotic exchange of buy-backs and die-backs around Roshan left

Luo 'Ferrari_430' Feichi as the last hero standing. Game 2 was a gruelling farm contest, but this time with Sniper in the hands of iG. MY repeated their mistakes from Game 1 and their questionable use of buy-backs cost them the game.

This lead us to the most unexpected events of the day, as the Lower Bracket was set to begin...

...Before the Storm: Lower Bracket

The Shocking Saturday

After stumbling against

Team Malaysia* on Day 1,

Team Secret closed out their disastrous Starladder XII run, taking a shocking loss to

Alliance. Bitter words were exchanged about the poor conditions of the tournament from their Team Manager, CyborgMatt. What is more concerns emerged from the NADota scene from retired pro

Mason 'mason' Venne casting further doubt on the future of the once feared European juggernaut that has yet to win a LAN tournament.

CyborgMatt's comments on Neogaf were a big talking point today

After a packed day of series, two teams climbed their way out of the Lower Bracket depths to meet for the featured LB Semi-final.

Team Tinker* set aside

London Conspiracy*, and put to rest the Malaysian underdogs in MY. The best of three series against MY went the full distance. A beastly (16-0-9) performance from

Max 'Qojqva' Broecker clinched the final game for Team Tinker, handing

Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung an early exit.

Cloud9, falling short to VG once again, looked determined to make the most of their second chance. They tore through Alliance in two one-sided games, leaving

Jonathan 'Loda' Berg's Swedes as spectators for the rest of the weekend. It seemed like the path of revenge would be through all of

Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao's former teammates, as

Johan 'pieliedie' Åström awaited in the Semi-Final match between C9 and TT.

No hard feelings after C9's victory against Alliance earlier today

In Game 1, Cloud 9 appeared to be in control of the match heading into the mid-game. While Team Tinker was able to string together favorable fights, C9 took over the map behind a lopsided tower advatange. A heroic highground defence was highlighted by

Dominik 'Black^' Reitmeier's triple kill after a buyback. But in the end, C9's Lycan pick hounded down Tinker's scattering heroes, and prevented TT from co-ordinating another defence.

Game 2 was all about the supports. Tinker's Chen pick could not counter the aggresive Earthshaker and Skywrath Mage from C9. Tinker's lanes were under pressure from the start. Bulba's Beastmaster offlane couldn't find much room and became horribly underlevelled in addition to conceding deaths.

Meanwhile Tinker's other lanes weren't going much better, as Qojqva's storm died to C9's rotations. While Black^ was able to fill in for his team, he was unable to keep up with EternalEnvy's signature Juggernaut. From the laning stage on C9 kept up their superb play, ending the game at an astonishing 26 minutes with only 5 deaths!

EternalEnvy and C9 finished off their spree of games from Day 2, to see their opponent for Day 3's Loser's Bracket Finals.

Chinese Take-out: iG vs. Vici Gaming

By tomorrow, the spotlight will have shifted from Secret's flop, and onto the deserving cast. Vici Gaming and iG met for the Winner's Bracket Semi-Finals, with a spot in the Finals at stake. The all-Chinese affair is a statement for the disparity between the East and the West in the first true international contest since DAC 2015.

iG emphasized farm efficiency during the laning phase of Game 1, sending

Luo 'Xi' Yinqi's Axe straight to the jungle. With favorable matchups in the mid and safe lane, iG steadily built their lead in farm. Vici was patient, recognizing their mid-game timing window. But

Daryl Koh 'iceiceice' Pei Xiang struggled to find openings for his team after the early game, and could not match the rival offlane in net worth. To make matters worse,

Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei's Juggernaut shot ahead in farm despite being active in forming iG's early kill advantage.

Past the 25 minute mark, the tempo slowed down as Hao's Gyrocoptor raced to catch up to BurNing's Juggernaut. But in a flash, Vici was able to take a set of barracks after securing Aegis, with fy's Earthshaker Echo Slam crippling BurNing and iG. Fights in-between Roshan timers went both ways, and the rhythm of the game followed the precise timing of a successful fight with Roshan's respawn.

A wrap-around smoke gank by Vici caught iG off guard and forced out a BurNing buy-back at the 35th minute, with an Aegis waiting as the prize. iG jumped out behind a decent Call from Luo's Axe on the SF, but a game-winning Fissure from

Xu 'Fy' Linsen on both BurNing and Ferrari set up the deadly chain of spells from Vici's supports, and VG claimed a die-back from BurNing. With no one alive to protect the crumbling base, iG gave up the first game in frustration.

The man of the match

In game 2, iG unveiled one of the most unique drafts in recent memory, with an offlane Lina for BurNing, and a support combo of Kunkka and Shadow Demon. Feinting the aggressive tri-lane, iG instead roamed their supports, punishing Vici's weak laning ability. VG fell behind as Super was given the impossible task of slowing Ferrari430's Shadow Fiend with Magnus.

The decisive moment of the game came at the 6 minute mark, when Ferrari secured a triple kill after VG lost 4 underneath their safelane tier 1. But the unsung hero of the fight was

Zeng 'Faith' Hongda, who X-mark'd iceiceice as he attempted to teleport with his Supernova ultimate ready. From there, the game was completely in iG's favor, and VG could not contain Ferrari's Shadow Fiend.

In the final deciding game, iG chose a similar line-up from Game 2, but pivoted the Lina pick to support after a last-pick Templar Assasin. Vici Gaming drafted a very peculiar 4-protect-1 lineup, featuring the rare Crystal Maiden support.

Throughout the tournament, Invictus Gaming has depended on their aggresive trilane strategy, but Vici's answer with an unconventional jungle CM completely paid off. fy handed in a masterful performance, stripping Ferrari430's TA of her Refractions during tower dives, and securing the safelane for Hao after the early jungling phase.

With iG's aggro tri failing to score kills or build a lane advantage, BurNing was faced with the difficult task of recovering an underfarmed Troll Warlord. With iG weakened, it set up the tankiest Tidehunter of the tournament, as

Daryl Koh 'iceiceice' Pei Xiang opted for a Treads, Mekansm and Shiva's Guard item progression.

Iceiceice's teleport rotations completely shut down iG's hopes to come back, with devastating Ravages often catching all of iG's heroes. iceiceice's performance, alongside fy, was the shining point of Day 2, with the aquatic watermelon powering the VG tsunami in game 3.

With that, we have a Day 3 Loser's Bracket Final between Cloud9 and Invictus Gaming. Vici Gaming, yet again, find themselves in another LAN Final. Tell us below who you think will win it all!

Playoff bracket