posted by Sun_Tzu,
And day two of The International 2013 Western Qualifiers are behind us, as the remaining two games of Group A were played out, between ru Team Empire and ru RoX.KiS, followed by the winner of this game going up against dk Absolute Legends in order to decide who would be the team to join fr dd.Dota in the playoffs.


ru Team Empire vs. ru RoX.KiS



Game 1




RoX got off to a great start, picking an offensive trilane around Gyrocopter, Bane and Clockwerk while also running up their whole team to the top lane as they usually do, finding out Empire's Rubick for a very early first blood. With additional support from ru Aleksey 'Solo' Berezin on Beastmaster rotating with deadly accuracy, RoX looked good to win all three lanes, with only ru Dmitriy 'LighTofHeaveN' Kupriyanov on Dark Seer and ru Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov on Puck getting off to a somewhat good start on the Empire side.

Once RoX felt ready to start taking teamfights, with Call Down as their major means of splitting up a teamfight and great lockdown from Primal Roar, Fiends Grip and the Clockwerk Hook, even the innate tankyness of Lifestealer and Dark Seer were not enough to survive the onslaught of a very farmed up ru Stanislav 'BzzIsPerfect' Glushan on his trademark Gyrocopter.

As they followed up their good early game and their first teamfight victory with continued pressure, RoX took away all space from Empire as they pressured their Russian compatriots back into their base, taking the high ground and pulling off the by now familiar backing off and smoking up in order to go back in and claim the 'GG' at only 22 minutes in.


Game 1 End Screen.


Game 2




Game two got off to another rough start for Empire, as ru Ivan 'VANSKOR' Skorokhod on Rubick managed to catch out Light's Weaver after picking up the first rune of the game, and lodging him up on the dire side cliffs, where he got killed off for the first blood. With another kill on light the lane was secured for Bzz's Tinker, which prompted RoX to rotate the Rubick and Keeper of the Light down to the bottom lane to help out ru Andrey 'Dread' Golubev on Dark Seer.

While things were looking fairly good for RoX, Solo rotated his Juggernaut down to bottom lane and got surged in, using Omnislash to secure quick support kills. But Scandals reactions were on point, as he showed up with Magnus and his a big Reverse Polarity under the tower to turn the fight around 3-2 and setting things up to be a fair bit closer than in the first game.

But RoX was having none of it, with great support play and Solo leading the way, they took the next few skirmishes and put themselves back on track to close out the game in convincing fashion. Especially with Light being uncharacteristically shut down after such a terrible start and Rubick as well as Tinker making life hard for Scandal to initiate, things just escalated as RoX eventually pushed into the Radiant base, sending Empire home from the qualifiers without a single won game.


Game 2 End Screen.


RoX.KiS take out Team Empire 2-0 and proceed to play a re-match against Absolute Legends for the second spot in the playoffs.

dk Absolute Legends vs. ru RoX.KiS



Game 1




Absolute Legends picked up the Lifestealer, and as is customary by now, build an offensive trilane around him with Shadow Demon and Lina for support. Meanwhile RoX got themselves Gyrocopter, a support Clockwerk and a surprise Vengeful Spirit for their safelane trilane. While neither team really got the best of this situation, RoX got a slightly better trade out of the bottom lane, where Dread on Dark Seer was able to pressure dk Jonathan 'unicornxoxo' Arge's Anti-Mage quite a bit during the early laning stage.

RoX soon transitioned into their trademark early pushing, and even as aL got some kills from it and even denied a tower at bottom lane, they slowly lost map control. Things still looked very close until BzzIsPerfect on Gyrocopter got caught out pushing ahead at the top lane, but a quick Nether Swap from VANSKOR and the Mekanism from Dread kept him safe, as instead it was aL getting decimated by the counter-initiation of Omnislash, Call Down and the Cogs, setting RoX ahead on kills and far ahead on momentum.

As aL tried to find a means to get back in the game, they looked for ganks time and again, but without any luck, instead giving up kill after kill to RoX, who ran over them with deadly precision, not losing a single hero after the 13 minute mark, finally forcing the 'GG' at 27 minutes.


Game 1 End Screen.


Game 2




aL got their hands on the elusive Wisp as well as Ursa and Nature's Prophet, and went for a level 1 Roshan attempt, but as RoX spotted it out, aL jumped Dread's Clockwerk as he was trying to scout it out, but unfortunately the Vengeful Spirit of se Jesper 'Mirakel' Nyhlén got stuck up on the cliff, as RoX took a counter kill on Nature's Prophet, before both teams backed off.

While Dread was off to a fairly terrible start, RoX was getting the best of all the other lanes, with BzzIsPerfect on Lifestealer and Solo on Outworld Devourer leading the way in creep kills. While RoX was farming, aL was looking for kills but wasn't finding them, at worst rotating all five heroes up top in order to try and kill Dread and ru Vladimir 'yol' Basov, but two great sets of Cogs allowed both of the Russian players to escape unscathed.

In turn when RoX put on the aggression, their farm advantage helped them get consistently better trades in skirmishes, spinning the game out of control. Once more aL could get nothing done, between the Cogs of Dread and the Disruptions of VANSKOR, there was no openings at all for the Danes. Instead they once more got pushed back with deadly precision, until their base broke and the game ended at 24 minutes.


Game 2 End Screen.


RoX.KiS eliminate Absolute Legends 2-0, and will join dd.Dota as the second team in the playoffs.

Group A Bracket



Winners of the upper and lower bracket final's advance to the next round.



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