posted by Matthew Elmas,
au Team Immunity has defeated ph Rave 2-1 in today’s MSI Beat-IT semi-final clash. Their win will see them face ru Virtus.Pro later today in a BO5 grand-final to decide first place. Rave will now face cn CDEC in the third place decider to see who takes home bronze. Immunity played convincingly throughout the series, dropping game two to a Medusa pick from Rave, but then subsequently beating the same pick in the third game.


The semi-finals kick off! Rave versus Immunity


The first game of the series began with some successful early rotations from Immunity, giving them an early lead. Immunity then managed to capitalize on this lead coming into the mid game, taking most of Rave’s exterior towers and continuously ganking ca Jio "Jeyo" Madayag’s Terrorblade. Immunity then went for the base push at the 33 minute mark, primed with an aegis and a 10k gold lead; however Rave were able to take advantage of some miss-positioning from au Alex "shatan" Chang to effectively wipe Immunity and hold their base.

From there the game transitioned into a farming period, and with Terrorblade catching up to the Immunity cores, the game levelled out. However, Immunity managed to keep momentum on the mid lane, gradually chipping away at Rave’s base. Eventually, assisted by an aegis on au Justin “Musica” Yuen’s Ember Spirit, they managed to finally break the base. Ultimately forcing the GG call from Rave at the 50 minute mark to gain a 1 game advantage in the series.

Necrophos' tanked the majority of Rave's team fight.


Rave hit back! Game 2


Immunity were off to an early lead in the second game, however it wasn’t long before Rave struck back, taking several successful fights and securing Jeyo’s Medusa some much needed early farm. Immunity managed to keep up, and with a pivotal counter gank on the top lane, they managed to bring the graphs back to even footing.

Despite Immunity's efforts to keep up, Jeyo had shot ahead on the net worth charts, rendering the Australian squad unable to deal with his mid game team fight presence. Even though Immunity managed to kill the Medusa in fights, they inevitably overcommitted, giving the remainder of the Rave squad the chance to gain the upper hand. In the end, one final team fight win for Rave saw the GG call come out from Immunity, tying the series at 1-1 and forcing a third game.

Medusa proved to be a formidable teamfight presence.



Immunity off the final! The deciding game 3


As the series reached its final game things started to heat up, as the losing team faced a third place decider and the winner set to take on ru Virtus Pro in the grand-final. The game begun with an early show of force from Immunity, taking the lead with successive kills around the map. Before long they had extended their gold lead to five thousand and were poised to claim significant amounts of map control.

However Rave were determined to keep their tournament hopes alive, taking a pivotal fight at the 19 minute mark which saw the gold graphs even out substantially. Despite their team fight loss, Immunity still commanded a heavily farmed Spectre, who worked in conjunction with well-timed team movement to stifle Rave’s attempts to come back. By the 30 minute mark, Immunity's strategy was appearing to pay off - they had claimed the majority of Rave’s outer towers, and were utilizing an aegis to pressure the dire base. But Rave’s defensive play was phenomenal, utilizing reverse polarity and stone gaze to hold their base repeatedly.

From there the game transitioned into a farming phase, and as the game timer ticked on into the late game, farm became less and less relevant. Magnus proved to be the decisive factor for Rave, who won fights off the back of well-placed RPs. The radiant squad relied on a team effort to secure their hopes, with Musica’s ability to control the tempo of the fight proving pivotal.

In the end Immunity found themselves in a position to go for the GG push, and wore down Rave’s base one rax at a time, gradually forcing them to concede mega creeps. It was then, just before the 80 minute mark, that Rave reluctantly called the GG, giving the series to Immunity and ending their grand final hopes.

Team Immunity will now move on to the grand-final where they will face Virtus.Pro in an hour to decide the winner of MSI Beat IT 2014. With their loss Rave is headed to a third place decider, where they will play cn CDEC Gaming for the bronze position at the tournament. Stay tuned for more MSI Beat IT action!

Immunity were able to take revenge on Jeyo's Medusa in game 3!




Final Bracket





This article was written by au Matthew Elmas, joinDOTA's Writer. Moxjoo has been an e-sports fan since 2008 and is currently undertaking the second year of his university studies; majoring in journalism. Location: Melbourne, AustraliaFollow him on @Moxjoo.

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