NA, SA move to playoff stage while Team NP book their ticket to Seattle

posted by Abelle,

The first slot in the TI7 North American qualifier came down to a tiebreaker match between Team NP and Team Freedom late in the night for the teams. Meanwhile, four SA teams have advanced to playoffs.

Both

Team NP and

Team Freedom* had very strong showings in the round robin stage, holding 8-1 records going into the tiebreaker match, which started after 2 in the morning for NP at their team house in Toronto.

The game itself was dominated by Team NP, who played well despite the long day of games they had already played. Their surprise last pick Nature's Prophet for

Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao turned out to be a serious force to be reckoned with.

Neither Envy nor

Arif 'MSS' Anwar's Legion Commander had many kills, but they helped set up plenty for

Adrian 'Fata' Trinks's Templar Assassin, who quickly cut down anyone that stood in his way.

With the weight of a place at The International on the line, the game dragged out to almost an hour long, but once Team NP had secured Mega Creeps, Team Freedom admitted defeat. With this win,

Kurtis 'Aui_2000' Ling can finally say he's on the #2 NA team again.

The second and final North American team headed to TI from qualifiers will be decided in the double elimination playoff bracket, which begins tonight. The four teams through to the playoff bracket will be decided in tiebreakers which are ongoing. You can keep up with it all on our The International 2017 coverage page!

UPDATE: After a 1-1-1 tie was reached at 6:00 A.M. EST, the teams have decided to continue tiebreaker games after a "night's" rest, before the scheduled start of playoff games.

In South America, only one team will qualify, but the round robin has completed leaving four teams to battle it out in the playoff bracket for the one spot in Seattle. Kiev Major favourites