Alliance vs Liquid: The ES x Morf curse is broken?
The Alliance versus the old Alliance, Team Liquid, series ended with a clear result: a dominating 2-0 victory by Liquid kicks their successors out of the tournament. In game one, [A] got simply outplayed despite their usually mighty ES x Morf combination. Samuel 'Boxi' Svahn came to conquer with his 10/1/20 Legion Commander and an overwhelming 364 duel damage.
Game two ended even more crushing for Alliance. After 40 minutes and 7-30 kills, they had to surrender and accept dropping out of the Major. This time, the rather experimental draft with an Undying and Puck support did not work out for them. Linus 'Limmp' Blomdin's Drow Ranger also stood no chance against Max 'Qojqva' Broecker's Lina which peaked with a 12/1/6 score. While Alliance are now out of the tournament, Team Liquid will have to go up against Evil Geniuses in the lower bracket. They will have to survive three more matchups to advance to the Grand Finals.
Invictus Gaming vs beastcoast: when a team can't believe their own victory
beastcoast and Invictus Gaming delivered a spectacular series. Game one started out rather balanced. beastcoast could eventually claim the match, especially due to the strong combination of position three Ancient Apparition with support Tiny. With a Stun-Toss-Ice Blast initiation, iG's Jin 'flyfly' Zhiyi could be held under control quite easily. Steve 'stingeR' Vargas once again displayed his insanely efficient ability to farm on his Chaos Knight.
Game two however ended in a total disaster for beastcoast: iG destroyed them and after only 23 minutes and a 1-30 kill score, the nightmare was over. Hu 'Kaka' Liangzhi was omnipresent on his 2/0/24 Rubick, and Zhou 'Emo' Yi teared his enemies apart with his Psi Blades.
Fueled by this dominant win, iG counted on TA again in game three. But this time, the beasts were prepared. beastcoast had the upper hand during nearly the entire game and looked like the winning team - until iG turned the tides in a giant teamfight. MVP of this match was Thiay 'JT-' Jun Wen who set up brilliant Duels on his Legion Commander. In the end, iG managed to close the series with a 2-1 victory. The path for beastcoast came to an end, and iG will face J.Storm next.
Photo credit: Mars Media Twitter
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