posted by mdnNSK,

The LAN Finals of the G-1 Champions League Season 5 kicked off today in Shangai, China, as four of the best teams in the Asian scene clashed with two of the premier Western teams. The first six games of the groupstages were played out with some big upsets, big plays and some impressive creativity.

Games will continue tomorrow, Saturday the 25th of May at 3:00 CEST, so set your wake-ups early people!

Chinese All Stars vs World All Stars

The long awaited game started off with a delay of over an hour. Oddly enough, the organizers decided to host a Random Draft game for the show-match.

Chinese All-Stars went for a more or less balanced draft, picking up popular heroes like Lifestealer, Night Stalker, Invoker and Sand King, while World All-Stars ended up with 5 random heroes - Tiny, Skywrath Mage, Viper, Elder Titan and Earth Shaker due to the game starting before they could get to their PCs.

The game had a strange start with some of the World All-Stars being late into their lane. Xiao8 on Sand King went for the 2 minute rune, picking up haste and killing the Viper middle, followed by a quick gank on Earth Shaker top, bringing the Chinese to a strong start.

The West retaliated on the 6th minute, landing a kill on the tower-diving Sand King and then ganking Invoker at bottom lane. The World's shaky start and odd line-up haven't posed too much of a threat for the Chinese stars, as they easily pulled ahead by scoring kills in engagements, bringing the score to 11-3 by the 12th minute.

The game spiralled out of control like a typical public matchmaking match, turning the long awaited show match into a farce. 20 minutes into the game, the Chinese pushed all of tier 2 towers with the World All-Stars hardly defending as Chinese All-Stars continued to push their base.

The game got played out for much longer than needed and was finally finished before the 30th minute in favor of Chinese All-Stars.

DK vs Alliance

The Alliance shocked DK by pulling off a modified version of their Ogre Magi strat, with

Joakim 'Akke' Akterhall playing the dual headed bundle of fun along with

Gustav 's4' Magnusson picking up Beastmaster in order to buff the Ursa of

Jonathan 'Loda' Berg, as they teleported mid and ran in to secure a surprise Level 1 Roshan before DK even got in range to contest.

As both teams headed back to their lanes, DK sent

Fan 'r0tk' Bai on Lifestealer along with the Visage and Rubick supports to the aggressive trilane to face off against the Ursa with his newly acquired Aegis of Immortality backed up by Ogre Magi and Leshrac. With

Henrik 'AdmiralBulldog' Ahnberg taking up his famous Lone Druid he faced off against

Zhilei 'Burning' Xu on Gyrocopter, showing no reverence for the legendary carry played as he killed him solo for the first blood of the game. This left s4 on Beastmaster to face off against

Junhao 'Super' Xie on Dragon Knight in mid.

As Alliance had the early momentum they kept it up, finding early kills and being active with s4 moving around early and ultimately forcing DK to abandon their offensive trilane, allowing Loda to get complete free farm on Ursa. When Roshan came back alive, Alliance was already smoked up and moving into the pit, and even as r0tk had an illusion sitting in the pit they went ahead and killed him off, daring DK to try and take the fight, knowing they had the advantage fighting in such a small space. With the aegis, Alliance took to the high ground at only 11 minutes in, expending their Aegis in order to cause a fair amount of damage to the Tier 3 Tower before being forced to back off.

With Alliance advantage, DK did a great job keeping up with the Swedes on tower kills. Each time the Alliance forced a tower, DK took one in trade of equal value, always finding their way back in time to prevent the Alliance from taking the high ground. As not much was being accomplished through pushing, the big battleground became the third Roshan of the game, with DK using a Smoke in order to disrupt the initial Alliance attempt, followed by multiple buybacks as the fight drew on for close to four minutes. In the end, the Alliance kept getting the more favourable trades, buying back fewer times and scoring more kills, as well as claiming the Aegis in the end for Loda along with the Cheese for Bulldog.

As the Alliance tried once more to force the high ground, DK's ability to spam nukes and the ultimately fairly squishy nature of a Blink Dagger Ursa without real HP items allowed the Chinese to put up an admirable defense, forcing out the Aegis and Cheese and holding on to their Tier 3 Tower with one buyback to secure if any heroes were to fall. In the end, the Alliance had to fall back in order to get the Black King Bar for Loda.

With s4 picking up an Aghanim's Scepter, this allowed the Alliance to get pick-offs with Primal Roar in rapid succession, and with a key kill on Burning in mid, Alliance was again able to take a quick and easy uncontested Roshan. At this point, Bulldog unveiled his secret weapon, a Black King Bar on his Spirit Bear. With everything done, the Alliance finally broke the base, took the high ground and claimed the bottom lane of Barracks at 36 minutes in, followed by taking the Melee Barracks in mid.

However with the Alliance overstaying their welcome slightly, losing the Spirit Bear, the Aegis and with Black King Bars on cooldown, DK saw an opening to punish the Swedes' overconfidence, taking kills on Bulldog as well as

Jerry 'EGM' Lundkvist. Without the resummon, Bulldog did not buy back, as DK rushed down the mid lane and claimed a counter Melee Barracks, showing that they were still in the game.

As Roshan was coming back up at around 43 minutes, DK smoked up to try and catch out the Alliance at the pit, but the Swedes played it patiently, pushing out the lanes and as the Tier 4 Towers were under attack, the smoke was utterly blown. Eventually DK tried to go find the Alliance, desperate to find that opening, but instead it was Akke throwing out the stun and s4 the Primal Roar, as DK lost four heroes in the blink of an eye and allowing the Alliance to pick up the Roshan once more.

This allowed them to take to the DK base once more in order to close out the game, as DK ended up calling the 'GG' at 45 minutes.

The Alliance start out their G-1 LAN Finals with a victory over DK.

Orange vs Liquid

After some early lane dodging, things settled into an offensive trilane from Team Liquid with

Tyler 'TC' Cook on Gyrocopter backed up by Keeper of the Light and Enchantress up against Orange's

Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung on Queen of Pain backed by Shadow Demon and Sandking, as Liquid got off to the better start after scoring the first blood by

Brian 'FLUFF' Lee on claiming the kill for his Enchantress, who was also finding farm in the enemy jungle.

Meanwhile, the mid matchup saw

Steven 'Korok' Ashworth on Puck face off against

Lee 'Ky.xY' Kong Yang Lone Druid, leaving

Sam 'Bulba' Sosale on the top lane Clockwerk against

Chong 'Ohaiyo' Xin Khoo on the Juggernaut. Crucially, while Bulba and Korok showed that they wanted to be active early on, early ganks which failed to connect for the Americans wasted a fair bit of their time, which hurt especially Korok in his mid match-up.

As the game moved past the 10 minute mark, both teams started roaming as five, resulting in head-on teamfights which went back and forth, as neither team was able to find decisive advantages. However, while Liquid were spreading their farm more evenly accross their heroes, Orange were focusing farm on their core heroes.

Orange's excellent ward coverage helped them find key kills as the game moved in to the mid portion, but Liquid were quick to react, using the cover of Smoke in order to set down some vision of their own and score a few kills in return. With the clock ticking and Orange's big push seeming inevitable, Liquid managed to kill off their Ancient stack in order to help TC get a Black King Bar for his Gyrocopter, as he tried to make up for a weak start, trailing both the Lone Druid and the Queen of Pain, with Orange four towers ahead, even as Liquid had found several tower denies.

At around 30 minutes Liquid were pushing as five at bottom lane, as Orange came in from two sides to try a pincer move on the Americans, but a great timing on his Black King Bar by TC negated the initiation of Mushi, allowing the Liquid lineup to turn the fight and hunt down several big kills, as they sent both the gold and experience graphs plunging towards the zero line.

Orange was able to take an uncontested Roshan at around 36 minutes, and with TC making a rare mistake playing way too far out just as he was starting to get his big inventory items, he was picked off without buyback and with FLUFF falling as well without buyback, Orange was able to claim an easy lane of Barracks at mid 39 minutes into the game. Along with Liquid losing the next big teamfight at 41 minutes on the top lane 4-1, they lost another lane of Barracks and with Orange rushing the throne, Liquid saw no option but to call the 'GG'.

Orange open up their run by defeating Team Liquid.

Invictus Gaming vs LGD.cn

Up against a

Lio 'Sylar' Jiajun Spectre backed by Jakiro and Visage, iG went for an offensive trilane with

Jiang 'YYF' Cen on Juggernaut backed by Shadow Demon and Lina. However, Lina was forced to rotate around to help at the opposite side of the map, as

Yao 'Yao' Zhengzheng on Dark Seer managed to find the first blood up against

Chen 'Zhou' Yao and was dominating the lane. The time

Wong Hock 'Chuan' Chuan spent out of the lane gave some extra space for Sylar, and with a great rotation from

Zhang 'xiao8' Ning playing the solo mid Nyx Assassin, the top lane was well and truly lost for iG.

As LGD continued to be far more aggressive around the map, with xiao8 and Yao leading the charge and finding kills, iG was quickly falling far behind as they were not able to get any kills on the board. Faced with missing their push timing window, iG was forced to try and group up early in order to just be able to take some fights, but any error in positioning from iG was punished mercilessly, as LGD hit 15-0 by 15 minutes in.

At 18 minutes iG finally found their first kill, making it 20-1 in favour of LGD. Meanwhile, Sylar was closing in on a Radiance, and iG had a bunch of underfarmed, underleveled and innately squishy heroes. By 25 minutes, LGD waded through the bodies of iG heroes in order to secure the first Barracks of the game, followed by the two full lanes going down just shy of 30 minutes in, with LGD being up 40-2 in kills. Shortly after, iG finally called the 'GG'.

LGD.Cn stomped their way through a completely defenseless iG.

Liquid vs Alliance

With the two Westerners up against each other, things calmed down as the Alliance built a defensive tri-lane for Loda on Anti-Mage aswell as giving Akke his signature Chen and rounding it out with a Shadow Demon. Liquid had similar plans, as they got TC his Gyrocopter and rounded it out with Nyx Assassin and Jakiro for good roaming supports. For once, both offlaners also chose to go to their lane as opposed to jungling, with AdmiralBulldog getting to play his Nature's Prophet and Bulba being put on the Dark Seer. The offlanes worked out better for Liquid, especially as both mids rotated to the top lane, and while s4 on Batrider lost his life, Korok on Queen of Pain used his Sonic Wave in order to help secure a follow-up kill on Bulldog.

With Liquid continuing their strong start by getting better trades from an engagement initiated by the Alliance at mid, Liquid looked a lot more confident than they had in their earlier game of the day. However Liquid wasn't able to really get ahead, instead mostly just matching the Alliance on farm. Both teams settled down to do more of this, farming for another 20 minutes.

At 36 minutes Liquid had caught s4 out and decided to capitalize on the opening, pushing it at mid. What looked like a great won fight translated into a Tier 3 Tower, but the sudden realization that Loda had just exploited the pushed out lane at top in order to destroy Liquid's Barracks caught the North Americans by surprise, as they scurried off to prevent him from doing the same to the bottom lane, having already taken out the Tier 3 Tower there as well. As Liquid backed off, surprisingly they left a nearly untouched set of Alliance Barracks behind.

A Roshan fight at 41 minutes turned horrible, with Liquid losing their lives and allowing Alliance to pick up the Roshan kill, only to see FLUFF on Nyx Assassin pull off a big play, jumping in and snatching the Aegis. Unfortunately, his whole team was already dead while Alliance had lost only one, and as they chased down the fleeing Liquid Captain and killed him off twice, they had all the opening they needed in order to claim mega creeps. After one last push attempt by Liquid was rebuffed, they had nothing left but to admit defeat, calling out the 'GG'.

The Alliance take a patient win off of Team Liquid, as both teams finish off their day.

DK vs LGD.cn

With DK picking up a Chaos Knight for Burning along with Wisp and Leshrac for the safelane trilane, LGD decided to challenge it with a Earthshaker, Visage and Jakiro trilane, where the Visage played by

Leong 'DDC' Fatmeng ended up picking up the farm while putting pressure on DK, picking up the first blood by killing off Chaos Knight early on. This left xiao8 on Kunkka to face off against the Omniknight of Super at mid, while Sylar on Lone Druid got to take up the bottom lane against Dark Seer of r0tk.

Feeling pressured as their safelane trilane was not getting anything done, DK went for questionable dives, trying to kill Visage under the tower only to be met with a Fissure by Yao. As they kept on trying to bring the aggression, LGD kept on punishing them. It was not until 13 minutes in that DK got their first kills on the board, racking up 3 during an extended fight in mid, but also losing their lives in the process, making it 11-3 as LGD were threatening to snowball out of control, as they started pushing towers as five.

The playmakers without a question for LGD were Yao and xiao8, who together chased and disabled their opponents and brought the hurt to the DK squad. By 20 minutes, the feeling was not unlike what had been done to iG earlier on, with LGD once more ahead by 19 kills. At this point, DK tried to go for a smoke gank, only to walk once more into Yao under the cover of an Invisibility Rune, causing LGD to descend on them and taking the fight 5-0, following it up by running to the bottom lane and walking up the high ground, taking out the Barracks before swinging in mid.

As DK kept on throwing away their lives, LGD saw no reason to back off, taking out the throne by 23 minutes.

LGD.Cn defeats DK in their second stomp of the day, 33-4.

Invictus Gaming vs Orange

Orange went for the offensive trilane with Ohaiyo on Leshrac backed up by Nyx Assassin and Witch Doctor, trying to punish the greedy draft of iG, as they drafted a Lone Druid for Zhou backed by Jakiro and a Support Warlock. This left Ky.xY on Magnus to face off against

Luo 'Ferrari_430' Feichi's Dragon Knight at mid lane and YYF on Clockwerk up against Mushi on Gyrocopter, with YFF getting the better of the lane as he scored the first blood.

With

Zeng 'Faith' Hongda on Warlock providing the Fatal Bonds, Orange's attempt at aggression on the bottom lane got turned around on them as the Dual Breath and Breathe Fire on top of each other just took a way a huge chunk of health, forcing the Malaysians back as they lost a hero on the retreat. As this looked to be going progressively in favour of iG, they threw most of their kill lead at mid lane around 13 minutes in, as with perfect information they just walked into the Orange lineup in order to die.

What followed over the next ten minutes was uncharacteristically sloppy play from both teams, as each took questionable engagements and exectuted them poorly. While iG kept ahead on kills, surprisingly Orange were the ones farming more efficiently, staying slightly ahead on gold and experience through-out. This finally payed off in a big way for Orange at 29 minutes in, with a big Reverse Polarity by Ky.xY allowing Orange to take the a fight 4-0, following it up with a Roshan kill and the Aegis for Mushi, who was shooting ahead of Zhou and Ferrari on net worth.

After pressuing the iG base, Orange backed off at around 37 minutes, at which point iG decided to try to chase. With YYF jumping in on Mushi from long range, Mushi popped his Black King Bar as well as his Satanic, and simply healed back up. With this insane survivability, Mushi was in fact able to kite around the iG team while they were slowly whittled down, until Orange had won the fight 5-0, returning to take the Tier 3 Tower before backing off again.

iG took a fight outside the Roshan pit at 44 minutes, trying to prevent Orange from picking up another Aegis. While they managed to get off their combination fairly well, dropping Mushi before he was able to use the Satanic to get himself back to full health. As Mushi bought back, Orange was able to find that big engagement with the iG ultimates on cooldown, as Ky.xY caught four heroes in the Reverse Polarity allowing Mushi to finish off the entirety of the iG team. They then headed down mid, forced buybacks and returned to pick up the Roshan kill.

A few minutes later, Orange walked up the high ground at top lane, taking the Barracks and then backing off, pushing out mid lane next. With another big fight involving a Reverse Polarity (and a far better Skewer) into Call Down and the damage of an empowered and practically full-slotted Gyrocopter just slaughtered the iG lineup, forcing out the 'GG' call at 50 minutes.