The first round of Group B kicked off with a bang and a little shade being thrown Digital Chaos’s way by SirActionSlacks, who apparently is planning on missing every one of their games. Just in case you did, we’ve got the recap of their series against Vici_Gaming Reborn here, as well as Fnatic versus Newbee, MVP Phoenix and Team Liquid, and EHOME versus Team Secret.
Digital Chaos has had a lot of jokes and memes tossed their way so far, but they had the better record than Vici_Gaming Reborn going into the first game. Even so, NoNo’s Templar Assassin and Zyf’s Juggernaut proved too strong for Resolut1on and w33 on Morphling and Mirana. DC held on until all six barracks went down and VG.R had mega creeps before conceding at 48 minutes. The follow-up game was over in less than half the time as Resolut1on and w33 took Luna and Dragon Knight to run down NoNo’s Medusa and Zyf’s Drow Ranger, leaving all outer towers and a lane and a half of barracks dead by the time VG.R called “GG” at 22 minutes with only 5 kills to DC’s 17. A 1-1 draw is a good start to the day for VG.R.
Fnatic was looking to secure their first win of the group stage against Newbee, and putting MuShi- on Alchemist can often be a way to get that done, but Hao’s Slark and kpii’s Bristleback had the answers that allowed Newbee to hold the net worth advantage all game long. Even with the Alchemist’s accelerated farm, MuShi- couldn’t stay alive long enough to start the Greevil’s Greed engine, and Fnatic conceded in the face of mega creeps at 32 minutes, the final score left at 30-10. The second game did not go better for Fnatic, as they were unable to contain kpii on Axe and Mu on Viper, going 7-0-8 and 9-0-10 respectively. After two lost team fights at seventeen and eighteen minutes, MidOne’s Phantom Lancer and MuShi-‘s Windranger were powerless to stop Newbee from ransacking two lanes of barracks and called “GG” before they moved onto the third, ending the game just shy of 19 minutes with the score at 24-6 and the series at 2-0 in Newbee’s favour.
MVP Phoenix looked to have their first game against Team Liquid firmly in the bag, but it was only a few lost skirmishes on the back of FATA-‘s Death Prophet and MATUMBAMAN’s Lifestealer, who dragged the net worth chart to the other side along with KuroKy on Zeus, and after the mid-lane barracks were razed MVP conceded at 36 minutes. MVP flipped the script in game two, keeping MATUMBAMAN’s Lifestealer from having too great an impact which forced FATA-‘s Alchemist to play the solo core role, who ultimately could not stand up to QO’s Phantom Assassin and MP’s Sven. Two full lanes of barracks were enough for Liquid to see the writing on the wall and call “GG” at 36 minutes again. The 1-1 push is an interesting result, as both teams probably could have played a little bit better and gotten just a bit more lucky to take the whole thing.
The fourth pair today was EHOME versus Team Secret, and a classic Secret meltdown occurred over two games. The first, a 61 minute 32-9 beat down with Arteezy’s Morphling and pieliedie’s Shadow Demon putting in work split pushing while iceiceice took his Juggernaut right through an under-performing EternaLEnVy on Slardar and an ineffectual BuLba on Batrider. Game two went down even worse, with iceiceice on Timbersaw shredding apart Arteezy’s Drow Ranger over and over again. EternaLEnVy’s Death Prophet was even worse, and ultimately it took just 21 minutes before it was clear and away a EHOME game. A surprising 2-0 from what should probably have been a 1-1 draw, but EHOME show they aren’t anything to be trifled with coming out of the wildcards.
This article was written by a past writer, Daniel Giroday.
