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Cloud 9 vs. Na`Vi

For the first game of the series both teams picked up fairly greedy lineups, with Na`Vi having the trickier time setting their lanes. Their solution was to send Danil 'Dendi' Ishutin on the Mirana to the safelane and give Alexander 'XBOCT' Dashkevich the solo mid for his Faceless Void. The ploy worked to some extent, giving XBOCT a good start, but Na`Vi's top lane ended up failing and Cloud 9 ended up finding dominant farm for Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao on the safelane Morphling as well. When teams started rotating for kills this meant that Dendi was a free kill if he tried to stay on any lane 1v1. And with C9 also playing patiently from ahead Na`Vi never found their opening to get kills with Chronosphere, which meant that the game snowballed out of control for them.

　　For the second game Na`Vi got their hands on a Fnatic staple in the Invoker, Enigma and Venomancer minion push. Things looked to be starting just as badly for Na`Vi however as Cloud 9 picked up an early courier kill as well as the first blood, C9's relatively static lineup that needed to have the momentum and be able to push themselves quickly showed itself lacking. Even with a good start they weren't far enough ahead to deal with Na`Vi's aggression. Even with Doom and Ravage C9 were unable to find the right openings, leaving themselves vulnerable to Kuro 'KuroKy' Tahkasomi on the Witch Doctor to deal a great deal of damage during the lockdown provided by Chronosphere and Black Hole. Once the Na`Vi lineup got rolling there was no stopping them, as they pushed their way into a game three.

　　For the third game of the series Na`Vi went for another strong push strategy, this time around Death Prophet, Shadow Shaman and Nature's Prophet. With Cloud 9 having no real counter-push they had to win the early game in order to be able to hold on. And with great plays from Pittner 'bOne7' Armand on his old signature Clockwerk as well as Johan 'pieliedie' Åström on the support Bounty Hunter roaming to set up great opportunities, Cloud 9's strategy of isolating and killing Na`Vi heroes in order to disrupt the push got rolling straight off the bat. Once Na`Vi fell behind they had no comeback mechanism, allowing Cloud 9 to roll to a seemingly easy victory.

　　Cloud 9 eliminate three time International finalists Na`Vi 2-1.

　　Games to watch: Each game of this series was mostly one-sided, but well executed from the winning team.

　　

LGD vs. Invictus Gaming

LGD started out employing a similar strategy of isolating and picking off as Cloud 9 did for their third game against Na`Vi. They took on a different kind of early timing strategy centering around a massive teamfight deathball by iG. LGD's ace in the hole was their Invoker played by Yao 'Yao' Zhengzheng, who was able to split push while still contributing to the burst provided by Xu 'Lin' Ziyang on the Centaur Warrunner, who was able to time and again jump in and blow up iG's heroes. As iG's teamfight became more and more delayed and as they were constantly having to fight shorthanded, their ability to deal enough damage to stop LGD from imposing their will dwindled, resulting in an easy first game victory by LGD.

　　For the second game iG decided to match LGD's aggression, going for early kills and winning the lanes because of this. Especially support player Wong Hock 'Chuan' Chuan on the Mirana did a lot of work with his Sacred Arrows, setting up kill after kill. While LGD's tanky frontline eventually became a bit too beefy for iG to continue to blow up, LGD was so far behind that they were unable to deal considerable damage in turn to iG, allowing iG to utilize the same split push from their Invoker player Luo 'Luo' Yinqi that LGD had used against them in the first game. The longer the game kept on going the more control iG exerted until they eventually closed out the game at 33 minutes.

　　This final game of the series was by far the slowest of the set, with both teams respecting their opponents when placed with their backs against the wall. Eventually as they started taking fights, LGD proved to have the superior initiation, especially with Wang 'Rabbit' Zhang on the Centaur Warrunner and the Vengeful Spirit played by Bin 'DD' Xie simply setting up superior trades and preventing iG from getting the fights they wanted. As the game dragged on it became clear that while both sides again were difficult to kill off, iG were not going to find the openings they needed. Being forced to engage onto Lin on the Viper as opposed to Yao's Ember Spirit, they had to waste all their burst only to lose the teamfights on the back end, allowing LGD to incrementally build up the advantage they needed to send the once TI champions home, ending the game at 45minutes with 26-9 in kills.

　　LGD defeat Invictus Gaming 2-1 as iG, handing the team their lowest ever International finish.

　　Games to watch: Game 3 is the closest of the series with game 2 being an ok second choice.

　　The first games of the second round of the Lower Bracket will also be played today and added to this post as the games finish.

　　

Cloud 9 vs. ViCi Gaming - Game 1

bOne7 continued where he left off with his amazing Clockwerk game, getting a first blood with Batrider against a safelane trilane and then proceeding to disrupt ViCi's laning. While everything looked good for C9 early on, ViCi responded by grouping up and forcing towers, causing C9 to try and split push before they truly had the means to do so. As C9 kept on making poor trades they slowly fell behind, with especially WehSing 'SingSing' Yuen suffering on the Ember Spirit, who was being heavily countered by both Doom and Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun on the safelane Nature's Prophet building into a Orchid Malevolence for the additional silence. C9 however were still able to hold their base, and with Envy on the Invoker digging deep to out-split-push the opposing Nature's Prophet, things looked to be within reach, until a fateful failed initiation by C9 in their own woods at just short of the 40 minute mark allowed Linsen 'Fy' Xu on the Sandking to once again show why everyone sings his praises, helping his team to claim the victory in the first game of this series.

　　Worth the watch? Yes, this was one of the better games of the day.

　　

LGD vs. Team DK - Game 1

DK decided to fall back on giving away the Lycan in order to counter it, picking up a four core midgame pushing and ganking lineup, looking to put on a lot of pressure in order to take away the space LGD wanted in order to get their lineup rolling. DK's start was a bit slow, allowing Lin on the Lycan to get up some early fighting items and setting LGD up to potentially hit their timings. However, as the all out teamfights began to take place it was DK who came out on top time and again, with especially Zeng Rong 'MMY' Lei doing a lot of work on his Rubick, setting up the chaotic fights to go DK's way with his steals. More importantly because DK were able to dictate much of the action they were able to keep much of the fighting on LGD's side of the map, and along with their slim victories this helped temper Lin's pushing power, delaying LGD's tower pushes until the mid game.

　　Between Daryl 'iceiceice' Koh on Nature's Prophet and Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung on Templar Assassin mounting massive gold lead as the game went ever later, LGD were unable to ever truly fight back, slowly losing their base and their lives. It wasn't until after LGD had lost two lanes of Barracks that DK's item advantage started to diminish as the game reached the 60 minute mark when they finally got their opening, and within a matter of moments LGD's sheer tankyness along with the multiple Heaven's Halberds and Abyssal Blades, they simply outlasted and output too much damage for DK to hold on, finishing it all off with a classic race for the throne, executing one of the greatest reversals of the tournament as LGD took the first game of the series.

　　Worth the watch? Yes. Oh god yes!