IEM San Jose Bracket

Saturday, 06.12.

15:00 LoL Quarter Final 1

18:00 LoL Quarter Final 2

21:00 LoL Semi Final 1

Sunday, 07.12.

15:00 LoL Semi Final 2

18:00 LoL Show-match Celebrity ARAM

The Rise of Teamwork MOBAs

by Louis "Guichex" Lemeillet

Recently I got lucky and saw the Heroes of the Storm icon pop up on my Blizzard launcher, so I dove in and played it the hardcore way to discover the possibilities of the game, both casual and eSports wise. Also, along with thousands of other viewers, I watched the small tournament hosted during Blizzcon featuring several big gaming structures. So I can ensure now : HotS is a teamplay-based game, very different from League of Legends, with great potential. It was what Blizzard publicized and they held on to their promise: short games, never-ending action and teamwork on various maps. In the end, my personal feeling is that Blizzard took the best out of Dota 2 and Counter Strike to make their own MOBA. But, as much as it will help the casual gamer enjoy this kind of game more easily than in Dota or LoL, isn't it dangerous regarding eSports and competition ?

Team too heavy, can't carry alone.

These words, we at least heard them once during our solo queue adventures in League of Legends. Why ? Because, to some extent, it is possible because of the inherent meta to have one player shine above others with a top-notch performance and help his team carry on and get the victory. It is almost impossible to do that in HotS for two reasons: shared experience and no gold/items system. In League, you can grow stronger and faster than your opponent because of the gold and the powerful items you can buy. If you farm better and get a few kills, you'll have more experience but also more gold - therefore more items and more power. You can then proceed to walk on the map and help your team secure objectives, kills and help the team grow stronger as a whole. Quite simple.

In HotS, it is almost impossible (if you take two players of the same level) to perform a 1v1 kill. You'll need help from your team to make a kill or to secure the big “objectives” on every map. And even if you get a kill, you won't be stronger than your opponent when he comes back. You'll have a bit more exp but that doesn't help you - except if you could secure another skillpoint (which are not available at every level). And if you have one more skill point, it doesn't mean you can really pressure your opponent, nor is it always worth doing so. Almost every time you try to go for a solo kill, you'll take too much time and the enemy team will be able to catch and insta-gib you. 

Even if you look at Assassins, which are supposed to be able to kill opponents easily because of their permanent invisibility, their burst might be not enough and one CC can easily turn the situation. They can't grow stronger because of items, therefore their potential is limited, especially in end game. 

One of the best things in the game : play an Elite Tauren Chieftain

If I can't outplay my direct opponent, what's the point ?

Well, the point is that your team can outplay the opponents, not just you. And when I talk about this around me, there is a clash of opinions. “Heh, I can already never count on my team on LoL, why would I be able to do so in HotS?” “I would never play a game where I can't feel that I'm making a difference on my own,” “Well, at least it should reduce the number of people trash talking because you lost your lane a bit,” “I don't care as long as I can watch Kerrigan's booty.”

While the latter seems a very constructive point, I'd prefer to look at a very interesting opinion here: “I want to feel that I'm making a difference.” And truly, who doesn't ? If we play videogames, we want to personally be the hero, to perform better than the others, to show off a bit. That's the point of several videogames, and moreover, that's the point of competition. HotS may be a more casual-oriented game, but it still is a MOBA, therefore a competitive game where your ranking is important. Ranked games aren't available yet so I couldn't test what is going on and if teams were truly behaving like they should (with reduced toxicity.)

Until I can experience ranked, I'm still worried about that point since I've been seeing a special type of champion inside the game: the “siege specialists.” It means what it means, those champions are literally afk pushing lanes the whole game, or even afk in base giving a few buff to the team if you look at Abathur. It means that in several games you'll play almost 4v5 or face a split-pusher in a teamplay-based game. Of course, it increases the number of strategies, but it'll just lead to more toxicity and trash talk.

In HotS, you have to pay Gangplank so he can throw his ultimate for you.

So...Should I watch it ?

I'm only getting to the main point now, but I wanted to offer sufficient background to those who couldn't play the game at all yet. Whenever I see a MOBA now, I can't help but think of its eSports potential. Competition and a strong community are the keys to MOBAs success and it'll be a truly successful game only when it gets a competitive scene on its own, with its own large community. Blizzard clearly showed, by hosting a tournament during the Alpha, that they want to be on that eSports stage, and not just wait to watch what will happen like for Hearthstone.

So what of HotS potential? I'm torn. On one hand, I know a lot of people have gotten sick of the League of Legends scene because of the toxicity, the failures, and because it got boring. And Blizzard is a force that cannot be stopped when you consider its marketing and communication potential. They might be the gaming company with the strongest loyalty too, because of their history. An example? How many of us consider that the future Warcraft movie has poor casting and will probably result in a deception, but will still go see it? And the sequel? If you've been playing Blizzard's games for a while, you cannot not go see it. Another example, just recently they launched Warlords of Draenor and got 3 millions players back by snapping their fingers. No other company is able to do such a feat.

But let's get back on track. Do I want to watch a competition where I can't see outplays on an individual scale? Let's just take a look at the famous Faker vs Ryu Zed/Zed outplay. We were all stoked to see this. And we will continue to shout at the top of our lungs each time a 1v1 or a 2v2 trade engages. Almost none of those trades in HotS will result in a kill and you may only see 5v5 teamfights. I can't help but think that it'll get pretty boring very quickly, even if games are shorter. I want to see teams battling each other and outperform their opponent on a strategical point of view but I also want to see individual actions. And I want to be able to catch my breath between them. In HotS, it's action 100% of the time: no laning phase, no anything, and I'm afraid some viewers will be lost in what's going on and never get the time to understand it, since the game is already over twenty minutes in.

On the other hand, Blizzard has found a counter to this by offering a large panel of maps with different objectives and strategies, and they plan to bring more to the table. That's the Counter Strike side of the game: teams will be able to perform better on some maps while their opponents will outperform them on others. And along with the pick/ban phase of every game, you'll have a drafting phase of the map choice like for Starcraft or CS. Strategy-wise, it's pretty interesting and appealing, so long as teams don't decide that some maps are hard to play and never pick them. (I'm thinking about the Dragonshire map where taking the objective in a 5v5 premade scenario is almost impossible without taking drastic risks.) But we'll have to wait a bit more until we can see that.

Just an Alpha, yet a tournament with Fnatic, EG, C9 and more. 

That's how powerful Blizzard is.

It's not LoL, it's not Dota, it's not CS:GO, it's...different.

The major advantage of HotS is that it's a game bringing something new to the table and it benefits from Blizzard's very strong marketing power. We've seen what they can do on a game where eSports is not one of their first objectives, like Hearthstone, and damn, their studio at Blizzcon was amazing. For HotS, I have high expectations and I want to see what they can deliver. It's extremely interesting to see a new scene potentially rising up. Will they implement a league system? Will they copy the WCS model? What will the studios look like? Will they partner with Riot to create a global eSports convention?

Of course, I also might be dead wrong and teamplay-based games with non-stop action is what people want to see. Maybe they want to see 5v5's all the time, and how one team will outperform the other on this specific objective. But I mostly think that HotS will appeal to a more casual genre of gamer, and moreover, a casual genre of viewers. Studies have shown that a large part of the eSports viewership is not part of the “hardcore” gamers and they might be drawn by this casual looking MOBA with no pauses and no time to look away. It could also attract lovers of Bo3/Bo5 instead of Bo1 since it'll most surely be the standard format for this game.

In the end, HotS will probably be a success on the eSport scene and all the big multi-gaming structures will have a team. But I might not be watching if I can't find a way out of its repetitiveness. I do have high expectations that the pro teams will prove me wrong and show me how many strategies they can pull off in a game where an individual's performance is minimized, but how do you identify which player might have bigger potential than another? Do you only rely on personal affinity to recruit a new player? If your team is performing badly, how do you identify the weakest link?

One thing is for sure: Heroes of the Storm is a new kind of game inside the MOBA genre and is one of many. TOME, which just came out on Steam, is looking strongly like HotS on some points and trying to make a name in the competitive teamwork market. For now, I can only wait and propose a whole bunch of questions for which I'll be eagerly looking for answers. 

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 by Louis "Guichex" Lemeillet

LMQ : Gone with the Wind

By Jodi "PunkLit" McClure

The first time I ever heard about LMQ, it was through rumors that a third rate Chinese team was coming to America to compete in the belief that we'd be easy to beat. Never passing up the chance to be irritated by anti-NA sentiment, I was determined to hate this new team and hoped for their quick annihilation. From that point forward, their appearance in my twitter feed came in drips and drabs. "Did you see the Chinese team, LMQ?" "I hear they're really ripping it up in Challenger." "LMQ is beating everyone."

I remember the first time I saw their photo, around the time they had made it to the challenger series play-offs. They were, to me, four identical looking dark-haired strangers and one really goofy-looking tall dude. I didn't know their names and I didn't want to. I was annoyed that they were still here, threatening to take a seat in our LCS. It was stupid to have a fully Chinese team competing in an American league, especially since they didn't speak any English. My ego said it shouldn't be allowed, and I wasn't alone in that sentiment. Many fans voiced the same displeasure with their unwelcome presence, sure we would have no way to connect or bond to this team.  

When the Challenger play-offs started, I cheered against LMQ, but I still remember how their AD Carry, Vasilli, immediately stood out to me. Wildly aggressive, his 'balls deep' play style was one we didn't see much of in the LCS, and even though it initially almost removed his team from the playoffs, (I believe my first ever twitter post about the tilting Vasilli said something like "This guy must be on drugs") it made for some exciting moments. Fun moments. But somehow, despite their seemingly erratic play, they still advanced into the promotion series.

Just prior to the start of relegations, poor quality videos started popping up in my stream with titles like "Vasilli dancing shirtless," "Vasilli twerking," "Vasilli goes 1 v 5." Vasilli, I came to understand, was 'the tall guy,' and he was the first member of LMQ to whom I placed a face to a name. It was a name that would soon start to flood my stream as relegations started up, followed by words like "is a god," "is a beast," and "is a one man army." His crazy dodge mechanics and man-mode like destruction lit up the twitterverse, and while I still didn't like the Chinese team, I had to admit, that tall guy was amusing. 

After they unseated the struggling XDG, I started to learn a bit more about LMQ as a team. Riot offered us subtitled interviews between clips of the boys playing and laughing in a pool, but the light-hearted team introduction did little to sway my opinion. They were still strangers and invaders, playing in a league where they didn't belong  - although, I could now finally place another face, the good-natured, chubby-cheeked XiaoWeiXiao (a guy I mentally dubbed the Chinese version of Scarra).

Vasilli's name popped up a lot in the first few weeks after LMQ's 4-0 entrance into the LCS, mainly as everyone's fantasy pick. To me, they were the bad guys in every match; the LCS Dallas Cowboys, so the best part of those early days was discovering they were beatable. Perhaps not by my beloved TSM, but hey, at least Cloud 9 and Curse had their number. In retrospect, I think it was knowing they could lose that started to make them more human to me. They were, as a team, graceful and modest in defeat, and they all exhibited a certain shy humility that made them feel less threatening, despite the fact that they were starting to place a grip-lock hold on first place.

Over time, I started to learn all their names and recognize their faces, as well as pick up on their individual personalities and playstyles. Little things like Mor's tiny smirk when he made a great play or Ackerman's uncanny ability to appear out of nowhere and turn the tides of fights, plus NoNames' solo queue chat logs were downright hysterical and XiaoWeiXiao's unending smile tried to chisel away at my shell. But unfortunately, their interviews felt like long, boring, drawn-out Chinese babble, (made only slightly more bearable by the presence of their endearing manager, Sharon) and I still bore malice towards this foreign team.

It was Vasilli who started to change that for me in July of 2014, when he started to show up in videos speaking adorable broken English. Something in his cute ducking, blushing face spoke of a guy who was trying his hardest to assimilate, and for whatever reason, that mattered. Because suddenly they weren't a Chinese team that was only here to beat us, they were now a "slowly getting Americanized" team that wanted to be part of us, and as much as I wanted to continue disliking LMQ, I couldn't.

Impressive and precious as Vasilli was, I still resisted cheering for LMQ over any other team, mainly because they kept beating all my favorites. Allowing Vasilli to have Tristana was to ensure your team's deletion, and he consistently displayed both the mechanics and the guts to mop up the floor in teamfights. Quadras and Pentas peppered his game stats, and he dared to walk in and steal a baron from TSM in the middle of the summer Semi-Finals.   

Just prior to the LMQ vs Curse game in playoffs, there was a Riot made video speaking of what getting to Worlds would mean to each team, and Vasilli's eye watered as he spoke of wanting to play just one more match with his team. That tear was like a cannon ball, plowing through what remained of my anti-LMQ feelings, and for the first time in my life, after seeing that interview, I found myself actually pulling for these Chinese kids, wanting them to make it into Worlds.

I remember having lunch with my mom before LMQ's last game at Worlds, trying to relate to her the story of this Chinese team and how I started out hating them but came to love them. Maybe it's fair, maybe it's not, but LMQ had to work incredibly hard to earn their place...not in the NA LCS, but in our hearts, and they really deserved it all along. They never once complained, and despite their management hardships, they always remained positive with a pleasant disposition.

When LMQ played at Worlds, I didn't see them as a Chinese team or even a foreign team. I saw them as OUR LMQ, our beloved friends, playing for America and the NA LCS, and I was proud to have them there alongside Cloud9 and TSM as one of our representatives, because there was no question in my mind they belonged there.

So the other day when I read that Vasilli was leaving, I felt a bit like Scarlet O'hara...because I don't want him to leave and I regret not having fully appreciated him while we had him, and I lament falling in love with him far too late. Part of me hopes we'll see him again here in the states, and part of me knows we probably never will, but I'll treasure the fact that I had the opportunity to be charmed and won over by some adorable guy from China.

Oh God! Wait...Vasilli...WAIT!  VASILLI...Please! COME BACK! 

Expansion Tournament Round 2 Preview

By Anel “Musinlol” Musinovic 

Only one day is left until the second round of the expansion tournament, and going in we have Millenium, Giants, Reason Gaming, Different Dimension, H2k, Meloncats, Gamers2 & n!faculty, a line-up which is sure to give us some great games.

Millenium vs Giants 

Kev1n, H0R0, Ryu, Creaton & Jree vs Werlyb, Fr3deric,xPepii, Adryh & Rydle

Going into the first game of Round 2, we have two strong sides. Millenium are the favorites, but you should expect Twitch chat to be filled with hype around Giant's xPepii, especially when he gets a kill.

Although Millenium is expected to win, I have given one game to Giants because I feel that xPepii's unorthodox level 3 roams and aggressive play are going to give them an advantage, one they can possibly use to secure a win. At the very least, his unconventional moves creates fun games that are entertaining to watch and they should be a bit different from the others.

On paper, Millenium are the much stronger team, despite Giants having a midlaner who was once considered one of the best in his role. Toplane will have the biggest mismatch, as Kev1n's skill and experience is going to outshine Werlyb. In the Black Monster cup, it was Millenium's botlane that was the driving force with good farm and solo kills, and if they can transition that into the game vs Giants, they should come out with the win..

Player to watch from Millenium: H0R0

My reasoning behind picking H0R0 as the player to watch is that he has so far has been both good and lackluster in the Black Monster Cup. He often goes for a sightstone after his jungle item, which I hope can give Millenium great opportunities and maybe make it easier for Ryu to pick off the enemies on an assassin like Leblanc. There's been a lot of hype behind H0R0 coming to EU, and in scrims he apparently has splendid performances. He hasn't been an outstanding player in BMC, but I believe he can show up big when it matters.

Players to watch from Giants: xPepii & Adryh

I have chosen two players from Giants because I simply couldn't leave out xPepii, because his unexpected early roams and crazy playmaking potential makes him a player to watch. Adryh seems to be the carry of Giants. In the first round of the expansion he went 9-0-8 on Jinx & 7-4-10 on Lucian when the Jinx was picked away from him. He is one of the only Jinx players at the moment, and I think if they can snowball him on a Jinx they can have a shot.

Predicted score: Millenium 2-1 Giants

Reason Gaming vs Different Dimension 

Kubon, Xayoo, Takefun, Celaver & Libik vs Warrior Lady, AnOnPsyCko, Magebane, Dom1nant & Wildpanda

The second game is between Reason Gaming and the big EUNE surprise, Different Dimension.

Reason Gaming’s matches sadly weren't streamed against SK Prime, but they are up on the ESL YouTube channel. In the first game, Reason Gaming got outplayed and set themselves too far behind too early with Takefun dying multiple times in the first ten minutes. In the second game, Reason had a comfortable lead but were shaky with their decision-making around dragon. Despite that, they came out victorious in Game 2. In Game 3, it was Takefun going 16-3 (even though he gave up first blood) and Xayoo, stealing the baron and winning the game just after.

On paper they have decently strong & experienced players, and are the favourites against Different Dimension, but I fear for them if they move on. Against other teams who should advance in the tournament, DD has the worst positioning.

Different Dimension got through with a 2-0 sweep against the first seed from the EUW ladder, SPARTA. I think that everybody expected EUNE to only have one team which could put up a fight - Tricked esports. However that was not the case. Dom1nant was really dominating on the rift, which is also the reason why he is the player to watch.

Player to watch from Reason: Takefun

Takefun was hit or miss and I expect him to be again, but he has the ability and skill to outlane Mageban, although after his 16-3 game on Leblanc, I imagine that champion will be banned out by DD. Takefun will need to be one of the players that shows up, because I fear that Celaver is going to struggle in the bottom lane.

Player to watch from DD: Dom1nant

Dom1nant is the absolute star of the team and will have to perform every game if they want to have any hopes of winning. He has been under the wing of SK Forgiven and seems to have improved quite a bit. My only fear for Dom1nant is that he isn't an ADC, but a midlaner. He might not have strong performances on many champions, so that could be a worrying point for DD.

Predicted score: Reason Gaming 2-1 Different Dimension

H2k vs Meloncats 

Odamne, loulex, Febiven, Hjarnan, Voidle vs zeclipse, gillius, Abaria, Crykee, Dioud

I fear for the Meloncats that they are going to struggle against a really strong H2k. H2k are the favourites for this game, and maybe even for the whole tournament. Especially with Flaxxish being banned for toxicity and and their coach going to toplane, it is going to be extremely hard. It will be interesting to see what H2k are going to do, and if they are going to focus top or let Odamne try to win hard alone up there.

Unless Abaria could somehow snowball a champion and destroy Febiven, I don't see any way for Meloncats to score an upset, and considering how strong Febiven is right now, I don't even think that's possible.

Player to watch from H2k: Febiven

Febiven is the obvious player to watch, he is so strong and is considered one of the best in the whole of Europe. He has multiple accounts in high challenger and is a great mechanical player. I think he is going to get camped by Gillius, but he should survive and make it easy for his team.

Player to watch from Meloncats: Gillius

I think that Gillius is their only player that goes even or is better than the opposite teams player on that position. It's going to be harder for him than loulex, though, as loulex will have way more to work with. Gillius will probably struggle despite being really good individually. I think he should try to camp Febiven, maybe with Abaria on a snowballed champion.

Predicted score: H2k 2-0 Meloncats

Gamers2 vs n!faculty 

Jwaow, Kou, Ocelote, Yuuki60 & KaSing vs Xaxus, Obvious, Soz Purfect, Sedrion & Mountain

The last game of round 2 might also be the closest. This is the only series where I was seriously in doubt about who was going to win. It could go either way.

On one side we have Ocelote and Gamers2 who have Top Three players in every position, but doesn't seem to be delivering the results in tournaments like Paris Game Week and Black Monster Cup - where they lost to teams such as Giants, Millenium Spirit, SK Prime - all teams they should be able to beat if they want to be a LCS team. With that said, they did advance from the first round easily and won over Reason Gaming in their seeding match.

K0u has struggled lately, he is isn't playing up to his standards from his Ninjas in Pyjamas days which is obviously affecting the whole team. He is the best challenger jungler IF he is playing his best. My concern is he will get out-jungled by Obvious if he keeps playing like he has lately.

Ocelote hasn't exactly been the driving force he'd love to be, and if he wants it to be in the expansion tournament, it should definitely be against Soz Purfect, who I consider one of the weaker players on the enemy team.

On the other side we have a n!faculty, which struggled against Tricked but managed to pull through, n!faculty has 2 standout players in Obvious & Xaxus. Xaxus we all know from his time on Roccat. He wasn't a flashy player but he was always consistent. Therefore, I think that it's going to be an even affair toplane and will probably be swung by the junglers. Obvious is a great jungler and the best player on his team, which is why he is the player to watch.

Player to watch from Gamer2: Yuuki60

The reason behind picking Yuuki is that I feel he is the best player on Gamers2 despite being overshadowed by Gamers2's bigger names like K0u, Ocelote, Jwaow and now KaSing. Speaking of the arrival of KaSing, I think he can, with Yuuki, become a quality LCS level botlane. Yuuki has had Dioud and Rydle prior to KaSing, but they didn't have the same skill level as Yuuki. I believe Yuuki is going to show how good he is and will outshine Sedrion by a lot.

Player to watch from n!faculty: Obvious

The player to watch from n!faculty is Obvious. I was considering Xaxus, but felt like Obvious was their most flashy and probably best player. Obvious often makes plays both in the early and late game and with new solo laners on the team, I believe he is going to have an easier time in the jungle and can potentially focus on shutting down K0u, who can be a really good or lackluster. If he can pressure him so much, it will give them a good chance!

Predicted score: Gamers2 2 - 1 n!faculty

*A quick side note: Games from Round 1 involving Gamers 2 & Reason Gaming have been re-casted and uploaded to ESL’s YouTube channel.

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By Anel “Musinlol” Musinovic 

Black Monster Cup EU Winter Quarterfinals Preview

By Anel “Musinlol” Musinovic

Going into the quarterfinals of the Black Monster Cup, we are met by the top challenger teams and players. Millenium, Gamers2, H2k, SK Gaming Prime, Playing Ducks, Dark Passage, Team Salsa, and the polish team, Sample Text, will all be competing for a spot in the semifinals of the BMC, playing on the new patch 4.20.

Millenium vs Team Salsa

Kev1n, H0R0, Ryu, Creaton & Jree vs jer0m, Econatorz, Neptuno, Samux & Babeta

The first game of quarterfinals will be Millenium going up against Team Salsa, which is a rematch of one of the games in Group C, a game Millenium won with great objective control. 

Game one, I believe, will be a repeat of the first game between the two teams, despite Millenium not wanting to show their hand before their expansion tournament run. Millenium will do their best to pull off a good performance, which will be too much for the Spanish side Team Salsa. Across the board Millenium is stronger individually, but Team Salsa is going in with everything they can, which can cause trouble for Millenium. If Team Salsa wants any chance of making an upset, it will definitely require a extremely good performance from their botlane. Samux & Babeta are definitely the players to watch from Team Salsa, they had a good performance against Creaton & Jree last time around.

Predicted score: Millenium 2-0 Team Salsa

The game will be played today, 25th of November, 18:00 CET

Gamers 2 vs H2k

Jwaow, K0u, Ocelote, Yuuki60, KaSing vs Odamne, loulex, Febiven, Hjarnan, Voidle

Both teams are in the second round of the expansion tournament, so they will most likely not be bursting out wild and innovative team compositions. With that said, we are on the 4.20 patch, so new stuff will still be brought out because they are the normal picks now. Expect champions like Warwick to get banned or picked. But the teams will definitely be giving their all to receive first place and the €15,000 prize pool.

H2k went through their group without any trouble, placed first, and played their last match against Dark Passage on patch 4.20 which ended up being an instant 20 minute surrender from Dark Passage. It was again Febiven in the midlane going off, which seems to be a bit of a habit. Gamers2 went through as second place, just behind SK Gaming Prime. Despite them not showing their best performance there, they went 2-0 in the expansion tournament. Unfortunately, it was not streamed.

Gamers2 & Ocelote will have to keep Febiven down in midlane and ban away Lee Sin from loulex if they want to proceed to the semifinals. If they manage to do that, I can see them going through, but it’s a hard task, so I will probably give it over to H2k, who are the favorites for first place. 

Predicted score: H2k 2-1 Gamers2

The game will be played today 25th of November, approx. at 21:00 CET

Sample Text vs Dark Passage

Ishikava, KonDziSan, Sebekx, Celaver & Grom vs Elwind, Crystal Methh, Naru, Hold Postitio0n &

TrieLBaenRe

Both teams are not exactly favourites, but they have known-names such as Celaver, Crystal Meth and Naru. Sample Text went through as first in their group, but had an easy group compared to Dark Passage, who finished right behind H2k in Group D. Irelia seems to be a priority pick for both toplaners, and is expected to be contested when these two teams go head to head, especially for Dark Passage. Their new toplaner seems to be the new outstanding player on the team with great performances against teams in group D besides H2k.

If Sample Text wants to come out winning, they will have to get Celaver & Ishikava going, and try to build off that. Even without players like fabFabulous, Touch & their previous hard carry HolyPhoenix, I belive Dark Passage is going to edge it against Sample text. With Worlds experience on Crystal and Naru, I think they can use it to win here. With that said, the game could easily go either way, seeing how destroyed Dark Passage got by H2k.

Predicted score: Dark Passage 2-1 Sample Text

The game will be played 2nd of December, approx. at 18:00 CET

SK Gaming Prime vs Playing Ducks e.V.

Beansu, Taikki, Godbro, Steeelbackmaker &The Barney D vs Koi, XoYnUzi, avenuee, Broeski & SaZeD

SK Gaming Prime unfortunately got sent out of the expansion tournament in the first round against Reason Gaming. I expect them to come out and want to show us that they are one of the top challenger teams. Playing Ducks had great performances in the last couple of hours in the Ranked 5’s qualifiers for expansion, but they didn't have enough points in time. In BMC, they placed second just behind Sample Text, and will, with avenuee’s Xerath performances, try to beat SK Gaming Prime. 

I am, sadly for Playing Ducks, seeing a comfortable win for SK Gaming Prime. I believe they can get steeelbackmaker in front and let him carry. I think the individual strength in SK Gaming Prime is going to be too much for Playing Ducks.

Predicted score: SK Gaming Prime 2-0 Playing Ducks e.V.

The game will be played 2nd of December, approx. at 21:00 CET

 *All Games are Bo3

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by Anel "Musinlol" Musinovic