Vici Gaming, the third seed from the groupstage, has taken down Invictus Gaming to qualify for D2L offline playoffs in Las Vegas next year. They will be joining LGD.cn as the second representative from the east.
Things could not have gone better for Vici Gaming as they took down Invictus Gaming to emerge the lone survivor of the D2L eastern bubble race. Vici Gaming will be rewarded with a trip to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas to compete alongside their countrymen LGD.cn in the D2L offline playoffs early next year. Joining them from the west will be Alliance from Sweden and either Fnatic or Team Liquid, depending on who wins the western bubble race.
After taking down DK in the D2L, LGD.cn in the grand final of the Sina Cup, and getting their visa approved to compete in EMS One yesterday, Vici Gaming started off the day with a bang, running over iG in game one by constantly applying pressure to shut down Hao's Luna. Vici Gaming opted for Necrophos in the second game in an attempt to push and end the game early. However, iG was able to dominate the laning phase and thus destroy VG's potential to push in the mid-game.
The third game was a bizarre one. The game started out with iG in the lead but a few small mistakes helped VG to catch up. At 50 minutes in, carries on both teams were already maxed out and despite having the stronger 5-man, VG could not push because Anti-Mage and Nature's Prophet were constantly split pushing. After picking off the Elder Titan near the one hour mark, VG quickly pushed mid while iG's Anti-Mage and Nature's Prophet split pushed bottom. After taking down the tier-three tower, VG immediately went for the throne and despite having 4-man standing around the fountain, iG did not defend nor touch VG as they beat on the throne. The throne eventually went down and VG took game three.
Game four was perhaps the most one-sided game of the series. iG picked several early pushers such as Pugna, Jakiro and Dragon Knight but they lost the lanes and VG wasted no time in pushing iG's towers instead. Ironically, VG had the better late-game line-up in the game and with VG camping in their jungle and more or less killing iG's heroes as they stepped out of the base, iG forfeited their D2L playoffs spot at 18 minutes.
The western bubble race will also conclude later today with Fnatic versus Team Liquid. The winner of that match will be joining Alliance as the second representative from the west in the finals.
Image credit: SCNTV
