ViCi Gaming is the first non-invited team to reach the offline main event of The Summit, after a dominant performance in the grand-finals against NewBee. Three more teams will join them in Los Angeles through the American and European qualifiers this month.
The upcoming tournament The Summit was announced back in March, and it is one of the several international competitions taking place in 2014. It features both an online and LAN phase, with the participants fighting over a $50,000 prize pool (with a crowd funding boost from the DotaTV ticket). The tournament includes three regional qualifiers for Europe, Asia and America, with the Asian and American qualifiers including two stages - the pre-qualifiers and the main qualifiers (for Europe it is just one stage).
The Asian qualifiers of The Summit have just concluded, with ViCi Gaming finishing first in the race for the Los Angeles finals. NewBee were unable to control the pace of the match, unlike the previous encounter between the two teams in the qualifiers. The 3-1 victory serves as VG's ticket to the LAN finals, where they will join Na'Vi, DK and three more teams from other regions in the battle for the impressive prize pool. The American qualifiers just reached the playoff stage, with the first match being scheduled for May 8th, 22:00 CEST. The European playoffs will continue tomorrow, May 9th, with the match between Fnatic and PR at 20:00 CEST.
For more information about The Summit, check our coverage hub here, or the tournament's official website.
Game One
For the first game, NewBee opted for a tanky line-up with high mobility to counter VG's Tiny-Io duo. Director8 and his buddies seemed to have the upper hand during the earlier engagements, mostly due to the presence of Stampede, Static Storm and Chain Frost in their arsenal. They even moved against VG's middle barracks before the 35th minute mark. However, Sylar's Tiny started having a massive impact at that point, with NewBee being forced to overextend continuously in order to take him down. As Tiny's inventory kept getting more expensive, the physical damage based carries of NewBee seemed to struggle against the natural survivability of the rocky giant. This allowed VG to get aggressive and reach NewBee's top barracks, which are easy to take down for a Tiny with Aghanim's Scepter. Despite being in front in terms of kill score, xiao8 forfeited the game with 50 minutes on the clock, shortly after the destruction of the second set of barracks.
Game Two
The second game's outcome was decided quite early, as both teams aimed for early game dominance through their draft. NewBee managed to secure a fragile early advantage through their ganks and ventures inside the Radiant base, but they could not prevent a 15-minute Radiance by Sylar's Lone Druid. From that point, it seemed like an easy job for ViCi, as the low-hp heroes of NewBee were easy targets for the massive damage coming out of the Spirit Bear and its sidekicks. With a score of 16-5 a few seconds before the 35th minute, NewBee called the 'GG'.
Game Three
NewBee went for the Templar Assassin one more time in the best-of-three series, a decision proved wise in the third game. The gold and experience gains were dead even for about 15 minutes, with both teams finding pickoffs and towers all over the map. However, a slight overextension by VG by minute 18 resulted in a 4-1 victory for NewBee, that completely changed the flow of the game. From that point, Mu's Templar Assassin combined with the Ancient Apparition and Ember Spirit seemed uncontrollable. VG got forced to surrender, as both Weaver and Wraith King could harm NewBee's heroes anymore.
Game Four
The fourth game was similar to the second game - NewBee's early aggression helped them gain a quick gold and experience advantage, but Sylar found enough space to get strong - very strong. In fact, he was able to bring hell to the Dire using the notorious shotgun build. With the help of Dragon Knight and his supports, Sylar ended the game with a 12-1-8 score, showing his future opponents that his Morphling cannot be ignored. The Lifestealer and Ember Spirit selections by NewBee were not enough to take down VG's tanky lineup, ultimately resulting in the third and final defeat of xiao8's gang.
Headline image by ESL One.
