In the best of five final for the ESL One Chinese qualifiers VG took a 3-0 victory over reigning international champions Newbee to secure their place at the LAN final.
Vici Gaming come through the online Chinese qualifiers for the New York LAN final undefeated, taking down LGD 2-0 in the first round and then Newbee in a spectacular 3 game wipe. With this win, they will be going to New York to compete for the $100,000+ prize pool. This result also means that former ESL One Frankfurt winners, iG, will be denied the chance to reclaim their title.
VG will be pleased to be representing China in the US based tournament, having defeated the top dogs post-TI4 and stopping them from reaching a LAN since Seattle. The new team also seems to be working nicely for them, after they acquired both Black^ and iceiceice in the carry and offlane roles respectively.
Despite the betting percentages before the game being quite even, VG came out very strong and dominated their Chinese rivals. Game one saw a Drow Ranger and offlane Puck being picked by VG, whilst the feared support duo of Fenrir and Fy worked perfectly using the nuking power available to them as Skywrath Mage and Visage. Despite Newbee's strong line up including one of the strongest heroes in the meta right now, Razor, they couldn't hold VG off.
Newbee's game two lineup was quite creative, seeing three (arguably four) common mid heroes (Puck, Ember Spirit, Templar Assassin and Skywrath Mage) being drafted along with an Undying. Looking for some nuke and snowball potential, they had two of VG's picks in the last game. VG answered by taking a core Centaur Warrunner with Jakiro and Earthshaker as supports, farming up Black^ a quick Blink Dagger. They topped this aggression off with the sustained push provided by Death Prophet and managed to clinch the victory.
Finally in game three Newbee gave it their all to try and stay in the series, drafting a notoriously effective nuking and pick off combo of Mirana, Bane, Invoker and Centaur. However, it just wasn't enough for the control that iceiceice's Faceless Void provided, which was coupled up with another sterling performance from Black^ on Drow Ranger and Fy's Visage. With the victory VG took Newbee in a clean sweep to secure their spot in the LAN final, to become China's sole representative.
America and Europe still have qualifiers to play. Of the European bracket Cloud 9 will be playing Team Empire on September 18, the winner of which will play Alliance. In the American Upper Bracket Evil Geniuses will be playing complexity Gaming. For more information, check out our coverage hub here.
