The first day of the i-League LAN finals is over and both Virtus.pro and Power Rangers have been eliminated. The two European teams were unable to impress against Tongfu.OB and Rave. The second day will kick-off with iG vs. Newbee, followed by VG vs. LGD.CDEC.
Today, ImbaTV's crowdsourced tournament kicked off and saw Virtus.pro take on TongFu's Oldboys. The Russians started off quite convincingly, picking up the Drow Ranger and Visage combo popularized by Cloud9. Even though the team gave away a first blood near the Roshpit and ultimately lost three heroes, VP managed to fight their way back into the game and dominantly taking a 1-0 lead in the match.
The Oldboys however showed that they were no pushover and despite being a team of retired players and playing with xiao8 as a stand-in, the team proved that they still have some juice left. G's Meepo in game 2 did not have the time to get in proper fighting shape as Tongfu sealed the deal with a very solid draft. Even resorting back to their Silencer, VP could not take down the Chinese anymore, losing game 3 and thus getting eliminated from the tournament. VODs for this match are already available here.
Power Rangers looked to do better than their Russian friends, taking on Rave. The SEA team however showed no mercy and immediately set out to show that they came to take home gold. Together with a farming Jakiro, Rave managed to take out Power Rangers in game 1 with ease. The second game was certainly no different as they outplayed their Belarussian opponents. Power Rangers at no point seemed to be able to turn things around. The team struggled to display the amount of aggression fans are used to see from them.
Rave and Tongfu.OB will face off on Saturday, but i-League continues tomorrow. Invictus Gaming will take on TI4 champions Newbee who only recently qualified for this tournament through a tiebreaker to replace DK. Following this match will be the clash between Vici Gaming and LGD.CDEC. English coverage will be provided by BeyondTheSummit.