Day one for the TI5 American Qualifiers is now over; NAR, Mouz and CoL on top while Leviathan and eHug are on the brink of elimination.
Being the favourite of the qualifier, Mousesports is having a pretty good run so far with one win and one draw to Complexity who is also coincidentally, tied with Mouz for the number one position in group B.
North American Rejects topped Group A with an overall record of two wins and one draw, dropping just one game to Wheel Gaming. The squad has been dominating so far, even when they had a bad start; they capitalized on their opponent's mistakes and eventually made comebacks. In the second game against Wheel, the team was down in terms of net worth (8,000 gold) but MSS on his Dark Seer did some of the best plays to bring them back into the game.
The biggest disappointment so far has been Leviathan and eHug, who ended both their days without a single victory in group A and group B respectively. Despite strong performance prior to the qualifiers, Leviathan and eHug are both on the brink of elimination with only one draw before getting knocked out.
Game of the day: Wheel vs VoidBoys Game 2
The second game between Wheel Whreck While Whistling and VoidBoys was the closest game of the day featuring a massive comeback and an extremely close base race
Spoilers follow from this point on ...
The early phase of the game was all about VoidBoys utilizing their line-up to its full potential. Picking the Leshrac, Chen, and Dark Seer, VoidBoys constantly pushed towers and completed objectives to acrrue a significant gold lead.
With such a big lead, it became quite the question on why VoidBoys decided to sit back and have their supports farm their own jungle and gave Wheel essentially no pressure. This includes wasting the Aegis they secured doing nothing. Wheel took every opportunity they had and gave the farm to the Juggernaut. Buffed with Empower, Juggernaut was able to outfarm VoidBoys' Leshrac as Wheel march down every lane threatening to take outer towers.
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| Vision wars probably lost VoidBoys the game |
Despite that, VoidBoys still had a significantly lead in terms of gold but they were too afraid to leave their base due to Wheel's aggressiveness. VoidBoys' also made a crucial mistake to not ward around the Rosh pit for the third Roshan. After placing Observer and Sentry Wards all around the pit, Wheel realized VoidBoys had no vision and secured the Aegis and Cheese. Although Wheel ended up losing the subsequent battle, it was important for them to deny Leshrac the Aegis.
Regardless, VoidBoys pushed mid but it was halted by a clutch 3-man Reverse Polarity from the Magnus. Similar to their mid-game, VoidBoys did not try pushing again for another 10 minutes while Wheel farmed and pushed out their lanes in preparation for the next Roshan. Winning the vision war, Wheel took down the fourth Roshan with no retaliation from VoidBoys but they lost it as they pushed bottom lane.
The game dragged on for another 10 minutes excluding the pauses for disconnections. Although Wheel would probably still lose to VoidBoys if not for a 3-man RP, VoidBoys refused to leave their base as Wheel control the map.
74 minutes into the game, VoidBoys finally decided to push the bottom barracks. Despite missing his first RP, Mike 'ixmike88' Ghannam pulled through for his team and landed a 3-man RP on all the cores of VoidBoys. This was followed by a chopping down from the Juggernaut to kill all three.
Wheel immediately ran mid to end the game but the Chen, Leshrac, Dark Seer, and Gyrocopter has teleported to Wheel's base to backdoor the throne. It was a close race but at the end of the day, Lion's timely retreat to slow down VoidBoys worked. Wheel won the game with 148 hp remaining on their throne.
"GOOD GOD," was the only thing ixmike88 said to us when we asked him about a comment about the game.
Best moment of the day: Fly's stolen 1500 Damage Requiem
Unexpectedly cold: Team Leviathan
Team Leviathan is one of the most famous teams in the North American scene, courtesy of their infamous offlaner Jenkins' Pudge. Unfortunately, they've had a very bad showing at this qualifier. The all-American team hasn't even come close to winning a single game, losing two with over 25k in net worth differential while the others had a difference of 10k.
The squad has had problems of farm distribution and only their mid laner; Shibby has been able to farm well while the other members fail to accquire even the most basic items and stayed at the bottom of the net worth ranks.
They've also allowed Gyrocopter to get picked in three of their games and have been completely caught off guard, having no reply to the hero.
The 'Flyingzebra' lead squad are on the brink of elimination and will need to do some heavy lifting in tomorrow's matches to make it to the next round.
Honourable Mention : eHug; one and three so far, will be fighting against elimination tomorrow
Unexpectedly hot: compLexity Gaming
Complexity Gaming were definitely not the team that everyone was looking at coming into the qualifiers but they've shown some amazing games so far and have an overall record of 3-1. They even managed to take a game off Mousesports, who are definitely the favourites of the tournaments.
In their first match against Root Gaming, Tal 'Simbaa' Aizik showed some of the best Rubick support play in a long time, stealing key spells in clutch moments to give his team the lead and allowed them to snowball since the start. The highlight of the game was this stolen Requiem which did 1500 damage to the Shadow Fiend.
The mid laner for the squad, Kyle 'swindlemelonzz' Freedman played Dragon Knight in both their victories against Root and won his lane in both the games, helping the team to take an early advantage. In their final game of the day, he played Queen of Pain and carried his team to victory, leading the game in both hero damage and networth.
Honourable Mention : NAR v2; 5-1 so far, but were expected to do well
