After a gruelling two days affair in Shanghai, China, the two grand finalist of the World Cyber Arena has been decided and it will be none other than LGD and CDEC. Both LGD and CDEC arrived in the grand final after they swept Invictus Gaming and HyperGloryTeam respectively in the semi-finals. The losing teams will play in the 3rd-4th placer match tomorrow.
Coming into the tournament, LGD was widely considered to be the favourite to make it to the grand final considering the format and they have Braveheart as their quarter-final opponents. As expected, LGD took the series against the tier two team with ease and went on to obliterate iG in the semi-finals. LGD's win came courtesy of iG Tusk's major mistake to engage onto a Naga Siren while snowballing his entire team.
CDEC on the other hand, had to face significantly stronger teams on their way to the finals. The young team first upset the 74% favourite Vici Gaming in the quarter-finals and HyperGloryTeam in the semis. Surprisingly enough, they took down both the teams with a 2-0 record and secured their spot to go against their former teammate Yao 'Maybe' Lu in the grand final of WCA.
Grand finals: LGD vs CDEC
Looking at the two team's past encounters, LGD seems to be heavily favored, having won six of the eight games played against CDEC in the past. LGD has also been in very good shape recently, taking down IG, Gosuranking's sixth best team globally, 2-0. Although the situation looks bleak for CDEC, they have proven that they can upset heavily favored teams, such as their recent 2-0 of VG and 2-1 of IG. As of writing, the betting odd for this game is 100%-0% in favor of LGD.
Third place match: IG vs HGT
If solely based off past encounters, IG is heavily favored in this match as they have a 6-2 win-loss record against HGT. However, in their recent games, IG has not been playing to their fullest potential, being crushed by LGD 2-0, a team many consider to have equal skill to IG as shown by the 44%-56% betting odds for their previous game. In addition to being crushed by LGD, IG, Gosuranking's sixth best team globally, dropped a game against EHOME, Gosuranking's eleventh best team, a bad result for IG who has been training hard with their newly hired coach. As of writing, the betting odds are 88%-12% in HGT's favor.
Chinese qualifiers prize pool distribution:
1st - 300 000RMB ($48,000)
2nd - 150 000 RMB ($24,000)
?3rd - 100 000 RMB ($16,000)
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