Virtus Pro and Secret shine, Navi and Allaince clinch victories that see them into the Kiev Major qualifiers playoffs
At the Kiev Major CIS regional qualifier, Virtus Pro, Team Spirit, Team Empire, and Natus Vincere finished first to fourth respectively to make it to the double elimination playoffs bracket. Virtus Pro amazingly didn’t lose a single game and proved themselves the strongest team in the region. In addition to their incredible team coordination and impressive strategies, the arrival of Ivan "Artsyle" Antonov as coach seemed to have impacted significantly on their overall performance. On the other hand, Natus Vincere who struggled the first five matches, losing four of them, managed to clean up all the mess the next day by winning four consecutive matches followed by a tie with team Comache for the fourth place in the group . After a deciding game played between the two, Na'Vi emerged victorious and advanced into the playoffs. Team Spirit and Team Empire had a similar run in day one, winning four games with just a lone loss, day two went well for them until they faced each other and Team Spirit was able to win claiming second spot in the group.
At the Kiev Major EU regional qualifier, Team Secret, B)ears, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Alliance finished in that order to make it to the the regional playoffs as the top four. Team Secret’s bootcamping before the tournament paid off after convincingly winning eight of their nine matches, proving that Puppey still has it after some disappointments in past events. Alliance also made it to the top four, winning a crucial match against Prodota. In addition to the victory against Prodota, they stole a game from both Team Secret and B)ears with their loss imposed on the former their only reverse, ensuring the playoff spot for Alliance.
Suprisingly, the Kiev Major EU/CIS open qualifier winners Prodota, 4Beanboys, Double Dimension, and Hive performened very poorly in the group stage and none of them made the cut to the playoffs.
The CIS/EU semifinals will start today, March 12th starting with Virtus Pro vs NAVI and Team Secret vs Ninjas in Pyjamas. The second semifinal will feature Team Spirit vs Team empire and B)ears vs Alliance.
