picture courtesy of StarLadder
The very recently shuffled TnC had a marvelous first day at SL i-League invitational Season 2 and finished top seed in Group A with solid performances against Invictus Gaming and Alliance.
The second season of StarLadder i-League Invitational is the first LAN event played on the new 7.06 patch and for some it’s also the first big test for their new rosters. Although the post Kiev Major shuffle is not officially over, TnC from Group A and Vega Squadron from Group B are the only teams to come to China with renewed line-ups. While Vega will test their strengths tomorrow, TnC can already rest for the next two days as they secured themselves a spot in the playoffs, which will happen on the 21st of May.
After they opened day one with a clean 2-0 sweep against Invictus Gaming, TnC maintained the same tactics in their series against Alliance to claim the first seed in group A. The new drafter and captain of TnC, Theeban '1437' Siva went with hard tower hitters and good amount of minus armor heroes. He drafted Jakiro for himself in all four games while Marco Polo 'Raven' Luis Fausto carried on either Lycan or Troll Warlord. With Kuku 'KukU' Carlo Palad also playing disgustingly strong right clickers (Templar Assassin, Lina, Outworld Devourer) TnC had no issues in sieging the high ground, especially that the base shrines are fewer now, and no under 30 seconds hero respawns are available anymore.
Despite not finishing first in the group, Alliance had a good day one overall as well. They started off strong with a 2-0 victory against VG J and their series against TnC was much more disputed than the one Filipino squad had against IG, which will make the elimination and decider series from day three of the event very interesting to watch.
To stay alive and proceed to the playoffs, Alliance will have to fight one of the Chinese teams in the group's decider series. And judging on how the games unfolded today, they have all the chances to make a nice surprise by taking the playoffs spot ahead of IG or VG J.
But until the elimination matches from day three, there is group B to decide its top placed team as well. Group B features the likes of Team Liquid, Newbee, Vega Squadron and Faceless and all four will play tomorrow on the big stage. The full schedule for the second day is as follows:
May 20, 06:00 CEST: Team Liquid vs Faceless
May 20, 09:00 CEST: Newbee vs Vega Squadron
May 20, 12:00 CEST TBD vs TBD (winners finals)
