picture courtesy of ESL One
A full arena cheered for Keen Gaming and SG e-sports, both teams at their first Pro Circuit Major appearance.
Despite their underdogs tag in a Major where Team liquid, Virtus Pro, Team Secret and Evil Geniuses are looking to occupy the top four spots, the place where the qualifying points are, KG and SG delivered a marvelous day three opening series at ESL One Hamburg.
Game One:
The Brazilians had the first pick in game one and opened the hostilities with an Earthshaker, building towards a highly mobile line-up with multiple initiation options and good team fight overall. The Chinese team went for a different approach and drafted a more of a split-push line up with a Hookshot-Infest combo along Nature’s Prophet. The laning stage went really well for KG who, despite feeding the first blood before the first rune spawn, had Lina dominating SG’s Queen of Pain and forced the issue very early on. Jin "ZhiZhiZhi"/???” Zhiyi, the Keen Kaming carry player, this game on Lifestealer rotated top lane only seven minutes into the game and along with the Furion the Chinese pushed the top tier one tower, leaving Naix to farm the enemy jungle while they continued to pressure the mid lane.
Rather similar in playstyle, the two teams played extremely aggressive, and if SG’s “run at them” approach is not a surprise anymore, Keen’s team play and coordination were remarkable. ZhiZhiZhi and Chen "rong" Jingwu carry-support duo certainly hold all the game highlights. ZhiZhiZhi’s incredibly aggressive maneuvers, while he had a Vengeful Spirit behind always ready with the swap saves for him, allowed Keen to come on top in most of the engagements. Keen played around the Roshan spawn timer all game long, securing no less than four Aegises for their Lina and although SG fought remarkably, especially when it came to the high ground defense, the Chinese couldn’t be stopped from securing the game one victory.
Game Two:
One game away from getting eliminated from the ESL One Hamburg major, SG e-sports went with a classic Bane- Mirana combo and surprised the Chinese with a last pick Arc Warden. Keen were drafting towards a heavy push line-up with Death prophet and Venomancer, however, they had to adapt and went with a last pick Chaos Knight in hopes of countering the Arc Warden. The game was extremely close, a 62 minutes back and forth battle where the kill score was 3 to 3 at the 5 minutes mark, 6 to 6 close to the 10 minutes mark, and 12-12 20 minutes in. However, the trades went in SG’s favor who had the Arc Warden benefiting the most from all the skirmishes. If ZhiZhiZhi took the spotlight in game two, game two was a full Keen Zhai "zqd/?"' Jingkai show, who kept his team in the game with his Death Prophet.
However, the Arc Warden became fatter as time passed and bit by bit, Keen’s gaming base crumbled under SG’s push power. Nevertheless, two lanes of barracks down and playing with a 25k gold deficit, Keen gaming survived a bit over an hour before they admitted defeat.
Game Three:
The last game of the series went quickly and brutally for SG esports who lost the series to ZhiZhiZhi mid lane Monkey King. Keen took the control over the mid lane extremely fast and forced SG’s ALchemist to jungle farming since level four. Adriano de Paula "4dr" Machado losing the laning stage that bad, while the Monkey King had a Diffusal Blade ready at the 13 minute mark, put the Brazilians in the impossibility to repeal the Chinese push and eventually cost them the game entirely.
With their victory over SG e-sports, Keen Gaming advance into the group A decider match where Team Liquid are waiting. The decider series is scheduled to commence at 19:45 CEST but before then, EG and Newbeee enter the Barclaycard Arena to fight for a playoffs spot.
