Where eStar Gaming did not show up, Team Liquid, Tempo Storm and MVP Black showed everybody the reason they qualified.
PAX Prime is the venue of the first widly international offline tournament, and today the first round matches were played. Eight teams qualified for, or were invited to, the MSI Masters Gaming Arena and at the start of today they all had the chance to win part of the $50.000 USD prize pool.
But right before the event started, we received news that eStar Gaming was not able to make it because of visa complications. Because of this, we only had three and not four matches today, with Cloud9 automatically qualifying for tomorrow.
The first set of matches that was actually played was between myRevenge.VS, from Singapore, and Team Liquid, from Spain. Team Liquid made quick work versus myRevenge.VS and frankly, it wasn't very close. There was a solid attempt to surprise Team Liquid with a Murky pick (in hopes of countering Leoric) but it proved ineffective. Team Liquid was on top of their game and it seemed impossible for myRevenge.VS to play their own game. They found themselves down forts and levels every game, and this series quickly ended as a 2-0 victory for TL.
MVP Black went on to do the same thing against Virtus.Pro. It's hard to tell what went wrong for the underdogs today. Then again maybe it wasn't about what those teams did wrong, but what Team Liquid and MVP Black did right. Double warrior was played to perfection by both winning teams, allowing heavy damage dealers like the Kael'Thas and the newly buffed SGT.Hammer to damage freely from the back line.
The most exciting set of matches were saved for last; COGnitive Gaming and Tempo Storm brought back the excitement to a broadcast that was plagued by disconnects. COGnitive showed that the difference in skill between the top NA teams isn’t as big as casters make it out to be. With terrifying Butcher play, COG put on the pressure throughout the first game on Dragon Shire. It was only after a convincing team fight by Tempo Storm that the eventual winner became clear. This match in particular we highly suggest you watch if you were not able to watch the broadcast live.
With these results, we now know what matchups we can expect tomorrow. Tempo Storm will face Cloud9, and MVP Black will have to find a way to deal with Team Liquid. These matches, and the following grand finals, will be broadcasted again on the MSI twitch channels (English and Mandarin) starting at 10:00 AM PDT.
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