Bob Question Mark and Team ALTERNATE Fancy met today in the Enter the Storm #3 finals, and after four games a new champion was crowned. Bakery, Snitch, adrd, Atheroangel and Zarmony take the title as most likely the last tournament under the Bob? moniker.
The 12th of July, that was the day Enter The Storm #3 kicked off with the first qualifiers. And today, two months and one day later, ETS3 concluded. After three days of amazing matches this weekend, with the best teams of Europe, Team ALTERNATE Fancy met Bob Question Mark in the grand finals.
ATN Fancy played the tournament of their lives, defeating big names like Na’Vi and Virtus.Pro as well as Bob? in the upper bracket finals. With the recent additions of subs like GerdamHerd and Nurok, ATNF has quickly become a top European team. You can read more about them here.
Bob Question Mark, on the other hand, has been something like the promised team for a while now, showing the capability to defeat the best teams numerous times. In fact, the only team Bob? lost to this weekend was ATNF. Their second win against Team Liquid, which stopped the ETS hat trick for TL, sent Bob straight back into the finals. More on Bob can be found here and here.
In the final series that started off on Tomb of the Spider Queen for the first game, both Bob and ATNF played double warrior compositions. ATNF preferred the wave clear of heroes like Kael’thas and Sylvanas, while Bob went for high mobility with Kharazim and Zeratul. Bob was the team that got the first wave of webweavers, which also gave them heroics first. This advantage in momentum lasted the entire game, with a 3 level difference at various points in the game. Even some questionable decision making towards the end could not prohibit Bob from taking game 1.
Game 2, on Sky Temple, started off with a ban on Thrall by Bob Question Mark. Bob was aware of the unusual affection for Thrall that ATNF showed throughout the tournament, and they felt like they would rather play against heroes they were more used to. ATNF decided to run a triple warrior composition, with Jaina for damage, while Bob brought back Sonya, which we saw a surprising number of times throughout the weekend.
This game was way closer than the first, with the advantage switching frequently between the teams. Sonya however proved to not work out against the stun heavy composition of ATN Fancy, and after a tense boss steal attempt that failed for Bob, ATNF marched to core for the game 2 victory.
The third game started with a first pick of Kharazim, again showing how valuable Bakery finds him. Similar to the previous game, Zeratul was ignored for the first half of the draft. But even more surprising was the final pick of Chen for Bob Question Mark, a hero that they have showcased a few times in the recent past. ATNF answered with again a triple warrior composition, this time making use of Zagara’s pushing potential.
Chen’s strength of tanking tower shots was shown in the early game on Dragon Shire, bullying opponents out of his top lane for most of the game. Bob’s ability to control the map objective lead them to having the first, second and third Dragon Knights of the game. This amount of Dragons proved too much for ATNF, and with a three level lead again Bob defeated ATNF in game 3.
Battlefield of Eternity was the fourth map, picked by Bob? as they have shown to have a firm grasp of the map objective. Bob yet again got to play Kharazim, while Zeratul was this time fighting for ATNF’s side. ATNF showed the intent of picking off Kharazim as much as possible, with Zeratul haunting the monk throughout the early game. But even with several successful kills, Bob always managed to come out on top in decisive team fights. This meant they got the first Immortal, the second Immortal and the third Immortal as well. This game especially showed the slow but steady increase in dominance that is so symbolic for Bob's recent history. And so with the third and final Immortal, Bob Question Mark turned into Bob Exclamation Mark by winning the game, the series and the tournament. And of course the significant first place prizes.
We at GosuGamers would like to thank everybody for watching and enjoying the tournament, the players for playing at the top of their game and Khaldor for doing a great job at casting all the matches as usual.
