Cloud9, COGnitive and Team Blaze all fall in the 2nd qualifier for Dreamhack Austin.
The top 8 of the 2nd qualifier for the NA summer regionals looked like your standard assortment of top NA teams. Naventic and Tempo Storm had qualified previously so the favorites to win were clearly Cloud9 on the upper half of the bracket, followed by COGnitive on the bottom half.
Gale Force eSports had a completely new lineup, featuring the recent Heroes of the Dorm winners Michael "Michaeludall" Udall, Stefen "akaface" Anderson and their opponent David "roflcopter" Young. They were an un-tested lineup that might have been on top in a collegiate setting, but now they were up against Team Blaze and Cloud9, NA professional mainstays.
GFE started their first match against Team Blaze with an aggressive Zeratul and Dehaka ganking lineup. The strategy was powerful and Team Blaze didn't look ready for Manuel "Fury" Medina on Dehaka. The new hero excels on Sky Temple and the rotation control he presented gave GFE their first win. This momentum was enough to seal another victory and the once favorite Team Blaze was eliminated.
The next game was against Cloud9 and you can guess who the favorite to win was. GFE started the series again with a Dehaka lineup, once again synergizing the hero with Li-Ming to devastating effect. Getting dragged into a Disintegration beam may be one of the most demoralizing combos in the game, and GFE knows it.
Their first win against Cloud9 was an absolute stomp. No one could have predicted how convincingly they would defeat Cloud9, but those who follow the roster might have known, thanks to their dominating reputation on Towers of Doom. Cloud9 woke up and took game two with an unkillable lineup featuring Tyrael, Muradin,Tyrande and Tassadar. Between those four heroes, the shields, heals, and tankiness outlasted GFE's pick off team.
Then, during game three, the misclick happened. In a fatal error that ended up costing Cloud9 a game they were already winning, Dunktrain accidentally cast ancestral healing on the wrong target, leaving a critical health Kael'Thas to die during a fight for the top boss. This one death led to another, and GFE ended up stealing the boss and pushing to core, without getting ANY tributes on Cursed Hollow the entire match.
GFE defeats Cloud9 2-1.
You can catch all the matches on the Twitch past broadcast.
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