As the leaves turn brown and the jackets get thicker, the ESL kicks off another of their seasonal Dota 2 tournaments. Na'Vi, Fnatic, ONE.DOTA and 4FC are leading the way in today's Group A.
Trying to find the legitimate successor to champions Na'Vi and mousesports from the previous two installments of the RaidCall EMS One, we head into the final quarter of 2013 and with it into the third season of the tournament for this year. Not only can we expect top-notch Dota over the course the of this month, but we also dive in nose first with arguably the most competitive group. Na'Vi and Fnatic are the first to prove their roles as favorites as they face 4FC and ONE respectively and potentially move one step closer to the $12,000 awarded for first place. Given that the group stage is played in the GSL format, every match counts.
Na'Vi vs 4FC: Na'Vi dominates as Funn1k shines
In the first match of today, the players around Puppey chose a quick exit as they finished the series in almost 40 minutes of total game time. An aggressive use of Lina in the safe lane not only allowed XBOCT's Lifestealer completely free farm, but also shut down the opposing Nature Prophet' farm entirely, leaving him with a creep score of zero until very late in the laning phase. Even an early tower for 4FC didn't avert their incoming fate as the lane dominance in combination with track kills accumulated to a whopping 10,000 gold lead in just 14 minutes, followed by the Swedish side throwing in the towel after just 22 minutes.
Even more of a disheartening defeat proved Game 2 to be. A fierce performance by Funn1k on his Dark Seer voided 4FC's decent laning phase as numerous pick ups on boomski's Nyx Assassin and Jussi's Visage put him way ahead of everyone else in terms of farm and experience. With one team fight ending in a full wipe in favor of Na'Vi after 13 minutes, 4FC saw themselves tapping out shortly thereafter, leaving Funn1k with an stellar 17-1 record in Game 2.
Fnatic vs ONE: Payback for Fnatic
Fnatic was eager to strike back after their loss against ONE in the second qualification cup leading up to this tournament, and Game 1 set them off to a good start. ONE's bold decision to leave Fnatic's Troll Warlord entirely on his own at the bottom lane has shown its benefits early. Their top-heavy strategy allowed for Bounty Hunter to be picked of early, but it came back to haunt them when their gank at the 10 minute mark was faced by an early Armlet. It allowed Era to survive the attack and, with the help of his teammates, turn it around. Fnatic from there on out came out slightly on top at every encounter, until a 19 minute team wipe sealed the deal. Just five minutes later, ONE was over and done with.
ONE learned their lesson from Game 1 and countered Fnatic's farming bot lane with an aggressive trilane of their own, which effectively shut Era down until minor slip ups cost them their lives allowing the Radiant carry to pull back. Once he got his Battlefury, Anti-Mage did what Anti-Mage does and spiralled out of control until the very even mid game was succeeded by a strong Fnatic dominance in the later stages. Even poor team fights from Fnatic here and there were not enough for ONE to get ahold of map control or even decide this 48 minute match in their favor.
Now that the first two matches are played, the highlight of Group A is right around the corner. At 6 pm CET tomorrow, Na'Vi is facing Fnatic in the winner's match, the former absolutely walking over their opponents whereas the latter showed signs of struggle in their second game, while 4FC and ONE will decide who gets another chance to move on to the offline part of the tournament and who gets to stay home.?
GosuWiki: RaidCall EMS One Fall
