Nexon Sponsorship League has reached the upper bracket final as the two first matches of the playoffs were played today. Both FXOpen and StarTale outplayed their opponents and will face each other next.
Quick recap
FXOpen vs MVP HOT6 (drafts and VODs)
FXOpen played with a player known as Ranto in the offlane, changing role for Anarchy to support and otherwise regular support player QO being absent. Both teams picked a mix of aggressive heroes (Night Stalker, Bounty Hunter, Weaver, Visage, Pugna) and defensive heroes (Keeper of the Light, Earth Shaker, Elder Titan) and tried to juggle each other about who could set the tempo of the first game. FXOpen managed to relocate their resources in order to shut down the opponent team's Gyrocopter, crippling the further progression of MVP. However, MVP kept fighting and the game produced a couple of entertaining clashes but an extended series at Roshan eventually resulting in failure for MVP was the beginning of the end of Game 1. However due to the defense nature of MVP's line-up it took FXOpen some time and some Necrobooks to seal the deal.
In the second game FXOpen says "what is a hard carry?" by running a similar line-up as in the first game but exchanging Weaver for Pudge. Pudge, played by Febby, created lots of openings and turn-arounds due to swift rotations. MVP tried to put up a fight but ended up typing out "gg" at minute 14 where the kill standings were 20 - 10 in favour of FXOpen.
UnderRateds vs StarTale (draft information)
In the first game, MP's Clockwerk created lots of gank openings on the other lanes, especially on the contest trilane bot where the clashes kept coming in. StarTale were favored due to fights mostly occuring at their tower and them having better control of the lane, despite Gyro not finding space to farm it. UnderRateds managed to come back around minute 15 where they pulled off a beautiful fight, resulting in five StarTale heroes going down. As the game progressed, that specific clash proved more and more to be a fluke due to StarTale finding constant pick-offs using their stealthed Bounty Hunter and long range follow-up in terms of Clockwerk and Io plus whomever. The tempo of the game was very high, nobody was really interested in farming and kills kept popping up left and right. Despite StarTale controlling the game, the advantage they had was not immense. StarTales slowed down slightly, farmed up some core items and forced a few fights to eventually break barracks and winning the game.
Just as in the match between FXOpen and MVP, the second game was not nearly as long as the first one. StarTale opted for a smiliar pick (keeping CM, Io and Bounty in the line-up) and at first the match was quite even. But after the fist 10 minutes, CK and Io together Bounty started to make UnderRateds pay up for not being careful enough, similiar to first game only more efficient here. UnderRateds could not stop or keep up with the snowballing opponents and the game was already over at minute 19.
Semi-Finals Bracket
Both FXOpen and StarTale move on to the Winner Bracket final, it is a match-up most followers of the tournament have anticipated and should prove for a great set of games as both teams are extremely aggressive. UnderRatds and MVP get one more shot as they will face each other next in the lower bracket's first round.
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