Tomorrow at 10.00 CET, four western teams will compete through the top part of the G-League qualifiers bracket. One team out of Alliance, RoX.KiS, Fnatic and St.Magic will be going to China. The bottom part will be played on Tuesday.
We have not seen seen any of G-League since April where Invictus Gaming beat LGD International in the grand final. The new season is just around the corner though and this time there will be two western teams taking part. The qualifiers settling those two roll out the coming two days. Six teams are invited and two went trough the pre-qualifier, the qualified teams are Street Magic and Team Impervious. The last team, oddly enough, came from the Asian qualifier and was seeded into the midst of the western teams.
Alliance vs RoX.KiS - 10 CET / 17 SGT / 04am EST
According to history, the match-up is most dire for RoX.KiS, no pun intended. In the nine matches the two teams have faced each other in competitive Dota 2 (according to our database), Alliance have won all of them. In fact, RoX.KiS have not won a single map vs Alliance. Although as some might recall they were close to finally adding at least a partial victory against Alliance in a recent encounter during WePlay's second group stage but Alliance turned it around two games in a row. The recent addition of Goblak and resolut1on might be just what the doctor ordered to challenge the Alliance. Most will remain doubtful though and Alliance are a clear favorite not only to win this match, not only to qualify but also to win the entire competition.
Fnatic vs Street Magic - 10 CET / 17 SGT / 04am EST
For those not familiar with Street Magic, they qualified under the name of Terrible Terrible Damage but the roster has been most flexible since. The squad they have reported to us though contains none other than the legendary Vigoss himself.
Photo by Greg Laird, 2012
Other players are captain Sunlight, son1, Ar1se and Garter, all being more or less known profiles in the Dota 2 scene. But is it enough with known profiles, especially when going up against a team such a Fnatic where all the players know each other like the back of their own hand? Similar to the first match, this match has one clear favorite and one clear underdog. Reason would say that Fnatic who carries the teamplay and experience should win this encounter but since Street Magic is a team being completely off the radar, there is no way to say what they are cooking.
Qualifying Match - 13 CET / 20 SGT / 07am EST
The winners of each match above will then face each other in another best-of-three, settling the first of team teams qualifying for G-League in China. The group stage is played on LAN December 9 to 19. The other part of qualifiers bracket will be played on Tuesday. One can question the format of having a single elimination bracket instead of a double elimination bracket, where the second would to a higher degree ensure that the top two teams of the qualifiers actually qualify.
Matches will be streamed by both BeyondtheSummit as well as joinDota.
