It took three tough games for Vici Gaming to defeat Titan to advance to G-League pre-playoffs. Meanwhile, the Malaysian squad will be returning to Malaysia disappointed despite giving DK, Speed and VG a run for their money.
Titan, the Malaysian underdogs of G-League, has been eliminated from G-League after their narrow defeat against Vici Gaming moments ago. Winning against Titan means Vici Gaming will be joining the pre-playoffs as the third seed from group A. Their first opponent will be Tongfu, the third placer from group B.
Going into the match-up as the 77% favourite, Vici Gaming gave their fans a small scare when Titan took a superb lead in game one before throwing it away. One game away from elimination, Titan did not do very well on the second game as well but a small mistake by the Chinese gave way to a suicidal split push by Meracle to win the game. The third game was however, a little one-sided towards VG.
The pre-playoffs will begin tomorrow with Speed Gaming, the second placer of group A, taking on LGD.cn. The winner of that match-up will qualify for the playoffs while the loser will have to face the winner of Tongfu versus Vici Gaming before qualifying. All the matches will be played in a best-of-three format.
Schedule (CET):
December 17th
13:00 - A2 vs B2 (BO3)
December 18th
07:00 - A3 vs B3 (BO3)
13:00 - A2/B2 loser vs A3/B3 winner (BO3)
December 19th
07:00 - Semi-finals #1 (BO3)
13:00 - Semi-finals #2 (BO3)
Game 1
To the surprise of many, Titan started off game one with a supreme 7-1 kill lead over Vici Gaming and held on to it while starving Vici Gaming to the confine of their own base for most of the game. Vici Gaming moved carefully around the map and avoided fighting unless they absolutely have to. Titan on the other hand, despite picking up several Roshan kills, they realized that they do not exactly have the firepower needed to take down the tier-three towers and avoided pushing as well. This gave way to Vici Gaming to perform a few pick-offs, mostly on the Rubick and Sand King. Soon enough, they had built up a sufficient amount of farm to take it to Titan. Winning a fight at the 52nd minute, it seems like all hopes are lost for the Malaysians and Vici Gaming won a few more fights before forcing out the "gg" from Titan.
Game 2
In contrary to the first game, the second game started horrendously for Titan. Vici Gaming had control for the most of the game and even built up a 25,000 gold lead, just waiting on Aegis and Cheese before pushing up Titan's high ground at 45 minutes. After killing the third Roshan, it was obvious Vici Gaming was going to barrel down middle and they were willing to do it with Meracle morphing into Agility while banging on their top tier-three. Once both barracks were traded, Vici Gaming had to get back to defend their throne but the rest of Titan threw themselves at VG in an attempt to stop them from teleporting. Buybacks were spent at doing so and the Malaysians were successful in cancelling a few teleports causing Slark to walk all the way back to base. However, it was too late. Once Slark arrived, the throne was already at the mercy of Meracle and he just waved away to avoid taking damage and continue hitting the throne until it exploded. Meracle has pulled off yet another miracle to keep Titan in the series.
Game 3
Unfortunately for the viewers, the third and deciding game of the series is also the most one-sided. Titan opted for a split pushing line-up to compliment Meracle's Morphling but a Clinkz pick up on the fourth pick turned things sour for the Malaysians. Left to free-farm, Sylar's Clinkz was able to purchase a quick Orchid of Malevolence and that more or less destroyed Titan's plan. Titan got picked off more and more as the game went on and by 28 minutes, VG has gathered over 10,000 gold lead and a middle melee barracks. Their second attempt came after they killed Roshan and it was successful in winning them the game.
Image credit: ESL
