Despite their recent struggles, Alliance seems to have finally found their groove as they scored 2-0 against Cloud9 in day one of the three-day WPC-ACE West qualifier.
After a recent slump which saw the Swedes lose five out of their seven matches, Alliance is back to their winning ways as they extend their streak to four with a 2-0 victory over Cloud 9. It is C9 who is now on a mini-slump as they have now lost three out of their last four matches, two coming from the hands of Alliance. The Champion of The International 3 didn't repeat any hero in their two-game win.
Being the only team with two matches on day-one, Techlabs April winner Team Empire finds themselves in the second place after tallying two draws, the first against Fnatic and the second one against Sigma. In the Russian team's four games yesterday, they were able to pick Invoker, Batrider and Bane thrice, with Invoker finishing 1-2 and the other two with 2-1 record.
Meanwhile, as reported yesterday, Sigma was not able to withdraw from the tournament and thus their slot was not given to supposed replacement Team Dog. However, playing under Sigma yesterday were Fata and Pas, plus three stand-ins from Dog in Pajkatt, Misery and MSS. That very same roster composition represented Team Dog a few days ago, with the title of regular and stand-ins the other way around.
As yesterday, there will be three matches today. Empire will have another two-game night as they are scheduled to sit out on the last day.
15:00CET/21:00SGT - 
Alliance vs
Empire
17:00CET/23:00SGT - 
Fnatic vs 
Sigma
19:00CET/01:00SGT - Cloud 9 vs Empire
The top two teams after the best-of-two, single round-robin group stage will fly to Shanghai for the championship phase of the WPC-ACE, wherein they will be joined by the top six teams of the east qualifiers. There will be a pre-playoff and a playoff stage, and the entirety of it is scheduled from 22 May to 3 June.
Want to read more about WPC-ACE? Check out our coverage hub here.
