With some of the first matches under the belts for the players, some interesting happenings have been going at in Taiwan. ReiNNNN is currently attending the event, giving us some interesting information about whats going on at MSI Beat IT 2014.
MSI Beat IT 2014 has been an interesting tournament this year. With new teams and new scenes entering into the spotlight, it's quickly become a place for new teams to show their stuff. Of particular note is the South African team Bravado Gaming Emotion, who come from a scene that has been relatively isolated from the rest of the dota community at large.
GROUP A:
First up though is Virtus.Pro who have been quite the noisy bunch in the lounge, apparently. Information from Gosu's man on the floor has stated that God has been screaming and yelling a lot at his team and is not happy with the performances. The screaming was focused mostly after their loss to Rave. The rage could all be justified as this marks the fourth LAN they've gone too recently (Game Show, Starladder, I-League and now MSI Beat IT) and had some rocky matches. In the end though, they will be one of the teams to go to the playoffs after beating out Na'Vi.us.
VP was originally not even going to be a part of this tournament, as they lost their regions qualifier spot to Team Empire. In the end though Empire dropped out due to visa issues.
Rave will be the other team heading from Group A into the semi-finals. They've been seen on the floor looking quite serious and prepared, and it shows as they managed to take no losses during the group stage. Seemingly they are not joking around with this tournament and aims to win it.
The two teams not advancing from here are Na'Vi.US and Wired Gaming. Na'Vi.US was taken down twice by VP, and Wired did unfortunately not manage to win a single match.
GROUP B:
Group B saw a bit less drama, with CDEC Gaming and Team Immunity passing through to the playoffs. CDEC had a fairly easy time and managed to get through without a single loss, while Immunity had a few iffy matches against CDEC and Bravado.
Bravado almost edged out Immunity for a spot in the playoffs however. Having a played each other as the last deciding match of their group, it was a close game both for both teams. Bravado also wants it known that the african scene for Dota is very much alive, but is lagging behind as they mostly play amongst themselves.
Although the biggest upset of all concerns Insidious Idol. Insidious ended up playing through the tournament with three stand ins, and barely a day or two's worth of practice. These two factors together is a quick indicator for why finished the group stage without a single win. Worth noting is that Insidious Idol replaced Arrow Gaming due to the latter being involved in betting scandals.