After some stiff competition the two Russian teams join reigning champions Vici Gaming and American qualifiers Cloud 9 as the first four teams to qualify for the finals in Shanghai. Only four spots remain for the Chinese and South East Asian qualifiers.
It took only four days for the playoff qualifiers to finish but Virtus Pro and Hellraisers have secured their places for the Chinese finals. Both teams had to go through separate brackets that included 4 Anchors, Power Rangers and Denial eSports but it was Hellraisers who had the least difficulty and only dropped one game through their bracket. This is their second qualification for a LAN tournament within a week after the Russians secured their spot in the Esportal League finals on December 1st. Virtus Pro will be looking to earn some revenge in their second appearance at i-League, after they were eliminated in the opening round by TongFu.OB back in September.
In the first bracket of the European qualifiers, the main teams were Hellraisers, 4 Anchors and LAJONS. The Swedish team LAJONS tore up the top half of the bracket and reached the finals without dropping a game to their opponents. 4 Anchors taking on Hellraisers in the semi-finals was the big game of the bottom half of the bracket with the Russian team comfortably defeating the Finnish team. However, it was more closely matched in the final despite Hellraisers dominating the opening game, which came to an end before sixteen minutes had passed and without a single kill for LAJONS. They were able to pick themselves up to take the second game, but their form didn't last in the final game and Hellraisers never looked in doubt to secure their place in the LAN finals.
In the battle for the second LAN finals spot Virtus Pro had the difficult route of defeating both Denial eSports and Power Rangers to reach their second i-League finals. Both matches ended up going down to a decisive third map and both times Virtus Pro prevailed. In the bottom half of the bracket, Power Rangers were able to take down Balkan Bears Corleone in the semi-finals without dropping a game. Like Virtus Pro, Power Rangers had appeared in the previous i-League finals in September, but their loss to the Russian team meant a second visit was out of the question.
The qualifiers will continue with one position up for grabs in the South East Asian qualifiers and three spots for the Chinese teams and neither section has begun yet. For more information on the event, click here.
