Day one of The International 5 American qualifier is over and eHug are on
The favourite of the qualifier, Mousesports have had a pretty good run so far; going 3-1. They dropped one game to Complexity Gaming who are currently tied with the Mouz in terms of point, CoL weren't expected to do much in the tournament but have looked really good so far.
The last team in the group is eHug who have had decent results in the NA scene and the squad is on the brink of elimination. Being 0-4 so far, losing to the open qualifier winner Unknown.xiu and Mousesports. Unknown.xiu looked very strong in their match and had a big stomps in both the games.
Game of the day: Wheel vs Not Today Game 1
The first game between Wheel Whreck While Whistling and Not Today was the closest game of the day featuring great team fights from start to finish.
Spoilers follow from this point on ...
Coming into this match Not Today were big favorites, only 16% putting their GG Branches on Wheel Gaming but they managed to beat expectations by taking one game from Not Today to ruin the Peruvian's day.
The game started with Wheel's safelane hero; Weaver getting shutdown, 'seisel' didn't have any game impact untill very late into the game. Till that point, the lead went back and forth; there were five lead changes in total untill 40 minutes.
Mike 'ixmike88' Ghannam was definitely the MVP for Wheel, he provided them with initiations all game long and was ahead of the Weaver in terms of net worth untill 40 minutes. At one point Purge even suggested to go Radiance since he was so far ahead, something that hasn't happened in 3001 Clockwork games so far in pro DotA2. Instead Mike went for the more conventional Heart of Tarrasque.
After that point, Weaver took over and ixmike provide some amazing initiations on his Clockwork to secure Roshan and the game winning team fights at minute 44 and 51 respectively.
Best moment of the day: Fly's stolen 1500 Damage Requiem
Unexpectedly cold: Team Leviathan
Team Leviathan are one of the more famous teams in the North American scene, thanks for their infamous offlaner Jenkins' Pudge. Unfortunately, they've had a very bad showing at this qualifier. The all US team hasn't even come close to winning a single game, losing two with over 25k in net worth differential while the others had a difference of 10k.
The squad has had problems of farm distribution so far, only their mid laner; Shibby has been able to farm well the other members fail to accquire even the most basic items and are at the bottom of the net worth ranks.
They've also allowed Gyrocopter to get picked in three of their games and have been completely caught off guard, having no reply to the hero.
The 'Flyingzebra' lead squad are on the brink of elimination and will need to do some heavy lifting in tomorrow's matches to make it to the next round, which is the double elimination bracket.
Honourable Mention : eHug; one and three so far, will be fighting against elimination tomorrow
Unexpectedly hot: compLexity Gaming
Complexity Gaming were definitely not the team that everyone was looking at coming into the qualifiers but they've shown some amazing games so far and have an overall record of 3-1. They even managed to take a game off Mousesports, who are definitely the favourites of the tournaments.
In their first match against Root Gaming, Tal 'Simbaa' Aizik showed some of the best Rubick support play in a long time, stealing key spells in clutch moments to give his team the lead and allowed them to snowball since the start. The highlight of the game was this stolen Requiem which did 1500 damage to the Shadow Fiend.
The mid laner for the squad, Kyle 'swindlemelonzz' Freedman played Dragon Knight in both their victories against Root and won his lane in both the games, helping the team to take an early advantage. In their final game of the day, he played Queen of Pain and carried his team to victory, leading the game in both hero damage and networth.
Honourable Mention : NAR v2; 3-1 so far, but were expected to do well
Unexpectedly hot: compLexity Gaming
