The Spring 2015 edition of the eSports Champions League tournament is about to enter the closing stages with only Invictus Gaming, LGD, CDEC and surprise qualifiers Dream Gaming remaining to compete for a piece of the $32,226 base prize pool.
The schedule for the ECL 2015 Spring grand finals has been announced with LGD Gaming and Dream Gaming kicking off the festivities this Saturday with Invictus Gaming and CDEC Gaming later competing in the second half of bracket. The four teams will battle in a double elimination bracket throughout the weekend with the grand final scheduled for 13:00 CEST on June 14th to decide who goes home with the grand prize of $20,946 and a percentage of ticket sales.
Both Invictus Gaming and LGD Gaming will be looking to claim a second ECL title after a long wait. Zhang 'Xiao8' Ning led the old roster of LGD Gaming to a 3-0 victory over Orange eSports in the debut Dota 2 ECL 2013 season back in July that year. While an Invictus Gaming lineup featuring Wang 'banana' Jiao, Jiang 'YYF' Cen and Chen 'Hao' Zhihao claimed their ECL title in January 2014 with a 2-0 sweep over the former roster of Team DK. Invictus Gaming have come close in the previous two editions of the tournament with a third place finish in ECL Spring 2014 and a narrow 3-2 loss to NewBee in the conclusion to ECL Autumn 2014 at the end of December last year.
The story of the group stages will have been the surprise success of Dream Gaming, a team currently ranked 72nd in the world according to GosuRankings. Featuring former-CIS Game members Xiao 'Demons' Cuoyi and Fan 'Ayo' Tianyou, the team managed to finish their group unbeaten - eliminating ViCi Gaming from the tournament. Following a first game defeat to DG.cn, Daryl 'iceiceice' Pei Xiang Koh was allegedly admitted to hospital causing the team to miss their second match of the day against Energy Pacemaker. ViCi went on to win their final game of the group, but it was only enough to finish third as DG.cn went on to secure victories over EP and DUOBAO to claim the sole qualifier spot.
Elsewhere in the group stages Invictus Gaming and LGD Gaming claimed their places in the grand finals with ease in groups mostly made up of amateur and youth teams, while a bizarre 'group of death' saw CDEC Gaming forced to battle hard to win a group stacked with HyperGloryTeam, EHOME and TongFu. The group was only decided from the head-to-head record between CDEC and HGT, with the latter eliminated due to their 2-1 loss.
The finals begin at 07:00 CEST on Saturday June 13th with LGD Gaming clashing with underdogs Dream Gaming in their opening upper bracket match, while Invictus Gaming and CDEC Gaming scheduled to compete later that day at 10:00 CEST.
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