Third day of the group stage in Seattle started and the games get more and more intense as the teams start feeling the pressure to grab one of the four upper bracket qualifying spots.
Cloud 9 vs Invictus Gaming
First game of the series went beyond disastrous for IG who got stomped by Cloud 9 in 25 painful minutes. Displaying perfect coordination and good team fight decisions Cloud 9 were leading IG with 11-0 on the score board 20 minutes in and boasted a 20k gold lead as they never lost the momentum.They ended the game with a 16 - 0 kill score in what made Tobiwan declare “ this is for sure the most one sided game in this TI” .
Game two had its own peculiarity, namely the almost complete lack of disables on both teams. This lead to hilarious moments with gank victims casually teleporting out right in front of their enemies. So it all came down to right click power and since IG chose a Drow Ranger who faced a dual lane Wisp - Shadow Fiend, the fate of the series was sealed in the early game when FATA thrived and soon was worth more than both IG cores combined. Cloud 9 finally executed a well sustained high ground siege, avoided the proverbial throw and took the three points at stake.
Fnatic vs Na’Vi
Although Na’Vi chose to play a line-up with zero lock down power against a Fnatic draft with a lot of disables which resulted into a good laning phase for the Malaysian squad, things took a 180 degree turn once Dendi on QoP decided to abandon the mid lane and start the ganks.
From then on Dendi stole the show with a stellar performance that not only brought his team back into the game after they lost both top and bottom lanes, but actually carried them to victory. After only ten minutes Dendi was on an ultra kill streak and he continued to bully everyone around to end the game with a personal 20-0-15 score which is actually the best record on the hero for the entire TI history.
In the second game of the series it was SoNNeikO’s turn to impress the world with a Naga Siren that started as a casual support and turned into a nightmare for Fnatic as the game progressed.
The game looked quite balanced early to mid game, both teams trading kills and not allowing each other to take objectives uncontested, with a slight gold and experience advantage going in favor of Fnatic due to their strong comb of Rupture on top of a Tomb Stone and a few track kills courtesy to the support Bounty Hunter played by JoHnNy.
But, as the game was advancing to a later stage, Na’Vi used their Naga Siren the same way EG did at ESL One and turned SoNNeikO into a split push machine. After he finished his Radiance the young star of Na’Vi, became a huge problem for Fnatic as he continued to pile up items very fast. Even so, Fnatic played a smart cautious game looking for pick offs and making sure Naga’s illusions won’t get further than tier two towers.
60 minutes into the game SoNNeikO’s inventory became too small for his farm, so he decided to buy a courier of his own to carry his Necro three book to make the split push even more effective. This was the moment when Fnatic realized they can’t delay the game anymore and started to push Na’Vi’s high ground as five forcing the Naga Siren to come and defend.
After two incredible well executed defensive teamfights by Natus Vincere in which a lot of buybacks were used, Fnatic’s mission to breach the enemy base seemed impossible to accomplish. But the third time they attempted the GG push was the lucky one and at the end of an insane brawl in which ky.xY used what could be regarded as the winning buy back, Fnatic finally emerged victorious after an epic 70 minutes long game.
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