At the end of the first day at MLG World Finals (monkey) Business is looking strong, topping the group A while LGD Gaming is the first to leave the competition.
MLG World Finals
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(monkey) Business off to a hot start
Coming from the qualifier rounds (monkey) Business have been seeded in what seemed to be a more difficult group, where they had to face the TI5 Champions, Evil Geniuses and the best placed European team in Seattle, Virtus.Pro. But this has not shaken their confidence at all and managed to defeat EG in the opening series of the tournament and afterwards they simply crushed Virtus.Pro with a Tiny-Io combo.
The way Johan 'N0tail-BigDaddy' Sundstein understands the duo Tiny-Io is something quite unique in the scene, him being one of the players who used to be one of the most feared Wisps, even since the old Fnatic -“era”. Seeing him now coordinating so well with Cr1t- but from the Tiny position goes to show his tremendous team work ability. So, there was no surprise to see (monkey) Business simply crushing VP in the first game of the series. The game was a very one sided one that ended after only 23 minutes with a 27-6 kill score favoring MB.
Strange enough, Virtus.Pro allowed MB to play the combo in the second game as well and that hurt them badly as (monkey) Business made it all clear that no one should let them have this incredible weapon at their disposal.
Never underestimate a Meepo player
In their first series of the championship, Team Secrert met Korean powerhouse squad, MVP.Phoenix who were eager to prove that their exceptional TI5 top eight placement was not a fluke. Despite failing to qualify to the upcoming Major tournament, MVP.Phoenix showed a good game approach in drafts and execution but Puppey’s ability when it comes to counter picking was once again top notch.
Trying to get away with a trio of extremely mobile core heroes, Queen of Pain, Ember Spirit and Darkseer, MVP ended up being out drafted by Puppey who went with a Doom carry for EE, a Nightstalker for Misery, a Bane for himself and the signature Meepo for Aliwi 'w33' Omar.
w33’ s strength on his Meepo is not defined only by Houdini poofs all over the map but mostly by his incredible micro management of snares that were all the time perfectly landed and prevented MVP’s escaping artists to disengage. Having all the tools needed to stop MVP’s aggression Secret took the first game of the series in just 25 minutes.
The second game was again ruled by Secret and mainly by w33 on an omnipresent on the map Windrunner who created chaos in all the lanes with his successful ganks and became a true beast once the game transitioned to mid stage. There is no doubt that w33 was the MVP of the series, finishing the second game with an 18-2 personal kill score and a stolen Aegis.
Their loss in front of Secret forces MVP.Phoenix to meet Cloud9 in the loser’s series later today when one of them will end their MLG World Finals journey.
Cloud 9 not strong enough
The other qualified team for this 100th live edition celebrating event of MLG, Cloud 9 didn’t share the same successful story. Seeded in group B they had to face the Chinese sensation, TI5 runners up, CDEC Gaming.
The series started with a very predictable CDEC who looked stuck in a four protect one identical draft strategy with what they played at The International 5 while Cloud 9 were looking fresh and ready to approach the new 6.85 patch emerging meta. Therefore Cloud 9 controlled CDEC the entire game with a heavy AOE line-up that was capable to also pick off Agressif’s Phantom Lancer every time he was solo adventuring in a lane.
But CDEC turned the page for the next two games and showed that they do know how to surprise their opponents and how to counter them to win a game. A last pick Enchantress for Xz outshined Cloud 9‘s Storm Spirit and placed the NA squad in a really defensive stance.
Only 16 minutes into the game Xz had his Orchid done on the offlane Enchantress and with that CDEC was ready to force C9 to teamfights. Ten minutes later the Chinese emerged victorious and forced Cloud 9 to decisive game three.
For the last game of the series CDEC played once again something new for Chen ''Xz'' Zezhi, a Broodmother who carried them to a perfect victory.
MLG World Finals Day 2 schedule:
10:00 CDT/17:00 CEST - Group B: Team Secret vs CDEC Gaming
12:30 CDT/19:30 CEST - Group B: Cloud 9 vs MVP.Phoenix
14:30 CDT/21:30 CEST - Group A: Final Match
17:30 CDT/00:30 CEST - Group B: Final Match
