All teams from Group A already played two of their match ups from day one and after a steady start for everyone with many draw scores, the second group round brought the first surprises.
OG and LGD incredible tense series
Without a shadow of a doubt the most contested series and the one that delivered the most intense games so far was between OG and LGD Gaming. Although LGD was forced to compete at The International 6 with their coach and substitute player Wang 'Banana' Jiao they seem to not suffer at all from this situation.
In the opening two games of the series LGD played a brilliant comeback game. Lead by OG the entire game, the Chinese squad maintained their composure and patiently waited for the moment when the two cores of OG, Legion Commander and Razor fell off, to slowly claw their way back into the game and a win. But the same could not be done in the second game where OG secured a strong team fight line-up while LGD looked to split the map with Lycan and Timbersaw. Ultimately, it came down to the late-game scaling for the OG cores which sealed the Europeans’ victory. Nevertheless, the MVPs of the series should go to the supports from both teams: pristine positioning and timing saved each squad’s cores many times over.
Wings outdrafted and outplayed by TnC gather more losses than wins
Wings Gaming started the day with a series against the returning Champions, Evil Geniuses. They took game one from EG, outdrafting Peter 'ppd' Dager by shutting down his deadly Huskar-Io-Dazzle combo with a last pick Viper. With constant control over Roshan the Chinese youngsters pressured EG off the map and won the game in a convincing manner.
However, that’s the single point they scored so far as they lost the next game of the series to a same Huskar-Io strategy coming from EG, this time around enhanced by the Bloodlust buff from Ogre Magi.
Utterly outdrafted in game one, Wings Gaming had to fight into a very greedy lineup prepared by TnC. Despite drafting both Naga Siren and Phantom Lancer as cores, TnC had a super aggressive game plan to counter Wings’ notorious by now play style and took the game victory in under 30 minutes. The second game, however, was a back and forth story but TnC constantly found themselves with the advantage. By the forty five minutes mark, Wings were unable to cope with the TnC assault and gg was called, giving the Filipino squad the biggest upset of Group A.
Wings still have a series to be played today, against Escape Gaming and at this moment both teams are tied with only one point gathered at the end of five games played through the day. In the same grim situation is also Na’Vi who started with a 0-2 loss against Evil Geniuses, with their single point so far taken in the series against Escape Gaming. Despite losing game one to a mean Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu Ursa, Na’Vi came back stronger in the second game of the series and equalized with a Drow Ranger strategy developed around Mirana and Nature’s Prophet.
Alliance Fighting
For Alliance the first day in the group stage started with a clean 2-0 victory against TnC with two mix drafts of oldies but goldies for the Swedish team, coupled with strong meta picks. But in the next matchup they had to face OG and lost the series. In the first game of the series OG perfectly executed a Drow-Medusa strat while Alliance had what seemed to be a great early game, grabbing kills everywhere on the map with Gustav 's4' Magnusson’s mid Mirana. OG kept up via a great safe lane performance from Johan 'N0tail' Sundstein’s Medusa and pushed the high ground extremely early forcing a GG call under 20 minutes.
Much like game one, Alliance had what seemed to be a great early game, shutting down Amer 'Miracle-' Al-Barkawi in the mid lane while their Dazzle and carry Pugna pushed down OG’s safe lane tier one tower before five minutes. Alliance slowly claimed the map control taking down objectives, but a disastrous high ground push pre-20 minutes gave the momentum back to OG. As the game moved into the mid-late game, Miracle recovered from his rough laning phase, making space for Notail’s Naga to get her farm. Bulldog’s Tide proved to be a very tanky thorn in OG’s side, but they played patiently, and inched their way to the throne taking the series 2-0.
For the last series of the day Alliance will face LGD and a draw score will be enough to keep them at the middle of the Group A standing after first group stage day.
After all the games will be played in group A day one will continue with the series scheduled for Group B.
Day One Group B schedule:
00:30 CEST / 15:30 PDT / 06:30 SGT
Team Secret vs Vici Gaming Reborn
MVP Phoenix vs Digital Chaos
Team Liquid vs Neewbee
Fnatic vs EHOME
02:30 CEST /17:30 PDT / 08:30 SGT
Team Liquid vs EHOME
Newbee vs Vici Gaming Reborn
Team Secret vs MVP Phoenix
Fnatic vs Digital Chaos
The International 6 Coverage HUB
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