Alliance, Ad Finem, Escape Gaming and OG have all been eliminated after the first day matches.
The FACEIT Invitational began today with its incredible unforgiving single elimination, best of one series format. The opening game pitted Vega Squadron against Ad Finem, with the match beng won by the Russians with a Sniper mid lane and an Ursa-Oracle duo played on the Dire side. The second match of the day featured Alliance fighting Team Liquid.
A good read by the Swedes solo mid Morphling for Amer 'Miracle-' Al-Barkawi was countered with a last pick Templar Assassin for Linus 'Limmp' Blomdin. Alliance also anticipated Liquid’s laning hero distribution and sent their Ursa bottom lane with Ogre Magi, the effect being a total shutdown of Liquid’s Beastmaster and a free early Roshan. But, despite the good advantage secured for Jonathan 'Loda' Berg, Alliance started to lose the game control with the first rotation of Liquid’s Faceless Void. Repeated team fights won on the back of perfect Chronospheres enabled Team Liquid to take the victory, thus eliminating Alliance in the first round of the bracket.
Recently involved in a messy and dramatoc incident, Team Secret went crushing Escape Gaming in the third match of the day. A draft built around multiple options for the infest bomb combo brought the victory for Team Secret in under 30 minutes with a kill score of 23 to 6.
FACEIT Invitational day one ended with a big surprise; Team Empire eliminating OG with nearly flawless performances from their three cores: Sergey 'G' Bragin on Ember Spirit, Ilya 'ALOHADANCE' Korobkin on Juggernaut and Andrey 'Ghostik' Kadyk on Legion Commander. Although Johan 'N0tail' Sundstein (Naga Siren) did find his Radiance - Manta - Octarine farm decently fast and despite incredibly good plays from Jesse 'JerAx' Vainikka on Sand King, saving the day for his team countless of times, Team Empire had overall better execution and capitalized on their early lead to secure themselves a spot into the semifinals.
FACEIT Invitational day two schedule:
15:00 CEST Vega Squadron vs Team Liquid
16:00 CEST Team Secret vs Team Empire
