EE-Sama’s NP survived the bo1 lower bracket in Montreal, Canada to claim a rematch against Wings Gaming in the Northern Arena BEAT invitational grand finals.
Knocked down in the lower bracket by Wings Gaming, NP had a remarkable run through the best-of-one gauntlet slaying two of the favorites for the tournament title. A Drow Ranger strategy against Evil Geniuses brought NP the victory against a heavy ganking oriented line-up of the boys in blue. Although the start of the game went terribly wrong for NP who lost their courier in the first minutes and had their Witch Doctor caught a few too many times by the roaming combo Spirit Breaker, Natures Prophet, they bounced back once the Batrider got his Blink Dagger and was ready to teamfight.
Released of the best of one pressure, NP faced EHOME in the lower bracket finals, which were set to be played in a bo3 format and had a perfect game one against the Chinese team. Going with a lethal safe lane combo, Centaur Warrunner - Disruptor, Kurtis 'Aui_2000' Ling and Avery 'SVG' Silverman nailed to perfection all the Glimpses into Hoof Stomps to create a good advantage for themselves during the laning stage. The teamfights were also perfectly executed, NP’s Warlock and Disruptor coordinating their ultimates almost all the time to control Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun's Morphling which put EHOME behind with every engagement.
But, despite the very good game one, NP crumbled in the second game of the series to a pushing, Drow Ranger - Tinker - Venomancer draft from EHOME. The Chinese played extremely aggressive from the very first minute of the game, putting to work their support Undying and kept on pressuring NP’s towers which left Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao with no time to farm his Terrorblade. Controlled in the team fights with the Drow Silence, Envy couldn’t do the difference for his team, not even during the high ground defense and NP was pushed into a decisive game three. In the last game of the series, EE tricked Zhang 'LaNm' Zhicheng during the drafting stage by picking Drow first, followed by Witch Doctor and Puck. However, the Puck was meant for Arif 'MSS' Anwar in the offlane while the NP mid hero was Medusa. EHOME disregarded NP’s huge amount of crowd control in the form of silences and stuns and went with a last pick Morphling and to some extent they set themselves up for a replay of the first game. Not able to fight with Sylar in the frontlines, EHOME tried to go with the split push strategy, sending the Morphling at NP’s door every time Envy’s squad was pushing as five. Unfortunately for EHOME, Sylar’s solo push was not enough to force NP to teleport back, and eventually they lost series and the chance of having a full Chinese Grand Finals on the Canadian soil.
The grand finals of Northern Arena BEAT Invitational between Wings Gaming vs NP will be held at the Bell Center in Montreal, Canada today at 15:00 EST/21:00 CET. For those looking to have a live experience, the tickets for the event are on sale at evenko.ca.
