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Reigning IPL champion Stephano gave start to his Las Vegas experience with a 2-0 win over WhiteRa in Group B. The Beast from the East fought valiantly in both games but what could have been a much different outcome was denied by a couple of crucial mistakes.

It took Stephano 35 minutes to beat White-Ra on Cloud Kingdom as the Ukrainian was absolutety impregnable for the majority of the game. WhiteRa controlled the zerg economy and tech with zealot warp-ins, even sniping Stephano's greater spire at one point.

All went to hell for WhiteRa during the late stages of the game as his mothership was left lagging behind his stalker army. Stephano immediately smelled the helpless prey and WhiteRa had to throw down defensive vortexes to keep his hero unit alive. Without mana, though, the MS was useless once the time for direct engagement came and it snowballed out of control as his expensive army was defeated.

In game two on Antiga Shipyard, WhiteRa chose the aggressive approach and opened with a 7-gate +1 timing attack that ended Stephano's third. Too eager to finish the game, WhiteRa rushed into the spine crawler wall at the natural and gave away all the supply advantage he earned earlier. Minutes later he was overran by zerg forces.

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Invisible infestors and brood lords: borderline OP

Stephano opens Group B with a two-nil against WhiteRa