A surprising outcome of the upper bracket turned one of tournament’s underdogs into a strong contender for the Enter the Storm trophy.
After the first day of matches, Team Liquid, Bob, Alternate Fancy and Virtus.Pro had made it to the upper bracket semi-finals of the $10,000 Enter the Storm tournament. Before the end of the evening, the first grand finalist would be determined, but not before a series of upsets.
Bob met Team Liquid in the first match of the day and with Blackscorp getting his favorite Zeratul, the score ticked 1-0 in favor of the Spanish armada. But adrd’s team was determined to prove that the 2-0 victory over Liquid in the Stormgrounds Invitational was no fluke. Stepping up on Tomb of the Spider queen, Bob equalized the series and pushed it to a third and final game on Sky Temple.
An early fort kill and uncontested control of the bot temple brought Bob to a faster level 10. As Liquid attempted to equalize the experience pushing top, Bob snuck a boss kill and kept their level advantage throughout the whole game, winning it 2-1 after several big team fights.
In the second semi final, Alternate Fancy dominated Virtus.Pro in two games. Employing a push heavy Sylvanas/Zagara composition on Tomb of the Spider queen, ATNF had a full talent lead throughout most of the game, easily stealing the score advantage.
Game two started better for VP as they took the first curse of the game, but couldn’t get much out of it. The two teams remained on equal footing for the majority of the match, until a perfectly set-up trap by Alternate Fancy at their boss pit blew up VP’s Zeratul turned into a two-for-nil fight, boss for ATNF and a faster level 20 – an advantage that proved vital during the last team fight of the game. ATNF 2-0 Virtus.Pro.
An absolute thriller was beheld in the upper bracket final as Bob went on to spar with ATNF. Using the same Sylvanas/Zagara composition that bodied VP in the previous match, ATNF took the lead, with Darkmok landing multiple battle-deciding Devouring Maws to obliterate Bob.
Bob immediately chose Mines as the second map but almost fell into their own trap as Fancy proved they’re not at all clueless playing the unpopular map. Perfectly utilizing every talent advantage they got, ATNF ruled the better part of the match, until a critical team fight mistake in the mines led to a team wipe and a 90-skull golem for Bob. The score was tied.
Game three on Sky Temple was a real heart-stopper, a must watch. Picking one of their niche heroes in Thrall and supporting him with Kharazim, ATNF aimed to catch Bob by surprise, but the young rising stars were barely impressed. Blows were traded for more than 25 minutes as Bob chipped away every single structure of ATNF, leaving their Nexus naked and one captured temple away from destruction. Botching several late game team-fights, however, left Bob struggling as ATNF took control of the boss and pushed onwards before Bob could capture a temple and close the series.
Down in the lower bracket, Pirates and Pyjamas were the first team to go home, as ROCCAT swept them in a 2-0 series. In the second lower bracket match Na`Vi and Fnatic delivered a great show, as expected, featuring E.T.C. action and Sonya/Raynor compositions until eventually Fnatic had to say goodbye to Enter the Storm following a 1-2 loss.
The action resumes today at 14:00 CEST as the new Enter the Storm champion will be crowned. Eyes are fixed on the lower bracket match of Team Liquid versus Na`Vi as one of the highlights of the day and one of those teams will be going home. Team Liquid are already experienced in winning championships coming through the lower bracket, but this time the playing field is much higher.
$10,000 and top notch hardware and PCs by ROCCAT and Alienware will be grabbed as Khaldor brings you the action at twitch.tv/khaldor.
