In their first Gold Series match, Cloud 9 has shown China why they're the current world champion.
In case you missed it, Cloud 9 has played their first game in China against Super Perfect Team. SPT is a fairly new Chinese team, with a not so hot record so far. This makes it all the more scary that they were able to take a game off of C9. China might be a tougher nut to crack than they originally thought.
In game #1, Cloud 9 drafted a very low damage double warrior comp against The Lost Vikings and the dreaded E.T.C. so beloved by Chinese teams. Whether it be from overconfidence, or just sizing SPT up, C9 dropped this game against them. Deciding that the problem was clearly E.T.C., C9 banned him in every other game.
I think the most interesting things we can get from these games is how the NA and CN meta go up against each other. Picks such as E.T.C. and Tyrael are not seen quite so often in the states, but require a ban against a Chinese team. Also the fact that we're seeing some very strange picks like Lost Vikings and Murky is incredibly cool. However this could be a one off thing that this team alone picks, or that they were trying against C9.
This first matchup might have been easy for the North American team, but these groups are unforgiving and brutal. It will be interesting to see how they fare against some of the more dominant Chinese teams.
If you want to catch more of the Gold Series, you can check out the stream portal here (although it's all in Chinese). You can also check out our coverage hub and the match information if you'd like to do some research of your own.
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