Overnight in China the Gold Series Heroes League Grand Finals kicked off, with Cloud9 being the sole western team in a tournament comprised primarily of top Chinese teams. They were placed in Group A alongside Edward Gaming, Zero Gaming, and Star Club. In Group B, Team No Limit(formerly Team DK) from Korea is looking to go far against the Chinese teams of eStar, OMG, and Team YL.
Cloud9 in their first series of the tournament grand finals went up against Zero Gaming, a team that they have had trouble with in their past Gold League match ups. Game one saw Cloud9 looking unorganized and completely out of sorts as Zero Gaming were able to take a commanding victory. Game two was much more closely contested, with the victory going to Cloud9 courtesy of a late game garden terror base race. The deciding game, for the most part, was looking good for Cloud9 but some late game missteps and some questionable positioning allowed Zero Gaming to take the third game, and the series 2-1.
As the series went on, the world champs started to look better and better as they seemed to settle in. They'll need to be back to their best as tomorrow as they will be looking to bounce back in their matchup against EDward Gaming, who won their first series 2-1 against Star Club.
In Group B, two of the teams favoured to go deep in this tournament got off on the right foot as Team No Limit beat Team YL 2-0, and eStar going 2-0 over OMG. In both sets there were moments where Team YL and OMG showed moments of strength and genius, such as a Zeratul Shadow Assault + Divine Shield combo from YL, but TNL and eStar proved to be the much better teams.
Group stage competition continues Saturday. Matches for the day will be Star Club v. Zero Gaming, Cloud9 v. EDG, OMG v. YL, and TNL v. eStar. You can catch matches during all the finals in English by Zoia and Gillyweed at http://www.twitch.tv/gillyweedsc2.
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