The 2nd day of the last NA Summer Championship qualifiers went much smoother with intense matches, little downtime and loads of hero diversity.?
Heroes fans were already poised for disapointment after the first day of technical difficulties. However, to everyone's relief day two of the tournament was an wonderful viewing experience. It wasn't absolutely perfect (the very first match had nearly 30 minutes between matches) but the rest of day was a massive improvement. Overall, a much better broadcast and viewing experience.
Group A was filled with easy 2-0's. Naventic is the clear favorite to win the tournament and their performance has been dominating. Astral Authority put up good showing featuring strong Tracer play by Equinox and, although it couldn't best Naventic, the strategy would pay off against Panda Global, winning game 1 and earning a respect first ban in game two.
Tassadar and Sonya were big winners this tournament, and both Naventic and Astral Authority know this. With the aid of this resilient combo, they move on into the playoffs from Group A.
Meanwhile in Group B, Cloud9 easily defeated Team Name Change, but only after TNC shook things up with a surprising Chromie pick. It was ineffective against the double warrior composition featuring Anub'arak and Rexxar, but it was the first glance at a tournament Chromie pick and I salute them for it.
Brain Power vs Gale Force eSports was one of the closest sets of the day and it ended with a tense back and forth on Blackhearts Bay. Azmodunk made an appearance and the dunks were real, pushing Gale Force eSports into the playoffs:
Fighting for their tournament life, it was Brain Power vs Cloud9. Brain Power had already defeated them in day 1 so what would usually be considered Cloud9 favored matchup now felt like an evenly matched battle that might actually favor Brain Power. Both teams were playing with new lineups, but in the end, it was Brain Power's aggressive playstyle that won them the match. Srey deserves the MVP award for this set, as his Johanna play in the last game was impeccable and a big reason for the winning push.
Beaming and filled with energy fresh after the win, Glaurung had this to say after match:
"I'm feeling super super good, we were a little bit sad after the GFE set, but with a couple of adjustments with postiioning but I knew we could beat C9 again. We beat them yesterday and I respect everyone on C9 an unbelievable amount. I believed in our new roster, we are still pretty new, but everyone played super well i'm really proud. I think we can give Naventic a run for their money. They are a really scary opponent but I'm excited to play them tomorrow."
Above is the final playoff bracket. The winning team tomorrow will join Naventic in Sweden and, if Naventic wins, the 2nd place team will face Cloud9 in a B03 for the right to be NA's #2 seed. Cloud9 has earned this chance by taking 2nd place during the last NA qualifiers at Dreamhack, Austin.
You can watch the games your self on this past broadcast and get up to speed on the NA Summer Championship qualifier so far on our coverage hub.
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