Day 1 recap

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DRAFT DETAILS AND TEAMS HISTORY



A match of biblical manhandling gave start to MLG Fall as the new roster of CLG went out to meet Maknoon's boys. The top laner promised a "perfect NaJin Sword" and he held true to his word: the Koreans were an unstoppable force that knew no slowing down.

Two early tower brought HotShot's Olaf to 0/2 by the first five minutes, while the other lanes were simply outplayed and outfarmed. It was up to Chauster and his rush to mobility boots on Maokai to turn it around but to no avail. Every single member of NaJin Sword carried a ward with him thus gaining full map control and soft countering the speedy Maokai who lagged even more behind as the game progressed as he delayed his GP5 items.

The global Nocturne/Shen combo of Sword was flawless and their dives soon brought the score to 7-1 and a gold gap that was just silly. Completely crushed, CLG had to surrender at twenty.

Game two started a bit more even. Once again, first blood went to Sword after Loco's Lulu fell in a 2v2 to fight but CLG bit taking a kill on bot themselves and turning around a gank on Bigfatlp with HotShot's Shen's help.

At the 15th minute mark, NaJin's "time to dive" alarm ringed and plays started happening all over the battlefield. Maknoon's Malphite and his full magin penetration build was able to one shot carries and be unkillable at the same time while Nocturne continued to do what he does best - kill people behind towers. Still, the gold gap was nowhere near the one in the first game and CLG were not looking dead at all.

Until a baron fight went wrong. The 5v5 dance ended with a triple kill on Karthus and a baron for NaJin Sword which called for even more towerdives. CLG tried to turtle and have what they can get but it was little, virtually nothing, in fact. A final towerdive at top and another triple kill for Karthus marked the end of the series.

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DRAFT DETAILS AND TEAMS HISTORY





In Game 1, The games starts off explosively and Curse invades early and hard, getting complete control over Golem, and to TSM’s demise, getting it at level 1. As the game progresses, a huge fight erupts bottom, with NyJacky picking up first blood on TheOddOne. This is just not the general’s game thus far, but all hope is not lost yet.

To add on top of TSM’s bad start and TheOddOne falling more and more behind, Curse pulls off some fancy tricks as laning phase draws to an official beginning and roams around with Taric assisting Saintvicious in the jungle. Knowing the consequences of getting greedy, Westrice manages to stay safe and farm at tower, avoiding all dives.

Continuing on, Curse pulls off a terrifying 3 man invade on TSM’s blue once again, getting full control of the jungle and taking yet another blue buff. TSM still fighting with all their hearts, however, has Reginald pushing NyJacky on Orianna out of lane.

At around the 10 minute mark, Regi goes in for a gank, resulting in Jacky picking up a kill on him with a 3 man counter-gank, leading into dragon. Although initially looking swell for Curse, TheOddOne pulls off his masterful smiting and steals the dragon, also leading into a double kill for Chaox, resetting any lead Curse had.


Another dragon dance erupts, with great ward coverage coming from both sides. When the fight starts, Dyrus and Regi pull off way ahead with their ultimate-resetting champions and grab an ace with a super-dunk spinning-knife combo to Curse, absolutely demolishing them and showing why Curse can’t dance objectives as masterfully as Solomid, taking the ace and a dragon.

After a failed gank on top against Westrice with ultimates and flashes blown, TSM heads for baron just as it spawns around the 22 minute mark. They are too far ahead at this point and grab the Baron Nashor buff completely uncontested.

Both teams farming it out and TSM taking a lesson from M5, they go for the GA rush and start playing hyper-aggressive counter-jungling style, warding all over Curse’s red and baits a baron. Westrice bites a bait in a scenario that would make any fisherman proud, and gets absolutely destroyed, causing a very one-sided teamfight fronted by Dunkmaster Dyrus with a full-stacked warmogs and Frozen Mallet, giving him unrivaled HP. After a catch onto NYJacky, the bottom inhibitor falls and Curse surrenders.



Game 2 kicks off with a passive jungle start with a lane swap from TSM. Both top laners initially are zoned out and struggle for farm. Olaf isn’t as durable as he needs to be early on in the game, and after an aggressive Curse bottom lane widdles him down, Elementz pulls off first blood under turret bravely with a flash - Q - Power Chord combo, setting Curse again similarly to game 1.

Needing to find a way to pull back into this one, TSM repeatedly commences lane swaps that would end up working in their favor, farming in advantageous lanes. After an excruciatingly long poke session bottom, Cop manages to take bottom tower for his team.

At this point, TSM gets just what they need, taking initiative on Dragon and abusing Karthus’s threatening Wall of Pain to zone out Curse. NyJacky almost lands a beautiful steal, but TheOddOne isn’t ready to let anyone outdo his smite in this tournament.

Chaox, trying to catch up completely to Cop, attempts to do his trademark freezing of bottom lane to get farm, but Saint and Cop quickly come to ruin their day, picking up the kill onto Chaox and rushing mid to get mid turrets. NyJacky gets a majestic ult off on Orianna, killing two with Elementz’ help. Unfortunately, Curse overstay their welcome, trying to pressure, inner mid tower.

Not to be mistaken for an epic comeback, Curse goes for dragon, picking it up for free as TSM is no where in the vicinity to contest it. Curse keeps the pressure strong and their presence high, invading red buff, getting some picks on Regi and TheOddOne, and the like.

At around 25 minutes, a fight erupts around the general baron vicinity, with TSM very low and Curse heeding map control and killing off wards, then heading straight to dragon to continue their astounding objective control. At this point, Reginald is desperately using Requiems to push off Curse at baron, but Westrice is split pushing bottom with TP up and a lot of gold, not able to be stopped. Curse goes on to completely commit to baron, picking it off and engaging on Dyrus for the slay. After taking barons and keeping the lead the rest of the game, NyJacky continues his showcase of beautiful Shockwaves and completely dismantles and melts TSM, pushing in and taking the series to an unsuspected Game 3!


Game 3 kicks off standard until minions spawn, wherein TSM camps Westrice very hard, nearly diving him. Westrice survives but loses to almost double in farm for Dyrus, making top lane look grim this time around in TSM’s favor. With Saint’s assistance, Westrice catches back up with a nice flash ult from Skarner, allowing Westrice on Jax to grab first blood. Meanwhile bottom, Xpecial Zones Cop and Chaox expertly freezes, putting Cop way behind in laning phase.

After TSM takes the first tower of the game top, a dragon dance goes off with both sides clearing early wards and TSM comes out ahead as usual, taking dragon. At this time, both tops stopped each other’s respective teleports, with Shen’s Stand United interrupted and Jax’s summoner spell interrupted!

Moving on, a devious Dyrus invades alone, and to his mistake gets picked off by Orianna and the rest of Curse. In another dragon dance, Curse takes the advantage for, perhaps, the first time in the entire series and does a 4 to 3 kill trade in their favor. That celebration would be quickly halted later in the game as TheOddOne manages another smite steal, no thanks to Saint.

Although Chaox gets caught off in the late game, he runs long enough with his heavy survivability to turn it around for his team in a 3 to 1 trade. When TSM commits to the chase, Jax thinks he can take Xpecial, after all, he’s only Taric right? Wrong, as Taric shatters and humiliates Jax in 1v1 combat!

Dyrus at this point is just unbelievably fed and cannot be dealt with, allowing TSM to take baron and baiting a 3 for 5 kill trade in TSM’s favor, putting an end to this epic series with Solomid as the victor.

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DRAFT DETAILS AND TEAMS HISTORY




Game 1 is something we don't have charted at the moment, but will fill visitors in as soon as possible. What we do know is each team got some champions they are each respectively strong with and the games were quite close, with the playstyle unraveling how you would expect it to go in a CLG vs Dignitas game, both showing their usual playstyle and playing to their own strengths.

With Shy on Singed, you know he did work and gave Crumbzz a run for his money.








Though we weren’t able to get a recap on Game 1, Game 2 was epic and hard-fought. The laning phase started out pretty normal, with your typical harass and poke coming out from both sides. In typical CLG EU fashion, the game was very drawn out, and even though behind initially, that doesn’t matter for this team. Stalling is the middle name of CLG.EU.

The game explodes with action in an upset story that can still come to be, skirmishes go back and forth, with Dignitas way ahead and prevailing into the midgame, but CLG EU holding it out as they are trademarked to do.

After being dead even all game and several pick-offs commence with objectives taken and stolen back and forth all game, CLG managed to take Curse in the end and prove to the world why they are good at what they do.

Game 3 kicks off with counter jungling on both sides and Eve attempting a roam that inevitably doesn’t work out for her. In an interesting lane swap, Wickd goes mid against Eve and Froggen goes top as Swain against Singed.

After successful roaming by Scarra and solid execution by Froggen, both AP’s stay pretty even, with lane swaps continuing as the game goes on. Dignitas gets ahead and stays ahead consistently, with the game going 11-4 in their favor for a time.

After securing their lead, Dig follows in M5’s footsteps as well, grabbing GA’s to secure their lead, shoving, contesting baron, and 3 way splitting. In quite the upset, Dignitas takes this series away from CLG and moves on in the Winner’s Bracket.

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DRAFT DETAILS AND TEAMS HISTORY



Unfortunately, yet another series we couldn’t see live or get many details on. Fret not though, as it wasn’t as much of a stomp as you’d think! According to the casters, it was even relatively close both games, albeit resulting in a 2-0 in Azubu’s Blaze as one would suspect.

From what we’ve gathered, Dynamic really pulled out some “Dynamic” strategies and tried new things that were gimmicky in nature, but well executed. Not many teams can pull off “chesese” as we like to call it thes days and perform well, but Team Dynamic, the biggest underdog of the entire tournament, managed to do so to everyone’d disbelief with a Gangplank mid.

However, this was no ordinary Gangplank mid that Dynamic pulled off, it was a glorious, tiamat-building mid gangplank. It’s rare enough to see a Gangplank in today’s meta, but that is just magical.

As we try to gather information to cover this David vs. Goliath series, take pride in knowing Dynamic seemingly put up a fight, which cannot be the same tale told for Counter Logic Gaming NA in their bout against NaJin Shield, to our dismay.

Not as close as American's would hope for it to be like it was in Game 1. Dynamic decides to play a little more standard and this is where Azubu and many Korean teams are comfortable. Azubu Blaze was not going to have another close game and worked hard to quickly dismantle Dynamic before they could really get the ball rolling.

Not to be mistaken for complete wash-out, Dynamic held their own, again, better than CLG did vs. Najin Sword. If anyone had suspected a match to be unclose, it's this one. Dynamic put up a fight and battled well and with pride, but Azubu pulled ahead and managed to secure themselves in the Winner's bracket. Being double elimination, Dynamic can still show us what they are made of and pull out some new secrets. Perhaps they are much better than most of us would have anticipated.