After an excellent display from the Europeans leading the group, Fnatic and Gambit Gaming show why All-Stars wasn't an accurate representation of the region's overall skill level.
??
The second day of group B kicked off with one of the Koreans expected to win it all versus the ultra SEA underdogs of Mineski. This game was the game of Ezreal as the kiting master of maneuverability would find great success. As expected, Imp would cause great terror to the bottom lane of Mineski, which caused many problems throughout the game.
Interestingly enough in drafts, Mineski saw Ozone's Singed as enough of a threat to ban him out, but it wouldn't stop a solid performance with the bruisers of Elise, Jayce, and Shen. Most important to note was SSO's strong ward clearing, which allowed Mineski to be caught off guard and picked off; a Korean trademarked playstyle.
Vulcun vs. Gambit Gaming showed Vulcun attempting a 2v1 to battle the, lately, very powerful duo lane of Voidle and Genja. For yet another game, Genja pulled out the Kog'Maw magic, utilizing triforce to help himself survive in an otherwise difficult situation to evade. The playstyle from Gambit trivialized any assassination attempts from Vulcun.
Vulcun seemed to really slip up as the game progressed and things were slowly slipping in the favor of Gambit Gaming. Gambit were on their A-game while Vulcun continued to show less promising performances to the American crowd. With Zuna getting caught off guard, any chance of victory was pryed from their fingers and Gambit Gaming took the win.
Ozone vs. Fnatic was a fine display of Europe's true colors and just what they had to offer. Previously, we saw Gambit Gaming taking out Ozone, even with the hype that they had riding into the tournament. Yet again, Europe prevailed with an excellent game against the Korean teams, showing that Gods can bleed and that Europe's All-Star performance wasn't a good indicitation.
Ozone had a decent early game, but Fnatic were quick to sweep them off their feet. Not only should Fnatic have been proud for winning the game, but it was also decisive. Fnatic made it look like a walk in the park and the team, led by xPeke showed one of the best performances yet. Cyanide also is worth noting due to dramatically stepping up his jungle game to make the victory possible.
The way the early game played out was Vulcun showing one of their strongest performances they've had against Mineski. Though demoralized by their latest score, Mineski showed their strength and capability to compete at Worlds with an excellent comeback at dragon fight. Mineski had the lead initially, but struggled to continue maintaining that lead.
Vulcun drove the game into a win when they started to utilize their hyperspeed baron killing capabilities. By catching Mineski off guard, Zuna was able to shoot baron over the wall while Elise's spiders, Zyra's plants, and Karthus defile. After this happened, Mineski suffered and lost their inhibitor. They had trouble fighting back after a mid-game comeback, but showed that they still have fight going into this series.
In one of the most classic and epic matches in the EU LCS, Gambit Gaming would face off against Fnatic in their most unfavorable matchup statistically. What we saw is a classic Moscow 5 team composition containing old classics like Miss Fortune, Xin Xhao, and Darien on Shyvanna top. Unfortunately, his KDA would be tarnished as well as Diamondprox as Fnatic was really on their A-Game.
Fnatic, pound for pound, was just looking stronger than Gambit Gaming this game -- and it wasn't the first time considering how much of a kryptonite Fnatic has been to the team. Even though Gambit had fantastic performances earlier and were undefeated, Fnatic were starting to look like a potential Season 3 World Champion.
