Logically, where there're playoff matches, there are eliminations. As IPL 5 day two came to an end, six teams packed their luggage and went home after falling victim to the losers bracket.
The day kicked off with quite a few stories of one-sided spanking as the underdogs did what most underdogs do - take a quick beating and go home. Iceland, Team Dynamic, Team Fear and Blackbean spearheaded the wave of eliminations and messed up with Aphromoo's predictions about IPL's top three.
Back to the winners bracket, DreamHack champions Fnatic exploded onto S2WC winners Taipei Assassins and tore them apart in two games. Led by Rekkles's exemplary play, the European squad was an unstoppable force once their Vayne pocketed a few kills and delivered the first upset by sending tournament favorites down to the lower bracket.
At the same time, CRS.eu took on CLG.eu in a brand rivalry cross-continent style. The Europeans gave HotShot's team quite the resistance and, ultimately, this was the only series of the day that went into a third game. As they failed to win the last match, however, Crs.eu could not contribute to what could have been a very European-heavy WB semi final round and took the elevator down to play their brother team Crs.na.
In the highlight of the evening, TSM faced Azubu, a team that has always come on top in previous encounters with the American powerhouse. With both teams getting most of their signature champions, the series ended up being an absolute spectacle. As close as the games were, however, the curse over TSM persisted. A 0-2 loss meant their elimination from IPL 5 and made TSM's record against the Koreans even worse: Regi's team is now 0-11 against Azubu teams.
The perennial day of competition in Las Vegas begins at the usual time, 19:00 CET. The first matches are from LBR2, namely Singapore Sentinels vs Taipei Assassins and Crs.na vs Crs.eu.
