Na`Vi claims the first cup

Natus Vincere claims the top position of EMS One Cup #1. Doing so gives them 100 points aswell as $600. Teams are given a new chance to gain points in Cup #2 taking place next week.



The first stage of ESL Major Series One contains four single elimination cups. Depending on how well perform in each one, they are rewarded with different amounts of points. For those who remember, this is similiar to how the Farm4Farm operated their season in WarCraft 3: DotA. In the end the 12 teams with the most points move on to the group stage.


The first semi final today was between Natus Vincere and NoTidehunter, a game which started snowballing in Na`Vi's favour early. LightofHeaven even managed to get kills on his 1vs3 lane, denying his opposition a lot of farm. Loda even tweeted "Not far from putting the naked midas idea to rest..." after the game was over and Nth lost.

The second semi final featured Virtus.pro taking on Fnatic. Fnatic had Doomix playing stand-in instead of H4nn1 and N0tail played Meepo that game. Yes, Meepo. N0tail has been playing the hero to a great amount on his stream. However due to a bug causing him to lose all overview in clashes combined with the fact that VP was doing well, the game went into Mexican stand-off mode and eventually ended with Fnatic sneaking into VP's base and taking down the throne.

Both Nth and VP would have to settle with 50 points each for this first cup while Fnatic and Na`Vi went on to the final, a match which actually reached the full three games despite Fnatic lacking one of their core players. The series featured some picks worth mentioning, such as a Pudge from Dendi aswell as an Axe from Puppey. Fnatic opted for their dual carry strategies as they normally do and in H4nn1's absence, N0tail took the role of a solo position. I

Game 1 featured the aforementioned Pudge as Na'Vi opted for a more gank-ish line-up. However, they failed to get stable farm in the early game and rotated too much, giving a lot of space to Trixi's Gyrocopter and Era's Naix, eventually losing the game.

Na'Vi was on the edge of losing this match-up, which is why they opted for a secure dual-carry line-up themselves in the next game. With Xboct and LightOfHeaven farming safely with Naix and Lone Druid, the rest of the team kept Fnatic busy, keeping the enemy from farming. Fnatic had a strong teamfight line-up, but weren't able to force out 5on5 engagements early on. On top of that, Dendi's Batrider was able to pull heroes out of position and Na'Vi won game 2.

In the final game, Fnatic grabbed both Naix and Lone Druid this time, whereas Na'Vi secured themselves a KotL and an Axe. Puppey was a nuisance early on with a maxed Battle Hunger and Ars-Art showed why the KotL is banned by many teams. Na'Vi managed to push early on, taking all outer towers by 20 minutes. In the end the juggernauts of Natus Vincere took the victory with all the games ending around the 25th minute.

EMS One returns next Monday with a new cup where teams are given another chance to gain points.

EMS One - first stage
Team	Points
Natus Vincere	100 points
Fnatic	75 points
NoTidehunter Virtus.pro	50 points
Kaipi Team Empire DDdota mousesports	25 points
3DMAX EYES ON U top igrokai Imaginary Gaming Absolute Legends Tera.Mindfactory QWERT12345 TCM-Gaming	10 points
ICCup Fena suxx Colina cu Brusturi RoX.KiS Lucid Lunatics Tremendous Bunnies Monomaniac Esports	5 points