I would love to tell you that the WoW matches in Edmonton have been amazing and they probably were, but unfortunately the viewers have been able to watch a grand total of two games so far this event. The reason for this is the new patch that also rendered the spectator client useless and thus a work around was found after the games on late Friday. On Saturday, the hosts over at ESL TV accidently opened a file with the account name of their spectator accounts given to them by Blizzard and of course the trolls of the internet were quick on logging in. Fortunately one nice guy was pretty quick as well, as he logged into the account changed the password and gave it to James and so we were able to see at least the second match of the double elimination bracket. Let’s pick up on a few results of the group play, shall we?
The tournament started out with already a jaw dropping first result. The just formed SK.US consisting of the veterans Realz, Glick and Kollektiv managed to Check6 and their notorious Beast Cleave by thinking outside the box. The team decided to go as Metamorphosis Warlock to avoid having their Warlock trained the entire game. It worked out quite well and SK.US took the series 3-1.
SK.US overall didn’t have such an easy ride though as not only they lost one game against the local team of „From Quitters to winners“ but also were down 0-2 against Loaded.WoW while playing Shadowcomp (ShadowPriest/AfflictionWarlock/Shaman). With a score of 0-3 or 1-3 the team would’ve not made it into the top 4 which also means missing out on a safe qualifying spot for the World Finals at Cebit in Hannover. They decided to go back to their bread and butter comp RLS and managed to win two more games placing them on top of the group.
The other team that managed to qualify for the final four in Group A was as expected Check6 by winning against both Loaded and „From quitters to winners.“ Loaded did fairly well for their first offline appearance and almost qualified for the World finals.
Group B only had three teams and one of them was our very own team . With two out of three teams qualifying for the World Finals in this group the challenged sounded easy on paper. Unfortunately the RMP wasn’t able to attend with their Priest Sodah and so Vrty had to step in. What else to say than shit hit the fan and they lost both games 0-3 to Evil Geniuses and Fnatic. RMP is a very training intensive line up and you it’s almost impossible to create synergy with little practice before the tournament.
The group had been delayed because EG Tenderloin’s plane had to emergency land which resulted in the following problem. As both Evil Geniuses and Fnatic were up 1-0 the face off between those should determine who’s going to face the team of Check6 which placed 2nd in their group. Both teams weren’t too excited about meeting them up to a point that EG wanted to forfeit so they wouldn’t have to face Check6 in the first round of the double elimination bracket. ESL admins decided that who ever wins the match of these two teams can choose who they are going to play against and Fnatic took the series 3-0.
In the first match of the double elim. SK.US managed to beat Fnatic in a mirror match, a result that not many predicted. Fnatic has been the epitome of a skilled RLS for some time now and for a team that many people called washed up has beens to beat this monster of an RLS is indeed quite impressive.
The first match being broadcasted from Edmonton, EG was correct in their prediction that they would have a hard time against the Beast Cleave of Check6. The matches weren’t too one-sided though and at least once a game one member of Check6 went quite low and it could’ve gone either way. EG lost the series 3-1 and will have to face off Fnatic in the loser bracket finals today.
SK.US already proved that they can beat Check6 and one can only hope that Check6 talked it over and can improve their play against SK.US to make it an exciting upper bracket final. This tournament should better have an intense final stage as it’s already undeniably a disaster.