The third day of The Summit 3 picked up pace with a back and forth exciting base race, the first three game series of the event, the first eliminations, the highly anticipated EternaLEnVy bathtub interview, Beyond the Summit’s response to the sellout commercial Reddit backlash, and incredible casting from Team Secret.
Rave gave Evil Geniuses a run for their money, Invictus Gaming send Not Today home without any LAN wins this year, Cloud 9 forced a deciding game three and two Chinese teams clashed for survival. At the end of the day, Rave, Not Today, Cloud 9 and IG were eliminated, while LGD and EG would advance to the playoffs.
Team Rave vs. Evil Geniuses
The first series of the day would eliminate one team from the tournament and redeem the other team’s loss from the previous day.
First Blood would go the way of Evil Geniuses, however, Djardel “chrissy” Jicko b. Mampustis’s Io would prove to be troublesome for Syed Sumail “Suma1L” Hassan and Michael “ninjaboogie” Ross’ Viper was able to enjoy uncontested farm, giving Rave the top two spots in net-worth, on Viper and Tiny. A 4-0 trade off in favor of EG in a huge fight on bottom lane pushed EG’s Magnus and Clinkz to top the net-worth charts and swing the game in their favor. The Philippine team had much difficulty regaining their position after that, as they lost big fights and map control, and fell victims to unfavorable trades. In just under 30 minutes, the game was a disappointing finish for Rave after their positive start.
The second game also began in Rave’s favor, with a 4-0 lead. A 3-0 trade in the favor of EG kept the North Americans in contention early game. The remainder of the game would be a back and forth battle of team wipes and largely one sided trades for both teams, resulting in thrilling base race and non stop action. The game lasted a staggering (for The Summit 3 standards) 57 minutes minutes before EG was able to claim the victory and eliminated Rave from the tournament.
Invictus Gaming vs. Not Today
IG would assume the lead in early game with their physical damage draft and, despite a fairly even kill ratio, the Peruvians were down by 7.5k gold. IG was able to farm their Mekansm quickly and push towers easily. By 17 minutes into the game, The Chinese were already approaching base and were continuing to dominate. Not Today called “GG” by minute 22.
Early game was full of skirmishes slightly in favor of IG, until Zhilei Xu “burning” was able to purchase his blink dagger on Brewmaster, making it much easier for him to position himself in fights and gain advantage. With almost a 8k gold lead, IG continued to push towards Not Today‘s base, focusing on the middle lane barracks. After 29 minutes, armed with an Aegis, IG took down bottom and then top barracks and “GG” was called. Not Today was the second team to be eliminated from the tournament, making this their second North American LAN appearance in 2015 without any victories.
Evil Geniuses vs. Cloud 9
Evil Geniuses and Cloud 9 provided us with the first match of the tournament that pushed to a deciding third game. Evil Geniuses fell to Cloud 9 the day before, 2:0, and the NA giants were determined to not let that happen again. This time, EG dominated the first and the third game, while Cloud 9 pushed the second game to a victory in their favor.
In the first game, Kurtis “Aui_2000” Ling farmed enough in the jungle to purchase a twelve minute Aghanim’s Scepter, the fastest Scepter purchase for Keeper of the Light being over 16 minutes previously. With the use of the Scepter, the heal and damage from the Illuminate was too much for Cloud 9. EG had a very calculated play, avoiding fights until they had enough healing and mana replenishment, and then slowly took fights, towers and barracks. Game was finished for Cloud 9 in just under 30 minutes.
With the second game’s first nightfall, Cloud 9 had secured three successful kills for Nightstalker and appeared to be taking the lead. However, at the following daybreak, EG were able to secure themselves a few good kills to even out things and gain control of the map and net-worth. After a successful sneak attempt on Roshan by Armand “bOne7″ Pittner, with Treants and Necronomicon units, Cloud 9 was able to gain advantage once again. While C9 was pushing towards base slowly and steadily, they were losing fights and it took them nearly 44 minutes to attempt high grounds. Armed with an Aegis on Gyrocopter, C9 were able to finally start taking down the bottom barracks. EG called “GG” after 54 minutes.
For the third game, bOne7 was sent to the offlane with Zeus and died twice in the first three minutes. Evil Geniuses were able to capitalize on a strategy that seemed to be quickly falling apart for Cloud 9 and by the six-minute mark, the kills were 6-1 in favor of EG and then 15-5, by ten minutes. The game was heavily favoring EG. Cloud 9 continued to be persistent but after a Roshan and another three minutes of pushing and fighting, the EU team was forced to call the “GG” and end their run in the tournament.
Invictus Gaming vs. LGD
The clash between the Chinese teams would send one of them home and the other one into the playoffs to face ViCi Gaming.
Game 1 ended quickly for IG, with LGD setting the aggressive tone from the start. LGD got first blood, tried a gank midlane and then rotated top lane for a kill. With an early Mekansm and the Netherward on Pugna, IG had a difficult time making kills and engaging, giving LGD ease to take down towers. The game was over before the 20-minute mark and IG were one game away from being eliminated.
Once again, LGD took first blood and aggressively killed Clinkz twice on the bottom lane. By 12 minutes into the game, LGD was leading in kills, 8-2. Despite the deficit, IG was determined to prolong the game and aggressively tried to find or create openings. After a few pick offs, IG seemed to be able to possibly comeback into the game. By 50 minutes, the experience worth was fairly even and the net-worth was starting to also even out. However, after another Aegis and a four-man wipe in favor of LGD, the game was over for IG and they were eliminated from the tournament.
The Summit Day 4 schedule
Both ViCi Gaming and Team Secret will be starting the day undefeated.
- 18:30-21:00: VG vs. LGD
- 21:00-23:30: Secret vs. EG
- 00:00-02:30: Playoffs Lower Bracket round one
- 02:30-05:00: Playoffs Upper Bracket finals
The Summit 3 bathtub interview
Keeping with The Summit traditions, this year’s infamous “Bathtub interview” featured Cloud 9’s captain Jacky “EternalEnvy” Mao:
Reddit community points fingers at Beyond the Summit
In response to vocal backlash from fans on Reddit and social media about Beyond The Summit’s extensive “selling out” and overuse of advertisements and sponsorship, the Beyond the Summit team released a video.
The Summit 3 coverage
Full coverage and broadcast: Beyond the Summit
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