The Lower Bracket Semi Finals were the last stop for two out of the four teams competing in StarSeries Season XII, as the losing teams of each will be eliminated from the tournament. Cloud 9 bested The Alliance 2-0 while Team Tinker needed all three games to secure their continued play in the tournament and eliminate Team Malaysia.
Cloud 9 vs The Alliance
Game 1
Alliance drafted Troll Warlord but Cloud 9 went for an unconventional lineup with the pushing power of Chen, Omniknight to counter Troll and aggression from Sniper and Bristleback. The game had a slow and quiet start in kills, with it being ten minutes before there were two kills. By minute 22 Alliance had lost almost all of their tier two towers from the strength of the pushing lineup from Cloud 9. Per Anders “Pajkatt” Olsson Troll Warlord attempted to split push but with little success as by 26 minutes Cloud 9 had entered their base. Despite the early pushing success and base attempt, the game continued to progress for almost another 40 minutes. Thanks to a fantastic swap from Joakim “Akke” Akterhall Vengeful Spirit and a four man wipe Alliance had an opportunity to push and farm. Another four man wipe by Alliance, forcing buy backs on Cloud 9, gave the Swedish team even more chances to stand strong and try to take control of the game, eventually breaking into C9’s base. At minute 56, a bad team fight for Alliance and mega creeps for Cloud 9 would have seemed to be the end of the game, but the teams continued to extend it out until 63 minutes before finally ending. Cloud 9 grabbed their first win of the series, hoping to stay in the tournament.
Game 2
A surprising old meta tri-lane made an appearance by Alliance with a Mirana-Bane-Dazzle combo. The tri-lane was an attempt to destroy Jacky “Eternal Envy” Mao’s Troll Warlord early farm during the laning stage. The early game went pretty well for Alliance as they picked heroes to just dominate lanes instead of being really strong team fighters. They won two side lanes, and when Axe had 25 creeps, Broodmother had only five. This was not enough to stop Broodmother’s presence as she was able to deliver a lot of pressure forcing a lot of wards and rotations by the supporters because they were losing towers. After the low creep start, Pittner “bOne7” Armand had amazing farm. Having Adrian “FATA-“ Trinks’ Zeus ulti ready and a Broodmother with dagan, no one could go to the bottom lane. EE was starting to pick up pace with his Troll and as the game was progressing Alliance did not have the right heroes for crowd control of broodlings and chen creeps. After a couple of forced team fights by Alliance, C9 won the fights and shut Alliance down slowly but surely. Following the third Roshan kill and a terrible team fight at base “GG” was called by Alliance, ending their run at StarSeries.
Cloud 9 advance to the lower bracket semi finals vs Team Tinker while Alliance has been eliminated from the tournament.
Cloud 9 Roster
Jacky “Eternal Envy” Mao
Adrian “FATA-“ Trinks
Pittner “bOne7” Armand
Johan “BigDaddy” Sundstein
Rasmus “MiSeRy” Filipsen
Team Alliance
Per Anders “Pajkatt” Olsson
Jonathan “Loda” Berg
Joakim “Akke” Akterhall
Niclas “Niqua” Westergard
Sébastien “7ckingMad” Debs
Team MY vs Team Tinker
Game 1
The first game in the series started with some very familiar hero drafts from this tournament, Morphling, Clockwerk and Queen of Pain from Team Tinker against Team MY‘s Tiny and Io combination. Tiny led in net-worth and although Dominik “Black^” Reitmeier’s Morphling and Max “qojqva” Bröcker’s Queen of Pain weren’t far behind, they were never able to make any significant impact or dent in the worth to gain advantage. MY started to lead not just in net-worth, but also in kills and towers and had the confidence and map control to keep Team Tinker at bay, failing to even take any towers by 20 minutes. With Team Malaysia clearly in the lead, a kill on morphling, taking the aeigis and a “Godlike” streak onseemed“kYxY” Lee Kang Yang secured the first game for the Malaysians. Team Tinker wasn’t ready to give up just yet though and afte Team Malaysia had a bad fight, losing four and giving qojqva a “Godlike” streak Team Tinker, there was not much that could be done to turn the game enough in their favor. After the bottom barracks fell, Team Tinker called “GG”
Game 2
Team Tinker decided to change roles as they sometimes do, giving qojqva Naga Siren to play as carry, and sent “Black^” to mid. MY has been playing aggressive or pushing line ups as of late and responded with one of their aggressive strategies, using Viper and Bristleback. Although Team MY were able to secure several early kills on the supports, they did not stop “qojqva”‘s farm, giving him a fast, 14 minute Radiance which ended up being the key item needed for Team Tinker to control the game. Team MY went pretty aggressive against Team Tinker, trying to force the game to end before Tinker would dominate with their split push potential coming out from their Sand King, Naga Siren, and Queen of Pain. “Black^”‘s Queen of Pain and Sam “BuLba” Sosale’s Nyx Assassin were able to stall off and defend from the attacks, giving Naga Siren the time needed to become unstoppable. Team Malaysia had no answer to the split push and lacked any way to gain control, giving the game to Team Tinker to even out the series.
Game 3
Team MY drafted Bristleback again, along with “kYxY” Lee Kang Yang’s Razor and “Kecik Imba” Fadil bin Mohd Raziff’s Lina. Team Tinker opted for Windrunner and Sniper, who at this point was a hero that had gone 7-0 in the tournament series. Qojqva and Black^ both were able to secure an unusually large amount of kills, giving them the opportunity to purchase unocommon items such as Eye of Skadi and Daedalus. Team Tinker was dominating the game and advancing quickly, however Team Malaysia wasn’t ready to give up on the deciding game that could end their run in the tournament. The Malaysians defended their base for at least another 20 minutes forcing Team Tinker to advance very slowly for the win. GG was at about 47 minutes, ending the game and Team MY’s presence in StarSeries.
Team Malasia have been eliminated from the tournament while Team Tinker will progress to the Lower Bracket Semi-Finals vs Cloud 9.
Team Tinker Roster
Dominik “Black^” Reitmeier
Max “qojqva” Bröcker
Sam “BuLba” Sosale
Peter “Waytosexy” Nguyen
Johan “pieliedie” Åström
Team Malaysia Roster
“kYxY” Lee Kang Yang
“Kecik Imba” Fadil bin Mohd Raziff
“Ohaiyo” Chong Xin Khoo
“JoHnNy” Siong Tait
“Mushi” Chai Yee Fung
Still more to come
Upper Bracket Finals between Invictus Gaming and ViCi Gaming at 20:00 CEST
Lower Bracket Semi Finals between Team Tinker and Cloud 9 at 20:00 CEST
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