No surprises in the first round of play at the GESC: Indonesia Minor as the 4 top seeds at the tournament picked up wins in their respective groups.
The 4 teams came into the tournament were widely expected to be the top 4 and proved why after the first set of games.
Group A
EG straight up demolished Peruvian team Infamous in their first match to move onto the WB finals. Their push strat involving Drow, Chen and Visage mowed down towers from the get-go, giving the team a significant net worth advantage. Infamous did have some de-push with a DP and an Underlord but were unable to come online fast enough to prevent structural damage and they had lost 2 lanes of barracks by the 18-minute mark when they called the gg.
Artour has other things on his mind!Wish Drake played dota with me guys
— Artour Babaev (@Arteezy) March 15, 2018
Na’vi too picked up a win in their first match against the home side, RRQ with General’s Tidehunter leading the charge. RRQ tried some stuff with their draft with a support Dark Willow pick but they were heavily outmatched by the raw skill of Na’vi. By the time their QoP had an Orchid, Dendi and Crystallize both had BKB’s while General was a rocking a Guardian Greaves. The Na’vi offlaner spent much of the game taunting and baiting the RRQ line up and was too beefy to deal with for the most part. The team fight coming out of Na’vi involved a Tide, Undying and SF, and RRQ were simply not farmed enough to deal with them eventually losing all 3 sets of barracks and calling the gg.
Group B
In Group B, the favourites, VG.J took down the Swedes, Final Tribe to move onto the WB finals. Their early pressure on the Terrorblade may have exposed their other lanes but was enough to win them the game as the TB never really came online. The 2 supports and the Weaver made space for Freeze’s Tinker to catch up and systematically took down their opponents in the 40-minute encounter.
Fnatic too, started off their campaign on a strong note, bringing down Digital Chaos in a one-sided game. Abed’s mid PL finished the game without a death and was uncontested for the most part. With Universe’s Sand King setting up team fights and the PL and LD following up with the damage, DC looked oddly out of place. Envy, as usual, showed his innovation with a Helm, Vlads, Hood build on his LD followed up by an AC on the bear which allowed Fnatic to break DC’s base and force out the gg.
The WB finals matches for both the groups will take place later today and will be bo3’s. In Group A, Na’vi and EG will face off while Fnatic and VG.J square off in Group B. Stay tuned for more updates!