DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major group stage has come to a close with a few surprises being delivered along the road. Perhaps the most interesting story about to be written is Na’Vi’s upper bracket spot, secured after a nearly perfect groups stage.
Na’Vi haven’t been to a major since DreamLeague Season 11. They made a few roster changes post TI9, but it took them some time to find the chemistry. In the previous Major qualifiers, they got eliminated in the group stage without a chance to fight for a comeback through Minor games. But now they bounced back with a vengeance and took Group D at the Leipzig Major by storm, convincingly defeating Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid to claim the top seed. Their first game against Liquid was a spotless coordination between Naga Siren, Enigma and Puck, while game two was a perfect execution of the Lifestealer-Puck combo. The series concluded rather quickly, in less than an hour, sending Liquid to a decider match versus EG.
Team Liquid got outdrafted once again, losing game one to what’s becoming the stample combo of this Major, Naga Siren-Disruptor. However, they bounced back in game two with a fast paced tempo imposed by Max “qojqva” Bröcker on Lone Druid. EG were defending high ground only 15 minutes into the game, but to no avail. Heading into the game three they put Abed Yusop on Templar Assassin and Artour “Arteezy” Babaev on Slark in order to match Liquid’s tempo and were able to secure the victory and a slot into the upper bracket.
In Group C, Alliance and Invictus Gaming fought for the top spot and delivered one of the most intense games of the group play, by pushing each other to the limit in a 75 minute battle. Game one finished 47 to 47 in the kills department, but with iG holding a 50K net worth advantage they also claimed the victory point.
Game two was also action packed, both teams trading kills and swapping the gold advantage for the first 30 minutes. iG had Zhou “Emo” Yi on Arc Warden, who made the difference and was able to close the series before reaching the super late stage once again.
Down, but not out, Alliance bounced back in the decider series, where they took down 2-0 Reality Rift to book themselves a dream El Clasico opening series in the playoffs against Na’Vi. Unfortunately for the CIS fans, Natus Vincere is their only representative in the upper bracket. Virtus.pro are pitted in the best-of-one lower bracket first round versus Team Liquid after they finished last in Group C without a single victory to their name.
DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major will resume Tuesday, January 21 at 12:30 CET with the first two quarterfinals. On the second part of the day, four teams will wave goodbye to their Major dream, as all lower bracket first match-ups will be played.
Source: Read Full Article