IEM Katowice- Day 2 & 3

Gambit Gaming is back!

 Coming off of a thrilling first day, IEM Katowice had much even more exciting games lined up in day 2 and 3. Stream technical issues and time zone issues aside, let's get to the non-boring stuff.

 

Day 2

Day 2 of the IEM was just about group B of round robin, and this group had three strong names and a Polish team that had a strong show of support. The powerhouse from Korea, Azubu Frost, went 3-0 blowing the competition out of the water. The two well known teams from Europe: Fnatic and SK Gaming, ended up going 2-1 and 1-2 (respectively) with there deciding game being the closest match-up in the tournament. The Polish team Absolute Legend went 0-3, but they still got a lot of love from the crowd.

After both going 1-1 Fnatic and SK Gaming faced off in the second to last game of the day. In a 55 minutes match it was ultimate decided by a nexus rush, with xPeke from Fnatic outplaying two others at the enemy nexus in order to win the game. Using Kassadin's ultimate in order to dodge a barrage of skills from a Cho'gath and an Olaf, he took down the nexus in an amazing show of talent. Being one of the most emotional of all Pro-LoL players this has to hurt Ocelot, team captain of SK, especially since this isn't the first time a base rush has defeated them (CLG in Season 2 playoffs). A video of the Fnatic vs Sk play can be found here. This jaw-dropping play was the reason xPeke was aptly awarded the MVP for IEM Katowice.

At the end of the day Azubu Frost and Fnatic were the top two from group b and went on to the champion bracket.

Day 3 - Finals

There were only 3 match-ups left, and all of them were best of three, yet only 7 games were needed to decide the winner. The first two match ups were with Azubu Blaze facing off against Fnatic and Azubu Frost going against Gambit Gaming. The Koreans had a strong showing, and after losing to their sister team during day 2 Fnatic lost 2-1 against Azubu Blaze, sending them to the finals. On the other hand, Azubu Frost started the tournament going 3-0 during round robin, but lost in only 2 matches against Gambit Gaming. After barely squeaking into the final round, Gambit Gaming showed why they were a powerhouse in season 2  and won their final match 2-0 against Azubu Blaze.


Gambit Gaming gave their fans everything they needed after being through so much. The newly branded M5 team from Russia found their footing in this tournament; starting off weak and building up momentum.  This allowed them to keep their record of never losing an IEM tournament. Unfortunately this didn't go without a hitch, after winning the final match diamondprox (jungler for Gambit Gaming) made a heat of the moment gesture. He later apologized and stated,

"I consider them as a very strong team. I was really happy about getting a win over them. All of my gestures were not ill mannered, but simply emotions. I was really excited to beat such a strong team more than at any time in my life. Thank you everybody."(sic)

The grammar may seem a little off since it was translated from Russian. Congrats to Gambit for giving such a strong show in their first tournament back and to xPeke for winning MVP.