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.

Day 1 - IEM Katowice

IEM Katowice is a three day tournament starting with two days of round robin play as teams vying for a place into the championship brackets. Day one had a lot of strong play with team Curse coming off their successful gamble to get back into Season 3 during the LCS last week. While this is Gambit Gaming's (GG) first tournament since they left M5 and were sponsored by Gambit, people were interested in seeing how this powerhouse from Season 2 would make there debut. But the real shining light in this group is Azubu Blaze, this #2 ranked Korean team has always shown strong in tournaments and they have been practicing non-stop in recent months. The lesser known Polish team, MeetYourkMakers, had quite a crowd turnout for them (due to the even being in Poland) but unfortunately did not show well against these strong teams from around the world.

At the end of the day Azubu Blaze went 3-0, while the rest of the group ended up going 1-2. The second ranked team also goes on to the championship bracket, and because of this tie the rule of shortest game play kicked into effect and Gambit Gaming was able to squeak into the next stage. The fans seems to be pretty upset that Curse didn't get to move on since they had beaten GG and thought to be a stronger team (at least by them), but Curse's captain Saint Vicious wasn't put down by this loss posting: "I feel confident if we had jacky and boot camped the days before we can take on anyone". Playing without there strong mid NyJacky, due to visa issues, definitely had an impact on there play. Overall these games were impressive but all of these teams will have more opportunities to get into the IEM World Championship over the coming months.

Part two of the round robin starts in just under two hours with SK vs Azubu Frost, and with some more big names about to play today will be another day of great League play, and I'll update you all tomorrow.