StarSeries day one complete; NRG survive swim with sharks
StarSeries i-League Season 6 kicked off in Kiev, Ukraine today with NRG managing to pull out a victory against Vega Squadron, while Renegades and their new lineup were put down by the Chinese CyberZen.
Renegades had the honor of completing the first map of the event against CyberZen and a game that would not go the oceanic team's way. CyberZen decided on playing Inferno over Dust 2 with the final veto pick, a map they have yet to lose on at a LAN event.
The map started close with both teams exchanging blows until CyberZen were up 7-6, just before halftime. Thanks to a 1v2 clutch from Sean "Gratisfaction" Kaiwai, Renegades were able to string the next round for the lead before switching to the CT side.
The second half began with CyberZen taking a sizeable lead from their T side going up 13-9. Luckily the Aussies were able to mount their comeback tying it 13-13 from a strong retake of the B bombsite where Gratisfaction made his presence felt again with a quick 3k to clean up the site. Unfortunately their luck ran out in the final three rounds with the Chinamen scrapping them together 16-13.
NRG showed a slight return form with Ethan "nahtE" Arnold and Vincent "brehze" Cayonte showing off their vintage dynamic duo performance against Vega.
Once again Inferno was featured with another close game. Despite not winning the pistol round and not having the lead going into the second half, NRG were able to stay afloat with seven rounds thanks to nahtE's ability to hold B on the defensive side of the map.
Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov was able to pull it together for NRG on the T side taking the pistol round with a 3k with only 12hp remaining. The economic advantage was short lived as the back and forth battle sent the two teams into overtime.
nahtE and CeRq continued to shine in extra rounds as it was the former who pushed the game to map point with a 3k hold on B, and it was the latter who sniped four to take the map win 19-17.
The second last match of the day saw Gambit versus Major quarterfinalists compLexity in a bout on fan favorite Dust 2 where the teams hit the 30-round mark ending with a 16-14 victory in favor of the Kazakh-Russian squad.
The first half was a battle of streaks with Gambit taking first blood off a strong pistol round, leading to another four rounds. compLexity quickly bounced back and took seven of their own on the CT side, ending with a back and forth for a close 8-7 half.
Gambit mimicked their first half by taking the pistol round on their CT side as well, gaining an 11-8 lead before Bradley "ANDROID" Fodor was able to secure a quad kill to get them on the board in the second half. The attempt was for naught as Gambit were able to pull enough rounds to end the game in regulation.
The matchups for tomorrow will look as such:
0-1 | |||
OpTic | vs. | BIG | 4:00AM EDT |
compLexity | vs. | Renegades | 5:30AM EDT |
Sprout | vs. | Vega | 7:00AM EDT |
HellRaisers | vs. | TyLoo | 8:30AM EDT |
1-0 | |||
ENCE | vs. | Imperial | 10:00AM EDT |
CyberZen | vs. | mousesports | 11:30AM EDT |
Fragsters | vs. | Gambit | 1:00PM EDT |
North | vs. | NRG | 2:30PM EDT |