The tour is coming into the most interesting part, as the first team reached semifinals - no other than legendary Russian Say Plz.



CotA Quarterfinal
ieS Gaming (ieS)<sP[Palit]Kow3 (sP)
KuroKy (top) PGG (top)
Manu (top) LighT (mid)
arya (mid) HoroN (mid)
Jack (mid) pUB (bot)
meetya (bot) IRE (bot)
The element of surprise is what makes a gank affordable, and there exist nothing more surprising than using a new hero in current competitive play. Some heroes have struggled to get their position, like Nerubian Assassin and Faceless Void, other might just storm in. sP caught ieS off guard successfully using Puck in the lineup.

ieS got ou tpicked. The best way to counter Puck is to silence him, and once LighT got the Silencer, it was almost certain that Sand King will have trouble getting his ultimate running, as well as Puck will be able to unleash his full potential.

Both teams formed good lanes, Puck and Queen soloing top and bot respectively, facing stuns with chain spells. In middle lane Warlock was babysitting Silencer against a double stun of Leshrac and Chaos Knight.

First blood top, Puck was retreating with orb after an initiating stun, but got nailed by flawless Razes. Shortly after that Sven and Warlock started to roam, gaining for sP map control, lane control mid and kill advantage. PGG with the help of IRE scored a quick double kill top which secured him lane control he was fighting for and since then he was farming much faster than meetya with QoP. One should also notice that Faerie Dragon can hold his lane in the Magnus style - last hitting and harassing from safe distance with his AoE Illusionary Orb, but a hero that comes closer to initiate will have a damaging silence waiting for him. It was a downhill since then, sP playing what they are best known of, nailing Sentinel heroes and pushing heavy which ended in a 19 minute forfeit from ieS.

One might think after this game that Puck is imbalanced, but if you swap QoP and Faerie Dragon in this game, the outcome would be pretty much the same - meetya was facing the immense danger of being instantly killed by Sven + Lina combo, while PGG had Silencer on his side and not as dangerous lane to face, mainly because of only one stun.

Good luck to both teams in their oncoming matches!

Links
GosuGamers - brackets
GosuGamers - replay