The Westerners' crusade on Chinese soil getting closer to a success as the Tempo Storm quartet made it out of the group stage in the Chinese team league NEL. Match with ViCi Gaming incoming.
As the Tempo Storm core team of Petar "Gaara" Stevanovic, George "Hyped" Maganzini and Andrey "Reynad" Yanyuk, paired with Complexity's David "Dog" Caero as guest member, headed to China to compete in the NEL team league, they had only one goal in mind - win it all. After a clutch qualification from the group stage, the foreigners are now two wins away from the championship.
The Tempo Storm debut was a brutal dismantling of Group A's last place finishers Big3 and a 3-0 victory raised the morals of Reynad's command. Shortly thereafter, however, they ran into a bigger wall, the undefeated Kapai Cabbages. Even though Reynad managed to sneak out a win for himself, Hyped's and Dog's losses to Starry and Bridge, respectively, ensured the defeat of Tempo Storm that day.
The loss was only a minor setback, however. Friday evening brought another 3-0 victory as T/S crushed through Newbee, home of up-and-coming players like Golden Series grand finalist Lovelychook. Two days later, the westerners entered their final match against reigning champions Yolo Miracle, knowing that they need to win at least one of the Bo5. Their better tie-breaker score would do the rest.
It came down to Dog to save his T/S friends and carry the coalition into the playoffs as Complexity's ace 3-1's Fuoliver in the second series. Even though both Reynad and Gaara were unsuccessful in their matches, their team was already in the top four and the Autumn champions of Yolo Miracle were out.
Tempo Storm will now have to face against ViCi Gaming in the playoffs who took the top spot in Group B over Valiant Knighthood, World Elite, Edward Gaming and Zhanqi. Although their record is not nearly as impressive as Kapai's 4-0, ViCi employ one of the best scorers in the league, Pegy with 75% in NEL matches currently. XiaoTian and XiaoGZ are two other players that Tempo Storm should be looking out for.
A total of $29,000 are on the line for this season of NEL and if Tempo Storm manage to get away with the trophy, they'll bank almost $13,000.
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