First two teams advance to the second stage of Global Summer Championship

The first match of the day got fans and players alike fired up with an intense series Renovatio and Negative Synergy.
Game one brought a surprising draft on Infernal Shrines with both teams letting Tassadar go through the entire draft not being picked or banned. Renovatio’s biggest weakness in this first game was their teamfight positioning, using Void Prism regularly to disengage. By level 17 Negative Synergy’s defense was top knotch, team wiping Ren and taking the game without losing one keep.

While Renovatio had bad positioning in game one, Negative Synergy had bad rotationing in game two. NS ignored Sylvanas top lane most of the game, allowing her to practically get to the core early on. Falstad’s rotation timing was essentially too little too late, choosing to defend that top lane, while the rest of the team was struggling during team fights. After Sylvanas gaining so much experience for the team, the edge snowballed into Renovatio’s favor, granting them the second win and tieing the match up.

Game three was one of the closest matches, probably of the day. Another questionable draft as Renovatio picks Valla last over Kael’Thas and yet again, no pick or bans on Tassadar. Although NS achieved the curse at level 17, they overextend attempting a 3 v. 4 and with long death timers and Renovatio closer to 20, NS wasn’t able to capitalize on their curse. NS attempts a trap which fails and causes them to lose experience, allowing Ren to push to level 20 instead. While the team fights were a complete back and forth, Renovatio was able to come out on top.

Despite the epic 323 towards the end of the game, MVP Black took game one over X-Team in dominating fashion.
Game two was a little bit more even, especially with leveling. X-Team was able to benefit much more from team fights but in the end MVP Black snowballed a bit quicker and took the win in the series.

MVP Black now advances to the second group stage. Sake stated in the post-game interview yesterday that the team was at about 30%. Today he claims they’re now at 35%, and they feel the only teams that can give them a challenge for the rest of the tournament are estar, Tempest and Dignitas.

The final match of the day was the decision making series between X-Team and Renovatio. Winner advances alongside MVP Black, loser goes home.

X-Team took game one despite an interesting Greymane/Tycus combo on the side of Renovatio. In game two, X-Team picked Sylvanas off of Renovatio, realizing the damage vyy has done with her in the past. This was another close game of the day as Ren was able to push bottom lane with boss on Sky Temple despite having a completely open core. As top temple spawns and bruisers pushing in on X-Team, Ren makes a tricky decision and attempts to backdoor with Falstad, Kharazim and Greymane. The attempt gets the core down to a meesly 38%. Along with their two teammates being down, causes a full team wipe, which allows X-Team to not only finish the open temple, but take the win.

X-Team now advances to the second stage alongside MVP Black. Group B continues Wednesday at 4:30AM PT. After Group B play is complete we'll find out what groups the advancing teams with join going into the second stage.

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