Written by: Drexxin

In an astonishing showing for the grand finale of this long and nearly 5 month long tournament, Invictus Gaming reigned supreme over the once king of China, World Elite. To add onto the great achievement that Invictus Gaming has done to win this tournament, they came up from a one loss deficit due to climbing through the Loser's Bracket. In actuality, only one game was taken off of Invictus Gaming as they crushed World Elite for their first place accomplishment.

Invictus Gaming has come a long way and has shown that it is more than capable of an organization in LoL as well as in the Dota world. World Elite, on the other hand, may not be slumping so much as other teams becoming significantly stronger. They still put up a solid fight, but will have to live with second place. The final standings of the tournament can be found below the match reports.

SWL Coverage Hub Check link for brackets, and tournament format

Upper Bracket

Click on image for full BO5 draft breakdown

 Today's matches

World Elite vs Invictus Gaming Note the match drafts will be labeled "Game 2 - Game 5 due to World Elite's initial "bye".   Game 1     The grand finale kicks off with both teams playing defensively, no one wishing to throw an early lead, and keeping it conservative. The first bouts of aggression commence with Pdd abusing the lane bullying power of Renekton to cause Caomei to blow a few of his potions straight away. Despite the deficit, Caomei managed to fight back quite well.   Meanwhile on the opposite end of the map, however, iG takes the first turret of the game. Invictus Gaming really shows their confident aggressive play by pulling off a 3-man first blood top while still managing to poke the middle tower of World Elite's down to a third prior. After Caomei dies top, iG waste no time and take the top turret, pulling out all of the stops for map dominance. Though World Elite humors themselves by surpassing iG in the kill count, IG pulls off some sick micro, managing to catch up themselves while also having the advantage of downing all outer turrets. While World Elite tries to grasp some kind of advantage, they fall short, unable to make many impacts with a 6k gold deficit.   Even with some engagements in their own favor, A huge Malphite would prevent them from doing much damage and Pdd being over 100 farm ahead of Caomei wasn't helping the case. Even after two brave baron steals by World Elite, it wasn't enough to hold off Invictus Gaming's victory in Game 1.   >> Watch the VOD   Game 2  ]   Things look sour for World Elite once again on the premise of game 2. ZZitai shows his calculative genius bottom and all-ins at level 2 for a kill on Misaya's Orianna and due to a two potion start for ClearLove, he fails to take blue buff even with smite. The pressure would continue to be applied to Misaya, losing his tower but baiting many overaggressive plays on the side of invictus Gaming, utilizing Shen ult and the speed of Evelynn to punish that play.   Utilizing the global power of Shen causes further terror to the Invictus Gaming squad as yet another dive is denied on Weixiao -- many flashes and ultimates follow allowing World Elite to take a 4-1 kill lead, but still at a 3 tower deficit leaving the gold relatively even with the map control in favor of Invictus Gaming. However, World Elite had another plan in mind. Not having much luck with the side turrets, World Elite decided to pursue a straight drive down the center and managed to take down the inhibitor turret, taking minimal losses considering the advantage Invictus Gaming had prior.   Doing this allowed them to split push freely and they managed to catch up in turrets. Once Weixiao completed his Blade of the Ruined King and Infinity Edge, he became the absolute monster that echoes across all regions, grabbing 10 kills and 1 death and bringing the team to 2-1.   >> Watch the VOD   Game 3    By some miracle, Misaya was able to grab his Trademarked Twisted Fate this game, a very risky move by Inivictus Gaming in a potential game point for them. Invictus Gaming's bottom lane shows strong play by forcing Weixiao out of lane and forcing him to blow a summoner's heal until World Elite used extremely clever tactics. Weixiao ran up, flashed over the wall into river, and secured a first blood onto XiaoXiao. However, Kid remained very far ahead in farm. Although one would consider Misaya easily taking the spotlight in this scenario, it instead Weixiao once again with his Tristana making place with the assistance of Fzzf and ClearLove.   A second kills is picked up by the late-scaling Tristana as she once again opted to go for the fast BotrK rush. Meanwhile, Misaya actually stays behind the farm of ZzItai's Karthus, with 3 destiny's failing to grasp any firm advantage for the other lanes. The usual trend of being behind in kills but maintaining equal gold scores continues to enuse in this game as the game progresses into the middle phase. However, for the first game in the series, World Elite manages to pick up the first turret of the game up in the top lane.   The terrifying global power of World Elite ensues with an intense dive going down bottom which leads into several turret kills -- a more than decent trade with Caomei dying to Pdd. Though World Elite was able to swing things in their favor temporarily, it wouldn't last long and even the Twisted Fate of Misaya was not enough to take the gamea way from Invictus Gaming. This game would be his, allegedly, first competitive loss.   >> Watch the VOD   Game 4    The final game of this nearly 5 month long tournament kicks off to an action packed beginning with both teams' junglers acquiring an early lead through kills on their solo laners. Caomei finds himself in a sticky situation as opposed to his opponent Pdd, who ends up much further ahead. To add insult to injury, 4 members of Invictus Gaming dive Caomei on tower, applying a double kill and baiting a Shen ultimate. They take the advantage a step further by giving up a free dragon. Though World Elite did manage to secure a few kills of their own, they lose yet another turret in the middle, continuing their downfall of losing map pressure going into the early-middle game.   However, the tides would change once World Elite handily took control of the baron area and managed to secure it, trading it for a tier 2 tower in the middle lane. Even with this tremendous boost in power, Invictus Gaming was slightly ahead in gold and their top laner left Caomei in the dust. Even 36 minutes in, the conclusion to this rivalry was still left unsettled with the gold difference being dead even. A successful shadow dash puts the kills heavily in the favor of World Elite, blindly capturing Invictus Gaming's bottom lane and opening the doors for a baron. With the baron and strong frontline at the disposal of World Elite, they swiftly pushed down mid, took an inhibitor despite an excellent Sona/Malphite initiation from iG, and pulled out safely.   World Elite looks to conclude the series once and for all by abusing their rich Shen, however, it leaves a wide open door for a pincer attack with Malphite teleporting to a nearby ward and devestating Weixiao and Fzzf. Fzzf later departs in the aftermath of the teamfight attempting to split push an inhibitor in the bottom lane, but fails to do so with the "support wars" going on against Sona. Meanwhile, with 3 down and one in the wrong part of the map, Invictus Gaming rush down middle, ripping World Elite's nexus turrets to shreds tower by tower, and narrowly manages to secure a 3-2 victory in a fantastic series!   >> Watch the VOD  

Final standings

GIGABYTE SWL PRIZE DISTRIBUTIONPlacementTeamPrize1st place Invictus Gaming

$24,090

2nd place World Elite$4,8203rd place NaJin Sword$1,610