TNC Predator is one of the greatest favourites at the season’s first major title, and so far it’s all been up to viewers.
Starting out in Group A, the Southeast Asian powerhouse team, together with EHOME, Fighting PandaS and Team Unknown, likely played with a simpler game to get to the final. Its group stage started with Team Unknown, the underdogs in the tournament, who could only kill seven people in the whole Best of Three series. In Game One a Magnus–Phantom Assassin combo was completely erased, while in Spiel Two a similar demoralising loss was suffered, but from the Night Trio Nucleus–Magnus-Ember Spirit. The game lasted 40 minutes, in particular, Game Two was painful to watch as TNC took a 17-minute lead in the group A winning series.
In the other Group A opening match, EHOMA succeeded in taking down Mao’s Fighting PandaS Jacky “EternaLEnVy” who seemed a little too eager to make unorthodox choices for the new meta. After playing a Chinese team, Fighting PandaS attempted in Game 2 to take over EHOME by a safe Death Prophet and a mid-line Huskar, which was the last to be selected in the draught but couldn’t switch.
Game three included Visage aid and a Shadow Fiend in the centre, which could both remain alive despite EHOME’s many controls and overall fast speed, which the Bloodseker carrier enforced. Game three included , Ehome hit a wall in the winning game, given its good performance against the NA team, where TNC pull them out of the box and played them very convincingly. Game one lasted for a little over an hour, thank you to the Invoker-Drow Ranger combination from EHOME, who could delay the move on the high ground of TNC. But in game two, the team ran through a combo against Morphling–Earthshaker, one of the most annoying and powerful.
With the 4-0 record on the first day of the group stage game, TNC Predator has now secured the high bracket playoff start, while EHOME will be back on their computers tomorrow, 17 November, for a shoot in the second seed in group A as well.
