Group B – Alliance, Team Spirit, Vici Gaming, Fnatic
Friday, February 26
GSL Match #1 – Alliance vs. Team Spirit
Alliance entered the Shanghai Major as another strong pick for the potentially winning the tournament (depending who you ask). The team had won TI3 in 2013 in one of the most spectacular Dota matches in history against a Na’Vi team that was very much still in their prime, but had not enjoyed the same level of success, with the popular consensus being that they struggled after many of their signature heroes found themselves on the receiving end of the Icefrog nerf bat. However, after Team Secret 2.0 disbanded following TI5, renowned mid-player s4 returned to his old comrades on Alliance, and was quickly joined by fellow TI3 veteran EGM. This brought back Alliance’s TI3 winning line-up in its entirety, causing Alliance fans to come out of the shadows to a chorus of “Alliance is b[A]ck!” And back they are, having taken first place at WCA in a 3-2 series against LGD Gaming (despite s4 appearing to have caught the Bubonic Plague) and securing another first place at Star Ladder with a 2-0 sweep of fellow TI winners Evil Geniuses (also Arteezy).
Team Spirit is fairly new to the scene, having picked up the former CIS Rejects lineup, which boasts 16-year-old phenom RAMZES666, veteran CIS player and team captain Goblak and Team Empire veteran ALWAYSWANNAFLY. Although the team has not been able to secure any major tournament wins in the short period of time since its formation, they had to battle through the European Shanghai Qualifiers in order to secure their invite, facing off against opponents like Vega Squadron, Na’Vi, Team Empire and Team Liquid – all of which make the region the most difficult to qualify for in many people’s opinion.
Setting up for the first match of the series, Team Spirit did well drafting, managing to ban out several signature Alliance heroes and picking up a strong teamfighting lineup that included the high pick/ban rate Earth Spirit. Strong rotations from the Alliance supports helped Alliance retain firm control of the map and snowball into a runaway lead. Game 2 remained a bit more of an even contest between the two teams, but once again solid movements from the Alliance 4 and 5 positions helped set the team up for a final high ground push that would secure them the 2-0 series victory.
WINNER: Alliance, 2-0
GSL Match #2 – Vici Gaming vs. Fnatic
While the Europeans were battling it out, Black^ was probably watching two of his former teams fight for supremacy in the Vici Gaming vs. Fnatic series. Vici Gaming has been another historically strong Chinese team, sporting a roster packed with some of the region’s most notable players. Despite the formidable team composition, Vici Gaming has not achieved the level of success that some would have expected after their 4th place finish at the International. Despite this, Vici and Alliance were the strong choices for receiving the upper bracket qualifying spots heading into the Group Stage.
Fnatic is another roster of incredible talent, although their results lately have been far below their players’ cumulative skill. Mushi in particular has been criticized for not living up to the towering reputation that has surrounded him for years, harkening back to his incredible 1v1 mid victory over Dendi. However, Fnatic has been more stable since bringing MidOne onboard and SEA fan hopes were high that the team would walk away with their first significant victory in some time.
In game 1 Fnatic managed to secure a push-heavy lineup that consisted of patch favorites Chen and Lone Druid that Vici Gaming had too much trouble dealing with. Although Vici was eventually able to regain their competitive footing in the match, the constant micro-unit pushing proved too much for them and game 1 went to Fnatic. Vici was able to counter the same Lone Druid-Chen combination in the second game by securing enough space for VG.BurNing to get scary farmed on Morphling and carry his team a victory that tied the series at 1-1. However, the Vici celebration would be short lived, as Fnatic simply steamrolled them in the final game of the series, allowing Vici to get only 3 kills in the short, almost 22 minute match.
WINNER: Fnatic, 2-1
Losers Match – Team Spirit vs. Vici Gaming
Unfortunately for Vici Gaming, their luck (or performance) would not be reversed in the Losers Match against Team Spirit, where once again Vici Gaming was limited to a low kill count and little map impact. Spirit.ALWAYSWANNAFLY delivered spectacular performances across the series on Io, negating the impact that VG.BurNing’s Morphling and VG.Super’s signature Alchemist were able to have in games 1 and 2, respectively. In the end, the relative newcomers on Team Spirit took the series from the more veteran Vici Gaming members in a quick 2-0 series sweep.
WINNER: Team Spirit, 2-0
Qualification Match #1 – Alliance vs. Fnatic
Having already tasted blood in their series against Vici Gaming, underdog Fnatic was looking at an upper bracket slot with hopeful eyes. However, before that could happen, they would need to face off against the fearsome veterans on Alliance. In the first game, Alliance was able to draft a fearsome combination of pushing and global team fight with a strong support pick in Oracle that proved too much for Fnatic to continue to fight against. Eventually, the game ended shortly after the hour mark with an Alliance victory. Fnatic.Mushi notably struggled on Leshrac this game with an ending KDA of 0/10/11. The second game further solidified the diversity of Alliance’s hero picks, and featured a high-impact performance from Alliance.s4 on his signature Puck. Although Fnatic was able to extend the game into the 50th minute, even threatening to turn the game around, the series ended with Alliance claiming the first upper bracket seed to come out of Group B and Fnatic relegated to a fight with Team Spirit for the other seed.
WINNER: Alliance, 2-0
Qualification Match #2 – Fnatic vs. Team Spirit
After Alliance secured the first upper bracket slot, the remaining slot came down to a battle between the two Group B Qualifying teams that did not receive a direct invite to the tournament. In the end, the games seemed to fall along the lines of whichever team was able to grab Outworld Devourer, who, as expected, is one of the strongest heroes of the tournament. Team Spirit was able to rally to victory behind the Outworld Devourer and complemented some scary teamfight in the form of Earth Spirit, Dark Seer, Gyro and Bane in Game 1. However, Fnatic were able to secure the Outworld Devourer, Earth Spirit and Gyro picks in the second game, although the standout performance for many was Fnatic.Ohaiyo on Phoenix. In the end, the series came down to a Game 3. This game was a hard fought game on both sides, as even as Team Spirit was increasingly forced onto the defensive, they were able to apply pressure all over in the form of the always highly-mobile Ember Spirit. However, at the end of the day, Fnatic walked away with one of their most significant victories in quite a while and joined Alliance as the upper bracket seeds from Group B.
WINNER: Fnatic, 2-1
