The western branch of The International 2012 qualifiers tournament was also full of mixed results as the eastern side were. A couple twists and turns here and there lead up to a final round that most would not have expected, featuring Team NEXT.kz from Kazakhstan going undefeated in the winners brackets against mTw (Mortal Team Work) from France. The west finals are most definitely unexpected when compared to the east that had the two powerhouse teams from China in the finals. Team NEXT.kz has not won any major tournaments, although placing high ranks, they have not been able to clinch any of them. The way they played this tournament has been a similar site as the way they played when they beat MoscowFive and Evil Geniuses in recent games. Team mTw is also on a similar boat, as they have been very inconsistent in their games as of late, many would have thought they'd be out in the first round. Let's take a brief look at how this qualifiers tournament unfolded.
In the first match up of the opening round, we had mTw against Virtus.Pro of Russia. The expected Virtus.Pro ended up taking the game in three rounds but mTw did show some glimpse of promise as they gave them a good run for their money. The second match was Team Mousesports from Germany against the Swedish Team Infused. Prior to the tournament, not much was known about Team Infused as they have not participated in many tournaments but they ended up falling a game short against the rising Mousesports and lost in three rounds. For the third match, it was Team Quantic Gaming of the United States against zNation of Russia. Team zNation has been in a little slump prior to the tournament and it showed in the early stages of the first round, by the time they started getting their game back, it was a little too late as Guantic Gaming won it in the third game. The last match up in the first round was Team NEXT.kz against Sweden's Keita Gaming. Just like their Swedish counterparts, Team Infused, not too much was known about Keita Gaming but unlike Infused, they were not able to show too much as they were dominated by NEXT.kz 2-0 and ousted by mTw in a similar manner in the first game of the losers brackets.
The Semi-finals started off with Virtus.Pro against Mousesports. This match up was a very close nail-biter for both teams. The first game went to Mousesports as it seemed like Virtus.Pro decided to go a different approach from their earlier success against mTw by changing their star player, Kuroky, and his role to Brewmaster. The second game ended up being the longest one with Virtus.Pro taking the win at the end of a hard fought battle of endurance. The third game was a bit different from the rest as both teams went with pushers. In the end Mousesports managed to outplay VP to get themselves a spot in the winners brackets finals. In the second match up of the semi-finals, it was Quantic Gaming against NEXT.kz.This match in the semi-finals went rather quickly as Team NEXT.kz carried their momentum from the previous round and took out the Americans in just two games.
The finals of the winners brackets was a match up between Mousesports and NEXT.kz. In the first game, NEXT used Morphling against the Anti-Mage and took out Mousersports with ease. The second game was played a bit different from both sides but NEXT still dominated and took the win. The Kazakhs have really impressed from the start and haven't even lost a single game, winning all the rounds by a 2-0 score up the finals and even went on winning the finals in the same way as they swept their way all the way to the grand finals of the west qualifiers to meet team mTw whom also had an impressive run in the losers brackets by also sweeping every team to make it to the grand finals.
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About the author: Saturo My name is Saturo. Creative writer with an upbeat style but with versatile skills when something requires technical details. Several years of experience in writing articles. Varying from entertainment to real estate. |
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