League of Legends at IPL 5: Day 3 Recap

As day three comes to a close, the stronger teams have pulled ahead of the pack. Only four teams remain to compete for that number 1 spot, but who are those four teams and how did they get there? This recap of day three has the answers.

Ashe outsnipes Caitlyn and a blast from the past

In the battle between brothers, the older brother usually wins. Such was the case between Curse.Na and Curse.Eu, Curse.Na being the older, more experienced team. The first two games were the results of early advantages being grabbed by one team in each game. The third game, however, was much closer, Curse NA being able to take the lead thanks largely in part to amazing ultimates from Cop’s Ashe. After the amazing picks Curse.Na secured, they take the series 2-1.

The third day of IPL 5 starts out with a rematch of the finals of the Garena Premier League, Singapore Sentinels versus the Taipei Assassins. SGS looked strong coming off of an easy win against Iceland, while TPA didn’t look so strong after a tough loss against Fnatic. Despite their most recent matches, TPA managed to crush SGS without even breaking a sweat. SGS managed to grab kills here and there, but when it came down to the wire, TPA were too big to deal with, winning the series 2-0.

Curse gets assassinated and Moscow 5 blazes ahead

Taipei Assassins, the reigning season 2 world championships, knocked down to the loser’s bracket, square off against Curse NA, who, although stuck in the loser’s bracket right off the bat, have managed to make their way up. Fresh off of their win against Curse EU, Curse NA started out game 1 looking pretty good, but that faded away after an unsuccessful fight at dragon. The game snowballed from there, ending in TPA’s favor. The second game was an absolute stomp from the very beginning. TPA crushed Curse in order to advance with a 2-0 victory.

Azubu Blaze, another team forced into the loser’s bracket immediately after group stages, face off against Moscow 5 for the first time ever. After some back and forth fighting, M5 end up with the advantage, and take game one decisively. Azubu Blaze answer immediately by taking a quick lead in game two, and then hold onto that lead for the entire game, earning themselves a win. In the third and final game, both teams play rather passively for the first twenty minutes of the game. Action suddenly erupts, and Blaze looks to be ahead of M5. A few minutes later, however, M5 manages to pick up some easy kills, grab Baron, and then seal Blaze’s fate, going 2-1 in the series.

The CLGs fall

Fnatic, competing in IPL 5 only because Alternate couldn’t attend, have made an impressive showing, taking down top teams. CLG Prime is the last remaining North American team in the winner’s bracket, making their fight against Fnatic that much more important. After an impressive stomp in game one, CLG were looking good. Doublelift even ended the game with a pentakill on the enemy’s fountain.

Fnatic had other thoughts in mind, however, beating CLG in a close game 2 and then stomping them in game three, ending with 2-1 win.

CLG EU and World Elite have both been looking phenomenal, neither of them losing a match in the tournament so far. Unfortunately, that had to change for one or both of these teams. WE managed to get an early lead in game one, and continued to push their advantage, absolutely crushing CLG EU until they finally surrendered.

We here at ESFI are going to do something a little different by skipping the coverage of game two from this series. “Why?” you may ask. And the reason is game two might be the best game ever played and we’re not going to spoil it. Caster of the game Joe “Just call me Joe Miller” Miller tweeted afterwards saying, “That was just absolutely fucking off the wall batshit insane. Best game ever!”. So instead of telling you what happens, we’ll tell you this: Give yourself about an hour and a half to watch this, seriously, you’ll want to watch it in one sitting.

Link to the VoD

I’m not going to tell if there was a game three because it would help you figure out who won the previous game. Game two was too good of a game. Seriously. Go watch it.

The CLGs fall (again)

CLG EU had just recently fallen to the loser’s bracket while Taipei Assassins have fought their way up from the loser’s bracket pretty early on. Like many other series in this tournament, game one ended very decisively, going in favor of CLG. In the second game, all cards were laid on the table, as each team were able to pick up some of their best champions. Toyz on Orianna and Froggen on Anivia proved to make this match very exciting, but in the end, TPA were able to sneak ahead of CLG. In game three, the gold was ahead for CLG for a while, but TPA clearly had control of the game, quickly taking out the outer turrets. After several skirmishes, TPA reigned supreme, closing this series with a 2-1 victory.

CLG Prime have also just recently fallen to the loser’s bracket after a close series against Fnatic, while Moscow 5, just like TPA, have fought their way up in the loser’s bracket from an early point. CLG Prime, mimicking CLG EU, crushed their opponents in game one. In game 2, CLG were able to take a very early lead, but were unable to really capitalize on it. After successful ganks and objective controls, M5 reversed CLG’s lead, and then kept it that way to the very end. Game three tarted poorly almost immediately for CLG as M5 got first blood and first turret kill. M5 made no mistakes this game, increasing the gold gap every single minute until they finally beat CLG and nabbed this series in a 2-1 triumph.

What to watch for tomorrow

Moscow 5 squares off against the Taipei Assassins in a rematch of the Season 2 World Championship semi-finals. They’ve both had to fight their way up the loser’s bracket from the same point, actually both beating out the CLGs in 2-1 victories. In the group stage, TPA beat out M5 when they faced off, but can they do the same tomorrow?

World Elite and Fnatic face off against each other in the finals over the winner bracket, both teams looking surprisingly strong and taking out the potential favorites of the tournament. Having already faced each other in the group stage, will Fnatic be able to get revenge against their opponents, or will World Elite shut them out without losing a single game this tournament?