SENNHEISER Prime Defending 10: Near to Conclusion

MYM continue with their tradition "so-called" the largest online tournament with the 10th edition of Prime Defending. The format is similar to the previous edition, with a slight change in the playoff round (best of 3 in winner bracket, best of 5 in Grand Final). In addition, XLBET is added for each match.

To be honest I have little interest with this edition of PD compared to PD 8 or 9, mainly because of the huge dramas involved in Prime Defending 9 (mainly the poor decision and unprofessional handling of the admin toward certain serious cases like maphack, backdoor and ringers), which heavily tainted the good name of this tournament. Kingsurf become the only Asian team to qualify into the playoff stage, where they were knocked out into the loser bracket by Denmark team MET right in the first round. Well it's not a problem, they can still bounce back from the loser bracket into the Grand Final. But there's an even more huge surprise - MYM was also beaten in a straight game in the first round by SGC-_-IR (who eventually end up winning 3rd place), and thus will face Kingsurf in the first round of loser bracket, best of 1. Some people says XLBET influenced the ourcome of their match (very large bet against SGC), but who knows.

And this is the point where one of the most entertaining match in this tournament happened - MYM vs Kingsurf. MYM has been know to be very strong with their notorious Shadow Priest-Bristleback strategy, this match is no exception. In a match against Indonesian team XcN in ESL Season 2 Group Stage prior to this match, Bristleback brinsg victory for MYM despite the heavy loss in term of kill (somewhere 25-50 score). But this time, Kingsurf made a very clever draft to counter this strategy - by picking Obsidian Destroyer. OD pure damage orb is still reduced by BB, but considering a farmed OD can deal EXTREMELY MASSIVE damage, this hero can still take down a farmed BB within seconds. Not to mention Zeus with static field also deals massive extra damages in teamfight.
more infos for this match:
-Matchticker
-MYM download page
-post-match article


back to tournament: MYM losing in 3 straight matches in this tournament, which knock them out of the tournament is surely one of the biggest upset in this tournament, considering they're the defending champion, plus their new addition of Fear and Ezy. Then there's another huge surprise - Virtus.Pro, another very strong team who won 3 straight Prime Defending (PD6, 7 and 8) was disqualified for using outsider in their match against x6. With this, 2 potential favorites were both knocked out of the tournament, leaving the door wide open for a new champion. People starts rooting for SK. Gaming or Wolker Gaming to reach the grand final, and indeed they did. The final match will be held today.

anyway, since the loss of Kingsurf to Mousesports in the loser bracket 3rd round, I kinda lost my interest in this tournament, not to mention some of the game were reloaded so there's not much good complete replay. The match against Mouz is...well how should I say it... terrible drafting phase. What's the purpose behind banning viper? Just a glimpse looking at the lineup I knew Mouz gonna take this game. Those lineup by Kingsurf is weak to compete with Mouz strong heroes synergy. Plus THD is not as good babysitter as warlock (who was still available for the 4th pick, can you believe it?) or shadow priest, and picking spectre for late game carry against those massive AOE opponents is not easy.