ESWC Grand Final Day 1 result

so what is ESWC? The Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) is a world-wide video games competition composed of national preliminaries and a grand final event, managed and organized by Games Services each year since 2003.

main site: ESWC 2008 DotA

ESWC Grand Final 2008 which was held on San Jose, USA has finished its first playday, which consist of matches from group A. Only 11 teams manage to successfully went through to the Grand Final, and we're somehow desperately missed some other powerhouse which missed this event due to various problem like visas, passports and qualifiers. These include teams like Mouz, Fnatic (ex-XcN), EHOME, Rush3D and ks.int. These 11 teams were divided into 2 groups as follows:

link: MyMYM: ESWC Group Stage

The top two teams from each group qualify to the playoff. As seen from the table, our own Malaysian team Kingsurf (KS) manage to safely go through the playoff together with American team Evil.Genius (EG), eliminating one of the tournament favorite SK.Gaming. There's little coverage on the event so far, so there is only a few replay available, and thanksfully most of them feature my favorite team Kingsurf.

KS starts their tournament in style with a glorious victory against Canadian team Nafu. Especially since Yamateh is using one of his best hero Obsidian Destroyer, and not to mention Papaxiong as meepo. Ok fair enough, they also got high tier hero zeus and warlock in their lineup =)


Game 1: Kingsurf (Malaysia) vs Nafu (Canada)

Bans: (Ks first) omni/na/beasmaster/qop/leviathan/pitlord/spectre/earthshaker
Picks (Ks first) zeus/davion potm/warlock puck/leoric thd/obsidian meepo/lina

KingSurf, Sentinel
[puck] Ks ` xiaogui (Top)
[zeus] Ks ` SakuRa (Top)
[obsidian] Ks ` YamateH (Middle)
[warlock] Ks ` x|aOmA (Bottom)
[meepo] Ks ` papaxiong (Bottom)


Nafu, Scourge
[davion] [Nafu]DOWNtown (Top)
[thd] [Nafu]Da_Bause. (Top/Jungle)
[potm] [Nafu]Solace (Middle)
[leoric] [Nafu]JD-DoriaN (Bottom)
[lina] [Nafu]DarkSlayr (Bottom)

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in the 2nd game against EG, things became a little harder since EG is well known for their good performance on LAN event, and of course EG itself is a very good team in the first place. especially if this team have Syllabear on their lineup. A pretty lengthy match with Yamateh got an early Guinsoo on QoP to hold off EG who has a very strong Broodmother to carry them, allowing Xiaogui' Spectre to farm for late game item. Amazing performance by Kingsurf, especially Yamateh who picks off EG heroes one by one at bottom lane. While dazzle did a very good supporting role, dying only 5 times in that whole 70+ minutes game. And the decisive point of this match could be the minute when EG went for Roshan while Yamateh and Spectre went for bottom base tower and rax. Without a single guinsoo on EG side, it's hard for them to stop KS from killing their heroes one by one. Overall this is a well played match by both team.

Game 2: Evil Genius (USA) vs Kingsurf (Malaysia)

Evil Geniuses, Sentinel
[lich] EG.WhispeR (Top)
[potm] EG.King (Top)
[brood] EG.Remstar (Middle)
[zeus] EG.DOGKaiser (Bottom)
[earthshaker] EG.HiT0Mi(Bottom)


KingSurf, Scourge
[spectre] Ks ` xiaogui (Top)
[dazzle] Ks ` SakuRa (Top)
[leshrac] Ks ` papaxiong (Middle)
[leviathan] Ks ` x|aOmA (Bottom)
[Qop] Ks ` YamateH (Bottom)

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Kingsurf kept on winning on the third game against French team Serious Gaming (SRS) who earlier made an upset by beating SK.Gaming. An okay lineup picked by KS but somehow interesting item build. The old 6.48b Centaur is back with Hood, Radiance and Dagger, Shadow Fiend with Guinsoo and Dagger, Puck with Dagon.

replay: SRS (France) vs Kingsurf (Malaysia)

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The fourth game is arguably the decisive match which might determine the outcome of this group - SK vs KS. Both of these team has met several times before in MYM Prime Defending and Prime Defending League, with KS came out with more victories against the other. In this match, KS (potm, luna, dazzle, puck, lich) totally dominate the early and mid game against SK who picks visage, tb, necrolyte, VS and Tide. However SK somehow manage to turn the tide of the game as in their lineup lies the hidden push strat, as well as the ability to tank Lich and Luna ultimate through images and revenant.

replay: SK.Gaming (Sweden) vs Kingsurf (Malaysia)

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the final game for group A, against Pakistan team S3x. There's not much infos about this game because there is no replay available so far, but it is well known that KS beat S3x in this game and therefore advance to the 2nd round with 4 wins and 1 defeat.