It’s day one of the Thunderpick WC live event here in Berlin and with the semifinals wrapping up, we only have 2 teams left standing. Well, that being said, we still don’t know who is going to place 3rd and 4th but that decider will also be coming up tomorrow. This match will mean the difference between going home with $50,000 and going home with $70,000 so it’s worth turning up for.
Heroic vs. OG
Heroic’s map pick was, to the surprise of no one, Anubis. OG actually gave them a bit of a run for their money and ended the game on a respectable 13-8 win to Heroic. The star of the show here has to be Nertz, who ended the map on 30-8 KD and even managed an ace. He’s got his eyes on that $500,000 prize.
Tech pauses plagued this whole series and perhaps that’s why OG fell at the final hurdle here. Map 2 on Ancient was long and although OG started out strong on the T side, they fell behind in the second half. They almost, almost forced Heroic into over time but just before the final round, there was a significant tech pause.
Tech pauses, while necessary, can really interrupt the flow of the game and it’s hard to keep in the right head space. So with all said and done, Heroic were first to punch their tickets to the grand finals.
3DMAX vs The MongolZ
OK so maybe I thought this match up would be a little less one sided than map 1 proved to be. MongolZ came storming out of the gate and took a significant early lead. It’s exactly this kind of CS that placed them in 2nd for my Thunderpick WC playoffs predictions. The crowd were really behind them, each round ticked off came with huge cheers. Even when things started to slip away on T side, MongolZ still managed to make short work of 3DMAX’s defenses.
Map 2 was way more back and forth with 3DMAX making life a bit more difficult for The MongolZ. But in the end, that live crowd buff was too strong and they took the W.
The stage is set and everything is ready for the grand finals tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned to Twitch for more from the Thunderpick World Championship.
