BEAT Invitational Recap: Upper Bracket Quarterfinals and Semifinals

We’re about to enter the most tournament intensive period of the year. While the BEAT Invitational and ROG Masters happen this weekend, The Summit 6 will be held next week, and the Boston Major itself happens at the beginning of next month. This seems fitting for a scene that has felt rather empty from a lack of tournaments since the end of October. While ROG Masters is more of a SEA centric tournament, BEAT hosts arguably the most tier-one talent at a single tournament since MDL in September. Here’s a brief recap from the first half of the tournament. 

China Shines in its T1 Debut

In their post TI debut against international talent, Wings Gaming still looks as good as they did at The Interational. While FDL admittedly isn’t a very intimitading opponent, even to their local competitors, Wings still found a way to amaze once again through their drafting. To call their hero pool simply a pool is honeslty an injustice; it’s more of a hero ocean if anything.

In game two of the series against FDL, Wings pulled a draft straight out of 6.84, picking up Tusk and Clockwerk. Later, in their series against NP, they continued with their unique pickups by drafting Necrophos. Ehome also performed well today, defeating a staggering compLexity in three games. However, the fact that they lost a game to a team that’s had issues making it to international tournaments, playing with a sub, and another player has had to shift positions, should be concerning to say the least. 

The Best of the Rest, Eventually. 

It’s diffucult to talk about the rest of the teams at BEAT because the talent accumulated there has been lacking in notable performances. Ad Finem sent FDL home after being knocked into the lower bracket by Team NP, who in turn was sent down by Wings. The typical game at the invitational has been less than 35 minutes long, with most games being clear cut stomps. This is clearly temporary, as the teams destined for lower placements have been filtered out. Tomorrow’s matches are destined to be more intersting, with EG taking on Ehome and Team NP taking on Alliance. 

Who do you think will win the whole event? Let us know in the comments or tweet at us at @GAMURScom. 

Questions, comments, or criticism for Carno? He’d love to hear it. Find him on Twitter at @Carno_.