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MSI 2017: Gigabyte Marines take care of business against Super Massive

By Aleksandar Puseljic

PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 28: Fans watch an electronic video game tournament with the game 'League of Legends' developed by Riot Games during the 'Paris Games Week' on October 28, 2016 in Paris, France. 'Paris Games Week' is an international trade fair for video games to be held from October 27 to October 31, 2016. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 28: Fans watch an electronic video game tournament with the game 'League of Legends' developed by Riot Games during the 'Paris Games Week' on October 28, 2016 in Paris, France. 'Paris Games Week' is an international trade fair for video games to be held from October 27 to October 31, 2016. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images) /
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The Gigabyte Marines took care of business against Super Massive to advance at the MSI 2017.

Coming out of the craziness of the first two rounds in the Play-In stage at MSI 2017, predictions for the favorites came through. With TSM winning the reverse sweep against Gigabyte Marines and Flash Wolves dominating Super Massive, things worked out as expected.

Round three decides if Super Massive (SUP) or Gigabyte Marines (GAM) will be advancing to the Group Stage. The stakes couldn’t be higher for these two teams.

Going into the series, there was a big question of how even the match up would be. Both teams put up an impressive 5-1 record going into Round 2 but fell flat coming up against stiffer competition. Going into this, I would have given Gigabyte Marines the advantage.

GAM almost beat TSM, North America’s championship team, in a close 3-2 series. Winning the first two games, TSM won with a surprising reverse sweep. Meanwhile Super Massive lost 3-0 to Flash Wolves in an open and shut series. Then again, with Flash Wolves going 14-0 in the regular LMS season, it shouldn’t be that shocking.

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The questions are: Did TSM have a rough start or is GAM a team not to be taken lightly? Are Flash Wolves really that dominant or is Super Massive out of their…League?

The first two games were very messy. It was hard to believe that two professional teams were facing off. Game 1 went heavily in favor of GAM. They closed out the game in less than 25 minutes and I thought that this was going to be a 3-0 series after that. GAM dominated the game, starting with killing SUP’s bot lane twice and taking their first tower inside of 10 minutes! Game 2 was the same, just in reverse.

It seemed like neither team was really respecting what the other was capable of doing. These games had high kill counts and counter kills. This is not something you expect from a professional team, it was more like the auto-fill teams in solo-queue.

Game 3 was a slow burn. The teams slowly traded kills but SUP was unable to capitalize on the lead they had established, and GAM stalled the game out enough to catch up. With a few aggressive plays and devastating team fight by Baron, GAM secured the Game 3 win. It was a good display of minion management and careful macro play, but for me, it showed that GAM was going to take this series. SUP had a strong lead but couldn’t close out the game, which is typically the nail in the coffin for a series.

Game 4 was a repeat of the first game, with GAM taking a dominant early lead and beating SUP quickly to put the final stamp on their series. Is GAM a strong enough team which can compete with the likes of G2 Esports and Team WE? Yes. They are a team which cannot be ignored.

Next: NA should launch new Esports channel like China

With a close series against TSM and a fairly dominant series against Super Massive, they have made an impression on the international LCS scene. Now, going into Group Stages for MSI 2017 are G2 Esports, SK telecom T1, Team Solo Mid, Flash Wolves, Team WE, and Gigabyte Marines. This will be a very exciting MSI as it continues to unfold.

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