Here’s IEM Sydney 2018 Asian qualifiers first winners
The Tyloo and MVP PK team are the first two teams surviving Asian closed qualifiers, securing their seats at the IEM Sydney 2018 World Championship.
The game between TyLoo and B.O.O.T-d[S] was the first semi-final to take place, with Cache starting off the series. The Singaporeans showed up strong the CT side of their map pick, running up 12 rounds in the first half. With that massive lead, Anthony “ImpressioN” Lim and co. were able to close out the map simply and put the pressure on TyLoo moving on to Inferno.
The start of TyLoo’s map pick was action-packed, as teams traded force-buys back-and-forth. From a 4-4 scoreline, the Chinese-Indonesian squad managed to peel off into the lead, but only shortly as B.O.O.T-d[S] brought it back to end the half 8-7 up. With their new addition Alikhan “w1nt3r” Kopzhanov, B.O.O.T-d[S] was able to win the first two Terrorist rounds, but TyLoo won the third and put on a clinic after that, making a clean comeback from 7-10 to win 16-10.
Perhaps shaken by their loss on Inferno, B.O.O.T-d[S] weren’t able to establish themselves on the decider map, Mirage, finishing the Terrorist side with just four rounds, the majority of which they picked up in the final stages of the half. After the switch, TyLoo promptly ended the series with a 5-1 T-side, securing a spot in Sydney.
MVP PK were unrelenting on the T side of Inferno, starting off their semi-final series on the right foot. Flash got on the board in round five, making it 1-4, but MVP PK manage to break their bank quickly and run up a 10-1 lead which was made into a 13-2 halftime score. With a force-buy round won, Flash managed to put up a fight on the T-side, but it didn’t last for long and the Koreans closed the map 16-7.
The Chinese squad had a much better start to the second map, Cobblestone, which they made possible by winning the Terrorist pistol and the following round. After going 5-2 down, MVP PK turned things around and grabbed a 9-6 lead. In the second half, rounds were traded early on, but MVP PK took control of the game and closed it 16-8, with Hyun-Pyo “XigN”Lee’s hat-trick in the final round sealing the deal.
One more Asian team will qualify for IEM Sydney 2018 through the lower bracket, but at the moment, 11 out of 16 teams for the event are known:
| SK | FaZe |
| Astralis | mousesports |
| Cloud9 | Natus Vincere |
| NRG | fnatic |
| Renegades | TyLoo |
| MVP PK | Asia Qual #3 |
| Oceania Qual. #1 | Oceania Qual. #2 |
| Oceania Qual. #3 | GG:Origin Qualifier |
