With the second semi final in the 2015 League of Legends World Championships taking place today in Brussels between KOO Tigers and Fnatic, to decide who gets the dubious honour of taking on
the unbeaten Team SK Telecom T1 in the final, we’ll bring you more on the final next week when we know who SKT’s opponents will be in the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin.
Whoever gets that honour faces an incredibly difficult task given that SK Telecom T1 have won all of their matches and not only that, they have won every one of the best of three and best of five games that they have played in the tournament so far.
This means that the South Korean giants head into the final not even having lost a single leg of any match and with a game record of 12-0. That is a record that neither Fnatic or KOO Tigers can come close to matching.
So with the League of Legends Worlds seemingly on an inexorable path to confirming Team SK Telecom T1’s domination of that eSport genre (Bet365 Sport now has them at 1/4 to win the event outright), we’re going to focus this week on a trio of other events across three other popular eSports, starting with a match up that will decide the winner of an individual StarCraft 2 tournament.
Kung Fu Cup Final Will Decide The Champion Starcraft 2 Player
After the eight individual players from the group stage made it through to the playoffs, the 2015 Kung Fu Cup Season 2 saw something of a surprise in the first two quarter final match ups. In the first game, favourite soO was defeated 3-2 by Stats while in the second game, Bly was forced to forfeit his match with Trap when losing 2-0 due to a power outage in his native Ukraine.
That meant the first semi final was between Stats and Trap and it was Stats who progressed through to the final thanks to a narrow 3-2 victory over his South Korean compatriot.
All four other players remaining in the event at the quarter final stages were South Korean and it was Live and Zest who made the semi finals in the bottom half of the draw. Life defeating PartinG 3-2 and Zest beating Stork 3-1. In their semi final clash it was Life who progressed to Monday’s final on the back of a strong 3-1 win over Zest.
That means Monday’s final is between the two players who finished first and second in Group B of the initial group stage. When they met back then it was Life who emerged victorious, his Zerg team defeating Stats Protoss team 2-1
If you go by WCS ranking, Life (ranked 4th) is the strong favourite against 23rd ranked Stats. Bet365 has priced up Life to win Monday’s final at odds of 4/6, while Stats is the 11/10 outside shot if you fancy a flutter on who will win this top StarCraft 2 individual event.
Nanyang Championships Sees 16 Of The Best Dota 2 Teams Face Off
This week sees the start of one of the best Dota 2 tournaments in the world as ten of the very best teams head to Singapore to compete in what is one of South East Asia’s biggest Dota 2 events, the 
Nanyang Championships.
After four qualifiers, one in China, one in Europe, one in America and one in South East Asia, the four winners of these events will join the six pre-invited teams in Singapore to compete for the $100,000 top prize and title of the Nanyang Championships winner of 2015.
The six teams directly invited were Team Secret, Virtus.pro, Fnatic, LGD.Taobao.cn, CDEC Gaming and Vici Gaming. EHOME qualified from the Chinese section, Team Liquid from Europe and Mineski from South East Asia. Originally, Cloud 9 qualified from the American section but they were replaced by Digital Chaos after members of the Cloud 9 team had issues obtaining a visa to visit Singapore.
The tournament starts with the group phase with the ten teams drawn into two groups. The top two teams in each group qualify for the Semi Finals, with the winner going on to the Winners Final and the winner of that heading into the Grand Final.
The teams finishing 3rd and 4th in the league qualify for the losers bracket which sees them face off against the other teams finishing 3rd and 4th from the other group. The winners of these matches then face the losers of the playoff semi finals and then the winners of these match play off in the Losers Round 3.
Even then the losing team has to play off against the losing team from the winners final before the victor of that match can claim a place in the Grand Final.
The groups have been drawn as thus:
- Group A – Virtus.pro, CDEC Gaming, Vici Gaming, Team Liquid and Mineski
- Group B – Team Secret, LGD Gaming, Fnatic, EHOME, Digital Chaos
The Group Games will be played over the first two days of competition starting on Monday 26th October, with the playoffs starting on the 28th October and then running through until the Grand Final taking place on the 1st November. Of course, you’ll be able to bet on plenty of markets for this major Dota 2 event with Bet365 Sport’s vastly improved eSports service.
Currently, Bet365 have Vici Gaming as the narrow 3-1 favourites to win the event, with Team Secret a 10/3 shot and EHOME 7/2. CDEC Gaming are 11/2 and Team Liquid 8/1 while LGD Gaming are 10/1 shots. Outside bets include Virtus Pro and Fnatic who are both 14/1 chances, Mineski 28/1 shots and the American replacement team Digital Chaos are the 40/1 rank outsiders for the event.
Romania The Venue For Next Week’s Counter Strike: Global Offensive DreamHack Open
If you love CS@GO as an eSport then you’ll know all about the DreamHack events and with qualification events taking place across Europe earlier this year, we now know which 16 teams will be flying into Cluj-Napoca in Romania to challenge for the DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 title.
The draw has already taken place for the initial group stage of the tournament and the sixteen teams competing, a mixture of qualifiers and invited teams, have been drawn into the following groups:
- Group A – Fnatic, Luminosity Gaming, Cloud9, Vexed Gaming
- Group B – Team SoloMid, G2 Esports, mousesports, Flipsid3 Tactics
- Group C – Virtus pro, Ninja’s in Pyjamas, Titan, Team Liquid
- Group D – Team EnVyUs, Natus Vincere, Counter Logic Gaming, Team Dignitas
The first two games in each group will kick off the tournament on Wednesday 28th October and these matches are (odds included from Bet365 on which team will win the match):
- Fnatic (1/100) v Vexed Gaming (16/1)
- Luminosity (5/6) v Cloud 9 (5/6)
- Team SoloMid (1/6) v G2 ESports (7/2)
- Mousesports (4/9) v Flipsid3 Tactics (13/8)
- Virtus Pro (1/8) v Team Liquid (9/2)
- Ninja’s in Pyjamas (2/7) v Titan (5/2)
- EnVyUs (1/66) v Team Dignitas (12/1)
- Natus Vincere (1/3) v CLG (9/4)
There will be other match betting available with Bet365 Sport once the second round of group fixtures gets under way on the 29th October, through to the end of the tournament which will be at the end of the playoffs on the 1st of November.
Bet365 Sports are also taking bets on the overall winner with EnVyUs the 3/1 favourites and teams Fnatic and Team SoloMid both 10/3 second favourites. The only other team rated as better than a 14/1 shot are Virtus Pro who Bet365 are offering odds of 6/1 on.
Rank outsiders include Team Liquid (33/1), Titan (40/1), Flipsid3 Tactics (50/1), Team Dignitas (80/1) and the real outsiders are Vexed Gaming who are 125/1 outsiders to win the overall event.
