CN Qualifiers Day 1: Azure Ray Survive Scare; All Favorite Teams Advance

The first day of the Chinese Regional Qualifiers for The International has ended. Four Upper Bracket matches were played, and all four were won by the leading candidates to win the entire qualifier.

Team Aster 2-0 Team Zero

Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan and the crew made quick work of Team Zero, a team featuring familiar faces, including ex-EHOME Mid Laner Huang "7e" Heming and TI winner Li "iceice" Peng. 

Both games were quick stomps for the boys in blue. It only took Aster 24 minutes to end Game 1 and 32 minutes to finish Game 2.

Overall, Aster is the favourite to qualify for The International, and they have shown clean gameplay today. Still, more formidable opponents lie ahead.

Xtreme Gaming 2-0 Aster.Aries

Xtreme Gaming had the most challenging opponents compared to other favourite teams today, as they were tasked to face Aster.Aries, a team who had a fighting chance in the Chinese DPC. Xtreme Gaming’s new lineup could take the first game without issues, ending the map with a kill score of 28-9.

However, the second game didn’t go as planned, as Aster.Aries had firm control over the game. At 37 minutes, the underdog team was up 11,000 in gold. However, Xtreme Gaming clawed their way back and completed the comeback at 43 minutes thanks to Daniel "Ghost" Chan’s Gyrocopter.

A bit of a shaky performance from Xtreme Gaming, considering they recently brought in a new Mid Laner in the form of Guo "Xm" Hongcheng.

Invictus Gaming 2-0 Holy Grail

Xtreme Gaming isn’t the only team to have made roster changes, as Nicholas "zeal" Lim debuted in the Invictus Gaming roster today. Fortunately, things worked out fine, and IG closed the series flawlessly against Team Holy Grail.

IG had great control over both games and could close them out with minimal problems. A solid performance from the new roster so far.

Azure Ray 2-1 Team Bright

The series between Azure Ray and Team Bright was easily the closest one today. The first map was a total stomp for AR, as they forced Team Bright to call a 17-minute GG. Surprisingly, Team Bright kept their mental game strong and won Game 2 after pulling off a 16,000 gold comeback.

Game 3 was very close, with the net worth lead kept minimal throughout most of the game. Fortunately, Azure Ray survived the scare and won the game in 46 minutes.

These results mean there were no upsets today, and all four expected teams will move on to the next stage. Remember that the matches played are all in the Upper Bracket, so teams that lost today will still have a second chance. Here is what the bracket looks like now:

Tomorrow, Lower Bracket matches will be played.