Cebuanos Outclass Bacoleños in Razer NeXT Grand Finals

Cebuanos outclass Bacoleños in the Razer National eSports Xtreme Tournament (NeXT) Season 2 Grand Finals, Sunday, Dec.14.

Cebu’s fighting pride, Arcanys Gaming (Arcanys) swept the series, 3-0, outclassing Bacolod’s Insight.PH (Int.PH).

Game one was an action-packed match. Insight.PH drew first blood in the middle lane, with Int.Salt’s Skywrath Mage killing Arcanys.MightySavior’s Drow Ranger. An early rotation by Arcanys.Boombacs’ Dazzle in the top lane picked off Int.Kael’s Tidehunter at the 4-minute mark. A minute after, Insight answered with a smoke gank in the middle lane on Drow Ranger and Dazzle. However, they failed to pick off from the two, as Drow Ranger’s nice positioning helped him to escape and Dazzle’s timely self shallow grave saved him from death.

ON TIME. Arcanys escapes a smoke gank by Insight.PH.

At the 9-minute mark, Int.GunZ’s Phantom Assassin showed no mercy in a huge clash in the bottom lane, as he hits and crits (critical) too hard, ending in a 3 for 2 trade in favor of the Bacoleños. Fourteen minutes into the game, both teams clashed in the bottom rune spot with Arcanys taking a 3 for 2 trade giving them enough space for a Roshan kill — a kill score deadlocked at 14. The next two clashes showed that RNG (a term for chances / randomness) is on Phantom Assassin’s side as he claimed double kills twice. But at the 20-minute mark, Arcanys almost team wipes Insight.PH, claiming four of their heroes for a Tidehunter trade.

NET WORTH. Phantom Assassin leads the net worth, 20 minutes into the game.

Another clash in the bottom rune spot at the 26-minute mark paved the way for Arcanys’ snowball win as they traded 3 for 1 giving enough space for their second Roshan kill of the game. From thereafter, Arcanys dominated the game, slaying four from Insight and seizing the bottom lane set of barracks at the 28-minute mark. At the 32nd mark, Arcanys.Bok’s Tidehunter blinked in and ravaged on three Insight heroes, killing them right after and forcing the Good Game (GG — forfeit) call from the Bacoleños.

“(T)he crits are just out of nowhere,” Arcanys’ team captain, Marvin “Boombacs” Rushton, said.

HITS AND CRITS. Arcanys takes game one of the Razer NeXT Season 2 Grand Finals.

In the second game, Arcanys drafted a pushing lineup with Death Prophet, Bristleback and Jakiro, while Insight.PH picked a surprising middle lane Meepo, along with a safe lane Storm Spirit and off lane Centaur Warrunner. Just from the get-go, Arcanys aggression shook Insight’s gameplay. The Cebuanos put Arcanys.Heinrich’s Bristleback in the middle lane together with Arcanys.boombacs’s Io. At the first minute, they drew first blood picking off Int.Salt’s Meepo in the middle lane. Right thereafter, Bristleback went on a rage diving deeper — getting past towers — and picking off Insight’s heroes one by one. At the 12-minute mark, Bristleback and Io went past the bottom lane tier 2 tower — chasing one of Insight’s supports — but they failed to catch him, resulting in a death dive for them.

There was a 9-7 kill lead in favor of Insight.PH.

Thirteen minutes in, Arcanys was on the move and found a great clash in their favor. They took 3 kills to 0 to tie the score at 9. At this moment, Arcanys is just clean sweeping the map, taking the outer towers of Insight.PH one by one.

CLEAN SWEEP. Arcanys takes the last outer tower — tier 2 top lane tower — of Insight.PH.

There was no way to stop Arcanys by this time, as they seized the Dire’s base, destroying the top lane set of barracks and killing three in the process. Two clashes happened afterwards, both in favor of the Cebuanos. No more outer towers, a tough Bristleback and great pushing power — it was too much for the Bacoleños as they tapped out at the 20-minute mark.

20 MINUTES. Arcanys Gaming takes game 2 of the Razer NeXT Season 2 Grand Finals, leading the series 2-0.

Insight.PH  had a hard time containing Bristleback’s aggression. More so, the lack of “experience” came into play.

“[We] had a hard time controlling Bristleback… but the thing that made it more harder for us was [their] picks,” Insight.PH’s team captain, Jhon “Kael” Mallari, said. “We were surprised about that Io [and Bristleback] at [the] mid [lane] and DP [went] offlane; the thing is that they are a very flexible team since they have more experience than us.”

In the final game of the series, Arcanys drafted another aggressive lineup revolving around Lycan, while Insight.PH went for a safelane Invoker, aggressive trilane with Razor and a middle lane Puck. Just before the game hit its first minute, Arcanys drew first blood on Int.Kael’s Invoker. The following minutes were all bloodbath as Arcanys found pick off after pick off, posing a 12-4 kill lead eight minutes into the game. At the 13-minute mark, Insight.PH scouted the Roshan attempt by Arcanys. The Visayan teams clashed in the bottom rune spot with the Bacoleños getting two kills, but as these happened, Arcanys.MightySavior’s Lycan sniped Roshan and later on killed three from Insight.PH’s back line.

There was a 18-11 kill lead in favor of the Cebuanos at the 14-minute mark.

Lycan leads the net worth, 15 minutes into the game.

A minute after, Arcanys found a 4 for 1 trade with Arcanys.Bok’s Elder Titan with Dagon plus his Natural Order skill (a skill that reduces enemies’ base armor and resistance) doing some great work in picking off the squishy heroes of Insight.PH. At the 19-minute mark, the Arcanys team wipes the Bacoleños. Then another clash happened in the middle and then another one in the top lane — Arcanys was just playing around Insight.PH’s base, taking barracks after barracks.

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? Lycan is just unstoppable!

BLOODBATH. Buyback after buyback. Kill after kill.

Twenty-five minutes into the game, there was bloodbath everywhere and as Insight.PH took their last stand, Arcanys sustained the upperhand with Lycan in Beyond Godlike. The Bacoleños couldn’t handle it anymore, tapping out at the 26-minute mark. The ending kill score was 42-29 in favor of the Cebuanos.

“It was an awesome experience of course,” Boombacs told eSports Inquirer. “It means a lot to us but still it means more practice and more improvement”.

While the Cebuanos took home the crown, the Bacoleños weren’t be empty-handed, as they learned something valuable in this tournament.

“(N)ow we know that we need a lot of practice and hopefully we can make it to the top in 2015,” said Kael.

This is the third championship title for Arcanys Gaming, the first being the Mineski Pro Gaming League (MPGL) Philippines Champion the second being the ESL Philippines title.

In case you missed the series, click here for our live blog with the blow-by-blow updates!

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