Azubu Blaze torch Team SoloMid on the first day MLG Summer Arena eSports Central

MORE COVERAGE: Day 3 Gallery - Crs.Elementz on Azubu Blaze - Day 2 Recap - Day 1 Gallery - Day 1 Recap - Pre-MLG Azubu Blaze Interview - MLG Summer Arena Preview - Qualifier Video Highlights

Today marked the first day of the Major League Gaming League of Legends Summer Arena. The tournament was set to feature two invited teams (Team SoloMid and Azubu Blaze) and two teams that made it through an NA Qualifier (Team Curse) and an European Qualifier (BLACK). Unfortunately for the two qualifiers, their teams would not be at 100% as both teams were forced to use substitutes.

The Summer Arena is also the debut of Azubu Blaze in the western League of Legends scene. The winners of The Champions Spring tournament has turned a lot of heads here in North American and Europe. Many people believe that Blaze might just be the best team in the world. Team Solomid, one of the top teams in the world, wanted to have something to say about that and now they have their chance.

Match 1: Curse vs BLACK

Curse got caught in a bad level 1 fight that they initiated by wondering around the map. BLACK was unable to truly capitalize on the early game advantage as Pobelter was still able to bully Alvik out of the lane. The whole first game the Europeans didn't have an answer for Rumble and it ended up costing them the game.

Game 2 and 3 were not close either. There was a game 3 because this is a round robin and every game was going to be played despite Curse winning the first two games. Honestly I think this tweet sums up the BLACK problems:

Curse Cop put up some great stats:
The domination of Curse:

Coaching at MLG

At one point yesterday MLG did a spotlight with the coach of Curse, Liquid, about how he is a 6th man at the event. He talks to Saintvicious throughout the game calling plays and keeping track of timers. This brought a response from Scarra on Twitter:

followed up by this response from MLG Lee:

Obviously, this will not be the last you hear of it. The MLG coaching thing will be a hot topic for at least a week.

Match 2: TSM vs Azubu Blaze

Words can't really describe this match. TSM is the best that North America has to offer in League of Legends as they have proven by winning their last 4 LANs. Azubu Blaze is the best that Korea has to offer since they won the The Champions Spring. Obviously, the fans were in for a show.

I strongly advise you to watch the VODs of the whole series. The play that we were able to witness from the top 2 teams in the world was incredible. The aggressive pushing strategy that Azubu Blaze brought out looked like no one, anywhere would have an answer for it. The strategy made it to where Blaze would avoid team fights for the most point but would get marginal advantages through taking global objectives.

In the first game, Blaze used the aggressive push strategy and got ahead but never out of reach. The reasoning was because Chaox was doing a good job of staying in the game and was keeping Cpt. Jack in check. There were a few times throughout the late game where it looked as if Chaox was going to hard carry the game but eventually Blaze was able to stick to him in a team fight, once Chaox died so did the chances of TSM winning the game.


Game 2 was a little bit more like a game of ping pong. Azubu Blaze got out to an early lead and worked on taking the advantages like they did in game 1. This time SoloMid was able to get good team fights in the mid game to keep them in the game. Throughout the game Xpecial on Janna tried his best to make the big plays from the support role to carry TSM to a win but unfortunately he failed in that regard. Towards the end of the game, TSM goes for baron but Blaze spots it and shows amazing teamwork and positioning to get a huge engagement that would go on to win the game. Azubu Ambition on Vladimir ended with 3k more gold than anyone on TSM and was a huge reason for the win.

Game 3 was a little bit more one sided. We had a great middle match-up with Ambition's legendary Twisted Fate and Reginald's Gragas. At one point, Reginald and Ambition are dueling it out in the middle lane. Ambition got really low which caused him to escape with his ultimate from the jaws of death leaving Reginald scratching his head wondering where his kill went. Blaze was able to get a substantial lead once again from global gold objectives like dragon and towers with a 5 to 0 tower lead in the mid game. After getting manhandled all game, TSM is able to actually get a 4 for 0 team fight but is unable to gain any sort of advantage from it. The Korean team just kept pushing and pushing until eventually they broke through. TSM had no answer as they were down so much global gold that they couldn't keep up with the items of Azubu Blaze.


Azubu Blaze 3-0s Team SoloMid

The result sparked some good tweets from Dyrus and Xpecial:


If Day 2 is a fraction of the excitement that the TSM v Blaze series was; we will be in for a real treat. The action starts at 2PM EST / 11 AM PST and can be watched at www.majorleaguegaming.com

If you can't watch for some reason or another, I suggest you follow FourCourtJester's Live Tweeting at @TweetCastLoL. The live tweeting he and @ObscuricaGGC were able to do was phenomenal and will keep you informed all day long.

Be sure to follow MOBAFire eSports on Twitter at @MF_eSports and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MOBAFire

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