M5 bring home another crown at ECC Poland eSports Central

The 2nd day of the European Challenger Circuit was an important day for two teams especially: Curse EU and SK Gaming. If either team wins their semi-final game they have a good chance to end up 2nd in the European Challenger Circuit standings heading into the regional finals in August. The only problems that were standing in their way were the two titans of Europe: Moscow Five and CLG EU. Moscow Five was hellbent on getting a rematch with CLG EU after losing to them on the first day and placing 2nd in the group. The Russian team also needed to prove that they can beat CLG Eu in a LAN setting. Would they get the chance?

Semi-Finals

The first semi-final of the day was Moscow Five versus Curse EU. The Curse team has been searching for more recognition since they were Absolute Legends but they just can't seem to break through the wall that is Moscow Five and CLG EU. When matching up with the teams that are considered the best in the world, they just haven't been able to seal the deal, today wouldn't be any different.

Sleper, the AD carry for Curse EU, tried his hardest to carry this team. In game 1, he tried his best to keep the team in the game but the relentless aggression of Moscow Five made it impossible. Darien had to be MVP of the game (maybe the match). The amazing top laner was able to snowball out of control and finished the game 9/0/10. The game started getting out of control around the 11 minute mark when Moscow Five 4 man ganked the bottom lane of Curse resulting in a double kill. From there, Moscow Five secured all 4 dragon kills and the lone baron kill of the game gaining such a gold advantage that there was nothing Curse EU could do to get back in the game.

The second game wasn't even close. Moscow Five got a 10 minute, uncontested dragon. Nothing went well for Curse. A 3 man gank on Darien in the top lane was turned around into a double kill for Moscow Five. Diamondprox had much more presence from the jungle than Malunoo. The ganks and the creep score were better for Diamondprox which allowed him to create more opportunities for the Moscow Five team and he ended the game with a score of 4/0/5 compared to Malunoo's 0/3/0. Moscow Five was able to finish off the game with relative ease with Curse never getting a kill. The Russian team looked like the team we all knew from IEM Kiev.




The second semi-finals series was a lot better than the first. Coming into this weekend, the overwhelming favorite to take the tournament was CLG EU with Moscow Five a close second. So far, the finals had one piece of the puzzle in place and it only needed CLG EU to complete it. However, SK Gaming was in their way and they were feeding off of the crowd's favoritism.

Game 1 was all SK even though they gave Froggen his precious Anivia. Kev1n was especially in control throughout the entire game. The top laner was able to get a very early advantage as was able to keep a lot of pressure on Wickd, shutting him down and taking away any presence that Wickd. Kev1n was able to control the fights throughout the game, zoning out the carries of CLG EU. He ended the first game with a score of 7/0/5. Ocelote was able to keep Froggen in check the entire game, keeping the skilled mage from carrying the game.

CLG EU was on a mission to make their trip from Korea worthwhile, to keep their 2nd place in the Challenger Circuit standings, and to beat Moscow Five in a final that everyone wanted to see. After losing the first game, CLG buckled down. They banned Jax after being reminded of what kind of terror the melee carry can be. The 2nd game of the best of 3 was probably one of the closest games throughout the whole event. The lead constantly ebbed and flowed from one team to the other. There were many moments throughout the game where it looked like SK was about to shock everyone but CLG EU had the better late game composition and, unlike the first game, they didn't have an answer for Froggen's Anivia. CLG's mid player was able to go 10/1/9 and was eventually the reason CLG was able to take down the 2nd game because he had 2k more gold than the highest person on SK Gaming ( Yell0wStar). SK's chances of taking the game went down tremendously after not finishing the game after taking the baron around the 33rd minute because they didn't have an answer for Froggen.

CLG still had not reached their goal and the 3rd game proved that they were determined to reach it. The game started out slow but once the action started up around the 15 minute mark everything went CLG's way. The favorites took every teamfight and quickly took the game with a score of 16 kills to 2. The bottom lane of Yellowpete and Krepo were the backbones of the quick win going a combined 8/0/12.

CLG was on to the finals where Moscow Five was waiting anxiously to get revenge.

Finals

The greats in every sport can get knocked down time and time again but will eventually climb back to the top spot and claim what is rightfully theirs. The people that watched the finals of the European Challenger Circuit: Poland were witnesses to a team claiming what is rightfully theirs.

Moscow Five has never done that great against CLG EU in the LAN setting, losing to them in the group stage and the finals of Dreamhack Summer and also the group stage of this event. The Russians had a lot to prove and prove it they did. The two games of the final went by like the snap of a finger. The combined kills/death/assists for both games were: M5 (49/11/116) to CLG EU (11/50/19). The complete domination of Moscow Five in this final after struggling to figure out CLG EU for the last couple of months has left me, and I imagine most fans, completely speechless. Where does one even begin to talk about a stomp like this?

I'll just give the stats.

Moscow Five was not scared of Froggen's Anivia nor his Karthus because they had no intention of taking this to a late game. Diamondprox was actively ganking across the map and Darien would teleport down with Shen's Stand United whenever the moment called for it, pretty much whenever it was off cooldown. Once again, Wickd was taken out of the game through continuous opposing jungle presence in his lane, something he isn't used to in Korea since the Korean junglers focus more on the bottom lane.

In the second game, Alex Ich had Gragas and was showing the world how to play the big drunk guy. He finished the game 8/1/12 and had 5k more gold than the highest person on CLG, Froggen. In fact, Genja (8/1/12) had 4.7k more gold than Froggen also. The game lasted about 45 minutes but it was never close. The Russians were hellbent on winning the game early and never letting the advantage slip and they did just that. It was a textbook way of how to win at League of Legends.

The final standings for ECC Poland look like this:

SK Gaming was able climb past FnaticRC in the Challenger Circuit standings With the 3rd place finish at ECC Poland.

The competitive section of the League of Legends website has all the vods already uploaded along with score screens and detailed summaries of each game. You should definitely check out the CLG versus SK series.

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