Day 2 of the MLG Summer Arena took place today with 2 match-ups. The first match-up of the day was the Korean juggernauts, Azubu Blaze, against the European newcomers, BLACK. The second match-up was a battle between two top North American teams, Curse vs. Team Solomid. Today set the stage for Sunday where the 3rd round robin match will determine who plays in the Finals.
After Day 1, the sentiment about Azubu Blaze is that they are the best team in the world. Some of the competitive League of Legends community is already placing them in the finals of the Season 2 World Championship and quite frankly they are the best looking team right now. Often times, League of Legends top teams are determined by who can stay ahead of the curve. Right now, Azubu Blaze is way ahead of the curve.
Azubu Blaze vs. BLACK
Blaze decided to focus on a little bit of a different aggressive strategy against BLACK. Instead, of focusing on turrets, they focused on kills. The first game, BLACK was able to hang in for the first 15 minutes. The European team had a lead at one point in time but a bad engagement tilted them against the Korean Team.
A quick note from this match, Azubu Blaze often times play like they are are all controlled by a Korean Starcraft player; the reactions of all 5 are just so instant and fluid that it is hard to believe it is 5 different people.
The 2nd and 3rd game wasn't near as close. Both games got out of control of BLACK with Azubu Reapered and Azubu Ambition both having big roles to play in the snowballing. When I asked Reapered how he was so good the man responded:
The stats for Azubu were impressive:
Again with the dominance of Azubu Reapered - The gold doesn't lie:
TSM vs Curse
Before we get to the series of Curse vs. Team Solomid there was some friendly trash talking from Curse's Pobelter!
Unfortunately for Curse and Pobelter, Solomid played like a team on a mission - a mission to save that pillow from getting wet with tears! In all seriousness, the top North American team wanted another shot at Azubu Blaze on Sunday and it was obvious.
In game 1, TSM tried out their own pushing strategy and it was back and forth through most of the game but Dyrus got way too big on
Shen and Curse had no answer for it. In the after match interviews Elementz said that they had 
Urgot blinders on and honestly that may have cost them the late game, especially since Pobelter was playing 
Janna and no one on Curse had that pivotal 
Abyssal Scepter to get through all the magic resist on TSM.In game 2 and 3, Curse just couldn't touch Chaox on
Graves but a lot of that had to with the extraordinary way that TSM is able to protect their carry. Xpecial on 
Soraka time and time again comes up with a clutch 
Infuse to completely turn around team fights. Unfortunately, in the 3rd game Curse seemed to just not have any answers against TSM. Might have been because they were up against the TSM comp of 
Vladimir in the top lane and 
Kennen in the middle, without a way to get through the AoE damage.Today Xpecial died only 3 times and had a total of 38 assists! The amazing support allowed Chaox to safely grab 23 kills over the course of the day. Chaox only died 4 times.
Team Solomid was able to answer the call when it came down to crunch time. Champions win when they absolutely have to and this is why Team Solomid are the victors in this match.
The action starts again tomorrow at 10 AM EST. The Korean wrecking machine Azubu Blaze takes on Curse, and at 12:30 PM EST TSM faces Team BLACK. The finals are set to begin at roughly 3 PM EST, and with the way this tournament has been going it's sure to be an exciting one.
Remember to follow us on twitter@MF_eSports as we'll be covering the competition straight from the event.
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