Wow! I hope you caught all the action this past weekend when the VGL Autumn Qualifier North American Top 16 was narrowed down to just four teams. Some incredible matches were had and you can re-watch all of the glorious gameplay from Saturday and Sunday. The remaining teams are VON Menace (1), GankStars Vega (2), Nemesis Hydra (3), and LiberationX (5). Looks like VGL did a great job with the seeding as the final teams are all very high seeds! Here are the matches scheduled for this Saturday. The game times below are all PM PST.
We have two killer matches on board for the semifinals, and BrokenMyth wanted to break down these matchups for you so you can get hyped for this weekend!
GankStars versus Nemesis, round three! These two guilds matched off in the last VGL Qualifier in the quarterfinals, with Nemesis taking the victory over Gankstars Cerberus, which included FooJee, ROAM, Aloh4, and bigpaws. GankStars Vega got their revenge by besting Nemesis Titan last Sunday in the quarterfinals. The new Gankstars Vega team boasts all three members from the Vainglory World Invitational Team Fusion. Nemesis, however, has also bolstered its ranks with new member iLoveJoseph, who was a member of the winning team of the last VGL, Ardent Alliance.
Nemesis Hydra will be looking for revenge for their teammates, with the starting lineup of hardek (Lane), LostBoyToph (Roam), and iLoveJoseph (Jungle). This Saturday, look to see an epic lane battle between Oldskool and hardek, while FooJee and R3cKeD will meet LostBoyToph and iLoveJoseph‘s fearsome jungle synergy.
I’d like to see Oldskool‘s Celeste against hardek‘s Skaarf, but most likely bans of those two heroes will happen. iLoveJoseph has been playing Glaive often this VGL, but he can jungle with pretty much anything. This Nemesis starting lineup has the benefit of playing together for a long time, and their synergy is very strong. My prediction: Nemesis Hydra moves on to the finals.
This is THE matchup of the century. VON Menace, the number one seed and second place finisher of the first VGL Autumn qualifier faces off against LiberationX, a team that includes many of the highest Elo players currently in North America. LoveIce4ever and VONC (aka TheCatherine) are a one-two punch of versatile carries in both lane and jungle. We’ve also seen some incredible support as well as Glaive play from PhoenIx so far in this VGL. Supershottt is a new member of VON’s competitive team, and with two accounts in the NA Top 20, he could make a difference as a sub for VON Menace.
LiberationX is out to make a name for themselves. After a disqualification in the first VGL Autumn Qualifier, Statusbaked and his starting lineup with ttigers and DawnEclypse want to prove themselves worthy of a VGL championship. They showed they mean business in last week’s quarterfinals, defeating the fourth seed team Ardent Axiom decisively 2-0. Statusbaked was the number one player in North America (by Elo rating) in the Top 100 list recently shared by SEMC on their dev stream two Fridays ago. This spurred a match between him and the devs, but unfortunately he could not take on the devs 1v3 and lost his title. 😉
Unlike the dev match, things should be different against VON Menace, a team not to be taken as lightly. It will be interesting to see if VON Menace will ban Rona, a hero that was used very effectively by Statusbaked in the quarterfinals, or Glaive, a hero for which he is also known. Likewise, will LiberationX ban Joule, VONC‘s main hero? My prediction: LiberationX is hungry, and they win this one.
These games will be aired live on VGL’s Twitch channel at http://twitch.tv/vaingloryleague. Coverage starts at 1:00 PM PDT on Saturday, November 21st. Let us know who you think will win and why!