It’s the knockout stages of the 2018 SMITE World Championship, and we’re starting our live blogging adventure with a blockbuster of a match: fan favorites Luminosity against two time World Champions NRG Esports.
Will the champions go home early? Does North America have a chance in this competition? Strap in as I document the highs and lows from what is sure to be a memorable best-of-three games series.
You can join in the live blog action by tweeting to @esportssource with your comment. It’s your chance to be famous* on an esports blog, so take it while you can!
*the term “famous” is extremely subjective in this case.
(This is Kim by the way – myself and ES Matt are covering this tournament solo so I’m staying on the main ES posting account)
Game 1: Picks and bans time! Just want to note that the players on both teams look extremely tense. It looks like they’ve been looking forward to this as much as fans and analysts.
Luminosity look like the stronger team with their god choices, but it’s impossible to vote against NRG isn’t it?
As the match starts NRG invade LG’s speed buff to start while LG plays it safe and secures two of their own buffs in the same amount of time.
Game 1: First blood! Adapting gets it on Aquarius to give NRG an early kill lead.
NRG are playing aggressively from the start in the hopes of letting the game snowball and end the first match quickly. LG for their part are still playing cautiously and concentrating on objectives rather than trying to take out players.
Game 1: Yammyn takes out Mask, and a slapfight in mid ensues. Barraccudda to the rescue, he darts in while NRG are concentrating their attacks on JeffHindla, and Barra clears.
Baskin then swoops into another teamfight near the FG and two NRG players go down. LG have a slim 4-3 lead.
Game 1: NRG go for the gold fury and take out two LG players in the process, they then take out the portal demon. The team is moving as one unit around the map while LG appears to be relying on individual performances early on.
Game 1: Just as things looked grim for LG, the team charged down the middle to avenge their lost T1 tower, and pick up kills, The team then went for the Fire Giant but bit off a bit too much, and NRG punished them by racking up more kills courtesy of Adapting.
LG 10-13 NRG
Game 1: LG decide to give up 2 of their T2 towers to a Fire Giant buffed NRG, hoping to defend their phoenixes (though it’s only 23 minutes into the game). LG playing very defensively and they are facing a 10k gold deficit at the moment.
Game 1: A fight at the respawned Fire Giant and NRG just slip right past LG to take out three players. This game is on its last legs (as NRG take the Fire Giant again).
Game 1: LG desperately trying to defend their base, but NRG charge through the middle, swat away both Baskin and Barraccudda, and much to the home crowd’s dismay.
Game 2: Picks and Bans
NRG: Ravana, Erlang Shen, Raijin, Athena, Rama
LG: Cabrakan, Cu Chulanin, Hachiman, Xing Tan, Discordia
Game 2: Yammyn gets another first blood, and its on Barraccudda in the mid. Mask answers back with a kill for LG to tie things up in the first minutes of the game.
Game 2: Not a lot of engagements after that initial kerfuffle in mid. Mask and Aquarius fall on the right, and it’s another slow start for Luminosity. Emilitoo is harrying Barraccudda on the left.
Game 2: NRG continue to look aggressive, with ManiaKK trying to bait fights on the right. Mask falls in mid. Barra dies to Adapting on the left, and LG just have no answers for this confident NRG squad. LG do have a good late game team composition so there’s a possibility that they can get back into this, but it still seems like this is NRG’s game to lose at this point.
Game 2: NRG completely dominating now, getting leisurely kills all around the map. They currently have a 12-3 kill lead at 17 minutes. LG doesn’t have any towers left, and it looks like this match will wrap up quickly.
Game 2: NRG take an uncontested Fire Giant and then stroll down the right to melt down each LG phoenix and the titan in businesslike fashion.
So after much hype and much fanfare, NRG made LG look absolutely ordinary. Yammyn is playing out of his mind, essentially farming the opposite team and picked up kills with relative ease.
Settling in now ahead of the big match! That was a breathless ending to that Rival match, and the second game was far closer than most people would have anticipated. Rival look tremendous, and their ability to adapt to nearly every situation quickly is what sets them apart from the other top teams here – thus the reason they’re the top seed in the EU region.
As for this match – it’s the big one of the day. Two teams with a core that has been intact for years, and two teams that are seen as favorites in their respective regions (North America and Europe): Luminosity and NRG.
The teams keep meeting up at SWC (this is the third time) but this time they are meeting in the quarterfinals rather than the semifinals – so one of these titans of the game will be heading home a big early after this short best of three series.