One more regional qualifier concluded today with surprising results as none of the European main favorites made it to the Boston Major.
Third time's the charm for Ad Finem, who finally managed to qualify to a Valve event. Ad Finem’s flawless victories over Team Secret and Team Liquid in the European qualifiers playoffs made them the first European squad to grab their tickets for Boston. Staying together when the entire scene shuffled more than once, and working hard to break the tier two rank, the Greeks have been one step away from qualifying for a Valve event twice before during this year. They finished second in the Manila Major qualifiers, where only the winner would have been granted a spot into the main event, and placed fourth at the TI6 regionals, where only top three went to Seattle.
Ad Finem’s determination crushed Team Liquid in the upper bracket finals with a under 25 minutes victory in game one. They out drafted and outplayed the new Liquid who has been playing mind games the entire qualifiers with their adversaries. Not interested in who will play what, as Liquid switched Kuro 'KuroKy' Salehi Takhasomi and Lasse 'MATUMBAMAN' Urpalainen from their roles almost with every game they played, Ad Finem was prepared to counter Amer 'Miracle-' Al-Barkawi and finished the series in less than an hour.
Dropped to the lower bracket finals, Liquid had a rematch with Virtus Pro who only yesterday got themselves stomped by the power of a 9K MMR support. Today however, VP served Liquid with their own medicine and after two intense games, the Russian squad took Kuro by surprise with a support Weaver for Ilya 'Lil' Ilyuk to snatch the second qualifier spot.
