Next week the fifth edition of the Ukrainian event StarSeries i-League will be starting. With a $300.000 prize pool, the tournament feature 16 teams, including 6 that are amongst the top 10 world rankings.

The excitement for this tournament also comes from the fact that we’re going to see a couple of teams who disappeared from the top LANs last month. These include AVANGAR and North being the dark horses here.

Therefore, let’s take a closer look into the key storylines that we should be looking following. B

Schedule, Format and Dates

StarSeries Season V starts on May 28th. The group stage will last five days, meaning the playoffs are scheduled for May 2nd.

As the format, we will be having a Swiss System in the group stage and every match is going to be a best of three. The top 8 teams at the end of the group stage are going to advance. The playoffs are going to run on a single-elimination bracket format with all matches being BO3s too.

The event will be running at the National Palace of Arts “Ukraina”. For the ones who will be following the event online, the StarLadder channel on Twitch will be streaming all matches as usual. Below you can see the opening matches as announced by the organizers:

Now that you’re up-t-date and schedules for the event, it’s time to look at the storylines.

Mousesports fight to retain title

Mousesports have been slowly wearing away over the last couple of weeks. With the rise of Astralis, FaZe and Na’Vi, followed by a possible Liquid and SK revitalization, their spot amongst the top five teams in the world could disappear soon.

This subtle rise of Mousesports, which we already talked about started at StarSeries i-League Season IV. Now, the International mix is coming back to Kiev to retain their title but that won’t be an easy task.

The team couldn’t beat any top team in EPL Season 7 Finals and Team Liquid, one of the favorites of this tournament has shown that they know how to deal with ChrisJ squad.

Fighting from the beginning

Coincidently, in the last couple of events, Mousesports’ first opponents was always amongst the worst teams present. This time however they will be playing against North. While the Danes aren’t on the same level as Mouz, they very familiar with ChrisJ’s playing style.

Not only this but they just won DreamHack Open Tours, giving MSL’s squad a big confidence boost. As we saw in Dallas last week, Mousesports still has problems closing games, and we already saw North abusing this in their previous encounters.

This match will certainly be a heavily disputed one. Unless Mouz shows a level of mental strength above of everything they have shown so far, they can lose here. The possibilities of retaining their title will fade away.

Ninjas in Pyjamas coming to try out solutions

Last time we saw NiP in a LAN tournament, they finished in last place. While certainly not a good sign, it seems that the team know what they need to work on – communication.

It’s hard to pinpoint why this is happening though. The fully Swedish lineup has been playing decently for two months since Dennis acquisition and they shouldn’t have anymore problems now.

Coming to StarSeries V, it will be a opportunity to try out things before the Major qualifiers start. NiP, who has skipped three Majors so far as they weren’t capable of qualifying, has the best roster we saw from the organization since 2016.

NiP will use StarSeries as an event for trying new things

Lasting five days, NiP couldn’t ask for a better event to grind out and experiment new things. Dennis certainly will use all those BO3s to mix around positions. Maybe even a way to make GeT_RiGhT to shine, or to guarantee that REZ won’t have any shortcomings.

Should NiP managed to stay amongst the top teams, this could be their breakthrough event. As they haven’t impressed recently, they need to recover and at least show that they can do better. However, taking the trophy or even making to the grand finals, considering the competition, might be too much to ask.

What can’t happen is another last place finish. The Major qualifiers are coming up and two last place finishes would destroy team morale.

NiP first match will be against HellRaisers. Champions of BETS.net Masters, the CIS opponents last results come with faults. Ninjas in Pyjamas should produce a comfortable win or else they could enter in a dire situation.

Liquid and Na’Vi fight as the favorites to win

No doubts, the favorites to win the entire event are Liquid and the home team Natus Vincere.

Na’Vi have been strong contenders for sometime now. If not by Astralis, and an over-performing Mousesports in the last StarSeries, s1mple, Na’Vi’s star, could have lifted a trophy this year already.

Coming again to Kiev, Natus Vincere will be up against TyLoo in their first encounter. As the Chinese opposition has shown, don’t take them seriously and they will give a lot of headaches. Zeus, Na’Vi lead, should know this however, and will be ready for the threat coming from BnTeT.

For the following games, things have to be analyzed. Will s1mple have a quieter performance like he did in Dallas, or will he take over like he usually does? Will electronic be on star level again? We know that these two on their best days can’t be stopped easily.

Taco taking another trophy?

While he doesn’t get as much recognition as his friend ‘Coldzera’, TACO is also a two-time Major winner and has more than a couple of titles under his belt already. Going into a new venture with Team Liquid, Taco isn’t looking for fun, instead, he wants more titles.

Last week he already demonstrated he is not messing around. He helped his teammates ELiGE and NAF to over-perform and both enjoyed his experience as a support player. The team were simply better alined.

Liquid will open the event against NRG. While their opponents managed to face them in the online leagues, NRG has shown that they unfortunately can’t perform on the same level in LANs. Liquid should have a good head start and beating NRG shouldn’t be a problem.

Can Liquid finally win a premier event? That’s a question for Taco and company next week.

SK and North come to Kiev revitalized

SK just won Adrenaline Cyber League 2018 and North won DreamHack Open Tours 2018. While considerably low tier events, these help teams who have been lost for some time to put things right. At Kiev, both North and SK have something to prove. That they can build upon the events won and go further after a period of failures.

North is by far the weakness between the two. Once drifting amongst the top three last year, the team went on a downwards slop and have been knocked out of the top 10 since January. Roster changes came and went but didn’t help as the team was followed by a wave of disappointing results.

This week however things were different. While the Danes still struggled with their mid-round decision, they managed to take control of games and took the first place using their firepower. Mertz, especially, broke out and dominated their opponents over the tournament in France.

In StarSeries, we don’t expect North to win but do pose a threat. We do not imagine to see the MSL squad in the playoffs as was the case in the last season of StarSeries.

Coldzera and Stewie2K survived once again

During EPL Season 7 Finals, Coldzera shocked everyone. The player who won the title of best player in the world in 2017 and 2016 was having a bad performing phase coming into the event and SK was expect to be one of the first eliminated.

The addition of the American Stewie2K didn’t initially make matters worse. What happened though was that SK reached the playoffs in Dallas and cold seemed to have overcome this bad phase.

More impressively, he took the role of in-game leader in most maps and still managed to perform against the best teams in Dallas. Stewie2K also stepped up immensely in Dallas.

To prove that Dallas wasn’t a fluke, SK joined Adrenaline Cyber League and fought against Gambit and AVANGAR. There, SK proved that they still need to fix some issues however, we imagine they won’t be finishing in last place anymore.

SK will be opening StarSeries i-League Season V with a match against VG.Flash. The Chinese opposition has showed to be able to top even TyLoo so SK should take care. This being a BO3 however make the situation more comfortable and SK has everything to start things well in Kiev.

AVANGAR and Gambit are sleepers capable of doing damage

Gambit and AVANGAR are two dangerous team playing here as underdogs. AVANGAR just ended their 15-match winning streak and probably looking to start another now.

Much of it was thanks to AVANGAR’s star qikert. The Kazakhstani had a sudden rise in the last couple of weeks and he’s one of the players to watch here. Should he perform as in the previous weeks, AVANGAR can make it to the top 8.

It’s not fair giving all credit to him though. Jame is also an upcoming star who has been doing an amazing job for AVANGAR and he has shown that he won’t stand down when playing against top teams.

Gambit comes with another IGL

Gambit has undergone a number of changes for the in-game lead role in the past months. The team can’t seem sort out who will take up the role. The player testing the position now is Dosia.

The brief leadership period that Dosia encountered in the past wasn’t favorable for the team. We saw a more structured Gambit but that clearly didn’t work out. In StarSeries Season V, their first opponent will be AVANGAR which is flowing with firepower that Gambit lacks so much and Dosia leading won’t be helping.

Shall they have something saved for this tournament though, then Gambit can be a very dangerous underdog. They have shown that they are capable of tactically restraining opponents with more skilled players. In the end, is just a matter of how Gambit will play here and that’s unpredictable.

As we said above, StarSeries i-League Season V will be starting next week. Who are your favorite teams? What do you think about Liquid and Na’Vi, can s1mple win or it will be TACO taking the trophy home? Let us know! And we will be following the tournament with the predictions here, so remember to check it out daily!