The highlight game of the day is definitely the second game between Rattlesnake and First Departure. We'll let the following video to do all the talking here.

When First Departure went up against LGD.cn, it was clear that LGD was the better and more experienced team. After clearing the first game, LGD picked up their signature Kunkka on Xiao8 and banished the Singaporeans into the lower bracket. First Departure will face the winner of Dreamz versus Rattlesnake tomorrow.

Dreamz on the other hand, did not fare too well against LGD.cn, the favourite coming into the Eastern qualifier. In their second encounter, Dreamz was pounded by the Chinese in a fashion never seen before in competitive gaming, finishing the game with 0 deaths.

LGD .cn has just defeated First Departure in the winner bracket final of Group A and will be the first team to qualify for the playoffs of The International 3 Eastern qualifier. The day started off with a big upset as First Departure, through Galvin 'Meracle-' Kang's amazing play as the support, destroyed Rattlesnake in game two and game three of the series.

Group A

Today's matches

​ [Match 1] RattleSnake vs First Departure Game one To kick-off the Eastern qualifier of TI3, First Departure drafted their trademark Naga Siren split push strat but gave up Juggernaut, Clockwerk and Skywrath Mage to RattleSnake . First Departure grouped up very early on the bottom lane and took down Rattlesnake’s tier-one tower after being met with much resistance from the Clockwerk. The Queen of Pain who has been left alone on Rattlesnake’s safe lane took down two towers while the Singaporeans were distracted. First Departure soon find themselves losing map control due to tower loss and started placing defensive wards all over their side of the jungle. However, Rattlesnake wasn’t actually the ones initiating at them but FD’s heroes are mostly caught on the wrong side of the river, way past the enemy lines. As a result, Rattlesnake was able to get more farm time and built up a 5,000 gold lead just 15 minutes in. The advantage continued to grow for the Chinese with a Gem bought up on Queen of Pain and First Departure now have virtually no vision. First Departure was also forced to stick as five due to the pressure Rattlesnake applied despite them having the split push line-up. Two drawn out team fights and a Roshan kill later, Rattlesnake went for the final push and ended game one.

Game two

Coming off their loss in the first game, First Departure made a role switch to allow Meracle-, FD's star carry player, to play Io while Scripted took the carry role on the Chaos Knight. Rattlesnake also ran an unorthodox offensive trilane with Clockwerk, which to much surprise was rather successful against the Io - Chaos Knight - Shadow Demon combo.

The laning phase cleared out quiet with both teams safely farming and only one exchange in kill happened. It was not until 10 minutes that Rattlesnake started rotating, first towards the middle and then towards the bottom, for all of First Departure's tier-one towers. Once the outer towers were gone, that was when Rattlesnake started to truly shine.

The Chinese was quick in finding pick-offs and soon enough, they found themselves up by 5,000 in gold yet again. The Chinese had no intentions on slowing down. By 18 minutes, the young Singaporean team found all their outer towers but one gone and had no chance on utilizing their strat to full potential considering that Rattlesnake are walking around as five.

First Departure's big break came 25 minutes at the bottom lane as some players from Rattlesnake were caught standing in wrong position. Instead of waiting for their death timer to continue ticking down, Rattlesnake was impatient and bought back only to die again on the drawn out battle. As a result, First Departure took down the Roshan and gave the Aegis to the Chaos Knight.

With a Black King Bar and Phantasm in his arsenal, the Chaos Knight dished out a tonne of damage in fights. Rattlesnake had no answers for the Chaos Knight considering they relied mostly on magic damage rather than physical hits (Gyrocopter bought Aghanim's).

First Departure took down the second Roshan and 5 minutes later, the game.

Note: GREAT play by Meracle on Io at 31:00 game time, assisting in the Chaos Knight escape and also his own escape at 50 hp. Truly Meraculous play.

Game three

Contrary to the first and second game, the third game of the series was much faster in pace as the supports from both teams rotated from the first minute onto the middle lane. This resulted in many low level fights but it was the Singaporeans having the slight edge fighting with the Soul Assumption from Visage. Game was 5-1 in favour of First Departure 5 minutes in.

Despite such a blazing start to the game, both teams took a chill pill and played passively till the 10th minute. Being 4 kills up by that point, First Departure assembled in the middle lane in an attempt to push the tier-one tower. The push was successful and met with almost no resistance considering Rattlesnake did not have proper early anti-push heroes such as Keeper of the Light to stop the continuous siege. Four of Rattlesnake's outer towers were down by 15 minutes.

Keeping up with their momentum, First Departure finished up the rest of Rattlesnake's outer towers before moving into the Rosh pit. The Singaporeans next target, Rattlesnake's barracks on the top lane were also taken down shortly after with close to no resistance from the Chinese. In a desperate need to make something happen, Rattlesnake went for one last effort to fight outside their base but they were quickly annihilated. First Departure strolled into Rattlesnake's base and pulled off the major upset.

Note: Rattlesnake's lack of anti-push and decision to fight in the laning phase against a Visage cost them a big chunk of the game.

[Match 2] LGD vs LedionDreamz

Game one

The first blood goes down quickly as the supports from Dreamz rotate in to take down xiao8's Dark Seer. Despite that3, xiao8 gets a good start going. The aggressive trilane (Lifestealer, Silencer, Leshrak) does a good job in giving Anti-Mage a hard time. Dreamz are utilizing their supports decently though to help out the other lanes while LGD mostly keep their supports top. Mostly it's smaller trades going on but a missjudged initiation by Dreamz trying to defind their mid tower causes them to lose three heroes. The tower gets denied by Julz though.

A bit of overextension by LGD nullifies that though, they expect to take down the bottom tower but gets outnumbered by Dreamz and eventually loses four heroes one by one. LGD keeps trying to force fights though, especially with the Global Silence up. They use it to kill off Julz and JyC aswell as tier 2 mid. After that, they mostly look to find single pick-offs, waiting for the Global Silence to get ready again. However, instead of forcing fights, they use the Silence to first kill of Anti-mage and then Queen of Pain next time it's up. Julz buys back forcing LGD to fall back, while Anti-Mage takes down the tier 2 top tower on his own. The gold difference at 30 minutes is 100 gold. Xiao8 surged straight into a smoked up Dreamz and goes down instantly, followed by Dreamz rotating towards Roshan. Xiao8 buys back and LGD forces away Dreamz from the pit area and grabs Roshan for themselves somewhat uncontested.

A successful team fight by LGD gives them the kill on the last standing tier 2 tower, at the top lane. LGD had the better positioning in the fight, with Dreamz heroes being located too far away from each other. They abandon the fight once DK goes down. Moments later, an incredibly timed (lucky?) Vacuum at a random sets of trees finds Anti-Mage and cancells his teleportation. Xiao8 instantly hexes him afterwards with his Scythe and since all of LGD are there, they take down Owey quickly without him using his Manta. LGD gets the next Roshan uncontested while Dreamz eliminates the mid tier 2 tower. Julz gets caught with the Global Silence though and killed shortly after, and with his Aghanim Dreamz needs him to defend from the pushes. He buys back and LGD falls back for the moment. However Julz blinks uphill blindly and jumps straight into five heroes and gets killed off again. His team is there to try to save the situation and DK awell as AM deal out huge amounts of damage to LGD. The Aegis of Sylar turns the fight though and they end up taking down all of Dreamz. At this point DD have stolen 40 int with his Silencer.

After Anti-Mage spawns the gets picked off right away, with Hex and Abyssal blade coming out from LGD. With no buyback, Dreamz loses two sets of barracks due to this. Dreamz comes back abit killing off Yao instantly and taking as successful fight near the Rosh area but nothing is produced from this since LGD uses their buybacks. Later on, what looks to be a game deciding fight where LGD drops the Silence, the supports of Dreamz manages to save Julz by forcing him away from the fight. Owey comes in from the back and cleans up Leshrac which is the only casualty of the fight.

The final moment arrives when LGD goes for the mid push, aiming straight towards the throne while Dreamz tries to take the top barracks down. They realize they can't win the race and starts falling back, however Anti-Mage does not carry a teleportation scroll and has to walk/blink back. He doesn't make it in time and Dreamz fail to defend their throne. First game goes to LGD.

Game one

LGD finds an opening at the 3vs3 toplane and catches Dreamz slightly offguard. With the help of devastating nuke of Visage, they walk away with the double kill. After that the game is in for some early snowballing, LGD are essentially winning all lanes. Dreamz just doesn't seem to be able to find the combos and engagements they want to and gets picked off several times. With the level advantage and the combination of early Medallion + Beastmaster aura, the whole LGD deals out huge amounts of damage and Dreamz' heroes just melt. The composition of heroes also really punish Dreamz poor start. They eventually take down the mid barracks and the game looks over. The gg is eventually called with the kills being 24-0 in favour of LGD.

[Match 3] First Departure vs LGD

Game one

​

LGD.cn went for an aggressive trilane, with Bane, Leshrac and Lifestealer. However, they were unable to contest the pull of First Departure, who used Shadow Demon and Chen to protect their farming Antimage. This caused the supports of LGD to be relatively underleveled, without disrupting the farm of their enemies' carry. The first blood was drawn by xiao8's Queen of pain, after a solo kill on Magnus by minute 6.

Hana's Skywrath rushed to assist Poloson's Magnus, with a gang on xiao8. However, LGD realised the plan in time, and Bane immediately joined the fight, resulting in his and Skywrath Mage's demise.The Chinese, realising that the bottom clashes are the key for their supports to get their missing experience, rotated their trilane bottom. The pressure on First Departure was immense, as they lost their first tier-one and many heroes in its defense.

LGD were not willing to stop their map domination, as they kept destroying towers after towers. with only one tier-two tower missing when the game hit the 18th minute mark. They wanted to end this game early, giving no chances for a comeback to Meracle, and they even pushed for the tier-three. Poloson skewered in LGD's squad, looking for a Reverse Polarity. Nevertheless, he did not find the opportunity he needed, causing a 2-1 trade in favor of LGD.

The things were not looking good for the Singaporeans. LGD, taking their first roshan in 22 minutes, seemed to have the full map control. Meracle was trying to give his team some breathing space by split-pushing, but it seemed to have no effect at all. Queen of Pain's Death 27 minutes changed nothing in terms of gold and experience - LGD rushed inside the Dire's base shortly after, taking down the first set of barracks.

The combination of durability, mobility and crowd control from LGD's lineup was just too much for First Departure. Lifestealer and Dragon Knight were just too fat to take down by an underfarmed Antimage. LGD did not have to win a huge teamfight and wipe their enemies. The only thing they needed to do was march inside the base and destroy the needed structures. So they did, taking the last set of barracks with 32 minutes on the clock, forcing out the gg a few seconds later.

Game two

LGD opted for early mid-lane domination with the selection of Kunkka and Shadow Demon. LGD recently used this hero with great success, and it seems they made the correct decision, as the kills kept coming for that SD-Kunkka combo, starting from the first blood against Meracle three minutes in. First Departure were only able to respond with two Omnislash kills from hana's Juggernaut.

FD looked for a fight as soon as Poloson got his Blink Dagger 14 minutes in. They rotated to the middle lane, where they found four men from LGD. SCripted's Nyx tried to bait the Chinese, but the Reverse Polarity by Poloson only caught Yao, giving two easy kills to LGD. With the addition of Sylar, LGD kept their middle pressure, with the Singaporeans unable to set up the fight they want. An attempt to defend the mid tier-one ended up in a 4-1 fight in favor of LGD, giving them both the tower and a free Roshan a few seconds later.

Meracle decided to play his last card in this game, and farmed a Divine Rapier right after his Shadow Blade. First Departure instantly used Smoke of Deceit, and rushed to contest LGD's second Roshan. Nonetheless, the Chinese got away with the Aegis of the Immortal. The inability to catch LGD by surprise costed the game for the Singaporeans, as Meracle got taken down two minutes later, offering a free Rapier to Yao. First Departure called the game the moment the Divine Rapier hit the ground.