

It's been an interesting week for the North American Smite scene. Snipe Gaming has picked up a sponsor and is now Cognitive Gaming. While Snipe being sponsored isn't a total surprise, some of the complexity of their sponsorship is. Mattypocket (formerly of Root and a sub for DenialNA for a time) is now acting as Cognitive gaming's manager and a sub. Matty used his contacts with Fry's electronics (https://www.frys.com), to start a new eSports organization with Snipe as their first sponsored team. In his interview with HiRezKelly, Matty indicated that Cognitive would continue to expand into other games, possibly picking up a League of Legends team as well.





The first week with Cognitive Gaming held several surprises. Allied was the only member of the team not sporting their new clan tag [CoG]. The main surprise in their play was Shing. In both of their matches, Shing chose not to pick up Bumba's Mask as the jungler. This strategy seemed to work well in the match against Reason Gaming, where Thor (Shing) started with Death's Toll. He went with Death's Toll in the match against Denial NA as well, however, this just wasn't enough on Fenrir to help him manage his health while juggling. As the junggler, Shing already has a shiny target on his back, and this proved to be too much for the gentlemen of Cognitive Gaming to handle. Denial NA managed 16 kills, with 6 of these on Fenrir and 5 on Poseidon. With only 5 kills between them, Shing and MLCst3lth were effectively shut down, greatly weakening the team as a whole. Kaeyoh and Omega managed perfect games, but this was not enough to carry the team.



In their match for third place against Myoelctric, Shing jungled as Freya and did pick up Bumba's Mask. This wasn't enough to keep him protected though as Freya went 1/9/6. Kaeyoh and MLCs3alth were able to pull through for their team though going 5/0/8 and 8/1/7 respectively. It was enough for Cognitive Gaming to finish out the week in third.





Denial NA was able to perform well this week and ultimately finished the week in second place behind Team Dignitas. PonPon (formerly of Curse Gaming), joined Denial in the jungler role after months missing from competitive play. In their first match against Toothsome Rage, Denial took first blood and ran the match from that point on. Ne Zha (PonPon) finished 11/0/7 and Isis (Macetodaface) finished 6/1/8. These two players accounted for more than half of the team's total kills.



In the next match against Cognitive Gaming, Macetodaface takes MVP going 6/0/7 with 22,628 player damage and 12,755 healing on Ra. Absolute perfect communication and coordination is what shaped this victory. Many of the kills (especially on MLCst3alth's Poseidon) were made possible by a perfectly timed series of stuns from Ne Zha and Neith (Paindevivande), followed with accurate Ra ults. Despite a glitch in Ne Zha's 3 (it only stunned rather than stunned and pulled after being used on an ulting Fenrir), Denial was able to dominate this match.





In the finals matches, we saw DenialNA against Team Dignitas. Dignitas was able to take first place with a decisive 2-0 victory in the best of 3 series. In the first match, the combination of Loki's (Lassiz) ult and Poseidon's (theBest) ultimate were a deadly combination. The kills in this match were spread fairly evenly over Dignitas, allowing all players to come out ahead. Denial, however, had their jungler shut down when Ne Zha (PonPon) went 3/8/3. The weakening of this key player was just too much for Denial to recover from and Dignitas took the match after 31 minutes.



The second game in the series was shorter than the first ending in a surrender at 20 minutes. Once again, theBest dominated, this time on Agni going 7/0/11. Loki (Lassiz) and Neith (Zapman) were another major part of Dignitas's dominance going 8/1/10 and 6/2/7 respectively. This trio demonstrated the deadliness of doom orb and heartseaker picked up early on these gods by skilled players. Their damage output was just too great for Denial to handle, with these three players accounting for 33,000 in player damage.



Congratulations to all of this week's NA tournament competitors on amazing and entertaining games!



Be sure to follow us on twitter @denialesports to see our upcoming articles on PonPon's joining Denial, the Gamescom invitees and wildcard, and who will be invited to Pax! It's been an interesting week for the North American Smite scene. Snipe Gaming has picked up a sponsor and is now Cognitive Gaming. While Snipe being sponsored isn't a total surprise, some of the complexity of their sponsorship is. Mattypocket (formerly of Root and a sub for DenialNA for a time) is now acting as Cognitive gaming's manager and a sub. Matty used his contacts with Fry's electronics (https://www.frys.com), to start a new eSports organization with Snipe as their first sponsored team. In his interview with HiRezKelly, Matty indicated that Cognitive would continue to expand into other games, possibly picking up a League of Legends team as well.The first week with Cognitive Gaming held several surprises. Allied was the only member of the team not sporting their new clan tag [CoG]. The main surprise in their play was Shing. In both of their matches, Shing chose not to pick up Bumba's Mask as the jungler. This strategy seemed to work well in the match against Reason Gaming, where Thor (Shing) started with Death's Toll. He went with Death's Toll in the match against Denial NA as well, however, this just wasn't enough on Fenrir to help him manage his health while juggling. As the junggler, Shing already has a shiny target on his back, and this proved to be too much for the gentlemen of Cognitive Gaming to handle. Denial NA managed 16 kills, with 6 of these on Fenrir and 5 on Poseidon. With only 5 kills between them, Shing and MLCst3lth were effectively shut down, greatly weakening the team as a whole. Kaeyoh and Omega managed perfect games, but this was not enough to carry the team.In their match for third place against Myoelctric, Shing jungled as Freya and did pick up Bumba's Mask. This wasn't enough to keep him protected though as Freya went 1/9/6. Kaeyoh and MLCs3alth were able to pull through for their team though going 5/0/8 and 8/1/7 respectively. It was enough for Cognitive Gaming to finish out the week in third.Denial NA was able to perform well this week and ultimately finished the week in second place behind Team Dignitas. PonPon (formerly of Curse Gaming), joined Denial in the jungler role after months missing from competitive play. In their first match against Toothsome Rage, Denial took first blood and ran the match from that point on. Ne Zha (PonPon) finished 11/0/7 and Isis (Macetodaface) finished 6/1/8. These two players accounted for more than half of the team's total kills.In the next match against Cognitive Gaming, Macetodaface takes MVP going 6/0/7 with 22,628 player damage and 12,755 healing on Ra. Absolute perfect communication and coordination is what shaped this victory. Many of the kills (especially on MLCst3alth's Poseidon) were made possible by a perfectly timed series of stuns from Ne Zha and Neith (Paindevivande), followed with accurate Ra ults. Despite a glitch in Ne Zha's 3 (it only stunned rather than stunned and pulled after being used on an ulting Fenrir), Denial was able to dominate this match.In the finals matches, we saw DenialNA against Team Dignitas. Dignitas was able to take first place with a decisive 2-0 victory in the best of 3 series. In the first match, the combination of Loki's (Lassiz) ult and Poseidon's (theBest) ultimate were a deadly combination. The kills in this match were spread fairly evenly over Dignitas, allowing all players to come out ahead. Denial, however, had their jungler shut down when Ne Zha (PonPon) went 3/8/3. The weakening of this key player was just too much for Denial to recover from and Dignitas took the match after 31 minutes.The second game in the series was shorter than the first ending in a surrender at 20 minutes. Once again, theBest dominated, this time on Agni going 7/0/11. Loki (Lassiz) and Neith (Zapman) were another major part of Dignitas's dominance going 8/1/10 and 6/2/7 respectively. This trio demonstrated the deadliness of doom orb and heartseaker picked up early on these gods by skilled players. Their damage output was just too great for Denial to handle, with these three players accounting for 33,000 in player damage.Congratulations to all of this week's NA tournament competitors on amazing and entertaining games!Be sure to follow us on twitter @denialesports to see our upcoming articles on PonPon's joining Denial, the Gamescom invitees and wildcard, and who will be invited to Pax!