Yaspresents Tournament – Day 1 Recap: Qaulifiers Group A.

As I’m sure many of you are aware the Yaspresents 3v3 Tournament began yesterday.

The tournament format is relatively simple,  with 12 teams battling in 2 groups for 4 spots into the final leg of the tournament, and 6 teams invited. With an impressive $16,000 prize pool, taking place online on Blizzard’s EU Arena Tournament Realm, it has attracted US players as well as EU ones, big names and smaller ones.

The qualifying brackets are as follows:

Group A

Nuevos no somos eh: Blukstack/Methodx/Akane (Warlock/Paladin/Warrior)
Fanclub Zeyns: Enteyjin/Astaraya/Summi (Death Knight/Druid/Paladin)
Kurts Crew: Exerion/Hexur/Evleh (Druid/Shaman/Priest)
Toxic Youth: Boetar/Swapxy/Linkx (Warrior/Shaman/Paladin)
Shes Asian: Redx/Oldogstyle/Trollsweed (Shaman/Warrior/Priest)
Shoulda rerolled Warrior: Samx/Khryl/Vilefic (Rogue/Priest/Shaman)

Group B

Xero Practice: Salv/Ruddy/Forteh (Druid/Hunter/Paladin)
Alors la: Emelys/Shivz /Drat (Druid/Shaman/Priest)
Honor Capped: Colard/Saffie/Teebow (Warrior/Warlock/Shaman)
Prestige Gaming: Fritterus/Anberlin/Kekepopa (Druid/Shaman/Warrior)
Rat League Queuers: Shouri/Nadagast/Hoodrych (Druid/Warlock/Warrior)
Toaster Toasting Toasts:Yipz/Dakkroth/Chromix (Druid/Shaman/Priest)

The invited teams, that skip the qualifying are:

Last Again: Venruki/Sodah/Talbadar (Mage/Druid/Priest)
The Time is Now: Jahmilli/Starship/Zaddo (Mage/Druid/Priest)
TSG: Veev/Talason/Zilea (Warrior/Druid/Paladin)
Knew you were trouble: Cdew/Kurum/Corje (Shaman/Hunter/Warrior)
Comprendre L’Empire: Flubbah/Cara/Skoe (Shaman/Warrior/Priest)
Yas Reality Check: Shawir/Another/Geru (Warrior/Death Knight/Paladin)

I’m sure there are many names there, amongs both the invites and the qualifiers, that people will recognise.

Group A Recap

Yesterday, Group A played their qualifying round, and despite a few issues with the usual DDoSing in the early stages, it ran relatively smoothly. It felt like there was much less down time than we have seen at certain tournaments run by a certain company that should probably run a tournament for their own game a little better. Even during the brief down times that were encountered, Azael and “Conradical-at-conrad-nao” prove their worth as commentators by keeping the stream alive. I definitely think they’re both improving as people inviting us into the community. Zunniyaki also made a brief appearance commentating near the end with Conrad, which worked well also.

As for the games, the finishing bracket looked as follows: http://images.challonge.com/yaspresentsgroupa.png

As a rogue, I found Samx, Khryl and Vilefic’s games most interesting to watch, but it also may have been affected by the last games of the group deciding who went through, Kurts Crew (featuring EvleHEHE) or Shoulda rerolled Warrior, while both sat on 3 wins and 1 loss. These two teams were initially meant to play earlier in the day, but with Khryl suffering from disconnect issues there was a great deal of sportsmanship from Kurts Crew (which ended up being returned) when they didn’t take the free win they were entitled to and agreed to rematch.

Toxic Youth quite obviously dominated in most of their games, their comp and play style largely just a ticking time bomb, if you don’t have cooldowns when they do, you’re likely to end up 100-0′d.

Both Toxic Youth and Shoulda rerolled Warrior qualify through to the next stage, and today we find out who will join them from Group B.

Group B play today – with a whole bunch of druids in that group it’ll be interesting to see which make it through. I’m personally looking forward to watching Rat League Queuers, Toaster Toasting Toasts and Prestige Gaming (with FPS Russia on warrior?) – but to me there is no particular stand out in the group. I think it’s unfortunate the way the class representation lies at the moment, but the game is the game. Who are you rooting for?
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