The closer two of the matches for the opening round of the WC3L Offline Playoffs was expected to be SK Gaming v World Elite and they didn't disappoint.

Infi and Sky were coming off of superb performances in PGL and were ready to help their team take the win against SK, meanwhile the players of SK came to dethrone the defending champions and get back on top of the Warcraft 3 world once more.

The match started with Infi playing against Reign on Turtle Rock. Luckily for Infi, they spawn close spawn on the lower right corner of the map. Infi wasted no time in doing a T1 rush. Reign had gone fast hero ghouls build, and Infi managed to kill off Reigns outer Ziggurat that was upgrading to frost tower, leaving him with only 20 food available. Reign did a very good job of fighting off and killing militia and peasents by using Rods of Necromancy to mass skeletons, making Infi unable to build towers. Infi managed to get some towers up, but a well timed hero focus with Lich and Death Knight killed Infi's Archmage and the game went down hill from there.

Hotlips looks on, clearly displeased as Infi plays Reign

Game 2 was Terenas Stand, Infi went Paladin first, Reign once again did a fast hero ghoul build and immediately went to Infi's side of the map. Reign did an amazing job harassing Infi and clearly frustrated him, making him unable to creep. He delayed Infi's expansion so long and killed enough peasents, by the time Reign had gargoyles, Infi couldn't get any towers up and teched. The game never was in Doubt. Reign beats Infi 2-0.

The next match was the 2s, World Elite's team never seemed to get any sort of advantage, very standard match in which Remind and Soju dominated in their classic manner. 2-0 SK.

Next came Violet v Like on Gnoll Wood. The two spawned in close spawn position. A few early skirmishs didn't give either the upper hand for long, but at T2, Violet got a very clutch kill on Like's Shadow Hunter forcing Like to retreat, however Like managed to get vamp aura. Like was able to recover and win a key fight at Violet's base, and win the game.

In the next map, Secret Valley it was more of the same with standard builds, a very short 11 minute game where Like just seemed to show his experience and outplay Violet. Like manages to save the series by winning 2-0.

Since LiKe was able to come through, next was Sky v Remind on Terenas Stand. Remind went with an archer Warden build and crept to 2 while Sky crept his natural gold mine and got lucky with a tome of xp giving him level 3 Archmage. Remind looked like he could have the game with a good archmage kill, but Sky managed to fight off the archer push by getting a shreader. Sky did a good enough job of delaying Remind's expo until he could get T3 and push with a mixed human army. 1-0.

Game 2 was Secret Valley, Remind went for a Potm hunts build and managed to slow down Sky enough that Sky's archmage didn't make level 2 until T2. Remind stayed T1 and grabbed an expansion. Sky managed to creep his heroes after a few skirmishes and get a mixed caster rifle army and took down Remind's expansion. Remind got a kill on Naga, but never really had a chance in this game. Sky wins easily 2-0.

The deciding match was TeD v Lyn first on Ancient Isles. TeD went his fiend build against

Reign plays InFi for the right to the next round

Lyn's standard Orc build. Each creeped to level 2 easily enough, while Lyn's harass at lvl 2 was ineffective. While TeD outfooded Lyn, he pushed with DK Lich Pitlord on Lyn's base while Lyn crept to try to get hero advantage. When Lyn got 3/3 he came back to fight TeDs underleveled 2/1/1 heroes, but the food advantage was too much even with Lyn being T3. 1-0 TeD

Lyn got to play on Lost Temple in game 2, both going standard. It was cross spawn so both players fast expanded without any harassment, the game really wasn't too involved, with only a few skirmishes and then a few 70 food battles that left TeD decimated. Lyn managed to sneak expansions and his blademaster was clearly the difference here. Lyn dominated late game to bring the match 1-1 and need a deciding game.

Game 3 TeD chose Turtle rock, and they ended up cross spawn. TeD crept to level 3 before Lyn could put any harassment. Lyn opted to go for Tauren Chieftain and TeD immediately tower rushed. Lyn never got any footing here as Ted had a huge army advantage once he killed Lyn's unit buildings.

World Elite will now face MYM Dreamteam in the Upper Bracket finals to see who will advance to the grand final.

Match Result | Replays | WC3L Finals Coverage