After the qualifiers, the group stage has started. Norway vs Sweden was a big surprise !

The end score is a draw game. Sweden rapes Norway in the second game, but the first game was very interesting. Let's check the picks :

Sweden : (top) SWE|Drayich = (top) SWE|Akke = (mid) SWE|Loda = (bot) SWE|Soth = (bot) SWE|Jonnie = (Jungle)

Norway : (top) Psycheout.no = (mid) BrainFreeZe.no = (bot) Protoss.no = (bot) ShaVoc.no = (bot) XeqtR.no =

Sweden 0:1 Norway

Firstblood for Sweden : Pugna died. Jungle BeastMaster has a bad start and dies against neutral creeps. The early game is balanced : at the thirtheenth minute, 4-4.

Mid game, Norway starts to gain a decisive advantage : Their combo works wonders... A lot of nukes ( Zeus, Oblivion, Tormented Soul ), a lot of stuns ( Sand King, Skeleton King and Tormented Soul) and a lot of AoE !

At that point of the game, Sweden is failing to achieve what they were set up to do.. Norway arrives in the Swedish base after a big fight easily won. Another push, anothers kills for Norway, and they destroy one tower and one rax in the middle lane. They do the same in the bottom lane, all towers, bottom rax are destroyed.

With 4 rax downs, Sweden is waking up but it is far too late. Norway gets the last rax. GG.

Sweden start failed, but Norway is now overconfident ... The second game can start with the picks !

Norway : (top) ShaVoc.no = (top) NlKE.no = (mid) XeqtR.no = (bot) Protoss.no = (bot) Psycheout.no =

Sweden : (top) SWE|Loda = (top) T_T|Renji = (mid) SWE|Drayich = (bot) SWE|Soth = (bot) SWE|tompa =

Sweden 1:1 Norway

An very easy win for Sweden. Norway picked Morphling way too early. Sweden just swaps Doom for Silencer and keep the exact same strat. Both SK (skeleton King and Sandking) disapears from the Norwegian strat, probably due to a better XL pick by Sweden...

Season_of_mist has met one player of each team.

A small reaction with the Swedish Captains, Drayich :

Season : OK - Sweden's Draw vs Norway is the 1st real surprise of this tournament... who was playing for Sweden? Where did you fail?

Drayich : We actually hade two separate line-ups for each game, In the first game where we lost we had what many people would fine as a "stronger line-up". We played JesseQ, Loda, Akke, Soth, Drayich, and in second game JesseQ was replaced by Tompa. We failed in picking 3 melee heroes, and having a bad flow in the teamwork, in the end of the game it was abit better after we decided how to play but it was too late. And its not like norway are a bad team, when we failed they played solid and that lead to loss. However in the second game i would like to say we raped them :D

Season : Is being one of the main contender for the title maybe brings too much pressure?

Drayich : No, this wasn’t a pressure loss. We lost because we hadn’t prepared ourselves enough, we needed to know our roles better, and that cost us one game.

Season : We see JesseQ is back in the Swedish team, did he came out of retirement specially for this tournament?

Drayich : Jesse is a fish, sometimes fishes swims very deep and you cant see them, but they are always there.

Season : One last question : name one team you fear in this tournament, and one player (non swedish) you particularly fear too

Drayich : Fear?

Season : ok! Thanks for your time

A small after match reaction with one of the Norwegian Player, Psycheout!

Season : Tell us a bit how you won that 1st game?

Psycheout : I’m pleased that we managed to win the first game, considering as we haven’t practiced as much as we should have. The second game was more or less bad picks by us, as we tried something new and it didn’t work. I believe we out picked them in the first game to a certain degree, and I feel that everyone in the team played their part, there wasn’t a most valuable player so to speak.

Season : What were the picks and what made the difference in the 1st game?

Psycheout : I cant quite remember how the removing went perfectly, but I believe they removed Vengeful Silencer and Bristleback, and we Queen of Pain, Nevermore and Spectre (in that order). Then we went sk, they beast master warlock I believe. At this point we were fairly sure they were going Beast Master Woods as they just saw MyM did so. We tried to counter that to some extent, by good lane control and skeleton king to get rid of the pesky infernal.

Season : Beast Master woods? And then ganking everywhere?

Psycheout : yep ^^

Season : Can you introduce us to your 5th Player, XeqtR. No? I heard he's a CS legend!

Psycheout : Ah yes, the famed XeqtR, this has caused quite an uproar in the Norwegian community to say the least. He also played the last Nations cup game some years ago but he hasn’t played serious since that - only #dota.no games which is public basically. However he has of course some real talent for gaming and seeing we had a lack of players he was the logical choice. Other then that I can say that the team play worked out fine and I believe Norway is quite the underdog in this tournament but hopefully we will continue to surprise people. And of course beating Sweden in particular in any sports is fun for a Norwegian ;)

Season : Thanks Psycheout for the small ITW!

Stay tuned !