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Well after four days of hugely competitive play, it was the huge 9/2 underdogs Team Ice that came out on top of the competition, defeating the 1/8 favourites Team Fire 1100 points to 850.
Team Ice freezes out the competition
The competition was fiercely contested down to the final day and it was then that Team Ice began to pull away from their more heavily favoured rivals.
In the Tandem Mode opener on Sunday, Team Ice won that game. Then in the individual competition, Team Ice were celebrating a big win when Uzi was named the individual champion, defeating Maple in the final.
The competition was put in the balance once again when Team Fire won the first of three All Star games to finish the competition, but Team Ice were not to be denied and put together back to back victories in the final two matches to clinch the title and claim the All Stars 2016 crown.
IEM heads to Korea this week
This week the teams head back to more familiar settings with the next stop on the Intel Extreme Masters event taking place in the South Korean city of Goyang, starting on Tuesday Dec. 13.
The IEM is the longest running professional gaming tour in the world and this is the final stop of the year before the teams do battle once again in Katowice, Poland next March.
Eight teams will battle it out to follow Unicorns of Love into the winner’s enclosure, as the European team were the winners of the last IEM event in Oakland in November.
The teams will face off initially at the OGN Studios for the opening two days before the last three days of action take place at the Goyang Sports Complex in front of an eager sell-out crowd and the competition will run from the Dec. 13-17.
There is $100,000 in prize money up for grabs with the winners taking home $50,000 and the runner up earning $20,000. There’s $10,000 apiece for the third and fourth place teams while fifth and sixth earn $3.500 apiece and there’s $1,500 for the teams that finish seventh and eighth in the event.
Eight of the biggest teams will take part in the event and they are as follows:
- Immortals
- Team Liquid
- Giants Gaming
- Vega Squadron
- Dark Passage
- Kongdoo Monster
- J Team
- Samsung Galaxy
The teams will be drawn into groups of four and compete in a double elimination Group Stage where only the top two teams in each group will make it through to the knockout phase.
The knockout phase starts on Dec. 15 and will see the four teams compete in two semi finals (best of three) and then the two winners of the semi finals will contest a best of five Grand Final on Dec. 17.
Bet365 currently has Samsung Galaxy as the 4/9 favourites to win the event, with Kongdoo Monster a 9/2 shot.
Those two teams are rated by the esports bookmaker as the main protagonists in the event with other teams much longer odds, including Team Liquid (10/1), Immortals (11/1), J Team (24/1), Giants Gaming (50/1), Vega Squadron (150/1).
Dark Passage are the 200/1 outside bet.
In addition to betting on the outright betting market Bet365 also has a total of 15 other betting markets available for this popular event including individual match betting, the region the winning team will come from, as well as bets based on events that will take place in each of the match ups in the Group Stages and also in the knockout stage.
It is worth noting that alongside the LoL event at IEM Gyeonggi, there are also similar Overwatch and StarCraft II tournaments taking place and Bet365 esports betting service is offering additional betting on both these events throughout the duration of the competition.
Dota 2 World Cyber Arena 2016 starts in Yinchuan, China
Another big event taking place this week in Yinchuan, China is the World Cyber Arena 2016 tournament, featuring ten of the best Dota 2 teams in the world competing for a healthy top prize.
The tournament is organised into two distinct stages, the first being a group stage where the ten teams have been split into two groups (shown below) and where the teams will play each other to decide the final league table positions with the top two teams in each group going through into the knockout phase.
The two groups have already been drawn and are as follows:
Group A:
- Vince Te Upsum
- IG Vitality
- TNC Gaming
- Vici Gaming
- Newbee
Group B:
- WarriorsGaming.Unity
- We Are Young
- Union Gaming BO
- Vega Squadron
- Prodota Gaming
Once the group stages have been completed and the four semi finalists are known, the winner of one group will take on the runner up from the other in each of the semi finals, with the two losing teams meeting in a third place match and the two winners contesting the final scheduled to take place on Friday Dec. 16.
Bet365 are offering betting on the outright winner of this popular Dota 2 event in Asia and currently they have NewBee as the 11/10 favourites to win the tournament outright.
After that though it is pretty open with IG Vitality a 4/1 shot and Vega Squadron and WG Unity both ranked as 5/1 chances.
The remaining teams are seen as more outside bets with the esports betting odds makers, with Vici Gaming 7/1, TnC 18/1, Prodota Gaming 33/1, Union Gaming 50/1, Way 80/1 and VINCE TE IPSUM the 200/1 outsiders.
In addition to the outright winner market, Bet365 are also offering betting on which of the two groups the eventual winners will come from with Group A rated as the 2/5 favourite to produce the winner, while Group B is the 7/4 outside chance.
