Mineski is headed to The International 2019.
After a rocky start to the qualifiers and an unremarkable season beforehand, the enduring organization settled down to win the TI9 Southeast Asia regional qualifier. They earned a spot in the tournament by last defeating the Park “March” Tae-won-led Team Jinesbrus.
Team Jinesbrus fought its way through the lower bracket to earn a rematch against Mineski in the grand finals. With a ticket to the biggest tournament of the year at stake, both teams brought their A-game.
Team Jinesbrus opened the series with a quick, 30-minute win but Mineski bounced back and dominated the next game thanks to Nikolay “Nikobaby” Nikolov’s exceptional play on Ember Spirit. Jinesbrus advanced to match point on the heels of a big game from Nico “Gunnar” Lopez only to have Mineski issue a rebuttal in the fourth game, tying the series at 2-2.
Game five was hotly contested but Jinesbrus couldn’t quite seal the deal. After a neck-and-neck mid game, Kam “Moon” Boon Seng took over as Lina and helped Mineski take the 3-2 series win.
Though Mineski was the favorite to win a spot in TI9, the team looked shaky early on. The squad went 1-3 on day one of the qualifier and needed to win their way through the group stage in order to make the playoffs. For whatever reason, that tricky situation brought the best out of the squad and they looked solid for the remainder of the tournament.
In the North America qualifier, Forward Gaming won the TI9 spot after a dominating run. Infamous looked like a serious contender in the South America qualifier.
Lasse Aukusti “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen will play in TI9 with his new team, Chaos Esports Club, as they won Europe qualifier. Natus Vincere fans rejoiced as the team won the CIS qualifier. Finally, Royal Never Give Up defeated CDEC Gaming in a nail-biting best-of-five series in the China qualifier.
The International 2019 begins on August 15.
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