Smite World Championship 2017

NRG+takes+the+fire+giant%2C+securing+another+victory+against+Obey.

NRG takes the fire giant, securing another victory against Obey.

On Thursday January 5th, at 10 AM, the 2017 Smite World Championship (SWC) officially began. Ten teams (Allegiance (ALG), SOAR, Luminosity (LG), and Eager (EGR) from North America, Energy (NRG) and Obey from Europe, LichT from Latin America, LG Dire Wolves (DW) from Oceania, HAPI from China and INTZ from Brazil) were ready to compete to be the 2017 Smite World Champions.

The first round was first to one advances to the next round. Those who lost round one would have a chance to redeem themselves in the loser’s bracket. The first game was SOAR vs INTZ with a convincing victory going the way of SOAR. In game two things continued going the way of NA with Luminosity “stomping them” as Ryan Tate put it. Game three pit ALG against LichT and had a surprising result of LichT beating the top tier NA team. The next game though continued the domination of NA and EU with Obey taking down DW. The next game pit SOAR against LG with LG as the victors. Now Obey got a crack at LichT, and they didn’t have any trouble putting them down. Match 7 was HAPI vs INTZ and HAPI emerged victorious. The next placement match took place between DW and ALG with ALG redeeming themselves and ensuring that they made it to day two.

Starting off day two was the quarterfinal matches between ALG vs NRG and SOAR vs Obey. Unlike the placement games the quarterfinals were best of three games. NRG made a big impression and put down ALG going 2-0 against them. Obey followed suit with a 2-0 victory over SOAR. Next was HAPI vs Eager with the third dominating performance of the quarterfinals with Eager going once again 2-0. Finally it was LG vs LichT with yet another 2-0 victory in favor of LG.

Now was where it got serious. The semifinals got started on day three. In the semifinals it was best of five games. Match one was Obey vs Eager. Eager put up a good fight against Obey, but in the end Zapman couldn’t carry the team on his own. Obey won the match 3-2. Next was LG vs NRG. It was truly a spectacle; both teams played at peak performance drawing the match out to its fifth game. It was generally agreed upon that whoever won this set was going to win the whole thing making this the most hyped game of the SWC. In the end NRG took the final game with a final score of 3-2. Many attribute LG’s loss to Xenotronic’s (LG, midlaner) Izanami pick. As Incon (who was commentating) put it, “The Izanami was a pocket pick that should’ve stayed in the pocket.”

Then there was the fourth and final day of the SWC, with Obey vs NRG. Both European teams made it to the Grand Finals. But it was evident that the tournament was won in the previous round. NRG won 3-1 making that roster the Smite World Champions two years in a row. The way that NRG won was simply better target prioritization and map control. They played the objectives better and got early leads that spiralled out of control.

But with that SWC 2017 comes to an end, but the SPL starts back up soon in the Spring Split.