Team Nigma and Alliance are currently the wealthiest of all BLAST Bounty Hunt participants after winning their opening series and completing a Bounty each.
BLAST Bounty Hunt kicked off Tuesday with the upper bracket quarterfinals Team Nigma versus Team Liquid and Alliance versus Ninjas in Pyjamas. The $145,000 tournament has a different take on how the prize pool is distributed which makes each series to have more meanings. Each team started the competition with a fixed amount of money already in their bank, however, each loss will also cut 40% of their current cash pool. Team Liquid were the first to lose $6,000 as Nigma bested them 2-1.
Team Nigma vs Team Liquid
Nigma began their tournament journey with a perfect Mirana performance from Maroun “GH” Merhej, who stayed alive through the entire first game to secure for his team the VIP Bounty worth $5,000.
Liquid struck back in game two by forcing Team Nigma to a fast tempo imposed by a safe lane Queen of Pain and constant tower pressure with Death Prophet and Lone Druid. Despite a few hiccups, they managed to keep the advantage and forced a decisive game. Both teams saved their last picks for the carry hero in the third game, and at the end of the draft it looked like the battle would be decided between Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi’s Morphling and Michael “miCKe” Vu’s Phantom Lancer, but the ones that took the spotlight were Aliwi “w33” Omar on Visage and Kuro “KuroKy” Takhasomi on Vengeful Spirit. Nigma were superior in the team fight control department and their overall mobility kept Liquid cornered on their side of the map.
The series victory earned them extra 6,000 dollars, which raises their cash at $21,000. The $,5000 earned from completing the VIP bounty won’t add to the total prize pool and can’t be lost at any point in the tournament.
Alliance vs Ninjas in Pyjamas
Alliance were consistent with their overall strategy prepared for the series against NIP and slayed their fellow country organization with two drafts built for early pickoffs and strong team fights. Nikolay “Nikobaby” Nikolov got to carry his team on Slark in game one, and along Gustav “s4” Magnusson on Beastmaster and Simon “Handsken” Haag on Earthshaker providing the extra stuns, he dismantled the opposition.
s4 and Handsken kept the same heroes for the second game, while Nikobabay switched to Ember Spirit, which allowed him to easily protect Alliance’s Outpost for the entire game to secure the What’s Mine Is Mine and add $5,000 to his team earnings.
Both Alliance and Nigma will resume their tournament journey later today, in the upper bracket semifinals. Nigma will open the day at 17:30 CET against Team Secret followed by Alliance who will fight against OG.
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