World Cyber Arena 2014 Recap .

Around 3,200 participants and a total of seven game titles were included the World Cyber Arena: DOTA Legend, CQB Online, DOTA 2, Hearthstone, Warcraft III, Crossfire and World of Tanks. Though the event was organized by veterans such as Brad Lee (former CEO of World Cyber Games), there were several unconfirmed reports that there were server issues during the second day of the event and some games were said to have been more than 3 hours long. Rumors were that this was due to bad internet connection at the venue, but no official reports have surfaced thus far. How did it go beyond that? Well, check out our breakdown of each game.

 

Dota 2

There were 8 teams all in all that were participating in the event, namely: Natus Vincere (Na’Vi), LGD-Gaming, Cloud9, Alliance, Titan (Team Malaysia), Invitus Gaming (iG), (VICI Gaming) VG and this years TI winning team, NewBee. The format of the tournament was a simple best of three set except for the finals, being a best of five.

Surprisingly for Na’Vi and iG fans, both teams weren’t able to deliver much of anything as they lost both games at the first round and at the losers bracket.

As for NewBee? It is as we all would have expected, they were dominating all throughout the entire event, having won all of their games except once during the second round of the winners bracket against Cloud9. Cloud9, having defeated Alliance during their set at the losers finals attempted to make a comeback as they were to face off against NewBee. Sadly for Cloud9, NewBee’s amazing display of strategy had overwhelmed them once more as they were not able to win a single match during the finals.

Cloud9 VS NewBee – Game 1 of Finals

At the end of the event, NewBee was in first place, Cloud9 in second, Alliance at third, VG in fourth, LGD and Team Malaysia at sixth and Na’Vi and iG at 8th.

 

Warcraft III

For the Warcraft III tournament, WCA had 16 teams invited and split into four groups all having an even distribution of four players each. At the group event, only the top two players from the round robin would continue to the playoffs.

Infi clearly dominated the entire tournament having lost just one match against Zhou_xixi in the first round of the playoffs. Yumiko0414 and Fly100%, on the other hand, went head to head twice–once at the second round of the winners bracket, and once more at the losers finals. Fly100% had a swift victory over Yumiko0414 in their first game, only to be tossed to the losers bracket by Infi during their encounter at the winners finals.

With Infi now in the finals, it was time to decide if Yumiko0414 or Fly100% would take the last place in the final event. Everyone expected Fly100% to repeat his victory over Yumiko0414 at the losers finals. But, much to everyone’s surprise, Yumiko0414 plowed through Fly100% as if he had never lost to him in the first place. This gave Fly100% the third place and Yumiko0414 the chance to win the finals. Yumiko0414 proceeded to the finals against Infi, but even Yumiko0414 was no match for him as Infi swept the entire finals, 3-0, making Infi the champion of the Warcraft III tournament.

 

World of Tanks

Just like DOTA 2, there were only 8 teams invited for this event as another event, European Golden League, was held on the same dates, being a rather inconvenient moment for most of the World Of Tanks community. With that, the list of teams who participated in the event were ARRESTED, GAME, Penalty Kru, ELong Gaming, WOA. Dawn Wings, SIMP, VICI Gaming, and PVP Super Friends.

Though there were 8 teams participating this tournament, WCA decided to split them into two groups, having the top two from both groups proceed to the playoffs, those teams being ARRESTED, Penalty Kru, GAME and ELong Gaming. The format would be a best of five elimination set.

With ARRESTED’s record at the group event (11-4), it was expected for them to win the tournament. Though they came very close to losing at the semifinals as their opponent at the time, Penalty Kru, gave them a run for their money (3-2). As they went to the finals however, it was a completely different story as they massacred GAME, 3-0. Penalty Kru was to be third after they had won the runner up match against ELong Gaming.

 

Hearthstone

Heartstone had an outstandingly large amount of players for the tournament. 8 groups comprised of four players each with the exception of one group who had five. To thin out the players who would participate in the playoffs, only the top two from the group (based on round robin results) would proceed to the playoffs. Even with the participants down to 16, this was clearly still going to be a long tournament. That being so, the playoffs would be similar to World of Tanks, best of five elimination sets for the playoffs with exception of the semi finals, runner up match and the finals a best of seven.

Planeswalker reigned over the tournament on day one of the event. No one is able to duplicate his spree of two sets of a 3-0 streak. The second day was quite interesting as Planeswalker came very close to getting eliminated during his match against RDU (4-3). On the other side of the bracket, we see Gaara and Small fish big have at it. Small fish big swept his way to victory against Gaara, 4-0. The battle for third and fourth also went under way that day with Gaara and RDU. People were expecting RDU to take this as the game against Planeswaker was very close and Gaara’s record against Small fish big being what it was. Surprisingly, Gaara made a come back as he was able to beat RDU, 4 to 2. The last stretch of the tournament saw Planeswaker and Small fish big up at the finals. Everyone expected big things from both players, but Planeswaker simply destroyed Small fish big in a 4 to 1 game.

 

Crossfire

This year’s Crossfire tournament had 12 teams invited to participate in WCA. Teams were divided into two groups and like the other games, only the top two of each group would continue to the playoffs. There were a total of four countries participating in this tournament, though unsurprisingly, all four teams who reached the playoffs were teams from China. These teams were 白鲨俱乐部, EP.DouYuTV, AG俱乐部, and 汉宫.QQ会员.

The semifinals of this tournament were a best of three format while the runner up set and the finals, best of five. AG俱乐部 was the clear and expected winner of this tournament, having won all their matches in the group competition and only losing one game during the playoffs against 白鲨俱乐部. EP.DouYuTV followed third and 汉宫.QQ会员 in fourth.

 

DOTA Legend

With the popularity of DOTA Legend the number of players who took part in this competition was no surprise. Because of the large number of players for this game, participants were given numbers as their entry for the tournament. A total of 8 players made the playoffs, and the mechanics were similar to most of the other tournaments, a best of three elimination match where the winner of the finals would receive around $480,000 as prize.

DotA Legend in action

Conclusion

Rumors aside, the World Cyber Arena’s debut seems to have been a great success. Future World Cyber Arena events look to be assured after this weekend. There have also been reports that other future international events will be held at Yinchuan, China.