Team Curse Academy has a wealth of experience to build on. After their loss to Counter Logic Gaming in the Season 2 World Championships, they have been fighting for their right to play League of Legends competitively. It is hard to doubt they want it, their jobs are on the line.

Azure Gaming comes into Day 2 thinking about a demoralizing loss to MRN yesterday. It left them in 2nd place in their group and forced them into a matchup against Team Curse -- a position not many teams want to find themselves. A relatively new team formed in December 2012, AG reorganized after Benny 'Sycho Sid' Hung made a move to Team FeaR Gaming (who qualified earlier). AG will be looking to prove critics wrong against arguably one of the strongest teams in the NA scene.

Game 1:

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Curse started off with an invade near the blue golem. After landing a blind rupture into the brush, they caught Lulu and delivered a quick first blood to David 'Cop' Roberson on Miss Fortune, not someone you want to see with extra gold. Continuing with some jungle presence, Brandon 'Saintvicious' DiMarco snuck in to put pressure on blue buff and finished with another kill on BloodWater playing Lulu botlane. Keeping an eye on timers, Saintvicious revisited blue at its respawn to secure a kill on Shaoster's Orianna. Saint displayed a dominant performance in the jungle throughout the game.

AG attempted to get back in the game with a Nocturne gank bottom. Noc's ultimate followed up with a Shen ultimate onto Nocturne worked flawlessly and allowed for instant, deadly pressure. Although this succeeded in getting a kill on Cody 'Elementz' Sigfusson's Sona, a counter play from Chenglong 'Nyjacky' Wang on TF turned it around into two kills for Curse. This type of counter play is what TF is built to do and Nyjacky proved that throughout the game. Strong dragon control, great CS and a pile of kills led to a big Curse lead. 16 minutes in the game, TF was 5/0/1 and Curse had the largest early lead in the tournament so far -- a total of 9k gold.

Joe 'Voyboy' Esfahani was left to his own devices toplane against Shen and successfully farmed a Warmogs armor as first item. Although this is an unorthodox pick, it factored into Curse's gameplan perfectly. Curse continued pushing lanes and forcing fights until they were on the steps of AG's base. A Katarina with 4k hp proved to be too much for AG to handle and Curse was able to wrap up a dominant Game 1. Literally everything went in Curse's favour which leaves AG with many areas to improve in Game 2 if they want to acquire a spot in Season 3.

Winner: Curse Gaming

Game 2:

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AG were definitely feeling the pressure leading into Game 2. They chose to go with an AoE team composition after banning two champions which had caused them problems in the first game: Katarina and TF. This left Saintvicious to continue with Chogath and Voyboy to play Olaf. Curse attempted to invade nearly the exact same way as they did first game, which AG had learned from and left wards to keep an eye on. Curse entered AG's blue buff area with only 4 members. As Olaf was taking his own blue buff, they were nearly caught out by a collapsing AG. A few clutch ruptures from Chogath left all members alive and Curse with two blue buffs. This proved to be very important, as Olaf doubled the CS of his counterpart Rumble, they were both were left in 1v2 lanes against AD/Support combos.

Nyjacky started off with a firstblood after using flash and ignite to make quick work of Karthus. He kept up farming all game and was particularly effective in doing damage as the game progressed. Olaf kept farming well and although Rumble could not keep pace in minions, Nothinghere pulled off an excellent play up top against Cop and Elementz. After hitting level 6, he landed a perfect ultimate to get the double kill and keep his team in the game. After AG's top tower fell and the lanes swapped back, Rumble solo'd Voyboy's Olaf 1v1 in a very close fight. This proved to be one of the two times Olaf would die the entire game.

A greedy Saintvicious attempted to steal AG's blue buff again, but was caught out by multiple team members which netted a kill for Karthus. Although the kill lead was in AG's favour 5-3, Curse had the gold lead by a slim margin due to more CS. AG made a strong dragon play which led to a huge team fight: Olaf teleported into the middle and Elementz landed an amazing ultimate to demolish AG. At 21 minutes, AG attempted a blue steal but Cop sniped it with an Ezreal ultimate, this really sums up AG's luck in this series. At 26 minutes, in one of the biggest plays of the entire tournament, Demunlul(on MF) and Shaosters(on Karthus) cornered Voyboy and forced him to fight. I assume they regret that decision, as Voyboy turned the 1v2 into a double kill and escaped with his life, even through a Requiem. This led to a Baron kill and Curse had gained a large advantage in the game.

Tanky Chogath had a Runic Bulwark for magic resist against the heavy AoE comp and the Baron buff allowed Curse to push mid. Voyboy nearly single-handedly killed Rumble and MF as the team charged into AG's base, killing everything in sight. After two dominant games, the top seed in the LCS tournament earned their ticket to Season 3.

Winner: Curse Gaming