Team Envy is the first team to qualify for the NA First Strike semifinals

Riot Games’ highly-anticipated First Strike tournament series started today in North America. And the first team to advance to the semifinals was Team Envy, who defeated Immortals 2-0 in a quarterfinals match.

Immortals surprised Envy and fans alike when they picked Icebox as the first map of the tournament. Unfortunately, for Immortals, however, Game 1 didn’t work out as well as they’d hoped. While on attack, Immortals decided to run the exact same strategy every round, going for an A-site attack.

Envy quickly picked up on this strategy and decided to go for early rotations and flank plays from Victor “food” Wong. This gave Envy multiple attack opportunities which completely deflated Immortal’s momentum.

After the match, Immortal’s Noah “jcStani” Smith explained that they chose Icebox because Envy is notoriously well-known for their strong Split strategies. They, on the other hand, have struggled to find success on the map, which is why they decided to pick Icebox as the first map.

But Immortals were only able to practice their A-site attacks, which is why they consistently pushed the same spike site every round on attack.

Envy’s in-game leader stepped up in the following game on Ascent, as he gave his team a 5-3 lead after clutching a 4v1 against Immortals in the A-site.

Immortals would answer back later on in the match by winning a much needed Thrifty round win, and getting a counter retake play that kept them in the tournament.

Envy’s Anthony “mummAy” DiPaolo and Jake “kaboose” McDonald came up big in the final rounds of the match against Immortals. Right when the latter decided to commit on an A-site push, mummAy jumped out of A-short and caught the enemy team completely off-guard. And, in the final round of the series, kaboose went for a B-main push that earned Envy the man advantage.

With Envy’s 2-0 win, they now advance to the semifinals where they will face TSM for a spot in the Finals.