I
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the second day of the 2022 International Invitation Tournament.
I'm the host, Marshall.
And with me is our good friend, Sir Action Slacks.
Oh, you can't give me such a great introduction.
Thank you so much, Marshall.
And hello and welcome to the International 15.
Hello here from Shanghai and across the world.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody.
What an incredible day we have here today, but what an incredible stage, my friend, it's absolutely amazing.
What was your favorite parts of the yesterday?
Absolutely, Team Spirit has so many fans in the arena, they really showed up for my favorite, if I may.
I may has to be the smack talk in the last series
Malrin calling the king all the eight away
the king is back, he returns, Sumail is back baby.
没错, King is back, Sumail
看他的你干嘛站队,王者归来
Now I did want to know about our beautiful stage
Do you have any fun facts about the stage
we can share with the audience?
没错,现场的观众朋友们
今年我们家的舞台也是格外的漂亮
In fact, all of our stage equipment is on the ground,
and we have eight basketball courts.
Eight basketball courts?
Do you guys know what that means?
That means if we tip everything down, laid it on the ground,
it could go over eight basketball stadium arenas.
That's crazy.
In addition, we have so many LED screens,
and large screens with four Mx screens.
SUGA IMAX PINGMU?
You guys know what that means.
That means that we have enough LEDs
to power four IMAX screens simultaneously.
You know, it's like watching the Odyssey four times.
And just like that, we have four baggers in the lower bracket
hoping not to be eliminated here today.
沒錯,那其实的话,今天我们也会有四个队伍
掉进败球组,希望所有的比赛都会很精彩
Now I do have a special thing that we can look at on the stage
so maybe you guys don't see it home.
So follow me my friends, hit it on the stage on the top right up there are a bunch of Dota 2 silhouettes
and I thought it might be fun for you guys at home and in the stadium to guess who they are.
Look up, Kevin! What are you looking at my bald ass? Look up! Up you go, look!
Okay, up there!
Beautiful!
Alright, now we're gonna start things off on the top left.
What hero do you think that is at home and in the stadium?
Let's hear it from the viewers.
This is Shen Mingxiu!
Ba Mu Ji Timbersaw!
Yes!
Yeah! Alright, alright, let's move on to the next one.
Time's next quiz.
Who do you think this is?
This is Shen Mingxiu.
He has a hero from the Nika Megamios today.
Yeah!
That's right, it is nature's profit.
We are seeing this hero over and over again.
Welcome back.
OK, next one.
Come on.
Siwen.
Oh, Sven.
Yes, we'll never see him at this event.
I don't know.
I think hopefully.
Hopefully.
What?
Sven hater.
All right, next up.
Oh, that one's easy.
Zhu Zai.
Oh, Zhu Zai.
That's cool.
Juggernaut.
Jianxin, you're Zai.
Don't do this on the spot.
Go, hit me.
What is it?
Jianxin, you're there.
Jian, Jesus, right?
You try your best.
Dang it, shit, all right, next.
Who's next?
Oh, easy, easy.
The claps, of course.
What do we have?
Han Di Shengyu.
That's right.
It's her shaker, our boy.
Very well done.
All right, let's speed it up.
The next one is going to be super easy.
Come on.
Pudgy?
I could say Pudgy. That's very good.
Very good. Easy peasy. Next.
Oh, there's some stuff.
Do you have anything to add?
Anything else?
Yes.
You got it?
Yeah, you got it?
Okay. That is Dazzle, my friends.
That is a Dazzle.
At least I think so. Zoom out a little bit.
Who is that?
Oh, that's an easy one too.
Give that one to him.
I got those. What's that?
Yeah, that is going to be an axe right next to the dazzle indeed.
That's right. Yeah, that's right. That's axe. We already got axe.
That one's so easy. All right. Let's go to the hardest one.
This is advanced and hardest one next to axe.
Who could this be?
They got it? It's faceless for that's right.
And then a pretty easy one last for everybody that didn't get any points.
Come on, piece of cake.
Let's go for the last one.
Perfect, so we have a big fish, Slardar.
That's Slardar! I can do that one! Translation, perfect! Let's go!
Alright, Slardar, that's right!
So we have such an incredible stage. It is truly beautiful today.
To represent a beautiful day of Dota coming up.
Yes, we have introduced the beautiful stage, the beautiful screen and the perfect champion.
Now we need to leave the time to our players to come back to the game.
We look forward to the elimination game today and the start of the second day of the game.
you to talk you through what's
going to come your way today. A
lot of action. We got ran. We
got went to IntiGov joining us
this morning. Happy to have you
on board with us. I'm sure you
caught a lot of the note yesterday
as well. Yeah, it was great
just watching on my phone the
entire time. It was exceptional
games. I mean, I think for a
day one of a playoffs, it
felt like every series had a
moment where you're like down.
That was a contender for a
great game. So I'm just
hoping it carries over today
with me being here. Otherwise
I'm a bad luck charm and I
you know, it's a good thing.
It's my fault. So hopefully
it's good. We definitely had
a good mix. Okay is we had
some really, really long,
awesome back and forth, and
then we had. A couple very
one sided or deals, but you
gotta have both winter. You
gotta have both balance and
all things. Yeah. Otherwise
everyone will be going at
3 M. You know, if
everything is so long, you
know, what do you mean? I
wouldn't mind if we had
I'm going to go again. That's
what you guys meant to be
about. That's really nice.
Morning shift. Yeah, you know
what? I put a second shift. It
doesn't matter. We're here for
four days of playoffs. It doesn't
like we can. We can rest after
during the eye. It doesn't
matter about the sleep. It
is about the Western fans. We
postponed the sleep, right?
You know what sleep that
you know, you can postpone it,
the game. I mean, I mean, I
mean, I mean, I mean, I mean,
yesterday Ray was great day
wasn't it? Oh my God. The games
were so fun. They were so good.
And I also think getting to see
the like slight shift in the
meta as we go into the main
stage is exciting. You know,
bounty coming out. All these
new strats teams getting upset
that we thought might go
through further. I mean, the
games are so high. And also I
like the amount of like three
games series that what even
stops that we thought would
I think it was so fun that it
was also very long day of
down to so maybe you missed a
couple of moments here and
there, and that's totally okay.
We're going to keep you up to
date with what happened just
today. So let's take a look at
yesterday's games in a recap.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute!
Oh!
But the snowball save is there and now Pure is in pretty deep.
Looks for the punch.
Saving Laurel.
Sun strike does manage to connect.
Flaps.
Jump to high ground.
Finds his man.
Ari dies just a little bit ago.
And with the meteor hammer off, a look at Yadaro.
His eyes are on the buildings.
He's starting to hit the wall.
He's got a little bit of a break.
And he's got a little bit of a break.
to hit the tier 4 towers. This could mean that it's actually a good fight for Ironwing though,
but if they lose their face, maybe it doesn't matter. They're trying to TP back down, they realize
they can't do it! Oh no! The play goes rolling! They don't have the TPs that they need!
Through backdoor protection! He's ending the game! Yadrow has had enough, the hex is there,
but there's no regenning at this point. As the bear gets pushed back, he's going to try and end this game!
3 with the corpse on the land. The hit, the kill. They jump in with 33 hits. Is it gonna
be enough damage though? No! He dies so rapidly. Look at the hits coming in from Yadaro. 4
dead for 2. Oh that's not the way they wanted it. No detention! Yadaro's fucking away.
He tries to escape with the LSA connects on the several, returns to the hits, he punches him down Ken, 33 is gone, iron wing, you don't have a prayer.
GGS fall, Team Spirit, take the 2-0 on the main stage.
the AKU's against him and how the BKB will do so
to see if there's some way the damage is enough
to kill out the bear.
The agent is almost dead already
and vision has had to expend basically anything to kill it.
The jumping from Miller's head
to finish off the base himself, there's a fortification.
He will fall though with the divine rapiers.
What the hell is happening?
Attempt number X has noted again,
right on top of the squad is enough.
I
Gainsgate being used though see the arrow coming on a mechanic as well
He's gonna get rooted yet again extremely low trying to stay left next to the cold embrace can get the last right click from the arrow
The clicks coming as they take actually get the kill the double make it a triple turn around. He survives
Unbelievable play
And now it's on to two.
The first one to fall and the bear is beating the hell out of him.
And you can see the whole team joined the party.
Did you just have to hear it?
It's five.
As a result, the saddest step so far in TI.
And the arrow is going to fall in a suit.
And again, it's going to be a team by my goodness.
The Hicks is actually out on Tanisha, he brought back for this!
They've got the lockdown!
They've got the lock-down on Nisha!
Oh my God!
He takes him out!
Gives the double, they look towards Ace!
Oh my God, Tera dies to Tothul!
They're holding!
Oh but Mikke, he says it doesn't matter.
I'm gonna close this game up, it doesn't matter.
Nisha's died back, Mikke tries to hold on to the fucking bag.
I'm gonna take him out and he kills him on the spot once!
Force wants it out on the Solidarity!
He's gonna be on the tier 4 now, a pistol-play conch and a slide-back on the side!
Slime out of the side, they have to slow control, they have to be given a chance to watch Micae Micae's got the tosses all over the place.
Micae's dying!
Guys, the E-blade is going to provide us some safety because they try to come in with the guys' port, but the H is exposed, and he's trying to protect himself.
What's it done, Micae?
What's it done? The Micae Micae's gone!
No way!
They're doing it!
The HNICs are absolutely doing a liquid, I'm not doing it!
They've got it going!
What a vacation.
What the fuck?
It's down there.
It's too long though.
Oh my god.
Yeah, Nix has missed as well.
Oh my God! What just happened?
This has got to be a useful strategy, so I'm just going to come in here with the BKB, look to try and finish off with these, they're bouncing.
Look at the fact you've fallen down. Once you've been brought down to the top, BKB needs to commit to the focus fire.
The Cursors will look down the two of them, but they've lost to them.
That's the BKB.
The Batscum's in it and if he ever waits, it perfectly comes in with the ravage to slam down yet another team fight in Yandex's favor.
Yandex stomping this game too, and with that take of the series 2-0, knocking Liquid down to the lower bracket.
Looking for the opening on Sumail, managed to hit him with a sum of follow-up air lands and down he goes!
Couldn't get out in time. Stop attempting from GA, trying to get away from Centaur to Pie, running away from the spend, but Crit's gonna hunt him down a double for Crit.
Skidder actually went for the kill and Lornav put a BPB from Lornav, great reaction from him,
a Reaper site put down the bounty hunter, but they're still in trouble.
The interesting chase after, Devine's trying to back away from the necroposum arc,
using his extra regen to engage, but he's still kind of squishy.
He finally goes, if I have a power shot looking to down, he goes pretty fast.
They go back for Lornav though, hit him in the oaks on energy,
and table concoction, trying to focus him down from Lornav, he just won't die.
Great! All Lady Drankins that kill throws a blood grenade, but it won't be enough.
Falcons get wiped.
Look at that blade.
Look at some males just straight to the high ground. They got the sight of Vice-Initiation.
The Force Staff trying to get Maureen away.
He bumps, they say, Tana!
I don't have a wager.
I don't have a wager to keep him alive.
They say Tana can they get him any heals this guy?
He slowed down.
Another Force Staff trying to get him out, out, out of Maureen.
Running, running, running.
He's back to the bounty.
He's good for now.
Staking those are gonna die
Hit on a more
Oh is that trouble?
Up in with the AOE Doom
Lorna stops him in his tracks
Maureen tries to stop him
Teleporting my on top of another second vice
Another initiation
More damage flowing in
No Lorna standing his ground
Maureen, a Maureen that pushed all the way back
A Maureen got his initiation
It will
Alongside skater
Maureen he goes down
Dancing with Galaxies
Everything to try to kill Lorna but they can't
It's over!
It's all over!
Make the galaxy
They managed to get the victory over Falcons!
We really did have everything coming our way yesterday
from a bear taking a back door protected ancient from trash talk and the mid being on the safe
lane and the safe lane going to the mid and show who's boss at the very end of the day.
We got some pledges and snipers thrown in there, but I want to focus our attention for
someone serious as we are going to take a look also at the bracket for Ray.
I think the most surprising series of yesterday might just be liquid versus jam next because
we saw liquid in that group stage and we thought, you know what, they're doing
quite good. They're looking like they're on track to maybe get another win under their belt and then
against Yandex after that game one which to be honest they probably shouldn't have lost.
I know that's the main thing about it is like they look so dead set on winning and then they just
kind of got outplayed. I think there was like a little bit of over extension, a little bit sloppiness
and then maybe some drafting problems. I know people are quite upset about them laying through
the IO. That looked so good in the second game. I'm a massive fan of the Slug Mid now. I hate it
coming into the TI, I'ma be honest, I think I hated on it in the previous battle. But after
seeing it more, I think like the biggest issue Slug Faces especially is how squishy he is. But
the IO perfectly solves that. It was a fight where the Slug lived on like 10 health because
his eyes are buffing it. They get like a turn around on three heroes and it was so awesome.
This hero is so freaking good at controlling like the vision game.
It was super good. It was probably from the all the games we saw yesterday. It was the most one sided game on the main stage.
Another series that draws our attention surely Tiga must be that last one, Nigma Galaxy vs Falcons. That was a treat.
Yeah of course, especially because of the way that Nigma wins it as well. Like after game one when you see like the things that Falcons did and also the lane swapping suddenly,
Sumail's not going to mid and Lifesteal is trying to go into the centre. Everything just looked weird and then Falcons kind of stomped it.
like, Oh, okay. Here we go.
Here's going to be like, you
know, tie band of last year.
Uh oh. And then, you know,
Nick, we go back. They go to
coach Kuroki. They change up
some drafts and concepts. They
come back again for game two,
game three, and it's a whole
new team. And yeah, they just
dominate falcons. So it's
just really impressive from
Nygma to turn it around. And
you know, probably obliterating
a lot of people's fantasy, but
that aside, mine as well. So
sorry, Nick, but I didn't put
your beating Falcons. I am
sorry. I was on that reddit
post yesterday, signing the
form about Nygma. I do
that's the best team in the
world. It's the best team in
the world. But it is very good
to see the maker run because
they are one of the teams. I
think anyone sees in this
bracket. That is the one team
that everyone looks at to be
like the underdog story. The
Cinderella story like the one
that they want to see go as
far as possible. Maybe they
thrive with that underdog
story and we had an underdog
story yesterday as well,
winter because I think another
series that we thought was
going to be one sided that
did not turn out to be
one sided vision coming in
as the best team from the
I think not a lot of people were expecting that to be.
Yeah, that series was all about the bounty hunter.
I was so excited to see that hero.
I initially had very mixed feelings about the hero,
but after that series, I'm quite certain the hero is top tier,
and it's going to be extremely contested.
And even if you're trying to give the hero away,
I think that you have to dedicate one hero,
one hero that can follow him and hunt him down in the game.
Because if you don't deal with the bounty hunter,
he's going to cause a lot of careers to die,
a lot of items to get stolen,
then the game is going to get hectic.
Yeah, and I think the result though it was one that was somewhat expected with vision making it through and you know what that is
That is something that we'll talk about in a little bit as we were talking about bounty hunter
Let's take a quick moment because this is a hero that we saw
Used multiple times rare very successfully yesterday, and I'm sure that it will come up today
Yeah, 100% not only is this hero so disruptive on the map
I think one of the number one things that makes this hero so good right now is the track provides damage amp
Level one is 8% but it scales up to 16% at level three
And I've seen this hero paired with nature's prophet
Especially so many times and I think it's so good because you can just track a bunch of heroes
And then nature's ascends that all through and already your team is playing with like a massive HP disadvantage on everyone
I mean we looked at the drop as well where they were playing with the bounty hunter and the slaughter and the nature's prophet
You have so much damage up coming out from slaughter as well and the track. It's like how do you play into that?
Everyone is taking so much damage bounty on the thinker today
Please
But I would be curious to go how much effort do you think the teams that we're seeing for example playing in the lower bracket in
Trying to emulate that result yesterday because yesterday found out it was successful
Which means those teams are not in the lower bracket
I feel like bouncing onto it.
Just one of those heroes that it takes so much time in the first 15-20 minutes that a good carry player or a good mid laner will utilize it.
A carry will farm the additional back camp.
So get an extra 200 GPM and mid laner will see an additional gank opportunity or move to be made like show these other properties of the hero.
But the fact that you're naturally playing so deep, you're finding so much information like it is just a classic hero.
So I feel like you should be able to play it.
You should be able to utilize its tools.
But again, if you can't, if you don't prepare to try and bring a new hero in overnight,
then that's often my teams don't win TI's when they don't get to you know adapt to the meta as quick as other teams
Yeah, and adapting to the meta
I mean it might be too late for you guys because prediction should have been in by now and we can take a look right I think
It's it's spicy not a lot of people getting it right only no point nine percent of throw players predicted
The first four matches correctly. I got it wrong. I got two out of four. I think most people got two out of four
The the liquid upset. I mean they look so strong through the groups
I think that was I mean no one really expected it. I think nigma is kind of the thing where a lot of people at home are like
Fanboying it up. They're like I wouldn't doubt my king, you know
I know people are happy right now
But a lot of us, you know, we've seen their previous tournament results
They drop off after the group stages a lot of times and I thought the same thing would happen
I'm sorry, please take that number and like stop asking unlike, you know social media like oh guys
How's your prediction? I need to know my predictions are doing like guys one point nine
You're probably still in your chance to get your terrain to get your purple cosmetics. You're in the clear guys. Don't worry. All right. You're fine. Stop asking. And it's also maybe small comfort that none of the pro players got it right. So, so, you know, zero.
I hope we're a zero. I want
the pros guys. There you go. You
didn't get it right either.
You're just as good as the pro
players. That's right. Very
cool. Speaking of pro players.
There's a couple ones that we'd
like to highlight for you
today because yesterday,
obviously there's a lot of
games, a lot of cool players
yesterday obviously there's a lot of games a lot of cool plays a couple of
players stood out from the rest of winter you want to take some time to
focus on team spirits position five Rue yeah so far he's been having a very very
good tournament he has nine different heroes a mix of range and melee heroes
and I wanted to highlight his melee heroes like he played Tars he played
Claude work yesterday and I felt like he did so much in the game he kind of
He plays 5 like a 4. His 5 does a lot like initiating things in the game, like usually as a traditional position 5 player, you do more of the bodyguard role.
You guard the carry, you make sure the carry doesn't die, but I think in the games yesterday when he was tossed and clawed, he did a very good job setting up a lot of kills for his team.
He was not afraid to die, he was not afraid to initiate, he was very very good at his positioning, he was at the right place at the right time when his team needs him, so I think Rue has been the player to watch for me so far.
I mean, I feel like with Spirit, a lot of their drafts, they have that beauty, especially with
Maposhko coming back. I think that he's provided that consistency that they were lacking in the
past with their previous iterations. But it's like when you look at Rue playing the
melee heroes, you know it doesn't matter if he's the initiator because someone else
will fill the next role that team needs. It's not like he's having to fix all the problems
of a single hero. He is complimenting a bigger picture of a draft that will look consistent.
So yeah, I think it just amplifies how good Rue is.
It's the pairing with, I think, not me. Because not me so far, he's been more
on the, I would say the greediest side, he's been playing the Rubik's and whatnot, and he's been
very flashy on his heroes, and it's nice to have a post-fighter that dies for you and goes in,
gives you the opening so that you can get your spells off.
Yeah, speaking of getting your spells off, Watson has been able to get his spells off.
Tiga, if you want to pay some extra attention to Yandex's carry player, Watson?
Yeah, I mean, I feel like when you're up TI, you have to look at players that feel like
they've got that grit to them. You know, that when they play a game, they are trying to
mean no matter what's happening for the rest of the game, for what their teammates are doing,
like you know that single player they want to lift the ages and for the way that what's was playing
yesterday like his win ranger multiple fights and liquid is applying a pressure 35,000 gold lead
amount of pressure he was picking and choosing when to engage went to back out his team was dying
he was resetting making sure he's ready to pounce on the ages pick up of niche at the mid tier
one like he was always ready to try and create this comeback for his team and I feel like of
course that then translated into game two or the absolutely stumped them sending them to
the game. I mean, I'm not
sure if I'm going to love
bracket, but that game for me
is like, Damn, what's is here
to try and win this tournament?
Yeah, he shined, uh, shown
he showed yesterday. Very
bright with Yandex. Very
strong performance that we saw
from him and we go from one
Kerry player to the next. Or
is it? Maybe we go from one
Kerry player to a mid laner
right is that this is a player that plays mid but now is on carry and you can swap that up and put a
life stealer mid sometimes. You know I was awake since 6am yesterday and I still stayed awake lying
in bed with my little phone squinting my eyes watching this guy play last night. I did my best
there and I think that his playstyle is so nice because obviously Laurenoff has been popping off
so hard this tournament and I think Somail is playing with so little ego around that when
you look at the stats from game to game, you know, he's willing to sacrifice his farm,
Lorinoff might double his CS, right, playing Nature's Prophet and having that kind of global
impact and farm, but at the same time he might play Necrophos and completely take over the game
and then be the one, you know, playing the more predominant carry. I think Sumail's flexibility
has been fantastic. I think when the games have looked really rough, like in the group stages,
I remember seeing him TPing a lot more actively to try and help Lorinoff because
he understood that he was more of the win condition. So he can play, he can play that
good good old carry but he knows we're definitely happy to be a supporting role and he's playing
top freaking notch yeah he is in ti form and i know we say it a lot and there's a lot of players
that are in ti form at this main event today of course we will see some eliminations happening
it's gonna be quite painful i think because we started with eight teams and everybody's always
been saying oh there's eight teams here that can all win the international and they can but after
I'm sure you guys at home
have got your favorite players
that you're looking out for.
Let's take a look and see when
your favorite players are going
to be playing. And hopefully
for you there sitting nice and
cozy in the upper bracket as
you've got two lower bracket
series and two upper bracket
series coming your way today.
Let's take a look at the upper
bracket series first, you know
positive things to God. I'm
I love to my eliminations, but yeah, absolutely love this upper bracket where they have a lifeline in ti. Oh, no, but no, yeah, I think you know
Nick McAllister this yandex exceptional looking series because after the group stage yandex not looking too good coming to playoffs and then ruining everyone's predictions because
People just probably put them to get eliminated
But yeah, I think that series alone it is just you know two teams are just leveling up every single series they play so you don't know who's going to take it and of course vision spirit
It speaks for itself
It does as we take a look at the lower bracket. I think there's one series there
when said that nobody really was expecting to happen this early on in the
tournament with liquid versus Falcons. Yeah that's the tough one you know. I
think Rea mentioned about flexibility. I think Falcons down for yesterday was
their flexibility. They weren't flexible enough with the draft. I felt like with
the last game having the Necro and going up against the Darkseer but they
didn't want to upset their combination of heroes. Vesquita always placed
the male dagger heroes and they opted to pick a hero that's not so good for the lane and it just
didn't really work out for them you know they they didn't have the flexibility to actually
get a better draft at that critical game you know so I felt like that was the downfall I don't
know if they can fix it like it's not something that I would say is fixable for them they just
have to try to deal with it and I think it's going to be very tough for them today.
It's going to be a very tough matchups for both teams potentially as well as the first
series also will be tough for both teams, but maybe this one reya is two teams that people were kind of
thinking would be ending up in this position
But iron wings. Yeah. Yeah. I think iron rings looked very
Weak here at the start of the group stage, but then just kind of started going up this
incline and now they're playing in a very good form
uh
I don't know how I feel about them though because it
I don't know if you guys agree, but it feels like there's this tilt level where
You know something like 33 has such like a rigid play style that when it doesn't feel like they adhere to it properly
It just kind of like the gameplay starts to fall apart. It's also the meta not really
Favourable for the way they are playing so I think they have a lot of issues
Dealing with that and they're trying to find solutions, but it's just not really working out for them
They're just a terrible morning team guys anytime they play at 9 in the morning 10 in the morning
not so good. Well, we're gonna find out how they're feeling on this very morning. But of course, if we want to get some
data, then we need to start the day in a proper form. So thank you so much for joining us at this morning. We got a lot more coming
your way, of course, to talk about all that will happen. But as it's the case with any day at the international, we got to start it in style.
The Aegis of Champions.
It is the master pattern.
The template of triumph.
A sigil stitched from the threads of countless battles waged around the world.
This is the shape that we strive for.
The composition every hand aspires to create.
The point where all paths converge as we bend our own lines of fate
ever closer to the perfect design.
Now we gather to witness those bold enough to seize the golden thread.
To cheer every victory that holds their passion tighter.
To lift them high every moment that threatens to tear it all apart.
The ages of champions, always in Shanghai, China.
A living tapestry that chronicles the legends of our past.
Eight teams compete for ultimate glory.
Only one can seize immortality.
Who levered victorious?
The battle begins!
And some might say the battle only begins today because yesterday was all upper bracket.
You might see it as maybe a little bit of a warm-up to get used to playing on this grand stage.
But now, if you felt the nerves potentially yesterday, then today, Tigo, you just got tenfolded.
No, 100%. And that is where, of course, you are going to see the players have the experience.
This is where they carry over to today. Like, they've been in this position before.
They've played so many other tournaments, and now it's like, you have to lock in all that experience
to make sure this is not your last series.
This is your double down game that you have to win.
Let's find out if it will be a dolled up for one of the teams.
It's time to bring out on stage Ironwing.
They will be absolutely devastating for them, they will fight to the bitter end but can
And they paid BOOMBOYS!
This one has shown that they don't want to take yesterday.
They just dropped to the lower bracket but not without a fight.
And Boon Boyz has been flying under the radar a little bit
as they come consistently top four in any given tournament they partake in.
If they want to do that right here in Shanghai, they will need to beat Ironwing
in this upcoming best of three, a lot of pressure on all 10 players and their coaches on the
stage as we will focus on iron wing first this morning because this team has done better
than any team throughout this entire season.
Which is surprising to think about right because it was also heavily focused on the
start of the season. You know as in during EWC Blast slam and Dream League and Malahia,
I felt like they just weren't hitting their stride anymore. And one of the things that
they said earlier this year, 33, he said they really, really want to win this season.
Like they actually, I mean obviously every team wants to win every season but they said
they were going to try as hard as they could. They were going to boot camp more than
others. They were going to put in 100 billion extra percent and somehow it all kind
to be the best team in the
world. They're crumbled until
they came third essence, too,
and now into T. I they have
started to look more informed,
but there's just these last
few problems that they need to
shake out before they can get
the double. The thing is that
they were one of the best teams
at giving quite poorly at
tournament winning poorly
winning. But like the thing
is like the British curse.
It's our fault. We can only
win in Birmingham. Yes
exactly. Harry lifted the
the year you know British TI winner oh my god and then yeah they were like one
two three four five six tournaments where they just slumped so yeah I just
think it was Birmingham's fault. I mean you can boot camp as much as you want you
can train as much as you want but you can't control the patch you know I'm
afraid the current method the current patch just doesn't work. Oh maybe you can
maybe you can if your name starts with T.
But it's difficult for them, you know, because the patch doesn't really favor their kind of play style and they are trying to find solutions
But it's just really not working out. I don't know what they have in store for us today
Hopefully that they find another different way of solving the problems, but it's an uphill battle for them
You know from here on I don't want to see this do I am not but is it the doom always is built
You know his item bill he went miters and shut we were talking about how greedy it was going miters
plus the shot because the shot is technically the Midas.
It's true. Okay Midas, I would love to see stats on heroes by Midas in their win rate
because I feel like I see them lose every time. It just is such a waste of gold. It's
2,000 that goes into nothing. I've seen heroes misalign their hero timings throughout this
tournament because someone got blink timing while someone else with the same amount of
gold has a Midas and then they just can't play together.
What if you're older?
That's fine.
It's that bad of an item. I know I don't want to be negative you know on day one for myself at least for TI.
On my day two I'll be very good at it. Yeah you could do the Translate for me.
Just keep absolutely hating it. Oh it might as it could be okay.
It's terrible why do they keep buying it? Zero percent win rate.
And I feel the pros might be able to be right in this scenario.
They have no idea what they're doing. Where's the lower bracket guys? Stop buying this item.
you. Thank you so much. I
focusing on iron wing as well.
Tegav You wanted to take a
closer look at your British boy,
Ari as he has at least got
some big shoes to fill. He's
playing a very particularly good
quickly. Yeah, and I feel like
whenever people look at
tournaments, they look at the
win rates and they go, Oh,
this this hero has a really low
win rate. Why did you keep
picking it? But I don't think
that reflects of the intensity
TI winning game they have gone for low win rate heroes to lift the ages
So hoodwink right now with 42% win rate. It's not like it's gonna be forgotten about they're not gonna look at this stat and go
It's bad in the upper bracket of Ari playing multiple hoodwing games
They're not gonna go. Oh, we have to stop like this is not the thing you do at TI
You pick the comfort and you win with the comfort question though
Do you think he will fall out of favor if bounty continues this uprising trend because I think it's hard to play hoodwink
when you want to scurry in and out of fights, but you're just track.
I mean, there's always an argument that maybe there's a conversation that bounty jumps into the conversation a little bit,
but Ari and Hoodwink, like, when he wants to play the hero, he'll keep playing it.
I just, I would like to just see teams continue going for what they know they can do,
and join and find solutions elsewhere potentially.
So I don't think it's kind of Ari's fault about yesterday.
I thought other players might have just kind of...
I blame 33.
That's perfectly fine.
Do you hate mice? Why did you buy mice?
I actually have a legit carry. Why the hook wing is kind of losing a lot.
I think for Ironwing because 33 has been doing bad lane in his lane.
And traditionally you pick hook wing to win your lane.
And if you're picking hook wing and you're not contesting the lane and your carry is farming,
not your carry, but maybe he's the carry, 33 farming the back camp,
then it kind of feels weird because you're not killing the heroes.
I mean you're also quite nice to pure. I feel like pure yesterday also kind of,
you know, he struggled a little bit.
He did struggle a little bit. On the side of boom boys,
but they did not struggle as much potentially.
We'll talk more about them, of course, in a second,
but I'm sure everybody wants to get one thing
in particular on their screens, so let's get it started.
I am Wing versus Boom Boys, game one.
I'm talking about the drops, of course,
as it's coming your way in just a second.
We got Boomboys playing from the radiant side this time round.
And we got Ironwing on the dire side with the first pick going to Boomboys.
And therefore, that overall last pick had in the way of Ironwing.
Yesterday we had some conversations about how we felt that first pick in particular
just felt Winter a little stronger because you would be the team dictating the pace of the game
and basically forcing the hand of the team that has second pick.
Yeah, you're kind of like making sure that you are in control of what's the trade because nowadays I think the second pick team will just leave some heroes in the pool and
The first pick thing will just choose what to get and the second pick team will just look at what to trade
So I feel like most of the game will prefer on to be on the first pick side
And there's also another thing about like this pick order
I think traditionally in the past when Ironwing was doing well, 33 was just first picking his hero on the off-way
But I think right now you cannot really do that because most of the strong heroes are the carry heroes and you're kind of
Putting yourself in a lot of trouble when you pick your off-lane hero first because your lane is going to go really really bad
I think that's one of the reasons why they are not really doing so well at the moment
I mean also like in regards to like priority heroes, you know the lager the coddle both of them these teams
They want to pick up having been banned at all in the phase kind of flooding the pool with these big heroes
Lena that's been quite prevalent yesterday as well also available
So I think both teams have kind of like respected each other, but also gone. We both like to play the same heroes
And you know, we know what you can do with it. We know what we want to do with it
But there are multiple options in play for who was to go for yeah
I think it's also super interesting to bring up that of course these teams faced in the group stage and
boom boys won that two to one
Comparing to the third game of that series where it had the same pick order as this game
boom boys have actually banned the exact same heroes as they did in that battle
whereas iron wings have switched it up they banned triumphant before but after
that they had banned the wyvern undying and the coddle which are now all
through but lago gets through it was first picked by boom boys in that game
as well and then it was responded to by a hoodwink so will we see the hoodwink
no I like weak I like about the iron wing end to this draft like no
You probably get a first pick Lagos available, so they already take away the Ember, the Puck that has Gpk3 best mid heroes.
That combo with the Lagos utilizes the Croak to be really oppressive.
Sure, this Stormspirt, which is still available. The Queen of Pain is like the classics of Day 1 patch, but Ember Puck is currently the big ones.
I don't forget the IO. The IO is probably the craziest one, or maybe not exactly the mid hero or carry hero,
but still really really insane in the teamfights later on in the game.
We saw Sherry Jr. play yesterday in the mid lane.
I'm sure maybe he tries hard on it.
I say that nice smile because I don't think he will.
It will be if Boombl4s picks it up,
A will more likely go to Kiritage as he does play very well.
I mean, I really like the Lina as a response to Largo.
In a lot of the Largo games yesterday,
where we witnessed the opposing team
had trouble killing heroes because of the lack of damage.
And Lina is damaged.
It's also like Lager wants to play on movement and spacing, and Liga can always play on that.
She has the range, she has the activation to match that.
If Lager wants to play like a 20 second fight, Liga can also play a 20 second fight.
What do you guys think about maybe going like physical or some mixed damage in the Liga build against Lager?
I personally like seeing the Daedalus, the right click.
Because if you're going magic damage and try to burst Lager, if you don't get the kill,
Lager will kind of heal up, you'll have Ups and Stain elsewhere,
And then Yelena might feel like there'll be a window where she can get that kind of the first damage
But I just prefer the insurance or physical
Maybe somewhere else in the drop they can do with logos though if there are heroes that she needs to do magic build against I
Yesterday in the games a matchup
I really liked the look that was widened into the logo because we talked about how the catchy lick this bells
So many things right it makes like being hard to play for example, but why we can constantly reapply
her Q onto Lago and like we saw the Lago suffer in lane so heavily as a result.
And also the fact that you have like a good combo with Belina, I think Wyvern plus
Lina has been a very traditional combination. You get a multi-hero curse,
Belina, LSA, and a few fights, all yours. It's very very easy to take that fight.
I mean it also helps that Kazimson kind of just get introduced and now Wyvern
is like mana boots, blitz, my favorite item. It's your favorite item.
Yes, my favorite item. It's on Wyvern.
every support here. Even if you don't gain any resources. Just auto buy, all right, great.
So which guy are you following? I'm starting to unsubscribe from them.
See, that's the guy. Oh wow, I don't make them.
All right, one ban here that Ironwing has before the next trick phase and I think they
have to ban Ironwing. I was exactly going to say that. It feels like if they don't,
it's one of those, we're going to let it through and see if we can beat it's situations.
If they don't ban it, then there's still the doom route to, you know, to reclaim the...
No, no, no, no.
Ignore what you're trying to say.
Ignore the ban, yep.
Okay, there's a portal.
Also started out with the ball of light there for a second, but it was the keeper of the light,
and we did see ban now in that previous series that they played against each other.
And it is a hero that Ari is very comfortable on as well.
Yeah.
But I don't really like it against a League though.
You don't do a lot against League because it dispels your Solar Bind all the time in the teamfight
and that's your main spell that you do damage with on this hero.
But I think it's just like it adds multiple layers. Like Coddle just isn't just a Solar Bind.
It's of course reducing, you know, spell cooldown, the miss chance,
it's keeping your heroes on the map, giving them, you know, regen through health and mana.
And it's just a lot of like map presence.
And if Lager wants to take a long fight, guess what?
Cuddle can do that already mentioned linear to take long fight. I think I'm willing to respect in the concept of lagoon and matching your fight style
Well, I thought so it's the same thing
And boom boys go back to the classics the Bane Marana
I mean when you look at this team you think about the supports often
Describe to some of the best support crews in the world at their first 15 minutes of the game like the way they move around the map
It is often quite exceptional ruins are the main thing they play for and when you have been Marana back in 2013 2015
You're gonna get every kill of the map still for the present day. It's gonna work the same way. I
think when we've seen these drafts as well with
The two supports you usually like to have something that doesn't go down
I mean something in the likes have a bit more save and I think coddle from what I've seen this TI so far actually makes
Drops a little bit weird in that way because he doesn't really provide
either in like first
So how are you gonna protect someone that's getting
Slept and arrowed like these setups are so scary, but you also don't want to keep playing more like range save and backline
Yeah
We have the same time the big is just really good against Kotlin the linkers Kotlin
But during the landing phase you like to hide on the trees and channel your
Illuminate to push out the wave. You got the pool stack being kind of just looks for you
Sleeps and kills you and now you just mentioned about the ring having the safe against the Bay Marana
Very very nice one of white months best here of the parliament so far
I'm really worried for Boom Boy's damage right now, where it's like, landing phase short, there's some outplay potential, some rotation chances, but in the kind of the mid game, they have no way to go, we are going to kill heroes, especially if Centaur goes for like this instant heart build that we're seeing.
Of course, Auto and Ringmaster supports that like to keep people alive. Like, there is an argument that Boom Boyz will just walk to an objective and go, we can hit a tower, but killing heroes? Eh, not so much.
They don't have teamfight right now.
They have Largo, but it kind of comes online later.
The Bane, Mirana and DK kind of feel similar.
They are single target heroes.
They're very good at picking off.
They're very good at killing one target.
But that's it.
It's not the same against the Ring, with the Wheel,
and the Central Stampede.
Those two heroes are way, way stronger in the teamfight.
And right now, it kind of concerns me
that Boom Boys have everything in one direction.
And they only have the one pick left,
and that is most likely Hero for Kirit.
So can he really solve that with a caro pick probably not
I honestly feel like it's the other way around when I look at boom boys lineup. I see
the ability for them to use DK and Marana to like put kill pressure on mid or to get that blink and then put kill pressure on the
game and
Iron wings like hoop really makes a play
Like, your Centaur's gonna go Helm of the Dominator, then Blink comes out a little bit
later.
It feels like with their build with like Heart and stuff, they're kind of just being more
tanky and a nuisance rather than actually kill threat.
Irlene is gonna be farming, your supports are not setting up anything.
Like, when is Ironman ever making a move in this game?
It's the carry pick.
Usually it's Pio.
Pio's the one that's gonna come into the game, you know, maybe with some kind
of...
Usually he plays like the Kers, the Tiny.
I mean, he does have some games where he was playing Jumbo, like playing the
Heart carry.
this game he needs to be like some early game here like gyro cast there's no cast
so there's gyro maybe something that can actually come online it doesn't really
have an initiation but he does give you damage in the early game when you want to
defend your towers because I imagine the DK's gonna want to hit your tower so I
think gyro against DK as a carry is always very very nice when the DK pops
level 6 pops dragon form you hit your tower you can always tell your team to
be ready and you can connect to the point and defend the tower with your
There's also an argument that you can go back to the alchemist that he's played before in the tournament, a super generic carrier.
It has the blink, it plays the lane.
Ironwing, their way of winning this game is just about efficiency.
If they are the better team in the first 15 minutes of farming, on paper their drafts should overwhelm boom boys until they make the mistake
and give back some gold to boom boys and allow them to get back into the game because of the damage problems that we're mentioning.
Yeah, I'm looking at just seeing a very stable hero from here. I don't want to see him cook up anything crazy
I just want to see like, ah, okay simple carry that kind of makes the rest of the draft clip so that you're ready for that timing
It needs to be a cheap one. Yeah, they kind of thought to pick a hero that needs to farm a lot
Yes, and boom boys here. They they they have a very very good lane setup
I would say despite not having teamfight, but they're landing phase
It's gonna go well. I think this DK against Lena my shop was so very favorable for DK
I'm sure the GPK is going to do really well and the pain I already mentioned is very good into the Koto matchup in the lane
So laning phase wise they have to do really well come on top and try to
Use that advantage and snowball because if that doesn't happen and the game goes to the mid game with the team fights
It's going to be difficult for for full boys and now they have the TA to even accelerate the game
So they can pick Roche they can take home
He is really good against Santa on the lane very good against Lina and Koto in the game with the
The shot the silence. I think this is a very very good pick for a full voice to run the whole lineup
Are we set on Lena to take that mid lane or is there a chance pure will play it instead and they can have something better
Maybe also more movable
Against the like mid like maybe it's good for like a like a mid
Like a necromancer something just to fully shut down the D.K
You let the leader farm and then you kind of connect that way so really though there just you're playing to win the lane
And I think we already have this conversation before yesterday where the leading face doesn't really feel like it's that important anymore
Nowadays you can win the lane, but how much of draft integrity are you sacrificing to have a matchup to win the lane?
Quite a lot for sure. Yeah, how do you play the mid game?
If you don't have a hero that can come into the game and fight with the Necro, maybe the center has to sacrifice his game
He kind of has to buy dagger early
Maybe that would solve the problem because if he goes for his normal build helm into heart
Then who's gonna play the game with the supports?
I mean, yeah, the main thing is that like the TA just broke open the game for Boom Boys, right?
Yeah.
Secured a lot of the kind of concerns that we had, like once you get to your kind of
deso timing, like you already mentioned, the script is already there for Boom Boys.
So they don't have to worry too much now.
It's like they can go even and then they can make the moves when they're ready.
Yeah, I guess there's actually more flexibility than we thought to because we've seen Centaur
mid this tournament.
It could be Mina, Carrie, Centaur mid and then they pick a different offlaner
I love this year. I love this year. And the thing is like, every time we go to a tournament
for the entire season, it's like, I wish I see more chaos tonight. It's like high burst
hero, you can buy Orchid, Armlet, Blink, like items that are kind of forgotten in pretty
much the meta.
Fights early.
Fights early. The problem is, of course, like, you're damaging to AoE heroes to be
awkward into lago is sometimes a little bit he's he's not gonna worry about the
damage too much I think because ring, quarter, lina they give you damage later on
I think his concern is if they need to find a hero that can play early he's
very good with the quarter the chakra you already mentioned that he can play
with the supports he can initiate I think that's what they need and in the
draft you know it might seem strange but I think CK is a hero they need it
I think the kill threat in lane is kind of high I mean the main thing is
CK like he can burst a lot of heroes like he's not a carry that struggles to burst tanky guys like he can
He can burst the tankiest of heroes in Dota with the correct itemization because he can buy bloodthorn as well
So yeah, I think pure a lot eyes on him because he's got given a hero that not many people play
But he can he can break open this game if he plays a CK well
So we do think that in the laning stage as well against a Largo and the Marana
He will have a good time
Yeah ring master and CK they are very very strong at all the levels especially ring
But you don't really trade against ring you have to but
If you add CK with the way that the hero wants to play very aggressive in the first two levels
There's a very high chance that kills are just going to happen the moment you hit level two
But at least the boom boys when you look at their heroes
These are heroes that they have been able to obtain multiple top three finishes top two finishes
Like this is a draft that goes if you took away the team names that you go
That's probably boom boys. So that alone when I spoke about comfort. They now have that comfort. Well speaking of the draft
Let's talk to someone who knows all about it. We're heading over to select just talking to moon me under
Thank you so much. Yes, she ever we are here with the master himself
Mr. Moon good to see you again my friend is great to see you on this TI stage
But let's get in the draft so a lot of familiar heroes coming out on the boom boys
She must have saw it coming but a very unfamiliar last pick with the CK
Was that mostly because they're aggressive lineup in the lanes or did you have that one in the back pocket?
That one's in the back pocket. This is our empty Largo strap. We like a Largo like a specialist
We feel we know what kind of it
Alright, alright, you worried about anything in this draft. It seemed like you guys got a lot of W's. There's a lot of save
There's a lot of ways to deal with their heroes is anything out there particularly scary you think yeah the DK combo Marana
As long as the mr.
BGM doesn't back to this old age old combo middle constantly. I feel like we got this in the back
I mean mr. BGM is doing quite well. We saw he's in poker. Yes, it was absolutely insane
What do you think is gonna happen with the CK? Do you need to win the lanes?
Do lanes even matter anymore with how long these games have been taken mr. Blue?
I feel lanes definitely do matter.
And late game is all about team fighting
and I feel a lot of games get to late game
because a lot of teams are terrified to go high ground.
Are you guys scared?
Hell no.
Hell no, baby!
But we're going to see that high ground soon, I hope.
For our friends here, let's get into the game
and see how it goes down.
So much indeed slacks.
We're getting ready to pop into this game.
And as I can see over there, it's red.
It's first blood, EZM able to take it on Chateau.
The Viero also bleeds, she's down, LSA is going to connect.
You know what, no matter what, the first game of the day,
you're going to get some first blood.
Yeah, I'm going to start real quick here.
Once the arena starts bleeding red all around us,
I know what is happening.
And it's Ironwing who are going to strike first.
And a lot of dissect here from this draft,
from that interview.
Got a lot of knowledge, you know?
I mean, I get nervous every time
coming up on the stage, coming to cast, the butterflies, the ground is shaking, I would
be a little scared to pick a CK at this point, I love this hero, I think he is definitely
a little under explored and we've been seeing this development near the end of these drafts
where we're seeing the bands come out on Sven, on Tiny, on Alchemist, these like slightly
active early game carries provide a stun heading into the mid game in these very
crucial teamfights you just heard Moomi and her talking about, right?
Cks in that pool, but no one's been willing to bring him out
Well, and this is what they said was specifically the anti-largo tech paired together
With white on plane on what I think is his best hero right now this ringmaster probably the best ringmaster in the world
It feels like there's going to be insane kill potential and as you can see
To aim the bees get the kill white on does it yeah, this could be scary just died
Yeah, yeah, he's he's got a walk shame and of course there's no river on this side
You can't start surfing down speed your way back over there, so it's gonna be a slow one getting back
I like the idea to of the early whip as well, right like you have this dagger about this the link counter play and
They just don't give them a choice on the level one bullet
I sit down there to trade over the night,
and R.A. not letting 33 get pulled underneath the tower.
You know, it's interesting, because when I was listening to the panel,
I felt like at the fourth pick for both of the teams,
all of the analysts, like, hated both of the drafts.
That was the vibe that I got.
And I kind of felt like it too, because I was like,
we're gonna end up like 30 minutes, no kills,
like people are just chilling.
And then the last two carries were super interesting.
We get this TA, and then the CK is the last overall,
How much did that change how we think about these drafts now at this point?
Yeah, the TA is massive because it goes from being like, okay
Are they gonna have some carry that doesn't do anything for 25 minutes and then like stills kind of slow to come online?
Or are they gonna play that thing? He is still number one on Mero right now!
Yeah, and if you were, I mean, it doesn't even feel good to not die almost at this point.
Slamans walking them down with 25% HP!
Oh, he'll take a tower shot. I mean, you probably don't want to take a tower shot to speak fit.
But, you know, it's exuberant. It's fine. It's fine.
Yeah, but this T8, it ties it all together.
This is a classic boom voice lineup.
This is how they like to play the game.
And Templar Assassin, the best thing this hero does for you
is the ability to secure these two big objectives
around playing in America, the Tormentor and the Roach.
Right? You hit these timings of Deso and of Blink Dagger
and you are just ready to roll.
Yes, it gives them something to play for
that you know they're going to be looking for.
The question is, if this CK counters out this Largo super hard in the lanes,
and once that lanes and matches still do matter, I think they matter,
and if the game might be able to lose the game off the back of a really bad lane,
the Nero would be forced to salve up, and they had to find out another way to deal with this,
because this CK is already 15 and 80. That's only a nine-time game,
ran it by Ori a little bit, here it takes turns,
I'm not going to be able to break down the coddle, but they are absolutely winning the
lanes on Iron Man right now.
And this game is set to develop very differently than a lot of the games we had yesterday because
you guys kept seeing this bounty hunt.
It was coming out constantly over and over all day and I think if I'm not mistaken it
won every game yesterday.
And the way that it won, that style, I mean it reminded me so much of obviously
Tree and Protector, but just more powerful in terms of getting these kills.
Tree, you don't have to draft around it as much, you can just like live on the
side of the map kind of for free as the support still be providing this healing and getting all this vision as Miro again
That's what it's defensive arrow from say that's not really what you're looking for in your marata, right defensive arrows are not the goal
I mean, I feel like that if we just look at the damage numbers even at this early point four minutes in
It's gonna be insane because look at how much gold advantage this is this isn't just blasted
This is like consumable all these other things. I feel like you're quite
Look at this. I mean he's got raindrops right now and he's still getting beat down look at the how much is
4500 damage done at four minutes and it's cookie
The other girl that does this is the morana as you can see 2.8k right like she's also known for doing this in the laning stage
But it just can't match up to what they're doing to Miro on this larko
I hear a who's known for having a bit of cheeky region with the full belly coming out of the lake
It doesn't matter. Yeah, they're they're
leading to figure out something to do here.
I mean, Save just came back and handed him the salve
that Miro had to buy.
So again, hurting into that network.
I will say there's maybe like an element of ember
in this for Largo.
If he can still get the levels up,
if he can still sort of, you know, get to that level six,
obviously you're gonna run into, you know,
man of problems and all the rest of it,
but he will be able to have some value.
There's a reason this frog is so gargantuan, okay?
He's a greedy guy. He's a gluttonous hero.
This guy is never satisfied.
He always needs more items, you know?
Like, I don't...
Playing for the levels is a bad time.
Sometimes you can get away with it if you're playing for your croak,
but is there a good croak combo in this game?
Not particularly, right?
There's no beastly combo like a Muerta, an Ember, a Puck or something like that.
It's nothing spectacular.
See how he does.
At least at this early going, you can see BZM.
Oh, they're gonna kill his courier. I mean yeah when it rains it pours brother. It's I mean everywhere
They're trying to go okay mirrors. Don't do not click Miro. Whatever you do. All right. Oh, don't do it
Panel don't look these cute the Midas is queued up
It is dangerous own for the frog. Oh
My gosh, there's a drought the marshland is just all dry the Fed is cracked and he missed the window
You know the frogs they hibernate under the mud there. That's what they're supposed to do. I hear you didn't get under the mud in time
Yeah, left out
World toad there's more like a he's got to convert from a frog to a toad
He's gonna go live like it's like when they find a dog living with a pack of wolves
This life is pain this explains like so much the draft to read this idea because they didn't like
They didn't seem concerned about the LARP, and they banned the IO and everything, but some of those other counters, like, they really understand this hero.
Well, right, because it's 33, like, his most successful hero, I feel like, when you're not surprised.
Definitely, as of late. No doubt.
And, you know, when you play that much of it, you understand how to counter it out.
You see, I'm in the meantime, it's going to get found.
Ugh, the creeps are in the way, so keep looking at the arrow combo, and in fact, that's what we get.
Oh, big? Easy, yeah.
Give him the kill.
Save takes that one away still being involved anything is helpful right? Yeah, they couldn't risk it
There's no way you could like guarantee it from here
So just make sure the depth happens help out your poor offlaner white Mando. Yeah, he's he took advantage
You know it gets in got the shrine wall that's happening
But it might not even be worth it Indiana Sun hits on the table one more me is it gonna matter?
This is on the dagger, does manage to get some separation there, but yeah, you can see this CK, I mean, we have not seen a lot of this hero, so what is the legs down side of CK?
Because, I mean, it's looking amazing right now. Why have we not seen this hero before? Is there any way that these boys can take advantage of that?
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I mean, his itemization, I really like to hear about him.
You can kind of buy anything, which is really cool.
So one may be issues, he's not like fully solved in some ways.
And he doesn't have this insane item build, like he can't go like the old mirror or something in front of like crazy.
He's a melee core, melee cores have been struggling quite a bit without a natural farm accelerator.
Ever since they've lowered the cooldown of the phantasm, it has become sort of his pseudo farm accelerant, right?
Like you just alt and you farm through the camps and stuff.
So I'd say that's maybe the one concern.
But, if you succeed in the lane like this and you get the kills, this is how you're supposed to accelerate the hero.
I see.
Uh, but to move on to something other than just this very difficult top lane,
one bright spot I thought might happen would be the mid lane here for GBK.
Because obviously we know he does quite well on the mid, he's used to seeing him win lanes.
And BZM is not someone who often pushes into advantage.
BZM is also crushing this game. We haven't mentioned it, but he did extremely well in the lane.
He's back, he's farming. And again, this is what I mean about the game developing differently.
There's no bounty hunters.
So this area back here, it feels very safe.
Eventually there's going to be this roaming vein in Rauner's fuel,
but because of the disaster that was the Offlane,
the Rauner's far behind, they don't have the confidence to push forward.
You don't have this Offlane or who, you know, you take the top tower,
you start controlling the space.
You get the helm or something, the waves are in your control,
and that opens up all this breathing room,
because it supports you going hunting.
These cores who are farming the jungles like this,
that doesn't exist for Boom Boys.
So the path back into this game is very narrow.
Right, like the Marana-Bane combo is very, very strong when you compare them together,
but if Bane had left that bottom lane, then here it is at this point without having a game.
Yeah.
So they kind of had to wait until he was self-sufficient before they could make that move again.
33 against Talon, and so they're going to be more free to roam around and try and make stuff happen.
I mean, Saves trying to do it anyway.
Yeah.
So I don't know if this is going to be very successful.
If he gets caught here, he's very close to the vision of BZM.
He just skirts past them so he's gonna get a really deep observer word here
There is a dire word, but safe is skirting fully around the vision it gives
He sees a courier he's gonna kill that that might give away the word he just planted though
Yeah, but you know why like your name century and
There though. Yeah, there aren't any other centuries right now on these heroes
And now he's stealing the Lena's camps. He's back here arrowing the tomato and finishing off the potato
So this is his solution. You know, if I can't gank Alina and fight her, I'm gonna try and take her camps.
I'm so unfortunate. I was killing her in the tower.
Now this part is a little bit tough. With 33 sending in his creep as well, it does set up for Iron Lake to get this early tower advantage
and transform this net worth lead into objective.
Now, can they do this in other places? There's an immediate smoke up.
And now the boots of trample are out for this Lena. So this is why they want to get aggressive if you're on the supports of Ironwing.
Moving towards their CK since he's the one that has an ability to help with some stable.
They're down, already there. The solar sign and the hits.
Looks like Zable's gonna be in trouble. Tries to escape, they're gonna stamp people this turn.
Force that out in the meantime, down a lot of corn on the Cat-Tombie, he too is dead, doesn't quite connect onto the Stomp for Cure-Tich, so Boat supports Fawley.
Xiongling, I push this advantage.
After killing the Cat-Tomb, Ari's already down here backing them up. This is what you heard Tee on the fans' live website, you have to keep your head on the map, right?
He's throwing out these Shockers, throwing out these Heels. He's going to ensure that even though they just kind of dove the tower of it and fought this Bane, they get to stick around.
So they're going to have to bring in some resources, but the helm creeps here, it's just grabbing the wave.
So having you can't chase this thing is gear, bitch.
No.
So what's the response?
GBK coming in, he's always running a little low, but he's getting enough time for a fight.
33 going to be found.
Oh, the hurricane he gets for nightmare though.
And then they use the stun onto the creep, and now BZM turns.
They kind of just committed for the creep.
Yeah.
They were like, there's no hope on the centaur.
And in the meantime, Cure also takes the top tier one tower.
Because when he is solo against Miro, I mean, Ringmaster is still in the area, it ends up being enough to take that down.
Five feet gold lead now at 12 minutes. Yeah, they really turned on acceleration in this one.
Yeah, I mean Miro, he got pushed out of his ancient areas.
Well, I mean, obviously, if the player goes here, he'll feel like Rage be farming in there.
He's back on those only two camps he can access, and the hero...
Radiant's top tower.
It's rough. I mean, he's the same level as the cauldron.
Yeah, that's a tough one.
Losing the wisdom will also do that to you. Yeah, so
well minutes now and
boom boys, I mean, they're not a team that's well known again for coming back from behind
But they can't extend the game for trying to cut waves and all the rest of it
Is there any hope at all still for that like timing of the Deso on here?
It's it. Are we gonna need to wait for a later one
That's a that's a toughie. That's I mean the Deso blink
I think you still just have to fight it, right? Like you have a DK, he's going for the Blink Dagger.
I'll be curious to see what a second I'm going to be.
Sticks for the Shard as well. I think it's nice to have some, just to like try and get some
ability for Wave Push and maybe just like staying up in this game.
I mean there's no death card in this game. A lot of it's going to come down to the decisions
they want to make and the animations they want to go for. Like 3-3 is going for the Helm,
straight into the heart. I think this is a pretty good game for like already gotten plenty
of kills, they secured a ton of space around the map, they got in their towers, they can,
I'd say go for the final push in this bottom tower pretty soon, like right now the wildling
ripper is just down here solo taking it and Ken only's too scared to go in, they're pulling the
wave off and this tower's just down a creek. Yeah, I mean it's understandable, right? He's gonna
have to pull it over now and try and pull that tube heritage. But this is the danger,
right? Things could go wrong and if you lose this TA and any of her farm accelerates down,
Our decelerator that's we're just going to not be able to fight for almost at any point in this game.
Pretty careful about that.
It is, as the last tier 1 tower falls.
What they do have to work with though is the blink dagger, the DK finish, and of course level 3 arrow.
So that'll be the dream. Pure though, you see save coming into the 14 minute wisdom.
They're not coming to defend us.
Yeah, they're just gonna give it up again.
Another one of these trines.
Cropped and it's hurt again. They're just ganking the wobbling ripper
They have now killed it more times than they've killed heroes
Now tell me does have level six grip the creep
Dead again
Listen you got to keep morale going some way that might be a problem
I mean, okay, so let's think about this you're down making half on there
You're down 2k on the DK. You're down 3k on the Largo. It feels bad
Like, how bad is it seriously though?
Like, fair way to fight back?
Like, what is your reign to fight?
They need to pray that Whitemon doesn't hit a skateback.
Okay, that's what they need to pray, right?
Cause like, the whole play is gonna be,
all right, we're gonna smoke up,
we're gonna blink, we're gonna stun,
we're gonna arrow, someone's gonna die.
And then if the skateback comes out
and you hear the horrifying phantasm of,
uh, I'm sure it just starts blowing up
one of your heroes in two seconds,
it's gonna be bad.
Okay, so, here it is, take a fight
Whitemon is not there.
Yes.
Try and find kickoffs, sort of.
Vision knowing where Whitemon's moving through the jungle
can be very helpful with 12, of course.
OK.
That's the best stuff you can go for.
Understandable.
I mean, again, if you've got your Bane Marana,
that has traditionally been a problem
despite your defining those kickoffs.
But it also depends upon you sort of forcing Ironwing
to play in bad positions.
Well, part of that is happening now in this nighttime.
I think it's a big edge during the night.
You get more vision than other heroes.
So that could open up the opportunity.
Boom, another one down.
Hey, they're killing us.
Another Elm Creek fights the dust here.
I mean, the CA is top net worth now because of that.
Yeah, maybe something.
Nightmare, they force a TP.
Like to see that.
That's the other type of play that you can do with Fane
is maybe make these moves happen around.
Ironwing still seem to be playing very clean Dota though.
Yeah, I feel like they're chilling a little bit
until 3D finishes the heart
this can be such a massive upgrade. There is an arcade room at the bottom, and Whitemon's still able to hold it for a while, but BZM to rotate into it.
BZM going first for the 4-step, very good item versus any Vayne, DK, Marana combos. You try and just, you know, obviously remove your ally from the path of the arrow before it connects, right?
So now they have a second problem, other than this, just the escape act.
And so the other question then is for Ironwing, are we going to be seeing this kind of pressure quickly?
What are they, their sort of item timings that they're looking for to sort of take this next tier of towers or likely Roche, I guess it's going to be?
Yeah, I think that's an extreme question. Like how much do you force the Roche right now is Ironwing?
Because there's definitely a situation where you may be greeted a bit too much, like you're gaining a lot right now.
Yeah, so control the map. I like tormentor for them.
Tormentor for them is very quick right now. They just drawn the line. I mean top is pushing in pretty well right now
It's a it's a no-case box. You still have your tier one tower, so they're gonna try and make their way down ballroom
It's not the most
You know, I'd say at like advantageous smoke right now. I'm like, yeah
Their scan did connect for a moment on cure-tich, so they know that someone is moving in this area
He's backing away, does look like some of Boomboyz is heading down this direction as well as Kiritich.
Understanding that movement, he's able to back away, thinking he comes in.
I'm going to try and break the smoke.
He's getting out of the arrow, as the arrow will land by no chance for any damage.
Yeah.
I mean, they kind of sold him a little bit right because, you know, 3-3 has a heart, so he's willing to play more aggressive.
So it's not necessarily like I'm 100% guaranteed they're like, you know, moving through there
But that was a great read there from the voice only cause you your vein. You're not feeling happy about it
I guess you could say, you know, DK has all
Unicycle from white on heroes
Well, they find it with your move in for the kill. See it does manage to escape from that one
So they'll lose the frog again
One to seven, 18 minutes in, a 6,000 gold lead.
Now seven forward, finding white mine.
Is there any follow-up here?
The arrow is gonna catch you.
Okay, looking for a kill.
Now a skate.
Or stick around.
Okay, that's feeling confident.
All right, is there...
Anything to really step off this mid tower?
Mid tower, it's really low, but you're missing your Largo.
I mean, he's very close to Kaia-san on the Largo.
And he's level 12, so honestly, Miro's in a pretty good spot.
he's recovering. Considering everything, this is pretty good. I mean yes, you see what, 3,000
gold behind the other corners but it's like, yeah, there's something cooking a little bit.
Yeah. I guess every minute that goes by where
Ironling are not taking objectives is Blue Boy's sort of slightly marginally cutting into the
lead. Very, very slightly. I mean, here's also, I don't have a, a Manta relatively soon here.
This is quite frightening for a Largo who's so under farmed and a blink dagger done for Centaur now too.
Largo obviously a hero that succeeds a lot when he can get through the burst of the enemy lineup and currently he cannot.
So they aren't you going to take away this road from boom boys?
I don't have any real vision on the dark side of the map though, 90 years, ideas of what's going on, but the way it's located is pretty much the same as the game.
Oh it's pretty much the same program.
I also really like the idea of this, trying to destroy the 20 minutes arc, because after you get that line of arc, they can go a little bit easier when you get into the corner.
Yes, this was a classic and it's an art piece, and that metas here. They missed the blink here on the Miro.
It's gonna get away with the hot blood hustle.
Nicely done. The manager's to escape in the meantime, CA. The nut is there and has to blink away from these necks.
The Pyrotich not gonna get pounded.
Now they do an observer ward here from Kato, I mean, near the tormentor. So, this grief could be their moment.
I think, again, they're just trying to do anything they can to slow this down.
Every nightmare in the scene where there's nobody around is trying to pay higher money to do a reaction.
And they want to keep his pressure up?
Looks like. I mean, why would you back away, right?
You have the Aegis. I don't think you need to go back to the Tommage now. It's gonna be there for a while.
Just no hurry.
You can get an answer and they don't have an ult on GPK right now.
Like, he was just losing his Dragon Form up top while they're pushing that top tower?
Yeah. So the Rating Catapult is hitting the top tier 1 right now,
But they're just gonna lose their tier 2, a very smooth game from Iron Wing.
Mid, they're starting to TP and Nass to come in for this, as EZM shows up to defend their mid tier 1 tower.
They are going to try and pressure all the way and finish off that bottom tier 2 tower.
I wonder if this impact is promising at all or not, they're just gonna stay with the plan and immediately run back.
It looks like they are.
I mean DK form is back up, they could twingate in theory,
But there's no way you get all the pieces connecting in time as boom boys. It's more likely the better place
I mean, yeah, this feels pretty bad, but I can see a pathway out of it for boom boys at the very least
They're farming, they're trying to make that stuff work.
And on the side of Ireland, I mean, you know,
Moonator was talking about this too,
there is a fear of going high ground eventually.
Well, not for them.
He said they're not scared.
You know, that's fair.
The coach has to say that though.
I don't know if he was being completely honest.
People respect high grounds.
We'll see.
Miro playing his little guitar.
Always work
And in towards it you can see the movement from iron wing
Gonna try and
Make that pressure the other one that we always talk about is TA level 25
That's true. Actually get every every game is winnable with TA 25 the blink back
Heritage the reaction arrow not gonna land on the BZM
Or sometimes level 30 they need to instances instead
Okay, they're on the hunt, blinks away. Mid-reality rip. Now they're smoked up.
Are they gonna try and take this fight right here?
I'll be back in one second to see if he's prepared.
He has the big jump! He's a really good one!
Geerti's trying to target it down the door.
Turning onto him with the moonlight jet.
They have to tech you down. Not really. 33.
Gonna have to see him peek out of there.
No much damage was done.
Stay tight. Stay tight. Play the guitar.
Now, look the insane Frozen Arrow not gonna land on the Wifon, but this burst that they have to be pretty significant.
Iron Wing up on the high ground finds the stun on the 2, not bad at all, they have enough to get the kill.
Oh my god, that's the kill. And one shot onto Katomi from pure.
Dave's still running, and Kiritich, aggressively moving for 533, he's in trouble, drop it down dead!
Can they get some more? The catchy lick on to BZM.
boom boys they waited for their moment they waited for their time they are
reaping what they sowed and sower iron wing as they find and kill the coddle
moment right there your moment of triumph celebrate the fullest never raise an empty
cup to the moon yeah the cup was empty once you lose the ages I think that's
sticking around there a bit dangerous for iron wing and he can't punish it's
It's amazing because you see these incredible plays like the healing coming from the call
to like 4000 healing, and the two of them are just saving each other back and forth,
Bane.
Rip last time there.
Oh my god!
Here it is!
He's on top!
And going to take down the CK healer, slow legacy, back in the way, Trinar, what's
on the BG?
Who came there?
Hums into the finish.
That's unbelievable to get that after this as well.
What a find from Katowani.
I mean, this is why the team love the Bane so much.
Both their support players are extremely good on it.
And he brings that element that we talked about
in terms of like the Bounding Hunter or the Tree.
Like, you can really roam solo despite not being invisible
and set up some incredible plays
because of your long time durations on the stumps.
You know, I think Boom Boy is a team
that various points has been criticized
for not being able to keep playing.
It's so awesome to see this type of, you know,
growth and move from them as they are playing very clean.
Even just yesterday on the main stage, Kiritoots slamming the desk off the frustration of that loss
and now they're coming in, they fall behind early and start to make this a comeback.
This is going to be a good game.
GBK, that's a very nice play.
That's the second one, where he's just getting away by the skin of his teeth on those.
I mean, Ironwing, you can see in that T5 too, they played so well.
The save between two supports, like passing the heals back and forth,
the lotuses, the escape act and everything, but at the same time, they almost played it
too well, keeping the sports alive, you know?
Right.
Then there's nothing left for the cores at that point, and then they just get focused
down again, coming in, at home, you're feeling brave.
This is a bit of a bait though, they've got a couple heroes behind them.
Okay, has 4-Sap and BKB.
Now, they're not brave enough, on the side of our arm, we need to go for it.
That lead dwindling down, level 20 on the Templar Assassin, the Minus Armor is
going crazy right now, I mean, the Centaur, right?
You know, we have to help him into the heart build very common.
He's got that plate mail to help out,
but it can still really chew through you when it's TA.
Well, and we saw the burst potential that came from Boom Boys.
There is also the other burst that's going to be fewer on this chaos night.
You get a phantasm out when he's got a part open online.
This hero will shred,
doesn't need to deal with like obviously all the instances
of, you know, the fraction of it's TA and everything else,
but it's something to watch for.
Yeah, Slyblades can single-handedly win this game, but the angles that Heritage takes are probably going to be the most impactful things in this fight, especially if you get Anchor and Anchor on this DK.
Right. Because he really is going to be bill of damage for the side of Boom Boys for quite a while.
Yeah, unlike, you know, some of these other mids that transition, I'm thinking of like
snap fire the other day and stuff where you turn into like a physical damage carry afterwards,
you kind of see in what you get from DK.
Yeah, he tends to often more for the Sheva's Guard and more like control-oriented vision
for your teammates, which is really good with T.A., right?
And like, having a vision advantage is amazing, heading into late game, so if you can
getting that achievement feels good.
You're going to have the Moonlight Shadow,
which I feel like hasn't really been a tool
that's been utilized very much by Boom Boys this game,
just because of the nature of how the lead
has been for Ironwing.
But that could be the one-two punch,
where that second hit command from a nice Moonlight Shadow
might fully eclipse the lead that Ironwing
haven't actually compelled him into a better standing here.
Surely Boom Boys are just waiting for the next rush, right?
They have a Templar Assassin.
They want to play for that.
I'd love to see a trap.
It could be nice for them to get that going.
Another 10 seconds till we're going to know how long Rosh respawn is.
And also, next shrine of wisdom is up right now.
We got Ironwing.
Now, a 3k gold lead, still nursing that one,
but feeling very close between these two scots that
have had a penchant for going into the lake game.
I would not be surprised to see this one going 40-50 minutes again.
Yeah, it's something you decide to make one move that's a little aggressive, right?
Like sticking around at the edge and feeling like, no, we're still stronger.
Like, we definitely win this fight, but you just go outplay it a little bit,
and suddenly the hesitation starts to loom in.
Fear is the mind killer, they say.
You know what the problem was? They weren't afraid of high ground.
They should have been afraid of the tier two.
Fear is the mind stabilizer.
Is that what you think?
Exactly.
Yeah, okay. A healthy level of fear is very good for you.
I mean, that's just evolution.
You're not wrong.
Blink dagger for white lawn a little bit here too
But likely as you see these traps coming out
There could be another play that we see later on if this TA thinks about going for an agonist scepter
But looking at the item few up that she's got like here. It's it just just going all damage
Daedalus first shard
I mean it's it's gonna be pretty gnarly get towards that nullifier
Got one plan on the line for Kiritage, but I mean that makes sense right? You have a Largo, you have a DK, let's end you all the other work
Currently it's Mero who's considering going to Shiva's Guard, which I like that idea
Obviously gonna boost him up quite a bit with the AWP bonuses and instead they're gonna have GPK go for an earlier Nullifier as well
Just try and deal with the Ringmaster. It's the point here guys
If you're dealing against the Ringmaster, you get the Nullifier to make sure this escape act won't work
But it's a very expensive item, so we still have a big window here, and you're gonna see it right here now
There it is
Skatebacks is lying out the arrow long duration stun had Fiendscript not wanting to use it.
And I think that brings up an interesting question in terms of the agonims for the Centaur.
Because currently, you know, he's looking for the Sheevah's Guard as well on 33 because he wants even more armor.
He turned his first plate mail into a Lotus.
But should there be consideration for him to be picking up the agonims earlier in this game for BZM?
Because if BZM survives, obviously there's a lot of damage, but BZM, you know, he's not the Carrie Lena.
He's the mid Lena much more magical focus. He's going she does that so it's he's not really a great target to save in that regard
And then of course, you know CK is based on multiple units for a lot of his damage not just the individual
So it sort of hurts the centaur in this way that their draft is constructed and most they have this game is pretty honest
Yeah, it is a strange one because this is oftentimes been the thing that makes the centaur feel better than all these other
Offlaners that buy helm. Yeah, you're have stampede for the save and then also
obviously that workhorse, but no option for it this time.
I think some of it too is that both drafts are just so heavy, physically mind it in terms of their damage.
Obviously, Lena, I could talk about going a little bit more into the Sheebas and the magic build,
but still a huge component to right click damage there.
3-3's creeps getting it found out. Couldn't find any sneaky spots to perhaps scout the roast,
but of course, that doesn't mean that they're aware this is happening.
smoke coming out they're gonna hit it and move out yeah they I think 33 and
iron wing realized that there was at least a chance and you take it very
quickly with DA so he's got 31 armor on okay all right he's got a Lotus and he's
got 3600 HP can he can he die if they jump him first do you think I would
then escape back in a backup surely surely that fight goes well for iron
wing if he gets jumped first right I think so I think you can lay him out
as bait and that's why he's playing so far forward yeah I mean the flip side of that is that if you
start like spilling off the TA traps it's still gonna take a lot yes it might be a little scary to
go for an escape act on that guy yeah you don't want to walk too close also there is the full
datalus done so if there are some big crits that come out that's another way that things can
start doing a little bit better as for the moment though Kiritich while everybody else was
Hanging out around the Roche pit goes out to farm more camps and just try to accentuate this lead right now
Save it done a good job paying attention as well the enemy is already picked up the dust with this glimmer cape bop
And then I can get you don't even get that like one fight for RE where you get surprised a little bit
Aimfully ready to pop that make the fight good more difficult
But this is more the type of gameplay that I was expecting out of these two teams early aggression in the laning stage
and have me feeling like maybe I'm just gonna be able to roll this but seen now
the backing away trying to play the map dodge out from them this is much more
traditional of both of these scenes. Yeah these are two teams that play for
objectives and the big fights around as objectives. As Ari, great position to pop a smoke, your questions can you get no after?
Definitely no. Not even a little bit. So I had the right idea though you know
He is trying to figure out where they're at.
Drops an AWP sentry on the high ground here from White Maw.
One there, there's a Maw.
Oh, he's going, but we don't need him to hit.
They see the little mini-sensor, and now,
looking for a chase, they're gonna buy back,
but DK, trying to finish this little option,
they go into it in time.
They're coming.
They're breaking this, 33.
They're breaking the blinkdacker, not letting them go in.
Kiritich trying to finish it, gets smashed by Roach.
Looking for a wraparound, but they're not gonna be able to get there in time.
Agents onto Kiritich, jump forward, stun!
It's on the 2, GBK 5, the CK over the side.
They're keeping him out of this fight.
Here it is, BKB is out, is gonna blink up to the high ground.
Boom boys, plus one Aegis.
Ooh, nice nightmare, pullback from Cat only to save that Aegis.
Otherwise, Kiritoch might have got locked down into the wheel of wonder,
turns his attention and pulls him right out of that one,
and instantly picks up a couple of smokes.
He's feeling it, he's got the Agnoms done on the Bane,
So this is classic save bait, you know, he used to play position for Bane rest Agnus after now
He's got his butt on this team doing it
Yeah, they've working towards his own Agnes, but it's gonna be a while because he's now picked up the gem
So some map control. Oh, he might lose this gem though 3-3. He saw the arrow
He saw jumps in and immediately
But they didn't see it. They didn't see it. Oh, they think it. No, they got it
Wait, why I'm on pink guys. They're on it. Please listen the support's right. Yeah, the core players, you know
Good war placed down now. So the last couple of minutes have definitely been favoring boom boys, but iron wing
Taking out that jet in spite of the ages and getting a deep word
There could be an opportunity for them to make some plays off of this
Yeah, grabbing that tower in the mid as well off of that beautiful stuff here
Pop pop tower not go too well last time. So I mean the waves pushed out through here, too
Consider that a bit here
Still full damage on the menu here for Kiritus.
This Agnus step there, ready to use, try the Bane, and now we have the Nullfire up and ready to go here on the G-Strike.
So they're definitely set for a good smoke out here. Got to get some maps in here.
Miro has been running around and kind of just throwing his body into the lanes.
He's willing to take the risk, being kind of the force, you know, force for by a Marge on the team.
But this is helping him to catch up, because he's not really worth going after.
He pushes relatively fast, and he's opening up the rest of the map for his team to try and make some of these more aggressive maneuvers.
of maneuvers. Like they're getting pretty close to pure here. I mean this is a guy with no BKB
but not enough of the catch. The other thing to keep in mind is that nullifier just completed does
open up kill potential. Your can no longer just depend upon it right on saving them.
And it's so many extra tools too right? Like the force staff potential to help out from the
Mina, the cocks, the glimmers, the horse staff from the caudal, it is everything, so...
Stamper's gonna be out there, Stamper's gonna jump in, blows up Katomi, no grip for you, Nierow,
trying to back out, they're so on with the double jumps, doing work, Nierow does get the PKB
and the back wing, on the stalk, slowing down the chase for the Stamper to be there,
Nero now also in trouble. Ironwing finds the other four seconds stung.
God!
Hey, how snidey.
When it's looking bad, you can depend on that guy to get some kills.
He is a big piece of FamiHero in teamfights.
Like, he's one of those heroes that really needs everything to go according to plan
and to have a really solid post-game.
And he's in a print, and then he just goes nuts.
Right.
And then you see it right there.
I mean, this is really one of those games where the initiation of the...
He's burning mine up! He's down! He's placed down!
Oh, they got it! That vision is all they need.
Now, I think...
Oh, here it is!
DKB tries to get out of there for the moment. They got the grip on the center.
How much damage do they have? Pure is eating through all of those refractions.
He's trying to keep him alive. Look at my back!
Oh, I forced that! He's living!
here to survive that aegis jump, but man that ward whitemon got it down
exactly what they needed to start that fight
yeah looks like it's even been there a while
see they have to drop a sentry
they get the reality risk
another one gets homey
they get their putt and they can't save them
oh they got the kill
he's dead for 90
and now save all of us in trouble
for a ward
they are not afraid to go high brown
that's what moons said and they invented
iron wig
Take down it, that's all of your damage!
Are they gonna be able- Oh man, what's gonna happen?
Still behind the first Cossil of Ringmaster, it's so hard to deal with these two.
Why would you ever leave? Why would you ever not go high ground?
What could possibly go wrong?
Pure starts to hit the racks, and they're going too slowly instead of-
And I think all this chip damage just doesn't matter.
No, they just regen too much. I mean, there's a double hardcore sitting in the front
front with a ringmaster cover behind. The healing is too much to get on the VZM, but again.
One. No fires.
Told him the deer didn't come out.
He's in trouble too, and he's gonna go down.
The chase is there. GPK has gone. The arrow also in trouble.
Stalked. Ironwing.
Sense and fear in there.
Oh, it's trying to close this one out.
Triple kill onto the tier four towers.
Oh, Ironwing.
What a read. They know.
They're not coming back.
We got this one.
Woo, it started a really hot for Iron Wing.
So many great plays during the laning stage.
So many kills building into a solid lead.
And then Booty Boyz, they just find that moment,
he's right back.
A tiny little pull in the armor.
Right on this.
Unicycling is where I am, around the ancient.
Yeah, drop the voice line, that's what you love to see.
Get him a pair of Heelys.
Listen, I want to see him doing it on the stage.
We've got four seconds left, but GG is calm.
Boom Boy's upwards come in higherly about victorious!
On quick and static victory, Curet taking a map into the well right now, going after Kiritich,
making a statement as they take game number one with a beautiful last pick.
They said they understand the Largo they know what to do.
I believe they were correct.
What a performance.
And for Boom Boys, there were so many points in that game work.
It was starting to feel like maybe they could turn.
You were slowing things down, Kat only on the bane.
And then in the end, it just was not enough.
And again, that ward, it was these supports.
The supports for this team are so good.
I think they deserve a lot of credit as well
because this is a hard game to win with this draft.
I think you have to be very consistent
through the game.
I mean, you saw, right?
They made one mistake and suddenly the game
felt tilted back in Boom Boys' face.
And you're like, oh, okay,
oh, this looks a little risky for Ironwing,
But it was that big lead they generated early with the help of the chaos night and again Bcm
Doing much better in the mid lane than he has you know recently
I feel like you really get a solid lead and help control this game for Ireland and passive performance by iron wing as they take the victory
See if they can do it again for game number two for now. They're victorious
Thank you very much trends and lyrical the first game of this best of three
elimination series goes the way of
Iron wing and it looked fairly even for quite some time in that mid portion of the game
But at some point winter it was it was just over and I felt like boom boys had nothing left in the tank
I mean also the fact that the game started out with a like a couple of kills
I think that kind of tilted the off lane for the logo kind of tilted also the DK smash up because I expected the
DK against Lena to be more evenish
But he had kind of had a hard time in the laning phase probably due to the kill
You know the extra kill that the Lima had before the game started
Upsetted the balance of the game. Yeah, I mean, I mean at least have one mentality in this game
Which was moved forward right because after the laning phase even if the kill score wasn't really going up
They were always just trying to just be annoying and just make some move happen
Like they're trying it for kills
Maybe didn't work out but they're just slowly chipping down progressing map. Sure. This wasn't the cleanest game
I'd say from them, but I think they have the correct mindset of Russia from a stake go again
And I think that mindset did allow them to eventually just put it close out the game in a very swift move
But yeah, I'm a couple things might need to be cleaned up in the next game
But that aside we get to see an unpicked CK show off some of its strengths within the tournament
Even though other teams don't respect it against Largo. It did a very good job in the lane
It did do a very solid job in the lane and we are witnessing a part of the game right
now where we thought, you know what, Boom Boys, they have a shot of making a comeback happen.
They've got some items on board that we thought would propel them forward and have a solid
success in the mid game, but it was very short-lived for him.
It was.
I also thought they were going to do well because they got the ages right off it and
And this was the fight that they took afterwards, which just went terribly.
It felt like when CK could find the right target, the damage output was just unbelievable.
And boom voices get pushed right onto the back foot.
Because they don't really have like save supports.
They have nightmare, and they have like logos heel, but there's nothing that really stops
the 1,000 illusions of CK from being your head in.
It was also kind of hilarious because like before that clip, there was multiple times
that both CK and Central were blink trying to stun people, but they're probably
the worst blinked initiators with of how funky their stun is. So you got to see DKTA
just blink away from multiple engagements, which kind of gave Keratitch who was having
an incredible game, right? Top network, first the lifeline of BB, a potential chance to
get back into this game, but then eventually when you don't blink Dodger's stun, when
they actually do convert on the initiation from I'mwing, then you get moments like
this where they're suddenly in your base and go, you know what, I think it's just
time to end it.
I mean I also want to add something to that, you know, I feel like the other problem that I noticed throughout the game is this Lago and DK they just don't really
Mesh together very well, but we've seen Lago with Ember Lago is storm in the past any magic damage spirit here
It was really well with the croak, but with DK it just doesn't really feel like it's the same
GPK kind of had a decent game here kind of great game, but I just didn't really see like the combination with this hero
They first picked the Lago and I felt like the DK has a follow-up because they just wanted to have a good laning setup against the Lina.
Just didn't really cut it for the draft.
And you talked about the laning, right? And the idea of Lago didn't have that natural pairing.
Not only did he didn't have a natural pairing, but when you get completely shot out of the lane,
let's remind you about that. At this point, Miro here at the Midasin is quick by,
I was like, please, for the Lago, do not do this.
Of course, he then goes back for Sanjay Kaya, right?
But like this was just a complete outclass in one team understanding as a logo team. How do you beat lago and this was exactly it because I didn't really get to see lago ever enter the game. He ended the game at 0 5 5. Sure. He eventually did get to, you know, the the BKB the shivers, the
sounds cry like eventual items to be tank enough to deal with CK, but it was never in time. It was never at the right logo timings that were expected to see so far international. And then I think the CK alone in laning phase did exactly what I had to do.
maybe Ray will see more chaos like this was the first showing we saw the hero here at the international and
It looked solid. I really liked it as a last pick
You know they pull it out the back pocket moon man has said that it was their logo counter and it did it did do that job
Especially with having ringmaster such a strong laning support
You know you can just pressure him so hard because blogger wants to be able to dispel like one thing
But ringmaster is playing with multiple charges on his dagger
It's like really hard to deal with that amount of damage and then kilter and they just keep going on and going on
But I think it's hard because now they are aware of it
And I don't think CK thrives if you have to pick him earlier in the drop because there are a lot of heroes that can
Deal with him and there are other supports as well and heroes in his meta that makes illusion
Heroes like that like struggle. It's like one of the reasons I think people are so bad is because you have like underlords and
Wifens every game. So it's like CK kind of struggles from the same. He seems very niche. I'd like to see him maybe
that he's not going to be
picked now that we know that
he exists. I do wish we saw
orchid though. That's my one
one critique. They appear. I
feel like CK is built on the
burst. The Wow, you know,
Wow, and no orchid doesn't
allow to that. I think you
know what greedy goes like
echo and man through and
heart. It's a lot of like
stroke and clunkiness and
maybe some of the mistakes
that they made in that kind
of 20 minute mark could have
been rectified by having an
orchid. But that aside I
lane winner is because of these two combos here.
He throws the first stun and then it allows Ringmaster to land his follow-up stun as
well.
So tons of damage, tons of the disable, and every time they decide to spend 100 mana each,
Miera loses almost all of his HP, which means he basically can't lane at all.
The impact that this has on the game is gigantic because his net worth is way worse.
Here's the first thing.
Ironwing easily takes both wisdom shrines.
That means the levels for the enemy supports on Boom Boys are going to be super neutered,
so they're going to be harder to play the game.
They end up taking the mid tower, uncontested, boom-go-boys don't even show up to this because
they know that they're not going to be able to do that.
It was just a helmet.
Dominator preped it over, two supports in the mid, they're going to end up taking this
tower by themselves uncontested.
So that's a gold advantage.
And in the meantime, Chaos Knight who loves staying in the laning stage because he
doesn't jungle extremely well, he basically gets anything he wants.
And when he ends up pressuring here, we actually do see a really cool scan
that spots out the enemy support rotating over.
So Miro again knows I can't be here either.
This tower which normally is ignored in almost all games is taking completely for free because they're like well
They can't contest so we might as well take the gold in the map control
So all of these things cascaded downstream even this pressure that happened on the reaction to seeing them pushing the tier one tower
Didn't produce anything for boom boys
So this is all downstream of that smart chaos may pick that pressured the Largo that put boom boys so far ahead that their
Tri-core combo which should be amazing. They've got dragonite here to set up a stun
They've got an arrow setup. They've got a nightmare and they just can't use these heroes and their draft the way that they want to
Because of that lane going so poorly for them and ultimately they did a great job not bleeding more
They only lost like the the bane in this example at a 70 15 minute smoke
But the downstream cascades of that pick was gigantic and it was the reason truly that iron wing was able to win this match
And when they did and it was so important for them that they did as this is elimination
we're in the lower bracket here of the main event of the international so this is pressure
on. Now for boom boys they are with their backs against the rope so I'm sure they have
to find ways to deal with that pressure. Let's learn a little bit more from Yaro and
save and how they feel about this win stage.
Our journey in the growth stage was starting from some
little bit problems and we got some mistakes that we need to work on.
So we're keeping proven on that.
But eventually we knew that in the elimination match in Desider,
our other pick does, we knew it's going to be a different game.
So we won and we were super happy.
Of course, everybody in this tournament wants to win TI.
As for me, this thing is the same one.
But for me, going through the playoffs and playing on this arena,
my family watching me and our fans, most important thing.
I mean, it's my dream to win a TI, so obviously it feels very special.
All the time it's my fifth TI.
And obviously I want to win so far.
That's my fourth TI in my Dota history.
So for me it's the most important one.
Like for every player.
For me it's just my aim and purpose to achieve the ages.
I think our expectations were always the same.
Before the tournament, we wanted to make it to the top three, something like this.
I think it's kind of the same, even though we didn't have a really good group stage.
It's still like this.
Playing on the crowd is really good, and it gives you more feelings about this tournament.
So, this tournament, it's different between other tournaments, of course.
I'm super happy that we have this possibility to play in front of the people that cheer for us.
So yeah, I'm super happy and grateful for the support from all the fans.
Third, second and fourth.
That's just the last three placements that Boom Boys have gotten in the last three tournaments they played before TI.
The last three tier one tournaments.
So this team getting top four, that's normal.
They have had an incredible year.
Top four majority of the events they played.
And I think Tegov then being faced here
with potential elimination at top eight is disastrous.
Yeah, I thought that was probably
the biggest shocker for them, right?
Like the idea, when you come into TI,
you look at your previous form,
like, you know what guys are making it to Saturday,
we're making it to Sunday,
like you have that confidence.
I think just the group stage, it probably took a lot of wind out on their cell, like, no, wait a second,
we're not in the form that we were in earlier in the year, like, what's happened?
Like, nothing should have changed since, you know, the tournament before to now being at TI,
but of course that is just the beauty of TI, the pressure it applies, and right now it is
hitting boom boys extremely hard, because this is not the team that has been able to dominate
and be a contender in multiple tournaments throughout 2026.
Hey, at the same time, I felt they did really well yesterday against Vision,
they were able to take the game off so yesterday I think they did well but maybe you're right you
know today it's an elimination game totally different series and pressure is really getting to them
because they they kind of go back to their lane dominance. The pressure was felt and lane
dominance has been something that every time Moon Boyz is on stage we talk about it because
Because that is, in the past, always been how this team wins games.
They win the lanes, and then they push that advantage into a successful game.
This first game, Rhea, no winning lanes.
This was not part of their formula at all.
Is that where you would want to see things change going into game number two that is coming our way soon?
I mean, no one could have seen the CK loss pick come.
True.
Let's just write it off as a all they got us those guys those funny little guys and now we know that it exists
We're not gonna get caught by it again. I
Like winter said their match yesterday was so high skill
They should have won the first game which meant they honestly could have won the entire series
This is definitely a team we can see go all the way
So I I think even though this one look rough
I wouldn't I would just call it off
And you also kind of fill it into a bit of a drafting trap right like when you see from the bands of
I'm going like throwing kind of all these bands into heroes that you know BB
Haven't really been first picking compared to like the coddle the Largo's the other options the Banes and now sudden
It's like we have all these options that we love picking. Let's take the Largo and now, you know
Many picks later now CK appears, right? I feel like the entire time
This feels like something that was in the playbook from last night like moon me and is like guys
This is what we're gonna do when we get to 24 pick
We're ready to pick this hero like we don't care about Largo at all. Let's test them in game one
So I think coming into game 2, it can only get better for BB because you don't have this many, you know,
Structs all perfectly prepped. That just felt like the perfect, you know, playbook prep.
Yeah, that's why it's important to get the right pairing with the Lago, because the Lago's problems
was the CK. And if the Lago had the conventional pairings, the Spirit Heals,
any magic damage, then the CK wouldn't have been a problem. Sure, it's also
overall aspect, so you can't really account for that. But that's the thing with draft,
You need to have your drafts be prepared to deal with whatever your opponent chose at you
And also like when you think about these two teams right mirror honestly is quite a staple and be the success right?
He often is the flexible offlaner that has creativity is here a pool that will make moves throughout the map and just be
Unlucent in the other game utilizing what the supports do and then you look towards pure probably one of the more inconsistent
carry players are saying regards to laning sometimes he looks incredible sometimes
that's what I'm saying. I'm
saying that's what I'm saying.
And the opposite of incredible
again. T I love the game. But
yeah, I feel like pure inconsistencies
like that. You should look to lean
towards and giving him that last
pick the perfect counterpick to a
lago showing us like that
normally doesn't happen in
drafts. So I feel like baby can
draft in a different way to
force. You know, pure hero
earlier give me or the counter
matchup create that volatility
it's like, yeah, there are
ways to boom boys get back into
this. Maybe then don't ban
doom. Let them have it.
Honestly, I think, uh, watching
33 play last game was actually
really exciting for me. I think
a lot of people find helm
boring at this point because
they see every game that I
always is super creep can do
so much. I love it. I think
it's amazing and 33 last game
was having so many good
moves with it around the
map, like taking mid tower
with it. Um early like this
that. He's also blocking the
ancient cap with his creep. And
on top of that, he's also like
scouting and giving vision.
He's controlling the brochure.
He knows the TA wants this guy
did so much with his helm. He
had tremendous impact so that
the team iron wing crushing
that game one. They are in the
lower bracket, and they do not
seem fazed by that at all. That
performance was stellar. As
that performance was stellar as
Tegov said they played like an
upper bracket iron wing. Whereas
boom boys they are left
struggling. They are now one
game away from elimination here
from the international. They
have still got a chance though
because of course it is a best
of three. One game down doesn't
mean you're out. Let's see what's
Iron Wing versus Boom Boys. Game 2.
We got ourselves a tiny bit of a repeat in the sense that Boom Boys for game number 2 will be on the radiant side.
Again, Iron Wing on the dire side. But where Boom Boys was first pick in the previous game, this time around, it is Iron Wing that gets a first pick.
making their four boom boys get that overall last big.
So potentially they couldn't utilize that last big
the same way Ironwing did in game number one
and sending someone up for tremendous success.
We got a couple of bands out already.
First big is coming in winter.
What do you hope to see?
We already cannot see the Largo coming out anymore.
I wanna see bounty on that piece.
Ah!
I'm sorry.
I don't know if that's gonna happen
the side of iron wing that's right there's more serious today at some point today I'm sure I want to
see a bounty and a three-breaker chasing you okay all right everybody can have dreams with
it i'm gonna take it away from you we got lina that's a lot more stable
hesitation whatsoever that's the security space zero they have they have got some
some flex potential, right? Save and Katoumi, both also play IO, if required.
It's not a support hero in my opinion right now. The hero has to be a Koro.
He has to be a gas somewhere in my mind.
You can play as a support hero, but the hero just excels at a Koro.
Yeah.
No, again, I feel like at least within the openings, I think Boom Boys respected the
ideas of Lago Koro. They also were kind of, I think, happy to be on second pick
now because they thought that they got figured out in regards to the first
victory in the Lago. So it kind of gets the full mental
reset coming into game two. And then two heroes that have just been
dominating in the games that we've been seeing, right? So you can't really full
either team pick in the month. It's now how do you compliment them? Like
IO, you know the the ag's timing, the level
timing that you're playing for. You need heroes to rally around you, play
through you. And for Lina it's our protection. Have that
frontline. Have ways to initiate, kind of create that spacing so Lina
could be that turret. The last game we had the Largo parrying and then we had the IO parrying.
I think yesterday when Saber was here you also mentioned that whenever you have IO as a carry
or mid, you want another call on the other lanes to be a good parry. Like Slark was one of those
parryings that we saw during the group stages which worked really well. Now the Slark was
always good because it's been picked into an ember response right and every game that I've
I've seen so far. It's always been like, oh, we see Emberman, I picked Slark, and now I've got a good time.
So I don't mind the concept of Slark, but with Emberman already found out, maybe there's some other options in play.
Maybe some off-lane Nightstalker, eventually down the line from Nero, that you could also play on where it's like this insane movement vision.
But there's fun options available that we probably haven't seen yet at TI.
Oh yeah, I would love to see my Slarker. I really liked when WS played it in the group stage.
I think he showed the strength even though they lost that game
I believe it was a little bit of a throw and I think he showed the strength of a hero when a lot of people have written it off
Especially since the change to essence this little it gives the vision of him and shares it so I
Think that here was great. I think it's really good against Iowa wyvern especially if I'm like what was it?
I don't know if he likes a hero. Oh, he's played it. Yeah, I
Do want to see Marana picked again personally throughout these games
I felt like the invisibility has been such a nightmare for everyone. This is includes the bounty as well, but when you're playing
So much in biz it feels like
It makes the map so much harder to play for the team against it
And then we end up seeing teams carry double gems like they'll sleep
But you're sometimes they steal it from me sometimes they just buy a second one you invest so much economy into gem into sentries
That just makes the game so much harder
Maybe also with the map being bigger means you need more centuries mean they're out of stock a lot
So yeah, you do have to risk it with those steps
It kind of secures the rune for you every two minutes you have nls for the runes
So you kind of I feel like generally the team with the Mirana has control over the route
No, it's nice bounty Lena Darkseer. I think his bounty is so good into IEO
because something I was thinking with the IO is how he farms the duo cap, but Bounty is going to be able to go and disrupt that so much, because he can just block the caps with his body, and then again force sentries onto the cap, but IO can't kill Bounty, right? Bounty is just going to run away, so he can be so annoying for IO.
And also with the Darkseer picking it into IO, you're kind of just doing a trade of farm.
Both heroes will have to farm their lanes.
There shouldn't be any kills right on either side.
Darkseer will get to go pipe to deal with the eventual kind of magic, kind of damaged
timing of IO.
So I feel like they're going to be pretty happy with the pick up on Ironwing.
Still I'm looking towards Boomboy's being very comfortable.
The Keratich IO, GPK getting his puck with pretty much no lockdown for him at the
moment.
That is a major question that Ironwing needs to answer.
Especially if LeeNit does go towards mid.
you looking towards pure form the position 5 being at lockdown often isn't the best answer to the
missed part. Do you like it though when we have IO we talked about wanting another core pairing and
now your mid is going to be a part which feels a bit bad in my opinion. The offlane can do it right?
The IO can twinge and go towards an axe or slarder or there's so many-
Not on fans so no. I mean type hero you know any of these offlaners that are aggressive
move forwards on the map will be the eye-opening. Yeah I'm looking towards
mirror to kind of activate the eye in that way and the classic rate for 42% of
win rate again saves on team it's perfectly fine. Yeah just gives them
like the setup right they were lacking stuns their Wyvern and IO like
hotfoil is not enough so you need something else and the pushback is the
perfect spell to tie everything together where it's right now I mean if
If you're looking to find answers on Carrier or Games Park, you want heroes that could
either build Orchid or have some sort of silence against Park.
And I think like, okay, so they just go for the counter from the support row, they go
for the Lion with the Hex.
Not the most like a conventional hero in the position 5, but Whitemon does play this
hero well.
You don't need to be careful on Iming for the old classics of like the Vikings
and the Beastbusters right now.
Like when I looked with bounty and line line Lena so many squishy heroes like everything
This feels squishy and like as much as it's not like the best
Partner for an IE in itself will break them up enough that you can like tether the wolf to you can just do these annoying things
So I'm worried for the zoo
Can they preempt if they pick a carry that would deal with those girls right now
Yeah, it could be two pounds elsewhere pick a carry to deal with a zoo
and then you kind of cover yourself against four heroes. That is an option but that's currently in my
mind force how boom boys can make this draco from just annoying to potentially just game winning.
But respecting the global play with the with the underlord at the moment of course with puck
pretty much gpk other than the lion of course you can deal with that with a on this for linkins
or whatever you are just going to be jumping around the map and setting a lot of things
up so again i can see the underlaw ban respecting the relocate plus the puck setup
And then the fiends get on top.
Yeah, they possibly won Tiny because they're banning the Underlord.
Underlord has a percentage damage, he's Tiny.
Very good later in the game.
And Tiny is something that will preemptively protect them against the Duel Heroes.
Did you guys see how I missed these games?
Did you see how BB utilized Legion in their games?
Because I feel like she would be a nice pairing with the Ior.
They have the burst damage to complement her Duel.
and it's like a really really strong save against Lyon.
Yeah, so that was like eight days ago against Bogey.
So I don't know how much stuff I can put into a Legion.
Yeah.
No disrespect.
It was against Mirana.
I think they picked a Legion to Mirana.
Like you have something good to dispel.
Like a save and some pretty strong lanes.
We'll see where they go with it for now.
It is boom boys.
Assuming that Lina is going to go mid once again in the hands of VGM.
So they're banning out some carry hero that the Caes already mentioned being banned on the other side for boom boys
Hero is looking for his hero and it's a template assassin. That's the other carry that will get banned
Let's see what pure wants to get for himself last game with the Chaos Knight
He got a hero that sealed the deal in favor of iron wing
Yeah, the annoying thing is like the Wings of Wyvern
I mean, it's like I am why even the park like doom is like you kind of want to see it just deals with them really nicely. But with the way that they're drafting it didn't look like they can go for it. But of course, you can just play it in the carry roll.
So yep, nice pickup. And I would call it a one of his signature heroes as well pure plays this frequently and especially when it was still very actively in the matter he was very active on playing the do.
And they did bring in some pretty decent control that we were looking for right after the fact
pick.
The line of doom they are like the big answers for it.
So a lot of pressure though on these two players because it is pretty much those two players
to deal with GPK but also you want them to deal with the IO as well.
So they kind of need to have an exceptional game because they're going to be like having
to bring the lockdown to pretty much everyone.
I think this also helps answer our question about like Lycan potentially because we saw
There are a lot of people who are the kind of sort of like him, because you can just buy this Radiance and buy the Sheevahs, it's like this hero covers a lot of bases.
Talk to me about the Centaur, does it pair well with the IO? That's something that we wanted to come out of this offlane.
It's a very different archetype than the Legion Commander for example. It is a hero that's been very popular, especially when paired up with Ranged Carriers and the character on the IO.
You can't because they're way scary.
Small utility then, like if you compare it to like Stardust,
obviously not the same, but they wanted something to disengage against the Doom.
Like, Santo is always very, very nice against Doom.
And Lion Doom, I feel like this is a lane where when you pet a Santo,
a full wing, you have kill potential.
So I can see Mero being really, really farm, you know,
just from the laning phase itself.
Mero, he boobways draft if they get into the big game,
it would be beautiful because like, I'm going to kill someone,
it's like, during the earth, but during the hex, during the Doom,
and then you're gonna have like Rulercoats saved
and then Winter's Curse or Cold Embraces to get spacing.
Stampede as well, like there's so much kiting available
that Boomboys can execute their team fight.
They will just outplay Ironwing with the limited ways
that they have to kill heroes
outside of them just fully snowballing the game.
Yeah, I think they're gonna see a game tree here.
I believe that Boomboys has what it takes
to force out a game three fair.
I think it's exciting.
We got the irony, we got the IO.
I want to see mostly the interactions between them and how much Ari is going to be able to disrupt this game
Yeah, we're gonna have a bunch of unkillable guys against a bunch of guys with a lot of damage
So it's gonna be saying it's gonna be exciting elimination on the line does have that extra layer of
pressure to all players in the booth as
I'm sure that boom boys are able to shake off that loss from game number one. This is a fresh game
game. They went for a completely
different game plan. And as you
heard my panel, they are set up
for success. Maybe a little bit
more than what they normally are.
And that is good news for boom
boys. That is good news for
Dota fans. But actually that
would mean that a game three
is on the horizon. Let's see
what's going to happen with
this game. But first some words
from coach pool. Thank you so
And very, very different coming out there from your first draft.
It was more of a focused draft, you know, really good and down towers, getting down players.
But this one, more team fighting. Was this a big change just because of what you saw?
Or was this a change more for your team?
We have picked our comfortable heroes and we want to play
differently during the second map.
Absolutely. Well, I'm glad to hear it.
We have seen you guys do an absolutely fantastic season.
You have had so many new fans come and support you.
It's all on the line here. Elimination game.
I want to hear from you. Are we going through a game three?
Thank you to everyone who supports us and it can't end like this, so there will be a third map.
Again, you think about this team last year, for Boom Boys, they were playing with Pure,
managed to get top four, and now potentially going out in that eight spot would be a big
movement backwards from where this organization has been able to go to. Trent, what do you
think about the drafts? Any thoughts or things come out of media?
I mean, I think the thing that stands out the most is definitely the bounty hunter.
You know, you had a winner asking for it on the panel. We saw it win every game
yesterday on the main stage and we know Ari can play it. You know, he just tried the Scythe
Core in the past, maybe when Bounty wasn't seen as powerful, so I don't think it's any surprise
to Boom Boys that Iron Wing are bringing this hero out today. I want to see what they have
up against it and if they're ready for this match, there's the Io because I think there's
definitely an issue in terms of the body blocking and the warding out of the camp. So
that's how you slow down this Io, and there's not much you can do against the Bounty
doing that. We saw at the very beginning of the game, they did this group up at the bottom
tier 3 and they smoked and they moved out trying to find where the smoke popped probably trying to
get a kill on this bounty because we've seen them play very deep near the base to start the game
to get these courier ward. They did pop their smoke here, Ari's ward that he placed down there
so they didn't de-ward it so that being said you know he hasn't typed any courier it's just
yet so so far so good. You know I'll say also coming into this tournament I was not expecting
to see 33 play it down of dark seer because while he has played that hero a lot the hero
has changed a lot too and this type of move that he's making right now going back to those two camps
to farm them up while the bounty hunter stays in lane this has been more the move that's been happening
and it's interesting seeing the the bounty get played with dark seer the other games divide was
playing much more in the lane fighting kills when they were trying to pull waves 33 is definitely
transitioned much more than just hard farming on this hero yeah there's definitely a very gpm
focused way to play this duo I think where you focus a little more on getting the stacks and then using
the iron shell on the bounty hunter to farm multiple camps at once. So I'll be curious to see if they
set that up. That definitely is more of 3-3's MO, except play it in that sort of a style instead.
But like, you know, farming the camps and running back to the base, this does a
vocally a great way to start the game as an archer.
No, I mean you get, you know, very, very farmed, but in fact the other one,
Devai was able to find multiple kills. He mentioned that this is a more difficult
lane to find kills on the IO in lane with the Wyvern, but it's not impossible, particularly if they get caught out of position.
But see how that one plays out, and then of course up here top, the Centaur, doing what we've seen
Centaur's do a million times, playing together with Save, but it's against a Doom, which is a little bit different.
I mean, I asked Farming those camps like 3-3, sorry to keep going up there,
but he's immediately back on the double stack and farming through it.
Yeah.
So he is going to take the top net right here, just ignoring the lane completely as you've said,
and if they try and contest like this, Geertich, like, he doesn't have to damage it on the
spirits, I mean, for one they're on cooldown.
And I've got this nine armor on bounty hunter.
This girl is absurd at training, trading during lane staying.
It's actually ridiculous.
So if you don't have spells to deal with, he will just right click you.
Right.
No, it will be an issue.
And that's going to be something to watch for, is like, if they come and contest this at all,
he gives a very free game.
Um, well, puh puh.
Arrow.
You double-edgedown dead white mon.
Claw's first blood save, not able to do much to stop that.
It does not get lucky with the bounces either.
Very low, but not going to be able to find that kill.
I think in this game, the Doom is fulfilling a role that I think used to go to more like
the Juggernauts and the Troll Warlords where, you know, we know that Ironwing just in
general are at team.
Right?
They play it on 3K all the time.
Cure is no stranger as well.
But he definitely helps carry some weaker supports to the laning stage and sometimes
that's what likes.
He's not the best 5 overall, he likes to get a little more breathing room.
So having something a little more reliable as your position 1 really helps when you need
this lion pick to deal with the mid-pot.
Because GBK was going to have a completely free game if they just went for more, you
know, standard 4 minutes.
This is the play that you can make once those waves are pushed underneath the tower.
I am shell the bounty run in a bit.
They're not taking too many other chances though, it looks like.
And now they can just hold the wave too because you just use the Arctic burn.
Yeah.
of here. Right. It gives a lot to the IO. IO is having a free game. They're not trying
to contest his farm, but it does sort of prioritize 33's farm, and he's going to get ought to
a good start. And it should be that when he starts trying to go for the acceleration
of the farm, and the IO move back and jump fast, you're going to see the IO on low,
not dead yet. On the rotation, from Harry, the arrow going to be found, finally gets
the hookstaff off. But with the bounty hunter there, that's only trying to save
It's not looking like it's going to be there though, so they get another kill.
The arrow dropping pure.
Again, not lucky with those bouncers.
I don't know if it would have mattered anyways.
Oh, I forgot enough with the TP.
I think they didn't block these camps, very alt-coded.
Guys, remember the past year?
Obviously, Alchemists were abusing the two camps constantly.
IO very good at doing that as well, so we might see a blocker out here.
They're already scanning to see if Bounty's coming back through the twin gate.
Because that's probably what they're theorizing he's gonna be up to.
Instead, Arty's in the mid lane, trying to set up on this rune with him.
And then both support so low, trying to help here.
Yeah, they're not careful.
You can just end up getting caught, killed, the bush whacked out.
Crazy, bro. You're crazy.
Wow.
That is a... that is a greedy maneuver.
And I mean, it's sort of set up, as you can see, the GPK dive onto BGMs.
Even if they can bring them down, Ston not gonna connect.
So they back out.
I mean, some of that is set up because they scan and don't seem to do great, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, very well done there, predicting his movements.
3-3, you know, he gets left alone down here, he's dragging away, he's sending a very fat audience,
it's Helm the Iron Will, heading into Helm's Dominator. I think, you know, there, if I know,
you're very passionate about the Helm's Dominator and Tharx here.
This game, though, looks pretty good, can you agree?
Yeah.
Is this okay, this game?
I mean, okay, so everybody doesn't know. I have strong opinions about everything,
Particularly on the dominator. I think that it's also gonna be an interesting game to see if they go for a closure
I knew you're gonna say that next that's the other thing I want to see of course
There's so much healing on this boom boys lineup so much potential for turn around the counter initiation plays
Yep
I mean heart centaur IO winter live or any it gets pretty crazy
And they're gonna need it because again
This is a lineup that has a lot of damage from iron wing
but you gotta break through that save potential that you've got.
Cold Embrace, eventually the workhorse.
You're thinking about those relocates.
And obviously Doom is great, but if you can get somebody out of trouble,
you need to make sure you're actually succeeding on finding those kills.
I think the two biggest wins strategy...
strategy was on the laning stage for these two games.
For me, at least, like, you could have predicted and coming into this for Ironling
has been being in this midlane.
Because they're picking this Lena early
And he again has opened up a big gap over GPK, which you're not expecting.
GPK is a lane winner. That's what he does.
And I was not theorizing that they would be able to get BZM, any really solid matches,
but they just go for the lane.
They're just like, hey, man, if it's there, like that is our priority in this series.
It's going to help us in a matchup that's not favorable for us with how we tend to play our lanes.
And it's bringing it really well.
Now I'm trying to put that pressure on.
And that, I think, is also where the helm build comes into play
because then we're going to have those boots of travel,
Lina moving on to the helm creep of the Dax here with the bounty hunter roaming around. There's a lot of aggressive potential there, right?
And there needs to be good reactions from boom boys that are not overreactions. Yeah, that's a hard thing to do.
So they do have the helm on the IO 33 also pulling his over.
You can see that separation between him and the Centaur with Bounty Chasing.
This is where things get a little bit dicey. The Ion Shell gonna slowly whittle him down a bit here and just making him feel uncomfortable.
Yeah, this is the goal for the bounty. You're not killing the IO, it is just trying to wreck
his farm patterns. Like, every little stun, every bit of slow means you don't give this
camp first stack. You don't clear it before the respawn, right? Like, those add up very,
very quickly in these top tier carries, because this is their life. All they want to do is
hear that little tink-link gold noise, right?
Throw it out.
In the meantime, you're getting a triple stack on ancients for this Darkseer. Double
shells the creeps can back away feel very comfortable with houses going boom boys
they're gonna need to disrupt this farming eventually at some point this
cannot allow to just stand and don't forget you know quick wait here he's got
two arms with nuts on dark seer so when he gets those two permanent primary
attributes that is plus two attack speed so strong they are cool
unbelievable oh my goodness unbelievable innate coming out here from the
back here. Too powerful. It's UK Goldly. And I mean, it's not
often that you see doom is the lowest of your cores farming
and it's not like doom is having a bad game. But Kiritich
gonna have to be the difference maker going towards
a Zaghanim Scepter also picking up Lotus's. We're getting
close to this 10 minute mark in GBK, find himself a rune. Oh
don't shout there. Staying nearby. It's gonna be an in this
Good pushback.
On to both.
Ari running in though, with this bounty hunter trying to slow down, find the kill on the
save, and will indeed get it.
And now, a ULT Heritage coming in with this brief, finding Ari for the moment they're
going to Laguna Blade the creep.
I'm not sure about that one.
Ari!
Oh, Ari dead.
Heritage now going to bring Katomi back with him so they can not find that kill
on the Wyvern.
Yeah, 3-3 trying to kind of punch him in here with Wypemon, now they're going
to move to TTP.
Does he really get caught here?
They mind everybody joins in and
The punch down
STP is not oh no say this is not what you want to have happened 33. They're just chasing them down
That's a preemptive tip. Oh, he was so ready for that. Save is gone. Oh
Man
Why mom looks to be a ghost? I thought they saw white one. Maybe they did
I feel like the way they just played they did not be the way my mom maneuvered in there
That's my only explanation
But I mean they definitely saw that time state. I don't know cuz right now three three farming their ancient stack
Yeah, this is really bad. This is really bad for boom boys triple stack that he is taking away from them right now
Yeah, this is quite bad. Jimmy K comes in. He can't really punish. Oh
Man, there's nothing there
Lose so much network now six thousand network on this dark seer. He's had a hell of a game
and Ari just keeping him track up here as he plays on the side of the map.
They haven't blocked the center's camps quite yet. I imagine he's probably doing right now.
There we go. Very frustrating. Oh, Courier! He's gonna wait for it maybe now. Just gonna head out.
Already on the hunt. Yep, gonna find GPK. Oh, that was a fat Courier guy going to cattle me.
throws out a track, runs away, can't quite get that one, but I mean again you're
playing in an elimination game right now for boom boys the entire year of this
point wanting to make something happen had good results and to go out at this
early stage of the tournament absolutely devastating for them.
It's like your dream is coming true dude. It's a gargantuan down here on the main stage.
He's like, he is 7k net worth right now.
He's 800 ahead of BGM.
Who's also crushing this game?
Yes, he has been farming.
There is no doubt about that.
They haven't even taken the bottom tier one in his lane.
He's the most farmed in the game.
It's such an interesting way to play it.
Like, it's just been a,
when he gets to steal so many of their ancient stacks
because he gets good aggressive maneuver,
but typically if the off-layer is this farmed,
you must have taken the tier one by now.
Right.
Oh, he got boots of travel.
This guy's playing turbo.
So we're gonna have boots of travel onto the creep.
We have Lena with the Boots of Travel.
Now this is kind of like when you buy a bunch of links
and you fail to play, right?
48 minutes earlier than normal.
That's crazy.
He's like, I'm not dying,
so I need a way to get new TPs.
I guess so.
It's the only solution.
Yeah, I mean, all right, all right.
I'll be honest.
Is this too much?
This is a little crazy.
They can go all in on him and definitely kill him now
because he's not that like, survival on HP.
It's just an expensive purchase on a dark tier of all heroes.
But they're gonna TP in with the Lena and they're gonna be able to play fast.
That's the other thing about this.
So if it pays off, it's amazing, but there is a chance it doesn't pay off.
Toil down, catch butt, TPK, get back their way.
Have to curse the helm creep to try and keep Petalmy alive right now.
Why is this decision?
It was gonna kill him otherwise.
Okay.
I'm not gonna be thinking he's gone too far.
I think he might have cooked a little bit too much.
Like, it just, I mean, if he just keeps accelerating,
maybe it's not gonna matter,
but it feels like there are more impactful items,
but we just, we'll have to watch, right?
It all comes down to how he utilizes
this map movement to his advantage.
Maybe he's trying to keep up
with the global potential behind.
He wants to always be able to respond,
and they just want to make sure
they're always outnumbering,
because we've seen a lot of success
from the Nature's Prophet.
Maybe this is that same idea of like,
we don't want to be in a game
where they just have more heroes all the time.
But it's created this instance
where they have a 5k lead,
But stats wise and like fight wise,
they have to get in the correct position
using these items to actually have a lead.
Because you do not, you know,
you're not any tankier from the boot if you're stunned up.
No, he has 1500 HP.
And you know, you're getting closer towards here.
I mean, heritage is going to be level 12 now,
but when he gets that 15 talent,
that's where this can really start to amp up.
And that's going to be the timing
that boom boys want to try and fight.
At that point, I'm imagining 33
is going to be able to have his pipe in.
already online. I feel like the ability to slow down the farm of the isle has not been
like fully realized in this game. I think it's very good news for boomboys because I don't
think they have the best like IO game this game. You know there's none of these crazy
combos that we've seen. I wouldn't say that the I mean the center is okay. I think
It's another game where the central card doesn't feel great to me at least until like really late when the IO becomes some insane like, you know, level 25 piece.
But I'm not matching that because they're very early either.
Puck, you know, same situation.
It's a bit of a slow burn for the tricorps here of Boom Boy since their Puck didn't get off to any sort of a ripping start.
And I guess that the thing about this too that would be a little bit interesting to watch is like,
How do Ironwing want to play this?
Because they don't really have like great objective takers necessarily, like Lina Candy, but it's not a right click, Lina.
And then it's like, Doom is your other core, so are you trying to pressure towers?
Or are you just trying to accelerate your farm with kills?
Yeah, and like, I mean, he's gonna have his radiance on the Doom, which obviously makes him quite formidable,
but he's probably just gonna use that to farm into his blink, I imagine.
I mean, he might join for Tormentor, he might walk into a roach or something, but
I don't think this ratings is going to change the state of the game that much.
Yeah, they're just playing the map is what it feels like, you know? Trying to just farm up
everything that they possibly can. Wait for their item timings, or wait for the moment when
they want a battle, and then they can run in there and do it. Time will tell, save...
Ari? Ari finds him, and I mean, again, these kills very, very easy.
Yeah, the bounty has not been succeeding quite as much as they would have had so far.
They've had a lot of good sentries on their side of the map, in that case I think he just
bought the vanish is what it looks like, and handled it instantly does.
And he's also going to have an essence distiller now, and just like three gold per save.
So that is a big problem for the bounty hunter. See how he likes it.
He's tracking up, and watching people try to escape.
Does that look like a place for us? It's going to help now.
And of course the greedy one.
Completed pipe is also being flown out right now
So what they decide to do with this pipe?
Radiance couple big things online and then for the Lena
You're sitting there with the four staffs good to go
Wrap around coming through the portal
They'd be able to find I see some pings here from boom boys as well as iron wings
So I think boom boys are in the know of course that didn't save GTK last time
I feel like he also knew what was happening last time he died
Backing away. Spirits, do they chase it?
Saved it.
There's definitely turnaround potential with the essence of the filler.
It could give them the vision to fight this.
Kata only coming in first, has that curse ready.
Grooved up between the doom and the line, and they're playing behind, save and a pop smoke.
They jump for him, and again, and GZ bring down.
So they'll take out the hoodling, but that keeps the rest of the cores alive.
The problem is you are playing against Ballyhunder, right?
So the track gold matters.
Yeah, and that's something they've been lacking about this game obviously.
only six kills so far.
They would love to rack up a few more.
The ball's a bit of an issue, you know?
Yari.
If he happens to run into them or something,
and oh, revenge.
Yeah, they're ready.
Oh, buddy, you're running out of paces to run to.
There is nowhere left to go.
So the stalk comes out, and now Keratich comes in
for the finish on this IO.
And completed Agnem Scepter, working towards a BKB,
almost level 15.
I, they're hitting their timings on boom boys.
How strong is it gonna be though?
Yeah, that's definitely a big question.
It's gonna be coming into again, this Blink Dagger on Pure,
so he's gonna be trying to remove someone from these engagements.
So even when they do catch back up, this Doom is gonna be crucial.
Just camping, award right now, waiting for anybody to step into this area and save.
Safe spot.
Now Fitch, he decayed, silenced onto two, now the coil connects onto the lion.
No, Pure?
Look, wait, he's in trouble.
Pure, low, Pure, gone!
I'm on to him.
Got to run out of there before things get even worse.
Slowed down by the broker, chasing in with Gyrintzic,
and finds him when the Zon 33 is there, but...
does he really have it enough?
GBK suddenly alone has to jaunt away,
and is going to go for the jump word,
which, like, say, what there is!
The winner's curse comes out, and now taking down the value of the jump.
Oh, that was tough.
He just underlasts 12 minutes to kill.
Very nice from Kato, he well played,
And GBK narrowly escaping there with the jaw into the blink.
And they were trying to control the space.
I don't think they felt like this is the formation they play.
You saw at the end of last game, they're so good at saying these like perfect little formations when they have their ideas.
But sometimes they get locked in with those ideas, like it's formation to push the tier two in last game.
And they kept doing after games.
And in this case, they're holding this area of the jungle.
And it starts are kind of okay, but it just wasn't quite perfect enough.
You got a little bit outplayed.
And now you've lost all this space.
And every time you get pushed back on your side of the map, it just means that you're further and further away from helping out your bounty hunter to keep accelerating these kills.
So the waves are gonna start pushing out now for boom boys.
You're really gonna need these boots to travel, I guess, to make your way to Aria, peace playing real deep.
Well, and I didn't want to bring it all the way back to there, but I'll say, if you're leading by like 4k and you have two boots to travel in the fights, are you really leading by 4k?
You gotta run.
Not really.
Only if you're running.
Yes, exactly.
Um, and these heroes were very susceptible to getting blown up, and they could get, like, you think about that doom.
You think of this as a big, strong, burly hero, only 1700 HP with the Radiance.
He hasn't had any say in any of the projects yet, though.
Ironwing. They had a little bit of retribution for themselves.
Boom boys.
Finding some openings for themselves.
But it is by no means out of the woods.
This is still an incredibly strong Ironwing team that has a tremendous amount of push potential.
Easy out.
It shows that they're for a moment forced out of the glyph.
Back away on Shibiket.
And he saw Pure pivoting there.
He bought the blink instantly, sold then, is instead going towards that BKB.
So it feels like that's the better option here because, yeah.
Probably because they can't afford 2-pits of Drone on the blink dagger right now.
So that's why.
I mean, we need a little bit of tangibility on someone here.
Like, we gotta make sure that this pipe is actually useful.
useful. The Darkseer 1.2. Yeah, so not a lot of stats on these heroes. They're still very
susceptible to Kiritich who has 2,500 HP just about.
Yeah. I mean, this is the complete, we are trying to outplay you item build.
Yes.
Like that's what they're saying. We think we will play these fights better. We'll
be in a better position, we will get a better jump, which in theory you should be because
you have this bounty hunter, but they're playing it really nicely on the side of
Boom Boys. I'd like to see even more Observer Sentry combos if they could because
I feel like Ironling are constantly just like forcing this because they have to because they have these boots of travel
You can kind of guarantee that this bounty hunter is gonna be roaming pretty deep
Smoke up from GPK and save and heading into this area. They're walking directly
Towards the pit where a high priority target is up on the high ground
And it looks like they're getting close to finding him. Oh, but a good blink away
Darkseer gets out of trouble.
Link here from Whitemon has had some pretty big stuns before in the past.
33, playing it safe, sends out his creep, not going to get found.
Alright, he gets pushed back to his side.
They are under an odd sentry combo here as well.
So I'm going to see them moving out of there.
I don't think they saw the placement of the reserve awards,
but good chance they get the award in here, if I already bring in some sentries.
For now, things quieting down a little bit.
down a little bit. No tormentor taken. No roast taken by the 23 minute mark. Elimination
match. Playing this one safe. Huck. I mean very safe. Next item queued up is the Aeon
desk. Yeah, that is the battle mode for sure. Sorry. To me that's like I just got to get
over the hump and then we're going to be okay. Arrow finds a big hit with the heart
out. It's a long duration scar that counts death. Almo for more than four minutes.
Chris connects to put a back wall even better from 33 here.
Ditch is already BKB, but not going
to be able to get out of this one.
The folding breaks will not save you.
You're on the mark.
They find and kill the Wyvern.
That is the fight there waiting for an iron wing.
And Yero realizes it's not going to work.
Has to cancel the TP.
The Stomp is there, but I don't
know if he's going to be able to get out of this.
They got the leader movement and also an iron wing.
Sensing some weakness move in find three kills
You can't take it pick up on the line at the very least get them a little bit there
But I mean that they needed that like play from three three. Yes, well played by him making use of time by day here
Now you're trying to find something on to the fuck down bottom get out of GP K
Nothing the bushwhack is one
Easy I was gonna live through it in essence to still look like
I mean, just these right clicks, feeling desperate to get anything, it's not gonna work!
Iron Wave, take the tier 2 tower, it's 10 to 10, but it's a 6,000 only!
I can really appreciate that though. The use of the Boots of Travel to needly move down here, almost opened an opportunity on the GPK and get this tower.
This is what they needed with the animation they've gone for, and now, after DKB, here it has this Link Dagger and here it is, man.
These fights get a little hard. He's not this massive IO that you need to be really dominate the game.
specifically against the Doom. Now that being said, you know, there was a Necrophos game last night,
I was really worried for Digma. Going late as a Necrophos versus Doom, it's a hard game to play.
They managed to win that one. So Doom is definitely not the end-all-be-all to these like
big healing-centric heroes. I think I owe less countering as well than the Necrophos, you can say.
They are already using objectives now, and Neondin ready here for GPK. So 5-1-1,
having a very nice game here on this puck. With the Neondin's perspective,
He wants to be pretty aggressive getting in there to make sure there's no good jump plays from this point down
I'm sure
And this is a very cool move
Try to get this done
Finish off the Aegis right as Roche leaves
So Ironling might have been getting set up down bottom for that Roche take potential
Yes, they started circling
This signals a little bit of a win for the boom boys
Mainly just taking that Aegis away from Ironling
It's going to be a really hard time in the game to play that for Boom Boys, because you
have to be considering that you are going to get outpushed constantly because of these
double poons of travel that are here on the side of Ironwing, so anyone who goes out to
push a lane by themselves, it kind of just has to be saved, honestly.
I mean, the Wyverns go through it too, but it's quite a bit slower.
Here, just being focused down here by BZM, it shouldn't be lethal or anything, but
it's definitely a little fearful.
Age of Zero just being bullied a bit here seemingly with nothing you can do.
Trying to get into a miller is going to be the next
ask of the blue boys. Still very tanky but also you're starting to build up that
HP on the side of Iron Lake. BZM finishing the satanic. The VJBs are done now too.
Yeah, a bit of like a mix built, right? Like, high accuracy like Satanics, but just seems like a damage monster, which is the case for Boom Boys.
I was at this weird sort of consistent damage, it's just the balls flowing out there until you get to the Mega Lake Amp and the Skate List and like the multi-hitting and everything.
for Centaur deciding that it is now time to go into that ag and then Scepter.
So Miro has that next on the mind for himself.
Imagine it's going to be a little while before they're able to get it.
Sometimes the workhorse is also just for yourself in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
Like it's not just incredible like Drow or Wranther or someone to save and then like
play aggressive with it.
Yeah, it was still fine.
The puck is still fine.
But the ability for you to also just keep moving with the additional workhorse in
but it's an awesome speed of a different thing anyway.
Heritage moving in, but they're bringing in numbers now.
Lots of Blink Daggers and Iron Wing can chase this if they want.
In the characterization, they're thinking about it.
33, opening up, fight, save, now.
The silence, not bad.
Loyal out, big damage, he gets up and off.
33 and double, 33 low, 33 dead.
One and still, Chacy, finding the kill on the white monster.
You're now, this PKP's right now.
Katon is right there, real gate.
the chase down. They've got your in their sights and back and forth the
pendulum swings. Boom boys.
Something about like 27 minutes of the game that really come online these
guys. They start to figure stuff out. Beautiful stuff here and showing again
like dark seer, you know, most 70 gay dark seers, a little tankier.
That's just the reality of it, but he just barely wasn't able to get
That little bit of in-maxing perhaps thing you like it don't that much damage on boom boys
But if they link it together like that if there's no safe coming up to your line in time
Will get punished well
It's why though there's such a like beautifully balanced
You're right because like you have all these items you've got she was you got blinked at you got these things to try and help your
Team with the pipe and it's everything to try and make you the rest of your squad stronger
But then he's becoming a little bit more vulnerable and weak yep as a hero
And so it definitely like when you go out there and you're that front foot forward
Boombl0y is able to take advantage and destroy him
And it's going in for the Hex next
Relocation is ready to go here now 40 seconds pull down
With the level 20 talent very frightening. Oh, yeah
You must be very cautious that you know that it's kind of flip the script a little bit now
right? You know, how much do you want to separate an iron wing with all these boots of travel?
Are you going to be a little bit more linked together than you want to be?
Very quick pause. I don't mean already ready to go here.
Alright, let's take a breath, everybody. This is...
Okay, take a little stretch, folks.
And, uh, twist a little bit here.
And do your squats.
I mean, the panel said that they thought this was going to be going to a game three.
Now, that said, when this turnaround happened in the last game,
Immediately afterwards Ironwing took an amazing fight and started to blow everything up.
End of it.
Yes.
But that was CK!
You know, that's a different dynamic than dude.
Yeah, look at the swing back.
Man.
It is how it's feeling right now.
Some big talent still coming up here pretty soon.
Level 20 for Hutt and Centaur.
Almost achieved.
What do we have on White?
He's got Fling, he's got Glamour, he's going for the Easterman.
A lot of pressure on him besides for sure.
Okay, this is a nice little move for them.
Like, please don't die with this.
Glimmer came out of there.
They missed out on Ari.
Nah, they can't live up to it.
So Tormenter, but you know, Ari kind of scoured him out,
making sure that his team was going to get a safe play,
which they did, but they will lose not only to the Bounty Hunter,
but their Tier 2 in the bottom lane,
And Tier 2 also facing some pressure, means they're not going to get the outpost.
The map control is really moving heavily into Boom Boy's favor at the moment.
There is an Ion Sheldon Proper doing its best to hit the Radiant Tier 2.
Not quite the same thing.
33 now having a Centaur for himself.
There's obviously some big potential there for getting a big vacuum into a hoofstaff in the Centaur
because obviously the Dream also has one easy.
The team fight potential out of this lineup
could be pretty nuts if they can find people grouped together,
but who is it doing a good job of keeping things separated?
There's an interesting moment that could happen, though,
if, like, Lena moving in towards this Daedalus,
it's only 100 all the way.
I.O. only has 20 armor, which sounds like a lot,
but, you know, darned your wall,
gets me like, oh, it's easy.
Get the illusion out.
It's helping.
possibility anybody to help beating into his eye a little bit possible force if
there's a doom it's already hard enough just to play pipe that any sort of
feeling or region for me I mean that's where attached on me is gonna need to
be pushed off the fingers definitely with either a winter's curse or a cold
embrace and you know the big be all end all in this is gonna be the doom as
well right now if your is able to find that good target things could start to
look a lot better. I got Daedalus done, strong right-click damage out from Ironwing. And if
you blow up the IO, the fight is really hard for boomboys to take after that.
There's also an issue where this is a game where if you're just looking at like four of
the boomboys heroes, I think that the Duma Egg looks pretty good, but versus the Stampede
it's a lot of building. Because then obviously the Stampede could just escape multiple people
away from your doom, and then it just ends.
So the targeting of the aisle can be better.
Having said, you can also diffuse the eggs
and still get the aisle.
It's also pretty good.
Right.
I feel like those are the buddies.
Although he's just going straight for the heart on Pure.
Yes, yes he is.
Right click.
Now he just wants to be a little stronger,
a little healthier.
Never seen so much value in percent face damage,
you know, as this tournament.
Heart's all over the place.
So heroes like Winterwimer are getting a big boost
because of that.
You've heard many people talk about it.
Now, last game, we remember it was these deep wards placed down by Whitemon by Ari to set up for a winning battle.
There is a deep ward placed over by the off lane camps.
What's that?
He was gonna go for a BKB, but 3-3 splashes.
Oh, he did it!
Dude, this is what I've been talking about!
I've been waiting for these guys to pick up the Crozier.
It is. It's a pretty incredible Crozier game.
Because also, look, he was at like, what?
Maybe 2,800 HP?
Now he's up to 2,500.
This item with the pipe, I feel like is nice in this game because it just it reduces all of that healing that they're playing around
They'll sent our everything gives him that take ability gives him way needs to survive
See if that can be the difference maker here. I'm speaking of healing that satanic now out for heritage
So hitting for a solid 240 or so
Yeah, I'm gonna say panic. That's a lot of help this doom is very very valuable this game
And because he was a carrier, he didn't even have a shard get in the stoop.
No Midas required, no shard. He is now considering it, just so he can get some better abilities, perhaps.
Lincoln Spear now done for the puck as well. They understand the mission.
You know, the other thing too is, as everybody's been getting these Essence Distillers,
it means there's less, you know, Spirit Vessels, there's less anti-healing.
You saw this in the Liquid games the other day with the Largo Ion, no Spirit Vessels, no Progers picked up.
They had a lineup where it was tough to do it on anyways.
But the value of having this against the saves I think is going to be interesting to watch
And I think boom was there just playing for this like mega late. I've yes, you know now
Yeah, I'll be curious to see what happens with the talent. We can a lot of the relocate ones
Oh, but we have the tether. Oh, do they know?
Here it's it. She's just off to the side white one all the career back in the round
The Wyvern will be a great day. They're gonna find
He jumps on the jupy guy, that's not good enough there to the right.
What a card.
Perfectly fine, and nothing coming out.
Keep these away on the doom.
And 33 dead.
Disaster, vermin.
They go keep with the smoke.
Nero, look at Snow Caldeus.
Yeah.
I haven't smiling.
He just single-handedly saved his IO from being exploded.
He's like, you know, face forward.
Well, part of that deal was they went on two different targets.
Like, one half of the fight was one up the hill.
The other half saw the IO and for a little sake when they should have zacked and all fell apart.
Ari's got a blink dagger and an empty slot. He's gonna try and make this play. He is desperate right now. He's above the pitch.
Ari does not want to have to play.
Hold the dusted out! He's caught!
No, they got him! Ari goes down!
Boom Boys, another Aegis in hand for Tiritich.
34 minutes in, who boys have come up with the answers?
Are you okay?
Yeah, for the wisdom.
Easy!
Oh yeah, level 24, it's coming!
He's gonna be so strong.
Please take the 10 of hour.
You think so?
Yeah, he's got the puck!
Come on!
Oh, the puck would be interesting.
Right?
He's got Parasva.
Hey!
You know, he's got 2,500 gold.
He's just waiting to see what Tauly thinks, like, hey bud, come on.
Let's have a little bit of fun here.
I mean, so a quick commentary too.
He's talking about the arrow, not cracking a smile, not doing anything after he gets that big save on Kiritich.
It speaks to the pressure in this game, right?
This team, on the verge of elimination, boom boys, they started to bring back game number one,
and it kind of faltered a bit.
It's not inconceivable.
Like, go to the game where everything can shift so rapidly if they're for a second off their guard.
Yeah, especially against Team McGuire, I think.
Yes.
Yeah, and they still, you know, we talked about these tools a lot, the blink daggers, the booster travel.
Those tools are the kind of things that change games like this,
where it's just one quick play and suddenly they're back on your side of the map,
you lose a couple of heroes, they're freshening your tower,
you think, oh, I can shuttle this wave, you lose a third hero,
and suddenly the game has just completely lost momentum, you're built up in it.
Like, if you're at home watching, you seem to be saying,
why are you doing that?
It's like, it feels different in this arena.
I'll say that.
The spaghetti Dota comes out in full force.
Yeah, as we saw last night, I mean,
those were some of the most spaghetti and glorious games
I've ever seen.
I think Nali put it well when he said,
we played really poorly in that game,
but luckily they played worse.
That's kind of how we felt.
It's just like, you know, obviously,
their worst is so far superior to our best,
but they can feel that pressure
and makes them create more mistakes every single game
than usual. But we see another one of these items getting out now as well. Going to be the
Eye of Scotty. Do you see that health restoration again? More ways to try and stop them, boys.
The question is, do they have enough tools now to deal with this?
It's interesting though, because, I mean, BZM, he has no X. Right. He has no BKB.
He is totally dependent on this satanic to survive these engagements. So, the Stamp
is a big point of pressure for him and also like, you know, just like first, like just just a bushwhack in the back line
The smallest little maneuver could wreck him even a coil. Right. He took it. He took it. That's how the valley
He did he did we get the eggs always going to octurine on the puck brother GPK
My sir, I'm gonna need you to change that item quick buy. We just want to see full of stuff. They want to win
He's letting the creep the rage treat me that
Someone put the jump in the fire!
And they're on the top.
Okay, okay, find a base on a curse.
I think Tannock there.
A little bit.
Not necessary.
Ugh, cart drops too.
Time to back it up.
R receives a spaghetti.
Carrotin, she gets stunned right on the edge.
Coyle now on the two, breaks the Coyle backs away.
Coyle gets the move.
They can't chase after it.
They don't have to dodge the person.
That's the lack of EKBs.
Right now?
No, no, you leave.
You back it up.
You get two minutes on the Aegis a year,
and Tannock backed up.
Reset, take a breath.
But Ironwing, I think, could chase.
I think they're going to smoke. Yeah, instant smoke.
They're coming out here. Doom, Blink and one.
They're looking. They're thinking Kiritich.
Alright, he's ready for the Blink.
Can they find the Sentor in behind?
Does he blink past the IO? No.
Now, reporting the way of EDIT.
I'm trying to control. Do they have enough there to keep him alive?
There it is, the same.
Kirit drops the Doom on the Sentor.
Not sure if that one's going to be good enough. We'll see.
Katou can be chased by 33.
They're going to find him down.
But Kiritich, surviving, but not long enough.
EDIT's just big.
That's one life dead.
Two supports spawned, one from each team.
Here it is, kinda isolated.
Miro pops that one now, and there's gonna be a teleport back to the tier 2 tower.
As they decide no more chase, Miro going to TP away as well.
And he does.
An instant TP down bottom here from 3-3.
He just wants to keep this pressure going.
Okay.
Can he find something here though?
Or is he just gonna farm it with Ashley?
No, I mean, that's...
He just downed
That will make you think for a second. I mean the time was running a little low anyway
So it's not the biggest loss in fact to get it after is certainly a large win here
But you can actually instantly see the value that would have been in the relocate cast delay
He would have gotten out there. Yeah, he had taken the other talent right and they might have kept that ages alive
And it will be the octane core here, so dreams shattered for a little bit
I mean he's we're good into the point where he's gonna get that surely
This is that feel to me at least in this game.
I mean, obviously things could turn around quickly
and they could run it down,
but it has had the cadence this game of big fight.
Take a little objective, back out.
This feels so much later than 39 minutes.
Yes.
Like looking at the itemization of these heroes,
like we have so many heroes
that are just so stocked up on items right now.
And it feels like one of those super tense late games.
We got level 25s all over the place here.
Oh, hey, he took the... Oh, wait, I think they fixed the lean-a thing.
Oh, I'm... Ah!
Well, they do have the lean-a riff 25 on the puck now, too.
Extra distance outwards, so more maneuverability.
Bigger ALEs out from the puck.
A late game, perhaps.
Hicked up for Ari.
Yeah, he's never queued for a very long time.
I mean, it gives him a little bit of more survivability
when he's moving around in the inside of the map.
The bike's just being up movement speed to get him out.
Slight barrier.
I mean, he already has the blink, I feel like, because maybe a 4 staff could have been his choice instead for a similar idea and something to help his allies, I think.
I mean, my guess is also he's going to be going for that 15 damage taken in Shadow Walk, a talent as well.
So if you're sort of doubling down on damage reduction, it makes sense to get a little passive one along the way.
Yeah, that's fair. I mean, it's hard to play this game.
Like your team's a big they played in the doldrums for like the last 15 minutes or so and bounty hunter is very
Maybe much of couriers, which Ari hasn't been able to do now. He is trying it
He's gonna have a very greedy
Track when he gets back to Steve
Finds a problem broken stomped out. No pkp anything
They're going to back this out and now it's a back-to-back wall, so sure of a follow-up.
They're not looking amazing for Iron Link as a get.
They try and go for more, and in fact, yeah, Pure eats it back out.
He's in a lot of trouble there.
Still holding a leak in here.
Good read if he gets out on that.
Old Moog, and able to be surged away.
But this is what I mean.
These like little engagements where they don't want to fully commit
because if you go all the way in, you're either winning or you're losing,
you're losing and they're not confident they're winning.
No, no, apparently not in Tidus.
They are very tanky across the board here.
So hard to get that final bit of damage.
And BC, I'm finally thinking like,
you know, I need something defensive here.
I think when it looks like boom boys
are gonna be pressuring into base,
he's thinking of just getting the Yasha Kaia
and just sort of like rounding out his build,
but now he's like,
okay, we got some time, a little bit of breathing room.
Yeah.
get a BKB, slot that in instead, and there it is, though.
The Agnus Scepter purchased up four pure,
so we'll see how he's able to make use of it.
There is, so, so interesting,
because there's the Lincoln Sphere on GBK,
so there's still this risk of ever casting it aggressively,
but if you cast it on yourself,
you're dealing with the same piece.
So he has to find this balance of,
you know, what is the risk value worth?
Like, if you try and go over the Ag's cast
onto the enemy and it gets Lincoln's,
You're going to feel so stupid.
And you're going to be regretting it.
But if they stampede out of it, you're also
going to be having the same emotions.
I think that it's, yes, reading the fight,
understanding when is the right time to go,
if it's a late self-cast on ads,
if you're able to bait out that stampede early,
that starts to make more sense.
And also, the other thing about the AOE Doom
is then you're not going to be able to get the saves
from the centaur.
So that's something else to watch.
Yeah, he does not have any cast range buffs at all.
So the workhorse is a pretty tight smoke up now.
I've been around the high ground.
BZM, they don't see him there.
Oh, if they spot him, I see if they got him!
Oh my god, they found him!
BZM brought down, does have Byback.
Roche, a minute before it's going to respawn,
it is capable of respawning now.
Obviously, team's not aware of it yet.
But I actually think they have a creep in there.
Kiritich does, so he'll know.
Yeah.
as buyback, but massive pick for boom boys,
because they can just force things out here,
scout out everything, get some really good wards down
that are gonna be very hard to deal with.
That being said, they're actually walking through some wards.
They don't scan the high ground with the gem.
So they're just running under a dire ward at the moment.
Put a mistake there.
So they just, okay, they didn't get close enough.
No, they just, I mean, he didn't throw it up.
Yeah, well, they placed it after the gem.
Yes.
So they never secured that vision.
Let's hope that that could be the one to fight them.
They could call this foreshadowing, everyone.
Honestly, that's something that could make a massive difference
in a couple of minutes here.
If this turns into a fight and they retreat back,
and are covering it right now with how he's playing, right?
Yes.
He cut the safety to his left.
There is an anticipation that they are going to be OK.
And now, our batter jumps forward, already backs him away,
saves him out.
Now the two there onto the IOs, still got him caught.
They hit, they keep on coming.
Put them back and we'll hop to the high ground!
33-5's the mirror was stuck in the trees!
The tree's almost dead.
Things get spicy.
Things get very spicy, but they're forcing down these racks.
Now, Nina is respawning.
They're retreating through that vision.
They'd love to be able to chase here, but...
It's just a little bit too late, and now, they're gonna be able to go back and take out the wall.
Uh-oh, snap!
Yeah, there was a war there, guys.
Great play from Booboy to recognize.
They don't have to damage those.
You can go higher.
You saw it, right? That was a giant wall vacuum.
Doom got in there, he's doomed with everybody.
Nice spacing there from GDK to get the edge of the Doom, so the safe crystal come out there from hero.
But they know, they're no easy animals, we're not gonna die.
They got one hero spot all damage, but he couldn't get it.
As he was dead in the grave, now Pure picking up the refresher.
We've had first doom, but he's hoping for a second.
3-3, another cheeky hunk, it gets found in the roast pit.
As they sending Pure, he's just all on his lonesome.
They're pushing out mid first and then likely we're gonna see Ironwind get
together for some type of a move. They smoke up. GPK gonna be the first person
forward and is still on cooldown clump. I have this on cooldown for 15 more seconds.
Here it is. Not afraid of the jump. Look at Miro. He's so ready. He's absolutely
ready off-center cop of your from the dire lsa hits easy have backs away
If I don't get you to be there, you don't need to be here.
You're not going to be taking me at all.
You just drop them out of the heat now.
The right clicks are gone.
There is nothing left there.
But can they do enough with just PZM?
He's hitting very hard.
Here it is just dropped below.
PZM tried to kill him, but there's just too much heal
without the doom.
Your doom.
PZM is gone.
Go for it.
And the three dead bullboys have put themselves
in position to push this to a game number three.
Triple kill, TKK!
Get him another one!
The bounty hunter.
He might finally lose the game on the main stage here, folks.
And of course, it's gonna be the IO.
Boom, boys!
You know, they came in, they said,
if that IO gets left in, we're ready for it.
We can play it.
Maybe they were trying to play it with the Largo last game,
got a little greedy, I don't know.
Oh, this is what you wanna see.
They step up, eyes on the fries,
focusing it down now.
The tier four towers, there isn't lift.
There is a buyback that's there for the Darkseer and the Bounty Hunter,
but I just don't think that they've got enough in the tank down to deal with this.
They will go for the buyback at this point.
They'll try and hold, save is there, they vacuum him into the fountain, nothing to it.
They're not going to be able to stop this at all.
And as they focus down the throne, 33 has already used his ball.
There's the closure up, not going to do a damn thing.
Boom Boys take that lead, push this to a game three.
Axe was the first move they could play, and when they got Axe in the middle of the game, Axe completely ended the game for Moon Boyz, once they recognize me.
Just go right now!
Alright? They got enough to complete us!
First, it's when the lean-ups down, like, they need everything to set up an army like this.
Yeah, Moon Boyz recognized them, they've come that left end of them.
They go back to this game early on, like, they spent so much on that control.
And, point that, they had to travel, and they didn't progress it enough.
They didn't get to pick up the lead. They didn't get enough plays from the bounty hunters, if you would hope for.
And I don't know if we can go back to this.
I don't know if they're ready as a team
to play around that hero to the point where you need to.
Well, I also think that it was a tremendous job
for boom boys of taking these, like, measured losses,
reading the map, dodging away from Ironwing.
You have two boots of travel heroes,
Helm of the Dominator, and they didn't end up
being picked off by the bounty hunter either.
A tremendous performance of macro play
out of the boom boys as they were able
to take this one there.
And as the coach said, they were not ready.
can't end for them like this. We're going to game three.
It cannot end this way. We heard it indeed from the coach. A book of what
showing on boom boys with their backs against the rope. And this is where
this team in the past has struggled. Where that pressure did become too
much for them. But we saw it here when that pressure is on. They are
still able to perform rare.
Honestly, great game.
I mean, it is a sort of a slow build up,
but they certainly were being pressured.
I think Ironwing were playing so far up on their map,
like even behind two towers,
probably when they shouldn't have to be honest.
But yeah, no, boom boys are a really good job
of keeping character spawned.
I think they just mostly took
really good advantage of some mistakes.
You know, punishing mistakes in a game like this
is the number one thing you have to do to win.
They did it great.
I mean, character team game one and game two.
He had the farm, but there was other things kind of going wrong for the team in game one. Why they were to lose this time round
I think Miro he stepped up GP K then he stepped up right the center of course from the off-lane on mirror
Like he was able to do his job constantly being a thorn in the iron wing side providing those saves
I we already mentioned that the limited lockdown iron wing had between the lion and the doom
I thought at the center and then even the winter wagon some degree did so much work
I just prolonging their survivability whoever gets jumped that we never got to see the big kills on top of that iron wings
initiation? There's a room to question. I mean 33mpo, they were like linking in different directions,
jumping alone in the high ground. Like I'm honestly a little shocked at that kind of Iron
Moon mid game but alas we're not there yet, we are looking at the early game. Yeah I mean this
is definitely one of the few key problems we saw yesterday when they played as well on the
ironing side. Whenever Neta has to play like the initiator it just doesn't really feel like
like he's super comfortable like even in this game they started the game really well like the first 10-15 minutes it was great
They had like a 3-4 K lead and then there's this one fight atop where he actually just decided to beg at him
I think the way he plays the dagger whenever he needs to be the first point of initiation
He just does it in a way where it's too forced like he doesn't see a very clear way
He just wants to start but he doesn't really know how to start it
So whenever you look at their games if pure is the one starting the fight
Usually the fight is great, like when he's playing the CK out of the span, but if Pio is not the one starting the fight.
Yeah, this is the one in question, right? Like this kind of the solo blink up from the top here.
Now they're trying to disengage and then Pio is also by himself trying to jump the iron.
Like it's this fight and multiple other fights where the same story happens.
And at that point it's like, sorry, boom boys, they're not making these type of errors.
They're playing together, they're always in a huddle, the support's in the right position.
Huck is being super elusive, super annoying.
Kiericic is kind of dragging himself in the creep wave and like please try and do me because if you do I trust my man mirror to save me
Right, so it's completely different teams that coming into game two
Super strong showing very happy to see them getting that success here on the main stage now for both teams
Of course with that wind under their belt will have to wait and see what's gonna happen in game number three
But one thing stood out from the way. We were just talking about how this game went down
that boom boys
They had a lineup that made it very easy for them to capitalize on mistakes being made and that also implies that iron ring was just making a lot of mistakes
and I want to focus on that part because iron ring making those type of mistakes
Really, I feel like that's a little uncharacteristic for them. I feel like it's quite characteristic
Okay, I mean that's kind of why we're seeing them in the lower bracket, right?
I think they just seem to be on different pages with each other
I think T brought up an excellent point. One of the clips we didn't even see there is another fight where
Half the team goes one way and pure blinks on the back line for a hoodwink
It doesn't even kill him and then ends up dying. It's like they they just seem like their communication is all over the place
I don't think they have like a solid idea of what they're doing this game
For example in the panel beforehand. I said I wanted to see bounty hunter blocking the camps for IO and making sure that
He literally can't do anything. They did the lane pop perfectly. I think they won their lane
They got so much farm on the dogs. It was fantastic
But bounty hunter left this IO well alone to just keep taking the double camps and then farm the lane and then get all the
Farm he needed none of the other cause on boom boys had a game except
Curitage, why would we not shine him down in like one of the most simplest ways?
That's what I'm when they play on efficiencies
So when 33 went to the side camps to farm Harry then took the wave
So in the minutes that other teams might have played wave to block camps
They played for jungle camps and wave so they again double the gold
So they played for money thinking that double efficiency would outweigh the eye
Of course in hindsight block camps, but in the moment the way these these players have played for the entire year
They think about gold and they think about their own levels and XP not always trying to shut down the opponent
I don't think it needs to be body blocking and the expending like your resources to you know be sitting on him in
Invis I think it can be as simple as a century like if you watch those bottom camps
There's never a century there either by either team right there never forced to have to unblock it
The supports can go play freely in the other lanes because no one has to attend to
Dewarding this camp. I think it's like a small thing that just could have made the game back
It's not actually a small thing. I think it's a very big deal
You have bounty hunter so there's literally no excuse that you can't do it
You can do it and it's not just about the goal
It's about the XP because if I'll gets to level 15 with the agonies
It's such a big power spike in the game itself. Yeah speaking of power spikes. This was one of them
This was a really nice
Mistake punish that we talked about iron wing. We're just playing way too far up
They keep trying to kill the hoodwing behind tier two towers and I think boom boys this time
We're kind of ready for it. They set up
they had vibrated in position and also your pocket is playing towards them for once so when they step forward too much they
Actually able to punish it coil fight
They bring in the IRB lowest fuss effective use of it, and then they just push them back
It's this is exactly what they needed. Yeah, this is smooth fight for boom boys. They're absolutely
There were a couple of other fights where it was actually Ironwing having a solid performance.
Just a couple of minutes later, Winter, there was a fight that you wanted to get some more attention on.
Yeah, I think this was the fight where they kind of over-extended.
They tried to push things too much.
I think they got caught by the bitterscores and they didn't really get the right jump.
But also, this is a fight for like, boom boys, where you get the bounty on the kill,
and then you put yourself in a position where I'm in for a rare moment in the game,
actually see the heroes they want to kill, and they can try and, you know,
something to really cleanly do it.
But the problem is, they never could replicate this.
It was kind of like a one-lip in an entire game,
where after this, I think boom boys then recalibrated really nicely,
and then they were always offering up the correct heroes.
So it's like one little mistake in the midgame from boom boys,
but not enough to really give Ironwing the ability to kind of close out the game.
Yeah, they did not close out the game.
There were a couple more fights that led to boom boys eventually closing out the game.
And one of them was, I think, the most damning rare for Ironwing,
where it was clear that they weren't on the same page.
Yeah, they were like just as he said, in different directions.
I honestly think something that was amazing for this fight,
it was more of the setup of it.
They snuck the Aegis. This Aegis is massive because it makes pure confuse on who to go on.
Right? His goal every game, even disregarding the Centaur card, he wants to doom this IO because it means he can't heal.
It means he can't give that healing to someone else on his team. It basically ruins their highest network carry.
But when Doom can't do that because there's an Aegis, he's going on a hoodwink instead.
You have the rest of his team dogs blinking in on who knows what. There's no idea of what to do.
Yeah, but this fight was started poorly though. I feel like Darkseer blinked up. They had no vision and he blinged up the high ground
And he popped his shivers and then he exposed his own position and he got caught by Bush Rock and then he just died
So I don't know how much of that was pure like like he's not knowing what to do
Because the Darkseer kind of forced him to do something because the moment he blinked up you have to go with him
That felt like you know me playing over for at 2am in the morning, you know, that was not a fight
That was honestly, I was kind of egregious, I'll be your lad.
So I'm hoping for Iron Wings, they shake that off going into game three.
Because if they play like that, then we are going to be talking about boom boys progressing through the lower bracket.
Because there are some weird things happening in the initiation from Iron Wings.
Yeah, I know Winter that when we were watching the game in the green room, you said, you know,
give me some time to be a little critical about one player in particular.
And you do mean a 33 on the Darkseer.
I think it's not just a hero-based thing.
I think the way he plays the game, if he's the one that needs to be the first hero jumping in,
it usually doesn't really work out on the map. I went back to think about the bounty hunter,
one of the reasons why they don't really like bounty hunters and they like heroes like Huling,
they've already multiple times opened their draft with Hulwing, because it gives them a way to
start the fight. So it doesn't put so much burden on the off laner to be the hero that
starts the fight. So I think this is like a problem where it's not going to be removed,
but they have to use the draft to kind of compensate, you know, they need more ways of starting the fight and it has to be on the
possible or the post five to start the fights
We also have to respect the fact that in both games I'm wing around the you know, 10 15 in the mark has been having like
5000 goldies 6000 gold lead they've been super aggressive
So it's not as if we're looking at a I'm wing or you know, the previous org names that they wanted early in the year
It's like boring doda like they're playing aggressive. They're doing these like overlapping motions
Like they're playing the doda that is like honestly quite exciting
It is the fact that when they enter the mid game, they seem to like mute Mike's go crazy and something goes wrong
So it's like if they can just solve that I don't mind the concept of the drafts the concept of what they're trying to achieve
They just don't have the discipline to execute on the pacing
They're trying to go for but it's also the pacing that allowed them to get through the group stage
So they haven't changed our identity. It's just they're so quick in nature that it's gonna have mistakes
Yeah, I think Ray at both games that we've seen have indeed for the first like 21 ish minutes
had the same formula, laning stage, iron wing as well.
And then there's that one fight
where the items are aligned for boom boys
and they take a fight
and the game is almost back to even again.
Yeah, I think one of the most important things
that I know is from when boom boys stabilize the game
in the mid is that they had way better vision control.
We saw that they were the only team of the gem
for quite some time
and they had perfectly warded and sentry
their jungle entrances on top and bottom.
So we saw the map go from iron ring playing behind their tattoos and crushing this out of the map to a completely even split where boom boys
Do actually now have way more farming room and space and you see the other cores that are not just cure to actually start to catch up
And then have the net worth to take these fights evenly
It's always the the repercussion of like beating an aggressive team
When that your tier two and you get that kill you get the fresh air to then break back onto the map, right?
So I think once you overcome that initial hurdle an early gem pickup
you'll always have that visual advantage if you can win that fight, which clearly
boom boys are finding the fights to win. Yeah, Winter, if you were on the side of boom boys,
how much effort would you put in the laning stage and them being able to finally maybe not even win
the laning stage, but at least play it even? I think the laning phase is not really as
important as before. I think as long as you have a playable laning phase, you could lose
the lane 60 40 it's fine 70 30 in some cases but as long as you have the lineup that can allow you
to play the macro game the map like in this instance I don't think they're going to get the IO because
IO just makes everything so easy but they need to try to focus on that if they have a draft that
can play the map have good team fight I think that's going to be a good recipe against iron
wing because iron wing has clearly showed that team fighting initiating that is the problem
Let me in the game right now seems fixable because we know that all 10 players that will
soon be ready to take the stage all 10 players are capable of winning these games are capable
of having that synergy the coordination the communication and it just depends on which
one of these two teams will play that little bit better on the main stage of the international
So this might be a good time
This is for people at home that these two teams of course are no stranger to one another the last five series
They played against each other
It was boom boys that took four out of those five
Series and a lot of those series were two and oh so maybe there's also a little bit of a
that's a very unique situation
where the chaos night was able
to completely sabotage
Miero's game on the Largo that
allowed them their victory here.
Would you say Tiga that going
into game three. You have a
team that you feel like from the
two games we've watched so far
would you say Tiga that going
into game three. You have a
team that you feel like from
the two games we've watched
so far would you say Tiga
like, from the two games we've
watched so far, would have
that little bit of an edge
going into this. I think if
you look at the overall polish
of the two teams, I think
Boomboy just looked like the
more complete team. They are
the ones that are making the
changes, understanding kind of
the dynamics of the best of
three. And I think for, for
ironing so far, it's like
they've won because of like
a giraffe and the CK, and
they're making way more
mistakes across the entire
series. Even in the game
as an overall team, BOOMBOYS are just looking to be better,
but with the caliber of players that IMOs have,
it just takes one conversation, one idea, one concept,
BZM to step up a little bit more from the mid lane,
and we will just see a, you know, a game three go their way.
Like, this is not just a definitive answer
of one team's version of the other,
but overall, BOOMBOYS just looks a little bit more ready
for this game three.
Yeah, I know that you really wanted to see
the Bounty Hunter winter.
We just saw the scoreline of Ari.
Of course, he played the lane stage well enough,
He's 0-11-4. Do you feel like he delivered the type of bounty hunter you wanted to see?
I know the game is not as black and white as we just saw the stats to be,
so that's maybe a little bit mean to throw the stats in over there.
But overall, he did suffer a little bit.
It doesn't fit, I think, 33's playstyle.
I don't think they're going to go for it again.
I do feel like the hero is definitely very, very strong,
but it just doesn't feel like it's going to be a hero that's comfortable for Ironwing here.
And I think you have one game left, you know, if you lose the game, it's over.
They're going to go back to what's comfortable, probably the whole wing, probably some support that can set up for them.
So it's going to allow Netta to play his usual greedy style without needing for him to initiate for his team.
We've seen this position before from the team, right?
Like normally, when you're a love racket about to be eliminated,
we're going to see Invoker and Sentos or Dooms and Hood Wings.
So we're going to see all the classics, the cares, like this will probably look like the draft of Ironwing,
You know when you are in this position often leading to that will be your kind of saving grace didn't work in the upper bracket
Though but maybe the low bracket is a different piece. Yeah, I don't know where I keep coming back to do with you
And we did see it. Okay. It wasn't 33 playing the doom though in that second game
It was the man on your screen. It was pure playing the doom
But maybe that's just a trap is it is the hero a trap?
I don't want to say the heroes a trap. I just think they need to
to find their wind condition and then treat it more preciously because I don't really think
they knew what they wanted to do in fights. They just had a, you know, the bounty hunter
running around with track and then a bunch of like nuking spell castes and they're like,
okay, do me, go do someone, but they don't know like who they're meant to focus and
find. They're not like placing the walls or using the bounty to like, hey, this
is our number one target. Let's blow them up. They don't seem to know how to like
translate the winning lanes into objectives or like proper map control, like how to hold
spaces. I think that's the main problem more than the draft to be honest is just not really
having an idea. I also feel like when you look at the player camera of pure right when you look at
all his previous events like when they're in good form and they're doing well like he's always just
like just got smaller effects you know the love of the game but right now like you can you can
feel the frustration on him like he's sitting there like he's annoyed with his previous game
maybe even the previous playoff games the group stage like they're filled a little bit
of frustration within the team and that is something that you can't just fix instantly
And I feel like if he can overcome that in this next game, that's when they can start clicking together as a team.
But right now, based on just the general vibe of what Pio's given, I'm just a little worried for them, just a little bit.
He needs a speech, Tico.
He does, yes.
Are you going to give it?
No, I was going to ask you to do so.
Okay, all right, Pio, you are playing with the finest British donor player to ever exist, aka Ari.
You should not let down my British fellow mate like you.
Yeah, I can't do this shit.
Back to you, Sheevan.
Yeah, that's wonderful.
Oh, yeah, I hope that they had a good talking.
Because one thing that is clear is that from the series that we've seen,
they are not playing the best odor that we've seen them play even this tournament.
So we know they can do better.
We know both of these teams are going to be disappointed at the end of the day
the day if they get eliminated than this spot because both teams have had so many tournaments.
Portion finishes this season and ending on a top 8, you might as well end up last.
The teams are just not going to be happy with that so let's see who comes out on top.
It's only one game to stand in between elimination or advancement.
Let's see what's going to happen.
The third game in a row, boom boys will be on the right-hand side and iron wing will be dire side so the teams definitely both prefer that it is iron wing that gets their hands on first pick once again is like previous game.
once again, just like previous game and that means boom boys gets second pick
and they were very happy with that last time around. They managed to get the Isle
in that position of the draft overall last pick for boom boys then as well with
this upcoming game number three and we're all gonna find out how the
adaptations will be made. Ironwing in that previous game they went for the
Lena as the first pick for them. Let's see if boom boys leave that in
the pool so far their bands are exactly the same but we already see iron wing
adapting we have still got their ember banned out this time the man of the match
the MVP from previous game playing the puck has that hero removed from the pool
together with the lina leaving two heroes in that they banned previously
the slaughter and the bane let's see what boom boys go for next in the
previous game, it was Largo and Keeper of the Light that they removed this stage, but
I feel like it's an entirely different ballgame and they will use some bonus time to think
about what's coming next, because Ireland seems to be looking to surprise them.
I honestly like the Lina ban. I feel like BGM right now is that you played two Lina
games, sure you've won one, lost one, but it's like the draft has forced you to be
a first phase mid pick. You are a player that likes to go to the invokers, the storms,
a little bit more of a playmaker, and you're forced onto a farming mid laner that
that has to outplay. It's like, sure, you got it in one game, but you're not going to get it consistently.
So get rid of that, give BZM a bit more life to draft, and then just respect GPK immensely.
Give them in vocab, but they's in vocab BZM. That's what I want.
I think that that might be one of the heroes that they might be considering, Bani.
Oh yeah.
Because I think one thing that was clear in that previous game for Boom Boys, that they went for Comfort,
and that came to, and it worked out so well for them, and I'm sure that an elimination game,
Winter said that you're gonna go for comfort in a potential elimination game and Invoker is just
a thousand percent comfort. The caveat to that is the only hero I'll accept from BZM's first
phase right now because of the pop band is 8 picking Invoker that is the only one.
Everything else please give him some room to breathe in the draw. Him first picking Invoker
is something that is a classic. I feel like Invoker is like a mind pick hero. Like 8 pick
it can be risky but there are some heroes that can fully ruin your game. I think Slava
is a kill that it makes life very very difficult for Invoker because of two reasons one the track
I mean from the quasi pace and number two in the laning phase it just kills the fourth grade so
I think this is one of the hardest matchups in the game for Invoker and nine pick you can see
the first pick and then you decide you're invoker so I think it's easier to pick Invoker at nine
compared to overall first pick. They have not gone for the Invoker and they have gone for the
the IO and for the second pick we see coming out here overall it is boom boys
that now get this show what they consider is the best pick against IO and
I think that's a unique situation as we have talked about boom boys being the
the best IO team so surely characters know what is also the worst of night
again well maybe they understand the need to block the damn camps I would
like to see for that. I mean, the bounty hunter, right? I wouldn't even mind seeing that here.
Yeah, I think Elk is very similar to Ayo. Ayo is basically like when you're playing against
a hero that jungles that quickly, you just need somebody to go in to that jungle, infiltrate
the area and put vision or just block the camps, or at the very least steal exp.
Yeah. Right now they're answering with the Wyvern. Of course, prolonging the fight
against Ayo, trying to eat through a BKB charge or a satanic usage, right, with
the cold embrace even then the winter's curse just kind of open up because I
naturally invite some of clunky clunky style fighting so I can see why
blue boys want to go for Winter Wyvern. Katoami has done an exceptional job on the
hero he's been throughout his entire career he's like the Winter Wyvern guy
like he started this tree he moved to Winter Wyvern like he's just like the
guy to go to and I don't mind it but I want to see other ways to now
utilize what Winter Wyvern does because like you need damage now you need
more pick off. You need a lot of things to help Wyvern within the game.
I think something I genuinely love about the Wyvern pick is when we watched last game,
Wyvern was so good with just disengagement. I think Ironwing, especially we know it that their initiations were so messy and quite poor.
If that is a weak point of the team right now, Wyvern is fantastic because when they do finally get that good jump,
or they do maybe get a slight advantage, is Wyvern lets them just peel back with their cars and just reset into a better position.
I'm going to go for the Slardar and Storm. Nice bands from Iron Moon. Of course, I already
mentioned that Slardar is important here for Boom Boys. No matter if it's a vocal matchup
or not, they still will probably look towards it. But they have pretty much said, GPK,
you are not going to play this game free. Every single band is towards your boss. We
respect you immensely. We want to try and eliminate you, and we're going to do it
through the bands and also hopefully the gameplay.
But his snap far is still in the pool. He's so good at snap far.
Yeah, you'd like competitive players nowadays have more than three and a half years
to win the international. So I don't think GPK is too concerned, but Ironwing is trying
their best of an amount.
The threat is definitely clear as we will see the return of the Largo with this, of course
they also deny Ironwing from having a combination of both Iron and Largo.
And hopefully they have a better combination with Largo. The first game was Largo and
DK depth did not look good at all.
They need something to use the magic damage.
I love this because I think it's going to be so fun to see the comparison between game 1 and 3
knowing that CK is something that Ironwing may be looking towards now and how you want to deal with it
I think the draft is already better against the heroes or but
I mean you have Wyvern, that kind of already discourages the CK a lot
But they left it in the game, like Ironwing chose to leave this hero in the game now
and they know that they're playing into Wyvern, it's like, do they still pick the CK?
Do they still rate it that highly?
Do they have to find another option to deal with Lago?
So many people are banning Lago because they have no answer
Ironwing have provided us with one. Can they provide us with one?
Undying is good against Largo, like in the game.
Like in the lane, the decay, and then in the game you slow him, then you have the tombstone, he can't hit the tombstone.
So I would say Undying is a pretty good answer against Largo.
Yeah, it's just really nice once you come to scale on top of him, right?
Like if Largo is dictating the fight and you're already in kind of the snowball kind of bone-in?
No.
You overwhelm him with the damage and from your flash, hold on.
Yeah, I've really enjoyed the concept of Undying against Largo.
And then you put like iron together with it, like even if it's on dying support or core, no matter what,
I was gonna enjoy tethering this on dying, because like he's the frontline for you to then stop,
you know, throwing your axe balls around and just going crazy.
And now they need like some catch, because you have iron on dying, you have two heroes,
they have no stuns, no catch, so you want heroes that can solve that problem.
And Lion definitely solves that problem.
Yeah, sure. I mean we've just seen it kind of again on different teams,
so the heroes in play but Lion Iron the same team it is very simple. Lion hunts them up like
Ari loves to do big mouth playing position 4, he'll find a guy, he'll say please rotate onto me
you get a kill and then you disengage reset so yep very kind of clean looking lineup or strong lanes
into pick off. It's their setup as well the possible of having the cat so that they don't
have to rely on like all the off lane or the mid hero to be so much of the catch.
And it's Rubik, pick. Why is Rubik the choice here?
Think about the sustainability, right? You have to lift people back with the shard,
you have the lager, everything is about, invite the initiation onto one guy,
and whoever you jump on, there will be one or three people to save that guy in a different style.
And maybe with that they also make sure that Ironwing is not going for the Underlord,
which would be a great global pair-up with Dio.
Yeah, it's a good way to get the support down.
It just feels very lackluster, Rubik and Wyvern.
It's very greedy for the start of the game.
Usually with Wyvern, you want someone else that has damage
because Wyvern lacks damage, and someone else that has initiation.
Usually you see Wyvern with maybe a wheel.
It feels more like a balance duo, but with Rubik,
they both kind of do the same thing.
They sit behind, they want someone else to go in,
and then the cast has spells.
Again, it's the type of lineup where if I close my eyes and it's 20 minutes in an even game, I'll like the concepts.
Sure, the journey there could be a bit turbulent, but I think I'm willing to have been turbulent enough that they've invited boomboys to get to this position.
So maybe boomboys are just going to be too comfortable, like, yeah, it's fine, we always make this little mini comeback in their first 20 minutes, so we can be a little greedy with our support.
We'll just lose the lane-ease then, it's all good.
We'll recover, right, guys?
Also, we know that GPK is still lacking a hero, and uh, sorry to bring up, but his Sapphire is out now too, you gotta eat him up.
I mean, the both teams potentially gonna need mid, right? So we, yeah, we're just gonna vent, like there's gonna be no mid left.
Sanking's gone.
Okay, so GPK's got like a pango, is that so?
Pango? Is it a pool of Void Spirit? Is it a pool?
Oh boy.
I know, I know people don't like Void Spirit, but somehow the players do sometimes seem to still go for that regardless.
I mean, which one works best with Lago? That's the question.
Like, what would Lago one? I feel like Lago likes, like, lashed, I would feel like, a lot of worst scout damage, maybe with Void Spirit. Still alright.
What do you think about Slok?
You have a Lost Fist, uh...
For who? Sorry.
Honestly, either team kind of looks nice. Better with Io though, in my opinion.
I'd rather see Cure play the Carrie Iyer, so that Hobbidium picks up a comfort midlaner
hero. I don't think he needs to play the slot.
Yeah, but why not? There's nothing else.
I mean, if you're in this position and there's no midlaners, we have to start talking about
heroes like, you know, OD, you know.
Oh no!
I'm not taking that spot.
You can't pick into Rubik though.
Yeah, but if you're banned out, then the meta dictates that the bad heroes have
have to become good because they're now the only ones available right now what a
hero was when we saw yesterday yeah it was a sniper we knew the pango band was
coming yesterday was a sniper coming out I think this is really cool now one
thing to keep in mind it's boom boys that get the overall last pick so iron
wing has to play some five-head dota 2 in terms of the drafting here to
figure out what they want to pick what the counter to that is and then what
But I am going to have banned out pretty much every single gap closer, that's very good in the meta.
Therefore, if Beezion wants to play the Arc Warden like he's already played, or he wants to play some silly OD that I keep suggesting for no reason,
like if he wants to play any silly hero, he can because the gap closer is gone.
Like he can beat Greedy, you have a tide in one lane and one lane with an iron in another.
Like Beezion now has the freedom, unlike the last two games of Lina, to actually pick whatever he wants.
He wants like his draft is so clean that he kind of has freedom to go pick this hero. I'll win you this game
Do you think there's any of possibility that pure just plays a carry like we just put I am in?
Because you can still you still have a double
Counter-farm like this still silly heroes like loan drew it in the pool
Right, then you can play some carry that's gonna synergize really nicely with your aisle. Oh
Well, they respect that option because they ban out the TA
I can't remember if I've ever seen BZM play IO. If it does happen then it's kind of cool
to see it in a game 3 low bracket elimination. You know what TI meta let's try it but I still
would rather see BZM take the pick here and just let's pure just play the IO.
I think even like the aggressive here like that would be good this game. You have the
IO to tether you and you have pie, tome stone you take the map because if you look
at like boom boys line up it's slow yeah Ruby and Lago why when it's gonna
take oh this is like the same you know they're gonna ball around the DK
take palace and take the map is also good combo you know that's not bad it's
solid don't try to hide up the DK she's all the time DK has always been like
no this must be a timber game man this has to be a timber game I don't
Gamer is like not exactly like a mid-hero.
No, the Fiverr.
Oh, okay.
The Brick.
I mean, is that considered an exciting hero?
No.
Does it work?
It can be.
I mean, it's a nice hero here.
I think it does a lot of things to deal with the tide, the decay, you have the Brick.
It's going to cause a lot of problems.
We needed two more bands total, like one for each team, and then these two would
have been banned, and then now we would have this spicy mid-match out.
leaks the draft patterns the next season Jesus but no I mean boom boys they
reacted quite nicely with the Viper pick to me it's still a little volatile I
think mid Viper it can win it well it should win the lane it can create
tempo to play around but it just takes one bad fight you know itemization
from the tight hunter like a yule or something to eat through that break
duration and now suddenly the Viper loses its value and I'm when you just
kind of get online you know the inevitable I was timings and play
here I think boom boys they got a lot more pressure on them to now do
well in the laning phase rather than just play for a comeback, they have to play to win the lanes
and to hold the game down.
You're supposed to don't really compare, I feel like they're going to lose the 3v3, like I'm dying
Lion with the DK, it's going to give them the edge in like maybe getting a couple of kills.
I think you only need to be able to find one kill in the early game on the Viper.
Our teams have already been known to do like some crazy after the rune, spawns, you smoke
and then you kill the Viper one time and then he totally upsets the balance of the lane.
So they have to be very careful and anticipate moves like this and even in the rune fights
I'm dying in line. I would say that they will have the upper hand against the rubik and the winter wiper
Ray what are you gonna look for in this game at number three? What are you gonna look out for?
I mean, I'm just I want to know what boom boys idea is to me the heroes have no way to properly start a fight
They are just they have no real way to take towers like your iron wing
They have great initiation great boss great way to take tower DK. It has it all
So what is boom boys play? I mean people also need to show really good BKB discipline in this game
I feel like at any point if caretich wasted BKB
Then suddenly all the slows the stuns the damage up full just break them apart
So he's had a pretty decent series so far, but this game is like he has to have a perfect game
Well, we're gonna find out what's gonna happen because game number three
Maybe everything is a little different with the pressure played
Placed on the players as we are ready to find out which team will advance in the lower bracket
and which team will be sent home.
We're heading over to Trent and Lyrical for game three.
Thank you so much, Sheever.
Man, the panel there, it was like the opposite of game number
one.
They were excited about the early picks.
This one, they're like, man, those last picks suck.
I mean, that's what happens when the bands come out
very targeted against two mids, for sure, in this one.
I love the face-to-face of the two mids.
Like, their expression is getting sadder and sadder
to continue through.
It's more and more their favorite heroes were banned.
But this is where the best picks come out.
You've got to dig deep into your tool bag here and find a tool you haven't taken out in a while, like the GBK Viper.
And speaking of a tool Viper, God, I hate that hero. It's so annoying to play against.
It's also one of those that can just, it feels either bad for the opponents or bad for you because you can't do anything.
You don't want BZM and GBK to have to play them, but it was what was left.
You know what, maybe there's gonna be some magic happening here.
Maybe we'll see some of those early boots of travel, some agate receptors.
People jumping around, there's a chance to have a dream.
Also, I thought it was very funny, Rayo was like, they're not gonna take towers.
They're not gonna fight you.
They're not gonna initiate you.
But besides that, it's great for blue boys.
They can read the mini map.
That is what they can do, you know?
Excited.
You gotta find your talents where they are.
Well, I mean the big
Well is what's gonna happen to white bar well that was not great for them
I will say that you can't manage to get the gold from the
Observer Ward and he gave over first blood. It's catch only that takes it though. So we still go to GPK
Really hoping for a positive there. How are you? We'll walk to the table. He's actually gonna kill the mid courier. He's coming back
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Oh, they're cooking never mind. Oh
Oh, take down GPK.
Ceaseless Derage, I tell ya.
Oh, it's up.
Yeah, it's literally just the 30 seconds, but for the whole game, Ceaseless Derage does that to you.
It's just the fact that we're, you know, less than a minute into the game.
It's like these Ceaseless, you know?
Exactly.
Yeah, that's the one.
Well, a kill on the GPK, feeling a little bit bad about that one,
and then DK grabs the wave and pulls it all the way over here.
over here is going to get a deny and take out the
Observer Ward for the dire as well
But this is a nice way to sort of mess with the deep air with the the vipers in right now
Or simply take the creeps that they've made a decision of the second
We took the DK this to hero who can do quite a few things in the laning stage against many opponents
You know he gets pretty tanky. He's got pretty fire. He can also recover in the game with the shard and the blink dagger, so
Well, but then you get the viper and you're like, okay, we got Alps
Yeah, we really don't want to get him set down to the abyss like we did to Miro in game number one
Hope to give him a bit of a match here
It's the creeps around town. It's got all me and 3-3 down the bum lane
We treat on this tight hunter the classic triple gauntlets to start with a little ring of regen just to boost up the health a little bit
Who says that Youngling is dead in Modern Dota 33 is bringing it there
What do you want to see?
Definitely what they did last game with the Baxter and the Bounding Hunter.
Lots of power agents sitting on the wave here.
Game number one, Moonlander.
Coach, she brought up and said,
we are the Largo understanders.
We're the best Largo team.
We have the counter.
I think they might consider themselves perhaps one of the better Tez teams as well.
With how much they pick it from here,
you would think they must have a very good understanding of the zero.
So, I'm looking forward to see what sort of
the counters they have here,
other than just this Tide Hunter
this Tidehunter can maybe survive to the land.
Well, yeah, that's going to be the thing to watch for,
and if they actually do have a good answer right here
for the Largo in this game.
Because the secret tech was the CK with Whitemon playing on the Ringmaster.
This time around, Pura's playing the Io is going to be paired with the Undyne,
as you can see, finding a double decay there.
Very nice to mess with these heroes.
But it's not the same level of just demolishing that we saw.
Kaiyo is obviously winning this lane, but it's not completely destroying the final part.
Well, well, well, oh goodness, that was scary.
Waiman actually gonna take two tower shots while he's at it.
Save, trying to finish off the job, we'll manage to.
Alright, all according to plan here for the boom boys.
Pyrr does back up and gets the Lotus very nicely here, obviously.
But that's not like consumer, so I don't know how far his friends are on that.
And save still just pushing him back. So yeah, you can be a salve brought in here or white mon and be people
Okay, we're coming here. But yeah, they have not obliterated mirror
I think in this case rather than focusing on countering the Largo
They're in such a game. We got a better frame. Yes, I'd rather have I and I think after that last game
The main concern is how do we just make sure that we don't?
You know get run over by the Largo like we just ran them or by the eye over other like we just ran them over
And I hope it has to deal with the camps we brought up a lot in game once didn't happen
I'm just a guy under your tower will be great goods
Left there, but not good enough. They take down pure. I feel like you use that Lotus really early
They had to use it in the pool there and then still dies the tower with just a fairy fire
Very aggressive attempts here. Maybe just feeling it from game number two
Or one I suppose I'm fine here, bud
I mean, it's one of those things where you are now in an interesting position. Ironly, they make game number one look good, but it wasn't, like, completely clean, right?
There was a moment where it felt like it was starting to shift into Boom Boy's favor.
Then in game number two, they get out to another super hot start, and then Boom Boy's pull it back and eventually take the lead.
Some questions, what is it going to be like with Nervz on this big main stage?
You know, I was looking at it and I sort of forgotten that Ari has not played a game on the main stage of TI up until this point.
The only other time he hit it to TI was in 2023 where he didn't make it to this high level. How's he going to be able to perform on us?
There's a lot of pressure on him for sure in this game as to Lyon already getting these stacks up.
This is a great help out to the I.O. obviously.
500, a hero who is okay being alone, so he's taking advantage of that by trying to make this move up top,
wrapping behind save, Rubik, fairly vulnerable, they have a tether.
Oh, they don't have a tether yet.
He was almost level 4.
Yeah.
They kinda need the tether here?
I mean, they also have Wyvern in the area.
So, save is gonna spot Wyvern there, the turn, the stun, the arrow might be able to walk out of this,
but actually, that turn he did hit, they're gonna take down the tombstone.
and white mon in a little bit far so ends up being a one-for-one exchange with the tombstone also going the way of boom boys
Yeah, I was not necessarily one secret Heather this early here
So it kind of delays the attempt on the gang there since he can't just rotate over
They have to wait for the wave to actually push in that ends up costing them a
life there so
In the meantime though, I mean 3-3 so totally happy down bottom see he is farming away that being said
it is trading for a free farm, because BGM has been doing great mid on this dragonite,
constantly pulling the waves back. You're not having this Viper just like pull away,
in fact, exactly ahead of him in terms of network. So that is a big concern, I would say, for the
boom boys, because you do not want a Viper losing its lane. And then again, this problem of,
you know, what can I do to give our team some action on the map as of like, not much,
like buying ATOs for other like, I don't know, that's, that's where your options go to.
I mean, and I like near
Ulti out on the dragonite save ready to pull it back in and this is what you're hoping to see more of
Obviously that gate early helped but when you get level six GPK
He finds the double kill and that's more what you want to see out of the viper
Yeah, you can be really happy that you've got your wins in the lane and everything
But you've got to know what to take the L and that then it is now the six is down the viper
You don't get to return here as the dragonite so we're gonna see some sacks probably for both the dragonite and the aisle
Can I have to be shared up tied all through a big sack hero is trying to bully back 33 off the wave with lion moving in realizes
That's not gonna happen. So Ari
That's the wisdom stolen from that can't actually feel good
Is he's only level three on the lion?
That's all right. They just picked it up on the other side as well. Yeah, you're right
That's uh, that ain't great to be getting it and being all not even level four
Yeah
Well, it's a lot of running around, you know stacking up first team
I mean they have so many stack farmers and I think that's an issue here for boom voices
What are they gonna do when iron ring retreat back to from these sacks?
Right because type one stacks he came on stacks. I have one stacks going up top. Maybe you save now
They can't do anything there
Nero's been playing with relatively low HP on this Largo as he works towards a Soul Ring,
but they haven't really been able to punish.
They take the stall and move.
Now, turning into the Tipstone, they go and they just try and hit it.
They'll be able to take it out.
So Katomi gets it, BGM.
Realizes he's not looking that great because Kiritich shows up and Nero has a lick to pull him back in,
finds White Mod, gets the kill.
Nice, level 7 for Kiritich, he takes that one up here, GDK was even wrapping on the other side, and now he is after the stack.
This is a great use of the Viper. Let's go in here and take their stacks. I can't chase you, but the camps aren't going to run away, and I know they're dependent on it.
Kiritich, he's back, he's checking these camps. At the top of the map, he's like, do they need stacks here? Should I be like, equislashing through them? Should I be trying to farm something?
So they have this on the line as Tracery pulls the camp into small camp here in the department of self and Kiritich forces it to pull it off the tower.
Bowring is done for 3-3 and yes so many interesting questions here for Boomboys and how they want to try to push this advantage a little further.
There are more stacks being built for 3-3 over at the ancients. Kiritich stops that one from happening.
I mean this really encapsulates how both of these teams play this game right like there's no interaction with each other really at all but they're like who's going to come and get the last it.
Yeah, pure as in between these camps now with the spirits going our ages double stack near the ancients for three three. This is very much the machine of iron wing.
Oh, we caught him getting hit by the bruiser and a classic.
I'm the older be smashing I mean but that also speaks to what this game is
gonna look like nobody's getting completely stumped in a way in sage
nobody is getting wiped out here and that tells us that it's likely there's
going to be some type of a breakdown of how the battles go right how are the
mid-game team fights going to work out and that's gonna depend upon items
positioning when teams feel like they're stronger than others TPK definitely
I think he's only like the strongest here on the map right now.
Yeah, hopefully he can use that to pull the E, because that's what you gotta do as a Viper.
Make your presence known in the early game, and you're at your peak.
Just threaten the Viper trick anyone that walks too near.
Explosion Room.
Taken by Miro.
Their GPK walks forward to take out that Observer Ward.
ACM? They thought about it.
Sideknot to go.
And save is closing in on level 6 as well.
That's where Rubrics can have a big change in their game as he cracks into it now.
Can you get a farming spell?
Can you get a good gank spell like this Earth's fight?
It's always fantastic here as he moves in trying to find something, but...
Can't quite get it.
Cat-O-Mee actually smoked up behind.
Gonna pass it over to save.
So save kinda shows me.
Dives a little deep.
Should wait to smoke Cat-O-Mee and we're going up top.
What can they do here?
They have a TP on Viper if he wants to show up.
and they have steel on Tombstone to fight Mondrops there.
Oh, okay.
That's the only continues, and yeah, they've got the Tombstone immediately, saving it for now.
So they're gonna have Tombstone if a fight breaks out, but they don't even need it.
This is good from Booboys.
I mean, you know, the...
Now, often comfort with the Ulti on the Undying, but, you know, maybe just didn't want to let it rip there instead.
And even Ulti, I'll see if it doesn't feel that bad to get it to Boob.
I mean, if you can take off the Ravage, but he's dead!
Cannot get away, but that also tells you the mentality.
Like, they're not thinking about a fight at all right now.
That was a Ravage to make sure that he feels farmed for.
Yep.
Because they're not anticipating fighting.
And, Blue Boys, you can see they're coming alive right now.
I mean, it's so funny because Viper, obviously,
a bit of a slightly dead hero right now,
but this DK in this hide,
they can't play the game they want to at the stage of the game
because you know where they're gonna be. It is not a mystery where these two heroes want to farm,
and JimmyGate doesn't need a catch item if he's just gonna walk in with a Bage Slayer because
they can't contest him, you know. They're not gonna have the damage to fight him, but it is still
the clock. It is the timer of this IO. What can you get done, you know? And they haven't really
disrupted IO's farm that much, I will say. I think it's kind of similar to Boomboy's game
on the IO itself where he was still able to get quite a bit done. I still pretty high up
on the last hits at the moment and they're worth it, but they've gained a lot for themselves.
Right, well and they're going to take out this stack right here, I don't mean to aim there, he stole something.
Oh he did, he's taken a little bit away from them.
And so much XP, right?
Oh yeah, using the winner's curse with bringing over some more heroes, they get the break
and now he's in trouble and he's going to go down again!
Stolen in the earth's hole baby.
Yeah, same as going to have a good game if they're not careful.
So I mean look there's a couple of things that still look good for iron wing like on its face
What way the boom boys is playing so far forward? It's solid, but
I'm concerned. I am I am very concerned as well
So one thing I'll say is there isn't like a natural pipe builder builder on boom boys and the magic damage where it eventually comes out
From Ios gonna be alive. That's true
But it is this like slow consistent damage all time which versus the Largo, you know
If you don't also have heal reduction isn't going to be that effective that being said they have a DK and
Unfortunately, you know, it's hard to get into a Scotty build these days and she was there doesn't work. So maybe a tide closure could be good
You know the hill reductions a little harder to come by action
See what they decide to go for oh, I'll closure now we're talking
There's no way that's good
We'll find something don't worry. Surely dare to dream. That's right
Well, yeah, I mean
Iron Wing, okay, they're gonna go now with the lion and the DK got the blinked act revealed here on one
Finger of death obviously and really make the break these situations
Ideal target would be Kez
See if they decide to take the livern if they run into him
Yeah, Ken's very far back scams coming up from both teams right now trying to figure what their opponent are off to
And I just gonna show
This is not gonna work. This is not good at all
Boom boys, they kill 33 again. I mean gdk is just too happy to answer
If you want to start a fight he's gonna be there. They're getting white mom on the other side of the map before he tried to get out
It's not gonna happen. I mean the good news is that BZM retreats back to the wisdom trying to get to that
That's the only positive that's gonna come out of that engagement to save very happy to start to give me the voice line once again
He's having a fantastic performance on this rubik so far a hero that we've seen plenty of heroes struggle with when they try and bring it out
These players like they love playing rubik obviously, but you gotta be so tight on your seals
Has been at least so far
But this is the question for iron wing is how do they respond to this adversity?
They're now down 4k gold at 15 minutes. They've been waiting for this timing with Kyle
He's almost at the Agnceptor still four levels away from finishing off that level 15 talent
That's obviously the timing that they're waiting for but how much are they gonna lose in the lead up to it?
And on top of that, I mean you mentioned they don't have a good pipe filter
Which is true, but we've got the mage player down on the kez
we got the mage slayer done on the viper so they're finding other ways to deal with this overwhelming
magic damage that's going to be coming out here from ironwing and you're seeing the kind of sad
items coming out like the yule's on the tide that's a sad item that's not a feel-good item on tide
hunter you don't want to be doing that i mean it's very good in this instance it's exactly what
he needs but the fact that he needs it doesn't feel good no it's not if you can wrap your
head around that one you figured out Dota. That's right. 12 to 2.
I mean I feel like at this stage you've also got to start thinking about
like as boom boys do you want to go into the
roach? I mean they do have an input damage from
the roach. It's a little early for my liking you know.
I'd rather just keep bolding pure while he doesn't do anything. That's
fair. But this is where the catch comes into play. They don't have this old earth
spike anymore. Safe wrap behind by the TP. Man that was really close. Oh, it's barely
getting out of there. Denying the hacker. Good. And look at Whitemon way in behind
here. He's gonna try to like decaying the wave from the fog. This is what they're
reducing right now. Hiding at the top, Lotus Pool, spamming out decays. They are
They're just playing off the map right now, trying to delay everything that they can.
Yeah, there's just not a lot of good things happening right now before them.
Yeah.
I mean, at least the Gold League is staying steady, you know?
The farming is good.
If they can continue to delay and keep this net worth lead sort of stagnant, then they've
got something.
Yeah, I mean, I'm too worried a little bit.
They've actually done a pretty good job so far.
If you're escaping there as big as now, he gets his relocate.
Yes, and this one is nice.
They move in, find the kill on Nero,
and they find any more after the fact.
Pure relocate wearing out soon, they break, and tether away.
So that is the type of thing that we need to be seeing
in the Iron Wave.
And a lot of that comes just from how White Momma's
playing up there, like, pushing out the wave.
They had a ward in the lane from Aria's wall,
trying to control this space.
So they punted Nero a little bit on this Largo.
a slower hero who really wants to be farming up and again lowest net worth of the cores the hero's
struggling so far here today in the series talking into any sort of a dominant system.
Catomi is going for the blink dagger so he's gonna be their first real good way to jump into a
fight not the best hero to start the fight he likes to see a fight develop a little bit more
when Catomi's playing with one of Wyverns but just getting something forced and trying to
lock Ironwing into a fight might be enough because they just you know they have overwhelming
potential to win these engagements in a fair fight for Boombl4s. I like the four-staff too.
18 minutes, 3,000 gold lead, and it's going to be going into the same cave as we prepared to.
Boombl4s, getting these items and then likely going to be playing together around the map,
Ironwing very clearly just wanting to play around the Agadam Scepter.
I don't relocate plays some pick offs here and there yeah, and this is a game
You're seeing Ari starting to fall behind this line right line is not good in a game like this
You're not gonna put me away
No chance to play
I mean there's sort of around this area with the lion and the DK and out kind of falls apart
Ari is gonna get jumped upon
and a keratich is going to take him out.
It's just a moment.
It's happening so quickly.
The two supports behind you are coming down here.
Meanwhile, 3-3 getting walked down in the mid lane.
Jimmy Key just chalking the Viper Strike on him,
reducing him to half health.
I mean, that's the thing that's weird, right?
You see that move come down.
They were bringing in Whitemon, RE.
They're trying to make a kill happen,
and it just didn't really function that well.
You can see Dota Plus is saying, we're just at 50-50.
That's fair.
It's a substantial leave right now for Boom Boy.
This one's not going to be decided a medium to me. It's because there's a burden on boom boys still the pressure forward here
But they have the tool for right like they have this spirit vessel with many charges on save
So if they try and fight them with the decay or with the IO or with yeah
I mean tight. I'm just get the the disc of the blovers. That's nice, but I'm sorry
We call it crack of him now my bad. There we go of the crackin
That that is you know that is the item you need to just kill this I would be
They ain't got nothing.
Well, the only thing that they need to do is find those targets, get them into a fight, and Ironwing is going to continue to dodge whenever they're all possible to do so.
Yeah, they're a very frustrating team to play against. They're definitely one of the best teams in the world at doing this.
I thought, reading the map and doing this as we call it,
boat cooking where it seems like waves are disappearing,
you're not getting the position where they are,
you're not getting this pressure that you're expecting
from what you feel like is controlled over the map.
It's here, I relocate into the mid here.
Yeah, knows that they're performing,
so come on out forward and pressure this.
Get some damage there onto the building, backs it away.
Alright, gonna take a long walk trying to steal the shrine, I guess, as yeah, the call comes out, he's heading that direction.
That's nice.
Largo's over in that area too, and he'll keep you over from Rubik.
I mean, this would be great news for Save if he manages to get a steal from this.
Well, they also are bringing in the wyvern.
Oh, he just walks into range and now they see him.
Yeah, he got it again.
Wow, he's so good, they're both in B level 12 now.
Yeah, that's nice.
I'm not quite pat on me, sadly.
He's a little behind.
Gem picked up. Okay.
Boom boys are done, folks. They're picking up the Gem on the Winter Wyvern.
They're going to make their way to Roche. They have a stolen Earth Spike.
They want to take over this game. They got five Spirit Vestal Charges ready on save.
He is ready to play some Dota. He wants to fight.
They throw the Viper Strike on a very low mana isle.
Pure...
No man's land. Tries to go for the tether to get away,
get away but he's still being brought very very low churches right on him finds him you're waiting to
farming all this time and just nothing i love that vkp usage i love that just like guarantee this kill
you know yeah he didn't end up needing it right he could have got it without it but if there's
backup if there's something else there something that iosk and this roach doesn't feel as good
but they are hitting the timing say one that being said the burden is still here i strongly
believe that boom boys still have a difficult road to follow here and that
is the strength of the iron wing draft but currently they are on track
use into egg sector on this time a little bit a little bit of a jump from BZM
and then the back away and now the winters curse oh
this can go really bad but there's no BKB on here to keep that in mind
goes to the finger of death onto the wyvern here at its low but not solo
Babbage out, just barely able to connect.
The big stun coming out from save, though!
That's what they needed in here,
until she will live through it.
Finally, they bring in the aisle.
Pure trying to do a kick.
Could you accept a lift up to stop the change,
but it's not looking like enough.
You're comes back in just to die.
And 33, in trouble.
Ironwing, farm all this for what?
Save my ghost, here.
The stun into the Soul Rift Heal gets a gush
at the end there as well. He's chalking out spirit vessel charges everywhere, the heels
of the Lardo because they go into the Spiral Lampy Isle, right? Like he's dead. Why don't
Isle before they can reload Cape Pure into this engagement? I think he was pumping out
the damage on that Rubik second only to the Viper in that fight. Like, save was a
beast in that one.
You went ravages of his own and...
They were close, right? Like they almost had something but just... I mean, he didn't
This is a really tough way right now with four kills iron wing on the verge of being eliminated unless they can pull something together here.
This is not the way you want your TI appearances to end.
Well, it's funny because they just picked up the old pair.
It's a little aggressive here, but there's no follow-up.
Nobody's here.
They just got the eggs on tie, which to me is like, okay, we're full wrap mode, right?
Right we are pushing waves we're not engaging and then they go for this fight
Maybe thinking that someone had already left and they would immediately split and pressure out of
It reeks of desperation a little bit there and it rightfully adds it should I suppose
BKB up here. I'm sure we'll save them
Rather go down. Yeah, the BKB is maybe gonna be enough to make
She's going a little bit less haste, but save.
Save, wait, they're jumping to kill him though!
Okay, save gone!
Okay, GPK's doing a lot of damage.
Seven seconds to get away.
The arrow tries to chase.
How much can GPK do?
He needs a few more hits, but Pure manages to get out of there.
He's still burning down though, the damage pure!
He'll heal!
Surviving has to pop for PKB!
Moving down towards the green, green again.
Yeah, they just gotta back it up right now.
What a scary item.
All that for a Rubik's kill, you lose your DK.
Not how they drew it up here.
Mmm.
And Nero nearly into a BKB, just as a rescue to go here on the Largo.
So give him some Stangpower in these fights.
Help Lotus team, you know, keep on shooting BKB before the Ravage,
then he can help heal up everybody, get some clutch discos out as well.
And a very good Lotus game is, well, if he wants to go into that after, like he already has the Shard here.
We haven't talked about it either, but the combination of the Croak, right? Like, not a typical one in the Viper, but works great.
Anything amplified by Spell Amp is going to get the bonuses from Croke of Genius, and Viper obviously has plenty of damage that gets amped.
So, this is a totally doable combo.
I will also say, as much as both of these teams are known for their clean gameplay and making sure they're not overextending,
it's a TI mainstage, it's an elimination game, this 10,000 gold lead that they have right now on Boomboyz
can be undone in a second with bad positioning, with the bads just putting one hero forward when they shouldn't have.
Boomboyz have to be clutched, they have to be clean to close this one out.
Right now, playing very aggressive here.
CM on the tower with 3-3.
The wrap-wrap comes, already spots them,
hacks onto the micro, there's no follow-up,
there's nobody there to help.
EZM starts to hit on the save.
The save is there.
They go for the cold embrace, went to Kers combo.
Kura lives through, Whitemon is gone,
but that's one support to reach out of there.
Atomi in trouble for BZM.
They were hit, but Kera was there.
The frog keeps him alive,
tries to get up, not gonna have to pure TP.
He can't even do it. Oh, just barely dying in the fountain dam here, but we'll manage to survive.
The region of the well coming in clutch on that one. We still have Ari actually in here with a catapult.
As he's still lurking around where this fight happened, he has a TP out if he needs it.
Alright, two supports for a support, and of course still ends up being relatively even on the Golden EXP.
That's going to be too crazy overall here, and that will be the end of this game, in 20 seconds here.
Yeah, that could have been another one of those moments.
The focus on the save, it really wanted to take him out of the fight.
He has begun a very large problem here beside Ironwing, so it folks him down.
Ari on this ward, heading up Kiritich on the hunt.
He's a caster, does he have an oomphling as to where that lion might be?
I think so.
Hex is out, throws the Earth Spike tumblers toy in a blank CP.
But at the same time, they were chasing 3-3 up top and they don't quite find them.
You get to the tree line and TP's out.
A couple of Iron Wing heroes escaping out of this one.
And GPK.
Losing a bit of his lustre as the game goes later, you know?
He's obviously still very high in the net worth,
but this ability to just Viper strike someone and almost guarantee that they're dead is starting to wane here.
And worth noting that the Iron Wing reset that they've been able to do.
You're going to lose like, mom just going to have to go through the tombstone
Fortunately, you can't get out while you're in the tombstone. Oh, next batch? You think?
Probably not. That might be a little unbearable.
He is going to be back again with that ceaseless sturge. But yeah, like the fact that, you know,
you get this big lead, you still got your greedy enchantments, you're still farming up all the lanes.
they're not out of this one yet but I would definitely rather be playing the
game from um boy's position right now and we do see what happens is the game
goes later with this Iowa yes does become completely absurd and even though
DK's they have enough to burst him he's low he's low he's gone that's what
we're talking about that move right there can lose UTI get you out of
this tournament it's all it takes nice maneuver in there the chain stun there
from the line oh it's powerful that's the gem
stun
he's in for more finds the follow-up easy M oh iron wing and your lead just got cut now
oh boys an epic spree come on dude see that floor coming up at you it's not
what you want to see 24 to 9
The boys have looked their best when they are fully grouped up right when they're pushing an objective when they know
That there's something to gain if they just all move together in this case
They're getting a little pulled apart again because this push that's coming up from iron wing
They're so smoking their way back through they will not find the Largo
Pure might run into Miro here
This is a scary moment right now, I mean, again, and look at look at these games don't
care, right?
Yeah, he sees where the game is going and he wants to help his aisle.
He wants to become a powerful force to play with this hero and not just go down the beaten
path of every single TK this game or this entire tournament going like blink into she
was, you know, here to choose what he did for him reveals, I mean, it was hard
to get that last kill. That's true. I don't think you really want to force this right now as an armor.
I guess that's fair. Yeah, he needed the rabbit and that is going to be one of the big limiters for
this is to cool down on ravage 433. Obviously positioning is intensely important.
Yeah, I'd like to get his char here too. He's currently sitting on 3k gold trying to figure what he wants to do.
I have a pop fall for the tide.
Yeah, and as this game slows down, this IO becomes stronger and stronger.
I mean, so too overcast, but like T was talking about right before we came into this game,
that BKB timing, it's a limited window where you're able to fight.
Yeah, and you actually feel like this really strong force would like lead the fight,
then it kind of feels like you're like the second jumping.
You don't really want to be the focal point of any game that happens later on.
Take down Tormentor or he gets the shard.
He gets so much off of this Kess kill.
I feel like you can really just go back and watch replay this and just think like what happened after that Kess died, right?
Like they rotate in, they're able to just like clean up some of the space, they get the gem, they get the keywords down,
they push out their waves, they make their way to Tormentor all grouped up, and that's 8k now gone from right when they jump that Kess.
A little bit of daylight, no run through it, trying to work their way out of this pit.
Not in some sense.
Aero's also in a bit of an ugly spot here on this large over.
He's halfway towards his agonist sector.
He's not going in towards the Lotus.
He wanted to go for something a little bit larger here.
But it's, you know, at this point in the game, there's going to be some big engagement.
He might just be sitting with the point we saw in his inventory.
33, having this closure almost completed.
So now one of the other big things that we've seen be effective for the blue boys is
healing them after the back down. This one right now could be the game decider.
Less than a thousand gold, just about separating these two squads.
GPK trying to take down Roche. It is already bored. There's an imp image bottom.
33 ready to walk into this. Are they going to come and contest?
They're about same though. He's waiting for this rabbit. Did they go in?
Do they know what's going to happen? Stun already out onto the arrow.
Oh, it ages on Kiritich! They get it! They get out!
How many cancels on the Blankton 3-3? They're throwing those frogs at them from here.
Oh, they find where the tide is and they lock them down.
You have damage down bottom.
You can see the closure.
Easy on him.
He's strong, but it only works if you can get on top of people.
Yeah, he's getting also nearby here.
But he's gonna get out.
Kiritich, I'm really trying to find somebody here.
That roast felt necessary for Boom Boys.
Based upon the way that the game was starting to swing.
Yeah, it was trailing.
It was not feeling good, and still they're coming in here on the highway.
They want to find them separated, maybe greedily farming with these ages.
Maybe seeing some of these items, right?
Thinking like, hey, they want their Largo to get towards ags before they want to push
or fight or something, but they actually haven't separated.
So what does the good fight look like for Iron Wing right now?
Is it anybody's separated as a particular hero or on the other side?
Look at their skin right now.
This is what they think is happening.
They think that someone's down here trying to finish their items and they're not for stuff
and I think that is the read as you're saying like boom boys are worried about being found
out like that.
So they are playing quite a bit tighter.
Save, don't drop it, don't show it.
And immediately they kill him.
Keratich runs in, might go here on to BZM, spots him, XO slash silence, looking for the
slowdown to stun his hair.
Come on, forcing out the BKB Tiki away.
Oh
Feels pretty bad right now because now that ages is just enough
Right like he doesn't want to come to gate no pkb for a minute and a half
That's happy
He might be forced to honestly because the rest of the scene is pretty ready here
But the eCm reveals the whole meal here. Just puts it all together now in that time frame
We've got the agonist after a finisher from hero
So quite a bit tankier, but I can still can't go into this engagement without his bkb
Does this Largo egg need to change that much for him? I feel like it lets him farm it a little bit faster
and it'll feel great if he gets a catalyst. Yeah, that's kind of what it's looking like at the moment.
They need that for sure.
And obviously being able to throw the Crocogenius onto the Viper,
that is something that can make all the difference in the world, like it's percentage-based damage to good stuff, but I don't know.
Scary. Scary, scary.
And this is, again, it comes back to this idea of just like the pressure that was here for Boom Boys to keep going.
The burden that you have in this draft is very heavy. You must keep pushing on the map. You must be getting objectives.
And they solved it. And they itemized to create this solo on Iron Wing, and they have succeeded.
They have done this so many times against so many teams. And I'm sure it never gets less frustrating to play.
The frustration all it takes is a moment messed up. Now they scan the hit, they find White
Mom, but his head gets inside the tombstone. Living for the moment now in trouble. Here
it takes you in for the gradient scan, but they still get him.
BKB is back up here. Teammates are coming. An idea to try and do something after.
A lot of respect here from Ironwing. So let them go down bottom. 3-3 is chasing
after GDK a little bit here. Ah, bluffing. Like, ah, there he is. They'll be right
Hey here, it's all here to come.
So the team moving in, GPK,
already goes to the back line, there's no save for GPK.
He's got a run, but now he's coming down here,
and they chase down Pure, could they do anything about it?
BK, he already popped from Pure, since he's in.
Oh, under Pure, and now turn on the BZM,
and now trying to run in,
but he's pushed away, the rabbit's to turn it arrow.
He's arrow, it's not meant to be.
Free, free, the BZM.
Okay, but wait a minute, oh, hold on, it's hitting Pure.
Oh, no, GPK comes in for the close,
And now the chase on the 33.
Just what do you think with Nier O'Deddon trying to look good?
He gets the bullet count.
Same, not able to put the exclamation point
on the kill there.
Wow.
And they need that kill desperately on that IO.
Yes.
The Crozier came out during the Kez ulti.
That was curious, it was just a big play, right?
It was like to get off the Raptor dance,
heal up a little bit, and then keep going that fight.
But then the Crozier happens, it's like, oh,
I'm not healing very much right now, am I?
had to jump away from that one with the grappling hook.
But you can see back in 4-3-go.
I mean, this is what you want out of a game 3.
Oh, yeah.
It was like in problematic air, such as that last play.
Losing the IO on this half to level 25
maybe opens up one last window here for Boom Boys
to actually force something decent for them.
But I am concerned with that Mjolnir, Dragonite,
and then IO about to hit 25.
How are they going to fight this?
I mean, that's going to be the thing to watch for.
The Viper no longer universal with this little ability there,
but you do still have an incredible amount of right click damage coming out from him,
and I kind of wonder how strong the coach of the Viper is on the loopy.
Yeah, it is good. I think it's, I mean, he had a homie though,
the weight upon him on this, like, he could just win this game with a cross.
Likewise, you know, maybe a stolen ravage here,
it's very hard to guess though, as you already saw, like,
trying, but he's just getting hit with the cracking shell. Big tied buffs.
Oh, and Largo did not get it. Not yet the catalyst. Instead, chance is bobbled.
Oh, game three, he says. IP bobbling. Okay. Alright, so basically, if he gets the bobbled,
I guess not necessarily says he thinks it's going late.
Well, he didn't have an option for it, Jack. He didn't have an option for Condor's catalyst.
Oh no, but I was being driven out of the right place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
And likewise though, I have your T.V.
So, now throwing out the... I mean, these waves are just gonna explode.
Alright, Shadowblade finished up for the Dragonite New Avenue into engagements here for BZM.
Satanic.TheGVK is really going into the identity of the Tower in this game.
Very limited mobility.
He's a very hard-hitting and tanky slug, but a slug nonetheless.
Now that is gonna be the problem.
I mean, the Hurricane Pike is nice at least.
Kiritich...
I mean, again, like, you've got these jumps that can happen from Lion,
which hypothetically sound good in the late game,
but, like, is Io really going to be able to kill Kiritich
in the duration of a Lion disabled?
Probably not.
Guys, I feel like you just need to switch.
I just think you need a blink sometimes.
Oh, for the Viper.
Yeah, sometimes it feels like, you know, bring back TC Dota.
The blink Viper gamer himself.
Are you trying to run?
Make his way out into the cover-up.
Levercate.
EZM.
In the meantime.
Is it pretty deep here?
He is a little surrounded.
Hey!
They find him!
He didn't get an ultimate time!
Whitelaw tries to salvage it!
Not gonna happen.
Just gonna end up dead as well.
Two down.
Of course.
Target 33.
He's prosuring it.
Not to learn first.
They've got him caught again.
Rest of the squad coming in,
but I don't think they're going to be able to help it on.
I don't know.
Back they've got him.
Ari under fire with the arrow.
Jason, wait, 33 gone out.
Saved the space.
Oh.
The Sun's looking for a blink.
He's trying to get out of there.
A lot of miscapes.
It's not going to happen.
They find and they kill the line,
but he got his tights under.
Out of dodge.
Credit for credit, too.
He definitely saved him on that one.
And Kjure takes advantage.
He's pushing the bottom tower right now with the creep.
That's pretty nice. Yeah, the forces out of the glyphs are constantly doing these these counter plays across the map with the relocate
It's very frustrating. That's you know the the talent at 20 and the level 25 with the minus two second
He is just everywhere right now. It doesn't mean you don't have to worry about this
Attacking just had their target with the D-frame at least. Well, I will say I'm wondering
We've seen a lot of these games with some split push some red Dota coming out
Can you imagine? Is there a way? Is there a possibility?
A Stygian DK, Io hitting the base?
I don't know.
It's, I tell ya, it'll be very fast.
See, if they end up going to get level 30 or something on this Io,
when we get to that stage, it's gonna be really hard to deal with.
Of course, they do have the best solution.
You know, they picked it first after the Io, it is the winner one.
Well, the other problem, they're gonna need to deal with this pressure coming into the base,
but they're already very low, stunned out from Ari.
I can't try to sneak them here on the top of the Invis, but there is a sentry down.
It'll be annoying if they don't have great answers to this.
They tried to take down that banner, but the banner still stands.
Got it only way back on the line.
3 broken, stunned! 33, trouble, 33, dead!
And now Karrith is jumped onto the DK air so what?
I thought that was just a way out of the way!
Why did he go in right there? Oh no!
Oh, the trouble, the trouble!
If you are, he'd be located nowhere!
What is happening for time?
He's trying to get out of there.
The stay of the moment, the tombstone, but he's into the fountain.
That doesn't mean your shapes are chasing it.
Oh my God!
Oh yes they do!
They take them down!
Oh my God!
They are done with this main stage game!
We're going to end this now!
No where is safe!
No buybacks.
No answer.
We're thinking about 15 minutes down the line.
They just want to get so this game is over.
A GGS Paw Patrol voice, don't come out at me!
Ah, haymakers never face!
They just sit, TPK out there!
You can run from the vicer, but you can't hide!
You go in your face, I don't come for your filming!
They won't move away from me!
Get me the probe!
I won't do the rest!
That pelican needs to push the vicer!
Pull up, Ray-3! The fight was over!
It was truly that one that was nuts!
And again, one of these moments where like, it was looking sort of like,
he had a way back in his, for Ironwing.
And he's just being like, I'm crushing up all the comments that are burning.
I mean, I knocked out like that, just for 34 years on the main stage.
I mean, you know, I had the best fight I could.
You're thinking like, yes, I'm going to knock him out.
I'm going to knock him out.
He's calculating.
He's getting all the possibilities.
I'm moving.
I'm going to crack him.
And he was gone.
He had a wave.
They're savers all about, but he couldn't press any of the buttons, Liverpool.
Boom Boys, they managed to take them down, and while it's gotta be hard to go out in that way,
former teammates shaking hands with Pure, who past year were able to make it all the way to top four,
now eliminate them here. A lot of respect shown between these two teams.
But it is Boom Boys that were victorious, that come out on top, and getting a little bit of love from the crowd.
from the crowd. I mean, what a performance by the players.
That high ground feed, you guys have seen it.
You know going high ground is not easy.
They had so many perfect plays there
to break down the defense that was there from Ireland,
and they made it look so easy.
Beautiful performance indeed.
And again, one of these moments where, like,
you think about the players and how much it
means to them to be there up on the big stage,
and we're not able to pull it together for Ireland
and boom boys of immaculate performance.
There were down so much in this series.
There were so many times where we thought they were right on the edge.
There was a lot of ups and downs. They risked it.
They gave away the aisle in that last game.
After just dominating with game two, they had the answer in the score.
We'll see now as we hear from the chances they move on forward down on the stage.
Welcome everyone. Welcome to the final interview.
Now, we have a Boom Boys' Critic here.
It's your own, uh, sucks.
Ah, thank you so much, Marshall.
So good to see you up here.
My man, you're a titch.
Curie, curie, meow, meow, if you will.
This has got to feel good.
You have got to feel amazing right now.
Am I right?
Of course.
Good there.
Are you feeling a little better than yesterday?
You know, the whole, uh, the incident, you know?
Uh, what was it like getting through that
to now having this incredible win?
Yes, yesterday's vision destroyed me. It's a bit from his side and I'm a bit tilted, but I got a good conclusion from Mr. DGi. Right now I'm ready to fight, ready to lose, ready to win. That's it.
We've prepared everything, prepared to win, prepared to lose, and prepared to put on any hardware.
We may now know who is the best I.O. Bro. No. 1. You've won Pure, what do you think?
West, it's Ana, of course, and after Ana.
Yep, absolutely.
Talk a little bit about Ana. You've talked before about Miracle. You've talked about all these legends that have been on this stage before you and how you hope to gain to their heights.
You feel like you're getting close my man?
I don't know what to say. Miracle.
Matumba. It's my share.
I've done so much but of course I want to play better, better, better.
I'm not on the level miracle right now. I'm not playing super good and it's like casual. I'm I'm still
less of my
Like like said
Like I'm
Blin
I want to say something fun good, but my
My English is not very good, but it doesn't matter if it's miracle good, I try to be like you.
Yes, reach those heights. You know what, screw it! Just say it in your native language, we'll get it translated too.
I think the players of Miracle, Mato, are always in my heart.
But I think I haven't reached their heights yet, but I will always be there for them!
Alright, my friend. Now, last question for you. Thank you very much.
Pure's BB team made it to fourth last year.
You took over this team.
You gave it dedication.
You brought the reins in, and now you are close.
When will you be satisfied?
Will you be satisfied with now six that you have?
Will you need fourth?
When will you be happy, my friend?
Pure's BB won last year,
and got the first four.
You won last year, and now you're the first six.
He has to walk forward for as long as he can, so he can be satisfied.
Learn my lessons from here, make a conclusion and improve every attempt.
a lot of smiles and happiness on that stage as heritage and his team boomboys
they advance here and they have eliminated iron wing a lot of break down
here with this game because I want to talk about characters but can we just
for one second they've been an ember pock and Lena slaughter storm snap by
pangolier and guess what dpk still beyond godlike rare yeah it is biker was so
good I kind of wanted to know what would they do they were gonna win their
lanes obviously that is what you do you pick your viper you farm your irons you
show up and you say no one touched my cookie you go and bite for all any
tight hunter that ever wants to step up and try and be attacked for his team
you don't allow them any map space and you ruin every single fight that they
I mean, they just read Ironwind perfectly in the adaptations understanding like, okay, we pick our viper
We're not gonna sit back and just the fear of the brakes like they went across the river
They broke the tight on the multiple times that they kind of shut them down to the point where I'm in fault
They can maybe fight site. Come on guys. You've like lost the early game so hard that you're scrambling into the game
There's no IO timing to play on and like you're gonna see it here one of the team fights, right?
Like I think the tide on that just picked up the ads that the eyes already dead the winter why I'm hitting the curse
like this is basically Ironwind's way of saying we really want to try and fight but we've already
made some mistakes like in the first 20 minutes that we're already put in kind of the first
man in our coffin and the eventual elimination of our team. Yeah this is why I felt like even though
I like the Ironwind draft but based on just like how they want to play us I think this is not
the setup that they are very comfortable whenever Pure is playing a hero they're kind of AFK
farms for 20 minutes the team just doesn't really feel like they have a lot of moves to
to make. And there'll be a lot of random deaths on the map because nobody's trying to play the
game. Everyone is just farming. So somebody's going to die somewhere.
Yeah, and a lot of people died somewhere. One thing that a lot of teams sometimes have
very much difficulty with is going high ground. It seemed like boom boys did not have that
issue whatsoever. And that means Ironwing has played their last game on the main
stage. I'm sure that they are going to be very disappointed with this result.
This is a team that has had most tier one tournament victories the entire year and that's a lot
of pressure to bear also from themselves that they put on themselves going into this year's
international.
So disappointment is where they are and it's going to be a rough one.
But of course we got to have some final words.
So let's head over to Perian.
Yeah, thank you.
I am here with Ari Ari.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
I know it's horrible to talk to you under these conditions and we're sorry to see you go out of the tournament
It felt like you guys had such a great season and then things that were perhaps outside your control with orbs and stuff
Maybe unsettled you do you think that's fair to say
It's true that we definitely underperformed in the second half of the season which is very sad
Of course he really wanted to do well this TI and we actually did feel confident going
into it.
But this doesn't raise the fact that the first half of the season went very well and we're
still very proud of what we achieved in this time.
So overall I still think we've had a good year.
Absolutely agreed.
I can still remember giving you the trophy when learning of things felt like yesterday.
So many close series of this TI and so many great teams.
Do you feel like you were unlucky that it could have gone a different way on another
the day, or was it just you weren't feeling it?
So.
on the day the better team wins but I did feel like we were in we were finding
good form as this tournament went on and we were feeling confident and I do
think we could have beaten any team in this tournament on a good day but today
this wasn't our day I don't think it's not lucky because the
strongest is the king I think if we are in a good condition we can defeat
any one of the teams Ari is there anything you'd like to say to the
fans and the fantastic crowd here in Shanghai that have been supporting you guys all year.
Yeah I'm super grateful to all of the fans and all of the viewers to watch.
The crowd is really what makes these events special.
The Lands v1 as well as the CI, playing on stage in front of such passionate crowds
It's really what makes the experience amazing.
So super grateful and super privileged.
I hope to be here again next year.
Thank you so much for all your support and attention.
Your passion is to make the whole competition more meaningful.
Including all the offline competitions we've attended before,
including the TI,
thank you so much for giving us this opportunity.
I hope to see you next year.
A heartbreaking loss, I'm sure,
as Ari has still got to the presence of mind,
of course, to reflect back on a year
That was still very successful in the first half and I think actually win through that. That is a little bit of a combination there
That is impressive to do at this stage after just getting eliminated. I think yeah
It's very hard to like maintain your composure like throughout the season
I think it's very disappointing for sure, you know from their perspective they start out so well
They obviously feel like they should be able to keep the train roll
Everybody wants to keep the train rolling, but you can't play every tournament at a hundred percent level all the time
There's patches as a that's breaks you need to take some rest on the team and everyone resets that
Unfortunately, Dota is a very very tough game. It is a very tough game
We're gonna see what made it extra tough because the game we just watched
There was one person in particular that might have flown under the radar ray are very a little bit
Yeah, check this clip out. Sorry bring the hype up. What's that why read the way he plays his fight is incredible
the lion actually broke the smoke from
boom boys as they went high ground and the wyvern was able to catch the feel onto the rubik which delayed his death and this clip is moving way too fast it's really hard for me to point it out.
He is in such a good position on this high ground the fight that they take over iron wings is just so in their favor.
The delayed rubik death means that lion had to end up committing finger onto it so he couldn't use it on someone else and then right off to that moment wyvern then blinks down to the low ground
and gets to toss off onto the IO, so IO can no longer enter the fight.
Tide gets caught in the cast and they also cannot counter engage with the Ravage,
and then on top of that, Katomi Wyvern flies over the Roche pit and kites the DK around,
who's then trying to kill the Wyvern and just can't.
So this guy single-handedly managed to disable at least three heroes by himself,
which allows his team to clean up the Undying Kill, remove the two,
the game. You know, you know,
you're going to have to go over
to some from play and then
chase down the remaining two
boys and turn a very decisive
fight to look towards their
victory. I honestly. Absolutely
sublime positioning and spell
usage from how to owe me
Wyvern this game. I'm sure as
a fellow sport player Tegav,
you also suck at over. Like
that. That guy is going to go
far this one. I mean, it's
could tell me why even right?
You say those two words
together. You're going to
expect things like that, right?
Of course, the best went
what the hero can do. And the reason why boom boys do consistently pick this hero, whenever
they have access to it, compared to other teams where they often quite ignore this hero,
boom boys, they will go for it. They will pick it up. But yeah, you can see from the
stats on screen, they had an excellent game. We pretty much said, we want to see them
win the lanes. We want to see them just own this game throughout the best of three.
They're kind of improving, shaping themselves to understand what they had to do. And
in game three, it just truly just, it was the perfect example of like why they
are meant to be the winners here like I'm when they want making these developments but boom boys
the perfect game for you from them. Yeah adjustment definitely there now also with a total of six
games played on the main stage looking fantastic looking strong and looking still very much alive
in the lower bracket. We're going to give the MVP to GP Kaye he was heavily focused
in this game number three winter he was targeted in the draft he was a menace in
in the game, well deserved.
Two games in a row, we gave him this MVP.
Yeah, he made a very, very important
like gangster towards the Tide.
The couple of Viper strikes to kill off the Tide.
I mean, some of them may be avoidable for 33,
but I think overall, GPK, he understood where to attack.
He can't really kill the iron, the top lane.
So Tide was a very, very obvious target for him.
And as soon as the Tide had to retreat,
and he can't really pressure the bottom side,
the whole map became theirs.
And they just kept farming,
and they weren't really rushing.
They were just playing for their timings.
and they got to the timings and Ironman just couldn't really fight them anymore.
They could not and if you can't fight, you lose and that's what they did.
They are eliminated and that is part of the competition.
And it's beautiful because that's also what made Kirito so happy on stage
because he did not get eliminated.
We have one more in store for you today, one more elimination,
one more lower bracket series coming your way.
And it is between two teams that we all expected would face each other eventually.
But maybe not in the first round of the lower bracket.
I'm talking about Team Liquid and Falcons.
So we are going to see them going ahead to head the series yesterday.
That's probably both of those series are probably part of the reason why so many
predictions were ruined at the end of yesterday's four best of threes.
Jannex and Nigma Galaxy happy in the upper bracket after knocking these two down.
and then we're going to focus our attention first on Team Liquid, Tiga, of this team, you know,
Game 1 of the series against Yandex, it was very close and we're like, okay, you know, that can happen
and then they got absolutely smacked down by Yandex and this is a team that we don't expect ever
to see smacked down like that.
Yeah, I feel like Game 1, always kind of the dross of fine is the gameplay in the moment,
you know, niche with an agent in the mid tower, overextending at the high ground,
the entirety of Liquid and overplaying their hand.
game two. You can't just talk
it up to a bit of an out draft.
I think you know the Slark into
the M mid the IO to pair with
the Slark. So game to. Draft
can be improved. I think you
focus more towards game one.
That is the game where I think
liquid informed when they want
to act a couple years back.
That is the type of draft where
they wouldn't throw away that
lead. They would just go down
like game cleanly. So I am
looking to them to just kind
of look towards that game.
Improve on it. And today
there will be a better team
because they yeah that first
game it. I think that was
well Yandex held on under the pressure the liquid applied. Yeah, and they have seem liquid has had a great year as well.
And I think that's worth highlighting here. Yeah, they did have a pretty good year, but I think they picked up just before TI mainly, right?
I think they just won, sorry, my apologies. They just won the previous TI event coming into TI. So they kind of had a bit of ups and downs to some degree.
But overall, as you can see here, they had some fourths and thirds and firsts. So they had pretty good results.
But the general track record of the five tournaments pre this T. I was a was a bit more of a pickup as you see here
It's the first essence and then EWC blast dream league in black. It's kind of like it's okay
But for a team like liquid you expect a lot more but again critically
They've got that first base of essence to coming into T. I they have that win
Is it a curse? Is it not who knows right now? It feels maybe like a little bit like a curse again tier one event wins pre pre
So far also, we're talking about Team Liquid, we've got to talk a little bit about supports there too, because they're a large region as well as they do as well as they did, Rhea.
Yeah, I think they're fantastic. I'm glad that they brought Ace and Tofu into the team together because they have such synergy.
Even though they have split apart on the lanes, I think they went through a lot of trialing of talking about what's best for the team.
team and at the end of the day they really didn't want to disrupt Foxy's
play style because he makes so many calls and he is very proactive with
smokes and kills and playing with mid. But Tofu has been a fantastic five. He's a
lot more of an adaptable player. I think he mentioned that in the past like
Foxy doesn't want to play certain heroes if he would have played five. Insania
also avoided certain heroes but Tofu is much more willing to fit what is
needed for the team and he has been a massive asset since February.
We talked about moving into the captain role and getting more into
drafting as well so he just this guy is honestly incredibly good I think even like
ecu was talking recently about how you watch five games of TOEFL playing and
you will learn so much about the support role he was like solo carrying games
against spirit in previous tournaments. Watch this guy's gameplay. He is so elite.
He is definitely a star player and he swap roles seamlessly and that is very
cool to see of course it has been very cool to see Liquid especially in
group stage is where they did
There is
certainly no one to take the long route, but it's a three-series, so let's make it all
three games.
Oh, there's a double-limitation rocket, let's go in a long distance, which is possible
to make it as deep as we can.
And if I'm on the rocket, they find themselves, let me see how far I can go.
they can go when their first opponent is Team Falcons.
The defending champions of the international school very much alive as this time around in Shanghai can they make their long route all the way back to the grand finals to defend their agents yesterday.
They are ready to taste that like two team liquid as I'm sure they've done a lot of preparation
against a team that they are so, so familiar with.
They have their work cut out for them and a lot of rings to their name already and
I want to start talking about a player that has two of those rings namely a Skeeter Winter.
This guy is a pivotable player in the roster.
He's the glue of Falcon's side.
He is.
He is the person that puts everything in place.
He's not a very greedy carry.
He plays usually the bling stunners.
I think in most of the games, you see Skitter do really well in this team
is when he's playing the Sven, he's playing the elk.
Anything that allows him to be the initiator
because it also pairs really well with Snaking's hero pool.
generally likes to play a also very greedy position five heroes which need the
cause to go in so he so skater needs to kind of be on the span elf type of heroes
most of the time and I think the reason why they have a lot of up and down
results recently is because of the introduction of SAF draw your carry
clan has to try or play the aggressive late gamers and that doesn't really
suit Falcons play style. I also just just thought that if Skeeter wins this
he's got two rings already three out of five is pretty darn impressive. Two out of five,
obviously, also super impressive. Don't get me wrong, but that is that is quite the feet.
This guy has what it takes to get through these sticky hairy situations called lower
bracket, you know, box against the wall. Rayon, he'll fight. He will fight. And I do
wall ray and he'll fight. He will fight and I do wonder if they will adapt
throughout the tournament or if they'll just stick to what they know because
obviously the reason why I scare plays away does is because he wants to enable a
ma who I think not so laid out the stat that he was the only off-laner who
have on who on average out farms the enemy carry at 10 minutes which is an
absurd accomplishment. So this guy I think a lot hinges on a Mars gameplay
to be doing the kind of
But that also means that we
to be really well because
massively enables a lot. I
I guess what I'm saying here
is this a team effort? Um I
mean, for sure. I think the
and why they always do well
is for their assistant based
team with five players
functioning at a very high
level. Of course, crit as
you see on screen with the
lines, the sd of the clock.
All of these heroes want to
play through another hero.
They're not independent
guys that are going to like
solo break the game. It's
to get information for someone
else to get a kill online to set
up an SD to say like he's very
much a systems type player. And
that allows him to itself when
everything's fine. 100% Think
yesterday. I think Falcons the
reason why they're in the lower
bracket. They're a little bit.
Kind of reminiscent of what we
just saw from iron wing the
same type of mist initiations
was what was happening with
Falcons against Nygma,
especially in that game three
between the tiny in the
doom. But I think in general,
Falcons are in form. Of
course. They will make a
I think both of these teams
I have at least both of them in
my player predictions as well
for my bonus points. So I'm a
little upset that they're both
in the lower bracket. I would
like to get a new terrain, but
it's okay. Um, but yeah, I think
both of these teams in form easily
lower bracket run teams. I want
to give height to create again
as well because I think that he
is so amazing and it's kind of
the low key thing where do you
remember that game against VG and
and Amar got an 11 minute GG out of them on his necrofoast. Everyone praises necrofoast.
They were like, Amar is amazing. Best necrofoast I've ever seen. If you watch Crit play that lane,
he set everything up. Like, every single card, he got the maximum amount of efficiency on clockwork
to just bully them down to a point where necro could get those kills. And then he rotates mid,
and then he enables Malrin to get a kill. And then he assures your runes,
he goes for the wisdom shrine, and all of a sudden everything is completely in a flow state.
I think if crit reaches a flow say ever in these types of games
He will just dominate and sell his course. It looks so good
We use described don't in a nutshell right the cause get all the praise always right?
Well, we've highlighted a little bit of how Falcons got to this lower bracket winter
How do you feel team liquid got to this lower brackets yesterday? Definitely didn't go the way they planned
Yeah, I think they're a little bit confused about what heroes and what type of like a playstyle
They want to you know utilize and I know liquid has been traditionally a team that wants to play really fast
But unfortunately again, you know, they have the problem where the patch doesn't really reward fast teams
You have to figure out how to balance everything out
You need to have late game security and that's not really how liquid likes to play
They both kind of want to play with a very active carry
But I think as a team liquid is less greedy compared to falcons falcons is a lot more greedy
I think in this particular matchup, Liquid should have the upper hand in the early game
because they tend to play faster and the thing they have to accomplish is they need to stop
Falcons from getting farm on their greedy cause and if they can accomplish that and
they can like what Rhea mentioned, they can stop Crate from creating the space then it
will put them in a very, very good spot.
I also intrigued to know if Falcons are going to continue trying to run the center,
right?
Against Nygma, they did it of course, against Boom Boys as well, they tried the center
mid.
like they're kind of little strut and playbook that they're trying to bring to the tournament.
Is it something that's going to carry over to date in the lower bracket? If it is,
what is Nishi going to be ready to play against it? Like it's quite a clunky mid hero that's kind
of ice-sitting farm whatever you pick will also farm, but of course it provides other kind of
properties later into the game. They are trying to find like flex heroes and a lot of them that
I've seen so far, I like the pangol actually the most. Even though pangol is probably not
the best hero right now but I think for team Falcons it's a hero that has very high value.
In the past they they tend to use like Razor, Haska as a flex pick but right now I think
Tango is probably a hero that would suit them a lot more. I agree with you Tee that I don't think
Santa fits the build that much even though it looks like it might work but in terms of strategy
it has a lot of weaknesses, it has a lot of holes and it's not really that great on the mid lane.
Are there any niche picks in particular that when these two teams appear on stage that
we think about?
It's like, oh, we can't wait to see Nisha's, well, I can't wait to see Nisha's Ember.
I think it's going to get banned, which is a shame.
I think Enchantress might be a hero that would be good, because again, like I said,
the early game, the support battles, how can they control the runes, how can they
make space for the call, it's going to be very important and what is the best support
in the early game?
Enchantress.
win the lane, you can get the creep, you dive the mid laner, you get the tower, you create a lot of pressure.
So that is a hero that I would say that maybe would be the key hero here in this matchup.
And also, I just want to see potentially just classics as well for Falcons. You just mentioned the Razor.
Like, you can still pick the Razor. Like, if Liquid's picking like Lunar carries and trying to go for more like, you know,
melee bro off lane with a ranged carry, why not go for Razor and just try and run through with like Manta BKB or whatever.
like there's not a world where you have to just lock in these you know main event here that we've
been seeing so far but yeah I think it's just gonna be just potentially maybe one of the best
series today in my opinion I'm just these are two teams that coming into the main event like they
could see the ages yeah there's probably one point in their scrims like they're like you know what
this is we can do it you know we can do it like two years ago one year ago we lifted it and now
now they're down here. Yeah, exactly. So I feel like this is probably, yeah, again, maybe I'm just biased because I'm here, but it really does feel like this has the makings of the best series.
Well, this is the series that happened that's too long ago. In essence, to this is the grand finals actually, three oh in favor of team liquid. And in case anybody remembers it, yes, there were like, some long games and one really close game.
overall it was pretty one sided in favor of liquid but before that it was
Balkans smashing liquid with the 2-0 and it's been very back and forth this
entire season the record between the two in terms of games if we don't look at
series in terms of games it's 13 to 10 in favor of liquid but that's three games
you know it says very very very back and forth I love to see what's coming
with the pressure of the lower bracket on their shoulders here on the main
stage of the international as we just saw two players on screen that I want to focus on we saw
Anisha and Malrin being compared to each other and I think that's going to be a very telling story
going into this one Rhea because both of these they have a lot of pressure and we have such
high expectations from them. Yeah Anisha is always an overachiever with his gameplay this
guy comes out he styles he gives everyone fantasy points and he dominates the game I think I
I always look to Nisha, but I don't feel like it's a solo endeavor.
I don't feel like there's any weight on his shoulders.
I think whilst this team, when they have tripped up, it has been kind of like people
overextending, including him.
You know, Mikkei is also a very good, very reliable carry.
And Ace always plays very solid offlaners as well to kind of round out the trio.
With Malrin though, I feel like Amar always wants to farm a lot and
Skit is going to be a little bit more sacrificial.
It always seems to me that Malrin has a little bit more of a job to do with the supports.
That being said, when Nisha runs over a game, he runs over a game, like he can 1v5.
That's why I want to see Nisha protected in the draft, right?
When you look towards Maureen, you can throw his hero at any stage of the draft, like he's going to perform.
Nisha, he can do the same, but he excels and dominates when he has a bit more protection.
Like when he closes the second stage of the draft with his pucks, his embers,
like when he sees his mid-match up, or kind of knows roughly how he's probably going for that hero,
he performs on some ethereal level.
But like when he's blind picking an ember getting counterfeit my slug when he's put in this kind of position of you have to play come back
The entire game he does very well still better than often many mids in the world
But he doesn't truly shine to the point where he can just like solo lift liquid to like another grand finals
Right, so I just want to see Nisha a little protected in the draft as the system again
We go back to the system
I think liquid they tend to put the win condition on their mid a lot right now and
And sometimes it can be like you say it's very hard to do in the draft and they need to figure how can they actually open up with flexible support enough for them to allow the niche pick to maybe come later.
I want to talk about the coaches of the teams. AY2000 on the side of Team Falcons and Blitz on the side of Team Liquid. They've got of course a lot of work to do here with the draft that's incoming.
I feel like they have also somewhat of a similar coaching style to go. Is that fair to say they are there?
They're not always necessarily pressing the buttons as we do see a why standing whereas the bullets are sitting now
So just to I was reading the lobby child obvious. So your question was they have the similar coaching style?
Oh, I'm asking no, they have polar opposite coaching styles. I believe I feel like always very analytical very like game
and like kind of authoritarian how he wants to see the game played
whilst complimenting his team's opinions.
And then I feel like Blitz is more of like the,
let's try and link up our ideas together,
try and facilitate good conversation,
make sure that we have the correct vibes.
But I kind of feel like if you were to kind of explain what coaches do in Dota,
I think Blitz and Owie are kind of on two sides of the spectrum.
And then the coaches kind of filter in between those two lines.
But I think I'd both do exceptionally well.
I think in Dota, you can't always just have one type of coach do well.
Do well like some teams need the blitz some teams need the awes right and the reason why certain teams don't succeed is because
They have a blitz when they need an hour. They have an hour when they need a blitz, right and again
Well, who's a fantastic coach alongside blitz for team liquid and sometimes like
Able to attend tournaments you see like I see
Jabs with the team and like how much is that pouring over the drafts and trying to help them and work with them
I put in a shit ton of effort and I I think
It's been very good to have both of those people with the team.
Yeah, sometimes you need puppy, you know, to tell you what to do.
I guess if there was a triangle, then there is on the one side.
And the point is puppy there as well.
As well as a block.
We're still trying to work out where he fits.
Absolutely.
Something I do at Laskin, we're both teams coming in.
We've got a lot of good things to say about the teams and their records
and how well they play.
They're so amazing but surely guys one team must be better than the other
So who you got?
I'm based on please please based on play style would favor liquid
I think liquid is gonna have the slight edge here
Overall with the hero pool because I think falcons they're kind of limited again
You know they have the problem with the hero pool
So I think they're gonna struggle here. Maybe they have some answers in the first game
I want to see what they decide to do but based on the games yesterday
I felt like they're struggling to find answers
Yeah, I feel like again liquids loss felt like they could understand it a lot quicker than falcons. If that makes sense
Yeah falcons kind of feel like oh, this is the limit of the team. Yeah
Yeah, and the liquid it's like you make a draft mistake you make a gameplay mistake like that's that's an easy replay review
That's an easy discussion with the drifter, you know
But falcons it was like there were so many little mechanics going wrong and things happening that again
They have the ability to have this conversation, but I think coming into it
I think it's a good thing. It's
a good thing. I mean, it's
a good thing. It's very
close about, say it's like 55
45 to liquid, but I wouldn't
really go further than that.
Like it's still a very
competitive series unless you
look at the essence tournament
and then technically, everyone
sided, but I'm not looking at
that round. All right. I mean,
when you're looking at both
these teams, especially during
the group stage Falcons did
not have a single game that
at the elimination round, but other than that, they always went the distance.
We're going to find out how things fare here in the lower bracket,
and it's the best of three. Let's see how things play out.
Team Liquid versus Team Falcons, game one.
The first game of this elimination game
is having Team Liquid on the radiant side and Team Falcons on the dire side.
We got ourselves the first pick coming out from Falcons soon as well.
And that means Team Liquid get that overall, a last pick.
We saw in the previous game obviously one player heavily targeted,
and I know that in the past that is something that is also done by Puppy
when it's drafting for vision. Just ban out one player in particular
and I think maybe for some teams it works, seem like they're heavily focused on banning out some heroes for Mal Ring
and that seems to also be a trend for your team.
Yeah, they've of course got the Huskar, the Earth for it, the Earth for it.
It's also banned at this point, like just close your eyes and ban it at the start of every single draft, right?
And they even still respect the Centaur, but Falcons promoting Bounty Hunter to believe it's the first time
they are going to be doing that in the tournament, so using the upper bracket information
The four bestest reasons for yesterday, they see the advance to do what it can bring to a draft,
the space it can bring in the opening, you know, 50 minutes of the game.
And when you have fours and farm heaviest Falcons,
you want a bounty on your team to make that space, to buy time for them to get online.
Is it a crit here or not? Does it fit his playstyle?
I mean, we just saw the clockwork style here, that he played the information.
I feel like, yes, I think he can run around and be a little pesky crit.
I agree. I think if his goal is to be able to assist multiple lanes,
and the B is so annoying, Chris got that. I think his map movement is a very big strike.
It just depends on what Amar wants to play because there are the concerns that if you pick bounty
on the map and Amar has a specific type of hero that wants to win the lane and then you're a bounty,
he doesn't play Dax here. So that's like an issue because Amar is like a person that wants to
win the lane case up and bounty hunter doesn't really do that for your EU. You just kind of want
want to like survive the lane and then bounty is going to roam around and you're going to
be on your own device and that doesn't really sound like what Amma wants to do usually in
the game and maybe like you said earlier you know maybe the Razer could allow them to do
that because you have a strong lane Razer and bounty and can make it work then it could
be a different story.
I think it's going to be the biggest kind of talking point in about three picks
time it's just kind of understanding how I thought about this bounty hunter but
if you're first picking it in a game there's probably like you already know that it's
three or four picks to the bounty hunter. You're not just that kind of cold going for it. So yeah,
we'll have to see where they're going. Liquid of course, there's Velina. Tried and tested.
And I think Liquid received the Yandex Saksa bounty hunter yesterday and they're going to
have that fresh in their minds. I think they're going to be way more aware of it now to be
with it this time around. I'm sure they have thought back on how they were beaten and fixed
But at the other side, Falcons might have just all looked at how Yandex did that and just want to recreate what happened on the main stage there in that second game where Liquid did not stand a chance.
They also haven't played IO yet in the tournament, so if they really want to do first, just you know, first Bounty Hunter for them, first IO for them, they could just copy Yandex and see how that goes.
I think one point to the bounty with Amar that you were saying is he can always play an orphan in the community farm
Ancient because the characters typically doesn't take that space to his appointments
You can just stack a lot
and then
You can farm that and come back. He doesn't have to win. He wants to win the lane
He doesn't have to win the lane
If you can pick some heroes while they can like buy and get a Dom then he can just run that creep around 18 times in the
top lane, form up some big wave within farming.
I mean, the thing with his playstyle is he's very different from his territory.
If it's territory, I could understand it working.
Because territory, just as long as he's farming, he's going to be happy.
But for Amar, because he's a very aggressive player,
if he doesn't put himself or the team doesn't put him in a position where he's allowed
to win the lane and pressure and attack the tower, he would die.
He would feed.
He would make mistakes because he just keeps pushing it.
So I think that they're very different kind of players
and you've got to try to bring the best out of them
you want to give them the best sort of position to play their natural playstyle.
Do you think that maybe they could...
Because I don't think you can change the player.
You have to let them just beat themselves and just give them the best options in the game.
So then in that case do you think it's more important that they pick a safe lane where the
five can rotate from gate and then focus on like game one and gate and then...
Yeah possibly.
I think their champions will still be great for that.
Yeah yeah.
Oh, they'll get themselves a Spirit Breaker at the very start of the day.
There was one wish that Winter had.
I just want to see if I'll turn to Spirit Breaker against each other and charge against each other.
And no T, you're also a big Spirit Breaker fan already, so I feel like it's Christmas.
I mean, it is. It's going to be absolutely delightful.
Spirit Breaker is, you know, if you go back in the history of Bota,
Invis-annoying hero that is ruining my day, you pick Spirit Breaker and just charge him, on repeat.
And then you know exactly where he's going.
If you really want to be advanced, by the way, you backpack your boots in your movespeak so that you can charge slower
to get more information to see if you face a ward, just a fun tip for you.
And Falcons do actually go for the Razor, but yeah, for Liquid,
Spirit Breaker interbounds against him is going to be pretty good.
I think the Shard has to be respected with the Cleaner Pocket.
Being able to absorb utility and spells is going to be quite fun to keep out.
See pal, if I can just go for anything single target,
it's better if I can counter that, but again.
Cow vs...
Oh, is it about to have to camp or what?
It's like a rat, isn't it?
Is he a rat?
Whatever animal he is.
He's a little roaded.
The cow should beat the animal, but then the electric thing should...
Electric keep the cow, so yeah.
It's why they're in the fence normally.
And one more thing to add with SB is SB and Lina together, it's very, very nice.
Cause whenever...
At least for me when I'm playing SB,
I want a mid laner like Lesh and Lina.
So it's easy, high damage.
when I charge over I can just instantly kill. So I always have the option to rotate to me.
You don't want to be like laning with a mid laner which doesn't really have a lot of damage
so you can't really set up kill. So again you know this underlord very very nice here,
pairs up very well with the SP. You charge, you find someone and the underlord connects to you.
Very very annoying. It's also a bounty hunter counter. You see him on the map, you just
hit him and you like you fiends get it and you hit him and you kill him.
We come to conclusion, the bounty has been dealt with. All right, I think we've found the
answers. He's been shot down. I mean those are the main thing, Liquid, they just have the
front line right. Lina is very much protected. Through the underlaw, there's no question.
Lina will be very difficult to find. And Falcons right now, they have Moonlight Shadow,
they have bounty on the track, so they have tools to try and get to good positions to
maybe get the vision advantage, but they still don't have to wait to consistently find the
backline and get the kill. And then Liquid on top of that, go for a Rubik, so they'll
they'll be able to utilize the shard that SAVE used in the previous series to keep Kiritich alive multiple times
to also help the leaner. So right now it's like 3-protect leaner and Falcons don't have the answers yet
to stop the farmed leaner from just ripping through them.
It'd be the answer that's going to come now!
Does this mean the Rubik is about 5?
Or are they going to lane the Rubik with Underlord and SB is going to be the safe lane?
I'm assuming that would be the current setup, yeah.
And that is Ace-Fen.
Do we like Ace-Fen?
The blink stun on Skitter, yes.
That's it, Black Taker speeder check.
Got him.
Yeah, CC Lina.
Skitter, go kill her.
That's basically it.
That's the simplest narrative for the pick-up.
That sounds like a very easy script that's being followed.
Always a little worried if there's a clear script that's being followed,
that the team on the other side knows exactly what's coming
and therefore has been able to prepare for it.
And the final lap, we got Windranger found out. So we're looking for Hero for Nisha. Most likely we can swap Delina to mid if we want to. But that's on the side of Liquid.
Effectivity there. I think Falcons, the main, I'm not concerned, but I think Skidders has a very good game because if he doesn't, Spiritbreaker can just bash him throughout the BKB.
Instead of hearing that you are locked into, if you have BKB you can kill, if you don't, you have to respect the ability to kite you and you probably won't deal as much damage.
and then of course Rubik like we already mentioned.
I think both supports are liquid. If they have a good game,
they may stop Skitter ever doing the perfect damage
that you require from this pick position,
where you kind of feel like the main source of Lena's threat.
I mean, one of the nice things though,
at least talking about Spirit Breaker and his potential,
is the Murana pick up in response is a support
that naturally wants to buy a Jules as a first item.
It calls for it and this is a fantastic Jules game.
So Spirit Breaker, he's going to want to stand it
like jungle entrances, break smokes and play like that but if marauder is there in these blue light shadows, right?
So you can use ULTS and get the pick off easily.
Honestly it could just be a double ULTS, they have bounty, marauder might just want to buy it and it is difficult, very, very good for force staff.
So I think one of them should buy force there again.
They counter the rubik and the... I think having double ULTS it's nice but I think in practice you want to have one ULTS and one force staff
and they have to distribute the items accordingly.
Double ULTS, double force.
How about we have everything, haven't we?
If that rich show is...
I mean, the Falcons, they're gonna be fine.
They're gonna go in the game, it's fine.
I think they have a nice ball right now,
because when I look at Liquid's lineup,
when you play with Spiritbreaker,
you kind of want to be on the offensive.
You want to be chasing.
I think Spiritbreaker feels too good
when you're the one being pushed back,
but Falcons have a really good lineup for that.
With this Warcry, Buff, Fraser,
and Moran, I think it's actually a deep kind of use.
And your bounty hunter tracking in advance, I think if they are able to be in the right formation,
Falcons can push the math a lot nicer.
I kind of feel like I'd rather see the Razor just go off-lane in this scenario.
Utilize the bounty who can either play the lane or skip waves really nicely,
and then you find a new mid.
Lean into Razor, you're not kind of gifting the leaner just to farm quite nicely.
Like when Razor wanders from the mid,
leaner's no-body.
Yeah, no-body.
And you just want to farm, you go like,
I don't know, like, on fuck their keyboard at the start of the game.
Like, run over to their booth and just... yeah.
And he's gonna unplug the keyboard by playing something like Sanking,
because you just go drag the wave, and pound the jam,
and also you don't have to be there.
Good, the last click.
So that seems really hard into Spiritbreaker.
Yes, that is the value of having the count on your team.
Any ways to get them behind towers, you can just shut that down.
But you see the question mark, you know, on his face about
what Melvin gets to play in this game.
It took a lot of time before banning out the cans.
We see the Necrophos banned out by Team Liquid,
and it's up to Falcons to decide what to play here.
Team Liquid has overall first pick, and near a minute,
still left in their bonus time,
so they get a lot of time still to talk about
how they're going to counter whatever is going to come their way.
But that amount of time is not something Falcons is privy to,
as their bonus time is only 10.
Let's make a press up. No Doom Midas.
No Doom Losing Light Midas.
Nice takeout!
Why's that?
Looking onto the Rubik.
It's okay.
I guess...
This Rubik is having such a nice buffet of spells.
The Razor, the Plasma Field, the Spun from Spen, the Earthshaker.
If Rubik ever gets a really good start to see the Rubik just carrying the teamfights in this game.
this game. But I can see a world where Falcons, they wanted another way to jump to the back
line. And I think it looked like they have exceptional fights where it lasts 15-20 seconds
of kiting and saving and throwing out auras. So their answer was like, if we see a hero
for a millisecond, Sven and Earthshaker will insta-blow that guy, or the slam into
you know, God's Strip, whatever. We need to kill that guy. Of course, Lina will
be the target the entire time. So I think Falcons kind of are scrambling for a pick
at the very end. They identified a type of hero they needed. They have found
the hero that kind of fixes the problem we're looking at but again it's an air shaker from the mid lane
i'm not too excited by it but i understand the use case and why they picked it in this scenario
because they needed some explosive damage you can never stop rubik from getting what he wants
really but at the same time you're playing vision heroes with bounty so hopefully the goal of
10 this whole game would just be to find rubik and give his team the business of something
Ah, TI, I just got into the first try.
It's so good. It's so good.
Thank god they can do that animation.
My favourite route to do that animation.
E-Shake is in Boca.
Why say?
I really like it.
Against the Span, against the Earthshaker, it gives you a lot of, like, kiting with the tornado.
And the EMP is so annoying for those heroes.
Somewhere down the road, when you get to the mid-game in a team fight, you get one mana burn off and it means, like, the fight is over.
But with the Invoker, it feels like Liquid are the ones that are going to be twink slow here though.
It does enable the Spirit Breaker in early game so you can charge and Sun-Try and get some kills.
So it's very important that they are able to find some kills in that way.
Because otherwise all their costs kind of want to farm, you know, Nikkei is on a Lina,
which is not like his usual style where you want to come help the team.
Lina, you don't help the team, you just farm and you hope your team survives.
I feel like Liquid will have a pretty good shot in the leading phase.
but it's kind of how do they deal with falcons and then to be getting the bkb timings
Yeah
Everyone falcons would be extremely scary all the saves and the ways that liquid can kind of keep leaner alive
Because it's four heroes that once again will amplify micky to just pop off
But that bkb timing for falcons that is the biggest window for them to play through
Yeah, they are magic damage. The bkb is going to destroy them
Big upside 14 liquid that they have a position 5 that used to be position 4 because they get themselves
tokens playing his grouping. You already see how the lanes will play itself out if
Boxy on a spearbreaker will still start with the lina and if we're gonna have
some moving about because it's probably gonna be eventually the underlord that
will be left alone if there is a spearbreaker running amok somewhere but
it is proving to be a potential very active early game for this first game
of the best of three. This active early game is probably going to be very exciting. Definitely
going to be very exciting. You know, it's also very exciting. It's an interview with
Coach Blitz. Absolutely extremely exciting to have a legend like Blitz here with us
today, sir. This is not the first time Liquid has gone against Falcons many times before.
In fact, one of the longest standing rivalries out there. What's it like to play against
this team again. It's incredibly humbling. I believe that this is the first time that
me and one of AYU teams have ever met on the main stage. I think this is the first time.
A lot of people don't know this, but AYU is the person that I've known the longest in
Dota. This is 20 years now that I've known this guy. And so to look to my right and
see him in this position, it's really emotional for me. And it's like one of the coolest
full circle moments of my Dota career. You know, I don't think we have a lot
left in us and so being able to do it one time at least it's you know have a
good cry backstage and it's just it's awesome it really is well it's good to
hear it that if you're gonna go against anybody you're going against a good
friend and someone that's been around for a long time let's talk a little bit
about that draft then and your guys's plan now the panel has been talking a
lot about the spearbreaker hero potentially being this counter of the
bounty hunter we're seeing this pseudo global strat with profits and
wisps and all this is that kind of the plan against the spearbreaker is
specifically against bounty or did you have something else in mind?
Yeah, I mean as soon as you see the bounty hero you have to kind of address it.
We picked Alina because it's a high value hero and then after that you know in Dota,
as soon as you see the hero you want to address it because it's going to be a support.
You know there's no poor bounty hunter shenanigans so it's kind of easy to one-to-one it.
You know I credit to them because they didn't really play it and I think
both our teams got our ass beat by it so they're just like we're going to YOLO run it
and I respect that because we have now played breaker a single time so both teams are kind
kind of just saying, you know what, it's T.I.
Let's look caution to the wind, have a good time,
and trust our players to be able to execute.
I trust we're going to have a hell of a series.
Thank you so much, Blitz.
We're so excited to see how this one goes.
And we'll check it out with our cast.
Thank you so much, SirActionSlacks.
We are here, lower bracket international play.
I mean, it's elimination on the line.
Falcons versus Liquid.
One of these teams is going home.
Yeah, I don't know.
And a lot of people would have expected that coming in.
Yeah, I was just going to say,
if you're one of the people out there
still has a flawless bracket. Congratulations. I think you're in the top 1% already with these
few series being played. I personally was not expecting either of you. Oh, actually, excuse
me, I was expecting Liquid here. I did pick Yandex, but I did not pick Dawkins to lose
yesterday. But here we are, and only one of these teams will make even the top six.
And of course, keep in mind, there's TI winners on both sides. There's recent TI winners
on both sides as a matter of fact the previous two champions so this is uh
this is a battle who fluked the least would you have guessed that they've
never met on stage before that's pretty crazy right yeah i'm assuming he needs
specifically ti main event right falcons versus liquid i i can't believe
that it's more a ui oh a ui coaching team yeah that's true actually that
seems really hard to believe that he would know better than anybody but
Yeah, that's that's a pretty interesting storyline. I suppose as we get into the early stages, you know, let's talk about the line-ups
Spirit Breaker early picks and pot me on this cow. I love this hero. I
Personally think it's been a little bit undervalued. It's not a hero I was expecting to see a lot, but I think it does have
Some games that it can be cool and honestly against bounty hunter you're inspired to try to run this
It's a historical classic counter. You see bounty anywhere on a century to charge him across the map
He tracked him, unintended, and actually killed him in his own game.
And also in this meta where a lot of the carries are ranged, you have this option that you're seeing Liquid exploit in this draft
where you pick Spirit Breaker, Lena is the first two, and they could be, the Spirit Breaker could have been four or five,
but Lena could have been two or one, so mid or safe lane.
And they end up effectively doing a 180 at the very end, putting Mickey on the carry Lena to get Nisha.
A very nice last pick for the game as well.
I think this is a beautiful draft from Liquid.
I definitely favor them in this individual game.
Also, because Razor is a big question mark for me.
This hero we have barely seen, it has definitely fallen off a cliff.
Mckay will be on the receiving end of set Razor.
Nice caster. I'm actually willing to hide.
I'm going to kill Roku.
We'll get dropped by Snake King in the meantime in this top lane.
Both lanes going well to start.
I want to talk to the top.
That answers your question about Razor, I guess.
I'm more surprised they haven't seen Razor against, I mean, maybe it's not good anymore,
against the lone druid, which we've been seeing constantly.
There used to be an old counter at least.
I think that lane is still really tough now.
That's what's surprising for this Amar picked it blind too.
They had only seen the Lena.
The Lena could have gone mid, so he knew none of his matchups.
Or he knew a spirit breaker who wasn't necessarily even laning against.
He was like, we'll play Razor.
If there's a team to do it, it would be Shalkans.
They are the Razor team of all time, playing on all three core positions,
across countless chapters.
Peter, Muntraks, Comet,
and Wotrop inside of the Pidamalis.
And that is the scary part of the Underlord-Rubic combination.
I think the win rate with these two is not particularly good,
but you can see the combo is excellent.
You have Pelicanesis back into, basically, ensure a second route.
Box able to keep you back, and obviously you'll be able to charge at any point.
I mean, how early do you want to roam, if at all?
I mean, I'm guessing you do on the cow.
That's the downside in this game is that I think it's very hard to leave Nina alone.
This hero is super fragile when it comes to playing in the safe lane if you leave your support away from her.
Because she's just prone to being dove in the tower.
And she's playing into bounty hunter plus hero with high damage.
He never really knows where bounty is, he just gets stunned and then into static link, so...
I think Boxy is kind of pinned down a little bit, in that sense.
Which is the I think the biggest law liquid strap here is it's not great for spirit breakers to have to play like that
Maybe when Lena starts semi-dumbling you can try to get away from that
Yeah, so far so good for Falcon still in spite of that one depth up top on to Skeeter
Still looking great on the Cornette births all their lanes are working out just fine
Mal rain 19 and 7 in the mid lane with Nisha on his invoker at 15 and 5
And what type of build are we expecting to see from the Invoker?
Is there any variation these days?
Because it feels like it's usually the heavy Xort.
Yeah, maybe your hammer.
I think you're just going to stick to the standard here.
I don't think there's any reason to deviate too much.
It has been a little bit surprising to me, actually,
to see just how one-dimensional Invoker play has become.
this hero historically has always had different modes between Wexon and Xort as the two primary ways of playing,
but in this turn, I genuinely believe every single game that I have seen in Voker,
it has been playing Xort with Meteor Hammer, I think, every time.
And obviously, hang on, Miki.
Thank you, I know, there's a lot of damage from Amar right now.
I think the Invoker build is kind of a consequence of at least in part the bigger map.
You need to be able to farm efficiently and with the meteor hammer you're farming stacks in the jungle.
You still have our pressure and of course you are going to go for your shard to kill waves without even showing your hero.
Make a lot of damage and we shouldn't even mention that he's playing his signature hero.
He is the best 5 morana.
People are playing morana these days a little bit more often but even when this hero is completely out of meta you can expect him to still pick morana at some point during the tournament.
So all of that experience over the years, definitely going to be paying off.
He must have been super happy when this hero got Celestial River.
Because I think that was what the hero was really lacking to keep up with a lot of the
other heroes buffs over time was Marana's Laming was just too weak.
She had so little damage now that that is compensated for.
She's making run out when it's appropriate.
Yeah.
Britt is now getting charged.
Malry will secure the first power rune of the game.
a damage and a faunty. Almost successfully charged and then back away. Wasn't really
any kill threat quite yet. Only a level 3 spirit breaker and it's back. So that's the
dust though. He missed the tornado and two capels so Tofu making his way over here which means
it's a 1v1 in the top lane at the moment. Sven versus Underlord which they're just gonna fuck.
Bottom lane though, this could be another attempt on to Mickey in the tower. They have creeps
coming in and the siege wave. Charges coming. This puts Charger on cooldown as well.
Barely takes Mickei. The stun coming out from Crit under the tree line.
And a reset now as Amar still chilling in the south. From Malrin though. Absolutely static
blink is there with the vision to follow Mickei dead again. I can tell from the game,
Well, I put a temp on the Mal'Reen ult. The damage is what matters there as Amar is able to secure the double kill.
Sun strike not going to be there.
He's looking for the potential...
Do we have AF? Yeah, I'm going to say, looking for the stun was out of range, but damage is all he needed.
And there's definitely something to be said about Conqueror, right?
Like, there's a couple of things happening in the game already. Amar gets to play...
I'm sure you would agree, one of his least tough 5 heroes of all time.
It's hard to...
Yeah, down here, double route, sun strike, does hit, some speeder.
Down and out, Ace will be very happy with that.
His doctors are starting to pull away a bit with his 2K network lead.
Yeah, but that was what I was gonna say about this bottom lane is that you have a mar on extreme comfort
and then at the same time, I feel like Mickey Lina is not a hero player combination that I know he can play.
It's not that, but that is not in his, like, absolute elite wheelhouse
and this definitely seems like an afterthought that they put him on it.
So you can you can find the fact that he's playing back Amara's on his razor and you're leaning into bounty hunter
With boxy playing in the safe lane as well, which is also a little bit unusual for the liquid side. So there's a lot of like
Individual elements out of the ordinary for them and it can compound sometimes. I think on paper
But he has the hay so you can run around
round? The fissure stinking knocked us out too much to have to TP, though.
Of course, he's insane, actually. He's doubling off Mikkei at 8 minutes. Is this for real?
Wow. 5, 4, 600, Venus, 2400. Let me look at that Dota plus.
I mean, this genuinely just can't, yeah, by the way, his probability of you, wow.
I don't know about that, but...
It hasn't been wrong yet. That's an accident.
your sample size is one game no it's been two now if the other game it was
bugged and set a hundred percent from the beginning and it was right don't
question these things okay it's gonna get a courier kill another benefit of
having the bounty hunter or 16 a time and time again in this tournament I do
think it did deliver its stuff to boxy though so does have a dust but yeah
crit being super annoying I mean what else I'm not saying it hasn't worked
Yeah, as we're going to see the Spearbreaker,
we're going to play him right there with the Plasma Field Amnestad and Gligar,
attempting to TP his Alina, not going to happen.
Replay dead.
Looks like the Spearbreaker does successfully TP out,
but still the bigger kill going away at Falcons.
I'd actually love to see a replay of that.
I think Foxy survived by like one frame,
because the arrow just narrowly hit the Alina before he died.
Amago goes through the beams gate, and greets Ace.
Well, using his own spell against him. He's getting charged from pretty far away and ace
Resigned to his deck now. Platinum deal will finish the job. This is such a rare thing to see. Meanwhile, Falcon's keeping the pressure on on this mid lane
Yeah, this is a high action for sure what we love to see
And I feel like a lot of this is set up just by the fact that they have the bounty hunter, which
It's interesting because at the beginning of this turn I'll have a look at this replay here the fiends gate was Aero's coming here
Josh could have been what's gonna die for the Razor right?
Close call, but I mean they still got the primary prize. Oh, this is some good leeching
Although they do spot on boxy with the sentry
Oh second batch all right. He's all the luck he can get to kill crit apparently who has been owning this game really
Like I was saying, the bounty hunter, it wasn't really here on anybody's radar at the beginning of this tournament, now we're starting to see you for Surgeons.
What kind of counters do you think people will come up with?
If the Spirit Breaker is obviously supposed to be the counter, it's been so far, not working, but of course, we're not at the level 6s yet for Box.
I say that, he just hit level 6 now.
Is he not skillless? Old at 6?
I would say historically there's like there's like three ways bounty hunter whenever he's been
Let's say the active
One is the spirit breaker style where you have
One or two designated bounty hunter killers that just have extremely good ways of hunting him down
The other one is to play heavy five man
So bounty hunter can't serve in attack kills, but Dota has changed a lot since then so don't really consider that a counter per se
And the third one is just deathwalling, right?
Which I would say, you could say overlaps a little bit with the second one, but you can play teamfight without having to push.
But no teams are heavy pushing and winning in 25 minutes.
All the conditions are good for that one.
The downside of having to move my shadow in this game is you're already going to have so much vision for the better hunter.
You might not get full value.
Okay, continuing to get Hound as I crit though, he's leeching this XP, getting closer and closer to that level 6.
And he is the lowest level in the game right now, but he's been the empty part of the RQ as well.
Because Malorim now has, hey the Sun Strike, just clip snaking, nicely done.
Right on the tail of the mount.
We have Link Dagger as the healer right from Malorim.
I'm going to hit the backpaw, but I guess that's enough to kill...
Yeah, the hitbox is on Marana's mount, I don't know.
Very close to being a miss, but doesn't matter.
Small damage no matter where you hit, unlike with an AWP.
That's true.
That would have been a legshot in CS. That would not have been possible.
Original CS legshot still killed.
It's the OGs out there. Shout out to you guys.
Oh, you were good at that.
I just hit them in the toes.
And this Tier 1 tower actually taking pretty heavy damage from Liquid.
It can be denied though now from Proudly that they choose.
Alrene in the cover of the smoke crit.
He's gonna be taken out first, but it will be a trade it seems, so support for support.
He's gonna mahr making his way over.
Not really getting too much out of it though.
Yeah, curious to see his build this game.
Like I said, an offline razor, this might be...
If it has been picked before in this tournament, I want to say it's been once.
So far it's casual Yasha into eventual BKB.
Yeah, pretty standard for him.
God string pop, so...
Form for Skeeter in the enemy triangles.
stealing away a double stack from most likely Nisha was going to take that one.
It really needs to hit level six here. This is a little bit too active maybe.
It's fine, he's been on job. Oh absolutely. So he's going to hit this 14-minute mark.
Wisdoms will be up soon. It looks like based on positioning that it'll just be trades
on each respective side.
Meteor Hammer online for Nisha.
With the boots of travel, so he's farming quite well.
So you can see the separation with the Razor and the Sven for Falcons.
I mean, the vast majority of this lead is the bottom lane, right?
That's what's so surprising to me is that Amar is 3k ahead of the Lena still.
When I said I liked to put the line of Amar on this game,
it was obviously under the condition that the lane score according to expectation.
Now, I'm sure they would agree themselves that this bottom lane has just been amiss
just gonna miss this game. Maybe it is just a lot harder than you would think.
Because they obviously chose it too, right? That's what's worth remembering.
They knew this was coming. Senira was going to be bounty raiser off-lane when they saw the draft.
Oh, ski. So actually running right into the liquid potential gank here.
Oh, didn't have vision. Doesn't look like it.
That was a bit of a big fight. Soon, Nisha shows up.
Yeah, a little bit too far away now. Very close call actually.
right. Monk's still active but they won't get much out of it.
I'm worried about initiating on the stand here with the amount of damage that they have.
The kill will be so slow that if there's any backup nearby, combined with tier 1 TPs.
Skeeter is going for a Blink Dagger, so they'll align with the BKB on Amar.
And they have the same network.
Yeah, that's absurd. And Mal-Rain about to finish his move to travel.
They're going to be aligning some pretty H.C. items for Kyle Hinton.
With the track online, you expect them to look for some fights here pretty soon.
And for Liquid, what do we have coming? Because the big story is Mikkei just off to a
in a business card. Yeah. That's Brown Boots Maelstrom.
I think his hero will just struggle to get involved until he gets piked.
There's just way too many pitfalls. You get caught by any of the stuns you just die.
You're playing without saves moving with guard which it looks like is not on the early menu for tofu
He's going for an essence to steal our first
And not much to rely on in that regard very least ace is farming quite well. He's getting close to that agonist center
So yeah, you'll have that global presence
Also a fun little detail here if you look at boxy's inventory on the Spirit Ranger
I haven't seen this much in this tournament running double raindrop
This was actually changed in the most recent patch that if you have two raindrops in your inventory
It's fucked one at a time.
It's always fucked over once and for all you're a little bit of niche combo.
So I was, when I heard about that, I was like, there's actually a handful of heroes that could be used long.
It's a really cute monoregion plus the spell block.
You have the inventory slots for it, and you don't want to do a Sage Mask build up, which Spiritbreaker doesn't, really.
It's kind of cool to see it here.
Yeah, it seems pretty strong.
I don't mean there's some questions about whether it was intended behavior.
It wasn't even documented in the change log, but it's pretty much the same.
So it could be a bug, isn't it?
It could be.
Uh, but they don't share.
They spot a Mara that Agz is now online for Underlord.
It's Trit, might be the one to spot it.
Takes a full plasma peel.
A Mara very close to DKB, so it definitely doesn't want to fight quite yet.
It's Skeeter and taking him to the enemy bottom.
Nice tornado from Nika, and there's the fiendscape.
On to Skeeter, will have to stir you away.
You know, doesn't he invoke her, but as she comes in from liquid,
look at the damage right on top of that spin.
Absolute punishments!
as Liquid finally getting something going for themselves.
How did we actually see them there?
He reacted instantaneously to the flinks on Sven.
I thought the vision advantage was in Falcon's favor there.
He's still a young kid. He's still 25. That youngster.
He turned out he's only 25.
You were shocked, man. I thought he was 40 years old.
I thought he should have played in 2014.
I was like, I'd get the math. Who would have been 13?
We started in diapers, didn't you know?
Apparently, we played through Prodigy.
We played through Prodigy in 2017, 2018, so I'm all you know.
Nice play from Liquid though, setting that up.
That was a huge counter play.
About half the lead for Falcon is gone.
And the blink of an eye.
Yeah, but they will have these items coming in pretty shortly.
Mark's BKB is complete, he's not going to go for the Manta into Wakin's, so pretty standard Amar build once again.
Wondered if he was going to consider Sanja and Yasha here, but probably thinks the Manta just has too much value against Pit of Malice in particular.
Yeah, of course.
Lincoln is interesting. Is that mainly just for the spare breaker?
It's also just a feels good item on Razor. A lot of the time, this hero is just about to stick on a target and make the enemy team waste as much as possible on you.
on you, but yeah against Spirit Framerate, it's a couple ways against Lena as well.
Both back into the tornado with the meteor, but here's a counter-action from Malarina coming in,
the actual slam on the niche of the runaway shortly after.
Sartre thought it was a one-for-one, Suntrake does get the double kill for Mikke, who's
desperately needed something to go his way to get back into this game, and just like that,
he's forcing Network after being the bottom of the course not too long ago.
Oxy's eye-rolling this game. There's been a couple of crucial bashes in the right moment that one I
Would say straight up necessary for the kill but not over yet
That is a crack kill on to Mickey. He thought he could get away with just getting a killer two here and there
Back down at the bottom the network of the car is just like that with the one death. That's how close it is right now
They're released
Nisha is catching up in a big way here, 4-0 and 5-0 on the Invoker, almost top net worth now.
And how many games have we seen Nisha on this hero just destroy late game?
There's a handful of heroes where I think Liquid feel very confident going late,
even if their other cores aren't doing too hot.
I think Invoker, I think Puck, Ember, you know, storm occasionally.
Nisha can just take over games.
I don't find an opening on Skeeter, no looping if he gets.
I'm going to bean-scape to get a little bit of extra skill-speed here onto Skeeter.
Hit the kill.
It was not truly global.
The kill is a kill, and it's a big one again for Liquid.
I mean, in terms of pacing, which team is happier right now, would you say?
Let's get into the late-game discussion here, sir.
I would say, considering what happened in the last few minutes,
I didn't get much of a feel for the game.
Foxy, did you say that?
How about this?
The typical cast-
The game state.
The game state is big.
That kill is largely inconsequential.
He got the Arcane run.
Honestly, quite fine.
Thank you, that awaits me, L-Rain.
But yeah, just getting a breather,
because this was one of those games where things could have gone out of hand real fast.
Like, you're down 5k out of the laning stage against Bounty Hunter.
We've seen the game like vision yesterday, game three, just,
the game just fell over real fast.
Yeah.
This would have more than a fighting chance.
Connecting on TET, it's gonna steal Shadow Walk,
that's gonna be another stun.
Absolutely, by Nautnus.
And now he jumps right back in onto TET to get back up.
Amar comes in as well, he has trade of support,
yet again, but Niki in a lot of trouble versus.
This way there's no chance at all.
Double kill for Amar and Nisha,
taking quite a bit of damage in turn.
Looks like he'll be able to walk away.
And something we didn't really talk about
and the panel brought it up briefly,
But on paper, this is an insane Rubik's Game.
As it looks like the storm answer will go the way itself.
It is, but it also requires network.
And the way it looks at play, all of the games
get after the fact that we've got the storm answer.
The charge comes in from Boxing, the fire's from the follow.
Another pit-a-mound, right on top of this pen
and Tisha's there with the deafening blast
and the meteor.
It's enough to take about Tisha now.
Another tornado, keeping the Earthshaker at bay.
Boxing desperately gets into the feed gate,
And he does successfully!
He beat M-Gaurain, the Echo Slam!
The last moment to cancel it out, beats him into oblivion!
Tofu steals the Echo Slam!
No kill to come from it!
But he will get away safely, it seems, as Falcon's a little bit too low.
As the charge is continuing on, but we'll get too far away to connect.
That was really, really close.
And Rubik makes these fights hilarious. Such an awesome hero.
That's what I'm saying, if Tofu gets the net worth, this could get very interesting,
but the way Liquid usually plays, Tofu doesn't necessarily take so much space, and in this
game he kind of has to.
His force is Spirit Breaker, he's not going to farm much, and there's just too much value
in getting items on Rubik here.
Fissure is a semi-reliable steal, track is great to have.
Even if you have the sharp Shadow Walk, that soon will be pretty nice too.
Yeah, for sure. It's like a ranged stun for Lina, effectively.
I do believe you steal both abilities when you steal Shadow Walk from Bounty.
Actually, I'm not positive.
Maybe you have to steal when you cast Friendly Shadow specifically.
I actually don't know that.
But I mean, there's other great steals. Moonlight, Shadow, Stormhammer is amazing.
Plasma feel?
Plasma feel is decent, but yeah, you mostly want stuns.
stuns, so your Lena and Oka can just stand at the liver with all their massive output.
Well, if you steal plasma fuel, you can just farm.
That's true.
And you can get your items you've been talking about.
And while working on the Lincoln Sphere that we talked about, now Rain on Urshaker
has the blink Kaia with the Boots of Travel. Looks like he'll finish off the Yasha.
Yasha, yes. Feels good item on this hero.
And what do you buy after that on Urshaker?
I think you buy a BKB this game.
You want to have the...
Give me a better answer after that, then.
You want refresher, I'm sure.
Oh, yeah.
Octorine is also very good.
If you go BKB, there is a world we consider agonins,
because this is going to be a game with a lot of movement.
He is carrying up BKB now, so I think that's going to be telling after this.
Oh, man. He found immediately BKB again.
Arrow's trying to increase his HP, so he's not going to hit those.
Don't go...
In the midst of all of this, as Ace gets another 10 of now,
Tidamalapanta, two heroes, he's got him, they find Nisha all alone, double kill for Mark,
he's desperately trying to get through his fiends' game again, he regrets his dissingons,
stunlocks are there, Liquid lose three, Falcons not up, and this Liquid he rose.
That is real bad for Liquid.
A bad place to fight, outnumbered, and you lose the rose immediately after.
So this is going to start influencing a 5-digit gold lead now, on the 1,000 side, all three top 4s on their team.
Not even a C-Shaker in this position, like we've had to go pick a couple of times on the 4-bite.
He tends to not really get to the 9, but Malarino and these melee mids, man.
There's a lot of M's. Yeah, he's a beast.
They're coming through now, and they're also going to take the mid tower.
This was largely a liquid initiative. That's what makes that extra bad.
It looked like they were getting jumped. They were trying to go on Malorin, and the counter play was just immediate.
Out of solos.
Miki, a recipe away from BKB.
A pipe dream to get to have impact in this game.
in this game it's been very quiet from me i say that he's five and five which i
think is actually kind of impressive
uh...
definitely made it up to carry a score like you're looking for
regardless
but i think uh...
when i think about my i think of mars i think i hear obviously doesn't exist
since it's even a mars not picking up shit but you're right
i think crystal is and i'm are the only two people that reliably will pick
razor
regardless of meta, which is pretty cool to see.
I mean, old school Razor was kind of just an anti-carry, I mean, it still is to a degree,
but you don't have to play this position one, which Amar has shown time and time again.
Well, I guess it depends on your perspective, actually playing position one from the off.
What position is he in this game, really?
I mean, that's why he's such a great person to have on fantasy, you know?
He plays position one, or plays position three as one.
Yeah, but you pick him as a carry.
So in those games you have Skeeter, and when Amar is playing one, Skeeter is playing three.
You don't get both ones.
If you could pick individual carry and individual offlane, and they didn't have to be from the
same team, I think Amar would be a really high value pick, I mean you pick a carry from
another team.
But it's one of the very unique things about Falcons that they have a carry that can
play very selfless, but there's also been games, this turn is a great example of
it, where Skeeter has just hard carry when he's like, terribly.
They can have it both ways and a lot of teams don't really have that luxury, so it's pretty cool.
They've been leaning on that a little bit more lately too, I wouldn't say.
Yeah.
Or more place, more traditional than what you think they are.
He will show up his manta here, freshen the tier 2 tower.
Aegis for Cripp, and Cripp is down, and Scyther, Dut, and Meteor.
Nice meatball to consume for you.
There's always something funny about when they die from the immediate connection of the Meteor.
Now Luka Tower though, Amar will use his base and make the sob.
Looking for a Pipe next to go with his other utility items.
Makes a ton of sense here. I think his job in this game is just screwing Lina.
If you can mess up every fight for me, Falcons are just going to win the game.
I think it's actually that simple.
So he's going to buy all the items that give him mobility and tankiness.
And then he's just going to run at the Lima, link her.
If she wants to pike away, he's going to pike a cult.
And...
Yeah, just run her pipe.
Well, the hurricane pike is supposed to do something about that.
Yeah, well, we'll see.
When you have the pike and she has the pike, who does it for?
Very true.
Who does it better?
And even if she does break the static link, maybe her position is just pretty compromised then, right?
Like, she- or at least she definitely gets away from the fight a lot.
Well, from Falcon.
They wanna try to- might be the one they open up on.
Tracer's gonna walk him off with the God Tricks initiation.
Arrow, done, said, easy kill.
Interesting BKB from Skeeter. Just wanted to see if it still works. It does.
Right?
Gonna get the extra from the box.
I'm in a box, easy to get to the bottom of the ladder.
Amar is there, as well as Skeeter's last right click,
so they find the two.
As Kofu spotted on the other side of the map,
Hopkins are so addressed.
Oh, Arrow will be died.
These are yours, so, actually, that was an offensive move.
He'll track up, so still have the big win.
Oh, okay, he comes in, and there's help, apparently.
He's just there, though, as well.
They're gonna try to fight this out,
two versus five, potentially.
They kill off the bounty.
No, I say that, the love is saved,
Crit is still wanting to die apparently, gets off the track and now Malray jump in, destroys
Nisha, double kill for Snae, and Nikkei the last remaining member attempting to TP out,
he will.
Okay, what?
What heavy, heavy casualties from Liquid?
Help a friend syndrome there, could have just cut Tofu instead you also lose your
invoker.
Now as you have to do, TP your Lena, you lose your mid tower which you probably
could have defended with invoker.
This is just bad going worse and worse for Liquid, a very one-sided affair.
I think yesterday, also rather disappointing showing for Liquid, obviously the game one felt like one they should have taken the win in against the Andex, game two they kind of got rolled.
Doesn't seem like they've made the right adjustments, at least heading into game one today.
It would be a huge shame for them to, you know, if you play the group stage, you go 4-1,
go to the main event, lose 4 games in a row.
And that's it.
I mean, we've seen it before, though. It was different format.
I don't know if a lot of people would have expected it, though.
I mean, it's an old adage. We bring it up all the time.
The more you lose, the more you learn, Cinder. You just get by barely.
Well, they've lost Korea in a row if this one is a loss.
It's time to learn, and learn quick.
They have the time though.
And what's the win expectancy here?
6%?
What a blast!
Did we even...
Liquid to win 1 in 20 times here?
I mean, I wouldn't say this is 100% for sure.
No, it's not. You can...
You know, late game invoker with Underlord.
Lina on the high ground depending.
Stuff can happen, and we always get high ground.
Very difficult.
The thing that does not inspire a lot of confidence in me is I feel like the way in which Liquid are losing fights is a little bit worrisome.
I think they're just not on their A-game where they're decision-making primarily.
The spellcasting is fine, but they're just selecting fights that they would argue they just shouldn't fake.
On A-shark, I'm right on top of them.
Nowhere to go, complete stun lock, snaking.
Just racking up the killgun is to Port Marana.
Seven he's leaving everything. He's tied with a mar with a kill
On the other side again if somebody dies on one side just expect to die on the other
Skeeter just brings ace to an end
Falcon's just dominating this game number one, and they're not done yet. Noomai shadow still active to get the ULV in this occasion
They're all he's gonna be tanked by the cow, but he's just gonna get beat down by the spend
as two last many members of liquid who barely get back to base they have to
spend a pkp from mc as well and this is likely to be some building despite
they're not being an aegis falcon still extremely aggressive are you a little
bit surprised by that because they're the glorious for just chilling with the
lead
I think is it specifically just lineup I know if you have a bounty hunter in
your team he's gonna make you look you will coordinate moves so that's what
they've been missing all this time it's needed crit on the bounty I mean this
it's gonna start getting maybe first base and I don't know how you feel I think
so too it's the way the responses that we've seen just haven't really worked
there so this is your favorite shark right very cool walk through the creep
Even it dies a lot of fans of that ghost walk out there. I think there are I would enjoy this myself
Into the runaway
I mean they can't really chase him down. They don't know where anyone else is
This is a hill Mary if this fails, I think they're just gonna tap out so better find the right target
Or any talent that make a drop as well the five back instantly for Mickey to try to come back into this fight ace completely
Isolated now nowhere to go
To get the track flash moment. It will be reflected, but it matters not
Let's kill after kill and all day my treasure from Malorin
God there's something about a satisfying about that. You need the slugger
People would be there and you just set the tactic. Oh, man
and either will get a shard from the tormentor.
One K gold per minute lead for Falcons.
I was going to say they don't lose these.
Nobody loses these as a matter of fact.
Let's see if that's true.
Dota Plus win probability in the stream, please.
Let's make sure that that is accurate information.
98.22.
Yeah.
OK.
It's possible.
It's the adokar-invoker-hits-a-wampo-tombo factor.
Or Niki gets to play the game factor as well.
I still think it's all order for him to really get into fights at all.
Hopefully we have a listen in with one of the teams.
I still need to play on this car running in and blink bursting in DKBs.
I feel like if we can drag them in a bit, if they don't finish us off, I think fights are easier after DKBs.
But we need to fight under vision or the jump is too good.
Yeah, good luck. It's true though. They have to find their own vision and they have to survive the first three seconds
which has not been the case so far
but at the upper hand. I mean this is core level though
This is the type of communication you're gonna have in moments like these. Obviously liquid
No, they're in big big trouble
But you have to look for the one win condition that you have which is borderline impossible to a fame
But that is exactly what people were saying there
is we play under vision to survive the DKBs because if they do that all of a sudden Underlord, Invoker, and Lina's
Network becomes really powerful. But while DKBs are running they don't stand a chance.
Like they just can't kill a single hero. Look at a Mars inventory. 4000 HP Satanic
Manta-Lincoln. He went away from the pike idea and just beefed up even further.
And now he's going for his classic compressor. Beef back on the menu, Skeeter.
Another track kill get a nice burger out of that tofu
With a very soothing voice I might add
It's a nice person to have on your team always very positive
Even in games like this where you guys are struggling big time on mark
Just one of them
Here the whole time
I can't beat him with bugs so I can jump over the wall.
Is that still the shark?
He genuinely might have never tried to do that before.
That's sad. They got rid of that shark.
The walk the dog shark?
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't blame you for not remembering the shark.
The racer could barely be the hero.
It's been a while.
So we're through on the main stage when a team just runs, they go through their basic stuff.
I mean, actually, I try to carry this, but literally, no shot.
Go through it, I'm all right, there you go through anything if it's taking the gate.
Yeah, that was just a scouting thing, I suppose.
It'll be a free road for Falcon in the end.
Take the gate, take the team's gate.
I don't know where it is.
Actually, it would have been not too bad.
Oh, not again!
Go slant!
Oh, there's the shard!
Okay
Keeping Mickey out of harm's way
Giving out a depth way. I got cheater
Yes, our food. She's guys, Nisha is gonna get storm hammered, but off to DKBTP the nightfall
Shout out to Gora
The OG of that apparently I learned that too. Oh really? He called it the nightfall. Yeah
Credit work credit is due
Agam Scepter for snaking now he is so far my goodness his solar crest drums for staff and now full acts
What would you if you when you were playing which was a decade ago at this point?
You saw somebody's farm like this on a position four or five. It didn't it didn't exist you could
Be cheating
It's like a it's an interesting comparison
I think the amount of items that snaking has now is what you would have on a carry
Yeah, in terms of raw net worth, 16,000 net worth at 37 minutes would be, I would say, probably an average carry game 10 years ago, or at least an average off lane game.
So, his arm is just...
A lot has changed, it's a different game.
But if somebody was super confident that the support position is in your team, watch out to love.
Just feel super confident, they're like, okay, we have four cores!
And if you go farther back in time as to support you by Divine Rapier, you die, give it to your teammate.
That was an actual old strat.
Moonlight Shadow from Falcons, three minutes on the Aegis, they would love to get a kickoff into the eventual force,
just making sure to get initiated on by Foxy.
Finally, they get to drop this knife and kill the blade, it's still not quite enough, why don't the right place come through?
But Underlord is the trade!
Oh boy!
But even when the trade comes through, not in favor of licking it...
Well, I say that who has higher net worth?
That's a 4 of 5 to say.
This is overrated.
This tornado is really important.
Now let's say I'm a 2 here, but now we're going to counter-initiate him with the ankle.
That's right.
That's a little bit.
Another one comes down.
He's dead.
Does have flyback if he wants to expend it here.
And he will do exactly that.
Now Raina accompanying out chasing Nisha off the Shiva as a mark.
Twice about it.
Still has that Aegis though.
And Skeeter, his gods that can't run out.
Charge altitude from bossing.
They don't have a forwarded effort into the marcoon as well, it explodes quite a bit, don't get to the other side though as a static link will not link for too long for a mark, not super strong at the moment, like Falcon 3 said.
Malrin is such a treat to watch a jaker, it's just a beast. 4-0 and 18 so far, it's been in 22 of the 30 kills.
Perfect chaining of stuns there, didn't give them a chance to protect meke whatsoever.
And we got what's the refresher reveal, I don't know if Liquid even saw that he picked
it up.
So just point, but.
They know now.
They know.
One with hope.
And also now with the level 25 talent, lower cooldown and enchant Totem, bounce with
three and a half.
He buys Hoctering, it's sub three.
Then it actually comes real good.
Yep.
In theory.
Even without it, it's still really, really nice to have such a low cooldown on chain stunning.
And it travels two onto skidder, they're still keeping up with 1k per minute.
This is very rare. Even in stumps for this tournament, this is rare.
We haven't seen that top with a bounty yet. This is what it looks like, Japan.
Because usually it's relatively closer to even bounties behind it, the stars.
I think yesterday game three with vision was all but they didn't get to this point like the game was over
But they also didn't have as much gpm lead as there is now even in that game
Pretty crazy. Oh, what's I'm just trying to think of what the saving grace is here for liquid like what you can possibly buy
I think that what I think game two is the saving grace you have to buy damage like I think the biggest problem here is that
You add on one on one hand
You just get changed on to death from the other if you get a good initiation. Do you even have what it takes?
To kill a 4.4k HP spend or razor. I suppose if you change some of them and hit everything then you may do
But there's a blink four-step bounty hunter. That's always going to be able to offer some help. Marana has lead four-step
And we did see a nice comeback today with blue coins. Obviously it's not 42k deficit, mind you.
Yeah, it did involve taking a roach even though they were behind which I thought was an excellent play
And then they took a fight with it and they ended up winning and that ended up snowballing them to the eventual game victory
Yeah, 43k is a different story I would say
Sure
Doing invoker things
Currently sitting at three levels below the enemy position five
We can talk about the 25 talents.
Snake King on the Marana is same level as the enemy carry.
Yeah, I was going to say, he's getting up there.
That's why I brought up the talents.
I'm going to see what his 25 is going to be.
Man, it is the one we see every single time.
It is so good.
I bet it's like a 9.
It's got to be 98% of games.
Yeah.
Strong one.
Got strength.
Okay, double back on the social.
Well, five.
Nicky, get to the other side of the wall.
And now we have another couple.
Can you see it's gonna try to slow them a bit?
I definitely blasted a couple of heroes.
That's right, we'll miss. Crit and the enemy base will blink out.
It's still kind of annoying to go high ground against this underwater.
Yep, and they do not have their Aegis now.
You have Roche now, though?
Yep.
I mean, at this point, it's two minutes from when Roche could spawn.
We'll probably wait for the next Roche.
And then you have double banner, then you can take at least two sets of barracks without too much worry, I would think.
You shut. He's here. No, he's not.
If you're not going to hit this time.
Yeah, so effectively, Liquid have, I want to say, oh nice, Tope actually drew it.
This is the part of the map that we control, is what he drew on the minimap.
about 10% of the map is probably under liquids control right now I think
boxy's certainly the lower side like what about this what if we took this
next three percent then we would have a total who's like yeah guys
game I think we need to order 10%
We can start to position and hopefully not die in a future fight so you feel safe.
You can TP out, the Gork.
We can start calling out the Gork I guess, why not?
It's a travel now for Amar.
I'm not sure where else you go with this here.
It's only 43 minutes in.
Yeah, obviously Ag's I suppose, switch blink.
It's generally very good.
swap that for refresher to like old refresh old blink in I mean I would
expect refresher to I mean they're gonna get refresher shard with this next
roche and I would expect Skeeter to probably take that yeah because the
downside of span is maybe you get a support kill with god's strength and
then you get pushed out and then it just runs down and you can't really do
much that's the multi-shot arrow now for snaking yeah this is you can you
You can fish for stuns on heroes, you can also just farm the entire map because your
arrows all do star store.
We need to do a tier list of 25 cards.
This has to be top 5.
It's so good.
Would you say just right off the bat is top 5?
It's really good.
Because when you get to this point in the late game, a lot of the time what ends up
deciding games when Mironic is 25 is you fight that big arrow.
And it's just, you get so much vision, you get so much damage, and you have to
Oh
I'm not happening now read stock never mind nobody saw it
Everybody watching the international right now. No big deal great plate from boxy there. That's one echo slam down
It's just another form of taunt from Malereen. He's like it's 48 K lead guys
It's too bad you can't tip yourself, I think he would have there
the way for the rush. So 20 seconds away from that. You can see it on the camera shot. There's the
admin in the Falcon's booth who's looking at his watch. A little bit like...
This is their standard now. Usually it's when they get to like 5k lead early on. They slow it down
and they just expand it slowly, but this one they had to get 40k first and then
halt the brakes. You know, like wait a second. This isn't the Falcon's way.
We got to get multiple rushes. Oh, pardon me. It was in the liquid booth. Well that changes everything. Oh
Cover my shadow
Everything drain for them
Well, that was riveting says snaking let me go to the jungle with my sacred arrow. Yeah
Yeah
It's time for I mean that could have been the end of the game
But how he didn't have echo slam as we all saw by that was
Gentlemen, what is the choir more than delicious
This one will come with a second life. That's a pretty damn good seat belt
How the billionaires that well
Haven't found a way yet as far as I'm
I'll see
Should there's something?
They freeze themselves
Occasionally occasionally so we're just leaving the goodies in the pit now, huh? Oh, okay. We're coming on the courier
Ah, no space for it. Just
This pesky cheeses and banners
That's pretty nice though.
Oh, Harry.
The Echo of Malorraine uses Refresher, stun lock for days,
Nisha dead for 80.
That's without buyback.
Indeed.
And that is 70 nice minutes for snaking.
Do you think Falcons go back to farming now?
Is that the play?
Think or hope.
Do you think they want to get to a 100k network lead?
That reflects two light setting records, doesn't it?
True, Rosh banner flashes if you want to push as a result.
The analysis covers the entire screen at this point.
Peter, the outskirt, BKB from Nikkei wants to kill off the Rosh banner.
So they have another one out if they want to use it.
Peter, God, Frank jumps in on the big man, twists the heart.
With the hard boom, and an outside tunnel, maybe just save them though.
Just put that work to the build arrow here, they want to go for ace.
We have half out from that arrow.
Wernification still on line, trying to buy some time for Invoker to come back 30 seconds.
They keep the roach here, and again, there's a different one from Skeeter yet again.
We're trying to keep the follow ace, getting drained, and Lotus Orb did apply, but we'll drop to the deck.
Doesn't have buyback this time, it's still in one lane for sure.
As the lead expands to 57k, Falcons.
Do you want to wait for the next throw? He only has three minutes on this Aegis.
Maybe the next throw is the little secret.
I was about to say you'd love to see it, but do you?
Just waiting for somebody to farm this up in the top lane.
It is. We are approaching that point when snaking is actually overtaking the enemy carry.
So that would be pretty funny. He's only a thousand now behind Micky.
On this Marana, he's about to finish a Wind Waker.
I mean, I understand it from his perspective.
He was worth the lucky last situation.
He had to get to play two late game Dota as a carry.
He was greatly on that box, but now Rain jumps in with the boots of travel, Gary.
Oh, he left the bounty on us, but now he's going to get completely desiccated.
He's got the force of the other side, but a nice bit of blocking, and then taking a jump.
He's a terrific player.
Oh, he's got a damage to the same speed.
Actually, this is the best possible fight number one.
Neither the Avis after all, Malry with a three-man and champ program
will beat Lena to death.
And now Nisha will bite the dust as well.
They do have buybacks onto a couple of these cores,
but Liquid still losing the fight.
It's a 62K network lead.
Now, this round is...
I think you could argue that Liquid played that better,
but they can't beat the numbers.
Big numbers will prevail.
They're fighting a fucking battle.
Oh, I'm gonna gas, lean up, all the way.
They put the force out back into the fountain.
Skeeter not coming up, going to the fountain.
He needs a hundred K Networks, please.
Could do just that.
Skeeter getting back down to the tree.
He's gonna be stuck inside the ice wall.
He's gonna get the four-stack away, though.
And stop at three setting.
Realizing they can't handle this.
Wait for motion number 10 at this point.
Foxy.
Man, they get an air on to lean up.
All right, here comes the bar.
They do realize they can hit buildings at this point, which is shocking development because they won TI last year.
You think they would have known this already?
Tisha, gonna get the hex?
Alright, now damage is coming for the...
Okay.
LSA is gonna hit as well, Nicky, trying to do some damage, but they just still go far away.
And people will not even get the second set of barracks it seems.
Falcon will run away with our 65K network lead, by the way.
That is a great hold from Liquid.
I just have to check for win probability here.
Yeah, let's take a look at that.
Apparently sitting at 100 to 0.
Really?
That is a rare sight.
You got to be saying that.
That is a very rare sight.
That's awesome.
We have reached the point.
Dota Plus has officially lost all faith.
Dota Plus, today, we come back the most legendary in TI history.
I would love to see it.
If Liquid somehow find a way to win this game,
that will be unbelievable.
Dota Plus is looking at its watch right now.
That's the equivalent. Now obviously this game's grounded.
I think I have never seen a single pro game being pulled back from 100-0.
I have played one singular pub game where it happened.
Oh, really? Yeah.
You have to look at the replay.
And I was like, this is unbelievable.
I went and checked it.
Who threw that game?
We won.
And it was 100-0.
I was like, there is no way.
That's one in a million right there.
And it's two more than that probably.
Oh, that's not really how percentages work.
That's right. It's gone on so long that Sven actually has an axe, something we rarely get to retrieve.
The Superman is available.
Aughlable Sponhammer.
He has eaten a Moonshard as well. That came before the axe, apparently.
Yep. I kind of do miss this being part of the hero's build, but it's very hard to make it not broken and still be good.
So, in the way that this works, it's just a hard thing to figure out.
Oh, snaking, there he is. He's ahead of...
He wants to end the game ahead of AK.
Yeah.
70,000.
They're not quite at 100k, though, so you think that...
Have to wait for this bro, should I think.
Walk forward, young man.
Not so young anymore.
Well, compared to us, every of the older players in the lobby,
but his experience is the best teacher,
so he will not walk two steps to the right inside his own base.
Tofu has yet to draw which part of the map they control now.
I think it's just the fountain at this point.
It's smaller now than before. They will go for another Hail Mary smoke find.
How many Hail Mary's do you get in a game?
Yeah. I feel like we've gotten quite a few.
Falcons are just waiting for anybody to lose position if Ace were to cast a firestorm here.
Great timing for the firestorm. Incredible play from Ace.
Perfect play. Arrows.
We'll find their mark. Another wave killed by Snake in 340 seers.
You have this guy and your fantasy.
That's true.
Well, I guess it depends what banners you have on him as a support.
I don't... Can support banners even get creeps, or they can, right?
I thought everybody could get the same.
You're actually looking at that. That's the bad part about it.
They don't... Supports don't have a red banner.
The creeps for it, but...
I don't think they can.
You don't understand the expert.
No, I am definitely not.
I mean I didn't say you're good at it. You're an expert. That's like your co-cast
Keep up the good work. Oh for two
72 all right, what's the over-under here senator 100k. Are we gonna get there under?
Yeah, because they would require like a team life and buy back all their heroes and they don't have to buy them
Well, I suppose if they goes late enough, they'll have to buy back to your co-coxie
Okay, 3k lead now.
You don't have to buy a backmound.
He gets the stun after being shut up.
He tells you he needs to stay.
He's coming out to me as well.
We're doing a play that's absolutely nothing.
He's got the lead maybe.
No profit spent.
They can lead this big day lead up once and for all.
No more tokens to save this time.
I'm already getting some good damage out.
The counter is dead.
Absolutely no way to get back to the game.
Refresher's popped out two deaths in a like a without buyback 77K network lead.
Hey, Roach might be up in five seconds, little falcons.
Let's take it easy here.
We've got a torment.
Play a little discipline.
Tormentor's up.
Get some extra gold there.
So creep's available to kill the jungle.
If we wait until 60 minutes, we'll get the tier five.
Oh, god.
Everybody needs a tier buyback.
It's absolutely.
Goodness gracious.
Like, though, he might be on the menu after all.
He should have to pop his BKB.
try to hold this three versus five. I have to give up some buildings.
Critics literally standing on top of the heroes.
Forgot how to move his hero. Understandable in such a very lengthy game.
Second set of arrows still is the way of Falcons.
I do believe this is going to be megaed. I know this is a bold statement.
I do think it's going to happen to Zeran.
I'm pretty far. Get the treasure. Get arrowed.
Amar is there with the right glimpse, he looks up the building, there's the Superman, but into the cancel!
By the tornado!
Well, Amar's actually looking to get his stand, he's looking to play the right thing, Amar's right on top of the status,
because now they can leave Nikkei, finally putting him to an end, no buyback for him!
Two versus five, Falcons!
Is this enough of an advantage to finish the game, or do you want to go for a road to get something 35 seconds?
Go take this gift for a run and hang it up!
And Falcons, he should, surely, be able to take game one!
So there's best of three with an 85 game network lead.
Fine, good.
Just an absolute chill.
Last game has never added now.
Ray wants one more kill for the road.
G-Fan, the three line, storm hammered.
They should be close, killed off as well.
89k, can we get to 90 at least before this game ends?
Am I hearing 90s?
Let's get this guy.
I don't sense I'm not as stolen as a local huge play
from him as the GGs come out.
89k network lead.
He's about to end his death, not be sniping!
That's the game number one.
Very close call overall.
Honestly, I had fun though. This was a fun game number one.
Game... I think they enjoyed themselves, too.
And...
Wait, who's giving me a thought?
Yeah, probably one, Steven.
Yeah, problem.
Uh... Liquid, gotta commend the mentality to hold on to the bitter end there.
Um...
That game realistically speaking,
was over for about half an hour.
I would say at least 20 minutes.
It sounds about right, yeah.
We've seen crazy contacts at TI,
especially on the main stage when the stakes are high.
This was not one of those games
where Liquid even got a single winning moment
for the last 40 minutes.
I think every single exchange went in Falcons favor
and they're up one and a half.
Yeah, one, oh, she's back.
Thank you very much, Osvaldo Zidrella.
55 minute game with an 89k gold lead for a game that didn't even felt for the longest time
solidly in the hands of Falcons. I think winter, maybe it's an odd mix of respect for liquid
and their ability to still make those plays and potentially also the respect of being
in the lower bracket, the pressures on you. You want to make sure.
I just want to make sure, you know, why do you need to risk it when you already
have all the lead in the world, all the farm in the world.
There's nothing, no point for you to risk it, you know,
just play yourself, soft, up, paid, slow, right?
I mean, they probably had one of the biggest lead
I've ever seen at 40, 45, even at 50, like,
that was insane.
How can they back, all right?
They do the thing where they win the early game,
and then when they win the early game, like,
okay, how do we want to do this?
Do we want to go for Rosian?
Do we want to go high ground?
Do we want to destroy the ancient,
you know, the whole point of 32?
No, no, no, no, no. We want to build this. They're worthy. We want to impress winter. They are fully back in form
If they are able to replicate this again because my gosh, this was a scary performance with Falcons in game one
And they did it with the bounty hunter that they stole from yesterday's games
They did it in a very solid way. I think this was the type of Falcons
You'd love to see this was their own style and they crushed with it. Yeah, I really love the support play this game
I think the bounty and the Marana both did such an excellent job both with their gameplay
and the riot my station. We talked in the panel about getting a use instead of the Marana actually was about effecting that oven Marana got full stuff. I know winter was so happy to point that out being so good. But honestly, I feel like on both teams, this game was a game of full stuff. Every single fight. It's like we're seeing people be repositioned nonstop into getting saved. I think it was way more impactful for falcons in the early game because it meant that liquid were never able to cinch out the kills when people got repositioned.
Yeah, and also I mean this game crit was an absolute pinata
I think liquid like he weren't seeing much in this game
I've been trying to just smack crit as much as possible seven deaths to his name a lot of the highlights was a
Spraybreaker charge and the London Lord all and oh wow we then finally killed Chris
But on the other side of the screen you've got skitter getting kills my rain jumping around never dying in the game a mark
You know 12 115 so as much as crit did tank tank a lot of that aggression
That was only the aggression that we ever really saw from liquid because the rest of the show was Falcons
just running throughout the entire map, being so efficient with their farm and how they just
kind of closed it out and just took every objective and what they wanted to do on their
terms. Yeah, I think you can make a case for any player to be the MVP of this game for Falcas,
especially because the game went as long as it did. Winter, who would you go for in this
situation and would it be Amar? I think it has to be either Skith or Amarin. I think
they are the ones that I think set a lot of very, very crucial plays, especially with the
They were able to make a lot of space, but of course, you know, in the early game, the bounty hunter created a lot of work is secured the lane.
And everything just felt it was very, very straightforward.
And this Mirana plus bounty hunter duo, I think it's probably my favorite duo right now.
It has to be the strongest duo in my opinion with bounty hunter.
We've seen bounty plus Wyvern, but it didn't really feel like it's as strong as the bounty plus Mirana.
It was an incredibly strong show and I'm sure we're gonna see it addressed later on in of course the second game
We're gonna see we've seen a lot of Marana already throughout the international group stage and main event
Whether we're gonna see that again. We don't know yet, but one thing that we will see right about now
It's their action slacks
Hello everyone, we are now in the factory, and we also found some fans behind us, we are going to play some games with Sluggy.
We gathered some fans here. The contest is, they will say a name of a Chinese Dota hero, a nickname.
You have to guess what it is. If you get it right, you both get a delicious prize, alright?
Are you ready?
So this time, we will let our fans, our fans, to teach our foreign friends how to say our Chinese hero's name.
If they guess the name right, they will get the prize.
Okay, I'll team the dog. Here we go. Are you ready for the first hero?
Are you ready?
Blue cat
Blue cat?
Blue cat!
No cheating here.
First guess
Spin
What is it actually?
The meaning in English is blue cat
Blue cat
Your honor
No!
You are allowed now to do charades
You can charades and act it out for him. Good luck, please.
Alright, any thought?
Again, can you do it again?
Do it again, do it again.
Come on, he's got a head.
You know?
Star and Spirit.
Holy!
We casted it on the level!
Yeah!
He's got the good Star and Spirit.
I have to say that.
You're very, very good.
Well done.
OK, your next contestant, please.
我们下一位到我们的中阶了,
it brings all ages, man.
Thank you, thank you.
The only Chinese ages will be given out.
Okay, answer.
I better stay down.
Okay, okay. Who was the eighties' verys, man?
Who's he guessing?
My two-teeth.
Okay, uh, um,
Big butt.
Oh, god.
Any guesses?
night next to Sanchez
No, it's just that it's a good one
No, no, no, no, what's that English?
Big Booty
Big Booty?
Big Booty on Big Booty, we're both out there
Big Booty, baby!
Alright, Big Booty
Queen of Fame
Biggest Booty?
Biggest booty green of pain
Okay, okay, okay
Do you want to try again? Do you want to try again?
Alright, that was something, this is a group effort, both of you.
Okay, let's go, last one.
Fast, fast, fast, we gotta go.
Let's take a look at the names of the four.
Thank you, another one you got.
All right.
Not lose, not lose.
Not lose.
Uh...
Bummer.
I really don't know.
Act it out.
I'll take it out.
That one is out.
Oh, come on! Come on!
Come on, baby!
Right here!
There we go!
Congratulations! Thank you guys so much!
Hope you had some fun! There's some more!
Yeah! Yeah!
Yeah!
I back to you guys on the pitch!
I do love!
I got two options to choose.
Big Booty, then you have to agree to make that decision.
Oh, that was a good one.
I also got a big booty next to me. It's a big Largo actually
Sorry, you got small
If you want to get yourself big booty or small booty you can get yourself to the secret shop to
Get your own lockers or for example, Ray. Oh, you got there. I got a big old
You said it's baby Roshan baby Roshan small small Roshan Roshan of reasonable size
Carriable size you could take of everywhere to the park to the movies. Do you think that I can't take this one everywhere?
It's quite quite a size. I have a confession
I actually have I may have bought that wonderful plushy this one that one and that one and I don't have any space in my suitcase
So if our donations are open
I'm going to go back to you.
Yeah, so if anyone's to help me
get a new suitcase in China and
I need to buy a ticket would
love the assistance. All right,
you can get yourself peace. I
say okay. We're good. All right.
We have we have got great series
on our hands of growth that we're
going to continue talking about
as liquid and Falcons. There
was one particular that I think
already. Showed us how this
game would end. The right
game and around midnight something awkward happened yeah it's very sad it's
very sad our main character big booty he was involved in some gang that he
kind of set up for him so he was trying to help you know Mikke got ganked at the
ball lane he placed under all the time to help I think he's dead and then he
didn't realize I'm looking for him and he dies also this is basically the
story of the early game. They just had so bad of a start, both the side lane, just got,
especially the lane, just got demo-aged and there was no way for you to come back in.
And when you pick Lina on the safe lane, that hero does not like losing her lane at all.
You cannot come back from a bad, bad start, you know, with that hero.
Yeah, we can take a look at the Lina versus Razor because that was very much the story
of the early stages of the game.
Yeah, coming into the series, we wanted to see Amar have that presence to kind of step
up into the game. And of course here he's already like the Asher BKB and for Micae that 4-4-1 scoreline
having Maustrum and 4-star fight at 20 minutes into the game. Like you want to look at your Lina,
you want to see like BKB, you want to see the pike, maybe even the Cruses. Like you want to see like
actual items to play around because you've built an entire lineup where Lina needs to stand in
the middle protected by everyone to do the damage. And I think Falcons is such an exceptional job
just chasing down this Lina, shutting down them up so quickly. And because of Razor having
you see range here. You look
on them. They will die
every time they have to TP out.
So yeah, just an exceptional
draft and really great
gameplay from thousands, putting
Mickey into just a real
composition that we don't
often see him in. Yeah, and I
think that BKB that we saw on
Amaraya. That's just the
beginning of it for a month.
Yeah, I really liked his iron
build this game because we
often see him try and be
like the carry. And I mean
in the way his iron build did
let him be a carry, but
he's not out here trying to
do all the damage by, you
know, do this or whatever.
Whatever this guy went a very nice build that simply allowed him to sustain in fights and live so he can get off his old for longer periods of time and get more links so that make it just simply cannot play this guy had a
Lincoln's obviously playing his bar. He had a satanic and he had a refresher. So when he's applying his eye of the storm in these fights is reducing the armor of all of the enemies around him allowing you spend to chunk and do even more damage,
including Crit's track damage amplifier on top of that.
They're able to do so much just by having this Razor in the middle of it.
And he's just surviving and surviving because he has a BKV, he has a Manta,
he has a Linkins, he has a Satanic. How do you kill this guy? You can't, it's impossible.
You ban that guy.
How often have we seen Razor ban? Very rarely. It is soon time to see what's coming our way
in the second game. These two teams both are known for taking series long. Not just
Just within the game that we just saw, but also within the series.
Going to a game number three is in their ammo, both if they're winning and if they're losing.
So I would not be surprised to see that happening.
It is with this one Team Liquid with their backs against the wall in this lower bracket,
because I don't know if I need to remind you, but it is lower bracket here between these two Titans of teams.
Team Liquid and Falcons with a 1-up for the defending champions, Team Falcons and Team Liquid now looking
to scramble to get that W on the board in game number 2.
And as we nearing the draft for this one, Tiga, what would you like to see different?
Because so much fell apart with that laning stage that I don't know how much.
You can look at the draft and say, you know what, that's where we should have done better.
I feel like at least for Falcons, because they have so many specialist heroes,
And I have been forgotten about or not touched recently. It now kind of reminds me because in the first phase they ban tree. Earth's for it. Haskell does the central band, which again, it's like it's hit or miss personally for me.
So if you want to utilize hindsight and scenario, maybe you replace that central band. If the pic order is the same, and then you respect a bounty or raise or something.
If you really care that much, I think the first three bands are fine just to send off. But yeah
Don't allow Falcons into this ultimate comfort because when you look at these heroes
This is kind of what Falcons really wants to play if the meta enables it and the meta hasn't really said these heroes are very good
Up until the point where it's like no we need to survive. They're gonna work
I mean the other form is like having the rule big and as the just feels like they don't have a position 5 here
There's both support. They're kind of one farm. They want to be greedy
They want to be on the position 4-0 so you get a little bit more farm XP
And I just didn't really like the setup you know as much as what Falcon had it was the day and night
The bounty hunter Mirana is like up there and then the ruby spearbreaker is kind of like down
You know boy bash the razor mid lane at time. Oh, yeah
He did so much that game what percentage chance you think they have to win ti right now liquid 17% exactly
I'm not sure what you're saying.
There was only one answer to get
there. One thing we didn't talk
too much about is that the
matter of screen and his
counterpart. But the mid lane,
we had the overall last pick
going away and liquid, so it was
invoker that was picked into
the year shaker. We knew it was
coming and yet this Earth
shaker never died. Yeah, never
because he's just the best.
He's the best. I love seeing
Malrin on these heroes like
shaker or San King when he
He can do that and he can be around the map and enable everyone else.
He gains his farm like on the way, like he'll farm on the way, kill someone, farm back.
He's so efficient and good with this.
I think it also comes from how good the supports are, right?
Because we've seen other teams where the mid will end up walking around the map and kind
of flailing because the supports aren't setting up enough.
You have this super, super, super strong duo in Murana, bounty hunter.
And it just means that anywhere in Mal Ring goes you have like a spend stawn,
you have your Murana follow up.
have like a razor to do damage, you have everything. I think Malrin was perfectly enabled in the
draft.
It definitely did seem that way from the way game one played itself out. I'm sure that
Team Liquid has something in mind to come back in this game number two. There's a lot
of effort that needs to be put in this draft though because they need to start off well,
they need to set themselves up for success starting from the lanes already as that's
where it all went wrong in game one.
But let's see what is coming our way.
Team Liquid versus Team Falcons, game two.
The second game we're gonna have Falcons on the radiant side.
We swap that around, Team Liquid will therefore be dire side
and Team Liquid will be the team with first pick.
Falcons overall last pick and
We got maybe a couple changes coming out one hero in particular might be missing in terms of bands
Because team liquid does have the possibility to pick up the ember if they really want to but it's not just that
Because it's been a little while since I wait a minute. I'll make it through wait a minute. Oh my god
Yeah, this here is back. Oh
Do you want to play ember against that or no?
Yes, I think that's probably the best answer because you you kind of stop him from moving around in the team fights
You build mage there, but then again, you know, I think yes just gets to a point where he doesn't really care
He's gonna get there
There's a couple ways to try and navigate us for it
It's you need to have early ways of when he rotates have the damage to kill him
Don't allow him to spread the magnetize over along durations like catch him kill him
Stop him from using the ultimate or you just gonna have really tanky heroes
with the spells, you know sounds like a job for Doom.
Alright, what was the one room doing?
You want to remind me?
Tankiness to survive or just kill him?
Can we take a small step back in the sense that this Earth spirit,
I mean we talk about a lot, we see it banned almost every single time.
What is the short version of why this hero is banned every single time?
Quick map play, you get to lane into pretty much the most matchups
most matchups you don't really care what you play into even some of the harder
matchups you can play because you can kill off the range creep you rotate nicely
you can buy vessel you can buy shevers you can buy like whatever items you want
to continue fighting into the map and magnetize there's so much damage the
talents also feel really nice so your damage skills throughout the game your
map presence is dead you can TP rotate quickly like everything you want in a
hero that's where it has from the mid lane. It's so hard to kill because he has so much
He also is like so good for mid lane because he doesn't even have to skill roll anymore
You can just skill your kick and pull and you're able to just clear waves and farm
Efficiently and then on top of that his innate means that he gets extra damage depending on how many rocks
He hasn't used so in mid lane where you don't even need to use your rocks
You can just kick creeps into other creeps for example
It's like he just is dealing that so much more damage than he should be doing
One day he'll get nerfed into a point where he actually goes back to support again, but maybe this is the TI.
This is the TI that will send him back to the role he was started on.
I tend to think he didn't start on that because it was kind of broken on the release, but anyways.
We got a nice start for the draft for Team Falkers as well.
The Lee-Manna Centre are a classic duo and have quite success this international.
Yeah, very stable foundation for the draft here.
I don't know if the Lina is going to be a flex for them because I probably don't want Skeeter to play this hero
because it doesn't really fit the ammo which we discussed briefly in the first game where Skeeter needs to be the dagger hero, he needs to be the front line hero.
Do you think it might be a support? Do you think there's a chance that it could be a support?
Or I remember Falcons did it a long time ago on Crate.
Sure but I also could just see like...
I mean there's so much flexibility with it.
Fundamentally if it is cause no matter what central tetanina core done against the earth spirit
I prefer that to be the case
I don't really want to see centaur to go to support and then everything goes around in different directions
But liquid they want the pace to be increased
Immensiast game they now pick up two supports that don't just play just chilling way things
There's not a rubic way for things to happen. So spirit breaker chasing into the map
It's now a tusk and a hood wig together getting kills making moves and that's exactly what earth spirit wants
So the pacing will be very different today, more on Falcons. They need to be ready for this amount of damage in both the lanes and the early rotations.
Something like Undying is still in the pool, if they want to just try and focus on bringing lanes back to neutral, because right now Liquid is just going to go for murder after murder after murder.
Um...
And you kind of need supports that can match up against us like Wyvern with the Embrace against the tag team or something like a
Dark Willow to dodge the tag team or the Wind Ranger. I think heroes like this that provide you with stability in the lane
They need to pick their supports right now and ensure that the last pick would be easy because if they pick supports
They are too greedy and the laning phase could be a question mark
Then it could create a lot of problems when you're trying to pick the overall last pick
So the total picks here, 16-17 on Falcons is very very important.
Hey, you're talking about the Enchantress already?
Yeah, this is the strongest support in the early game being as well, like very very strong.
Like probably Crete gonna be playing the Enchantress here.
They very much went for the we want to survive as much as possible, right?
You've got the two lane dominating supports in their own ways.
And that alone is like, okay if we can win the first eight,
that will buy us time to get to 20 and by 20 we feel like we will have a draft that will outscale
liquid but it is now a lot of emphasis on both script and other to combine snaking and crit into
one main. Anyway crit and snaking to kind of fill their roles.
I'm also kind of like a fan of how the way they play the android you max the
the interstice early and you don't get healer and you just get damage healer.
Mmm, no one of those type of supports, I see.
Oh, what?
Wow.
You don't...
I mean, I'm a fan of the Inchart and Hill, and you just get the creeps, you just body,
and then when Earthroot rolls in, you just press Hill, and then you just don't care anymore.
It's like, alright, great.
I'm doing my job.
But I can see the damage.
I think if you just put some Tusta, half HP, there's no fight to be had, right?
There's the big booty!
I don't think I've ever said booty this many times on panel.
What a name for a hero, by the way.
He's not even, you know, from old Dota 1, right?
No, he is Dota 1. The name is based on if you remember his old Dota 1 Dota 1, he actually
has a very big bottom. A very big bottom.
That explains it. That explains it. Thank you for that.
Okay, this is probably Pace's best hero. Although he knows this hero inside out.
It gives them a lot of global presence, you can connect to the TAS, it's just a very, very
strong lane with whole wing.
I'm expecting the underlaw to go with the whole wing and the TAS will be on the 5.
The position 5 with the range carry gets around everything up for Liquid.
What is a good range carry here though?
With Lina, I feel like she outranges a lot of heroes and with Centaur, I'm worried
about the ability to get on top of someone, you know what I think?
We have the ES, so I think you just need a draft that works and makes sense in the lane.
And you're gonna be fine. I think ES is going to be a true win condition, like even like
a midger sprocket that's still in the pool. It should be fine with a pass. Anything that's
strong in the lane.
I mean, it's the profit, the win rangers, the lunas, like the super kind of generic
range call that will do their role in the early game. And then you can just join
the Earth Spirit, like, went to the Revention, and join the Underland with Axe timing.
You don't want to carry that, like, it's out of sync with Undeloved Earth, right?
Yeah, the benefit about having the ampere is you have a way to wake up the sleep, you know,
from being.
I think being really hates playing to the ampere.
We saw Nature's Prophet banned by Falcons in game one.
So it is on their radar.
They might still ban it out.
I feel like at this point as well, I kind of have to ask, like, is Lone Druid just
ignored in this series?
Like, is he dead?
Is he done?
We saw him be so impactful yesterday.
The moment is ignored but also there could be a consideration for liquid potentially just because you see the kind of supports, the lone druid can always hunt them and you are going to farm quite nicely in lane so it is a potential pick up for liquid as well.
They have a really nice score as well so like whilst lone druid is farming up all those items, I think the rest of them can play really nicely together.
I think lone druid bear has insane kill potential on lane if you bring Tusk as well. I mean so it would be so nice.
The final pick for Liquid.
Yeah, the position here is about how greedy they think they can go, you know, here.
Can we go for the long drill or do we want something more team-based like a Boona?
Like all the win, you know.
Win is like a very team-based hero.
This is a little bit, I would say, like a strange one because Centaur is considered
a very hard counter to win, but Liquid feels like we don't really care about that.
All we need here is a hero that can play with the team because the benefit of having a win
as a carry is the rune fights are going to be very favorable for you.
You can just come over, shoot a power shot.
Usually it's going to end up with your team winning the smaller fight there.
So that's going to give them a lot of early game aggression.
Falcons have to decide as well on their part how greedy can they get.
What type of skitter hero he's going to be able to get his hands on here to stabilize
the game and let the leaner farm. And what melee heroes are available here?
Tiny. Unless you want to go back for the ganks that he's played quite a bit off, there's a
test of your zhuzha. I think it's okay. I think it's a bit decent.
I feel like this one, he has a lot of options that he could go for. He has deep pockets.
Yeah, if Urza wasn't so bad of a hero, Urza would be good here.
until they pick no.
Traditionally it's countered as the hardest hero for underlot to deal with in the whole
game.
I mean I was trying to answer it right.
There's any way to just try and punish the magnetizer will really feel really nice right?
So I mean if the Life City Band makes a lot of sense from liquid to protect it, you're
not really going to see Juggernaut in current meta.
Also Arme is doing the playoffs.
Didn't we see it?
Like somebody, was it TRIED?
Pure play.
I think somebody played Juggernaut I don't know about it.
We're just going back for the Sven, why not?
That's very solid.
I think the way I see it is,
Underlord reduces a lot of your damage
and Sven all runs through with too much damage.
So you don't really care,
and he still fits the ammo of a Blink stun.
And it's very, very important that Skitter is playing the Blink stun here.
And I think with Nisha playing the Earthshred,
it just takes one roll in into a fiend script.
Skitter will be there,
Oma will be there,
and you kill the Earthshred off very quickly.
So I think the falcons have the tools to deal with the probably the strongest hero at the eye so far
But if they don't control the pacing of the game liquid have all the heroes to poke to prod to to get an objective to reset
Get the resources go again for another kill that they have a very scary lineup
It looks a little bit better for liquid but I think falcons
They have the tools to just build that big net worth it again to play through their supports to get their cause online
Yeah, when I look at these lineups, I think Mickey's pick
Like, at first, it confuses me a bit, you're able, you now have the plus armor from Sven,
you're playing into a dispel from Enchantress, you're playing into a Malrin's Lina who doesn't
care about win-run in the first place.
It seems like early, they have a chance to really shut him down and give him no options,
but the other four heroes are very, very strong to the point that I think they make
up for his weaknesses and then eventually when Micae is able to have a BKB and
can then join Nisha in like going on Malri, Lina for example, and not letting him play the game.
So, main question, it's very simple. A game three, yay or nay.
It's a tough one. This one is a very tough one. I think it's very equal.
But according to stats, you can't go wrong with Earth Spirit.
Yep, what he said. I mean, to be fair, statistically Earth Spirit very good.
But after that first game, it's hard to go against Falcons.
I think liquid they're in a better position. They have the earth spirit. They have the aggression. They have the liquid of two years past
Surely, I think if
Falcons is able to beat liquid here. It's obviously very good for them saying competition and that's very nice
But I also think this would be a very strong statement of like hey guys
We will answer your earth spirit with a leader and we will win and that will open up the draft for them
moving forward in this international so there's maybe gonna be a lot of other
teams looking at this to see if Falcons will get that advantage over them in the
games to come but of course they have to perform first they have to do it first
they have to beat Team Liquid and eliminate Team Liquid first and so far
their history here during the international has been mostly going to
a game three with maybe they can break that curse here for a second time round as we first are gonna
hear from coach A.Y. before heading in the game. Thank you so much Shaver. A.Y. Reed got a chance to
talk to Blitz in the last interview and he was just talking to him about how much he loves you.
20 years together in the Dota 2 scene one of the biggest friends that he has and then you
walk out there in game one and absolutely trash his ass like it was nothing. Why why are you
So mean to him. I don't know. But yeah, I've known blitz forever. We know insurance is still the one. I respect the guy a lot. And it's also a pleasure. Apparently, this is the first time you played on the main stage.
You told me that you gave me a hug backstage. It's policy. I'm blessed.
Wow. You certainly don't care enough to not pick Sven again. Very rude of you. Let's talk a little bit about this fan. Why you guys? Why spend? Why so strong?
Um, I think he fulfills like stuff that we need our lineup skitters good at the hero and like he goes well with Amar and
Marvin's hero pool, so it's just a good hero for us
You guys have already
Eviscerated everyone's bracket in this series, but at least tell me we're gonna go to a game three promise me
Alley promise me like you would promise him 20 years ago
No, I really hope not you don't hope that you don't make it to a game three. You gotta reward that alley
They're watching. Yeah, I want to zero for us. Oh, come on. Come. Okay fine very well
I hope that you get that 2-0, I crack it.
But thank you so much, you guys, we'll get into the game.
Thank you so much.
Falcons vs. Liquid, game number 2.
AYUI, one of my favorite, I call them personalities, I guess, of all time, Cinderin.
He was a coach for us.
Percy was a player, though.
Us?
Yeah, DC, back in the day.
Yeah, you just say us you know people are gonna be like what he was my team did he coach you was my personal coach
Yeah, he's a really nice guy very humble and glad to see him have so much success
I mean he's won three TIs technically two as a coach one as a player one of the most legendary
People in the scene no doubt about it. It's we had in the game number two. Do you think there will be a game number three?
um I
Think there's a pretty good chance of it at the very least
I mean the first game was obviously a complete beat down here when the game extends that long and one team is dominating at the end
It's going to look like the worst loss ever right, but in reality
You know you could have argued that they should have gd'd out earlier
And they were just far behind against the bounty hunter lineup
I knew it just that was a very hard game to recover. It's what I'm trying to say
but liquid are the kind of team that can bounce back from a bad game immediately and find the right solutions and obviously
They have very, how to say, they have very resilient players.
They've been through everything. They've been through incredible win streaks.
They've had the worst losses ever on the biggest stage. They've tried it all.
So, and obviously their players are a little bit of a mix of two past teams,
the old Liquid and the old Gaming Gladiators, and both of those teams
had rivalries between each other and obviously with the other big dogs at the time.
So, experience is very key in situations like this,
and they've got that in spades, at the very least.
And the lineup this time, I think,
is just also better overall than the game was in number one.
Yeah, they got the big booty on ace.
I think I would have guessed Underlord,
but I didn't know that that was the answer.
Of course, Pitlord is the original Cinderella,
the OG of Dota 1.
Oh, yeah, they get to pick that again.
This time it's against a much different lineup.
You have, I mean, Sven is the same,
I suppose, from Falcon's side,
so Skeeter will get a repeat on that,
but Amar playing much different heroes this time around
than the Razor.
It is Centaur who has been,
the funny thing about this draft is,
you didn't know where the Centaur was going
until the very last pick
because it could have been mid technically,
it could have played carry, Lina.
But yeah, that's part of the flexibility
that comes with Falcons.
Yeah, for as long as this team has existed,
they have been,
I want to say the biggest flex team in Tier 1 Dota, like they've just always valued having shared hero pools.
That might be one of the things that AEY has been focusing on the absolute most in the draft, and has kind of had his players either train specific heroes to get them on a playable level, or just immediately recognize, right, which heroes do we have major overlap in that I can use for strategy.
Obviously Razor is one that comes to mind from the beginning, Timbersaw, Huskar, Viper.
And a lot of these heroes, what they share is an ability to absolutely destroy individual
matchups.
So a lot of the games that Falcons win, one or two of their lanes are extremely one-sided.
Now last game, that wasn't necessarily the case by draft, it kind of just accelerated
very quickly.
Or you could argue they stomped the bot lane, which I still think they shouldn't have on paper, but other than that,
that game wasn't a game where they were just drafting to smash lanes.
This time around, the hero that comes to mind for that is the Enchantress.
This is a hero Falcons love, played in countless times, but it's actually in the hands of Crit, which is kind of unusual.
This is, I think Snaking has the highest win streak of all time in Pro Dota on this hero.
Maybe on any hero, I believe he won 21 games of Enchantress in a row in 2024-2025 before he lost it, if I'm not mistaken.
I just remember it being this most ridiculous stat line, but they're still choosing to put it on Crit instead here.
Crit plays Bane, but I guess they just want to keep their players in the respective lanes rather than in terms of the heroes themselves.
Yeah, for sure, and I mean, Enchantress is such an ultra-aggressive hero,
and this is a hero that can scale into the late game as well.
Yeah.
You've seen so many times before.
But yeah, now that Snake King is on Bane, you're not gonna be...
I don't think you can get the same farm as Murano.
No, that is not happening.
That is definitely happening.
But the thing about Ench is in certain matchups and certain lanes this hero dominates,
this doesn't seem like the type of lane that that's likely going to happen.
You're playing into level 2 tag team with a Windranger
and still with a Centaur.
I don't think you are going to be putting all that much pressure,
but you're definitely going to get a lot of far onto a Mar.
And we've seen the Centaur's kind of take.
I mean, if he doesn't go heart first,
then I'll be shocked or radiance or something weird.
Pickle Helm of the Dominator and some of the real Amar into Midas.
Well, that's a real Amar build, isn't it?
That's equivalent to double Midas.
That's excellent.
Helm of the Dominator Midas Battle Fury.
Yeah. I mean, Helm is, I guess, standard at that point.
You just get it literally every single game, understandable.
Actually makes me miss Marcy a little bit.
I can't believe I'm saying that out loud.
That was the original Helm when I came back.
Yeah.
You know, the bounce off of that one.
I'd argue it's surprising that we've seen her, I believe, zero games.
But you, if she was brought, if she was picked,
you think it would be more likely to be a supporter core?
I think it would be more likely for it to be picked as a core, but it should definitely
have some shortcomings.
I'm not super surprised that she's not top meta or anything, but zero games on that
hero is quite surprising, especially because there's a couple of players on the big stage
here that are in the main event that really play a mean margin and are like specialized
in it, but none of them are running it, so what can you do?
Rune will be a regen for Mal'Reen. We'll bottle it up, take an LSA, snaking in the area. Not
able to get anything off though. Crit also here, but Alpha Wolf a little bit too late to the party,
but with the pressure of the tower, we're going to keep that siege alive a little bit longer,
and after this wave catches up. Now, this is a key timing for multiple reasons for Falcons.
As you mentioned, the siege creep, Mal'Reen also cracked level six, so they wanted to put
with the Laguna to use to get a kill and the tower.
I'm taking a settle for Boxy.
Laguna is there.
The Boxy staying alive with the Lotus,
but the Reinsap and the Right Clicks aren't off,
as Mal-Reen will secure first flood and the Tier 1
at 6 and 1 half minutes.
Very, very fast play here from Valken's, Misha.
First magnetized up the game onto Snakey,
didn't get to roll in as well.
That's a kill, so good retribution.
Actually gets a bush whack as well
onto Mal-Reen onto the single tree there.
TP's out successfully
But they do save the tower thought that was a goner for sure
It's a good response from tofu
But you could maybe have wished for it to come a little bit earlier so that they wouldn't have lost 90% of the tower
But still it's a good sign that they don't just have to immediately concede this to the first enchantress move
And they get Nisha on the port now. He doesn't have urn. He is going trends first
So no pick up of that with the kill
But this hero like the panel talk about first there's been one of the biggest heroes of the entire tournament
Insanely high win rate and there's plenty of heroes in the pool that have high win rates
The thing that's most impressive about Earth Spirit is that he's a he's been first picked in the majority of games and yes
Getting gone on under the tier one that robot the God strength to try to kill a foxy not gonna happen though the nightmare is there though
Don't follow up so snake king not able to secure at least some sort of a trade
Good rotation from liquid. It can even made his way down there in case there was gonna be a response falcon
So liquid are sure to bring the numbers
But you know what I was saying about Earth spirit is he's gonna pick up an arcane room
This hero has been I
Think it has about 65% win rate as a primarily first-kicked core, which is very unusual
So definitely
Now the strongest heroes he's gonna connect onto a mark silence
No Focus Fire though, worried about the Retaliate I suppose. I mean he has to use it if they want to. Maybe not.
Backflip will be there and doesn't need it after all.
Oh good.
Malarino's a Laguna Blake, they get to come to D-Shot, nice job with the Wildwing Ripper as well.
The right clicks are coming for him. The impetus, not quite enough but Malarino, can you guess correctly into the North?
Disha, gonna get hit by the Dragon Slade, kills off the Wildwing Ripper.
What, Lotus?
What grenade right clicks do suffice?
My costume though, Crick can take the...
Oh, that's nice, it was liquid.
...under the tier one tower, the Dragon Slave as well.
Mikke now ticking out.
The Malrin rotation makes the world of difference.
Very close call though, that could have lived on both heroes technically speaking for liquid.
Really good spell casting for Malrin.
That looks easier than it is.
And yeah, liquid don't really get anything for free here.
Thanks to the question, what if you just focus fire at the centaur right away?
Yeah, you're going to take some retaliate damage, obviously, but I think you kill him first, and then...
Yeah, that becomes a little scarier.
Yeah, I mean, it's obviously dicey, right, and you know you're going to take a lot of damage,
but time is of the essence in moments like that because you know the enemy team is going to rotate
and put up some sort of defensive rotation for a mar.
Is Blade Mail just dead on most heroes?
Yeah.
Was NERP too much?
It feels like you only see it purchased on heroes that have TARs.
Does axe legion? Oh, we don't really see legion.
Yeah. So by extension, because it is bought by two heroes and one of them doesn't get picked, it's pretty dead, yeah.
We haven't seen much axe either. It's been very...
Yeah, that's a shame.
I... there's one of the heroes that I would expect to maybe get a little bit more love,
especially in a patch that favors car carries a lot.
When axe oftentimes goes up in value, we can actually kill certain heroes.
hundreds of zero almost but I don't see too much Malrin not gonna get found by the
earthbind oh excuse me there's a depot in this game wowie looks the same i'll give myself a pass
on that one you think it's the same vfx you think valve are lazy come on no it's not
but you do remember that track through the concoction projectile right oh yeah or something
I don't know if it still does it
It was uh yeah, I mean no track used the actual alchemist bottom right was it
I thought it was the same proof what it doesn't matter it is the same
I don't know if they changed it though. Yeah, maybe they don't next time we uh see an alchemist in the game
We'll pay close attention. Of course, we will definitely remember this conversation because we're very good at remembering things
Thanks for Mickey saw the bane was not going to happen actually time to evacuate for snaking
or he's going to be on the receiving end make a
No, he's going to be shackled into the nice shards from boxy all the nightmares onto the
other side staking very nicely done it buys him a little bit of extra time but huge it
was but not enough and we should mention since this is an elimination game especially
for Liquid, this is Voxy's best hero I think.
He is insane.
The original Tusk for me is Crit, and then it became Voxy eventually, if that makes sense.
There's a couple of node worthy mentions I think, FY, also had a couple of years when
he was insane on Soxa, I think.
Oh, man, Soxa.
Soxa's Tusk was wild for two years.
He tried out for us, that's the hero that he played.
This might be a very big gank for Liquid. The slow is there, the fiends gates come and go from the other side. It's a five versus one!
And guess who loses his life? It's the one.
Yep.
If he could have somehow won that exchange, I think...
That would have been an Arteezy special, I believe. Except he was playing Lifestealer.
Yeah, and he had a couple more items.
Just a couple.
Here.
Now, let's play, but the Grip is there, and we're doing a blade. Let me actually have a damage. It's a very tanky hero in general.
No?
The strength game's in the game.
Misha will turn it around onto Vayne instead.
So, Valken's definitely not the same start
that they were accustomed to in that game, number one.
Isn't that crazy to just see that unfold at 12 minutes?
This is a Lena mid and a full-duration fiend script.
And the guy still survives on like 30% HP
and gets to counterplay them and kill the support.
Does he still have the highest strength game in the game?
At the very least.
Yes, one of the highest.
Top three, I think is 3.8
That's our man might be higher centaurs in the game. We have 4.3. I think that might be the high
single-hires
But I mean our spirits just
something else
Spirit vessel for Nisha already 1500
Farming here bossy's gonna be found and destroyed
Another tower will go the way up falcons, but that's one thing that's going in their favor right now
This is still a relative- I mean it's an even game in terms of net worth, right?
The biggest discrepancy from expectation, if you will, is that Skater's spin is having
a much harder time than he was in game number one with a similar matchup, playing into
Underlord again.
This is something that Liquid have definitely improved on.
Nice.
Chart shooter.
Again, going for the nightmare to get some terrain walk action.
Looks like he's gonna die nonetheless.
Ace will bring him down.
I think he was trying to go for a cheeky deny in a tier one tower, but was spotted
by Choku
You know they're next on the list for Mickey as we hit the 14 minute mark looks like it'll just be a trade
Oh, nobody's on that side for
Falcons for the wisdom and the good news this time for liquid is that they are
Even and they're not playing against an extremely oppressive map until you're like now
You know this time it feels like they can find their footing and get to play their home game
Let's get to the side of the shards but it matters not.
Another kill goes away with Liquid, Stampede, Amar.
I want to get some sort of a trade, they'll get it on the boxy.
Amar was about to stomp him, then he was like,
I can chaos with an ability that crosses Zero mana instead.
Okay, I'm shocked here.
Amar is working on a Lotus Orb.
or man this young man has grown so much
Cinderella oh good against what focus
fire pit of malice magnetized all of
Earth's spirits garbage yeah they're
good against the vessel obviously
there's a lot of ups and I think in
order for a mar to buy this item he
needs to feel like there's really good
reason because otherwise you could have
bought a farm
this guy operates I also says hybrid
item in Centaur. The old Amar wouldn't be this though. And by the old Amar that's the
younger Amar. Yeah, the younger Amar wouldn't have played Centaur. That is true. It would
have played Timber or Razor or Doom or Mars or Mars. Even in the current meta he would
pick Mars. I really wish Mars was better. I think that hero is super fun to watch.
I mean he got dumpstered with the facet runes before, right? Yeah, he's one of the
heroes that suffered the most from that. Here we come by boss, he gets the punch
Juck Doku's there with the Bush Black, and Power Shock on the other side even, Nisha joining the party.
A lot of long-range artillery.
But the other off-laner in a lot of trouble, a full beam's birthed into the right clicks from now, Reem.
It's enough, so trade for off-laners.
Like the Underlord is tamed here with the Earth Spirit?
Yes.
Or excuse me, the other way around, the Earth Spirit is tamed here.
I know what you meant.
Yeah.
We're just synced up.
Even if you're wrong, you're right.
I got- You finished my sandwich. That's right.
I always do.
Oh, he got out with-
Barely.
That's a lot.
Very close call for Crit. Nicely done.
As he's already- Okay.
He's already working on Agatom Scepter as a first item.
Is that normal on Enchantress?
Um, it's an occasional build that we see.
I don't know what exactly pops it in this game.
They're gonna find themselves in pain.
I'm a little bit surprised to see it given these matchups. I would have thought this was a pike game
Yeah, I sound incredible against Underlord against Earth spirits
Even against Windranger to get position
but the route right and
I mean nobody has a helm on the other side
And as liquid will go through the gate now not quite the 20-minute mark though
No momenter up at the moment.
They do scan out briefly and know that somebody is down here and who else would it be other
than Skeeter.
This would be a massive kill, he's actually running towards them, a Foxy, Mask of Madness
which means he can't catch anything.
Now we'll get stuck inside the shards though, we're gonna try to kill Sneaking instead
of making them target men as they're gonna turn the sights on the Mickey instead.
Then he's beat down by the Sven, pushed back off the guy with the sharp shooter
to follow the power shot as well.
Those two girls for Liquid saved Mickey in the end.
Another very close call could have gone either way.
That looked like it was getting real dicey when they started diving that deep, but no T.P. from a bar.
And Mal'Reem couldn't connect on the Windranger together with Sven because she was so far south, so they ended up getting away with that.
I thought that was real bad once Sven got to hit, but...
clutch play from the liquid pause 5 tofu 5-0 and 6 now on the hoodwink
this hero has a pretty bad win rate this tournament as a 5 and a really really good one as a 4
hoodwink? yeah but tofu
knows how to run it that's interesting that there'll be such a discrepancy
i think it was massive i think i looked at it and it was like i think as a 5 it had like 29%
not that 64 how much more of a sample size between the two is it roughly the same as well
No, it was definitely fewer games on five, but still, I think it was still a decent amount.
I don't know when you would consider stuff like that significant.
Anomaly. Yes, anomaly.
How many games does it need to be before the Kaiz Square is high enough?
That your vampire voice? I remember that one.
As Agatomceptor up and running for Ace,
Global at his disposal, and this is huge because the tormentor,
not that we, not that I'm saying it out, we don't really see Tormentor fights at all, do we?
No.
In theory, very good at contesting if there was to be a fight there.
Yeah.
I think that's definitely something, the way that this developed over time is not the way it was intended.
This was, I think they were hoping for the Tormentor to be a fighting objective,
Not whoever is in the neighborhood or wants to know how to relate to get it can just have it.
Trying to go check for the...
Or if you're lower skill players slash turbo players, it just isn't an objective at all.
Doesn't exist.
I can attest to that one.
Blink Dagger. Who's actually building the blink there?
Pretty early blink.
Looks like Amar will be going hard into blink though.
Yep, Sven is queuing up Dagger, Toss almost has a Dagger.
So do you think he regrets the Lotus?
Because he would have had Heart by now, and you'd be farming faster.
Of course, he doesn't know if there's gonna be that much aggression coming away.
Yeah, I think the difference is that big, between Lotus and Heart from Farm Rate.
But yeah, it's a little bit, maybe it's cost him a few hundred gold at most.
and like the again the the opportunity cost of going that route if the Lotus could change a team fight
yeah I just think this is even a mar
we'll see the value in that
get the reaver now he will measure Schmitz's reaver our favorite
grit inside the shards moxie I think he's just a single one of those yet
he doesn't miss
masterful I hear the Sven off with the fiends grit do their damage this time absolutely
Finally, Nisha brought down.
Boxy looks to be next on the list.
We'll get out the snowball, but it's only a matter of time.
Now, let's say it keeps him in place, so two kills for Falcons now.
Really nice blink reveal from Skater.
That's the kind of impact you want to see immediately.
When you're having a bad game on Sven and you go with a blink, you're buying it
to fight immediately.
You're not buying this to jungle for another five minutes.
He finds a big ticket kill in the Earth Spirit.
I believe Nisha was on the street there and he was dominating so a nice little bit of bonus cat going skaters way
In the game even still
1200 away from his eggs little
Questioning myself I shouldn't do that anymore what else would be little
Well, here's a big game skate. Yes, it is well for it in some trouble
And by that I mean he's dead
They're going the little fight fine too
Okay, ignore that making you'll get out
This underwater eggs it I can't remember exactly what was changed because when it was first introduced
I feel like we would see it as like a luxury fourth fifth item
Mm-hmm, and I think it's always been really good. I'm fine snaking as well
Well, since back then I think Pit of Malice has been buffed quite a bit, just the spell itself, and the game has also developed in a direction where it's less about balling up around Underlord.
I think it's just a natural progression of the bigger map that getting more value out of this while you're farming seems to be more favorable than running quite much of the time.
Somebody was in the neighborhood with Torment, so Tulfu will get a Hunter's Boomerang, so
the 20% incoming Spell damage item from the target is really nice news for EarthSpirit,
Underlord Firestorm against Centaur World, he hit like an absolute truffle already, that's
going to be more now.
And then Sven of course.
Yep, that percentage based damage, I mean that heart is going to cost you more HP
in theory if you're getting hit by Firestorm, but Top Network in the game is.
is take more damage from the shield
that is true, but he mits hard
punch comes up from boxy
easy kill on to crit again
crit is probably a lot of games on enchantress in his career
but it's just
it's not the type of hero that I personally love to see him on
this is less
how to say less playmaking in the traditional sense
of initiating fights
setting up the traits done
making a clutch teamfight contribution
It's more about early lane pressure and movement, and in these stalemate situations when you get to this point, that's when it's perfect that Snaking is playing that hero because he just loves to farm jungle, you know?
Like, then he'll just go on farm for 10-15 minutes.
For Crit, I guess it's less of a preference for him, and they just picked it because they thought it was the right idea for the game.
obviously that does come at the cost of you're effectively relying a lot more on
snaking finding the setups in this game and the average game and he's found a
couple good ones for the full duration grip so not bad very slow game though I
mean 10 more kills for liquid but net worth lies dead even
It under the tier one all alone. It's not the stampede.
They get locked down now. Nowhere to go.
I say that he actually gets to the other side.
The bushback is going to find him with a sharp shooter to follow as Nisha continuing on.
This is a tanky, tanky, chunker boy, but they do find the damage eventually.
The snaking was just here, so he will fall as well.
Yeah, seems like the communication was I don't have TP on Lina,
and then they just don't reinforce it.
Sven had TP ready, Enchantress TP'd and then cancelled.
But they obviously knew there was a five-man move on the side of Falcons like what a plus show up
No, the plus loves Falcons apparently
Global will die is now reen's gonna try to fight this fight not having their off place
He's gonna get some luck inside of this pit gets to the other side though
Just barely he's kicking away though and they should continue with the firestorm and he's getting extremely low
And they do find the kill eventually he wants fed trying to find it out against Mickey in the rest of liquid
He might just find a touch that's gonna likely cost him his own life
This was very questionable plays from Falcons. They lost two heroes and still took the fight.
Yeah, Melrina I guess just didn't expect so many heroes to be there, but that is a very costly play to go for.
I don't know if Dota Plus saw that one coming, because it was just showing a 67% win rate.
Hold on anymore.
Ah, snaking.
Well, you'll find a setup, but for who?
Orange is gonna chill.
Walk it off.
Misha is extremely tanky, it will take a lot.
Basically, you need lean-on or spend, if you want to kill this guy.
Even tankier now.
IS on.
He's completed.
Into the pit they go.
Class expected a completely different experience, and game number one, I'm around Liquid 2,
get to play, and they've been playing.
Their moves have been hitting, almost all of them have connected, leading on the
kill, and although it didn't lead to much of an advantage, this last sequence was
really cute. Getting 5k out of this total, getting an Aegis.
They're gonna dodge the roll. Okay, Nisha on the clan, but they have Fiends Gate coming.
Toss Snowball as well to help them out.
They're likely to fall.
As you can see, Liquid here in numbers. They get the Aegis on Micke as well to go back through the Fiends Gate.
I think Malrin is actually maybe going to show himself, goes for the 4 staff TP should be fine.
Imagine that essence to Scylla hits though, very powerful.
I
Boxing already showing off the blink of course the 6k lead
Mickey has the meal in the BKB
And about to finish his four staff the eventual hurricane fight
Now he's going in early MKB so wants to deal with this win run
Yeah, I think going right quick, Lina here is... you might say it's not the right choice
because he's playing with Sven and it's too much of the same thing, but I actually kind
of like it.
I think he needs to be able to pose that kind of a threat to the Windranger down the stretch
where he can actually be the one to kill, Mikkei.
Still does need some defensive item at some point, it feels like.
I don't know if stampede and nightmare are enough to rely on
for the time being
We were three with the damage approach
Our now reemies actually spotted to cancel the TV critics to the north to try to save them
But a fiend ship still available and the focus fires enough now rain is dead another huge kill for liquid
and crit
collateral damage
Liquid in charge three minutes on the ages. They want to force a game number three
We have little friends yet, we've been talking about it for so long, he does.
How highly would you rate this, Ag?
It's super situational, and I don't really see the purpose of this game.
I mean, maybe I'm just missing something, but I definitely would have leaned in the right direction for this one.
And it's nothing, I don't even think we've seen a cast of Smelly yet, but eventually.
Boxing and stinking with joint forces. Stinking won't be happy about it though.
10k lead for Liquid. How much can they get out of this Aegis? Two and a half minutes left,
they still have only a single tier two left? Yep. They've been very aggressive so far this game.
Yeah, I know Falcons get to try what it feels like, what they did to Liquid Game 1.
A little bit more delayed, I suppose. At this point, Falcons were up about 30k.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was probably close. It was like 20-something.
I would say the game was effectively over at this point in game number one. It is definitely not the case here.
This is more within reach. The Falcons will need to find some sort of key jump.
They get to utilize all this farm in the centaur where they get to use the MKB, which is about to be picked up now on Lina.
This is a crucial timing for them. For Liquid, just keep doing what you're doing, keep controlling the map.
If you find picks on Earth Spirit, that's obviously great. You don't have to fight with your Aegis.
And then a half left on that.
It feels like one of those games where they just try to starve them out.
Beals, I mean that's the Falcon strat, really.
That was the game in Gladdy's strat back in the day as well.
Well, the original game in Gladdy's strat was the Winner of the Winner of the Winner.
Yes, that was patched out pretty fast though.
That snake came with a Hildoff pretty fast here.
Fight the death.
Falcon's on a fight.
Minesha and possibly really fast BKB Laguna Blade finds them though nice block off
He's taking the damage they get the kill
Will it be at any cost though the knife fall away not successful they cancel the TP of Skeeter they kill off Pal Reign
And Amar going to be stuck
Now one versus four
And that is going to be another huge fight for liquid in the driver's seat to say the least
with that Aegis intact for another 30, they can maybe poke at the high ground.
Crucial reaction from Eisha there. Getting that BKB off makes it huge difference.
He would have died very quickly and they could have probably got a much better position for the fall off fight,
but the reduced damage he took, they laid that kill significantly and then the reinforcements arrived.
We're onto the high ground. Focus fire, okay.
Doesn't have great range because of Bane, but I'll still kill him anyway.
No flybacks on the course, so you can do whatever you want.
Obviously, I don't think they'll know this, but they want to poke them out regardless.
They had an Aegis to work with still. Niki has to say Tannik. He's a super tough kill.
Aegis expires back to full HP, and this will be almost certainly a set of Barracks.
Maly Barracks will refresh the fortification, like what likely to do is back away though.
This is their game to lose.
Falcons would have to have some sort of a massive comeback at this point, be more and more
out of reach.
Funnily enough, this game looked even for a very long time.
The entire lead has been built over the last ten minutes.
I felt like that one Domino...
Mallory?
Yeah, Mallory and Shut Up in a 3 vs 5. I don't know what that was about.
It could not work out, that's for sure.
That was definitely Domino number 1.
Looking to the hook, coming in, finding one of the form of the toss.
He'll move the blade to the under lord as there goes Sven pounding away.
But Ace, getting saved by the snowball.
He's going to go through the fiend's gate now, but he can find the connection on the mid-gauge.
He'll be a much bigger kill, plus the safe panic, but it's not going to be enough.
Looks like he'll get chopped down by the Sven, but Nisha, look at the magnetized damage
As ace comes through with the firestorm as well and again two cores dead for falcons
The liquid getting the better of that engagement yet again
thinking
Go deaths to his name and quit follow suit on the other side
Liquid you don't have to win runner, but they can still poke at the very least at this bot lane
Please force out the fortification means 50 seconds to spend
They're looking to get at least a little bit, Amar will maybe be a little annoying.
I feel confident that they can't kill him because there's no Windranger, but I'm not
so sure that will be true.
Even without magnetizing everything, let's see.
Double Huff Stomp into a buyback from the Enchantress.
It shows up.
Now all the damage being applied to this half-man, half-force, Amar somehow gets to
the north.
I don't know how that happened.
I guess it was the Lotus being reflected, but he doesn't have any reinforcements. He's dead 80 seconds. No buyback
His boxy picks up apparently a BKB didn't notice that one now the retreat for liquid
Oh, the ogre actually cancels the team. Oh boxy, but he is still a okay
They're sticking around as Mickey about to spawn. I know boxy's still here. I can fight this bad
They're taking Dubai, and it seems great right on top of Mal-Ring.
Even the neutral creeps working just like that.
They're hitting Mal-Ring right on top of Mal-Ring again.
They get the LSA on to make it, but now the focus is right on Mal-Ring.
He's just getting deleted right now. My goodness.
He's dead for 60, and that is almost certainly going to be the game.
Jumping from the last-bitch effort from Skeeter ends up being a wasted effort overall.
God's strength.
Oh, they're down in the middle of the side.
They're just gonna call it GG as Liquid will force a game number three.
I mean, we're pretty clinical, I have to say.
Two back-to-back stops, but in different fashions.
In the first game, the victory, or rather the snowball starts way earlier,
but drags out very long.
This one felt like it was a dead-even game at 20 minutes,
And then Liquid are just like let's win in another 15 instead of in almost the total of an hour
How can you see a support go eight and all?
Hopefully when eight no on hoodwing eight on 22. Yeah, he was extremely active game
I mean liquid were just more active in general. They feel like game one. It was all Falcons doing the pouncing
This time around it was kind of reverse. You think that's more of a draft thing or I definitely think the draft played a massive role here
They didn't have to play against the bounty hunter
They got off to a better start in the lanes and there's a couple of player-hero combinations in this game
That just worked really well for them big boxy on the tusk was
Super impactful in this game until for like you mentioned just a great game from all of them. Let's go to Shever
Thank you very much
And I think
This one was maybe already written in the stars if you have a series on the main stage of the international between team liquid and
Team Falcons of course we're going to a game three come on
That's an M of the team. That's an M of the players and we like that because more thought it to coming our way
Very good. I will say though both games so far in this series
We have been a little one-sided this one very much in favor of liquid. Yeah
I'm sure there's a lot of many reasons for that. I know winter has a problem with one particular player
But I had a problem with Centaur he went for this helm he went lotus
he went hot and then he went for a blink dagger and I just feel like when your team is struggling so hard
It's put Bane down here trying to do literally anything to make a play happen
Whilst it feels like Centaur cannot be engaged in the game whatsoever outside of pressing Samhede when someone gets gone
Great Park is a return some efficiencies
But then there was a couple games with like Bane plus lina in the mid lane Bane plus
Then in the enemy triangle like they tried to go for some moves, but it didn't really work out at that point
things kind of just side crumbling.
So I think blue is actually their own triangle to the game.
But still it's like, it didn't really work out
the boundaries of that way.
And then once the pickles failed,
everything else just kind of fell flat and liquid was like,
okay, we are ready.
We have Mikkei on Win Ranger.
He's got the confidence back.
After game one, the slump of Lina,
now Win Ranger in game two,
like he knew exactly what he has to do.
They're really pushing the limits of their heroes,
Boxy and Tofu on the tusk and the hoodwink.
Exceptional showcase of what they can do.
Sure, Boxy died a couple of times randomly
around the map, but like fundamentally,
He was always like leading the charge in the aggression and then hoodwink not dying a single time. It's him eight zero twenty-two on tofu on the position
4.5 hoodwink
4.5. Yeah
They got two fours two fives mash them together
Wonderful, this is what you want to see from liquid also, you know the earth for in the room
Why is it allowed during the draft? I don't really know, but Nisha finally picking up some runes all the fantasy enjoys out there
9 to 3 and 23 or nurse for it
I don't think they lost the game because of the Earth Spirits show you can you can hop on why where they're leaving it?
You know in this game, you know, but you you can't just ignore the fact that snake income plays here
I think he just doesn't really understand how his hero works because he traditionally he doesn't play this here
This hill is not something that he understands how to play and he's a very greedy player
That's why he's not suited that thing and you know like then I guess a couple of
There's and the couple of a couple of moves that he was making in the game that kind of grief his team so hard that
I want to say like he almost single-handedly lost his team again because of the things that he's doing in the game
You can see the frustration on his face a couple times well some of those deaths, but unlike
like, uh, snaking with his frustration. You look towards total again like the stats that he was having on it on in his game, right?
On his hoodwink having the yours the blink just being really present, especially the distiller as well. Like, of course, that's simple support items.
Nothing too crazy, but 75% kill participation. Yeah. I took a hoodwink, super low win rate hero in TI so far, but again, another reason why you don't look at the stats.
They all just lie and total is a great case of that. Yeah, you played a fantastic game and, uh, there was definitely a start.
discrepancy between the two teams in this game and potentially a large portion that came from other supports
We do
Get some criticism towards taking in this game and unfortunately for him
We're also going to take a look at some clips that don't really put him in a favorable light winter
So we're looking at the evidence right now at the back the state of mind some evidence. Yes, you do
I know it was one of the few things that I felt like he was like it doesn't really understand like the limits of the
He was trying to play with the catwalk with but the heroes were like missing for such a long time
He died there and then he responded and he came here because he died the first time and then the enemy was able to enter and
Invade the triangle attack his carry and then immediately he peed to try and help him
But he couldn't get there on time and those two back-to-back best kind of snowballed the game into a position where I
Think skitter just didn't have a lot of space to farm after that
They lost control of the map and it's all these small little things that just made the game so difficult
I mean, I agree with a rare that the sample not getting a better is also an issue
But I think the primary problem they had this game was just thinking I'm being unable to place here
Yeah, it didn't and didn't look too hot for him. I'm sure it's like the night region thing
Like when you play Bane, yeah, the daytime and nighttime cycle you need to understand what you're doing
This hero gets really active at night and during the day, what do you have to do during the day?
You need to make sure that you're using the vision and you're trying to just play a little bit more defensively and trying to just block
Gangs and make sure you don't die
I think he had a lot of deaths where during daytime he died and those deaths were deaths that weren't really
Supposed to happen. He was trying to do too much
He was trying to do the night time stuff during the day if that makes sense
And then he died because of that
So it happens but good news for us because doesn't mean going to a game three
There was another moment in the game where we you know liquid was already doing quite well doing late sets and as we already saw
It got out of control a little bit
But it also rea got out of control a lot of it a little bit later on
Yeah, I really liked this whole maneuver because this is this is why I take issue with the centaur I am built
Right. He's meant to be really tanky here
And what he does is he forces out BKB on win Ranger because you know other she'll just die to this
retaliate. And he spends this whole amount of time. Bane comes full-staffed from inter-safety.
You waste so much time, but no one is reacting to it. No one's set up to punish the overextension from Team Liquid.
And because they get this kill, they're now able to snowball it into a mid-lane fight, where they're now, like, two heroes down.
You don't have the numbers. Your spend is going in. Like, why are we wasting the BKV at this point and taking this fight?
It's just not good. There's no centaur. And then they're simply overnumbered, outpowered, and then just beat away.
and at this point I don't think they really have a way to win anymore.
Also in that clip though, Amar had the ability to press Stampede or Lotus.
He opted to Stampede run away rather than insta-press Lotus.
So if he ate the Snowball, then went to Snowball himself, bought another like say 5 seconds,
and then proceeded to take the fight. It could have been another story,
so maybe a little misplay there from Amar.
But also the whole theme of this game, the two clips both of you showed,
it's like Falcons fighting with two or three heroes, or as Liquid has five, right?
Right and it's like liquid excels in Dota when they have four to five heroes and they have that aggression in this game
They had it falcons. They say like both of you said they just let whoever got jumped. It was like a mask on it. You're dead, mate
I'm done now. I mean dying. Yeah, sorry mate. You're dead. It's like they just let each other die
There's no like camaraderie. There's no hike from game one
It was just a very weird falcons game of like everyone's just do your own thing will eventually kind of sync up
But yeah, they kind of why are you letting your son far by items that make him tanky to literally tank the gang
right if you're not gonna then punish it it makes no sense I don't know what they
their goal was with the game plan a lot of criticism towards Falcons here in
the second game I also get some more some more highlights for team liquid on
this one because we saw the win rate of Aces underlord of when he was picked it
was like is his fourth game well this was his fifth game of the
international but before this he had 25% win rates only win one game and it
is one of his strongest heroes and he has had a great tournament so far and
And I think this game we just watched, it's a game where we see like, oh, that's why he's considered one of the best underlord players.
Yeah, I mean, I want to see Ace on underlords and dawnbreakers and heroes that can just like, farm and farm the sidecamps, but still be present, right?
Like, of course, he's the farming offline, he's going to be more greedy than others and like, he's going to scale and do all this other stuff, buy auras, whatever.
All you have a stare at, I'm trying to give to him, but like, realistically in this iteration of Liquid, the two heroes I like seeing one, again, underlord, dawnbreaker.
I think it's not about him and his hero is more what does liquid draft the other four players to ensure that his underlord looks good or his don't break in the school
Because when he's on them, he can take over the games
But he needs to correct here is like this is the perfect draft for liquid in my opinion because you have the aggressive supports the offline that can join the mid that just breaks the game
Mickey on full console like this is what liquid needs to try and replicate
the game, making it on full
constant. Like this is what
liquid needs to try and
replicate. Yeah, and I'm sure
that there was some some good
talks that happened before going
into this game. Number two. I
mean, with the backs against
what you have to hear in the
lower bracket of the
international, you have to get
good vibes. Good talks and
we have potentially I have no
idea because I haven't heard
it yet. We're about to hear
potentially one of the good
Nisha, in your predictions, did you at least have us beating them?
Uhhhhh...
Uhhh...
Hahahahaha...
He is looking marring me!
This is so sad.
Almost.
Well...
So expec-
I thought this was going to be, you know, positive!
I remember the Singapore T.O. where we heard all the wholesome speeches, but no!
No, I might not have believed in the outcome of that game potentially, but, you know, got
a respect for opponents as well.
You know what?
Actually, about that respect, we saw in game number one Falcons giving a lot of respect
to Liquid and their ability to come back in the game, inspire the game lasted close
to an hour and had 89k net worth in favor of Falcons with the close, which by the
way, she was the most ever.
It's too much.
It doesn't it's just a big stuff. All right. They're greedy. All right in game one too much greed
Maybe that's why they didn't play one game to there's some gluttonous
Yeah, the game one they have to deal with the was it the burden of that it could be a sugar crush
Yeah, the sugar crush
Because in game two really I felt like liquid had no issue going high ground at all
Here in this game. I think that at some point they just had too many I am too many ways to fight
Like what is Falcon's gonna do? They're also staggering their kills a lot
I think that like when we saw them go by it's because they already killed a bunch of heroes outside the map and then there's only a
Centaur to try and defend and then Centaur's like I'm strong enough
I can blink hoof stomp and he kind of defends that power for a bit to give time for the people to respawn
But then he's dead for 80 seconds as well. It just kind of kept snowballing where they
It kind of like a theme of the whole game. They were never as five
They were never ready to take like coordinated fights
It's also a difference between Mickey on Lena versus Mickey on Windranger, right?
It's like, on Lena, you jump, she's dead, done.
Yeah.
On Windranger, it's like, now you have to deal with the Windrun,
and now it's like, do I want to buy MKB on Lena?
My Sven can't really itemize to deal with the Lena until I've got like four items,
because you don't buy MKB very early on.
And even when the Lena bought the MKB,
when she was right-clicking the Windranger,
you didn't have like a Daedalus or a satanic or anything to really stand your ground,
so it kind of felt like wasted gold until you had another 10,000 gold.
So I think, I think just a hero alone
kind of hurts Falcon's part a lot in the draft, so much that you even pick it into the center.
So maybe going into the next draft, I think that hero needs to be considered, and I wouldn't even
mine Liquid, promoting it in priority somewhere, because even if you don't play it carry, I'm sure
BoxxioTofu will have to take it to a support role if the draft dictates, you know, that needs
to happen. I mean, there's also something I feel like it's really important for Team Liquid,
where right now, they should probably have Tofu always on the range hero, on the offlane,
like he should be just be the fall I think because you are picking range heroes on the safe lane and
tofu doesn't like or doesn't want to play melee heroes and boxy is always on the 5th with
making on the safe lane maybe this should be the way they'll be playing.
Just mid international main stage let's do swap roles?
Not exactly swap roles I think before they were already kind of like this but maybe limit
the heroes so you always have like the pass I think pass those are the two best heroes for
for this setup, I imagine they are probably going to be thinking about it because the game
feels entirely so different when they have the task of the forward.
We normally have a difference in farm priority between the two supports, that's why we call
the 1 a number 5, the 1 a number 4, but it's actually a team like the Life Seagum
said, the entry to the B2, 4 and a half coming out. We got both teams coming back
onto the main stage here and it is one to one in this elimination series. Both
games. The team that won very dominant, very convincing, and I think we all can only hope
that both teams have gotten the best from the games they won, and then they use that against
each other, and we have a very back and forth competitive game number three.
I wonder how we're going to get that. Is there anything in particular, Tiga,
from the way we're going to look at this, that we can tell like, oh yeah, this could be a
a lot closer because I felt like the games have been decided so early on in these two games.
Yeah, I guess it's a battle between if you want to simplify it towards the midlanes maybe because
Nisha had quite a quiet Invoker game in game one. That's where Maureen kind of popped off his
earth shaker. Moving towards game two, we had the same story where the Lino was quite quiet,
had some failed ganks, and then Nisha's popping off in the earth spirit. So if there is a way
that both teams can kind of stabilize the mid lane, you get a 50-50, they have even
and rotations and you feel like their presence is equally met, that's when their game will
feel like it's in the last 60, 70 minutes will be an epic game that will remember for
years to come.
I think it's the support though.
The first game is the bounty and Mirana stealing the show against the Rubik and SV which couldn't
do anything.
And then in the second game, you know, I feel like it's also the same case that
the Taz and Odin overpowering the Antranquist and Bane.
Maybe not so much of the hero, like maybe the player as well, the player-hero combination,
I think the support duals are going to be also again very very important for both teams to figure out what dual are we going to go for in our drafts in the Olympics.
Yeah, maybe it will have more focus than on getting those supports on board earlier.
Is the support pool really wide at this point would you say, Reia?
Because a lot of the heroes that are getting banned out in this series in particular seem to be supports.
I mean, on the side of focus this game anyway.
They might not that the morana the keeper of the light obviously tree and protect I don't think we can even I don't think we've
Even mentioned tree and protect her one. What's the point today?
Every time ooh
Wouldn't that be like throwing in a wrench letting the tree and through or is that a bit too risky?
That's too much way too much for a game-free lower bracket at ti right like the hero that gives
Global like damage block insta vision
Invisibility just to run around do anything BK piercing kind of roots and shenanigans never mind
Maybe maybe there's some ulterior play where you trade it for a lago who can lick double lowest the
No, sorry
No, I don't think we'll see it. But yeah, I think the support pool is extremely wide
I just think it's about having a
Combination of them that gives you the right partnership. Let's see. Yeah
I like my my problem is it feels like the spirit breaker was like too much of an overreaction to a bounty and then this game
You have like ancient bane and snaking not comfortable in bane. It's
So often we see a bunch of other supports that went ignored like like wyvern shadow demon dark willow have been great
I love dark willow by the way. I think that hero makes your game so easy
I think she deals with so many mid heroes
I think she breaks smokes so easily because she can get out in a billion ways
She can I am I super freely this of course. He's is the fantastic and is going pretty good. Yeah
I mean, well, it was always kind of the underrated here
I kind of put her in the same kind of department like a grim stroke where you kind of forget about what the hero does
But in team fights it offers so much control and so much kind of random shenanigans. You have to deal with
Yeah, we saw quite a bit in the group stages, but I was mostly he has long roots because it's good against the bear and
Then it makes sense. We speaking of London have not yet seen the bear here in this series
not in the bands nor in the picks. Curious if that's a trend that's going to continue.
But I'm sure that if there was any strategies that the teams are still had, they are about
to come out.
Team Liquid vs Team Falcons. Game 3.
on the line. Game three and elimination series here. Lower bracket of the
international here on stage. Team Liquid and Falcons. One of these two teams is
going home and I'm gonna repeat myself from what I said in that previous
series for both of these teams. Getting eliminated here is considered a big
failure. Yeah, top 8 is great and all that, but these teams are playing for
more than that. We got ourselves a draft as Falcons on the radiant side, Team Liquid on the dire side, first pick on the way of Team Liquid, Earth Spirit once again where he belongs on the bands, Bounty Hunter still removed from the pool as well, and the hero left in that we have seen every series so far, every game so far rather in this series is Lina, we'll see if that's where Team Liquid wants to take this one.
Koto has been freed from prison.
Freedom achieved.
I guess they have a good choice now.
They just go for the Centaur straight up.
It's also like the block pick.
I feel like Liquid just wants to get it over with
because Ace has like one or two heroes.
I think he has a big hero pool,
but there's also some heroes that would help the team a lot more.
I know we mentioned that he's really good with the Dawn or the Underlord,
the underlaw but I think the center is kind of like a hero where it would stabilize the early game
a lot allow him to like just get the helm creep to drag the wave you don't really need the support
on your lane so the support can run around I think the games where liquid really struggles is when
Mekke gets targeted and he gets bullied so if you have the center on the off lane he doesn't
really need help so the support can actually go to the carries lane a lot. On top of that
maybe they'll prevent Lina from getting picked up because Lina doesn't like facing Centaur.
Yeah, I mean, it's anything with gap closed or runaway, right?
The idea of, you know, what if Falcon's going to play another Razor game, right?
In the game-free health, while it works in game one.
If you preemptively take Centaur, you have Stampede,
you might push Falcon's away for reflectability,
but Skidder gets all the way up to a first-phase lifestealer.
Here, that has been banned out quite often as a response within the series.
But now he gets it put here.
Is there a world where, you know, Tofu will go,
just give me Centaur, Pons 5,
let's do some weird shenanigans to try and beat this lifestealer?
Let's put Nisha back mid with Centauri.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no offense to all the mid Centaur players, but I feel like Nisha is a bit of a mechanical button clicker
that Centaur might be, you know, a step below his, you know, his caliber. No offense, Maureen.
But anyways, yeah, I feel like maybe Kudusum Shnagans, they might not even need to to be fair.
They're gonna pick supports that encounter the Lifesteal. Usually the counters for Lifesteal are the supports, the SD, the Wyvern, the pass, the clockwork.
Just buy time during Rage to then make him feel like he has to disengage or waste in first.
And there are a lot of options here, we'll have to see and talk,
because they're going to be able to ban some out and pick one of them potentially.
I think the TUS is still a very very big hero here.
I think both teams are kind of like, definitely looking at it.
TUS, put wing, these are the two heroes that come to mind right now.
Very good picks right away.
Yeah, we're saying that we have a bit of more focus on which support duo is gonna come out.
You generally would expect them to come out in the mid-portion where you can make sure
you get the combo you want.
You have to break them apart because right now there's Tarzan Hohwing, if you don't
ban either of them, you do not want Liquid to have the Tarzan Hohwing later, so you
need to pick at least one of them, and I'm feeling that they might have a higher
a tendency of going with the hood wing.
Ooh!
Oh, okay, this is a second special.
I mean, first of all, I like the respect man on the Windranger.
We really say how it complicates the game.
You don't really want life-saving to have to think about, again, MKB.
Also, getting the life-saving to right-click it, impossible.
And now, Presto mid. You frostbite a stampede.
All right. You're not running away. You're rooted.
Good luck leaning into the hood wing first.
You may have to get past the lane.
the best later. It's a very greedy hero. I mean as long as the post 4 has a lot of pressure
then yes I can see life's it and he tries to separate the wave, you get stomp, double
ledge plus whatever spells that full position has. I mean I still just feel like they just
picked the pass and put wing here. Both supports are just really nice in this situation
and maybe you could decide the lane phase later but most likely you want to center
with the whole lane. The early game is just going to be very difficult for the
Yeah, my CM is just a very upusable hero.
They'll get the Lina, and the central Lina is a combination that a lot of teams have been liking.
The nice thing about CM is that you have incredible map play.
Like with the shard, you're always having waves, you're always finding the economy out of nowhere,
and Snake is going to be able to utilize that nicely, so he's not on a bane anymore feeling lost on the map.
He's on a crystal maiden, he likes being able to play these heroes that get that additional item that can...
Yeah.
That's forced off that...
Someone else has to fill that role, you know.
Like what other hero on Pulse 4 can allegedly do it right now?
There's no hoodwink.
I mean, I kind of want to see something to deliver Life Stealer to the enemy team.
Whether that comes from their mid or like a clockwork here, is on ban still.
Oh yeah, that's clock. Clock, pass.
There's still Dark Willow as well, if you do.
You just want to go more spellcasting supports and like play teamfight.
I think it's annoying for like Centaur, who wants to buy a billion IMs and get tanky to
play into these routes.
Hard to run away when you're all routed up for anyone.
Don't get that clockwork that you mentioned at the start though.
Another signature hero from Rift and a razor to follow it up with.
So they're protecting the razor by having two supports have incredible containment
against him he did through cogs or you know some hookshot frostbite like there's
enough tools now that razor goes okay if I'm jumping a guy support follow me and
we will get this kill and life's in it he doesn't mind there's so much aggression
in the first three heroes that once he gets his radiance he'll slot in behind
that go alright guys where are we going I mean if that was ever a more thing
in this is a more thing in razor lights to her
yeah you pick more thing and they have finished a draft of a ETS do you
Do you think that's too crazy? Do you have a tripod?
I see more things, it's really, but I can see more things like just doing so much in this game.
And they have sento to hold out the early game, but you are going to attract a lot of attention from the enemy.
You're going to play the map, you're going to force them to rotate to you, and the morphling is going to farm.
And Lina is also going to be a problem. Lina is also another hero they have to address him.
So there's a lot of problems. So even though morphling could be greedy, it might not be so easy for Falcons to actually punish the hero.
Would you pick that here or would you leave that Lina as an option that is still flexible and go for another support player here?
Never mind!
It's a...
That's...
That's not what it's supposed to be!
I'm not going to read a life steal!
It's very good against both the Razer and the Lifesteal. I was also kind of thinking about it, but it's very greedy, but in the lane you have to jump, so you destroy the Razer off lane to pressure, and late game you have to corner against the Lifesteal.
It looks like an XG draft, guys.
Yeah, it definitely does.
For the crowd, like, to so much.
potentially so. I mean this is like a staple like faceless void lineup. You have two heroes that
are gonna be happy to nuke and do damage into your chronos there and it counters the enemy team.
I like this so much. The only thing I'm thinking is your remaining hero for falcons is probably gonna
be Mal'Rean who is really good at playing these control heroes like we might see a shake or we
might see a sanking. I think both of these heroes could really pressure the map hard
and make it uncomfortable for faceless void to play. Who is typically quite slow?
They're covering their bases, so I like this band. They ban out the Doom, because they feel like Doom is a really good matchup into Faker's War and the lane in the game, and they could potentially move the Razor to mid.
So they have to make sure that they cover all the heroes, they could potentially punish the Faker's Void here.
It kind of helps though, for Liquid, that if they are to, let's say, hit a Chrono where they don't get a kill, and then there's some kiting available from Fathons,
they don't have the heroes that instantly, you know, break Roshan, go high ground, and the game's over in one failed Chrono, right?
right? Like this feels like the type of game that it can go back and forth, it can go, you know,
the length of, you know, a full 60 plus minute game. Of course, liquid being a lot more comfortable
the longer the game goes. Yeah, the pressure is going to be on falcons. Once you have this CM
quad work done, you are the ones that have to, you know, attack and you have to try to make sure
that liquid does not get to just sit back and farm because it's very obvious that they just
want to sit back and farm is the deciding game. You do not want to put yourself in a position
where you are pressured to make plays to attack. I think it's always easier to play the defending side
when you're playing a tie-breaking game or a deciding game. Yeah, I'd like a drop ball
wave clear though from Liquid, because if the game does get difficult, I think they just need
damage. I still like the ET here. ET into the Chronosphere, and ET with hookwing and
leaner. I think it's a fantastic pick. Or maybe A, I don't know if A might work.
I wouldn't be complaining about that one if you want like post five damage then you go for like the witch doctor from tofu
Right, and then you just put the boy together you dilate you might add it the guy or you go for the fight
Yeah, no, you put the Lena support
By problem, I don't know
It must be a Lena post for it by the name we talked about the center support
It's an option. We'll see how it happens. Falcons, they still need one hero, and they also will be thinking about where this Viper is going.
They need a hero, still I would imagine, for Malrin and our mid lane.
Mid real big. And this is a mid real big game.
I see.
What time are you trying to put the cards on? It's like, don't win by 25, and then, you know, get the airport home, what the...
Oh man. The Viper makes a Razer's game so hard, just like, we saw in game one, he just wanted to run around with the refresher and then hit...
Yeah, it's so hard to pick the last hero, yeah.
Yeah, you know, Viper's really good.
They really put up quite a puzzle there on the side of Liquid for Falcons
to try and figure out with their overall last pick,
whereas normally an overall last pick is seen as an advantage.
I feel like this draft from Team Liquid
makes their position just a tad bit stronger.
But the tango is the slaughter of the heroes
that can give a bit more pacing to Falcons
will get deleted by the Viper, right,
because he just goes to mid lane.
I mean, you have to choose either you pick a hero that's good for the draft
or you pick a hero to counter the Viper.
So I don't think there's a hero that can fulfill both.
Ken the moment.
I mean, it's Maourine.
Just like, go primal, skip the waves and just...
Sank him, skip the waves.
Sank him.
Hey, we're back.
Just full skip the wave, full ignore everything in life
and then you come back into the game.
But, whoof, I mean, for Falcons, like, in the back of their minds,
they know it's like one mistake,
one, like, mis-itemization choice from their team.
like skid on my not being on the same page, not connecting with the damage.
They're draft will fall apart compared to the amount of scaling available on liquid.
And here's a position for Centaur and they off lane Viper.
So it's a melee body to enable the aggression of a Viper.
So that still means we're going to have Sam King versus Lina in the mid lane
between Malrin and Nisha.
And we talked a lot about the mid lane and how MP4 has been in the last two series.
I would feel that this matchup's going to play out.
So, Sam King is going to not lane.
Okay, he's going to try and grab the creep wave
He's gonna try and drag it to the camps in the enemy strangle and farm them
I think maybe you could see tofu potentially like rotating to find disrupt that but he'll
When we see him play his best
He is able to just combine creep waves with camps extra farm get his items and then rotate to the side lanes
It's gonna be rough because you're gonna have skitter that having the worst day of his life
inside through
That's all right. That's all right.
Also, luckily for Murray there, it depends on the century warfare.
Like, if he clutches up on the centuries, get the kill, and then there's no vision for Nisha.
Murray can just play the lane quite normally.
It just really depends on how does Skitter survive the Viper shenanigans.
Is a Margre to pop off again on his razor like he did in game one.
So many questions for Falcons, because they could have kind of cooked up a draft that is like,
if you don't answer these questions, we have the void.
Like, a game three lower bracket void.
Surely, probably statistically, normally wins.
A big question then because this is a curve ball of course, that Team Liquid is throwing Falcons this way.
Is there a curve ball win too that Falcons can throw in terms of where the heroes go laning?
Nah, I think those play that game. I on the other hand feel like Liquid has sacrificed a lot of their draft integrity
just to pick this rifle to try and win the early game and win the laning phase
where I feel that's probably the part of the game where it doesn't, but it's not as important for them to do that
and I don't really like the last period, so I think Falcons are gonna come away in this game.
Well, I think this is gonna be a spicy one regardless of what's gonna happen.
I'm gonna grab my support Largo and enjoy this one with the voices of Sun-Spent and Sindri.
Thank you so much, Sheever. Game number three here at the International Lower Bracket.
The last two champions here at TI. One of them's going home. Falcons versus Liquid.
Without talking about the Lance quite yet, Cinderan, who's gonna win? Give me your prediction so I can pick the opposite team, because we know you're gonna be wrong.
Liquid.
Okay, that's an easy one. Very good. Thank you so much. Did you put any thought into that?
Yes.
Okay, double check.
But you told me to not mention the draft, so I didn't, but that was part of the logic of why I picked them.
I see. Wow, so logical, young man you are.
Isn't that what Jed just said?
Using your brain.
Yeah, so there's a couple of things here that are really cool that I really like about liquid draft whether this is gonna work out or not
It's obviously remains to be seen here, but I think this is a pretty genius void pick
They saw that falcons were trying to replicate what they did in game one with bounty razor
And then they just swapped out the bounty hunter for a clockwork on crit
So the idea is similar where there's this hero that can flank and kind of box you in in your own safe lane and dive you
So they pick a hero that has a relatively low cooldown jump, which is a classic solution to Razor,
and in addition to that, they also managed to grab this Viper block pick in a sense in the end
to kind of force Falcons into an...
a pick that we haven't seen from them very much, the Malorin Sand King,
and then the Viper just isn't made anyway.
Now the Viper is going to lane into Lifestealer, which is a tough lane matchup for the Lifestealer.
for the lifestealer. So in turn now, Falcons are going to try to counteract this by sending
a lifestealer off lane on skidder to try to lane dodge and get him into a more favorable
matchup into the void and then they will have Razor against Centaur.
I don't know if they're going to stick to it.
Centaur for. Razor against Viper, I guess, more like it, but...
Pride versus try right now in the bot lane by the way.
I would love if this lane just stays at try.
This is your dream, and nobody else's.
I miss trialings.
Can I just say it?
I miss trialings, and I'm not the only one.
There's dozens of us.
You probably should not admit that out loud, Cinder, and it's not a good look for you.
But it is a trialing right now.
Let's see how long that ends up being the case.
It's already staking.
He's going to get first blood as Ace will take him home, and that is, I mean,
talk to me about the crystal maiden, because this hero has not been picked very
much.
Has played a lot in the past, but there's a lot of weaknesses
Yeah, I think Snakey forgot how tri-lings work because he never gets to play them
And if you're standing in that kind of position you can get hundreds of zeros before you even get a spell off
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what
Guides Falcons when they pick this hero if I'm honest
I think sometimes it makes a lot of sense this time it almost felt like a filler
It was just we need a solid lane 5 that is going to help like sewer off get off to a decent start
But then at the end of the day, they don't even get to lane together. So
Yeah, I it's a very least the stand King and razor will get some nice mana regen from the CM
I don't pose one benefit might also been
You know, it's a pseudo counter to stampede having a local down
route with long duration that CM has. It's good for the lane again but there were so
many layers to this draft where teams were countering the counter of the other
team so it never really at now when you see it play out the crystal main pick
actually doesn't really look like it has much of an obvious CM specific
purpose. Yeah, just felt like a you know placeholder okay-ish five as now the
lanes are breaking down and we're seeing some movement. Looks like Lifestealer will get to remain against the faceless
which I think this is a very good piece of use for Falcons.
I think these lanes could have been a lot worse if Liquid got to place them the way they wanted.
Viper Centaur lanes. Very normal, of course.
We have seen a couple of support Centaurs in the past in this tournament, in fact,
and it's actually been relatively successful, at least from the games that we've passed.
I don't know what the actual win rate would be.
I've yet to see a CM, though.
I'm not sure if that's the case for the entire tournament or not, but...
Very low pick rate, I'm sure.
I love watching Boxy on these in-your-face horrors.
Saw him on the tusk, down on the centaurs.
He's very good at taking initiative, similarly he plays a good clockwork, like just, heroes
that go in and make stuff happen are his forte, so this makes a lot of sense to see on him.
We should speak about Faceless Void, because this is a classic TI hero.
Yeah.
He's a fan favorite.
Yeah, we don't get to see it all too often. Obviously late game complete monster.
What has changed that matters with this hero versus, you know, older versions?
Um, in essence it's still pretty much the same hero, same strength, same weaknesses, right?
Time walk is extremely good against taking a lot of damage in a short period of time, but not dying, obviously.
Chrono has the same strength and weakness as always.
it's one of the strongest spells in the entire game, but it does no damage, it has a mega-long cool
bound, so whenever it's not available, your hero is quite weak, and I think that's part of the problem
that this hero has had for a long time is, depending on the pacing of the meta, if it's
very slow, everybody just gets to farm, you don't have to fight for much, and you're kind of
just chilling in lane and just farming 30 minutes, I think Void could be pretty good.
It feels like a lot of the games already, right?
It does but it also has some atrocious lane matchups, right?
So you also need to know your matchups and if all of those conditions are not I think the hero can be good
Which is why I really liked it this game you saw two core matchups that are good for you
You're probably anticipating the pace of the game will be rather slow and your other four heroes
That's you have ended up with now and actually do quite a bit of stuff together. So I mean it's fine
Yeah, but and late game versus life so I don't think there's really much of a contest obviously of the chrono that
Black pass the entire rage effect, and the fact that it counters Amar, as we talked about.
Amar, ace, ace.
Cool.
Using Salotis, Will Fall is about to do a good amount of damage to Amar.
Looks like he'll get the trade.
But...
Yeah, I'm very interested to see if...
My assumption is if Liquid gets off to even just being even in the mid-game,
And they will be favored because they have faceless blood. Is that a correct assumption?
um
There's a couple of
Ex factors here. I I think the lights do a matchup into faceless void is better than it used to be after you got the axe in fest
I mean that now we're talking a few years
I think razor extra does okay against void later in the game because you're so tanky
You don't necessarily die in a chrono and you get to make a turnaround play
And Sand King is one of those heroes that with the right items can have insane burst damage within a short window
And that's what you're looking for against Void. You need to either have overwhelming damage to kill him
You need to be survivable or it needs to do a lot of damage over time
So you can't really just walk it off whenever he needs to
And I think between Sand King and Razor you can actually kill Void in late game if Malarina is fond enough and
Didn't get to talk about that lane yet, but unsurprisingly Malarina's just not laning like the panel talked about
This is gonna be pulling waves and farming jungle camps
Nisha will be winning the lane as a result at least slightly and
We'll get a nice little snack for it showed up and got Laguna and Dragon Slayton just died. So that was a little freebie
Need Amar level 3 by the way on the razor right now. That is not great
Oh, they're boxing him out entirely with this TOEFL rotation. This is super high impact
so they're gonna need some reinforcements.
Nice.
Great.
Yep.
The spot tofu eventually.
Oh, and it's reminding you of those plastic-dilken parts
where the bushback comes out onto the marble.
The hook's not to follow the right way from the biker as well.
Amar is certainly dead to the double edge
as Ace is tanking the tower.
It has to be a bit careful
so he'll find the distance.
And now Crit has to be the one
to be a bit careful himself.
We'll get to the other side though
and Ace shall survive.
Are you gonna try to just walk all the way north
and try to steal the wisdom?
It's actually possible if there's no TP coming in.
Ace, look at the Lotus though.
Ah, there's a TP from the center.
Malarine has joined the party, gets off the world strike and gets the kill, so a nice turnaround from Falcons.
As Malarine will hit level 6.
It's also going to kill Koko with a Rocket Flare.
Stabilizing things a bit here.
Looks to be a one-for-one wisdom exchange as well.
The Radiant one, unclaimed for now.
Would you say Radiance is better against Void than it used to be or just roughly the same?
Just because the evasion is all on the specific hero now?
Um, I would say it's...
Oh!
Alright, that's one way to cancel a TP, just kill yourselves but Crit will burn for it.
Man, that's so insane.
Ace will a nice double burrow strike from Mal'Reen.
Ace looks to be there, he's gonna pop the loader to stay left, the box is filled enough to finish the job.
Foxy now trying to head to the north towards his base. It's gonna be close here borough strike in two seconds
Should get to kill and he does Boston a CM but makeings used to dying
Yep, did a lot of that in the second game. He's gonna have to get used to it on CM as well
I feel like that is her MO. I don't think you picked CM if you're a player that struggles with dying
Part of the heroes DNA basically why she has no move speech can't run away from anything
You just you commit and you do your stuff and then hopefully you win. So it goes
Is radiance better than before
against void I
Think it's roughly I think it's slightly slight bit worse, but not by a very big amount in the hero versus hero matchup directly
It's just that a lot of the time with the the old radiance that was blinding
Void would maybe chrono life stealer and it's a court together and then try to hit the other guy
So you're just not giving protection to the teammate, but for you yourself, I think the math is roughly the same
So
It's a
Between the two of them doesn't matter all that much
I was kind of point out. Is this just one of the most nothing burger lanes? We've had all tournament
I think it is like a life stealer against faceless void
Struggling hearts of five less
Interesting way I think both just getting creeped both ladies are probably happy though
I would assume I think Skeeter is the happiest because he avoided a night fair match it into the viper plus center
I think that lane would have been really rough
And the faceless boy didn't get to play against razor, which I think you know that would have been a top lane to make me as well
but
relatively speaking
You should get slowed into the frostbite now rees there with the sandstorm a crit making his way over as well
Nicely done from falcons will it cost them though push wax finds the target so they do get the trade Mickey
as the chrono, but
Kind of follow-up. Yeah, that's a real feels bad TP for Mickey is that's effectively going to cost him a full wave in tower
100 gold for a TP strong he gets nothing for it
Bob Lane already used a hook stop so he just keep eating the face of ace
Double five on the viper right now. So I'm are catching up on the level department
And for Mickey he is often to go for the battle theory which I didn't even know what's normal anymore
But I mean I remember there was a phase where people were going battle fury ads pretty much right off the bat
Is that still in consideration or I think it's definitely in consideration when you go battle theory
It's obviously not something you're gonna consider when you buy the Velstra code
The reason it's so crazy is like you just
Timewalk in kill an entire great wave time walk out. So just if you immediately clear
It's really fast performing and in terms of teamfights
It can be quite interesting into lineups where it's hard to pull commit then you just playing on time walk poke and
You just jump in, jump out, six seconds later you can do it again.
You have an AoE stun, you do decent damage, and then when it's the right time you can commit with the chrono.
I think that's potentially kind of interesting here as an idea.
Because hard committing can be somewhat tricky into the razor, plus the BKB piercing instead of clockwork speaking up.
Jumped off to the bottom.
Staticling from a mark, and Frostbite holds the centaur in place, foxy taking a tumble.
It's been really good at his caulk pushes so far this game, paying attention, giving almost all of them.
They're a big clockwork connoisseur of course.
I have to say though, I do miss the good old days where battery assault is the default build.
Yeah, so you picked it up recently in a show match.
A lot of people not work out well.
A lot of people love the power caulk's bowling.
I like the in-your-face clockwork more than the...
easy solution make two heroes one is pulling and one is a lockwork yeah
lockwork I guess surely there's a sport rugby there we go in your face
aggressive right I like it put it on the boxing too I guess but yeah that's true
I would have been better thanks for pointing that out no problem I'll read
about 300 away from blink dagger yep I assume he still goes the same build
when he that he did when he was popularizing the hero is a mid with
axe. It's going for the epicenter. Oh look shop misses, but he's able to cancel the epi the very least.
Staking takes the ace, block tree. Does get the host thomps, technically speaking.
And for liquid, I assume that they can't play nearly as aggressively with a void on their
lineup as they did in game number two.
Oh, this hero has the clear weakness of when chrono is on cooldown, you're just not very good.
Whereas Wing Ranger, much lower cooldowns, much better utility.
Even when focus fires down, you still have shackle shot, power shot can be nice to finish heroes off in the early game.
Oil is just going to be chilling, and he's going to be farming.
And like the panel talked about, this is an elimination game in a really important series,
If you feel like you're confident in your late game, and your carry and your mid are recording that they're happy farming,
I think everybody's just chilling.
And if you were to give me these two lineups five years ago, I would say the Radiance Stance, no chance this goes to an ally.
But, no, this changed a lot since then, and I definitely think it will all work.
First Toronto of the game, Rage was placed, but Nisha...
Oh, actually, I'm not kidding, the LSA, but he gets the Laguna Blade at 70, at the center counter initiation now.
From Malrin, that's a lot of damage on Anisha.
He will get the kill, might cost him his own life,
though, even Ace joins the party with that poison attack.
Everybody joined the party, in fact.
Santa clinked now a full duration onto Ace and Nicky.
Try to do something with his bush-wacked help.
He has to be careful, though.
I thought Trigon's a grit,
the beautiful cogs right on his face.
Double kill for Amar.
Grit has been absolutely outstanding in this game,
number three.
Man, that was actually really funny to watch.
I think he was trying to hook shot him in his original position on the void and he timewalked in the exact same direction
but the clock was in so it was just destined to hit no matter what.
And obviously very easy to get the follow-up cogs every single time.
Now we're able to steal an illusion in the meantime.
Close to 1,500 away from Radiance on the lifestealer.
Not too shabby at all.
And we haven't covered this all that much, but what do you think about Ace on Viper as a player of hero combination?
It's definitely not his norm.
No, so if you do the big tanky guys that pick up a lot of space...
I mean Viper kind of does that, but it doesn't really buy auras in the same way that most of his heroes do.
It doesn't really offer all that much teamfight presence through key stuns or, you know, utilities.
Malrin getting a connection into the hookshot with a nice push like they keep something. No, Micke dies anyway
Falcons all on top of Micke this game. That's back-to-back deaths now on the faceless void
And he's gonna lose a tower. This is a pretty important
Sequence of events for the radiant team. The TPs are coming. No, they're not. Oh, they're a little bit on
Omar with the Lagoona them follow they get the kill
The epicenter ready to go for Nisha or Malrin rather.
You see the freezing field coming out, but not a whole lot of damage done.
Nisha on the high ground. Malrin still has the epi at the ready.
She's spotted now.
She's going to try to go for the epicenter, but Nisha turns away.
There's the blink into the burrow, though, and it's still enough damage,
despite using half those pulses on freeze.
Still finds the kill.
and that was pretty blind as well didn't have a whole lot of vision at all
there process of elimination he turns the corner Lena isn't there she's kind of
only have gone right
and quick going for an extremely early blink dagger on clockwork yeah this has
become a more popular build as of a few months ago to go on clock after you're
They're focusing a lot more on hang-off, so they're going to go for this?
Oh, they definitely are.
Last fight from the Snake King.
He already has his Shard.
Trying to get to the high ground.
Talks to give him a little bit of space.
Another nice bowling there from Crit.
Snake King.
So slow.
He uses the Shard again.
Will get away this time.
Worth pointing out though, Snake King is level 10.
Crystal Maiden levels are extremely important and very hard to combine.
this hero despite the rapid jets for you know just being slow and frail the
spells are very strong when you get level 4 and both and you can see at this
time around it's making is actually going for three points in the arcane aura
the invest bomb right on top of ace again he gets up the viper strike it's the
stamp ooh the hook shot just misses just about a hundred range away it feels
like it's not gonna miss next time he has the blink up now I think his lucky
stars there is ace who is going for a dragon lance into mage slayer. I mean it's
it is a good mage slayer game. Sand King obviously big problem.
TP gets canceled here. Yeah, Malrin was just baiting them. He blinked or he ran
in stun and then blinked out onto ace. Rated one TP. Two actually. Oh, two TP's.
All right
If they put that to use both we're going for a mechanism does this item still exist in there in
Yes, they're like we're never seeing it anymore
He wants grieves
There's a lot of you eat image. I guess between maiden razor and sinking
I think pipe has quite a lot of merit to it as well for the same reason
Upside to going grieves for yourself as you can dispel off frostbite
Open wounds, but highly unlikely that you will be the target for that ability
Malarine in the meantime a thousand away from his agonim scepter
Oh another hookshot just missing same award right in the middle of the river
Seeing that move Malarine's gonna be small he is infested so they still want to get a little bit aggressive here
He liquid this exiting though
Back to farming, Skeeter goes in all likelihood.
So Amar at least starting out with a similar build to his previous Razor game with Manta.
Although I think he went Yasha.
But Yasha BKB in that Manta.
BKB Manta, yeah.
This game has slowed down a bit so maybe he feels a little bit more comfortable to go for the Manta first.
I think the main upside to buying BKB last game was that he was super eager to just run up the enemy team with Bounty Hunter and he had a new game for this time.
you are playing like you said a bit slower is the better farming item there's
some cool place with Banta here if you're really clutch first of all you can
get rid of time dilation which is nice but you can also man-to-dodge
micro strike and man-to-dodge I mean theory you can man-to-dodge anything
you're good enough but especially the micro strike is very nice to avoid
We saw the battle theory on Micke and it's going to be the Manta burst for him into the
Agonize Scepter.
Cool to see.
I personally love this build, on board, I think it's really fun to watch and play.
But yeah, the clear downside this build has versus the Mjolnir build is that your single
target damage is a lot lower, but your AoE damage and your overall control is a lot
better because you build into an AoE stun for your teammates to use and you get the
the luxury of reverse time-lock.
Oh, another miss hook shot.
Fred, now you're able to make the connection.
Absent of both the blink.
I guess so.
I mean, the reverse time-lock, this game, especially
good against the static link, right?
Because you can take it off, essentially, with a time-lock,
go back in and actually fight.
However, it's way less likely that you just jump in,
chrono, and actually kill the razor.
Stand A, boxy, looking for a connection,
and now raise action.
Try to counteract this with an episode.
It's going to be infest bomb instead.
Not going to waste the ult.
They get the freebie onto Centaur.
And which team do you think is the advantage, has advantage going into Roche, generally speaking?
As in who can kill it faster or who both rolls to fight better?
Both.
They have both pretty fast, I would say.
Or at least not.
Like nothing stands out as being great.
I think the overall AoE control in terms of contesting it, I like Falcons better
because they don't have to commit a big ability to start making things difficult.
This is the burrow strike though as Nisha gets off an LSA but looks like there's still to be chomp down.
And now Rain gets the kill and they're gonna get sentar again.
But Micky coming with the drone is here onto two.
They have picked his target, goes to the CM first and now the lifestealer doesn't have any effect to work with.
Skeeter just has to try and right click and play out of it.
Not gonna happen though. Big kill for Liquid.
I'm gonna turn this around onto him, our gets bashed up.
Cogs coming out from Frit and trying to buy some space for the Marlux completely dead although Mikkei changing targets again
A Marluk getting a kill in the meantime as the Double Cogs coming out from Ace eventually they do find Frit and in the end it's a three for three
Three for three plus one if you will yes. Oh, yeah, sorry about that. That's fine. All good in essence. It was pretty much a draw, so
Well, the old going in liquids favor it seems.
Yeah, what was the big kill there?
Why would they get so much more?
No one was on the street, right?
I was a little bit surprised to see
if he used that much better for them, but...
Yeah, I mean, if this Burlestrike gets this kill
it's way faster, and your position is probably better.
On the flip side though,
Buxa came into help and actually ended up dying.
But the really big thing here
is Rage has already been used before he gets Chrono'd,
so then they get to chain it with the hoodwink stun.
He takes Geeter down, going fast, as you mentioned.
He gets killed by the chase here.
A little bit scrappy.
Okay, yeah, this TP out from Crit, not gonna work.
Push back, being armful down.
Back then, Micky was the one to survive all of that.
Pretty big, Nisha's like,
No?
Shaking his head, I die to him even when he can't hit his spells.
Your team won the fight.
It's a team game.
Speaking of Nisha, he's about to finish Agadon's Scepter, 700 to go.
Multi-purpose item this game, obviously the offensive part of the Flamclog is great,
Great, but also the magic resist against Sankking and Crystal Maven is more than welcome from here
You saw how he died in that last engagement with flamethrower if you would have survived for sure
Did Malorin have ags on that last fight? Yeah
That's why it was lethal otherwise
Other infest bomb
Doesn't look like the connection will be unless they go to the south that's where Aces living right now
They will not redirect for the time being
If you can see the smoke from Liquid, going the opposite direction, effectively the same
direction but they're running away.
And the Maher, he's going to be the one to hold the KB, that's the time to get the
Platinum Field off as well.
If he does have Strono's Sphere, he should be taking a ton of damage to the Static
Link.
Here comes the car, the epicenter's right on top of making it have the time lock
away though.
The Maher extremely low, trying to get the kill with the Bush Black as a mean
enough to kill him off.
the first death for Falcons.
Boxing with Pee Hook, Stomp, Deisha on the high ground
trying to contribute something here,
but the Viper Strike now onto the left
so absolutely no way to get out of this.
No way to use the invest quite yet.
Of course, Swack again from Koko,
doing so much work in this fight
for the Withered, Mayfine 3.
I genuinely thought Falcons were gonna smash that Viper,
and I'm large enough to get a full static link
off and force a chrono,
But the timing of it could not have been better, it ends up happening just as Mal Ring is blinking
in for a Blink Barrel Strike stun, so his entire epicenter gets completely wasted, looking
at how much damage they can get 2k, it all got mitigated, he just time walked it off.
So they just ran out of juice essentially, and a full length they couldn't use, the
biggest ability in their lineup right now, the Effie did nothing, and Ice Stealer
just doesn't really feel like he can do it all that much so far.
An additional item before Skeeter really starts hitting like anything.
They also tried to chase down the Lena afterwards with a burrow-site,
completely farmed, just chasing after it.
I'm gonna have another chance to kill off Nisha.
He's stun-locked for the time being.
Flame cloak in action.
Absolutely very tanky as a result, and we'll live.
Falcons missing a little bit of damage in these engagements.
It has made a world of difference, and because of that liquid now,
for the 5k lead.
Not true, as the observer is pointing out.
They didn't even go for the tankiness talent on 15.
Lena can take Fire Rissole Magikersis per stack as well.
So if you have seven stacks, that's another 35%.
Pretty crazy.
Might have been worth considering this game versus 110 Lifestrike Array damage,
but I mean, they're both incredible 15 talents.
Obviously, 110 damage is not 110 damage on Lena.
It's 110 plus 64 percent from the slow burn
Will she get a catalyst late, you know, who's the best here in the game for that neutral
Something that was extremely broken. What was it?
You know it's definitely up there. It's very good, but not that. No, I'm trying to do this one
That's the same. I mean it's pretty crazy with quap eggs
I would say it's also really good on Snapfire, Invoker, obviously.
Just keep naming Herald.
Yeah, I can.
Very soothing.
You want to hear another one?
Sure.
Jikiro, I say Herald.
You'd occasionally.
I don't really miss him, if I'm being honest.
There's a period of time to pick every single game.
Hopefully though, I will mention, that's had an outstanding game number 3 thus far, this Bush Black's pretty much spot-on every time.
This just seems like a really good pick for Lichard, so...
They're actually gonna go for the liftoff! They get the stun lock!
Dude, it's a kill off of Skeeter! It's a casual LSA, and that's enough!
And another one.
That is a Crystal Maiden.
They're very fierce in this arena. There's a wolf after all now. Ring shows himself with the shield room, they keep showing up though.
Looking for the bash. On the freezing field, they'll get the bush whack instead.
And Anisha taking some damage, but they get the counter-kill right on top of Amar.
And this is disastrous for Falcons.
Three for nothing, it's a hookshot. They barely missed it.
They're just too fragmented. They're losing their way in this game. Liquid are playing tight together.
They're getting all the spell combos that they want.
Falcon's kind of just going one by one there.
Leicester is already dead, top-sanking kind of just blinks in, hoping for a good fight.
Maiden is going to be caught first within a bar.
Obviously, the vein of his existence on these super strong Razor-type heroes is just getting DKB locked down.
And Chrono, you're dealing with Chrono, you're dealing with Stampede.
It's difficult if you don't have an item advantage or someone else who's super farmed to rely on,
and that was probably what they were hoping for for the life stealer, but Skeeter just doesn't have very much to work with.
And it went for a lot of infest bombs, it did a nice couple of burrow strikes with the infest bomb.
And it looks like two kills going the way of Falcons, that's really needed.
That was a very unexpected hit for them. It's nice for Skeeter to get both last hits there.
Gonna unlock the banter for him. Still not all that much in the way of offense.
Yeah.
28 minutes in the game and faceless voids top net worth not good news to the other
no ice dealer I think has to have the lead at this point in the game to put up
any kind of a fight or at least be tied I feel like a lot of this has to do with
their game they've been trying to get him really active with the investors a
lot of them until now have come up empty yep but he's basically an item
behind you're gonna see make a farm really really fast now that he has
this trio of items complete. Gonna work on a Scotty next. This is actually not
necessary to buy to unlock refresher on Void when you're going Ags. A lot of the
time when you play the Mjolnir build you will see Voids by Scotty because they
need the mana to get refresher so they can get double chrono. Ags does, however,
give you enough mana, but he's just getting it regardless. There was obviously
some other options you can consider here.
Congratulations Skeeter and it gets a proper hug again and Skeeter is not going to find the actual asset
I'll go to snaking but kill is a kill and that is a killing spree ended for Nisha
Into a tormentor as well. Okay
Starting to look like things we're going to go for liquid. I guess we can't have that in a game three
already had two stomps
Welkins not a third one. This has got to be the worst shot in the entire game
Genuinely, I think it's actual bonding. What do you think?
Yeah, that is. It just increases his network.
Actually, yeah. I think this needs some love or it needs to just work differently entirely.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone buy this shard on Lifesteal.
So what it does, you do damage when you come out of infest, out of a creep.
Which is never happening.
Which in this game you're going to infest your allies almost always.
and then you do a percentage of that creep's damage around yourself, which makes it, you know,
depending on what creep you infest, that's not really that great. It can be a decent amount of
damage if you infest one of the strong creeps, but it's like, you're not going to pay 1400 gold
for this on a hero that desperately needs to itemize for damage. The only time you would
generally buy it is if you have seven slots with the consumed aggs, you have shard,
You have moon shard. You have buyback and you've given shard to all your teammates. That's right
Foxy I'm so little snacking see ya
I think I'm working for a little bit
Was that I should look like you needed it maybe I can just take down fire now reen and crit
This one with the big connection crit, long vision.
It did get the hookshot, out comes the lifestealer, Nisha has to try and stand around.
Okay, big big coming in, gets the time dilation and the promo spear only onto one.
They find the clockwork, and they get the back, they don't even need it.
The hook back is there, and the kill onto the lifestealer is there.
I don't know if he thinks you can't give Lightstrike a ray off between battery assault ticks, so he didn't want to waste his rage.
Or he was trying to time it perfectly on a Lightstrike a ray cast or whatever to get maximum value, but whatever it is, that was a total disaster.
That Lena kill is a hundred percent guaranteed if he rages. He probably dies after because of the massive rotation
And now it was just two for nothing
big damage onto a mark
Casual damage for Nisha's again. I got more where that came from
Not the TP on the tree line. Oh, it's coming K lead for liquid 30 seconds on the Aegis
Yeah, that was a big moment. That's actually a bit hard to get over that. That's really rough to watch. Do your best, Cinderan
All right, I'm good
Mkb looks to be next for mckday as the aegis will expire naturally
Give him that outer towers for falcon as a bachelor now picked up from I mean both sketer and
malrin have one
Wait sketer wasn't actually finished with this. Oh man. I was looking at a while ago. This arm is not ideal
And yet he's popping his team
feels very low back inside of a teammate
taking them out by the vision
bro strike hits that'll be a dead squirrel
eventually
yeah when uh... one person's voice this far ahead
the field wanna say anecdotally the hero wins like
four or five games at least and when you get to the gap is this big and it's
good matchups then yeah this is get refresher this is maybe that I'm maybe
there's a better one he's got to be top refresher buyers in the game among carries
this is the carry that suffered the least from not being able to refresh BKB
because you don't need the second BKB nearly as much when the entire enemy
team is stunned I think the hero that probably suffered the absolute most from
that change might have been Sven it's so important to get the second BKB so
can keep going but yeah on void I would agree refresher is still s tier in his
build and he will be getting it at some point you go to backtrack chance for 25
on him yeah I don't think the chrono aoe is necessary here sometimes it even
grieves your team
how much they even have to dump in the chrono sphere haven't really talked
about that aspect.
Drive shooter, Lena spells gets a good amount.
Viper can hit.
No wombo combo though.
No, not.
Which is what we love to see.
Yeah, I guess so.
I mean, Winter was suggesting Elder Tide as a combo take that obviously would have
been it for Ancient Operation.
And the ET games we've seen have been very bad.
Yeah.
But it does make a little more sense with the Void though.
Thread, he's infested, he's shut.
Round number two, Hookshot.
Now let's pop the rage this time and we'll use it to get out of the cunt.
And now Trickin' and gone on, uh-oh, Boxy actually finds the hookstomp onto the lifestealer.
He's gonna tempt the TP out, and he gets pushwacked again, just punishment after punishment.
These lifestealer bombs have not worked out well at all this game for Falcon.
They can't kill Lina like that, which is Flamcove.
He's just gonna fly out of the cunt.
I mean, that was naive to begin with. He has a disc, 3K HP, and it's in the middle of the map with no information.
This seems very, very desperate from Falcon 5.
Mark's back again, Foku setting up a potential kill.
Foxy gonna force out the BKB, so a mark.
Story back to base. They haven't gotten a tier 2 yet in that bot lane.
I mean, they might just continue here.
here, make a cracks 25, he didn't use chrono on the razor there probably would
have got the kill but it's saving it for a more important upcoming moment.
He's very likely to just be able to push here. I wonder if Foxy's gonna change his
build. He's clearing up BKB right now in the center. I was looking for a
potential axe on him. He's playing for Centaur, he's rich, he's got Link,
Limmer already. If he gets an axe he can just save whoever gets a chest palm
Uh, if any of you can feel very comfortable on the voice, I'll take the tower and be happy with that for now.
Back out, and Liquid has to know that this is in a very good spot now.
Yep, Roche is up, so you can finish this Scotty on the Faceless Void.
I wonder if Shard is on the table for Ace, because that's when they actually get some really good high ground potential in terms of taking buildings.
I would like to see him buy it next.
Could just kill the Tormentor when it comes back online I suppose and hope for the best.
Yeah, what are they missing? Do they have any sharps, except for... no.
So it's a fill, he wouldn't be.
Wait, is it a 50-50?
Oh no, Viper can't even get it now.
Yeah, he can't get it.
It'll be Centaur with Link, yeah.
Bar has a heart, by the way, on Razor.
He'll be tough to take down.
I'm a little bit worrying to see him buy this item loan of knowing his normal build.
Because I have serious damage concerns for Falchion, he's going down the stretch here.
This lifestealer is not where it needs to be to be able to match up.
So if Razor doesn't hit very hard, I think you're effectively just not really going to win a teamfight at this point unless you hit a massive epicenter.
And now Reem does have an Abyssal.
This looks weird if you haven't played Bota for a while.
But the way it works would be acts with the stingers you can still get some value out of this
Also might see Daedalus later
Falcons know if this is happening if it wasn't the rocket flare
They lose the belt from Roche and they're gonna go for an infest play
This is a huge moment in this game 3. This has to work. It just has to work
You can see Nisha and Soku on the outskirts of this fight is VK
Basically soloing Roche Amar. He's gonna be spotted by Nisha
Mal'Reen.
Don't have vision up here. Nisha's gonna pop the smoke.
Gonna get used to this terrain walk now.
Go for Dagon apparently, Nisha.
Gonna be spotted, gets off the LSA, just trying to delay as much as possible.
Rosh is still being taken.
Getting relatively low.
Amar's gonna go for the Static Ring with a Stampede immediately counter-action.
As Trit gets one inside his cogs, they're just gonna blow him up easily.
Mal'Reen, invested still.
Looking for an open-to-outcome Skeeter, not doing that much damage.
All of it's mitigated!
as Big D gets the chronosphere now.
Do they have the damage on top of the Mickey?
Focusing on the same thing.
BKB was still there.
He gets the chronosphere, but still falls in the end.
Skeeter trying to kill up Nisha with again the high ground
potential, going the favor of Lena again as Amar with a BKB.
Attempting to TP is successful.
The trip will kill for Nisha.
They killed four off the Falcon side.
And now they can clean up Rose relatively easily,
and even more of a lead or liquid.
Just to match the plasma zone control there from Liquid.
They have very, very good hero placements
into that all the angles were covered it was super hard for Falcons to find any
good initiation they break it up nicely with the stamp keep to start Lena
cancel stinking blink dagger so Falcons just couldn't get into that fight and now
they might even mark but there's no connection here nobody can get there in
time tracking his movements I say that actually Misha is cutting all the way
Oh, that mad, a Dagon LSA to follow into the house.
I've stopped so many stuns for days, Amar dead, 80 seconds.
And now it's all opened up for Liquid.
They have this second life.
They have Roche Bear.
This should be buildings.
Ace not even needing Shard here.
As the Dagens will continue to reign on Nisha.
At the moment we said this wasn't going to be a storm, it's been completely one-sided ever since
every single engagement has been a resounding liquid victory and that's two full lanes,
you still have Aegis, you have Prono in 30 seconds, you have decent resources on your heroes.
And to add insult to injury he gets Conqueror's Calamities.
Of course. Why not?
It takes the cast range variant, loses 14% max mana so he only has 3,000 and Mikkei with
that second life hasn't even hit full form yet, still has a full item to go, can consume
the axe to get number two, not sure if you ever get agon 5, no it's fast, yeah that
was, that's what happens when you're up 25k it seems, now Reign in the sideline,
Gonna use Roche banner ace has the shard now
Right looking for an opening we'll have to blink away okay forcing out the burrow strike
Very scary face was floyd right now. I'm stuck in a mess. That's the backtrack McKay
Reverse time walk rather forcing out the rage already now the infest into a baby creed the good thing has that shark
He's doing extra 50 damage when he pops out
Building starting to go down pretty slowly. They have to see Junice as well as a Roche banner is covered
And Skeeter, he's back stabbing, he's trying to get back to his base for a guy, he let that creep go.
Scouting.
There's this epicenter to get the range bear, it's only one to go for the Megas.
And then more, trying to take out this Roche banner, the creep also trying to, and Skeeter pops out.
Mick Gay, with the time watch.
Now, Reem, still looking for an opening on that epicenter, needs the perfect one here.
If they're going to stay alive in this game, number three.
To get to the upstop door, now the damage comes out onto the lifestealer, Skeeter is dead, doesn't have buyback, Amar.
No way to this epicenter, they know it's coming, Mal-Reyne continues to cancel it, Amar not taking the right to get it, will possibly be KD.
Here's the buyback now, it's epicenter onto the sideline, not doing that much damage in the end though, it's Amar desperately trying to catch up to somebody,
but the stampede gives him all the movespeed in the world, and they have still that second life on the faceless,
thought another pushback for the road, Amar takes the tumble, and there's the Toronto on the 2, they get the kill onto Mal-Reyne,
I don't buy back to come now, the basketball, again, Misha has the E on this.
They're just gonna call it G.G. Sheldon, the second Eliminator from TI, Liquid, Moomaw.
Just to better seem overall today, pretty clear in this third game, it looked like even a time, but
when we got to that later portion of the mid game, this was one team dominating every single
sequence, just arguably playing them up better, playing tighter together, and making fewer,
I want to say almost unforced errors. There were multiple uncharacteristic mistakes in this game
from Falcons, which is of course unfortunate to see, but let's see, like what it means a lot to
them to get to fight another day here. And yeah, the Falcons, the copies were so crushing.
We've been at the very, very top previously, but it is a lot to be retweeted. With a handshake,
much respect from both teams.
And unfortunately, Schalke's road ends here in the main event.
They will secure top eight.
There's no further than where they go.
This is the champion from last year, mind you.
Liquid champions a year before.
They stay alive to fight another day.
Do you think that they can go much further in this tournament?
I guess so.
When Liquid play their best, they can beat everybody.
It's a matter of consistency and finding their stride.
Unfortunately for them in this time in general,
There's been a couple of games here and there where it just seems a bit off
so if they can
If they can polish and get off on the right foot in their games, definitely still a team for everybody else to look out for
And Chris legendary player, of course and TI attendances on his greens right now
pretty absurd
As obviously very crushed after this defeat
I mean, where did you have Falcons in this tournament coming in?
Oh, I don't know. It's hard to place
There's multiple teams in this tournament that were a little bit wild party.
I definitely didn't have the vibe coming in that Falcons were going to be a top three place.
But that's the thing about this team.
It could be any given tournament.
They just hit their stride when you least expect it.
And vice versa.
Sometimes you're like, damn Falcons are going to smash this.
They're looking so good lately and they have a one-off event.
And this one just wasn't quite it.
They kind of scraped through to even get top eight.
And then they have three days in between sometimes that's where they level up the hardest sometimes it's not and this was just not
Not their event compared to the expectations and for liquid
I mean, I don't know I don't know if you agree with this
But tofu would definitely be the MVP as we're gonna go to the stage for an interview
Well everyone welcome to the last interview now next to me is from the liquid team
Thank you so much, Alicia so good to have you here yesterday was looking tough.
You guys got very hard of Mega 3 loss, then came back and then lost again in a very similar fashion.
But here today you guys came back. I want to know what happened between today and yesterday in that very difficult match.
For me personally, I think yesterday I played the kind of heroes I didn't really want, although I think Furion was kind of good, but could have won that game easily if I didn't fed.
And today was just like comfort, I was kind of like brain-off, just playing easy.
For me, yesterday, I got some unbeatable heroes.
I know I'm a good hero, but for me, I'm not used to it.
Today, I got the hero I wanted, so I'm more like a pro.
I don't have to think too much and take the game.
the next tournament. You 3-0 Falcons. Now you come back here. You fight real hard. You
beat him again. What changed there? Was that you, Blitz said you could almost lift as much
as him in the gym now as well. So was this a personal improvement? Was this a team improvement?
I want to ask you what kind of changes have happened today?
And we also heard that you are now taking the weight in the gym.
Coach, please, are you going to take the weight?
Is this your change?
I think in AWC we kind of choked, so I was a little frustrated.
Because the expectations were a bit higher.
And we won 3-0 in the bootcamp.
It was very chill, the screens were good, so we were just kind of comfort.
And now we're back to our bracket, so I don't know what's going to happen, to be honest.
Alright, well, I got some bad news for you.
If you lost this series, you would have got 8th place, which means that you would have gotten all the placings from 1 to 13.
so many international, so much history.
I gotta ask, just playing the international in front of a crowd like this still mean something to you?
I want to tell you a bad news. If you lose this game, you will be able to get the first place in TI history, the 13th place.
I want to ask, after so many years of TI, will you still be in the same state as the audience on stage?
Yeah, for sure. Having crowd here is a different game even.
Energy is nice and it's nice to see who you're playing for.
And yeah, I didn't get all the medals for the placements, but I cannot complain.
Every year in the International Championship, there will be a lot of energy in front of the audience.
Thank you very much, everyone.
I'm really sorry, I didn't get the full-fledged achievement.
But I think it's not important.
We have to continue working hard.
Oh, that's my boy!
Guys, there's a new song, but so does the devil, and I'm gonna fence it.
What? I didn't see it!
You're going to get full flexed! No!
You need to win again to get the full flexed, and you're gonna tease the audience.
We talked about everything after one interview.
Oh, my God.
I'm so sorry.
What are you showing in this game as well?
We talked about that draft after it was done.
They did liquid sacrifice too much for their draft integrity and it turned out when Sir that they sacrificed just the right amount in this game.
Yeah just the right amount but there were times in the game where we were worried for them.
We were looking at the game it felt like they were not really in control like Falcons kind of they were in control like at the start of the game.
They had a couple of really really nice fights they were taking control of the map they were doing really well but a couple of slip up just made the game.
Honestly, close to impossible because you're playing into a faces void
You know that life still can't really fight against a faces void in the late game
And every small little mistake you make is just gonna compound
I mean that's literally the story of this game in a single game your entire tournament life is on the line
When you look towards liquid it doesn't matter how many mistakes you make right like five
You can just viper strike the life there now
He can't really do much and then you got cron or you have stampede to disengage your niche should go in 10
5 and 17 buying daegon on Alina just getting kills left to right like the falcon's like every
spell has to connect and unfortunately it just wasn't really working out the
initiation from the clock to the sign thing where people were on the map it
wasn't always in the same page as you see here in this highlight rule where you
know liquid you know they were able to you know
much better yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it was an awkward fight I probably watched today
yeah this was real symphony of skills yeah we'll see it on YouTube later
tonight but it was a great fight guys probably the best fight of TI
So it was it was definitely unique and I think it's a fight that shows the pressure that goes into a game like this very with
Elimination on the line both teams maybe a little bit shaky in their position. Yeah, I think this is why I love the faces for it
It's a hero where it will win when you reach a certain point in the game
And I don't think a lot of teams are able to keep the composure needed to
Overcome that right. It's like all liquid needs to do is just not feed and they would and with falcons
They hit this timer dagger on Malrian and they started playing like we saw top
They do that little like TP rotation when liquids are going on them. They get a good trade, but they're not able to get enough
When you have link you want to kill everyone and they were not they were going like even or less
This is not up. Yeah, it was I was a really rough game for team Falcons as they here by take their leave
From the international the defending champions are and no more and they were so close to playing their
800 games on stage or with together with the with the five of them.
Stuck at seven nine nine now for some final words we're having over to Chris.
Yeah thanks indeed I am here with Chris from Falcons.
Chris tough break on going out there we're all sorry to see you guys go
out. It's not usual that you see Falcons
against Liquid in a lower bracket elimination game like this. Does that
speak to the standard and the difficulty this year?
Did having a special experience during the finals of the rivalry,
which is very critical for Team Falcon?
Yeah I think it's very obvious that all eight teams that were in the playoffs
were able to beat each other.
We had two close series and we were fortunate to lose out.
But at the end of the day we just didn't really hit our best.
That's what it took for the tournament.
That was your 799th game, together, as a five.
Talk to me about what it's been like playing with these guys, how fantastic it's been, and what a great group of lads they are.
Yes, it's clear that the 80 teams in the tournament are very close.
Everyone has a chance to defeat anyone.
In the end, we didn't get to the best condition.
But we also had two very intense matches.
Yes, it's three years. It's a long time.
A lot of memories. We had mixed results,
but at the end of the day, we accomplished what we wanted last year.
We were hoping to defend it this year and it was a very hard tournament for us.
I think everyone tried their best and sometimes it's just not meant to be.
So, unfortunately, we'll move on and I'm sure everyone's going to be able to watch us against in the next few tournaments and there will be another TI next year.
I'm a final thought, Kripp. Is there anything you'd like to say to the fans, especially here in Shanghai, that have been supporting you guys and cheering for you?
during the guys, not just at this TI, but throughout the season.
I mean, it's always special. Last time I was here in 2019, it was also special.
For me, this is probably the last TI. I'm happy to do it here.
It's always amazing to be in China, but fans all around the world always cheering.
It's a special thing to be a TI and I'm going to miss it.
It's been a lot of TI's to this point.
And yeah, it's been a pleasure.
It's been a pleasure watching you as well.
Chris, thank you.
Last time I came in to play for TI,
I was able to come back to Shanghai and play for some TI in 2019.
It's a pity that this is my last TI.
I think the pleasure has been all ours. This was Kurt's tenth international and he said that there probably is not another one for him in store. A lot of weight with those words, Rhea.
I don't want to lose the player like in the scene. I I wish I could watch him at every ti to come
I think he's a wonderful for I think he brings a lot of I
Don't know he bring he's like for how cool and calm he is as a person
I think he's so expressive with how he plays though. It's very beautiful. I
Yeah, I mean not only that it's like the idea of like what Falcons and cret has been up to achieve right since their inception back in like
so that's the way that we're
going to play. I think 2024 is
like they've dominated scene
then, of course, one last T. I
this year. Maybe didn't go
that way. But it's like they
are the most decorated five
man stacked a plate the most
game. There's a five man
stacked for those history. They
what they've done in three
years will be on our minds
like the rest of the right
like they have done so much
within such a short span, and
that is testament to the
experience of what he's been
able to achieve and all the
other players right. So if
Don't a great job. So again, props to all of them.
And he's changed the game so much with like position for like what can you do on on on your role?
I think he was one of the few players that started like maybe with Jarex to get the roaming position for and what can you do in the game?
I think it was really amazing all those years watching his game plan going to miss it.
A lasting impact from a crit and of course a lasting impact here from this iteration potentially of team Falcons.
But eliminations are part of the game.
Team Liquid is the team that moves forward.
And we'll see them again in the lower bracket.
But take a deep breath.
You can rest assured.
Eliminations are done for the day.
That is a heavy heart that we had here this morning.
But now it is time for upper brackets
to make some great dough to cover your way.
We're going to have Team Spirit and Vision
on the stage very, very soon.
This was only the first half of the day.
Yes, it was a long one, only half way.
There's much more to come.
Naty and her team will take you through that second half of the day.
And to get you started on Vision vs. Spirit,
we're going to hear some words from Yatoro and Laro.
The starting group stage was good, and we lost two games.
We were saying, okay, we're not struggling,
we have some problems.
We speak also with how we play, not only the drafts,
how we play, but make decisions in the game.
So we like put chill, the first game was against Extreme, it was quite easy, like we just won 2-0, no problem about it.
Then we played against Aurora, I would say, and also the game was pretty easy, like pretty easy drafts, pretty easy to play.
Then we met Liquid, against them a bit harder games.
We won 2-1, they're a good team, I would say, and we messed up some drafts.
Then we play against Team Vision, and it just happens like we don't understand power of some heroes.
We play good.
After this game we realized a lot.
I would say we lost them 0-2.
We play against Nigma.
Also we have maybe not our best strategies.
We're just still not tired of just playing bad on this day, I cannot say much.
And we played against Team Resilience the next day.
It was pretty easy games, but we made a lot of mistakes.
I would say games and second game.
And we crashed out the second game.
And we lost this map.
After that, we played the third game.
It was a pretty chill, pretty easy game, like the first one.
And we just won them.
We're happy that we got to play OZ and we can play on Arena Stage.
These viewers are always different.
It's in a group stage and everyone plays different.
It's a real game, big game.
Like always, we're like, we're viewers and people cheering for you, it's always good just to be there and play against the best teams and beat them.
It's sad when you lose, but it is what it is. You just think about happy way. You come, you need to show your best, that's all.
And it's always great to play on the stage.
The TI for me, the best tournament of the year for sure, like way more ahead of other
ones, any tournament like ESL, Wallachia, blah blah blah, it doesn't matter, depending
of the TI, because it's like the biggest tournament, you feel it by every part of tournament,
Like stage, group stage, you see the faces of your opponents, they're nervous, like unreal.
You can watch the pressure of the games, like every game is like cinematic, like absolute
cinema, every game and you just like to play in this like scenario and you like to
play against like these opponents.
So I would say it's just the best tournament of the year and it didn't play like two years
in a row at the playoffs.
So I like we finally came back.
the
iron wing, but we move on to green pastures. Much more enjoyable things are looking towards
the upper bracket and joining me for this one is another than Insania, Effie and Quinn
themselves. Effie, how are you feeling for a day number two?
And I'm feeling good. A little bit sad, of course, when teams are eliminated, especially
ones with veteran players such as Falcons, it's always a little bit bittersweet, but
it's time to weed out who's the best from the best. And I'm excited to watch
it. Yeah, I think that's also what makes
tournament means so much is people do get knocked out you see the loss that's when you see how much
it matters to them whenever they lose and they come back next year and I don't know the store
lines build and build so I think that's that's part of what makes this tournament so incredibly
special yeah and it's it is the one event of the year that no matter what team you play for
everybody at the back of their minds think like if I win this year what does it mean
because I could actually be winning ti this could be the one and uh yeah it means so much and
that's why the heartbreak also like as a viewer you can feel it. Yeah we see it it's easy to stand
up there when you're waiting to celebrate what it is to be at a TI but it's another level when it
doesn't necessarily go your way but that's the hardship of being in the lower bracket for those
teams that are down there. If you're in the upper bracket though you're feeling a little bit
better you're just off the edge of being able to make it to a top three. I mean that is
where these two teams that are coming up are sitting for themselves now.
They've talked about how long it has been for you to be here.
They've talked about how long it has been for this roster since making it to the main
stage of an international.
How much it means to them, how closely ought to be able to see success again in an all
that has already lifted the ages twice.
Their confidence is through the roof at the moment, but so is their opponent when
it comes to vision.
and I'm going to be playing
the game. Four and oh in groups
coming in at the heavy
favorites when we look towards
our main stage, I would say,
though they have a formidable
opponent up ahead against
themselves here and we're
hoping that their ideas that
play style and what brings
these players to the full
front of our mind. Stay
You want to be playing your own game.
No, absolutely. I think the really cool thing about Vision is they have such a defining position for a player.
He will play unexpected heroes. We saw him play Pudge yesterday.
And by doing that, you're always making your opponents play your style. You're playing your game.
So that is one of the biggest strengths.
Yeah, there's such a...
It's such a young sort of like new crazy roster.
Like none of these players, if you go back two years, a lot of people watching Proldota wouldn't even know who they are.
And to go from complete obscurity to the best team in the world that quickly is unbelievable.
I don't think I've ever seen something quite like it before, and they are so individually
counted on all of their players, and they've got such a mash in spirit.
Like, I couldn't be more excited for this.
Yeah.
I mean, when we talk about how scary vision have looked recently in the last few months,
we have to talk about Puppy joining as a coach and what he's done for the team,
because he joined earlier on in the season in January.
It was kind of growing pains.
happens with players alongside coaches too. And they didn't do so well for a couple of
tournaments, but everything started to click. And this team has talked time and time again
about how much puppy has done for them, how he's helped them in drafts, how he's helped
them shape Dota. And if we look at the screen right now, we've got the coach comparison
where both puppy Edmund Posca, two legends in Sania, it's their first time attending
TI as a coach.
Yeah, it's kind of funny, actually, considering like both these guys have been around
for so long. This is the first time they appear head to head as coaches. I'm
I'm sure they played each other at TI 10.
The Spirit had that miracle run.
And they obviously won that series.
And I know from Mathu how much that hurt to lose to them.
So I'm sure Puppy for him, this is like,
finally he gets his rematch against Spirit.
Yeah, what a crazy TI history when you look at Mapochka.
I mean, when you look at both of them,
Puppy's so consistent for so, so long.
And Mapochka, not really at a lot of the TI,
gets 1-7 early on in the TI history.
And then first, 13-1, like what is this record?
I remember all the way back when we ended up seeing Secret come second in the Singapore TI.
We're like, the next one's poppies. This is it. He's going to come first.
And he ended up not qualifying as a player.
But if you wanted to alter the story a little bit, we could just change it.
The next TI he attends is his first.
This is the first one he's attended since that second place that he got with Secret as a player.
And it feels like he's on trajectory. He's on track.
That's what I'm saying. He just needed to make it to TI, which he hadn't been able to do for the last three years
I mean it was like what he was like fifth six and fourth and third and second and then I
Mean he has a good shot like the team could not be any better coming into this
I feel like the biggest part about what is giving vision that little bit of extra on outside of the ideas outside of the
Respect that they have for puppy as a coach here is the way that's a panic place
who he is as a player as well and the fact that they've been able to take a
Relatively new player that's had a little bit of fostering Quinn
But ultimately still build him into what they need and what they want from the character
Yeah, I think he's the single biggest talent of any player in the last year is crazy
People talk about the like this guy like he's God and it's because he is an absolute prodigy
And it's also very funny for this match up specifically his team history starting on yellow submarine
Which is essentially spirits foster team where they try to find players and they're playing and maybe sub interest spirits
sometimes, which eventually happens.
Yatoro takes a break, he stands in for spirit,
and he sort of gets nurtured and grows up a lot on that team
before eventually going to vision.
And so I think for a lot of the CIS scene,
but for Sotanik specifically,
I think he looked up to Yatoro a lot.
There's a lot of sort of rivalry and connection
between these players because everyone looks up to Yatoro.
You could see it in his play style
and how much he farms in the,
I'm gonna carry the game,
I'm leasing out Gaeib play style.
I think you can see that huge connection
with the between the two.
You could be Yatoro, right?
Yeah.
That's the only way to put it.
He for sure is Baby Itoro.
I mean, you can tell that he watched all of the Itoro replays.
And his play style was whatever Itoro was doing in pubs,
Satanic was copying.
And when he got asked to fill in for Itoro
when Itoro was on his break, I can imagine
he was over the moon about it.
But now he's at a position where it's the disservice time
to call him Baby Itoro.
He's not Baby Itoro.
He's Satanic.
And honestly, he's been looking even better
than his number one inspiration.
That's the goal for any players to make a name for yourself and Satanic is going to do that for himself.
Hopefully it's with lifting an a just for this TI, but I have no doubt there's so much longevity in his career.
I think one of the the funniest things is how easily these two teams also play into it.
I mean the voice lines that come out for every TI, you have your team packs.
There's one coming out from spirit about essentially the king referencing Yatoro and vision come out with one that's referencing the Prince.
Do you think that's still on the level of a little bit of disservice there?
Or you're like, yeah, I love it.
This is the fanservice I signed up for.
I mean, they're just having fun with it.
There's so much respect between these two teams and these two players.
And I think it's anyone's goal to beat their inspiration and be better in every way.
You know, when I talk about the students are passing the teacher,
that is definitely something that Statenac is taking pride in.
But ultimately, there's no disrespect there.
I also feel like both these two carries going into any other series
except matching up against each other are going to say I'm the best carry in this lobby and there's no doubt about it
And I do even argue that. I mean, I think there's different play styles and stuff
I think a lot of people would feel this way like walking these two players
They will have the carry differential on their side, but specifically this matchup like Yatorra versus satanic
I don't know who I would like rather have on my team
Maybe a Toro at TI
Specifically, I think he tends to shine here. He's had a few more TI
I have appearances and obviously he's one, two of them.
So he knows what this tournament is all about.
Yeah. I think that's the most interesting dynamic is if you look at the,
the entirety of the year,
so Tanik was absolutely the better carry. I don't think that's even a question,
but TI is TI. You Toro, when you think of him on the stage,
you think of bull Toro shaving his head, coming on and annihilating me.
I know what that's like firsthand.
If you were on the right,
I remember it very well. It's seared into my memory.
And I think him on TI stage is seared into a lot of people's memories.
He's taken a lot of names and scythe a lot of doors.
So when I I agree when it comes to TI, I kind of have to lean toward you Toro
It was shown yesterday, right? We look at that groups. They were going up against vision in groups looking to be that
Four and ot for themselves. They lose that series. They could have still gone through four and one
They lose that series. They have to go into elimination
They lose game one and you're wondering is this spirit going to crumble before we even see them get to main stage
They rock up yesterday iron wing. It's like they'd never even heard of those players before
That's how like phenomenal they looked a spirit are energized by the crowd like no team
I've ever seen every single player feeds off of it and especially class on your tour like they've talked in their vlogs so many times about how
Whenever the crowd is cheering with them
They feel like they're stronger and if there are ever cheers against them that makes them even stronger and you have to be a
Vibes player at TI it's a different tournament
It's a different piece the stakes are different regardless of how much of you've competed throughout the year
And they've got experience like no other when it comes to this.
Yeah, I think it's people also talk a lot about ramping up and at TI you play the group stage and you improve to main stage and you improve throughout the bracket.
And I think spirit is the poster child for this.
There is this feeling when this team is improving and marching through the bracket that they're going from good to great to unstoppable by the end of the tournament.
And so when you're in the middle of the bracket like this, you need to stop them now because when they get to the end, if you let them keep rolling, you cannot do anything about it.
So, no, you're going to.
I also think the spirit is just a completely different beast than any of the spirits that we've seen in the past like when we think of spirit
We think of this team that kind of likes to play defensive set up a lot of baits
I kind of play around the atoral and rely on him a lot
I find that this new iteration of spirit they play around their supports a lot more and the supports are a lot more
Enabled to make moves and play a much more active role the last time we saw two these two teams come up against each other
it wasn't necessarily a fair fight. Vision had a lot of good ideas, but is it going to work a
second time around when it comes to the TI main stage?
Team Spirit versus Team Vision. Game one.
A win here for either of these teams means top three secured and for Spirit that would be an
amazing accomplishment to be able to get back to off the winning TI in Seattle. We hadn't been,
we hadn't seen them on the main stage. They definitely fell below a lot of expectations.
And now I do wonder, is the team that lost in group stages in a matchup going to come
into this with an upper hand when it comes to a draft? Yeah, so much has changed. The meta has
shifted a lot. We talked about the break between the group stage and the main stage.
And I think that comes into effect a lot here. You can see that by the Bounty Hunter
first band that would not have even been in the game and anyone's thoughts in the group stage but
now this hero has risen to I don't know it just doesn't lose anymore apparently so the draft has
definitely changed so we'll have to see how it shakes out yeah I think it's worth noting that in
the group stages when spirit lost to team vision they lost twice to earth spirit and they have
this idea that they could beat it I think in the series today we're not going to see it be
given away to either team there's no idea of oh which is going to let it through and play
against it. I think that's a big takeaway for Team Spirit. On top of that, I think Lunder would
will be very contested in the series where maybe other teams lost faith in him after his statistics
in good stage because he's been owning on the main stage.
Gatoro had an absolute pop-off on Lunder the other day, so for sure a hero for them to consider.
I want to go back to the bounty hunter because I think this hero being so popular actually
hurts vision because it fits their playstyle. We talked about Night Class coming into today
And he is a very unique player that likes to play unique heroes.
And the reason that that is so successful is because people don't really know how to play against it.
He's a lot more comfortable playing that position than anybody else going up against it.
But now his one of his favorite heroes is becoming like a popular hero.
Everybody's going to play it and it's getting banned out immediately in the first stage.
So I think Spirit kind of has a little bit of an edge in that regard.
On that note, I do want to say that it was really funny because at EWC we saw a different
version of 9-class where every single game he was hoodwink or dark willow he was playing very
standard heroes and when we asked about it he recently said well pappy told me to play regular
dota we've been playing regular dota it's working if there's an interesting hero i can throw every
now and then i will but it seems like they have shifted their playstyle more towards leaning
together as a three and four instead of him just running around i would say even though they
can play that way it kind of favors spear because now you're not sucked into playing this weird
vision game that you know they want to set up and make you feel uncomfortable and we talked about it when we see Falcons play like you
Don't want to play their game and I think getting him on a hoodwink or a willow is already a win in that regard
Yeah, this this ember. I'm so curious to see how you respond to it
We've seen ember become a first phase pick so often in metas and the question becomes
What hero do you want to crush him in lane with because there are options?
But a lot of those these teams aren't super comfortable with stuff like the husk are the necrophos
It's not generally how you want to play these these mid players want to play doom as a response is
Honestly, I would say not that much of a response at all
I think it's kind of just a hero that you're picking and the heroes have interactions
But there's both positive and negative on both sides
I do wonder about this doom because conceptually doom is an anti carry hero right there are very little carries
I'd like to play against him and the ones that are aren't in meta the same way that sort of loaned to it
I think vision might be trying to bait out a laundry it and they prepared a strategy against it
I think another thing for this doom is that he has kind of this like end game when the game build right now with the
Shiva's garden acts and we we have to really you know
teams that like to play for the end game and
Having that edge in the end game like you have supane versus yatoro
But it's also about how the surrounding cast comes together to enable these players and prevent the other guy from succeeding
So Doom kind of puts you on a timer in a sense where if he gets to that end game point, you're going to be the stronger player.
Now there's the Nature's Prophet we've seen so many times.
It's just good.
We haven't really seen anything that felt like it countered it enough.
This first phase banned it in a lot of games, and Nigma put it to great effect yesterday.
So I don't see anything particularly wrong with this.
One thing I do think that the Doom is interesting is sometimes whenever a hero is mid his first pick,
it may seem like you want to just respond with the same hero in lane.
You want to just counter pick them but some heroes like the monkey king the house car Necro
Those heroes have counters in other lanes
And so you respond with other lanes to then get that got to counter pick a little bit later
Once you see more information and you can make a more educated decision about which one of the counters is better against this
You know supporting cast
Which archetype of hero DC you fit into that from the mid lane? Let's say the double supports come out now
Do vision show a third quarter? Did they just go for their supports?
I think vision
probably is waiting till the end, but I'm not entirely sure, like I think when you
have got the nature's problem in your team you don't want double turret, we've
talked about that before, you don't want these double ranged hitter guys, so
something like a necrophos or a huskar gets a little bit worse, and you start
looking at something more like a monkey king or this melee dude who snobles the lane
and you can get the moose rolling to let satanic farm and connect. When we saw
the Slark the other day and that can that can happen but I think because of
the lack of Wisp for both these teams it's probably you know a little
lower on the priority.
Yeah, they didn't ban it either, so I think, you know, you mentioned them potentially baiting
Alonjerid and saying they have answers for it.
I think they may be a fit of that for both teams, saying there's heroes in the pool that
are definitely contested and both teams are thinking about, and they're sort of moving
around in a circle, looking at those heroes, looking at each other, seeing who will make
the first sort of more committal move to something first.
I would say both these heroes, like both Nature's Prophet and Doom, kind of enables
that playstyle that you like to play against alone Druid, they are fast at connecting to
the safe lane, they can overwhelm the guy on the safe lane that wants to just sit there
and defend his tower, he doesn't really like when fast rotations can happen on him.
So I think Spirit probably considering that here and decided to go for two supports.
I think Kudwink has looked extremely solid throughout this tournament.
To me it is one of the most stable position for heroes, it seems like the spells always
have high impact and Undying is one of those fives that's just like, it's going
to be stable, it's going to secure its lane, it creates a lot of issues, and opens up for
a lot of potential pairings down the line.
She's the most here versus his nature's prophet as well, because when he early teleports on
her, she scurries out of the spot, you look at him dying as well, if he gets teleported
on early, he can live a little bit longer with a decay, drop a two some, maybe turn
the tides there.
Yeah, it's smart picks, and they have great early game synergy with Ember, so even
if he gets counterpicked, there's potential that you bring three heroes and you just
fighting back, especially with Rubik which is a hero that traditionally is not
super strong on the early fights because he has one spell that does damage, his
other two spells don't do anything early and so it's a little bit of a slower
support once a little bit more time and there's potential to abuse that for
spirit because their supports have got plenty of spells that all do so
early on. I do think an aspect of the, oh, the
Slark counterfeit to Ember does come out, this is trending up. It's, honestly
it's been a lot of fun to watch so I'll never root against this.
We were curious that if the lack of IO was going to be enough for the deterrent that you're like actually we don't really feel comfortable that it will make it through the mid game out of mid lane that well but no one's saying here it's definitely going to be okay in vision dives.
I think it's related to the two supports. So if you think about how Slark dies it's if you can find an instant X or an instant silence on him.
But he's going up against Budwink which has a slow-moving protection that he can react to and I'm not dying that has essentially no spells that prevents Slark from playing his game.
I was wondering why the crowd was cheering so loud, and then I realized it's a Yutoro
Terrible.
Like if you've ever seen this Yutoro on the back and forth, there's always been this
hero at the center of it, and we know how much the Chinese crowd loved Yutoro based
up of their little permits between Amin and Yutoro.
Yeah, it's something worth cheering for, and I think it's a really cool TV game
in a lot of ways.
If you look at Vision's heroes, there's not that much teamfight, there's not
that much AOE.
of sort of more greedy selfish heroes who hit one guy and now suddenly there's a wall of illusions,
there's a tombstone, there's a lot of stuff in the fight and it's hard to deal with that and so
if T.B. reaches a critical mass where he's got enough items to stand his ground and just hit,
it's not easy for him to actually run into that illusion of the illusions, they can kind of
just shred you. Yeah, exactly. I think T.B. considered for a long time to be one of the
best heroes in his doom because you're not reliant on the single hero to press a bunch
of spells in the fight. He's going to enter the fight with a bunch of illusions and
they'll do the damage. Same thing goes for Nature's Prophet. Both these heroes kind of
struggle against TB and now that you see the mid-slark that has essentially no
spells either it's just it's a pretty good game to have illusions.
And the nerf to Satanic, the item, not the player, he's not nerfed, but the nerf to it
adding 10 extra seconds to the cooldown is going to be quite significant against
Terrorblade because a lot of late-game Nature's Prophet is around playing
with your Satanic in a way where it's more valuable than the BGV even.
And if the downtime is a lot lower on it, then TV is just going to have three or fights
Yeah, it's very true
My one question for spirit is they knew this lark was coming and we've seen a lot of teams so scared of this matchup
But they just dodge it's a very scary lane and a very scary game matchup
Laurel is one of the best mid players at taking a bad matchup and still playing the game very well
It's put him and Mallory up there at the top, but this lane is particularly bad and it doesn't get better as time passed
So I'm curious to see if Laurel has crafted some way to counter play it some new strategy and item build something because if you
Just play it straight up you can have zero impact. You know, I've seen team spirit
Do things for Laurel when he's put in a number versus Husker matchups where they bring all five heroes to the mid lane
Do a late smoke and try to kill the enemy mid laner
I've seen that happen a couple of times even early carry rotations as well coming up from utor if he's gonna hear like
There's even the potential to do a lane for the first minute or two
I mean, we don't really think about it in terms of leaning against the mid-slark
But if you if we think about it as a huska replacement
Strategies do exist to make it easier
Yes, it's just it's a little bit tough. I don't I think Laurel generally speaking
I don't think of like when I think of Mal'Reen
I think he like has these like wave dragging things
He has a lot of these like weird ways of making his lanes fine
We even saw it in the previous game and he played the Sankeen against Lena
He like pulls away them to the camps
I don't really think of Laurel in the same way. Would you say he kind of fits that style or is it more of a book here?
No, I agree in that. I think he kind of just tanks it. Yeah, I think he tanks it really well
He doesn't feed is one of the biggest things. It's very hard to kill this guy
He's low CS and his low net worth
But he's not dead and he plays for that moment where you overstep you're like
I'm gonna kill this guy and then you don't and you go too deep and you die
I've fallen victim to that before and he's he's very he's tantalizing and he baits you in
And I think that's that's Laurel's skill set and I agree. He doesn't really do the wave dragging the farming so much
Yeah, well it's a yeah one last ban provision primal beast was the other one and I mean
could make sense for the you know what spirit one for their last pick there but it's just a hero
that has somewhat been overlooked this ti you go back 12 months and this hero had way more success
way more flavor towards them too then it's also collapsed classic right it's like he it's his
guy i feel like when when primal beast was first released in the dota and the hero was absolutely
busted. He was playing it in every single pub and he was spamming voice lines and just
laughing at you as he's running at you and like xd'ing himself because his hero was so
stupidly strong and so he definitely loves it. I find it interesting here we have a kind
of like conceptually thinking about these teams. I think looking at spirits heroes
you can very much easily tell this is yatoro that needs to one versus nine. Yeah this
tb is everything. Everything else is just there to enable the terribly to deal damage
whereas team vision has a bit more of a balanced draft where like there's a
There's a doom that can cause an issue, there's a profit that can cause an issue, there's a
slark that can cause an issue.
I was thinking about this Night Soccer coming up because he has played it before in this
tournament and it's looked good and the aspect of vision that's hard to play into right
now is ironically their vision.
These puns are coming up by accident by the way, I'm really not intending them
but they're playing with the slark, the words and nature's profit ability to
instantly connect on it.
When you're playing with a Night Soccer because of his ulti, you can find the
do before he initiates. You can find the prophet in the tree lines and most importantly you have
the crippling fear for the sword. It's probably Sark's biggest counter in Dota when the Sark
gets a blink and there is no save on his team up until Luzik gets charged. So it's a cool idea.
What on an Oga lost pick for the side of vision? Zero picks, zero vets. This hero was
completely uncutested until this moment here. Dupalus likes this hero. He's playing in Dupalus,
It pairs well with an ancient prophet gives you the extra attack speed and maybe can bridge the difference in carries
You know it TV's got all the illusions
Well, the panic's got the extra attack speed and maybe that makes a little bit of a difference
You know, I think this is a puppy flavor because it was played a couple of times at EWC
And it was with an ancient prophet or range carry and it just feels like puppies
So love this hero back in the day
He's always play it on secret when nobody wanted to and this is kind of naturally transitioned to his new team
I also thought it interesting because it over can actually go up more than one hero
Right, the cooldown of Bladus is so short that you can keep it on main multiple heroes
and you get the multitask eventually, which makes the entire team stronger.
And in fact that again goes to the concept that vision you're trying to accomplish,
which is multiple answers for Yathorro.
Whereas on the other side of X-Spirit, they just have a lot of tools that are going to enable
Terrible to hit. They have the tombstone, they have the vision, they have all these things
that are going to help them find these auto attacks and find the damage in the fight.
Yeah, I love this idea. I think it's so true.
And it's it's like at the core of how spirit drafts every game. You look at their heroes
They maybe don't make too much sense together until you put the TV in the picture and oh now
I see the whole picture and it makes sense the Night Stalker in the ember and the hood wink all these stunts
like you said, I fully agree and it's why I love watching spirit play because they're drafting for a
The entirety of everything how it all fits around your Torah and not like individual stars
I do want to know a little bit more into this over the item progression how it plays as a five because for it to not
necessarily be looked at by any other team and then come out now. It's just like, where
did your vision go for how you see an ogre have been found?
And the Midas Oscarine for it.
Are you being legit with me right now? Are you throwing everyone's pubs for the next
month?
Yes.
All right. Well, look, I'm not sure if I can fully trust you on that one. Insane.
If there are anything else here, you're fully in the camp of what spirit have done
for themselves and that lost twist was enough for you to persuade division.
I think they're still the issue of the Slark counterpicks to Ember mid and a lot of this game will be dictated around how well spirit deal with this and if they can weather the pressure that it's going to bring if they can, they're drop this fantastic here.
Yeah, I'm worried for Slark. Slark Ember is a scary, scary matchup. So that's where I'm looking, but it's weird to main stage this game one. I got to put my faith in Baldi Toro.
He's not even bold yet. You thought this guy.
He will be. He will be.
We haven't even looked towards that by the way
I know you guys were reacting to the crowd reacting that's because y'all eight is costing over on the Chinese screen with any of you guys
Wanted to open that one up. Maybe have a jewel stream going on. You're both a welcome to but we're gonna go from one legend to another
It's an army standing by with Moposhka
That's right standing by with team severe. It's a Moposhka Moposhka
You you spent quite a time in that booth before coming out
I'm wondering how has your coaching style changed from your five position style when you're in the booth?
draft ends, you're telling your teammates this is how we should play the game. Are you giving them more instructions since you're not playing with them now?
Definitely yes. I mean for draft stage, not too much, because like I previously did a lot in the spare preparation and something like that.
But now I'm trying to teach my support because I played a lot on that post position.
So, always trying to help them, trying to help, like, how you should put vision, how you should approach the thing.
And also, I'm watching a lot of replays of enemies, how replays, and trying to find some mistakes,
like, how you should change our approach about some things.
No, like, a lot of...
How well have your... many, many things.
Yeah, it seems that way. How well have your supports taken your lessons,
because you're doing very well in this tournament right now.
How are they understanding your lessons?
I would say slowly, but they do it. They do it anyway.
And then how about the lesson of Slark vs. Ember spirit? How are you feeling about that matchup?
I mean, we'll see. We played once in that matchup, and after the game, I would never play anymore in Slark against Ember because this game is nothing after the lane stage.
But you'll see how it goes from the enemy's view.
I mean, I believe in all of that.
Alright, let's see if the belief pays out.
Miposhka, good luck in game number one.
Hearing from a legend of the game, it does provoke the question.
What does it take to become a legend?
There's no doubt about Spirit status as one of the greatest teams of all time,
but to achieve that status, they did so by trampling over the gods of their time.
Feeding players like Puppy and Faith Beyond to claim the Aegis.
Same path now lies in front of Team Vision.
To stay on the high road, they have to beat Yatoro and Coloss.
A lot of rings in this series here and a lot more.
They actually come for the young squad of Vision trying to seek their own.
It's a tough team to play against on the main stage when the pressure's on,
when you know these guys are going to clutch it up.
And to me these two teams, it's such a mere match in some ways
both define so much from that one position carry role.
Spirit loved playing her on Yatoro.
He is your win condition.
He is what's going to define how this game goes out
past that 30-40-30 mark.
And I think the same can be said for Vicious.
This is a team built around the young gun in Satanic.
You need him to pop off.
You need him to have a good time.
When Satanic is ahead of it, the corner carry is 10 minutes.
You win the game three out of four times.
Straight up.
And the flip side, when Yatoro is behind at 10 minutes
on the enemy carry,
Here it only managed to win that game 35% of the time.
So, you're looking at these two carries going up against each other,
and if the network gap starts to open up around that 10-50 minimars,
would Vision 1A explode the map and take the game over,
especially between a Purion and a Terrorblade?
This could be a very one-sided series.
Here, you'd find a way to equalize that advantage,
control the map, and not fall behind.
I think Vision FNB has been the faster team so far this event,
and they're proposing a lot of tempo here
between the Purion and the Sark mid,
with an ogre to back it up.
Extra bloodlust, extra attack speed,
extra movement speed, it all comes together.
It does kind of link back to
Satanic's entrance onto the scene, right?
Like, he shows up when Yatoro wants to take this break.
He plays for Team Spirit, right?
And Team Spirit went from the slow,
kind of 4-protect one sort of team,
uh-uh, collapse, and looking like your first squad,
Satanic, beautiful body blocking there with the tree.
It's to collect a kill on a former teaming.
That is a big gold injection for a hero that was already free farming.
It's just so scary to give vision this kind of start on their safe lane.
They're already dominating this lane.
That's the downside of the Night Stalker thing, he's just not that strong early on.
You really have to get to this first night time period.
It's a hero you're gonna have to rotate into.
And the issue is the Ember, he has the toughest match up mid already trying to walk the base.
This lane stage is already incredibly rough for Spirit.
And it comes down to who is gonna salvage that?
The Terrible?
Like, does this have to be some crazy, at-oral game, where he's the one making some moves,
making something crazy happen?
This is not the easiest hero to do it on, because you have to commit metas to get through the lane yourself.
Yeah, we heard a lot of theory-traps from the panel about how they're going to get out of this Ember Spirit versus Slurk match-up.
And so far, Team Spirit have not hit us with any of those wrinkles.
So, maybe their plan is a little bit later on, but so far, it's going to be Team Vision running away with the lanes.
They're gonna win that safe lane, but they're absolutely gonna dominate the mid lane matchup.
And it looks like the off-lane matchup is gonna go pretty damn well for notice as well.
It's fine. He might die up here to something from the film plus meta drop.
That's your one concern on this lane. Otherwise, you're free farming up here.
And with a Rubik, that always feels super nice.
That classic team secret support dude.
Don't help me bring in his little player here with a Rubik over.
I can't count how many times he played this with the apps that are on that Rubik.
Oh, no one comes so close to drawing the aggro.
Gatoro gets overwhelmed here. He doesn't manage to pop his wand, stay alive.
Night class is now going to be the one in trouble trying to give a tombstone for the Marsolo.
They collect them to kill a 9 class, staying in front of notice.
Can they get this second kill? Rue, low on mana, will not have the decay to finish him off.
Early raindrop boots, stick for Gatoro, gets him out of trouble there.
The reflection really hurts while you're trying to kill that tombstone.
That's going to be the toughest lane for vision and honestly they're still
pulling a little bit ahead there. As you mentioned these other two lanes are where the damage
damage can really be done. Laurel just forced into the jungle super early. No one having
a time is.
Would you make up what Mboshka said about Laurel and this matchup that like, yeah okay
Slark dominates the lanes, but you know going into the mid game what is this hero really
doing for you?
I can kind of understand what he said especially if they had scrims versus him and went better.
I don't think the mid Slark without the I.O. it means no ball is incredibly hard.
However, I will say vision, they're a peculiar team of the because they played so much with the nine class part.
Yeah, they're familiar at how to control the map, get the property awards, utilize the vision.
It can do a lot of damage here.
I think no one's going to be very comfortable playing this hero.
And it's not necessarily the worst smart game outside of that height star.
I think it's pretty obnoxious for the supports.
There's not a lot of direct control.
The care blade matchup is a little frustrating sometimes with a later cut throughout and can't really get some big
ultimate off, you go in, you try and thunder, someone gets get shrouded, he ults, it gets a little weird.
There are some interactions that are annoying, so I don't think this is a game where the sword is
going to have muted impact. And if anything, I think Spear to Horde, depending on Laurel,
can be able to make moves. Help war is coming in. They really set this one up, trying to get the
D ward on the ward barely outside of that. Rue is already rotated over and trying to help
Laurel, but yeah, vision, just throw everything you have. I don't get played. They do not want
I don't want to let Maul get to this level 6.
Fortunately, a high ground tombstone is going to be whatever his vision.
Just walk outside of the AA, we go real punished coming here from Team Spirit.
And that means, a whole lot of damage on this mid tower, too early on to the game.
I mean, just keep the heroes here, Maul can't do anything about it.
Catapult stayed alive, not able to lane.
Tower's just gone to Bloodlust's carry on him.
Here, threat that boob, and it still worked for vision.
That's a little concerning. Your only real turnaround on these aggressive here on boards is
Collapse, Matching that, and then just running the here on down.
They used to do a really good job of taking this tower early.
Yeah, you gotta log down to the tower too.
I think a little late to defend that, honestly. Especially if you're going to keep you to sark down here in the end.
This feels like a little bit of a wasted board.
Unless they can actually convince teams here to fight into them, but of course, nighttime vision of Collapse
should read most of the situation.
I also think sark is up too.
Park going bottom is freedom for lock.
Like, yes, please, give me some time to CS mid
without getting my regen drain.
Yeah.
Notice, he does have Doom available.
You gotta be careful of here.
I'm gonna linger too long with this care plate.
Give up that free kill.
Beakin' of free kills?
Ogre is very often times a free kill.
Takes a little while to get him sometimes
because he's a big tanky boy,
but an extra bit of golden experience for Collapse.
And for me, I feel like that's so much rights on Collapse,
being able to deal with this art.
Like, if he can have a good enough lane,
transition that into a mid game
where he's shutting down the sword,
get a blinked anger, a wee silence on him.
Those can be some pretty easy kills.
I think the Night Sarkar's absolutely that factor.
Not much is left to be able to do
with controlling some of these night times,
being a presence on the map,
not letting no one just play a free sword game.
control rooms, the rewards, can he match some of the 3M rotations? There's a lot of potential there, you just have to pick your moments really well.
At least you get a tower down here, take it. Nice little extra golden gift for him.
Yeah, I like that Collab took the last hit too. For a second there I thought you tomorrow's gonna walk in again.
You need this gold on Nightstalker. You have to take this Nightstalker as strong as possible, as fast as possible.
He's your best ticket into the early-game teamfighting that you know is coming to you at a pretty fast pace right now
I like this way you drag pop. It's gonna stall if this tower push considerably
Yeah, it might die for it, but it's gonna force a lot of heroes from vision to try and catch him
He actually stays ahead of them. They're keeping the Nightstalker. Yeah, they want to fight with these heroes behind tower like this dark ascension ready to go
You gotta find something off this rotation. Don't want to move collapsed without getting
at least don't support kill out of it.
Do you think it's okay if it just means collapse?
Oh, yuck, he's down there.
I think the tower could be helping out a bunch
with both supports going up here like that.
You can't.
I think it's a little Saturday night stalker.
Hit the fence from spirit.
That overly sad about the overall exchange.
Flaps, he just wants to get more out of these lanes.
I mean, that's the nature of the hero.
You're always looking for as much as you can
during these five minute windows.
2000 net worth leaders laning phase kind of breaks down team vision get the lead
that is about expected right yes we're approaching that 10-minute market is the
fury on ahead of the terribly the vision has to be pretty confident with the
early game advantage they've improved your function give up some big core
kills oh look at all those gunnies they got one a piece nice even exchange very
friendly route battle now and we're back to daytime so vision they ran over the
first five minutes had to take a bit of a break with the night stalker threatening
them but now I feel like it's back on again I was think this period was not
that bad for spirit there weren't too many extra fear and rotations they
defended top power the embers were covering a little bit and you didn't
give up any just extra bad kills with the supports which means this support
What I think duo provision is, not that they're super low level, but they could have been a lot higher level.
And it's actually the Undying who's the highest level support in the team.
But that's pretty nice here. You don't have this Rubik ult online, don't work close to it.
The ogre level don't really matter, you have three points of blood loss, that's all he's contributing.
You can keep playing around this top tower.
Might be able to stabilize this early game.
That is a very fast refusal though. Super scary.
Any hero that gets caught alone by this Slarke, it is daytime, you're a little weaker on this
Slarke running around and Spirit, they're continuing to dodge him, Laurel just pulling
away, he does not want to go anywhere near Nova, first time in a row, step down, that
sounds like a little too early again, this time, this time he'll be punished for it
But he gets a number of those creeps killed, delays this push a lot.
They still haven't taken that safe lane down.
They've been really annoying on that top tier one.
Of course, last tip to Tisanic.
Off the Raph and Acher, there's another tip that's coming through.
Of course, of course.
Classic. Give me that gold.
Do you think these Furions like click their ultimate straight up on the hero when they're at 100?
No, it's really low, yes.
Usually it's one or two years.
Finally, this tower will go down.
You could have committed your Dark Ascension to again try and defend it even further, but I think the...
I think you bought enough time here.
You're okay to seize it.
Using that Dark Ascension for either a turn around player, or defending some tower's camera, or something like this.
It's gonna be a defensive game for Spirit though.
Until you're ready to just play through, collapse, and do strength. He does have a bling.
He's fairly far.
I do feel like it's one of those weird things that...
That...
That animation is so obnoxious and it'll cost him a few extra seconds and the lapse does
teepee away successfully there.
I do feel like, can they make moves with Night Stalker?
Because it's kind of like making moves with a tide hunter, right?
Like, oh, we've got Ravage, guys.
Let's go use it.
Okay.
It's not a...
Yeah, you make a move, use that Ravage.
That ravage is now on cooldown, and Vision could just run you over.
I think the turnaround play is a lot more reliable for Spirit.
You kind of know Vision aren't going to go into you, particularly the Slark with the Purian backup.
If you can bait him in a little bit, CPM with Nightstalker Blink on the back line,
that's where the fight's going to look good for Glacier the Shirley Blink Dagger.
It's very hard to just force the issue yourself though.
So Vision, you have to be careful over extending deep into enemy territory.
Ru's going to change another game.
It's news that Koro's the ground to kind of help him out, the first time he got dying so quickly and Tombstones easily dealt with, yeah, Team Spirit not actually gonna fight this, it would be all up to Collapse if he wants to make that call, and he did not have Team Spirit.
That's outside of new team base there, right?
If that's 20 seconds later, I think Spirit would take that engagement, otherwise he's gonna fight it off.
Thanks for the Emperor who did commit for first item Ghost Scepter, by the way.
way. Extremely defensive itemization here. It does save you against a lot of this damage
early. It's just always one of those things, okay, you survived, but what did you survive
before if you're just some ghost after emperor? You actually do anything after you get out
of the sword fountain. So, get up the building, score damage here. Look for no one. There's
that blink. Got him on that AoE silence. They've got plenty of disables to follow
through so easy pick-off and kill on no one and they use it at a period of time
where there's going to be a not that big of a daytime window don't have the
duration it might give the final extra support
he's in the vicinity he's gonna better for this yeah that's another kill two
kills off that dark ascension and you got the big one in the sword and you
need to go into the triangle here take this stack very smooth connection here
First collapse as we mentioned 30 seconds till night time
It's a pretty small window for vision to use
Try and steal the agents. This is a little free. They absolutely should try and stop this though
Nice good. Okay. They have a tombstone out. They're gonna be walking into that one. You'll already used out on your tarot
You need some help here notice also need some help
They're actually doing a good amount to already dead see today come through with the follow
All of these should just be able to clean most of this up team spirit on the retreat trying to get as many heroes out
And they will get three of them out. So in the end, definitely okay for vision
But if you put together everything like the stacks that were stolen feels kind of even
Not the worst gold exchange. I just don't like spirit losing tutorial there. I think you're
You're okay losing almost anybody else other than terribly too important for how you're gonna scale in this game
It's nighttime though. Rubik, Laps continuing to do work here.
He is really holding this game together with some clutch kills.
He is.
Still, Satanic, he was the biggest beneficiary of that fight.
5-0 start for the steering on 150 CS.
I've seen this before.
He lost and he's almost 3,000 ahead of the enemy carry.
There's a limit to how much you can give this man before he just runs away with it.
I thought it was the perfect way to watch the Satanic versus Yatoro go down.
Yatoro just trying to hold the game going, Satanic with his aggression of farming every
single bit of the map while also being a part of these kills.
Rupik is going to die in the mid lane, Satanic.
Here comes no one as well.
Can he hit a pounce to get a kill here?
Now, both these heroes are way too mobile.
which goes right into the Slark is useless.
They have to find the connections right now.
Spirit are honestly playing really well around him.
They're kind of initiating all these skirmishes away from where the Slark is.
And maybe if you're no one, you're going to have to position yourself a little more aggressive on the map,
but he's worried about this early Blig Nightstalker.
If he lapsed behind and just blinked silence, the Slark's dead,
so no one's trying to find this balance of being involved in the fights,
being on the front line, the thing you want to do with Slark,
And at the same time, you're afraid to give collapse the jump once more they're going to try and backstab this tower
No one he shows this is dangerous gonna be no one
Inside the silence can he get out of the way? He was almost there, but no locked down and killed
The team coming in from team vision still want to fight this out
But it's just notice scaring back team spirit preventing them from going for more kills and maybe objectives
He does complete out a radiance on notice so as rough to gain as no one is having these last few minutes
Notice he's playing the network charts. Oh, they're incredibly far. The network does not go on poorly
You can feel the impact of this nice doctor though collapse is controlling the game right now
And that's playing a lot of time for his other two cores
It's not that he's playing ahead. It's this ember is all of a sudden having to find me this terrible
It is getting to punish a tower mid. This is all products of the night doctor finding the clutch pick off
vision want to fight on this tower smoke up
No one teepees in.
They don't have any hard initiation though, no blink on the doom.
They see these heroes coming in and watching inside.
Almost got him inside the sound, someone pounces away just in the nick of time.
Team spirit, so they keep this going here.
Tossback, easy kill on the roof, big butt up into the high ground.
They really chase up there.
Oh he is.
Elapses willing to go up there, scouts it out.
See snow heroes, they've already gone back behind their tier 2s.
A really vast lift of Boos controlling the map.
He went vision for the first, you know, five, six minutes, and now it's Team Spirit taking most of this.
But as you said, both teams are experienced enough to like keep the losses.
They're losing some heroes. They're losing some map, but they're still keeping the economy relatively even.
Oh, but it's like, and it dies.
That would be a massive dead if he goes for the stand.
He's trying to get to his BKB. This is the time for Team Spirit to kill him.
He needs the hook wink here.
He's got a lot of damage.
He's fighting back though, Claps.
He's just gonna hold this ground.
The TP goes out, and he stops over the push-flap.
Now, a follow through with a sharp shooter.
Claps making sure he doesn't die.
He's so strong!
Oh my god!
Wait a minute!
He gets one kill when it shoves him up,
and almost got a second one,
which would have been the improbable.
Ultimately impossible for Satanic to stay alive though.
You gotta respect this game.
You really gotta respect him.
He does a lot of damage.
He almost triple killed him there.
That was extremely dangerous for Spirit.
I do not think they're going to make that mistake again.
Yeah, you're strong in the Night Stalker.
If people are running away from you,
if they just stand there and fight you,
you're a blink dagger.
You don't really have any extra stats.
Yeah, Satanic had no fear whatsoever.
He saw the Night Stalker and said, OK,
I see what's going on here.
That was a terrifying situation.
However, they do get the big carry on kill.
It's going to slow down his progression,
Helped the Terrablade close that gap.
This has been a very interesting game so far.
I still feel like T-Gear aren't controlling it a little bit more,
while Vision are extracting a little more out of the map.
Walthus is definitely going to do that.
You are concerned about some PKB timings here,
you have no PKB control in this T-Spirit lineup.
And you can potentially have three cores that have PKBs and Bloodlust.
Just sit in there.
Are you going to be able to run into them and actually kill people?
Yeah, that's a crazy amount of steroids, it's tough.
That's when this game becomes tough. I also think these early fights have been difficult because you don't have a true initiator in this vision lineup.
It comes down to Blink Doom later, maybe Sark Ags for the Sark having BKB, so you can just hop in and run in.
You're not going to attack like she didn't get?
Oh you hulk, it's gone!
Notice, Flings 4 hits him with a stun and a doom.
Yes, you have three x-trees
Electrical the way they do bring her and there's that blink dagger so the fights become a lot easier
You can send this doom in first you're gonna have to keep you on the slarks soon
Those are two points of attack play behind here if you're satanic looking for an opening
That's all trying to get a little
with some extra medidories.
Tooms don't say there's gonna be huge in this game as well.
Just being able to buy time on the target that gets doomed,
stall out some of the theory on right-clicks.
This spell has been super impactful this guy.
Fear of play really well around it.
I'm already online, something you have to keep in mind.
And also, BaleHero's out of the Slarp control.
If someone here in utility is down.
Trying to wade through this daytime.
Two Dark Ascension available.
Level two now for Collapse.
However, I think he needs DKB to really stick in the fight.
You go in the fight, you get Ogre Stunned, Rubik Lifted into the Furion Damage,
and you're getting melted.
It is, uh...Vision.
I feel like Tarmin's got to be pretty important.
They've got great heroes on the side who seem spirit.
Of course, they already bought their shard on the entire,
but I also feel like Vision.
Like, if Nanclas can complete a 4-staff but also get the shard from the Tormentor,
they would have an additional way to be able to help no one get out of that crippling fear.
It would kind of even things out when it comes to the saves being on both sides.
Yeah, there's some extra shards for vision in terms of those saves.
Well, the flipside spirit have already bought four of them.
They bought four of them!
There's only one left to grab and it's that hoodling.
Yeah, I mean it all the Night Suckers are doing it helps their farm. I guess everybody else kind of makes sense shield rune
That is a dangerous job. Yeah collapsed. Yeah, I don't know if they just saw that how rune and thought I have to get to that
Or what but that was not a good start for a fight didn't expect them all to be there right in the start
What can vision get off that a
Lot of time with the night soccer off the map it is during the daytime. He's a little less valuable
However, I feel like every time you lose a core in this game, you're going to lose 1 or 2k
Network advantageous period on just cleans up the map, maybe they can just do Roche
Just put an extra single target first from the bloodlust
The Midas is online for the Ogre by the way, so if you call us, he sometimes goes to Midas,
sometimes goes to more utility, this time he's going to offer the Midas to just scale it better
How did he make that decision?
I honestly think it's one of the more difficult ones to make, I think it's about your read of
when you're going to try and end this game, if you're going high ground around 30 to 35
You don't want the Midas. If you think this game is going to go to the 40-50 minute period, the Midas is better.
It's really just about how well this game is slowing, how much of a lead we've built up.
Are you going to just run this over to be able to end it before any of the scales come to mind?
I think here he made it correctly. I don't think you're still buying the game enough to just say,
Hey, I'm going to buy 4 staff and then we're just going to go higher on this lane.
This Midas will pay off. It always does.
4,000 at with lead 14 vision or even kill score of 1111.
We are approaching this next night time.
They do have dark ascension up on team spirit.
So we might see them do kind of similar what they did last time, which was trying to connect
for a play around this 24 minute marker, pop dark ascension that goes seamlessly into
the next night time.
The blast is going to have to park dark ascension here defensively, not what he
wanted whatsoever.
No, not at all.
We'll take the creeps and make the best of that situation there.
We'll flow into that 25-minute nighttime period, you're going up that damn end of the plane.
I mean,
Gittering away from no one here in the trees.
Trying to figure out some D-Word situation here.
I'm also impressed with how much Laurel is found in this game.
I think Spirit did get out of this Ember of Farge matches pretty well.
I don't think that's been the issue here.
Just a question of can you win a teamfight?
A teamfight still looks difficult.
No one catches him, 4-Saf?
Me, gets away just before the pounce lands.
Nicely done. Another support ain't some trouble.
So, your Toro is actually here,
and it's gonna force a fast TP away from the theory on there.
They're the same. Beautiful.
Watch back. Walk down two.
Rue marks his 4 and a little bit too far forward.
No one turns around and kills him with his ultimate.
He gets out. He still has BKB.
Not too much he's afraid of. In fact, he's even using his stand gear.
G-team spirit. Stumped a little bit too far forward.
Now let's hit nighttime.
Just a little too deep to push. There were still BKBs available for the two frontliners on vision.
They can't did not like what he found on the other end of that teleport. Instantly pulled the nightfall. He was out of there.
BKBs collapse is about to be done with his, and he's already...
See his Q of items, nullifier, and a masher? No surprise there, just anything to keep these heroes locked in crippling fear for as long as possible.
Let's stand down here, you should really try and make a play.
That's a hard play to connect on.
Drop the ward, I wonder if Colab saw the ward being dropped.
Certainly saw the heroes coming in.
Nice dodge here.
Continue to close the gap between the Terribleid and the Furion. They both farm extremely fast.
It's gonna be Butterfly for Syntanik. It's gonna be Butterfly for Yathorral.
One of them is going to rain supreme here.
To either one of them or MKB to deal with the other, or is it just both carries are
gonna try and kill-
It would be- I think it would be quite hilarious. They both went Butterfly, saw it and both
both went MKB, though I think it's a much stronger item on Terriblade than Fiora on average.
I'd be pretty surprised if Tanik ends up in MKB this game.
He might, if he thinks he can just TP and MKB during this Terriblade down quickly,
Bloodlust does give some extra value to some of these Trock items.
Sure, let's consideration.
Right now he's cued up his namesake in Satanic.
He's in the top way.
He's off lane tier one tower.
It looks like he's even going to try and set up for...
See if there's a support down here for the wisdom shrine.
Maybe you can take the wisdom shrine
or at least force vision to the main.
Slipping up the side.
They're smoking to him.
Those are emptied out.
He's trying to anchor a position
that Spear can go to here
and get a really nice backstab on the fight.
Just catch vision off guard.
It might work out here.
Yeah, it's looking pretty good with this smoke happening.
Flash ready to pop the darkest engine.
He instantly jumps onto the rubick.
What's to go with the supports first? Same goes for the rest of the team after the Coloss.
Both supports?
Well, the Sharp Shooter doesn't land, but they got both of them anyway.
I'm sparing fast, and you can see Vision...
Big attack came from multiple angles. They just weren't sure what this play was looking like.
Just kind of take a moment.
Way too chaotic.
Way too hard to get a read there.
Still got no one.
Yeah?
Its team is gonna be pretty far away to get here.
The BKB has to use BKB exchange between Collapse and no one.
They could beat a scout.
Ascension's out over...
Give him that five on three.
Yeah, Yatora's already...
Teleporting back to the Triangle, he wants to just farm.
Trying to clear through these camps before the next minute spawns.
If fishing is possible, there's the butterfly.
More butterfly.
See you guys timing here for some damage.
He's not as far ahead as I thought he might give it to me.
Well, Tor speaks to Spirit's ability to limit the damage being done.
The fact that up kills this game is kind of astounding to me.
Alright, so Vision, they weren't able to snowball the game quite the way they probably wanted
to, but there's nothing wrong with their scale.
No, no, no.
You absolutely didn't play it, though.
Especially if you could find over here, that pick-off, oh, Titanic, not even required.
Just so well executed by the Ogre beat him down.
Yeah, that's gonna be Roach on great to roast no defending for team spirit getting a kill like that during nighttime doing Roach off
But that's gonna be a massive win for this context
What a six boat
Right into the chair played right by the roadside
Here they steal these though. They could test that but it doesn't have dark attention
If he had to be you know the full flying vision
Maybe he could pull that off
You know what I mean, not gonna go for the play.
And I'm gonna try and find the squirrel, it's gonna be a difficult catch.
Time to... for Team Spirit.
It's a rat, especially as we go into another daytime.
There she is.
This feels like a move over there, gonna take a lot of objectives.
They can start taking tier 2s, I uh... for sure.
I think the only thing they're really missing for me is some of those extra saves
They used to think the...
...Splart Rufix Shard.
However, if they're still walling and they're playing aggressive...
...you don't need a...
...fine enemy. Yeah, if you're walled up, it's not like Team Spirit had big team fights.
They've got, what, an A.W.E. Boy, an A.W.E. Silence?
Well, that's what I'm thinking. If you have Depth Shard and a Telekinesis,
you can throw the Slark out of the Night Stalker range.
You can Depth Shard some of the Night Stalker throws on.
It becomes a lot more difficult to latch onto some of these squishy heroes
and just bring them down to get a numbers advantage.
That's the reason I like it here however like you said if you are just grouped you kind of force the objectives
You can protect your back line just through close to Cindy. You're not worried about slumping into anything
There's no clump of these in the spirit line
Who the enders spirit over here? They're gonna try to fight this ages
This is really difficult with the extra life on the theory on you really have to find a good angle
Butterfly done for Yatoro though, he says, I want to get something done with my timing.
I find a good angle to get this large, well it's just the Ogre for now.
You don't want this Ogre, you don't like to get the Night Stalker jump on it.
Well they don't have to.
You can poke him down.
Not too bad.
Very, very smartly played.
Do not want to jump in with Night Stalker until you find the party you're looking
for.
So they relieve some of this aggression for about a minute with the Ogre dying
and then coming back out of the map without having to use Star's Incision, and they
can pull it off again.
They might just weather through this daytime without too much loss.
It's still vision that's going to be gaining an advantage through this.
For sure. Indie Ages and Furion being Furion.
They've got a 7,000 ember plate now.
I would tell you, Toro's from here, up to right now.
Scaling other than this dude.
Which, it's just a skill-based thing.
You can find the connection on the Terra Blade.
It's a very one-sided matchup.
You can set up illusions kind of end of the fight.
It's not an easy jump for notice, then.
It's terribly difficult to deal with right now.
That was nice last stand, the Dark Ascension for that kill!
There's snowballing and support kickoffs, again, to try and get through this huge time.
And you can take the MKB on the Furion.
Okay.
You gotta commit for the ability to just bring your Toro down as quickly as possible.
Yeah, they get the Doom on him, he can't Sunder.
Therion then delivers the damage to kill that night.
Zoom still saves us the one wild card, yes.
Right, they can really hold down for a long time against Doom.
Will they jump the stomps?
I see a situation with the slump there.
The nice huge pushback, is that going to be enough to save him?
So, and it teleports in.
He goes straight for Yatoro with his MKB.
Yatoro, he's dying.
He's taking a lot of damage.
No, it's the enemy that's under anything.
But oh, whoa.
They actually do manage to get the Ember Spirit.
Titanic got low, but he went down the roof as well.
And just get too off of that one, not too bad for vision.
People still install the long time.
You're just coming out into a world of pain.
No way to really turn that fight.
Toro definitely felt that MKB.
You need to get into him there.
You have to serrated ship as well.
They have some extra true strike on top of that MKB.
A really nice roll of this for Titanic.
Look how fast it attacks with his bloodlust.
That's scary.
That's that odor of power.
It's use these carry matchups.
They're gonna keep the impression going.
Vision, they've done this a number of times.
One of the teams that have closed out some of the fastest games here at TI, the question
was, are they just that good, or is it part of their style?
I'm not going to risk the high ground push with it expiring.
Yeah, he got the Glyph out of him.
That's good enough.
Oh, Yatoro!
Yatoro!
Where do you go from here?
That's Okinaw's anti-peak!
He's kind of stocky as to make a Sunderplane kill St. Panic!
It's his only option!
And he might just be able to sneak away the Aegis, but no one will clean up the
rest of the line.
I got the costly death.
He's died twice on this bottom lane, some of the deep wards for a vision really paying
off, scouting the sides of the map.
Yeah, DeCaul said that deep ward earlier on the right hand side, and I assume that's
what spotted Yatoro making his way down there.
I can't believe he was out there without TP though.
That was a really weird situation to be in.
They just expired and can absolutely still go high ground though.
No way this Gairdblade has five backs, you're not worried about that 32nd tier.
Easily a tier three medium, man.
This is quite not a thun a lot this game. You're not bad to do a lot of this race.
And he's going to go and wave nice four-staff forward.
Or maybe that was actually unfortunately not me using his four-staff on himself.
I'm trying to get out of there.
Way into team vision.
And with 10 seconds to spare, they've got a full lane of Barracks and out, hitting a tier 2 now,
so you can't, it's just picking up speed, going faster and faster.
All of a sudden, he's 8,000 ahead of that terribly.
Lincoln, you'll miss it.
You just can't afford bad designts.
The squad are playing too well right now, too efficient.
They understand their wingedish and they understand the game plan.
They're not just going to go back to their side of the map and chill for 10 minutes.
Let you recover.
Night time real strike once more
Now this is one of those night times where you're just desperately trying to claw back some net worth
You have to end up putting your stamp on the game. I have to get something here. You're very close to some big items, too
It's gonna be acts for Laurel
We don't finish it here at 20 gold. You're close
Kind of that Scotty for your toys
I don't know if you can really wait for that.
And you can have that nullify on the Night Blocker.
So this is as good as it gets for Spear for a long while, until that next row.
Sean's gone. They would love to take a fight right here.
Find a nice angle, bring down supports, assassinate this backline,
and then rally around the Terribli.
Can they do a fight without Yatoro?
Can Yatoro just farm his ultimate orb and go hunting for heroes?
It's getting difficult.
Yeah, vision aren't really splitting up too much, not giving too many chances, if there's
not no one here instantly jump away, the power rune will, I'm a little excited by no one
now with the regen.
Oh, Hex on that ogre by the way, this might as absolutely pay off in this game, get a
bulky shot on that.
Clean, beside the fight, shoot!
Rue, playing around this ward, Klops actually gonna go for this kill onto no one, but
BKB makes it simple, he'll try and deal with Jokalus with the bouncer out
If you agonize him, he'll get back.
He'll go chasing after your Toro,
through the lincoln town on your Toro.
You're trying to work their way through it,
but he's up to the high ground now.
Bushwhack to hold back, Satanic,
team spirit, and they just get out
with a kill on the Colossus.
Not the worst, but they're kinda fighting Satanic.
They want to use the better.
I think they can fight this one
with the Dark Ascension to the high ground.
Hope you get the Yaw the Slark.
Bought a nine class.
Telekinesis himself out of there.
This engage is too good.
Able to assassinate one support. That's all you get there.
That really can't be good enough for Team Spirit.
So, running into control issues.
This Night Stalker was good for the first half of the game once the PKBs came out.
It's a way different story. You also have the shards up on the Rubik and the Sark.
So now you have the Deathstrap plus the Thoreau.
He comes way easier to disengage from this zone and control the Night Stalkers proposing.
Yeah, they have such single target focus, right?
a nullifier on Night Stalker who's right-clicking people down terribly,
swinging on one hero in single-target saves are going to be amazing.
Psyche headband puts themselves inside the tombstone.
They're carving a tombstone inside of the base here.
Team Spirit can do very little to stop it.
Very old-dependent.
No meta, no ascension.
You don't have to damage to take that fight.
They do finally get to that Scotty and it's still nighttime vision.
This would be very bold.
They could just wait until daytime, but...
It's very un-treaty right now. He's 25.
He has the player's quota. His damage is out of control.
But if they lose this fight, it could be teams...
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. ...getting the angels off of it.
What can Spirit do here?
Veta in 15.
They're gonna get in for death, then try and hit the bush left.
He activates the BKB in time to cost not be almost his life.
Still trying to kill him here.
Trying to sharp shooter his way out of here, but no.
A lap or two died now. Don't wanna go.
He's got some trouble. Fire blasted down.
An easy kill. Popped through the lincoln's up Laurel.
He's forced away. They're gonna have to buy back for this one.
They might be able to fight it though.
St. Tannock turns, stands to his ground.
Popped against your tour, but the pushback's helping him.
Try to get him away. But no, he dies all the same.
Now it's up to teams here. They gotta get as many kills out of this as Popped.
Got the start. Oh, they get hit as well.
How much more? A TP away from DeKalus?
Not in time. Collapse.
Unable to get the void out.
That'll be just two of cores.
They lost Elaine of barracks. They have to get Roshan for this triple buyback plus Elaine a brutal economic blow
You don't lose yet Toro. That's the silver lining. It's gonna TP bottom try and fix the map and you're absolutely right
You have to play for the Roshan here. The sad part for them is it's not gonna be up another 40 second
There will kind of be a window if they really play to it
I think you have to I think you will have to fart someone in here and man up for it
Despair, his team spirit going to the pit and find Roshan has not spawned yet.
There's no hope that they can get it.
But he's collapsed, and they're all gone, hex!
Flaps! Get him off of the side of the place!
He's in! And! Whoa! Tombstone saved! Could he possibly get out of here?
Out of the Tombstone, he's gonna be so low, it only takes so much provision to take him out.
They're trying to push these heroes back, and he'll just hold inside the Tombstone.
They might get something more.
Out now! He's playing with them! He's playing with them! But he got doomed!
The Dome is out! They'll dip the Rubik for it!
This kind of snowballed some kills now. Now team's here to have a larger window to take this role, Sean. It's up now.
What do you have the confidence to do without Nightstalker for 90 seconds? That's the die back there. He did tank the Doom.
And honestly, it's kind of worth it in some ways, because now you can take this fight without Doom available.
I think you have to man up here. You have to take the opportunity for their presented.
Oh man, Ocean's trying to get moving inside today. They have to disable system.
I don't know if they do.
It's going to be really weird.
He should have full pressure on the way.
We're going to fight back here.
It's a disaster.
Opportunity.
If they can take it out,
those guys are going here,
up the hill over here.
If they can't,
they're going to play a Toro.
Oh, my God.
This keeps on playing.
Pages through these heroes.
You're trying to get away from Satanic.
Your Toro is back to base.
This team will take the rose.
That could not have gone worse for Spirit.
They did not have enough time to do it as Rose just annihilated them
the river. It was seconds away they could have just done it. Five seconds faster they could have
killed an even as Roshan was out the base but instead visioned that the extra life on Furion,
something that wasn't even necessary. And Aegis was a threat, a prayer for Spirit to have some
sort of hold in this game against the extra life of Furion. It's gotta be over. I don't know
how they could take this. They're gonna get Vegas here. Damage for the Sork was just the
cherry on top we saw no one laughing all the way to the bank watching Laurel
throw himself after Roshan time and time again knows that they needed that extra
life this make us its vision hitting tier fours it's a five back from Laurel and a
desperate hole trying to make the initiation on the purin got him on the
bush flag no real haul through Laurel he jumps to the backline spotting to
cause but he can't stick around not against the site the bikes he has to
play his distance he's gonna make a run for it trying to cut some waves he
He gets hit by a storm, break through Lincoln, see if he can get the sight.
He's on his own.
He's last on him, and now he's dead.
Doom guarantees it.
Too far, too deep.
These heroes are too slippery.
You just can't align the control and the damage.
That's when the proper spirit all came.
Without an Ember for 100 up against Mega's, Meta's was popped here.
Vision, you can just wait out Meta.
Yeah, I think.
Go back in.
We just hold this.
They'll have plenty of time with the Ember spirit.
down a 4 versus 5, 4 versus 6 if you include the Aegis. Don't respect the
Terrible, the Atoroh is having some very free fights to be able to sit the back and
bring these heroes down quickly. Double pounds in, trying to catch not the horse
down. Gets the Atoroh out of danger. Met it down for 65 seconds here. What is that?
Fingalay Terrible, able to do here against the range of the Furion. See it there,
Sprouse forces Yotaro into a Venta, tells Ysus Toss back in, and he ends up on the Sunder.
It doesn't matter, they'll take it, just fight right through all of it because Satanic stands there and swings on his former mentor.
He goes down, and that is too easy for Vision.
They'll finish off the rest of these Team Spirit heroes without a carry.
They don't have the damage to stop Satanic.
Gigi is called, Team Spirit will go down.
Vision, a dominant game 1 victory. No surprises there.
The team looks almost unbeatable right now.
When they're behind, they recover, when they're ahead, they snowball.
And then in weird games like this, where it kind of feels even for a long time,
they feel like they're always the team that finds that one kill, that one opening.
And the second the levy breaks, you're at your down 10k, you're down 15k.
Now you have to make some desperate move.
That Roshan play almost fails Spirit out.
Even if they get that, do they win this game?
I don't know how much it shifts the odds.
I think this situation for Spirit is just very uncomfortable.
You're in a game where the odysse is on you to make all these incredibly difficult moves with Night Soccer because your Ember just doesn't have a lane to play.
It's all on collapse. He finds some of those, but he just had to find so many.
Too many problems. Vision constantly posed. Too many problems for their opponents.
Even though Maposhka there at the end of the draw talked about how Slot doesn't really do anything post the lane.
you have to question. But is
your ember going to be able to
do anything in the lane after
that as well? It felt like so
often we were seeing while we
put in precarious situation and
have to do so much with so
little, but still massive
props to spirit for being able
to drag out this game that
they did put themselves in a
position where they're
contesting objectives. They're
taking towers and we actually
almost saw them get a strong
grip on this game. Tensionally
even lead into that win. Yeah,
I think it's an incredibly
his position is super hard and we saw what we talked about.
He didn't die, he's holding on, he catches up really well,
his net worth is totally respectable,
even in a situation where he's flying an impossible lane.
I think it's a great show of resilience
and the magic spirit has, but I don't know,
this vision team is just, they're just on fire right now.
Yeah, in a way, the doom pick to me
was the really genius aspect of how vision played it
with the opening in the draft.
I think he alluded to it a bit quite about
how they're gonna set up through something
even later on and then the doom kind of
looks like the backup plan. They had the Sark up their pocket. They were going to shut them down later on.
They didn't want them to pre-address the Sark in the earlier picks.
And even if Loro managed to recover it, that was where Doom existed.
So many fights, even though Sark was being handled by the Night Swapper, Doom was doing the endgame.
What can you do after that? Even if you try to recover, it's very hard to take those fights.
Yeah, I mean, I think that the Fire Draft obviously, like, it's laid out into their favor,
but I think this game is a lot closer than people think it is.
I think spirit it's not a lot of things that needed to go different for them to actually win this game
I feel like we mentioned it already, but the way they recovered
Ember's game with like some really clutch moves because I don't think it's just long
it's something to do as a unit and they're really good at helping him find his footing back in the game and
In this game in particular
I think it was when you saw the start keep you down to the bottom lane
They opened up the mid tower the it ends up actually favoring Laurel
I think this this whole rotation that they do there and it's because of claps is pressure and
Yeah, they're just I think spirit are really good at finding these key moments and unfortunately it's the game breaks for them
And I think your tour gets smoked on them. It was the first Roshan
I think that really is a key moment that close the game provision
But if you're playing a game like this it feels really close
No, 100% collapses a special shout out to him because I think he played
Incredible this game
I think one of the only players in the world that could play the way he did buying blink first finding so many kills and
and still having solid net worth making space for Laurel, making space for the rest of his team to farm and catch up.
Like, Yatoro had no pressure on him for such a huge portion of this game.
It was honestly an incredible performance that ends up not working out, but I still have hope for them for the rest of the series.
Yeah, I look at vision, everything that they were able to do for themselves, and it is hard to pick a player or a hero that stood out just that little bit above
because they were all doing everything they needed to do. This luck is supposed to win lane, it doesn't.
This nature's profit is supposed to be able to either get on the back line shut down
Whatever yotara wants to do and satanic play that beautifully the supports are the ones where I always like to draw my attention a little bit
More mirror because normally they do make or break
But in this game it felt like they were kind of just there almost in a way that we could have seen vision succeed with a
Multitude or a plethora of different
Heroes for themselves. Yeah
Vision are so good at enabling the satanic within their drops and their support picks and creating situations where he's at least 3k
Network ahead of anyone else in the game very early on and even if
Situations happen in the game like when collapse got his link dagger and started to find kills
Even if this happens and they lose a little bit of grip on the game
They still have their carry 3k network ahead of anyone else and it gives them that security and that fail site
where when the game slow down it feels comfortable for them always and
and vision are looking really scary because of that.
They've consistently picked nature's profit,
teams have tried to counter nature's profit,
and he still wins with it.
We're going to talk about those later portions of the game in a little bit,
but for now we wanted to look more towards what that
earlier part entailed for vision,
and how they were able to find a lead and a success for themselves in those lanes.
The person walking us through that is Badge.
Thank you, Nat.
Yeah, these drafts have been very instrumental
not just in this series, but lots of other ones.
We saw the Slard versus Amber matchup earlier.
And the liquid series yesterday actually, but let's take a look at the laning stage. It wasn't just that matchup
It was also this cool ogre pick last pick ogre not very often your sporkets pick last
But what he's doing for his team is he's giving the list to the the best player in the world satanic and that extra attack speed
And an extra movement speed allows him to bully the craft out of his opponents
And it also allows them to potentially get first flood here
They did that do a nice sprout into a fire blast with some right-click rundowns
That's how they get got the first kill and then as the lane continues
It's the same kind of story the night soccer is getting hit like six times every time he might have one opportunity to get a last hit
So he gets bullied out of the lane and generally really good starting farm for satanic
But again teams here did do a good job
Stabilizing but Slark is the guy that we need to talk what he's the little fish in the room basically
There's some small changes to the hero that you might not be up the data
But he's got a new ability his third one here
It basically steals regen from his opponents and gives it to himself and his old passive is actually right here
It's you're an innate so he just gets this for free. So his melee trades are
Disgusting so when you lane him against you here like Ember spirit
You're basically putting your regen down to zero whenever Slark hits you and that's gonna make a bad outcome for you in your game
Take a look at this zero HP regen per second as he gets hit by Slark
So he basically can't lane in this matchup here
Which makes his CS very very bad and even at the six minute mark
They're ready to pressure the net worths right now are already looking kind of bad and then diving or this tower
Killing the and dying backing and taking the tier one. They got what they wanted out of this early game
They would have loved to have more kills certainly
But this is basically the hero matchups that we need to be looking for in further matchups
If there is an ember spirit that shows up because it will get you off to a really bad early start
Thank you so much
The spoken multiple times about the theory behind a slot coming up against an ember and whilst it did happen in groups,
seeing it here in the main stage get picked the way it did.
They're trying to close out their second phase in the drop to be able to protect it as much as they can with the remaining bands they do.
But at the end of the day, it felt like they didn't even really necessarily have to do that.
I would love to see Spirit focus up a bit more on lanes because we do see that Night Stalker struggle up against the Nature's Prophet.
But later on, what was it around the 14-15-minute mark?
Still have so much impact, so we could see the ideas behind what Mapocheku was talking about,
what the teams wanted for themselves.
Yeah, it did look like a really rough lane for Collapse,
but what that hero was able to achieve in that game definitely justified the play.
I really think the big issue here, and the big story of the game,
like we mentioned, was the Ember vs. Lark Mid.
That's truly where all of the issues were created.
That's what changed the game play, and that's helped force Night Soccer
to have to overperform in situations like that.
really want to be in there,
but it just happens this part
can get as a counter to Ember is
kind of a new thing that's going
on and teams are going to have
to adjust to it in real time.
But you know, as we can see here.
This team fight I think happened
after collapses pick offs,
but the game kind of looked like
that was it was visions all along.
Yeah, it's tough.
It's just a it's a hard game
and they fought back very well.
I think this vision team what makes
them part of what makes them so
strong is those early moves.
You saw her talk about it in the video,
but the fact that they're
They're a team that consistently makes these.
You see some teams, they make a move once, you know, once every few games.
They open a tower, vision every game.
They're making a move, combining cores, opening towers.
That's sort of a really basic concept that was everyone sort of agreed upon at
some point years ago, that you combine cores sometime in the first 10 minutes.
And that allows you to like make the heroes that are strong actually, you
know, be in the same place.
You can open a tower and start opening up the map and they have crystallized
that and they do every game to do it so consistently.
I think that's one of the things that they do better than everyone else
that allows them to have such good positions. It's kind of be so farmed every game.
It's not wizardry. They've got a formula going that works really well.
Yeah, no, absolutely agree. I mean, this concept in Dota has existed that you kind of always want
to play where you're strong. And as supports, it's especially important that you want to move
to the areas of the map where you have strong cores. And what they're doing that, excel me.
And then when you bring out another fortune area, that area suddenly becomes like your fortress
and nothing can enter it. And that's what we see here. Like they have
have Nature's Prophet winning his lane, collecting Slark winning his lane, and opening up the
mid tower.
Yeah, I mean, these claps moves are going to be very valuable, especially the early kills
on Slark to get Laurel back into the game.
But when the Ember came back into the game, there was still the threat of Doom that I
touched upon a little bit earlier.
There were a few fights that were taken, but if Ember is getting doomed, it doesn't
really matter if Slark's getting blinked on, because at some point, the game's
going to stabilize, Slark's going to go farm a BKB, and they're content to
Let do devour creeps let nature's profit hit whatever and wait for an opportunity to take a fight
Yeah, you can see the embers itemization. He goes go Scepter first into Kaia into Lincoln sphere
How many games could you say you've done that build? Do you feel like people zero? Okay?
And I played like 3,000 ember games
I just want to put context out there as to why you're talking about that because that is a thing that people are not
Looking towards at all. Yeah, you're just buying incredibly weird items and it makes you not only uncomfortable
But also weaker and you just added you're missing those normal timings
You have it makes you have to play off of the moment and not so much off of the bank of knowledge
You've acquired of applying so many officials on those heroes and other heroes
You're just put in an uncomfortable position and that is a way of countering heroes
That is not easy to create but when you do like owning both paths of their itemization
Everyone's a BKB or he wants just to go scepter
But now he needs both and he needs the link ins to and you can't buy them all you can't buy four defensive items
It's not about how it works or you need something that allows you to build damage.
And so I think it's a great point and part of why this game looks so intolerable.
If there's no doom and just a slark, well, Ember buys a Go Scepter and these fights look very different.
So double whammy from Vision doing so much for themselves.
And we saw in that clip as well there is it was this lead or this comeback, whatever you want to coin it for Spirit.
It was surmounting for themselves.
The ball was really rolling, but Vision wanted to nip it in the bud.
They go, we're going to smoke up.
And the only target we're looking for at this point is Yatora.
We want that TeraBlade, and they find him.
It's really hard in many of these days to praise enough how well a successful smoke can go,
because more often than not, supports are aware of it.
Supports are in positions to be the ones to sacrifice themselves for it.
So vision getting it, is this like a big brain 100% on them,
or also a little bit too, we could have seen Spirit be slightly more aware of it,
and we're hoping they're going to be more critically thinking when it comes to a game 2.
I mean, I think that kind of move you have to credit vision for it.
It's essentially what's happening is Roche is there,
and they're smoking towards a triangle which is close to Roche on,
looking for any sort of kill that would allow them to get Roche,
and they happen to find the most important target, which is Yatoro.
When he dies, there's just absolutely no way that Roche on is getting contested.
And for me, I think prior to that moment,
everything we said about like Ember being countered,
his item build being weird, all this stuff is true,
but I think up until that moment,
Spirit had a realistic chance of winning the game,
because I feel like their heroes were finally coming online,
But when they get that move, they solidify that the game is now ours.
And you have to let us dominate them up for the next five minutes with the Aegis.
It's just tough.
And I think when you look at it, when I look at Spirit in those camps,
I find it interesting to look at them between games
when they're in the hallway about to come out on stage again.
Like, how is the vibe? How do they look?
And when I look at them, they look kind of tense.
They look a little tight.
I don't know. To me, they're not talking that much.
Little mutterings here and there.
And I've been there when you're about to go back out on stage
and things feel kind of tight.
You lost the last game, you didn't play super well.
And so I'm looking straight up at the gate.
How does the draft go?
How does the beginning of the lanes go?
Because when I look at them, they didn't look ultra-inspiring,
from being honest, between games.
Yeah, I mean, to add to your point,
and Tanya, about how it could have been close up until QV got smoked on,
I think that's something that vision really has to be praised for,
because if one smoke on your carry at one point of the game
is why you lost, then there are issues within your draft.
Because while a vision do a similar thing in building up Satanic to be the end all and be all for them,
there's still backup plans, there's still Doom, who's the secondary carry who's scaling.
There's still a spark that's playing with an ogre with bloodlust.
It's not that if Nature's Prophet dies, you don't have a means to fight back.
So potentially incorporating more of a failsafe into Team Spirit's draft could be better in this game too.
I just feel like that's not Spirit though, you know what I mean?
I think they are that team, they will go all in on Yutoro, and he has delivered for them in the past.
And I think that is like one of the, you know, sometimes it plays to their strengths and sometimes it's to their detriment like in this game, right?
Where it is all in a Yotaro and he has to do it. And if he doesn't, then there just isn't any plan B.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say, you can't win with just Yotaro versus Team Vision. You need Laurel as well and you need to enable him within your drops.
I think if you're essentially giving two lanes to the advantage of Vision and you go the only lane that matters is Yotaro.
that's where the issue arises. If you're like, okay, one lane is going to have an issue, you could walk away with it. I feel like that very much falls into the multitude of formulas spirit has the success, but both while
x-flaps walking away with rough lanes, that's where, yeah, there's a big question about concerns of can you actually get a win from that one here. And a vision is another one that we have to talk about here because the draft is being so tough to predict for everyone.
support have always been
changing it up because despite
satanic staying more towards
that nature's profit side, it
feels like everyone else is able
to experiment in some way, shape
or form because of how stable of
a pillar satanic is being. Yeah,
it's just individual excellence
across the board. You look at
all of their players and you can
argue that all of them are the
top player in their role across
are good players, but they're
not quite the same caliber as
this guy. When you look at that
team, they're all incredible.
They're all super high on the
mark. They're grinders. They
have dedicated their lives in
this game. They're playing it
day in, day out, and you just
see them online. You see them
in their pubs. I see them more
than any other team in my
games and I'm playing pubs,
and you can feel it. These
little small things, the
little intricacies that
knowing the matchups. I think
that's why we see so many
different heroes from them
is because they are so in
love and dedicated to the
game that they just know
all these things intuitively
and they could find the
find the right moment for them.
I mean, that's a very valuable thing that you bring up because in the past, Dota could
not be one or TI could not be one of just the best players.
We've seen All-Star rosters be formed in the past and it not being enough.
But now it's become so streamlined.
The fundamentals are pretty universal amongst most teams.
It's agreed upon with the best way to play Dota is in any current patch.
What the big difference maker is now in 2026 compared to 10 years ago is how good
are your players individually? How much do they study the little things and can they step
up and clutch when they need to? For everyone they can.
They must be the highest MMR team right in the world.
I think so. I think, just thinking about their players, I think all of them are probably
in the top 30. Top 58 lowest, I think.
Yeah.
Top 50 at lowest, it's insane to think that the caliber of a team like a vision is
even going to potentially falter here, but we'll see if game number two is spirits.
the game. It all starts with
a draw. Look at what this
second game we do wonder is
they're going to be a
reaction to what was let
through in terms of bands. Do
we have to look at anything
new that needs to be taken
out of the hero pool here
as this time around, we're
going to have spirit with
the opening. Sorry, we're
with the opening it became one it was spirit who had that
they need to get out
leena being taken out and uh... the slot of the side of vision
whereas it is a tree bounty hunter and that is a change up
in the best
and the sliders of them one because this is considered
one of the counters are spirit men and
to say that i like okay we're not going to do it to you we lost it twice to
bounce later
you don't have your spirit
They do leave the Nietzsche Prophet in the pool though, so they can potentially be taken
again as like, Nietzsche Prophet owned that game and he's farmed and he's doing everything
he should do.
But at the same time, it didn't feel unbeatable to me.
It feels like Spirit has potential answers for it and I agree with Mira's point that
I think the Doom and the fact they lose mid so bad, like, Nietzsche Prophet is strong,
but he's not infallible, it's kind of, I feel, and they agree, they don't even
take it.
They just, they say, maybe we'll look at it later, but not right now.
It is a hero that they do like to have more towards the second phase. They want to see a little bit more
They don't necessarily like to open up with it
But we've seen teams in the group stage try and target satanic's hero pool and I promise you you cannot do that
You could use every single ban against him as a player
And he will still find the best hero in the situation that can possibly be found and play it to an st
level
That's just what you get when you have satanic on your team right now
It's it's the benefit of having him but so interesting start that popped up
Willow is at 100% win rate for 9 class, and I think when I think of vision and their style of drafting
I think they're generally speaking more of like a second pick team and what they've done here is they've gone with a pretty casual pick
They picked a hero that they know is going to be good for their draft. It doesn't have to be anything special
It's not too defining and it allows them to get some information leading into the next phase for what type of hero that they want
Yeah, this is also the second time we've seen this happen where someone first picks a support and there's a winner
Wyvern on the second pick after in response. We saw it yesterday against the bounty hunter
and I think this is another situation where this doesn't really make a ton of sense.
I've experienced just really prioritized the Wyvern because in game one,
even though they had first pick, they weren't necessarily willing to pick it for themselves
and they banned it. They used one of their three fans to take out the Wyvern. It gets
let through here. It's not picked up by vision so they clearly play some importance on it. No
one else necessarily is or something we aren't seeing for them to be able to confidently
say this is what we want in this trade.
I do think an aspect of this Wyvern that we talked about a little bit in game one is that
Lundred is a hero that has to be on the mind for both of these teams.
They both played it yesterday on the main stage, had incredible games on Lundred and Wyvern
is one of the only supports that you can pick comfortably to play against it.
So if you secure it early for yourself within the draft, you've pre-solved an issue.
It's not the only solution, but it's one that teams do like.
There you go.
Stand up.
It's a it's a very fair point
I do think at the same time it's weird to pick a hero that is really good against physical damage and against heroes that commit
Against the hero that kites you that plays sort of far back and is exclusively magic damage
Like I think that's like the hero wyvern has no interaction with willow
That's particularly good other than cursing a guy and taking her out of the shadow realm like worse
my take on that is
When team vision pick willow or at least what I've seen is that they picked to lane like when nine classes on willow
he wants to play with notice and that's when we'll see kill threat heroes like Centaur come out.
I think Centaur should be on the radar of Team Spirit and Wyvern while he doesn't interact with
Rillow can counteract a lot of the lane harass that comes out of kill threat lanes with the cold
embrace. That cold embrace early on does a good chunk of healing. It does do a lot of healing
and to add to what you said like Wyvern hates playing against these position 4s like the
pull waves like when we saw the Boundary the other day he can pull the wave he can make
the lane weird so if you have a hero that wants to lane up against you you're almost
I'm always very happy to play that match up on.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And I think Spirit, to be honest, they lose last game because they're behind early and
they're playing on the back foot and it's just a tough game.
They get to play extremely well to close it out.
So maybe their takeaway is our scaling was fine, scaling was an issue, but we have
to actually get to play the game from a reasonable footing and so they say, okay,
maybe it's slightly worse scaling, but we're prioritizing the lane because we think
that's what we need.
That's their course correction from a game one.
Yeah, I'm not really thinking, I'm very, it's good for Laurel.
You know, they can do it, but it hurts.
There was this conversation throughout the year.
Spirit have undergone a number of roster changes,
so keep that in mind when I say this,
but they were no longer the spirit of all.
They were no longer that spirit
that could surmount when it comes to late game.
They weren't necessarily that different beast
they used to be.
I feel like in the last game,
we saw glimpses of the old spirit.
I feel like they're really,
what they were trying to accomplish was,
you could sense the Poshka's impact, right?
I think that is the type of game them in Poshka shined in and like I really feel like the last game
They had opportunities. They did a lot of the right things
It just unfortunately came out to be a couple of small moments that completely flipped the game
But this time around I think like Mira said they're not putting all their eggs in one basket
They're going with doom which is like almost guaranteed a second core in every single game
They pick him and he has this like again inevitable time bomb that's coming in and the she was on the axe
Well, that is a hero that I feel like has been missing for quite some time.
I don't know if it's good or bad here, but it's nice to see some different carries have
their moments.
But at the end of the day, Drow will always be there if you can get your hands on an Undying
as well.
Yeah, it's probably the single best lane you could craft against Doom.
Not only do you have Undying, you steal the strength here, you're stealing his
damage as well as the HP, but Drow Ranger is just insanely good against this hero
because he does damage through Scorster and through Inferno Blade.
Neither of these spells is far-ranging, so you just kite him and you slow him,
and if he runs at you and he tries to get close to Inferno Blade,
you just slow him and you walk away.
So he has a really hard time really doing damage to you without a pretty good setup,
and you've got an undying up-to-body in front,
so you just get pelted with arrows indefinitely,
and then you're slow, and you're a hero who needs to farm a lot,
so you can end up with sort of dead weight on your team.
Yes, here it's going to need some lane-pulling shenanigans
to be able to withstand this.
like some melee hero that's gonna drag the wave and make collapse's life a little bit easier.
I feel like that's usually one of the most common approaches against
undying is just to try to avoid the lane. Adding ground top of it either makes it more,
you're making more inclined to do it. Doom does have a pretty decent recovery though,
like he has it away to farm jungle camps pretty fast, you can stack for him if you
think about how ironwing plays with Doom, it tends to not be so focused on the lane, but
also like how do we recover this hero quite effectively and that's usually when you
You look more towards heroes like Rubik and stuff like the range boys, so they have kind of like a choice to make.
Hoho!
What?
Wow!
It's been a minute.
Was it spirit that picked like first phase PL against...
I think it was XG that picked this.
It was the other way around.
Yeah, I think so.
Okay, interesting.
I mean, this hero is great against all three of these heroes.
It's very little AOE.
It's very little ways to kill the illusions.
And Manta is super good, which is what PL wants.
He wants to get more Manta, makes him invincible.
He gets rid of the silence, gets rid of the roots, he can gobble away.
The real worry is the heroes that counter PL are offlaners.
It's the big chunky guys who sit there and they kick you out of lane and they own you, and they make you sad.
That's what's good against PL, stuff that clears the illusions, and the offlane has not been picked yet.
And so while it's amazing PL game against these three heroes, there's two heroes you have to pick that can potentially screw him real hard.
I feel like mid heroes also fall into the category of what beats PL.
isn't so much about the carry matchups per se, like obviously he's good against Rao, but the heroes that cause issues for him are going to be mid and off lane.
Off lane Doom's kind of cool though, right? Like you're picking PL after you've picked Doom for yourself, so things like Ember from the mid lane seem a little bit harder to pick.
Things like Tidehunter that could be played from the off lane to itemize against PL, they also don't want to play into Doom, and they just go for a very old school hero in Timberslam.
I do have a question about the PL's drought because drought has the
hypothermia with her arrows it doesn't work on PL like what's that there's too
many PL's okay so you're like it does but it doesn't matter because of the HB
I mean it works obviously like it's an effective item and if you combine it with
like some meal near something you have a way to play against the hero but
there's so many illusions that it's not like necessarily it's still PL
favorite. But you can't you can just disjoint it with Doppelganger right? Yeah. Oh well then yeah that
definitely does not make it feel good at all. She'll still buy it for sure and it's it is like the
route you have and it's a great itemization you know you do what you can and you're looking for
the other heroes that are upcoming to do the you know the brunt of it but draw ranger if she's
got help on her team is not that bad like the hypothermia is something you can spot the real
PL relatively easily with those stacks so it's not all bad um but I mean there's a
Here's the Timber's Eye. It's the hero you're expecting. It's the kind of thing you're looking at.
And at the same time, while Spear does have the double prong scaling, you know, they've got a strong, they've got a doom that goes late,
a peel that goes late, they check those boxes. But do you get Raffles Tongue? Does Vision just run you over?
Because you've now got two cores that want to farm for a long time. They're not good at making moves to other cores.
They're selfish heroes. They want people to make moves to them. And Vision, we've seen the tempo that they can bring.
That's a big question mark now is how does Spear actually survive the onslaught that's coming?
Yeah, this Timberpick is very strong in this phase because Winter Wyvern, while she does sustain a lot and help in the laying stage, at some point it's going to be too much damage coming out of Willow and coming out of Timbersaw.
And every cold embrace is going to have a bedlam and a talkram on top of whatever target that it is, and this Timbersaw to me feels like the scariest piece of this draft.
I've seen Notice have games on Timbersaw where he's just completely carried.
completely carried. At this TI he's a bit of a bit more quiet where it's just kind of
in the satanic show, but only a month ago he was solo winning games on December so.
I have a question about the clock pick. Does the clock add that other position players that
are being favorable right now doesn't it?
It's the wave dragging, right? The wave dragging for June?
Essentially they're saying like Marisa, they're going to decide to not play the lane, they're
going to try to pull the waves, and they're looking for what hero can do this effectively
without like too much problems. And it's almost always melee? It's a lot easier because you have
the damage blocks, it keeps on dealing as much damage to you. You're also generally speaking a
harder hero to kill. And melee heroes tend to be faster. Clawfork is one of the faster heroes
and that gives you an edge in that regard too. Holy Nightstalker mid? It must be.
Yeah so we've seen Niku try this a couple times for Navi. It worked a pretty decent
in the fact we also know cheer junior do it a couple of times so it is something that people have dabbled with in the past I
Think the real weird thing with this hero is always
Spirit needed a temple maker someone to make moves to connect to the other heroes
The problem is Nightstalker only exists for half the game
And so there will be big chunks of time where the Sun is shining and he doesn't do anything and your other guys are farming
So I'm always a little bit skeptical with puck chills
He doesn't feed and you don't get this snowball rolling from the Nightstalker then well every five minutes
You don't do anything for five minutes.
It's also one of those games where like I look at their heroes
and they're going to silence them with Night Stalker.
But then where is the damage coming from?
Like, PL is going to want to farm, DOOM is going to want to farm.
And we talked about this concept about connecting cores.
And when you look at the cores from Team Spirit,
and this doesn't really have the best energies of PL or DOOM
in that like early game section of the game.
Yeah, that's a very valid and concerning point.
There's a lot on Loro's shoulders to crush the lane
and just make things happen even without his cores.
just play with the sports for as long as possible. Make the first 20 minutes difficult for the enemy team and hope that your appeal gets strong early enough. If anything goes wrong, it's going to be really hard. It's also worth noting that Dark Lolo, Shucks down, that stalker pretty effectively with her brambles and her essence distillers, and it's not the most comfortable NS game outside of the lane.
I like the fact that this bird seemingly had that flat edge in the lane, because we saw what they were able to do when they didn't have favorable lanes. So even though it could get potentially tough in the nitty gritty,
when there is a light for them and a stronger start.
Yeah, I think the lanes will be better.
I mean, their offline's going to be rough,
but I think both mid and safe lane will be pretty solid.
Alrighty, we'll see how game two plays out.
But before we jump into the game,
we're going to get some more words on this draft
and what this series means with Tsunami and Poppy.
Thank you. I'm standing by with a puppy of team vision.
Poppy, you guys had a very clean group stage.
And even now in this playoff bracket,
you're not dropping many games.
How often do you find in tournaments that early losses help you out and figuring out what your team may need to fix as you get deeper into the playoffs?
I mean, there's not enough games actually in this group stage. We only played four teams before we went to playoffs.
So losses do matter a lot. I think losses actually build the team that actually does win the tournament.
But in this case, like, we're just trying our best to do whatever we like the most.
So then in terms of what you tried to develop after the group stage since you lost so few games
Were there any things that you were like we need to work on this we need to improve on this or you were you just
Doubling down on the things that you already are doing well
Mostly double downing
But we weren't doing the things correctly anyway, so there's always room for you know improvement
So we were just trying to figure out exactly why we weren't perhaps capable of doing it everything that we wanted
So yeah, we're mostly like trying to force our playstyle.
And my last question, I heard in the Chinese interview that you did with Dov after game number one,
draft did not go according to plan, and so you had to just start improvising.
How often is that happening during this TI where you're like, alright, first two picks,
not sure what's happening, I need to start figuring out of a backup plan quick?
I think I'm aware of craziness, and I do like to do crazy drafts from time to time,
So this is not anything, you know, unrealistic for me.
So it's fine, you know.
All right, something crazy seems to be happening in the games.
The puppy, I'll let you go as we get into game number two.
Well, there's any man who knows what it takes to win.
It's that man right there, one of the best
players of all time, one of the longest-lived careers
in Dota.
And he's been helping vision quite a lot,
because they look like a crazy dominant team.
They were good last year.
In fact, they had podium finishes for three of these players,
something that is rather unique.
Not many players managed to, on their TI debut,
managed to get a podium finish.
And even Rare, of course, is winning your very first TI.
But what's also pretty rare is back-to-back podium finishes
after your TI debut.
And that is on the table for three of these players
for Team Vision.
Certainly making a run for it here.
They are the team to beat right now.
They're the team to beat in this series here. They've got a step up in this game. Do they want to take on vision and the puppy drafts?
Because honestly, I favor them again
I think their draft looks easier to make moves with the connection seem a little more
Straightforward the two or three man kill squad the lock down the pucks going to provide with the damage coming in
My big concern for spirit here is I see the counter play they have I see the counter picks they went for
What is going to deal the damage under the control?
I think it takes a long time for these three cores to build up and start to connect towards each other
And I'm really surprised they went back to the Nightstalker again
But to me this is a hero that it's difficult to execute on any position and once you don't win with it
It tends to get written off really quickly
So it maybe it speaks to the confidence we're having both their drafts in themselves
Of being able to look past game one still go back to a hero that is very difficult to run right now
On the flip side could be a little bit of humorous
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I was looking at that night stalker and going okay
Did they have a conversation about like team visions play style night stalker is their
Solution and it has to work in a way
They might have put some extra emphasis on it in this matchup
It is a backline assassin is one of those things that can kill unkillable supports quickly
Make the game a lot more straightforward to play for looking for a numbers advantage
can also sometimes cause some issues for carries and where you can cap this early and just take the man's life.
They also did show that Yatoro here were very early in that second phase with this PL, gave two core counterpicks.
Also not something that I think Yatoro likes to do that often.
He doesn't like to put himself in a position where you can decide how much scale he's allowed to have.
And that is the choice that they gave Vision in this game too.
So he's really gonna have to play his P.O. on this with top answers, make the hero work
in the teamfights.
He's one of his signature heroes.
If anybody can do it, it's absolutely him.
And that's really interesting with Maposhka drafting especially.
How often do you feel like Team Spirit did that when Maposhka was doing the drafting
and playing on Team Spirit?
Maybe not as much or at least they were better at securing his game, I want to say.
Okay, I think this version of Spirit is better at some of the random skirmishing.
the supports are super mechanically gifted.
They can definitely play a little bit of a faster game
if things start rolling.
However, I feel like the piece that's missing for them
and somebody's getting over that finish line,
actually getting to a point where you throw,
does Gale pass the point of no return,
and you just win that game.
I think we saw last game,
this terribly is getting bad.
Can you ever feel like the true threat
he was supposed to?
I feel like that game always felt tough
when we were some of those counters.
I mean, he was wondering where his core is at.
He's going for the kill.
Class wasn't certain about getting this kill. High ground Tombstone is going to make things difficult.
The zombies are building up, but they get the kill all the same. That's the first blood to collapse.
I'd go up high ground and kill the Tombstone here. It's time to do it. It's worth a lot of gold.
And Neil will have some Nolos that are pro-toons.
Expensive depth. Give it to Class plus 125. He's one of the little creeps to get the extra mana aura.
Not a fat sequence here for the Doom. And honestly, that's one of the things in this game.
They took the Doom very early after one that first game to me this hero has
Looked pretty strong on the main stage. It did lose some games earlier today, but I think it was still a force in all those games
I mean they can some moves here
Unfortunately does not have the speed to get the water rune ahead of no one's fuck, but not a bad idea
Anyway, your Toro courier, so he misses out on the gloves of haste in a matchup that is already quite difficult
Timbersaw, did you see that coming? When you had all the picks in the world, did you think, okay, Timbersaw, it's got to be to pick up against Phantom Lancer?
I think it's a totally reasonable one, for sure. One of the better answers, you always have damage. He doesn't threaten you.
This is not a mana burn Phantom Lancer anymore, right?
Right. That version, I think, had more gameplay against Timber, you could take away his mana. This one, you're pretty much just completely impotent.
It's also a really good matchup against Viver. Viver and Kate's playing against Timbersaw.
None of your spells do anything to this guy, so you've debilitated the entire lane phase.
Cumes don't get a blood grenade. If they can land the Bramble, Laurel might just die.
In fact, Laurel has to run away from the Bramble and try and fight them,
but they just get run over here in this good lane.
The support's not bringing the same kind of firepower.
I guess the clockwork here, dodge the orb, and dodge the orb.
One, two more hits. He's gonna get a run down.
When are we...
No one gets a double kill for that one.
What a nice timing to make this play.
right before the nighttime hits the two supports on Spirit are not gonna offer
you a lot in this turnaround play and you're pretty happy leading your sidelines
Drow against the Doom is gonna pre-farm Timber against the PL is gonna keep
the Toro out of lane top three CS all belong division here they get the
double kill mid for the puck and now if you're Laurel you have to come back to
this lane a little behind an XP worry about where their supports are gonna
stay around here defending against your move and that's another concern if
You just defend the knife stalker gameplay here.
Who else is creating pressure in the first 15 or 20 minutes?
It's not Phantom Lancer, and the Doom is in a lane where you're pulling waves
and playing that a little defensively. You might be able to find a Doom connection.
It's a long cooldown.
So Vision are just going to have to keep checks on Marl, and I think they're
pretty cruising here in the early game.
And you find a little bit extra here for handle connection.
Rude, trying to play the cliff flying area. Vision are just going to give up on the chase.
Well, did find a shielder, honestly, probably the better rune you get here without the bottle.
Just to exist with it mid.
This little double mana burn there, maybe almost a courier.
No one gets control of that before it goes too far.
I gotta try and use this Night Soccer though.
Who are you bringing this Night Soccer to find some extra kills during the night?
You gotta do something with him, right?
This is not a game where you just want Laurel to sit mid and trade farm against Puck.
Yeah, in a way, it feels even harder for this Night Stalker to stabilize the game per spirit.
They're gonna run it off.
They don't have any ward vision on this, so in theory this move can land.
But right now, no one, he's hitting an empty lane.
He's gonna make the call.
Hey, this Night Stalker just ran somewhere.
We had the ward on the bottom jungle.
He didn't go that way.
This is kind of an interesting play.
They're gonna go through the gate and put the pressure on the Phantom Lancer away from these gankers,
but they're also gonna go through the gate.
They're getting back up.
Maybe Sandwich here.
DeKal's going to drop the Tombstone.
They're going to choose to fight this one.
The Cogs immediately go out, seems Anakin spotted.
Are they going to run him down, trying to deal with the Undying,
with the Tombstones first?
Notice coming in with his level six.
It's scary hero to fight into.
They're going to leave the clockwork behind.
Got the Tombstone.
Laurel will chase after some of these heroes.
Got to fight something off this.
He'll be waving to Phantom Lancer.
He's good.
And Night Stalker, none of these heroes
are isolated enough that he can get a kill.
So team vision, playing against Night Soccer two times in a row, they know what to do.
They just plump up, don't give in the opening.
Attention runs out, still some nice to play with here.
Well, it's gonna be slowed down by blocks, cogs, nicely placed by Na'Vi pushing back these heroes.
And they're the ones, they went for the aggression, and they are the ones who die.
It's Rue, he's the casualty of Satanic, and now that the pressure is relieved from that Night Soccer, he goes back to top.
Hey, the best thing to happen for Spirit there is time for collapse to free perk top.
Honestly, the one guy didn't go to it, got the most out of the play.
It's Laurel trying to make something happen on the map, but the play call was too good with the empty lane mid.
And I like the idea-
Well, just going to run the map at the draw rangers is non-stop.
If you connect, it's amazing.
It is just not connecting so far, but maybe Satanic will think,
Okay, they're not going to go this team, right?
It's a bypass the watcher here. They do take the long route. He doesn't see this
Don't commit
One of those moments could have been huge
Laurel is is gonna be very under level this rate. He's full committee to the Rome this
We go through college. They have to get this kill just to get some levels through Laurel
They will get it
Check the last time I saw a roaming midnight soccer at TI was
TI3, like S4 type of gameplay?
Yeah, I literally thought that like to myself this this looks like Cinderan on the main stage.
A lot about Cinderan.
Like if I talk to him and roaming around, that was a hundred percent what he did.
I don't think this looks like Cinderan.
Keep the bar high.
I agree, this is a really old school style of mid roaming gameplay.
It can free up some space for your two greedy side-leaders.
You're attracting a lot of attention to where's this Nightfokker going?
What is he trying to do?
Can we counterplay?
But unless he's actually getting the kills, he's just going to fall so far behind by 20 minutes.
You gotta be careful with it. Don't wanna overdo it here.
Not the worst night talk, you have Dark Sentient available, collapsing super deep on the map.
How do you end up there? Super fast in that river too. My god.
He has the Quicken Stone Feather Satchel, plus Drumb, plus Phase Boots, plus Speed Aura.
The man be zooming out here.
Percentage base movement speed from Yora on these extra small bonuses.
That's a cool idea here. Gives you a lot more extra dapos in the early game.
Notice did take that bottom power eventually.
Automatic kick out on this Phantom Lantern. Nothing that Toro could do about it.
And he is real fat on this Timber. We've seen him take games over on this hero.
Toro got level 6 at 10 minutes.
He's hitting neutral with that doppelganger, like he is very slow down, even more than long.
It's looking like collapse once again as to put Team Spirit on his back shoulder the burden to try and close this network.
We're in.
In the Toro bottom.
There's Crown on the real one here.
And no one commits to the kill, they do get him.
Ice is gonna come through from Laurel to Arc Ascension.
With the silence, easily cleans up L1.
Maybe he need to get the last hit on Yatoro.
He died to the neutral, so that actually worked out very well for Team Spirit.
In particular, long.
Probably the best trade you could hope for right there.
Yeah.
I don't think Yatoro's happy about it.
Yes, to spend some time on the sideline, that is time he needs to recover in this game.
However, it's great for his Night Stalker.
A little extra putt kill, going Laurel's way.
Yeah, Laurel's actually not that far away from Blink Tag.
Now, he's got the chipmast to help him farm.
It's a kill, oh yeah.
This is just an instant easy. Yeah, they've got tons of slows.
No stuns.
That's a play.
Yeah, look at that hammer.
Really? They're going for notice.
They actually got him down to about half, but now his armor is full up.
Can you Toro finish him off here?
They do manage to get him with the final nuke from the tutorial. They get that kill.
That's huge. The fact that you bring the doom, you don't have to use the doom.
And you can keep that spell on the map. You lose your big power.
That's costly. Nice rotation from Psychanic, making his presence felt again.
I guess you did have some mana burn this line up. What's the cost?
Bring that Timbers mana down low. Nice spell against him for sure.
The clockwork matchup's quite good.
Always has been.
Such a nuisance, man. These cogs are so stupid.
There's another one of those games like Game 1.
I think it could be going worse for Spirit in some ways, but they're making some nice moves, getting some kills.
100%. They're only down 1,000 network.
How are you expecting them to be much further behind?
They have Hookshot up in 5. You can go for Hookshot cogs into the Doom play.
This can catch no one off guard.
Yeah, with the NAMP damage, it could be very good.
Even the Timbersaw is an easy kill.
Very deep.
It's gonna break.
One shot lands, managed to clear through the neutrals, and the tomb is dropped.
There he's done.
Can you get out though?
Nicely placed.
Yeah, that's gonna be a coil drop.
All this extra movement speed.
So, yeah!
Fight!
He's gonna do this!
With this hand damage, he thinks there's a possibility here that they can deal with
the tombstone as quick as they can, trying to keep their distance away from no one.
Make sure that they go inside of this park.
They're just taking kills, not losing any lives.
This tombbill looks insane in this game.
little control for him. He's just hasty at every fight. He's running the map at 525ms. 13 minutes in.
What are you supposed to do against that? If you're a vision, you'll only have Bramble. You only
have oil. Get him to the winners first. Set up, not me. Have some fog hits. Pogs. No one
does land, but it does matter. What up? Got him. This is just spirited by nobody where there
There are none.
Making something happen in a game that is otherwise
going to look very vision favored.
And this is all without the Night Stalker playing through
nighttime or using that Dark Ascension.
So that's amazing.
His movement speed was actually going to die to
Satanic, but he was so fast, he outrun the Multisha.
He's 550 in sports dirt.
This is super value in this game.
Rancous base time for you to recover here
While team complete is blink dagger with this wave maybe one or two neutrals
You get that alongside the second nighttime then they can start cooking a bit. Yes
Well, it's reads in the first night time. We're too easily read with the extra mobility does give way better
Opportunity blink night stalker plus the blink doom coming out 50 minute night time support tablets
You have way more play options across the map and maybe it's vision who are gonna have to be on the defense a little bit
and just try and protect the Drow, protect the Timbersaw until he's tanky enough to weather the storm.
Because I don't think you can run the Timber in head first into that doom.
The look of Charlotte and the round of Cogs, who not me, does not miss on these Cogs.
Go for another one! Why not? Oh, the Cog is fired right as he was about to get that final hit.
Spank class will still kick out from the Distiller.
Supports are doing work in this game.
As they tend to do, Team Spirit supports this season have been amazing ever since the pick up of not me.
They're going to three-man smoke up. Time to connect this nighttime. They go for the
Drow Ranger. Drow Ranger must be shut down because C.T.A.N.D.I. is about to get into an
agatom scepter. And that's when his farm is really going to start picking up. This move
can connect. It'll do a lot for them. Very deep play. It's hard to find the carries behind
this tier two, unless you already have vision there.
They get one D-Board, under a century. And it should get the scan. But he's
He's going to run down and he's actually maybe going to run straight through Laurel.
Though the supports are connecting here, they've already dropped the Toonstone.
They went for the flank onto the draw rangers and the connect terrorized push through back into the rest of the team with the coil locking down Nottney as well.
The two supports did die and oh wait, a hookshot.
Nottney can't get away from the decay though.
And that's vision just defending the draw.
The other neutral creep deny man.
The team spirit have gotten lucky indeed.
to call a sense lucky they couldn't they have some problems with their ocean
oh got the sound son of no one's fuck they don't have the damage yeah who was
lingering that's blink available maybe vision get baited oh they ran away
there's so much for the fight try to get the drill on him no one to get him
here got the two of them can they finish mom yeah with the inferno play
that's probably gonna take a mouth Laurel is getting low you're told me this
the other side Laurel almost dies there the Tannick chase you got to
Left, but there's that boosted movement speed.
Well, well, Chuki left and right.
Blitz, back to the other side.
You can't catch this guy.
He's too smooth with it.
This build has done so much work in this game.
It is absurd.
Just dancing around them.
Whoa, he's even going back in.
Yeah, going back in for the support.
They've got to be careful of satanic.
Still is a threat to slow down these heroes.
I really want something off the back of that.
Well, maybe once in three more seconds.
Oh, they're not letting them go.
DeCaulis has to die, they say!
And die he will!
Are they gonna get out with everybody?
Or am I?
Maybe it's going to be the clockwork?
Yeah, he's gonna keep going.
So support for support, but it did force vision all of these heroes back to this side of the map.
But, very importantly, Cetanic did not die.
And now he's got his agonim scepter.
They did defend the drought.
The timber was also farming that entire time period.
Good face for Yatoro.
Spirit are overall happy with that exchange.
They hit some space, there's PL to continue to find some more attack in this game.
He's definitely strong, you can't underestimate the damage the Stamina can do if he's not the one just getting focused at the start of the fight.
He's tool of the course to go in and start things for him, you also have a clockwork to go in and start things for him.
If you can take out the timber early with a doom or something like that, the fight doesn't look that difficult.
Nodus wants to go for the Phantom Lance, but little does he know that Team Steered is one step ahead of them.
They're going to kill the Timbersaw before the supports even get here.
Are they?
They're trying to get away, but there's the Winner's Curse.
They just lined it up, hits onto three, the setup though, with the Tombstone out, they actually can't keep this going.
Team Steered has to retreat, wait, a silenced backhand onto Nodus.
Now they run him down, the Tear Rides finally gets him.
Bansheed Dodge.
But Nodus, Bansheed Dodge, fucking Toro plus not me with the Hookshot, finish him off.
Sure, I'll play it up.
Now Yatoro's trying to run down Nighcloth, stop the gainer, dodge the puck nukes, and get away from that.
Jakao's being tied in around, they'll finish him off, Jakao's trying to deal with damage,
and Yatoro, but he can't fight him here by killing Spree for Yatoro, and you know what, chased away by Laurel.
He's still on him, the doom, he can still actually connect.
As a mileage, can he kill him with just him?
Blaps are on it, blaps on his way, can he get the Blink Dagger?
Don't hold the spaceship, blink away, he's got the orb out, and he jumped far enough away,
They're chasing after him and jumps the orb as far as we can Laurel on the hunt on the way
Oh, they got it.
About the sound they don't need to do them, they've got to kill anyway.
Team spirit magic on the main stage.
Absolutely outplaying vision in this teamfight bottom.
Finding so much afterwards.
So much extra gold going in your Toros pocket.
Such a clutched Nantadodge.
So we can finish some of these heroes off.
so much time to bring this Timbersaw down that you need all this outplay to convert that fight into a win.
And guess what? The spells on cooldown, you still have Timber Saw.
Now the Doom will be dropped on the Timbersaw, who's not going anywhere with the hotshot.
Doom more.
Like a kill on the dark willow as well.
All of a sudden Team Spirit are moving too fast for Team Vision to keep up.
They have absolutely stepped up in this game too.
Just out of nowhere this game has become a beating frenzy.
Vision need to find a way to stabilize.
They need to slow this game down, regroup, control the map, and not continue to bleed more kills, because this is getting a little out of hand, 18-6.
This is the pace, the team spirit. They bet on it two times in a row. They did work the first time around with the Nightstalker, but it's working now in Game 2.
The crazy thing is I don't even view their lineup as this fast. You look at these heroes on paper, they kinda have to doom.
Yeah, Phantom Lancer takes time to come online.
The Doom and Night Stalker can sometimes
be a little cooldown dependent.
You're really looking to land.
Biggest playmate with little skirmishes.
You don't have enchantress bane or something setting stuff up.
I think Spirit is just the best team perhaps ever
at playing slow heroes fast.
And making the game speed up in a way
where it feels uncomfortable for you
because you're losing fights while they also
have a tremendous amount of scale
is one of those games that highlights it.
We'll not know how not he ended up here, but he might just get out.
It's the one shot, DP way, goodbye!
They're dancing on him. They're absolutely dancing on him here.
The chat wheels are flowing.
The axe is almost done for the Phantom Lancer. His damage is going to pick up considerably.
You still have St. Canik at the top of that net worth chart.
But he does not have the carry matchup at all in this game.
You cannot rely on him to come in and deal with Yatoro.
If the Timbersaw gets doomed, if the puck gets found by the Knight's Doctor.
This is the teamfight advantage that Spirit have in this game, the strength of their craft and their counterpits.
You have tools to defilitate the energy cores, to free the fight up for the Phantom Lancer.
Especially if you can get to BKBs, what is your control for BKB?
Running at you in this game, if you're a vision.
Here comes that three man team. Not me, Rue, Warl.
There's a lot of veterans on the team. They're trying to bait out the Phantom Lancer.
Lancer, Yatoro's gonna run down the lane.
The Hookshot cogs into follow-up spells. No one gets out of there.
You really have to be careful in this game, this puck.
If you get cursed, if you get hookshot, there's gonna be follow-up chains done
silence from the Nightstalker, the Doom, the other support.
All of these spells can be death sentences for no one in this game.
We'll likely see him go some early defensive item here.
I'd say you generally want the PKB here on the puck against the NS.
It's expensive it's gonna take some time
Now that they're hurting team vision back into their side of the map, but I mean you said like team vision
You need to slow things down. They're doing just that
It comes at the cost of map control nice
So, shots of N.A.P. on this one.
He goes back here with an N damage.
Cashless shots of Dark Willow.
Gakal's gonna be up next.
No escape for these supports.
Farther and farther back, team vision.
Our proof pushed all the way into their base.
And Laurel is watching every step of the way.
He's thinking about that.
Say, N.A.P. kill with the N.A.P. damage.
He blinks away.
No one who's kind of pushing out.
Not okay.
Maybe they have vision of me.
Don't want to be caught in a coil in a bad spot.
They deal with the ward.
Not me.
They can't eat, they can't eat, they can't go after him.
That's a super nice D-word because the only two words on the map work,
kinda double-placed bottom.
So Vision are just not gonna have a lot of War Vision to play around here.
In the next four, mid-five minutes or so.
It does lead us to a daytime period with no Dark Ascension.
So, definitely some downtime.
Yeah, they can definitely...
I don't know if they're going to make any moves during this window,
or if this is just going to be a time where they could farm more aggressively on the map.
It's a little awkward. I think you can't force Roshan with this cooldown. It's just not that fast right now
Otherwise, I think it's tough to find the play
Spirit are well aware of the downtime here. They're not gonna give you some crazy opening BKB has done for doom
So collapse can push waves mid. He's not too afraid very difficult to find the fan lancer
Oh, he's actually at super top kind of into where they are
He's got a blink dagger so he can still escape if he comes his way, but the clocks are just too good.
He pushed himself inside the tombstone, but the Phantom Launcher deals with that so quickly
you call us out to pop back out, a support for support, and as you get the coil, and there's the build up of that agatum scepter,
you're suppled into their Drow Ranger and Satanic delivers.
He took a lot of the pop damage off the clock, we're dying.
Satanic had a really good position there.
If Moro overplayed his hand across the depth,
we're going to try and make up for it the same war.
They will get the kill and Satanic can return.
Wait, they damaged him.
They got it up.
Okay.
He just died inside the fountain.
Didn't have the stuns, but they did have the damage.
I'm respecting the potential vision on that spot.
A rare misplay from Satanic in terms of his map read.
Guys usually untouchable
Here we'll find him even out the score
Look who's about to be taught network in this game
It's your boy collapse. Yep doing it again four zero and six a perfect doom performance here so far
Yeah, they just the trio of team spirit have given so much space to collapse in utoro
You Toro may have thrown some of that away collapse is not guys just ridiculous
Every time Spirit need him to step up, he steps up.
And they need him in this series.
He's gonna try to connect, but they do have a ward to spot this, but it might be too late for vision.
They're gonna start getting run down here.
TP away from notice, good call there.
Nine class, no hope for a hand.
And, uh, Clash doesn't need to go through the game.
Who's gonna stay in that top side if he wants?
Laurel is gonna sweep across the map.
This is a scary nighttime period for vision right now.
right now. Really scary. No one's playing out like this. There's no defensive item, by the way.
Okay, so that's trying to kill the cops outside while they're also going for the kill
under no one with a silence but no one fairly gets away. A TBA from the Doom. Lack of stuns
are beginning to hurt, Fish, and that's for sure. They were very close to grabbing the
fuck there. And no objective is being taken. That's the other interesting thing about
this game. It's all brawl. All trying to force heroes out of it. These jungle areas.
His torment is available. Roach is available.
Surely someone eventually wants to try a new one here.
He's so obnoxious with the cogs.
He doesn't care if you know he's there.
He's gonna burn you out with that least two of them every time.
A lot of map control going spirits away during this nighttime,
especially with the D-Wars we mentioned earlier.
This is kind of at the end of that 5-in interval where
you shouldn't have another set of odds to get on the map.
They're flying blind here in this nighttime.
They're very low on information.
You don't know if this PL is just trying to do the road
right now.
You don't know if the Night Soccer is running at you.
So you're very clumped.
You're very grouped.
You're playing defensive.
You need to get this mid lane out
so you can just see something in this game.
And when you stack so much, it usually
means maybe you don't die as much,
but you fall behind a net worth.
They're not down that much.
We'll see how that grows over the next three and a half
minutes.
This is the net time.
Holds through right now.
Spirit only up by 4k so they are threatening Roshan in a way something vision
kind of have to clump up and deal with definitely getting the clump out of
vision and team spirit not clumping at all you've got collapse on the top side
Yatoro bottom Laurel sweeping through the map same as the supports but in
different areas it's rare we see vision put in this situation where they feel
they have to just kind of move as a four or five year ball they're usually
very efficient on the map always looking for some sort of setup play nine
class is one of the best killing supports in all time there's not enough
information to look for that type of thing here you see a little something
pop with this nice doctor going through the gate it's just like you push out
top lane and let her reset the map and deliver him no little worried about the
rose play if your Toro feels strong enough otherwise you're okay playing
a traded map. I mean surely Team Spirit trying to roast. That's what it feels like.
Right? Like you have so much map control. I would be really tempted here and again
if you're not going to do the roast you're just conceiving an even map
state division wall. They have less confirmation to go off of it. It's not
going to feel great three or four minutes from now. But vision, I mean in
a way it's working out for them because vision keeps playing to this
Roshan team spirits are doing it. I'm trying to make the jump of the clunker
He's even doesn't land. He's gonna have to pop the kb. He really dooms up timbersaw goes to the TV away
Oh, there's too much in him in the curse first in the back. That's just war
Oh, I'm dying. No, who's on land. I'm gonna tell him here comes that fan of my charge
St. Canik, St. Canik, not able to feel much about it at all. It's here right try and push these heroes back
But here comes Jettorra to finish him off. Quick inside the tooltimes. I can't get it. It's gonna be all over. I'm gonna call it.
Why the shit? It comes out of here! They say that it's no chance! No shot!
What just happened? The fastest GG competition is put out crazy!
I had to not believe they called it there. Maybe that game was still going to be really rough after that team fight.
It certainly looked like DL just was completely out of control. There are another six Panadog on the fairway.
You don't have control. You're getting run down.
Now, was that game over completely?
And provisioned the GG out like that when they have been
the most arguably dominant team of this TI?
You kind of got to believe in yourself
to some degree of like, hey, we can come back.
Yeah, really.
No matter the game.
Maybe they throw.
Yeah, maybe something goes wrong for them later on.
Like, at Tilton, I don't fully understand why.
You know, like, OK, they got God.
Things really snowballed really badly.
And that what?
It was like 15 to 20.
Okay, but here's the thing I go back to.
You lose that fight, you get team life,
you're gonna be down 12 or 13 KK, they get rose.
That game stays terrible.
But what you have to say is,
you had two picks to counter this fan of lane.
You should not be in that game thinking to yourself,
man, we're on a cloth,
and the second the PL wins one fight,
this game is over.
Because if you're in that situation,
you feel that way after you had two court counter picks
this year, then you're in for a rough draft game three.
Like, this is your first big game.
I'm like, sir, what are you doing?
I mean, I mean, you tore my what that purely
because he didn't get to play a game.
He like showed up to one team fight, said, hell yeah,
this is great. Wait, the game's over.
What happened?
All it takes is a couple of man-to-dodges
and suddenly vision are man-to-dodged off
the stadium right now.
Brutal stuff.
What a way to that game be end.
Spirit even up the series against vision.
An unprecedented, I'm going to say early GG out of this game.
We don't normally get that at TI team spot
to the very end, the bitter end.
Well, on the side of vision, they say we realize we don't have any answers to this Phantom Lancer,
had way too much time for himself to be able to get online.
And then Xenia, blue hot cap and SVD mentioned it.
You had a lot of the draft to do it.
You had what should have been a slightly better lane for yourselves to be able to snowball into something,
but Spirit really showed up for game two.
I mean, I think Spirit just completely played like five times with her.
It was just unbelievable.
It wasn't close.
They out-execute them.
I think they have a much harder draft to play.
I think if I'm puppy, I look at these heroes, I'm like, yeah, I like our drafts.
They have good setups.
They have good ways to snowball this game.
We have ways to deal with peel later.
We have a pretty free puck game, but somehow spirit finds like these small openings.
And I think this is the same thing that I saw in game one, which is signs of
spirit, just outperforming their matchups.
Yeah.
That was, that was a masterclass.
It was actually beautiful to watch some of these teamfights and these little
executions, the individual play from all the players.
Laurel is beyond Godlike.
Not me is the most annoying player I've ever seen playing a game in this
game with the Cogs. They all stepped up. Pio with the
Mathodoges like he's our TZ. This game was this game was like,
holy crap, that was impressive.
Yeah, I just love to see Laurel not be shafted, to be honest,
because people forget Laurel's also a TI veteran. He does have
an ages under his belt. He has delivered many times for this
team. And if you put him in a position where he gets the
counter pick and he gets to play the game, you can absolutely
depend on him. He's such a dependable player. And the
end all the all your Toro strategy. We didn't see it in this game too. It looked infinitely better.
Yeah, I fully agree. I think honestly that the fact that they gave Laurel a real game and he wasn't
just completely sent to the wolves was it was a huge and pivotal turning point like Laurel was
everywhere. He's a part of every kill. We talked about how their other two cores are greedy. We
need somebody to connect. Well, Laurel connected to just about everything and collapse also
about drum and blink shifted from the normal Doom gameplay we'd see a little bit and he's fighting
to even PL is coming to the fights pretty early on like they all still recognize. I think why they
lost the last game and changed course quite a bit. I love that. They go, okay, we want to put this all
in for you Toro. Everything felt like we want to wait for him. But at the end of the day, we look
at it. You have someone like Night Stalker that could do so much early. We have this Dune that
when it comes to that mid pot, he's still able to have a great initiation, be able to try and
put numbers in your favor because a Dune tier feels like pretty much a hero. That's dead.
you have really too much more there happy. So I just love it spirit having so much more for themselves into this. But at the same time, like you see these these cores building up for themselves. The winter Wyvern is the one against me that I want to go back to because you like to pick something up, whether it's to
to dissuade the lone road, which has been favorable for these two teams or not, still ends up having a great impact for them and not just this dead weight of a support that we picked early and then didn't map much.
For sure. I mean, Rue is such an impressive player. And one of the things that goes understated about Rue is that he doesn't need to be the main character, like, taking up a library early in the draft just for the sake of the draft and not for his own game play.
And this kind of being a guy who's just going to be able to help us team fight, he does
that very well.
He was able to take a step back and allow NotMe to take his role as the position 4.
He transitioned to position 5 comfortably.
And that's not something that most people can do.
Most people don't want to give up the role they've practiced for so long.
It's also, you underestimate how different position 4 and 5 are.
I think for many, many years they were quite interchangeable, but I think the
skill set that players have developed over the years is a 5 and a 4.
gravy. And Rue, honestly, he's not been around for that long. He's been on the pro
scene for two or maybe, is it three years? I think it's two years.
I want to say two, because it was that time where we saw a lot of spirit plays take a break
right after the, what was it, the Seattle TI, the Copenhagen TI. That's where it came in.
A couple of people took breaks, and then we didn't know how long he was going to stick around,
who was going to come back for them. And it was this sort of soft way of them wanting to
replace Mira who used to be depositionful. Yeah, he joined after TI 13 and it's been a really incredible
journey for him. You always sing his praises about how he's thinking about the player. Oh, I think
when he first came to Spirit, I honestly thought he was quite a weak player. Like,
he came up from the tier 2 scene, he didn't have the experience, and I remember leaning against him,
it felt like this guy is like, does not know what he's doing, and we used to make jokes
about how GLaP's misses Mira all the time, but by the end of that same season, it was
incredible how fast he learned and that speaks to his talents like it's very difficult to learn
pro dota that fast as he did and now he's transition to five and I personally think spirit support duo
is the best support duo in the world. Yeah I know when I play pubs with this guy he's just always
in the right place at the right time some players you play with here I wish this guy was here or
why isn't this guy doing that with that guy it's like man he's here that's awesome like it's it's
the whole feeling is like he just is always in the right place at the right time when Posca
says he's you know trying to teach them and they learn slowly but they're learning to me that's
That's what I think of that. I this guy I feel like he just gets better over time
He's like the opposite of milk. He is just I don't know. He's the beast one one is no way the opposite of milk
By the way, Quinn in terms of aging
I'll note that down for future years
He really is a beast
But I do want to talk about how team spirit channeled their ti magic in this game, too
We can praise the support duo over and over but I really do think it's horror or Laurel and collapse delivered
Every single one of them brought their A game and something that they did this game that I thought was so cool
Was that they brought all five of their heroes to the safe lane early on?
They all connected to PL and they killed the timbersaw that was diving his tier one
Usually you don't bring both of your other cores from other lanes to early moves like that
Yeah
And I think this is a really old concept of Dota that we've talked about earlier on the panels too
But you pick slow heroes and then you play them really fast
You have this PL that's considered a slow hero. You have doom that's also considered a slow hero
And the way you buy time for yourself is by connecting to these early moves and finding the opportunities where you can outnumber your opponents
Because every time you get kills essentially what you're doing is buying yourself more time
Yeah, no, it's it's super true
And I think also the the best place to do that is like Mary said at these towers oftentimes
Because if your heroes don't naturally fight and kill stuff that often means they lack catch
And so you want them to be close to you because that means they're already overextended
You can kind of just run them down which allows you to actually get your damage off
Which is why in modern Dota towers are so important because it's a place to fight
It's not so much that you have a place to TP and then it like keeps them the map state
There's some truth to that
But a lot of it is it lets lineups that don't have natural ways to fight have a way to fight especially when you're waiting for the over extension
There's such a fine delicate balance of where the enemy walks
Are they over the invisible line and as soon as they cross bam spirit snaps they jump and they win fights
And it's so true you need it gives you buys you so much time
I feel like that's also like the Miposhka influence because like spirits way of making moves is through baits
It's been their MO for so long and I think throughout the season spirits look kind of like a different team
But ever since Miposhka has joined I'm now seeing like his influence seeping into them
And they're finding those opportunities to make those moves of these to do with him
He did say as well the in the coach interview off the game one
He's like I'm trying to give them all the lessons I can and then Neil follows up like how the play is taking these
of the game one was the slow idea there, but game number two, it felt like everything really
ramped up. And I love that Mabochka not only is offering so much when it comes to guiding
these players and how they play, but of course in the draft, right? That's where we really
see a lot of impact when it comes to coaches and not losing the idea or the faith behind
the night stalker. It was in that off lane, did still do really well for them in game
But to pick it up shift it to mid and give law the the the playstyle the opportunity to demonstrate
Why they're so confident in picking it in back-to-back games
Look at this 12 1 in 7 at the 28 minute mark that is in 28 minute market the game
That's the end of the game. That's when GG was called compared to no one's puck, which is 3 4 and 2
This just brings me back to you can count on Laurel
Like oftentimes he's put in situations where because he's so able to tank bad lanes and he's so able to be a sacrificial pawn during the drafting stage
We don't really see him have performances like this
But when we see him get heroes like counter picks to a puck with a night sucker
When we see those rare invoker games where he has like an axe set up for him
he can put the game on his shoulders and
The big difference from game one to game two to me is very impressive because a team to adjust their playstyle entirely in one map
It's hard to do.
I think it speaks to Laurel's skill as well because like while he's enabled and is like hero to hero matchup mid
He has nothing really to play with he has a heal a doom a wyvern and a clock
Like it's not natural combos that you would think like I because ennis wants to silence the guy and then he just dies
But there's nothing to dump on top of it and you could see how they were fighting like they there was some teamfight where they
Commit on the timber saw and he's like silencing him and they're hitting him the entire time timbers
not dying and then they reset back and wait for the silence come off cooldown again and
then recommit and I think these things require so much skill for your time correctly because
if you're off by half a millisecond you're caught and you're done.
Yeah there was even one moment where we laughed about in the green room because Yathura and
PL just ran mid because Yathura didn't have anybody so like oh okay I guess I'm coming
and he gave them a few right clicks during a crippling fear and they didn't get the
kill but the fact that they were moving PL to the Nightstalker means that they
were aware of this too but they somehow made it happen.
Yeah, I think it's it's actually an unbelievably difficult thing to pull off in games. And I think it's one of the most beautiful and high skill parts of the game is whenever you walk into the kitchen and there's no like normal ingredients and you've still got to make something great, like that is it's very hard and he takes a
He takes a rash and a knife and a pizza and he ends up with something gorgeous.
I hope he's already.
That's right.
And I think, like, how to feed in this game, like, how do you combine these heroes?
And that's one of, I don't know, that's something you build over time is these situations.
Okay, the draft is the way it is.
Now how do we play Godota with the weird tools we've been given that worked well
together later, but early on it's not as obvious.
Like, that is, it's so impressive and difficult watching this game backstage.
We're all, like, amazed.
It's so fun to watch.
We're locked in.
Like, we're watching a Christopher Nolan movie.
It's just it's just mmm. It's cinema if you have to title it. What would you do the Odyssey? I
Don't know if that's his best one
There's like one extra bit about it as well
It's almost this mental game because we're talking about okay
They poke a little bit they reset and then they re-engage there's a lot of times as well
Well, we see them poke they fully disengage and they're getting reactions out in vision
But now they go to re-engage and vision
But we don't want to react because they're probably just doing this whole all that poking at us
And they're not actually going to commit they fully commit and that's it now your timbersaw is gone
They fully commit your pucks gone. They do it again. They disengage and you've reacted to it
So I think also that mental back-and-forth toying with vision was something that really treated them well with the the heroes and toolkits
I had that's a great point that you bring in
It begs the question of the early GG. We haven't really talked about it
But it's not something that we see at TI where teams just give up after a bad fight
Can can you guys touch some light on why that happened? I think it's like puppy also talked about it in his interview where he says like you build
It's a ti you need to have some losses to build like stuff and learn from it
And there's not enough games at this ti. They've won all their games in the groups
They played four teams when all their games came to playoffs they lost one game
But they won the series so they haven't had that experience of
Experiencing defeat and if you want to be a ti winner, you're gonna have to go through that part
It's going to run into a lot.
And it's weird to, like, have that loss to be in a rough position
and say, you know, call it quits.
Because I think the teams that win TI are the teams that play hard games.
I remember playing against Spirit in the finals and being up 15k gold
and they come back and they beat us and they lift the Aegis.
And I think, at the same time, while that game is hard
and I don't think they're odds of winning are very high,
I also think it's not great practice for the future of the tournament
to just be snapped only GG like that.
Because to me, the fact that Satanic's at it
and there's a delay before the others say it.
like I'm pissed I'm dead I'm calling GG as sort of like I know best type deal and that can that can be okay
You can recover from that people can agree but at the same time it's a little contentious
I do wonder about it because team spirit would never call GG in a position like that
They're the team known for playing the hardest games and dragging them out until the very end
And if you mentioned that satanic did it before everyone else?
Is that okay?
I mean it's hard for me to understand whether this was good or bad because you can make an argument that
they knew it was over and they didn't want to waste time and energy. But you can also make an argument that...
I think those situations do exist where like sometimes it's just better to call the game and like let's reset and go ahead over to the next game.
But I agree with Quinn that the way it was done here didn't feel like one of those moments where everybody's like,
you know what? We messed up so much that we should just drop this game and move on and go to the next one.
It more felt like a, well where did that come from? You know, like
you just called it. So you kind of called it and nothing happens for a couple of teammates and then the GG started rolling and they're like, oh okay, I guess it's GG.
I was like an army style to do. Yeah, I think we got a new e-mode.
The spirit comparison is pretty fair, though.
They've said it multiple times in different iterations of spirit that if as long as one person has one idea to see an avenue back into a game, not even winning it, but back into the game, that's enough for them to not want to call Gigi, but not to have to not have a conversation around it.
I will also add a, you know, grain of salt or tell everyone to take it with the grain of salt because you won't like in the
Bodies coming out from spirit off the game one Quinn. You're like, it seems a little tense in the spirit camp
I'm not sure if they're gonna reset for game two. You'll build enough this whole. Yeah, vision's got it on luck type of narrative
Yeah, apparently it was bad or you know take what I say with maybe not a grain but an entire shaker of salt
But no, I think I don't know like you saw satanic smiling after and you also have to keep in mind
He's a kid and some of the players on his team are a lot older and more experienced
You're looking no one in puppy like I think they have the experience and the wherewithal to come off in that say it's fine
You know the game was very hard
We're probably gonna lose anyway and you can like it's not some I don't know
It's not some end all be all some doomsday thing to call GG like that you can cover from that
It may not be ideal, but it's also okay. Yeah for sure for sure
I land that's like where I think people like no one or puppy wait where you're gonna tell someone like this
Let's say we don't know we're speculating right?
Let's say Satanic is toped you tell him like you know these opportunities
There's only so many of them that you're gonna come across
There's only so many times you're gonna be a TI main stage with a good team around you coming in his favorites
And let's not waste this opportunity by being upset in this moment. Let's reset go into the next game being fresh
It's zero zero right. We start over from scratch
There's not nothing from the last game actually affects the next game if we don't carry emotional
Yeah, I'm class of zoned out just thinking about Pudge. It's like I put a regular hero
I miss the monkey King patch.
Hit me bounty on a pick me clockwork anything.
Yeah, I think honestly his progression as a player is so interesting because he was one
of the most unique players ever whenever he first entered the scene.
The way he played Dota was unlike anything I've ever seen.
It was completely bizarre and strange.
And to then go from the weirdest player ever to now someone who plays normal heroes
and is a cog in a machine rather than some other machine entirely.
That's that's such a wild transition. And I think it makes him such an incredibly interesting player to watch and see how he changes
I you know, I really like about him. He started off being like an old techies player
Yeah, the original techies. I just started with that then
So he played that the hero gets like reworked essentially just disappears on the game
And I think at the time he was like a top 100 ish rank player his hero disappears
He loses a bunch of them are and then comes back to becoming a pro player with other heroes
Hopefully we get to see some more of that old techies and style coming to game three
Team spirit versus team vision game three
Whether you love it or hate it you have to acknowledge that is a flair of nine class a flair of vision
We've only gotten to see in dabbles here in bear of the last few months
and hopefully they go back to that. It isn't elimination for them. We're looking at the upper bracket here, but a win top three at the
Ben minimum. That's something you would love to be able to do, especially vision.
That would be back to back to the eyes of a top three finish.
For spirit, it would be getting back into that top three form for themselves after missing out on main stage for two years in a row.
Looking at our bands or our draft in general here, not so much just our bands.
We're gonna have vision at the out first pick.
That's a similar to game number two, how it went in draft order.
And looking down the list of the bans, there is a small change up.
Vision of left leaner in the pool and decided to ban out Darkseer instead.
Yeah, the Nature's Prophet is also first phase banned. Was it last game?
No, it was not. It was second phase. It was Cuddle. That was in that place.
Okay, but that is a very potent 9-class hero.
But they're just going to rip a shout-out for you.
Man, it's so hard to predict this, but this team will do.
It's crazy, I think SF last game was also in the pool and they didn't pick it, they ended up being a second phase ban for them.
So, they decided to go a different route here. I find that NP ban so interesting, because I feel like for Spirit, that means like,
we now play against them without NP and they just look like a completely different team.
They weren't able to find their tempo, they weren't able to find that ramp, and we had like essentially like the most possible solo losing off lane ever.
So, playing up against SF, one of the biggest threats is you just get destroyed on your lane, and we're happy to give them that so long as we get our Wyver.
Yeah, it could be that what they had planned for the MP today was the TV, and it didn't work out for them, and they don't have a plan B against them.
Yeah, it is very possible and very smart, I think. I like the idea, if you come in, you have one strategy, the strategy doesn't work, and you're like,
okay, let's not disrespect this. And how the bands move and when the draft happens is very interesting from game to game.
I totally agree with that read that like, okay, we're going to ban it second phase, like we're okay if they first overall it, but then they lose, they get smacked, and they're like,
Okay, now we're gonna move it up a little bit because maybe they want to go back to comfort like a lot of draft is the
Ideas and the technical aspects of the heroes how they match against each other, but there's another level that is reading what they want
What do they what do they actually want to play what's comfortable for them?
Are they you know, they're on the back foot when you do and you're the back foot
Well, you go to something that's comfortable just chill
And so that that band there maybe there's more psychology than actual like practicality to it and on top of that
It's like within their comfort what makes us unable to play our comfort and it seems to be like the natious prophet
the temple that I brought, it was too difficult for them to play.
And I think this current spirit, we see it in the last game
and they want to be able to set some degree of pace.
They're not as passive as the old spirit,
they're not as okay with being ran out as the old spirit,
so I like the removal of the NP.
What's really interesting is that the Caudal gets skipped now
by Vision and do Spirit decide to ban it
or is it left to for another phase?
Yeah, it's a tricky one.
It's very good against Wyvern because you don't have,
you're not trying to pressure the lane, right?
He's playing for the heel and the rafts, like I mentioned last game.
Well, Kaudal's like, yeah, sure, whatever you want.
And he stacks the camps and he gets super farmed.
And then you get into this mid game where he's got all the heels of his own,
and he's got the slow and the magic amp,
and he plays some very long range,
so it's hard for Wyvern to actually get good curses off.
So I could definitely see it being a potential hero that the night class goes for.
Yeah, I mean, going for Kaudal would mean that it's about enabling no one from the mid lane.
And something that I did want to bring up was that,
notice was put in a situation where he could shine.
He was the solution to PL with his Timbersaw.
He got a Dark Bullow and he had a very strong waiting phase,
but he couldn't turn it into anything.
That's very rare from notice,
because he had a fantastic performance one month ago at EWC,
where he looked like the best player on that team.
It seems like he's had a bit of a weaker TI showing,
despite Team Vision doing so well.
I've just seen him in a better state.
I think that might be the case,
but I also feel like it doesn't matter
if you're Miracle or who you are.
When you get doomed, you don't get to play the game, right?
So, and then he was getting doomed.
He was the target of being silenced, they were not letting him click his buttons, so I think that's just where I heard of that, the Spirit.
I think, uh, notice how to, who's put her in a rough position in that regard.
On that note, Doom's won both games this series, and it's gotta have gone up in value now.
Yeah, you would think so, but it's like, it's funny because last game you picked the Doom blind, and then they countered you with the Drawranger.
It's a slightly different tone in this game in that you would be picking Doom into Shadow Theme, which is also one of the biggest counters to Doom,
and there's a bit different picking hero and saying counter me compared to seeing a counter instead
I've got to be countered and just walking right into it like there's a different feeling to that. Yeah
I mean this this pick is really interesting because usually like your own second pick you pick a support the next follow up pick
We want to pick here is a core also
We didn't mention it, but the coddle is banned
So Spirit recognized the same thing that we talked about where they are able to get gonna be able to dodge the lane that way and for
Why when you absolutely do not want that?
So yeah, here you generally try to look for a core hero, but this core hero is very blind
Like you only see the SF SF at the moment is a hero that's quite stable in almost every single game
I think it's quite hard here to counterpick just like one to one
Usually you want to set up a strategy that being said at the end of the line
Wow
Wow good. Oh wow good
Yeah, I bit surprising because I think spirits not been a team that's prioritizing milk or ton
But in the same way that a cauldron will be good against a wyvern because you outrange him and you play a slower fight
It's the same way that invokers good against shadow theme
Shadow theme what's sit there and hit people and he's a stationary dude
And he's getting tornadoes getting deafening blasts at cold snaps and getting kited
And so we can't actually get all his immense damage off
And so I think when you combine that with a winner wyvern
It's a lineup that makes it very difficult for shadow theme to actually function because it gets kited and people get cold embrace that he goes on
Yeah, I mean for me. This is psychologically it also says that team spirit
after that game too, they're like, we love you, Laurel.
You're good at Dota.
Like let's go back to some of our old school strategies,
because while we only saw him play Invoker one time this TI,
it is a strategy that used to run often,
particularly with acts on the off lane,
and like a stunning carry from the safe lane,
like a tiny or a Savannah or something,
and they would just give him
as many Sunstrike kills as possible,
then he would run over them up.
I think it's also cool that Envo is one of those heroes
that can kind of play a lane and have very low CS
and recover his game through kills,
through Sunstrike on the side lanes.
You're picking quite early and you tell Vision that you can counter me and I'm gonna be fine with that because I can recover in other ways.
But they decided to go with Ember, which is another hero that's a little bit of the same kind of thing.
And I guess Quinn, you can explain it better than anybody.
Yeah, I mean, the hero is just...
Like, these two heroes, they lack a lot of solid lockdown.
So if you get cursed and there's an invoker there, how can they kill you, right?
You can just press light and run it away.
And on the inverse, you've got chains, you've got something that can really hold the invoker in place.
And you've got the shadow thing who's being kited.
So these follow-up picks, you want them to have tools to actually lock these spirit heroes and plays to let your Shadow Fiend have a way to interact with the enemy heroes.
You're enabling this hero that has been countered, and so you need to pick stuff to help him get back into the game.
This has been taken out a little bit by the Invoker and Wyvern and Ember, Willow.
Now you've got multiple routes, lots of disables, lots of stuff to help your Shadow Fiend.
I think these picks with your first pick make a lot of sense.
I also think it's the first time in the series that we've seen an honest match on Khmer.
We have the stark against the Ember that is like very one-sided, and it's against Puck that to some degree is very one-sided as the NS comes online.
But in Volker and Ember are the classic honest mid-heroes. It's like skill heroes that don't necessarily screw each other's game over and they're both going to have like a decent chance to play the game.
Yeah, it's cool. And I think it's a lane that can swing one way or the other a decent amount depending on skill. Like I think it can be a lane that can be 60-40 either side.
And there aren't many matchups that actually can be like that.
It can even go further than 64 depending on skill.
So I'm looking forward to see how they lock in for the game 3.
Do you guys think that Largo may be an issue for Team Spirit?
Because you've got this Umber.
Like, Umber-Largo combination popped off quite a bit.
Is it something they're concerned about?
Do they want to ban it?
Do they want to just let it happen?
How do their heroes fare against it?
In my mind Invoker is quite good against Lago because he has such high single target burst damage when he clicks all his spells on one dude
and they have the finger of death, they have the Underlord, they have a lot of damage that they can just pump onto a target and keep them in place
so I'm not sure, it might still be a good pick for them just like you said because of the innate combinations that they have with their own heroes
but I love these heroes from Spirit. They see Ember, Ember likes mobility, he hates playing as instant disables
go strongest disabling off later into strongest disabling cost four yeah it's
it's it's a great response spirit loves making sure that none of your heroes are
immortal they hate when one guy is untouched and has a free game and they
all they they love to respond in ways that we can always kill everyone we don't
want to have a situation where you're immortal I think that's spirits worst
nightmare as a team and so this directly addresses the ember but good old
Satan's back in the game I do one both games so far but I will say it
It looks like a less scary hero versus spirit, but I did in the game 1 where they had one
core in the Terriblete, and they had an Ember that was shut down, so there wasn't really
a means to play against the Doom.
This time around, the Underlord is going to be strong.
The Invoker is going to have a game regardless of what happens, and they're still the
atorohero that you don't see, so there's a Tri-Core that you have to pick one,
and the other two can carry the game after that, and when Doom plays against dual-core
or Tri-Core lineups, it's a lot more complicated than it was in game 1.
We'll play in guess who with that shot by the way, you know who's back of the head that was believe it. Shall we?
Yeah, I was curious who's back and who's back of the head is so significant that makes sense to our winner
Yeah, I I think the other element of why it's a trickier doom game is they've got a lot of ways to disengage
Yeah, if he dooms a guy suddenly gets cursed or if he doesn't pop he can be he gets pitted or lion's done
We're tornadoed and they just run away like that is one of the best ways to do with doom is he presses it
And sure, you're stunned for an hour, but if you just run away and you reset that, then that's probably the ideal way to deal with it.
And we haven't seen it come online in the series, because the games have been so fast, but this Aghanim's Doom with Shiva's Guard is a really big problem.
And Wyvern kind of pre-solves it, because it's one of the few ways that you can peel that Doom off of yourself, so you can play that game out.
I agree. It doesn't look as quite a scary end-game and boss Doom in this game.
Oh yeah, you know who's missing, though, is Hitoro.
I was gonna say it but he's overall lost pick so I was like you know I kind of want to focus on vision a little bit more
But gosh, there's always a joy in knowing that Spirit are gonna lost pick overall a Yatora hero
But he is going to see everything before we even get to that
This position is kind of interesting when you're in Pulse 5 because you're not used to getting lost pick right when you play your practice games
In your pubs, you're almost always first picking your hero and being in a position where you get to see the entirety of the enemy draft
It kind of can get into your head of like I need to find something special
I need to find something unique because I can finally last pick my hero with all this information
And I'm gonna pick the hero that people always first pick in Murana
It's a good combination of Ember's chains
It will give them a lot of kill threat early on like this support duo with Ember is very strong
There's a lot of damage. There's a lot of layering stuns. There's a lot of follow-up
The only thing that Murana lacks this game is a save when you play against lion drops
It's gonna be oh we're gonna blink hex
Instaverse you and you're gonna die. There's nothing really offsetting that for team vision
So they have to be the aggressors with the way that they've set their drop up
I think Mirana's only way to become the same in this game is to buy a force top and a really good for a windbreaker
Yeah, but that's very far. Yeah, exactly. So you see on Spirit side
They have a lot of stuns that they want to throw damage on pop up and force top is the best way to like break those kinds of combinations
I mean, this fan is just setting up for Laurels and Vokern, like we mentioned, Stuns on sidelines,
that's what you need.
How early, sorry, how early can Sven end up joining, right?
Because that's what we also kind of lacked in certain games, at Spirit of One for themselves,
is Yutorra being able to be the early rotation's mid, going through those twin gates, joining
team fights between the 12 and 15 minute off.
I can definitely see someone through twin gates, and I can see people come to him
with the Underlord Pit.
It is a game where I think they're going to have to get creative again, because
Invoker, Super Stationary, Sven, typically very stationary, and same with Lunderlord,
he wants to gate into some things, and so I think it's a game where Spirit, they have
to exercise those Dota memories and the muscles of the things you've seen, how you can combine
heroes in different ways, because it's not overly clear.
I do like it conceptually, like you have a lion plus pit set up on the side for some
strikes, then you have the Sven and the Wyburn who are also going to be able to
give them to liberal, and the speak to be timing will be strong, like you've got
the Warcry armor to fight into a Shadowfiend, his biggest strength is your minus armor
and you're protecting your whole team, the god strength is really good against doom because if you get doomed and you've ulted it doesn't matter.
You're still going to have impact on the team fight, so make fun.
Yeah, and to tie back to Quinn's point earlier, nobody's on kill level when you play against fun.
And nobody's on kill level when you play against Sven in Volker.
I feel like Spirit has all the damage in the world and they're going to have options to play this game out.
You know what I love the most what you've brought up in the last couple of days in Senior is having two heroes that can always be together to kill it off.
And is that what you see a lot in Spirit Straps?
That any combo of two heroes are going to find something successful for themselves
to have that aggression, to be able to snowball in what feels like a new spirit play style?
So in this game, like, any two heroes, yes, but it's not any two heroes,
because at all times there's an Underlord Pit and there's a Sunstrike.
But even if you're only two, you're actually four.
And that is the power in of itself.
Supports are going to be very unable to make moves.
Yeah, I love Spirit Straps this game.
I think it's stepping in the right direction.
I'm so impressed by the gameplay last game. I uh, I'm spirit all the way. They're just too cool
And they're very quickly lost on your also spirit all the way. You love the their adjustments too
Uh, I love the drafts to me. It makes sense on paper, but you know
Vision are a very strong team. They have the means to make a lot of early game moves
And they're gonna have to be the ones to set the tempo here
Well the fun and the narrative of our vision up against spirit matchup here is the king up against the prince
And but we have our own king and prince. It's cap and sbg
Thank you, Nat. That's right. There are some serious legends on the stage here.
Some legends to be, in fact, in the case of Satanic.
A matchup of Gatoro versus Satanic here at TI on the main stage in a game three.
Who is the best carry Avery?
The old gods versus the new.
So much doughnut knowledge between those two coaches as well.
That was something I was looking at.
This game three draft, puppy against Maposhka.
Yep.
What is that?
30 years of cumulative CIS Dota experience?
It's absurd.
That might be one of the most goaded coach matches
we've ever seen on this stage.
Think of how many TI finals those two coaches have been in
alone.
Yep.
Let alone these 10 players.
So I think this is the closest draft we've had of all three
games.
I think both teams are very happy with what they have.
I don't think we're going to see an early GG out.
I think these are two drafts that can scale really well,
play the mid game, connect with some fast moves
on the supports.
a lot of stugs in this game, a lot of big hitters.
This game has everything Austin.
It has everything.
You'll give us everything in the execution.
That's a part that really strikes me for TI.
Right throughout the year,
you can talk about drafts and mechanics and strategy
and all these little things that make a team great
in Dota 2.
But TI, I feel like is the one tournament,
the only tournament perhaps,
that truly tests mentality, right?
that to truly test how tough you are inside of that booth.
When the lights are absolutely the brightest that they can be,
do you shrink under that or do you flourish?
And Vision, in their case, how do you bounce back
after a rough loss?
Because we've already seen, and we already know,
from game one to history in general,
that Team Spirit can bounce back after a rough loss.
What are Vision gonna do after that game two?
Spirit's proven. They can be clutch when those lights are the brightest.
And it's just a vision to prove that they can hang with the big dogs now in a very high-pressure game 3.
4A top 3 at this year's international. It's all in the line.
You do not want to leave anything on the table here.
Get into a landing phase that has some very interesting matchup.
That first pick SF for St. Panic trying to pull in a melee hero.
That Ember counter picked to the invoker.
There were other options in the pool, but I think they wanted something just more versatile for the game.
See how much Laurel can find with these sun strikes as well.
A lot of stuns in this laning phase for Spirit you might be able to connect on.
And then you have Toro's Sven.
On me, getting low there.
Early blood grenade thrown out, and then a bit of a pressure thrown down.
So far, Team Spirit have not given up that first blood to a Shadow Team who can be an absolute menace in the laning phase.
We've got Amber Spirit versus the Invoker mid lane matchup.
Rue? Rue? Maybe he's got fairy fires.
Double fairy fire in fact, yeah.
Titanic, look at X-top with the Sun Strike.
Sun Strike and it lands on the Satanic and they finish Mott.
Not quite. Fairy fires keep him alive while not he.
Replay it.
They have the same luxury.
DeKal's gonna hop to the other side.
He'll plant the first blood and maybe he gets away.
Raises, slow down, collapse.
He can't finish the job.
Even with the Sun Strike connection, the extra one charges
plus the fairy fires.
Titanic's done, but he's not dead here.
They need another connection up top.
That was the first blood that Spirit really wanted
with this extra Sunstrike capability.
So that's a big win for Vision.
If they're out in extra region,
can stay alive up here, continue to see us
with that Shadowfiend soul advantage.
It's top lane where you feel like
the much of the laning phase is decided.
It feels like the most volatile of all the lane matches.
I think this lane has the most potential
to be explosive for Vision.
Okay, that's what happens
when you pick Shadowfiend against the melee hero.
You need to start just raising this hero down.
You get to that level three, you pump in the damage,
you snowball completely with the extra necromastery,
or you get killed a couple of times
and it swings the other way.
It's looking really solid for Satanic here early though.
You have the three CS leaders across the board as well.
Ember did well in the early waves mid.
Just what you would expect from a veteran in no one.
And this Doom is gonna return for game three.
Doom has won every game in this series.
Scary hero to give away when it performs so well here.
A bold move by Mboschka.
Okay, how about you dress Doom and what has Team Spirit done in this game to address?
They have multiple carries. I think that's one thing.
You don't want to end up in a 4-protect one where the Doom part gets super straightforward.
Underlord can create a gap against this hero where you get stuck in the pits later on.
You can disengage and re-engage. Invoker can do the same thing.
Wyvern can also just freeze the Doom on the blinkin' and help create that gap.
So they have a lot of mechanisms to reset the fight once the Doom goes out.
goes out, hold noticed in place, and then either just completely disengage or buy time
for the dude to target to look for the second half of the fight.
I think that's mainly what you're trying to do here.
You can also just try and start thinking on your terms, jam in damage with a lack or
you spend blinking stunning somebody and you can pull those in through them.
Very little DKB control in the vision lineup for the spend between the four of us in
if you can get it.
Got him on the bramble, blood grenades, slowing him down, notice the even though,
He, uh, he'd be a misclick there.
I think he went the wrong way around the trees.
He popped, uh, scorched Earth, but didn't really get anything for it.
Fortunately, Dark Willa aggression.
Never really gonna get punished, just because zero has.
Shuttle won't get out if necessary.
Rue's gonna get a bit low.
The Sunshrake's gonna land in the class!
It's baited in by Rue!
You have all these stuns?
Sometimes you don't need it.
Just land a casual Sunshrake, help ruin that trade.
Symmetrical for the invoker.
These lanes are really going vision's way in terms of just the straight up CS, so you gotta nab some extra kills here and there where you can.
Or at least maybe get some stacks up, and if something else we could see this top lane fall back on, if the lane just becomes too overwhelming.
Because right now, Saipanik is taking control.
CS department, grinding that trip over here.
Laurel is 11-5, lowest CS of all the cores.
Nice feeling the pressure right now.
I think Spirit have had to slower start lanes all three games.
Yes.
And they're not a team that's afraid of taking that route towards victory.
They don't need to win lanes. They don't even need to win the early game.
They probably don't need to win the mid-game.
They can probably start losing most of the lane game. If they find that one fight, that's all it takes.
So you really have to be careful.
It laid down, trying to get collapse away from the SF. Quick X.
Turn around, blood grenade.
Those have a Lotus.
Ultimately...
Bungie.
Trying to hit that Sun Strike. Not gonna happen.
Tommy is gonna die to the race.
Very volatile lane up here.
Yeah, you're trying to bait with long charges
and all these lotuses and fairy fires.
Your both teams are thinking about this
Sun strike a lot.
The aggressive,
and I'm gonna say,
he's off here in Yatoro.
He's, he's just getting this reach
and burn down here.
Even if he survived,
it's gonna be close call.
Couldn't get through the cold embrace heal.
He does a lion.
It's not me.
TP's in.
Would you make it the lion pick up anyway?
a hero that we see a whole lot of definitely an outlier for this event it was performing pretty well over the course of the year at various points and
Then fell off for this tournament in the last month in general. He's a good Sun strike set up
It is a hero that historically has worked well for Spear is not necessarily this iteration, but just as a team concept
always gives you that instant hex potential which is
Again, if you're playing with confidence if the other team is that perhaps tilting a little nervous line does take advantage of that
I think it could pose problems for the Ember in this game.
Maybe the Jume on the Blinken, if you don't pre-BKB, which we've seen a lot of this event.
Things like this.
This hero can make a huge impact from a low-net-worth position.
Still a difficult hero to execute though.
So again, you're looking towards these Spirit supports to really mechanically play well,
give us a performance like they did in Game 2,
and then this support duo can really cause visions of problems.
They just end up in some open skirmishings in jungle areas or get run over on the map by this Ember.
They could become a liability pretty fast because they need some early items to really call on it.
I think both of these supports need a blink to really play the fight spot.
I love that. Yatoru used the line. You're not panicking, are you?
Well, vision don't seem to be panicking in this laning phase.
They are walking away with a deep laning phase win.
As you said, Team Spirit have never been a team very dependent on a laning phase.
This is a very big lane window, which is causing you a little concern.
Mainly just how much the spend is getting fully bottomed.
I think unaltered getting bullied, whatever.
Invoker's always going to lose some of the early CS,
to make it up with some Sunstrike kills, just Yatoro getting bullied.
It's uncommon to lose your safe lane in this patch.
You don't see it happen to a lot of teams and players
when you have so many options in your disposal to just dominate the lane.
So that's a big sacrifice to make.
There's some payoff here with the Wyvern coming online later.
It's giving a lot of room to this off-laid duo for vision to maybe gain some benefits to the ball this game.
I feel like that's only going to be compounded by the fact that vision also have a more active mid.
Right? If you're already daring off the lanes and then you get those first couple rotations
from the Ember spirit, which the Invoker gives a daily match, it's going to be a problem.
Always the risk of playing against Ember if you don't choose him out of the lanes.
In game one he just got completely cheeseed, none of that tempo came into play in this one.
He's going to have a lot more freedom to control the map, play off the power rooms,
make rotations that are not going to be matched.
You really have to keep no one in check, keep them in the back of your mind, not overextend,
and make sure you don't feed away some double triple kill to December in the first 15 minutes here.
Back to this bait in the bottom lane. Really need this line rotation to work.
A bit committal down here, you're leading that under order on top.
Which has been a brutal lane for him. The ward is going to get dropped. He's immediately going to de-ward it.
Not me spotted by that one. The underlord, collapse, is trying to pull waves, but they say R2 can play that game.
We can also try lane, trying catch, collapse, stop him from pulling at least.
Actually, really, just like that TV from my class.
Because this is not a lane the underlord can enter, no matter what.
You can leave the SF of your solo the underlord can't enter.
So if anything you want to bring support to elsewhere in this game, and this is relieving pressure from this venue with the one suffering the most.
Notice he's tanking up to survive though, double gauntlets and two bracers.
He just, raw HP is all it takes.
And tanky boy, early on.
They are going to be able to rotate these supports in the mid, which is a great point of attack.
Anytime you kill this invoker early, you shoot the city duck.
Ember automatically gives you the gap close, gets a 6 minute power rune as well.
So there's a lot to fight for here on the side of vision.
You can use the four spirits to pull the creeps back.
They will not be able to contest the power runes at all.
A regen for an ember spirit that's already starting. Fantastic for no one.
He lost a lot of time.
He won CS for Satanic.
Guy's an absolute freeform up there, which...
You know, I don't know the exact stat for how often vision wins when Satanic has an empty lane,
but it's actually looking good.
But it's gotta be quite hot.
This is what vision they want the attention around me.
They're two sidelineers to just free farm, scale
and let no one control the pace of the game.
They're going to rotate the supports back off.
They want this SF kill with the Sun Strike on top.
This would take so much of the damage.
They've got him in place.
The Sun Strike's going to land.
They surely have enough damage to stop the wreck.
That's good enough.
This time is getting tested off the skill.
That is the bigger prize.
Spirit needed that early SF kill, however they're going to sacrifice some experience to get the job done.
Both tribes are going to go vision's way here.
The level of sixes of the supports on vision are going to be a whole lot faster than Team Spirit, that's for sure.
Unless they can get more core pickoffs, cover that experience.
That was just a really, that kill was almost more important for Collapse than it was to shutting down the SF.
It's on the war region. Something out of this laning phase.
Now the big boost he's gonna get to farm another wave, hold his camp, kind of reset the wave.
Fatana keys, gotta think twice about stepping up here again if you don't know where these supports are lingering.
Nice little rotation. And honestly, Spirit, they relieved a lot of the pressure in this lane phase that was going into the Sven too.
With these vision supports going up, the ball gets to the farm bottom.
These little things stabilize that game. This was a 2K lead for vision.
but in an half ago, we weren't able to snowball it more.
So the game's stabilizing for Spirit right now.
Gotta, again, look towards the Ember,
look towards the Power Runes,
try and connect something with no one here.
That class pops out underneath the tower,
quickly hexed, stunned,
but they do not try and kill him,
knowing that the Ember Spirit is gonna be trying
to run them down, another Power Rune to work with.
I mean, the Ember Spirit is just gonna be
the strongest hero in the game for quite some time
that he's able to get every single Power Rune.
He's gonna get every Power Rune.
You're just not contesting two supports behind this guy,
with an invoker and a winter wiper.
It's not happening.
You're just hoping he doesn't get the early haste
and amp damage, wishing him to get region arcane.
Little weaker here for sure.
["Spirits after Nami"]
Those?
Do a doom avail.
["Spirits after Nami"]
Caught Ham on the other side of the tower.
Easy pickoff.
This is a very dangerous area for Spirit to linger.
I think you're either getting something done here
or you are just defensively bailing Laurel out,
but you don't want to just linger around the river
against December to death sentence.
Yeah, he's basically playing Forge Spirit instead of his hero.
His hero is always pretty far back,
and he just keeps using the Forge Spirit to draw the aggro,
prevents too much tower damage being done.
He also blocked the arrow off the chains combo,
so he has a little defensive capability on his own.
You will certainly not have any sort of recovery.
I mean, Vision at full control of the Triangle
in case there were stacks but I'm scared also I haven't had the chance to fake any stacks in the first place.
Oh that's gonna hurt.
A little short there.
One of the big flag bearers as well.
They are getting some nice dmores.
That is giving us some extra gold here in limiting the damage vision on clicking with December.
Me pushed out past the tower immediately punished. Now, the slowdown isn't enough for C.T.A.N.A.G.O.
They got him on the bramble and the arrow landed both of those abilities and nine class will return the tip back to not be.
Timber is starting to be a massive threat.
There's 10 minute power runs. Gotta be a good one unless it's the Illusion Spawn.
They can take you!
Yeah.
His first power rune of the game.
No, I'm not happy about that. Again, you're looking for the hastenance damage in the next two or three here.
You really wanted those for the embers. In fact, Laura gets to steal one of those ways huge.
Haste for the Sven. Spirit just trying to defend right now.
How does this, uh, Sven versus SF matchup kind of go as the game moves along?
Yeah, he's...
Man.
Full Bracer build makes him too much for Team Spirit to handle, even with the extra Suntrack damage.
Oh, if only they had a Suntrack damage.
Yeah, they needed it.
At the bottom it would have made all the difference, and said Collapse almost dies.
They do get double support to the bottom, that's huge for Spirit.
Limited the aggression going through the Ember right now.
Nine class finds a Courier kill, but that's it.
through the ember right now. I'm classified to courier kill but that's it.
Chase at the atorah with moonlight shadow kind of trailing him as he works his way
forward. Oh, not me. Does he have enough here with
sunshades? Sunshades back off cooldown level. He'll ward the x-word.
I think Vaskimandis has healed him up so much.
No shot now. Yeah, that's for sure.
While Rue getting chased out of bottom, they do not want to let anybody linger behind
We'll be able to get the cold embrace. Actually, they're gonna think about gating in. SF is coming through the gate, but he managed to get stopped by the lion, but Underlord is not going through that gate to join him.
What is a death sentence in this bottom lane?
Gonna have to concede some early fights here if you're scared. Just try and find trades. Vision no way.
They're getting real aggressive right now.
Vessel is around the corner for no one and that's when the presence around the map is going to pick up significantly
You bring SF into any of these engagements and let him convert on the objective
No one's going to want to defend these towers once they panic shows up
You'd have to really preemptively smoke there to make it happen
You kind of got to jump in first, kill him, get ass
And that's a lot of the spend that you mentioned with the carry matchup in this game
in this game, Sten can absolutely deal with you. You just jump, DKB, God String, SF doesn't
fight you, especially in this game with Alacrity on top. It's a huge carry differential. You
have to hit some nice timings here if you're Satanic to really get the most out of this
matchup. Of course SF is always going to escape. It'd be a massive threat.
So he's going to have a number of timings early on with the deep Sven is still
kind of building up. He'll have another time later on when he gets butterfly against
Yes, potentially Aegis in line with that, and you're gonna maybe try and push.
I just think that Boker, it's such a tough hero to play against. It's really hard to interact with
early, and then he gives your carry so much extra boost in these late game matchups. Just
the Lackery also, the Sunstrike damage on top of the intubations.
He's a second primary damage dealer in himself. It's tough to initiate on the in Boker.
can be a real big thorn for vision in this game.
They are up 5k, so this lane stage did pan out quite nicely.
No surprise there, you notice this game has so much farm in this game.
It's no surprise that Satanic gets big, he kind of gets big no matter what happens
in vision's games, but the fact that there are other two floors out there, it
They have their early fighting items too. Drum done for the doom.
Sphere vessel for no one and that's kind of the signal to start getting more
aggressive with this Ember spirit. There's a 14 minute wisdom shrine, they're not
really heading that direction. They're looking for the Sven Bahama. The juiciest
kill on the map right now is he's the fastest farming hero for spirit.
It's Han, they're on interference. He's gonna break some of the smoke, he's gonna see some of these heroes from the
mid-light shadow, they're gonna chase after him. And you know, get out! Oh, he's running right in!
They're on the other side!
Hello!
And goodbye, Yatoro!
Natched by Satanic.
What a move there.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
They broke that gate and he still died
because the execution from Vision was so on point.
Very sick, Lest.
And what's your trade off?
Normally, you're trying to get some sort of equivalent exchange.
Underwater cannot push out these tops,
Which means it has to be around this mid lane.
And that is just not a party you can kill in this game.
Just way too tanky with the double bracer build up.
We've absolutely seen the strength of Doom in this series.
Bill Ion gets all bottomed.
These are going to try and continue to put some more pressure on this man.
Not let him push lanes off.
Not let him sit down here comfortably.
He'll be the wide room pick-off off of the deep ward that they have.
It's true, from the pings out, not me, they brought Laurel, joined in the mid lane, smoked
him up, made a fast rotation up the top but Zatanic has already cleared this out.
Now the Rageway back next to this tier 2.
Gonna have to go deep for that kill.
So many of these ganks, time and time again it'll happen.
Back to the map read, cleared having a hard time finding a pressure point right now,
I'm just gonna have to settle for something.
Our hammering, trying to open up the map a little bit.
They got to.
They're gonna have this really awkward window where...
This Underlord Claps isn't really much of a hero yet,
until you have that egg in exception.
And it's still, you know, a solid 1500 away.
PC recovered pretty nicely here.
Even without stacks, you got the job done.
Closing in on that egg will make a big difference in this game.
have a lot of global capability it's gonna make your net worth count for a lot
more here even from a behind position I was getting out of sight from my shadow
might have been spotted there by the forge spirit another power room this
time in amp damage both this period is doing everything they can to dodge yeah
that's the thing you want to defend this good power you also don't want to
get caught in a bad fight right now it's all the strength on no one
The fact don't break scenario for them where Rue has to kind of come in clutch, right?
He's playing behind the news, he's heroes all the time.
He's kind of like some of the biggest threat that they have to be able to stop a vision
aggressive play.
There's a lot of defensive capability in this period line-up, they're set up and ready
for the play.
You think you're just going to go on Laurel and kill him and all of a sudden you get
stuck in a pit, firestorm, there's a wide recurrence, Sven Teammate's in, he's
going to stun someone out of it, he's a lot of chains done.
of any sort of overextension however once again vision not forcing the issue into
the mid invoker they're hunting the yatoro spin they refuse to let him
they can't down here and even without the war it was dealt with you're still gonna
try and find heroes in this area brew kind of spotted spin a little bit out
of sight team spirit are beginning to group up around this year to give you
maybe this is an opportunity for a fast kill they've got it with the
Here comes the Sun Strike, here comes the Nigh-Class, no?
I can't, I can't.
Trying to keep Rue alive, growth is down, a winner's curse,
actually backs up and stunning the rest of his team,
but it doesn't matter.
Team Spirit, their defense, they parry Visions' aggression perfectly.
Nice mappery from Gatoro, this time it's him.
Knowing the gank is coming in and Spirit just set up on it,
and that's where that fight is dangerous.
You do not want to over-commit around these towers
into all of the muck that Spirit can propose.
Which is where this game can feel a little awkward for vision. You have all this strength.
How were you able to use it in the last few minutes? You've lost net worthly.
You're just watching Invoker recover off the Ancient. You're watching Stem recover off of some of these smaller jungle stacks.
You weren't able to kick him out of bottom. The fact that Yatoro can sit down here is really important for fear right now
if they want to give the Ancient priority to the Invoker. Only one of these cores can take those Ancient stacks.
So you need the other core to be able to farm somewhere. And the Invoker cannot go anywhere on this map right now.
this map right now so it has to be a Toro finding farm deep on the side of the
map quite a vision are hunting them down here this is very efficient for spirit
in terms of the recovery and eventually the invoker pays that back down to the
stand right he gets the boots of travel BKB then he's able to play out on the
map with his shard with ghost walk pushing waves and then this fan gets
to farm the nicer parts of them it'll switch at some point and that point
The threat of the map goes up a lot for Spirit with the gate global capability for now
I'm just kind of kind of play through yatoro does have blink available is level 13
He's strong gotta remember this then has the Sun strike behind his initiation to
There's a lot of burst damage coming off off this jump
Vision just gonna try and dodge this play right now. They're
Trying to just get to triple DKB in this game
It's gonna take a little bit of time here. However, they get there
They're very strong with that timing. They can absolutely take a team fight into a Roshan
Uh, kind of a crazy backstab, especially the fact that it's just the two of them.
They don't have a tier one tower to play off, and no heroes to TPM.
Yotaro's trying to get the initiation, and he missed.
A fast shadow realm from Night Blast, and Yotaro is going to be stalled up.
This is going to get real rough for him.
Tear eyes, push some white knight in the air!
Beautiful stuff from DeKalus! DeKalbo with that one!
A play call from Yotaro and Ruko's horrifically wrong vision
are gifted into a fantastic fight.
So hard for either team to make aggressive plays in this game
Very quick reaction from nine-class completely kills this play attempt
And you're able to bring all your heroes into it and guess what tormentor 20 seconds if vision one is just man up for an objective here
They were in the area
I'll be not to now vision back up to a 6000 with lead
Every kill is gonna count for a lot when hopefully seems that's so much lane push and farm capability
They get this Vittower, they really like to equip this, they refuse to equip this.
It's a very strong objective in this game with the Invoker and all your defensive capabilities.
You can really bait vision onto this objective and try and get some extra kills out of it.
Vittower is also the one that controls that tag.
For sure. See that dark realm come out just in time and all of a sudden the
period story like please get me out of here. That's gonna be a problem for him.
You may have to match up against the SF but you've got some very very mobile
heroes and the supports Dark Willow and the Marauder both difficult to kill.
Ember Spirit obviously highly mobile. Be difficult for your tour to find
openings for fast kills like he wants. Also just need to be given to deal with
a lot of control here. The brambles, the moonlight shadow, doom's waiting for you. It's a lot
you have to worry about right now. That's not a problem for Satanic. Mask of Madness,
Hurricane Pike, BKB. He's gonna start working towards a Silver Edge. 13,000 net worth for him.
Not me. It's a risk, isn't it? Is this a bait? Is there an opportunity here? He's waiting for
For some support to combine, he can Impale, Finger, Sunstrike, but instead, Vision are making a move.
Finding Rue, who tries with the Fly to find an opening TP out, not gonna happen.
What a big snowbreak, this was double DKB timing for Vision on the Ember and the SF,
and they get the Wisdom Shrine on the other side of the line, so honestly, Spirit,
they dodged that pretty successfully here.
Ah, he's out of mana now.
Oh, he's gonna pull his head out.
Nope, okay!
Done, TP.
Could be fine.
And it doesn't happen.
Big space created.
Dodging this DKB window for vision, which only left them with...
You get some deep wards out,
and you're getting to the point in this game where you're gonna start to...
...get the front of the road shaft, or anything, or kill Laurel, trying to make a quick play.
...without DKB, inside of this Agatom, steps into the combination of the Ice Wall and the Pit.
You just don't go anywhere. It doesn't matter.
Before, in the leading phase, right, all that extra HP, a lot of them survived through the burst, but that is not really a problem now.
Team Spirit have wasted, she told you there, and never really run out of damage.
Game's starting to feel a lot more comfortable for Laurel. We're gonna see him impact the side lanes a lot more.
It's been centered around mid, that mid tower died. He got a lot of time out of that.
The farm ancients recover off of a rough lane, and now he's gonna start to do invoker things with that ghost walk.
The map's gonna become more difficult to play with this meteor-sun strike threat.
We have a gate on top of it, that's what makes it extra deadly here for these otherwise
survivable heroes.
Might have to pop some PKBs just to be able to get the lanes out at some point in this
game.
And I'll say that it's not just one or two heroes, it's potentially three or four
with this global capability, something that will have the advantage for this
ship.
What a crucial kill that would have been catching a Torah on the TP.
are starting to outmaneuver them a little bit.
Perhaps feeling like Game 2, they're starting to flow.
Fortunately, Satanic is still the rock that is keeping that net worth solid for them.
They're still holding onto a 5000 net worth because he's just getting so much more.
Nobody is getting more gold than Satanic on the map,
and that continues as he takes the tower.
Insane how much extra he gets compared to everybody else in this event.
Every minute he gets left alone, it's a net worth advantage.
Just got the leads.
He's able to play aggressively in the right parts of the map.
He has to execute well though.
If he dies in a random fight, it's gonna be a massive blow.
Drew!
Running into the vision duo once again.
To policy.
No one.
Searching for kills.
Just trying to buy as much time as possible.
Oral kind of lingering around here.
You don't have BKB though.
What is he looking at?
Just looking for the next midway.
I'm scared.
He can collect that because vision could back up to do roach.
I think this is the correct call.
Put an Aegis on this SF.
Make sure all his network gets character use on the map.
He's posing on Daedalus as well.
Some trick or not.
Nice job.
It's called Roshan outside of his default position
to make sure there was no sunscreen steal.
Make sure it's a little bit more technical
for crazy Aegis steals.
Always got to worry about that.
You're playing against King Spear here.
They pick up a gem at the exact same time.
So this is vision signaling.
We know how strong our SF is.
We're going to take over the map in this time period.
Notice, it's right into the line.
Now, there are two cores close by.
The Sun Strike, it's talking land.
That is crucial, misting damage.
The Speck's no closer or anything.
And he got him off the cliff.
No one pops a BKB with a terrorized inside of these brambles.
You see, these are going to be held here for a while.
To call us, especially now, they're all up in this one.
They're going to fire a strong trite,
but see, can't get too much to handle.
Who supports that, trying to get Yatoro away.
Oh, a high ground hit.
They just keep on misting.
Yatoro is out.
Collapse is making a run for it now with the pit. It's gonna hold back the rest of these heroes.
Oh, they should've got a pit unlucky there.
I can't believe they couldn't capitalize on that board.
A full-seration arrow on Yatoro. SF hitting him.
And he just walked it off.
The armor.
Doing a lot of work for Yatoro right there.
And they just, they got the kill.
They got all these vision heroes to one side of the map immediately.
While TP's up to the top lane, shoving that out.
The support's pushing in mid.
Team Spirit knows that this is one of those windows that you can call back another 1k network, maybe another 2k.
They're really playing them out well.
You have so much extra advantage on this SF, and you're not pulling ahead in this game.
You're not finding anything with this Ember Spirit.
No one's running around with Gem now, it's gonna give you some extra map control.
They're looking for some kills on his own.
I'm a sister to that Ember, not a kill to his name.
But like some extra gold here.
They've been actually going to defend this tier 2, but they've got to fight because it's quite alone!
It's really bold to go into the ages though, you don't know where other heroes on the map are, you don't have God's strength.
Yeah, I think maybe the only reason they were even considering it was just because they know the DKB got used earlier.
That is true, there was a real chance they could 100-0 Satanic twice.
Especially with no real saves on the side of vision.
But Satanic once again, great map brief, backs out right before danger strikes.
I'm still worried for the SF in this game if Evergates comes in, there's no safe in this
line.
One of the downsides of that moronic, the offensive potential in the early game, maybe the ultra
late moronic scale, super nice, doesn't help the SF here, other than I guess moonlight
shadow maybe giving it a little more entry to the fight.
If Satanic gets jumped and blown up in this game, it's going to happen very quickly.
The fight can look very one sided, smoke right now for spirit looking on mid, it's
going to take, oh he's fast with it.
They won't save him, but that was an impressive bit of reaction time. They're gonna try and get more off this
They'll have God strength running
Are you willing to run into the SF even where versus five tricky?
You already have fatal it's done almost about the hill level 20. Yeah, you could see vision feel confident
They're not really in for the hills are not running away. You're a lifter if spirit run into us. We can take this fight
Interesting position to be in. He doesn't really have any wards he's working off of here.
I don't think he doubt the S.A.M. but yeah, it's high ground finishing on Satanic.
It's one of those moments. Are you bold enough to go for this play and make the call?
It's just such a high risk play. If it goes wrong, it's gonna go so wrong while he has
his Aegis for another minute. Only Spirit are too interested in trying to bring it down.
No, you can't gamble on it.
They'll poke at him, see what kind of response there is from Vision.
Vision are going to show very soon. They were away, but now they're smoking trade-ins,
and Klatt's going to be the first one to jump to you. Winner's first.
BKB does go off from notice, and he's getting sure they get multiple kills out of this.
They'll finish off Klatt's, and Rue, inside the cold embrace,
stuck there long enough that the SF shows up.
Two fast kills for Vision, and off this Aegis, maybe he can take some objectives as well.
This Tier 2 bottom right for the taking.
But for Laurel Tom, yeah, this you want to keep this going
Really tough to catch if over this game I class them and I get it
Get him with a bramble just land the bramble with long-sight to first ground force that pushing away
Oh, that's kill from your Toro. He pops out with a damn damage. No God strength needed. See you later
That is some burst damage right there
No vision finding kills across the map using this ages of bait spirit into a fight fast word
The ward can't get spotted by Laurel here. Otherwise, they'll know on the ward.
They can't just get them to still are on him, but see, Taniq's far enough away. They're not actually...
Yeah, no stun set up there. You need a... a Yule's Marauder or something to make that kind of play.
Aegis gonna expire here.
It was...
Some more of the successful Aegis period provision. Kind of a difficult one to use. You're not gonna go high ground with it.
You did get that tier 2.
Crazy to me how this SF is here. He's got high ground vision in his flank, of course.
So, but it's still just kind of crazy to be that he is playing so far forward when the rest of his team is so far back.
You've got to extract something off the map with how strong you are. You can't just sit back and let you go first, then farm open this game.
They're not good match-ups for you. They put this first big SF in a little bit of a bind.
He's not going to feel insanely comfortable scaling here on his own. It has to be a team effort if you go into that late game.
It was really surprising to me they placed those double-hung-on boards. It's like the most obvious keywords you've got.
Yeah, they both got killed.
Normally, when you do that, it's when you're so much control of the game, you're not leaving the enemy side of the map, right?
I agree. It's too bold for your position.
If you're going to place those side-ground wards, you need to stay on the side.
You need to defend those wards.
Instead, they conceded both of them. There's a gem running on this invoker.
And now you're flying blind for another five or six minutes here, right?
Which is deadly against lineups that operate off of single target jump burn.
They got a good scan.
Tampere Spirit's gonna jump after him.
Spots to win a wiper.
Great kill to start this fight out.
First one on safety.
More on Doom.
And he got Doom.
Got up to God Street first and DKB.
He'll go for the TP out.
Okay, he's gonna line up there.
Everybody else, DKB, Laro, also TP.
The night falls.
Get him out of trouble.
The cores get out, the supports do not.
And that's the type of fight that Vision are looking for
in terms of just sending the Ember on supports.
He already has an ag done.
What are you gonna do about that?
You pretty much have to land some clutch hacks or something if no one BKBs early.
There's nothing you can really do about it.
It's going to create a lot of space in the fight, break the formation early.
You're going to get vision on the spin, and the second the spin gets tagged,
SF has pre-entry into the fight. You're not worried about getting jumped on, say, Tanaq.
No one has a really important role in this game for vision.
Maybe the most important on December in terms of just setting the fight up.
He need you since giving vision, letting Tanaq have the confidence to go in.
The other route is to put an aegis on the SF and let him hit a building.
And we'll see if it ever comes to that.
AK Goldy now starting to build a little bit here off the bank of that as we approach the second Roshan in this game a minute away.
And still losing some of those wards is going to cost vision a bit.
This next Roshan fight you're not going to have the extra odds to place in the river.
to take advantage of it. Vision counts so much for their lineup, finding that jump, finding
that big wiring curse, not getting doomed on the right target. I'm not sure where Vision
are right now just trying to go push the waves bottom play off the map mid try and
break some more smokes here my channel but they do have this word century combo
mid vision if they try a shortcut through they'll be spotted make do get
spotted trying to play for the power room let's see this word here as well
handle it be spirit also losing some vision in this game
in the fact they're the ones trying to dodge it becomes real spooky yes
You don't have too many wards out on the map.
At least Invoker can always go shove.
Pretty hard to find this hero, of course,
where it gets the job done.
He's going to show bottom just to try and bait some TPs.
Nice little heads up play from Laurel.
He's instantly out of there.
Gem running on most of these mid heroes
that are just untouched for right now.
It's going to create a lot of pressure on the enemy team.
Still just Laurel.
Climbing that chart, almost level 25
has the Daedalus and the Harpoon.
He's fat.
He does a lot of burst damage with the Invoker backup.
Whoever he jumps, just go.
Even if you doom him, he's still just gotta sit there and plead.
Not me. Triton Arrow. Flinks back.
It's Calgithor.
Vision gets some information to work with.
Roshan's spawn time is here, so both teams are gonna be playing for that Rosh trying to get this map control in this area.
area. It's all right.
with blink for satanic. He's
going to buy out when you're
to this Rochebike. Bargol
this gold for a reason.
Good time. Yes.
always on point with the
voice lines.
All right. Items coming up.
some additional utility from
Harpoon Daedalus for Yatoro, and he's level 23. He's getting closer and closer to that 25.
We get the God's strength damage alongside as we talked about all these levels played to wrath of God.
He's innate. The hero scales better than maybe he kind of ever has.
Invoker looking at a Shiva's next.
Got an Aether Lens build up for not the DKB required for collapse in this game.
Vision being Wild Satanic, trying to go back for it. Satanic replaced that Mask of Madness at some point.
Notice is just, just fit, man. He's just full HP.
He went all the bracers early. He's going an A on disc and he wants to go for a heart after that.
The game plan is letting him tank some of the spend hits, create some space for the SF.
Because you gotta remember, we talked earlier about this SF spend matchup.
You have a butterfly timing. He skipped it entirely.
This SF item build is really susceptible to the spend jump.
You have no defensive capability other than a really fast third game play.
It's only going to take three hits and you're just gone in this game.
So he went Swiftlink. This is an insane amount of offensive potential for Satanic.
And it requires the other two forces to set the fight up for him.
Go on some targets, let the SF Swiftlink and BKB start hitting them.
His damage is also going to be insane in this game.
It's all about the jump.
Who gets more information for their team early on?
who's able to set the control up.
And this is one of those games where having
instant stuns counts for a lot.
That lion, that pesky lion, if you can find that clutch
hatch on a floor that lets you jump in DKB first,
it could be everything.
You have to keep buybacks in mind as well.
This is one of those games where you commit a lot
on the initiations on the side of both teams.
You have to keep the buybacks in mind.
The second round of that fight can win you a Roche on,
can win you something's later team fight.
I'll show you how tanky
the off-laners are.
Fair, make it a move.
Spoke up, cross the other side of the map, vision.
But they're going to get caught by this.
The Ender Spirit might show.
He's the one with the gem too.
They cannot afford for him to be jumped on here.
Very sneaky move, they keep the long road around.
So he kind of shows Team Spirit drop a very deep lane ward. That's a great OBS
But they're patient on this it might pay off the smoke is running out these this nine class
Not wanting to they don't want to force to fight under this year to jump in a girl that likely has buyback in this situation
Would not have ended well, so they give up their OBS that through the game
There is a tormentor on the other side. There is it would be kind of forfeiting
uh the radiant side rose shop potentially which they sun strike it's going to switch sides now
you're okay playing down here how many wars do you have left to play for the fight so they have
to go top Gatoro feeling like vision can't keep you pass no we'll take that tier one tower but
they are going to be here soon already catching up me an arrow to the knee tries to deal with
the ward he's going to die no one leaves him for more trying to get the bkb out of Gatoro
your harpoon's pretty far away he's going to blink he really wants to hold his bkb intact
be able to here actually I also can't be super fat yeah you have to be giving out
to that the TV you saw a wall and his body by the tail but now it's just
tough yeah no respect whatsoever for vision potentially scouting them out
here these are underestimating how much they're in for that kill it's one of
those instances you're thinking to yourself just don't want to chase me
into the corner of the map, right?
Well, they did.
And that SF is really fast with that swift blink.
That's where Sean didn't even get the fight toward.
Every Corbick offense team is going to count for so much.
Look at the one push so far outside of the pit.
He's making sure the win and win are getting close.
They even made it get in a jump here on Laurel.
And of course, the C2BKB is going to drop the meteors
onto the dark willow, and it's going to have a return
of that BKB.
Oh, what is happening?
They're making a room.
They're actually, yeah, glasscored it.
Oh, Blast! He can't hurt him! He poked himself outside of the pit!
He throws something in the corner, but the Blast can't finish it off!
Oh...
Oh, he got it! He gets the feel!
The bastard who's not my best support!
The man who put the least effort makes the biggest move!
What a snap!
Just when you thought there's no way, Spirit, do it again!
They do it again!
A sick read in that situation.
It does cost them a couple more heroes, but well worth it to take an Aegis out of this SF's hands when
they should need this to push the net worth advantage on top of Satanic and threaten that high ground.
Now you miss that window, and you're left sitting in this game thinking we want to go high ground,
but can we go high ground without an Aegis?
Who's going to tank all these jumps? Who's going to go first against the Invoker against us?
Then the Lion Hex without a save this we're not having that save for the SF really hurts you
Here comes the chains arrow
Waste no time BKB and damage goes to work that is a big pick off my people to just run down the mid lane here
The room may have pulled off that great move, but spirit are still crumbling in the bigger picture here
Leaving a lot of kills right now
It played that 10 to 20 minutes really well around the map
This 25 to 35 is the vision
building a significant lead
Getting this SF to the big 25 talent. He really hurts with these raised connections
Some big crits serrated shiv on top insane attack speed
3500 HP got pendulum as well
So a little survivability here for this SF if he does not die in the instant burst and he gets to swing back with
the sitanic hits
You're gonna be in big trouble
So much burst with a span
And a new poker next turn back not be nice two man stun
Power the ember in this game. No one to just run in supports make their life miserable
Nothing they can really do about it with so many remnants to play on. He's also almost level 25
It's gonna be a big talent in this game
They should are coming alive here towards the end of this big game
Really putting the pressure on spirit. I don't think we've seen five spirit heroes alive in the last
Five minutes, just always someone dead always someone getting forced off the map
Oral loses his courier
Every have a seat and art right now anything but
There's the heart
notice is getting
Bigger and bigger he's able to play more and more of the front line the bigger threat
He is because he's kind of like I mean this version of doom right it's kind of similar to the centaurs we see with the shard
Oh, yeah, and he does double edge after double edge in doom's case
It's this infernal blade that has percentage based damage does a lot if he just exists
He's killing you and it's the doom you as well. He's got that new 66 damage talent and level 20
Now it's just about the same can you go higher on this period because surely now the second row she got there, right?
Yeah? No. Rue got the banners. He got both? He took both away. Just extra value on top of that Aegis snatch.
That's insane. He got both. So I guess when everybody's cursed in that pit, you have some time to click everything right.
So you killed that banner play as well. Pretty nice here. First banner's not as strong. However, you'll take anything extra you can get here down 15k.
Maybe we'd see a replay of that play at some point in time, this was so sick.
And honestly, it could have gone better for Spirit if Vision were not very disciplined around the initial gaden from Glaps.
Because if they just kill Roche there, I think there's a very high chance Glaps snatched it with his record.
They definitely did not.
No, they just said, okay, we'll leave Roche, we'll just kill you, you don't have the damage to finish it.
Was a smart read of the situation as...
They've got some insurances here that can go after the Underlord as they want DKB instantly going out.
Rue trying to get away from this Ember spirit who just keeps hunting them down time and time again.
Good for us now. Get some oil from the arrow. Blast off some tanks that went up and no one has to give up on the support.
He's been able to get these kills most of the time thanks to the Agatum Scepter not here.
They fail out. You don't want to die near your base right here. Give an easy high ground.
Sven did hit 25 by the way and they did get Conjurer Catalyst on their poker so the damage is picking up.
They're just parking this Doom on the front line.
And this 4000 HP Doom, this is not a target you can jump lightly if you are too scared here.
Gotta find a different angle, a different path into the fight.
And then all the way around, around the house.
Night-class goes.
Night-class is going to break this beautiful stuff.
Instant Shadow Realm, instant brambles.
And now, Sphere Duran an awkward spot here.
They're getting used to getting the whole back notice.
That's not the target though.
Kill but yeah, he's got that heart. He's so he's so hard to kill Ember spirit jumps right in
Not even sign the big there goes the line dealt with him your either easily see Tana contender freaking right now with the go-sepper
Why did this man? He's not hitting me thing. He's good try to get you. Oh, now. We've been there so far away
Now we fight say Tana a battle of the Kerry
There's a five
Now here comes back see Tana. He's gonna get her to revenge
He's going to get the opportunity to kill Yatoro Whiteback.
The buybacks are too powerful here.
And the arrows from Duke College
debilitating spirit at every turn.
And the buyback is not the same for Team Spirit
because of the net worth advantage from Vision.
He doesn't have it.
Yatoro doesn't have it, not for 500 gold.
Even if you use it here, you don't have Godstring.
Yeah.
Not the same battle.
They're going to get some base damage here.
And at the defend, you do have a great high ground
the defense line between the underlord and the invoker.
You have a lot of outspam here.
No BKB on Satanic, no buyback.
He somehow dies here.
And they slow this down enough.
They minimize the losses.
They'll make the issue into going too deep.
The pressure on top of Laurel is going to buy out.
And drop to the lord.
You definitely, they're looking for an opportunity
to end the game.
They want to see if they can get a fight going
while the spend is dead.
It's too hard to go super deep here, though.
They're gonna go for him.
SF, it's a trouble.
Drops him in here.
Right before SF.
They'll be here before SF comes completely out of there.
Now the doom's gonna be dropped tomorrow.
And Spirit thought they had a chance,
but it was a total bait and vision of massive opening now.
Go buy on Mr. Boker.
Two length of errors, but they could go big in the game potentially.
You gotta go more here.
You have to momentum.
This game is flowing in your direction.
You're getting a lot of economic damage.
Gate to the bounty runes to try and get buyback.
That's a play.
The poker is so close.
He's 60 off.
In vision, I think off of that, say, oh, the Sven is up, and they went to get the bounty
rune.
That must mean that Laurel has buyback.
They got him out there.
They respected, but maybe they don't respect him.
He won't go back.
This is Butterfly.
Surprisingly, Butterfly for Satanic, saying you don't have the evasion pierced on this
I can take the man fight now.
Bi-back still not available.
20 gold finish in Boker, that's gonna be two lanes.
You have a tier two top.
These are gonna have to call it quits here.
20k with two lanes, they're feeling a lot more comfortable
than they were before that deep fight.
And that's the power of Bi-backs in this game.
They're a big deal for both teams
because you have to just full send your initiation here
between the doom and the spin.
Yeah, like SF died so casually in that last fight,
but it was right.
It didn't matter.
It didn't matter. They just want it just purely through the power of net worth. You've got a 30,000 net worth SF twice
And the only thing you get a spirit and all this is okay. That's just doesn't have five after five
Isn't to dog by me. Sure
There's gonna be a rose fond in that interval. That's the only downside for them here. It's a fast rose. So
Right up the fight this without the SF by it isn't even worth it
If you're gonna dodge for five minutes, well, that's you can dodge the ages. Yeah, you can you can give it away
It doesn't feel good to do, though. Put the ball in Spirit's court, let them try and use
that Aegis skin to you aggressively. The thing is you're missing two core buybacks. You bought
the Ember as well. You give Aegis to them, they eat some aggressive
bite, and you die. It's also a spooky situation. However, Yatoro is going to take the time
to try and farm towards that MKV. Deal with the butterfly threat before he has
the fight. It heads on without the evasion pierce. Not a bad idea here. That SF is incredibly
scary right now. Full Wind Waker for Dukalis, by the way. Quietly having himself a game here
with the Aero lands and now you get a save in this lineup, which is huge. There is no
nullifier in this lineup right now. No way to deal with the four staffs, the Wind
Wakers on the shadow team. No, this scene has all the same game plan because notice
has queued up a Wind Waker as well.
Beard, they're hugging a high ground ward.
You do not want to fight Spirit.
This is a nullifier.
Underlord picks one up.
Oh, that's incredibly clutched at the right time.
If they think the Wind Waker is the be all end all save,
and they don't have an answer because Spen's not
going to get a nullifier, they might just
be shocked to see the collapse is picked one.
Beard are all in though.
They have no buys available.
They have a wider buy, not really relevant at this point
in the game.
Their cores are just all in.
They actually got to Laurel's buyback.
Gonna hold it here.
Asians pretty all in for this fight.
They spot Laurel.
Tornado trying to stop the initiation.
Look at 9-class.
They back away.
9-class in the back.
Sneaking in with the moonlight shadow.
What an angle.
Just stop.
At the same time, they drop on the lion.
It's a masterpiece of initiation.
Now we get a coral, a buzz-swit fight.
He's not winning this.
Once again, but he pulls back in but it's not gonna work. It is just Satanic now
Collapses holding this trying to get him with the pin. They're gonna drop the meteor
They're meteor. But they can't handle him. This carry is too much. There's another one.
First he came kill notice, another meteor going to drop another jump strike. There's the windbreaker. They get the save.
Do call his god.
A tornado alarm on the run, but they are done. It's over.
The other number one.
You are not number one anymore.
You are just another casualty on Satanic's climb to the top.
Vision's climb to the top three.
Vision, closing it out in just the most beautiful way.
A perfect initiation.
You couldn't ask for better.
I don't think it's what defines a team.
You're not saying you're not the best.
You're not the best.
for better. And I think that's what defines this team. Their support duo is so obnoxious
to play against on the map in the team fights. They always have some weird angle. Nine-class,
he's sitting on that high ground. The jump from notice two with the AoE stun hitting
two, setting up the terrorize, setting up a beautiful initiation. December to just
go in and wreck them. Caught spirit off guard completely. They just don't get
a chance to play that fight nearly how they want to. Their lineup is super predicated
on getting the jump, having the vision.
They're not able to find it.
They full sent it with all the item buyouts.
They should come on top in this series
in a very close, very clutch game three.
I love the way they wanted to.
The fact that like they came into the buybacks
for these girls, that could have been a big incentive.
They just sent it.
They didn't matter.
They played with aggression still.
They played to win.
They played with confidence.
That's what you need to claim an agent.
You want to be a championship team here in the arena.
You gotta play like that, you gotta play to win.
Let's step forward, Milt1 on the main stage, ready for an interview.
No one knows a very, very fun series to watch with one very quick game.
Game 2 had a real fast GG. I wonder if you could tell me about it.
We'd like to ask No.1, they quickly won the second round of the game.
Can you tell us what happened in the second half of the game?
I think they surprised us a lot with PLP and the last pick on us.
And I think they just outplayed us in the second game super hard.
Like this clocker is so annoying for us.
Like props to the hip props. I think they just outplayed us super hard.
I saw you did an interview on your team's V-Logs where you mentioned that once upon a time,
Once upon a time, getting the Aegis was your singular focus.
Since then, as you've gotten older and wiser, perhaps you realize it's not just about that.
It's about having a good time with your team, about making good friends, and enjoying the journey.
And I was wondering if you could tell me about that journey and how you made that realization.
In their own blog, Lowan once mentioned that he once raised the champion team as his only goal.
Now, he may grow up with age and become more mature.
He started to enjoy playing games with his fans, and playing with his fans as a teammate.
So now you want to ask him, can you tell us how you feel in this team?
And you start to realize that it's not only about the winds, it's actually the journey that's the most important.
And in that churning, you've been playing Dota for a very long time and I was wondering if you could maybe check the crowd to see how many people have been watching this man play Dota for years and years.
And to all these people who have been following your journey for all of these years, what does
it mean to be able to play in front of them yet again and get another top three minimum
placement after this event or after this game?
In front of all your fans, in front of them, in Shanghai, in front of them,
you have secured the title of TI-2026.
What does it mean to you?
I think to me as a human being, this is everything to be honest.
Because that's what my journey is about, to be here and to end up in this position.
If I can, of course.
So it's incredible to play in front of this crowd.
Thank you so much guys. I love you all.
This is what I just said. This is what I want to experience.
Here, in front of such a passionate fans, I would like to thank you for giving me a lot of love and support.
Finally, let's give our applause and cheers to No One.
Give it to Vision!
that. So beautiful from no one
there a top three back to back
top threes for himself for team
vision here. T I lost you it
ended in the place for them,
but I feel like the way that
they could bounce back and be
suspended off. We thought
simply outplayed in game two
and we wanted to come back
even stronger game three to
be able to execute it to be
three and maybe even make it into the grand final through the upper bracket. I just love this
growth of Noah and just the journey he's had and just everything that he's giving us this year at
this TI. I mean watching Noah talk, you can't help but feel emotional alongside him. He has been
around for so long in Dota. He's had so many phases from his dominance on at Virtus Pro roster
that was winning every single major for two years to taking a break to then joining some
Washiwashi so floppy teams for a bit and then finally finding a home in team vision after all of these years and
Still finding a way to keep up with them kids be on top of his game and
Potentially even be the best in the world here at this international
They could do it. They could just win the whole thing. Yeah, it's it's genuinely
I think he's one of one in that I don't think anyone else has been the best in the world fallen off quite a bit become
I don't know sort of a mediocre player for a long time and then go back up again like that arc
I think it's never been done in the same way that he has he stands alone to me as someone that was the best mid player in the
World and then whatever and then the best mid player in the world again
And so I think he deserves all the praise in the world not just for like how he's changed
I think emotionally and his maturity over time
But his gameplay and to do that that arc is astounding. I think also alongside you mentioned it quickly there
But he's also grown a lot as a human being throughout these years like when I think of VP
No one it's a toxic kid
You know, like you would play pubs with it.
Who's been late as alright?
Maybe, but I think he stood out even in that regard.
You know, he was impressively toxic in pubs, I have to say.
And the person that he's become today, I feel like is someone that his teammates can look through for support.
He inspires him and when he talks about his journey, I feel like it's not only as a Dota player,
it's also as a human being and what he's learned about like how to be able to appreciate the moments and appreciate his teammates
and even just, you know, have a positive influence on the people around him so that they can also shine.
I think that's one of the things that has probably helped him grow so exponentially as a person is you now have young people looking up to you
You don't get to be that young cocky mid laner anymore
You have to set an example and bringing in someone as young as a panic under your wing
You have to make sure that your head's on your shoulder because you need to ensure that this player
Who is going to be such a pivotal role in your team is going to be doing the same thing that they're going to be able
To bounce back
I love just the love the emotions that were happening at the start of game three and you could see it displayed in their gameplay there
It was so good from vision. They were able to say
Spirit stepped it up in game two. They were being the aggressors towards us
Now we're gonna make sure our draft is able to do that and we're not gonna give them any space on the map
And so we see it shine in in game three here
And that's what ultimately secures them a top three at TI 15. Yeah, you can even see it in a scoreline
that's a score line. If he's
not he's not trying to like
solo carry this game. He's he's
there to help people out. He's
this supplementary role. That's
how it is in the draft. That's
how it was in the game play. I
think that's how it is in his
sort of vibe in the way he carries
himself these days. It is a
very well deserved victory and I
would be shocked if we didn't
see them with like go further
in this tournament because they
are I mean they came into it
with the favorites and I think
that pressure can dampen a
lot of people and make you
play worse and be worrisome
and people focus you and they
learn about you but they've
had none of that and they've
continued to stand strong now
Now dropping a series yet. They are beasts. Yeah, they've shown us why they're considered the best team in this tournament coming into this tournament
Everyone is afraid of them. Everyone was studying their replays
They're just so clean with their execution and you mentioned Aiden that this is an honest 1v1
Finally that we're gonna see in the mid lane and no one delivered. He crushed his lane as an ember spirit versus an invoker, which really
Destroyed the game a little bit because a lot of what spirit wanted to do was get those sensor kills play through their invoker
have their sidelines maybe be more of an enabling role, but no one said no leave him to me.
Yeah it was instrumental and it's not an easy thing to do and it's a lane that oftentimes
goes pretty even and so to squeeze out that little bit extra to get that that gap there it is huge
and it's so much about individual skill and being in the moment and it's just I don't know it's
massive. I also feel like his supporting cast in this game deserves a lot of credit like there
were a lot of clutch moments and towards the end of this game we see Dukala's like he
He leaps in and then Wind Waker's his asset that's about to die to like the invoker combo
that's coming from the refresher orb and I honestly think I see a lot of signs that I
look for and it's the I winning team in them already.
They are finding the clutch moments, they're able to win games fast in this game, they're
able to play like kind of a slower game and be more clutch.
So huge praises to the entire team.
I think it's, they're all playing extremely well.
Yeah, that Wind Waker moment that you're talking about was so key in the final fight
especially because what we had seen earlier was when Saitanic and Yatora were almost
having this 1v1 in the middle of a fire, right? This took place on the dire side of the map
down mid lane. And Yutora was able to come out victorious. They had to force a buyback
from Saitanic. So not only is it imperative that Saitanic lives through that because
he doesn't have buyback anymore, but you're just so mindful on the side of supports that
ever comes down to it. Yutora is going to be able to do a lot. And at the end
of the game, this is our carry to carry comparison, what they're able to do for
themselves and the rest of that team.
Absolutely. I mean, we know the meme, we know the joke, you can't beat Satanic and Satanic proved that in this game.
But I do want to mention that out execute out executing team spirit and late game team fights, even if you're in a network advantage is an impressive thing to do because this is their bed and butter.
This is their forte and team vision did that.
They got the jump at the very last right there and they won off of getting the jump.
And maybe you could say it was a mistake that Winter Wyvern did the Deward and then got jumped in the fight was a mess.
potentially that can be called out but those are situations that you don't know
if the other team is ready to jump you in that moment maybe they thought they
had a few extra seconds and that's due to team vision and how well they played.
I think that requires something special you to recognize that like Wyvern's
just de-warding award which is like perfectly normal for support to do but
the moment the Wyvern shows it I don't know how many frames it took
before Doomplinked in and Doom 2 people. It was so fast and notice was
so ready to do it and like this is a sign of confidence you know that he
jumps up the high ground immediately when he sees the Wyvern, recognizing that this is
what we need to do.
Next second sees, I think, Laurel, and just dooms him immediately, too.
And that is just the sign of a team that's playing well.
It's poetic that we see this series between Vision and Spirit go to a game three, but
on top of that, Vision coming out on top, Spirit are going to fall to that lower bracket.
But we have to look towards who is going to be facing Vision for that spot in the
Grand Finals.
They've just screwed with themselves top three, but we don't know that other team
right now.
choice either between Yandex or Nigma Galaxy and both of these teams have such different
paths in which they've made it to the main stage in which they've made it to a minimum
of a top six because as you're seeing here Yandex they came in they toured Liquid.
The crazy thing about this is at the end of group stage they were two and three.
They were one of the lowest seated teams when it came to the elimination round.
They come into this they're one of the lowest seated teams again that you can pick
from going up against Liquid, who were four and one,
and had a blistering two or best of three for themselves.
Yeah, they've really gotten it together.
I think they use those losses really well.
I think we talk about socks all the time,
but it's hard not to.
The maturity that he brings to the team
with all these younger players,
is he's such an instrumental role.
And I have to give props to them
to be able to improve like that.
It's not easy to,
we talk about how losses are important,
but the hard part is actually converting that
because you can say all you want.
Yeah, we lost and now we learned from that,
But the actual learning and the implementing of that, you don't have a lot of time and you're also under a lot of pressure.
And so to see them go from the shaky, shaky state they were in into group stage, into what they've become in main stage is very impressive.
Even the way that the series versus Liquid played out for them, I think is very indicative of that.
Where the first game was very unstable, lots of back and forth, lots of throws, and then eventually you lean on your carry.
He pushes you through a really difficult situation, and then they came to everyone's feeling themselves and they stomped.
They spelt liquid and I think that maybe that could be symbolic for what we're going to see from Yandex for it started off shaky and they gained confidence and maybe they're going to go back to being that top two team that we saw before this tier.
I feel like Soxa also, it hasn't been mentioned, but the you know, a lot of these top tier teams like no one has puppy. There is another experienced guy there with them that can help guide the boys forward, but he's truly like the only really experienced player there
Their coach, Excel, I think has been around for a while, but it's mostly been with like slightly lower tier teams
So socks are truly is the only person that
Like can give the team the experience of what it means to be a TI and how to take these losses and convert that into wins
It is super impressive. I have so much respect for this guy
They've all talked about a time and time again on the index how they started feeling like a proper team a tier one team
A team that can contest for those number one spots once socks are joined them
They ended up getting three trophies under their banner for that.
And so it is just phenomenal to get to see that it worked for them throughout the season.
But is it enough to come up against the Nygma Galaxy who people still kind of have
question marks around in Sania?
I mean, yeah, I think we'll see.
Nygma, this this tournament is a dark horse.
I don't think anybody expected them to be here.
But I also wanted to add to the fact that like I feel like the coolest thing
about Sox is how he's been able to enable the other players on his team to shine.
Like I have never seen a Watson this good.
I'm so happy for him. I'm so
happy for him. I'm so happy
for him. Yeah, he's owning. He's
owning and I'm also I'm so
happy for malty Watson as
someone who played with him in
the past, but also like
they're flourishing. They're
shining. I think part of that
is due to socks and part of
that is due to their own
hard work over years of
grinding and building synergy
and I'm I'm excited to get
them see them play again and
again on main stage because
they deserve it. Well, you
don't have to wait too
long because both were
talking about it. They could
be moving into that top
three position for themselves.
It's the galaxy or Yandex
and before we even get to
stage.
And all because the majority of Dota viewers had never heard of 12 months ago reformed
around the cheer junior there mid laner, bring in the safe lane duo of Watson and Malady and
are able to have success once Saksa joins them.
It is even more success once DM stand in and officially joins them, but is it enough
to be able to make it to a top 3 to have an out shining performance when they come
up against Nigma Galaxy?
to the limit in a game number three yesterday in the upper bracket against
1000. A lot of question marks around what that run has been for outside
group stage and what they're going to bring when it comes to their future here at TI 15
and when it comes to the best of three to make it to that top three slot for themselves.
It's crazy to think that a year ago they ended their TI journey at top six.
They want more than that and they're able to get it if they can show up
against the NX today, but it is not an easy thing at all in Saner.
I don't even know where to begin if you're enigma and you're trying to prepare for the side of the NX.
I feel like in the last series, we talked about the king going up against the France,
but the real king has arrived. Sumail is here and he's ready to own.
I feel like the last time I saw him play carry at TI was with OG,
and at TI for them, they lost against Spirit. But I truly believe they were like one of the
strongest teams there and they never were able to show that. So Sumail's back on carry,
I feel like he is a big threat and you have to be ready to face him. He's been doing
Really well too. I mean, Simel of course is a very talented player and it's natural for him to do well
But to switch roles in such a short period of time and expand your hero pool as much as he has in the last two months
Is no easy feat
He went from taking carry and voker at ewc because he ran out of options to
Having one of the bigger carry pools in this tournament
Yeah, he's he's been honestly super owning and it's I don't know watching them walk out
on the stage is so weird for me to see Nimba Galaxy fighting for a top three after so many
years of not even making tournament. And then last year, getting it falling a little bit
short, you know, this year being in the best position they've been in in years with it roster
that if you look a year back, you'd be like, what is this team? It's, I don't know. It's
such a crazy story. And it's so cool. As someone who's seen this team's trajectory
from being the best team in the world to terrible to now being one of the best
teams in the world again,
I think it's also so different from last year. I feel like last year they were
kind of relying on these like cheesy heroes. They're playing more at the mid
that people didn't know what to do against. They were buying a bunch of helm
of dominators. Their playstyle was so weird and like people weren't used to
playing as it. Whilst this year they feel like a solid team. Their foundations
are working. They seem to have good ideas for heroes. I think yesterday GH went
like 1-9 and 57 on Marana. So like it's not just like Sumail. It's also the
backup of the rest of the team. They're all performing well. They are an
honest team. They're here to show what they go for. And the foundation
that you talk about, it kind of begins with Lornoff, which is their new addition, the
player that changed and allowed the team to build around him. And I think it speaks a
lot to a player when you have Sumail on your team and the team is still built around you
in the draft and in the gameplay. Sumail plays more of an enabling role with his carry
who fight aggressively. And yesterday we saw Lornoff just, you know, go on Nature's
Profit Mid and be the win condition for his team. And his ability to do that
It's not only amplified by some mail, but also the support duo and I'm like, and G8 they really really cooked yesterday
I know you guys were really excited to talk about it
We had no faith in the house. We're not gonna land arrows. She only has a bounty hunter. They made it work
Yeah, they really did gh. I mean inside he looked incredible yesterday and this duo they played it twice yesterday
It was the duo they won both their games with and these heroes have looked incredibly dominant to series
And I think they'll be very important for both teams.
We saw Janix first pick it and Nigma picked it very early in the draft.
So it's high priority.
These teams have a lot of heroes that they prioritize very similarly between the
Nature's Prophet, the IO, Bounty Hunter, and Marana.
There's a lot that they agree on.
To me, that says, hey, we're on the right track on the matter.
If the other team that's in the upper bracket has similar ideas as us.
And so to me, this is an execution battle, not so much an ideas battle,
because I think they actually agree on a lot of ideas.
For sure. And if we look at the drafts here, what I thought was very,
very funny is like if you look at the bands against Nigma, they're very centered around
support heroes. Like GH over the years has been getting his IO band, he's been getting
his Caudal band. Fast forward six years later, he's also getting his IO band and his Caudal
band, now he's getting his Bane band, his Winter Wyvern. There's so much factored in when
playing against him that it's just impressive. You don't see this that often for many
support players.
This was the case in their TI7 run, right? GH was the guy that was getting banned.
He was playing Wist, he was playing Shaker, and he was playing Caudill.
And then these heroes kept getting banned,
and he would play whatever's left over between them,
and teams seemed to be taking the same approach against them this year as well.
Yeah, he's decided this is the way I play the game,
and you're going to have to deal with that because I ain't changing.
I mean, look at this.
Ayo, Bane, Wyvern, within the first four.
Ayo, Caudill, Wyvern, Caudill, Ayo, Largo, Ayo, Caudill, Ember,
which is a very low-enough thing, getting Ember banned in the first phase.
That's something that many teams don't have happened to them.
It's a weapon within your draft to have so many unusual bands make space for heroes like Lena
Heroes like tree and potentially to come out in the first place. Yeah, and this is also not even a core IO
It's just a support IO which no one else is playing he is I don't know. He's he's creating a lot of space
It's hard to properly estimate how much impact this has just having bands place because it's kind of a boring part of the game
And a boring part of the draft like bands seems rather inconsequential, but it opens up so much more for your team
Not only are you being sacrificial in terms of your gameplay, but you're letting laura play his nature's profit more often
Or suppose to mail plays win-win your because they're banning these random heroes that no one else bans
And it's crazy to think about but like GH is truly aged like fine-wine
His heroes are the exact same heroes that are getting banned. It's still a whispered coddle
It's been like 10 years since he won TI and if people are still putting the same amount of respect on his two
that. The other team's
team. You're gonna have to
signature heroes now he's gonna
get his Maron event. Now he's
gonna say you're gonna look
towards his Maron arrived. But
I think that that one's gonna
be sitting in the first phase
of bands, because the one
thing Yandex has that all of
those other teams didn't that
we showed there when it comes
to banning against the galaxy
is they have players willing
to play IO Yandex love playing
IO on core and I say called
because they played at mid
yesterday on to your junior,
not only do they love it, it's a flex and they can have multiple play styles with it.
Yeah, it's a great point. It's going to change how the drafting works because now in the
galaxy may have to consider banning it themselves whenever they're on second pick. That's going
to alter how the structure of your bands will work. Maybe you have to play against a hero
that you aren't used to playing against. It's going to change things and these subtle
changes in the heroes that are making up a draft, this can have really big impact.
On the screen we see Malady. This is his first TI appearance. He was such a rock yesterday
on his hoodwink in that game of throws versus liquid.
It felt like he was able to deliver on some clutch
pushbacks, some clutch plays around the tormentor.
It didn't feel like it was his first TI appearance, honestly.
I actually get emotional thinking about it,
because just to put it bluntly, he
was broke of a TI appearance last year.
So to get to come out on main stage to 2-0 after shaky groups,
to be like, we're fighting for top three,
I genuinely couldn't think of a better story for him
or a better way to bounce back after 12 years
after what felt like such a crummy end to their last season. Yeah, I think Malady and Watson are
seriously underappreciated players. Watson was constantly a skis of choker. I isn't have it when
it comes to the main stages and have it whenever it's the big games. When you know it gets down to
brass tacks, you'd rather have somebody else. And he proved indisputably yesterday that that's
not the case. He put the team on his shoulders. Other people having hard games. He said,
hop on guys. I got plenty of space back here. And Malady is a big part of that setting him
for success. I think that duo, having duos, you had it with Mikkei over the years, building
that synergy in a lane and in gameplay over a long period of time is incredibly valuable.
Yeah, and to be honest, I feel like when Watson did it yesterday, he was doing it in a game where
the other four were kind of struggling, and Mikkei was having TI winning performance.
He's a TI winning carry, and he was playing like a TI winning carry,
and he still was the better carry in that series.
I honestly, I'm not exaggerating when I say that I think for me that was one of the highest value carry performances and all of TI main stage, what he was able to do with the win ranger.
Like sure, okay, there were some moments where he got burst and didn't press his BKB, but that's because he was the only target that they had to go on on liquid.
There were so many moments in that game that had he not won the lane is hard because he not had he not moved to the mid lane.
Had he not clutched a lot of early game teamfights, it would have been liquids game from the very start.
start like from start to finish he was locked in and how do you not been the
x-factor there we wouldn't see Yandex today. A lot of people would crumble in that
game like a lot of carries would crumble in that game we even like not through
the harp on it but we saw it in the previous series say that it just GG'd
out but you know what Watson decides I'm gonna play to the bitter end I'm
gonna keep trying to the bitter end and despite the game being so tough and
us just getting comboed by Tiny over and over again find that one opening
the lead to the game victory in the end.
Yeah. And I think even apart from just the gameplay of Watson,
I think he's an amazing teammate.
As someone who's been around him, he is super humble.
He's very willing to take criticism.
He just wants to do what's best for the team.
He'll play whatever, do whatever that people think is best.
He's great vibes.
Like, I think he is genuinely just like a good, kind-hearted guy
who's there and fun to be around.
And I think that's also so valuable and so important
in as you go further into the main stage,
the pressure is high, the stress is there.
And having someone who's like,
hey, this guy's reliable, we can count on him.
He's also not getting mad at other people if they had bad games. He gets it
But he's you know, he's everyone's been there once had the bad games, but he's he's chill regardless
This is his a place ball at the win ranger game that we were talking about yesterday
It was game number one up against Lakewood and looking at his stats reflecting back on it
It feels like it was just insane what he was able to do on the win ranger
The ending for it was also just phenomenal. I don't want to you know
people can go back and relive that moment when they're ready to but I'm just hoping that we get a
I'm hoping that it's going to
be a similar thing coming up
between Yandex and Nigma
Galaxy because both of these
teams love to play a little bit
scrappy. That is something I
feel like we can be 100%
guaranteed in getting in this
best of three. It's not going to
be a boring iron wing versus
Falcon match. This is going to
be this is going to be the
only to eliminated team. Well,
I mean, we saw it yesterday.
Yandex have the ability to pressure and play like old gaming gladiators.
I feel like despite Lornoff being added,
Nygma has shown that they still got that pressure gameplay inside of them,
and they can bring that out when it's needed and when the right time for it is.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I think they've created a nice balance.
Lornoff farms the rest of them attack, and then Lornoff joins the fights, too.
They've got a nice mixing of the heroes combining,
making sure no one is too AFK or no one's too involved.
involved. DeVy, I think, went from being at the suicidal maniac in his gameplay to being
someone who can join fights, but can also farm and value his own game and getting net worth
up. It reminds me a little bit of when 33 joined us on Liquid that year, where we were a very
pressure heavy team, and 33 was a very macro heavy, like more farm oriented player. And
when we found the perfect balance, that is how you win TI. That is what makes
the team click. And I feel like Nigma has a little bit of that going on where
more of the macro mind than the other four like the old school like pressure players.
I like that it's at least one core that's willing to have a little bit of hands off,
but I'm hoping hands are all in for this best of three because the winner goes to a top three
and we've got a game one on our hands.
Team Yandex versus Nygma Galaxy, game one.
We'll see what these two teams want to draft for themselves, where that IO ultimately falls
because despite Neekma Galaxy having that respect banned against them so often, Yandex
going to need a similar sort of respect towards it as well.
They won't shy away from opening up their draft with it, however, Neekma Galaxy your
first pick, so if it's left in the pool, it's very easily going to be taken by them
and they're not going to want to let Yandex look towards it.
In this first phase, the Ember van is so funny to see.
Every team is doing it, and you'd think Andex is one of the teams that's willing to play
so I commit against the Ember, but that just speaks to how good Lorinoff is on this hero,
and how scary his group stage performance is, where he was 1v5ing on some of these games on Ember.
I think there's absolutely some parts of it as purely Lorinoff, but a degree of it also has
to be the fact that Sumail played it on the safe lane. And when you can no longer cheese
the ember on mid, this hero becomes a completely different beast.
Yeah, it's very true. They have left the aisle, so it's the first time someone's done that against
him in a long time, and there it is. You've got to take it. That's the thing, whenever somebody
calls your bluff like that, you feel very compelled to take it. Sometimes you may not even want to,
because you haven't practiced it in so long because it's banding against you all the time,
but you see it, it's GH. Look at him. He's got to play his hero.
Yeah, of course, of course.
I do wonder though, like we haven't seen
Nygma Galaxy get their hands on Io, this whole TI, because it's been consistently bound against GH.
Have they been watching the meta unfold as well with these mid-Ios and carry Ios?
And is this going to be like a bait and switch, where they also end up running a carry Io?
I think that's a great question. Maybe there's also a little bit extra that we're not seeing
when it comes to scrims. Maybe they are also able to get their hands on it in that regard.
But do we feel that a support Io is easier to answer, or does it still
You pull under that category of, it's a support.
You don't want to put too much emphasis on it in a draft.
Wisp is a very game-defining hero, regardless of if it's a core I.O.
or if it's a support I.O., it defines your entire draft.
It changes the way Dota functions, so it doesn't matter.
You're forced to address it.
Yeah, I mean, the key functionality of this hero
is that he is a battery.
He is tethered to someone else and empowers them,
especially from a support role.
And so you need, like, it just changes what you need
what you have because now you need extra damage to kill this guy you need more stuff so that whenever
they run in with all this healing and movement speed you can actually mow them down which is why
stuff like draw ranger tb heroes that arrange turrets it can buy scotties if you can deal with a lot of
that hp regen or classic counters or stuff like disruptor silencer which we may not see here
but they deal with relocate completely and to lead some of that global pressure that io also
brings there are supports as well that are popular within the meta that are good historically
against support IO who ganks you and surprises you with relocate, like Winter Wyvern for example
is one that's unpopular, Bane is one that you can play, Willow kind of functions as a soft counter
with the terrorize as well. There are means to address a support IO. I feel like the big question
for me is does Nigma play it as a core? Because I could see Sumail being the kind of guy where
he goes like yeah of course I play IO core. He does actually. Yes I believe during the
OG period IO core was still something that was done a little bit or there was I remember
Distinctly there was some team that some it was all at a point where he was playing core IO from time to time
I believe it was news playing safe lane, okay, so I think he is capable of doing so
That was a while ago though. I'm not saying muscle memory doesn't count for something
But I was changed it absolutely has but I think Sumail is the kind of player who has the calmness to do something
I was like Sumail has not changed though. Yes
He can play it. He will play it. Yeah, son in bokeh safe lane for them. So like of course you'll play it
It would be nice to see the bait and switch, because that could just change the way that
IrrSpirit wanted to approach this IO, with the knowledge that it's probably a support.
And when we talk about the IrrSpirit that's come out, we did mention a little bit that
sometimes the IrrSpirit first fans when they have first pick, which you don't necessarily
want to do as a first pick team, because CJ has played it three times, I believe,
and it hasn't looked amazing in his hands.
He's like one win, two losses.
He's not the most comfortable on this hero, but versus the IO, you've got the damage, you've got the early Vestal Buyer, which is the most important thing, and you've got the pressure.
I think it's also interesting how these two heroes to me are two of the hardest scaling heroes that we've seen here at TI.
Like when I think about it, like, when Whisper reaches 25, the game is just over, or when Urspray reaches 25, the game is just over.
And now we finally get to see them battle it out between each other.
Yeah, with the Largo band as well, it opens up the vessel for Earth Spirit having a really great timing there.
So you don't have this easy vessel for super early on in the game.
So it makes a lot of sense as a counter.
I like it a lot.
I find it funny that the DMX bands, the Haaskar, whenever last series, we saw Nigma being the ones banning the Haaskar a little bit of a
lower and off respect once again, because he is pretty competent on that hero.
And I think this Earth Spirit hero, if he gets shot down early, you don't get to that stage where you're snowballing out of control
and you're getting like higher and higher in levels because there's a hero that has some downtime periods
And so you want to make sure the early game is rolling you get those kills
I'm I think the hoodling pairs very well with that to keep the steam roll and make sure Urspirit continues scaling it doesn't get halted
Yeah, like stylistically, Lornoff should be a pretty good player against Urspirit
I think the type of heroes that he likes to play are more of like the carry types
And they tend to be strong laners that like to play against like slightly weaker melee laners in the mid lane
So for that reason I kind of I found it interesting to make one left to through
We also saw, like we already mentioned, Yandex were banning this here yesterday, so question marks about how comfortable Chira is on our spirit.
Though we saw him play a Wisp yesterday that wasn't super comfortable, and he still managed to pull it off.
Yeah, this also ties a little bit into the first ban Ember. Ember is one of the best heroes against Earth Spirit because you buy the best solo in the mage player yourself,
and you can sort of out-fight him in the skirmishes. The chains lock him down so he can't roll around like a crazy person, so having that pre-ban in the first phase sometimes it can
Actually give you free bands later on because you don't have to ban Ember like you would have instead
You could demand the Huskar and now maybe you feel like his responses are not really there
And this hero fell off of it
But I think Slardar has been kind of underutilized as a mid hero versus Earth Spirit where some teams had the idea and they did
I've seen a couple of Slardar vans against Earth spirits
I've also seen a couple of teams try it up early on tournament and it works on the lane
But they just couldn't win but it does make me feel a little bit
sad that it hasn't been experimented with more because it works really well on the lane.
I agree with you. It is a very strong lane encounter. I sadly don't think we're going to see
Lornoff play it because I just don't think it's his type of hero. It's not like the guy
that's going to become the carry at the end of the day and win them the game, but maybe
there, you know, Lornoff has more tricks up his sleeve than I know.
Yeah, this is, uh, this is funny because it feels very similar to the, the way that
a game one draft of the Yannick series went yesterday where they picked the IO plus
Largo now we see the IO plus necrophos. It's the we're the giga healers respond to us
We've got the ball of death coming towards you need to deal with that in some way
And so I look to Yandex for high DPS or something like a draw ranger or shadow mean there's some hero
They can sit there and pump out the damage because you don't have that then it can look like Ning the series last night
And the necrophos becomes unkillable. He's blinking into your face, and you just can't deal with him
I think generally when you play against bliss you always need to try to figure out how do we kill one hero?
How do we manage to overcome the healing? How do we manage to overcome all this stuff that they're presenting to us?
And I'm going back to like the 25s. I think of Earth Spirit as like infinite damage
That's basically what it's 25 is. He just keeps magnetizing forever and
Wisp is like infinite healing so we're truly gonna get like unstoppable force meets unbreakable wall in this game
The thing is though infinite healing I mean up until level 25 after the level 20 magnetized amplification
infinite healing works very well against magnetized. Like the early levels and magnetized
aren't that much damage, it's like for slower drone outsides, and it's not going to be just the healing
from Io and his locket, it's the necrophos as well. It's too much healing for the early magnetizes,
so while there is damage between Yandex's first two picks, it's not enough.
Is the only way to look at a healing lineup, how not to be, we need to burst them down,
or rather of other avenues that you could go down? I mean, generally speaking, drafts that
have a lot of healing, tend to have very little catch. So if you think about IO has absolutely no way
to catch you, Nekro has very little ways to catch you. Technically he can sight you from full HP,
but that's not really how you want to use the spell. Yeah, so you can try to abuse the map instead
and say that, you know, they can run around his 5 and be an unbreakable ball, but we will just
abuse the map and get way more resources out of the map and play the game that way.
Yeah, you're playing for a later, more key timing where you can just run them over
over and out damage the healing and they're they're prioritizing the carry last pick picking
underlord into necrophos here. It can potentially be a little worrisome. This is a lane. I mean,
it's a big high HP melee hero who's running into an out heart stopper or so it's going
to take him down and over a long lane, especially with IO that's so many resources if they're
leaning together that you have to get through. This is a potential problem that I am curious
to see how Yanix can actually deal with because they think it's fine, right? They
pick the Underlord into the macrophos.
I mean, Underlord provides a lot of damage, right?
That's what they're looking at.
They're looking at the Firestorm rather than him being a tanky blob
sitting in the front lines.
I think that's what they're looking for.
And also, it ends up becoming a very good tool for them to kill the Storm Spirit.
The route that he has, amazing against Storm.
It's one of the fastest casting stuns that you could have,
and it will immediately catch the Storm when he zips it.
Another aspect to it is just the global presence of Underlord is really valuable,
versus IO relocate, especially the Support IO,
who's going to be making aggressive moves early on.
You can match that with the Underlord if he has a good lane.
You're talking about how you can play the map versus healing lineups?
Isn't that... I mean, isn't lots and the type of guy to call for an overall last pick, Naga Siren?
It's an interesting idea, but I feel like Necro is like quite strong against it,
and Storm kind of fixes the map issues, right?
That's why Storm IO is so strong, is because you can now...
You have the healing, and now you shut down the map to play with the Storm.
You have a hero that can basically catch from anywhere on the map.
They solved that issue and you know, this is just the prime example of nigma understand io better than probably anything
That's a good point. I do feel like laxin's looking at an illusion hero
So like he's just the type of guy to see it
I feel like any hero to buy scottie and a lot of the illusion heroes do like heavy stat items and
So, you know terribly potentially could be there
Yeah, it's very possible
I think uh one of the like whenever you pick clog workstorm like this on nigma galaxy
you're fixing some of your catch issues. But you are opening a new problem, which is that your damage is, it doesn't come from that many heroes.
Storm is not a particularly high damage hero. Neither is Clockwork.
I.O. is not either. And so it's a lot of sort of slower, more low damage.
And so if you're not ahead and snowballing, then they can reach a point where now Yandex, even though they don't have healing or stuff that's particularly tanky,
you don't have amazing ways to actually deal the damage if you're not able to stick on top of them and man up.
And so a lot depends on the early game and can you get the ball rolling?
Can you actually reach the point where so tanky we can run into the pit arrow first or magnetized?
And we're not going to die anyway because if you do die then running in which is how you do your damage with these heroes can be very problems
I mean I am providing that extra mana amplification for the first storm spirit could solve a little bit of the damage issues
You talked about like if early game he can go in with two more zips two more extra remnants
Then he can because of the overcharge could that be the defense maker?
And it's definitely it's definitely part of it for sure an isle storm is a very solid combo storm has a good
Laning it's or start one of the few heroes that can actually pressure him a little bit at least
And you don't have to fight into the underlord early on that is definitely a great counter to storm
But it doesn't kick in really until later when you get like a toast or underlaw has the ags and can pit you easier if he
Riffs in when you see it coming and you can just zip away
And so they do have the potential to play fast and aggressive and abuse their early laning advantage with Iona crow
I think the last piece missing for Nigma here is to solve their teamfight.
When you're trying to create a very strong IO draft, the last hero that you need is something that really enables a teamfight,
because that's the last aspect of your game that you're looking for.
And they went for Quezon SF-Bans, which I think traditionally are very good at killing the tanky frontline boys.
So I'm looking for some sort of teamfights all here for them.
I mean, what's left? It's usually Darkseer as the teamfighting offlaner when Centro's gone and Tindra's gone.
And Nigma!
It's the king of teamfighting at the eye!
It is!
It's the black hole.
I feel like if you're going to pick enigma against DM,
you better know what you're doing.
This bro loves this hero.
He's going to know the ins and outs.
He's going to know where you're going to want to farm.
He's going to know how to counter you.
You need to be confident in the year
that the enigma plays your fringing.
I saw one of the greatest enigma players in the world
play this hero up against a draw ranger and really struggle.
I feel like there's a lot of value for Graw here.
It's very good against I.O.
It has the healing reduction.
It's a hero that could snowball out of control here.
I'm looking at the drought for Watson as a potential hero here. Yeah, I think he's looking at it too
I think you want you want something like that. I can tell you while DM may love enigma. Okay, there's the illusion guy
So it's Scottie Byer, right? Yeah, as always
It's one of the classic IO answers whenever we would pick that hero back in the day
Literally every game you play is driving your TV. You never play against anything else
It's just one of those two heroes and I think they they knew that was coming and they are okay with it
like the issue with the TV into this is that it's a bit of a slower hero.
You don't do anything against the ghost round.
Necroposters TV is generally a pretty decent matchup for Necropos.
So I think they were pretty OK with it.
So it's a it's a very back and forth lineup.
I think there's timings that change as time passes.
One of those games or if you've got an advantage,
you want to seize it because you never really have a full understanding
of when the timing will switch into the other direction
because there's so many factors at play.
The only thing I would want to add is that regardless of it not being
the perfect TV game, I believe Watson,
It's one of his top three best-carried heroes.
He's delivered, he's been stable, he hasn't choked and he hasn't felt the pressure on this main stage.
What I really want to look towards is CJ.
And to see if yesterday's game versus Liquid injected him with the confidence to finally pop off on Earth Spirit,
because if he does, I do feel like Andex have a fantastic draft.
Earth Spirit is still a hero that can set all of the tempo,
it can take advantage of big cooldowns like relocated in the early game and Black Hole.
So let's see what you're made of, CJ.
Personally, I'm super excited about the enigma. I feel like it's one of the few games where he can actually get blink
BKB and be that endgame threat
You know a single black hole could win them this game at any moment
And I feel like that's super exciting to have here at the TI main stage more importantly
Have yet makes been able to deal with the first stick IO
That was something every other team that has come up against the galaxy is being afraid of a GH
IO and I'll wind up in the hands of the galaxy do you index have the answer when we look at drafts?
I think they have good answers. Yes, but I think I owe is a hero that in practice or in theory rather you may have counters and these things
but in
Actuality when you play against it, he's running around super fast
And he's everywhere and the game is really weird and strange
And so you never really know if you've properly dealt with it until the ending screen says victory
And so until they see those green words and who knows
Is that a simple thing for you as well and say dear is it just you're only focusing on the niggas though
I mean, I'm very focused on the enigma
I feel like for enigma side what I see is they have tried to set up a potential
We win all the lanes kind of situation and then we can snowball that to victory and IO from ahead is one of the scariest
Heroes we can go up against so I'm honestly really excited to see this game. I can't wait
And then he lost both as well from you Miro
I do think the pressure is on CJ to deliver on the main stage and I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do
All right, we'll see if CJ can have a game for himself more importantly before we get into the game
We're gonna hear exactly how yandex's coach feels about that game one draw
Thank you very much. Yes. I'm joined by excel over yandex
Hold idea to let IO go through
I always been one of the centerpieces of all of your drafts recently and yet you let nigma get first pick on it
I was wondering if you could tell me your reasoning. I mean, I think IO is
is the main aim but if it's the core, as a supporter it doesn't feel too strong, so we will see.
Were you at all worried that they may flex the IO? Because I saw even your last phase bands, you were only targeting off-laners, you seemed quite confident this was going to be a GHIO and not a Sumail IO?
I mean we were aware, like it can be flexed, but I think it's very high chance it's going to be post-file, so we don't always think it too much, but we were aware.
And then your final pick, ending up for the Terrorblade, I was wondering what the options were, because we were thinking maybe Drowranger might be another option.
Is there any reason why you ended up going with Terrorblade?
I mean, we had options, but I will not speak to them, obviously.
TB, I mean, I think it's just a giga-to-bass hero. It's also a really good match up into Enigma, so yeah.
And then my last question is about your movement throughout the tournament.
I know we had spoken yesterday that at the group stage you guys weren't too confident in yourself,
then you end up doing extremely well yesterday.
How are you trying to keep that same carefree attitude as you go further into the bracket?
I mean, first I didn't say we were not confident.
We were confident, but we didn't have any expectations.
And adjust the attitude, right?
Like how we take things, it's not about us having confidence, so...
Now, nothing changed from yesterday, we just here play every game we lost.
I don't know best.
Let's see if your best pay is off. Excel, good luck in game number one as we send it to our casters.
Thank you very much, Excel and Tsunami, getting ready for what should be a fantastic end of the day here.
a Yandex versus Nick McGalaxy.
Fogged two teams with a very different sort of trajectory
getting to this point, right?
We have Yandex, he's been kind of hopped through the season.
They came in a little shake in the group stage,
but as we saw yesterday against Liquid,
kind of broke Liquid down.
They looked to be back on form.
Nick McGalaxy, ever since we saw them
in the qualifiers in international,
it was clear that this iteration is better than ever.
There's some magic going with them for sure.
I know me and you covered them a bunch
during that call.
Oh, these guys these guys are doing it let this learn off addition. He is a man on the carry pretty good working
So I'm really looking forward to this one
I think we have you know yesterday
We did see this kind of similar thing where it's this team of burst damage versus this healing type of strategy this one sure
There's some different nuances that come into play
But it could come into that similar factor
Well, will they have enough damage to burst through the healing and is it gonna come too late at some point for the side again?
That's that do look at the side of nigma just like in Sania finish the panel with there
There's definitely the potential for them to win these lanes and kind of snowball that factor and they have that insurance policy
The BKB enigma. There's no BKB cancel in this game
They'll have to itemize for it somehow or the TB just has to be outside and be able to wail on him from the distance
Can't get caught in it. We'll have to see which one ends up working out which idea ends up being stronger
Let's see what it's gonna be tons of magic damage though is for sure
I think this might be two line-ups with some of the most magic damage I've seen in this
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's gonna be a lot of potential for early to mid game brawls and brawls that earlier
But some of the more fragile heroes earlier unlike the terror blade might be tough to get through but obviously Watson on the terror blade
One of his best he is ready to survive through numerous situations to get to the point where he's gonna be ready to carry
Team the index overall as well intrinsic thoughts obviously from axel and
Understandable, I guess or would you say maybe a risk that you actually might regret taking and looking back
leaving the IO in because you know it's not going to be this core IO that's been kind of busted.
It is the support IO, but it is GHIO and historically you don't want to play against GHIO because he's kind of good on this.
100% but they didn't give it for free. They did get the OP EarthSphere right so they do especially have that vessel carrier, that hero that just dictates the pace, that can just be that momentum carrier.
The question is, is he going to be able to carry that early momentum for the team to get to those later stages where the TV is going to be that turret?
turret. I'm curious to see how it's gonna go cuz Lornoff, Sherp Storm has had a bit of a difficulty in
this tournament. Yeah this is one of his special heroes and the lane overall versus the Earth Spirit
it's good for the Storm so looking forward to see how these lane matchups do end up going. We
have three bounties going the way of Nigma so as we said if they can get the ball rolling early
can be some very good signs for it. For sure, for sure but yeah I think this this mid in
particular as you say. Lorinovch, on the storm, the rough ganks of storm have been pretty
rough. It has to be on a completely different level to the Earth Spirit, the wrong way around.
The Earth Spirit has just been dominating storm, it's like, eh, well I guess there was nothing
else left to pick, let's try the storm. And then a lot of teams, I feel like they do
regret trying the storm. We'll see if it's going to be different here today for
Nygma Galaxy. And we do have to mention for the storm, right? Look at the control
that there is. There's going to be the underlord pit, arrow, the Earth Spirit solances,
Bushwax etc. There's gonna be a lot of things to trip up Lord off, but let's get the heels, right?
That's the thing that they do have the answer. So yeah, really looking forward to see how these lanes go down and see if this
Underlord DM actually has a decent lane because this one does feel tough this underlord versus the IO Necro
It's an infinite. It's kind of like an infinite resource lane
It's how do you pressure this safe lane Necro when he's you know smells got the back of a gh on an IO
There's a few levels in it, even a straightaway level one, right?
Yeah, unlikely to see some mild die unless big mistakes happen.
Maybe they'll have some early rotations coming in to add that extra member into that top lane.
Malady wants to make some moves for the Twin Gates.
But even then, it's not going to be easy to pressure this Necrophos in the laning state.
No, not at all.
They're just going to have to...
This is more of them just having to withstand it.
You pick this underlord for the overall game to have these buff-ups,
have these auras and obviously the agonims versus the storm eventually is going to be fantastic but
yeah the lane it'll be a slower start for DM and to be real on DM in a lot of these games free index
has been very crucial how his early game can go sometimes yesterday had an insane game on the tide
I'm sure he was versus the side lane ember which is great for him but we'll see how it is when
it's slowed down and what's the bottom lane gonna look like is it a situation where divide
early on is going to be able to sort of be left on his own and is there going to be the
Freedom for Omar to make moves across the map would zone. I have to stay down here and kind of keep this enigma
Say you want to stay down here with the enigma
You want to use this as a pressuring hero with the idol on this hero sure you are still about to be can be black hole
Eventually, but maybe as you want to at least try to play with the level 2 idol on a little difficult
First is the terribly to the veranda because they can't hit them pretty easily from that distance
But I don't want to see Omar moving around too far away
Definitely want to try to slow down this terrible a star in not even just the terror blades
Let's be honest here to it right just watch it start yesterday was such an absurd performance from watching
I hope games kind of so we're carried exactly especially what in that first game first game
right with his performance on that win range
Absolutely on another level top plate. I should get a chance to make a bit of an attempt for some mail
And they've got enough damage to bring him down first blood for sex
And and sort of a situation where GH might be in trouble on top of that
We'll be able to tether over to the Crete wave so it should be okay, but I killed it
I don't think the galaxy was expecting to give up this early in that lane settle
I don't think almost anybody was what was gonna see that right sure hoodwink does observe damage as a support
But still connection versus the two of them that was really a bottom. I'm off
Some good cog control there by the way of melody
We left incredibly low will be chased down by the solution from Watson got tangled region should be okay
Wow, yeah, this top lane that's something you do not expect to happen
You know this underlord this delay when he's supposed to just endure getting killed. That's a really good start there for you
Oh, absolutely. Honestly looking at the the CS as well
Again there with this pressure, you know, Sumel he's not having a complete free fire up in
Yeah, that's gonna come across
It's gonna be all right, but again relatively all right left very very low
So I'm exact are finding ways to put pressure under these two and ways that I I don't think they were expecting
Soxia has, honestly, he's one of those that works his magic sometimes.
He saw it on his bounty hunter yesterday, right?
He just killed quite six, seven, eight couriers in the first ten minutes or so.
He does it sometimes with win lanes that aren't supposed to win.
So really impressive coming up with Soxia here.
Keeping that Araskagongi, some good bounces on the DH also.
Good roll here for the Water Room.
Junior able to get in time and make sure that Lorinoff's
not going to be able to get the ball refilled.
So that's a thought we're seeing.
Lornoff, he is ahead, 28-3 to that 20-1.
He's doing very well as we expected him to.
This bottom lane though, I kind of thought Dubai would get a little more out of this here,
but he's getting punished similar to the under-learn and he doesn't even have a kill to his name,
so they're doing a great job down here on the side of here.
Chirichunia, finding a lovely opportunity to get on top of Lornoff.
And comes in from Saksa, they're going to be able to bring the Storm down.
I mean, that whole little move there where Chirichunia is able to roll in,
get that Water Room taken away and make sure that he was in a very healthy position
as opposed to Lauren off of a six. Pretty low there in that mid, trying to scramble towards that level six. That death's gonna hurt.
Sox's the early game though. Immediately he press your top, gets the kill, comes mid at the TP, gets a second guy to watch.
This is the guy to watch in these first ten minutes. They were talking about it's for, you know, the air spirit for Chira Jr.
To enable him as much as possible so he can get that early vessel. That's the way you do it. You go for that early rotation.
And I think now at this point, they're happy with top, right? Now they should definitely not get another kill up there.
I think now is where they packed up so it can make his moves around and DM is gonna get as much as he can
It would just pull in the way back
huge place
Good book to do it again
I think Lorna should be able to hit the six before that six-minute road and there's gonna be a little bit of a window
But might be too small for yandex to try and strike again
Small stacks also now for DM does pull the creeps into this neutral camp. So we'll go to get a little extra in the lane
I'll get the six. Safely here from the Mud Golems. It's very close to it. I like this.
Brandon playing on the top side where you expect a hoodwink to be annoying you, right?
You play on the bottom side where you don't have to get risk. Try to secure that room on the
score skirt. Still not quite the six. He is three experience away, but you built again.
Illusion for Chira. He could make a rotation with this. He is six, has the magnetized.
I'm gonna hand them sacks if they want to try and hit the top. It's gonna be pretty nice.
down. We'll be under the ward though, so Zaxa, look at the D ward. Might make things a little
tricky to sort of catch. GH's amount by surprise now, so it's like Cheer's Juniors going to
swing back towards the mid. Has also been hit out by the scan, so Nygma Galaxy, they're
going to be on, you know, super careful. Sishing on that top lane now. GH's moving
bottom. He's got the spirits primed up to gopher, pressure player, lots of rotations
coming. Cheer, he's reading the moves. He's going to be ready to back this up.
Folks already down there from Omar, temporarily pushing Chirra back, but he still has a close in with the slow Omar likely to fall, but the space is given for Dubai to back away from this rotation.
The connection there from Chirra, low enough of course we'll get some space out of it, but his Earth spirit already getting off to a hard start here, and as we said, he's the key target for the side again, next to get that vessel.
And it's a story that we've seen too much.
many many times. There's many many games we've been looking at the screen and
being like my goodness this hero's kind of busted. How did it make it through again?
Again and again. It's a risk you know Nick McAllister decided to take. It may pay off
and if it does it's one of those things that it's a big payoff right. If you're
able to leave this hero in the draft and defeat it it's gonna feel amazing
here this interaction. 100% this could be a series where I'll be right this is
a very contested hero whoever gets it could you just run away with it but
They can answer it, but put some fear into Nikola.
Lornoff, he's gonna go his Greaves build.
We did see a Greaves build the other day,
it was versus the little friends, which wasn't so great.
But in this game, could have any synergy.
To the IO, you're gonna get the double kill.
It's good with the Necrol.
It's good with the Death Spell.
Some of these Roots are disabled.
But now the Cat's Lornoff.
It's another one.
That beautiful angle there for Sack's opening up with a bushquack.
The lockdown, not quite enough.
Let's deal with the Mach Mana and the Magnetize.
And not much against that.
That's gonna be a dead Stormsphere.
Another kill for Tira Jr. here with his Earth Spirit mid.
And another assist for Soxa.
He is really crushing it in this early game on the support.
Yeah, I mean it really does seem...
I feel like if you look at any of Yandex's game in the first 10 minutes,
Soxa, you can look at what he's doing in terms of the moves
and it has so much impact.
Another TPH here, super active here since he gets the kill off the mark with the kick
but should have enough of Divide.
And TPH is going to try and help out.
The kill is coming in.
Come on with the Tether on to Divide.
Yeah, and the fiend's gate turns with the firestorms going to be divide gone.
Lorinus turned up to try and fight back, but I don't know if Nikma Galaxy can take this by G-8's in trouble.
The pendulum goes to Lorinus, but sure, if he finishes him off, Lorinus will be able to zip away,
but Omar left behind is going to be Andex cleaning up the three of them and only losing one of their own.
Oof. I was mentioning, same with Sandeva, we were saying how Nikma has set themselves up with very strong lanes on paper,
but it's Yandex out playing with these rotations.
I mean, it's beautiful start.
QQJune is already 4-0-2 on the Earthspirits.
It's early days, but it does feel like Earthspirits.
Lornoff, again!
Oh, they're gonna pull that up.
Now he's in!
Into the side of the scene!
Oh, do it!
Oh, it's...
You know, when you look at the two mids
and the position they're in after this first nine minutes of gameplay,
it's quite painfully different.
QQJune 4-0-3, Lornoff 0-3-0.
And as we painted the picture, right, the Earth Spirit versus the Storm Spirit.
And in general, this year I've been so insane in these games.
Teams are trying the Storm Spirit, but it just, it feels like it does barely a fraction of what an Earth Spirit can do.
And he's squishy. He's very fragile compared to Earth Spirit who, even if he's having a tough game, he will tank a lot of abilities, right?
Look at the HP pool. 1500 on the Earth Spirit, Storm Spirit, 2000 HP.
And as we said, it's a lot of couch for him this game, already off to a very, very slow start for Lorna.
He's been the clutch factor, right? We do have to talk about how important he has been for this team.
Yeah, he's done so much in some of that performances and
if he's able to do so this game, it is gonna take him a long time
to get to the point where he's gonna be just able to make plays as a storm spirit.
There are two kind of get those first two lines online, especially when you're behind,
you just don't really pose any sort of threat.
You zip in and you're having a zip out.
Yeah, you really can't just start to chain die and even not getting any galvanized stacks either, right?
You really do still to feel that limited manor regen coming in starting to maximize as much as possible top though
Sumail does have his relic done. Okay, it's just starting to get some jungle don't so there's no farming wall
But these other two lanes they've been pretty devastated
And at this point, you know divide enigma this isn't a hero
Yes, sure you have the place with the go back for this play to be KB eventually
But usually the way this hero wants to play is your pressuring you're going for drums
Or your helm you're taking the tier one pretty early and take of occupying the entire enemy jungle
This is just not the case in this game by any means.
Watson now has a free timing to this game, a free entry to just go back, hit the neutrals and be able to get those timings.
If you can get to a man to get to a Scotty, Scotty of course will be, I mean the end will be all answered for everything and everything.
If you can get to that freely, this game will be super difficult.
And that is the thing right, even if he does get the BKB blink black hole, they might not be able to stop it by stunning him, but they might be able to stop it by killing him.
By killing him, right? You have to find Watson is the key thing, right?
if you don't see every little get him in the hole he will die yeah so another
aggressive move lorna is going to the role anyway the saving that is not the
pain continues here for Lorna on the storm can they get here as a return I
don't know how to regen is it a spirit you might turn it himself to the
yeah nice is going he's keeping it going the bush works gonna be off the
Mark diving the tier 2. Well, how does it? It's a little appealing, but then I'll hold back. They won't go for the tier 2 dive quite yet.
Here's Yandex.
Yandex is smashing this early game and make my fella care. Lineup overall was the one to be designed to be the pressuring lineup.
The fact that it's Yandex pressuring with this lineup poses big concern to me.
And Dubai, I mean, he's hit space down here, but he's not very farmed.
You know, he is as low as Lorinoff's farm as his Storm Spirit, and Lorinoff's been picked off four times.
He is getting decent tower damage down here. He might be able to finish off the tier one.
Ricky's high line is going to get very close to having a pause from Omar.
But this is a very slow start. You know, we were mentioning,
Nygma, they're going to match the aggression a lot here versus Yandex.
So far, not able to be able to match it whatsoever.
These supports are quiet.
Omar is 0-2, G8 is 0-1, G8 mostly just sitting back and farming,
but not a whole lot is going on in this early game.
It's getting pretty volatile and to the point where I think if you nigma galaxy
All in on the the blink dagger reveal on the enigma that first black hole from divide has to do some
Absolute magic and if it doesn't this game's gonna crumble very quickly. It definitely could how do they make a place before or outside of that?
I think you just need to be I think babysitting Lauren off is honestly one of the best things you can choose
Okay, he's get either the mech of the grieves at a decent time because the vessels already done if Lornoff dies a few more times
He might actually just have literally no game because right now he has no game
He needs to get some extra space for this game
And we've got me missing some rough stops and stone spirits and this this one's off that
I think so
Being targeted as much as he has been to mount radiance is done
GH as we said this game has a lot of magic damage in it
He's gonna queue up an early fight. Don't really see too often
I mean as you mentioned at the start right so heavy magic game so if any game's gonna be there for a support to rush a pipe
It would be this one. I think I'm alright with it
They're gonna have a green pipe climbing right don't have greens on the storm dog the pipe coming from their five position
Which will of course be a bit later, but they'll have this way to kind of synergize and maybe
Out resource in a way versus Yandex. We'll have to see if that ends up working Yandex though DM
Having such a good time into this game because he got that early kill
He's got good levels, halfway toward the AXA range.
So the global potential, the movement around the map,
Gandex is gonna have a bit of a superior one,
even though they're playing into the IO.
And the storm, right?
There's a lot of mobility in this game,
but this agonims will be a very good answer
versus the mobility of Nygma.
Well, it looks like Nygma Gallus,
he's gonna try something here by my hitting the six,
see if they can make a play around the hookshot,
him and some mail.
Get a Reaper kill on the cheer, I think,
would be the dream right now.
But that feels so.
Slow down the pace of him.
He's got 2K HP here with the vessel on top of the trad.
See he's already a pretty beefy lad on this earth spirit if you can get him with a hook shot a cow
Bounce into a vortex of Reaper will be the finisher for him if they can get the connection
But you see there two shrines and x will be the takeaway the experience melody sneaks in there is able to grab that one
So again all yandex is favorite right now these first 14 minutes
And let's see divide what he's gonna be able to do with the police is gonna be from Russia. He's close
But he is their key to getting out of this rough early game.
Socks up, looking for another. GH will survive.
Gets a bit of damage blocked here.
Actually doesn't know if she blocked me anything, though.
Ends up surviving. We locate. Back away.
DM's gonna come over there to try and get him all the way back in.
I don't know. I mean, I know that Devine's going for the blinker.
But he could just get silenced.
You know, the Earth Spirit is a fantastic answer versus the blink rush.
Same thing for the hoodway. Just being at a distance always with that push.
Then just got to take this risk. I think if you go for any sort of over route
It's it's not going to be a good sort of journey to take if you make my galaxy
You have to go for the big plays. He's just accelerating the point be big dig not going for anything in between right here
Actually, that's the way to do it the device like I got to try and carry us through this early mid game
Make a crazy play just blow this game wide open
There's and give a chance for my other course to carry later and there is always a way to come back in Dota right now
if there is no BKB Black Wolf Council. There is always going to be that way to come.
You might catch a 5 of them. I might! I might! You never know!
Tira's items is coming very fast. Now he's got the Vessel, he's got the Ogre Axe,
they're going to rush the BKB on him since there's, I mean it's mostly magic damage coming
out from Nigma also. Gornoth has gotten time to be able to finish up the Greaves,
So has a way to protect himself versus the silenced and still get chase done
This is gonna be the time the nico looks to move up together. I believe it will be
We launch out of coming in from yandex
Or not going to kind of zip right into them. He will be able to get the room and zip away
It's a mountain of all his malady will jump the site down on a malady's enough to think about
Oh, he's poor here in the pit. It's gonna be the two of them gone. Let's see if Jake's trying to get out
Really? Okay, he'll survive a little longer. He's gonna be coming back in of course in a few seconds
There's already always
To kill but indeed they're a fully set up
They're gonna look over the wars cheer a junior device does have a black hole
And he will drop it to ensure that they have a chance and will succeed of bringing down the earth for it
And they get out that I can't saxes in with a bush work on to divide
He's trying to back up under the tier two people right this one saxo will finish the job divide falls
Soxa is destroying this game. Every connection. They're beating all the plays to 13 to 3.
They were actually ready for the move before Nigma was with their entire timing set up with the blink with the grieves.
They get the jump. At least they get a return kill.
It's not really big enough by any means.
Or they get some more kills. Soxa would be a big one. He is worth quite a bit too. The whole level as well.
I'm looking for Saks. So Malady, we'll be on the finish on Rolf.
He's gonna go up the TP outside. He just TP's away.
He lives.
Malady out of lead.
He's fast.
He's into the river. He's pretty speedy here.
Device got him.
Okay, there we go.
So at least something else.
There we go. Some self-deny to the neutrals.
But won't be the case to find able to take Malady down.
Getting a support here in there.
Last fight, of course, they did get the big killer
taking down Junior.
But they're over two cores, able to turn up and walk away.
Fully alive. You know, 4-0-4 on Watson.
and so far this game 1-0-7 on DM.
Look at Yandex, no slowly down.
Magnetized, it's at the ready again.
They know that they don't have the Black Hole ready.
They know how much stronger they are at this point.
This Ag's Underlord came at such an early timing as well too.
They just get the caps, they just plop it on top of three heroes.
Nigma tried to bounce them first move before being just absolutely ready.
And Watson continues to be a beast this game.
Ready to start the move.
There's the falloff with the fiends gate straight in onto the two of them.
Trying to come up with the heals and some sort of way to save.
Samael will get a scythe off.
He lit himself up with the scythe on his back, sir.
Samael's gone. GH dead once more.
There's Soxa right now in this game. This is insane.
And I feel like you can't really ban Soxa right now.
His hero pool's pretty extensive.
He's got a fair few of them that he is going to absolutely destroy an early game with.
What a performance from him, truly.
Setting up for so many of these kills,
surviving multiple times in these games
He thinks very high level for him.
Yandex, he can play this in almost perfection here.
Socks, he doesn't even, he doesn't go to the shard either.
This is a fantastic game if he's able to get the shard with the earth spirit at some point.
Till he's prioritizing the blink since he has such good farm.
Yeah, wow. What a game here so far from Yandex.
Ignite is not able to get things together to get these big kills.
They're just getting these small ones.
They've gotten Chira once. They've got him once.
They've just won so far and Watson still having a flawless performance.
Has the Manta. The Scotty's getting queued up.
20 seconds until we'll have Divy back with the Black Hole.
If they can try and find something again here.
He did buy the shard in between, so he's looking to get some extra farm with it.
But it doesn't mean that the BKB is going to be stalled out if the fights come too late in the next 5 minutes or so.
They have so many ways to cancel it. Malady now having the Yule Scepter as well.
So other answers now in Dota of course. Sure, sometimes you might not be able to cancel.
Divy? Arrow's there!
Are you-
Yeah, I cancelled it.
That was an ambitious black hole.
I don't know about that one, Fog.
Yeah, what's-
Not enough! Maybe he could buy some new advantages-
Don't hurt!
...he'll never tell the Sunder.
Pull back onto Wards and hooks.
Shot in!
They'll kill Wards and off!
Great kill.
Maladid also pretends you don't want to be able to leap up to the high ground.
Sacks is now here to back him up.
Didn't they get out here?
I mean, cheer for him, DMR around, if they get a grab onto anyone.
It's a little too deep up by the tier one, so...
Well, I think Shen and Don, it does cause them to find a situation to kill the carry, so...
If I says that was the plan all along with the little mini-ball...
I'll believe him. All right, he'll take that trade.
Bonson getting put into a very dangerous spot in the river there, he gets his laps on him this time.
Nicely done. Finally slog him down.
It needed to happen.
It did.
He was having way too good of a...
Yeah, complete free farm on the Terrablade up until that point, but a little bit of a slowdown.
And Ornough getting some catch up, which I think is actually super important too.
And he's actually ahead of Chira Junior now, in that way somehow.
Which is very impressive.
Absolutely. We do not see Storms do this.
So, Laurenoff is quietly working some magic after dying four times back-to-back throughout the early letting stage.
I like his build a lot, right? As you said, the Greaves absolutely making sense in this game
with his combination of his heroes and person of silence.
Small little essence ring is going to be nice to save him.
Fighting back here.
How's the pipe looking for GH?
Another timing that they can't play around with the Auras that are gonna have that advantage over Yandex not having Auras
Chira though, now has BKB
much more difficult to be brought down
Well, quick with the response there, I'm sure that he doesn't get set up upon by Saksa
Kira Trunir was ready to connect to look for the kill
That's a deviating with the build a bit here and looking like he's going for the
Eul's instead. I was gonna mention before the black hole happened you don't need a
BKB canceled black hole sometimes in Dota now if you get win-wiggers so you
can sometimes just save some of your allies as well too which could be the
plan later down the lines. It's a male, very isolated.
Backup's coming in but it's not gonna be there in time to save them at all.
Level 12 hoodwink. High burst damage from that level 2 sharp shooter. More than
enough to kill him.
What's the fun in the freedoms, they hit the tier 2 tower top here 21 minutes in.
Chira, sneaky plays, more or less we'll be able to get out.
And early tier 2 they're pressuring.
Super early.
Ah, they're not popping cliff.
They didn't pop cliff.
Alright, a tower for free and no tier 2 cliff to use.
Yeah, they'll take that yandex especially with what's in getting the b4 to taking
the last hit on it.
How surprising.
I rarely see teams forget to use that tier 2 cliff.
I mean every second counts and go to soon.
Absolutely does losing tier 2 access like that around Roche timings is very dangerous as well
7k lead
Even though enigma did stride back a bit there
The goal just continues to climb for Watson in all this downtime
Two components. He's got the old the orb just needs a secondary one for that Scotty resolve Bradley
Black holes back up see what device going store for us this time round
This is not farming very fast at all in this enigma
BKB is gonna quit quite slow
Might be more and more answers for it.
Alright, GH, pipe timing.
Pipe, greaves, soon manta on Sumail.
They're starting to get quite a bit of things together.
Ooh.
Our answer, I'm off.
I'm just gonna allow for a very easy kill for Tiro Junior.
Okay.
He supports just so high level on the side again.
There's nothing to be looking at here, right?
Malady level 12, Socks at level 13.
GH is level 12, don't get me wrong, but Omar level 10 to my only 12, these supports on the side of Yandex and some of these shrine steels, the XB really does matter.
Being able to burst some of these heroes that are more fragile when you're a, you know, a Marana that gets this type of scaling, a hoodwink who gets this type of scaling, these are high damage supports if they do get away with this type of timing too.
And agonims on the Marana eventually also can be pretty devastating. I am seeing Malady, he is queuing up that Wind Waker to be anticipated since they don't have the BKB Black Hole cancel eventually.
cancel eventually. It can't just be that safe. Yeah, very important one. Because it does feel
like the win condition for Nigma Galaxy is, can we kill the Terrorblade during the Black
Hole? If the answer's no, then I don't sort of know what the backup kind of solution
is to the Terrorblade. At least for a long time. It's hard to sort of see if the
fights do fall into that sort of situation where this Terrorblade Watson is surviving
through the fret of the black hole. A little bit of a pause here again. Reason? Reason?
Got a reason. I'm looking at the boost right now. What's going on with that? It's like,
uh, getting pretty chill. Stuff sorted out. Should be no good. Should be fine. Nineteen
to five. Yeah, Dex. As we said, they're the ones just really truly setting the pace
This entire game, just beautiful rotations.
Yeah, quiet game really from MiGma this time around.
I thought we'd have a bit more of a back and forth kind of clash going on here,
but so far, not to be the case.
He indexed just as one step ahead,
and Chira getting super enabled this game on his Earth spirit.
He should be one of those.
One of those Earth spirit things.
This is not a surprise.
Chira Juni.
Yes, quite the eyes for it almost is for quite some time as well. Yeah before even four is cool. Absolutely. Yeah, he has
Look at these neutral items beautiful
Triple manager aft triple tumblers toys on the side of Igma
No, crippling crossbow on the side of Yandex. They don't care about that anti-heal. Whatever
And game state map positioning losing that tier two top
I'm I'm just I'm gonna reiterate that one right like not having that glyph or not popping it
Definitely going to be problematic in terms of map control. Roche, still not something
that Yandex wants to fully commit for here at this point. The map control, definitely
in Yandex's favor as you can see from the vision there. Thank you, beautiful observer.
They could if they wanted to, right, go for Roche.
It's not necessary, right? You don't want to waste time. I think a lot of, I've
seen more and more of these teams being hesitant about wasting your time going
for Tormentors and Roshan. It's just so efficient.
I guess that's true that it's lost gold, lost XP.
If you know how to split up hitting creeps, then the payoff better be good.
And I guess Roshan or Tormentor isn't always a good enough payoff.
I want to say that I'm not sure if it's Yandex, but I know Vision.
They almost never do Tormentor.
I'm pretty sure Yandex is the other team that I was looking at
that does the least Tormentors out of anybody.
So it is some type of maximizing field.
Perhaps it is out of the way.
They don't like to have to bring multiple heroes over there.
And now it is, there's not really that many that just solo the Tormentor that are popular, right?
I like that as well, you know, then I feel a bit more vindicated in my pubs when the support's like,
let's do the Tormentor, I'm like, guys, I gotta hit some more creeps, you know?
Damn corp players!
I'm just trying to play our vision in Yandex, you know?
He's damn corp players, they never look up.
You're sitting there for three minutes, please, someone come to the Tormentor.
So, it's all of us corp players will now know that it's the correct way to play.
I think, yeah.
Thank you, vision. Thank you, Yandex.
No, not nice. Not nice.
We've got the black hole back up, Divide, see where it wants to go, put it on the man at the moment, BKB, I guess at this point you're waiting until the BKB is done before you go for the next big play, it's that close, 900 got away from having the BKB on the Enigba.
But there's something important also for Nick, but I mean we can probably discuss it later on is you know
Just the refresher build nowadays. It's just not really that great
There's a refresher BKB
So you just go for the other build go for the agonist probably go for the sheevahs that eventually you can build door that way
So we'll see what divide does want to do after this one
But yeah, he has to get the tower blade in the back
Watching we'll just kill him. So and I'll be all divide has to get that connection
And obviously you he can go for another heroes, but he will die. He will die
And then the risk and chance of winning the team fight is not going to be great for Nick Mcgallant.
So, because their control, when you look at their whole draft, we didn't really mention that too much, right?
It's not the best overall stun. They have lots of like individual single-target stuns, but it compares to the Yandex who has a pit, a bushwhack, utter a spirit.
It's just not the same until later stages.
KKB for Loridov.
Okay, here we go.
Not out just yet. They're going to smoke a bit before it here, trying to catch them off guard here.
Honestly, I'd say a little surprising.
They don't play 200 gold and they could have a BKB black hole. They don't want it. They're gonna try and do it without it
Sockson
Jukes that won't get caught get it again Sockson
Let's see BKB is on the way out now for the fight
Watson though, he's about to have the Scotty a clear separation between him and the Necro 3000 ahead
Necro if you're behind versus tower blade you want to be played from ahead
It feels pretty bad running here versus that Scotty
You're just gonna get slowed all that heal reduction and it's just so much extra slow
Of course. Oh, yeah, I mean there's Watson by the nullifier next door. Do you not need to I feel like he can come out
I think you just don't be tippy if you want to be safe. Okay, it's so much magic
Just live through it. Yeah, kill everyone else. I can between us also very strong. I got this as well
That says gonna rise on g8 she's trying to scout things out up here
but he's kind of on his own and he's not getting out so that's gonna be GH going down.
More kills. Socks are setting them up again and again.
He can be for DM, Moonlight, Shadow, they're looking for more aggression as he said. Watson, Scotty is done.
Chiro Junior, here's the main thing moves right towards them now.
He's gonna have the eyes on him.
Here comes Watson connecting as well.
And with the peace gate they're ready to go, we'll be able to talk to Rob.
Can't get out of the radius of the pit.
He's got the ghost storm, but he'll still die through it.
No response there.
No Tier 2 available, right?
The fact that it dropped so early.
I mean, that wouldn't really be there to react.
Just a move that they weren't ready for, and a move that Yandex was able to make
very quickly after finding the chance to kill off GH.
Who, of course, is pretty much the main chance of saving some ale.
It's rare.
It's gonna point out just now besides the Scotty being so good versus all the healing right it's rare to see Scotty versus triple ranged cores as well
So that's slow
It's double as effective on those range here. So it's gonna be even more problematic versus
There we go. They're coming out. They're coming out of the unit. BKB's are done
Ready to go for some black hole action. He needs some big ones 10k lead another dodge Soxa
What a beast.
Shira, Shira, yeah.
And T'Va'i's the fight.
T'Va'i's gonna be able to blink out from the side.
And whichever of the four takes, T'Va'i, who got just knocked off,
BKB was off in time.
Shira's gonna be surviving through it.
And that one's a turner, ready to kill them all.
He's gonna be able to bring down that one, bring down GH.
Ornoth?
See, Ornoth had to zip away.
T'Va'i has to BKB and blink out of the fight.
At least they get Shira.
It's expensive.
They had to use a lot for him.
But at least get him and Lornaf does survive.
Little bit of something.
Small things here for Nygma Galaxy.
But you're not getting an objective.
It's not big enough.
Just these kills and immediately the gandex they're the one that has to get onto the push, even take out this outpost and potentially start to threaten this rush.
And in any of these situations right, if it is Jiro Junior dying and Watson living.
I know the dream.
They don't mind, because it's not like Turo Jr. after-fight is going to be taking objectives.
That's the terror blade's job, so as long as Watson lives, it doesn't really matter whatever cause died.
100%. Again now, another shrine being taken away. Soxie yet to die, gets the grab.
GH comes in for the steal, fights his pay with his life. There he is.
That drops his damage easily now to just destroy the IO any time they catch him.
And this really starts to run away with this one. In Malady, he already's going to have the Wind Waker on him.
So even if they do catch Watson and they've got to have that big bailout even if it isn't a DKB cancelled like I mean it was already
Sort of hard to see the chances that they present themselves to allow to body get these black holes
Those chances are getting slimmer and slimmer as these moments past these eyes fly out
And that's the first PKB reveal to from niggler right so first PKB reveal it gets them a kill
It's not quite enough and as these DKBs get lower for them
I feel like the game gets much harder for them too, because of the control that's just there from the Underlord.
These pits will be there for Lorinoff, and it's one of the most devastating things to play against on this board.
Once your BKB does start to tick out.
Talking about these extra ways to trip them up, you know, once these got-
There's full Orchid not ready to play with it.
Oh, it switched it up! Oh, that's cool!
Dragon Marks into your Orchid.
Oh, I like that actually, versus- I mean, versus right the Storm into Necro, it's fantastic.
Yes, you've got to mantid to this spell, but...
Once that BKB runs low, it's a similar type of thing that I was talking about before, it's even better.
I like this pick up.
Bitch, he's spotted.
Thanks, sir.
Thanks for the job. All kids there, look at the pipe.
Be careful about how they go for him.
I'm not sure.
Able to kill him in a fashion that they're able to do so safely.
Just from a distance, and ensuring that they don't sort of step into any situation
where Nick McAllister's going to be able to come over the counter play.
I feel like I've said his name 500 times in this game, but Soxa Soxa Soxa Soxa is literally
everywhere enabling Chirra to have this pop-off game 7-2-11 on the EarthSpirit, 5050, so yet
to die on Soxa.
Yeah, they did the highest kill participation here on the team by far, and 20-25 kills,
he's not only been involved in, he's pretty much been responsible for.
100%.
30 minutes in, it's early days, but Yandex having a clear way to take advantage of
the entire map at this point, and now start to threaten the Roche. Now they absolutely
can go for this and some kind of offensive ship at the top. And another catch, Omar!
It's Axe-M. Spawning them all! He supports Axe-M. They're not going to do anything on the side of it.
It's Axe-M that he just knows exactly where they are.
Omar, in particular, having a really rough game, 0-7 and 3.
Not able to connect with much of anything. Yeah, Roche, now that's right.
They can start to go for this pretty soon on the side of the Andis. If they'd like to,
They've got the ward positioned on the high ground, they've claimed tier 2, they've claimed outposts.
Actually, outposts got reclaimed, but it is on the top side for that roast, Watson.
He'll start committing for it.
On my leader, take the Galaxies and they'll be able to get up towards this,
even though they do have the Black Hole and the BKB up on Dubai.
It's too dangerous for them to go toward that area.
They know there's going to be ward connection in the index.
They have so many ways to catch a distance.
Oh, one thorn.
Watson's coming.
Very quick.
I mean if anything as well, I feel this is sort of a testament to sort of how rough life
is for the Storm Spirit enjoys the environment because at the moment, he's higher network,
he's higher levels, but you look at this Earth Spirit, you look at the Storm Spirit and
the impact you can sort of envision, it's just so unbelievably different for...
Yeah, can we actually, can we get damage numbers if we do it for a second before
this spoke?
I'm not sure if we can, but I feel like we're going to see that telling the tale
a lot of this Earth Spirit of how much he can actually do in this game.
K to the 9.7
All the way out
And now it's not being efficient to be tormented right surely they do it this time. I
Mean that's
They really hate it they just absolutely hate tormentor Wow
Core's bought it already. The two important ones. Like yeah, you support some guys. Sorry guys.
That's it.
Connection!
If the towns that play come in, they get out safely.
Omar is not getting out. He is gone.
More or not, he'll be able to zip away this infection using VKB.
Even when they're finding something that's still losing something themselves, it's the one for one.
The global threat. Like this Underlord, DRM, is playing incredible in this game.
He would have a more difficult entry into this game, but in 5015, this off-lane, like super well mapped, really starting to straighten out his play for outside of game disavail.
Long damage here, my goodness. A couple of hits from Watson at this point, understandably so. He's so incredibly farmed on this terrible late right now.
This last pick looking pretty hot here for the carry.
It's one of Watson's, if not his, best heroes. We're absolutely seeing the display of it in this game.
Even showing up to some early fights that we saw earlier.
He just continues to growl at it.
It just doesn't slow down in this game.
Really putting all the pressure on to Dignite to try to make a move and
none of these moves are connected.
Another Moonlight Shadows are looking for the play.
More or not.
Has to be super careful here.
They're ready to work.
It's not even that easy.
They're killing him on Firemar, another whiff took shot.
And it's going to be, ooh, they moved the cogs.
Survival for him, look, he does get back to the base.
Chira Jr. talking about the base, he just rolls straight into the base.
He's on top of the mic, he's going to pop the peek,
he can be a tried turn with the black hole.
Has got the lock down here onto Chira Jr.
He's going to be left to bring it down.
They take Chira Jr. out.
They need to try and find something more.
I think it's actually reprecise there.
Yes, they can.
I still see something.
Can you get more?
I know where Malady is, the pings are coming out.
I know he's in the tree line.
Oh, they see it.
I have seen him.
Malady.
Woop!
Get caught.
Alright, cost the buyback.
It's an expensive one.
What they do?
Well, I'm not sure they make the work of the three, they're Malady with the leaps.
Oh, wait.
You should get some of that.
It's not.
Oh, if it's not, Lornoff is going to be able to chase for him.
There we go.
Okay, thank you.
Alright, NIGMA Galaxy.
We have a little bit of a pushback, but it costs me one.
Buyback from Lornoff for this.
Handing that to the little bit there too, right?
Rolling into the base, trying to get on top of Divide,
does get punished from that immediate black hole.
But yeah, a buyback from Lornoff.
An expensive one, but at least they get some good gold
and good experience.
At this point, honestly, you might not have to do things
if you're here at this deficit.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, you cannot sit back and let that sort of dive
go unpunished.
You gotta be ready with those buyback buttons.
Yeah, you can't just, yeah,
yeah, let's do whatever they want in this game.
They did get a base score down.
That was placed quite a bit earlier,
so that's why Chira did dive.
I'm surprised they didn't go for the D-Ward around here
as he did just roll into the high ground.
Lornoff also, where we went to get himself,
tried some extra XP and he is hanging on to a big lollus.
Could save his life in the next play.
What?
I'm trying to move in again, it's just...
I'm about a minute left on this aid, just watch it.
No black hole for 70 seconds.
He could consider at least poking for a small moment here.
If that double siege wave coming in as well, this could be an option for them to poke onto this mid tower here.
Now, Lackle, how do you fight?
Very complicated, they'll have to use the glyph.
The tower is almost completely dead though, and Wox is still continuing. It still has Meta as well, he'll pop in.
Time's up then, patch!
They get the jump straight away on the water, they're gonna get the kick back on the device! The device's gone!
Out for 50!
Look the buyback ready, but even with that, 30 seconds until he's half the black hole.
The barracks now under heavy fire from Watson.
He can't want it to fully finish it off, just letting the illusion do so one hit with another one.
Okay, Lorna will deny it, at least there, wants to continue the push.
Little set of racks.
Chira's like, that's a plan.
Oh, Saks is in!
Oh!
They're trying to get the jump, and we'll be able to break him away.
Uh, it's gonna be fine.
Okay, I'll go right Chira's.
By now, actually, it's pretty clever the way he does.
Sure, he dies, if he can be black, well, but forced to buy back for Lorna.
They don't have black hole now for the defense.
And it ends up looking really good for him.
Yeah, that's a really good die.
Pax now picked up for DM.
The item just keep flaring in bloodstone. I believe also was goodness for cheer. Yep
I'm watching Scott over 5k gold ready to spend towards the next time. He's looking the Hydra's breath next
Damage is going to be observed from him at that point
Majority of this game
It's not going to be a single hero black hole at this point now
He needs to get the big one he's on his own to price
It's starting to get to that point where their damage is going to be limited inside of it as well too
So it's gonna have to be a big one it doesn't cast so doesn't have agonies before that increased size
See what neutral items they do start to get as well
Arasma is there for Lornaf. He did not get the RNG. I don't believe with the conjures catalyst. We got the bubble
Watson got a good one though. He did get the flares both the
big man is gonna be coming out from him
Nine one and eight nearly flawless performance
The majority of them, in fact.
All eyes on the fight to make the comeback play. Can he do it?
They're smoking up. They're looking for it.
Let's have a look.
Lornaff, of course, goes all in. He doesn't have that buyback.
He goes for Osmo, as you see.
There'll be the extra damage that they need to be able to burst that target.
Eyes on Malady also, right?
The Wind Waker, the same, so the potential is there.
they do get the big catch on to Voxen.
Alright now for Sumail, some extra timings now coming together here for Nygma.
The surviving for the right clicks of Voxen is going to be pretty much impossible.
He's pretty long on the armor on Sumail, it's only 15.
Omar is caught.
I'm not thinking about helping out.
I'm not going to get fought in the pit himself though and I tend to try and save it.
It comes out, the Black Hole will catch two of them.
Is it enough to kill Watson?
He's going to survive!
It's five!
It goes off!
They have killed him.
They cost them two lives.
Can they make sure they get more out of this trade?
They can, Lourdes.
If somebody gets the M, it's good enough.
Another catch.
Nice little kick there to make sure the TPS is successful.
Lourdes going to try and see if he can chase down Chirijunia.
You OK?
Right.
Let's lock him off.
It's more chase.
Lourdes trying.
Mormada, he has got it with the Poldex, they've got him for Jennifer, I don't know where that's got him.
Level 25 now hit for Lord. I mean they'll take that any day of the week.
Nick the Galaxy. Pretty beautiful, they get that connection.
Taking away a good few thousand of that gold lead that Yandex had there at the back of that one.
They got baited going for Omar there, he does, and for Lord, he gets the double black hole,
does hit the two cores and they're able to finish off watching what's it was
desperately looking for a sundar target he had no body he had guess we couldn't
find it right yep who'd end up using the hex on here onto the storm right okay
they end up connecting onto the storm it just wasn't enough and that beautiful
black hole perfect connection the BKB was used but yeah look at Watson he's
looking he's a everyone's BKB I can't sundar it there was no one to go for
there was no target for him to find for the sundar the first time we
All right, absolutely. It's taken them 40 minutes, but that certainly was something and I mean, you know
It's been you like to joke about during the qualifiers, you know
This was a strategy that kind of worked for Nigma Galaxy, you know, if you if you get behind if you don't get the lead
You can't lose the lead if you never have it, you know
It's something that used to be a problem in the past for Nigma Galaxy where they build quite a lead and then struggle to close
the games up
This has worked for them before 100% and also look at the levels now, right?
They all now have it pretty much level 25 green the two okay once right that girl in store now have their 25
Have time to get that next item as well. The extra heels gonna come into play potentially
The VP be black hole. It's a huge swing always be a way to win a game
new string considering the
Lack of sort of any movement in their favor for the first 40 minutes of this game
Bornoff has done magic when he's able to get to these levels.
He has!
He loves his build on his sword too, but he goes to multiple scotties if you remember that one too.
So if he can't keep this game going, we're seeing the possibilities.
Still a very difficult one.
Still all that pressure on the Vi for the multi-hero Black Hole.
The Black Hole's good. They might just have it in them to do it.
I want to see quite an early Vi back here from Omar.
He just wants to scout it.
scout it. I mean the time is gonna be there, Black Hole's gonna be up in about a few seconds.
Right, might be able to contest this one here, they have a smoke available they do. Let's see.
And it's an amp damage also on Lorna after here, level 25 so the bounces,
they will have enough damage if they do get that Black Hole.
It's starting to get more and more interesting. It really is.
Secondary Wind Waker soon being finished though, Soxa is getting close to his.
He's going to show first.
Mournoff shows himself from the tree line, some mail as well.
Come forward, trying to get more information, hook shot.
It's a deep one from Irma, straight to the middle of the ball.
It's going to get dropped down.
Irma's down, he pulled back, of course, for this play, so he's there for a long time.
That was way too easy.
Maybe he was trying to catch one of the front ones and then to catch in the back one, but now they're playing the 4v5.
That might be enough for Yandex to sort of say, well let's just step into the pit and finish the roast.
They did use the Meta, so they do want to get something out of it.
Yeah, they wanted something.
As Nigma, if they're able to wait that Meta out and take the fight, could be a potential here to fight looking for an angle.
I like it. The Shadowblade. Extra chance for a surprise jump.
Looking for the positioning. Will it let Shadow, Yandex gonna look for the fight?
Meta is wearing down, quarter duration left on it.
Positioning from Sax, it did spook him. I think that's the only way I've got to start on one of them, sir.
Come to close in, but they're still safe.
We're gonna give it a shot here, Nigma Galaxy.
Meta's done.
60 seconds without it.
He's just gonna throw himself in first.
Gets him with the BKB in the blink, chunks forward, forces him out of the pit.
Pussy up to the side, TM goes.
Get the firestone onto G8.
Also put the BKB Tevra over towards Samael.
Saga, the backlight.
Trying to force them apart, trying to split Nick Mcgallochy up, rolling Zeepers lowly to the bottom.
Michael too!
Michael to the touch, just down to the ground with a back hole, and catches the both of them!
Jim is going to his death!
Now to Ki-Anne, he's going to try for the BKB TPL, he'll get out with this!
But Sack to the behind, DeFi moves over to take him!
The Reaper in the base, they followed him!
Oh it's getting late, rushing down on some in the fountain!
Oh my god, DeFi is doing it, no hesitation!
He is!
This...
This is a big one!
Both of those last black holes that we've seen have absolutely put this game in a position where Nigma Galaxy,
not only do they have a chance, I think they're breaking down Yandex.
I think they have potentially have got lead now with Warnov, that with Aegis, level 26.
Oh my goodness, they've been doing magic throughout this tournament, this is the another one.
Somehow they keep doing this.
I have to buy it, it's as clutch as you can be.
Yeah.
They tried to commit so much onto him there, but they end up stacking the double melee heroes.
Watson's meta had ran out also, so he doesn't want to run over and join his team.
He's a melee hero. He could also just get caught inside of that black wall.
And smart from Sumail too, right? Just blinking it. Giving the information.
Absolutely.
Breaking up the fight. Causing Gendex to kind of panic and make this type of scenario happen.
Sumail throwing out the tips here to Divy.
Right, it is.
They've got some in special brewing here between them.
A 20k deficit that it was at down to six.
That gold lead now means nothing.
Now the level 20 has been hit, has the agonims, has the wind wakers,
but as we've seen the wind wakers are not there in time to be able to protect some of these cores so far.
I think Soxa has his as well, so they do have the potential to go for the saves, but beautiful connections.
And Lornaf, Scotty number one, is picked up.
I've seen him do this so many times in games when he has played a storm for the late game scaling.
We've got a game on our hand.
If there was ever going to be any doubt earlier, we did see Yandex for what it was literally
the first 35 minutes of this game, building up a consistent and solid lead for Nigma Galaxy,
finding a way to take that almost completely away from them and now putting the game in
a point where Yandex, they are going to be much more wary about how they go about
the next few plays as we have seen it time and time again now.
Nigma Galaxy half the way is to punch back despite being as far behind as there.
They can be some time.
And let's see if Watson wants to perhaps start to switch some things with the build.
As he has Satanic ready, but maybe he does want something like these Swift Blinks so
he can get in position to be able to go for the kills so he can look for divide.
Ag's now finished up for Chirovus, so another save, ways to maybe just bait Black Hole,
kick himself out.
He has extra ways to play this.
It's absolutely leveled up though.
And Arcane Rune, also for Lauren off on top of having this Aegis, this was a storm with
almost no game.
Now at this point, 8-5-7, he is very scary at this point with the IO buff on the map.
And I mean, of course, Nick McGillis is doing numerous things this game that many of the
teams have not been able to do.
But in particular on the storm, we do not see storms recover like this.
It just never, ever happens, so for Lauren off to be able to do this really does
go to show how much of a different level Lornoff's been on throughout this tournament.
Not a lot of mids, even the best mids in the world, can recover to the extent that he has
on a hero that has proven to be so difficult to do so with.
And he's buffed up, right? GHP is going to just be sticking with him at this point,
just giving him that extra spell and damage is ridiculous now at this point.
And Watson, and now it's looking kind of enough for Watson, right?
A bit harder for him to be able to join in fights.
He buys the satanic, he's shielded up the swiftly, and now he's looking for that positioning.
Maybe waiting out that Aegis too, still got two minutes left, but so much has been gained from Nigma.
Divy, a full Shiva's now, so even bigger increase for that Black Hole.
They're gonna be terrified of him.
They have to be so aware of Divy and these fights and...
I'm seeing, I mean Watson is just switching the build up like Kraya, he's thinking which
one do I have to go for, I'm out of item slots so I have to eat the agonist, I don't want
to replace anything for the swift blink just yet.
It's woke up, I think I'm gonna have to hear another fight, be hitting the back hole,
at the ready with the sheevahs, the index.
Will they get the Wind Waker saves?
Will they be prepared for this movement?
Are they gonna fight into the agents also?
One minute and a half left on Lornaff, the scan connects.
Rocket to scout, Lornaff.
Jump, come on.
On Malady, they set up for the hookshot, get the catch and the pushback for the calls.
By a little bit of time with the Wind Waker, he will not get away from the Malady's gone.
He's gone!
And damage bottom.
Oop, Watson will have to kill that one away, so Lornaf won't get to fill up at this Aegis.
Still continuing to keep that momentum, build up more galvanized as well.
Looking for another.
Kill two shots.
Be careful with your positioning.
He'll be okay.
Lornaf didn't see him.
Much more confident to get out, split up across the map here.
Make the galaxy.
They'll get some critical mass points as well too, looking to start replacing or swapping
items out themselves too for the win-waker potentially.
See the posturing from Yandex totally changed after these last two fights.
They've got to find a way to catch the Vi, it feels like they're going to start the
fights now, right?
have some vision on him, and looks like they're gonna force him to move on to the BKB.
Okay, look at the BKB out. Look at the Fiends gate alone.
Oh, shut. That's a good angle this time, oh my, I have a deep connection on the Saksa.
And when we go out of this, Lornos ready to finish off the job, jumps over to Wards,
and Saksa pulling low to bring him down, dear.
Right on.
Pretty good with the BKB, they get the Hicks on him, was Lornos still looking at the BKB off, and zip away.
They're gonna reset, Meta was popped.
They can wait, reset, look for the fight afterwards.
Their BKB was also used on the Enigma, so maybe they will just back up and reset. They got to kill for free.
He moves.
Every time Meta gets used, they can just look to avoid him. GH also now will be able to steal away the Shrine.
They get their own Shrine.
They have the experience advantage.
First time in this game that it is starting to go their way, at least in terms of those levels as well.
And now picked up Uchiura, he has hit the OP talent, so it is there as well.
He has hit 25, the magnetized is going to start getting pretty crazy also.
They've been able to slow things down, manage things, allow Lornaf to get that scaling as
well against him.
Lornaf is killing up a hex.
That's quite like this because it can be annoying for the Aerospiric.
They can't 100-0 targets in one troll as well too.
That's a better option than the multiple scotties that he has done in the past in this game.
So impressive that they're able to do this though.
Yeah, this is quite the comeback from Nigma Galaxy.
Chira, they buy a late gem for him.
So looking like vision control is what they want to go for here.
And yeah, just finding the fight.
If they can get him at the start of the fights, that will crush...
Pretty much crush Nigma's way of taking those battles.
So I think that's going to be prime target number one for the side of Yandex.
Just are they going to be able to find him?
He's devised on a very good jump and being in a very defensive position as you see him right now.
He's just playing in the base. He has boots of travel.
He can go TP out and join his team with that.
Unlikely they can find him when he's got this.
I see how DP and Dix want to look.
Sending creep? I mean, they do have double catapult coming in the mid lane.
The scan comes out on Dix, but he's reading this move.
I'm coming in with a wraparound they're gonna see him
I'm trying to make them work for him he will hook shot over the creeps
and get jetpack away trying to see if he can get the hexpump
And Lorna's free, can't play, he ain't standing back, come on, he can block all little G-R-G-N,
he can just make him up into the air, Saksha, he'll fall, Watson's gonna attempt to stand his ground,
fight back, looks to 1 G-8, they take out the I-O, now he's first up the wall,
Lorna, he's caught by the fear, put back into the fear,
Bruteen again, Lorna of this time will fall.
Magnetize, continuing to go, Malady will die, a rocket ends up getting the kill there.
The Vi only getting the one target with the black hole. They're looking to continue to fight.
Simao's going to come back across.
Thinking about going for Watson here.
It's risky. I mean he's going to jump straight in.
It's here.
The hook's up.
It's going towards Simao.
It's down.
Bring it down.
Oh, I didn't fight again. It's Bi-Bax, but they jump in. They bring the numbers.
That's a lot of buybacks, three buybacks, but I think this is a safe one.
Everybody dead on Yandex. Time for Nickely Galaxy to push down these lanes too
but they can get the still tier twos in all lanes, so hard to get too much.
Three buybacks to win those games.
It was an expensive fight.
They get the full treeups again.
Even though it's a single hero, Blackhole causes some buybacks to get the kills.
Pressure in tier two, they're in the glyph, can't get too much more out of it.
But they're going to get some time for the Blackhole to pull back up.
60 seconds until GB comes back all three cores when they come back up black holes back at the ready
So the fight condition is absolutely there for nigma
Has the relocate cast the leg?
It doesn't have the you know the attack items in this game. He is transitioning into a core pretty hard on GH as well
The Yandex not overreacting with buybacks themselves so in this next fight
They do have this win condition with these two show my backs were used from niggas
They have to be careful how they do commit for this next fight on the side of niggas well
I'm so impressive. I love to see two male just like him. I mean this I feel like there's no other team really
That's playing the way that nigga galaxy is here at the international they do it in their own style
And it's it's hard to sort of comprehend, but it works
It really does that they've finally got the point where they have a network lead
We should send the post that could kind of be the kryptonite for them
They they kind of play best when they're behind
Two weapons now here for Nygma Galaxy.
And they secure themselves this Roche fight. 40 seconds.
Black hole. It's pretty much back up.
We started to get some more protective items. I like this from GH.
I saw him queuing up a couple of different options.
I like the A on this. Needs that extra protection because you can get full focus.
Smoke for me on next.
So here's the risky times. The risky six minutes here for Nygma Galaxy.
They lose Lorinoth.
GH or Omar, they'll be gone for pretty much two minutes.
They do I mean they really okay on top of that meeting of black hole and multiple targets in some of these scenarios
They do need Lorna for a lot of the fights. He is the damage for the team
And that's for the Roche five seconds
After rain black holes are gonna start to come up faster and faster
They're definitely gonna go.
It's risky, but that's the way that they've been playing, that's absolutely right.
That's the game of the game here for the Niko Galaxy.
So now, start to itch forward, give some information, you see Chira, all right, try
it.
We'll stop the click.
Enough to sort of force Andex to step back.
That wasn't meta used by Watson.
So that Beta, three quarters, Nigma might look for a smoke wraparound and fighting while
that Beta does go down.
Well, getting a war down.
And the boys are going to turn straight towards him.
Smell, put the BKB immediately.
We're all pulled from Cherokee, he's got his way up the water.
The BKB's there for Jakes, they're a tenth of the way.
Back to safety, Cherokee is running to Jakes.
Another magnetite, it's spreading.
Going for the Smell, Devine trying to keep his distance for now.
Low enough, turns back in.
They've got the Hicks on the Cherokee, they've got the Wim Wakers there.
He's going to find some safety against the storm.
Cherokee to try to stay his way over to Malady, but Malady leads back to safety.
Nobody to fall.
Devine struggling to enter into the fight.
He's getting zoned.
He's keeping his cool though.
Still has the BKB in the black hole ready to press.
to keep the metamorphosis going, but now that meta is going to be going down.
BKBs also were used from Nick when I believe both Aon just scored proc, so they are backing up disengaging.
They got some good words down, but I believe some of them didn't see it, and I don't get any good words here.
This is tense.
Coming up to nearly 60 minutes in this game.
It's crazy that we've gotten to this point, but Nick has been able to hear this so many times.
If you were watching the first 30 minutes of the game, you would not have expected to get to the point that we're out right now.
Okay, Smoke is up. Meta is coming back up in about 20 seconds, so I passed him off the mark that it is going to be that fast.
Still many minutes without all these buybacks.
But right, BKB on Lornoff, right? 40-second cooldown. They have to be very careful on Nygma these next few minutes.
They do not want to get caught here.
But then again, I say that, maybe they make the call to try and just put a crazy round this black hole at the buy.
It's possible.
Nigma Galaxy, they love to live on the edge. It is where they do their best.
Truly where they thrive in this tournament at least.
Words being placed out, Malady knowing information is going to be the biggest thing in this game.
See where this Nigma is.
Big Roche on 2 with that refresh rate. This is going to be a very strong one for either team if they're able to get it.
11k gold on Watts and 12k now in fact.
What does he buy? What does he sell?
save for the bots to potentially come back in the fights they can bring the
numbers how long are these buybacks looking still about three minutes left
on the big ones
well as the wind waker has extra protection for itself
we're gonna be tempting out for both teams to wait for the neutrals getting
that close. Both teams just have to be super aware of the Roche though. If Yandex gets a
quick moment of it just go in there they will be able to do it. They are going for it now.
Nygma Galax get it quick enough. They're a bit split across the map. Rocket will connect
and will force the roar. Okay, that's gonna scare Yandex enough to very likely give time
for Nygma Galax to start to close in on the Roche. Next looking for a sneaky move
here. They have a vision of the low ground here but it might give them enough to
go for the catch.
Let me get the jump.
Who wants to go in first?
Narrow.
To scout.
I was going to give some information though.
He don't see the vital.
He's inside the shadow there.
There's no jumping in.
He finds clue the area.
See what's sort of happening.
But now they're hiding out to the side.
Chirijudia found her.
They're touching with a hook shot.
Jump forward.
In for Lauren.
They're picking the Hicks follow up.
Winner Wraith is going to be there to provide some safety here for Chirijudia.
Maladies in trouble.
He's taken down by the side.
Chirijudia wants to be there.
They beat the end.
In with a fiends gate.
Force to be there.
And with the fiends cake forced to be came he's out from the galaxy to buy
He's a problem the illusion sort of beat them down in the back of time killing him off like the heels come in
The teller as well. They tried to save the money. They take him out
I
G.H.M.A. keeps up my life
Michael!
Don't be
He's dead for me!
Oh my!
We'll be able to keep this fight alive
The milk is the hope to kill and effectively the team want everybody dead
What a play!
Back at the end but nothing to be done
G.H.
What a bailout.
With the save, keeping Defiant alive and allowing him
to once again find these black holes
to win the fight for Nikolai Galaxy.
These connections are insane.
The way that they're protecting each other,
he's so patient too.
You see Defiant dropped to what?
5% HP didn't use the BKB, somehow holds it.
He believed in GH.
A good guy to believe in.
He was right to do so.
GH, I mean, his IO.
Oh, it's a male getting the ultra.
Look at this.
Look at how low he was.
Was that Lorna jumping in and giving him a healing one?
I think it must have been.
I think it was.
Lorna felt that.
And look at this play.
Perfect connection.
Multiple core BKB black hole.
Beautiful, I think, but it's just clutching it up.
This is great.
Good guy.
Barely breaking a sweat there in the booth.
Cool.
He's making this.
You know, if I used you guy that has big reaction, he is cool as a cucumber today.
He's like, wait, you've not even seen my best yet.
You know, he's got more to come in this game.
60 minutes has been hit, Brax has exposed Big Bud.
They're gonna be able to get their own trade of Brax now.
Harold will connect.
No follow-up, of course. No other heroes alive.
Brax for sure.
We have the melee.
They're buybacks, they're all back up again.
These buybacks have absolutely worked out for Enigma, being able to keep this game going
to this point where they're getting these connections.
And now again, Black holds back up for 12 seconds as soon as Yannix's heroes respawn.
You can see Yannix, they're trying to find the ways and they're trying to get this
either to kill onto the Enigma, trying to get him the force of BKB and reset,
but just patience to survive.
Somehow, some way, he always finds them.
Beautiful point, honestly. It's insane to see that they're able to do this in this type of game.
In this type of pressure...
At some point, as we said, it was a 20k deficit from them, and still able to take these fights.
Alright, the Faubles, they're gonna start coming together, right?
Lord of, he's got the Fauble!
So his is buffed up, that's your 5 Fauble with the Timeless.
This damage is gonna get pretty insane from him, any other big ones.
You're not even going to make him the Trilosid yet.
The Viabi down, you can actually kind of, you can kind of pump fate with the Minotaur horn as well to have that extra protection for the Black Bull.
So sure, you don't have a fresher anymore, if a double B could be Black Bull, but you do have this little extra tier 5 item.
Book the dead for GH.
Oh, now hitting that level 25 in comparison to Yandex.
Having clear a ways to go for these wins and for Yandex, the fights are looking quite a bit more difficult than how they have to approach them, even though they have this magnetized spreading onto everybody.
They just can't deal with the threat of this BKB Black Hole.
Apparently not. Apparently not.
This is still the second half of the final quarter of the game that we've seen so far.
This looks to be Nigma Galaxy on another level.
When it comes to these late game maneuvers, Yandex looking a little bit lost with some of these plays.
He's so ready for these counter moves.
Somehow. Find a way to not get tripped up in the fashion that they have been by-to-by the last few fights.
It's hard too for these supports that I've seen from Yandex trying to go for these Wind Waker plays onto their course,
because the fights are so deep, they're so spread out. Even though you've got a blink on the good wing to go for these saves,
you've got double leap on the Marana who now also had a blinker for a second,
they're not able to get into Wind Waker's save. Over and over again, either they're dying at the start of the fights,
or it's just too far for them to get to some of these cores, so they are having that difficulty.
Lornoff scaling.
It's been fantastic in this game, same thing for Sumail.
Maybe not with the most traditional looking scale in draft, but you're absolutely seeing
the power of it.
And level 30, Lornoff is about to get all these big ones, and some of these heroes
have some pretty insane ones.
Even the Io at some point, sure as you said, not building toward damage, but all
all these things will come into favor as you do get all this together.
And X, the next pickup, I'm actually shocked it took this long, I was going to mention this earlier,
but he's now going back for the proudest crochet.
I thought there's going to be a big pickup for them in the mid game,
but it still can have a big effect on this game at this point.
Can eat some of these giant heels that come out from the IO,
or even from the Necro as we've seen all these little things have been mattering for Nigma.
And X.
Dying to slowly get the confidence to get back on the aggressive here, stepping onto
Nygma Galaxy's side of the map.
They still need a way to just find this enigma and then Blink checks him or Blink control
him and burst him in one shot.
It just hasn't been the case now for the 25 minutes or so.
He's been able to sit back and get these holes open.
Jump, Watson!
Jump onto him!
Ah, he reburbed!
Lookin' harder and harder for Watson.
It's just him versus the world and they have so many ways to stop them. That's a Reaper from full HP
They are confident they have the follow-up
100 seconds
Do what they want here, Nick McAllister, at least bring the other waves in
So that was in a bag and five as well too. He's gonna almost be able to do it alone
versus Watson in some of these situations. He's tethered up
The burst damage is absurd
Off to the site, they found Satcher in the trees. Another one
Ready to finish him off there with the help of the fight and some mail
This is just so impressive from them
60 seconds not having to use the black hole for these kills means they've got it at the ready for the move
And he's got the refresher to some multiple sense
I mean one of the buybacks was he jumping into the backstitch
I mean he's he's so calm. He's not afraid of anything right now
He knows how much backup there is from the rest of his team
And how much shun decks and they're starting to really fall apart
It's really impressive to see that the but he's done this so many times in this game
I'm just looking forward to giving so much information when they're in there get a hex on the board
Or not
for them into the roll he'll be able to survive from this time gets away from
Voronoff.
Voronoff slowly getting a little bit of a matter back
Shirojini is actually backing on top of it.
Hansen with the stun and the silence amount comes out of that side.
Another save comes in. Shirojini is going to be fine.
Love a fight down on the surveil.
Yandex they'll punch back here this time round against Nigma Galaxy.
Cost them a buyback on DM but it will push them back.
He's stuck around a bit too long there DM using the buyback Watson having the time to build the respawn to buy jumping in for the black hole this time but gets punished immediately afterwards.
Has to be careful how he does use these.
Seeing of course just how much the Wim Waker pickups can do from Saxa and Malady here to just bail Churijunia out of numerous situations.
Feels like one of the first times they've actually been able to use it though, right?
They've been having so much difficulty just getting in position to be able to assist their buddies.
You see, if Watson's actually able to attack, his damage is still ridiculous.
It's just been multiple, despite he hasn't been able to, and Soxa gets stoned.
He's shooting to the raw port, get the science onto the BKBs, come out from the two of them, back up with DM Malady, and now Watson moving into the side, going up.
Going up, gets reloaded out.
I'm going to take him out of here.
Smart reload.
I do not feel confident to be able to try and force for anything more there.
Yeah, they couldn't prevent GH from getting that bring out. They couldn't break the tether.
So much money almost.
He just doesn't have slots.
He's got to get the moonshot, right? Still hasn't got that yet.
Nope, not yet.
He's just probably thinking how he wants to replace it, what he wants to do with it.
What does he change?
I don't know if he can rely on DM to be that nullifier for him.
Is that you needed it feels like?
Yeah, I feel like maybe you're sliding out the Hydra's breath.
Perhaps, right?
But it feels like another fire.
I don't know.
It's hard to say what he wants to really do
and which one he wants to replace here at this point.
Multiple crawlers being queued up.
Chira also looking for that option.
Continue to deliver 60 seconds.
There's no telling how this one's going to go.
The potential for much further is absolutely there.
But only one hero, right?
Only one does have that bubble if I'm not mistaken, right?
So it is this, and this Thor's Perk is gonna continue to get that scaling every single time he does upgrade it.
Which is good news for Nick McGatley.
It is.
He's been throwing up in pretty much the private source of damage.
And he almost has the blue hole as well.
So on top of the black hole, they have to have that secondary throw.
Which is gonna be pretty nice off the PKBs, running down kind of the lower duration at this stage.
Michael, smoke here.
That pull also, Owen.
This agonim's pull with the bobble, when he gets enough bobble, it lasts a very long time.
It can end up lasting 6 seconds or so if he gets the next bobble as well.
Tense moments.
DM, of course, using that buyback in the last fight.
He is very important for the team.
Both him and Saks are gonna have those four minutes of cooldown on those buybacks
Everyone else pretty much having theirs Nick McGalaxy completely clean on the buybacks
Anything else the Vi is looking for in this game
He's pretty much hitting critical mass himself most of these heroes are arcane blinkers got the bots to I mean the vibe wants to join
The fight very late right he might even just be playing shadowbladed hidden in the map
They're just bots to into the fight on top of a core
So he doesn't get caught because he wants to be nowhere near this terrible in our spirit until the fight kicks off
Can't get caught first on this big country.
Super tense moments bro, next 30 seconds or so.
Well, that's a good one.
They still have that refresh of charge.
They're in the buyback shot.
That's very true.
I didn't know that.
Nullifier, GH even having one for himself here.
These Aeon discs now at this point, at least for the supports, the Wind Waker
as well.
It's not going to be the save this time.
That's true and even with a swim Laker
There's no one else had it right? Yeah, he's the only one
It's a little awkward for an aisle to go ahead and do it sometimes, but he's gonna take you easy
Yeah, he doesn't he doesn't die immediately in these fights
I mean on the last few ones he doesn't die easily at all
So GH will get to press these buttons
Oh, well, I accept another fire very likely Omar now with the agonies with that level 25 town also some good scouting
But these triple rockets does see a lot of Yandex in the area power ruin
It'll be a shield for it will sector
Roche gonna start shifting and next immediately starting to pivot toward it.
There's that blue hole, Storm now having it at the ready.
One of the most Storms I think you'll see in some time here, almost 50,000 Networkers
who hookshot.
They're gonna pick up.
Man, that's the cell section.
It's a dieback.
120 seconds then he won't be there.
Another jump, Lornaff, looking for more.
The Sox has been so important for the team for the stunts. It's been a bit of a slower one for them in the second half of this game, but a hundred seconds without a B-Bord of their AoE stunts.
I'm watching you, I'm watching you in the afternoon of the Galaxy. You're running down the lane, are you looking to take the roast shot?
They can look for another kill. If they do so in a position, you have great ways that you're shoving these lanes.
And bottom has Eidolon's pushing in. You have hook at the dense as well as shoving. Eidolon's shoving mid as well.
They have triple lane momentum pushing out, so they could even threaten roast perhaps here with this kill.
if they do want to go for that here with all these lanes pushing they're gonna
start it I'm gonna do a pretty decent damage because excellent sustain now just
at this point with how how's fun everybody is pretty much in this game
I mean we're out here 71 everyone in every woman is there everybody's big
another bubble there it is for Lord off 80% bonus on that timeless can they
We can test this 4 vs 5, but they want to try.
Team's risky!
They'll get information.
They don't want to keep this one away.
Can they find the Vi?
Is the Vi going to get a massive black hole to put the pitch on?
They're absolutely there.
This is terrifying for the boys.
Oh, it's a double arrow!
Alright.
That's pretty nice.
I don't really see double arrow hit corners like this.
Just follow it.
The Vi.
Vi's in.
Next.
I don't think we're going to get the Hats for the Churros.
There's everyone there.
Time to bail them out.
That's the win-win for one small.
to get him up in the air and get shot from the BKB
he'll try and roll over towards T8 but he's falling low
wants to cover it from the side
Tera Junior has to roll up to save T9
BKB coming to an end
no one's going to get picked off outside of the pitch
space is there
no one's going to finish the road
Shandex actually ended up getting the kill themselves
Shandex with low enough got the pick up
he picks up the cheese
picks up the A to see on the stop
makes him jump straight up into Malady
side cuts in
they'll take Malady out
Rolls up to Tera Junior
still wants to try and go for this
Time for the two!
Again, Davai catching the two of the big cores, catches Watson, catches Jiro Jr. as both will form.
The end goes for the big MVP, he'll get out of there.
Davai, time and time again.
Every time, he's got the patience, he waits for the perfect moments, and he's always
fighting at least two cores minimum with these black holes.
He's just getting so much information from his cores, the storm, jumping in, zips
Wrapping all over the Neckrow as well. Look at the damage we divide pity inside this. I solo killed Johnson
Yeah, and they could buy back if they want but he's still got this refresher shot. We can go for a second one here
the bike
Or not also picked up at three fall of the rest of the stuff from the rush right the ages
The cheese the refresher shard. He does pop the refresher immediately
But I'm ready to go again push on both fronts top lane also dying to the books with that
to mail open the aon disc
They're just hitting the buildings at this point. Harold dies again.
30 seconds.
Two of them are up.
They're going to use the highbacks on the two of them.
They can do it wrong.
Four of them were G8.
Devine's going to be looking for that perfect opportunity.
They're going to back off for now, Nigma Galaxy.
There's the jumpback in Devine.
He's going to catch only DM.
Is it enough? It's not.
He has to hold back for the stops of Black Hole and back off.
He'll lower it off.
Core fighter, there's mass silence here.
It's sex-tupled silence, desire.
He'll somehow still be able to TP out there, G8.
Sure, Junior.
I'm going to have to hold in some position, pull, pull it up, pull it up, look at him get on top of Watson, Watson's damage down, he's going to be dead bees, he's going to get the sub-hunter, he's up back on the half HP, lower off, lower on the batter, he's going to fight up around the sliders, but he's surviving through it, he's going to fall, but the damage is done to bring Sarah Jr. on Watson.
He's got it back off now, BiBat's coming in for Nick McGalaxy, both Lauren off in Somal ready to return to the fight and the push.
And that's used so much of their tank that they must still have.
And no, it's not enough.
What's in the other side?
They're gonna tap on the side with the X.
That's about calling home for the kick of the line.
It's about going!
Who's dead?
He's dead!
But what the hell is wrong?
It's over, it's over, it's over!
What's the BKB?
Sheba's gotta slow them down, but the Hanks is there!
The end zone!
It's over!
EG is called!
Big Bang Galaxy!
My goodness!
They take game one!
What an unbelievable recovery in this game.
20-22 cake holding, I can't remember, but the clutch factor, Divy, gets the monkey here on Black Hole when they needed to.
We said at the start of the first 30 minutes, it's gotta be Divy. It's gotta be Divy, and my goodness, was it Divy.
He delivered time and time and time again with these Black Holes, and it was just too much for Yandex.
That was an unbelievable comeback from them. Just having the confidence to be able to still play around it
They've been right the threat of the BKB black hole. Sure
They've got wind wakers, but the saves they just weren't there in multiple situations and the big comeback really around that triangle
When he gets the double black hole at that 20k, they just start to swing things come on
They better get the Roshan's get Lauren off in order. What a recovery
They're on another level with how they play with their type of strategy right now
Yeah, a team that you don't want to be ahead of you don't want to be behind an enigma galaxy find some sort of way
To close up these games and yandex
I think they're gonna be a little lost for words after that one
It's gonna be interesting how they come back after that game one what a performance
Nick by galaxy opening up the series with an absolutely incredible victory
The beauty of an enigma right there the fact that at any point
It doesn't matter what network lead your opponent has. You can always get a black hole that will
change the game, that will turn the tides into your favor, divide carried in the way that everyone
needed him to if you're a enigma fan out there. And, senior, I just can't believe what we were
able to see the time and time again, a two man, a three man black hole, and it's cause being
caught in it too. It's the best feeling in the world when you're an enigma player. You
You know like you play this hero so many hours in pubs nothing will ever top this this is for divide
I promise you if they win this year's TI this moment will be what he ties it to because what an amazing showing he had and
You know you always dream of getting to play these games where you don't have to buy these lame boring
How a dominated to drums fight whatever items you just want to buy BKB blink you got to go aghs
Shiba's get to give you a black hole and just carry the game with it. It was honestly such a treat to watch
I'm so happy we got this. It was amazing. No, it's it's astounding like nigma galaxy is one game away
From top three at the international let that sink in for a second. Think about where they were
One two three four any number of months ago. They didn't even have this roster two months ago. Holy crap
I really think
It's so cool that now at this gi every single player on nigma galaxy has clutched a game and has been the
reason that they won that game. Yesterday we had it with the supports in GH and Oma.
They were the reason they were winning that game. We'd have Lorna clutch so many games,
Sumel clutch so many games. Now Debye Lama got the last pick in Igma and he absolutely
delivered. This was his magnum opus. This is the kind of game he's going to brag to
his daughter about. He talked about it in an interview. 10 years ago he's like,
by the way, let's talk to my TI 2026 game on Igma.
I mean this is the thing that yeah, legacies are built on not just players but also lineages as well
I mean divide is such a beautiful show
Of course, it is a bit of a head scratcher for Yandex considering how well that early game went for themselves
But the threat of the black hole the punishment of a black hole will always bloom and it goes back to what you said quit
Until there is those words this green letters spelling out victory
You've never gonna win against an enigma. You're never going to win against an
Iowa lineup, which was the big question mark when it was picked up as a first
pick in the straw. Yeah, it looked like they had great answers for it through the
entire game, but they just couldn't close it out. They were dominating. They
were honestly batting them around like a cat playing with his food. It didn't
like it even feel like it was particularly close for a large degree.
And then suddenly one fight, two fight, and you start to like feel the
doubt creep in that maybe this game is not over anymore. You see some else
face and it's how we all felt at home. It was, I don't know, this is a, it's a crazy
game and I think what Mira said and the cast as well, how do you recover from a loss like
this? Because this is like, it's the opposite of what they had the other day against Liquid
where they come back from a game, they win the game and then they get the moment snowballed
the next one. Now you've had a game that was totally under control and it slipped
through your fingers and now you're left like, what the heck do we do with this?
Yeah, this is make or break. It's our confidence killer. And I mean, if Yandex are
gonna make top three they're gonna have to be able to clutch it out so if they
don't have the confidence to recover from this then this isn't the stage for
them I feel like it's a team of their caliber honestly they will they will find
their footing back in game two I think yeah at the end of the day you're just
gonna talk to stuff that we messed up some teamfights and that's all that
happened we don't even think about it too much more than that but honestly
of the YLMA obviously the MVP of this game but I have to say Sumail at TI he
He has this killer instinct that I don't really see from any other carry player.
Like this moment on the top wave where he travels in, jumps in, kills Earth Spirit and
just dies is just like at the end of being like sets up low enough for all this team
fighting stuff.
And he enables his teammates so much by having this killer instinct.
And I love to see it.
It's my favorite thing about watching Sunil.
Yeah.
It's the second time he's bought a blink on Nacrophos as well.
He just blinks in.
And also the way he uses site, he's not waiting until people are at the last
sliver of HP.
He's like full HP, has confidence in his team to deliver the damage.
Blinks inside full HP and it's gone.
Like it's, I don't know, he's clearly very good at this hero
can push the limits super well.
And I totally agree.
Some people just have it and this guy has always just had it
and it's taken him a while to find the get back on a team
that also has it and now they can have it together.
I think that speaks to his understanding
to have Storm Spirit as a hero.
To get Storm Spirit's excellent jump
to get Enigma's very good jump,
you need a hero to just blink it in Coscast.
You need someone who's willing to sacrifice their body
to create the situations to set up for multiple men's black holes,
to set up for those electric vortexes with Magnum Scepter.
He understands that, and that's why he was able to do that for his team.
Method to the madness that is Nygma Galaxy, but on the flip side, Yandex.
They were very methodical in their early game.
They knew exactly how they wanted to play lanes out of it,
and everything was going perfectly for themselves until those moments.
But we want to wind it back a little bit.
We want to have a look at all those perfect moments for Yandex,
and the person to bring us that and break it down for us is Perch.
Thank you. Now, yeah, a long time ago in the game.
But if you remember what happened in the ladies' stage,
it went a little bit better for you, and that's for sure.
They started the game off with a nice 91 score here.
And that meant that Nigma Galaxy had to wait
until their grieves finished on Stormsir
to give him the confidence to fight.
Because before that, all he had to get hit by
was one silence from the Earth Spirit,
and he was going to be chain stunned and killed.
So finally, they took this fight at the 16-minute mark.
But there was another crucial thing
that kind of lined up at the exact same time.
The time that their grieves is ready,
spirit vessel is ready to go on earth spirit which means that now their
necrophos plus our isle and the safe lane is likely gonna have a bad time
here's that grieves gonna pay off here on loranoff up here so you get silence
instantly removes it and that gives him with the black hole the ability to get
a kill so good things and bad things for nigma because the the spirit
vessel was a big terror here here's Sumail getting exploded by it he's
supposed to be getting heals from any kills he gets he's supposed to be
getting heals from the isle neither of these is given a much here as a
result he ends up dying quite a few times in this early phase of the game. Another black hole here
ends up getting interrupted early by the impending arrow and they actually take a pretty good fight
here despite things not looking the best but that's because the Earth Spirit wasn't able to be at
this fight this easy kill that should have came onto the necrophos just wasn't there because
the vessel that was rampaging them which just wasn't an option but I just want to take a look
at the kill score really quick it was 17 to 5 at some point in this game you would think
I think that would be completely one-sided, but the reality was that Nigma did a really good job
zoning enemies. Omar here is going to break the smoke, this gank attempt, and in the meantime,
every single other member of their team was hitting creeps. They know that their fighting isn't as good in their early game,
but they knew that in the late game it was going to be better. But one more thing that I wanted to show you guys,
the pick offs from the annex through this really cool observer ward, spotted the necrophos moving over.
They had to continue getting kills, or this farming playstyle of Nigma and Galaxy was going to get out of control.
It did eventually, but they had a great early in with the time of kills. It just wasn't enough
Thank you for the massive props to yandex as well
They're the things that we're hoping they're focusing on what they do look towards a game number two knowing that everything they did right was
Sorry that they did early on was right and that yes at the end of the day
Sometimes you just get lack old and you say all right. It's a ti stage
They gave the fans what they wanted, but it's time for us to call this best of three back
Be a little more aware of it as well because there's always that question a black hole will always exist
That's in the toolkit of of an enigma and so how do you combat that maybe slightly better positioning?
But that's the question I'm posing to you guys to if we were to run back this draft again
How often are we going to be seeing these black holes connect the way they did if you know?
Yeah, Nick's is just that slap it more mindful. I mean, I think the biggest counter to enigma is not a counter
It's not an actual counter to black hole. It's not something that cancels it's awareness
It's a consciousness of where he might be and where everyone else is standing because to be honest
I think the TI stage got them a little bit in this game
They're clumping in ways that are very very silly and he's getting big black holes because of it
I mean this one he's just way too deep
but I think in a lot of instances cheer junior and
Watson are just standing very near each other and you just that just can't be happening
You have to understand that this fight is hinged around this one spell and you position for it
And I really think it is the tier pressure that just gets to you you lose yourself a little bit
You're trying to continue magnetized and suddenly you're both black hole in your bed
At this black hole to me was the big game changer like the one where it's CJ overextended and got black hole
That's fine. It's fine to trade your spirit for a one-man black hole
You were still doing great
But this one here is where enigma galaxy felt like the game could be theirs a few minutes later
They turned it to another one
But you can't give up your lead in a way on these heroes because while you mentioned awareness is very important
It's just the nature of Yandex's heroes like our spirit plays in the middle of the fight
It's how he is terrible late in order to do damage
He needs to enter the fight as well
They're gonna naturally end up close to each other sometimes in this fight like Watson played the outskirts
He was waiting for his moment to come in you can't just wait around forever and right here
Lauren off Lauren off comes in and gives the buy his greater healing lotus or whatever
Let's get the IO relocate saved him
But it was actually his storm spirit who saved him first if Lauren off wasn't like
aware in that moment. I think JH would have been one second too late.
I mean that's just, I mean honestly, like look at the coordination in this fight and
all the things that have to go right for Nygma to win that teamfight there and
what a beautiful okay we get there from the liars at the end of it.
Yeah, I know what's needed. That was pretty good for Volos.
No, but I think if you run this draft like literally they play the same draft
10 more times, I think Yandex probably wins lying out at 10 times.
Yeah.
After I was looking for, I was gonna see if Aiden was gonna give my son
I know that 10, and 8 out of 10 times we ran it back.
I mean, to be optimistic towards Yandex, they skill-checked Nigma very hard in the leading
stage.
Mid lane got crushed.
Side lanes got crushed.
Soxa was everywhere.
Soxa was cooking so hard on this hoodwing, getting the first blood on the necrophos,
running mid.
He was the primary mover for Yandex in terms of starting the tempo on this noble.
And Soxa is a player who, while he is playing with a lot of younger, more inexperienced
players, he's been in these positions before.
lost games that should have been one. He's the player that I would look to for
index to regroup and re-centred on for game two. I fully agree. You've got you've
got a roster that's clearly capable. You won tournaments throughout this year.
You've gotten a lot of podium finishes. You've been there at the top of the
level and you know, Sox has done it all before. He's won the TI. So you I don't
know. I think you just have to just be chill and it's easier said than done
right. I've been in situations. I've been in situations with Malady and Watson
and it's not that easy to regroup after these games but they've done it
before. They've had the experience and I think they will be capable of doing it. They know
they won this game and it just, it just slipped away from them at the end.
A TI winning team has to be resilient. It's just part of what, you know, you have to go
through to get there in the end. And I think this is a time for them to show that they are.
Was, um, was there any like special, I don't want to say like a trick, but was there anything
that you did, Quinn, or you felt that the team did when you were with Watson and Malady
that was very easy to be able to get them to reset? Like, was it a certain thing
that needed to be said. Was it a certain viewpoint to be shed? And they were very easily switched to,
hey, you're kind of right. I think a lot of the talking that has to go down is sort of,
you have to accept a little bit what went wrong, but you don't want to harp too much on this.
There's a fine balance there of this is kind of bad and we messed this up, but it's okay.
You don't want it to be from a super negative lens if we suck and being at Debbie Downer,
because that's not the time or the place for that. It's not the time to fix problems.
This is the time to like accept what went wrong and now move on to the future. Okay, we did this. It's okay
We don't actually really need to change anything. Let's keep our mental stable and solid and just talk things through and refocus on ourselves
Not get sucked too much into I need to do more to fix the problems, but everything was fine
It's all fine these things just happen. I absolutely agree and I think one of the key things you said there is
Sometimes I think you can get hung up on the last game
And you start talking about like what happened in the game and what we should have done different
But next game is different. Dota always starts over from 0-0.
Even though you're one game down, it's technically nothing changed.
You're starting from scratch, nothing from last game should affect your next game.
And even though you might have messed up your positioning in this game,
it doesn't mean that you're going to do it in the next game.
So I feel like the faster they can reset, the faster they can leave that game behind them
and just go into the game thinking, it's 0-0, we're playing match one,
let's destroy them the better.
Yeah, I think it's right on the nose.
And I think they have the capability to do it.
And we talk about Sox a lot, but I think when you have this guy on your team,
it just puts so much belief and so much faith into you because this guy is just a beast.
And he, I think they're players like this that don't talk a lot, but when they do talk, you listen.
I know Xi was like that when I played with him for a little bit.
And I think Sox is like that.
He's not someone who talks all the time.
He's not a yapper or some goober guy.
But I think after a game like that, he says, yo, guys, it's fine.
I messed up.
I'm sure you accept some blame.
And you're like, yeah, it's fine.
This goat said it's fine.
Yeah, I also do remember from the Tundra Vlog after they won TI.
I think there was a similar moment where he just tells them, like,
guys, it's all good, we're gonna destroy them.
So he has done it before.
He is that motivational speaker when it comes to the side of the index.
He's been varying different positions when it comes to TI.
Like, make me galactic with one game off.
The question is also opposed to them.
How did they feel coming into a Game 2?
Because whilst there was a massive nail-batter towards the end
you walk away victorious. You're also sitting there with that little reminder in the back of your head.
We almost got stomped. We almost had no game one for ourselves. Yeah, you never want to play for the
the enigma turnaround. We're going to get stomped and then we're going to claw our way back. That's
that's never the game plan. And I think for them, they're going to look towards their lanes.
While this room looked amazing towards the end of the game, I think Earth Spirit just played
for free for the first 25 minutes. And that's because they picked storm into it. Earth Spirit
naturally counters the hero, especially with people maxing Geo-Grip by Rebel Klamino.
I don't think we'll see something like that be replicated. Lorenaf is going to respect whatever
heroes CJ hosts. Yeah, I do think in reference to the draft though, Nigma has got some sort of,
they've got something going that's like good for them. I think not a lot of teams
would necessarily like the heroes they have, but it's this nice mix of aggression,
while also these big teamfight scaling. Because to be honest, I think Nigma is not
quite a clean enough team to just play a draft that tries to full stomp you. I think they want some aggression in their heroes,
but they also want the scaling in the teamfight. I think they're getting that a lot from Sumel's necrophos.
Obviously, there's some in the enigma as well.
But I think having heroes that can just run in and be tanky is a big part of why this teamfighting for them is possible.
It's because they have heroes that can just front line and that makes
late game execution so much easier. Having a hero that is fine getting all gone on because if you have to play like
ninjas hiding in the shadows and no one can get jumped the game is very hard.
And I think that's the problem they kind of did have for the first portion of the game
You know, they're supposed to have this impossible wall to break and the wisp and the the Necro, but cheer out with us
I'm liking hard on the name of the item spirit vessel absolutely counter that so I think I mean if I'm Yandex
I'm going to this next draft. I'm thinking like our draft was good. We can beat I don't think it's like
This was some impossible game for them at all
So this is always an interesting position to be in because I remember we used to say on like what a lot that we did
Not like losing to the same draft twice
You know like losing to the same concept twice and the question here is are they gonna be willing to give them IO once more or
Do they feel like this is the only way that Nick look in women and we don't want to give them the best heroes
And we want to mix it up for that reason. I do hope that the takeaway isn't we lost to IO
but rather we lost to black hole and then I
I don't want them to change too much and overcorrect because if they're banning IO
They don't have the potential to take it to themselves as well
You could find reassurance in what Axel said from the coaches interview as he less left that booth right the information
That tsunami was able to get out of them is there a team that doesn't overthink the graph
There was a potential for an IO flex
There was a potential for so many different things to come out when we saw them let through what Noah the team was
is willing to do it against
Dema Galaxy. And I love that.
It means he's such a straight
shooter. He's able to calm the
boys down a little bit in some
way, shape or form as well. And
when we do get into that game
to draft, it is going to be a
blank slate and it is going to be
very straightforward. They don't
want to over complicate anything
by too much. And he also has
massive confidence. He said TV
is a Watson hero. It is his
not getting to hear as much from Axl, but just the small amount that he's able to give
us gives me confidence that a game two is going to be probably even better for Yannex
somehow.
Yeah, I totally agree.
And it's also going to be very different because the sides will be most likely have
flipped.
Yannex will be first tick while they were second pick last game.
And so there is no possibility that even gets I owe this game.
If anything, Yannex gets it or it's banned.
And so the shoe is on the other foot.
It's up the negative side.
We want to play against this monster of a hero that we see winning so many games
right now.
Same thing with the bounty hunter, another hero that Yannex had to ban.
the game. It's a new game
that's a new game. It's a new
game that's a new game that
they now most likely will not
have to besides have flicked.
And so not only is it a new
game and that it's zero zero.
It's a new game. The draft
order is different, which
changes everything. And it's
something that is also funny
about losing a game one and
that it won't even be the same
problems you're facing as it
was last game. Yeah, there
there's all those elements
added to it there. And I
just love that we're
getting some of these deaths
as well from what happened in
Game of one. I love just
knowing how long the game went
different takeaways can be when you see a game play out the way that it did.
That's the fun and the joy of Dota is that no one's wrong when it comes to that was an issue.
You can all be correct, but which is the one that you want to tackle right now in a best of three?
I honestly don't know.
Like, hard games have no conclusions from because like so much of your game went according to game plan.
Like, I don't think I could look at the index and be like, oh, this guy wasn't performing or something like that.
So yeah, we just have to see.
As tough as game one was, they're all going to have to buckle up and be ready for game number two.
Team Yandex versus Nygma Galaxy. Game two.
What you were alluding to, Quinn, is correct. It is going to be Yandex with the first pick here.
So that order has changed up. If an IO is left into the pool,
It's very easy for Yandex to be able to take it for themselves and again
We've already spoken about it. They were comfortable running it mid yesterday
They were comfortable running it for yesterday and of course as well. We've just seen it's still very very very viable in this
Yeah, it most certainly is and I'm super curious to see if they make gives it or not
They are sort of the aisle masters. They are one of the first teams. Yeah, okay there it is
So they think the heroes do good. They respect it as much as everybody else does
I think this if we get to see a game 3 and our drafts are also so interesting the progression of that
I'd be very curious, but let's not get ahead of ourselves
I think the necropos ban is also very very good this heroes been instrumental in a lot of things those wins with the nature's profit
Band as well
That's a lot of the heroes that have been super key for nigma
And so they're gonna have to go to something different because it's not a draft. It's gonna be the same
I mean Earth Spirit is
Still left in the pool. I do think that Earth Spirit gave them a lot in that game one
and I think CJ did deliver in the early game.
He's had some performances on EarthSpirit
where I felt that he wasn't as comfortable as others.
We've seen like no one or Anisha,
but in that game one, he popped up.
I really hope he doesn't lose confidence in it.
And his vibrant victory tells me
does kind of feel that he lost confidence in it.
This is a really interesting position.
I actually don't know if Lornoff even wants to play EarthSpirit.
He does not.
It's not the end game carry, right?
And he wants to be the scaling guy.
Yeah, well, I totally agree, Mira, that I think the Earth...
I think CJ played a great game, early game.
I do think you could see the lack of comfortable on the hero as more time passes.
When you get to the late game, some of the item decisions are a little bit off.
Some of the teamfights letting magnetized slip and not continue either on himself or other people.
The positioning, just little tiny things that felt like he was a little bit uncomfortable only here
compared to some of his others. And I think there's a reason they skip on, right?
I think he's like I'd rather not and it seems like hey fair enough
We've gotten this far without playing the hero as they've skipped it a lot before this series and
Nigma also doesn't like it. So I I think Walt the same time. It's maybe a little cowardly
I can also respect it
It makes sense for them
I feel like and I'm really curious to see because Nigma like you said a lot of the heroes that we've seen them went on in
This main stage of TI are banned out. There is no Necro. There is no nation's prophet
No, wisp no bounty they looked for those heroes in previous days in order to get to this point
So I feel like we're gonna see something fresh from Nigma and I'm really excited for it
You know, it's really funny about this Wyvern is when I when I look at Wyvern
I think I read is an anti-lendred hero, but it's not a hero that I associate with Nigma
Nor do I think they play particularly well. So to me, it's just we have a winter Wyvern
They cannot in Nigma's at any point ever. Okay, we have a BKB person disabled. We've secured a strong laner. We've secured teamfight
This is not happening to us
Yeah, that's uh, the BKB Blackwell is definitely off the table.
I think it's also, it's funny that both teams just pick their fives.
I think that's actually quite a rare thing in drafting.
Um, oftentimes cores are the more defining hero in drafts
and they are the ones that enable your supports.
So you pick some strong dude who does a certain thing really well
and that lets you know, okay, we want follow-up damage in our supports.
We want a guy who starts fights
and I think cores tend to be the heroes that let supports pick the way they want to.
Whereas when you pick two supports like this, it doesn't actually define that much.
Yeah, I mean it's an interesting way to approach the draft because I usually like to think of first pick as you're trying to create this like
Unbeatable draft or second pick is trying to respond to yeah, that's actually really funny
Do they pick Wyvern and they ban Enigma? Divy a little terrified though
Like this isn't trauma. I don't know what it is. I will also tell you that Watson hates this hero
Oh yeah?
Before this year's yes, he every single time he gets the last day's ban Enigma
It doesn't matter if he's playing 4 jarocopters. He wants the ban Enigma so bad
it's interesting it's interesting obviously like any when that game kind of
became like their doom and I think another hero that can accomplish similar
goals is doom which is you know eventually he gets so strong he has this
big a we disable that doesn't let you play the game and there isn't really
much you can do about it I don't know if I've seen the violin play it but it's
a hero that I feel like was really effective in the previous series and
here that I think personally is extremely strong as it puts that ticking
time bomb on you that's a great point but I don't like it as a concept
just based on Halloween's fun in Game 1.
That's fair.
Like, they got completely demolished on lanes,
and I think Doom does not provide that game-changing moment
the same way that Enigma does to justify losing lanes.
That's fair.
I, uh, on the topic of Divy, I think the casters mentioned
the moment where normally you see him, like, freaking out
every time he gets a kill with some big fight.
Divy, like, slams the desk, and the fact that he was very chill
after that big black hole just does the OK sign,
I think also shows his progression as a player
that he's not super emotional anymore. He's more like even keeled and calm and chill, which I think is really important in TI.
It's very easy to get sucked into those emotions, but staying calm and focused on the game and not getting sucked into this other stuff.
At the end of the day, what matters is the screen in front of you.
There may be all this cool stuff around you, and that's what makes it awesome and special.
But what matters to you personally is the screen.
Yeah, it's always felt like she's from the type of person to keep an even temper,
Which is kind of rare for players who haven't experienced as many TI's as veteran players like no one for example.
This Largo is interesting because I feel like Nigma is in general even like, they're dating back to TI 7 Liquid.
They like to play a heavy sustained drafts and they like to play drafts where like, they can group up and play together.
And Largo is one of the best heroes to enable that kind of style.
So I feel like this ties back into like, similar concepts that we saw in the previous games where they're trying to build this unbreakable wall.
But there's a lot of burst heroes left for Yandex like Lina and Asap but they love to play which are pretty good against Largo
Yeah, absolutely. I mean that's I just think it's like if it's the concept that they want to go with
And Kaz is also a burst hero. It is the melee version that makes sense for a lane with Hunter Wyvern
Yeah, it's a solid pairing
I imagine the lane is pretty good against Largo and the tempo is high
I think those are two of the best things against Largo because the hero is quite farming
It's quite slow. In some ways it's sort of a carry hero from the off lane
Even though he's a healer, so much of it is about getting those item timings.
And if you're going to win the lane, and Kez is going to play faster than a lot of carries compared to Shadowfiend or heroes like that, Turrets.
I think it fits thematically, and Watson is very, very comfortable on the hero.
Rubik's kind of interesting, because I don't really see anything in particular that you want to pick it against.
Yeah.
There's like usually you want to pick it either as a you know
You see some spells that you want to steal or you have this lane matchup
That's really good for him or you want to prevent some sort of on the Lord pick coming out because he's very effective against other Lord
But we already see Largo from Nigma. So it makes me think like is there
What is it that they see here because I personally don't hoodwink still in the pool
It worked. I was a great hero for them in the last game
But opting for rubik a little bit more scaling props my guess is that they want to
pick doom and they want a hero that can lane with doom and protect against a
potential enemy taking rearbook with the idea that maybe a doom or an underlord
for example will come out because a doom or underlord on 18 would make the
revict very justified because it's kind of a block pick in that sense.
Yep it has natural synergy together for sure and it's like it's an interesting
hero because at the moment I don't see that much purpose for it but we might
see it down the line. Yeah, if you do get the steel arrow, it's completely bonkers,
but it's kind of difficult to do so. But Matt put some pub against it and I kept getting
arrowed by Arubic and I just stuck for four hours. So if they actually do get it, then
you don't play the game anymore. Yeah, that's a good point too. I feel like that's the next
stat we need to implement is how much time you've been stunned by the arrow specifically.
Lots, is the answer. Way too much. I think they have also used considerably more reserve
which I think they actually tend to dig pretty heavily into it in general when I look at their drafts some teams pick very quickly
They don't use that much reserve time
I think Nigma thinks quite a bit of the earlier picks and then it can cause you troubles on your last pick
Especially when you have the absolute last pick like they do so it can make
Lornoff's choice or whoever has the last pick here a little bit dicey
I think it's also due to the fact that a lot of the heroes are banned out, right?
It is a little bit of a trickier draft for them. They're
Have to reach into the pool of heroes right now and find something different
friend. I'm kind of surprised that Clink's came out like it's a big burst damage hero it can fight
the kez and it can like really make lives difficult for us ports like Wyvern and Ruvik but you have a
headwink and you have a marana you're like these ranged spellcasters you don't have all guys that
are gonna stun for them like I feel like the draft looks kind of wonky to me unless
If the floor enough gets on some DK mid or something, it looks off.
Maybe that's just my read.
Oh, there's definitely validity to that.
And it's all, like it's, um, they all played a similar range.
Like I think they do have disable, but it's not the kind of disable that goes in and starts stuff.
It's a lot of skirmish stuff.
And the issue when you have a ton of skirmish is when the game gets to sort of this 20, 30 minute mark,
it's not that reasonable for supports to start fights anymore.
Generally you want cores to start because the supports go in first and you say,
You save bushlocker guy, then suddenly you get lifted and you get insta-killed by Tess.
And now you're down one hero, and they have saved still waiting behind.
So not having a core going into last pick that starts fights can be really weird
because it can force Lornoff down a specific path because they feel like they're about to need something.
I hope they can escape that, because I feel like when we've seen them shine is when Lornoff gets to be that win condition.
I do think this is where Sumail's like kind of killer instinct type player could come in and clutch for them.
Where he would just like run around and play so aggressively on the supports,
and try to rely on him knowing his limits extremely well to survive.
But this Earth Spirit pick to me looks extremely scary.
I feel like Yandex has very good draft integrity right now
and some of the strongest heroes that we've seen this match.
Yeah, they have a bunch of heroes to go in,
a bunch of heroes to follow up, great teamfight, great scaling.
You want to have all your bases covered and also strong lanes.
If you've got all of that, if you've got good ways to play the game,
but also you don't get smashed early,
it's sort of like the perfect draft in theory
because you don't have clear weaknesses that can be exploited
and you can make moves and get the game rolling.
Earth Spirit is super good against Clinkz because you just find him and if you get on him, he just dies.
You're super tanky, you're naturally by Crozier, so you don't care so much about it.
Scaly boys, there's a lot of good things about it.
You've covered your bases as well in terms of damage variety,
and that cast is going to be very heavily physical and cause problems in that sense,
while Earth Spirit's going to be popping off with magic damage,
which makes it hard to itemize against this draft in the early game.
Trying to think of what Lornoff might play here.
It feels like a pretty tricky pick for him.
But that is in what they need for that draft.
Yeah.
He's the archetype of something that would fit Lorin off but also make their draft come together.
Because I agree with Mira, looking at their supports you would normally look at some sort of hero that can start fights,
some sort of hero that can kind of play more active and set things up for them.
But isn't really the type of heroes that he's played?
Yeah.
I mean...
What do you see, Quinn?
A lot of the best answers to Urspirit are banned.
I think the puck, even though the puck is bad against Urspirit, could have been really
good here.
But Yannick's ban set out.
I don't think there's anything super obvious.
I genuinely think it's going to be a bit of a weirder pick, like you could do something
like a Viper that you try to win the lane really hard, but then it just, it causes
a lot of risk.
You've got Double Turret.
And so that's, that's what we said before, is you've got this Klingx.
He's the ranged damage dealer.
If you pick another one, it makes your draft a little bit weird and puts a lot
of burden on the other heroes.
So I'm genuinely not super sure this could be something like a Void Spirit which we have
seen Lornoff play before and while it is not a great hero in general it is the type of
hero they need and also scales very well and it's a game where he doesn't really need
the kitty which is kind of the biggest Void Spirit thing.
The thing is Void Spirit gets outpaced by Earth Spirit early on and I think that you need
the melee stun art type and I think Slardar is the only thing that fits the bill right
now that I can synergize with Clinkz but I don't know if Lornoff is a comfortable
Slardar player.
And the Doom does come out.
The Underlord got cover bound by Nigma Galaxy,
but this justifies the Rubik a little bit.
You don't want to potentially give it away,
and then you lose your Underlord or Doom
in the last few years.
I think it's a good game for it.
It's kind of bad against Doom,
but it's a game where BKB is not super needed.
You can go in and out and poke,
and I think we talked about how a lot of skirmish.
Well, Void Spirit is fight start on a core
that also is skirmish,
and so you can play in a way where,
Okay, sure they've got magnetize and doom
but you've got ways to kite
and not fully commit, you throw a bushbuck,
you throw an arrow, Void Spirit jumps in
and none of you are really catchable at all
during that period.
And so they've got a cool way to fight.
It's a synergy with Croc of Genius on Largo.
So you've got the damage scaling.
You've got the magic damage
and this hero scales insanely well with items
just a matter of getting there.
So it's a cool pick.
It's just, is this hero good enough to actually work
even though it makes sense?
I feel like you are the Void Spirit expert.
When you look at the Void Spirit versus Earth Spirit
matchup. Do you think what's where it can come out of that with enough of a lead to make things happen on
something because if storm can't do it and if under hasn't been able to do it this tournament can the worst
spirit of the four do it against them? I think you can end up a lot even. You can end up about even and you
can enter some fights like it's a lot. There's a lot of skill involved. The zero is not that good. So
you've got to play really well when you're playing the hero. But if I believe in anyone to play
this hero genuinely, I think it's him right now. He's been so locked in. I think it's a hero you
need to be very selfish and focused on yourself because if you get too focused on others you get poor
and then you're worthless. So I genuinely believe he has the skills to pay the bills.
And to touch up on that, the DLM last pick a little bit, this kind of solves the Largo.
Like if you just deal Largo, the late game team fights and the sustain don't become much of an
issue. I mean, I personally really like doing this entire tournament. I feel like it's just
been a very stable off-laner and it scales extremely well into the game. And like I said
earlier, it puts a ticking time bomb on you. He has this very clear item build that he
wants to go for in the endgame and having that I think makes the hero extremely powerful.
Yeah, it's very true. I still see Boyd Spirit though, so I'm going with Boyd Spirit because
it's just it's in my blood, you know? So I mean, that's what you said last time when you saw the
Cypher, even though you said there's ways and abilities and tools to be able to counter that
Cypher to shut his dad, you still went with him. If it did well, the Boyd Spirit might be as
simplest of the story, but in Taney's over there shaking his head. Well, what's your
You're kind of like a boy kind of sir. My boy doom is gonna cook this. I feel like the end is gonna show why him joining Yandex
Was the reason they started winning tournaments, and I think he's gonna have a stellar performance on the doom here. I
Mean, I think if Yandex didn't lose confidence. This is an easy one to them
Okay, so they're still full confidence in everything Yennex can have this one for themselves
It doesn't we don't really know exactly where they are the closest we could possibly get is more on the side of
big big galaxy because that's what you're standing by the tsunami.
Thank you very much. Yes, I'm joined by karaoke. It is currently 1225 in Shanghai and your boys
that just finished a 75 minute long game. I got to know how the stamina is feeling
right now in the booth.
Yeah, we're used to this in our job.
Really you're telling me you're casually playing these midnight games of Dota and
high intensity situation like this to get top three potentially a TI and it's just that chill.
We're just extremely grateful to be here, to be honest, so we are just enjoying every moment.
We're grateful to have you, Kuro. I was wondering if I could also get some insight on this draft,
specifically the last pick. Yandex gets Earth Spirit. You guys end up picking Void Spirit to
go against this. Was it a Lornoff idea or a team idea?
We were thinking about a couple of options. We were close to pick maybe Husker with the big boom, and then we decided on Wojtyr.
And then a little last question is, it's a late night. These turnaround games from Nick, but keep going, very, very exciting.
You think we're going to clean it out in the 2-0?
I hope so.
Well, I think the viewer base at home, the Europeans and North Americans waking up may also want a 2-0, or maybe they want to see some more Dota.
Let's find out as we get into a game number two
Thank you very much there Neil and Kuro Gs game to time ladies and gentlemen hips with nigma galaxy and yandex and my goodness
Still trying to recover that game on what a game one in start this best of three series off coming into game two
Some similarities some differences in the mid lane once again cheer with you here ready to roll the Earth Spirit and get this final
Pick you know Lauren off. I think yeah, he likes the challenge last game showed us that it can be done with this storm
against the Ursprit. I think if you ask all the other mits at the moment in the tournament, they consider this an even more
level-level valid. Now he's gonna try and show us that this Ursprit, you can beat it with a Void Sprit. A lot of mits
they don't even want to touch this hero.
No, I'm super curious how this match of GH is probably gonna die down here against Left Fittest.
You have the Fairy Fire, will survive one extra. He does survive.
Again, I'm super curious to see how this one's gonna go down because yesterday
I know me and you we had one of the most insane recovery type of games come out today
Almost superseding that with these black holes, and then we had a very one-sided affair
Will that be the case at this one because we did see Yandex
They were running the show in that last game for the majority of the beginning on the dive comes in okay
She ain't can they get some mail as well. They can
Gonna be a double kill for Sax here and diving the time of course that you that's the ladies would have seen at home
on your screens. The first blood this game. Get out of going down on top of the Nigma Galaxy was able to find with the dive on the Watson.
The tip two right here in this early game. In this early game, right, I have to say to get right, Soxa, his early game was absolutely ridiculous in that last game.
So I think that's the biggest thing for Nigma to weather the storm of this bottom lane, how much Soxa connects to do in terms of pressuring.
And overall too, looking at some of the differences and drafts in this game, I'm seeing a lot of cooldowns on one side and almost none on the other.
I feel like the way that Nick was going to look to play in this game is just some accelerated
game, trying to play around these cooldowns, just get that momentum going, but have to
be careful because their teamfight, it does look quite a bit lackluster in the past.
Let's see how these lanes do end up going down if you say gandex, they had a big advantage
in the lanes last time.
You can move here onto Dubai, you should find them, and they will.
The two of them up top, pretty safe flying here for Watson with the backup of Malady as the Wyvern.
Watson healed up and safe for the lane.
I feel like last game, I was mentioning at the start, Niko, I thought that they had the hero picks in order to have the advantage in the laning phase,
and it ended up being Yandex with the fastest superior advantage in that laning phase.
This time, I feel like it's Yandex with the superior laning heroes in particular to be able to apply that pressure.
So I'm really curious how these lanes are going to go down
and how the rotations are going to come down also.
And it has to be a lot on Lauren off the head, right?
This time they don't have that clutch factor
that's going to be coming from these BKB black holes.
It's uncountable.
It's just going to have to be Lauren off making these moves,
shutting things down and slowing down Chira's momentum.
Which is going to be the difference, right?
Because as you pointed towards last game,
it really was Debye opening up the game
to allow Lauren off to get to that point as the storm,
whereas they were to make these insane plays late game,
Do incredible amounts of damage as the storm after a bit of a slow start
Come around might be harder to find up what I'm laying some mail again. I'm gonna go down
Lot of pressure being brought down here and clicks in this game too. I
Was with the panel too. I mean I get that this is a strong here
It can be strong if you're able to play with that momentum
But this gives you a difficult hero to play from behind.
Yeah, he's got a leap.
He won remaining.
Might just get clicked down. The boots are there on Soxa.
He's got the extra hits once he gets the vision.
He's not gonna see him immediately,
but he's gonna be ready to reach in under the tower.
Anything else to help him out? There's not.
The wave bolt's gonna finish the job.
That's four for Soxa.
Similar to last time.
Four kills, four minutes in.
You don't always see that.
He needs supports, but Soxa, he'll do that.
Mid lane?
Dead even though. Laurenoff having a better match at this time of the game.
Storm Spirit is doing very well in that matchup, but top lane, Tobias struggles again.
This is a full counter pick. We've been seeing some teams actually stray away from the Kes, but versus that Largo,
this is one of the best answers. Teams have loved to pick this against him.
And I've got it.
Oh, Valady. Mike, come down here.
Good track back here in the bush, Wack.
He's gonna be able to shoot free. The trees will still die.
I'm watching it to clean up and return both Omar and divide very low Omar will get sliced down here by the cares
The buyer will be fine gets a courier. He'll be able to drag the creep wave too
So we'll get some more out of this late
Lots of kills going down though six to three again next again having that advantage did but as you said did get that first blood
The index in this late position having this advantage at the moment and DM is off to a hot start. Oh, he is
having a great time down against
the safe lane of Niggah the Galaxy. Now we're gonna have a plus one, we're gonna get the
rotation coming in from low and low. I think this is necessary. I think they have to accept
the fact that this top lane isn't gonna be a win. They have to start securing Clink's
some extra farm. He doesn't want to play from behind versus this matchup, versus the
Urspurt. Just like Pano was talking about, the Clink's gonna just start to chain
feet if he does get too far behind versus this ES. So I like this move a lot more.
I'm gonna secure some medals early game here. Yeah, just get him a little bit
tankier, a little bit of that extra item so perhaps he can survive versus that collapse
that will come on top of it.
Malady will look to match these movements though,
moving toward the mid lane,
and gonna look to secure the power rune here,
for Chira Junior.
Chira has it six, little earlier than Lorinoff.
Lorinoff does have to be careful how he shows,
because he also did skill very aggressively on Lorinoff.
Two-zero-three.
Don't point it to similar to this gauge.
He does get caught in these big signs,
as if he could just die, and they get the catch.
Chira's gonna get the set up,
move the kickback, and then the magnetized.
Gonna go straight for the TPL.
Smart TPL.
Big brain. Second the roll connects he knows they don't have to follow what's done it.
A much slower start for him this time.
He's still getting good CS though.
He is. But something we didn't, I didn't even get to talk about Sumail too much in that last game.
He was doing such a good job of just being this crazy distraction, applying so much damage.
That was him playing one of his best heroes. I'm wondering how it's going to be with the plates.
with the planks, because just Necro existing does a lot. Planks existing a little different
with what you're going to be able to do in the game.
Where's the shrine? The Yandex looking to set up for the double again just like last time.
He's rolling into mine. Now diving up towards the tier 2, getting the kick back.
Welcome to the game.
I think he should still find him though.
He would have blocked him off, make sure that he can't run.
I mean the early game again it is getting pretty commanded here from Yandex, the double
shrines having these extra kills as well, having free farm.
And it is quite the difference the hero that the buy is on.
I think he's gone from literally the flashiest off laner to the least flashiest.
And also we do have to mention for Lorin off too right, he was playing his king hero,
his store spirit that he loves with the flip scale.
I'm wondering how the void spirit is in comparison.
As they said, it is one of the weaker of the spirits.
See how he's going to be able to do in this game versus someone.
He's in control for him too, right?
This game, it's not just the Earth Spirit silence.
It's the Kazka to be a little annoying for him too.
So right now, doing very good, matching exactly versus the Earth
Spirit.
Did he try to move?
They might dive him again.
Oh, support still here, ready to set up
to make another move onto him.
And the lift up, dragging back over towards the damage.
And Watson's going to be dead again.
Defy.
They know that last game he really
was the one to make the moves.
everything to shut down to buy this time around.
Our is going to drop super early to 28 minutes in.
Lornoff, look at the F damage and ship you to fight Chira here.
Now what? Let's get out now.
We're going to magnetize out a decent bit of damage
under the support.
TP comes in from Saksus.
We have to burst through at least Tom off.
Finding the trade, but indeed,
Nick Mcgalyx is going to be happy with taking Chira
Junior out of the game.
Nice.
Hey, Lornoff is the clutch factor, right?
In this game, it's him rather than the Largo.
Very much so, they're trying to amplify him as well with the Largo.
So, getting him off to a good start,
that does feel like the key for MiGma,
for him to make these moves around to get the space.
And there's no cooldown on their draft, right?
That's the beautiful thing that we can look at with the Largo.
I'm not enough ready to make this rotation.
I'm ready to put the jump on towards DM.
Gonna be a very successful move.
Nicely done.
Another right move.
Now, really, I'm so curious to see how this is gonna be in the midgame,
where it is just...
What's the longest cooldown ability really?
It's cool like Shadow of the Clicks is his small abilities, but there really is no cooldown that Nika is really playing with.
Big play super fast.
I just found Omar.
He's 6 already. Omar's only 3.
Very, very squishy on the whole thing.
Talks up Hunts.
Doing it again just like last time.
Running the show.
Didn't end up battering that last one.
3 level disparity between him and Omar is pretty insane, sure they did get the double
stride steal but still, a lot of pressure this early game, another tower's gonna get
beaten on.
At 3-10 minutes, pretty much looking like they're gonna lose these 2-2-1 towers.
Bitch.
That's another leap.
Should be okay, power rune though.
They're gonna finish the full tower.
Garth potentially able to set up for that power rune as well to prevent Lorna from getting the fill-up
Well Lornaf go for this a jump and go for it here. He's under ward vision. He's playing a little bit careful
He won't be able to shield rune
Strong rune here for Yandex for Chira
The damage on nigma is a little limited
Versus this take the air spirit this could be quite dangerous
Wicked up. Double supports on the index, have hit the six.
And have to lock down the burst of damage.
And the two to sort of enable a kill in any of the lanes.
Snake McGalaxy isn't too careful.
Catch, GH. Only gets a Leap Steel.
There's one of those big ones.
There's quite some decent spells to steal this game.
sure no big ulti flashy ones for the rubik but just the small ones the arrow in
particular the lardo it's also super powerful if you ever get the opinion
it's fast some mail the magnetize the port was actually get some of the
faint bulb they keep the magnetize going some mail I'm gonna be able to
keep himself alive
turn up if you really watch from the side here still not really high enough
level to get involved there with that sort of play yeah I'm also now with
this space he started to bleed on the tower all three of these tier ones getting
pressed super hard and that makes it summer and quickly in this game and for
Divy this is a hero where he kind of has to just sit on the side and farm can't
really come in and help too much as this vlog on the early game a lot of the
plushy hero it's I think all the pressure in this early it's a lord off
it is every single thing needs to be coming out from him he's gonna have
the vessel at a good timing but he is already having that disparity and
And looking at the Kaz farm, Watson's untouched.
Going for the mage slayer build, a very strong one this game,
playing versus that voidsperd versus the Largo.
Another reason why teams do like that Kaz versus the Largo.
On the head, it's like to see if you can find some mail.
Some mail to step ahead.
We'll make sure that he farms out of harm's way.
To milk, he needs to get some decent timing on this desk.
If he doesn't get it, he's going to have a really difficult entry into this game.
I like just play as carefully as possible. Probably don't show up to any of these next fights until you have that
Deso and then you can look for some of these fragile supports
You know the groupic in particular does not like to play versus these high physical burst heroes
So if he can't find Soxa can't find some free grabs when he's got the deso done for the place
Okay, leave though the index spirit vessel coming out for cheer at they're gonna keep accelerating things
Yeah, so they're ready to start gravitating towards the bottom lane, see if they can find this third tier one nice and early.
It's a lot harder too for Nigma to set up the kills on Watson in comparison than Yandex setting up the kills onto Sumail.
Sumail gets caught, he's likely just dead.
Watson has ways to play around if he does get caught, but he's vulnerability with the Ravens now.
Push continuing.
He has to let this tier one go.
This is the Earth Spirit illusion to be able to tank the entirety of it.
Smoke's coming out from level 6.
Still not there for Omar.
So that burst damage is lacking it.
Hard to find someone up for the moment.
Nobody's around the side of the map for Yandex.
Maybe the Caz, Watson, is starting to make his way back now.
Has to turn through the Twin Gate now.
And a full combo.
He's torn off him with a jump.
Not easy to go for him here.
Doesn't see an angle to feel confident to lay down around him and then grab him.
So Watson's gonna be fine.
Even if you do catch him, right, you don't know where Malady was.
You're not completely aware of the positioning of the rest.
It's dangerous to do that under the tower.
Go back up and reset.
I mean, where to come down losses there?
At least, Nigma Galaxy not trying to make too greedy of a play.
I think if they have the Omar with level six,
perhaps they could go for this type of play with the High Burst,
even through Cold Embrace.
But the fact that he's still not six yet on this hoodwink
is limiting their damage potential for some of these kills.
the index for another steal me all by this time we'll be able to get the shrine
they are setting up for him though and they maybe anticipate that the vias
farming in this area too because this is literally where Margo always farms
Saks is ready to get the center
Telekinesis thrown back into the damage bought some Dubai we'll get over to the tier 2
because oh it's all three walks down the three of them and allows them to
take the viow what's considering continuing to dive around this tier
two some else pretty low what's gonna get it with the old some else trying
to heal up but he's going to take down the damage of Watson, dive for for
T-Ratune, he's going to go to the tower but this might be a tier 2 dive too much
he's lost the Watson's life and now Lornaff turns his efforts over to
T-Ratune, he's going to jump in with the Astral Steff the Revenants down
T-Ratune is going to take down low trying to deny himself the edge, he will succeed
in doing so. Oh that hurts, Lornaff really wanted that kill. Nice dodge of the
silence there jumping through it. They lose so much even around there too too
the clink's too male. He actually turns up before the deso is finished and ends up getting brought down.
This is a cannon fodder. He was just in the area of the curse and gets him getting whittled down
from all the aoe damage. So a little bit messy from Yandex. A few of their cores knocked off
them out themselves but nothing that they'll be too upset with. Maintaining this lead here,
15 minutes in, 4k advantage. Would have been amazing if Lornaf does get the last touch of the
back that the Earth Spirit denies himself hurting a little bit. Here's Soxa now does have the
the amphibian trap city he doesn't have the song stolen. Pretty strong one for his team too.
Let's get him forward again.
Sumail. I'm surprised that he did show up before that death so I did want to see him try to finish it.
Now we'll be able to have it finished. That extra damage could be the difference maker in some of these fights.
He has to find the backline though.
He is the...
The difficult thing too for Sumail is in some of these games when you're playing something
like this Clanks, you want someone else that's gathering some information from here.
Carol won't connect.
Cameron here for the next fight, Chiro Junior.
They're not getting any time on the side of Dinkbump.
Also taking advantage of these cooldowns so the Yandex does have Yandex to be able
Reset. Go for the next place. Magnetize is at the ready.
Lorna Farming. That's the key, as we said. He really is the one to watch with this game.
How much he can do and how much he can scale on the Void Spirit.
Tough here to make work, as we've seen in this tournament.
Kodasail is still in the last game. He can do so again here on the Void Spirit.
Spirit. It's
Said that's the start the Katie is great top net worth here for his team not too far behind that of those to cause on Yandex
And time perhaps for them to accelerate things here on the side of the night
They do have Omar with six moonlight shadows at the ready. They have GH with the setup with the Yule's
The male dangerous territory for him to go and though under multiple centuries. They'll make the move top
Something's up there throws out the dust
He needs to play now, O-Bark.
The pushback off.
Now, the Kinesis is there to buy trying to drag Omar back to safety.
Watson should be able to take this down.
O-Bark, that's going to save it.
Actually, that's a thousand.
He'll keep him alive.
Now, Lorin will feed him to the counterplay.
They can jump over Malibu.
Malibu, he gets the curse off.
Doesn't matter.
Lorin off four.
We're only able to bring Malibu down.
Nice reaction.
But now the strategy is here.
Rolls forward.
And Nick this time won't be able to bail Lorynov out, if I cannot save him, and has only ended up putting himself in a bit of a dangerous position.
He'll try and run, but he's going to take down low to the magnetized in the vessel.
Yandex, they bring the numbers. This time they get two clean core kills, only losing their Wyvern.
It's much easier for them, this game, to just set up for these kills and not have a threat as well, too.
Two males getting much slower this time around, and they will find Lorynov.
They're going to slow down that momentum he was starting to build up.
Jira having a very good entry into this game again at BKB soon on the horizon and Watson
This is similar network that he had on the tower blade. It feels like last game
So doing similar stuff it feels like on the side of the index as they've been in the last one
And they're not slowing down. Yeah, but this game has been bit quiet in terms of showing up
Now he's got the blank. He already got his drum in his chart to farm now
He's gonna look for plays as well. See how Nickman tries to react first. It's there
They are losing control in terms of the map
Show us in the mid air, Lorinoff. They want to dive him up to the tier 2.
Got him, Lee, to the bottom.
Is it the ready bottom? A big connection.
That's a huge kill.
That's having the mid, that the jump's been made against the catch on the boat for them.
Taking down Omar and Lorinoff.
Push, Wax, Steel, getting socks against the two.
Not going anti-handed though, Nigma Galaxy.
Being able to find that pick off onto Watson on the bottom lane at the same time.
I'm down that cares getting the deso stack also all important for Sumail to get
that extra momentum for himself
next day one more
quite cool for Chira he's still too tanky especially with the backup of the
team
I don't want to know them
now the Sumail was recently around this area question how deep
they want to try and hunt for him.
That could be fine for now.
Gearchester pack.
Gearchester be pretty clutched with these arrows too, right?
He is the long lockdown for the team.
If he can't connect with some of these,
he can't allow Sumail to kill the supports,
but it's high ground, a bit dangerous.
Sumail.
The deflation.
Got the Eul's into the arrow.
That actually damages Sumail.
Kill, top lane at the same time though, Divyke, caught on his own by Saxon DM.
On Steve Kroger, sorry, he's getting way too big in the last hits, come down.
Every time the trade does come in though, this time it's a core for that support.
Divyke going for the...
Okay, every 70 of Saxon on the trace.
Gonna get him on the number one.
This is 808.
Hey, the moment on Saxes Rubik, 20 minutes in.
It's exactly the same as he was doing on this hoodwink.
The last game just controlled the map making every single move.
All three course farming very well on the side of Yandex.
To point this out too, this divide build,
I've seen a lot of these players do this on the Largo,
going for this Octorinko.
I heard it was like the 33,
the popularized thing to get this less downtime
when you're using your ultimate when you're stopping.
We'll see if it ends up paying off in this game,
because you don't really get that many extra benefits compared to,
You know, this Kaya-san build that we've seen most people do in the Aghanim's, it's kind of like this in-between.
So we'll see how much it pays off for him.
Because he does feel pretty vulnerable in this game.
So I thought maybe he does look for like that Lotus early.
But it doesn't feel great to get it as a first item.
He is playing for some really good Lotus heroes.
Removing the silence, reflecting the doom.
Second item, definitely gonna go for the Lotus, but we'll see if the Ostrita is a paying offer.
It is a very greedy choice.
The edge of the leap has to be on its wall to get away from this chase.
The chase is going to continue to turn here, able to lie the slow into the end, jumping
over the G8.
Leaps and the moonlight not enough to save him.
Valody blink has finished up for him now too.
Even better positioning to build the follow up.
They have multiple ways down to start the fight right there.
The Earth Spirit rolling in and then blink doom, blink moving, blink wiper.
They're really looking to close the gap on top of a hero like Klinks, which hates getting the gap closed on top of them too, so...
If they look, they can deal with the pressure, looking this way.
Oh, they want to fight.
They want to catch him off guard here, they know what he had, it's just that they can show back and get these kills, but...
Five of the line, the remnant down on a Malibu, now the counterplay comes in, roll, four down to Lorna,
after pushback, the moment of hold about, the curse cuts into Malibu, looks down to two of them and out to the wall,
he gets the two, he's dropped down on the wall, four down to Lorna, seems to great!
It's a male!
He's caught as well! Damn, I end on top of him once and bringing in the damage to take some LL!
Defy, sticking around as well!
He's ready to jump in and try and finish off another!
Defy, get up to turn and head up to the high ground!
He'll live but three dead!
On Nick McAllister, you're not able to take down anybody with them!
This was way harder for them to do these type of clutch plays like last time.
You know, Nick Mc is doing so much work in that last time.
Vargo, like you said, he's just not that flash of a hero.
No, it's such a different style.
Yeah, you really just buff up that core,
they can look amazing, but Vander Hemmerge is so much on the map.
Another Kill Yandex is able to find.
So much harder to sort of see that one sort of move
to sort of turn this around for Nick McGalaxy.
This time it just has to be some sort of team effort, team play.
And their best hopes at the moment still, it's going to be Laurel on the point spirit.
You can find that sort of jump, that pick-off, to open up a state of the game to allow them
to go for some sort of team fight.
They've got us.
They've got to open up Nygma Galaxy.
I mean, they need to smoke and they need to play around these cooldowns.
Right now, they're magnetizes down, doom is down, curse is down.
Looking for an opportunity to get a catch.
And it's not easy to find them.
Lots of them already have to be KB action, so...
Unless they can do the nose up there.
They got a chance on it.
Can they connect it perfectly?
They get the bushwhack, into the red, into the sharp shot!
They'll get the BKB in the parry hole!
Got him survived this weekend!
Got him!
Successful play there for Nick McGalaxy to bring down the carry.
Another desostack, Sume will take that.
Slow down that momentum in any way.
Great opportunity to do it too, around those cooldowns, you can see Yandex didn't really
want to react to these moves and Sumail, now for these next moments has to be very careful.
The gem is picked up for Chira.
This could also be a massive kill, if they can somehow find Chira, isolate it, get the
kill, take the gem, they can start to control the map a lot easier because they have the
mobility around the map with the moonlight shadow, with the clink, if they can constrict
that vision from Yandex, can give them the opportunity to get these kills around
the cooldowns. That's a lot harder to see a full path of success for them this game without having
that enigma factor versus this type of advantage. These three cores being this big. Very much so.
Jake, H, I know he's in it.
Yep.
Okay.
That's what the index is set up to look for Tormentor.
Even though they were allerging to the Tormentor last game, do they want to go through the
portal and go through the top one?
It does look like they are setting up for it.
Somebody around to interrupt this for the moment from Nick McGallick's seat.
The next big pickups that we're seeing.
They just not going to do it anyway.
It looked like they were setting up for it.
Someone's pinging it watching was going to farm up a small camp instead of doing
I'm telling you they're very reluctant not big fans for Tormentia. Yeah, but this game they will go for it
There's some pretty good way. I mean something both of them are very good. It sucks against it
It's fantastic. He's got the save and he does get it. So we'll have that sharp potential save. He's gonna continue popping off. Yeah
9-0-1, he is a big pinata. I mean, killing Sox is actually a big priority too.
She had gold, and he fantastic.
Trying to sneak around here with a remnant of the Moonlight Shadow after that core, and...
Oh, and he gives Moonlight Shadow also. Sox is gonna have that fast move.
That's a rare steal. You don't get that one often.
Oh, that's a very dangerous one to give up. That low cooldown.
He's gonna use it right away. They're gonna make the move across the map.
They didn't have to use an ultimate for this kill, so they have everything ready for the team fight
Or not he needs to get a bkb early usually not the case you want to do on a void spirit
But totally understandable play versus the air spirit playing versus the guys a lot of control that he has to worry about
So you definitely understand why he wants to go for that so now he's gonna go great
I think he has to has to go for this haggad into this game
I'm gonna sort of survive through these moments, Nick McAllister.
And next, ruling the map.
World is their oyster at the moment.
The Roche definitely on the horizon for them soon.
And for Nick, as we said, the team fight for them, it's a lot more difficult.
They really just don't have much team fight in general, in comparison.
Small cooldown abilities.
Okay, next.
Well, can you continue applying this pressure?
Not backing up for the roast just yet.
Yeah, looks like he's looking for a move. He's got the doom at the ready.
They have vision on bottom side as well now too.
They see GH using the Moonlight Shadow, the board that's placed on bottom from Malady does scout everything here.
Watson also Moonlight Shadow, they're both Moonlight...
His axe is in. He's gonna take it out on the face though, so attack now!
He's dead at the start of the fight there, the money going to the west, and Mal put able to put an end to that kill streak.
Oh, that's a dream for Sumail. That's a full agonist finished up. That's the godlike streak.
Both the Moonlight Shadowing into each other, but the Sentry was down from GH.
Come on.
You'll be able to take away the 28-minute shrine of wisdom.
Nicely done. It looks like he should be able to TP out.
It's out of that.
Alrighty.
Making the moves.
See that win probability.
Even with an AK lead, it's only believing 55% right now for the end.
I mean, it's, as I say, an enigma galaxy. You can never count them out.
The clutch factor, they've proven time and time again.
They do not mind playing from behind.
In fact, if anything, it's where they sort of, they're in their element.
The Vi's getting time to catch up too.
That's the Octorine done. His Lotus is about to be finished, so starting to get answers, starting to get protection, versus the magnetize, the silence, the doom.
Sumail now set up for top.
Careful, Chiris on him.
Not just the roll, big damage.
Right on the burning army.
Chiris still gonna roll on him.
Look for the angle, doesn't get it clean though.
Kick off the mark too.
Look at the left top.
The link there for Dubai.
He's gonna get dropped down, Tien.
Taking a lot of damage.
The cold embrace will come in and keep him safe.
At the same time though, time is bought.
Somehow to get out of there, this Doom won't kill him.
Hey, that's a big deal that he survives that type of move.
It looked like he was very likely to go down.
I think that the magnetized that insta-dispel from the Largo link
so he could keep it sliding.
An awkward there for DM.
Jumping up can't get the kill with the Doom.
Down time now.
Hundred seconds, no Doom.
Magnetized on cooldown 50.
Nygma's gonna hit the smoke and look forward.
Nygma's gonna reveal himself, Watson.
He's just gonna turn and they almost instantly kill G8.
You're trying to get him over the moon, I shout out, but a few more hits from Watson.
He's gonna do it. Pops the H.
Next thing. Nygma's coming though.
I mean, they might be able to punish him.
As they find Chira, he has BKB.
Gonna get up onto the high ground.
Watson's here as well.
Oh, he's actually gonna turn and try to fight back.
Watson's gonna get bit up, go to jump in,
looks towards the squishies first, drives for Omar.
Omar jumps down to the low ground and the spirit missiles should take him out.
Junior pkp coming over there. Yeah comes in with the back of the jump for big
What's it's pretty good to triple kill
This fight it's gonna be all yattexus law enough hill for ultra kill for what he was so ready for him
Waiting on the high ground the off-century was placed
They were totally ready for them the two of them just jumping into all five heroes
I think you got the actual slash I'm at least four here
He got that angle at the start absolutely that's so applied on everybody made slayer as well too
So the damage is limited coming up from Lauren off
Tried to get the gem pick up a yeah
Look at the city gas and a ob-centric place in the perfect spot
And just no fear. As soon as they see all the first of them on my show's face, immediately cheer a junior once and turns towards them.
They know they can feel that they do have this advantage at the moment and they're not afraid to take these fights.
What's it?
The upper 2 and 2 pretty deep.
Want to fall back a little bit.
DM, again, and put another jump to Burt through GH.
DM, at this point, still a very beefy frontliner.
But DM just can afford to have just a jump in onto Nigma Galaxy without too much fear of dying.
trying to push forward, take advantage of the clinks and void spirits still being alive.
They're gonna start respawning. Yandex will respect it. They'll back up.
Looking for the portal. Doom at the ready. Magnetize as well. Looking for the fight again.
They're going double shepas. It's a very good shepas game, playing versus that physical damage of the clink.
Feels fine to be able to do that here on the Earth Spirit and on the Doom,
both heroes that are amazing with the items.
to melt. Healing up the hex. So feeling like they're just lacking a bit of that
extra disable to kill Watson to kill the air spirit.
Take 200 mid.
Rying for the acorn shot bushwhacker.
You see the hit, yeah, against this air spirit. Very hard to catch Chirogynia.
And it's controlling the game again here.
They're gem intact here in this all their ulti again at the ready where
Nigma wants to go here with this next blow. GH has finished up his agonism so
some extra purse. Their burst on a single target is pretty strong I think but
that's pretty much how they have to play in this game right is finding that one
target exploding in because that's how you know the lack of team fight kind
of makes that the case for them. While for Yandex a lot easier options to go
for these fights is they're gonna smoke up.
Chiba's on the do with the congregations.
The stun is pretty large.
I was fine getting multi-hero stuns off with that.
Back to back.
H into forward.
Chira has the camera.
CGH gets too close.
They will jump him.
Nalini trying to start through.
She's gonna just drop the curse here to ensure they can close the gap.
They're sensing how afraid they really is of taking the fights.
They're not afraid to throw that curse out here.
Saksa. They want more.
Get the setup. Is that the pieces? Is that the stolen arrow?
He's got arrow. I didn't even see him. He's had it for some time as well too.
Very dangerous steal to have. Lasts an eternity.
Trosh potentially on the menu down here.
I think so, yeah.
Anilist done.
Couple of kills.
Neso, almost 25 on Watson.
Cleans this up quickly.
And there's not a threat this time with some Black Hole.
The Necron is just gonna blink into your face and the clicks much more difficult for him to do that type of play.
I'm already...
Oh, maybe they can set up on bottom.
Yeah, DMs make the quick play here with the CP bottom.
Somel shows he'll be in trouble.
They both get the same scan connection.
The DM, the one that's more at the ready here, forced to mail.
Glornoff might get caught from this.
Glornoff's stick around for an extra freeway.
Jump right through the remnant.
Fax and try him with the chase.
See him here with the Distiller.
should be alright, they're dissimilar back up in a second and they'll soon have a
number astral step, and the bike time is not enough time to stop the doom coming off.
So go for the BKB TP though. So he will live.
But an expensive survival. 90 seconds he will not have that BKB for the fight.
4 minutes on this Aegis and Watson is damaged. Absolutely ridiculous now with this Daedalus.
They have to be so careful. I mean most of them, right? That's the thing about Daedalus
Draft also in this game is they're really squishy.
Oh they are. Absolutely. If they get jumped on by the jump which, I mean you look at
the heroes, they're all of Yandex. Everybody's ready to start the fight on Yandex.
They all have the potential to initiate.
And Roxxon's going for Blink himself too, right?
So he's going to be able to have that follow up as well.
These next few moments feel very difficult for Nigma
to be able to turn the fights around.
They have to just kind of play split though.
I feel like the way going in a 5v5 team fight
just isn't the width they're drafted design
in the side of Nigma.
So trying to get the split push,
trying to find these targets of Yandex
when they are answering that split push
is probably their best answer.
It's just difficult.
They have great vision right now on Yandex,
So they're expecting to see these moves coming.
It's an early 25.
Yeah.
5.
18 in this game also.
Very slowed down.
Much harder to see that path of success for them
when they turn this one around.
Some sort of fight where Samel finds the perfect angle
to lay down the burning army and start picking off the squishier that the
arrows on Yandex's lineup but you got to find that backline somehow kill them
first but yeah running through the gem running through this map control it's
difficult for them to do so here up right outside the base looking for a
grab what if I just get from Watson
sneaky word even being placed so much coverage in there covered with all
All three of the of the spots that they can really exit from outside of the base
We do see they must set up on top to find a solo target. They do have that burst damage from the clings
Right there
Not even find that hero they want to up top. Can't dex sticking together
together.
Okay, he's the one. I thought it was going to be Chira also to buy this. We might still
leave it at some point, but the Kralos is picked up the first one. It's limited magical
damage now at this point on the side of Nigma. It's going to be extremely survival on DM.
Now, the second left to play for top now. Got the last lane that still has the tier
two standing to try and take away.
Look at the subway push round.
It's dangerous. He's had Burnigman to step outside versus these five four blink daggers and the Kez.
What's the...
He's having to go for the buy. He goes straight over towards the Lager to buy trying to run.
Here comes Chira. He's connecting.
Silence comes in.
Off the mark. Arrow connects.
Good arrow, but the time jump of the Kez is there.
and he gets to jump over the wards and looks it down.
They'll finish off the catch the wards.
So now...
The move comes in on a Samar.
Heels fall.
Roll forward over the wards.
Omar is going to be three dead.
A buyback will come out from the buy.
I had some...
Gangnex, you'll be very...
That's great use of your Aegis, right?
You get two big kills.
You force a buyback as well on the core.
The gold lead just continues to grow for them.
And the hope for Nygma in this game...
It's just looking harder and harder.
It's not the same type of line up with them having that much factor
sort of
Memories of the VNigma
We got to get the BKB off and jump back
You know what was over BKB and retaliation that roll out all the brace has the BKB
Catch him after they've done they're able to force him back to safety nice little play
He's got the Lotus and he's got the Octurine, but a much quieter game for him this time around.
Not so flashy, even though he's trying to buff up Lorin off, it's just much harder to see him.
It happened, and some of these games, some of these off-laners, the best in the world,
and some of the performances, you know, Divide's given us one of the most amazing Enigma performance
forms we've seen him quite some time and on the lago you just can't be that
flashy it's understandable of course lago very strong hero right now but for
very different reasons and reasons that aren't really gonna help you turn a game
around like this when you come up to 20k gold deficit it's not the same
situation here for nigma galaxy unfortunate for them here in game 2
and honestly for Lornaf right the void spirit in comparison to the store
spirit he was starting to pop off in the last game starting to make some
crazy space for that enigma this one sure he's five four and three his farm is
good but it definitely feels just that much harder in this one it's a doom as
well too if he just gets caught in one of those he has the gem he is all
important
blink now for Watson so it is five ways to jump in and start now
Looks like they're anticipating that they was in this area up top too.
Oh, this would be de- if they find Lauren off, this would be devastating.
And they can't take her.
He's not going to expect this move from this angle.
Silence of infection.
He's got BKB if he feels the need to, and he'll play safe.
What's the BKB starts to run?
He's going to go for the BKB TP out, but the middle ways to stop it.
Curses there. They'll look him down, kill him off.
It's Lauren off depth, they're at it.
And it's the jam.
They just had bought it a couple moments ago for him.
And time down bottom DM he might be tempted to make a solo play.
And he'll go for it. Straight in on a GH.
We'll drop a tune down for this one.
We'll cut immediately for the TP out.
Gets hit again.
They're ready to put a stop to that DM.
Too dead now on Nygma Galaxy.
A lot of gold, DM, if he gets for that.
That's crazy how much he gets for just a kill on GH at 6.45.
I mean, I know he's rich, but...
It's a lot of money DM gets for a solo grab.
Level 25 soon to be there for the doom as well.
Samel, he's seen him with the bun and angle there, he's got a high damage rate, but immediately the corner makes him jump to the tree.
He jumps up the echo slash on the tree and then destroys Omar, looks over to him and wants Samel.
Samel trying to stand his ground under the tier 2 but would not survive.
Dm sitting again with the tendrils to put a stop to him.
As for dead, to buy the last one left standing on the Ink Magali, see he'll get those beyond the tier 3s and to deep wipe.
As Yandex, this start round, I don't think they let his lead slip away, Bulk.
It sure doesn't look like it. They're steamrolling through it.
No hope there for Tobai to get these catches. I mean, 1-9 this game, he's truly been answered.
The draft for Yandex feels like it's the solution to all that Nigma did have this time around.
And Soxa again in this game, truly popping off, but this time it did not slow down for Yandex.
Almost at all. 30k lead, double racks, potentially for fall.
They got anything to do with the attack there, lower it off!
Defeated. That might just be it Owen.
No money for buyback.
200 or so gold short here on the Void Spirit.
They're gonna lose a second set of racks top here, Nigma Galaxy.
Yandex ready to look to the mega creeps.
They've got one more fight left in them.
25 on Chirra as well so their scaling is just so uncertain in this draft.
A few mistakes made as well.
Not hemorrhaging these kills, not giving any opportunity for Divider to really clip him
in so well.
Both of them have 1-3 and 8 on the clicks of 1-9 in the Largo.
That's the Vegas.
I'm next. Get them a little bit of breathing room. Just a very little bit.
It's not much increase for Sumail in these last moments either. Hasn't been able to
find the crit, hasn't been able to finish up that hex that he wasn't looking for
points of time ago.
And just more caution, I do feel like we're seeing from the end next to the map.
Even though, yes, there's no BKB this Black Hole, etc.,
I'm seeing them just being more cautious, especially Chira, not going for these...
I mean, still some aggressive dive plays in the base, but not as aggressive as it was in that last time.
They're not giving them that chance to call back in this game.
So, what's it?
7K gone as well, if you want to suspend it up before the final push?
It's so rich.
Final attempt.
I mean they've done some crazy things in the galaxy this would be the craziest this absolutely would be
the concern is one around
Against the mega creeps has been done before well that was a little different how that mega creep comeback did happen
The mega creeps are not undefeatable the wind probably sort of say otherwise
They're looking to close it out final jump in the base
they're taking down as well too he's gonna keep it spreading the damage
he's starting to add up on him he's got the cold embrace
back in with the jump
they're cleaning them up up to the fountain beyond Godlike here for Watson
double kill triple kill for Watson they've killed him the once but it's only
that a lot of some ale now just down to Lauren office this game looking to be
over. Yandex ready to put this one to a game 3. GG is called this time round.
So here comes no mistakes here from Yandex. They get the lead, they build the lead,
and Ligma Galaxy, they don't have the clutch factor to turn this game to Fox.
Definitely not. That was the big difference that you could feel. But also,
just like last time though, Yandex, they smashed these lanes. Just the way that they progressed
through the map. I'm gonna have to say too like the Soxa just this early game
what he's able to do these double kills he gets bottom how do you stop it that
moves around he's too much and then Watson I mean again sure they lost the
last game but Watson again having some crazy net worth and this time it was
just unstoppable. And in my galaxy they couldn't find the magic this time to
turn it we'll see what happens in game three one to one now between Yandex
And Nick Begale said. The
confidence we learned so sure
about full Yandex after game one.
Well, let me tell you it was
there and it was there in
bucket loads because we are
going to out 12th game of the
day. We have been blessed with
12 of 12 when it comes to four
best of threes here, and of
course, we're going to break
down game number two. Talk
about everything that Yandex
were able to do right for
where we're seeing such a domination from Yandex, but this time around, they're a real comeback mechanic for NIGMA Galaxy, but more importantly, Yandex just running them over a lot higher tempo and closing it out for themselves.
Yeah, it's a masterclass. I think they showed, like, this is exactly the kind of resilience we wanted. You come from the game one, you don't worry too much and overthink things.
You're like, hey, it was fine. We have good ideas. We had good gameplay. We just messed up. And they come into this game and they prove it. They play a little bit better.
little bit better, they get a little better draft, they play a little cleaner
and that's all they need and it goes from being a game that is a miraculous
thing to come back to a complete year next beatdown.
A little bit better draft? I mean I think this was significantly better.
It's kind of baffling but it went Marana into Largo into Hedering into Clanks.
I think something was really wrong and strange there and I think Void Spirit
was the only Lauren off Hero that he placed comfortably that would fix
the issues that they had. Like they needed a melee Sun guy,
He's not really a Sardar guy. He's not a DK guy.
Like Void Spirit was the pick and it's not a hero that will do enough.
It's not a hero that's gonna up his Earth Spirit.
And that's not his fault.
You know, it's the fault of like the weird combination that led him there.
But with that being said, I mean, we can always talk about draft but
Socks of God, in game one, he destroyed that early game,
in game two, he destroyed that early game in Sania.
He's just too good.
This guy doesn't need spells, dude.
He was like, he had like six kills when he's level five.
He was absolutely cooking on that rubik and like I feel like this is honestly a sign of the really good rubik players
Is that they can do it without any spell in particular the end of the game 13123 that is crazy
That's way. I didn't realize it was that much
But yeah, no he absolutely cooked he put fable and lift to great usage in the other game and
He his ability to move around the map
I think is something that is kind of unmatched by any other four at this event
He did it in the first game and he did it again in the second game and
And honestly, I think a lot of good stuff came from them in this game.
Yeah.
It's kind of the other game.
I fully agree with that.
I genuinely think both these games, the entire early game, is kind of a skill
dip between Soxa and Omar.
If I'm looking at these first five minutes, Soxa is all over the place.
It's making kills happen constantly.
And Omar and Devire having a tough time in their lane, Watson and Malady
are sticking it to them.
And they've kind of got pressure on both sides and it's bleeding into mid.
It's bleeding into everywhere else.
And if I'm looking at the next game, I think Nymogalaxy have an early game
problem, a serious problem.
You can come back in one game, but what are the odds that you come back twice from 10k gold?
Because if you keep having laning phases like this, then you're not gonna get another chance to be fair in regards to
I'm like he's had some really standout games at this TI, but I consider him more of a pairing support player
Like he's not someone that's gonna make a lot happen on his own
He's someone where if he pairs up with a core or for example the combo of BH plus Marano where he's got that plus one
Helper together they function as the unit and they're the difference makers whereas outside
He feels like a one-man army like he's a hard player to hold a candle to with any other player
Even the most veteran position four players can't do the things that socks it does. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with that
I feel like
You know, we're also not expecting a mar to be so it's there's different expectations on these players
And I think for a mar to be able to have a better game in next game like one says they need to fix the early game
I think they're getting their fundamentals checked and they're not passing the check right now
They absolutely know how to team fight. They absolutely know how to play the late game
They know how to scale but when you take that away from them like
The early game is really where things are falling apart and going back to socks of being everywhere on the map
We see that incredibly like it's just proficient firm
It feels like second nature at this point
But I do want to give a little bit of credit to that pot of what Axel was talking about on the side of
Yandex as well as like the fact that their
Lost pick about you know what potentially could have come out for them and all that sort of stuff
like DM being so self sufficient in lane. We talked about this once before yesterday, but
one of the key things that enables a roaming support to do what they do is when you have an
off-laner that's more than willing to be left on an island and help themselves. We always talk about
it. You don't necessarily need to come out on top of a lane to feel like you've won it. Just don't
feed, right? Don't feel like you're egregiously going out of position, going out of your way.
You're just happy and content, making sure two people are busy on you and your person is
is helping mid, helping the safe lane.
Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point
because when the shift happened in Yandex earlier this year,
where they got rid of Nautist and got DM instead,
a lot of people thought that was a strange decision
because most players regard Nautist
as a very high individual skill player
and someone that you want on your team.
But there is a reason why DM fits this team better.
He does not need to be the most important part
of the draft, he doesn't need resources,
he will make do with what he has
and that just fits into a team with Watson
than anything else would.
Yeah, I also think what's really interesting, and Kuro mentioned it at the end of his interview,
is they picked Doom for DM, and I think this is what DM kind of does, is it blocks the
potential for Huskar.
The hero that they actually wanted there was probably the Huskar, but the moment the
Doom comes out, you don't have the option to play the heroes that you want to, and
I think one of DM's biggest skill sets is finding heroes that restrict the hero
opponents' hero pools.
And that's what he offers to his team, and it's something that, it's kind
of hard to point to in drafts, but it's something he often does.
He used to play enigma a lot for a while, which made carry players just have to play gyro
and then you could easily get the carry matchup that you wanted on the opposite side.
Yeah, he's got a very specific skill set that is very annoying to play against.
I think he's one of those players that, from a third party perspective, you look at him and you're like,
ah, this guy's kind of whatever. It's meh, meh. It's meh, meh.
And then you play against him and he's very annoying and he's a part of the game that is hard to quantify,
but the impact is always there.
And like you said, they value him for a reason, right?
These are very good players.
the fact that Sokso wanted to play with this guy, that says something, right?
He's laning with this guy.
He respects his laning and his gameplay and his ideas enough that he wants to be
tied to that guy.
And we know Sokso is someone who values good players.
He's not willing to play with just any team.
We've seen that in the past, taking breaks.
He even mentioned it in one of our podcasts together that he, for example,
spent a long time just waiting for a team rather than just joining any team.
So when he joined Yandex, we all knew that this is something that he believes in.
And I feel like that belief is being rewarded right now.
I want to look at Lago a little bit more as a hero as well, because he's been so hit-and-miss,
and even the short time that he's spent in Dota in Captain's mode, he's had a lot of ups
and downs.
If this weird trajectory where, okay, he feels a little bit too unbalanced during the
season, then he really falls off a bit more.
And now he teaches on that edge where we see the impact for it.
We know a couple of counters to it.
And so looking at his leading phase, transition of what this hero could do for people who
maybe haven't played it, maybe haven't even really seen much of Lago and the impact that could come out from this hero.
Why was it struggling against a Kez in lane? Why wasn't it hitting that level of that notion that we've seen in the past?
Well, it's a very free lane for Kez. And I think Lago is a hero, as we can see in the win-rate stop, so it's 50%, so it's done well this TI.
But it's a hero that needs to be picked with intent.
If there needs to be a reason why you think this hero is worth prioritizing early in your draft, usually it's the case of, okay,
There's a first pick ember we need to block pick it and we need to dispel for the flame bird
Oh, there's a tree in protector. We need to dispel for the living armor
Oh, we're intending on picking ember or speed or storm
We're gonna have this Largo to enable him but this Largo was revealed there was no synergies and
Clinksters revealed in the same phase making it so that the two supports who had range damage and range stuns
Didn't have anyone to do anything for them. No one to set up for them. Yeah, it's a bit it's a bit awkward and clunky
It's not the the easiest way to play the game
But I do think make the galaxy show a pretty decent signs of life like in the same time it was a beatdown
I think Yandex it took him all longer than I think it should have or could have to win this game
And I think Nigma have improved a lot at slipping around the map and pushing these sidelines
I look at GH specifically in this Marana. He is seriously having insanely high impact in these games
Whenever you look at the fights and where just the camera is going
He's always on the screen because he's setting up a kill with some yules. He's sneaking around on the sidelines
I think one of the biggest mistakes that players make especially in high stress games is they push away
And they walk backwards and they clump up with their team and then you ball up as five
And what that does is the map splits evenly oftentimes and you don't actually in positions to get kills because your smokes are obvious
But GH is not backing up
He's pushing the waves and he's hiding in the trees and he's waiting
He's making people come and get this guy out because he's just stuck in the trees
But to that point then I have to ask if you're first facing this GH mama
That's cooking the way that you say where's where's the combo?
What what's the idea if you first phase it into what were you able to use that?
Were you able to take these tools and make him dominate the game?
There was really nothing there which is why I really chalked this out like I chalk this on that to a draft loss
Maybe not even a draft loss. Just a strange idea
Maybe this idea that an early pick logo can somehow be self-sufficient enough
But to me it just didn't work out even it's related to how the draft fundamental fundamentally functions
Like if you look at how they played their previous games
It's very much been clear like Lornoff is the endgame win condition. They had it in game one
Eventually he came online. They think my absolutely enabled it
But the storm was dealing the damage right they need to die in the black holes too and this game
I feel like with the bands that we saw we were even questioning it ourselves like is this really a comfortable position for
Nigma to be in and I feel like the answer to that sadly was no and for the next game
What's going to be really interesting to see is
Well, honestly, which way does the coin flip go because whoever gets first pick
I think has quite a big edge in the series because the bands seem to matter so much
Yeah, the IO and the Bounty Hunter bands are pretty much forced seems like I mean you could play against IO again
Giving the galaxy IO of Yannick's worth to lose it
But that's a risk and you're giving them a hero they're very comfortable with right there put it
You're putting them from a game where they're uncomfortable and they have a weird draft
It looks very awkward to the draft that they are most comfortable and they have a decade of knowledge of how to pick
Lineups with IO so I think you want to ban it just for comfort's sake
That's two bands already locked down. You're banning Ember every game. You're banning Kotl every game. Well, that's all your bands
Yeah, so in Trients also up there. So yeah, maybe you've let something you probably have to let something do right?
And that suddenly makes like a much carrier team it seems because I think when they don't get that one hero
It seemed harder for them to build this time around
I think I'm pretty cool though if they let IO through on Yandex because I don't think that was the reason why they lost
That first game and for them to have the confidence to beat their best hero for me
That's the TI winning mentality and I would like to see that in the next game
But you know criticisms of making those draft aside
I want to blaze Watson like you cannot show the offline early versus this player because his carry here pool is so wide
And he's so good at laning and all these little things that you talked about yesterday Quinn
Where if you give him the chance to play free lane, he's gonna over deliver
Yeah, it's it's a great quality of his he loves having a counter pick
He hates playing blind. That's just him as a player
So I think you want to use that strength. You want to give them the opportunities to shine the end
You've got an early pick player chair junior
You've got an early pick player and Watson is someone who likes the counter pick so if you're gonna reveal you're awfully early like that
Well, you get to have your cake and eat it to watch and gets his counter pick and you get to pick the other guys like that's perfect
And this is a Watson that is absolutely on fire. We didn't really touch on it for game one
But I think he was like some 10k gold ahead of everybody else in the game on that TV
So this is Watson like full scary mode and he's cooking. So I absolutely agree
I think that's exactly what they should do every game that we've had on the main stage for Yandex
Watson has stood that little bit above everyone
It's just hard when you have a position for that's running around the map that ends of their game
13 and 1 it's you know, you bring questions of oh, yeah
I kind of got Watson was also out there cooking doing his own masterclass for everyone else out there
He wants to learn how to play Kez be like him there, too.
But that's the crazy thing is you show the logo and immediately he's willing to pick it up.
So he doesn't even necessarily need to be a lost pick in the draft for themselves.
There's still so much more that Yandex can play around with in a draft there in the Galaxy.
Now they're the team that has to quote unquote bounce back.
And I don't have to ask you the question. Can they do it?
We know they can because yesterday they went to a game number three against Falcons when it was a similar thing.
We had one stump go towards them, one stump go against them, and a game number three was actually where they ended up trying for themselves.
It was after their win in game two, though.
That is true!
Yeah, it's a little bit of a different situation.
Just talking about what's on our share reminded me of something Sumel told me at TI 10, which was he feels like if you want to win TI, it's up to the carry.
And I think going into like he feels like TI is the one tournament of the year where the carry is like extremely defining.
They need to you know be that solid rock for the team
They need to be the person that they can rely on and going into game three
I feel like you know Sumail honestly he played well
I think he'd last game maybe the tools weren't there for him to truly shine, but he was playing extremely well and I
Just thought this idea of this carry battle in game three and I feel like that that's really what we're gonna see
Yeah, what you're saying is to male didn't want to win ti 10 because he was carry then he was
If you ask him, I'm pretty sure he'll tell you he was the best carry
Prime Yotaro getting rampaged every other game, like every single hero and Dota. That was a hard one.
I'm not saying he was the best kid. I was saying he would say he was the best kid.
He's probably going to say that about himself, this TI as well. And honestly,
it's somewhat odd to dispute considering he's really been showing up. Remember, if you don't
remember, in fact, it's only two and a half months that this team has been together. And
whilst Sumail is no stranger to changing roles to being carried to see how his hero pool,
how he is evolved competitively as a carry.
That's what's more notable than anything else.
They're fighting now or one game win to hit top three.
Yeah. I love this idea of the carry player being
a rock or someone on your team being a rock.
The TI is such an emotional tournament.
There's obviously all the gameplay stuff that goes into it.
But having a player in your team that you just believe in and you know that he's just going to own.
And that is so powerful because it gives you
the freedom to focus on your own game.
A lot of players get stressed and they get worried about their teammates.
and it affects your play and makes you play worse.
And if you believe that everyone in your team is going to own,
well, then that gives you the freedom to own yourself.
And so not only are you doing so much for the game
and that you're playing really well,
but you are making other people play well
just by the fact that they don't have to worry about you.
You got to jump under control.
I noticed something when they had the carry head
to head on the screen.
And it was like Shadow Fiend and Windranger
are two shared heroes within these two carries.
And we haven't seen either of these two in the series.
I feel like it would be interesting,
because SF, I don't think, has been banned
in any of these games, actually.
SF was Lost Phase Band from Nigma Galaxy in Game 1, and Windranger was Second Phase Band in Game 2 by Yandex.
But it is available. It could go for it if they want to. And I think especially the Shadow Fiend, I feel like that would be a cool hero to see in Game 3.
Yeah, it's a spicy one. And I don't know, it's just, there's a lot here. I think a lot of thought goes into these drafts, especially in Best of 3s as it goes later.
And a lot of things change. You really got to sort of soul read the enemy team, so I'm excited to see how things break down, how they've cooked the decisions they've made.
What's important and what's not there's so much that lies there that defines a series the reason I like the SF those
I think it secures up their early game a lot more. I feel like that's kind of where they've been lacking
I think this hero is like it offers you the potential to absolutely destroy your lane and Sumail, you know
He's one of the few SF players that
Beat the open AI like he beat it so fast and when it was destroying everybody
He is like as good as AI at playing SF. So I really want to see him on the hero
Team Young Dex versus Nygma Galaxy. Game 3.
I read everyone would love to see an SF off to that one and saying you're hyping it up and building it up.
What potentially could it be? Because out game number 3 here, the winner advances to top 3.
the other one, while they're
going to be going down to that
lower bracket and looking
towards a potential elimination.
A lot does lie in this game.
Number three, what you want, and
more importantly, as you pointed
out, Quinn, who exactly is going
to have first pick and I can
tell you guys right now it is
Yandex that's going to have
that first pick for
themselves, which is the same as
what happened in game number
two, and I'm seeing a very
similar run back here are
wiping up for themselves and
still that Nature's Prophet, Io, Bounding Hunter and Triumph.
Yeah, these things are fascinating because I think the fans are good on both sides.
I think it's very reasonable that none of these bands change because they're incredibly
powerful heroes.
And so Yannick's is saying, hey, we thought this was really good for us.
We're going to run it back.
But now the ball is in their court that they can change, right?
We talked about their heroes they could have gone for, the Windranger.
There was a lot of years, lack of synergy in the heroes.
They can fix things and bring it back to a much more even game.
So I think Yannix is happy with Thirstic and they're happy with their win and win.
It's not going to be as easy as it was last game.
I just hope that if they pick Marana, they're not going to pick three ranged heroes in the second phase.
But they're willing to, okay, they change it up and they go for Earth Spirit themselves.
It's an interesting one because I don't, I'm guessing Laurel has practiced it.
But there's also a chance that we could see support Earth Spirit potentially.
Because Ahmed and GH both play it.
I mean, GH used to famously play it a lot.
I think, however, what I find really cool about this pick is if this is the moment that
Lornoff decides that, you know what, I'm more than just game carry.
I can beat a tempo for the team.
I can beat a guy that plays our spirit, sets up a tempo.
The hero obviously has good scaling.
He's going to have high impact as the game drags on, so there's no issues there,
but it's a different way of doing it.
He's going to have to do it through kills rather than farming camps.
I'm honestly pretty excited to see it because I think, again, if you want to win TI,
you have to overcome these things.
And this is Thornoff's chance to prove that he has it in him.
I agree.
And I mean, he plays all the other spirits.
The way that Earth Spirit is played right now,
it's probably the easiest version of him.
People aren't even skilling Rowling Boulder online.
You're just geo-gripping and Boulder smashing.
You're farming.
Then you're pressing magnetize.
You're missing your spells, but you're still dropping stones.
And you're getting kills.
Like, if there is a time to learn the hero
and not be afraid of it, it is now.
Yeah, it's very true.
And sometimes you just feel it as well.
You get into a draft.
and you're like, this is the best pick
and I'm just gonna play it,
even though maybe I would rather play, you know,
Storm Spirit or whatever, this is the best pick,
I can play it and you actually believe it
and you commit to it
and I think Lornaub is definitely capable of doing it.
We saw Cher Junior do that the other day with Wisp.
Yep.
And he, you know, it wasn't perfect, but he delivered.
And sometimes all you have to do is good enough.
This Dark Spirit bond is very heads up
because, I mean, thought the SF you mentioned
and seeing it could come out,
but it also blocks the support Earth Spirit
because to play for Earth Street, you need perks here.
But that's when it's looked best.
One month ago, I'm keeping a team vision.
We're running it all the time.
This is what they were running it with.
Yep.
And the Doom Band also the adjustments.
You see, even though the first two
of Wyvern is the same, the first phase bands
are the same, these little tweaks,
we are going to have a completely different looking draft
with completely different looking chances for both teams.
And I think that's what's so cool
is how little shifts affect completely everything.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is an interesting position that we're in now.
Thinking for Nigma, I think they obviously value the Murano very highly.
It's available. You have much better synergies with the Earth Spirit this time around, all gritting in the draft.
It's also very good against Wyvern. We saw a few examples of it in the last game, but whenever Wyvern cold embraces someone, you essentially get a free arrow set up.
This however is a bit of an odd one. You've got melee stun in, stun go in boy. You follow that up with a melee stun go in boy.
So there's a little bit of lack of synergy, a little bit of lack of follow-up.
Now, you can fix that later on.
You can pick some damage dealers in your five,
in your carry, in your mids, or your off-lane rather.
So it's not necessarily the biggest problem ever,
but generally in drafts, you wanna pick heroes
that cover each other's weaknesses back to back
so that later down the draft,
you're not forced to pick a certain type of hero
which gives you more flexibility
to counter the enemy's heroes
instead of just fixing your own draft.
I think SF is still on the table.
Like, especially now that I see this clockwork,
because you could just do,
I'm dying for this last one, something crazy like that.
There it is.
She's locked in.
You know, he's locked in Watson.
That's true.
He's like, it's 2 in the morning.
I'm getting out of here.
Yeah, the clock is also interesting
because I think we talked about Omar in the last game
and how he maybe wasn't that comfortable
in the situations that he was put in.
I do think his clockwork has looked extremely strong
throughout this tournament.
I think it's been one of his better heroes
and one of the heroes he's found the most impact on.
Yeah.
I think comfort does matter.
especially if you get this hoodwink in game 2, you feel like you can't do anything with it, there's no point in running back a ranged support.
Generally also, it's late at night, they've been playing for a long time, they're tired, and I think comfort matters even more,
because exhaustion is just part of the game, right? Games go long, sometimes tournaments go long, and being able to deal with that
and maybe recognizing that, and incorporating it into the draft, the draft is a living, changing thing
based on the circumstances of real life, not just the game.
So being like, hey, I just want, I want my comfort saying,
realizing that, recognizing that, your mental state,
I think could definitely also be a part of it.
I never was being there eight, 10 hours of daughter a day,
and then you get into your loss and you're like,
one more before bed, this is it.
And you just want to play your company,
or you want the muscle memory to kick in,
and you just want to have fun.
We actually had a sports psychologist on Liquid
at one point told us like,
sometimes you're not going to play your A game.
So you need to make sure that your B and C game are good.
And in this situation like this, it's super late at night.
These players are obviously trying their hardest, you're going to play your heart out, but you know, your B-game might be all that you're going to get out of yourself right now because your body is not performing a key performance.
And that's the moment in which comfort matters the most.
So, oh my god, did that, did that, I completely forgot about this.
They were absolutely owning with us in the group stage.
It's been banned out a lot against them, right?
because Yandex essentially put GH in a position where they took his wyvern, they banned his caudal,
Nigma themselves banned their IO, so what slept for him was who's Dazzle or his Bane, and Bane
seems to have fallen off pretty hard on the main stage. See, teams aren't picking him anymore,
and when they are, it doesn't look so good. Yeah, this is, it's a lot of surrogability.
It's a lot of beef, a lot of tank that you have to get through. Shadowfiend does have the
damage, but I think one aspect of Nigma's draft that's a little weird and a little clunky
is they don't actually have very much like any nukes really in a sense like they have a boulder smash or a firestorm
But these are not traditional nukes you'd think of that sort of just fall over the top
It's not a star storm or a bushwhack or you know hoodwink old or things like this
So it's a little it's a little odd and there can come a point where invoker is kiting you with spells
Wyvern is kiting you with spells Potom is morana is leaping away
And you can have issues actually locking on to and killing people because your heroes sort of lack
natural damage dealing in a way
And I have to worry about, sorry just very quickly, the carry to carry matchup is a big one when it comes to SF for so long it's been this question, okay, you kind of want to also stand there, be a bit of a turret, try and out click an SF, we've seen drows try and do that, we've seen Lina try and do that, and ultimately everyone's fallen short, so I do wonder is there another angle to be able to overcome what is eventually going to be the right click of an SF?
I love that you bring that up because I feel like the formation of the teamfights in this game is something that's really important to look at
Like Dazzle shines when you get to sit in the backline and there's nothing that can really reach him
In this case if you look at Yandex's heroes, there is no natural like get in the backline type stun hero
There's like the St. Boker and the Murana ult that they can use to kind of
Position themselves better in the fight
But he might be able to just be the difference maker for any core that they pick because you're gonna get five seconds of just hitting
while your shallow grade. So if you can't get on top of the Dazzle, he kind of
enables any core to just sit there in the front and not care about how much
damage they have because it's just so much time for you to get to it.
You definitely need jump to get on top of this Dazzle. You like that Yarmex's got
that four ranged heroes? Usually I hate this. Like in the context of Dazzle,
I do dislike it, but when you look at Underlord and the pit and the way
that people have been going aggs and starting these like game fights with
like two pits and denying the ground, having ranged heroes and people
that don't necessarily need to play into that space,
makes all the difference.
Yeah, we also talk about comfort.
Cheer Junior Invoker is about as comfortable as it gets.
He is one of the best Invokers of this tournament.
It's probably his single best hero.
He's super good on it.
And if you're playing against Earth Spirit,
then I think having some late game scaling of your own
is very good.
We all know about how the 25 magnetized
is completely crazy.
And Invoker's late game is also crazy.
And so, you know, fighting fire with fire,
I think is a very good strategy.
I wonder if C.J. is kind of calling Waranoff's bluff because I do think Invoker struggles very much
versus Earth Spirit in the early game. Like later on, there's definitely a lot of counterplay,
but you're gonna get out CS. He's gonna just get on top of you with magnetize,
and he's got the dazzles play with Taboot to keep him safe in the life.
So maybe C.J. is just like, ah, I'll cook him anywhere. He doesn't play this hero.
I feel like the main question mark for Nigma just becomes, are they able to kill
On top on their spirit spells because it's like when said they don't really have big nukes to follow up on
Whenever he goes in and that that is going to be like are they able to do it?
Or is it just going to be like he goes in drops him over 20% HP and then some spells come in and earth bread ends up dying himself
How can we really putting axe in the conversation right now because that is one of those
matchups that everyone knows you can dunk through I
Think I think axe has been popular when you get to see some sort of turret hero on the enemy team
and you get to counter it with Axe. I think that's when Axe has really been strong and in this game,
obviously, Nigma hasn't decided to reveal their carry yet and therefore the Axe is kind of tricky to pick.
Axe vs. Dazzle with the highest level is also a bit of a tricky, very skill-based matchup because
Dazzle will buy Holy Locket and he has the heal and so you have to pump fake your dunk and
there's sort of this game theory that goes on with, at right as you press dunk, well he
Holy Lockets you and then you miss the dunk and so it's actually, even though it is technically
good. It's quite tricky and actually very skillful from the axe. It's not an easy matchup by any means.
I'll also say laning Dazzle into axe feels very, very good. You have easy ways to get a
pick kill if you have to through your heal. Your poison is very annoying to farm, laning too, so
there is a nuances to the matchup for sure. There's nothing left though. Underlord was taken
by Nygma. Tried to ban, sometimes banned, boom was banned. Darkseer is banned by Ianda. It's
like what melee hero can you play to run about the draft on Yannix? It's not an easy pick
pretty and only actually with acts is like the reason why they both are acts
combo falloff is that acts that is playing a little bit too slow and ranged carries
didn't necessarily fall off but the way that he was picked to counter heroes like
draw ranger with the blade mail and just annoy her like later on in the game it
just stopped functioning in the same way it didn't work as well and he
needs time but it was a great call by you now because there's honestly nothing
left and it's good against Dazzle.
The big question though is, is Nygmer and Galaxy still gonna want that ranged carry that you guys said
Axe still does well against is having a Dazzle in your lane enough to propel your carry
whatever they end up being into a good enough position that you're not
worrying about the Axe in that late-apart.
Okay that's kind of cool. I was thinking about the Skeeter-esque heroes. I was thinking Tiny maybe
or spend perhaps I think both these heroes could have done pretty well in this game.
But then I saw the Wyvern on the other side and I was like, maybe not.
But he ends up going for Alch. Honestly, not a hero I expected him to pick,
but it isn't a carry hero that's used to play on the mid lane way in the past.
So it's a hero that he's definitely comfortable with.
He on down this hero a lot during group stages at EWC. He really was cooking and setting the
pace. These drafts are funny to me because it's like, oh, you've got four melee heroes on
one team against the Winterweaver and I think about four ranged heroes on another team against an Underlord.
It's, yeah, who's stronger? The Pokey Poke guys or the Attack Attack guys? Sorry, I'm tired.
I mean, what you're essentially saying is you have on Nigma side one team that's going to fully
commit to the engagements, right? They can't really play that poke game, whereas for Yandex,
it's a polar opposite. They're going to want to play the poke game. They're going to try to
keep their distance and play from range. Yeah, it's, uh, it's super interesting. It's a
the clash of styles. And I think I don't know for, for, I believe in the Somalia alchemist
in a lot of ways, I think the early game has flipped. And that I think Nigma actually had
the advantage in the early game, whereas the past few games they've gotten smacked. I
think this game they have advantageous lane in the safe lane, in the mid lane. And I
think the off lane is maybe a bit rough, but you've got two lanes that will least
do solid. And to me, that's considerably better than getting smacked in three lanes.
And so I think if you're Nigma, you fixed a lot of your problems from the last
And you may be on a bit more of a timer than you were in the other games
But it's at least a different style that potentially gives you a chance to be have the upper foot the upper hand
The lower foot the upper hand
I do think Nina have a very strong tempo draft and they can accomplish a lot to me
The big question is here junior picked his last hero in invoker versus this first spirit versus this run that you drop
Which invoker can suffer against is he gonna deliver because if he does all the incredibly impressed
It's his game to pop off. I
Think for me, honestly, it's going to be a completely different game than any of the two games
We saw before and now MiGma with a stronger early game. They get to set the pace
They get to be the team that pressures. I am not sure who's gonna win, but I'm really excited to see it
It's one of those things that during group stages
Whether you want to say they had an easier path or whatnot
They've always been able to push it to the high caliber teams
We were able to see them get that 2-0 against spirit put them in the highest
to be able to make it to a top
three or is Yankees going to be
able to be that wall that stands
in their way. Either way, we'll
see how games replay that. It's
a whole news story here with
OD pixel and fog. Game free here.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's Queen
Nick, the Galaxy and Ian next
lots to talk about with these
dressed for where do you want
to start? Yeah, I think
between Nick McGalaxy and Ian Dex.
Lots to talk about with these drafts, folk.
Where do you want to start?
Just the differences.
I feel like this one does have the potential
to be that closest type of battle
where we will see that evenness in the early game.
Because I do look at it and I'm like, yep, again,
Nick, just like the first one for me,
I like the way they've set up their lanes.
Are they going to be able to perform, though,
is the question because Soxa,
he's been a thorn in their side,
both games dominating these lanes, causing a spiral,
causing the games to kind of snowball out of control,
sure they were able to do in the first game.
The question will be, can they do it in this one?
I like their, I do like their ideas.
I do think they are in a bit of a dangerous position,
but the game does fall out of hands in the early game,
because it is a very strong scaling draft from Yandex.
But man, they're doing it in their own style, Lo,
and the Dazzle, literally nobody else is playing.
Nobody, it is respected, of course,
we've seen it being banned out against Nigma Galaxy.
So some teams definitely aware
of the potential of GH on the Dazzle.
It's going to be fun to get to see it because as you say, you're not going to see it anywhere else, I think, in this entire tournament.
And this time, right? I'm looking. Last time I was like, ooh, Nigma's teamfight pretty lackluster. This time around, good amount of teamfight.
They've got the Earth Spirit, one of the best. I was taking a look at some of the stats. Lornoff, he has played it, sure, not as much recently,
but even dating back a couple years, he used to play it, so definitely experienced on the hero.
Let's see how he can do in the matchup versus Chira. Chira, I've seen him do pretty okay in the matchup versus the Earth Spirit as well,
even though you do have that base damage disadvantage,
she's very good at not the best on this Invoker.
I think we're in for a treat.
I feel like this should be the closest one of the three.
Sure, that first one was crazy,
but it was that turn around that Nigma
was able to do this one.
I think we're up for a more even footing,
or I hope so, at least, if Watson is able to just go
absolutely crazy on Shadowfiend,
which sometimes these systems also do,
but yeah, I think we're in for a treat.
This should be possible.
And what did you make of the axe paper for DM?
A hero that has fallen out of favor,
Obviously the Dazzle was there. That's why they sort of look towards it
But is that good enough of a reason to pick the axe or do you still have some concerns for this hero?
So I like what they round
Not a way that you want to start here if they get the hunger the slow it might just be enough
But Shry!
Oh!
But Shry, kids!
Chiro Junior!
Will secure third splat!
They'll get Malady and return, Nick McGalaxy, but Chiro Junior!
Ready or ready to start showing us the potential he has on as Queen Claim to be an understandably so.
Chiro Junior's best hero here in the mid.
And Lee's floor enough gets to trade, right?
So sure, it's not a first blood, but does get the kill to get that bottle very early.
And overall, Invoker, when he does get first blood, sure, it's great.
because you're able to buy that early null, and you can Sunstrike even more in the side lanes,
but this isn't one of those heroes where, you know, you get a first blood, and you dominate the lane.
It's just not a hero that's like that, so...
Yeah, let's see what we do get, and yeah, look, you asked for the axe pick.
There wasn't that much left, but something else I'm looking at too is,
this quad melee of Nekron has me as slightly concerned.
You're playing into Wyvern, Invoker, Shadowfiend, and Axe.
Four heroes that can combo and be very strong when you're playing into all these melee heroes,
So we'll see how they do end up adapting and not getting caught.
If they get caught by some of these combos, it could be devastating for them.
So have to be careful for their positioning, how they want to overcommit.
But on the side of Yandex, it's 4 ranged heroes.
They don't have to worry as much of getting caught by some of these combos.
What do you sort of expect out of the lane down bottom?
Is it going to be an axe with this Murana backing him up
that's going to play insulate lanes, try and shut down the Alch farm?
Or are we going to see DMs start cutting free waves, maximizing his own farms,
but then obviously the trade-off being that you're going to let Sumail get free farming to save them?
They always play the lane.
Yeah, what I've seen at least on Yandex, this is going to be a bit of a difficult one and a test for them,
because of how strong the Minus Armor with the Dazzle list.
And Dazzle, as they said, and as we've, I mean, forever, pretty much for all history.
Yes, Axe good versus Dazzle in mid-game, but Dazzle very good versus Axe in the lanes.
Sox is dead.
Absolutely, there's a block off there, and Saksa level 1, no leaps to be had.
We'll bring down the Koryo women, and Sumail, able to claim the kill!
This should be that time where they have a better lane.
Like I said, the last two games, Saksa has ruined them, in the same lane.
This time around, it does look like this lane is set up for successors to have that protection.
Sumail started with the chain belt very early here,
and is going to be able to force the lane out with acid spray.
I'm glad they set it too, Sumail. This is a Sumail hero.
Oh, it really is.
From a long time ago as well, to dating back to a 10 years ago, but 8-9 years ago.
He used to play it a lot, and even nowadays, it's playing.
Hot hero to watch.
Let's see how much he's able to get inside of this lane now,
as we see getting the early kills important, because the Shadow Feed,
Watson's gonna have free farm.
So you have to make sure that the Alchemist is also matching in that free farm potential.
This is a scary pick.
The combo that they have on Yandex is also terrifying.
Curse into a Requiem, almost cancels me by.
That was close!
Bought a different ways for them to set up the combo plays and get massive Wombo combo potential on the side of your index finger.
Detection down.
Alright.
Contest the Lotus.
What's gonna happen?
And now I'm able to grab that.
Even the relatively low down here is not super healthy, not super easy for GH down here, even with the heals.
Somehow these two work their magic. I swear Sox and DM win so many lanes that you don't really anticipate them to be able to win some more pressure
So right now is doing very good down here
But I'm careful as well when you get low in case these Sunstrikes do start being thrown out once more from Chiroginea
And the fact that he's got that note to start things off
He started to fall a little behind in the last hits, but he always has manners to do that though Sunstrikes down on the side
Bottom again, DM
I want to make moves for him.
So Melz, he sees it.
He's like, come a little too low to commit for the play there.
If they get me with the first and the second,
I won't die.
Respective.
Omar, some wave dragging.
To talk about Omar as well, too, you look at that first,
the game that he played on the clockwork,
you look at he was dying a lot for no reason.
But it felt like he had such high impact in that game
as the clockwork.
He was giving so much information,
tanking abilities for the team.
So I love seeing him on this clock.
I think it's one of his best, even though sure.
You might end with 9 or 10 deaths or anything like that.
He gets the job done in terms of taking the building, so...
See if he can do similar this time around.
The question is, is it worth throwing a Sun Strike out for him?
Or too unlikely to him?
Bit difficult. Lornoff can call when the Sun Strike comes out immediately too, so...
If he is going to go for it.
Definitely not easy when he's at speed either.
He's getting close to Pongways. He's going to have enough HP.
He has enough HP now to survive the burst, so it won't be thrown out for him.
here we'll save it for more guaranteed hit he's gonna try it for the fight I'm
gonna catch it how's cheeky stops to pop the stick drops the item for the
extra next gift of dodging the Sun's drinking ball with it
learn off 11 denies but we are seeing chair chair with a fair bit of denies
as well in it to his hand but keeping only a little bit behind in terms of
that experience right now aren't here comes a Sun strike this that he knows
I'm ready for it. That's doing a good job at dodging the sun strikes in the galaxy
And you know it's Lauren off just being like such a careful quick little calls
We'll be able to drag it to Dubai a nice juicy way for the underlord
Important that they can do these type of wave drags when you're playing versus the shadow if you decide Watson
Absolute free fall. He's gotta be a good son. He I don't know if he's missed. I mean I feel like he's missed like I
I just don't know. I think he's only missed a couple of last hits, maybe only at the 2 or 3.
I think it seems like he's hit more creeps than there is in the game.
Yeah.
There's some 50 CS and 5 minutes in.
Pretty absurd that he's been able to get that point to male. Only with 27 he's getting slowed down.
Power root, coming out, Walmart looking for malady, won't be able to get him at the Ford Spirit up top.
Lower enough to not get lucky with the run.
It's not the easiest one to execute at times, but they could look for it out to learn up if Soxa finds an angle.
It's very hard to sort of anticipate the duration of the early tornado.
Because he's not the cold snap tornado prep, so if he gets the connection they can't follow it up. He's going to try.
Not an easy move, but they've made it look easy.
And they get the connection.
They've made it look easy.
but they've made it look easy as they get the clean connection.
Nice, he done that between the two of them.
Jira, perfect.
And difficult to expect because you don't see the rune either.
You don't know what Soxa was getting.
So the Invis even helping him get that extra little angle there.
We mentioned slowing down some of that momentum of the air spirit.
A hero that, yes, is super strong if you get some of his scaling,
but the slowdown is something a lot of teams
and a lot of players have talked about slowing down some of these vessel rotations
can be pretty massive
off to a hot start.
EM also not to have been shut down in the laning phase as this axe
he's got to be able to get his dominator at a pretty fast timing
but this dazzle overall in the laning phase wasn't able to really shut down that axe I think
as much as they had initially wanted to so mail's got good farm
and not slowing down that axe.
So Dominator, it's done,
he will be able to get a lot out of it as well in this game.
Talk to me a bit more about the Dazzle.
Why is it something that fits so well for Nygma Galaxy
and do you think the GH likes to play it
in sort of a meta where nobody else wants to play this hero?
I think GH for all history
has just liked to play a lot of these human heroes.
The Cato, this IO, the Dazzle, right?
It's just something that he's always liked to play with.
So I can understand why he wants to go down this route.
Sumail surrounded guys a pretty nasty move there from Watson coming in through the
twin gate and slamming down the enemy carrying.
Level 7 already on Watson too so very easy to be able to go for getting involved in comparison with Sumail.
Sumail is the farm, just get that radiance. Watson can really start to accelerate this game and join.
I love when we see these shadow beings. They do these plays. You get a free lane and then you just kind of snowball with the movements very early.
The 8th.
We get further back up here with Sumail respawning.
Easy to chase though, now he's in 5th. They've got the fiends game.
They've got the Red Grim to push GH back, take him out to buy.
He's going to try and help out, find some sort of a trade.
Sumail.
Caught you down to Saksa.
Now get one of them, one of the TPR pros in Colorado.
Turns up, puts us up to the TPR of Watson.
Now we have to clean up the carry.
Sumail able to get some revenge.
Nice timing from Dubai.
Kind of cuts off their exit path there against the PNX and with the beans game lowering off.
Very good connection with the start. Perfect timing. TP was about to finish.
Cheer Genie up. Making the most out of the space though. Pretty much has finished off this tier one tower
in the mid very early on.
It's smart for him not to react, right? There's nothing. Another arrow connection, GH.
Sox is committing. A 7th burst.
It should not be thrown.
I'm also here as well with the wrap around. So Saxon, Cheer Genie, I have to be a little careful.
Good co-connection.
Oh, nice wall, won't hit him either.
They have to roll forward in a second, he's gonna be able to take Saksir out.
Tira, I didn't get this spot.
On top of this, I mean they surrounded him with the 3rd, the low cost of that from Lorinoff,
he's gonna go for the deep cover, and the heal bomb comes in from GH.
Good reactions from Nigma Galaxy, they make sure to return the favor down on the bottom lane,
and then now in the mid reacting, they do lose their tower,
but getting these trades and taking away the early bit of a gold lead,
The gold lead that Yandex was starting to build.
The G.H. special, right?
Playing something you don't expect.
He did so...
Did you notice damage he did in that fight as a dazzle?
850, almost the same as the Earth Spirit with all the connection.
Massive heal connection.
He could have potentially died at the start of things too.
The way that they combo it, it looks like Soxa was like,
hey, let's commit for the kill.
Chira was a little indecisive, doesn't go for the Sun Strike.
It ends up costing them massively.
Great turn around there.
And that's the thing, right?
You talk about Digma Galaxy,
these melee heroes. Sure, Yandex have ways to punish it, but all those melee
heroes also means pretty big shadow wave here.
Very true. Something you don't really think about too often is how much damage a
dazzle can do with these early deals. That will set up a locket to be perhaps
picked up pretty early for GH, and that can be one of those little tricky things
for an axe to sometimes get the dunk first like Quinn was talking about. You
get that little extra heal just over it. You can play in that mini game, not
let the dunk go through. Learned off accelerating. Level 8 has been hit,
He's got an Arcane Rune, wants to potentially look for Watson because this Shadow Fiend is vulnerable in the early game.
They've got the Fiends get to follow right on top afterwards, so they should have enough to bring him down if they do find him.
Goodbye. Bringing the buddies in, they're Fiends getting Maladie.
I'm gonna find a cat, kill him, swim.
Malady, they're not getting away from this.
Lorena.
Having that exciting entry into this game,
very even start this time around.
8-4, Nygma, they are matching
versus Yandex.
Take Requiem.
He was ready for them,
but doesn't quite hit a massive connection
with that Requiem.
And now he's surrounded.
He's outnumbered.
What's his gonna get surrounded
by Nygma Galaxy?
Where's the backup?
Where's the team?
He's floating.
It's not there! He's left alone under his tier one!
Nygma Galaxy carefully take him down and lose nothing themselves!
Slorn off pacing now, getting these connections, 5-1 and 2, slowing down Wattson's Sumail.
Pretty much he's gonna have the Radiance done now at this point, so slowing down Wattson massively after his rotations.
He got no help!
I mean maybe this is the difference, making you know, game 1 and game 2, Nygma Galaxy.
With the 1-0 challenge, they left the Earth Sprit in a available for the opponents, available for Yandex.
This game, game 3, they need a close-up of victory. They grab it for themselves.
Florinoff's ready to show them how it's done.
I like how they're playing around the fact that they know that Invoker and Axe, especially with this type of build,
they aren't heroes that really want to react to these moves.
You know, Axe wants to sit back, get the blink.
Invoker wants to play on from his own lane, setting up for some of these Sunstreaks.
So, going for these dive plays on the Shadowfiend, absolutely a good choice.
The Watson, trying to go for that play there, gets punished.
The most even early game we've had in this series.
12 minutes in, less than 1k, the Radiance is done.
So, Mel, see how much he wants to get involved with this one,
or how much he wants to just sit back and farm.
Because he does want to get BKB pretty fast this game.
Basil now finished also, about that 13-minute mark.
Magnetize is out there ready.
And next...
There's what they do to keep that distance from Nick McGallick's here at this point.
Jiro?
Here now.
Lay down the combo until I'm off.
Should have him finished.
A little bit extra damage to take from the meteor.
Just enough.
Meteor hammer, if that is.
Let's try from Lorna.
Save the distance.
We've done the geopult, the silence, but the spell combo had already been casted.
Played Shadow won't be able to surprise. Malody was trying to get a connection there on the long run, but not the case.
I'm not playing it safe, but doesn't want to roll in on his own.
I'm just not sure that he's got some sort of backup before making a move on to Jiridjunia.
Omar not quite 6 yet, either. No hookshot. Divy needs to heal as well. Divy, Fiendscape is at the ready, but he's not healthy just now to join.
to join it. And once they've got the fiends getting the hook shot they'll be
ready to make plays again, Nigma Galaxy. They have great ways to collapse on top of
Chirr Jr. They have to be aware of DM's farming. I don't think they've seen him in
some time. They probably have to start anticipating that the blinkers start to
come out soon because he's the hero that can respond. GH, try his luck here
around the 14 minutes, will not succeed. Beautiful Sunstrike again from Chirr,
we'll get that connection. Go to travel finish up room 2 to match the
aggression, maths and mobility because overall right, Nigma, they do have a great
way to be able to move around the map in this game with the fiends game with the
air spirits so this early boss Chira will be able to match that movement as well
and now DM does have the blade so feels like Yandex are finding more ways to
be able to react and protect once. Let's see how aggressive Nigma actually wants to be in these next few minutes. Or if they're going to just chill and hit the creeps a little bit. I think they might chill and hit the creeps for a moment.
Now I imagine the BKB in his blink dagger.
Somehow there's not too much pressure to turn up.
Maybe have to play for that time.
Not an end all BKB though this game.
You know that first game there was no BKB disabled piercing.
There's quite a bit this game.
The physical damage, the pure damage, the axe call, the wyvern.
The index will always have the answers.
And now DM does have that aggressive item.
The blink is finished.
Let's see if Link was ready for this first move.
We got it.
Or not, has to be careful.
Now if he tanks the gank,
Nick McAllister will be happy with that, and indeed he will.
That's his job, at least.
That's literally his job as the clockwork.
He did this so much in the first game.
We'll be able to reveal that blink dagger.
Want something a bit more than that, Yandex?
They want to try to slow down Sumail. G.H. is literally sitting right next to him though, to protect.
Peanskates are ready. The backup can come in.
Very quickly here. Ward being placed. G.H. is going to get spotted.
See how hard they want to come in. It's a pretty deep move. I don't know if Yandex wants to go for this play here.
I know. I didn't want this so much backup from Nygma Galaxy.
Poke up. Nygma with this move and do want to punish. They don't want to get stuck down here.
Shandex, stick around.
Eggman Galaxy will happily take this fight.
Oh, shut up!
Off the mark!
They're all connected to Kit!
Ooh!
Little bit of an awkward one there.
What did he-
Sort of giving him a kick to, uh,
the- the- out- out of harm's way!
Where did the silence go, too?
He used it, but it looks-
I mean, he didn't connect, I wasn't at all there, so...
I'm gonna put this up there for more and all.
And see if this is a free kill.
And that's a smoke, too.
So, bit of an expensive movement there from MiGma that
Yeah, they can capitalize on just chillin' and farming.
Kira, looking for a setup himself.
Perhaps once the slowdown divide, they know where this underlord is playing.
Need to dive though, another Sunstrike.
Hitting the majority.
Taking by the side of Watson, just in case a move was gonna come out onto the SF.
Two mails, PKB is coming soon.
I feel like that's when MiGma's gonna look to go go go, at least to fight back into this.
They don't want to just keep averaging kills all over these movements.
Jira, from the setup, nice you've done again here between Jira, Jiri, and Saksa, they burst through the bot.
This combo is looking real nice, I'm surprised we haven't seen it more often.
Sure, the invoker gets banned a lot, but the tornado cold snap was a narrow combo.
It is a dream setup.
Tower now, we'll go down.
4K lead now. It was a bit even in that early game in the first 10 minutes or so now,
Dandex starting to pull away with these movements.
Little bit easier for them to set up on these kills. Multiple heroes can do it as we see.
Wolfer, Nigma, most of the plays it's revolving around Lornoff still.
DKB, Tom, is it gonna be crucial for Nigma Galaxy?
Like both of them, right?
Lornoff and Sumail, it is a good BKB game versus the, you know, the SFN, the Invoker in particular.
Mark, they...
...was in.
This one should be a free bait.
Lornoff can out freely though.
Roll still uncooled up for a couple seconds.
Oh, just the arrow!
Too much damage though.
So much.
Grave?
It's that, GH, comes in with a save.
Good protection.
No magnetized now for 65 seconds he indexed on the aggressive posture.
He's ready to hunt.
Speaking of he's also really fast to escape. He's having a hell of a game Owen.
1,400 still ahead of the Earth Spirit.
It's a matchup that can be a bit difficult in times where the opponent's here on.
He tends to do this.
He does. He's been enabled nicely from the team with all these extra sun strikes and that first blood of course.
I see him, he's in the whole world of pain.
I see the firestorm, do you have- No, he's around.
They're gonna catch him.
No one able to connect to him.
And he's on the slide.
They'll kill him off.
How sad.
I think he got on the tree line there for a second and he thought he was coming out.
Blink's done on some metal.
I think- I imagine- I think he- he's gotta go.
I want to see him get more involved.
I think so I think he's gonna want to now with the blink BKB online here for the alchemist
You can't put all the pressure on on Lauren off to make every single one of these moves because now at this point
You're seeing device starting to suffer because he they're so reliant on the Lauren off move
So I'm thinking beat. Let's see what's your milk
The mother they do I must go one of the ready
Multiple heroes of backup
Not the most important target bill so
I need information for the rest of Yandex to get out of that.
And information, they now see Sumel, they're like, alright, he's got BKB.
Let's see how we want to respond to this. Do we want to go for it, or do we want to just keep playing for Divy?
They might just keep setting up for Divy.
He's still very vulnerable in this game. Lornoff very close to his BKB.
Gonna protect the Lothar's from the aggression on the Evo.
Level 14, yeah, it's literally just looking at that as we get our services pointed out.
He does have a lack, right?
So he's always going to have that extra buff up.
The Alchemist has some buff ups, right?
He does have the Dazzle.
the Atrophere that's going to prevent some of the damage from the index. This SF is definitely
a bit more enabled it feels like at the moment.
Especially with this Hurricane Pike until the man's done, it's going to mean that he
is also not afraid to turn up the action. Now, Watson, he sees some out standing up
for the fight, he'll be happy to respond. Trying to stall out buying that BKB, getting
here. Lornoff now does have it, Chira. For a skill or play on the shrine, Mima is so
ready. He knows it's risky. He doesn't want to go for it. He knows better. Not worth the
game. Oh, I say that. He's gonna tease around with them. BKB's instantly no hesitation.
There's a BKB coming in. He's gonna off the BKB, see if he cancels. He knows that
the hookshot threat was there. Dust is still there for Lornoff, but he doesn't
feel like he's close enough to mind games coming in from both sides.
Kira greets the mind game from Omar, how many GPs was that actually?
One, two, three, at least three GPs that Nigma did use over there to try to get the
cats onto him so they're kind of stuck on the left side now for a moment.
It's another gold ward off trying to cheer up.
That's a bridge.
Yeah, it's a bit too far.
And he knows.
What do you need to protect that?
They don't.
Connect.
The axe is behind.
Get the coin to the amp.
It's going to be annoying here.
The Lornoff.
Don't really want to fully commit.
I think they know that all of Nikma is still standing right behind him.
They see them with the ward.
They'll just poke.
Get steady here at that 4k.
As the early games have gone so far this series. This is definitely one of the better ones that nigma galaxy's managed to find again shandex
And some mail liking the build nothing too out of the ordinary right blink BKB playing versus a minus armor shadow fiend
High physical damage the AC absolutely makes sense. Yep, and then probably one's the basher abyssal with your mind
I would imagine so yeah, I don't know if you'll deviate too much
They do want some extra BKB peers and disable since they have the hookshot, which is great
but sometimes that clock just dies in an instant, so I think that will be the case of the build that we do see.
And X, for the move here, Beansgate cool down 10 seconds.
One Naked by Galax, you ready for this one?
Could be also on DM. Clock is in a nice spot.
They could actually go in with a hookshot, huh?
And they could have had to pull up Roller from the Loran off straight over the wall of the axe.
Tim could be on the deep end, be off Malady, he is the Cursed Dog, but it doesn't have enough protection through the out.
So he doesn't care, he's getting the spells off NGH, ready to enable the chase, and they turn towards Malady.
Bean skates down, cutting off his escape, Baldy.
A pit step, they're going to be able to find the second supports of Moe Supports here.
Think they're going to see on the response.
Good read of the movement, Omar just chilling on the high ground, nice cogs too.
Super annoying, pushing them back, forcing those BKBs to be popped early.
DM will back up, reset.
I'm going to be able to tell you a lie.
Plan some of the mana.
seeing the potential of TH and many of these attempts at plays. Very very good
sustain and damage coming out from him. They do have ways to pierce into the
backline right there. They have the Moonlight Shadow, they have to actually kind of get there, but they don't have a way to stout them initially. They don't know exactly where that gas leads.
Probably not the easiest for yet. And even if they do, as we've seen over there, if he gets enough of projection out, it's very hard to sort of stop TH
getting to do what he wants to do in these scene fights.
Ato's picked up now, more control coming out from Chira,
going for the Glidebeer next, it looks like in this game.
It's different from what we've seen at times,
but the Wombo combo, it's a potential in this game as we said,
the eventual Aghanim's is one that he will go for in this game with the Axe too.
So this is that kind of beginning build up,
maybe not feeling like he wants to have the Sheeva's,
he wants that extra catch.
It makes sense for the air spirit.
to try again. See Divy, that Ward did see him there.
He's got back up though, GH and MR are pretty close, the jump's gonna come in, GH ready to
throw it. He's even got the protection coming in with the Grave, we'll buy them in for a
touch, Sumow, coming in for the side, the DKB's out for Junior Junior will start
backing away, he'll be pumped into Divy, keeping the underlaw alive, the DKB allowed
to come to an end to Junior Junior, he's gonna be careful. Sumow's gonna be held
back by the Winters' curse. It becomes to an anchor cocked, ready to throw the way of
Malady catch it.
Get another.
Before he can get the cold embrace off, the magical damage from Lorin off first through
the cold embrace ensures that once again, Ignite Galaxy get the two supports, this time
lose nothing. GH, quick with the clutch saves to keep their underlord alive.
Whoever's making these mackerel calls right now on Ignite is making this game
state look very good for them. Two times in a row, they're reading the moves that
that are coming out from the Andex.
Super prepared for the movements.
They punish them very quickly here,
and it great saves.
Just that patience, GH in the right position,
has a secondary heal now as well with the Holy Lock
and has the mech.
And then the vikings reset and come back in.
So really nice moves are seeing coming in from Nigma
to be able to respond to the aggression of the Andex.
They're ready for the moves.
Great macro plays.
Lauren off now, nine and one.
Really starting to get that acceleration
for the Earth Spirit.
He's keeping toe-to-toe with the farm just out of these kills that he's getting
Accelerating with the build for the sheevahs for himself to this game
Very good game for it, of course versus that SF
And that's how they both find it right. First Samael and Laurel off
Doubling up on the armor for himself, Samael wanting the AC and the sheevahs
Something that we don't always, well, we don't see from Alchemist, right?
Definitely not. I mean that is very interesting. The concoction a we the asset spray we the armor this is inch
It's not gonna have the bastard over the scaling. I mean this is
Like a bit of it all in I guess for this moment now. He wants to have this super strong timing
I mean it's gonna make you very strong against this FF right? Well, uh, Lord Obama
Okay
That is a working young because it is looking at his I look at his how does he grow from here right looking at look
I was inventory now looks the next item
There is if he has to upgrade it's the upgrade like placing or something
Not the greatest that you usually see from these so interesting to see from Sumail
Yeah, because it
Traditionally right if the classic kind of sort of decision of AC or she was it's not one that sort of armor build up
But Sumail he says he wants both
Very intriguing.
I've very much seen some other kind of strength cores go for that she was overwhelmingly double up,
which is likely going to be the case here.
Maybe that is what it is, right? In a lot of these games.
I like that.
That's usually when Lorinoff is playing like a hyper carry from the mid lane.
Sure, Ursprit, he can carry games, don't get me wrong,
But it's not this like, you know, right-clicking store spirit kind of core that gets to that super scaling of attacking
It's just magical damage. That's mostly just dominating the fight. So this is a really interesting
Which I guess what you would say leans into nigma galaxy wanting to get even more out of this big day
Yeah, it's not getting there
But the mid-game rather than the later stages so perhaps for maybe they're feeling a little bit of that pressure where they want to
Make sure they can't fight and not lose control of this game
Which I think is fair right because you are against this SF invoker. I don't think you want to go late against that
That is very true.
I will see if it pays off. BKB, Dunford, Divy, absolutely need to this game.
I'm glad that he did this rather than finishing one of these other pickups, the Shivas, or something else.
Need to BKB versus the Invoker, Nessa.
A lot of wombo-fombo their Yandex does have a position for themselves.
If the tension starts threatening this Rosh, well, he's there.
Do it pretty quick here with Watson.
Dude, there is rockets to scout, so Mark will be able to see them.
They're going to smoke over the Wardsons.
Now let me get here quick enough to make my galaxy.
Malady's in prime position to slow them down.
Link instantly resets, trying to die in.
Somebody's gonna make a jump soon.
They just fall in.
Thorinoff is gonna try and tie him with the calls already there.
Now see the jump from the side, keep him out of the outside of the pit.
Get the speed.
Chira.
He's in on top of the Invoker.
Chira's gone without trying to get anything off.
And now Semele can try and tie him more.
Look towards once.
But he's held back by a Jules, Malady Colton-Bridge will not save him, Lorena thralls him over,
and the jump falls there from Samal, back to Dodge-off, the good coach will allow Watson to walk and keep that Aegis safe.
He'll get out.
But they find Chirra, doesn't get the BKB off before I believe that stunt ends up connecting on Deligus,
gets brought down very quickly. Okay, the hookshot was the one that left first.
Nice connection there from Omar, rather than going for the steal.
This goes for that play has a gem now to be able to clean up some of these words that were just placed as well
And there's the Shiva so this is really about that mid game time. Yeah
I would say very different time not what the people have seen elsewhere from the alchemist
But this AC she was 30 minutes in some mail ready to just bring the constant action towards them and
In those sort of situations was certainly seen why they want to lean towards that the fights right now
Do seem to favor the nigma galaxy
And let's see how much right with this is the what we can just call this like this kind of tops of DK build
I don't know who else who acts like you invented it. I appreciate what they all belong. This is like the this is the anti carry
Yeah, right. You're just trying to prevent them from attacking
It's a pretty immense amount of attack speed and movement speed slow in these areas. It's a lot
Okay, if it does pay off as we keep saying Watson
He's going straight right of course is no other build for the shadow people so straight for the full carry mode
Daedalus is about to be online so his damage is continuing to grow that much harder
The most even game that we've had so far here, I'm still at this point in the mid-game.
Bless the game. 1k lead for Nigma, but that doesn't mean much of anything.
Yeah, Dex, having the ages now at this moment.
I actually wanted to warm from a game 3.
I mean, we've been treated to some absolutely incredible stuff here today.
This has been one of the more insane main events in international in quite a few years just banger off the banger of a series
Today going the full 12 games here
Mr. Freeze going the distance did huh that is why we are here at this hour still
And so what time is it? I don't know it's about 2 a.m. Into the night past my bed time
Hey, just two minutes still, and it's over an opportunity, but Omar's there, he's gonna be the play.
And the center, look at the back line, they get the feed state down, under the two supports.
Df6, go up on the laurel, the grade stare, doesn't matter, they take him out through it.
Zamel, cruising with the BKB, looks towards Watson, wants to try and stand his ground against the Alchemist.
Zamel's got a fair bit of armor, and he's looking for a key to the left by his side, pumping in the heels.
And a painful one to lose to with the timing that they went for right it felt like they
went in for this big timing of all these items here with the sheaves and all that they can
Decimated to fight all three cores die. They don't even break down the ages. What a connection IDM patients from him with the dunk
We'll be able to get that connection now the push coming in we're saying is so even
How quickly things turn if they get this type of connection that damage is going to be done here by Yandex
Physical damage look at what's it go a lacquerty on them. That's a racks and it might be to do
You think they can get me as well off the back of this still have 60 seconds. I think they're gonna continue
up the tier two it's gonna be accessible
all things open here DM now with Amanda as well to these calls back to back to
back on the course it's gonna do his best to try and he stopped them from having
the opportunity to go for a second set should be enough to slow them down
but yandex it's so rough it I feel like they were going pretty all in
with these timings of the shevers and all that and losing that fight it
could prove to be pretty devastating in these next few moments because now you
You don't have that scaling from the Alchemist. You don't have that extra physical.
You've got to go again, right?
I think you need...
You know this Aegis is expiring in 40 seconds. You've got to imagine the Nicke the Galaxy.
They're going to try and hit them with a smoke at that timing.
Yeah, Omar picking up the smokes. It's going to be the time to go to try and catch Yandex
whilst that Aegis expires.
They have to win this next fight or this game is going to quickly fall completely
out of their chances here.
30 seconds until that Aegis does get reclaimed. Watson very likely to have to mk so
That fight
We could barely deal with him with just the daydress, so MKB on top of the daydress
Gonna just be able to stand that ground
Lane's not really in the best position here as we see for Nigma to get out and look for that type of play and take advantage
With the Shiba timing
Yes, lit up right now
Not in a spot to go straight away to try and punish that Aegis expiration
It's not immediately
I was trying to figure out the...
Cheer up, Cheer up.
Oh, he needs another catch.
Excellent, Cheer up, Cheer up.
They have their eyes on them.
We'll be able to go to the initial combo.
Old snap and some strikes still connects though.
Too much.
Far too much control.
Cheer up.
Only the two deaths to his name doing great at this control.
He's got...
Yeah, he has the hex finished up now too.
The scaling for Yandex, it's getting stronger and stronger
and they may be hitting that timing that they need to take a successful fight.
They've got a fight.
Their scaling is just looking that much weaker now at this point.
And they went back down from the fight in the galaxy,
and that's exactly the way it needs to be right now.
Tox is scouting them out.
Diaro will be able to see both cores on the left side there.
Another strong timing for Lornoff has been hit.
The 20-talent does have that extra magnetized damage and duration.
Sumail is thinking about what he wants to do next.
I saw he actually cured the Abyssal, switches it immediately as well, he tore that axe to give to some teammates.
Who's he giving it to?
I'm the airspider, right?
I guess I'm just sort of saying, hey, be ready to bail me out, or save yourself.
You?
Nah, you give it to the airspider. I was thinking, is there a world where you give it to GH?
I mean, I noticed-
The Agonyms on the diesel is absurd if you can actually get these multi-heels off it.
The heals paid a lot, but that would be a little crazy to give it over a floor.
I know it's a good item, but are we seeing any of the games where you're going triple sheavers?
I've now I don't think I've ever seen triple sheavers, but that's the round one
Every core with a sheavers there on Nick McAllister. They love it. It's good on it. I mean, it's amazing on her spirit
amazing on underlord the alchemist
But yeah, all three of them ready to go with she was guards this guy very interesting
It's a lot of money, collectively.
The thing is, it's not like Yandex is just physical damage, right?
I don't understand if they were only physical damage to really triple down on it, but there's
a lot of hyper damage.
Asap, level 25 has been hit.
It doesn't crit anymore, but it's still an insane amount of damage you can do even
with these razors.
Yandex looking for these fights.
Oh, they're doing it for Sheeva's.
No, no, Sheeva's not.
They're not doing any of them.
They even went for them, but they went for a few different.
The Glypni are on cheer.
Yeah.
Rather than having that sheaves that we usually do see.
Full hard DMs.
He's incredibly farmed this game by the way.
Yet to die.
Somehow.
On this X.
Pretty crazy performance when he was put into position versus that Dazzle that sometimes can be a little harder.
Say yeah, but the heart unlikely to die now at this point.
He is very tanky.
come out very close this movement from Yandex
dangerous and fishing
we'll see him on the after bird
back himself away bro, soon on the horizon 20 seconds, Yandex in position for it
They kill it very fast
Do they want to get here
This type of lineup it feels like you're how much these type of bills to face up a bill
It's exactly it feels like you're just playing into their hands if you do give it up another time here
It's your four items starting to get picked up timeless for Chiras
I don't believe he gets the ponderous for himself
Off the pendulum for Lord off the little tank here, but not that crazy damage
It is up next in position for it
Hard for me to make the full commitment outward for it. They definitely don't want to give it for free
Maybe the least you know that they just will throw them are in this if you get a seal
I that's definitely a good idea
You can even put them in there with the agonies from the airspace. You have a couple options that you can go for to send them in
They are seeing Lornoff in the area, protecting it.
Kira starting to pressure the side lanes with these triple forwards there going to the team.
He got the call on the 2 of them!
It's a beautiful start of the fight here for DM.
Can't they counter play this?
He can't be out from Sumail.
Now look to get back in over once once and force it to be out from once.
Sumail is considering going in.
Now he's going to jump in but he's not getting deep.
He's so deep!
Oh man, way too deep!
And a little bit too late, the BKB was coming to an end.
He decides that's the time to go.
He's defirating!
Watson also using the Requiem exoned the rest of the team
and pushed away the supports who don't have the luxury of these BKBs.
That was over-aggressive.
And not on the same page there, Nigma Galaxy, with one another.
Perhaps starting to feel a bit desperate,
they're fighting into the vision of Yandex as well, too.
They have that war there.
the entire time just scouting absolutely everything I mean Dm the two-bank call
he's getting another one
we're getting the catch
Omar not able to hunt John away before the tournament comes in
he's got the battle hunters on him he'll get it this fell
the heels
John and Ben are about to make the jump point
we get the winters on towards the turn
he did
get it up and call out onto the two
and he takes it out for the dive
they will lose melody but there's three that'll make me go
Galaxy Lord of Tiger all the way with the BKB.
Nules control on towards the buyback,
comes out from GH.
Knows he needs to keep these two calls alive.
DM another call on towards the buyback.
Try and drag it back to safety to get the stone for.
No kick though, he's stuck.
He's got the BKB back up.
Should be enough to allow him to walk back to safety
by having to do a hell of a lot here
to save one another in the Galaxy.
Buyback from GH losing so much of their progression
in this game.
DM back to back to back to back calls getting multiple heroes every single time
This axe this last big head looking so good. Yeah, it's looking to be a level where it's kind of like well
Where's all the other aspects right DM showing us the heroes as good as ever
It was one of the heroes of this year particularly got a lot of nerve some of these other
Off-laders have looked amazing, but this game DM styling with it. He is playing into this quad melee
So he is getting these double calls a couple times here, but...
Big Muck, where's the progression? Where's the growth from here, really?
Yeah, I'm obviously there, because we're seeing that the next pick up for Sumail likely to be the Zaganin,
so I'm not really gonna step up this game, and the question is, how much is it really gonna fuel
whichever core he wants to give it who first?
Yep, that's a case, really.
Chira?
The tornado has the BKB, he's safe.
Wanna try, Punish?
Remember the first game, but Malady's ever stopped the chase here, pushed the curse down,
catches both for the Florida, still wants to roll for it, but he seems to find his way
on top of Watson.
Alacrity?
Sun?
Well he kind of blew it, but of course has this age of still for three minutes,
Lawrenov turns his head, she doesn't roll as Malady instead.
They will settle for the Wyvern and will succeed in getting him.
Watson was feeling a little afraid there, he did have the satanic in his backpack,
so ends up swapping it in instead of the trends during this moment.
He'll be okay.
They've been trying their hardest to fight back in these moments.
Yeah, so the agonist, right, is he, I guess maybe he just refunds for the airspirits?
It's an opportunity.
Well, Eva wrote them up.
I don't know.
But dude, you'd rather do it for the airspirits.
Even though I feel like the vies next pick up is going to be more significant in terms
of items.
But you care more about kind of getting to buy...
I'd rather scale my mid.
You think?
my guy that's level 25 give him a refund to the first bird who still gets the scaling and that's what I'm thinking
We have a little sewage way guys. Yeah, he's giving it to Lauren off. So the money's there Lauren off can now
Jump very quickly towards his next big pickup. No, I mean, that's a bloodstone
I think also the reason is that divide here. He has the hex right here
He has that next pick up as well too. So it's fair item time. It's coming together now also for big but again
And now he is chewing that a missile way
So I do want to see him eventually get it anyway
So they have that BKB pierced disabled because they only have the clockwork at the moment in Omar. He can't do it all
So fighting chances for the side of nigma, but very difficult battles
They don't really have they don't have a physical damage dealer. Oh and they are all in on this magical type of kiting
Watching can with standards absolutely if Watson survives through the initial jump this SF
There's nothing to match the outgoing physical damage from him and at the side, they get the call!
It's not some mail!
They've got some mail!
Oh, God, he's got no time!
He's hit without buyback, caught outside the base!
And Yandex with that, they are going to do some severe damage to Nick McGalaxy.
They've got another call, another kill!
Lorinoff and G8's the last, he left the last, maybe not even that, the tornado comes in,
Lorinoff's caught, Braves there as well as Stoneform should be able to side away, maybe not the hate.
Refresher, Refresher, Jarrod Jr. ready, another combo onto Lorinoff.
They're looking to close this game out, buyback.
A couple of buybacks, but that's all they have, just Lorinoff's and Omar's.
Stop 50 seconds on the Aegis, this looks like at least Vagantreebs.
These sort of past five minutes or so, DM's axe has just destroyed them, not given a single chance for the male to have any presence in these fights.
He's got him in the call each and every time.
It's been the DM and Chira Junior for sure. Watson, he's just a passenger in this one. He's got the good form, but these two are truly carrying the slaves.
They've just been consistent. And Nick McAllister, I think I've got anything left in the tank here.
It might just be the end. 20 seconds still no Alchemist. Watson will back away. The Aegis is getting green play and he's giving them that respect for a moment here.
Next. Yep. Time off the mark.
They know that they just have to play it safe for Yandex. They're so close to moving on to the upper bracket final.
Hooks on Cinder, need my Galaxy to get out of a final thing to say about it. Can they keep this game alive?
game alive.
Thorn off.
The hex is there.
The grave comes out on the Lord of the Rings.
He's going to try and heal up a little bit,
roll back towards the fountain, hit the stone form off in tie.
Malady jumps in with the curse.
And look down the two of them inside the fountain.
He on this Concorded Grace, protecting Malady for now.
The caution thrown down upon him.
Samara, they're going to secure the kill here
with the help of the five.
OK, to live another day for now.
Yandex looks like they're going to reset.
Wait for these cooldowns.
Wait for the refresher on Chira.
Final life here for Nigma in this game somehow trying to hang on to it here.
Sumail is still a ways away from having an abyss or having this physical damage that
they need to bring down these cores.
Against the mega creeps.
against the Magus in a very big shadow, a very big triple pour as we see from Yandex.
Still zero deaths on DM in this game.
It would be quite the kill if they would be able to get him.
Very, very...
odd challenger ahead of them here if they wish to turn this one in my galaxy.
They'll give it their best and they've turned some impossible games before.
Not having that physical right-clicker is really that big concern.
Not having that way to just be able to run down a lane.
There's no rapier carry or anything like that either.
It's not the case for something like the Alchemist.
That's why they've got the fountain.
That's their physical right-click in here.
Try and find a way to get Yandex in the fountain.
Truly gonna have to be a miracle from the side of Nygma Field to turn this one.
and Chira spots an amp damage on the top side too.
Everything coming back up. Chira's got refresher.
I believe it is go time for Yandex to close this one out.
DM with an octorine, even more potential calls he can catch in this game.
Up point, go to plus. Ready to cool it.
Murray says that 100%.
trying to keep these lanes pushed up in these megas.
They are tough.
Moonlight Shadow.
Yeah, looking for his target.
The male has been the one that he's caught a fair few times.
They've got the sentry down.
They do see them.
At least trying to enter here.
You know Lornaff is right in there for those kickbacks.
He is looking for those found in the place for sure.
Jowl careful if it spawns to play. They could just sit back, go for a roast plate. They want to be super careful.
I think so. You know, you're here at Main Stage of the International. You are moments away from securing rock. Top three at minimum.
You play as safe as you want to here if you're Yandex.
It's gonna be more to the prowess while we're here for after that is the other scaring thing.
More of the side of Nekomite.
Feels like Garenex, they continue to scale and Nekla, they hit their ceiling quite some time ago.
They're gonna need some big items.
Maybe even like the Abyssal Intra-Rapier, or maybe just even the Rapier.
Some sort of way that they can get a jump on someone and have a chance of
100 to zeroing them throughout the lockdown that they have.
So Vale is spotted right now, they have to work right on top of them.
With that information, they'll put it in the Roche.
No way, they're only close to this right now beneath the galaxy.
Next, the supports.
All the tools at their disposal to close this series up.
Yandex, full Aegis, full inventories, 10,000 gold, 6,000 on Chira, they all even have buyback
and boots to travel, if they want to just throw the faces, if they even lose these cores,
but it's been some time since almost any of those cores have died.
They're gathering those shrines, look at this, look how careful they're being, ensuring
that victory.
I am the man, so I'm gonna be able to get done before the next offense.
It really is only the reversal.
Maybe Lornoff can get the refresher as well too.
True.
But this slow damage, it just, it feels like Andexus has the answer still at this point.
the satanic they have sustained it's going to truly be a miracle they can somehow try
to get through to the fountain a lot of damage on to the buy, half HP gone, 20-0 as a filler
they won't even care if they're in the fountain, you know the PM on the axe I think he could
stand a fair few moments in that fountain and not really care too much, they also have
cold embrace right so now you can also just potentially save them even if they
You two can't come inside of there. They do seem as if they have all the answers.
Find them.
Grab onto the bike.
The Hex.
Lot of damage.
Oops, he gets pulled through the meteors.
He's gonna put extra damage onto them there.
Maybe just find Hex onto the BKB.
Here's that spike.
And next.
Ready to close up this series.
Nigma Galaxy, what have they got?
Yeah.
Gonna get the grab.
What's the arrows though? Revolting that for Laurel.
I don't know.
He's gonna have some strike combo. Well he goes with yours there.
He goes step, turn the jetpack. He'll get out. Simeo's gonna try and make the jump forward.
The boat could catch it out of the water, but they've got the hex on Simeo.
It is a definitely plus. They'll finally get the BKV off.
Laurel will roll forward and try and help, but take the attention away from Simeo.
And it will work. Lows Simeo to back off.
That's it. Jump set.
I'm on.
I hope Chon can do another good call to them. Lucky down the Marana!
Well, control. But that's how my gun for 90, he does not have to buy back.
That was Subail's BKB jump as well. Fiends get to jump the back line.
Well, that is just so tanky.
Lord off that.
The first stop for the rolling boulder.
BKB, but the call comes in afterwards.
BKB will help him from a lot of the follow-up damage.
should be able to open though the curse comes in catches Laura
catches the fire ready to set up the record on top of the fear catching them all into a
number call for a DM for Dan on Nicola Galaxy the final five acts being used but Samal caught
by a stun up at the ancient the Hicks to follow things up as Yandex through to chase Samal down
back to the fountain they will lose the Aegis here on what's in the app on two he's getting
two of them every single time. Samale wants an attempt here, but the call snap, the right
flicture of Watson, the snowfall cuts in, Laurenoff fails him out once more. It's there,
Valentin locks down both for the VM, walks up with the call, then Telcourt out, Samale,
Samale getting lit in the graves there, the H trying to heal him up, but don't
come too little early, but it won't matter, the grave comes to an end, Samale's out
of the game, he'll fly back, but that's going to be defy out for good. Another call
up to the boundary for the end the space being made for Watson to look towards the
Asian they have to respect the magnetite though, lower it up, more systems are back
away, further breathing room but all pretty much all of the Bi-Vax being used
there by Nygma Galaxy, four of them coming out. And they can't chase forward
he's not 25 either on the airspace to continue that magnetized, Yandex they
back up and reset Watson standing his ground he has no fear in this game
now at this point. There's no physical damage to Dutchman. Stands his ground versus Sumel.
Hanging on, Nygma, but truly just hanging on. Still have that fortification. Look at the spells.
How many eight calls the requiem follow on top of the two curses. There's so many different ways
for them to combo the plays as we were saying from the early stages of the draft. The wall
The combo, the potential is there, they're executing it.
But the reason it's really, it truly isn't them, and it hasn't been for it feels like 20 minutes or so.
Unable to bring down these cores.
They're a bit so dumb.
Okay.
Samael?
It's the final smoke.
Can they make some sort of miraculous play in the Galaxies?
Samael, he's gonna try.
Because the young friend who wanted to choose it, he called the first cut and there's one left to hold back Samael for a little bit for the BKB.
Maybe, Samel's still able to finish up Serendipity, and he's gone.
He does have Vi back available here on the Invoker,
if they want to get the pressure on outside of the base,
Omar, he's gone, but he hooks us back to safety.
Should be able to get back to the fountain in time.
Little bit of breathing room now without the Invoker in play.
Time being bought as well, but divide to get back in the game.
Gell, careful, Yandex is like, all right, guys,
I guess we're going to back it up.
We did turn the game around yesterday at some type of point,
like this, so let's give Nick with a respect.
They're gonna back it up. Watson queuing up a Divine Ripper himself as well too.
Alright, okay, wants to finish in style.
It doesn't feel super necessary at this point in this fight.
25, Lornoff has got it. Refresher is on line too, so the potential for the infinite magnetized is there.
Nullifier now also first to go down to bring down these supports through their hand is.
Alright.
What do we go, baby? Go for it to the boost?
They bit still?
He did.
Go for it to the radiance. For the Nullifier.
He's got some movement speed anyway, right?
He's got that potion, but doesn't give him that extra with the chemical rage too.
They're just gonna wait.
Blade for Charity, respawn 30 seconds, they just back up, played super safe.
And what's the difference between getting rid of the Rape here?
I don't know if he's actually on the Rape here.
It does feel like an unnecessary risk.
I'm hoping he feels like it's not a risk, because he is pretty untouchable in the majority of this.
Sure.
You don't have multiple different things to protect you, but it does not do this.
It's a small one, but still probably one you don't need to take.
One that we're all here for.
I'm always down for right here.
Up to the Arabia picks up.
Even on the winning team, I'm off now for those.
In your galaxy, four minutes to try and live through
until they're going to have to luxury their Bi-Vax back.
You can only imagine the Yandex are going to look for that.
They're going to hit again.
Final blow before the Bi-Vax come back online for the Nigma Galaxy, and here it comes.
at the ready.
Yeah, eyes on him. Get to die.
Yep.
I know it's the clockwork for now. Grabbing our mark.
Look at the arrow follow.
Burn off. Holding pretty deep.
Text.
Fall by the hate.
Burn off.
But the lock down on the way to 30 safe there is.
Now he gets the serve form off.
He'll kick himself back to safety away from the red grim
of Watson.
There's no catch on the both of our minds to buy.
Off to the side.
Now he's got his hands on Malady.
Malady, he's out.
They're awkward with the tornado there, making the arrows miss again.
They get that connection, and they can end it.
Each and every time they kill one hero inigma galaxy, they'll get to live that amount of time longer this game.
It'll be 70 seconds like these two yandex look to hit again.
They're buying time for their buybacks to come back online inigma galaxy.
Somehow, some way, they're keeping the game going.
And that's just a little afraid to full commit for the ending here.
Waiting for that one movement. BKB still there from Schumann.
They're hanging onto them pretty nicely here on the side of Big Mud.
They aren't making sure they don't just pop those BKBs to just get caught instantly.
Activatized back up in 20 seconds.
They want to try and catch them by surprise. 4 vs 5.
Good for them to step outside still at this point.
Next, they're just gonna wait 30 seconds for the respawn, and then one minute until Rosh if they want to wait for that on top of it.
Up here, because they want to be.
About next axe to be queued up.
No one will go the way, very likely off the bike.
Give him support, I want you to get it.
the edge is exposed you're gonna need the springs and guards I know I know I know I
agree I agree it's a buy the money absolutely should not get to this point
30 has been hit for the shadow feed
yeah there's David just wait for the rush 45 seconds yep it's getting stolen so
looks like that's probably gonna be the call for them
Does he buy this right here? Or is he just having a bit of a meme?
I mean maybe with the agency, but then they can go just for the all-in play.
But it could just be for that meme.
There's the axe, and then the other way.
Dubai, he's got the money to get that crimson.
He'll have to try and make his way out though, unless he wants to wait a one minute until his career is back up.
He did buy the full soul booster before, right? So he does have the trailers as well of having the full crimson.
I believe the career didn't have the entirety of it.
So we'll get a big joke up from it. See how much it makes a difference.
Change your muscles. I mean, do you want the crimson or do you want to win?
Waker try and save yourself to save your hour.
I think the crimson might do better.
I mean, it's tough to say. I don't even know if...
I feel like neither one is really going to save the game for them
because they're still just lacking in damage, right?
They have ways to protect themselves now, but I still just don't see how they break down Watson.
Shot.
Come to an end and he's gonna do it. He wants to close this up and star once and the rapier's out
Heroes are gonna die insanely fast. I don't even know I don't know if Jig is gonna have a moment to be able to save enough
That's probably why he wants it to the heroes just gonna die in the Axe goal. There's a word outside
They do see them set up and you want to warm up
Very low
The light though, what was the magnet size from Lauren off? There's one of them. It's a going though
How long yeah, I'm just gonna try to put
We have everyone up to the arrow connects it was into the hour enough pay some strike
We'll get this spell with the calls there. Yeah
I'm trying to get the track back now that Damian's coming in.
If he wants to jump forward, look towards him.
Grave, that's right for Lorna.
Floating off every single hill.
Samael, he needs help, but with the Grave already used,
he's not going to jump up to give it the winters' curse.
Look down him, and a buy.
Burn the hills, coming in for Samael.
But Samael, he'll fall out of the game for two minutes.
He does not have the buyback.
Roll in.
Look for Lorna.
He's in on top of Watson.
The corner of Grace is there.
Still overwhelming, nice for Damian.
Coming in onto Watson.
Corner of Grace, but if he wants to grab it,
take out Lorna up here with the right brakes.
Hook shot in from Arama, trying to push back this SF.
They're running out of buybacks to buy cuts into the fiendscape.
Now take Watson out once.
They do it a second time.
DM trying to hold Arama up away.
Arama's going to get the kickback here.
He's actually now going to get DM into the fountain.
DM taking heavy damage here from the fountain.
He'll get bubble call off.
He is actually able to walk it off.
Arama takes B he has.
Respect here again though.
Watson's basking away.
They're a little afraid there with the buy coming back in.
Swapping his item from behind.
More or not, has no magnifying glass.
It took them 60 minutes. It felt like they had this for 25 minutes or so.
Nigma did make the work for it at the end. But man, what a play. I mean, DM, absolutely insane performance onto the axe.
The last pick, that call for it, she did say, what about the axe? Ends up being amazing.
Absolutely clutches it up. Multiple hero calls, does excellent in the matchup.
And in the clutch moment, this bottom fight in particular. I think when they got the Triple Sheva's timings on the side of Nigma,
like we need to win this fight and they lost that fight hard they lost all three cores lost their
raxes from there felt very difficult for them to bring this game in any way back to you.
That really big note G8 to the final box he was trying to save everyone but everyone could not
be saved in those situations. Nigma Galaxy definitely giving us some fantastic entertainment
here with them just willing to never give up to try their best to hold on in these games
but Yandex too much for them here overall in this series.
They're just eating every time, getting that lead early.
Game one, we saw that incredible turnaround, of course,
from Nigma Galaxy around Devise and Nigma,
but they just didn't sort of have that clutch hero
to be able to do that in game two and in this game free fold.
No, not in the same fashion.
In this one, it felt like one of those ones
where it was teetering on this edge, right?
Right until that moment of that bottom fight,
but then, yeah, game explodes.
Yandex able to run away with it.
with a nice little flashy rapier at the end of it all,
but more than anything,
DM doesn't die in the game at all.
It plays like an insane game of the apps.
Now, absolutely crazy considering that there was
absolutely a chance that
Nick McGalaxy would have the tools to punish an axe
and a hero, as we said at the start,
a lot of other teams are pretty much drifted away from.
They're not considering it at the moment.
Of course, there was that added fact
with the Dazzle being here that did sort of lean
Yandex towards it, and we're seeing why.
9-0-18. Incredible stuff. Two to one here today for Yandex.
Congratulations, Team Yandex.
You have won the final of the match,
and you have secured the first three of TI 2020.
And now, we have Chira Jr. and Tsunami.
Chira, the last time we saw you at TI was 2024.
And that was your first time with us.
The run ended at 9th-12th place.
And now, two years later, you are a top three finalist right now.
I want to know the energy that you're feeling.
In 2024, when we first met Kira Jr. in TTI, he got 9 to 12 points.
And this year, he has already set the first 3 points.
What is his current feeling? What kind of energy does he have?
I mean the difference before last my TI is already I'm in top three I'm super glad it's
Day this was amazing. I mean I'm tired, but I'm happy that I've been
I can't imagine how tired you are after a series like that
but to the dedicated few still in the arena at 2.55 nearly to all the people watching across the world
to your friends, to your family. I was wondering, do you have a message for them?
We can imagine that the P.O.3 fight, we can imagine that it must have been very exhausted.
Now it's 2.55, but we have a lot of support fans all over the world.
And watching their matches, their family, their friends, their fans.
What do you want to say to them?
I mean I'm sure my parents, my friends still looking at the game. It's not that late for them, but I mean I really appreciate their supporting for me. I really don't know how to say it.
I mean...
Having the crowd saying everything right now.
He just said, I'm very sure that my parents, my family are still watching me and watching this competition.
I want to tell them that I think they must have a lot of things to express and to thank their fans, family and friends.
Maybe when you are very excited, you will be more free-minded.
However, this game is really exciting.
Tomorrow, there will be a more exciting game
waiting for us to see the game tomorrow.
that name a galaxy might have better lane pressure might be able to do more in this game for themselves.
Yeah, Nick said, no, we're going to take that one step better and make sure you realize that there is no bed.
It resting us. There is no beating us in lane. Yeah, I feel like Yandex in these last two days have come back into their own.
It feels like they found their groove. They regain confidence. And it's I'm so glad we heard from Sheridan here because it was kind of a quiet stage from him.
But he rose to the occasion today playing Earth Spirit, which is not one of his best heroes, picking Invoker into maybe uncomfortable lane matchups and playing the mid IO the other day when his team needed him to, when they needed the flex, he's been stepping up.
Absolutely agree. He's been up uncomfortable heroes and he's still managing to shine. But I really feel like the true hero of Gandex for TI Mainstage has been Watson and he keeps on delivering.
He delivered here again. His SF was absolutely spectacular. I loved watching it. He's great.
What's it? What's it? What's it? What's it?
We're a what's in paddle for sure.
I fully agree. I'm just I'm really proud of them. They come a long, long way even from whenever I first started playing with them.
So I'm just very happy. I think top three is well deserved.
And I look forward to watching them play more in this tournament because I think they're they're a treat to watch.
They're so incredibly skilled and it's just awesome.
It's so nice to see what yeah next have been able to do for themselves group stage. We're shaking. I know we keep saying it
But it can't be underestimated. They were two and three there on the lower seat
They almost went out early and didn't even make it to the elimination round
They do well for themselves there then they come into main stage and a team that we weren't sure if they were gonna have the
Confidence in front of a crowd showed up in their first series
They show up again today and they get at top three that no one can deny is
is bad, one that they earned on a level that no one else could have expected after what happened just last week.
It's funny, I think, looking at the groups and how TI is shaped up, nobody would have expected this to be your top three,
even though everybody expected this to be your top three matchup before the tournament started.
It's convoluted and confusing, but yes, I fully agree with you. You're coming in, vision, yandex, it makes sense in our minds,
but the path and the journey that both of these teams took, incredibly different, right? Vision going on that 4-0,
they still haven't lost a series for themselves at all at TI. Yandex on the other hand, my goodness,
they've been dragged through the mud and they've come out the other side. They picked themselves up
and look and spits bad and pretty clean, I'd say. Yeah, I just look forward to that match
with tomorrow. I think those two really are, you know, like Aiden said, coming into the tournament,
the two most predicted to be the two best teams. And I think that will be an absolute
barn burner. Well, that one's going to be taking place as our third best of three tomorrow.
It is an approximation of about 4 p.m. But there's so much more action before we have spirit
and liquid coming up against each other in elimination to be able to make it past that top six hurdle.
Nygma Galaxy going up against Boom Boys, and for me, it's a big question. Is that mentality strong
enough? This is where Nygma Galaxy faltered last year at TI. They were close to be able to get to
a top three here this evening. Will it be the same when they play in that second Vestor 3? And
of course, the final one we have will be the two teams that win between Spirit, Liquid,
to be able to go again at that
one step further into our top
three. Lots of exciting games
tomorrow. Um I think Nigma do
have the ability to recuperate.
I think they have the confidence
they're not the type of team to
be let down after losses, but I
do worry about their matchup
in particular versus boomboys
because. Versus Yandex today
they struggled very much in the
first 20 minutes and in the
laning phase and boomboys are
an even stronger laning team
than Yandex. I do want to have
a little bit look back a little
bit of a look back about our day
today because we did say goodbye to our two first top eight teams here iron wing and then falcons followed by it was
Crazy to look at it again because we knew some of the forms of these teams were shaky
But two teams unfortunately did have to fall from that upper bracket into the lower and be eliminated
I just don't think a lot of people expected it to be iron wing and falcons
Yep, it's the most competitive TI ever there
I think you look at all eight of these teams and all eight of them could win that's never happened before
for Dota has only gotten harder over the years
and more competitive and something's got to give.
It's the way it goes.
Yeah, it's not to say goodbye,
but I know I'm personally happy
that Liquid's still in the tournament.
Well, I'll be setting my alarm early tomorrow
to get up and watch Liquid versus Spirit.
It's one of my favorite matchups
and I'm so happy we get to see it here at TI.
All right, if you're gonna be sitting here
along LA, that means you're gonna be wanting
to go to bed and I'm sure a lot of you guys,
whether you're starting your day and you're gonna look
back on what action has taken place
or if you're already looking forward to tomorrow,
You'll know that we will be here day number three
on Saturday of TI 15.
We'll resume, save as normal.
We'll see you guys then.