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A very good morning! You're watching Dota 2 at the eSports World Cup. We're live from Paris and we are still in the survival stage, the last day of survival stage.
We have eight slots in the playoff brackets and four are already filled.
We need four more teams and we're going to get that sorted out today.
And to talk all about it, I'm joined by Seb and Lacoste.
Lacoste, how are you doing this morning?
I'm doing great, Chiever.
Another good day of Dota upon us.
And I don't know, I feel like with every single day, things are just getting
better and better.
We started the survival stage as well, which means there are going to be
some tears of joy.
There's also going to be some tears, but that's Dota.
That's life as well.
So somebody needs to be sent home.
And it's pretty brutal, and I think these type of environments, they produce better games overall.
Yeah, single elimination, a great format to produce some top tier games, Seb.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to the day of Dora, you know, the least important workup has been very disappointing for me,
so I'm just moving on from now on, once and for all, on to Dora Horizon and only Dora Horizon.
This is where the real stuff happens anyway.
Today is, I feel like it's clutch day for these teams, like some really big names, I mean I know we're going to get much more detailed about who gets to play and when, but some really big teams, which matchups where none of these teams theoretically should be going home, like both of them are going to feel extremely disappointed that happens.
Exceptional entertainment for us.
for us. Oh, I think so as well. And I think yesterday we already got a little bit of a
taste of that or a lot of a taste of that. We could take a look at our SCC rewind because
well, in case you missed it and to be honest, if you tuned in at any point yesterday, there
was a high chance you would have tuned in for Liquid vs Extreme because that best of three series
lasted about five hours. This was an absolute blockbuster. We had a 90 minute game in there.
We have a 17 minute games in there and it was very back and forth the cost
It was it was an absolute treat. Yeah, this is you're pretty much had everything
We had the big bomb of colors as we're seeing on the screen right now something that we did this has to be like
One of my favorite moments so far of DWC this guy's like oh man, that's that was it. This is what I came here for and
Overall like you didn't know who's gonna win the series because both of the teams like game one
They really powered up the second game team liquid definitely powered up as well and in third game
They kind of got stopped. They felt like they were kind of out of ideas
Definitely devastating for them. They're key also getting crushed
So, you know a lot on the line and the team liquid they seem to be slightly better prepared in that one
Yeah, and it was exactly as you said set for both of these teams regardless who goes out
That's just big disappointment. That's not the result you go here for no
It's a really tough one and I think it also sets the stage for the teams that are coming in today
because they were most likely watching and they they saw you know the vibe the body language so
They know where they could be heading if their mind and their play is not supposed to be today
And then there was a second series LG versus mouse very
Very much more one-sided I would say right like LG seemed to have the upper hand the entire series
I think they were considered the favorites going into it. They didn't have the most solid group stage
So this was like a good statement for them and where they stand actually
Playoff times perhaps, you know survival stage things are getting much more serious for teams less room for mistakes
And that can be a good news for some teams and some players like they rise up to the challenge
Like that's what you expect from teams of that caliber and LG definitely did so yesterday
Second game was pretty crazy like nobody wanted to back down
This is what you kind of expect from these two teams that it's gonna be pretty chaotic
especially mouth the way they play Dota, but they're also playing against the South American team.
This team is known to be in these chaotic environments making sure that they adapt to it and they adapted quickly.
They slowed things down up until a point where, you know, Longdrager just took over the game.
It seems to have enjoyed the key machine.
We have a key cursor right there.
Yeah, we also have the survival bracket here for you guys and of course we're here for stream A.
So we're focusing very much on two series in particular, going into round two of this survival bracket.
And as we heard Purge in the opening that we saw some big dogs coming to play today,
with the teams already waiting for their opponent on this stream's BB Team and Team Spirits,
they got to watch yesterday as Team Liquid and LGD made it through day one of this survival stage.
Do you feel like that's an upside for them or is it a downside?
Like they didn't get to play against them.
Obviously they miss an official series.
Honestly, like in terms of strategy, getting to sit and watch is probably an advantage.
Like you're going to get more time to talk about the draft together, you know,
see how they played the draft, what happens and kind of discuss as a team,
how you want to approach it, what you want to do against it, get on the same page.
So that part.
But in terms of play, I think it's an advantage for the teams that are playing.
You know, Nisha mentioned we're kind of happy that we get to play more games and what not yesterday in an interview and
Just think about the play time that Liquid has, right?
Like they've been playing like high-pressure games like for five hours yesterday
So many things must have been figured out in terms of team dynamics and whatnot during the game
So they're just gonna grow much stronger and dirtier run was based on last chance qualifier, right?
Like where they had like an insane amount of games and they were able to gather so much knowledge
I think it's pretty much the same here. Yeah for our Sony story on the day
We did go for the team spirit versus a liquid series
The diamond series we're calling it because both of these teams lacrosse just do better when there's more at stake
Yeah, absolutely. I mean if you talk about the team spirit, for example
This is the most resilient Dota team that I think we've ever had like this is what they've known for
Kind of perform overperforming even under the pressure making sure that like all of their games like when the stakes are pretty high
You know that this team is gonna push it to the next level and we can kind of see the same thing in like with the
Like liquid has been slowly powering up
Maybe not as like fastest team spirit in this tournament
But definitely gonna be an interesting one and I feel like this might be like one of the best series that the tournament might even produce
Yeah, we are gonna focus our attention on the series because that is up on the agenda first
Going into this. I just want to I just want to gauge the field here a little bit
Is there any team in particular that we are favoriting in this best of three?
Because for me, it's incredibly 50-50.
The problem with both these teams is for the teams that have to face them is that no matter
the shape they're in, no matter what happened earlier in the tournament, earlier in the season,
you do not want to face them in a single LLM situation.
Like you just do not want to meet these teams in high pressure tournaments because you know that
If they rise up to the challenge which they very often do, it's going to be the toughest task in the world to knock them out.
So, in that sense, I think both teams are coming in very focused, very prepared for having to pull out their A-game.
Because if they don't, you know, team Liquid in that kind of survival stage or team spirit, as Lacoste mentioned, it's super scary.
Like, if they start picking up some teams, these teams could just go ahead and win the whole tournament.
So, you don't want to face them.
It doesn't matter that Team Spirit, for example,
like they didn't win any tournaments in the season.
It really doesn't matter at all.
Like you're still facing Team Spirit,
and this Team Spirit also got heavily upgraded
by Niposhka coming in with some like new fresh ideas.
He took a break making sure that he feels refreshed,
and also you can definitely feel it in their own gameplay now.
Yeah, it collapses, as he even said,
but he feels it in the air.
There's a buff, have you ever felt the buff
coming from just a tournament in particular?
Potentially, TI?
For sure. These players are very used to high pressure. I think at this point they need it in order to perform.
It's not even that it's a nerf. I think they just get much better when these tournaments happen.
And this is their comfort zone. This is where they shine. This is where they like to be.
They want to be on stage. They want to know that it matters. They want to know that it's do or die.
They want tough opponents. This is where they strive and the same can be said for Liquid.
So in that sense, I think it's going to be a banger of a series.
Yeah, I hope we get three games, you know, I'll take the 90 minutes again.
I'm ready for this very much to have me to as well.
We're focusing on team spirit first.
They are coming in here as the defending champions as well,
with an extra buff, of course, to their name and in a single elimination,
such a scary team to go up against.
And as Seb says, they are upgraded a little bit with not me and Mapocheka.
But let's hear more from a player themselves.
It's collapsed right now.
Coming to this tournament as defending champions, I don't really feel any pressure.
Just no time to think about this. All the time we just practice.
I just want to get the trophy once again.
When the Porsche came back and they got not me, now roster.
I think he pretty much upgraded our relationship in the team between each other.
For sure we're getting stronger, because Miposhka is doing a lot of work.
He's doing also a lot of work with NotMe. NotMe also is doing a lot of work.
So I think it will pay the price.
Miposhka bring back like the drafts.
You don't focus on Wayne and he is focusing more on the game.
Synergy between heroes, how they combine, team fight, stuff like that.
At the beginning of the group stage, I would say we were not sure about the powers
because for that we lost too many scrims, like two more end scrims, two more.
We came on a tournament, but the last day before we arrived on the tournament, it was a happy day
because we won every game.
Egg is placed as well, it's not a fangle on the run, they're going to get a nice call into the chart from Kallax.
This day we won and we're like, we're no guys.
We need to lose our confidence in ourselves.
I think it will be the toughest finals for us, I would say, depending on teams what we're going to face.
If we make through it, we're going to be super happy. We will do our best. I just want to win.
And the field is absolutely stacked.
LaFast is very right about that one, as will be one of the toughest tournaments for any
team here to come out on top, especially if we already see this second round of survival
stages. It's crazy. Some of the teams will be ascent home today, and one of Liquid and
Spirit will be also sent home. So a lot of stake, the pressure, we already talked about
it, generally levels people up LaCrosse. And for Team Spirit, that's definitely a thing.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I like the way he talked about them having slightly more confidence,
doing well, even though the scrims didn't go too well.
And also you did mention that, you know,
with the addition of Miposhka and everything,
thing is doing better.
But also, if we go slightly back to like Dream League,
when Nothby first joined the team,
we had an entry with Collapse,
and he looked very confused.
The most confused I've actually seen him.
He went, came like from the break.
I think he had pretty much the full month break.
And he's like, yeah, I'm landing with this new guy.
I was like literally not aware of it.
And, you know, things have changed.
I'm like, yeah, I don't know anything about the meta,
but this is a collapse we're talking about,
like one of the goats from the off lane as well,
because they are gonna make sure to find a way
how to make comeback, adjust properly.
And with Posca, like you can tell that he is putting
quite a lot of work in this team,
making sure that everything is working correctly,
as when he was a part of the team as a player.
Yeah, I would say Team Spirit though,
coming out of Group C, some might say that they haven't,
They've only been truly tested maybe the ones when they went up against P-Vision on the final day.
But before that, Group C, I feel like compared to some other groups, they've already got a little bit of an easier one.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's always the discussion in groups, which group is the toughest and whatnot.
At the end of the day, a lot of teams kind of evolve.
And it can also happen that, you know, even though the teams don't seem like on paper, weaker or stronger,
Maybe the meta was more figured out in a group or another, so I think it's very rare that you actually see this translate into playoff matchups and who gets on the winning and the losing side, so very hard to read into what might happen.
What will happen though is that if they didn't get tested enough, they're getting tested today for sure, because they're facing Liquid.
Liquid just played a three-game series which is extreme that actually rolls up to the task and put up a great fight against them, so Liquid is coming in ready.
most likely they figured lots of things out from yesterday.
Well there's one thing they might not be able to figure out.
They might not be able to figure out what hero Yutoro will be playing
because Lacoste, a different Terry every game, reminds you of a certain time in Tiappin.
Certain TI that they did really well at. He's definitely powering up.
Like I would say, you know, Prime Yutoro definitely up there and we are feeling the same thing.
I think it's going to be a very interesting series because Yattaro, he's bringing in some classics as well.
He did lose with Nagasar, I believe. He did win with Morphling.
And also, maybe some of the way more meta heroes that he's playing, these Windrangers and Shadowfiends,
Klink's also becoming meta, but also showing the strength of this team, pretty much saying,
like, yeah, we can pretty much play anything at this point, and it's going to feel good.
Like, screw meta, screw the numbers, if you feel hero is good, we're going to pick it.
To me, what's really interesting about this matchup is that both Liquid and Spirit are
two of the smartest teams in the Dota scene in my opinion, like in terms of strategizing.
I think, yeah, of course they factor in what the meta is and they have very versatile players.
They're really able to identify what the opponents are throwing at them in terms of playstyle,
in terms of like pace that they're setting up for the game.
Like yesterday we saw Liquid with the first pick Mirana and the strategy around it, like
Spirit is not going to fall for that.
They will understand exactly what's going on
and they will know what they want to pay against it and vice versa.
So it's going to be very interesting.
I think the drafting is going to pay a big part.
We have two great drafting teams and very innovative in a sense.
Like they know how to go out of the box when they have to.
So it's going to be cool.
It's going to be very cool.
We are going to focus on Team Liquid, the opponents for Team Spirit here.
I feel like I also have to mention 14 Liquid last year.
They came top eight at EWC, which granted them a couple of points,
but it was a disappointment for them as they were definitely hoping to go further.
This year, they're not top eight yet and obviously had to fight hard to get to this point
to begin with, which is top 12.
And top 12 doesn't get you any club championships points.
This organization team liquid has come second in the club championship
many times in a row, every single time, actually.
And they do really need those points.
So maybe an extra layer of pressure coming out from Team Liquid.
I do want to talk about the Morana a little bit,
Seb, because you've changed your mind yesterday as a position 5.
It's viable.
Do you think Team Spirit is going to address it?
I got inspired yesterday and, you know, I actually had time this morning to play a pub
and I just went ahead and picked Moran.
And I'm like, let's figure out everyone's horrible.
Where are you positioned for?
So the team looked at all of me, all of me 25 and I'm like, I'll go find them later.
I was position four actually, so I got baited again, but I was playing with snaking, so.
Maybe we were riding that high yesterday after Tofu's performance where he dealt 70,000 damage.
We got slightly baited, saying yeah, we're kind of on the boat, but not really because
Team Spirit didn't pick Murana a single time.
I gotta say, it looks good from position five.
multiple times it is kind of becoming a meme on our panel because there is quite a lot of hate towards a hero
But in some games the hero does look decent. It doesn't look like top tier
There was this like one particular game yesterday when they were playing against 8xG where he bought the Divine Rapier
He got Aghanim Scepter
He got Divine Regali and a super long game and he was making quite a lot of plays like the whole draft was also
kind of built to fit in Marana really well with the Ember Spirit of course a lot of stuns and it did work out well for them
So, time to see if it's gonna happen again, Schieber.
If it's gonna happen, we'll have to wait and see.
The draft is, of course, still a little ways and way.
But it does give us time to focus on the MVP
that we saw yesterday in the series
that Liquid had versus Xtreme,
which was Ace coming from the off-lane.
I think that's the first time that 14 Liquid,
that Ace got the MVP here at the CWC.
So that already is a nice achievement to have.
We also just saw very much have a large impact
in yesterday's games.
Yeah, they really needed them to step up.
I think he had a very quiet beginning of this tournament.
The group stage was a little bit like lobster from him.
I mean, based on what you expect.
I mean, Tivoli could, again, is a team that came here
to win the whole tournament.
Yesterday, he really improved his game.
I think it can even be better for them.
Like they have a lot of, like their ceiling is much higher.
But in that sense, it's very, yeah, I guess reassuring.
Like they're going in the right direction.
To me, Spirit is not going to look at them
as much as they would be looking at Nisha.
because both teams have very dominant and farm-heavy side laners.
Of course, Miki is a little bit more active than Yotaro,
but you think of Collapse and Yotaro on one side and then Ace and Miki,
Miki is still playing carry at the end of the day.
He doesn't need to be hitting some creeps to a certain degree.
So Nisha and LLARL, they have these tempo-controller,
allow them to play the map kind of style.
And both of them need a good start.
They need good support pairing, and both teams excel at that
and not building that.
So it's going to be very interesting,
like how they select their heroes,
who gets to pick first and who gets to counter pick.
I think Spirit is a team that excels
at knowing how to shut down mid laners,
you know, how to control runes,
how to, you never see a,
you're never gonna get a free storm,
pop, ember, or EarthBird Gaming and Spirit.
Like they'll make you pay for it,
they'll pick the proper supports.
So I'm looking at that mainly
to see what's gonna decide the games.
Yeah, kind of agree with that, but also to go back to Ace, I feel like he's definitely powered up, especially with the new build.
Like he was the one who pioneered this build so far at TWC with the double heart on Centaur, looked unkillable in that game.
His Darkshare performance was also top tier with the refresher and everything.
And then that third game, we saw him kind of like in E-Shave and said in an interview that he was the one who carried the game for him on not his signature hero on his Timbersaw.
So, very interesting expanding this hero pool, and I think this is going to be the lane again that I'm going to be looking the most into.
Yeah, I think all of us. I mean, there's so many things to look at as well, so we didn't even get the chance to talk about all the late game potential we have here,
because both of these teams very well versed in that. It will be an epic battle, but to get a battle, you need the players on the stage.
We need to get this series started properly, so we're heading over to that stage for the opening of the day.
And there it is, the opening that you've been waiting for, Sheeva. Thank you very much, our panel. And we are in for day two of the survival stage. It is this simple.
From yesterday on out, you lose your out of the tournament,
the running to be the EWC 2026 champion.
That is a lot on the line for our teams.
That includes their keys being crushed.
Where's Slacks?
Can we check up on Slacks?
Milo!
Milo!
Hi!
Milo!
Where are you?
Where are you?
I'm in the back, bro!
I've been here all night!
Sorry, I wanted to test the crusher.
Lay out of here, there it goes!
Can we open the door for him?
Hello?
Please, check.
Open the door!
Lay out!
Daddy, you want to come out and see the door, though?
Please!
What a mess!
Oh my god.
What have you been doing back there?
I wanted to go crush some stuff last night,
and then all the lights turned off and the doors got shut.
I've been crushing shit for 18 hours straight.
Is that what you're saying?
Oh, it's super cool, dude.
The crusher is ready.
She hungers.
Goodbye, Crusher, goodnight.
And we will feed the Crusher today, my friends.
Two teams are going home.
They will be crushed and added to the other teams
and they don't get to eat them like I did
to all the stuff I crushed yesterday.
They go straight to the wall, baby.
I don't see, you get a lot of vitamins out of it.
I don't know, honestly, I don't know what,
it was very dark, I don't know what I crushed,
but it was tasty for sure.
Fair enough.
Well, talk to me, since you've been here all night,
I'm sure you had a lot of time to think about yesterday.
That is true, yesterday we had an incredible day, our first series was a mere 8 hours
long, now I'm just kidding, we had a 95 minute game yesterday, followed by, before a 65 minute
game, before that, it was not series 1, but we did see Liquid pull ahead under that pressure.
And then series 2, absolute stompfest, very fun to watch, very high skilled Dota, but it
will compare nothing to today.
Because we had the guys in the lower bracket fighting, you know, this will be good.
Now it is mini-boss time like we described it in our draw show, so let's welcome our
first mini-boss to the stage, it's Team Spirit!
And you know they're fired up for this one, it's the 2025 EWC Dota 2 Champions.
They might have just missed the mark on that number one spot in Dersieff, but that does
not mean they do not share end game boss status with the likes of our quarter finalists already
waiting for them. Another challenger slacks, steps up to their plate deep in the caverns.
Can they take on? But to me is the undead dragons brah.
Absolutely my friend. Yes, we have been calling these guys the final boss and of course you got
Redon on the team for God's sakes. He is still here. They are still strong and they are the team
to beat as your champions. However, if there's one team that might be able to beat them, it is this
team coming up. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Team Liquid!
The record holders for the longest pro-dota game in history, they have broken that this year,
and they got close yesterday, as we saw Team Liquid absolutely dominate in a late-game scenario.
These guys are used to playing with every single thing going against them, no way to win their games.
games and somehow through that pressure they know how to shine because nothing
has more pressure than water if you know simple fluid dynamics that is right go
take a class me loads go read a book bro sorry about that you didn't deserve
that anyway school me on that is true it's fluid dynamics the chemistry of
this one is we're not melting the keys we're breaking them and that is hardcore
Newtonian physics at the end of it let's see what happens with our matchup
Please team liquid there you go. That's yours chemistry and physics class for the morning
Please team spirit get set for this one. I hope we don't get a spark and a little
Explosion from by steward. I know tofu hates y'all buddy. Shook his head. I can't believe it. No, they're very good friends
Oh my god, there he is. Oh my god, the crowd goes wild
Poach my post covers his coach blitz double smarties on that team as well. It is down to be a fantastic game
So let's get into the series and go back to the panel
Team Spirit vs Team Liquid as our opening series today for the survival stage round 2.
And both of these teams level up on the pressure, they do better when it gets tougher and they
do good.
Very good in the late game.
And that's where my question is set.
We've seen both of these teams do exceptional in the live game, not just this event, but like through the history
But who's better?
No, I can't answer that question. Oh, come on. I don't know. I don't know. I think
Both of them like both of them can can really
Yeah surpass the other team it's gonna come down to it's gonna come down to the clutch factor like
What version of players are we getting today? You know like
Like, which heroes are they playing, like Comfort, Meta, like, there's so many question marks,
it's hard to pinpoint one or the other.
What we know is that both of them are going to feel comfortable, basically, at all stages
of the game.
They're happy scaling.
It's like, yeah, sure, liquid yesterday they showed that they were able to manage late
game situations.
You're going again up against Yotaro and collapse.
You really want to take it to ult for late game, I'm not sure, but maybe you do, which
we'll have to see.
Yeah, the clutch factor from both of these. I would give a slight edge to
Spirit when it comes down to clutch just in the late game decision-making minds always finding that a little bit of something
But we also got to mention that we are experiencing Gnisha prime once again
He has been on point every single game that he played but we talk about his ember spirit performances
Where he's solo carrying the team by fully doing the three different things at the same time dragging the creep wave stealing the stats
Xp rune on top of that as well or if he's going to be playing something that is not really
Nisha style like we've seen yesterday playing Necro against some of these matchups that do
favor Necro in the laning stage against the Sanking but also getting quite a lot of them
throughout the whole game even though it's not an easy matchup for him because he can get
bursted especially in these lineups where he has no like real support in terms of no saving
support no ring mats or shadow demons and no tusk anything to like. And I want to mention
boxy a little bit for Team Liquid because I think he's the he's the club
factor for that team in a sense like when they won the year they won TI I
think he was like the best four of the tournament like by far it was incredible
like the amount of work he was putting and and what he was able to do with the
game he's a very like an innovative like creative player at heart we saw him play
the EarthBit position for yesterday with great success and you know one thing to
mention is it's it was really hard harder for him to express himself given
what was happening on the off-lane because when the off-lane is not doing well, the
position 4 is not doing well either and obviously I'm not saying it was Ace's fault or anything
but like as a pairing they both had really tough starts to the game and and and for
Box C it's going to hurt the team much more than than for Ace in a sense because he is
the one responsible for, he's the most vocal of their players like he makes a lot of short
calling in the early in the late game also he usually sets up the action, sets up the
moves and you know the more he's able to express himself as a player for that
team the better they will play and and I think in he's also the kind of player
to really raise to the task of like big games it's a big game that presented to
him today so hopefully he can find his form and I think if he does this is this
could be a whole the difference maker for Team Liquid against Grip. Yeah most
definitely I mean we are in the meta where it's carry meta so offlaners are
not going to be doing too hot, which means that your position 4 is also not going to
be dominating the lane, having slightly less gold.
There's one factor that Team Liquid always does well, and that's stacking.
They're always like in top 3 in a lot of tournaments, they are top 1 when it comes down to the amount
of stacking that they're doing in the triangle.
So always has something to fall back to compared to Team Spirit currently at EWC, who's maybe
more focused on the lanes, that's why they're doing so well, and Liquid might have some
and shake your performances so far, making sure that you have something to make a comeback
in the game, so falling back to stacking.
And we do have the draft, so Doom getting banned straight away in the first phase, which
is probably going to lean towards this maybe even early Necro in the draft.
Yeah, I think it's a hero that's going to rise up in popularity because it shuts down
a lot of the meta heroes, like we've seen Shots on Amber, Shots on Park, I mean Park
obviously has bad win rate, but still.
It gets first phase banned, the puck, unusual as well.
Right, it shuts down Earth Spirit, a lot of mid heroes are just not playable when you
pick Necro, and obviously the big difference with Necro, unlike Haskar or other heroes,
is that it's a flex pick, it could go position 1, it could even go position 3, we've seen
Amar and Falcons play a decent amount, so it's a very easy pick basically.
It's like you know that you pick it and no matter what one of your lanes is going to dominate.
Yeah, the odd one out that we're not seeing banned is the Trion Protector.
Yes, so that's very odd in a sense.
Like both teams are probably looking at it, but I think these are teams that are very comfortable with the strategies that they enjoy.
So I wouldn't be surprised if it takes less of a priority and they make sure that they secure themselves.
Yeah, the strategy that they want, basically, because these are teams that are so confident.
It's more about can they stop us rather than, oh, we can't give them this or that hero.
Both teams are like, hey, is this hero a problem if we run, let's say, an SF Strap?
No, it isn't. Okay, then give it to them. It doesn't matter.
Yeah, we have even got maybe a higher priority position 5 recently as well with the Bane.
So that's something to put on our radar as well, but the Invoker opening Bane.
Yeah, I think Bane, the one that you mentioned, is going to get priority in the second phase,
especially on the side of Liquid, because this is the pairing that you want to be having.
This is something that Spiritran actually two times the Invoker plus Bane combo,
which is a pretty easy Sunstrike setup.
It's not like guaranteed, but with these professional e-gamers, it is kind of guaranteed.
I really like this opener by Liquid.
And again, you know that you're in an A-S tier series, right away, when this happens.
These are teams that are thinking three, four, five steps ahead in the draft,
and they're thinking, they know large hero pool by heart, they remove what they didn't want to face,
and now they know that this Invoker pick is an issue.
We're gonna have to understand as it goes, because they've spent a lot of time preparing.
There you go.
And then that is like a classic for Spirit, where I think Lord, one of his strongest suit
as a mid-player, is that he knows exactly what he wants in every single situation.
Like, they can always pick a zero.
As soon as he sees the matchup, he's like, yeah, against the Valkyrie, this is what I
want to play.
Against, you know, Amber, Earth Spirit, this is what I want.
These are the kind of supports that I need.
He makes the game very very stable for them and it's exactly what the teams need, like
they have collapsed in your total, you need to give them enough space and they all pay
back, it will pay back big time.
So again, Invoker first pick, he wants to play Pangolin.
Yeah, we got the tree and protector now already banned, we'll see if Leckbeth wants to...
The thing is, if they want to have the bane, they have to leave something in that Spirit
will take because Spirit has the pick out of this ban.
I mean the value that they would get from Vayne is too high, Sunstrike set up, it's very good against the rolling thunder of course
so Spirit most likely is gonna remove it, or if they want to get a trade out of the phase which is probably gonna be on their radar
It's a very strong pick for sure
They've got a whole thing
And here that's also in that I think should be a high priority is the Coddle
I wonder if they would give it to them, like Coddle, Pango I think is pretty much back to what it used to be
very strong hero. The one thing with Invoker also is that it's one of the few mid-heroes
that is pretty static, like it doesn't really invade because you talk a lot about the stacking
meta, like it's not so much a meta at this point, like stacking is just a very important
part of the game and especially for the off lane and stacking the triangle because off
laners are having a rough time, like the meta favors safe lane with hero combinations.
So against Invoker you're going to be able to stack and you're going to be able to clear
these stacks pretty freely essentially so I like the Kotal pick for spit I think
it would be a great game for it. We haven't seen too much of a pango like
it was Maus yesterday who ran pango plus Kotal and again it looked completely
broken pretty much having no cooldown on your abilities and with like both of
these things who can definitely speed things up Kotal does seem like a very
good fit that bearing that you have like along you like it's more about the
But Chakra Magic is, I wouldn't even call it the best ability of the hero, I would even
call this hero to be like a healing hero because most of the time his numbers are always the
highest when it comes down to healing because he buys into Holy Lock, plus the Glimmer Cape
as well, quite a lot of protection and the turnaround potential from this hero is insane.
I'm thinking if Mirana is going to be a hero that Liquid looks at because it's pretty strong
like safely and I think it's one of the best fives to go scout you know stacks
can I make stuff happen around the map if it has enough setup I think it's
very decent versus pango because you're actually not at threat of dying when
you encounter him on the map and moonlight shadow pretty annoying spell
for pango to deal with like the mobility of heroes makes roll a little bit less
reliable we'll see what they go for well that's that's that's a preemptive
remain yes so you can definitely tell that they're kind of on the same boat
thinking but something that said pointed out they are thinking like three
five steps ahead making sure that you know some of these picks are
counterblock I think this is still playable for them if they want to go
death route but we've seen quite a lot of ringmasters just popping off and having
this insane amount of team fight plus the save plus the control that max
percent HP like this is such the undervalued as well considering that we
We are in the meta where you have so many tanky heroes, daggers in the later stages of the game, they deal quite a lot of damage, especially if you can get the super late game where you are having agonimceptor on that, so all of these daggers are going to be shooting through the boxes, so it does feel very nice.
all the and all the other spells right like that the bonus spells that he gets on top of it honestly
this hero like I was kind of underestimating it I think because the more I see it the more I think
it's it's very interesting it's very strong like this hero is really making and like making a big
impact on the story and so far and I'm not surprised it's rising up in priority do you still want
to pick the Mirana comes I think it's a pretty solid pick here real master is good against Mirana
though in the sense that the arrow stun if you ever land it like a maximum max
duration arrow box is gonna be great against it but this is like it fits the
way liquor wants to play because again you think of invoker it's gonna come down
to this travel you know ghost push force spirits maybe agon in shard like the
the class and this is where Mirana shines like when you're forcing opponents to
split up on the map and then they have to deal with global invisibility the
the threat of arrows, so good combo, you know, like Lippert is looking to play like a skirmishy,
split push kind of style, where they will force Spirit to expose themselves and create openings
that they will then seize.
Yeah, surprisingly, Clockwork's still in the poll, I feel like Clockwork does really well
against like both Rinkmaster and Pangalir as well.
They're gonna go with Tusk, which is, I would say, stale to me one of the strongest position
force, slightly underrated, I would, you know, a kid's toolkit is similar in a way with Ringmaster
where you have like a good amount of ways of, like, strong laning phase, you have a PKB patient
tool on one side, like, it's a hero that has been well-rounded for such a long time, it kind of
gives you everything, and when you pick Marana, I feel like you also need to have some kind of a
setup, and this is also going to be a setup that with the 1-2 combo, like with the two supports
plus the mid, you can definitely go around and try to make stuff happen.
It's a very good hero against Pango, the Tusk, like one of the best.
Great pairing with Voker, of course, and with Mirana, because it makes the, you have Chainstone,
like you can keep your hero locked in, like Chainlocked for a while, Shard also makes
the arrow hit reliable.
Obviously Shard can mess up with Pango's ultimate pretty simply, and it's just a reliable
kill, right?
So when you go on Pengo, you want to make sure he dies, he doesn't get flushed buckle out
and get his ulti off, but that never happens against Tosk.
All Tosk has to do is to start on the Pengo, save snowball, chase him with the snowball
if he ever gets flushed buckle, and Pengo will be a guaranteed kill.
Acosta, you happen to have the hero pool of your Toro at hand, was Tiny part of that or is this a...
No, it's a new hero.
But I mean, he's notoriously known for his Tiny, like very comfortable on the hero, so not so new,
He's just expanding his hero pool for this tournament, doing the all-hero challenge.
A great pick, like we've seen Liquid pair Tiny with Mirana a bunch.
Obvious reasons, like again, Tiny, one of the highest DPS entry carry heroes.
You get jumped by Tiny, it's an insane amount of damage, and that is what Mirana relies on.
She wants initiation heroes that use the fact that you're in this, you break the in this, you want to have a hero.
all of the sudden the fight is 4 vs 5 and then you get chased down.
So it's a denied pick in a sense, like obviously they were happy with the Tiny themselves,
but they took it away from Liquid. Liquid was looking at Tiny 100%.
Absolutely.
Centaur's still in a pull, like it could be even good Lycan game,
because both of the supports don't like to play against it.
For now, it's going to be Necro, like we've seen this hero pop off,
and we also saw like ever since Doom has been banned that this hero is going to get priority.
Maybe not as much priority and I would expect I would maybe expect this nickname to come in slightly earlier
But there's still ancient apparition left in the pool which some teams have been using
But I also want to go back to witch doctor
I've been very impressed with how strong this hero is like we saw it yesterday in the liquid series when they played it against extreme gaming
Or shaker he doubled echo slam witch doctor position five try to get a kill
I don't think even got a kill in that engagement because of the item builds that they go for with like go scepter
Shard, Glimmer, Capes, a very survivable position 5.
The 90-minute game that Liquid had yesterday, it was Nisha on the Necrophos.
He also did the winners interview. He did not enjoy that game.
It was a 90-minute game and he only had 5 Reaper sized stacks due to a ringmaster.
Yeah, and they picked it again. It seems like for them, it feels playable no matter what.
But yeah, I mean, Witch Notchard, we saw a super late game coming up from this year,
level 20 talent, 1% max HP, with Tiny who's gonna be sitting at like 5-6 thousand HP.
It's quite a lot of extra HP that you're gonna be getting.
Yeah, the Switch Doctor heal is no joke.
Like it's actually like a strategy in itself at some point.
Like it was really impressive.
They pretty much broke the game yesterday, Liquid with the center double heart and Witch Doctor.
Very interesting.
So you can see also, you know, you were asking earlier, Shiva, like, you know,
what kind of advantage do you get from just thinking watching, well, then taking a page,
two pages of Liquid's book essentially like you you can tell that's where they've been watching very closely and
Yeah, they're even you know stealing some of these heroes abusing the strats that Liquid has maybe I guess brought to the tournament
The necropec though, what's interesting about it?
I mean it's playing versus which is a little bit scary versus string master
It's not the best necropec
It's not like a gotcha pick but it is a great match over stein and this is most likely going to be
I mean actually it could be ace if you just go to the the fighting lane because to be fair
Necro versus witch doctor tiny is very chill like it's it's a good lane for necro
And if it's on mike then it's just a good carry matchup because tiny at some point becomes so hard to kill
Especially when you're running supports like marana tossed like but against necro
He's always a threat of dying. He has to be very careful with when he decides to enter the fight
Yeah, especially with the invoker from the mid lane, like extra bit of a damage coming
up from Sunstrike could definitely make the difference, but I do agree.
I feel like this Necro plus Tusk is going to be the offlane duo for Liquid because a
lot of the times which doctor, not a lot of the times, like 100% of the time, he is the
lane bully where he is completely dominating these melee offlaners, and against Necro,
he can't really do that because of the extra bit of a heal that you're getting, and also
he's a range hero.
Team Spirit agrees they've been at the Alchemist and the Kez, as we are always looking for that carry hero for Liquid
and they do not get over last pick, so
Make it heroes out to be honest like a lot of them are banned. Okay. He goes back to something else this fan
It's a cool approach. I think it's it's it's cool with the Murana like good synergy between these two heroes and again
Like they have this playstyle of like invokers gonna split them out Murana moonlight shadow like they won't
you
you
you
you
you
a piece between the two of them, but again this roster of Liquid has suffered at the hands of Team Spirit.
Maybe I have some recency bias.
Yeah, it could be about this year, some of the recent matchups.
I feel like it has gone Spirits way lately.
Maybe some of that's just Liquid not being in top form.
I think if they figure out a little more of this meta, they get cooked and we're starting to see some of the pieces come together,
this matchup is going to close significantly in terms of that one, right?
So I do think these two teams are evenly matched in their primes
Just a question if you can find a little momentum here today
I think spirit are definitely favored going into this series
But that's not necessarily a bad thing for liquid like I think it can be kind of nice to go in as the perceived underdog
And then there's more pressure on spirit not necessarily a team that feels pressure a lot of times
But it can relieve a little bit from you
I'm surprised that you thought it was so heavily in the favor of team spirit given what we talked about yesterday
which was that you feel like Team Liquid's playstyle matches up very well against Team Spirit,
and that does persist through many of their rosters.
When they're able to cook that, I guess what I'm thinking about this year,
I feel like the game, the meta has slowed down a lot,
and Liquid haven't been able to drive that tempo we're used to seeing from the squad.
You know, we even see like a Mickey Furion game where he ends the game in 30 minutes.
Yeah, it's just not happening. So to me, that alleviates a lot of the pressure from Spirit in
this match. I don't think Spirit are going into the series worried about getting run over.
I think if anything, you're more worried about the speed liquid play with in terms of connecting to moves ganking you the threat on the lanes
I think whenever the morana comes out you have to think about how do we push lanes out without
Chain feeding across the map that is why liquid like this hero and what it gives you it gives you that chains up potential
And it gives you moonlight shadow to maneuver the map quickly
You need like go shop or you need heroes that can impose a similar threat on to liquid course
That is one thing I do like about the Lena pick and the tiny here for team spirit
It gives you a counter threat like maybe you don't want to show up that next wave with the neck post
Maybe you don't want to show that next wave with this been I think Lena is a hero that can cause invoke or some issues
But you have to understand the matchup really well you have to execute it super well
The ceiling is really high the floor is really low between these two heroes
And I think a lot of it comes down to
Knowing how to scale the lina and at some point getting blink dagger or potentially the the shadow blade build up finding this invoker in the fight
And just ruining his day, which you can absolutely do there's a lot of room for execution there
So I'm kind of excited to see this gonna come out. I'm a big fan of the series still in the series busted
I also think this year was a lot of gameplay against necrophos if you opt to take the magic versus talent at 15
You can just take some reprecise straight up. It gets really interesting. We'll see what Laurel offs for here
So far, Plane's going pretty well for him.
I mean, most of the time he's not going to be aiming to use that Reaper's Scythe on Lena, anyway.
No, for sure.
His biggest modus operandi is going to be, you know, go on this Tiny, threaten him, get him to half HP, Reaper's Scythe.
And that's why, in some ways, I kind of like what Liquid got here in the draft, game one.
I think they cooked... I think Spirit were trying to block a lot of aces hero pool with this Tiny Witch Doctor,
saying, you know, we're going to preempt that we pick the Witch Doctor,
we know you want one of these fatty boys in the all-plane, the Centaur archetype, we're going to punch you.
Beautiful shards, nice tank team is gonna do a lot of damage to Rue, and with the Sun Strike, put it off the mark there, doesn't get the kill for the Invoker.
And the result is that Boxing might end up dying. Now, Diggs, that final take isn't gonna do quite enough.
Ah, not level 1.
Mimol top lane, Tofu is giving up his life to try and secure this Lotus. It's not gonna happen in 2v1, even if they are both low. Sven simply does not do enough.
They can't be so quiet about this matchup. Yeah, he's stuck around. No more daggers it seems from, not me.
They got the lane back though. Pretty nice position here for Spear. Man, they use this ringmaster really well in the laning phase.
Starts the Laurel pick up some of the right-click pressure here. There's a quick TP though.
We had a cold snap, an opportunity with the Blood Grenade to land an arrow. Ooh, Laurel just made it to sidestep and still caught.
caught the ice wall and that will likely be the death of them a couple more hits.
Nisha does secure that last hit. Let's talk about this. Nisha invoker. Something
that was auto banned in the extreme gaming series. Presumably because you know
these those two teams know each other quite a bit. They scrim against each
other. You know extreme very often is that the team liquid facilities when
they're in Europe. So they feel like it is a big enough threat that they just
Don't even want to deal with it. Why do you feel like team spirit let liquid have this?
I think spirit are not afraid of giving a hero like that to a team that will first pick in and they have a lot of time to
react. Because they're not always, we're gonna counter your strategies. They're a very good team at
reactionary drafting.
That kind of makes it sound bad in a way, like, oh, you shouldn't be reactionary, but they're very good at coming up with counter picks,
destroying your idea. I mean the first 10 to 12 years of Dota, that was the way to draft.
Yeah, it's kind of an old-school idea, and I think it's where my push could excel, so I don't think he's afraid of giving you an evoker and then be like,
we have answers to it, we know what you want to do with this hero, we're going to counter it, and then we're going to be very confident in that gameplay.
And he's going to take a lot of damage here.
It's going to be a bit too much for him.
Yeah, pop the fairy fire and it still wasn't even close.
That's super nice. Any bonus goes, you get down here with the witch doctor against the necrofil, so you're going to feel really good because you are playing this tiny into necro, it's one of his worst matchups.
So you need to get torn to have a good start here so you can run around and threaten some of the heroes in this game.
That was just flat out just bad for the sake there from Ace.
A little far up.
Maybe a bit different if he's level 4 and he has Ghost Shroud, he could dodge some of
those hits, but headed there.
He lands.
Miike ticking, ticking, but not quite dying.
The Sun Shrike tries to find the kill on to not me.
Not quite enough though.
Tag Team turns some damage back around, Boxie wants to make sure that Ace is not under threat
here a second time, especially with that TP on cooldown.
Taking a look at the CS team spirit is doing very well for themselves. They are leading in all three lanes not by a massive margin
But just a bit. I mean while it seems like the supports on liquid have still managed to
Maybe make up for that loss of CS some nice rotations the rotation mid
Helping voker a lot. So Anisha is doing quite well here in terms of the net worth. He is going hammer. It looks like
Could be nice to get some tower pressure in this game six minute power room. Maybe you can deny it
Unlikely it's all right. That's a good one
That's a real nice one here for the Lina.
We're all just continuous bottom. This is a...
Oh, what a cast bounce back!
Dude, Boxie's gotta be so angry about that one.
The Sun Strike is gonna be shared between the two heroes,
but Ace might be able to run the Bull down here.
The Hill's doing a lot, but Tofu...
That's a much even... What a rotation from Lina!
That's gonna keep things completely on the side of Spirit.
They can even find an extra kill on Tofu.
He's got one more Leap Charge.
As long as he pops it before an Avalanche or something comes through.
Man, with that rotation from Laurel was so important because otherwise that might have been Ace walking away with the Dump.
Perfect time, perfect place. He's doing that without boots.
Sometimes it's pretty difficult to connect these LSAs in the early game when you don't have that movespeed up yet.
And it's Witch Doctor Hill, MVP of this bottom lane.
Yep, yep.
Doing a lot against the Necrophos early.
I thought the Witch Doctor Pick was going to struggle more because they managed to find a tanky offlaner that doesn't care about Maladik as much since you have some sustain.
Yep.
But he went the early heal point, he's counteracting a lot of the lane pressure on the Necro,
and then they're just getting these all-in attempts with the level 2 Malodic.
They played this lane really, really well.
This is not an easy lane for them to run away with here,
and they came out with, you know, a 700 gold disparity between this Tiny and Necrofos.
Just straight-up outplaying Liquid here.
Yeah, I think that this has been one of the issues that has played Liquid this season,
is that there are sometimes where this Boxy Ace duo are not,
not up to snuff with the rest of the competition.
When it comes to the lane, the lane's definitely been an awkward point for them.
See if they can bluster up some moves in the mid game, but Spear are going to be happy farming for the first set of items here.
You want to get the Fusal Pango, you want to get the Tiny to the Echo, probably Blink build.
Lina in particular, this hero's a lot slower than it used to be.
I think people still have this concept of like I'm gonna dominate lane with this hero mid
And kind of run away with just playing with nukes around the map, but this hero
She needs levels. She needs boots to travel almost every game
You need the item after that usually boots travel Kaia like level 10 then you can start like it boots into a fight
Throw out two rounds of spells. You're you're pretty effective at that point
But it can be a little slow to get there especially be a game
Yeah, again, but the meta is kind of
kinda slow right now, so many of these heroes are gonna be played differently than they were in the past
Liquid as a team, is definitely slowed down quite a bit and you can see it from the drafts
Then, in Boker, Necrophos, I mean this is just not a lineup that I feel like Liquid of one or two years ago would be
no chance of them picking something like this
That's still pretty damn hard though, you're gonna have a Lackardy spend in Boker late game
And then this frontline from the necrophos that even if you kill him the other two cores are also carries
So and that's where I want to lead you
Do you have a draft that you favor in the late game because they both are going to scale a lot?
I have to favor liquid a little bit just with if it goes ultra like we saw yesterday
60 minutes plus and you even focus Marana and the tusks no ball save
Yeah
I think it's gonna be really hard for spirit to walk on to heroes and find the big kills
But this Lena is a real wild card like this hero can do some insane things in five or six lot territory
Especially just starting the fight in a weird way where you you know, you have this flamethrower
You find some initial stun into burst damage if the snowball doesn't come out
If you're just able to sit there and deal the highest DPS in the fight it could get real rich
So that's my one wild card for this
But otherwise I think if you're spirit you definitely want to find more action in the big game particularly bringing
You're tore into this game with the tiny build up whatever he prefers get him active
Arrow not the longest duration so ball still gonna land out and they'll get some on the Reaper site
So the first rotation of ace off of those boots of travels is
Rousing success. They got to be very happy with that
Super efficient you can go back through the gate potentially if he wants to get back to bottom lane or maybe just hangs out here for a little bit
All space for the invoker to
He should just not be pressured at all in this early game.
Luke would have to be very happy with the first pick Invoker going unscathed.
You don't get that every day of the week here.
Yeah, that is one thing Team Spirit 2, their two supports are much worse at putting pressure on mid lane.
100% they don't interact with Invoker well at all.
Now it's gonna be, my thought when this Invoker came out, I thought Spirit were gonna first pick something like Clockwork.
Just get some simple gaffos, a hero that's annoying for him that can maybe enable some other heroes that aren't as good as directly interacting with him.
Suddenly you have a gaffos mechanism. The other answer used to be Void Spirit, but they probably thought that hero was just not good enough.
I think Pango's kind of like, you know, it's solid against the Voker, but it hasn't interacted with him so far, so you're giving him a very free early game.
I mean, Ringmaster does have to be a good answer to Invoker in a different way, right?
With that box save, he's super good against him.
Kofu?
Not dead yet, when my Shadow is gonna allow him to live a while longer, in fact, he even
has some lawn charges, so he's pretty good to go.
We've all the time, he actually came through the gates as well.
Now, he's gonna go back through.
We were looking for the fight up here into the tower, especially with the Rolling Thunder
potential.
Take the nukes, farm with the defusal, send the tiny back bottom.
No pressure going in to spirit on this map right now.
That's gonna be the meteor hammer and voker.
Nisha feels he can start running into some towers and doing some DPS here.
Otherwise, you just gotta be wary of the pango's strength in these teamfights once that diffu comes out.
Should be strongest hero on the map at that point.
Yes.
Rather spooky.
So Liquid, likely looking to be dodging fights around right now, Nisha, trying to, uh, is
a nasty Invis rune.
Yeah, he's got double sentries, so he is already spotted, Laurel.
I think Nisha's just trying to waste his time a little bit, act like, oh, maybe you could
get me.
Maybe I don't know your Invis.
12-in-a-power rune easily picked up, and Laurel, with a shield rune, is gonna go full
offense.
does push in, allowing Boxie to get a snowball off still. They land the dagger off a bit.
And damage over time from the slow burn and the dagger is not enough to get the kill, though.
A lot of harass, though. That shield run in the bottle, so you can definitely push the lane and try and pressure this a little bit.
There's smoke supports.
Are you gonna hit top again, though? It feels hard to connect on this top lane. It's just Marana sitting up here.
Maybe you look for Spen in the jungle. He's a very tanky boy.
If you catch them on the low ground, set up for a good cast.
Oh, this is a perfect setup.
Yeah, but Mickey should be dead here.
They have the whip and the wheel and the LSA.
My goodness, they threw everybody to the front.
They wanted to take no risk whatsoever.
Make sure Mickey dies.
The punish is going to be here.
But actually, it's not the worst punish.
I was going to say core for support,
but somehow Rue had a killing spree,
so that kill is actually worth a little bit extra.
303 gold at its base.
That's it, you're taking a level 10 Sven off the map during this mask of madness period where he's trying to accelerate against the tiny
big win for spirit here
To commit a lot of holes
Maybe a little overkill, but again that's been was pretty tanky. So maybe you need it at all
The collapse
The pressure he exudes with these swashbuggles just one ones around on tofu brought away half his HP and turned a bunch of
mana. Hard to be able to stay out on the map or in this lane, when you get your resources
burned so easily like that. They all bring an evoker top, liquid trying to find the
guy. Come on the tornado, see if they can land the arrow, it's allowed the meteor to
do maximum damage. Still got the shield crash and he can get off the rolling thunder with
ease here. Maybe not actually, let a bit of cold snap, they have the box to save him.
Tofu doesn't manage to get the leap away, Yatoro throws a branch at him, but there's
the smoke dodge from Tofu, just to make sure the 100% survives. Not me. Man, going back
up to that high ground trying to bait him in. I mean Team Spirit got to be the
stronger team in these fights right now so understandably not me is trying to
dare Liquid into fighting him. They do have Ace coming over. What? The Centaur
stopped. That just ruined Ace. Who was looking for the Reaper's side kill on
the not me and now he's in big trouble. Yeah, he's going to pop his
Ghostrouch dodge this damage from the panko but it easily sets up with Lina and
now Topu's going to get bumped as well. This was just not a fight that Liquid was
ever gonna win easy and as soon as they missed out on the pango kill I think he
was all gone I would have just bailed out there collapsed or bought the meteor
damage to me that was not convincing if I'm okay I'm gonna go farm yeah because
you don't have God strength there if you've got strength I think you could
maybe take the second half that if you beat spirit in deep you're gonna get
God strength you're gonna maybe get the Reaper kill that centaur did him no
favors but I don't even know if he really could have landed much there you
have some heels coming through you have to be very careful with going for the
Reaper kills in this game.
We saw how much the Ringmaster can do a disservice
to the Necropost in that regard.
Like you go in this guy's little,
I'm gonna Reaper him, he gets boxed
and then you're just stuck in no man's land.
Which means so often the Necro then has to try
to Reaper the Ringmaster and that's,
I think it's weird positioning wise,
not really who he wants to be.
I'm also surprised Liquid wanted to fight that so bad
because you have a lot of farm on the map right now,
you don't have a lot of fight.
Like you have a boot to travel Necro,
You have a meteor hammer, boots, a travel invoker.
You have Masked Man to spend.
These are all items designed to accelerate you
across the map of the jungle to get you
to your fighting items.
Like, I don't get boots to travel and I want to fight, right?
I want to get a Reaper kill,
or I want to get some random pick off somewhere.
But a spear, they're gonna group for a tower,
and they're gonna bring the Tiny into that play.
You're not advantaged in terms of the net worth
at that point.
Snowball rolling after him does catch not me.
Actually throughout the wheel,
hoping that it would somehow save him from a fade, but.
Very dead. Boxie while he's there, we're seeing a lot more century blocking camps.
And it's definitely been a heavy trend in the last six months.
Meanwhile, Ace dying on the other side of the map is a way bigger deal.
Team Spirit making use of this early shadow blade, Yatoro, is on the hunt.
He's got 9,000 net worth, rather large league,
and that's about to grow as every objective is going to fall.
He's so fat.
You saw how effective this tiny was in Big Ace hands yesterday.
I think Liquid understand the strength this hero and the spirit just took it out of their hands.
They would rather have carry Tiny than Speck. I guarantee you that.
He's just a faster version. He creates more threat on the map. He invades your area sooner.
This could be a big problem for Liquid. They don't have good heroes to fight the Tiny directly.
You just have to kind of shove the waves out and dodge him.
Toro, he's on the hunt. He is great with these Shadow Blade carries.
Potem and kill them. Tofu goes down and these are just easy kills.
Easy kills for Yatoro. Making these rotations like this, I mean it's not slowing him down at all.
Every hero kill that he gets, he's not losing out on GPM.
Squishy heroes on this game. You invest in early boots of travel, but you're losing map control.
This is where the pick-off game between the Lena and the Tiny is going to cause liquids of issues before the true lane shove comes online.
Like, it's a little slower to do right now, you have to linger in some areas and that's where you're just afraid of where these two cores are right now.
Yeah, things like Necro, off lane Necro, having to go boots of travels, then a radiance like this.
He's very subtle.
Until you get that third item that actually takes you up a little bit.
And even then, at the rate, if you're behind a net worth like this,
like Lena and Tynier just gonna be always able to one shot.
This is where winning that lane is really important.
If you're ahead on the map as the Necrofos, you get more ahead.
When you're behind, the Tynie pushes you farther behind,
because you're afraid of where you're gonna show.
Even if you buy a RAPS right now, I'm not sure it saves you from the full Tiny Combo with any follow-up.
Yeah, I don't think so either.
I think it might be some sort of weird game where you have to just rush BKB's third item on Necro.
Maybe.
It's also not a spell Tusk can save you against Avalanche, it's just way too annoying to blink into.
Well, so seeing Tofu, you talked about the Marana, I thought one strength you didn't say about the Maranas.
He's sure looking for big plates.
He's through, and if he lands, it's real good, but it does not.
And the opportunity is gone, and instead it's going to be an easier time.
Look at not only coming in from behind with the wheel as well,
making the retreat real difficult for Liquid.
They're going to bleed out multiple heroes here.
The two supports and the invoker.
Spirit looking in product form right now.
They're not forcing any bad moves.
They're connecting everybody to the fight.
And it's Liquid who looked pressured to make something happen.
But again, you just don't have the items for it right now.
Mikkei's going to try and get something here.
Trying to get a fast kill on Rue, but now he's going to get avalanche.
Now he's going to be stubbed up, but Reaper Scythe doesn't get to cut down.
And at the same time, Yutoro doesn't threaten Mikkei.
That is the one hero he's going to have a hard time bursting down.
The Maladix, well, too enough.
It's close.
150 HP left over in the end.
That's something.
He almost kind of botched that play.
He didn't get the storm hammer off before the mom silence.
That was a little weird.
Yeah, that was.
But you get the job done.
Gotta protect your wards against the ringmaster illusion.
Oh yeah, going back to the Murana, right?
I think one strength of this hero is also how much it farms.
And can scale him to leaky.
He saw a tofu.
He was playing like, it reminded me of like sneaking, playing enchantress,
playing in the enemy jungle, taking away their neutrals all the time.
Right? And he's just breaking smokes.
He's easily able to get out with leap.
And he's just, you know, slowly sapping away
Your map, your economy.
You should be the most popular hero when you're playing Marauder in terms of supports.
And he can't do that, this game, because you talked about it, like,
Tiny and Lena are very good pick-off heroes.
It makes it a lot more difficult for you to play on that side of the map.
I mean, Tofu hasn't really done any of that,
and he's mostly just been trying to set up arrow kills,
which have been a bit hit-or-miss.
Full Silver Edge for your Tor.
He is.
That was scary in this game.
Taking Tormentor while the safe lane Radiant Tier 1 tower is still up.
Little risky.
Should get it here.
Yeah, how many heroes are going to get afterwards though?
They're going to be a little bit low.
They're going to smoke and make a run for it.
Some are TPing, some are running.
Here it comes.
Oh, look at Nami.
That's the play you want to see right there.
Unicycling in to see if he can catch some heroes.
He will not get there in time, though.
Nice little steal from Liquid.
Not an objective spirit.
We're expecting to lose here.
Especially moving, like it's even worse
when you move all five heroes of Team Spirit
to that corner of the map.
Find nothing for it.
Like Nisha's ratting you out right now.
He's already bought out his shard,
so he's gonna be doing this very, very stupid ghost walk.
Pushing, which...
We gotta get this out of the game sometime this is.
It's pretty ridiculous.
Especially since it's a proc searing signet.
It's the lowest skill go shove that has ever existed.
For sure.
You're just running through creeps.
Need some blink diggers to punish this.
but then it's pretty difficult to find this guy.
Quit trying to set up something for Laurel up here.
And so Laurel knows he invokers here,
now he's gonna try and spring forward
and catch him on the essence distiller.
Almost had him.
We got him on the dagger.
He's a great item against the voker here.
All right, so some hero show,
immediately back to the other side of the map.
And a team spirit with more back control.
They're the ones who control the gate
so they can be moving back and forth
a little bit more efficiently,
but it's game of cat and mouse.
They're trying to hunt down these Liquid Heroes.
And Liquid so far right now are doing a good job dodging them.
They're getting more off the map.
This is what you want with the double bots.
Plus the Sven. You're gonna farm a little faster right now, but not by much.
But these items should pay off, particularly the Radiance for the Necrophos.
If you can get to a couple items worth of survivability, you're a lot more confident to enter that fight.
Say the bling for boxy is also huge here. He's pretty close to 100 off.
Get your cores a lot more confidence to just go in the fight if the snowball save can come out.
It's interesting to see who's pressured to force that move in this kind of stalemate.
I think both teams are pretty confident scaling their cores up here.
to me spirit have a little more onus on them yeah it's not a huge margin but
you have this tiny running around in this team culture wise like what have you
ever seen team spirit over do it in the aggression there are the rarest things
happen right it always seems like they're kind of comfortable scale maybe
if I don't know maybe the Toronto Tokyo days maybe he tended to force a little
Yeah, yeah, that's there's no doubt about that. Maybe they didn't like that
That's what they said there
But it was got to do Russia
I think this is a fine call if the tiny is not fine you pick off on the map you should abuse the fact that liquid are in dodge mode
You get something here, so it's gonna be a free agent for you Toro
You know instantly TV bottom and try and clear anybody out of this bottom lane
The lead has not grown though in fact it has gone liquids way over the last time and it's 5k swung back
can change things with pick offs like this.
Hmm, punch that Marana.
That's what we're talking about.
You just can't farm deep here in a style of game.
I wonder what Topu even does about this,
because you're not going to be able to,
you can't have sentries.
First item they all disk.
Yeah, that's, I legitimately, I was thinking about that.
Like, you know he's going to be running the map a lot.
He can't get sentries out.
The map's too big when you're trying to rat like this
to be able to always, you know,
see where this tiny's coming from.
So go early gem blink or something. Yeah, maybe Maron is just not the most survival here
Oh god, I mean the wheel beautiful stuff from me. Not me
Misha will have to expend his VKV go to your TP. I can make it all fast enough. Oh, they got him. Okay
That's a big find and he can be gonna be a cool down for a while even when he responds here. Oh, look at this. Look at this ace
No, we went for the hit that was greedy at Toro that could have been another kill
He probably feels he doesn't die there unless he gets to hit off, which I think is true
Yeah, that's probably fair. That's like he's just gonna walk back in the base
Still huge fine on this invoker. This is the biggest here to take off the map every time
It's gonna give you a lot of room a lot of space
He's blink away there from boxy
See the supports of the ones trying to head out these lanes
If a tiny goes and catches them, what a sick catch.
Yeah, that was really well done.
But the catch in Voker with Veal, just straight up.
Like the execution of like casting the spells, it's kind of like whatever.
Because you know, in Voker's running a straight line, but to have that set up in the first place, right?
Yeah, exactly.
To have those words in that position, be ready for it.
It's the idea, the timing, not get counterplayed, you're hiding behind a tree, all those little vision things.
Yeah.
makes that play work.
Finds you a lot of breathing room here as liquid. Just trying to get to BKBs.
They're going to have a really nice triple BKB timing in this game
very soon if that Necro BKB arrives.
Alright, so Avery, are they going to fight with those BKBs
or are those BKBs that allow them to pull the nightfall?
No, no, no. You're fighting with that.
You have Gem on the Invoker too. They did purchase it up
off the back of a Tofubing Mega Rich here.
You get those triple BKBs, you have Gem, you have Marana, Ulti, you want to start fights on your terms and get the spend into the game with the Lackredy on top, he's going to demolish
these Spirit Heroes. He has free reign.
And they're, they're smoked up before this Necrophos BKB even arrives, they feel like they don't even need that one.
That's interesting, I wonder what they see from their perspective that says, this is an opportunity.
Right, you're, you, the only reason you go before your item timing is you think there's an opportunity, you see something on the map.
I must have just made some quick call from Voxy that they're gonna try and pick somebody.
Like try and find Lena on enemy triangle, I think was your best opportunity there.
Okay.
Laws are starting.
Very tanky.
He already has PKB.
He has Shielder in the bottle.
You have to extra match to persist from the Flame Cloak.
Do not want to underestimate how tanky this Lena is.
Now the Sven will chop him down to the armor.
But outside of that, he can tank a lot in this game.
I do think that this this little move here from team spirits pushing in mid lane now looking to take this top tier 2
delayed by the glyph a little bit, but I think this you know they're accelerating game a little bit nicely
They scan their own triangle
They know I mean they're playing so much of the enemy side of the map and they're gonna go for the kill on roof
But the entirety of team spirit is on their way
Okay. And the BKB is up for mechanic, so if you use BKB and TP out this time around, they will definitely not have the damage.
That was Ruge's running in, knowing they're there, trying to bait some linger around from Liquid.
Sure, if they don't have BKB on Sven, he likely gets caught and killed, right?
So, he probably says whatever. You can take the witch doctor here for some nice catch.
Got the whip on Boxy when he was trying to do the shard snowball play and they're
attacking him with damage making sure he can't get the blinked out so.
He'll die here.
Very nice.
Look at the positioning on the map.
The lean is up top, the tiny's down bottom, they're spreading the threats out.
Causing liquid a lot of issues here.
Yeah you can continue to just ghost walk a bunch of neutral camps but you're not pulling
ahead.
So we're going to have to find out just how hard this Sven's going to scale in this game.
Yeah, we haven't seen Sven in a hot minute as a top meta hero and I think there's a good reason why.
Who knows man, it's a true wild card.
I don't even know what talents you go for nowadays. He's probably going to go the War Cry Armor.
Or does?
Yeah, I think you take War Cry Armor.
The 25 talent I think is still a mixed bag. We see people take the God Shrink damage a little more.
Um, especially since they removed the bonus damage on the stun, I think that talent goes up even farther.
It's interesting, the way this game is played, I wouldn't say that God's Strength cooldown, talent, I wonder if that's actually better for me.
I think great clean.
If you're just popping off cooldown, like making it as his razor, just use the ultimate all the time as much as you can and just clear through neutrals.
I can't see it. Probably nice in the late game too.
That is for sure.
Oh! Foxy whiffs the initiation! Maybe it's a good thing because it meant that Mikkei didn't immediately fight on it,
which would have been disastrous. I mean, it probably would have been another BKB TP outscenario as it is.
Mikkei is just able to run away. BK were unused, completely setting that trap. Yes, a liquid.
And that's the difference between a team that understands what's happening in these lanes
and where the threats are, and you just casually walk in and feed in there.
Asia showed himself, Futuro's hunting, where does Team Spirit have a gem, right?
Yes.
It's on the pango.
Oh, pango has it.
I'm surprised they haven't given it to Tiny.
Well, he did go early linkage here, so Claps is a little tough to go on, especially with the saves behind him.
Yeah, but he's the tiny, the bigger threat to killing the invoker.
Well, I guess they both, like if they both carrying Jem, then he's not gonna get invoker.
It's pretty tough to find in this game.
I know that you want to overemphasize it. You're gonna spend time chasing ghosts literally and just lose out on opportunities or farm.
You have to let the game come to you.
Fair enough, and it is coming to them right now. Team Liquid going forward, smoke, play, blink away from collapse,
boxy doesn't catch him for a second time, just collapse things. It's too fast.
He's just breaking every move they want to make in this game, and that'll mean Tormentor for Spirit,
just a man up here, could go through the gate as Liquid.
That'd be very risky.
Same move considering how disciplined they've been about dodging fights, just stumble into a
potential trap like that. Not a bad chart to get in a game that's very per-single target oriented.
Yeah, if you dodge a store hammer. Yeah, exactly. If you dodge some big discreet damage here.
Not bad for the docked. So we got that degree-gree running.
You just got 900 gold that could be expended at some point.
I fully expect to see some A on this.
We go late here. This is a big...
This is a game for that item, if I've ever seen one.
You're talking about for both sides, right?
Yes, it's just a huge amount of single target burst damage in this game,
off of a lot of crazy initiators that are going to be hard to check.
In the fight.
Still less than a 5k difference here.
There's the bachelor for the panko, though, so now you can't rely on the BKBTP.
It's no where Nightfall Dota here.
And there's the blink for the Lina. So to me this is when this Lina and Voker matchup
Starts to shift a little bit or at least the threat of Laurel on Tanisha goes up considerably
Because if you enter the fight as a Voker and try and drop some combo someone he can just blink LSA Laguna U
And even if you BKB as the right-click picks up here, it can do some serious work, right?
So the next step is getting that 25 talent the attack crit
It's a big one. Hex would also be nice here
You can continue to scale the magical single target burst threat. You can also go back into right click with items like Brasma
We'll see what Laurel ops for here. Yeah, I think Cif, when you already have blink tagger build up
That sounds pretty good to me. You also have two other shadow blinks. You have two other physical damage cores
So there's also an argument that mixing the damage here feels a little bit better. They don't run into the invoker
They actually jumped the tiny. They're really gonna go for it now. He's gonna get boxed, collapsed
Now taking a lot of damage from Mickey. He might not be able to get up the wrong thunder, he almost dies.
Meteor being dropped. A lot of damage both Ace and Mickey. Mickey's the one to fall here.
Ace still trying to make a run away.
Ace would use his Reaper's side. Now no longer has much of a threat. It's up to Nisha to deliver the damage
and Alina is killing him.
Gem's gonna be dropped in the ground and Team Liquid might just get white tears.
Topa tries to rescue the Gem and all he does is leap into his own demise.
Alina did so much work in that fight. Just a perfect position for Laurel.
He's able to sit right on that tree line. Nobody jumps him. All the focus is on the two tanky frontliners and the box was
instantaneous
Exactly what you want from this fear lineup. You're just getting baited onto the wrong targets
Yeah, the Sven does a crap ton of damage, but not enough fast enough against all that tiny armor
It's kind of the worst target to go on here. Yeah, no way it was almost
Good that collapsed so close by if they've been able to kill him there then maybe the fight right
I think he doesn't run into the Lena as much, but just didn't have quite enough damage,
claps is tanky enough, and then it comes back through.
And it's just killer, I'd say.
Absolutely havoc on him.
Yeah, he landed stun on the invoker and the tusk, as Boxer was in the middle there.
And he lands another one on him.
Nasty stuff.
That's the power of this hero.
And this is why this hero always wants frontliners.
Like, yeah, he has two range supports, that's not great, but the other two cores for Spirit
know their job.
You got to go in.
You got to tank some spells so that this Lena can play the full fight.
and it will carry you over that hump.
This is what we're talking about, like, yeah, we can see that Liquid want to wrap the map,
they feel more confident about their late game and looking at their draft,
they do have some late game heroes, but Team Spirit, as you said, let the game come to them,
and that's exactly what happened. Liquid tried to actually take some sort of offensive action,
and Team Spirit are well set up for it.
I mean, it feels like Liquid would be more even in this game if they never made a move.
That is true. It feels like all their moves are actually bad.
But the moves could have worked, so yeah, of course, of course.
They really need to gable this on Mika.
I think that's the biggest damage upgrade they can get.
Yeah, let's get that.
You also really need the Lackardy to go out on him before he jumps.
He was pop into each other once again, and this side was a tiny jump in the sped.
Can they get the wheel?
He's actually turning to hit the tiny, especially can you?
Okay.
The guy for this one now, Mika has to run, collapsed.
He's gonna roll through him and finish him off.
Foxy almost dies to Lina.
Lena being threatened by A-Speed while poor Topher's just getting chain-stunned.
But the run's done to ran out!
Tornado comes in, a punch in the air, no swashbuckle to get out, and it's liquid to win it!
Finally, the offensive fights from Liquid pay off!
Foxy does take out some of the burn damage here.
Yeah, that's a little burn, it mounts up.
It mounts up.
But there's no way Laurel's gonna threaten anybody here.
And that is a solid team fight for Liquid.
That looked real rough with how it started.
I thought Mikkei was gonna get chain-stunned by that wheel, but he's able to get DKB off.
That makes all the difference there.
And this time, Delina is farther out, not able to have that immediate impact.
That was so close to landing, it was.
Does get the Alacrity though, and you're able to lay into the Tiny with the Alacrity hits.
That is the damage you need. He kills three there with some extra cleave.
Ends up being a pretty good teamfight for him, even though he goes down.
Beautiful tornado timing.
both these teams are trying to get as much value out of the front liners for
the invoker and the leaner to clean the fight if like those are your true carries
here you're almost just trying to buy time in the trenches now the upside for
teams here it is he's already 25 they lost the fight we actually with a slow
brink that's crazy to me I think that's the way more unreliable talent with how
the slow burn can get removed. Is it just basic dispellable? Yeah as far as I
understand. Okay I think when you go this magic build you're thinking I'm not
gonna be trying to play for right clicks too much. I just want to get a volia
spells off kind of reset position get another volia spells off. It does do a
crap ton of damage with the spell amp as well. You gotta remember your spell
amp is damping the slow burn. This is the higher DPS build for the magical
on the Lena. Longer fights are definitely going to be more beneficial, right?
It's a scary amount of DPS for sure. No question about it.
Oh well. Time for tier fours. Time for some conjurious catalysts.
How many did we get? Well, you got the Searing Signet on the Lena.
The Tier Four Searing Signet. Well, that has to mean that he did not get
Well, Liquid got two of them, Tofu and Ace, and there's now one on Deesha as well.
Invoker wants the juiciest here.
That's what you wish you had on Alina, Liquid left the spellcaster advantage here.
Also pushing towards Ahex.
Yatoro is still holding onto Adoramn Curio.
Do you think he actually used it on Tier 4?
Because I feel like...
The Chippos aren't that great, I think, for a lot of the right clickers in this meta right
now.
just a bit underwhelming right there's no way I'm using on giant's mom there's no way they match it
later if you get players moda you take that right I could see that one yeah it's super good on tight
that item is disgusting on this hero and if he doesn't get players moda he might just hold it for
tier fives because it's a dead even match for the net worth lead four team spirit isn't really much
at this point in the game.
15 initiation, here comes the arrow, nice 4-staff getting not me away, and putting
Clarkson in her awkward position, where he twirls likely to kill the LSA on the right
side, though!
Lena, stops Mikkei's initiation, Rune tries to do as much damage as they can, even the
bash on Mikkei!
Art Boone up to the high ground, though, but Collab's gonna chase him down with the rolling
Thunder.
Beautiful stuff from Team Spirit.
How did they find him there so quickly?
Yeah, seriously, who was right as Mikkei was about to make his blink in?
Anisha, yes Dodge, collapse here, it's the bash that he's afraid of, pushing him back
with the definite blast and now the BKB is expended and he'll be caught as well, three
down on liquid side.
The Spirit supports are just so fast and decisive, that is what separates them from a lot of
other support doers in my mind, they do not hesitate.
The second that LSA landed on the Sven and they saw him, I'm assuming with flying from
the flamethrower, he was like dancing over the roach, he just instantly jumped with the
the witch doctor tried to cast it, but honestly Liquid got lucky that cast did not bounce.
It could have just perma-changed on them right on the spot, but you still are able to land
the Maladik, you're able to survive with the switcheroo, and that's just no real fight.
This is kind of awkward. Team Spirit went to Roshan afterwards, but Tofu with an agonim
scepter, that arrow came through and hit the tiny, did the star storm, and it's just dangerous
and now Team Spirit feel like they have to take the fight out to take the fight. The numbers
advantage they do manage to burst down Tofu, but it costs not me his life. Ace doesn't have to
Reaper's sight, so he's really not much of a threat. Spirit know it, they're just running in.
He's gonna chase down and Ace is gonna die as well. Got off the ghost round to live a little
bit longer. Maybe it's different if he has like 25, but again without Reaper's sight it's just kind
of like okay he's there, but another sick call from Spirit recognizing the situation not afraid
to over-commit with low HP cores because the reaper's on cooldown, and it just instantly go.
Like, there's just almost no hesitation. I cannot believe not me just jumped in there like that.
You basically jumped with nothing die instantly, but then you had a good fight,
because I think Liquid are just confused at that point.
If they don't play that as fast as they do, they don't catch Liquid, you know,
a little bit out of sorts, and Liquid just kind of pokes at you with these spells,
Roshan then swaps over the other side, like, then things get really awkward. But, as you said,
The speed, his name of the game, four team spirit in this.
Fast decision making leads to big dividends.
And they get a gem out of that as well.
I believe Liquid, yep.
No gem for them when you're running this in poker with the Ghost Walk.
That's gonna really sting here, especially against the tiny threat with the constant Silver Edge initiations.
So these gems are invaluable in a game like this.
There's a full abyssal for the pango, even more control for the Sven.
To me, this is the anti-Sven item.
I think Sven hates playing into the Bissell more than any other item in the game.
Yeah, I mean, the fact that it's so debilitating.
It's so debilitating.
Valued that item so heavily that he still doesn't have an Agam scepter.
Right, I think it's a lot.
I'm totally fine with this.
I think if you go in there and you have Bissell, Sven, and then you bash him at any point,
you remove half of his BKB duration, that is the hero.
Like, he will get slain in these teamfights without BKB available.
You have to get a lot done in that window.
Yeah, is there any hero that's more dependent on that BKB window?
Any carry that's more dependent?
I feel like Sven's gotta be number one.
Little pick off. Oh, what a cast!
Sadly to the kill on Mi'k'e.
Ooh, gets out of the LSA ever so barely.
Now Mi'k'e comes through.
Win after clock, so he already got off the roll up,
and now the rolling thundered chase down the back line.
He's gonna go after Mi'k'e, and they got him on the outlights right now.
A pistol plate on Mi'k'e, on the way through,
and Mi'k'e just can't make it out.
He gets batched up, trying to get through the gate,
but Collapsus there on the other side to welcome him to his home.
Ace went in with his BKB. Nobody's really low enough to be threatened by him.
They are going to offer him a way out, but with so much mobility on the side, they're able to get chase.
And the damage is just not there, man. They try and get Buck Hill and Colotsy, but they didn't manage to get that.
It is liquid, almost getting wiped inside of their own base.
Beautiful chase down. Multiple target prioritization. The wheel is displacing everybody in the fight.
The Sven jumped it, not work out, to do some more quick reactions from the Pangolier.
It's so hard to jump this team.
And after that, it looks easy. Double Laguna, a lot of slow burn damage coming out, and you're just running people down.
And once that fight is broken, once the Sven has to retreat, there's no hope of turning it.
The Pangos is rolling it, you're invoker, he can't turn that situation.
You got an abyssal on the Sven on the way out.
Just a nightmare in terms of the control coming up from this lineup.
They have five stunners.
If you don't get something done in the first few seconds of the fight, you're not out
controlling this line.
It's impossible.
Yeah.
Ace's off-lane necrophos is still trying to get level 25.
It almost has a sheeva's.
But frankly, this is twice or maybe the third time now that we've seen this hero just...
Even as he gets the farm.
There are times where in certain matches, it just can't seem to do anything anytime these reaper signs are just too difficult to land.
Spirit did a decent job addressing him. You have the box safe for the reaper and you have a very good matchup with his Lena.
That's going to always cause necrophos problems.
Very tough hero to gap close, very high movespeed hero, very high magic resist hero.
You don't have a lot of options here and his Lena is pushing towards 30. All the talents are pretty nice on this hero.
He's going to scale even more. Yatoro's out of control. These two carries are just...
They're he-mits. You bring down one, it feels like the other is gonna have so much time to just wreak havoc in the fight.
Hey, talk about how the burst damage is so important. Three pendulums on the side of Team Spirits.
One of which is the Unleashed Pendulum on Titan.
Oh, it did.
So 4,700 HP and 39% of it is delayed over the first five seconds.
That's cool.
You're just not gonna kill him in that window. It's souped male well.
Well, that's a lot of damage there. Did he actually pop the Reaper site he didn't but now he's been stunted up
He doesn't have to use his BKB. He's actually holds off on it. Still thinking about that Reaper site though
Opportunity make it getting caught in the wheel. They don't really have much of a safe box
He's trying to you know operate there, but he got his snowball blocked by the Lincoln's wait. What fun to get her there
Do you
Forced after something I didn't see
But the Sven jumped and he bounced away, but he did not harpoon.
That looked really awkward.
I don't think I got a number of horse staffs, maybe not the Bale of the Mount.
I instantly clicked on him and his was off-cruise on his log, I believe, so who knows.
The ability to play the map gets worse and worse.
This ablade was a really big pick up for that.
Now you have the sight device, and the initiation went on to collapse though.
They kind of set up a trap, and Alina's already hit Nisha.
Nisha gets off his BKB lane, but he's still low.
He has to just play off the base, his heals to stay alive.
And here comes Yotaro.
Boxing, lucky to be alive for now.
I can't believe everyone in Liquid is actually able to make it out.
It's the one fight where Team Spirit, the last little go of things,
we're 100% sure about things that you can give Chase.
This switch, Dr. Heal, is really annoying if you can't burst targets,
Especially for these tanky boys on the front line. He has the level 20 talent.
He's doing a lot of work. You can just infinitely keep this up.
Now, maybe there's some hidden strength in this hero that we're starting to see in this event.
Just sitting around these high HP targets with the heal running.
Puts a lot of pressure on you to execute these burst moves successfully.
Scythe of ice for Laurel and he's getting to the level 28 so soon he's gonna get the
other round of talents and actually be a lot more dangerous in the right-click department.
Yatoro has his 25 with the toss charges so another thing that can threaten these heroes.
The liquid is so dependent on BKBs but what happens if you get blinked toss, chain tossed?
Ain't due to follow-up stuns and team spirit.
Nothing good for ya.
I guarantee that.
Yeah, Boxxy's gonna have to be super clutchy.
Wink BKB specifically so he can.
Pop BKB blinkin' snowball saves somebody, but...
does that even really bail you out?
Or are you just setting up for a bigger LSA at the end of it?
You have to connect the Lachran spend and haul in.
One of the pangor, the luna, I believe?
That is your one way to winning a fight.
And then Voker combo has to come out, somebody has to get re-burned.
Successfully, there's a lot of things that need to connect here for liquid.
Down 30k.
And if they could sell this game a bit, they can get 25s on a couple of their cores,
which they just don't even have that influential 25 talents.
You don't think they spent one with the Alacrity, right? This combination of things.
I feel like that there's a flat damage bonus
There's what I do them as damage upgrades, but it's not gonna change the fight setup
I think that's the biggest issues finding the heroes you want to find
Who are you jumping here? There's just no easy targets
Sure, so in that case you feel you like Marana 25 a bigger guy
I would if I was you better opportunities to
You know work around these fights exactly at least then the setup of the fight changes
It becomes more chaotic. Your landing is random arrows. Maybe you're going to pop someone's A on disc.
You create some more opening. You might just hit this Lena.
Because there's a lot of defensive capability for Spirit. They have double Lincoln Sphere A on disc on the Witch Doctor, plus the Switcheroo.
The Box save out from the Ringmaster that he can throw on anybody. And then you have this tanky 5000 HP upgraded Pendulum, the Atorotiny.
He's ridiculous. And he's getting an accent by the way. What do you think about that over Moon Shark?
Well, why not? He already has Daedalus. He's already swinging for 600 plus.
I kind of get it, but at the same time, like, isn't this last fight likely to be happening in Liquid's base?
Yeah, I'll plant the trees for him, you know.
Okay.
Well, Team Spirit are chill.
You see, we're going to wait for Roshan here, which is the preferred area for them to take a fight.
Liquid would want to come out and challenge him. I'm sure they would be happy to oblige.
Satanic on Micke.
Which will help give him a bit more longevity, but again, he's still very dependent, especially against all these stuns on the BKB.
Level 25 is finally achieved by Ace, so he's got these spam of death pulses.
It has to be some crazy execution here.
And look at that positioning from our boys.
They're making an ankle.
It's super nasty and they're going to box you on top of them.
Top is playing down the century. Meanwhile the initiation with our globs.
Globs got the box safe though.
And now they are likely to be okay.
It's look at the trees raining in on Micky.
Micky just can't hit anything man.
He pops his date panic and he still dies because there's just nothing to run into.
This fight's already over.
Micky initiation and they can't get a fast kill.
They can't get a repersite opportunity.
and they can't even keep Mikkei alive.
Maybe they get Nisha out.
Jim was a little far away.
Pump fake, pump fake.
He's like, maybe I reaper site the witch doctor.
I mean, there's nothing else that has been given to me.
It's really, it's, wait, team spirit or not,
they're trying to pump it out.
They're going to turn back and go for him.
Make sure the invoker doesn't have an opportunity.
They do manage to burst him down.
Could have been very different if Ace lives long enough
to start getting off some of those heels
and had that reaper site to throw on Utoro,
But instead all three cores are able to chase after the invoker
Well being a bit low maybe me should commit something happen here. No, he's just out not gonna wait for the next round of spells
He does not want to risk getting swashbuckled or avalanched
Just to try and save tofu's life. Heads up TP from your Toro to
Close the gap at the other side
There's a gliss of hope in that fight for liquid but ultimately again the spend just can't play the long the long con here
Too much control the abyssal goes out on him the box safe goes on the first jump target
What's he supposed to do?
Look at the damage.
He can't hit anything.
Kind of run constantly.
It almost feels like I mean this one save him is when I don't know do you get nullifier?
Try and deal with the box like if you get the stun on collapse and you get the nullifier
you can chain stuns and actually kill them for once.
I think somebody has to find remaster while you jump.
I-I don't think there's another solution.
Get through this, Lincoln's. Have a poke damage with Blink Scythe.
A instant response. Nice for Nado to try and stop it.
Bail on Boxy. Gets off the BKB.
There's still too many issues. Claps are gonna try and pull him out of position.
Walk by the shards.
This stays on top of Boxy.
Not dead yet. Juke's the last bit.
Collapses. Not up to go for the swashbuckle kill.
Oh, went in. Doesn't wanna risk his own life here.
Double Lincoln's. Now the box saves so many opportunities to save and make it again.
It's a BKB God Strength, but it can't hit anything.
Now the whale got Nisha!
That's the death of him.
That's going to be another buyback, surely,
forced out of liquid.
And even as you take that fight, you
won't have God Strength for it.
Unless they take it right away.
Last few remnants of this ability,
they blink in, try and chase after him, spirit-wise to it,
though they got out.
Right as the buyback was used, right as this pen was looking
for the initiation. Teams here are just playing too perfect right now. Too disciplined, too
ready, anticipating all the moves here from Liquid.
They aren't just starting to come out with it, but I think it's too little too late. Just
nobody can tank the burst damage on the frontline.
About to have a little 30 Lena as well.
Two carries just completely out of control.
You're saying, what can Sven buy in this game to change it? I think that's the issue with
Sven. He's always struggled in these ultra late games. Yeah. This kit just doesn't scale as well.
Just compare what you make these capable of to this tiny. It's not fair matchup man. And the thought
process was it's like okay the other two are gonna be you know creating enough threats that you know
maybe he only gets one kill on this Sven and then he gets kited around but you have a Necrophos coming
in maybe giving you another kill. The invoker is gonna burst down a third person and you've got
got numbers advantage. You have to do what you want, but Necrophos is also suffering.
It feels like the only core who's actually able to deliver consistent damage every team
fight able to put out a lot is the Invoker, and it's never enough to get a kill. Even
then, I guess these two supports that are just saving supports, yeah, it's tough. It's
really tough to kill any hero right now. And the 40,000 net worth leap makes that even
more difficult and he just might make that nine impossible so liquid feeling
compelled that they have to contest this or making the way across the map to do
so. Nisha is not going to join them though. Collapsed just sitting on the hill.
Reading the move. Looking to break any smokes once again. Check inside the pit
with Sunstrike. Did hit 25 on the hook over the radio blast. It's a minor
control upgrade here.
Arrow will land on the Tiny.
Opportunity.
Clops sitting on the high ground, ready to go with the rolling thunder.
Blink, and he makes the play.
HOT! Hit two immediately!
There wasn't an avalanche to be able to chain in when he stopped on the mid-day.
Spen stun! It almost killed the lean in there, which would have been a dream.
Tiny is getting kinder on pretty heavily here.
They do have a good depth warp being set up, and the stuns onto the Spen.
Still though, Mikkei, very different play.
He was able to get an initial kill, and Lee almost actually died to Tofu.
Tofu chased after him.
after him, after the hits from Mikkei, Laurel managed to dodge that, doesn't die to Topu,
Topu will die instead, collapse. He's the one cleaning house now, Kiltian Voker kills
Topu, and back to the pit they go. Great jumps from Liquid, like they found the supports.
Very hard to bring these guys down through all the defensive items, but that is who you
want to ice-lay first. And they almost got Laurel there, could have changed a lot if they
They can keep Nisha alive and slay Larl. That fight may go their way in the long run.
It's just overwhelming advantage at this point.
Yeah.
And that's the leaner problem.
This hero is insanely tanky for a ranged damage dealer that's leading the game.
He has so much magic resist, it's ridiculous.
And areas like the Roshan Pit, right?
It's an essential area where he's able to play on a cliff.
No other hero is able to play on a cliff like he is.
He's only a flying hero with 80% magic for this good luck.
Yeah.
You can't reach him as this fan. He's sitting on top of the Roshan pit walls and the Voker is not gonna kill him with that much match resistance
It's gonna be magas
liquid
Here for the long haul though may not last team spirit. I'm not gonna give them much for spike here
They're just gonna keep the pressure on banner drop tier 4s are gonna be falling
or discipline gameplay
Respecting the throne defense there goes banner snowball pickup not needed on ace
Ace is still difficult to kill at times, the base, not so much.
Repersized up in five seconds, not ready to go, the cast, beautiful!
Bouncing between all three heroes!
Okay, on the back lines.
We'll be able to do it again, but it's just a BKB TP out,
and now he has to try and go through the front door,
and that has been an indomitable force of team spirit.
Collapse and utoro, just simply too tanky.
Too much of a mess in his bag.
And yeah, these castles are just devastating. Rue has been killing it.
In that department, a buyback from the Spen.
Who cares? Yotaro just changed stuns him up again.
They finally dropped the Reaper site.
It's still not enough to get the kill.
And he had the extra life of the Aegis.
So even as they do kill him, they took everything they have to kill this tanky tiny.
Now he's gonna come back in his second life and get both of them inside that avalanche.
A celebratory toss up in the air as Team Spirits play victory in-game.
Game 1. Creeps will finish the job while their farm is in heroes.
Adding to the stat pool here, as a very convincing win for Spirit in Game 1. I mean, what point
that game, looking back, did Liquid have momentum? It's pretty hard to pinpoint any minute.
No, they had, they had stall. They had keeping Team Spirit's momentum at a bay.
Sure. The first 20, 25 minutes.
There were, roughly, some neutral points. Yeah.
But I don't think it was ever, oh, this is starting to go liquids way.
It just never felt like that and I think that's a that's a testament to how well spirit can read the map set
The lanes up bait people like that one go bottom that was a bait
Now you're worried about where that is the tiny got involved in this game super early to me
This tiny has to go up in priority in game two
It's a year old that it's gonna be really important for liquid in this matchup
Especially with what they've shown has worked for them in this event so far
You don't want to end up in a situation where they have the tiny you have this
I actually think that is one of the bigger trades is to define this game
I feel like ace's hero pool is kind of a problem right now
I feel like liquid from the off-lane perspective right they they picked up their centaur in the previous series
With the hard play and didn't actually win them the game, right?
I think the necropos has kind of looks you know, it's us
The most games where it's just not really been able to accomplish much despite having the items to do so
I agree draft composition has made it very difficult for the hero to be able to play
I think the witch doctor picked scared them off of a lot of the traditional A-serials
they wanted to pick there and they went for something cheeky and I think from a theory standpoint it seems good
Like it is a hero they can play into the doctor a lot better
You have some sustained the lane should go better
They just got a little out executed it fall fell behind and then the Necro doesn't really play well with the other two cores
I think that's what really hurts you here like it doesn't have a direct purpose in this game
Especially as ringmaster there's nothing else that really forces the box in scheme other than a spend jump and even in that situation
You're kind of happy to throw it out like okay. Are you gonna commit all of your spend and your reaper on one dude?
Well, we have multiple carries to sign him so cool trap from spirit 17 1 and 18 on that leaner
Wow, I mean he cooked this game for sure absolutely cooked it it's our also in 17 1 and 14 behind his
Compacted by four assists both of them did a wonderful job
But I need team spirit as a whole the supports were cooking in so many of those team fights
You talked about the fast decision-making collapse or such a constant nuisance to to make a most of the game
But it was able to hunt down Nisha a couple of times very definitive victory for team spirit in game one
Thank you very much cap and SPG and we need to break that game down. There's a lot to break down with this game because
It didn't really play out the way we thought after we saw the draft play out
We had some questions about how the Lina was gonna get into the game
and I feel like those questions were answered, what calls pretty rapidly with some rotations from Laurel?
Yeah, I think we had some doubts about Lina two times in a row now, even though her like went right
This was probably like the first Lina that we saw at the start of the group stage
And we had the doubts thinking, you know, maybe this is not a good overall pick
But after seeing it now multiple times the hero seems to be kind of owning because of like how tanky she gets
how much damage you can deal with the rotation that she's making and yeah I feel like you know
we talked about a lot about this Marana, position 5 slash 4 and maybe are we gonna
get on the hype train. Lina is the one that we should be getting the hype train on because she
seems to be like the hero that doesn't seem to be losing any laning stages and also transitioning
really really well into the mid and late game. Yeah I agree I mean I'm quite surprised also with
I think it's maybe you might read on the heroes like outdated in some capacity because it is deceptively tanky like it's pretty crazy sometimes you see the enemy like oh he's too close he's getting jumped and he's like wait who's jumping who actually like he he doesn't care also very interesting hero like I have to I have to agree with this one obviously like stellar performance by both they have the exact same corals is pretty funny
Well, Yutoro and Lar, they played all of Spirit, honestly.
They all played an incredible game.
So the Liquid in two certain instances, I don't think it was as well-executed and as keen.
But it was a very good game of Dota, from both teams, honestly.
They asked your game from both teams, but Spirit were just one step ahead.
Yeah, they were the better team in this game, that much is for sure.
I have another hero that I feel like I might have, but on an outdated look upon,
we saw yesterday, mid one on the mid lane with the pango today collapsed with the pango.
I feel like he's on fire, the hero and the player obviously today as well.
Not to build through, right? This Abyssal, I think like you can see how much priority he puts in
winning the fight. Like he is very obsessed with that and he's jumping Abyssal because I saw the
bathroom like, wait, he does eggs bathroom. He's so, he's so big. And then no, not at all. He
actually skip the Aghanim Sector for the longest time, which is very uncommon.
Yeah, I really love the build because he did go for the Fuse, you know, your Blink, your Shard,
of course, but also picked up the Lincolns here. Understanding that, again, for Reaper's Sight,
for example, if Ringmaster is not in position, it could be a very good tool, and it's also the
defensive tool against Sven's Jump, so he's never going to get initiated on, because Sen doesn't
really build into items to remove it. Sure, you can use your upgraded Ecclesaber, use your Harpoon,
but this is not something that you want to be doing because a lot of times you need to reset
and we also saw Lina picking up the same item understanding that you know this is going to
be the defensive tool that we kind of need and I mean if we really go back like this is also
team spirit you know against LGD at the time they were obsessed with lincoln sears they are
playing magnus and the true side they're talking about you know they need three they need four
lincoln sears in some of these situations and you know they've been very familiar with these
type of situations and you know the same thing does apply to potentially this one as well.
Yeah and I think both teams, Team Liquid and Spirit here, when they go up against each other you
have to pay attention to these team fights because they will be deciding who comes out on top. So
we got the best in the case. Seb, the team fight, some of them, you're gonna break them down.
Yeah I want to start breaking down a little bit of the fights and really show you what makes these
teams like best in the world really like you know that upper class of Dota teams. It comes to
patients, it comes to discipline, it comes to what's called in Dota, what they refer to as formation.
Formation meaning that you know heroes are well positioned in order to impact the fight
as they are supposed to and they never break that formation under no circumstances. So one thing
to note is actually pretty funny before we get into the clip actually is that both teams are
smoking at the same time very often in this game which really tells the story of like they read the
game the same way. They both understand when it is time to group up and take the fight so you're
you're gonna end up having these big, you know, five on five caches, which essentially decided this game.
So we can see here Liquid getting, you know, the first part of contact as the Volcker was in this,
and I'm gonna pause here to just have you focus on really the position of the supports if I go in slow-mo.
So Spirit, they don't freak out, but he's pretty calm. Obviously Tiny's getting jumped,
and the ringmaster here has blinked in to use his save ability.
But take a look at Lorne and his position, how patient he is, with how the fight is going to develop.
He doesn't rush into the fights, just waits to see it develop.
I mean, Yotaro's getting jumped.
You could start freaking out.
This is a very crucial moment of the game.
And they're going to wait for the first round of Bell to be exchanged.
And as soon as now we have Invoker entering the fight,
which is going to make the Lina feel safer,
Tiny has used his spells, Sver has jumped, Invoker has jumped.
So Lina is very safe to enter the fight at her turn.
And we're going to see then Larrant enter.
And it's basically a dance of in and out.
Yotaro, all his spells are on cooldown, Laul knows that he's pretty safe, he has now taken the front line, Yotaro is backing off, waiting for his spells to reset.
It's just so well executed, it's not rushed, it's very patient.
This means that Tiny's gonna get another round of spells, you know, Blink, Avalanche, Lina has taken the second round of the teamfight.
And all of a sudden, you know, it ends up being a teamwiping.
It all comes down to, yes, the fight has started, yes, it's a very stressful moment, but they keep their call.
They know exactly how they have to impact it, and it ends up being very stellar.
We're going to look at a second sequence, which is pretty much the same.
Everybody smoked.
And to me, it tells the story of why Spirit has been one step ahead.
They always get the fight on their terms.
They get the proper jumps every time we see here.
Perfect jump by a Toro, follow up by the Ringmaster.
And this fight ends up, it's going to be turned funny enough.
And I want you to look at the spend key, you know, how funny it is.
Because look at where, like, which doctor is actually pretty well positioned, in my opinion.
So is Ringmaster and Lina. They're pretty far from this fan, but somehow I'm going to play this in slow-mo for you guys,
because everybody's just dying to this fan cleave.
So to me, this is like a case of, again, Spirit being one step ahead of Liquid in teamfight execution.
And, you know, you have clutch moments, you know, Mickey getting a couple lucky crits,
very good angle on this fan attacks, and all of a sudden it's a close teamfight.
But essentially, it wasn't very close. I think all the teamfights were dominated by Spirit.
in how they decide to take them and how they execute it, like where and how they take it.
And then it's just game over and when looking at these clips, spirit, I mean they're doing it
a little cleaner, they're doing a little better, more controlled. Yeah, absolutely, I mean there is,
I'd say that bit of a spell casting difference in the swarm coming up from the supports,
the positioning that you did mention, and also like itemization wise, I think it's easier for
ringmaster to itemize in this game and also keep the distance compared to Taos who needs to get in
and a lot of the times when he goes in he's kind of dead afterwards. Also this necropec on 18 I feel
like maybe this could have been something different in this game. Yeah we're gonna have to find out
what will be different in our upcoming game. Game number two of course is very close but at the
meantime I mean Dota's going on here but there's a lot of other games going on as well and we are
actually going to check in with me. Lois was with Cheryl at the MLBB stage.
It is time for our check in and I'm happy here to come all the way over to the Allianz vault
to check in with our good friends at MLBB here with Cheryl. Please let me know what's been going
on here because last year I was an avid enjoyer of MWI and seeing Vitality take the win. They were
still in top three club championship. It was a really cool run to see what's been happening so far
So far, our title defenders are back and the pressure on their shoulders is heavier than ever before.
Why? Because we are here in PAV and because of that, this is the home ground of team vitality.
So they've got to fight tooth and nail and give whatever they have to secure this win
and of course adding points to their club championship.
It adds the pressure that on the opening day also, you had the actual CEO of the whole company
around. This is of course the home, like you said, of the
buzzing. Because they have their own HQ and public space. So
for those that are coming to Paris, you can go and enjoy
games.
It's a cool experience. I think everybody that loves these
sports and wants to also experience Paris within that
context should try it out. But that's the winners of last
year, right? Yeah. Are there any new hopefuls going into MWI
this year?
For sure. There are so many people who are gunning for that
spot for the longest time ever. And team Vitality has held on
to the throne and that's why they are known as the Queen Bees, rightfully so because of
the team Vitality Branding.
But other than that we have seen new regions rise and earlier on, you know, China has actually
showed a fair sharing in day one and Malaysia as well has, you know, had a really, really
good one, very convincing wins.
And these are emerging regions, dark horses I'd say, but of course, you know, the staples
that we have seen Indonesia, Philippines.
These are powerhouses in their own right, but we're incredibly happy to see that the
overall gameplay right here has improved leaps and bounds.
And of course, this is the probably the only female tournament happening here at EWC.
So we're so very happy to be giving all of our queens here a platform to showcase their
talents.
I think it's incredibly important.
I've gotten to experience that over multiple games and the way it's done here in the WI
is super sick because you've got teams from all over that are challenging one another.
We have 16 teams duking it out over at the Land of Dawn,
and it's just so exciting.
It's just day one, and we've seen so many high uptane clashes
happening at the Land of Dawn.
I'm very sure there are no regional biases that
have been developing in the talent team.
I know they're all very lovely, and not
trying to poke at one another through it.
That you have to see behind the scenes.
That's something for the other side of the reporting, I guess,
to tell.
Thank you very much, Cheryl.
Congratulations.
Thanks for having me.
I'm making it here and being with us,
but we're going to send it back to Sheever.
and the gang on the panel. Let's get their check and dust.
Thank you very much, Milosh and Cheryl, for that insight.
And I'll be be, of course, they'll finish their tournament coming Saturday.
We're very excited to see how that all develops.
We're going to move forward here with the Dota 2,
and we are going to actually hear some words from Collapse
about how he felt coming into today.
We were there for every click, every clutch, every respawn.
We were there for the years of grind, and we're here.
Now, the proud founding partner of EWC, powering the biggest event in gaming, shoulder to shoulder
with the world's best.
Making history.
Greatness deserves a stage.
Lenovo Legion, reach your impossible.
Hello, I'm here with Collaps from Team Spirit.
Collaps, when we talked last time, you said you felt some kind of magical buff when you
play EWC.
Are you feeling that right now?
No, I'm sick.
Why not?
What's different?
I mean, right now, like past few days, I was sick.
Now I'm feeling better, but I don't have... I don't feel the smell.
Okay, it's not good. It's a bad day for that to not come.
Okay, your opponents are Liquid, really solid team.
They had a great series yesterday. What's your confidence against Liquid right now?
I don't know. I'm not scared. I don't feel anything. I just want to play.
We were having a few days off, and I'm just a bit hungry already.
Okay. What's it like waiting a couple days to play matches?
It's boring. You need to play pubs, creams. But you're in a tournament. You want to play official games.
You want to play on the arena.
Yeah, you're hungry.
Yeah. Just boring.
Okay, so you're going to land against tofu here. He's been playing a lot of witch doctor.
You against Maledict as an off laner.
That spell is really annoying, right?
Buy as much as possible fairy fires and like click them like at the second he cast a new
Maledict you just click the first fairy fire and then second one buy off cooldown.
So every time you Maledicts you you lose like 120 gold?
Yeah, why not?
He's not getting killed.
Okay, alright and then you just go from there I guess and kill him later when he's a witch
doctor.
I'm a semi-jungler hero, so I can leave the lane.
Why do I need to lane, bro?
Okay, you can jungle. What if they block your camps and zone you from lanes?
I can farm their jungle.
Okay, there's always more camps. Alright, that makes sense.
You've got all the plans ready to go. The magic is coming back. I can feel it.
Thank you for joining me, Collaps. Good luck in your match.
I think that magic that class was talking about already came back to him during that
game one he was on fire so was his team the hunger was felt by liquid on the receiving
end here elimination on the line we're going into game two of this best of three yesterday
we saw when liquid was down a game what happened and I'm hoping for them that they can make
the same result happened. I'm open for us as a viewer,
playing for the both of the same result will happen because that was quite cool and these
two teams can go for a best of seven if I had a choice. But we'll see. Liquid in that
first game said it gave me a little bit of doubts.
Yeah, I think the draft maybe didn't really play out the way they wanted it because they
picked this Necro and it's really, it started off pretty well. I mean, honestly, I think
he did get first blood and it looked like they were going to dominate this thing. I think
It was like a big mistake from Ace that came where he just died on level 3 and all of a sudden, I mean, if you pick for lanes, you have to execute it properly because you pick Necro and obviously you can see the lot of teamfights, you don't have stuns, you know, on one side you're like a pango player with a blink and on the other side there's Necro or drakes.
Obviously, teamfights are going to be a little bit harder, especially in the mid-game.
I think Spirit really abused it, and as we've seen from that team in the past,
and today they excel at executing teamfights, it's one of their strengths.
And it's also why they're so confident going into the league game.
They know that they're core players and supports for that matter,
but they'll buy the right items, they will kick their spells to protection,
and you're either on par or you don't stand a chance.
So, I think it came down to laning maybe for Liquid where it didn't go as it should have.
And then, of course, their lineup does not allow them to fight as well as Spirit.
Do you think they also got a little bit scared of the Wish Doctor and decided to go for ranged offlaner instead?
It's possible. I mean, at the end of the day, they are the witch doctor team.
I think they were the one bringing it to the meta and spamming it, if anything.
So maybe it got to their heads.
That's like a classic thing also in Dota where you're on a team
and one of your teammates, let's say he excels at a hero,
you kind of have to reach the conclusion
because that person could be like, this hero is too strong.
Like the Witch Doctor player could be in that case.
Not like, well, guys, Witch Doctor is a problem.
Like you can't lane because that's how he genuinely feels
when he plays Witch Doctor against their offlaner.
He's like, I'm gonna own him on the lane, he cannot lane.
But you also have to come to the conclusion
that we own with Witch Doctor and we can own Witch Doctor.
Like we can handle it.
So it's it takes like a team conversation where you know, you have to tell me I'll be fine against it
Like don't worry about it. We can give it we should take it. We can also play against yeah teams talk about potentially, you know
Getting the jungles straight away almost, you know getting to that minute one and then transitioning to jungle collapse also talked about it
to the witch doctor with the fairy fire counters, but
It's a little bit on the rated strat. I would say especially because you are dropping
those neutral items relatively early on and if you get them early on this could also sway like the matchup in your favor
Let's say you get regeneration item you get to region enchantment
You don't care too much about harassment anymore
And you know one one cool thing to do in Dota when you're not sure of the value because Dota is a game of like how to use your time
Right like do you you'd rather find farm the waves stack a camp?
You know collect to pick up a bonny on your own and at the end of the day
You know, there's a famous quote going on right now where Dota is just about the spells and numbers
Well, I mean it is I don't know how true that statement is but it is a little bit about numbers anyway
And and in that sense you can always transfer
What you were doing or what you're buying in gold and it will give you like a good a good idea
So for instance the neutral enchantment that gives you 2.25 HP region
You know, you just do the math on how much gold would it cost you to get 2.25 h region
and it will cost you around three-round gold, and how many camps is that worth, you know?
And it's going to help you understand what you should be doing, basically,
and how to use your time and position on the map.
Yeah, and speaking of numbers, Ember Spirit is one of the most picked heroes here at this EWC.
It's like with that pick set up after an opening from Clockwork, a hero that was mostly ignored
in the previous game. We have, of course, changed sides for the team, and the pick order changed
with them, so it was Spirit with first pick and it will be Liquid with that overall last pick.
They ban out the Puskar already to make sure that Ember Spirit will have a good game here.
And the reason why the opener is that much different is also because Liquid came to Game
1 with a pan, which was the first pick in Volker and they kind of forced Spirit to address it,
which means that, you know, Spirit, they thought, okay, like, it is more important to pick the
the pangolier right now because you might not get it after rather than the clockwork
or other heroes for that matter which explained why they went out of their scripts.
Now they seem to be prioritizing clockwork as a hero, nothing surprising, Ember Spirits
for Nisha.
Not good, every single game, absolutely.
Like this hero is just popping off, like even in the losing matchups they're still going
to respect the Huskar of course but there are a lot of matchups, like we've seen this
matchup against Lina as well, you're not going to be winning it but it seems like Ember
Spirits didn't care too much about the lane, they more think about, you know, the game
because this hero isn't really a lane dominator, especially if picked early on, so many heroes
does counter him in the lane, like we saw a good amount of Snapfires, we saw a good amount
of Nekrophos as well, making sure that he's not having that bit of a time, not being oppressive,
but also a hero that can find farm pretty much anywhere we saw it multiple times, Dragon the
Creepway from the middle lane into the enemy jungle into Triangle, farming the big camp on top of that,
kind of even getting more farmed than he am in mid-laner at the time.
Yeah, it's a very strong hero, honestly. It's been owning this tournament.
It's hard to stop, as you mentioned, so we'll have to see. You know, this hero might end up
being in first place band against certain teams, like typically these are games or series that can
change the meta and how much respect is put also by other teams not participating in this game
on Ember Spirit, because if Nisha can prove that, hey, you can just blindly pick Ember and you'll
be fine. Well, you know, that's, that's very interesting.
It's an early time. Very early. Yeah, this is very good. I'm
quite confused by this, if I'm honest, like, I don't quite
understand why they would pick the tide, which again, is here
that can get punished on lane, which not sure one of the best
counters. I mean, we saw a good amount of disruptors as well
coming out. I feel like maybe in this one, it could be also
but like, why are you not addressing the ember? Because you
You kind of had a free core pick in a sense, you see the mid-matchup.
So maybe if they want like a hero mid that could get countered, you know, like it's
a niche pick that Larn is going to want to play versus Ember and he doesn't want to
reveal it yet, else I don't really see why expose the tide where you could just have
picks like a good matchup for the mid lane.
We'll get the answers obviously to all these questions with the following picks, but it's
very curious.
So I'm sure Liquid is catching their heads.
There we see the Witch Doctor, as you called, very good hero against Tide, in the lane and
in the game, for that matter.
Yeah, throughout the whole game, and it's also like, it allows you to pick different
heroes.
We are seeing some of, like, different fairings with Spectre.
We saw, like, I think one Warlock fairing as well, with Ursa, I think, as well.
And some of these curries that are weaker in the lane, now that Witch Doctor is more like
popular, I think this hero feels very, very good.
It's not like the great for the game, it's not countering anything, but we've seen decent
amount of Spectre to see how good of a hero she actually is.
I think it's always good, honestly.
I feel like it's never bad.
It gives you so much teamfight presence, we saw the importance of teamfights in game
one.
Haunt is such a...
It's the best teamfighting spell ever from a carry.
You see the position of five enemy heroes, it becomes so easy to click your spells, to
either back off or engage.
You get all the info you need.
I have to say, this is a lane that Liquid has shown a couple of times now, the Spectre which
Doctor, I think it's amazing. Offensively and defensively, they heal, allow Spectre to stay
on the lane and sustain, and eventually Spectre is very weak first levels and it gets better
over time, which Doctor allows that. Offensively, because the chase potential of Spectre,
and it's like you get maledicted, you have to run, but there's no such thing as running away from
a spectre. You run away, you get isolated, now the desolate damage kicks in, it becomes very scary.
And okay, this explains it a little bit more. Like, now I understand why they didn't pick large
hero, they go for the monkey versus ember, it's a great matchup for monkey, but monkey is a hero
that's, it's not so much meta because it has hard counters in the game. It can be hard to get a
monkey through the game, so they just wanted to see more heroes before they selected the monkey
team. Is a spectre considered to be decent against monkey because you can just find them?
It's okay. I wouldn't say it's great. At some point the interactions with these heroes
I think is monkey favorite like you you just go on a guy click wukong and spectre doesn't really want to fight in that area
So you don't really mind spectre jumping if this is gonna be monkey man
So like it's a good life stealer game for team spirit if they want to repeat another hero
But if they are going with the team where yachter can play
The same hero twice they are gonna need to find something else
They cannot run out of heroes, right?
If he's playing already, like, he's playing for 16 heroes.
Not if you keep toowing, like your hero pool is going to be bigger.
That works.
Lord Monkey, I think a very good hero, like, very, you know, comfortable on the hero, expect
him to dominate the lane.
Classic wisdom play, I think, you know, Monkey is not so much in meta right now, but it was
the case a few months ago we usually see these monkeys you know mischief their
way to the wisdom rune if they're level 6, peek Wukong on top of the rune and it
becomes really hard to contest that so that is something that Liquid will have
to factor in especially if Ember has slightly lost his lane which he should
in this matchup like how do you secure yourself a wisdom rune? You have to kind
of invade theirs if possible but you have a specter which Dr. Lane that's not
typically a lane that goes overly aggressive. So a little bit tricky to play the early game for
Team Liquid this time around. I'm just thinking, do they want to have something like Enigma potentially
from the off lane for Team Liquid? If they're thinking about that potential life stealer that
could come out, it's very good to counter initiate on the tight hunter as well. They have like one
BKB piercing ability thinking about maybe slightly later how the team fights are going to be played
out. That's the ultimate last bit. Why is Sentor no longer an option? Did I miss that?
For Liquid? Yeah. I mean, it's solid, but it's like you want to, the way the way game
1 went, it was very much about teamfights condition and therefore ability to scale.
And you look at Team Spirit's teamfight for now, they have the vision advantage from the
clockwork, they have this overwhelming amount of like AoE and control like Wukong, Ravage,
Willow spells, Liquid it's more skirmishy, it's like, yeah, playoff, Ember, trading situations,
Spectre haunt eventually, you know, click your spells and support.
Maybe you want to match a little bit of that teamfight presence for Spirit,
or from Spirit, or maybe the mid game will just be too difficult to play.
And I don't know if Centaur really does that to be fair.
We're going to find out what team Spirit wants to select first.
So far, it seems like what is expected of that monkey to go mid, and we'll see which one Yotaro still gets to play.
And will it be another different hero?
And you see with Spirit Shrafting, how obsessed they are, and even how they itemize with teamfights.
One of the few fight conditions you have against Tide is Doom, because you Doom the Tide and ignore Tide's passive,
and all of a sudden, nobody can frontline on Spirit, they ban that hero.
So yeah, it's tricky. We get the Yotaro more thing.
It's a slow, very slow draft, it's like you have Tidehunter plus Morphling, at least you have a very active mid laner, so he can fix some of those issues, bring the heat to the other lanes, support duo is also very active, these are type of heroes that want to be fighting early on.
But we haven't seen too much of Morphling, he played it once, we also saw, I think Amei was the one who played it, it also didn't end well for him, Yattrow did win on his Morphling.
I believe he also got Rampage in that game that he played it.
he played it? Well he's the specter at least so that's like one of the upsides
where he knows the game is not going to be incredibly fast either way and they
go for Beastmaster that's okay so they now take an approach that's a great lane
by the way like beast versus clock morphing it should be very smooth sailing
for ace especially with the help of her doing so massive you know advantage I
think on liquid for that lane this is this Beastmaster could just snowball the
game completely out of control if he has a great lane gets an early helm of the
the overlord with how active and strong Nisha is on Ember, aggressive and the Spectre haunt.
This beast will just take over the game, just snowball the game basically.
Take areas, get objectives, get through, take towers and as the cost set, they could...
Spirit's lineup is kind of slow with the tide and the morphine, so that's their angle.
If somehow Spirit is allowed to stabilize the game, this is where it gets tricky.
If Monkey makes all the right rotations, if he doesn't get shut down, this type of lineup,
if you're even 1-2k cold down, 15 minutes into the game, it can still play really well.
But luckily they're trying to push the tempo.
I like this Beastmaster pick a lot.
I think it can take over the game easily as you mentioned.
But we'll have to see.
Also, Misha on Ember, every single time we saw him play, he looked unstoppable.
And if they can get away with picking first phase Ember and coming out on top, that also
is a big a big mark for games going forward gives them a little bit of a draft advantage there
potentially in the future of course this is a series for elimination we got on one side the
defending champions team spirits they are one game up so they only need one more win to be able
to point their tickets to the playoffs can team liquid force out that game three and taking in
the distance and still have that chance to make it further themselves or will spirit be taken this
2-0, we're fighting out with Katva and SVG.
You know, it's always a plan shooter to be able to cast team Liquid and team Sphere matched up against each other,
but Avery here was particularly excited. In fact, he basically jumped out of his seat, if you could believe it.
I felt like I was casting with the Haws, because he had a very interesting stat to be able to put forward on this.
That's great. On my new Lenovo Legion laptop, I was able to look up some stats also.
Do you know what Yatoro's most played hero of all time is?
I'm gonna guess it's Mornflink.
Look it up. Look it up, Austin.
Oh my god, it's Morphling. It is Morphling. He is going back for the Siggy.
He's bringing it out in his time of need. And he's bringing out the Water Hero against the
Water Organization. You're really on this, aren't you? Perhaps a symbolic gesture, Austin. Well,
it did not work for Amé in his blue hair, but maybe it's more about the elements than the color,
but it's also not a Water Hero anymore. It's your robot. He went for the
Tomatonskin. What does this signify? He did not play with it yesterday. And yet today
he decided to equip it. So perhaps Yatoro is getting into the spirit of the Dark Carnival.
As we all enjoy the nice, beautiful season of Dota 2.
That's true. We also have another sticky. Nisha also rocking his most played hero.
134 matches of Morphling for your Toro, 116 matches of Ember Spirit for Nisha.
A lot of experience on these two boys.
I tried all in the tide, Hunter, bringing that watermelon down with the Maledict.
He has to recommit and pays the price for that rune attempt.
First blood to the Witch Doctor. That's the power of the Maledict right there.
How much a first blood does for the Witch Doctor though?
So I'm not convinced that is much of a game-changer.
The experience is probably more valuable than anything.
If you get to level 2 and 3 faster on this hero, you can sometimes just all-in people again with the Maledict.
So, it could be a scary lane for collapse over the long run.
This Spectre can be an annoying hero with the Deathsling going through.
If you're going to isolate the tide, just burn them out with the Maledict.
A lot of potential burst damage as they're going to try and all-in Tofu.
He just gives it right back, okay?
Claw striking right back. I don't I feel like this is
Okay, specter is better at being aggressive in lane than maybe she's ever been yes
But I'm still not convinced that this is actually a combination that they're gonna be able to really threaten the tide hunter
Just the two of them with Maladoc. I think it's enough with Maladoc dagger shadow step some desolate hits going in
It's a lot of damage if you can start to run someone down. So that's the fate
See how well this morphing lane goes for Yatora as well.
Seb said this is a free lane for the beast.
I can absolutely see Ace free farming up here.
Not a lot of pressure going into him with this duo up here.
Yeah, very passive lane for Spirit.
You're just trying to secure farm for the morphing, not get aggressed on too much.
If he gets a pulls off, that would be amazing, but all the potential.
It lies with Liquid in that top lane.
So I could see them doing pretty well on both side lanes.
Here mid might be the big problem area.
But that is always going to be the case when you first pick Ember.
are giving your opponents the entire hero pool with a bunch of cheese counters in it to deal with
this hero. They go for the monkey king, not the hardest cheeser here, right? It's not the huskar,
it's not a sniper, it's not a sniper or something, but it's a very favorable lane. It can get a little
out of control if you can get some big jingu hits up, and it's a very easy lane to rotate into and
fight with. That's the real threat of the monkey in this match, obviously. If you bring supports here,
you start crashing this lane, liquid gets sucked into that skirmish, and he's just building jingu
moves backs off the Ember, it can turn one kill into two into three, suddenly you TP back in, you die at four times.
It gets out of control really fast, and once you can take that, then start winning other lanes with it.
So, you've got to be really careful around the mid lane in this game if you're liquid, and potentially play reactionary.
Try and bait some dives in the monkey, TP boxy, and land a clutch push flag.
Get that turnaround kill. That can make all the difference here in this early game.
And Laurel is very good on the Monkey King.
77% win rate. Do you think of Laurel as an oppressive mid laner?
I don't really know, mostly because he's not a Huskar player.
He's a very difficult player to beat in lane, and he's a very difficult player to shut out of the game completely.
Like, he will always find his entry ways, he will always find the impact of the teamfights.
And he's not given a lot of farm priority from Spirit overall, so that is his strength.
Maybe that's where it is because I was looking at his best stats are
His highest win rate heroes are monkey king and Sapphire who I I would say those two are very oppressive midlaners
Right usually counter pick matchup release monkey king often a counter pick matchup
So maybe that's probably what it is, right? If spear don't give him that much support
Then when he is in a position to really win his lane
He really thrives
Also, if you're not going to get the support, then being in a position where you can kind
of fend for yourself and not have to be like, oh, I lost the lane, I need stacks, and there
are no stacks, well, then you're just screwed, probably works out a little better for him.
So I think this is the type of hero that can work really well.
I think Puck is also kind of in that category.
Pretty hard to destroy the Puck on lane, even if he's not demolishing you, but long after
a very good start here early, 20 and 15 for that Monkey King with the clown nose on top
of it.
He is killing it.
I mean, denying creeps, apparently.
This will create a large opening in that mid lane.
I don't know if Spirit have the best supports to go there and snowball it.
Especially if you weed this morph lane alone, you could just get pressured out of the lane.
Same with the Tidehunter against the Malinik.
You have to be a little careful with how many resources you try and pull into mid here.
But there's definitely an advantage being opened up by Laurel that you would like to exploit in almost any situation.
I guess it's one of the downsides of this year when it's laying it doesn't have a ultimate
that's like super impactful right away, right?
No.
But you take that point tree dance and just leap in, start running people down.
It's true.
All about the early items here.
That is what we've seen many monkey kings do.
In fact, the early meta of Wisdom Shrines when Monkey King was being played a lot was
all these monkey kings would always go to the enemy Wisdom Shrine, set up with an ultimate
It'd be like, okay, you have to fight into this.
That's the classic maneuver to try and get value out of that ult early.
You could see it here.
You will be very strong on the map in order to make that move.
You're going into a lane that...
maybe is a little annoying for him to fight if the boars are already set up there,
but that kind of requires the beast to read this move and be positioned for it.
I think you could make it. I think you could make it here.
tofu, gonna get low on the bottom lane.
Step forward, trying to shut out Klopp.
So let's basically get a two-man melodic tier.
Mika will try and play off of that one with the Shadow Step, and the dagger does finish him off so perfectly fine trade off.
Collapse is still gonna be happy getting experience out of a rough lane, but not happy about dying, no doubt.
You're happy getting Spectre extra kills, that's for sure. You also get that earn charge, so Mika.
The only thing we saw in play with Spectre when he went the early earn, he just never got charges for so long.
So that's a big deal here, especially if you push towards the level 6, haunt plus the earn plus the dagger is almost a guaranteed kill on the map.
There's a little extra threat in the tank.
See if he ever upgrades it here if he just leaves it casual.
Trying to sneak the kill on your Toro, caught him on the buswack.
Fall up now, Dix. Not likely to be enough damage.
No, but a bit of harassment.
Pretty rough matchup for the witch doctor overall.
It's not a spell that does a lot against him.
Does kind of keep him out of lane at least for a bit.
Can we talk about drafts?
Game one to game two right whenever you lose this game one you're gonna make some sort of adjustments in the draft
What do you feel like the biggest adjustments liquid made?
They went back for a hero that has given them a lot of big game control in December and a lot of backline chill and
They went for a hero that probably scales more reliably for Mickey
I don't think we're gonna see the specter run into the same issues to spend it like this here
You can always have guaranteed impact of the team fight
It's also a hero that can kind of just break formations very easily. Yeah
They have a lot more formation break with the embryo and the spectator which I think is an interesting concept against spirit
Who in that game one were very good at putting the front-liners on the front line and making you deal with them here
You can kind of just bypass that. There it is. He held on to the level now
He's gonna pop the wukong's command underneath the wisdom shrine teams here
I mean liquid might still all in for him even if it cost tofu's life
They get the monkey came for it might be worth now
Now, Yutaro comes through the back and does get the other support, but ultimately, the Whistered Shrine is defended.
Who do you like that more for?
Two supports for a mid-monkey king.
You take that if you're liquid.
Monkeys supposed to be the strongest hero in the Shrilly game. You take them off the map,
you get a shrine, you get a lot of XP for that kill. It's really nice for the Ember who is a little bit behind.
Those situations can go a lot worse for you if he has backup. You just had no backup.
20 heals available here, and in fact, they're gonna go after this dark willow, which black doesn't land, so TP out.
And now it's three heroes trying to hit a tidehunter without Maladik, that's just not really gonna hurt four of them.
Ace on the other side, the monkey king bounced right back.
After that death, he still wants to play here, and TP away from Ace.
Nicely done.
So those are the two moves for Laurel that have not been successful for him.
Despite opening up that mid lane at the edge, a little sad in terms of him trying to build early game momentum here and break the game open.
Especially if you're giving power runes to an Ember spirit. Oh, he got a good one too.
That's it, this Ember maybe even stronger on the map right now with the haste run in the bottle.
Does get a little bit of his mana burn though. Might have to pop it, yeah.
Maybe go after Klaps, if you manage to get the balladix on him, Misha can provide enough
magic damage to the balladix, will be a threat.
He'll eventually take the balladix.
So Klaps, who was trying to get a recovery off of clearing through a medium stack, just
ends up dying.
He is getting no love in this game, that is for sure.
He's not worth the stole, okay, but he is getting punished kill-wise off the Witch Doctor
counter.
Witch Doctor don't work in this series, that's for sure.
Yeah, it's been a while since which doctor was this good.
Error smoke, both supports up top trying to alleviate this beast.
Lane pressure going into the war fling would be a huge kill to Snag.
You're not gonna be able to roar your way out of this one, AC.
Pulled it off last time in the 1v2 and the 1v4 with the roar on.
Cool down for a few more seconds.
There is no chance of him surviving.
This is kind of an old school concept where if you have a carry that can't
deal with the beast on his own, you just continually smoke and gank this beast over and over and over
so you can never just run at your carry, kick him off lane, start pressuring his tower
and if you can gank this beast two to three times, you slow down his entire game, he's not pressuring
your towers, you buy a huge amount of space for that hard carry to get into a position where he
can fight the beast later on. I don't mind the heavy committal into this type of hero.
Do you think that went away a little? Oh, he actually got the bramble on him,
trying to hit him with the cogs, you know, look. Do you think that some of that went away because
Because Beastmaster ended up spending more and more time on jungle and the time in lane.
Yes, 100%.
Uh, we can blame 33 for that.
I feel like with many things in Dota you can probably blame 33 with that with all the...
All the ways that he's led Dota.
Arcana and Pickup for Nisha continues to get very powerful power runes.
He's honestly doing okay here.
Like 1-0 and 4 hasn't led that, you know, bad kill against the monkey or anything.
Laurel didn't find a lot off those moves, so it's not as if he's completely out of control here.
And you're getting power, so you're maintaining your resources on the map.
It's honestly a pretty good outcome for Liquid in this match.
If you first pick Ember, I think if you ask a lot of players,
I'm gonna first pick Ember and you're gonna be in this position at the end of the lane phase,
they're fine with that.
You know, that's a bump to 50% in terms of the outcomes.
So he's chilling.
You can go into the fast vessel here, you will stack the urns, but that's okay.
It's just kind of a cheap mana regen item for the spectre anyway, as you push towards that radiance and
you have some good matchups here if you're Mikae to scale into.
Like, I like the spectre against the morphing here.
It's really annoying for you, Toro, especially if you wave forms in and then you get hauling it on.
You're just kind of a city duck.
How do you build up the spectre?
Like, you still get radiance for the farm and stuff, but
But those second, third, fourth items, it's almost always Radiance Banta.
Here comes the Ember Spirit.
He already used the Wave Form on Yatoro.
Nice ramroll connection.
What?
The Mikkei isn't opting to join in on this fight.
Gotta be careful the monkey can't hear.
Gonna pick up the two supports.
Ace still has his Primal Roar, but he has been left alone.
He's got a roar and run.
Can't really get far enough away against Adnoshaddle, so he's just stalling for time
here.
Spirit, they know the point of attack and they are not afraid to bring numbers into
the Beastmaster lane and continue to shut down the momentum there.
That's a really dangerous fight for Liquid.
You overextending you give Laurel free Gingustax on the backside and then he's just gonna start
clearing through you.
It gets real dangerous real fast and then you're gonna have to commit the Spectre in.
That might not be the fight that Mickey wants to join us.
He is free farming bottom right now.
I really enjoy watching, it's kind of cathartic, watching pros walking the cogs.
Because then it's like, okay, it happens to everybody.
Oh, there's the isolated desolate damage.
Looking pretty good.
And it does...
It does mount up.
I think you just go to the Radiance Panther here.
There's a possibility for like a faster orca in this game.
If there's...
If you think you can connect it on some of these cores, but I don't think that...
The Bramble and the Spectre, Paulie about to do it, completely isolated,
the Witch Doctor was going to try and come in and bail him out with some extra heals.
Again, Team Spirit bringing more numbers.
Despite having, like I would say, kind of equally mobile bids,
it seems we're kind of one step ahead.
There's supports at the point this series.
They're just landing every spell.
Like, these Brambles have landed every time.
In the previous game, a lot of the Ringmaster spells were exactly on point.
Not me, Beast in this series so far, and the Roo right there with him.
Look at this, holding the high ground. They, they once were just reading the play. Yep.
There's just no opportunity here for Liquid. We'd love to kill this,
see Tidehunter again with some Maledict. We'll land a two-hand Maledict.
And the Bushwack, well it's Dodge, now the Terrorized attempted, but they dodge the Terrorized, so.
Laurel's still gonna hit it, really good round of strikes, but they're committing so much
to get the Sarc will kill that they're gonna hit by the ravage with the Clawchart that's not...
That was beautiful from Spirits!
That you can't ask for better execution there.
It's Liquid forcing the play. They know the strength of the Embers.
He had a full wand and an extra bottle charge.
He got nothing off due to an absolutely perfect change done.
Root into Boundless Strike, into Hookshot, into Battery,
into a Clawchart, into Ravage, into another Clawchart.
Like, just nasty, nasty stuff.
Cursed crown proc as well.
Look at the team stun.
Look at the team stun.
Wow, that was so good.
It's just so hard to attack triangle if team's already forward.
Yeah.
You can feel that's a bit of a forced move.
Yeah, maybe in a lot of situations you can get the Ember out of there, but what are you achieving?
And they're gonna try and send it straight back.
I don't have ravage this time, boys.
some serious hate.
They'll work out a little better, I guess.
Yeah, they want to make sure that collapse doesn't get the opportunity to find these
ancients for free.
The downside is you committing all the attention here means you're not kicking a morphing out
of top.
Which means Ace has to go back to the jungle, this tier one top is going to stand.
The atoral gets a lot of solo time up here.
You have to question is there a point where this isn't worth it anymore.
Break the tide down here and he will die, but he will die to the neutrals.
You can get the kill.
And of course, Laurel is always here.
Aw, at least one of these supports.
Nisha can't try to do the same.
I mean, it's just mid laners hunting supports on both sides.
Double chain, slight, and away.
Wait, he went back in.
Did he want to do that?
I don't know.
I mean, he does have the Spectre back in the month.
The Bushwack had landed.
Maybe they could have killed Laurel, but instead,
Laurel kills Nisha.
He's getting Tesla charges.
Uh-oh, Mckay.
He's going to be run down rather easily by Yatoro.
Oh boy, these are some big missteps for liquid.
Massive.
You can't be P.S.
Cascas, with the ultimate going off as well,
that's gonna get long.
Look at it go.
And as soon as Lutor's gonna wave from the way,
and there's the disengaged through the conchs,
it's got the Helmutom creep in,
he's got the Spooky one too, the Ancient Prowler's shot,
and so you really can't afford to get isolated
by this beast now.
He's very far, very high level.
Same with the Morphling, but the beast is gonna be able
Exert the map pressure a little better here if the bring numbers to deal with him ravage is up in three seconds
Claps
Signals that he wants to defend this tower does not want to give up map control
There's still that ancient stack there
Alien response hits three your total still gonna die with the damage
I'll talk to survive and these heels are constant
They have to throw extra spells on him which means they have less grace at this point hook shot grabs him
Nisha trying to play the edges here while Ace is in the middle of hell, and he's not getting out anytime soon.
More clocks.
Nisha, of course, is always going to look for that support, but not going to get it here.
Found the Shrek actually, still nabbed him, and he's stuck.
He has to go for another rendent in order to get out. The first ground is going to land, try and follow him,
and they just take the kill-up box instead. That's good enough.
Got some of the B-screeps too.
D-Semon of Gold. Liquid do get the tower,
And the Spectre gets in, gets out. This should push Mickey to a pretty okay
Radiance timing here. Not the fastest. Stomp off for the Earth, but yeah.
Ultimately, this will win the stack for Spirit, which is what they were defending
this entire time. Well, absolutely. Finally get to clear that objective. They got
decent amount of Desil charges on Laurel through all this skirmishing. Yeah, yeah, he's very rapidly
gonna get to a point where he's just kind of like one-shotting supports. As seen here,
Hmm. This is what you don't want to have, but if you lose the specter here, you can't afford to lose this, and it's going to be hard for him to get through everything nice Bushwack, though.
It coughed him, and here comes the Ember Spirit. They've evenly dropped the wards just to try and play out this teamfight with the slight chains.
Yatoro, he comes in clutch here, morphs into the Ember Spirit to get the disables there while all caught in the Bushwack. Looks like he's going to take out, but Nisha, caught by the other side, pushed by the cocks, and there goes all of this mana.
Oh man, once again, your Toto is here and he's got a free fight to play.
He's so strong with the slight chains. That's a max level chains.
Here comes another round, slow down on Box. He actually didn't get the chains.
Mercy shown.
Box is gonna be running, he's gonna be running for a while.
No Mercy shown. There we go.
It's the pick me up level 13 and a half for this morphing now
Once again, well, you're Toro their KDA is out of control six six for you Toro eight nine three and eight for Laurel
It's not that kind of runaway game for the ember that you want to see for liquid
And he should yes he kills himself, but he's still pretty poor in this game
You do win some of these fights convincingly
maximize the vessel value right now they're running it down mid wall the
three-place plane and I need to talk about not need to this this rule is just
killing me just came in these cogs have been incredibly disruptive once again
enough that not be survives and he's got tranquil boots so it's not even like
he's gonna go anywhere he could still play on the map I'm gonna try and push
into this triangle once more there's not much to claim here anymore the ancient
Stacks are gone, Ravage is going to use on the Ember Spirit, hitting up the stun, three stuns in a row.
With Laurel pouncing on him, a goomba stomp to the Ember Spirit.
Perfect timing again, execution from Spirit. It is here today.
And Ace is going to get Rukong's command, slow down underneath it, more than enough damage.
To try to hit him with a bush whack, the Maladict nice block there from Klopp,
stands in front of the sharp shooter. With the Radiance burnout, that might end up being enough alongside the Maladict.
No, he dodged the damage with that last maledict!
I think he does pick up a support, but can he get out of this?
It's like a tough...
Well, the cask actually makes things a little bit more interesting, solves it down a bit,
but of course the stuns don't last for long.
And with Shuktor and Heels, they're doing some serious work.
The cogs, the double cogs! Do it again, Rue!
He's an absolute sharpshooter!
Perfect game!
Nisha's like, there's no way I'm letting you get out of here.
Oh my god, he went the wrong direction, he knows it too, he's gonna go back, but he's already out!
Remnants, wasted ankles, broken and cogs landing.
Spirit, get the rundown.
You know who gets the most damage out of the fight? It's the Morphling, who also gets the most gold, the most XP.
That's the last hero you won cleaning up these engagements.
And it seems he's just setting the plate for him, time and time again.
Beautiful changing of the guard here from Laurel.
He dodged, I think, two of the maledictics.
I think so, yeah.
And he dodged the last one, which is the most important, keep himself alive.
It is a little scary to run down.
Like, you don't have to respect how tanky this is, especially if some evasion from the
radiance comes online into the morphine hits, but you got the spells to do it, and man,
that's a brutal way to die.
18th fear, OH!
Okay, the one time you're going to see a room miss is with the hook shot and a sun target.
Yeah, the easiest one in the entire game. Too easy for him.
Oh, maybe a little bit catch and release.
Still should be able to do tormentor here though, as Liquid going to force the road shot.
Trade these objectives out.
Do it fast enough, the Ember spirit's not going to be a threat.
He'll try and kill Collapse.
I don't want to let him steal your Aegis here.
Yeah, just push him away, make sure they can...
He dead off that, you're not dead off that.
He can blast Lifesteal on the Neutrals, almost dies to one of them in the other round.
Now it's push-wack control.
Okay, a little bit of a feed there.
I'm not respecting the witch doctor.
Do you think that the Aegis changes much for liquid?
Like T, it's a great Aegis carrier.
You just caught in the middle of the fight.
You got to deal with the Spectre with the dispersion, with the Radiance burn twice.
it's really annoying. So I think it can be influential here, for sure. A lot of this
game does revolve around the morphine though. I think if liquors can manage to control the
morphine, they don't necessarily kill them at the start of the fight, but if they force
the morph out early and you lose a lot of that damage, then all you have to worry about
is some control on the monkey, and you can kind of push through with the specter. So
if you get told it has a free reign. Oh, massive pickup, massive pickup!
Okay, Boxie is the one to take the last hit for the 500 gold, but Mica will still be content with the assist given how easy it was
Thanks to Boxie set up there. Great fight
And the liquid despite the aggression not working for them from before they're not slowing down
Make a play in full top and middle they will trade out supports in the mid lane
You can't be as dumb for the Beastmaster.
So he can finally get in there, be a presence, which feels like he hasn't been able to accomplish
too much here.
Beautiful bush whack off of that roar leadoff.
I asked you about the Spectre item building, and the reason was, I was curious, how early
do you get the Scotty in this matchup?
Potentially very early in this game.
Raise item against the Mawrflame.
Pat against the other course either.
Sure.
Yeah, he's looking at Manta and then straight, Scotty.
He's going right away.
I don't mind that.
The build-up's very slow.
Yep.
But again, the other item you're kind of looking at afterwards
here is maybe Butterfly in a game where you're batting
against a real true hyper-agic carry.
The Orc into Bloodthorn can also be very strong on this hero.
But I think there's going to be too many dispels here.
Where you go that round.
If you were ahead a lot early, I feel like that's a build-up
that could really keep the morphling down.
Yeah, Morphe is just the first item in a buyer.
It's obnoxious.
You still could end up with Bloodthorn in this game.
I can see him in the back.
And Chin away.
There's a close call.
And he's not hitting him.
He's dead in the water, like, figuratively and literally.
So...
Hmm.
Chart is online for claps.
Feels like Liquid are stronger in the fight.
They can find it.
They're nice way right now.
First down, Tofu.
Damn, that's been a lot of damage.
Well...
440 Adaptive Strike after reduction. Pretty nasty.
Mass TPC the other side.
I think Spirit is one of the teams that plays the fastest off of these cross map kills.
Like, they get one kill here and then they just, like, mass TPC the other side.
Getting faster than Liquid. They're also pretty fast, so I gotta work.
Cox, pushback on Ace.
The creep is gonna- OH WE GOTTA GO UP TO THE HIGHGROUND THAT'S GONNA FORCE THE PKPU'S!
Collapse apparently didn't know about the PKPU's.
Okay, I guess they just didn't see it.
Lost vision of him for a second.
Yeah, that's fair.
Like, he sees it as he blinks in and pops it because it didn't stop it fast enough.
That's fine.
That's an opening for Liquid. They still ages for a minute and a half.
So you have Aegis Spectre, you have Haunt available, no Ravage.
It surely could try and aggressively force some action here. It's true
I thought they were gonna wait for a vkb on the ember spirit, but I totally forgot there was an aegis on this specter, which
Yeah
This isn't the most important one to use but yeah, we use lost extra one demorphly
This feels very defensive
Like why would you want to be giving the total space right now?
He's uh, remnants back, Yotaro's gonna be the target, he's with the Sharpshooter,
who's shot trying to run, interferes with the big burst of damage, and oh, wait, I think
he even microed to the challenge there.
I think he did actually morph again.
Whoopsies.
Well, we're trying to get to see a Yotaro misplay, I believe.
You might have been dead either way as the Sharpshooter landed before the Maladik was
gonna kick in, but he definitely didn't help the issue.
No, no, not so, not so much.
And he's not respected.
He's not respected, so he's more into strength.
He's probably not gonna regain that much HP though.
He makes it a little easier for him at the end.
Yeah, he went back here.
You know, maybe he's like, you know what?
I want to get out of here quickly.
I'm not gonna waste any time.
He doesn't want to have a lingering death.
Well, you know, well, everything he said.
Don't want to give you a total space.
No.
Important kill in this game.
You did have a street too, right?
Yeah, 5x Street going into the ember of all heroes. Very juicy for Liquid.
And also off of that kill, they're gonna get an objective. VK should get the last hit on the tower.
Oops, didn't get the last hit on the tower.
But that will progress the Scotty, which the Scotty is gonna be a very big time for Liquid.
Maybe they can still, maybe they still feel better in fights right now.
I think they do. I think the Scotty is an even bigger game changer.
You just can't wait for it. It's gonna build up super slow with double ultimate orb.
Yeah, that's fair.
If you get good fights with the Haunt, off cooldown you take it, and you have to respect the big cooldowns in this game.
It's going to get back and forth, both teams trying to dodge, like, Ravage against Haunt, when the Morphling's able to fight.
BKB done for Laurel means he's going to be able to look a little more aggressively here, survive a bit longer.
Aces, Helmut Domkriep is almost taking a tier two.
That was a lot of damage, because that was a full HP tower not so long ago.
It feels as if Spirit would want to just do a Roshan right now if they were available.
Yeah, yeah.
I think their lineup is not, it's a little clunky.
Like they have some map mobility with the Monkey and Clockwork.
Ace is sitting on a lane ward right now.
He's got Blink and DKD, so he's got two very fast reaction abilities that can get him out of this initiation.
Claps actually just goes through the supports, which there are two of them.
Look at Mike's tail.
Mike might get out with a sharp shooter, pushing him away, but seems unlikely.
Please scurry some cool down for another second. They got the curse crowned on him. Hookshot actually nabs ace there
He's gonna be roared up. But what he really wants out of this is to try to force these BKVs on these cores
As they clean up the supports. Oh, we gotta put the stun to ravage the fold up. That's all it takes
One stun will lead to two will lead to three and that leads to death. I
Can't believe liquid lingered around there
The instant those supports got caught I would have just instant failed with everybody go push the lanes out
Yeah, that that feels like not respecting spirit a little bit me a little too cheeky there. Yeah, you have BKB on ember
But what do you really hope to achieve here other than just mess with it a little bit?
They really messed that creep up. Hey, they sure did they sure did
Just get changed again. You're trying you don't want to use the BKB here, but you didn't have a remnant out early
Too big of a window against the champs here
Yeah, but just the way that starts unsurprised like your two supports got jumped right away exactly
I just leave him in bail, right?
Like, it's a big committal of a move for Spirit.
There's no Roshan to get.
You're not gonna lose an objective.
Should be fine cutting your losses there.
Surprised to see Lippon get dragged into that
and then end up losing a big core on top.
Here's another creep depth.
These are happening up a little bit.
Little extra gold injection.
It will be Butterfly for Yatoro.
First, the Scotty for Mickey.
Very strong item times for both the carries in these games.
And they should both line up with this next Roshan.
So, very pivotal objective on the trajectory for both one positions here.
If it's a vast enough Roshan, Mickey might not have his Scotty done fast enough.
It should be kind of awkward. He's a little bit farther away than the butter on Yatoro off of that fight.
Kinda suspect Spirit will instantly try and go with this butterfly timing.
Should be one of your stronger moments in this game.
And you're not gonna wait on the other two cores here.
Mike, when your Toro wants to send it, you send it with him.
Yeah.
So there's that butterfly.
It instantly snort, they waste absolutely no time.
Again, decisiveness.
Team Spirit in this series, and they're going to try and find a pick-off.
On the Spectre.
Yes, this is Spectre farming territory.
You're either thinking he's at these ancient camp or he's in the camps behind it.
You can die for him here.
The turnaround's not insane from Liquid in this game.
Especially with the pattern that they set up, right?
They ganked that bottom lane three different times off of a deep lane ward that they had.
They finally, on liquid, picked up a gem and found one of those wards.
They see him here.
He's going to be spotted.
Lead off.
Bound to strike.
Can the stuns.
They've got it.
What a fine, what a smoking goal.
I like that they didn't give up on it, right?
They go try and goal.
They don't find anything.
They just kept thinking, okay, if he's not here, it's not on the left side of the map.
He had some really nice wards too.
Like this bottom Hobbs on the bottom lane.
It's scouting that farm pattern where the specter is like going through these camps
into that bottom.
They know he's not there.
He can only be on this upper half.
They basically eliminated every camp that Mickey's going to be on.
In sequence there.
That guarantees that Scottie won't be up with Roche.
In fact, he's going to be dead for 30 seconds while it spawns.
If Spirit have instant vision on it, there is a world you just force it.
And you can bring it down before Micky's ready to fight. They don't scout the pit, however.
Liquid is gonna try and take the tape trade off. I mean, they see it now.
Spirit's doing Roach on right now, then they're doing it. We just gotta try and get the most out of it,
which is taking Tormentor. And what a timing alignment here. Yeah, that's beautiful.
Get a Spectre kill, and Micky doesn't even get the fight for this Aegis.
A brutal trade for Liquid. Yeah, they're gonna make the most of it with Tormentor,
but this is not the exchange you were looking for.
And high ground fights are, I think it's way more simple for Spirit than many of these
matchups we've been watching, right?
You've got a big A&E team fight to play off of with an aegis hero that is very good at
teaching down tier 3s.
I would agree.
This does not look like the scariest high ground defense lineup of a lot of them we've
seen.
You know, your biggest worry is stacking for a cask, I mean, that's about as good as it
gets.
Yeah.
The one thing you're maybe concerned about in all the fights, not just the high
ground, but it becomes a little easier. You really want to go through this? They are!
And it's Collapse who's gonna be outnumbered. There's no way he expected this
many heroes to be up here. It was just a squirrel. That is haunt down. Every time
this haunts on cooldown, you have to think about our sphere gonna try and make a move.
You know, on the respawn, you have some time to farm here. Right, which is where
Part of the reason, Spectre, you get stronger and stronger as the play game, because every single one of these old pops, if you get an arrow kill, well, that hero's gone for 60, 70 seconds, right?
And that just leads into a very small window for the enemy team to play off of.
Still to try and take the fight with the extra life that they have on the morph lane. Hookshot lands on Ace, pushing back with the cogs, tear rise on top of that one.
They're still going to chain in these disables. Ace, he barely gets off the roar, and he's still going to die. Now, Marl is going to die for this, because have a look at that.
Positioning from tofu. It's just beautiful and Mickey while you rip through one support
He's gonna try to go for another one nice push back holds back your Toro
Your Toro's now left alone against all these years. You're gonna die the once
He's a big trouble and he's gonna be maledicted when it comes back up if they can hit a stun the chain anything like that
It got the Maledict on him wait for him away trying to get some distance
But of course the chase is always gonna be there the boomerang placed on the damage over time
It'll finish him off spirits. They thought they had this thing said surely we don't need the tide hunter
We have two lives on morphing. Yeah, who's your damage dealer? It's the witch doctor for liquid
Doctor just a full channel death ward on a stunned the monkey king who could never stun him back
You're sitting there BKB to Zlarl and you're just dying to a support
Insane value now from tofu there
You took a fight without your tide hunter and I think it showed you just don't have that big presence on the front line
You don't have that a we control off the ravage. It takes a lot longer to bring these heroes down a
A smart TP cancel from Toku gets a really nice cask off, it bounces on the ator multiple
times there.
Full channel deathboard.
Vick is just sitting here waiting for his moment.
Lucky King dead, I get to go in for free.
No way this warplane is going to fight all my HP with Scotty done.
Very different situation.
Just like they forgot about trade, they forgot about Toku.
He punishes Spirit heavily.
This is now a game that is in liquid's favor, a game that they desperately need to win.
Stay alive in this series and stay alive in this survival stage. Move on to playoffs while spearing.
They want just the two walls so they can focus on the road ahead.
They're not the final way to scale in this game. And it is never easy scaling against Ember Specter.
Like that is... it just is not fun for your support duo. It's not fun...
for your frontline trying to position in the fight and make sure the formation is set up correctly.
up correctly because your formation just gets backstabbed so easily. The fight becomes chaotic
very fast. This is not a pipe time hunter. Yeah. Agatomceptor is going to be done at almost level
20 though, so these gush talents make this timing ridiculous. Hensaitanak Preyotorotus
helped his sustainability a lot, which has been an issue here, particularly against the
melodic kind of just wearing through him over the long run. Pretty unsuccessful ages usage though.
I thought Spirit were going to be able to get a lot better fight out of that Roche-on-Avange.
Pretty much got completely null 5, now this game has swung back Liquid's way.
And the butterfly for Midgate coming out soon, so...
Spectre continues to get scarier here.
Our lands on Laurel and he dies so fast to the Spectre!
That's a gem lost as well.
They just bought that!
You just can't get the lanes out.
The power of the Spectre haunt.
It creates a threat off of any single stun landing in this game.
You actually buy out the butterfly? I thought he was going to break apart the radiance.
Use the talisman for the butterfly, build up a nullifier.
The radiance is just so good up to zero.
Yeah, I think it is easily a fine item to keep in your six slots.
If you want to go the nullifier out, then yes, you break it apart.
And he feels that there's not a reason to have nullifier on this game, which I can kind of see, like...
This is one of those rare games where I don't know how much you need the nullifier here.
Particularly if bees can buy one, if you really need it.
Well, you gotta nullify the timehunter.
Because he's got a crop!
He does have a... does have a Kralis Kroje.
He didn't buy out the eggs?
Interesting.
He just needs to survive more.
That's what it signifies here.
By time.
But I feel like Tidehunter is only a hero that needs to survive in teamfights
when he's got axe.
Right?
Like otherwise you're just kind of like a ravage, anchor smash, and like then if they go and you all good.
Nisha, getting some information right now.
You Toro felt that burn.
maybe spear feel they can only win a fight off of the
RAPage Pop and bring someone down in that duration
so then they have to make sure collapse
stays alive long enough to? Yeah I guess even that's the
item that's a little awkward. Yeah, it's still confused, cause, yeah.
MKB for Yatoro, which are completed slots
Nicely here.
It's just very hard to get a jump now.
The initiation is a lot easier for Liquid when the Spectre can follow up anything instantaneously.
I can guarantee you find Monkey too.
Like, you can't just hide in some tree-line as Laurel this game.
And he's got 25.
So, those Spectre illusions are hitting very, very hard now.
It's a lot of damage coming out.
The Excitem Refresher, I'm down with that.
DoubleHuntz is gonna make these supports lives absolutely hell.
He comes impossible.
And they didn't really itemize to deal with that in the first place, so...
Like if they had, then maybe that's where the nullifier becomes more valued, but...
You've got what? One 4 staff and one...
That's what I'll say, I think he was watching games like, I don't need a nullifier here.
I'm just gonna kill him anyway.
to kill him anyway. And he's mostly good jumping on course anyway.
Lyle's gonna stop the doctor here. They do mention get the break on Collaps though.
Collaps needs help. He's on a sliver of HP. Is it even worth the ravaging? This
boy's making a run for it. There's that Kralis. The Kralis keeps him alive. Get
some out of danger for now. It does. They survived through that. I mean it was
almost him just dying right outside their base. That was a brutal amount of damage.
No buyback. That could have been a high ground push. Rather easily
for Lickwin. Instead he stays alive and they can go. Got to look for something here.
They have their own, you tore over the Ember spirit Morph. A slight change, long range,
gets his boxy. Support for support in the end. Something off of that hot hot. Every
time Hans down you have to get aggressive as spirit. You can't lose the fight so badly.
The Morphling will be strong when the spectre is unable to join the exchange. And we'll
see how fast this Roshan timer is. It's a long one. That'll benefit Liquid. For sure.
You're gonna have your Honkul down guaranteed here. Gonna take another nice fight. Bash
are done for Mikkei as well, so the control grows. Trade out that earn you don't need
it anymore. Look at this setup. Ooh, that was quick. E-Shep breathing a sigh of relief there.
Speaking of, we talked a lot about Nullfire. It is going to be an item in this game. Ace
is going to be the one to grab it.
So his roar initiation puts the no fire on him
to make sure they can't win, wake, or save for staff.
You saw that Crellos for the time.
He's like, someone's got to deal with this.
Seriously.
We'll be a quick smoke from Spirit,
trying to use Honk Cool Down still there for 45 seconds,
and they have ravage available.
The Ultimates are a favor for them right now.
You're going to break on a witch doctor.
It's most of the break, and Tofu gets the break away.
Not what you wanted here if you were Spirit.
Might still try and just force the fight straight up anyway.
Yeah, they're walking into potential high ground vision, uh...
See, Nisha?
They're trying to change stun.
You get him!
Hookshot, terrorize!
The roar goes out trying to delay!
Now the ravage over the top!
Oh, for Nisha!
And they got him!
Once again, liquid!
So good at being able to chain those disables.
Now they're in pretty deep here and they've used a lot.
Rua's almost dead, no hesitation!
They used the buyback!
They used the buyback!
He could really do some damage!
He's already killed two supports on the self-duals!
On Nami will allow him to get one more round of spells before he eventually goes down.
Yatoro almost killing A.
Oh damn it.
He's got four and he doesn't get it, but now he's been maledicted.
And here comes the Spectre for him.
They got the Bush Whack and the Death Ward.
They combo together to kill the carry.
Yatoro's down.
And now the chase.
They've got, uh, collapse as well.
Mikkei runs him down in the end.
And these are heroes that do not have buybackers.
Surprisingly though, now the later Roshan actually plays against Liquid.
They would love for Rosh to be upright this minute.
Not going to be the case though.
They will have 30 seconds while the morphine's dead if they instantly scout it.
Inspector does it super fast here.
So we'll see if they end up getting it here, regardless.
What's costly on the Nisha Biobody makes up for it.
It'll push him to level 25.
Kind of a necessary Biobot to win that fight.
You don't know when that roaches spawnings.
You can't afford to let Spirit get out of here.
They chain stun him again, beautifully.
Even with the stuns coming up on the morphine, I thought maybe they're not going to have
the damage as the tutorial got casky there but you have enough disabled to
power through it. The issue with these chainslots for spirit is a lot of them
are the big AOE to terrorize the ravage. You're using your teamfight control to
take one hero down that's why this vibe out so powerful. When you come back in
here there's something really to regroup around other than just the
morphine's raw strength and eventually the tutorial he's just running out of mana.
He just doesn't have enough resources to live through all these stunts being
thrown out of all the multiple initiations, the Roche will spawn and Liquid will scout
it instantly so yeah, Liquid sat in the pit and made sure that if it spawned they would
be able to do it immediately and because they caught it so quickly the Atorro isn't even
up yet.
There's a big concern for Spirit in terms of how do you win this game because it basically
means you have to take a fight in a way where you can win it one and a half or two X with
those buyback coming out from liquid be able to get a rush and then push again
and also you're incentivized to like make this play again on the ember spirit
he's the one now at the ages this is gonna be the same problem right like yeah
you make that move on ember spirit or you make that move on specter both of
them are heroes that can buy back an instantly punishing for it and that's
the issue the buybacks are so strong for liquid between this ember specter that's
why the lake game so scary here you need refreshers if you're a spirit you're
gonna need double wukong you're gonna need double ravage at some point this
That's what it feels like maybe even buybacks as well like beat some fight onto an area where you have either high ground defense
Or outpost defense something of this nature and you can instantly get the morphine in twice
It's real dangerous though
And this is why specter late game is just always terrifying no matter
How much you want to argue the hero stronger or weaker than she used to be
You have double haunt with her fresher, and then you have the buyback on as well. Do you need it?
Tofu, Tofu, by the way, he still has his Greek Re, he's got 2000 gold, he can pop, he's
also getting no lung on the Tormentor, still does not have his shard, which considering
how impactful Tofu has been in these games, I would love a little bit of extra security
for him.
He's rocking a strong triple double right now, man, he's doing work here.
He's got a cheese though, that's pretty nice, he'll fly out the shard.
It's the agony scepter with the slight charges and ballad Laurel
He was supposed to use the shard there use it down with the ball the strike
But he messed it up and now he's just gonna die there off with a high ground set up ace
Here's the box shot ace to make a run for it once again your total select
Okay, do I wait for him in after him doing order to get that kill it didn't work out so well the last time he was back
Let's be decimated. I was a good trouble ultimate
That was gonna be a fissile waited up cold a miss on the Crookers done the chain at all
Your Toro still has a chance to get out.
The supports, they're looking a little worse for wear here at this last light.
Not gonna finish off Ruzi. They go back for the Clash Tider.
They do have the answer to the Corellas.
It's not gonna survive against the Nullifier.
A big mechanical mistake there for Laurel.
We saw the idea. Bait some sort of haul to the high ground
and he just did out with that balance strike short.
Didn't activate it.
They say, well, we've won back-to-back teamfights.
I actually really have
We're gonna hit the tier 4s now
This is them playing without some ultimates here deep inside the enemy base
This is not guaranteed or just control, but they are super tanky
Yeah, you're torsion really good with them you stay tannic on creatures stay alive against the maledict church
You're just not working for him through everything they kill him
It's just too much for them to handle
They neither have the damage to get through these heels that are coming out from liquid in these tanky heroes
Nor do they have the defensive capabilities to keep Yatora alive.
Which doctor just broken on?
SIP. Is that the soil of this series?
He is absolutely owning these games right now.
This game is just over GG.
GG with the security of a Spectre late game.
You know what they do? They went for the triple core late game in game one.
And Spirit just had a very good timing in the big game,
gotten up from net worth lead, just kept pushing Liquid down,
giving them no momentum whatsoever.
But here off of a back of a harder carry
that could still play the map the way they want to,
Liquid are both able to play the map
like they were able to do in game one
while still having this scaling carry
and still playing a little bit more active, right?
It's a very good Spectre pick.
It gives you the active capability.
It gives you threat off your stuns wherever you go,
and you have the carry on carry match up hero-wise.
but you're not afraid of scaling in a morphole inspector here.
It's such a big difference compared to that spend
in the tiny game one.
Liquid really addressed a lot of issues here.
They got the doctor.
The doctor has 100% win rate right now.
I don't know what that means.
I don't know if I'm suddenly being converted
into a believer of this hero,
but that voodoo restoration talent
and just sitting in the fights
with so many defensive items plus lock it,
go step their shard, A out this, whatever it is,
you become really annoying.
Like you can't focus this guy down
And if you don't, he does 5,000 healing in the fight.
OK, that's basically saved an entire hero right off the bat.
It's a guaranteed spell.
Can't stop this spell.
Something about this hero is kind of cooking right now,
and I'm liking it.
So maybe that hero goes up in priority.
It's also shutting down a lot of these front-liners
in the off-lane.
Yeah, because the last had a terrible laning phase
because of which stuff.
Not only the lane phase, the fights.
Like, you can't go in the fight and exist
as a front-line for spirit, because your front-line gets
evaporated by Spectre plus Maladict in this game.
I think the morphling answer was cute, like it did do work in this game, he had 14 kills, he morphed into the Ember a couple times, had some sick chains.
I think Yatoro did his job in some sense, but the Monkey King did not build enough early momentum, and then he just gave you a hunted every teamfight.
I think that was the biggest component for me, it was like Warl's impact, it's just not there, and he's later exchanging this, and I think that's part of why we haven't seen the mid Monkey.
The game, the same momentum that you used to, is way more difficult.
And if you don't, you just don't farm the map as fast, you're not a pick-off presence.
What do you really contribute into your team in terms of, like,
either outfarming them or outkilling them?
If you're doing neither, you're just kind of falling behind against this really scary late game.
So, very cool draft from Liquid.
And a lot to think about going into this game three for both teams.
Yeah, absolutely. I think so much of it is, you saw in game one,
the stability of team spirit, right, playing around each other and having a teamfight formation that
it was like running to a brick wall. Get liquid. Whereas in this game two they have a draft that
creates chaos that is able to break down the front lines with the witch doctor,
while still hitting the back lines with these hypermobile cores on the side of liquid,
and that now brings us to a game three. What is going to ensue in that draft?
We'll see how much priority the teams will place in that 100% win rate of witch doctor.
There's a lot of us going on as well with that game.
And I think a lot of team liquid fans are very familiar, you know,
they knew that team would pull through because they normally lose game one
and win game two.
We'll see what happens in game number three.
But I'm here with LaCosta and Seb, ready to break this one down.
And it can't all be witch doctor, Seb.
It was not all witch doctor.
But I have to say that I'm also becoming a big fan of this hero.
It does so much like the leading presence is there.
Like it kills the scaling of certain heroes like Tide,
morphing, especially when you have overwhelming amount of damage, like Witch Doctor, Spectre,
everything is just perfect about this combo, like the lane, the mid game, the late game,
and eventually like this level 20 talent and just sitting in the fight, and you pair him
with like heroes that benefit a lot from the healing, Spectre is the perfect example, because
like every HP you take from Spectre, you work for it, right, and this person, and he's just
healing back up, I don't know, I'm a big fan of this hero.
Yeah, I think it's gonna get pumped up in priority pretty heavily, like this might become
I'm a first pick in the third game because it feels so good, like it's shutting down
the offline.
We saw in the first game, they tried Necrophos, it didn't really work because they tried to
go for the range carry or offline hero in that sense, but didn't really work out for
them and you are never tanky enough.
A lot of the times in this meta, you see these unkillable, these centaurs, this Necrophos
tiny with the 5000 HP, you're never going to feel too comfortable when you have maled
on you and the heal is the present like the presence of the heal in every single
team fight is just too insane. Yeah it was it was super strong but to go back to
your first question which was it can't all be with Shocked Earth it was also
Ember like I'm yeah I think this hero like I don't know it will have to see but
this was a pick Ember it got super shut down on the lane like Lord did more than
his job I think he had like more than nice than Ember had last test like he
destroyed him in the mid lane he went to fight for the wisdom rune he defended
safe lane, he turned the morph lane matchup against beast, helped the morph, slowed down.
Like, he played an amazing monkey game. I think it was like 12 and 3 or something.
But at some point, this Ember just comes online. Like, look at the numbers. Like,
the damage numbers from Nisha. Like, he did twice the monkey's damage. And obviously,
monkey is not like the top mid hero right now. But still, like this Ember hero,
it doesn't matter like how bad his game is. Like, at some point, it becomes a menace. And
There's also this play that we've seen many times now where they take fights in the late game and they buy back from them to hit them again.
It's just too much, like honestly, I feel like this number hero maybe deserves like either more priority or a ban, but his rating by teams needs to change.
Yeah, you can tell that Spirit, they had an idea.
In this one, they brought back a little blast from the past, picking up this Monkey King as a counter to it.
It looked okay-ish, but nothing too crazy.
I feel like his presence in some of these earlier fights,
it was great with the Wukong and everything,
but in the drone out fights, he didn't feel that comfortable.
Like he also got caught a couple of times
because he has Spirit's Vessel on him.
There was one fight near the Tier 3 Tower
in the top lane where he got caught,
Spectre jumps on top of him,
kind of counters what he wants to do
because you see him immediately with the follow-up spell.
Huck is gonna die or forced to use a BKB, jump out.
So not the pick that I think we're gonna be seeing
as a counter, it was an idea.
It didn't work out in this one
And I feel like it also, Shiva could be potentially, you know,
every single time that they were running different heroes spirit,
they were doing well.
Now they played more than two times in a row.
I've been wrong.
Could be it's old.
It's going to be a tough tournament if he's never allowed to play another
good luck for you, good luck to him.
But I was a little bit skeptical on the witch doctor specter,
like, as in the answer, more thing as an answer to that, because it's
and then I'm like, it's tutorial morphling, you know, like, he knows what he's doing.
I'm I don't know that the game concluded.
if it was like the best pick, because it felt like he was really big that game.
He had every item he could ask for, if he had the Butterfly, the Centanel,
he got to where he wanted to be as Morphling,
and it still felt like he could not stand his ground for more than a second or something.
Like if he any stun he ate, he would just die 100-0.
We haven't seen the carry-to-carry matchup.
These are not two traditional carries in a sense,
because Morphling hasn't really been picked up and neither was Spectre.
She gained something more popularity recently, but with the Desolate, with Radiance,
It does feel very good.
You're also building into Scotty,
their spirit vessel from the mid lane.
Even though he has Satanic,
he has this Mantis-style to dispel things.
It's also not very effective.
Like eventually it's gonna kick in the healing reduction
and you're gonna die because like we've seen how strong it is
when you want to isolate one of the heroes
with the Desolate, the heroes just die.
I don't know, to me, my Dota sense is just telling me
that the Spectre hero is not okay,
but I'm maybe biased to be honest.
Like I have a history with the hero.
I've always been the fan of Spectre,
but we'll have to see.
I feel like Amber not okay, which doctor not okay, Spectre not okay.
We got all these heroes rising in priority here.
I feel like maybe we're slightly on the recency bias because they did just win.
We'll see how it turns out in game three.
But Lacoste, I believe you also have something to show us regarding some stacks that Team Spirit protected.
Yeah, they were doing really well.
This is something that they needed to do at the early stages of the game.
This was where they were kind of most vulnerable, where they needed to protect the stacks.
And if you see where they are right now, you can see the Observer Ward on the side.
and the carrots that Rue was giving to them throughout the whole game here was, I would say, single-handedly keeping them in that game
and also making sure that Darkoil is the second time that he does this little trick, tries to TP out, and then instead of just TPing out, there's still another spell, he just cancels it.
That was extra bit of a damage, you know, an extra bit of a... to prolong the teamfight in a sense, and then after that, they just don't feel as comfortable taking that fight collapse in a very good spot to protect those stacks,
And there's gonna be another one because they already used a ravage so right now liquid they feel pretty strong again trying to invade one more time
Nisha he was really pushing the limits on the hero
You can still see the stacks being there and they did not want them to take those stacks trying to punish them
Unfortunately for them, Nishoku does take down collapse and at this point of the game the distance of our spirit
They felt as I said most vulnerable that they're also gonna be punching back bringing in numbers
This is where Monkey feels kind of strong, but this Deso item build that he did go for as his first item
dishing out quite a lot of damage and also baiting a little bit
Maybe the rest of the team in this position where they don't want to be if you lack lockdown
Fighting against Monkey King like this knowing that he can drop down the Wukong's command and this time around spirit
They are bringing in numbers understanding that they need to protect those stacks like one minute two minutes after they're gonna be
able to finally farm those stacks, but
a very good thinking, very good approach from Spirit,
understanding that at this particular moment of the game,
they need to be able to pretty much bring everybody,
so they don't bleed out.
Yeah, and I know that the three cores on the side of Spirit,
they are the TI winners, you know,
we know that they're good players,
but I want to highlight the support you.
I think not me and Rue, I know they lost,
but I think this game in particular,
they both really shown very bright side.
Yeah, honestly, both games,
I think so far they've had an incredible series,
like both of them.
I was talking to Miposhka for a content piece that's going to be out
so someone discernment and asking him how does he enjoy coaching and what not.
And he's like, he said that he has incredible support players.
He's happy that they took over in a sense.
And he's helping them with voicing what they want to do in the game as much
because he used to be the big voice of Tim Thritz.
So this is something they're like working on and improving.
But once these guys are also able to communicate what they want to do in the game,
like as well as he used to, well, it's, I don't want to follow an upgrade,
but they are very, very good at playing their heroes
and the micro things, everything is just perfect.
Having someone like with Posca behind you
to point out the mistakes does feel like a turbo mode
in pretty much big buff,
how you're going to be playing the game.
And the team's definitely gelling together,
but I also want to point out the way,
like with played the map, how aggressive they were.
As soon as they understood that they can definitely
bring down this tight hunter,
they can bring down this morphing.
You could see the full aggression coming up from Liquid,
finding out these pick offs,
Boxie against, like, even Ace did really step it up in this series,
did have a couple of these early deaths,
but also managing to find the openings as well,
playing together as a team,
Team Liquid, they cooked in the second game.
Yeah, they really did.
And the question is,
out of the two games we've seen,
is there a clear favorite?
Or is it heavily draft dependent?
Because I kind of don't feel it might,
like, I don't feel it is.
I mean, my take is that
Spirit is still looking a little bit cleaner.
I think they're a little bit more polished.
So in that sense, I would still favor them.
But at the second game, I felt like Liquid had just a better approach to the game than Spirit did.
So this one's your game at this point.
Like if they get that kind of advantage in the draft for game three, you could just seal the deal.
But if it comes to an even game, I think Liquid still has to step it up.
Like Spirit has looked really clean.
I mean, we saw the whole sequence that the cost just showed,
we know with defending stacks and whatnot,
it looks very, you know, they seem very like in place.
Like everything is just where it's supposed to be.
They're attacking when they have to,
they're defending when they have to and it's clean.
So yeah, Liquid is up to the challenge.
A slight edge to Spirit potentially going into game three.
We'll have to wait and see.
Potentially the draft does make a big difference.
We'll see what comes out with that.
And we're also going to be finding out how Liquid felt
going into this matchup as we're hearing from Boxy.
Play is in our DNA.
Whenever we let it out, it becomes our superpower.
Now imagine an entire city being built to supercharge it.
Kdea City, powered by play.
Hello, I'm here with Boxy from Team Liquid.
You guys had a very fun series to watch yesterday, three games, the first one was 60 seconds and it was like 90 minutes.
What was that series like to play?
Quite exhausting, I mean the second game was really really long.
And I feel like we also had like a big lead in that one earlier in the game.
And I was like man if we lose this game I would feel like really bad because I feel like we kind of threw up.
Are you thinking about that at like minute 70? It's like an after?
Not really, but at some point when I died late into the game, I was like, how do we end up here, you know?
Yeah, it's hard, and they did a good job defending the game. You guys were back and forth in so many fights.
I felt like all the fights were really spread out too, there was chaos everywhere, the observers were having trouble watching it.
What was I like in-game when the fights were so all over the place?
I mean, usually you start a team fight, maybe you have a plan on what you want to do as a team, but then you just have to play your hero.
Like if I'm next to an enemy hero and I'm clockwork and I used all my spells like I don't know
I guess I just follow this guy or like I'm run away. You know, you can't like
There's not so much you can do individually
When you're when you're out of juice, I guess. Yeah, I guess so yeah game two absolutely crazy
How how stress relieving was game three because it's an observer. I was watching I was like we know how it's going
They're stomping their
Dumpster in the whole map you guys didn't give him any round at all. Did that help you like cool you down a little bit at least
I mean, game 3 was a lot easier to play.
I feel like maybe we had them a bit out after or out of their comfort zone,
because the game was flowing really nicely.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I feel like after 15 minutes,
we all felt like this game was kind of in the bag.
We just have to slowly see it out.
So that was, I guess, the opposite of stressful.
Yeah, I could definitely see that.
You've got Spirit up next.
And one of the first interviews I did here with Klaaps, he said he feels some kind of
magic at EWC, he's always powered up.
Does that intimidate you anyways, or are you not superstitious at all?
I mean Spirit usually does well at this event, yeah.
We lost to them in the finals like three or four years ago, I don't know, I feel like
I kind of like playing them, because I like, or like I know pretty well how they play,
they're not like some unknown thing. I feel like they're spirits. So I'd rather take what
I know or what I don't.
Okay, that makes sense. And how do you think you're going to do as a whole? You know them?
Is it no good or?
I mean, I think we're going to win.
Okay, you guys, you got the momentum.
I always think we're going to win, so.
Sometimes you don't.
Need a belief as a pro player, I suppose.
Alright, well, thank you for joining me for the interview. Good luck in your match.
Thank you.
We're getting ready for game number three here between Team Liquid and Team Spirit on
stage, elimination on the line.
What we heard from Nisha yesterday, he was looking ahead already towards facing Jandex
which is in the playoffs, and didn't give Spirit much thought or many words.
This series has proven that maybe a couple more words would have been maybe needed,
but he was very confident.
We also heard Boxy being very confident that he will make it through here too, Sam.
Promising.
Maybe Nisha just genuinely forgot about this round, about Spirit and then game one happened
and he's like, OK, you're going to have to pick me, Amber, I think.
Like we have a situation here and the emergency measure is the Nisha Amber Spirit.
But I'm enjoying the Leprechaun interviews. I think they're delivering like a niche of interview yesterday was very interesting to listen to
I really like some of the boxy takes like I always think I'm gonna win like it doesn't sound much
But it's a pretty deep statement. Yeah, and I'd rather take what I know over what I don't I think is also a very interesting approach to Dota
It's like give them what they like as I guess and we know what to expect and we're just sure of our strength and our
ideas on how to break it and we'll make it work. So
So I like these takes, I think these are takes where it shows confidence in yourself and in your team and these are good signs if you're a liquid team.
Yep, you've got to be confident and also to go back to his point about playing unknown versus playing against the known teams or playstyle.
Because Team Spirit, this is the team that kind of has the same playstyle, same players, the core of the team is staying the same ever since the team has kind of entered the big stage.
They are known so you know what to expect from them and a little bit of a spoiler
You know on the other stream as well
We saw runeaters a team that maybe hasn't really been known to like other teams because this is a relatively new squad
They managed to eliminate Aurora
Yeah, I might as well might have needed to know them a little better. Yeah top teams bleeds, you know
information here and
If you think about it
This is the first time this event that Team Spirit is back against the wall
because they had a pretty smooth sailing at the roof stage
and all of a sudden they're one game away from getting eliminated,
one bad draft, you know, bad execution, bad laning phase, you name it.
On Liquid's side, they've had 90 minutes yesterday,
more than that actually, 90 minutes and the third game,
so maybe two hours or three hours of being back against the wall.
So I'm sure at this point if they're completely numb when it comes to that,
they don't mind. So maybe like a mental test for Spirit, which Liquid has already passed,
like successfully yesterday, we'll have to see how they fare when the pressure is on their side
because they do have new players, we said, new to this kind of stage anyway. So let's see if
this gets to them or if they're gonna stay composed. So far they look good. I think their
performance on behalf of Spirit supports it. They look pretty stable like the game two that they
lost they also looked incredible especially in the first 15-20 minutes of the game. So,
want to see what kind of a draft they're going to cook, what kind of supports they're going to be
playing. I also feel like Spirit's draft took a little bit of an odd turn on that 15 pick with
the Tidehunter. Seems like that was an idea to hide the pick for Monkey King that could come out
as a response to this Ember Spirit. But they didn't really work out in the game so I would like to see
something slightly different. Yeah, it really was an optimal in my opinion. Interesting idea,
cute, but didn't pay off. They go back to the Spirit Trastic at this point. You know, it's
been posh cat drafting at the end of the day. Of course, Payne is going to be first picked.
This hero won the MTI once upon a time. Great hero in the hands of Rue, and not me actually.
They're one of the teams that is definitely okay with running the bane on the offlane also,
on the position 4. So very strong opener. Do you think Team Spirit feel still want to get their
hands on the ember at this point or will you apply with the support because we do have for the
first time this series the team that's dire has second pick which is the same basically it's the
same pick order as previous game is just switch sides i mean it's interesting because when you
think about it liquid just first picked ember and they won with it and now spirit is basically like
yeah you could you could go for a second all of this because the pain is not necessarily good against
I mean it's okay, but it's not like a counter like I'm sure Nisha doesn't mind playing this
Especially if they start getting saved, you know, we've seen like ringmasters and these kind of heroes like tusk
Where you know your embers gonna be safe. Okay, they decide to go for the beast
I mean, that's like a great answer versus Bane on the lane and in the game you have summons to remove sleep
So, you know
These chases the Bane rather than the other way around where usually Bane is often the chaser like the predator
Is that a reason to put Bane 4?
Maybe, I think they have it in the back of their heads, but sometimes I'd say you need to take an L, just to see the bigger picture.
You can just be like, ah, our position 5 is countered, we can't play the game.
But Beastmaster does counter, like any zoo hero counters pretty heavily, that's why we see good amount of lichens coming out as well as a response to it.
And also Beastmaster, he got bumped into priority.
You talked about the Ringmaster, a hero that didn't really play that hero.
Let's say you didn't play it so far. They didn't play it. That's the last blast slam
Since like they're not putting a lot of faith in that hero, right? Maybe not an answer
I mean, I like the pain for it
the bane for idea could be cool because
They're gonna have to decide later because essentially either your Toro has a hero
That's fine against beast and in that case you could run the bane in five or he's looking at he really wants to play something
Else that's bad against me. Then you're gonna need the five to enable him basically and allow him to lane
So whatever let's say he wants to be a inspector or something then you're gonna
have to you have the option of putting the bane for and maybe picking like an
edge or something that will fare better against beast on the lane so I'm sure
I really would keep that option open so that they can set your tour up for yeah
success I guess like whatever he wants to play.
Taking their time thinking about this second ban it will be the witch doctor
keeper of the light is also in there it's up to Liquid to only ban one hero
before they get the chance to pick something.
You know, we heard Papi in one of the content pieces here saying that one of his biggest
traps he fell into in his Dora career was trying to steal things, you know, like, just
beat it.
Yeah.
Don't ban it, beat it.
And he said, I've learned, I'm wiser now, I'm banning it, you know, so I like the adjustment
for spirit.
It's like, don't bump your head against the wall.
It's an elimination game, survival stage, you can't afford to, you know, if you try to
figure it out and you don't, then you're out.
You know, try to get through the series and maybe rethink the approach to which doctor,
but not today.
Yeah, try it in scrims or something.
Clink gets banned out, an instant pickup of the hoodwink.
That's your safe lane set for Liquid, I would imagine.
Super strong lane, like this type of lane pushes out to pain if he's gonna be in position
I'm not gonna be an easy pick for Yachter or Eiter, like we saw, I think one or two Gyrocopters as well as
responds to, I believe, Beast Masters as well. It didn't end too well,
but because some of the carries are stronger right now, the heroes have received a little bit of a nerf, and the Team Spirit,
they are gonna be picking up Beast Master, which is
another saving support. When you think about it, overall better saving support against these
initiations that they have from Bushwack, where they have it, you know,
Stop sharp shooter damage from coming through and of course very good against primal roar
It's very good against beasts. Yeah, the save against roar also the wheel of wonder versus summons
Very annoying like your summons are just stunned for forever essentially
So very solid support
You also have the darts against the boards if you want rather on the safe lane like very effective. It does extra damage
To like summons and neutrals. So a very good hero overall
I think against Beastmaster like quite underrated
Even the save like because you really like being for instance if you ever run into Beastmaster like into his boars and whatnot
He just drowns you down even without roar
That doesn't happen against weekmaster good the box and the extra movement speed that you get you just run away
So I like this pick a lot and I think it could be a rain five and a bane four like
Now they have the option to do both typically they pick the gyro
it's an early gyro pick which again I don't think is what Spirit enjoys because
Latour usually likes to be the win condition like they like to put him on 18 or 24 pick
and make sure that the game scales in his favor. It's not going to be the case this time around.
He picked for the lane and you know Mick is going to secure himself a better win condition.
Oh absolutely. I mean Spectre is very good against pretty much all three of these heroes
kind of because you get on top of them you provide vision you already have vision
coming up from the Beastmaster summons, Hudwink is very annoying to play against as well.
And I mean we did mention Gyarocopter but I don't think I believe in Gyarow in this current patch.
I feel like he is... I would even... I would put him like slightly below middle at the moment.
Yeah there's maybe a reason for why we don't see it that often and then
if anyone can make it work I feel like it has to be a Toro. But if he can't, well at least he
he respected rule I don't think he's played it so far so that's a new hero
for the Toro so that is like the bright side where he's expanding in zero
cold the buff is there that is what matters yes he gets the buff so what
do you do if you're liquid here this is that typical like Amber is still in right
like this is your typical talk about it first phase end up doing something else
because like three Connor and whatnot oh they go back for the abysmal one
rate of fuck quit well how much you would say it was it was around 20% it was 25
yesterday in 1-1 game but I don't know if that was enough LaCosta you check
out the win rate of fuck yeah I just checked the win rate of Jarocopter he's
sitting at 25% as well and we're gonna check. Fight, fight, fight, you know like be honest
drafting it's like you picked yourself a really bad hero we shall do the sound. Oh
it went up it's up to 31% right 31 and big numbers 31% that is crazy 31% that
is not good enough but we'll have to see and it's also going to get countered on the lane.
Yeah, what makes it a good bug game already is that he's very good against both supports
like he's going to get on top of them, he's going to prevent them from kicking their spells
as they want to, ooh, the Oracle team picking Oracle in the, you know, continuing the legacy
of Insania, former Team Liquid captain.
They wanted to have a save of their own, I would imagine.
He's a very good hero against Bane, typically for many reasons you can save from Grip but
you can also unsleep your teammates with just your 3rd spell on Oracle, very handy, he really
notifies everything Bane does, like you dispelled all of his spells like Enfeeble, Nightmare,
Ooty, so big counter, I think, do you dispell the box?
I think you do or no?
Yeah, it's dispellable.
So if he precasts his Q spell, which what's the name of it? I forgot
The first spell of Oracle whatever I forgot about the name
So think about liquid starting the fight on scene spirits and Oracle pre-clicking the first spell
The box is just not gonna work. They'll be able to shut down. It's gonna act like a little bit fire
That's the fake edict right?
No, the fake edict is the second
No, that's pure fine flames. Yeah, we forgot. We actually don't. We actually can't remember the name. My goodness. I'm getting old
either way. It's Q. Anyway, I think there was a high chance of Spirit potentially picking up
Nightstalker instead of this Earth Spirit and I feel like this hero could have also worked
seeing that you see Puck, it can be played from the mid lane, it can also be played from the off lane,
it's one of the best counters to Oracle. Earth Spirit is good in a sense but also you need to be
able to find this Oracle and you only have one guy because both of the supports are ranged,
they want to keep the distance. Jarocopter also wants to keep the distance away from the fight.
So, want to see what kind of a gap-closer they're going to be picking from the off-lane.
Now, typically Oracle is considered a good hero against Ursprit.
Yes.
As soon as he gets his blink, let's say, and he's able to play further away,
obviously early game is not going to be as effective because the cast range of Oracle's ulti is very small
and Ursprit is going to be able to silence him because he's going to have to be in vision to cast that.
but as soon as he gets like maybe a cast range and enchantment, the blink dagger, the matchup is gonna turn.
With that being said, Earth Spirit is really good against Bulk in the lane and in the game.
We've seen Earth Spirit dominate this matchup.
Fortune's end?
Yeah, I think so.
You really? It still doesn't ring a bell.
I think my brain literally just erased that spell from my memory.
Probably some trauma from losing games against Oracle.
But, um, yeah, like, I also think Earth Spirit is not the best against Beastmaster, like,
his timings early are pretty rough, like, he doesn't really get armor before a while,
and he's just very susceptible to dying to Beast and his summons, so...
I have to say, I think Liquid's draft is looking very good right now,
and they don't even have the wind condition against Gyro.
We're also going to be looking at the last pick, and looking at Gyro,
and maybe worrying about his tailing ability, so...
I would also prefer if they just picked that Night Stalker on 18 instead, I feel like because
of the spell mechanic, Earthworm can still own this game, like 3.5 second silence is
super annoying, but you also have a little bit of a save coming out from that Oracle,
and this is going to be the jump, this engage, even though it's not super effective against
your roar, against the coil as well at the later stages, it does become a very powerful
spell to bring in everybody, like we saw what Centaur can do with the heart, like even double
heart build.
And it's the infamous like Centaur Gyro combo, like Aghanem-Centaur at some point, Gyro getting
Aegis, buying your Ape here.
We've seen that happen, it can be very powerful, Gyro's not really met up, but when it was,
this was like one of the deadliest, it was so good that it was first pick, it was literally
like Centaur into Gyro, first two, doesn't matter, any lane, any game will win.
So it can, I think it re-enables the scaling of Jaro and it allows him to maybe go for
a more aggressive build than he would if the center gets the axe at some point.
And on Liquid's side, I have to say I'm a big fan of the draft, like I think the lineup
works really well together.
Lots of synergy between heroes, great against what Spirit has.
I guess the downside of Liquid is the laning phase.
Theoretically, Spirit have three... It's not like winning lanes per se, but they have the upper hand on all three lanes, I'd say 60-40.
So they could just run away with the game off a really strong laning phase and just snowball effect.
This time around, if the game is a little... Which again, I don't think is really their comfort.
They kind of switch roles.
So Liquid has the faster playstyle, sorry, the slower playstyle, and Spirit the faster.
They need to bring some sort of pace to the game after the lane phase.
They also are okay playing the long game, that 90 plus minute game.
They played against Extreme Gaming, that second game.
They also had Alchemist, so thinking, you know, if it goes super late game,
we have this security that eventually we're going to have that
insane amount of golden flux that we're going to be needing against Team Spirit.
But yeah, I do agree. I feel like if Team Spirit's off to a good start with the lane stage that they have,
like with the lane matchups that they have, it should look pretty good, but then again, liquid,
they managed to surprise us with some of these drafts. I feel like a lot of teams also got slightly
inspired, but what Negma Galaxy has been doing to it, top of the healing strats, bringing back Alchemist
as well, throwing in some Dazzle Position 5. This time, it's going to be Team Liquid bringing
an Oracle, one of the old school classics as well, so got to be very interested to see. I would maybe
give the slight edge to Team Spirit, especially if they can execute, and so far in this matchup,
It looks like they managed to execute slightly better.
Who's going to be responsible for stopping Spirit if they do get ahead in the lanes?
It's hard to say because they have rather slow here.
I mean, the Beastmaster, it should be him to tempo control the game,
but he has a really bad lane.
He has the worst lane of them all, like he's James Jarrow, so...
Yeah, he's their first pick, so he's countered.
Yes.
Well, we're going to find out.
This is elimination on the line.
one game, Team Spirit and Team Liquid.
Who will come out on top for finding out with Katvan SVG?
We said at the beginning of yesterday that whoever came through this little part
of the survival stage, whether it was Liquid, Extreme or Team Spirit,
they were going to be a battle-hardened threat going into the playoffs.
And now it's just come down to this one game to determine if that will be Spirit
or if that will be Liquid.
Avery, the start of the series, you gave the advantage to Spirit.
Now going into this game three has that narrative changed. I think so. I think it's anybody's game
I don't think spirit looked that terrifying in the game, too
And I think the cap kind of closed the series a little bit for me. I'm a little more convinced by liquid
Not as convinced by spirit as I felt watching them early on in this event
That gap is shrunk. I like that it never goes far enough to for you to actually favor like, you know
It's like yeah, it looks pretty good. They actually have a 50 50. Oh, okay. Do you ask me draft?
I actually like to draft just straight better here. I think it seemed like Seb liked it as well
I think the panel did I think the synergy slides up really well for me
The only thing I don't like about it is puck has not been a winnie
His win rate is atrocious this event and the hero has looked really weak in some games
You have to get him to that ultra late game territory where
Yes, if he's six-slotted and he becomes unkillable and you get to that Ag's divine
rapier, he's a menace and it will cause spirits some problems. We see a lot go wrong for the
Puck in getting there. So that's why one like a gastrous on this liquid lineup is how strong
is Puck really? Is he going to get punished in this game? Because there's a decent amount
of stun. The Bane is always a great answer to this hero. The Instant Tiles off the Earth
Spirit can set up some of the other stuns to land. A little worried for Nisha. Does have
the oracle to bail him out but you're kind of looking to use this oracle with the alchemist combination
for some heal amp and just getting him in there. Maybe if Alts tanking up this game you can prioritize
the puck. We'll see how influential that is and I somewhere in Sania has a smile on his face, Austin.
It's right. Liquid have gone for his signature hero, the oracle and it does look like a very good
oracle game. I love the idea when I saw, oh actually managed to get the first blood there,
tofu. It's getting the final hit over Rue. Yeah, when I saw the... I was actually very
concerned when Spirit picked up the ringmaster. I was like, ooh, that's a sick pickup. Like,
this year has been doing so well. Liquid seemed to have struggled against it. And then when Liquid
also got a save of their own, that also counters the box by being able to have a dispel, I was like,
wow, that's actually kind of sick. And then they get a carry that synergizes with it very nicely.
There are a lot of saves in this Spirit lineup though.
You have Geovagnet and Grip Slash Kick.
You have the Potential Earth Spirit Ags later.
You have Potential Double Box to bring Master Gets Ags.
You have the Centaur Ags save.
So a lot of it requires some Ags to just come out,
but in theory you could just have so many saves in this lineup,
even Nightmare interrupt.
I don't know how you're landing a roar and getting anything out of it.
It seems almost impossible in this game.
So if you control, it will be an issue for Liquid as we go later here.
You got a lot of saves to play through in a Gyro.
Gyro is a hero that uses saves pretty well because he gets pretty enably tanky.
And if you save him, he can sometimes get another round of flak in and off pretty quickly.
Something that might become possible.
He's a nice carry to just kind of put on that front line and play through.
So in that sense, I do like the saves.
And what they can do here for Spirit, Oracle can only dispel so much.
I thought you were going to talk about a different synergy here, Austin.
I can't believe you haven't brought it up.
The ultimate synergy in Team Liquid's lineup.
I mean, there is a lot of...
...sitter Gs by sleep.
You know what's damage here?
Fallen out of position, tofu.
And Collab should be able to get this kill.
This is a question of whether or not Nike can get the turn around kill with the corrosive weaponry slowing down Rue.
It's only level one, but it does add up and he does have the movement speed advantage.
And he'll just run away from Collab's.
Not bad. I do like the support link.
Talk to you first year, though.
Gonna get some damage on Nike.
and Mikkei with some body blocks, maybe a lot of damage here.
Another double edge? Is that going to be enough? Oh, we got him!
Mikkei, he ran away from the Centaur initially and then thought,
no, I could probably do this. He would be incorrect about that assessment.
Well played by Collapse.
Got to be worried about this double edge going in. I would bring the ringmaster through the gate right here and play with it.
At least force alcohol on some of these range creeps. Could be nice. He's a busy bottom though, so...
See how much Mikkei can pick up here.
Ultimate synergy on liquid. I'm glad you asked Austin
You have an alchemist line up. I swear to God if it's about you pull the eyes
Nope, you pull an axe to the Oracle. Okay. He has the Diviner deck
He divides
He divides the gold gain and instantly pays back
You played with this diviner that you know how strong it is. Yeah, I have
You get that in case of me force the pot me by my heart and you so good
Good.
Who played it?
We'll see who's the fool in this game.
Also, what does that mean, a 100% gold game?
Every tick of gold that goes in here is double.
Okay, so if he were to buy his own Agatom Scepter,
and he gets that 100% gold game,
and then he's given a refund Agatom Scepter,
the gold that he gets from that, could that be doubled?
I don't, I guess.
Why wouldn't it be?
You said every bit of gold that you get.
Well, that's like a refund not a game, you know.
Eeeeeee.
Tax law is lost and I'll let you figure that one out.
Ha ha ha ha.
Okay, well, either way, that is obviously not gonna happen in this game.
Cuz Oracle X is trash.
We'll see what, we'll see, we'll see what happens.
Let's just go for a spin.
Collapse, they really have put the screws to collapse in game two and now in game three.
When he's in a matchup and he can actually win two on two, they say,
Okay, but can you win it? Three on two.
Now, Laro, he's gonna be the difference maker here.
He rolls in, gets one of the support kills.
Can he battle the sound? One, two.
It's not like a great form.
They do managed to kill Ace on the other side, though.
The support leaving does punish Ace rather heavily.
That's a full wave and a half.
That's actually triple range groups
that are dying under tower right now.
We don't beat master to collect.
Has to go here.
I'm concerned for Ace right now.
He's just getting left to the wolves
off the boxy rotations, and this was the hardest lane,
especially with the ringmaster being put down here.
Look at the setup, not me was sitting behind the tower
waiting for him to TP, and they wanna go for the plundish.
Get anybody with liquid to help this out,
the TP's gonna come in, it's gonna force the Oracle.
There's a tonic here though.
You oughta look at the Carney classics.
Yeah, be aware of that.
He heals, boxy, does spot him in the tree,
see if the fortune's in, he's gonna go for the ancient,
deny likely.
Too tanky for it though.
Can you stick TP maybe?
Yeah, too much damage.
Oh, Colesnag's another one.
At least you get something out of the rebuttal here,
but I'm still just concerned for how slow Ace's game has been.
At least you have Alchemist to pick up some of the slack.
Little extra gold injection from Mikkei up top.
Foxy makes a run for it.
He will stop the power root from going to Laurel.
It still gets picked up by Rue,
but that isn't really a big deal whatsoever.
Still very solid start for Spirit.
All three of their lanes are cruising well here.
You get to an Earth Spirit ulti, you get to a Stampede.
If your aggression potential goes up considerably and they play really well around this bane setup.
You gotta be careful of where Rue is...
on the map. He's gonna get a sleep top.
This is the exact type of setup that can easily turn into a kill.
Not with probably just the center, but...
I don't know if you get another double edge.
One charges, unseemble concoction to separate no more double edges to be had.
It's just scary getting slept on this map.
Yeah.
If you have the Oracle behind you...
You're fine.
If you don't, you're probably screwed in this game.
They'll see if Spirit can contest the Wisdom Shrine, they're kind of angling towards it.
They don't have six on the Gyro, they don't have Stampede, or they do have Stampede.
But they're not going to risk going in there with the potential for Puck to rotate over.
If you lose your Gyro, you throw a lot back this Beastmaster's way.
They'll just split the shrines.
Tofu's at very high level because of the capital's kills.
So they've gone in lane?
Yeah, this is going to be an oracle, which I find sometimes, you know, kind of get stuck
in this rut.
You get a very slow level 6. This is going to be a fast one.
We'll see if Liquid can't utilize that in any way, because Spirit are definitely going to be trying to run you over.
Mikkei, Yatoro coming through the game to Stampede. Run him down.
All he can do is unstable concoction to slow down the damage, but it will not stop and pull back in.
By the hurricane from Colossal to help the Dom Creep. Very nicely played.
Team Spirit, and this is what we kind of envisioned to see in this game through, right?
This is going to be Spirit bringing speed against Team Liquid.
So what the Gyro pick is designed to do against Beastmaster,
slows his tempo down, it gives you a lane advantage,
and then Gyro can easily join early fights, make moves,
throw that call down into a teamfight around mid lane.
So much emphasis to stop power runes from going to the Earth Spirit,
but Team Spirit had the better of the 3 on 3.
Regen's got to do a lot for Laurel here.
Gotta remember that Oracle prognosticate.
We couldn't know where the runes are, right? So they can go there every time, but I don't necessarily think they're stronger in the contest
Yeah, which kind of sucks for them. That's sometimes the the issue with Oracle
He's had a nice early game here, but the heroes isn't necessarily that strong in the 303 early on
There's a lot okay
With the orb doing a lot unstable concoction from Mickey
That was actually pretty necessary for Mickey to show up to this fight
So good call from him to make that rotation over still it's a heavy commandant from liquid four heroes
just to kill a support and that wild wing just denied the boundary pretty nice to take these away
from liquid wall you're just farming the lane anyway nice micro plays from claps they got one
of the defensive wards set up there from uh from liquid you look at all the defensive vision they
have around bay they have that one ward and then they've got two other wards around this mid lane
first spear to the bottom trying to punish the feast master it's a pretty hard move to read for
Ace, the Ursprit's been off the map. He has no vision down here because all the
wards went around the mid lane. Ace is probably just like, leave me alone man.
He's gonna use the the board to try and drag creeps so deep into the jungle that
he feels a lot more comfortable farming them. He is getting so close to his
Helmedom creep and he can't afford any more delays than he already has because
considering how fast collapse his Helmedom creep is, just means collapse is
gonna be one step ahead of him for much of the game. Spirit are gonna be able to drive
the tempo here, no question about it. We get another sleep on the Oracle, and he is dead.
The other thing about this game is they have a decent amount of gap close for the Oracle
between the Centaur and the Urspirit. You know, it's one thing that, yeah, like, there
is great synergy in this Liquid lineup if you can maintain the formation. Again, like
game two, I think Spirit have the better time breaking that formation and just getting on
this back line if they do. If you take Orca out early, if you land in Earth Spirit
Silenced on him and you're focusing on somebody else, this lineup can kind of
just crumble pretty quickly. The beast is gonna be poor, the puck is gonna be a
little squishy here. Those are my big concerns and you're looking at this beast
for centaur disparity. It's massive here. Yeah, huge net worth difference. 2,000
between the two of them. That is the net worth difference entirely between
Spirit and Liquid right there. Wouldn't be surprised to see Spirit trying to do that
Classic bring your all-planer behind the mid-tier one look for that fight. Yeah, I mean it especially with the way spirits have been playing
It wouldn't be surprised that they brought the Dracopter to or just like they've been playing a lot of five man talk pile on a sport
Rue is gonna be pretty deep here behind enemy lines gives an opportunity for a state of good role
What does he roar though? The wheel goes out. He doesn't want to turn around for him
They do have the Oracle save though
That's gonna save him from a lot of magic damage and ain't just kind of charge it in I
I thought he was holding on to a point there. He did not.
So he did not have Roar to level up to use in that fight, which I don't know if that makes a difference, but it certainly makes the fight impossible to win.
I think he's also identified that Roar is just not a good spell in his game either.
Yeah man, I don't know, he's fair.
There's just too many saves. I mean yeah, you probably do a little better with Roar there, but I don't think you get anything.
Oh ho ho, Unicycle initiation!
It's a mental whip.
Styling on it.
See collapse creeping his way towards me. That threat is open.
I guess what Magnet has on cooldown though. Not looking too aggressive right now.
These level sixes are gonna be so crucial. We already saw the wheel bit of impactful, but hit the bane who now has fiend's grip.
Okay, now it's a lot harder for Nisha to be able to play the map.
The Oracle got his six and I have a save against the fiend's grip or some of these initiations
if he can keep to the back line.
It feels like this is a game you may need like a really early like Tegra on Oracle just
to play so far back?
Probably yes.
So what is the, what do the teamfights look like for Liquid?
I think if you can't rely on Roar or Coil because of the saves, I feel like you're just
getting run at with a bunch of really tanky heroes might be a game where
mid-gangers has to put it on his back that's the feeling I'm getting like he
is gonna have to do an insane amount of work with the alchemist here and the
timings that he hits and abuse the Oracle spell power has to be a big enough
threat that it gives ace better openings pipe is already done for collapse
Jeez, I mean there goes even more of your teamfight presence.
Oh, Corey.
Oh, we got shot.
The problem for Spirit is, that was a 2 for 2 with 5 of their heroes.
That Alchemist wasn't in that fight at all. He got to farm on the other side of the map.
That's a great fight for Lillian. This beast is just a creep in this game anyway.
If you can trade him for a really high net worth core, you're gonna take it.
Great Oracle, T. You cancel the grip early. The summoner's gonna do its job.
Buys a lot of time and space in the fight.
If the Centaur is here earlier with the pipe, I think this will end up looking a lot more one-sided.
Yeah, look at our coffeepro without it, that's right.
Yes, like if you get to pipe there, you see Collaptepe and you can just to pump it just
a second too late.
Very nice timing on the sharpshooter from Boxy.
So I got him.
I did my job.
Plater boys.
Oh, we're trying to get the hasteroom.
Now he doesn't have that orb.
Big trouble.
Yeah, he's just gonna be silenced up.
Beautiful stuff.
Great catch from Rue.
My favorite hero play against Cuck was always Bane.
Yeah.
You get an A4 lens on Bane, you can just sit in these tree lines, sit on the edge of the
fight, you just land that sleep on fuck.
You can always change that enough.
You just feel super nice to play.
And now you're starting to take space away from Liquid.
This is a concern.
The tempo is this one-sided that you're just taking a lot of the Ancients away from the
Beastmaster, away from the Alchemist.
How do Liquid ever accelerate back into this game, especially against the lineup that is
extremely tanky?
Look at these three cores.
They all already have basically 2,000 HP.
That's a big concern for a early game spell casting lineup that needs the nukes to do
most of the work here.
I think he's going to come in and hit heroes and nothing's really going to die.
That Radiance Burn isn't going to do much, as you said.
These heroes are so tanky, he doesn't have the best camp luck, there haven't been any
stacks for him.
This is going to be a 15 minute Radiance.
It's an okay timing, but not when you're looking at out-form Q-Spirit-R in this game.
Yeah, he won 9,300 net worth on Yatoro.
He's so massive.
He's got an extra 30 CS on this Alchemist.
An extra level.
Yeah, it's gonna do some work here.
Another sleep setup.
They're committing pretty heavily to kill this Oracle, Nisha.
Doesn't have the damage.
I mean, he's gonna pop Coil and Boxing and has to finish the job over.
He managed to get off the beans grip.
They finished him off with the orb.
Nisha's already taken a lot though.
He's not sure if he's going to jump.
Now he's going to be silenced.
The missile's going to hit him as a result of that.
The air spirit continues to hunt down Puck with silences over and over again.
These spirit supports have been MVP of this series.
The small plays that they have made
in every single game
just buying so much time and space for spirit.
That tree cut, you get the group.
It forces the Puck to re-engage a little bit longer.
That ends up getting Nisha killed
By your calling blades against the hoodling matters a lot
Mead wild collapse is just playing in your triangle because he can
He's a big boy
No threats on the board from liquid when will there be threats? That's why kept asking what I
Think a lot of your draft was predicated on this beast having at least some presence here
Yeah
Or the out being hyper accelerate. Okay, if the beast gets shut down
Then let's have a free farm alchoh and a favorite match being sent to our way as stacks and golden camps and these highest numbers in the game
You can fight around some early radians BKB. We're not even close to any of that
I don't think you have the damage to kill anything in this game right now if you're liquid
I think you have to split the map get to abuse punk beast
Go shove potential back to stall them. Yeah, try and dodge the bane pickoff. That's why this being got first pick by the way
It's the best hero for catching some of these flip pushes around the map and shutting some of that down.
Sure, that makes sense.
You always have an option to just get that sleep into the setup.
This is where I like the early blink tagger from Klops. He's not going to go ill, he's not going to play enough farm and really scale up.
I feel like this is your time right now as Team Spirit. You want to get as many kills as you possibly can while you are so much stronger than Team Liquid.
under the team Liquid, Roar's gonna go off,
but the Magnetize is gonna take out A.C. anyway.
That just puts an ability on the cooldown.
Meanwhile, at a wheel attempted,
Nets you get the hypnotize onto the Oracle,
he still gets a bit of feel to keep himself alive.
And, oh, the Alchemist actually showed up to this fight,
trying to get the fast kill out of Roo,
that he managed to do so.
A purifying claim to finish him off.
Nicke's gotta get out of here though.
Five seconds for a blink, he's getting out.
Maybe Boxie, not so much,
so this is gonna chase him down.
Box is just gonna try and play for time here make this kill as annoying as possible
Team spirit like holding back your Toro with a bush whack. Yeah, kick him into your carry
Speed up this farm here right on top of the ancient staff the flak will go straight into it
Your Toro in hyper efficiency mode. Yeah, maybe this was not the place to drag them to the stacks already here
He's a little 15 by the way
Fifteen at eighteen minutes, and you know the talents on this hero aren't saying.
Like, you get really fast levels on Gyro, you just run away with the game.
This game is spiraling right now, out of Liquid's hands.
We haven't even seen a false prompt. Well, we saw the one false prompt at the bottom, I guess.
Yeah, the one fight that they won, which is kind of barely, as you pointed out from the collapse,
full-move spailing out the Gyrocopter with the pipe.
You gotta make something happen here if you're Liquid.
It's just not going to be fun to play the map.
And you have to make some space for this Alk to get to PKB.
Too late to punish Laurel there.
He had so many heroes set up.
Her spirit's not an easy kill to get.
Manages to roll away fast enough.
But even if they do catch him there, he's 2500 HP.
Smoke is going to break from Liquid.
And a stop and an initiation from Collapse!
That's the blink dagger in play!
And with the two supports falling over at the start of the fight,
There's no hope for anybody else of liquid to play this out.
Ace has no retreat mechanisms, so he's caught.
And Nisha is the only one who can still play out on the map here.
Instant TP top.
They're looking for the Alak up here,
trying to predict that he's going to farm out this next wave,
or get Gre on the other side of a map.
He is in this area.
He would be right about that.
Did they bring enough damage?
Yeah, they're running to Nisha, and they're going to go, oh, whoops!
That was surely supposed to be a silence into a stomp, right?
Wait, where did the kick from come from?
I think he just jump-scared him.
Yeah, I guess so.
Too spooky, Nisha popping out of the woods.
Yeah, I mean, this is why you buy Blink Dagger on Centthar when you're arguably the best Blink Spunner of all time.
That's true, that's true.
I think there's a lot of players who would just buy Ark as it suits their style, but to be honest, Claps, he likes to get in there.
He likes to stun some heroes. Every hero for him is just plain Magnus.
And again, when teamfights are so guaranteed for you, why not?
Oh, you won, it's more catch.
We'll go back for the heart potentially later anyway.
I think it is kind of a good center heart game.
Miike is working his way towards BKB.
They'll still have a damage problem,
but I assume Liquid is going to try and take some fights off of that.
You have to. You have to.
If you can get the Parasuit down on the puck
and line it up at least within a couple of minutes,
couple of minutes, that's your best chance to swing this game back in your direction.
You want a teamfight into the Roshan, and you want to do that before speared or strung
up, just man up and take that objective away from you, because they're going to start to
take objectives here.
Porminter's likely theirs.
They could just go in the pit when it swings down here at the 25 minute nighttime.
I doubt they'd do it on the upper half.
Etherlens already for Rue.
Not gonna go up blink.
Not maybe there was a chance against the puck, but uh...
It's one of the really nice deptors. Very good.
Going to X against the Oracle's a bit of a mixed bag.
But it does put tofu in a lot.
It puts him in a much higher pressure situation to hold that,
no matter what, or sometimes backfires.
Like somebody gets caught on there dying.
You kinda have to false promise them there.
And then all of a sudden you can just act or if anybody, I think it's totally fine when you're in a
advantageous position like this and you have a bunch of initiators on your lineup.
There's the PKB for the out. The puck, Prasma? Is he still going Prasma?
No. So you kind of just have to go with this out PKB.
This better work for Liquid because they don't get some sort of wins out of this
timing. It feels like their next timing is gonna be like 10-15 minutes from now.
Send it. Good initiation to start off. Being able to kill the saved. It'd be nice
if they'd be able to take some more fights off of that but Team Spirit, they're too
disciplined to let that happen. They're just gonna play behind their towers
which they have all of their tier one towers currently. So even in defense they
He's still owned 50% of the map.
We need more of this alt timing right now.
There's just no way around it.
If you can't force the Roche,
you can't really go for another play.
We just left the farming the map.
Jason after the puck here, tofu has been playing around Nisha though this entire time.
Collapse has been so annoying with these Dom creeps. He sent like the last two or three into the liquid ancient camp and just body blocked it every time.
He just keeps going here to farm ancients, or get like a humble to overlord ancient, and there's just a collapse creep sitting there.
He's holding onto an alpha wolf right now because Uhtara was blocking out another camp with his manta illusions.
These guys are saying like even if you feel like you could take teamfights right now, like we're just gonna hold this map
And you're still gonna be the worst for it because we're walking away so many of your valuable camps
Don't kill on the Centaur.
And he used a false promise on a hoodwink there.
Now Nisha comes in and Nisha does have an amp damage. That makes things very different, especially with Micky coming in.
He's stuck behind the tree.
He's got some damage.
Laurel making a runaway with Zampied.
And now here comes the supporting cast, especially with hypnotized on Alchemist, Stalinting, Supple-Lit.
What?
Thane's Grip and the Jirokopter down here with all the damage, picking what they can, but
this Alchemist slept behind.
That was so unlucky for Mickey.
What was that?
He got stuck behind the hoodwink tree from the acorn.
He was effectively clipped for five seconds.
That is crazy unlucky.
Sometimes the fights go your way and sometimes they don't.
And that was one that was just not going to go as liquid as way after-
I want to get stuck here.
Man, you had no quelling.
He basically just got stuck by his own hood waiting for five seconds.
Then he got hypnotized into the wheel, and then you're like, oh, try to get out of this fight.
Nope, you're grip from downtown. You have no false promise to bail you out.
So this half got absolutely nothing done. Didn't even get the pop to PKB.
Just a bit of bad luck that compounded there and Spirit take advantage of it.
There still seems to be an issue though.
I mean, that was, I thought the fight was gonna work really good because they had an amp damage on puck.
But Team Sword is actually so strong and so tanky right now. They even with an amp damage. They didn't really come that close to killing off
Let alone big old collapse
You have two of the top three highest ranked game heroes in the game in the first year at Centaur
And it's gonna do some work for you in this game. That's for sure
And inside of progressions have been slow for Micke as a result
He was trying to build up an AC, doesn't even have one of the components yet.
Ace is finally getting a tower, the first tower of the game for Liquid at 25 minutes.
I feel like there's a win rate chance there that is pretty abysmal.
It does not follow.
Foxy, nice real defensive ward, which in a way is very deep into Liquid where they're gonna try and be farming a lot of this game.
Foxy just walks through that ward easy setup for long and they can do that kind
of setup because Yutoro is untouchable. He's got an Aegis, he is level 19, he has a
Daedalus. He's planning the ringmaster behind him, he has Stampede to bail him out
anyway. Impossible to go on this gyro right now.
Surprised he didn't stick around to finish that tier two. Now he goes back to it.
Felt like there was gonna be some move coming in with him showing heroes bottom
Look would have no intention of trying to fight this gyrocopter right now.
I think he just blocked his own camp and sped it up with a spirit block in your camps, but
gotta pay attention to that timer.
Still three minutes on the clock for this Aegis.
That is a lot of time to continue to take objectives here and just hunt the map with
the Bane plus whoever.
Which right now, that's Bane plus the air spirit.
Spotted the Bane, hit him with the unstable concoction, could not get the Geo-Magnetic
Ribsate takes a little while to get that kill though and teams here and have plenty of chase in fact the wheel
Oh, it almost got it still hits him with a bit of a slow though BKB from Mickey
Oh, that's a nice one. Yeah, you're gonna have to TP
Hey, not the worst exchange you're at least getting some that pressure the puck got another wave
His crash was done. It's flying time
That's what you want right now during this ages period. Just don't want to bleed any bad team fights
Well, you're still gonna bleed a hero. Apparently.
Could maybe ace? Chillin'?
And they keep chasing? I mean, sure they can, right? Nope.
Blinks out ahead of them. The roll is gonna come too late.
Oh, actually, it was just too late.
It was also the ancient prowler, Shaman, hitting him with the Pantrify.
Successful dodge.
Buying more time, trying to even out this leader right now.
But of course, spear, they're just right back to it.
They just keep putting threats on the map, trying to get him on the fiend's grip.
That was close.
Not to be caught by that.
It's really spooky, especially during nighttime, I guess, man.
At a game that it almost feels like, um...
I mean, he's gonna go, Aeon Disc.
Which, between the fiend script and the silence of their spear, they kinda get it, but also feels like...
You're not solving your damage issues, right?
I almost think he has to go something more offensive here.
Yeah, that's- I don't- I don't see you winning fights with Aeon Disc.
Maybe the pages don't see a way to win the fight in the short term, so you're gonna
have to just leave that this game?
Yep, yep, I'll just go 100%.
So I'm not sure I buy that as a pathway to victory in this game.
Three tier twos for the price of one Aegis, you still have a minute left.
Daedalus A level 20, Duc for Yatoro, he is absolutely massive.
And they see FINALLY done for VK.
I'm only timing for this Alchemist if you can TRY and get something going with it.
We'll have an Aegis expire soon.
And finish up that last tier too.
Good poke to high ground here.
Absolutely should. With a minute on Aegis, it feels rather free.
How are they gonna go on you?
Roar?
Coil? Both.
The box save is good enough and they're even...
Smoking up to keep the formation, keep 100% sure Nami is going to be able to get this.
There's the box safe.
Bushwank eventually wears out, they hit him with a Fortune Zang, but it's already too late tomorrow.
You got a Hurricane Pike down to the low ground. That's going to courage on the cooldown.
That's good enough value. You're not really looking to take that plate with the Sages nearing expiration.
You just want to get Liquid back in their base. It's going to help build the gold. They get the lanes in.
first period, or the Bane setting up bottom anyway, kind of looking for that
plex split push, so didn't have everybody there if a true fight broke out.
Gonna give you full map control here, a lot to play off of.
Still night time for 30 seconds.
And you said, didn't say the Clamps is gonna go back for the heart.
He still gets it before 30 minutes, despite having all these other items ahead of it.
Motorsore, Blink Dagger, Helm, the Dominator is the third at most farmed hero,
almost keeping up with an Alchemist. Very impressive.
The early gym picked up for Liquid because in order to raft the map,
they have to make sure the team's hero doesn't have vision of them.
Hard enough to dodge this team, even worse if they have information over you.
They cross map smoke, trying to catch anything and everybody.
The Aon does get delivered for Nisha just in time, and he's gonna need it here.
Just so they went for him.
See if they can get some damage on him, they're still gonna chase after him.
Now Tofus also here, they got him on the beam script, and there is the fullest promise safe, so...
Everybody is away.
It's all free for Spirit though.
Yeah.
That was probably the fastest Aon disc hop I've ever seen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lasted about two seconds.
Yeah, outside of those times where you could assemble it.
have to keep the puck alive though he's your gem carrier right now all of your
promise of some future map control lies with Misha. BKB is almost done for ace
in which case there's another hero that can BKB TP out. It is a strong BKB game for
liquid. There's a lot of magic damage on the side of spirit that you can ignore and
try and just all in the gyro. Gyrocopter does. It's pretty tanky, pretty hard to kill,
tofu rolled in on by the Earth's spirit and the centaur this tanky duo of
theirs they go on in here or they want there is not gonna be a rebuttal
whatsoever from liquid thank for that next version get as much as you can for
that moment and try and turn the game around that objective
I don't know man, it just kind of feels like Team Spirit is going to be ahead for so long
until we get to like, like it literally feels like Liquid have to get like 45, 50 minutes
in where you start giving away Agatom Scepters, you get that kind of advantage, because again,
like now Mikay is going to get a Sheevas.
So he's still going to be very tanky, he's just going to stick on top of the Gyarokopter,
But the Dark Hopter is already going to have Butterfly, and he's going to be well in its
way to Satan.
So you can stick on him all you want, but if you can't hit him, then he also can just
heal back up, does that matter?
This is a good match-up, Brow.
He will have the false promise behind him, guarantees you can go in and just last the
full duration of the fight, to guarantee, basically, second life with the regen going.
Yeah, I guess you get some more of those hits to the attack damage reduction does it does a lot on gyro compter
Never really think about that aspect of corrosive weaponry for me. It's just usually just thought of as a slow. Oh, it's good
It's definitely good here if you can just stick on top of your Toro
This is the guy you want to jump early on in the fight
You need to take the big damage source out and use BKB to ignore the two of their cores for as long as possible
Going on one of these beefy front-liners will likely not work out for you here. I
Think that fight's gonna be too free for spirit
They're grinding it there though. The lead has not grown for some time
The experience is actually swinging back a liquid way, so they're running out more of the map right now
They finish up the sheathless for the Alk. Okay, now let's get caught up
Overwhelming blink still no agonist scepters to be given away, which I can't afford it in this type of game
Yeah, I mean it's fair enough
There is still a ultra late game win condition with this part and you got to keep that in mind if you're scared
Yeah, of course, of course, you have a lot of saves to play with but you don't want this game getting to a point where Nisha has
Full six slots divine axe territory the axe can get pooled things get really weird
Liquid they do not want to give up this Roshan. They will have to contest it
Bane with the Agh-Steam's Grip for this Roshan fight.
There's a shield run on Laurel too, a crucial glance.
He's going to be the one to break Smoke here, trying to get the initiation.
Nisha, very easy phase shift dodge for him.
And trying to get vision.
And away.
Trying to open up the fight for the Alchemist jump.
Yeah, you got an M damage on Nisha.
So if Nisha can hit the backline, we've seen that M damage isn't enough to deal with
Spirit to deal with the Centaur, but it could give you faster kills on these supports if you can find them.
Chemical rage going down, however. You did not find something off this ult, which means you have to back up, reset.
You might have to re-smoke here to engage. If you show on the map, Spirit can just force the Roshan.
You throw him straight back into the pit, recognizes the situation.
Yeah, there's no clockwork. There's no vision mechanics for Liquid.
Unless Nisha feels confident enough to be in range to throw wards into the pit, which
she does now.
Need to stall for another chemical rage, 15 seconds.
It's all stuff and Spirit are going to respect this enough.
What is the 5-Act situation?
They have...
No, that's not the ringmaster.
Now they're going to swap over to the other side.
Is this a fight that Liquid...
They also don't really have 5-Acts.
Yeah, they also don't really have 5-Acts.
You can just abuse it on the outpost.
It's one way to leverage your gold situation.
They only have the v-spanster here to do it the old fashioned way.
Jem spots on the high ground, they got the initiation on low.
Did not hit the bushwack though.
That's a bit of a problem.
Nisha's going after Yatoro.
Takes a little bit of damage because of that amp damage on Nisha.
Doesn't look too bad for Liquid. They still have the amp damage cost to play through here.
At the same time they just can't seem to stop anybody.
They're unwilling to use the coil because there is going to be the box safe.
So there's no real point.
Like, Liquid don't get caught there or anything,
but they also aren't in a position to actually win the fight,
which I think requires you to hit the supports.
Meanwhile, Team Spirit, as long as you just maintain that formation
just like you did in Game 1.
Need a nice angle here, if you're Liquid.
Maybe dangle this puck on the front lines,
get one of the big meat shields to fight,
and then have a surprise second point of attack.
That would be ideal here.
Pretty hard to get that defensively, that's the issue of...
Spirit just going to you, all you're going to see is the Earth Spirit at the Centaur.
You're not going to see this back line. That's a big old wave.
That's a lot of gold, yeah. Pretty nice.
A lot of farm from that one.
Thoughts on... oh, so we talked about this a number of times.
Overwhelming blink versus Swift Blink. Alchemist. I like the Swift Blink.
Just depends what style of Alch you're trying to go for.
You're trying to be tankier or trying to deal more damage.
Liquid's definitely stalling this game up right now.
And Nisha is playing it just right where he's playing in their face, but not quite getting caught.
As soon as he gets caught and then the false promise is forced to be used,
then that might give Team Spirit enough an opening that they either can push forward and take the teamfight
or just force the road shot and, you know, make Liquid try and take that fight into it to dance right now.
You have to play on the front line with the puck, you have to try and bait a little over
committal from Spirit that your team gets the right opening without dying in the process.
I'm kind of surprised that Spirit are hesitant here.
They didn't just run into Liquid, they didn't force the Roshan.
They're kind of stuck between the two options right now.
This Steel Knight might last long enough that Roshan goes back top, which is better for them,
which is kind of crazy.
Maybe you're just waiting for Satanic on your Toro.
He did go to BKB first, which actually surprised me, so I thought he would have just gone
straight to Satanic and maybe even skipped BKB because you have so many saves behind
you.
But now he has both, so he's an absolute monster.
Why not get everything?
4,000 HP on this gyrocopter with the pendulum
That's a lot of time to play with and a lot of HP that could do a lot more confidence to force the Roshan
They're still not just doing it though again
They are respecting the hell out of liquid right now
In a situation from much respect, and it is yeah, I think so basically five minutes that we've been waiting
For these teams to take this Roshan engagement. And yeah, okay the orb is right on top of Roshan team spirit still heading it
So, Yatoro has kinda made the call, even still, they're gonna okay, go up to the high ground here.
Yatoro really wants him to go on it.
And Nisha will have a poke here, but of course, it's chemical rage.
And they manage to hit him with a push back there, got the S.A.L.P out, they go for the burst, they got down to F.H.P.
And there's nothing to stop this F.E.A.N.S. grip!
The whole poor Oracle's just got gone on, Mickey took so much damage here, he's making a BKB chemical rage run away, maybe he actually gets out here.
So despite the full Ag's fiend script going up, got the silencer on the puck, now the puck is going to die.
And one more, another team spirit will get that core opening kill that they need to 100% secure the Roshan.
The fight got split so early on, that's the power-fighting Oracle at the start.
You get that free grip, and that counter's completely out of play, so much his own control between Senthar running in,
running in, Shiva's Urspirit, the real gop dropped right on the stairwell. That
bite just looked impossible to run into. Your alt gets out alive, and it shows how
tanky he is in this game. But both teams are just looking straight for the
support throws. It's a nice coil. There's a decent amount of damage coming out from
Nisha, but he can't stand there alone. The whole team's just getting zoned. I just
can't believe they've win for that gyrocopter. I was surprised he got caught here. He
We almost had another old stage shift.
Caster introduction on the Enfeeble. Doesn't help them at all.
And now Team Spirit, it's been a bit of a stall, but they're in a position to just end the game.
This game could be over in the next five minutes.
You've got a Charcopter hitting high ground with an extra life.
Satanic backup, the full.
There's no tier two, so they can just continue to occupy this base.
to force liquid it to take another scene fight do you have that nullifier on the
Beastmaster for nullifier or helps you deal with some of the saves here and
there's an axe for the Alak it's gonna pull it to the puck, Nisha doing a lot
more damage now Dreamcoyle is a big threat he got the Conjures Cattles as well
they do not have a boxade for you Toro here the chain up all the stunts are
trying to get him inside the cart they still buy out the jarcopter he's
And that's the Aegis! If you can't even kill the Aegis, then a longer fight, well, it's the only way Liquid can win at this point in time, trying to hit the bushwack.
Only got collapsed, another no-fire place in the aetorium, just hurricane pikes, down to low ground.
Got a fun save here.
Got a fun save here.
Gautchen bounced back onto making off a low to Sorb. He needs a bit of health, they still have a false promise.
Any hero gets too low, Laurel gets in the kickout onto the hoodway.
All they need is little pickoffs here, eventually Liquid will run out of steam, and they could take a second lane of Barrick.
Second lane of barracks, McRotide's gonna push back the course, no chemical rage up.
Misha!
Misha dead!
No A on disc, no bailout.
Still an Aegis on this Gyro, they got nothing there.
And now it's a level 25 Gyrocopter.
But poked at 7000 damage, it killed nothing.
Yep.
The power of the sustain in this lineup.
Just too many tanky heroes.
Now, what must stand at a 4 versus 6 box he's going to buy out for it?
Again, who do you go on?
Going on the gyro is just not the ticket.
At this point, your only hope is to sneak up the side, all the way up the top part of
the map.
It breaks, but it runs in.
Sheevan spots the supports.
They're going for him now, but the GM Magnetic Grip, Laurel is there to save the game.
That's a fiend's grip.
Turn around on Mckay.
The Jarocopter will go make his way to the Alchemist, who's still gonna try and hunt down this Vayne,
even with the beanscript. Use another save from Laurel. He keeps it up, a pushback onto the Urspher.
He's gonna get a little bit lower here, off the stop. There goes the tieback on him.
Mikkei, lower and lower. His capital rage is running out soon. Same goes for this BKV.
He's not gonna have any way out of this one. He's deep in enemy kit territory. All they have is his
false promise. He's making a run for it. Gotta get back to the fountain. 12 seconds until the puck is back up.
They stalled the push, they just...
I just stalled a minute on the Aegis.
They only stalled it so much though, Gapday.
Yatars is gonna run right back into it here.
Secure Megas.
The puck is back, they had the glyph.
Now they're gripping 22.
Just waiting for these shoulda going deep.
Kevlar, Agent 4, 3.
Building, gonna drop before they can even make the initiation here.
Liquid's playing against Megas for their life.
Don't even find anything on the return.
You need divine rapier, I'll just fuck I.
There's like no other way to create a threat on the back line,
because no one else can join Nisha there.
He's landing some great coils on the supports,
but nobody's able to follow it up.
So either has to have enough damage that he can do it himself,
or somehow Liquid find an insane angle to get the Beastmaster
or the Alchemist in there with him.
And this Alchemist taint me though.
Like, god damn, Nisha just sits in the middle of the whole team.
Couldn't care less.
He is but he's not hitting particularly hard. No, he doesn't do any damage. He's getting a feeble too. That doesn't help
And collapsed
He's a wet noodle
Collapses a 5000 HP centaur right see these hits from from the they hurt the alchemist, right?
Well put a crimson guard on that
I think your hits stop doing anything this damage block that collapsed with the late crimson guard
Is gonna completely neutralize
They might not wait for this next Roshan.
Your Aegis is about to expire, but you can absolutely just send it here.
A grid will be out. Okay, force of thought, pulse promise.
I don't think you might not trade any more of your spirit.
Yeah, absolutely. Especially with Laurel.
Seeing that position, you get the supports rolling straight to him with the Shivas.
Miike's gonna go back. Nami actually got pretty far forward here.
They have the coil on him. Miike, he has to finish off this support
and then reset back to the fountain. He can't even get the kill on the support.
And they're taking out to the magnetized now. First it takes almost bossy as well.
Nikkei dies right in front of his own fountain and he has no play back here.
Liquid, they don't have anything left in the tank. They may have survived against Extreme Gaming,
but Team Spirit is just another beast.
In a game three on elimination, Team Spirit, they lock it down with their dry core of just
mass HP heroes.
And they are gonna go to the playoffs. Team Liquid will be eliminated and Team Spirit
We'll move on.
That's one of those series that can definitely
easily go out of the way in that game three.
But here they showed up.
They gave them the piece faster.
They had a plan for it with this gyro compter.
And to me, that's really what determined this game.
There was no tempo coming off that liquid off lane.
It gets completely shut down.
And then it's gyro who gets to take that network,
join some of the top fights, join the fights in the mid game,
and just power through some of these objectives.
Like, they park your total in the road,
but they park on a corner.
How are you contesting?
Yeah, out you go, they're starting to swing it.
and not died, but no one's dealing damage in this game.
And I think this is a parking issue for Puck in this corner,
is why he's win rate so low.
You end up in these situations where you can't get to his timing
because his timing has been shifted later and later and later
as the hero's nerfed.
It's like, if you're just waiting, and it's up when I need Divine Rape here,
and he never gets to Divine Rape, because the game just ends.
Sick Gyrocopter picks sick performance from a hero we don't
get to see a lot, but was really set up for success this game
with all the saves behind him.
And you know Yatoro loves playing this hero,
because you can just get uber fat off the flak cannon, so very cool draft from here in this game,
so you're gonna be a force to reckon with in that playoffs.
Get fat, he did a 36,000 net worth on the JaraCopter, 10k up on anybody else in the game.
He was ahead of the out the entirety.
Yep, that is how fast he was farming.
And that is a good position to be in.
Six support performance from Spirit.
Like to me, if I have to get an MVP in this series, I'm giving it to the support duo.
They knocked me in the room.
I think they performed well all three games.
Even in the game 2 they lost, they were still making huge plays across the board there.
They played a wide variety of heroes.
The spell cast team is immaculate from this duo.
The way they skirmish is pristine.
They're constantly baiting people in, constantly surviving on that low HP.
And honestly, this might be one of the scariest ringmaster teams in the tournament.
I put them in thousands up there.
You need to respect what this hero does.
Because it changes the paradigm of the fights.
You can't play these like I have a war and we're gonna play off the war it goes out the window
Yeah, and you so I think some respect has to be put on this clown right now
You know we're in the middle of clown ball. It's a clown event
He's got the Red Nose Hawking like you gotta understand that foul made this event about the serial for a reason because he's probably
Those broken the game and they don't know you gotta show some respect
All right. Well, they say the supports perform wonderfully for team spirit. Let's talk to one of them on the stage now
Thank you so much guys, great cast, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Team
Spirits, not me!
Give congratulations!
How are you feeling winning on the big stage?
Fine.
I'm sorry, we have a fantastic translator as well, so glad that you're feeling fine,
but...
I like fans.
You like the fans!
You like the fans!
That's real, my friend!
There we go, there we go.
So, first question for you. Absolutely incredible series. A lot of people did not have what it takes to be liquid. It seemed like you solved it.
Instead of letting them get to the late game, very aggressive in that early game. A lot of pressure. Was that on purpose or was that just what happened with the draft?
We have good drafts, because we post a join.
Yes, yes, good drafts.
And with the game, we're playing super good into the team.
I think they play a bit passive, but they play too good.
Great game, they did play good. You did play better though.
I have to say, in fact, I don't know if you know this, you have the record
for the most assists at this event right now.
43 assists on Rubik. We're pretty good.
Now, how are you always in this fight? In these fights?
Because Team Spirit is an extremely aggressive team.
You seem to just always be there.
I think I have record with assist.
It's all about crazy game versus mouse.
You're playing like bots.
Oh, now you can't say mouse or play like bots? That's not cool.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, okay, you guys are playing like bot, and that's very respectable, then.
What a nice man, aren't they?
Fantastic.
I gotta ask you, though, about your next series.
You're up against Yandex, and I've got some bad news.
These boys have not beaten this team in five months.
Now, I know you are a new addition.
You might be the extra.
Are you gonna make that difference?
What is the plan going in against Yandex?
Uh, I think we punished them.
You punished them?
Do you know as much about the index as you do about liquid or do you need to study now?
I don't know about liquid.
Tell us please, are you ready or do you need to analyze and study their game?
What do you need to do for preparation?
Miposhka needs some analysis of this team, like every team.
Absolutely.
Analyst, good draft and we can go easy.
That's a true team spirit player answer.
I don't care, that's up to the coach and the analyst.
I'm just there to kick some ass, right?
I'm the best player in your team, so you could say, I'm here to fight for one place.
out team liquids key you have eliminated ladies and gentlemen let's go to the
crusher baby it's time to crush them down please follow me and after you you
guys of the MVPs take a walk
Activate the Crusher!
Yeah baby!
Alright don't walk into it this is very up to go
Yes, yes, now I must ask, who would like to crush Team Liquid?
Not me, not you, not you, you then. Alright, not me!
To the Keymaster, please. Gather around, gentlemen, gather around!
There is Team Liquid, their heart and soul and representation, and your newest member.
Well now, crush them! Go, yes!
The key is in danger!
The team Liquid fans!
Liquid's coming out of their eyes!
Let's go!
Crush it, baby!
Woo!
There it is!
Shards!
Bring it back, not me.
There you go.
Now we need to inspect this key master.
Come and inspect the key.
Has it been adequately destroyed?
We will see soon.
Okay.
Do you accept this, not me?
Take a look.
Is it crushing up for you?
Yes, baby! There it is!
Team Liquid is gone!
Your champions from last year, Team Spirit, continue!
And we will continue right back after the bam.
Thank you very much.
What a crushing it was as well in the series.
We said that if Team Liquid is not able to get a foot in the door in that landing stage,
If Team Spirit is able to get ahead, it's going to be very difficult for Liquid to make a comeback.
And we saw exactly that in action, Sev. It was not possible.
No, I think it was so well executed by Spirit.
Like, they got ahead in the lanes as they should have, and they never really let their foot off the gas pedal.
Like, Yatoro played a pretty much perfect gyro game.
I think we got to see also the synergy in their lineup, as mentioned by the casters,
like the Stringmaster save, the Centaur cart, eventually Yatoro.
I think this is where he really shines, when he's buffed by his team also, where he's allowed to just be as aggressive as he likes by nature, like by the items, get the damage on, and he plays really well off the limits.
You give him an ability to be more aggressive, he's going to use that. He's not your typical kind of carry, I think he really has a good understanding of the bigger picture, you know, the full lineup, how he comes together.
And this was like a classic Gator performance, like he's unstoppable, I think, when he's set up like this.
like this. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it seems like all they have to do when they get on stage is
click some buttons because Miposhka, he's doing all the analytical stuff with the coach as well.
And yeah, look at that. Look at production trying to hide his heroes that he could play it again.
If there is like a trace of this, that he played gyro, we're not going to see it again. So he's
like, he didn't. He just he played a hero. Yeah, he played gyro. Now it's gone. Like he can't play
the gyro and more. That's why they're not showing the hero because he needs to find a new one.
And we did also see Lara never dying on the Earth spirit overall.
I feel like every player of Team Spirit really showed off that they're on top and that they
are feeling the EWC buff that Collapse talked about at the very start of this event.
It felt like we did see a little bit throughout the entire series that Spirit was just a step
ahead in the game play as well.
Yeah, they were.
He's actually ahead in like laning matchups as well if you look at this Bane plus Centaur
Bailug did the amazing level where Centaur was picking up two points in double edge just to make sure to run them down
a lot of body block and happening in the lane and also his itemization
I think we need to point it out he's not tunnel visioning the new build on a Centaur
instead he is picking up pipes straight away after the Domair, getting the blink dagger
not allowing the enemy team to get any kind of map at the moment to making sure that they're going to be able to close out
the initiation going and also be the body for his gyrocopter to be able to deal the damage.
If you think about like two very strong, like very high strength gain heroes, that's Erzbryd,
that's Centaur, who can provide a vision for your flak cannon to go off. And since the
Silver were pretty much seeing this item in every single game, which also does benefit
gyrocopter a lot in a way, because you see the target for like eight seconds and the flak cannon
always gonna connect. Yeah it was it was very well orchestrated by Memoforska
the draft coming out from a team spirit and you heard our commentary team
already praised the support duo from team spirit. We did of course choose an
MVP between those two and it was very close battle but we have to go for not
me it is so difficult to believe that this is only his fourth tier one event
Ever with the first one being years back on a different team as well
And he's like not missing a beat playing on the big stage and not able like being able to
Just showcase your best performance. It is so promising set. Yeah, I think I mean his dream master was amazing
He's dark willow in this game was also
Like very personal. I think he's really making a name for himself like in these big events
Obviously, he's known already by a lot of players, he's a very high MR, he's been around for a while in top lanes.
Anyway, also why he was picked up by Team Spirit.
But when you're put back against the wall and you have to perform against the best in the world when the stakes are at the highest, this is when it really counts.
And he really showed off today. I don't want to say he's making Ringmaster look really good because the hero looks really good by itself, but he's making it look imba.
It's just too much, like, laning presence, he's dealing with summon heroes now also,
like the saves, the teamfight control, the damage is also a lot of damage this hero is
dishing out.
The way he's positioned all these Wheel of Wonders, it's just nice, like, you can see
that, well, first of all, he changed some Superfection, and he has a really good understanding
of how the fight is going to develop, where do they want to run, like, which angle they
want to take, and he's always closing that path for the enemy team.
It's just really nice.
He's very good at crushing keys as well.
Like he's split it in pretty much pieces.
Like four pieces?
Yeah, we haven't seen it. This is the first time we saw it.
Yeah, the man has a very strong head indeed,
and the very strong hand when he plays that ringmaster.
I've been very impressed by him.
There's also a reason why Team Spirit decided to pick him up.
You never doubt once Team Spirit decided to pick a new player.
This is not like, oh, we got some random guy.
Yeah, sure, you might not be familiar with him,
but the same thing happened with Lauren.
The same thing did happen with Tru.
and it's happening again with NotMe.
Yeah, they're seemingly like the best organization to be able to scout talent.
They're so good at that and it's almost every time it's a hit.
For Team Liquid, of course, today was not a hit.
They exit stage at bottom 8-12, which it does not grant any club championships point.
And for the team, it's definitely going to be a disappointment.
For some final words on the team, we're heading over to Nisha.
Hello, I'm here with Nisha of Team Liquid. She got knocked out of the tournament, wanted
to check in with you and see how you're feeling right now.
It feels bad, disappointed, mad, angry.
What are you frustrated with? What are you mad about right now?
I think that's the game mostly. I think it was kind of a fey when we just got fucked.
I think the runes were a joke. I think we didn't get one run with Oracle.
Yeah, I mean every fight around runes was just...
We were getting run up. I think a little miscommunication as well.
We said we would dodge at some point and then we still showed up.
We didn't manage to dodge them and we just kind of kept fighting.
and no trades, I don't know.
What's it like playing a game like that when the early game doesn't go as you want?
I mean, they had two saves, right? They had Ringmaster, they got Bane.
They got tons of lockdown if you make a mistake. What's it like in that game scenario?
I think it's fine. You can still play map forever.
The rush contest kind of dragged on. I think it was good for us at some point,
but they finished satanic and then we just took a really bad fight.
So, yeah, that's not good.
That's tough. Definitely, under what you expected, I think,
probably going into the tournament, but we've got more tournaments coming up soon,
of course. So you've got that part to look forward to, at least.
What are you guys going to do until then?
I feel like there's like, can they break maybe?
Or there's like four days at home, if I don't live early.
And then we bootcamp for TI and that's gonna be so hype.
Yeah, it will be nice. Lots of games to play, lots of things to learn.
Are you gonna watch the rest of the tournament or are you just kind of like brain off when it's over?
No, I like watching Dota. I'll watch.
Okay, that sounds good. Well, we'll keep tuning into the rest of the matches as well, Nisha.
Thank you for joining me and sorry that you guys lost.
The frustration was very noticeable there indeed by Nisha.
by Nisha, disappointing to see the team exit this early, but that's the reality of elimination series.
It's a survival stage for a reason. It does mean the team spirit is qualified for the playoffs.
We also see that we have a couple more slots yet to fill and we can take a look at what our schedule
For today is a series one is done and dusted and BB team and LGD gaming are waiting in the wings to take on the challenge on stage.
And I feel like Lacoste, this is just a little bit of tip of the iceberg of the type of Dota we're going to see and the type of heartbreak we're going to see.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for BB team, they've been on top.
This is also a team that throughout their careers, they've been disappointed.
quite a lot of times getting very close, but they managed to kind of overcome what needed
to be done to make sure that they can win tournaments. For LGD Gaming, they're still, you know, they're
still relatively like new players as well. They have like a young squad on top of that, like the
speech that they gave back when they were heroic at the previous DEI. You know that this team is
very passionate about Dota, and I think this is going to be another banger series.
Well, we're gonna dive into it very soon. Before we get to that second series of the day,
we are gonna see what kind of confessions Sansfan has for us.
Comically engineered for you, gamers, hybrid workers, artists, and in your every move.
Welcome to SonsFans Confessions. I'm curious how this is going to go after my last one,
but we'll soon find out. Let's delve into it straight off the bat.
What is this Jeremy Kahn situation I've heard about?
Ah, oh man, I'm at the shit on Valve now.
So I had a custom game in Dota.
I'm also here, don't worry.
I think I'd say Poshelblad.
Custom game in Dota where we would make these custom heroes
and I would design them
and we would sometimes make a model for them, animations,
put them in a game, people would play with them.
And one of them had, let's just say,
a very similar skill set to a hero
that came out about six months later.
Uh, the lore behind him, Jeremy Cunso, acts, his real name is Mogul Khan.
Okay.
Okay.
And the lore that I made was that he left his tribe and left his little brother behind
and he wanted him to fend for himself because he, okay, he chained himself.
So he named him Jeremy so everybody would make fun of him.
Right.
You would build this thick skin.
Okay.
Uh, suffice to say, uh, he was kind of a disaster of a hero, but overall it was very much like
the hero that is Mars in the game.
Tony. Very similar. Very, very, very, very similar somewhat.
Very similar. Okay.
Do you regret the Facebook Digital Chaos announcement post?
Yes. So...
Do you feel how the history of this went?
A little bit.
So, in... God, when was that?
When we created Digital Chaos, I was having a little bit of a fight with the other YouTube
guy that I was partnered with. And I wanted it to start right away to put this without
shitting on people.
This has what the segment is for.
I put my name on the video saying this is like all my history. Sunsand did this, Sunsand
did that because I wanted to separate from the other guy. I had maybe a bit of an ego
back then and it did not come off well at all. Yeah, definitely regret it.
These things happen.
It happens. You live and learn.
These things do happen.
Do you feel like a mole? Did you know about the other?
Yes, I would say it grounded me.
It grounded. I now don't give a shit.
Excellent. In a good way.
Some would say I would.
I would agree. It's a good one.
What is the next fails of the week?
And where is Reeves?
So fails of the week is dead because of Sir Action Slacks,
because he came on and just ruin the show.
Everybody hated him, of course, as they do now.
No, he gets hired to every single gig known to man.
Incredible. Reeves.
That is one I won't touch because if I were to explain the situation, it would be disparaging
people and I'm not, other than slacks, I can disparage because we're good friends, of course.
So for this one, I would say creative differences that I've had. I've actually learned a lot about
myself because I've worked on a lot of projects since then and I've learned that there's a certain
type of individual that I just don't mesh with, internal guysness. I'm not going to get into the
the details of what that is, because that's where the disparaging comments come from. But
I've learned if somebody is like that, then we're just not going to work well together.
So I just avoid it now. Okay. We'll blame slacks for that one. Yep. That's of course.
Where is the sun's nugget much? Merch. The sun's nugget much. I wore it. So the sun's
nugget is from fails of the week is when slacks was on. And I forget exactly how we
We used to have like this, you know, fails the week would be montages of fails and then
there would be one small one that's like super quick, like a three second one that didn't
really qualify as a regular fail.
And he named it a sun's nugget for whatever reason.
And I have a shirt that is a chicken nugget with my face on it.
I'd buy it.
And I actually wore it the other day.
So it's the only one that's ever been made.
I didn't pay attention to what you were wearing in Nakas.
I'm sorry about that.
If you had told me ahead of time, I could have worn it today.
I didn't know until about 20 minutes ago.
So here we go.
Maybe something like that now.
It's I have a lot of drama.
That is fine.
We would we're getting to it.
Tell us about your voice line
bit issues and the silence attack.
Oh, my.
This is very recent.
I hear so I.
So, Val, whenever you get invited to T.I.
you get to put voice lines in the game,
but you have to send them for approval.
Oh, yes. I've heard about this.
And I would send Belch dot MP3.
There's just me belching into the microphone
I was like, this would make me a million dollars.
This would be the best voice line in the game.
I thought they denied it.
So I'm like, okay.
So I put something else in.
Uh, and then the next year I try again, I try three years in a row
and then a valve employee comes up to me.
It's like, nobody finds this funny.
Please stop sending it.
What do you think I did, Chris?
You kept sending it.
I send it again and then they punished me by not putting a, I had like two
voice lines instead of three one year.
So I'm like, ah, shit.
That's unfortunate.
so I'm a good boy now. Okay, that's probably for the best. I belch in private.
Ammox friends. The final question, what exactly were you warning us about?
And that is going to be the end of the interview. Thank you very much, everybody. That was of
Of course, Sun's fans confessions.
That's good.
Dota 2 at the eSports World Cup continues here in Paris on survival day two.
And we have the second half of the day to go through still so more eliminations on the line and
I'm here with Lacoste and Seb and of course we're here on one stage and there's another stage
To my right as well and there's a lot of action happening there as well
so I want to take a quick look of what's been happening there as well because
room eaters versus Aurora I think
Lacoste we had certain expectations coming into this
We certainly did, but also it's not really a surprise I would say considering how well
they played in round 1, they eliminated Virtus.pro yesterday and against Aurora Gaming 2-0, it
would not be on a lot of people's bingo squad, but if you look at the staffing coach behind
them, they have a lot of well-known names.
They have a TI winner as well, they have Artstyle, they have Mag who has IQ same as Einstein.
This is not even the joke, people love to troll a lot, they love to spread false information
on stream the most of the time. But this is not it. And they had very good drafts, I gotta
say, and also the fact that their position 5, I keep kind of on that game with Lich.
And this was not a support Lich. This was Lich with the Boingchart Agaton Scepter. So
it kind of played off his own. This is the pop style of Dota that you see. And he made
it work in professional scene.
Yeah, they looked very strong. It was a 2-0 against a team that, yeah, I did not expect
That's happened. For sure, we're very excited to see how they move forward here, of course,
making it to the playoffs tomorrow.
Now, we're going to focus our attention on another series that also will mean
that one of these two teams will make it to playoffs because we are going to have VB Team versus LGD.
And both of these teams are looking pretty scary, I think, Zed.
Yeah, I think this one is a really tough one. Honestly, I was trying to think,
which one do I favor, or what do I expect from the series?
I don't think I have a valid opinion on it, I don't really know which team is favored in a sense.
I think their playstyle is hard to also know how to interact.
On one side you have the PV team, they're very structured, very established.
They know exactly how they want to play, what they want to draft, and they do it really well.
I just wonder, LGD always bring this arc of craziness in these games.
Whether it's through drafting or the way they want their strategy to function,
is BB Team adaptable enough to deal with this?
If they are, then I think I would give them the upper hand in terms of just pure execution
and how clean they're able to play.
A little bit like Spirit vs Liquid that we just saw.
I think they're the more patient and disciplined team in that sense.
But if not, and if LGD forced them onto their game, this is when it could be troublesome.
We've seen them being able to force people into fights.
Focusing on our tension first on BB Team, this is a team that we are having high expectations
of.
They came top four previous TI as well.
We know they can do it when it matters and it certainly matters today.
Let's find out how Miero is feeling before this one.
Hello I'm here with Miero of BB Team.
You guys are looking great coming into this tournament and once you got here you had a
great group stage so I was curious how you're feeling as a whole.
I think we did a pretty good job.
So we are adapting during this tournament.
We played a lot of Clone Wars,
we played a lot of Dota discussing about it,
and we were confident, I guess.
Have you felt that much strategy change
from before the tournament until now?
Have you been like,
you said you've been learning a lot,
just like meta stuff or what?
Yeah, we kind of changed our drafts.
I think we just add some of the heroes
And that helped us to do really good.
That's great.
I'm happy to hear that.
You guys had two days off in a row.
We had the one off day.
And then yesterday, you didn't play because you seated pretty
darn well.
So what have you guys been spending the time?
We just played Dota.
We also got some interactive games.
So like we played tennis.
And we was watching football a little bit, so yeah.
A nice mix is important.
Do you like having off-time during a tournament?
I know some players have said they're like hungry to play the next match.
Does that affect you at all or is the balance good?
In our team, we're always hungry.
We can play every game for one day.
We can play, like, yeah.
We don't like the offs.
Okay, understandable.
Totally get it.
What did you get from watching LGD's games yesterday?
I assume you watched their matches.
Did you feel like you figured stuff out?
or are you just kind of focused on draft things?
We're going to focus on our drafts, of course,
but we won't get the revenge from the previous tournament.
So, has the whole confidence level is high?
Probably so, yeah.
Okay, that sounds great. Well, good luck in your upcoming match.
Thank you for joining me.
Yeah, and the previous tournament that Miero is referring to
is the Blast where LGD,
they faced each other twice, LGDB team,
and LGD won both times, including they're in the lower bracket finals, allowing BB team to be third,
whereas LGD went on to be in the finals, where they came second.
But a little bit of revenge, there is an order focusing our attention on LGD.
This is a team that yesterday had good showing against Maus.
They were also able to bring a game back where they did have a little bit of a rough start.
We're going to hear a little bit about how they feel going into this.
Maybe there is revenge online for them as well as ringing from KJ.
Hey there, I'm here with KJ of LGD Gaming. Yesterday you guys 2-0ed Maus. You crushed their key, how are you feeling after that win?
I'm feeling good. I think before we were having some problems and now we finally came and started Woods Noble.
I think that victory is very important for our team.
Well, it's interesting you brought up the problems because I talked to Whisper yesterday at the start of the day.
He mentioned you guys had a lot of strong personalities in the team. You spent a lot of time working on that.
that. Have you guys made some ground since then? All you need is a good win once
in a while, right? And then everything's fixed in the team. That's how it works.
I mean, everything is fixed now, but I feel like we just need to have our
heads in the right place, right? When things are not working, everyone wants to
win, everyone wants to bring solutions, and that doesn't always come in the most
friendly way. But now that we're finally there, I hope we start a good snowball.
I feel like everyone's in a good place mentally. What's it like to be on a team
where, well I'll just say it simply, let's say there's drama on a team, how does it affect
your guys' gameplay typically in most Dota teams, is that you just play worse, like communicate
less, like how does it...
I think in our team, so if I'm going to talk about us, like in official it doesn't really
affect us, like we're going to go and give everything, but I feel like in the day to
day it's where it gets a little bit annoying because you get tired of...
You're around them all day, right?
Yeah, so like in official it's like okay guys, all drama behind, let's cut them, but
Like in daily basis like
It's like you got to listen there stupid jokes at lunch and like they get in your way sometimes and
Just like interpersonal things like real life stuff. That's it's hard to get past that in real life, but in Dota
You're just playing Dota, right? Yes like that. Okay. Gotcha. Good to hear
Yesterday you guys played super fast against mouse
We talked a little bit about the game before we started recording you felt a little sloppy about it
Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
No, it was just a second game. I feel like we were trying to outplay them too much instead of winning in the
Instead of doing what our draft asked for
I think that this also can be good that we got a win out of this so we can discuss it in a more chill way and then
Bring a good the game playing for today. I see what I felt the oppression watching game to you guys were just like jumping in
Poking them running back jumping and poking them against stabbing them with knives until they slowly died
I felt the pressure though, so I mean maybe it wasn't as clean as you wanted
But from your perspective is a great show so that that part was really cool
If you're upcoming match, how are you feeling as a whole you guys feeling confident?
I'm feeling good. I feel like against this team. I always like to play against them
I feel like me and you more well is have a good lane when you play against them and
Just knowing that the game is probably gonna start in a nice place
It makes me confident and the last time it faced them we beat them
I feel like it was basically a 3-0 because we throw one of the games we throw the second game
So, yeah, I'm ready.
That's great. Happy to hear that.
Well, thank you for joining me for the interview, and good luck in your match.
Oh, OK for the fans.
Very much confidence coming up from KJ before his series against a BB team.
And to be honest, that confidence, I want to touch up on that,
because it seems like maybe the team was lacking a little bit of that confidence
during the group stages.
The one we won mid, the Thai long play definitely brought his confidence back.
And I can only imagine, Seb, that that series that we saw yesterday
would have also been a good boost to their confidence.
100%. I think they seem to be feeling good.
And honestly, it's not a small thing to feel like you're going to go into save and Miero
and you're going to have a good lane no matter what.
I'm sure they're going to have something to say about that.
So I hope this goes as planned, because these are considered,
in my book, they're very strong laners.
But maybe the LG savings is even stronger.
Confidence is always good. I think it's very much required, especially for the group that
he has, you know, Tylong, Whisper, I mean, Whisper is not as young anymore, but he's
a pretty young and I think he's never going to be the kind of guy to really push himself
in the forefront and play the confidence role.
So it's good if they can have teammates around them that feel confident, will say it for
them, will bring the vibe up, you know, so that they can feel comfortable at ease with
what they have to work with and deliver the performance that everybody expects.
Yeah, I was a little surprised yesterday when we heard Whisper say that they had some internal
issues as well which kind of came as a surprise because this team seemed to be having a really
good vibes whenever they play like in-game you can't really feel it sure there might be losing
some games but also a squad that has been recently formed slash reformed so they definitely have
some things to work on but seems like they got it on the same level that they at least in Dota
once they get into Dota seem to be having no issues whatsoever and they definitely show that
in the game play yesterday.
They really did.
We also heard Perge mention that he found
that LGD played fast yesterday against Maus,
which they did, but we also know that BB Team
is considered the fastest team.
So how is this matchup so far this year
going the way of LGD?
Are they faster than BB Team?
I wouldn't say so.
They showed some speed yesterday
because they played against Maus.
I think you need to be able to match this
because this team is just straight up crazy
when it comes down to the way they played Dota.
And they also saw, I mean, they showed some of the weaknesses as well in that second game where they weren't able to match the aggression.
So against the super speedy team, but, you know, if we compare BB team to Maus,
BB team definitely like more strategic oriented, more like secure in what they're doing and they seem more stable.
So I think this matchup is going to be very, very hard for them.
I'd say that BB team maybe is faster in terms of like, they aim to be faster,
that make sense? It starts with the draft and how they select heroes, how they put their
lanes together. They will carry craft things that work and work early in the game and set
them up in a favorable position. Whereas maybe they don't do this as much. I think they're
going to go for comfort heroes and what they think is good for the game and whatnot. But
as soon as you give whatever you give them in terms of Tota, they will make it fast because
they're aggressive by nature in the way they play. They're always looking for openings,
plays for actually winning the lane. You have teams that go to lanes and they're like, you know,
I can't think of Whisper being like, I'm going to jungle anyway. You know, it's like, he's not
that kind of guy. Like he's coming for your CS. He's coming for the denies. He will fight you on
it. And I mean, you really have to put up something in front of him if you want him to jungle. You
know, you have to force him there. Well, with that in mind, we heard from KJ that him and Yumo
always have a good lane against Miro and save, which is tough. But hey, if you have that confidence,
great whisper not gonna back down from from an other lane either so he's
probably gonna do okay and then there's only one lane left that then I would
imagine maybe BB has the upper hand yeah that guy is also not gonna back down
like this is Ty Long I mean you are playing against some crazy mid laners
in this tournament some of the like world-class mid laners especially GPK
like this guy has been known to dominate most of the matchups that he's playing
against in Ty Long he's gonna need to step it up he showed the really good
performances but when it comes down to stability maybe if we you know go back a
couple of years when GPK when he was a bit of a hit or miss until he became like
one of the strongest midlaners in the world is we'll have to see if Tai Long
is gonna be you know feeling the crowd feeling the maybe some nerves on the
stage because definitely so far he didn't show it but we are at the
elimination stage so those things might kick in. Yeah they just might. Is the
mid lane where BB team is going to get their advantage then in that case because can they
abuse the fact that maybe Tylong doesn't have that.
I wouldn't count him out. Do you honestly think so far he's always delivered, always
even in unfavorable situations. This is as hard as it gets for him like you know in terms
of like being tested. But I would definitely not count him out. He's going to show up.
I mean at least there are no signs of him not showing up so far. So it would be unfair
to him to say he wouldn't. Okay, I was very distracted by what was happening in the background.
There was some dancing happening and that is because of Forest. We can't get a match yet
without the players and for the players we're heading over to the stage.
Thank you so much Hever. Yes, what an incredible first series. You guys have a good time so far.
There's the Dota fans. I've heard so many games across here. We got Apex, League, ain't nobody yelling like that. Dota boys, baby. We out here. We out here, Milo.
Absolutely. It has to come all the way deep inside your body and I feel when you're at this age of Dota players, you know how to scream louder than anything else.
Your voice gets deeper. It's not this squeaky voice that you get with other games. So I'm very happy about it.
Is this a shot at me? I don't understand. No, we're both old. My voice did not get deeper and I'm very old, but no problem
All right last series was super cool. It was team spirit survived team liquid
Finally defeated perhaps we will not have any more long-ass games
Well 95 minutes might be another score to sort of stretch and level of matches
But otherwise might continue in one sense or another but liquid David they're all it was not enough
Unfortunately, you saw the tears the sadness, but hey, they'll be back
Here's my god. I hope they're okay. We got to check out pump on after all of this
But still spirit move on and now we have a game on our hands and this one
I'm very much looking forward to maybe more for your end of the storyline
But let's introduce our teams regardless our first one on stage is be be team
Last year's ZWC 25 quarterfinalists are back in fours, the second place in
groove A. They've reached mini-boss status at this point, but this coming match mixes
the legend building with sweet sweet Riz revenge and we all love how that serve
you can see red in their eyes. The game hasn't even started and they're all
locked in for this game. Can't wait to see how revenge twinkies at the end of
this sort of series.
Absolutely, you can feel the aura coming off these guys.
They walked up, it was the opposite of like a ghost.
It was just heat.
These guys are bringing it hot, heat right now.
I am very excited to see how they do.
However, an equally exciting team for their enemies.
You have seen them grow and play all through the season
and now we will see them at potentially
their hardest challenge yet.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome to the stage, LGD!
LGD!
The South Americans are back, baby.
We have seen this team lose organizations.
We've seen a group of organizations.
And I will be the first to say they are the strongest Chinese team
headed into Shanghai so far.
Ladies and gentlemen, LGD has been just a pleasure to watch.
It's a scrappy team. It's a team fight team.
and they're up against another one that loves that same play style.
So we are in for a bloodbath, baby.
I love being an underdog story.
There's no two ways around it.
LGD have a story that can really push them deeper into the tournament.
BB on their side.
They want to go even deeper.
They want to pass the quarterfinals that they were at last year.
So friends, please, can you take your seats?
Make sure to place your keys in position.
BB team and LGD.
The actual Black and American are here.
That's right.
The keys are placed.
Will we get a handshake?
Serious.
Oh, jeez.
Oh my god, that guy.
One of them just got mocked.
I'm not gonna say who I'm up.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's go on to the over to our desk
and get this party started.
Thank you very much.
BBTB and LGT really on stage
and we saw the handshake between KJ and save,
which is the lane.
And I do, I wanna point it out again.
KJ is like, yeah, you know, me and Yuma always have a good lane against Miero and Saves.
And Miero and Saves, as Sebrae said, they are considered one of the strongest offlaners.
So I wonder how it happens that he is like so confident.
Like, is there just a playstyle different, a hero style different that just works out in the favor of LGD?
Maybe wishful thinking also, maybe it works like that.
I mean, no, I did indeed have better lanes.
Like, it could just be hero matchups because I can assure you a lot of position fives are sweating before laning against Saves.
especially he's really considered as one of the best laning position for in the
scene like he is so surgical with everything he does so I mean what to
see like sometimes it comes down to fast matchups or play style also what they
try to get from the lane very interesting I hope there's no jinxing
involved like it can happen yeah it definitely can't have it like that was
my point I wanted to say this like you're playing against save you're playing
against Arrow. This guy looks so stable. Same as going to be really pushing out the limits
on the hero. Like in a lot of these engagements, you see him surviving on 50 HP, getting the
salve immediately. They continue the aggression. This is what they're known for. This is pretty
much prime 33 plus socks at the time. You know that they're going to be abusing stuff
in the lane. That's going to be the lane that I'm going to be looking at the most because
if you woke me up in the middle of the night and asking which lane you never want to be
playing against, I'll probably choose two of them. So good luck to them.
Yeah, we have, I feel like today maybe we're having a little bit of a support moment because
previous series it was super impactful. We see the Witch Doctor and the Ringmaster really
shining on the stage and I'm curious about how these heroes that we've seen come out
have an impact on the teams that we're about to watch. They're not, for example, take Save.
They're not his traditional hero. He's never been really a Bane or a Ringmaster specialist.
He's a Windranger specialist.
Oh, I and I, Lacoste has something to say about that.
Yeah, say ringmaster and it rings a bell here.
He's up there.
He might be the numero uno here.
I'll give you a wild part, something that we might,
it's not impossible, but we might,
because you know, the second most played hero
for save on position four is actually Lina.
Like, it's back when Lina was a thing,
like a lot of position four were running it.
Trit, you know, save, and he was,
I think he's mastered tier Lina,
like when it's his go-to mid hero,
Like he's an exceptionally good Lina player and I don't know if it's viable on POS4, to be honest, not as close to the Rosina as it used to be.
But if BB Team is going to draft Lina, which I think they could, like GPK, great Lina player, loves the hero, it's not impossible that it's a flex.
I mean, we've seen it flex from mid to carry, so I'm here for the mid to POS4 option.
We're in the draft! We got BB and Radiant, LGD on Dyer and the first pick goes the way of BBT.
We already have their three bands on the board with the Husker, the Puck and the Darkseer,
Chetofin, Doom out for LGD. I can only imagine that something like a Tree and Protector,
Lone Druid, Drawranger, one of those three, two of those three probably will be removed
unless they have something special cooked up.
I mean, LGD lost with Lone Druids with decent amount of games.
I personally think it's one of the heroes that's going to be open by the end of the tournament.
I think the later we get in the tournament, they ban it themselves. Interesting.
So that leaves the Triant again, because I think it was left first phase in some of the earlier games today.
Ty Long already forced two bans against him in the housecar and the puck, so already impacting the series,
like doing his job, you know.
And the Triant first pick, that's a Katawami classic, like he loves that hero.
even when he was being post-4 back then he would already play it on position 4
so he's super happy that he got this hero
Rengster is mostly gone, at least two of the big ones
even though I'm kind of feeling that Drowranger we've seen responses
like we've seen answers for Drowranger so the hero can definitely be beaten
compared to Shadowfiend like for example Tai Lung he had some insane performance on the hero
It was just like him at nightfall. I think had two best performances so far that I've seen at EWC where he was super active six minutes in
Gating multiple times just being extremely active and they're gonna straight up take Necro for themselves
So I want to see if the approach like because doom he's already got you can definitely tell that they
Practiced as they wanted to have this potential opener. These are gonna be respecting. Maybe ancient apparition
It's not like the best support to maybe that's why they think they could get away with it
But I think you can fix some of these issues if you have even like a a train protector with the offline with the very aggressive mid laner
But you know some kind of a control you can make it work to me
I feel like this necro hero is like a little bit overrated
I like when it has purpose I get it like if the way nigma uses for instance like shutting down certain mid matchups
I think it's pretty cool
But besides that this hero has been figured out. I feel like against the worst teams. It's super embark is yes
His leading presence is absurd, so you have literally no room for mistakes.
You need to be doing everything perfect.
You cannot take a trade you're not supposed to, you cannot forget to pull the waves when you had to.
If you do any of that, all of a sudden you're going to suffocate, you don't get any XP, any gold, and it's a disaster.
But against the better teams, I feel like they will just play the game out as it's supposed to.
They'll be patient, they're going to let him dominate the early stage of the game.
They know that he's buying Rageants' travels anyway.
He's just super easy to kill at any point in the game, so I wouldn't be that worried if I were them.
They don't need to overthink it really.
Interestingly enough, they also leave Ringmaster in, preferring to buy a Shadow Demon, picking up the Largo.
Yeah, I think it's just protection for Necro. This has to be one of the worst matchups for Necrofos,
having the ability to purge off certain things.
They played Oracle as well as a team, so this is also a hero that they could potentially bring out to the table if they feel to.
But also to point out that they picked up Largo. I think this is also a bit of a steel pick coming out from them, because
BB Team is the Largo team. I think Aurora and them looked like the best team so far when it comes down to utilizing Largo.
But we also seen LGD yesterday playing a bit of a different Largo. They played it from the off-lane and different atomization.
He did go for Vessel, BKB into Radiance and then went full scaling mode.
Yeah, Largo, it could very well be that.
Largo vs Triant, very good on the lane, very solid view.
You actually dispelled the leech seed if you want to, which is a big part of the Triant.
You dispelled living armor.
When you go, you actually have a lot of kill threat.
Triant being extremely slow when he's not under the effect of nature's guise.
I love the Lena pick I have to say. I think it's amazing.
It's super good versus Nekro. You outrange him, you get him through Ghost Shroud,
just have too much damage, overwhelming amount of damage.
D'Layne is amazing. I think it's actually unplayable for Nekro.
I say that, but it is time-long, so he might find a way, but terrible matchup for Nekro mid against Lina.
What about the matchup that we've seen the other day when they played mid-largo against mid-Lina,
and it looked very, very good. So close to killing Lina multiple times.
It could be. I still like the Lina versus Nekro-largo lineups,
because these are two core heroes, potentially, that don't get close,
and Lina really enjoys it.
Like, you need to get on top of her.
If at some point in the game, if this Aghanim, Sky, Ayasha, whatever,
Lina is allowed to just freely cast spells in the fight,
I think you just don't win these fights.
And right now, they are really committed to two cores
that are just standing in the front, trying to tank up.
But I don't think there's such a thing as tanking up versus Lina.
And I'm a little bit surprised we don't see more Rubix versus Lina,
because I feel like this is like a good enough answer.
Like if you get your hands on the LSA, which is not that hard to do.
It's not just LSA.
It's also shackles.
Like this is probably one of the best spells in the game that you can steal.
Like if you give out shackles, you kind of lose the game
because you're always going to be giving out like one good spell no matter what.
It's a good pair in the Largo also.
Like this could be a game for it.
Like I wasn't a fan of the earlier.
OK, that's that's that's an interesting pick, actually.
Grimstroke, we don't see a lot of it.
the hero has a lot of potential. I just wonder who's going to be using Inxbowl. They don't
really have a great, I mean there's the clockwork but it's the position 5 so it's a little
squishy.
And maybe they got inspired yesterday when they were playing against Grimstroke. It did
look good.
It's a very good hero.
Yeah, also like double Reaper sight is going to be very potent throughout the game. Like
Lick is also okay, nothing like too crazy but having that extra bit of oomph in his ulti
is always going to feel nice.
It's just that this seems to be a strategy in a sense by LGD, because they're pretty
speedy on picking their heroes, but I have a harder time seeing what they see, how is
it particularly good against what BB Team is doing.
With that being said, I think the Enigma actually is a very cool pick.
In my book, it's one of the best laners against Necrow.
It's a hero that can win the lane versus Necrow, unlike many, many others.
It can also go wrong if you execute it again, no room for mistake against this hero, but
that's true for any matchup.
We'll have to see because Nekro could be safe lane.
We could also have a Dina tree on safe lane and I don't think Nekro can go there.
I don't think Nekro enjoys going mid either against Lina.
So I think this hero should be dodging Lina, which would send him to the safe lane.
I was thinking maybe the same.
I think maybe there's a potential Invoker pick coming out for BD team.
they feel like this Lena is gonna be on steroids with all of these things a lack
really sure these things are misspellable but I see shadow shaman I
see a lot of it will prepare it with it probably my favorite one except for the
bane yeah I would I would very much enjoyed that I think it's obviously also
GP gain Walker like absolute classic it's funny you know from one like serious to
the other here nobody cares about ever split nobody cares about Earth Spirit
Ringmaster ignores, Ringmaster doesn't care, which Doctor...
The General Doctor is actually the only...
Yeah, which Doctor who, Spectre who is like...
It's just a completely different meta.
Very cool, I like that.
So many different styles of Dota that can work at the moment.
Yep, on the LG side they're most...
I mean they could be looking for honestly all three roles
and that's like one of their trademarks.
Like keeping the enemy guessing on where the core heroes are going.
I think they they really enjoy that flexibility in the draft and as for VV team
It's most likely I mean a mid or carry. I have the feeling that in a mid
It's a very good game for Lena mid in my opinion
So perhaps like a character hero, but but again most of the range cores have been banned
No gyro no SF no draw no necro it's been picked. So maybe Lena is your best bet for this one
Yeah, potentially but seeing the sniper ban
And I assume this is going to be the protection for Lena in the mid lane, something that can
outrange Lena.
She doesn't get to interact with the hero much, so all of these heroes that don't care
too much about getting hit by LSA or anything from the mid lane could potentially be good.
But also looking at the pick for LGD, I could see maybe some like Tiny that could come out
having the status resistance.
It's relatively good in the lane against Enigma.
And I've seen different builds of Tiny.
Like I've seen Tainys, because Genprector is meta where they pick up Nantastal off their own just to have a little bit of a dispel.
BKB, Satanic later on, so multiple ways of dispelting things.
Very good things as well, also partner.
Yes, if he goes for an early blink, like we saw Micky did.
Was it yesterday or was it the retreat?
It was yesterday.
Something that they like, because I think right now both Nekro and Largo don't really use Grimstroke,
and I don't think you should expect that from a position 5 clockwork.
He's just going to be running around with tranquil boots and just get blown up by the Lena Rasta spells right away
So they need the ink swell do for sure
You have one more button coming out for LGD
And they are taking their time thinking about this moment. It is
Overall last pick for LGD at the end of it all they ban out the life sealer
Which could indicate
actually
I just have a hard time seeing them run the Largo mid for some reason.
I have a strong feeling it's going to be on Whisperer.
Maybe because of the lane matchup, just try to ruin Train Protector what he wants to do in the lane.
Dispelting his abilities is always going to feel nice.
And also after yesterday's performance, maybe he thinks this hero is scaling.
Sometimes we saw Largo's not really being able to transition that into mid and especially late game,
where you fall off, you feel like you're another support.
I'm thinking of trying to get rid of the phantoms in Brace, miserable, you know, like
getting the auto attacks to get rid of the silence from Grimstroke, that's not happening.
Miero and Nygma though, that's an absolute classic.
They go for the clean, so they do, you know, secure the Lina going mid.
Very good game for it, clean streamed.
The clean hero has looked very good, honestly, every game it's played so far.
It's not the best matchup versus Necro, but again, the Necro is already dealing with Lina,
dealing with Enigma.
Then if we see extreme gaming, picked Clink's Lice into Necro yesterday,
maybe one game, maybe even two games, but it looked good.
Like this hero is deceptively tanky and it has insane amount of damage to add Trim Protector to this.
He's definitely going to be buffed up.
He's going to be having that extra bit of a tankiness that you might not think that he has.
he has, but we talked about Lena in the previous series also being very very
tanky as a hero and Kling's on top of that. So it's gonna be Nature's Prophet
last pick for them. Okay, so they're just tanking by the looks of it the
Metro versus Lena matchup mid. So Ty along is feeling confident to know that
he can handle that. We'll have to see how it goes. Nature's Prophet, very good pick.
I mean very good clock. I think he's not that bad against Link Maldolene. It
It becomes bad, I think, like maybe level 5, this is when the lane starts becoming pretty
toxic for Nature's Prophet, but it's also when he's thinking about leaving the lane
and tipping around, so it should be, wait a minute, no, it's actually, it's a Thai
long Nature's Prophet, right?
It's a Thai long Nature's Prophet, you'll be laning up against the laner.
Okay, okay, well, I actually don't know how that goes, I'm curious to see it, like,
Nature's Prophet is stronger than what it feels at times, like, the treatments are very
strong.
to deal with those Koreans and also a bit of a global protection coming out. Maybe the off lane
is not going to be as gankable for this nature's profit because the lane naturally pushes in,
so you have protection from the tower, but looking at the bottom lane, I feel like they might try
to make something work in this lane and I think the best performance that we've seen from nature's
profit mid was from NTS who kind of carried the game for the first 15-20 minutes, but we'll have
I think both of the drafts are very very interesting, I would kind of lean towards the BB team because I think this draft looks overall more stable, I think the execution wise is also much easier to execute.
And at some point, Nigma is just going to take over the game, they have only one clock to stop the black hole from happening.
Funny enough, to me the big X factor is on the save Nero versus KJ.
I was going to ask him about this.
There has nothing to do with the figure interview, like this lane in my book, Nigma can take over this lane or lose it really badly.
really badly so it's gonna come down to that and what's the difference maker there who's gonna be
out play like who's better so it is but default 50 50 but one it really comes down to very little
things like all your micro idolons when they decide to go how do you what items you buy which
how much region you use it's gonna come down to execution so he said they think they're better
yeah as a leading duo it's time to prove it i think if you're confident you go into a series
you think you know you might be normally have a strong line or a stable time against Miro and save
you know maybe that's a cause for confidence from us as well to believe that they can and they do it
did he say stable or did he say a good lane? I think he said that they've been winning most of
their lanes I think you're turning it down yeah but then afterwards he said that they feel confident
because they normally get a stable it was I think both I was under the impression he said they usually
have like a cruising on that thing I mean I'm totally fine we're just going like
he said he'll smash him so absolutely I heard him say that actually he's works
yeah he's gonna make them rage quit that's what he said we're just quoting him
at this point you can just check the vote back like yeah yeah check the vote
we're right that's what he said that is what he said it's time to do it though
that was a good time it's a great time elimination on the line survival stage
for BB team and LGD in game one of this best of three together with Sunspot and
I guess who right now?
Survival indeed, LGD versus BB Team.
This is going to be a sick series.
I would be very surprised if it doesn't go all three games.
But of course, we have some bad luck.
That is true.
And it's mostly you, if we're being fair here.
Why is it me?
It just is.
I can feel it.
It's the vibe.
No, no, there ain't no way.
This is the once in a year treat.
You get BBD Bobbity team against LGD.
And I agree with you.
This should be a three-gamer.
I don't think we're gonna be in some unlucky scenario here because also looking at the drafts both teams have a lot of wind conditions going for themselves
But the overall timer and the overall aggression is what I want to see from LGD because the longer this game goes
I don't really favor them against the enigma against two long-range turrets against the necro against the natures, but
Tybalt on this nature software can do a lot in this early game
So I'm looking at them to kind of you know, clap the map open. Yeah, I think both lineups are cool in their own way
panel kind of talked about BB team we get to see GPK Lina which is always a treat
yeah Miero enigma is I mean I try to think of who is a better enigma there's
not many even if throughout history there's two or three names that pop up
and on the other side LGD a very interesting lineup in the carry Yuma
necrophos to go along with the healing aspect of Largo off-lane that should be
very I'm fascinated how that will be try to be countered itemization wise from
as Thailung, like you said, is he going to transition more of a right-click style carry from the mid lane?
I think yes, but also the way we see, I would say what Nature's Prophet or Thailung needs to do in this game,
you build whatever allows you to play fast. They also touched on the nothing-to-say performance the other day,
and I think that was more like a, I believe it was like a vessel into shard, specialist array,
and then like kind of transition into like this hybrid style, because laning-wise, I think Thailung, like,
Like, Nature's Prophet does very well against Lina early on, but like level 4, 5, 6.
I do think that's when Lina can start, you know, winning the lane.
And what's up with this? Shadow Shaman for safe.
Honestly, I'm not really too sure. We haven't seen it too much.
Of course it is an incredibly strong laner, and safe is a specialist.
He's not the type of guy who will play, you know, the melee bros.
He's more so the ranged guy.
And I think this often dual lane is always something you do have to look at.
Something that I touch on as well.
This is a very volatile and very skill-heavy lane.
And I can definitely see Miro and say, pull out some wonders here in this lane.
Only time will tell so far, Miro, getting pressured a bit at half HP currently.
Yuma leading the CS chart at 10-1 currently as they continue to push this lane.
Like around level 3, Mark, I can definitely see Miro like pull out a little bit more on this lane
with level 2 idols because Clockwork is one of the worst supports in lane against small summons.
There used to be a meta where you didn't really want to pick lock early, you would get like and B-smashered enigma.
So I do want to see how that goes, because I was thinking maybe you could put the Grimstroke in this lane,
but you know for now, keeping things safe, keeping things very chill.
Nice denial of the rune here, so...
Beach Boys team not going to be able to get that water rune for GPK level 3, honest Lena.
He does at least have his full bottle coming out, which he will be very happy with.
Nature's Prophet is just annoying for most of these heroes.
Like, Lina, you don't want to run around with a quelling blade.
Obviously, he has it already cuter because you do need it.
But yeah, I am looking over all LGD styles.
They play fast, they collapse, they bring numbers.
And who better to do that than a mid-nature's profit
who can collapse in some of the side lanes?
So when it comes to late game, though, you do agree.
VV are just miles ahead in terms of what they can offer.
You have links for right click who will outscale a nature's
profit eventually.
And an enigma is always just as big as that.
Very scary creature.
You get the deal within the lake.
Yeah, I think especially against the Dire Heroes, right? Obviously, late game, it's quite far away,
but it is something that if you're LGD, you will be keeping, you know, in the back of your mind.
They're quite happy when it comes to the early game, the mid game, the overall scaling.
We saw Whisper also yesterday on the Largo. He was kind of popping off, you know, the vessel into the Radiance build,
but I'm definitely looking at them to be ahead. There's also a very nice play there by Whisper, drawing the aggro,
making sure that the creeps stop hitting his own range to screw up characters that just lasted.
And what do you think of the answers for the enigma as we get to like this hookshot is the one piercing stun after that?
What do you have? I mean Necro is all used to pierce not anymore. Yeah, you honestly you don't really have the best answers
There's also like of course sometimes you have the right-click threat that you can kill him
So maybe Tyrone in the lake and you can have some hydro stress or a data list silver
It's get like a lot of damage into the enigma
There's always the wind wakers right or trying to like split the fight into like a couple different
You know how to pay that's Vashor nature's profit. Not really
We could see, like, how about Grimstroke with Aetherlands Abyssal Blade?
Okay, I like it.
Safe did it a few years ago, it was with Cardle, of course, but, you know, late game against the Dignite?
It's time to be creative, brothers.
Well, speaking of Fiola, of course, Grimstroke, let's talk about his combos and what he can offer into the late game,
because Ink's Well, this is the one spell we always talk about every single game, is the clockwork.
I wouldn't say traditional lineup for the Ink's Well overall, but obviously, Nekker wants to get up close and personal,
Close and personal Largo to some degree as well, and then the syllabi which is usually not covered that well
You have double scythe which it's okay. It's not crazy. It can be crazy. It can be crazy
It's hard to start stacked up
But usually you just want to you know you want to blow up one guy so it's fine
You have double natures open even that you don't want to like click it on the guys
You're usually gonna put it somewhere else it bounces everywhere
So a lot of the kind of just not that great
I would even go as far as to say the dark portrait is kind of ass in this game
Yeah, I was gonna say, Clink's illusion does not sound perfectly good.
It's kind of worth it, same for me, and so it's a lot about the early aggression,
how can you move around, you know, KJ together.
I guess the other thing too, you can always incul the Trianz,
which is quite good in the early game, they're always gonna be aggressive,
you don't really care if they walk in very far.
But I have to say that LGD have done a good job so far at slowing down GBK a little bit in the mid lane.
So I'll tie long initially on the minute two, denying the water rune,
you also have Fiolik going to the four minute water rune.
So very quiet early game at the moment.
Alright, so what about bowling balls counters to the Necropos as we go forward?
They can kill him.
Wouldn't that be nice?
You have to have a nullifier carry, like this Clink's have to go for that.
Clink's is a very, very good nullifier buyer, right?
You stay on high range, you go super high DPS early on, you have the Deso, you go the Shard,
then maybe like some pike, maybe BKB, and then you can look at a nullifier.
But also Lina, honestly Lina is very good against Necropos, especially the spell damage Lina,
which is generally being played at the moment from the mid lane.
Okay.
So, I do think they have good answers, and then it just depends on LGD.
Can you keep him alive? Because you have Inc's though, you can dispel himself.
Okay.
Just saying hello to the West Side Brother.
Now, we might have First Blood down here at the bot lane,
Kiritich getting gone on, and that's gonna go to Whisper on the Frogman.
And as you can see, Tylong just barely getting out, being pressured out completely from GPK.
That's very, very good pressure, right?
You've got the C.H.P.
He is at least using the Trian's to pull the wave.
Also, you have a very, very needed move here to not take too much chip damage on the tower.
Can you play Necro without radiance?
No.
OK.
Because I was going to say, I would love to see Whisper get radiance again,
but I was like, oh wait, Necro is probably going to get that.
Yeah.
I think if you're on crack, I think if you're doing that,
so that is definitely not what I want to see.
It wouldn't be the first time that we would see a double radiance.
Wouldn't recommend it.
That sounds pretty garbage.
Although you could take it apart later if it does make sense for a water flyer or something like that.
You can see the Inkswell bot, with the lick on top of Kiritich, GPK comes in though with the LSA, unable to hit anything.
As he does turn us around at the very least, the Olocore will survive, but the Courier will not.
Even with the successful rotation-ish from GPK, doesn't get a kill, but prevents one from carrying again.
It's decent pressure, and they didn't die against the first Nature's Prophet old of the game,
as Kiritich had a very timed level up to get level 3 Death Pack to get another charge to stay alive.
where do you rate save oh he in terms of support players currently tip top
number one not number one but like top three for sure like at all times okay
this guy I actually think for me I choose number one number okay then who's
number 20 I don't know okay what's the fact that I can't where's Chris no
no no no no save is better save is just no the buckle like this okay there's no
discussion this has just been decided. I'm a huge fan. He is quite a good player for the blockbuster team of course so
I'm gonna see the shackle of GPK coming off on the other side Laguna Blay with Yolokor joining the fight
And they are gonna get the either shock kill on to whisper LSA connects on the field
I'm gonna be slow now the KJ there with the cogs to push them back speaking of bowling ball team
LGD will be the one bowling this time
I think it's a slow down to GPK.
It hurts them quite a lot in this early game.
Like you want to be the aggressors.
Of course, we still see that they have a 1K gold lead here on LGD.
But, you know, losing out on some of these early plays is obviously not good,
because you've got the Nature's Prophet in the mid lane.
You want to get a couple of plays going.
So kind of eyes on Tylong here.
Stop the next Nature's Prophet in 10 seconds.
And you would love to be able to attack bottom, you know, against these things.
It hasn't really been showing up until now, it feels like, Taiwan.
Well, not yet.
Those have the urns, so that would indicate that you do want to join some fights now.
We're going to push this wave and maybe pressure it, not just outright take the tier 1 tower.
What do you think of their push overall?
For LGD?
Yeah.
It's pretty good, right?
You have Nexus Prophet in the early game, but at the same time, trading for them is slightly favorable for BB team here.
You know, you had saved on the gate, you saw that Nec, the U-Mobiles coming through the gate.
Now they're just kind of splitting this top tier one for the bottom tier one pressure and like we talked about before
They're quite happy with any trades. Kataomi already setting up on Tylong.
Actually shows that he has a sentry there.
Tylong will defend this mid tower.
TPK putting some nice damage on it already under 50% HP. Has the regen rune as well for GPK.
Just goes into trying to get a little extra farm.
what do you if you had to put a timer on LGD's lineup does that even exist anymore
that constant I think it's doesn't really exist anymore like even late game is
quite first of all it's quite vague and there's so much gold on the map that if
you're ahead it doesn't really matter you know gold can make up for anything
you're lacking stuns by a hex you're lacking catch or movement speed whatever
by travels by you'll do you think the bigger map and the greedy enchantments
as you love to come out I think those are the main reasons that we don't have
this pretty typical timer we used to see?
Not only that, I think it's also just like an evolution of Dota and players like getting better,
understanding, okay, we're down this much, what do we need to actually fight again the next time
and kind of stop the bleeding, not go down too much when it comes to the overall gold?
Yeah.
Because I think LGD, considering what we've been seeing, they're doing a very good job on the map.
You're up, 2k gold still, yeah, you lost your mid, your safe lint here 1.
If they get to hold their mid here 1 and get some couple who's going, they'll be quite fine.
The other core is going to be shadowing Tylong.
So how early will the best POS4 player in the world get level 6 this game on save?
Hey, it's play design, Kazoo.
He wants to stay level 4, so he's worth less when he dies.
Best typos don't usually die that much, I don't know if that logic checks out.
Don't worry about it.
Okay.
I won't worry about it.
That's support.
Okay.
I actually just see what the plan was for the Shadow Shaman, obviously early game a lot of
I mean throughout the entire game great crowd control, you have the push potential which
they're not necessarily wanting to play that fast though because of the way LGD is going
to be playing.
It's definitely.
And then you have the hex breaks which this game irrelevant, I guess.
Yeah, it's not that bad.
I think it's just overall the type of fear that I guess they were looking at and most
importantly it's a very good laner that they're only looking for a little bit of a touch here
on to Thiel Lycor, Phantom's Embrace, we just got Sun, Jungle Skirmish, but in the meantime,
this benefits GPK, he's just glopping down on this mid tower.
Rushing a 4 staff is kind of interesting, but honestly I don't mind it, as LGD gets
to squeeze in a little deny here from Tylong, but he had the 4 staff against the Clockwork,
against the Sprout, and there isn't really any real catch.
So that is something that LGD need to keep in mind for later, once the map spreads out
and it's easier to play multiple sides on the map.
If you know where Clockwork is, it's kind of easy for you to just dodge moves.
Smoked from LGD, they know that Miro's farming in the area.
He's shot as though by Kata on me.
So only level 5, so by onto 2.
As I attempt to run away and they're pretty damn fast actually.
Now we'll be able to walk away just fine, thanks to the drums.
Do me a favor, Clockwork still deserves this.
When you play against Clockwork and they just keep bowling you with their stupid paws,
They deserve to play against summons like this and not be allowed to use their hookshot.
I honestly think screw this hero.
Suck on that.
I mean, the Spirit last series, that was the best Clockwork Bowling I've seen ever.
Oh yeah, they've had some beautiful summons, as we do have a current double-radian screen chewed up, and I think this is...
What?
Yeah.
Oh my god, yes.
With the map being this big, and I think also you wanting to be like, okay, maybe we can't, you know, like play ultra super fast and do this and that.
Instead just got six loaded. Okay, so one thing I will mention is you can't take it apart for a nullifier if needed
I'm not sure if it's actually important against the basketball team this time around but not that much you have a
Aggressive dispel anywhere with the Largo you can just lick it off. Which is quite nice and bookshot from KJ
Finding the target in Kat the only Miro nearby
debating what he wants to actually fight a safe comes in with the hex into the shackle and that's going to set up all the
damage from GPK, should be able to clean up too, so a clean one from BB team.
Yeah, absolutely, just get to walking to the enemy jungle, okay?
So since they're all going, they're just going for triple scaling items, right?
You have the double radiance, you also have Tylong with a mill strong, you know, there's no vessel upgrade,
there's no shard that he's looking to buy, so everyone's just going to look to farm,
which I need to see how it ends up going, because if you have the idea, okay, you can speed up the game,
up the game then I'm okay with it but I don't know if even with high scaling that it's like
just beneficial for you to take this kind of trade farming game.
The stacks are being created now by P.O. Le Corp so sure that is going to be
well yeah a little mess up there that's always the prowler said mess things up and it's just
time to remove them again from the game cycle them out every couple years yes but that evasion
neutral that we were talking about. Oh yeah, there's some Thunder Lizard to Ceratops dinosaur.
Yep, it was a dinosaur of some kind. Yep. Or a lizard rather.
Close enough, we could get a giant chicken in there that's related to dinosaurs in fact.
Surely. Well, GD, I mean in terms of the pace, are they happy with how things are progressing
right now? Hold that body. Just kidding, they don't really have any catch.
They are probably, I guess they're making the best in terms of like the read that they're having, right?
They're like, okay, we've got the Necro, we've got Largo, Nature's Prophet.
Not the easiest for us to make moves, so we're just gonna go for this scale.
Again, I don't know if this is the best way for them to go about it against the Radiant Wrath,
but if they have an understanding and they feel good about, you know, the game dragging out and waiting and waiting,
then this is a very good way to go about it, where you just get fat on three heroes with three scaling items,
double radiance and the melstrom. It does mean that you're tapering off later.
Like when you're fighting with a double radiance in the teamfight, that's,
well, 5k gold that on one of them isn't really doing anything.
Yeah, that's true. Well, it gives you evasion, I suppose.
Sure. That if anything, actually, double radiance makes a lot more sense than the old version, at the very least.
But sure, a bit weird in the fights, because like you said, the damage over time does not stack at all.
I am just thinking that at least for now, LGD are doing a very good job when it comes to the overall
I would say like state and net worth in the game.
But what's important about Dota as well that people need to understand is what happens when it's 15 to 20.
What are your next items actually designed to do?
And I think when you look at BB Team Squad here of Clint and Lina and Enigma,
the more items they get, they get faster damage, they can pick you off here, they're more elusive.
Whereas I think LGD's items only kind of helps them farm.
At least for now it doesn't really help you get pick offs.
So I do think that the next couple items are a bigger game changer here for the BBD Bobbity team.
GPK is going to group up with the rest of the BB team here.
Invade the enemy triangle, Theolikor might be the one to tank the gank.
And now if this ensures it, LGD will be happy to trade a smoke for a support at this stage.
That's good for Theolikor to TTG there to tank the gank.
So we see a good move on this one.
That's great, that's my favorite abbreviation.
Yeah, that's a good one.
TTG? Yeah.
Should start using it.
Now some pressure finally to the Baseball Team's tier one mid tower.
There's a lot of damage from these teams. I do like that they overall buffed.
They just buffed it like they just made the innate a lot better where the Trian State don't need to be close to you.
They also don't need to be close to each other for them to have overall damage and for you to get buffed up.
Alright, well, it's official double radiance online for LGD.
Now, you're saying that they do or do not want to fight yet with this.
We're going to see BB Team enter the pit with the Serpent Wars. I believe that's the first use, I'm saying.
Honestly, they can fight, but it's, again, it is very conditional because how are you starting the fight?
It is only really KJ with the Bookshot that can start, unless you're smoking around or teeping behind,
and that is one of the things I'm a little bit afraid for when it comes to the LGD draft here.
LGD do spot that a little bit late with the Rocket Flare, so...
In the end, GPK does secure first ages of the game.
It's funny, these trains are actually just, you know,
100 to zero this tower over the course of a couple spell usages from Thailand.
Well, that's a super early gem as well, from Theoligore.
You're all playing against Trey in about 60 minutes.
They're the team with the fastest gems. Remember Whisper?
They spot him here, surely.
Whisper, you're getting all of this. There's the Overgrowth to follow.
Inksville right now to give you the first black hole of the game into Laguna.
So goodbye, Froggy.
I don't know, apparently he wants to fight, might be able to take off Miiro, but no, gets stunned at the last second from GPK
Into a hug shot, into the bowling from Noy, can't even get the right click off, so now he's going to get shackled and right click down
Into Oblivion, Miwa Kata only, the only death and all likely, is he actually going to live through this?
Yuma does take him out with the Radiance Burn in the end and now GPK completely out of mana
Reinforced in charge, kind of getting Miiro's very low on resources, re-percite, not quite enough to take out GPK
This is gonna be life number one. That's gonna come back with full HP full mana and a full shackle now onto the Necrol as Yuma gets hexed
Understand coming out of GPK trying to turn this around. I always say it's missed because of the shard uses from Yuma
And with that GPK has to exit as Kiritich gonna be able to take out the Olafuer just barely
It's a double kill a he per to Yuma in the end a very long drawn-out fight from both sides
And who won this? That wasn't nicely played fly from LGD. I was a lot of slight even it looks like gold wise
Yeah, I do give a slight advantage here to LGD. I think just being able to fight back and inject one of your heroes as hold on
Whisper, okay. That's unfortunate for him. Yeah, good for you. That's now
Yeah, very needed by GPK here together. I like all this. I this looks weird from Thailand
But this is a good play also at the same time where you might like slows down GPK a bit with the side
Because once you keep this fight like necro humor at this point is incredibly strong
I'll turn this around, the GPK does not have the AT anymore,
Bowling ball successful, but not enough damage, living armor applied now.
The GPK should be able to get back.
Rocket Flare is not going to do nearly enough, he really does hit it.
It's interesting to me too that GPK decided to go for the build that he's going for, right?
Like most of the right click damage, you have the pipe into the BKB, as Kataromi.
He will be dying here.
Yes indeed.
I want to pay attention to how often Yuma and Whisper are going to be in the same fight
at this like stage of the game because obviously it's not always going to be a five man thing
because then the double radiance is weird.
I guess it's like one of the things where honestly Largo, he's a lot about dancing
in and out.
He's not really like all the way in your face all the time.
He's more like in the back, high range, heal up your team, do like a catch, heal it, a
frock, some pier, a small buff, whereas Snacker is more, he's more in your face.
Maybe he sidesteps back for a moment, so I don't think they'll be overlapping all that much.
But Whisper, he just wants to go for the overall scale.
Well, reaper side, oh my goodness, I can't believe they found Heritage after all of that.
They, who has the gem right now?
They gave it to Yuma.
Okay, that makes sense.
They have a huge kill for LGD.
They are amping up the game right now.
Didn't quite get the sidestep for Yuma, but obviously you will absolutely take that kill onto the clings there.
Those stacks are kind of overrated, I find.
They're like okay, but it's kind of like tight hunter's fish. It's like it's okay. I think that's an LT
Level one Reaper's Scythe is kind of useless because it's not retroactive
I think if the spells retroactive it would be kind of OP, but level two onwards
You take that stuff because later with the agonist sector that people underrate on the zero every HP region matters my friend Shannon
Yeah, all right. I've learned a lot today. Thank you so much. You're welcome blink dagger now online for me arrow
He's been pretty quiet in this game, I would say, on the uniform.
So far, yeah.
Yeah. Of course, it's a hero that can take some time, you know, to come online.
He's got the drums, he's got the vessel.
The vessel's not really doing too much.
Perhaps that's one item that he's currently somewhat regretting.
Yeah, first tormentor will go the way of LGD.
Although, Heritage in the area, not there fast enough, as KJ will get his little rocket pack.
They should be happy that they got the jetpack here, because the way it's going now, you're up 4k gold,
and it's all kind of just about whether you can catch the Radiant Team.
So giving yourself the jetpack, more vision and easier catch onto them is very, very good for you.
GPK though, he's got a BKB, so far flawless game from him.
Now Beachball team ready to smoke up into the enemy triangle again.
And is it the Olocor once again in Tank Piss?
Really TTG X2, we'll have to find out.
At least for now it seems like they just have a full on read of what's happening
Maybe I'll do you have done a pretty good job at avoiding these smokes
Yeah, you can also see like near it's when you buy shard this early on enigma
It's because you are just looking to delay the game get more idol arms push here push there wait for your greedy enchantment
Get your blink your BKB later. So continuously if you are LGD you want to keep amping up the pace here
You have the gem as well to continuously de-ward the map
Whisper, only the recipe away now from the BKB, just 300 out, that's going to be very
nice and it's going to couple pretty nicely with the part of Tarask for Yuma, so he's
going to go for the tanky.
I mean, when you get part, you're going to get ag'ed at some point if the game goes
long enough, but it doesn't look like he's itemizing for that in the near future.
Now, you definitely, like ag'ed him, so Necro's one like a fifth item, sixth item, it is quite
luxurious.
already kind of windows drawn out fights anyway, so I like what he currently has
queued up, but Yuma is going to be a very hard hero to deal with. Like you said,
they're going for the heart, you have a Dispel from Whisper, you can keep people
alive with the heals, you also have a Ink Swall later with the Shard that Theolikor
currently has queued up, so another basic Dispel and more heal, and we all know
how Necro works. If you go on this guy and you don't kill him from full to zero,
you are conceding the entire fight. Yeah, my question to you is, does he go for
BKB, once he sees this nullifier, which Kiritich is starting to build, he's 2K into, in fact, already.
You definitely need, I would say, Ashiva's first, just against the physical damage, and then you can absolutely go for one.
Could also look for maybe some Lincoln's Wind Waker later, because you do want to eventually end up building Wind Wakers in the late game here, if you are able to be against the BB Team squad.
I like a lot of players that are building towards that BKB, so GPK has his, Miero obviously
that's the next on the list for him, not really that far away, and of course Enigma
does farm exceptionally fast if left alone, and Thailand, I mean it shouldn't his build,
so Miero and their Manta style into Hurricane Pike, so nothing too crazy.
I kind of like the Manta, it's not an item we see all that often, but first of all,
Open speed is great, especially when the game is getting stalled out. Same for split pushing.
And Manta overall is great. Overgrowth. Malaphy is from Enigma. You can easily dodge LSA.
It is not difficult whatsoever. So I like the scaling that they're going for here on the LGD side.
5K lead now.
Lead is growing ever so slowly.
That's Katomie. Oh, he spots a juicy kill. Nice Manta, but you have an overgrowth after the fact.
So, big kill coming out for Barbecue Briskey boys, as KJ is going to get the Rocket Flare.
Looks like they still want to try to catch them out, GPK.
Now, it's going to be the Triant instead, so they link off the Living Armor into a Reaper's
site for Yuma, and that's the first stack of the game for him.
And it's of course a good kill for them, but DPD Bobbitties are happy here with a kind
of, you know, the lay of the game.
You've got Keratich who's getting closer to the Nullifier, and honestly, that is one
of the earlier timings that they can go for close enough to try and hit the hooker here.
And when does Kiritich become something that you're truly scared of?
Modify as a good start.
Is Ags not purchased that early on this year anymore?
It's still quite good.
Like you still want to go for it.
It's more about later on.
If you need other items you will always go those, but if you have the luxury of going
acts later he will absolutely do so but I like what what he's currently going for
you know it's not the nullifier to then have a kind of condition to start
fighting then also the ink swell is absolutely worthless so nullifier vkb
and then maybe Daedalus if you can otherwise you can go for the pike
they're like no one's really pushing the envelope which makes a little bit more
sense for BB team as they now have the nullifier for Tiritage and I think this
This is where you group up and try to kill off this Necro, surprise him.
PKB as well on Miro.
LGD now, at least you have the nighttime available.
I believe that this is where you could look for a couple of plays where you have KJ going
into the front, scout out a little bit.
Because like we said, think that the late game here definitely does benefit the Dayblade
team.
So, GPK, he's going satanic super early, and I'm trying to figure out what the reason is.
Is it the dispel for something for the... I mean, he has BKB already.
That's really interesting.
Usually this is like a fourth or fifth.
I honestly don't mind it, because I think the way Lina works nowadays is that first
of all, she has a lot of damage.
Even with these items, you're at 200, you're going to have a lot of stacks on the fiery
soul all the time.
At level 20, you get another talent for it.
If you think about Nekro, if you're not dropping below half HP, you're not dying and there is no real stun lock on the LGD draft, so if they go on this Lina and GPK gets one or two hits off, the fight might just be cooked for LGD.
I feel like both squads are a bit timid at the moment.
If I'm BB team, I feel like I'm waiting for them to push into me. Is that not exactly their mentality?
Yeah, I would say that is semi-true if they ever have map control or like a good read on the map
You can definitely look for something
But I would say it's more up to LGD currently to look if they have a couple of moves on their own
You know you've got the gem if you can keep finding a couple of you know vision and wars here there
Of course, yeah, we have the four greedy enchantments on the dire side classic tell you something
They're not gonna do a whole lot of right-clicking that's for sure
Yeah, I mean none of the heroes really do other than Taiwan so it just makes sense to get those yeah
Get a little more gold injected into your draft.
Way too good.
That's one of the early Rochants, right?
If you're LGD, of course, it is one of the weaknesses of Nekro.
His objective-taking is really not that amazing.
Rigo is okay at Roaching, but also not good at taking buildings, so it's kind of all up to Tylong.
And a smoke from LGD.
Nice BB team on the high ground.
Satanic now up for GPK. So very tanky. Yeah. If you go on him you better make
sure that you have a stun lock where you kill him without stacking too much.
Funny that Yuma turned off his radiance. You whisper did not. Guys you need to
both turn off your radiance. And I guess I didn't really meet any creeps or
anywhere so there's not too much happening. You can see Bed Bath and Beyond Team
have already headed north so they're actually dodging this as Ty Lung is
gonna be spotted just briefly here that's doing a good job at dodging the
smoke on their own and rush obviously up and running so this next fight okay
that's all that can't tell me spotted licked in you'll look over there with the
ink squelch look into the full connections whisper pops the PKB try to
finish the job on cat to owe me that would be a nice way to start the fight
and indeed that is the case did cost them a BKB charge for whisper still they
They are going to go into the pit now. Keep in mind, Captain only has buyback, and obviously didn't use any spells.
He's going to use it right now. Overgrowth at the ready, and with that, LGD exit the pit.
Look at the aggressive one, though. Okay, this is going to get cleared out here.
Now, 6k lead for LGD with that buyback, getting a little injected in here.
It's kind of time to evacuate. Let's tie them down.
Link and Malifas on the Theolokor.
He's dead to rights and he does not have the Vibeck to work with.
KJ, of course, very hard to take Roche into.
He's going to take a Laguna Blade to the back of the face.
You know, I find that connection on Yuma, but if we get the cancellation on the Sun,
we precise this absolutely nothing here as he gets a Black Bull onto the single target,
but it's a really important one in the net, girl.
And Yuma takes a tumble at the result.
Theolokor bob back into this fight.
Looks like he might be burning out.
There it is, the GPK finding another connection this time onto Tileh.
Every kill going away feels like for BB is now Vierol getting chased from Yuma,
masked bybacks from LGD,
and turned into three kills onto BB.
What a weird fight as Yuma, he's not done yet.
The GPK gonna be spotted, slowed down just briefly.
He's extremely fast, tries for the 4 staff TP.
Will make it looks to be good.
That was uh, whoo, this is a very costly fight from LGD here. That's a triple buyback and also on human in the middle of this fight
bouncing back in
Those just a good timing
From the beatbox team they just go for the smoke. Thailand wasn't here anymore
He keep it into that like if you look on the minimap, he's not in this fight for forever
He had tp'd out and he goes back to the base also save we call on the best support rightfully
So look at this get the four step on the high ground before the site and it's just it's just a very disjointed fight from
Yeah, very discombobulated overall and LGT. I mean this fight it felt like they were BB. They were the buyback team
Oh, yeah, they absolutely have to see three buybacks of the 28 minute mark not that often and they didn't even get rush
That yeah, that absolutely hurt. So of course they did get some return kills, which yeah, very much needed
But we'll have to keep stressing that the overall scale at least from the idea and brainpower we have
We very considerable here on the desk. Yeah, we favor the
BB team squad here, you know, with the claims and it did show up, you know, the
nullifier against the Necro. For me it's just it's always enigma. I've just seen
it too many times. Yeah. Especially when you don't have a team that pushes
exceptionally well, which LGD, like in terms of tower hitting, they don't have,
they have nature's profit which can be quite good but not crazy good. It's just,
yeah, it's like you're saying it's this factor of, it's enigma with very little
pressure against him. Whether it's on the map, being picked off, losing your towers
or dying or being cancelled in your black hole and he's now got an aggro scepter. My bro on
Miro is ready to slay. This is gonna be difficult like not just being pulled in but also dealing
percentage max damage against a Largo and Necrophos dual core. Yeah it's gonna be up to KJ to get
those cancellations somehow. Very very difficult though. Mm-hmm definitely a tough one. I do like
I'd like that he's got the blink dagger queued up on the clockwork.
The only thing you can kind of play for is that you go for a big play here on the clock.
You get maybe a fast cancel on the black hole.
And Miro, queuing up one of your favorite items, the chasm stone.
Oh yeah, a classic.
The olacore, popping the smoke here as the rest of LGD get out of dodge.
That's a GTFO death type of situation when they all smoke up the high ground.
They're going to attempt to go for Roche now.
They put down the Serpent Wards, of course, the Vision Advantage, LGD, and of course they
don't really have any buybacks to work with.
In fact, only a single buyback in the entire game is on Save currently.
I want to see how LGD go about this.
You're going to keep using the rockets there and maybe some treons, but it seems that they're
too far away.
Oh, shh.
There's the Belch.
Yeah, it's a little late.
They get it, and it's Miero jumping against the Midnight Pulse.
Trying to turn this around is the Laguna Blay hitting Whispers who tries to walk it off.
They find the nullifier, there's the BKV onto Yuma, using the Deathseeker to get out of dodge as well.
So LGD will be going back to the fountain or elsewhere on the map.
At the very least they don't feed any kills, but the goodies go the way of PD.
It's still a strange game because stat-wise you can see LGD have a Gold lead with 3K,
but going back to earlier it's just difficult for them to use this type of lead and this is also
sometimes where net worth and stats overall can be a bit I feel like misleading because they're not
stronger than the BB squad here you have only club work he's the only guy that can start the fight
but he's also the only guy who can stop the back hole and he's the lowest net worth guy in the
game yeah so you're expecting a lot of big plays here from KJ which is quite difficult for him to
pull off. They are sticking with it in terms of the net worth though, as looks like second
tormentor will go the way of the BB squad. I guess one of the supports on barbie2team
will be happy here with a free shard onto the tree end.
I mean, what were the choices there? It was between him and Shadow Shaman, I guess.
I did say one of the supports, so I thought maybe you would...
It's just... Oh, I figured... I forgot. Just shut up.
Wow. Just shut your...
I'm ready to return.
I don't remember what Shatter Shaman's... Oh, it's the Urna Conn.
That's right. I forgot about that.
It's any good?
Niki Minas with the crowd.
It's okay. It's a decent bonus.
People don't really buy it unless the game is kind of cooked one way or the other.
So very often it's just... You get it from the Torm.
Yep, fair enough.
The other thing that happened earlier is that LGD, I believe they did drop a gem to the enemy team, of course, when they lost one of the earlier fights, but they did rebuy one at this point as well.
And yet another BKB for the banana boat team. Karatich picks up his own, so they got three. One for each core.
mm-hmm and
For ty long on the other side. He is actually almost done with a butterfly. I like this feels like MKB has to come out for the clings at some point
Kind of run out of room though. I would say it depends. I think it's good if you do maybe not both
Of course need to get it as you do see that GBK is buying it like if your clings like the shard will always hit
So it doesn't really matter for the clings that much and you could also argue that killing all the other guys is more valuable anyway
I mean they have two radiances though, so you're gonna have evasion on three cores.
So I would say you go either Bluffman or MQB eventually, as I feel like we're trying to
go for a bit of a sneaky play.
And it's pretty difficult to get out.
And Miero, with late game on the mind, we'll be going octaring core next.
More idolons, more stuns, more farm on the entire map.
I do like that Tyrone is, you have to go bigger, go home.
And I think that Tylan has been this type of player, whether it's his Zeus or his Thoughtware.
He's not afraid to go full damage, buy some early rapers if you have to,
because eventually you have to either deal a lot of pressure on the map with Nations for the slip-pushing,
or you need to be the threat to kill the Enigma in the Black Hole,
reflect some silver edge or blink with full DPS.
And I put down the Roche banners, so VB team looking to pressure.
And I have that Aegis on GPK, who now has the MKB.
Can we get licked up?
Double. Double licked, in fact.
GPK not a fan of that. We'll force that to the low ground, but of course...
Oh, Rosh Panra actually is taken up by Tylong eventually, but this tower is not long for this world.
Well, it's just dropping. Of course, GPK has a satanic if they do want to stick around.
I'm also a fan that he has kept the dagger of Ristul on the leaner for this long.
You know, some nice right-click damage.
Okay.
Because you have insane attack speed on this hero, so damage goes a very long way, especially with the level 20 Talon.
20 talent. Yeah, he's starting to pack the punch. That's what I was worried about for
LGD. I feel like they haven't gotten enough out of the map with their line up. I mean,
I'm willing to be proven wrong, but it just feels like the item I used to farm to be able
to get to these next items faster, and then surely they have to have... I know it's not
a true timer, but in a sense, I set my time out on how to put it. No, honestly, it is
You are playing a draft, as hold that for now, and they find a connection onto the frog, the save.
Gonna get cancelled out by the cogs, there's Luguna Blade, save just for Ty Lung,
there's an elevator, and actually he gets completely blown up as a re-precite doing absolutely no damage
because the black hole right on top of Yuma gets taken out, and the real carry of this game is GPK on this lead up,
gets the double, and let's say, is gonna hit, they're gonna be able to take out the yellow core, that's a triple for GPK.
We weren't able to take out Whisper in the end, but GPK just going absolute ham right now
Yeah, save was just starting to fight and you can see that there are so many problems to deal with and here it had
Showed up and just I think that's without a clink
Maybe he misclicked the pike like instead of piking someone to create distance
I believe he piked in unless someone was the one forcing him in but you know you talk to bit of this right there
And it's cogged up cops the BKB
Yeah, what was that interesting?
Yeah, maybe he was just trying to use it on Thailand. Either way, honestly, it didn't really matter, because GTK just goes ham.
It's a one-man black hole where your carry dies early on, KG with a slight miss on the hookshot didn't have quite enough range.
But you are playing a very, like, you don't have good catch on LGD, and you're playing against against three ranged long-range guys who you have to deal with.
In the Lina, Antiklynx, and the Enigma, and I think you have very good answers.
And Bed and Breakfast seem to get the first barracks up the game, and it'll be in this mid lane.
It'll be a full set, no longer with the Aegis.
Obviously the tier 3 top was already taken out, but with Tylong coming back shortly, they will back away.
Yeah, I don't know if they need an Aegis, it's a nice bonus for GPK.
Like at this point, Lina has crazy magic resistance from her 15th talent.
She now has also crits whenever she applies a spell to someone when they're slow-varned, which mind you, this is undispellable.
It doesn't matter what you do, so she will crit you if you are applied by one of her spells.
And GPK has already been owning in this game.
Alright, how much more room does GPK even have to grow here, so he can upgrade Blink and then, I guess, treads.
Do you have any aggs on this hero?
You definitely can ship an aggs eventually, like just, you know, having flying, walking around is quite nice.
He's queuing up the data list with...
I forgot that the aggs gives 35% magic resist.
Which...
Against this lineup, that's really good.
And she already has a lot with her talent, but yeah, it gives you even more.
Personally, I wouldn't mind the Silver Edge that much as well.
Obviously, Daedalus is crazy damage.
It's the highest damage output he can go for.
If he values a bit more mobility, you know, you can swap it out for a Silver.
Oh, an Aghanim Scepter now for Katana.
We've been seeing this a lot lately on the Tramp Protectors in the late game.
It's just about getting out of that huge HP.
Yeah.
It's just the cooldown.
And of course, the cleave is really cool.
Yeah, on the big fan tree and kind of shout out, I would overall give like some shout out to my boy Tapsan
He was the first guy, you know to go for the ass, kind of show it off
He become this big stupid tree and with like 8000 HP
But as a support, the cooldown is quite nice and just being a big boy who can't really die
Yeah, it reminds me of Deadwood
True, shout out to one of the best games ever made, of course
BB team, smoke up
And nobody took the arcane room but I guess that's because they're in the smoke
they don't want to make it that obvious. Not going to find any connection initially, save is just
itching to find one connection to be a crippling blow to LGD. So I'm always the fan of like looking
at the plan like what do you do and no matter what the situation is for LGD. Some of the best
answers I see for them is where you take a split fight so Enigma gets like a one-man black hole
at best or Thailand gets to go on the back line or the third option is gonna be you have to play on buybacks
Which Thailand and humor would be the best buyback targets because obviously they can die buyback TP back in and you must do some travels
So if you have a tree in the round no matter where the fight is
He can just you know come back into the game and maybe that's how you can win one of the Roche flights
Because this game is not really getting any easier. I hate to say it, but it's just a reality of this game
You can see Belch Brothers now with an 11k lead.
Wait, what just happened?
It just went down to 9k instantly.
What happened?
So it's a 9k on the stats with an 11k.
You can see it's flickering.
That's weird.
So we won't question it, of course.
Gabe Null on his yacht is currently playing a Dave.
They won't update that one.
Yep, refresher on Miro.
Miro so if you're any type of enigma player or fan you know that he is ready to
Oh, yeah to blast some guys off of this map
I mean I I genuinely don't know what you do against an enigma in the late game with this lineup
You have to you have to touch the hook shot hasn't come out to cancel this
No, it's difficult even if you do now. He has a second you you have to try and kill him or
Try and start a fight where you smoke around I think going on the back line would be great
Maybe even a blink dagger on Yuma later.
LGD on the hunt, Mierrow on the front.
They're gonna find him initially. Pots the BKB, though.
Soulbind onto two.
Black Hole finds two, including the Necrofoast already dead.
As GPK, a one-man army, a one versus three, and guess what LGD do?
They try to run away. Overworld finds two.
There's the man to stop the Tylong.
I got one.
He's gonna pop the Ghost Scepter as they get nullified initially,
but Pots the BKB there after.
As Tylong kills off by GPK,
his right clicks are just way too much.
As you can see, save on the run.
He will be the only casualty of the side of BB team.
GPK, they're not done yet.
Gonna force out the BKB that Whisper still had, apparently.
Whisper's still on it.
They're still there, gets the silence
onto the Triamp Protector.
It's Katya Omi.
Looks like he will eventually burn away surely
and be dead as a case.
Double kill for Whisper.
Now Whisper's on it.
He's kinda keeping them in this game.
You most forced with the buyback.
And GPK is gonna get on by you.
So has that Reaper's Slogans not quite enough, he's against the other side now, Miero.
Puts off another Black Hole, thanks to the refreshment, gets cancelled, but they still have the damage.
Double kill for GPK, and that's a dive back now for Yuma.
GPK is just doing too much. Even with Whisper, like, having an incredibly good fight as hold that...
Oh, Frogs, Tom cancels the TP of Perotish, trying to turn it around, but the frogman wins the fight.
Big kill for LGD.
The only reason this fight was even remotely close is because of Whisper.
It's because he dealt like nearly, it may have even been like 5-digit damage if the earlier fight would also count, but yeah, Whistler is popping off.
You do have good timings on Largo, like with more levels and the talents, and especially the Contra's Catalyst as well, like this late in the game you have a lot of waves, because even here, they find the enigma first, but there's no real way for them to follow.
You just have GbK blinking into the front. If Tylan isn't there to deal the damage, even if you jump, Nero, it doesn't do anything.
How many buybacks do you have? Is it just a single one for Yuma?
I think it may have been only Yuma.
Not the most disastrous, but still, breaking bread team will go for Roche again.
Okay, let's see. Rocket soon, so they can delay this one.
The problem is that Yuma is down for 50.
You need this Necro. Whisper can do a lot as we can see, but...
You need some people to make a little bit of space for them.
GPK has damage rune by the way.
Yeah, and he has like, shows up, he gets a licked off Laguna Blade onto Tylum, trying
to heal up at the last moment, but it's not nearly enough, Miero gets the kill, and now
the surround tactics onto the frog, overgrows on top of him, whisper pops to BKB in retreat.
He will walk away, but the rest of his team not so lucky.
Yolokor likely to be chased down, gonna get slowed, and GPK is there to help finish the
It's a fourth kill now and this will set up Roche and BB Team in an exceptionally good spot now here in game number one.
This could just be a game where GDK just doesn't die a single time.
He's 13, 0, 11, 11,000 damage in this fight.
What do you do to him? You have so many problems if you're LGD.
I feel like in some of these fights I don't, you know, I'm not looking too much at Kiritich because I don't have to.
If there's a good Black Hole or GDK getting right flicks off, it's kind of hooked.
Yeah, he, it feels like Kiritich is the icing.
And LGD is lactose intolerance, they can't handle it.
No, they can't at all. They want to get out of this game real quick.
Yeah, well, the DB team are going to help the Blige as they get their second pair of
barracks now and a 20k lead. They probably go for Roshnex, although the
timers are, the respawn timers are at it for Tylong, not that far off.
I mean, we have to see what LGD can kind of come out with, you know, the cooking here.
You have Yuma who's queuing up a blink, which I like.
You need to find a way to go in together and then apply the utmost pressure the moment
you go in.
Like maybe if you get to double blink on Miro, you get to immediately siphon with some follow-up.
You can make some stuff happen.
And Roche has Belch for all to hear.
Unfortunately, if you're LGD, hookshot in the last moment, GPK picks up the Aegis.
But the clockwork not able to get anything just dies
Not much to be done there a good attempt and honestly, what else can you do here?
You had to try you absolutely you down 20k gold
You got to go for some of the overall bigger place because now they can go push the high ground
They're up 20k gold and if you're LGD you have to come up with the best plan to go about this
Data list completed. There's a rose banner
It is. Sorry to be d- it's already been difficult and it's just getting more difficult.
You also have a banner you can place with the double siege waves which is still incoming
here.
A very late game blade mail for Katoumi.
It's a very nice combo with the Agathom Scepter.
Quick one two punch, 6k HP, then you walk in with the blade mail.
There's Roshis banner.
As Kiritish now has a Daedalus, I'm hoping things up onto GPK, he's gonna pop the E on
This immediately for whisper turning on that satanic and there's the black hole only on the one
But it is an important one ty long dead 90 seconds no buyback and just like that look at all these skeletons
That's mega creeps for BB team
And I don't think that's any reason to stop no narrow if he really wants to or has to you start the refresher available
I've shot immediate hex now still has that second one to work with he's gonna pop the refresher tries to go for it
He gets a re-precite with a face instead of beautiful kill from LGD
They still lost two as Yuma running out of resources
It's the ghost shroud off as the GPK focusing on the frog. He's just stun locked
And that should surely be it is only two alive now from LGD
The LSA clips Yuma and the right clicks will certainly suffice
And that should do for game number one GG is called the BB team looking really good. Just overall nicely done
I think great performance from honestly everyone, but I would say especially
Especially GPK 18-0, just a very clean game on the Lina here.
So I think if it's your LPD, you have to think a little bit about the next game.
I don't think your draft is very well equipped here, you know, to fight into these three range cores from the BKB bottom team.
Yeah, they look good overall.
It's just, I feel like for me, and I'm an idiot here, so don't listen to me.
The draft, the way they played it, it should have been a different draft.
They've got problems. And they've got problems when you're right.
If you are, and that is not a good sign for that person.
Oh boy, that's not good.
I do agree with you. It's obviously you have the choice of how you itemize and how you take the game,
but I think when you play against this triple-range hero of, like, Lina, Flings and Ignite,
and your lineup has trouble catching and gap-closing, you are in for a rough game.
So I am expecting more from LGD. I do think that Whistler still had a crazy game on the frog.
No problems there at all. But the rest of the itemization and how you're playing,
BB team just I would say they kind of got a free one here GPK ends the game 18
and zero on Lena mid what a crazy performance and this is a guy that I
mean I drove about all the time he used to be that guy that tilted out of the
face of the earth he'd be super inconsistent he had incredible games
and then really trash games and he's really turning around he's just being
exceptionally good and consistently so not many players I feel like turning
around he's he ain't that guy anymore I think this guy is very clutch very clean
I think Miero is well on the enigma, had a very very good showing here and Lina as a hero overall has been
Impressing we've seen it now from Kerry. We've seen it from this both with the magical and the physical build which I have to
Command GPK for I would thought you know maybe the magic build is quite good against the Necro, but I'm pretty sure he showcases the perfect
Itemization for this game. Yeah, see GPK basically all these highlights towards the end of the game
Him right-clicking, if Plinks dies at the beginning of the fight,
literally doesn't matter at all somehow.
It's a crazy performance from the side of better-believe team, Sheever.
We are believing, for sure, I couldn't think of another word with a B that fits there,
but yeah, BB Team take that first game against LGD,
even though LGD, they did have, as they say, a nice lane against a nice start to the lane.
the lane, where KJ was talking about with Yuma, and it just couldn't turn into anything after the mid game was done, so...
Yeah, I mean, at least he delivered what he promised, which is like a good lane versus 7 Miro, it really happens.
But, you know, I think their lineup was...
Suppose, or maybe I had a misunderstanding of the lineup, but you know, I think of Necro with a good start, Largo, Profit mid, like you want to bring the tempo,
You want to like accelerate the game especially versus in the enigma Alina and it clings and we saw the you know
The late game scaling coming from three zero, but with any bite double radiance and milstrom on profits and
How really can you be? Yeah, it's like it's so greedy. You're looking to farm
And you're okay farming versus enigma and then you know enigma things happen
It's like you kind of wonder like maybe they they missed out on on their strategy like they didn't really execute it properly
I'm not sure I'm not sure either because it was
It looked like everything was going according to plan.
And it was actually, if you were to ask BB Team what they would like to do with their drafts,
like, well, we're going to get Farm, and you know, the later we go, the happier we are,
because the scaling definitely on our side.
And we saw that in action, and I will say, seeing DBK on the Lena again after a long time, it's been one of his...
Yeah, it's one of his thingies indeed.
I really love the atomization. It's all coming out from him.
like Casters touched upon it in the end but also this four staff slash bike that he picked up
and also you can tell the team they played around him like he gets one item he gets hurricane
bike immediately they start to play around him he gets a bkb they smoke again they're trying to
find something on the map but i do feel like this build was so much superior in this game because
they couldn't really close the gap on him seeing that this four staff is really good against the
Hookshot, it's very good against like clockwork in general. It's very good against the mages prophet
So you can get that at the sprout at the later stage of the game and he never felt threatened
Like there were a couple of situations where they're like the reaper side, but they didn't have enough damage
Their damage was also mostly coming up from damage over time like the frog stomp multiple spells coming up from margo
Metro with the go shrouds like radians burn as well
Next profit needed to be the right clicker, but he also wasn't really interacting much with lina in a sense
Yeah, and with these kind of lineups, they can't really stop him from getting the satanic off
They don't have enough lock down. They don't have enough control and he really really abused that and you know
Like now that I see his item build and I see how the game played out
I think the Rasta pick was super nice like, you know, he was already very grateful
He had all this, you know disables in front of him the hexes the shackles
When the Draftron on I was like, hmm Rasta Nina, you know interesting
I don't know like why is that good together because the Nina just plays on bursting a hero
down, she already has like some sort of lockdown, but this StrikelyLina with Rasa looked very
good. So I think they already had that planned out very beginning. You mentioned that he
already played Lina with the physical build. So this is maybe just his go-to at this point.
Like that's how he's used the hero's strengths.
I think also with the Shadow Shaman, once you're doing well, once you're ahead, towers
will fall, buildings will die, really fast, Clink's helps a lot in that as well. And we
We did see that something, that we don't see that much in other games.
BB Team, when they were ahead, they're like, okay, they take objectives, they take buildings
and I felt like that's something that LGD couldn't provide, even when they did win fights.
Yeah, there was this one big fight around Roshan that I'd like to showcase because they,
at the time they were 5k gold ahead, they weren't really able to find a way how to make
this fight worked for them because they were definitely lacking some of the damage and this
is pretty much if they win this fight the fight could have been going like even maybe the full
game like it would give them quite a lot of momentum with the agents of necro so we're going to
showcase like the angle that db is approaching from immediately finding the oldicor like the heroes
are going to know the insane amount of damage that they do have also gp checking inside roche pit
making sure that they're not doing it and then necro i feel like necro a little crumbled here
using Reaper site thinking maybe the damage is going to be enough, maybe the Radiant
Purge is going to kill Rasta straight away, and then Miero he has one job, he needs the
Black Hole this necrophos and they have more than enough damage to bring him down and because
of all these things are happening and because all of these buybacks that they're committing,
these are three buybacks inside of LGD, so sure you're going to be getting a kill on
Miero, but also like the positioning where they manage to reposition themselves with
the four staffs with the bikes as well making sure that they are going to be running away
If they find the kill here on GPK, maybe it's a bit of a different thing, but also if you look at the timer, it's 29-23 at the moment,
which means that you're not going to be able to kill Roche off of this, which also means that DDT is going to be out managing to contest the next Roche as well.
That's exactly what they did.
It is what they did, and seeing these fights still makes me wonder where it all went wrong for LGD, because was it the draft?
Was it just their indecision to not push more, pressure more?
Yeah, I think the drafts, a little bit, like I'm not the biggest fan of the draft personally.
I feel like Prophet, Necro, Largo is a little bit too much of the same thing.
It's like, I think of Prophet as a hero, like especially Prophet,
like he wants stuff to be happening around the map.
Like that is what the hero's made for.
Like you have to think about it this way.
It's like the hero has an ability to TP to places that others don't.
So it's like he doesn't use any resources. He can be in the fight and as soon as you get an advantage
He tipis away and just farms like the whole map with because he got the info from well
They also tipi there let's say so he really enjoys when there's stuff happening
And he gets info on the map so that he can be aggressively farming areas that usually you're not allowed to enter
You just don't have the tools to do so in that case
He has two radiance heroes that are also kind of vacuuming the map and they're not really making place
So he's just there and he's like he's trading farm
But the profit is not a hero that at equal farm will scale like he scales for from getting ahead in both
And that didn't happen. So I don't think they to me the profit mid
Really never came into play like he didn't get to TP to sidelines early in the game. We haven't seen profit ultis
Cute things you can do with profit mid like the abuse the teams that abuse that they stack ancients
They pay so what there to buff the ulti these kind of cute things that are gonna make this hero feel really strong
I think it was just a casual profit. Like you could have been anything else and
I don't think it's the way to play the hero personally
Maybe it's a little bit of the comfort zone
But we didn't see the full potential of the draft is what I'm trying to say and what we saw was not good enough to beat BBT
But this was overall last pick nature's profit. Yeah, so normally you'd expect something there that is it gives a little bit of a length in nation
I mean it could have been better if they was better executed
I don't think we saw the potential of it like there was no ganks
So he was just trading farm essentially with very greedy sideline heroes, which again
I don't think it's what profit is built for like you need active heroes with him at least one so that he can skyrocket with the
Farmer like an optimist, you know, you have to make space for this, you know
Yeah, I also like the early gem pickup that they did basically
16 17 minutes into the game kill the core decided to invest his goal, but also
also has a little bit of anti synergy because of the double radiance. I feel like if you're
trying to push the tempo because it's very good to D-Ward, it's very good to see Trium
Protector, this claims that they managed to punish even in this game because he has been
pretty silent. But if you think about some of the timings that you want to be hitting,
it's definitely not the double radiance timing. Sure, it sounds like good. We saw him doing
quite a lot of damage in most of these fights, but it just felt like this was an hit.
It's not just that. It's double radiance and maelstrom first item.
You know, it's like it's more, we're thinking maybe Midas and one of the supports at this point, you know?
And honestly, I would love to go back to the reap day.
I'm sure I could find moments where core heroes are idling because there's no camps to farm anymore.
It's like, BD team is defending their side of the map and everybody's just looking for another camp to farm.
There's no more. So there is like, you can only greed up to a certain point.
At some point, the map doesn't have enough camps.
Yes. I mean farming with that.
This is Necro with boots of travel and Nature's Prophet that can TP anywhere
plus his ulti so they are consuming I would say 70% of the resources maybe even more
and Largo is just getting a little bit of extra. I could definitely be farming at a faster speed
or providing something else for the team if they're trying to utilize that extra bit of farm
that they're getting on the map but it never really came down to that.
Yeah I feel like maybe this is also a situation now for LGD that it is from their perspective
probably relatively easy to pinpoint where they went wrong.
So in terms of game number two, I am expecting there to be adjustments.
I'm also expecting there to be adjustments on the side of VB team,
because I'm sure they would have liked to have the lane still a little bit better.
That's something that they potentially can be working on for that game too.
There is elimination on the line.
So a lot of pressure coming on to this stage for this best of three.
And one of these two teams will be going home after this one.
We'll find out if LGD can force out that third game to the series, or if we will take
this one to an own, of course, all around.
We have a lot of action throughout this day.
We had a lot of action yesterday, where also elimination was on the line.
And I'm sure that some of the conversations that were happening were maybe heated.
I actually have no idea.
But I will have an idea very, very soon because we are going to listen in to some of those
moments with the Saudi radio comms.
I'm going to die maybe, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going
I see a vacuum guys, are you ready?
I see a vacuum
I see a vacuum
I see a unit in the middle
I see a vacuum
It's a vacuuming the hamburgers
Nice, nice, nice
Focus, focus, focus, focus
In pit, in pit
Nice, nice
I can shoot
I want you, wait, listen to me
Yeah, yeah, yeah, smoke to Husker
I want you to flare when I tell you
Flare and if I see London, I just burst him
Okay
Welcome to the last round of the survival stage
LGD versus the boomer boys.
That's correct.
BB team added again.
They have been a very strong threat to Sermon
throughout the last six months.
In fact, LGD are just starting to catch on fire though.
What do you think?
That was a natural throw to you.
What do you think?
LGD, they're quite good.
I'm a big fan of Wolf Whisper and Tylong.
I think we've seen them pop off,
especially yesterday when they were playing.
You know, BB team, they're very good.
They're still, they're the favorites to me,
But just by a little bit, you know, we know that they can be very good, but they're also, you know, they've got some other stuff.
So Thailand versus GPK, I got my eyes on that one.
All right. Three games, 60 minutes each. Let's go.
We're at the STC arena. Things are kicking off today, Ginny.
We've got the league starting. Don't boo, don't boo, don't have fans.
A lot of things going on over here.
We've got the French fans getting themselves involved.
Yeah, Casey, this is their second time on stage today because our format is a little bit different than what we had in Valorant.
We have four groups of four teams competing you need to win two matches to go on to that next stage to be in that top
Eight so so far KC has actually lost their first game
Which now puts them in an elimination match against team secret in a best of three series
So anything can happen in that regards
But for the teams that have already won that first game that they need to win the most notable ones that I would say for the club
Championship is going to be G2
just from the sheer amount of teams that they have competing, but also Gen G going through
flawlessly. They're the ones actually that beat KC and they're a title defender. So this
is a potential 1000 points out for grabs for them. Yeah, there's a lot of points out for
grabs for some of these teams. Some of the big club championship teams very much involved
at the STC right now. We'll be keeping up as the week goes on.
Thank you very much Chris and Janniro for that club championship update as we will
find out which one of these two teams will get points on the board for the club championships
because you don't get any points if you're not top eight.
And this is the fight for top eight.
BB team is one game up here against LGD and LGD is looking to strike back.
We're hoping for some cool adaptations from actually to be fair both sides going into this game number two
And I was expecting a bit more of a brawl in the mid game and instead it felt you got the radiance
Now that's why was it that was that just a result of LGD draft that I think I mean
He did pull it off yesterday in a bit of a different order as well
He demonstrated Russia it he did get spirit vessel
He didn't get BKB and then went back for Radiance for a bit of a more like scaling build because he thought he needs it this time around he
switched priority and
I just feel like this this isn't even though it was dealing quite a lot of damage like you're running people down with your extra bit of a
Move speed that with the frog stomp it does synergize nicely
But also it has a little bit of anti synergy to how you're playing the map
But I do like what they did yesterday against mouse in that first game when they were trying to speed things up
I think this might be the key because you are playing against BB team
So you want to be matching up with the speed when they had the you know
Quite a lot of synergy between their carry and their off lane you have Ursa who can surge give the iron shell to
We have a ghost push it did go for the helm of the overlord not just the dominator
And you also had the you know your mid huskar that puts quite a lot of pressure
You are the ones controlling Roshan's with both of these heroes
So I would like to see something similar that not just like hero wise it doesn't necessarily mean to be just pick those heroes
It's more about its strategy and how they interact with each other.
Oh, they can't really pick all the heroes because Oscar has already moved from the pool.
We also see the respect on the enigma there with the ban that LGD brings out.
The sides will be the same for this game, but we did change pick priority with first pick going the way of LGD
and it is their turn right now.
Yeah, and the BB team they all put more respect on the triune. They don't want to play against it.
They were they first picked it last game. It was given away by LGD.
And to be fair, I think they did a pretty good job at surviving the lane against Truyant.
If anything, I think they got a couple kills on the clings, and BB team needed a little
bit more support and help, but I think GPK ganked that lane pretty early to try to stabilize
what was happening.
So, regardless of the outcome of the first game, you think about the early to mid game,
I think LGD were pretty much in the driving seat, even though they went for greedy item
builds.
They made a lot of cool moves and rotations around the map.
So, I wouldn't come them out whatsoever, I think they, if anything, they played, I don't
want to say they played better, but they had a good 10 minute sequence where they were
completely dominating the LV team.
Yeah, I would like this.
Right?
Yeah.
The early game looked really good, they were kind of trading the farm in the middle lane,
we were thinking about like what's going to happen in that matchup, because it's Lina,
we in the green room, you, Seb, you mentioned like the block that Lina did have or didn't
have so the lane was kind of on top of the enemy hill which she wasn't able to
control too much which did lose some of the CS getting harassed by the
experience as well but Largo again for LGD. Yeah and Lena banned out by LGD.
I think against VV Team the Cero we banned a lot like again it's they can
play it on mid I'm sure Kiritich can play position one and Watson is probably
going to put that hero in a really high place, how successful he is with this team and we
know he's going to be playing it more and everybody looks at the winning team and the
most dominating team and that's how it goes.
I also believe he can be a support hero so glad to see that band on LGD's side.
I think it's one of the key pieces to BB's drafts right now.
Yeah we saw signs, something about Lottam, what LGD stands for, and the previous one
it's standard for Lena godlike Dota it seems because they needed to address that problem
they definitely did and also removing Doom which potentially does open up Necro again
Doom is also very good against Largo but on the other side you are just having stable position 5
this is going to be also I think like Bane doesn't really suffered that much against Largo compared
to some other offlaners that he could be playing into yeah I think I mean Bane is just such a
strong laner that it's gonna fair well against any lane. Okay, they go for the cuddle. That's
a little bit more interesting to me because I think of Largo as being a decent hero against
cuddle, especially the earlier timings. It's not good against all the cuddle combos, to be honest,
like I think it's very good versus cuddle ember for instance, but I don't think it's as good
versus cuddle storm or cuddle pango for that matter. So pretty good pick up actually, like
Like, at the end of the day, Accent in GPK, we saw what happened last game and how he's able to take over a game and how well they play around them.
So, save GPK, they're super used to the Cuddle Pumpers. I think they're probably the team that has abused it the most.
Yeah, I think a lot of people remember our same abyssal blade against the Nekma, of course.
So this is their bread and butter. They're super happy. Getting Cuddle plus one is GV Team's trademark.
At this point, there's also the Cuddle Beast lane that we've seen them run, like Save and Miro, with great success.
They played versus Connors and they destroyed these lanes.
I think it was banned also in the first game, they did not let them get their hands on it.
So, I'm looking forward to some Cuddle Beast store.
Oh yeah, I was about to mention Beastmaster.
Like this is the duo that kind of owns the Grimstroke as well and the next assassin.
So they're potentially preparing for maybe Ember Spirit also coming out as well,
some of this uncontrollable damage that could come out, which Mixed Assassin is very good at.
But I have to say, these two supports are very weak against Beastmaster, both on lane and in the game.
So I'm really surprised that they're not covering that angle.
Like, they must be discussing it, and probably Yuma is thinking about what he wants against that lane.
I was gonna say that Nephro is one of the best heroes against that lane, in my opinion, and it's been banned out.
Also, a little bit worrisome, I'll be surprised to not see the beast come up here.
Well, for now we're starting things up with the Kez.
Classic. I mean, it's been banned. Honestly, it's been one of the heroes that, like,
we haven't seen much Kez, but it's been banned a lot against a lot of the Kez.
Yeah, I think all of the games that we covered, this might be the first Kez that we're actually seen.
Yeah, but it's been banned a lot.
We've covered a lot, Chiever, so I'm talking about, you know, the combo between us two and you.
Casual like casual cast bands like I think a lot of the carry players like it's not all of them
But you know Mickey a carriage Watson like the art
It's a panic like some carries discernment
They have really practiced guys hardcore like they're
They're insane on the hero and they're getting a lot of respect. So this time around it gets through
Your hero versus
Grim I guess on the lane like very susceptible to killing him they go for the center instead. Okay, so there's not gonna be a beast
I'm trying to understand why they would
prioritize the center here
Maybe they think Grimstroke combo is also like could be annoying with the stampede you could easily get out of it
And also not seeing the matchup yet center is kind of strong against pretty much whatever and it also
Amplifies carry to carry matchup in a way where he could be building the pipe
he could be building the Lotus and the Latter-Stage with the game picking up the Aghanim Scepter,
which plays the match up pretty heavily in his favor.
What is surprising is that they decide to not pick the Colour combo from the mid lane,
so they probably believe that usually what happens is you would list the heroes that you're happy
playing and if it's more than two, which is the number of bands the opposing team has,
then you're happy with pushing it to 24, which is what they have, like they have the ultimate last
pick off the draft so maybe pango they feel worse about it because there's a
grimstack in the game you know the spirits next notoriously known as a
counter to spirits because they all play with the aoe damage and they're very
susceptible to getting stunned so we'll have to see what GPK wants to play
center mid toss and style with carl it could be I think I saw it like in the
I don't remember GPK playing it, but I saw it in TI qualifiers, I think one or two teams in European qualifiers played it, and it looked pretty good.
Center mid, last pick beasts, like as like an out draft if they forgot that it could be a possibility.
Yeah.
Why not?
And the overall last pick for BB teams, so they would not be...
Good work, good work.
You know Yuma, Mipo, is it a Mipo game? Is Mipo good against Kels?
I think I saw Satanic use it against the Kez as well.
I mean, it's a good like Ursa game, it's one of the heroes that like the stacking damage
against the Centaur, it's one of the heroes that can square up against Kez, this is the
hero that they used, they need an extra bit of like, I don't know if they want to be going
out with Ursa as their overall aspect in a game where they're already one game down in
a series where they're only in one game down. Maybe they want to pick something more stable,
something that's not going to get out of control, but this has been used as a counter to Kes,
because you have a Dispel, you have damage reduction as well, and Kes, what he likes
to do is he likes to get in and out of the fights multiple times, you get five, six
Fury Slides on him, he can't come back because she's straight up going to die to it.
Back in my days.
Back in the year.
Storm Ursa used to be a combo because you would get Aegis for your Storm and obviously
best Aegir Skyrim in the game, so back in my days, we're still a little bit of a good pick.
If it is Centaur mid, how does it do against a Storm Spirit? Is that fine?
I think Centaur mid is fine against anything, almost, yeah. He has such high, like, strength
gain base region, he has spells to secure last hits. It's pretty, it's easy mode, basically.
Fair enough. We got a Viper banned out on the side of LGD and a Life Sealer so far banned
by bigotime as for now we are looking for a hero for Yuma carry on the side of
LGD and most likely a GP hero because like the next band would not happen if
they were thinking about the beast route so they're they're talking about
midlaners for sure unless they're five had it heading in yeah maybe the
suggestion comes later maybe we're we think quicker than they do and it's gonna
take them another couple maybe hey wait a minute but wouldn't you want to ban out
carries just and that are good against center just to make your
ability that you're gonna put center on yes that's the next level play it's it's
real it's it's actually a thing very very true but you know I think you see
storm maybe it's not great like you know it's I think maybe the door is open but
they need to see something that seals the deals like okay this is like this is
just this is a checkmate like we will pick it well they see an apple
It's not just forget about it. Just forget about this. Yeah, it's it's just gone. Oh, so now maybe most likely a GPK hero
Quick question. We said previous game that Largo and Necro
They were both farming and even though they both farmed very well radians again. Let's go. Don't worry. Yeah, that is fine
I don't think so. I personally think it's never fine, but I'm just a hater personally. Okay, maybe it is fine
I guess I'll pass
I mean do you really need it your might eventually even like get the agonist
scepter so you will get the gold back like you'll get 6,000 gold influx and
the jubicade is gonna be playing invoker this is being invoker you mentioned it
I think earlier today yes yes I wanted to see it it's just too good of a combo and
also I think heritage he has a lot of buffs like every single hero can give him
some kind of a buff, but if we're talking about Chakra Magic, which works insanely well with
Kez and all his abilities, with Stampede later on card, and also Elacrity.
Like, I think this is the highest DPS that you can have in game, maybe like Morta with
Elacrity, but Kez, he just eats pretty much anything, and once this hero goes in with
the BKB, I'm really not seeing how LGD is going to be able to punch back.
I think I've seen it now, like the Kez burfly, Elacrity time, you just go in and build attacks.
is this you know sometimes the game just breaks you see something that's just
like that that's not supposed to work yeah that is not okay this is way too
quick this is way too much damage and this is typically that kind of draft I
also really like their side lanes for invoker they have set up some both lanes
like center stone bay nightmare even my invoker would hit the Sunstrike so GPK
is gonna do great very sort of aspect honestly like the lane I think the lane
can go both ways but you know if both mid laners are delivering and then the
stable performance, it should be pretty even, that's saying.
Is there a team that will outscale the other one, definitely, if it does go late?
I would say BV, I mean it kind of depends what the gold graph looks like, because if
Alk is completely uncontested and they're bleeding gold, then you know, it's a different
story, but if it's even, I would say BV.
Yeah, I gotta agree.
BV, they look super solid, these like strong mid lane, strong side lanes as well, super
scaling draft and I feel like they can put quite a lot of pressure onto the Alchemist
lineup as well, Grimshaw plus Knicks Assassin, Support Duo that we probably haven't seen so far in this tournament,
LGD Gaming trying to dig deep, trying to find something that's going to work out for them,
but this type of Support Duo is also very, very bad at the early engagements.
They can provide you with much damage, so playing with the Storm Spirit is not going to be as strong.
You're going to have to find out how it will play itself out,
is it ready for game number two between BB and LGD with some Spanikism?
Thank you, Shiva, indeed. If our predictions are correct, I almost told you Cinderant.
Wow, that's so good.
I just miss him so much.
This will go to game 3. According to us, pre-series, you still believe after these drafts?
I have faith in LGD to give us a better game than in game 1.
I didn't answer the question.
Well, let me get there. They have better chances, and I believe that they will take us to a game 3 here.
Because you can't just go up against Butter Bing Butter Boom Team and think that it's going to be easy.
You know, you got to get slapped once in the face, come back, do it better, not build double radiance,
not farm for 30 minutes and lose, but take it to them and show them what's up.
And that double radiance is not going to age well, I feel like.
No.
Maybe they just didn't know.
They thought it was stacked, double burn?
No, maybe they didn't know they were building it.
And the cool thing is, as I hold your thoughts about the Bounty Runes and whatever is unnecessary
and use this information, we get a Nix assassin.
That's right, it's been a while.
It's a good hero, great against Bane, great against the Injoker as well, you can catch
him, you can always use the Carapace on the Caudal Places as well, so I like this here.
Caudal too.
Yeah, the Illuminate?
Yeah.
What?
It's very good against the Caudal.
That's what I said, did I not?
Now that you said Invoker, and uh...
The Cautal.
No, you didn't say Cautal.
You said something else.
Very good.
You have to go back.
Very good.
Back to the cast of course.
GPK playing the Invoker this time around.
Exorth Invoker, here we go.
Yep.
And in terms of later in the game, because we're always going to talk about the cataclysm
at some point, is this a build that he can go for, or is that just a luxury these days?
It's definitely just a luxury.
It's nice because you have Centaur who can definitely set it up, which is quite nice.
But we generally see the different items.
You see the meteor hammer, the boots of travel, like some, the shard early on, an octaring course.
So we'll see how it goes later, of course, for the XXB team and how they want to itemize.
Yeah, so BB, obviously, winning game one, this is the survival stage.
So if they win this game or the series overall, they will end up in the playoffs here at EWC,
whereas LGD elimination game for them right here, right now.
I'm glad to see Tylong on a spirit brother.
Yeah.
I feel like he is exceptionally good at these high skill cap heroes, generally speaking.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up, because I did not like his nature's profit in the last game.
Obviously, you know, there's only so much you can do on specific heroes, but I feel like it didn't really fit all that well.
I mean, he's better equipped, especially Storm, Largo, and Storm, Grimstroke, an incredible combo.
Even Storm plus Nix, you know, the 1 plus 1 kill thread that you have on the map.
And even like Alchemist Largo is something you saw at the start of the patch
because you can gift the Agonist up this way later.
Of course it's been nerfed, but it's still very very strong.
I'll whisper it. Second game in a row on the Frogman.
Obviously that first game, not work. I mean they have two heroes that can buy Rageants again.
Yeah.
In the Alchemist.
The thing at least is with Alchemist, he's farming more for himself
and then he can give the Ags away later.
I was gonna ask about that. So then you split it. What do you mean by later?
What I can't late the agonist. Yeah, it's gonna depend a little bit on how the game goes
I think with how much they nerfed it you want to like build your own here
You know like radians playing BKB and then ags, okay, but in some games you can go radians acts
You could do it. So let's rate. This is the most fun part of the cast for me
Let's rate the ags on this team. You have Largo with the double song. Yeah, you have nicks with the burrow
You have Storm Spirit with the Blue Hole as it were.
Yeah, you have Blue Hole against White Hole potentially in the game.
That's right, that's a good one.
Frog gets, I already said that one tonight, it's Grimstroke.
Yes, that will sound.
The Dark Quarter is okay.
It's like, the Kez illusion is not bad, but he does need a couple of slots.
So the only one you would rush and ask for is the Frog.
Especially if we're also looking at overall player impact.
Because Whisper, he's been owning.
Even the last game where they looked like they were getting dumpstered, it was all him subbed right?
It does clip Yuma. Gonna use the concoction, but he gets double edge along with the hoofstom and that's first blood going away a very bursting team here.
What is very bursting?
Just is something. That's good. I'm sure it's the correct abbreviation there for it. It does count.
But this is why you have to fear this dueling. The Miero said, you know, you get the blinding light,
you start chasing them down. It is one of the things where, you know,
So, Nick's assassin is, he is a good hero for the game, but his laning is atrocious, GDK.
Almost dying there, has the cold snap, will fall to the right click, as Tylong, eventually taken out now, his save drops in to take the free beat.
Very close from Tylong to go for the play, but GDK, he had a fairy fire available, maybe didn't quite do the math there, you know, and ending up dying there to Tylong.
But you know, safe, he'll actively tip you to the mid lane, get himself a bit of bonus golden experience.
This looks like the Olacor is going to take a tumble, although the stun coming out just
in time onto Kiritich is going to try to walk away.
The Olacor is sticking around very greedy as Whisper does kill off the chicken man.
The Olacor will be the trade as Katya Omi now getting chased by Largo.
I'm all for it.
Nick is up in a moment, but I don't think it's going to be enough for him to actually pursue
this.
Have the frog stop.
I'm going to get the double catch.
In fact, it's being turned around now by Katya Omi.
Just reinstepping it up.
I'm all for it from a boy Adrian Dobles, aka Whisperer, we have another good game here on the Largo, he's kind of, he's performing.
And if I'm looking at any one of them to kind of bring it together is definitely him, but also Tylong should be able to step up this game on the storm.
Yeah, in terms of VB team's overall strategy, since we talked about LGD's a bit, what's the pacing looking like for this team?
They are happy scaling I would say again, but this time it's a little bit
It's more dynamic you can look for place a lot more this time around of course invokers
Maybe a little bit similar to the Lena where you just farm you throw some Sun strikes around but Nero can be a lot more aggressive
And honestly Kiritage on the bird as well
He is one of the best cases even as of like half a year ago. This guy has banger performances
So definitely looking at more skirmishes
Save already level 4 by the way, 5 and a half minutes, best support in the world.
You must be looking for something.
Concaution will hit with the help of the aft spray as well as KJ there with an impale and
that is going to be more than enough to speolokor also dropping in with that inkswell to get
the kill.
It's nicely done, we want to see if they're able to stay here for that long, sun's right
down bottom.
And it's onto Whisper, Ekko slashed the follow, puts down the frog stomp to delay and it's
enough for him to walk away but it is a very scary lane to be in a 1v2 now it
is definitely good pressure and you can see both sides moving to the mid lane
that's also why this this five minute support rotation that LGD went for is
very good because you end up in the safe lane now you have post four and five
they can go to the mid lane together Tylong gets himself a region rune which
is of course very good as we all know on the storm spirit brother
to the horseman, saved and paled up.
Ain't swell coming, but the nice tornado from GPK
into the deafening blast, save,
might actually live through this.
Sun strike, not gonna hit, but Miero gets the double,
hosts up into the double edge on the Ty Lung,
just slowed up as well, thanks to the Invoker.
Now Ty Lung isolated from the rest of his team,
brought back with the Wildwing Ripper
as Miero just cuts off his head.
Beautifully done from BB team.
They did end up losing the caudal,
because you know that's the very least for LGD,
will steal out the wisdom shrine.
Well, very much needed.
I thought, you know, he's going to be AOK,
Thailand, with the region rune, but I missed him
using it way earlier, or GPK got the disfellows
with the tornado in the middle of the fight there.
Stampede used, but the concoction has already
hit into the impale.
Be able to kill off this silence.
The sun's striking a cliff, but Miero,
team to get chased now, but Yuma brought back thanks again
to that wild wind ripper has lived a good life,
but not for much longer.
Meanwhile, you see the Thunder Whisperer, yeah, puts down the Fronkton, avoids both Echo Slashes though, so...
...will be able to walk back, but the Grappling Claw into the right clicks and he ticks away to the Chicken Man.
Yeah, even with the Miss Echo Slash there, getting the kill...
...you gotta see what LGD can get out of this, because they had very good pressure down bottom, of course, you are leaving Whisper alone.
And even though there's... like, everyone on LGD is kind of playing in this top lane, look at Miro's net worth.
He's top one on the board, not that much pressure on him anymore, not Dominator completed.
You have high armor, you can just keep cutting the waves around as he is doing, you know?
This is why Centaur is so good right now.
You don't really have to interact with anyone and then you just return it up on the neutrals.
Yeah, we've been saying quite consistently that this Centaur has been just top net worth for a good portion of the game,
which for me, I don't remember a time in Dota when that was actually even semi-consistent, so very cool to see.
Maybe when there was like poor men's shield and shrines or something, that's like when Legion Commander and Centaur were played a lot.
That's the last time I can think of center being like a banger hero over and over again. Yeah
It's great to see you have to be think of like s4 or something in the offing which that is a long time ago
Yeah, that's true
Some vision wars going on over here in the bot side
It's got the omate another nightmare
There's a backup in the form of the old core though
I hear an all-in-the-grapiny claw away yet. You're right coming from the south is Yuma with a concoction on to
He gets stunlocked and destroyed. A beautiful kill from LGD. As now the supports will end up dying as well.
Safe falls as GPK actually makes the rotation. Nice nightmare from Kat Delomey. We'll keep him safe.
Interesting that GPK ended up going for the TP here. Potentially thinking, you know, what if Kiritich gets to live, gets off the raptor dance, and you can kind of turn it around.
But this is exactly what I wanted to see from LGD in the last game. Play fast, go for the collapse. High long.
I'm meteor coming out. It's half to Omi and GPK on the high ground whisper
We'll give him a little poke and then change his mind
Uh-oh, burp on his back. It's not near the back, because, you know, carrot has joined the party.
Onto Ty Long, Raptor Dance is gonna be canceled thanks to the silence. Gets off the Ravens veil.
Oh, he's dead.
Ty Long in the middle of a few creeps. Looks like he's okay.
Whisper not so much though as GPK gets the job done.
Yeah, even Ty Long, he barely, he's still stuck. Yeah, he can't even use his ultimates.
There we go. Take this time to farm it up.
This does mean that they're not going to get the active rune, at least I would assume,
as safe or...
Don't know me.
Uh-huh. He's being very oppressive on his bane, like not receiving any defts as early
on. Every time Whisper walks in, he just stands his ground. As the GPK is going for a scan
on Thailand to try and maybe squeeze in a Sun Strike.
Yeah, attempted it, but...
Not quite on the money, but you know.
Good effort, as they say.
If you hit those, you can definitely upgrade to being the blockbuster team, of course, which is very nice for them.
Yeah, absolutely. Of course, if you're talking about blockbuster that went out of business many years ago, not so much, so it depends on perspective.
Perspective is always very important, Shannon.
That's right.
So, Whisper, we can see in his quick buy, not going radiance this time.
We like that.
Lessons have been learned, even though I was a fan of it, just because it was funny.
Yes.
Not necessarily good.
Exactly is not always good, and I like with for different itemization
You know the vessel as we watch you mark
Form it up a little bit with the cell stone the acid spray of course alchemist loves and you're right
It's a radiant blink BKB into ag so who gets the first a it's got a little hole surely
No way it's the problem is that it's way too early
You need like force loss on swarm to make that useful. It's got a lot man. Yes, you need the frog you need to tune it up
up, a little bit of a poke, but not too much happening.
We will see how this game ends up going, because the scale I will again give towards the side
of the Butter Bing Butter Boom team here, you have Kev, you have Alacrity, you have
Centaur with the card, and they already have very, very good net worths, as the KJ takes
an ogre bruiser smash to the face.
Yeah, does he feel like Alchemist throughout his history, I mean, by design just falls
off at a certain point of the game. But depending on how good the AGS can be, we're going to
see the Grip actually. My goodness, Tylon completely stunlocked, nowhere to go. Nice
setup there from BB Team as KJ. Going to attempt to defend this Tier 1, but it's not looking
good.
Like also look overall, like Santor is just farming up top, the Dom Creeper smith. Even
Kurethage went, you know, he was angling towards the Rune once they get the kill, he's now
going back to the bottom side so this is a mid tier one gone and you are the team
with better scaling and with the invoker on your side of course Alchemist needs a
bit of time once he has the radiance and the blink they can look to speed it up
I wouldn't mind if they try for another dive play down the bottom tier one which
is what they did earlier yeah so first tower goes away of the better business
bureau team 2k lead them now for them and we can see that Miro is farming up a
He's been left completely uncontested has a half of the dominator of course and it's going straight into a heart has actually the casual
Wait, is he going straight?
He has pipe. His pipe is flying out
Which means he can match the radiance timing with a pipe which is a huge problem because for now all you want to do on center is
Flam on your side put the dominator through somewhere and then press them Pete for your team
But now if a fight ever breaks out you just TP there with your pipe
As the angry bird wants to go back to his lane to hold it also
He's got the Nature Slayer, a very good Nature Slayer game, mind you.
The Smoker from LGD, save is caught out.
KJ in the area with his ult.
They don't even get the kill onto the Connel.
It's a vendetta. See if they can find a target, but the rest of LGD now on the run.
Not really too much happening, as of course.
BD Squad had a good defense in their own jungle, was like how they're playing.
Because even safety is quite tanky if he gets the old off, drops one Illumina, that's quite a bit of heal.
Okay, Jay, Vendetta running out here shortly, we'll get the free hit onto
Keratich with the silencer and a little lick from Whisper, but not enough.
See, we'll be able to get out just fine.
Well, let's see if they can turn it into more. This doesn't at least mean that Stampede is on cooldown.
Oh, not again.
Again, caught out is Ty Long, and that is...
He has four, I didn't even realize that. Four deaths already at 14 minutes.
Yeah, he had that one earlier now, those two back-to-back. I'm also kind of missing one.
But he had not that deal, because he is one of the players that they...
He is a standout player for this team, and they do need him to perform.
Sunflower gets the last hit.
Nicely done. The bug has been squashed.
Oh, GPJ is really pulling up some performances here.
Yuma, concoction, we'll find the arrow.
But the tornado is going to clip him along with the meteor hammer, the Olyphor, shadowing him behind.
But the Soulbind comes out, the fight is going to mitigate so much of this damage,
Tilein desperately needs a kill here, but a nice landing blast comes out from GPK,
as Yuma now in a lot of trouble, slowed up, gets licked up as well from Whisper.
Another double edge from Miero, but Yuma is too fast.
Eventually, Kat only finds him from the north, so great collapse from him
to get the Hustomp into the double edge.
And it's Whisper now, under the cover of the Tier 1 tower, completely surrounded.
Question is, do they have this Thunlock's run because he's going to start to speed up here on that broad.
He'll do just that. No blink dagger, of course, from Miero. But the tier one tower does go down, so...
Beyond beef team, another good fight for them.
They are doing it there. There's just some trouble here for LGD fighting into the pipe, into the main player, and also the heals from Nautic.
Oh boy, they don't have the fiend's grip this time, but they still have the damage anyway. Five deaths for Thunlock.
Oh, this is starting to feel very, very bad here if you're LGD and especially Tylong.
Had a very good early landing stage, did get the solo kill as well onto GPK, but since then, honestly, nothing did that much.
Yeah, this was a relatively long turn after that, but this pipe made the difference, I feel like. It just took no damage for the first 15 seconds or so.
And also GPK even being here this early on, like just before this, he got the Sunstrider kill down bottom onto KJ, then he's turning around this play onto Nero.
And like you said, the pipe with all the heals, like the effective HP on the BB squad is insane at this point.
Yeah. I do not think you could pipe it. You need to use this Radiance, farm it up, maybe get a blink and look for a split play.
Because when they're together, you are not dealing enough damage.
Absolutely not. And now BB team with a 5k lead and this is starting to snowball out of control.
LGD. And this is against an Alchemist. So this is actually way worse than it looks.
looks. We had Alchemist the other day too that was like the biggest lead I've ever seen against an Alchemist and
this one is looking a little bit better but certainly not good
but the Bebops team they'll be very happy about this situation right now.
And Yuma opting to go for a Blink Dagger after this Radiant so almost there
but still very far away from seeing these game-changing agonist scepter potentials.
I mean, is there a point where you're doing, and I have to hold that thought.
Yeah, because this is a dead hero.
Well, okay, it's a dead deal, of course.
Yeah.
Keep talking.
Is there a point where you're doing poorly enough to actually change your game plan if
both supports die?
Take a tumble.
That's a solo kill that Mr. Curious has found down there.
Like, if you find more value in an Agatom step too early, just go for that instead of trying
to fight, because if you're going for a fight now with this much of a deficit, it's going
to get really get value out.
The problem is, even if he goes aggs right now and you're pulling it to whisper, he's level 9.
This frog ain't doing shit, I think, even if you give him an agg.
So that's not a good sign.
At this point, you're top network on the alchemist, and I think you play for that.
You get the blink, you go for the BKB, and you try to help your team find some of these pickups.
You are still alchemist, I understand you're down a lot.
But if you find a good jump with the Ink 12, you can maybe find an attack onto the boom-boom team.
This LGD now smoked up. They need something to go their way. Kat to Omi gets the nightmare off.
So he's going to be able to exit, although Tylong finds a potential target on the other side.
Conquers himself! No! Oh boy, disasters for LGD. They start things out.
Fiends grip into a double. Hustle from the arrow into the double edge. That's two kills right off the bat,
including poor Frogman, Tylong zips away, abandoning the fight completely, and they're
gonna likely find KJ as well.
So Brownback team with a 9K lead now, and this is getting out of control.
This is very early on.
You can tell.
I think that there's a little bit on, you can feel both the pressure and the nerves,
I would say on LGD at least a little bit, because Yuma had a good jump there.
But it's behind the tier 1 tower. He's now farming on an observer.
They didn't have any detection for the invoker.
And, yeah, Yuma in trouble.
They need to sentar, illuminate into the sun's right.
Actually, I don't think that hit, but either way, they have the damage in space.
Tylong too late to the party, 10k lead for BB team.
Yeah, I mean, team battlebots, they're playing with extreme level difficulty.
Whereas the LGD, I don't know what their strength is at at the moment,
because they're dying one by one here, they don't have detection against him.
Surely not again. Surely not again. They don't have fiend's grip. Nice grief. Sun strike. It's a no.
He gets off the essence ring just as last moment. Now double TP coming in from LGD have to get something out of this.
Surely another nightmare for the road for Katomii will eventually pay the price as KJ joins the party.
They're getting healed up. They just don't have any damage. Is this real? They can't kill a single support.
That is really unfortunate for LGD.
This is one of the most annoying pain performances I have seen. Katomi is constantly in the right place at the right time. Amazing sleep.
Save is always behind him with Illumina and Holy Lock and Charge Heals.
And this would even killing this guy would feel amazing if you're LGD.
Absolutely. Anything.
This BB team now smoked up.
As I have to say, Katomi has been incredible so far this game. Fiends grab up in one second.
So if they run it to anyone, and he's got a lot of stacks, I don't know how to pronounce it, the Icarus Nektasha.
Yep, that's right. Okay, they get the soulmind, actually does end up connecting onto two, the double, double, double, double attacks into the double concoction as well.
Is there more damage follow up though? GPK gets off the meteor and now the Alchemist just blows up Tylong and Gumpen just have no damage to their name.
They had the perfect setup, but just absolutely nothing going away at LGD, so Bunker Buster's team get a third kill.
What the fuck did you come with Bunker Buster's? Ah, that's a good one.
You can just tell that LGD don't have the damage.
Like, perhaps you could have channeled one of the stuns longer to kind of keep it going,
because I think they had the Nixon Pale, you had the two men's zip, and also the Alchemist stun.
But even in all of these tunnels, there isn't enough damage coming out.
Because it did look like a good initial jump, because they are trying to go on Taiwan, but...
He's got the greens, he's got the essence ring.
Like, maybe...
That is, like, the perfect setup.
Double electric vortex, double concoction.
But maybe you could have played it on the concoction a bit more, and at this point, everything needs to hit, and you also...
Like, Whisper couldn't really connect, he zoned off KJ as well.
Because, yeah, this is just starting to be a bit of a problem.
Bellybucky team are just kind of owning them.
Yeah, a lot of lint in there to get rid of
So
13 K leave for BV team
As the pormater is
Keep it up
Maybe this one, with KJ looking for Scout, of course you know that they're a little bit
split after the Tormentor.
Even Kjerifich, who we've not talked about a lot, he has incredible timings.
Mechler, Deso, his BKB is up.
The next time you see this Keds on the map, or you're going to fight into him, he's going
to have that as well.
Yeah, he's been a part of the story, but he hasn't been the B story, and eventually
he's going to get to that point.
People be main character eventually, Karate is going through the training arc, the time chamber, here at Dragon Ball San.
Meanwhile, LGD have been basically NPCs for being real so far this game, they've just not shown up to the second game.
It does seem that way, it's got the only way, it's got the cobalt cap, got an Aether lens to help out for now.
You need to kill these supports if you're LGD, but have to stress it over and over when we cast these games.
If you are down a lot of gold in the game, and there's every tier 1 available,
it's very difficult to find the enemy team out of position.
They can constantly TP around their head.
Even if you go on the stairs, there's an Aegis, there's a Mage Flayer.
Yeah.
I don't currently blame LGD for trying to slow down the game by any means.
Courier snipes, cutting some waves.
It's good for them.
Scyling on the high ground, finds... Oh, he gets Nightmare though.
And he's gonna be surrept... What is happening?
What is happening?
What was that?
What do you mean?
What did he say about?
He had so much time!
I mean, he didn't expect.
Kato, what's your place in there?
All right.
Mostom finds a froggy.
And Whisper is going to be another casualty for LGD.
My goodness.
Bleeding Barracuda team is owning so hard as the Ravens Veil comes out.
But KJ, at least this one, he does.
Now worth the chase apparently.
Get to walk off.
Yep, he's just scatling away.
Let's see if your LGD, what kind of moves can you look for? Because if you're the best body team, honestly, you're a holy cigar.
Yeah, well, it's gonna have to be attempted TP, so Keratich is BKB.
He didn't have to BKB that quickly, but that does show me he's in the zone on Keratich, because that was a near instant BKB reaction by him.
The lead continues to grow for BB team.
I mean, how are we looking on Yuma?
He did now finish up his BKB, the problem is, and it's the problems we talk about the
entire game, they have damage issues.
How do you go about these heroes?
There's a pipe, there's I believe a BKB coming out soon also for GPK, you have a BKB on the
Angry Bird who's running around as well on top of that glimmer, holy locket, defensive
sleeps.
And it is like we said, it's elimination on the line here for LGD, they've got to find
something big in this game to stay alive well the saving grace the agonist
scepter a thousand into it yeah they do have decent scaling right you have the
storm you have the larger for later as if the olacor not the best scaling because
he's dead yeah you know tend to scale too well okay kill the pain kill the pain
I'm invested kill the day concoction a lot of damage with that acid spray
combination and they get him. That is very therapeutic if nothing else as GPK
he's continuing to chase though. Stampede gonna close the gap, Yuma.
Nice wall, nice wall, nice wall. Eyes walk out with the meter, gonna force out the BKB
and as Yuma will back away, KJ gets spotted on the way. Definitely hasn't been
able to find much yet on the next assassin in this game but a much needed kill.
Any type of trade or where you force you know the BB squad to come around and
go together is good for you here for LGD. Create a little bit more time and more
space for your draft. Get a couple of levels, you know 15 Televon Largo with
the pro. Maybe get closer to the next couple of neutral items. Maybe get some
spell and from the partisan grant you get closer to the tier 4 items with the
conjurer catalyst. All of these things can add up.
Maybe team ready to go high ground. They have that aid, they have a
Lackardy on the chicken man. So a lot to fear for LGD. Concaution on to two.
Soulbind to follow, nice and pale as well, into the double lick, but there's the fight
contributing a lot of damage now as a result. Meteor coming in right on top of the frog,
and the Raptor dead spring, Kiritich back to basically full HP, and he gets the last
strike on the Theolacore as well. He will be isolated, and that's life number one.
Buyback now immediately from Theolacore. Two or three tower down and out.
Post-op connection onto the Alchemist, Miero. He's gonna get ink swelled up, and pale the
the fall that gets licked up on the other side, looks like he's going to be able to get away
as a result. They find the thieves, I get reserved for Ty Long, death number seven for
the Storm Spirit and this is going to be surely a full set of racks now for BBT.
Yeah, and you're starting to see some of the strengths of these heroes. You see characters
with the alacrity and everything. The hero is already nasty as he is. He does really need
any buffs going his way. 25k lead at 26 minutes. No, he's kind of set it. When you out GPM
the clock by 1k. Yeah, it is in trouble. They're not just that they're both this
bison team right now. They are going high ground with no fear at all.
Okay, with the KB connection made, I'll look at the HP regen coming out. They get
the heals, they get the pipe, and now the Raptor dance back again. They get the full HP.
Yuma gonna bite the dust here. Double edge brings them down. Yara with a double kill.
And BB team in a huge momentum swing 30k lead to their name
One of them gonna get a second set here
It's just one of the cleanest games I've seen from them and I think Justin classic EWC fashion for a BB team
They're just kind of owning
They might even try to just go for mega there's very fun
So bad breath team able to take this game number two and they're gonna stay alive here at EWC
for his LGD completely eliminated and unfortunately for them not the best performance in this game number two.
No, honestly, I wouldn't even go as far as to say in neither of these two games and I really love this team.
I know that they can do more, so this is going to hurt them absolutely because they know they're capable of more.
But, you know what, if you look at DDT, you know what, these players are capable of in both games.
Very, very good performances as a team individually as well.
I think GPK, Game 1 in this game, kind of all of them.
but I think especially Kat's only on this game.
I mean, went half easily MVP of the game as Kat.
And I feel like, am I being conserved when I say
there was four in-grip kills on Tylon?
No, I think that's correct.
And even on the other ones, he had multiple innate stacks
on all of the other people.
And I do think it does make sense for a BB team
to kind of stack it up here and make...
I mean, where do you stack up BB team with the rest of the field
as they head into the playoffs now?
Quite high, probably within the top four, I would say, parameters.
It's also important for them, of course, there is no, you know, loser bracket, no water bracket.
They've got to keep it together, be the beatbox team to kind of keep it in there and keep showing us good performances.
They played exceptionally well. Game one a lot closer, of course, in game two.
Not so much as BB Team rise out on top.
You can see some of the reactions from LGD as they know that they didn't get their best performance here
performance here because they're one of my favorite teams to cast and watch just as a spectator alone.
Unfortunately that they will not make it to the playoffs here at EWC.
It just hurts especially when you're so close and you know what you can do and perhaps you go back
to game one where you feel like okay we messed up one of the pigs or some of the itemization we
didn't like but here in game two they fell very flat. Yeah as BB team will take it let's go to the
stage for an interview.
Very much so, Curtis joining me here, BB team,
victorious in a quick 2-0 against LGD on the other side.
There you go, fans are cheering for that album.
Maybe tip to the fans and to myself, you're the MVP of this game.
Who do you believe was the MVP of this match in your mind?
I think it was PK. It was my first game solo.
One X9.
Worked very well for you, but I want to talk to you about the the case and really ask you about uncommon hero pick
What was the idea behind it?
Just casual here. I'm very confident in this hero. It's my signature. So that's it
It worked out well. So 2-0 was it was it just also because your comfort altogether
What was the what won you over this game so effectively? I
Know we just plays very good. That's it. It seems like you're ready to go and
And if I have to tell you this, next up in the bracket, you're playing Nigma Galaxy.
There's a huge matchup, I think one, that we could all expect to be a wonderful game.
But is there anything you'd like to say to Nigma, to GH, to all the team on the other side?
Wait us, we're gonna destroy you.
Oh, there you go, fighting words then, fighting words.
You know what, I'm gonna leave it to you and the team to crush LGD's key just to get that adrenaline pumping.
gentlemen come on over BB team come over here it's time to crush that key come
on in it is always a different experience we'll see who who would you
think wants to crush it is it gonna be you're gonna give it someone else from
team me oh Jarrett ditch wants to do it himself give it up for Kierditch and BB
team let's bring you guys back now let's open that damn door and get this game
done is we got to crush some keys over here and this is just to tell you the
quality of the crusher because slacks has been crushing for 18 hours here in
the back door and he's gonna take a sin for this one go ahead gentlemen please
be careful on your way in the key is ready and set all right cut home he's
gonna pull this one off the man is on crutches but don't you worry about it
Doesn't need any of that.
And so, yet another key joins the pile, and it's time! It's BBT!
Grushing Hell GT!
Look at that, look at our rises! It's snapped in half!
Boy, with that 2-0?
LGD looked like that key at the end of it too.
That's BB Team, a huge victory for them.
And I'm telling you, they're again against Nigma Galaxy in the main bracket.
Oh baby, is it gonna look good?
They crush it so hard, it's practically embedded in that crusher.
There it is, it's done. LGD are out.
And BB Team, advance back to the panel.
Thank you very much Milage and yeah if Kirtage want to crush a key they'll need to take down
NigmaGalaxy next but this one was for KataOmi as he indeed made sure that the key was almost
locked in the crusher LGD is out, BBteam is guaranteed top 8 here and a lot to break down
with this game because this was teams adjusting we just saw BBteam adjusting quite a bit better
7, but LGD did it.
Yeah, I think, I mean, DB team, they, I would say that they, you know, were even better,
game 2 than they were in game 1. They were vibing, I think, a lot of really cold plays,
individual, very solid laning. They won their offlane versus LGD, but again, they were
laning versus Nixalka. I think if they had lost that lane, it would have been very worrisome.
On the other hand, though, I feel like LGD, you know, they talked about the intern issues
they might have. I think they could have been a resurgence of that, because they felt completely
disconnected. It was just off. Honestly, I don't know what happened to them in the game but you
could definitely tell that the vibe was not there. It felt like they were just not playing together
at all. So that's a little bit sad to see. A little sad to exit the tournament this way.
Yeah, absolutely. It's a bit crushing seeing how well they performed some of the games as well.
But today it was just added, especially in the second game, it felt like they kind of fell
off the cliff pretty much and really team they speeded things up there like you know
what we were filling ourselves in this game number one even though they were like 5k
go down in that second game sorry the first game in the second game it was
pretty much smooth sailing for them you talked about the safe lane which does
allow center to get pretty much the free farm in the lane completely
uncontested you don't have the damage like the two probably the lowest support
damage that you've seen I think in pretty much the holy day with WC with the
Grimstroke and Mixed Assassin, these heroes don't really do much early on, and you're
playing against PvT, so you need something to be able to punch back, which does allow
Centaur to get his 13-minute 5-plus Elm of the Dominator as well, and completely cruise
through the game.
Yeah, Meryl's never dying on that Centaur, never really threatened.
The damage was not there from the side of LGD.
Just some weird moves by LGD, like Tylong shoving the mid lane out alone, not getting
really helped from his supports.
You could tell the communication was off, because it just doesn't happen.
He gets caught by the bane and the invoker at three times in a row, same place.
He's not really getting the help, maybe not asking for it, I'm not sure.
It was just, it felt like they didn't believe in their chances to come back or to win the game.
I mean, it happened so early that it wasn't even about coming back at this point.
It's just like, you know, can we be able to win this game?
So, a lot for them to figure out, probably, maybe something about Game 1,
lingering disagreements, or maybe just not feeling it.
Feeling like BB is just too good for them today, and that they don't really compete.
Even though they did win against BB, so we heard from KK that he was confident against them.
They should have been, and I think they came in disturbance with more momentum.
They had a... They didn't have like a bad group stage.
I think they had some very solid and strong showing.
They had a really good showing yesterday.
You kind of wonder what happened. It's hard to know within a team everything that could happen, but definitely was not the best version of themselves, 100%.
On the other side also, I think the CosBB team, we do consider this team a championship team.
They might not come in every Grand Finals, but they definitely are at the top almost every single time.
Oh yeah, absolutely. This team has been very consistent, something that they struggled with in the past.
They also managed to win a couple of tournaments which gave them quite a lot of confidence.
confidence boost as well something that you need in your career as well but a
team that I would consider to get to top three kind of easily I know that they're
gonna be playing in stigma galaxy which you know stars did align for them they
are back for the 15 time but not gonna be easy for them that's also strong words
from characters when when you have us asked about that I'm saying we're gonna
destroy you that's a strong words a lot of confidence coming up there's a king
on the way so good luck to you but you know you can always try we'll see how
it goes in the playoff of course top eight is there for people team in this
series is best of three series we chose an MVP now if we only chosen for the
last game maybe would have been different but we chose him for the series
and it has to go Sam to Jeep came yes I think exceptional performance for him
he's a so he's so important to that team they play really well around them you
I can tell that his vocal, like they know what he wants to do, he's probably, you know,
saying these things and his Lena was absolutely stellar.
I think one of the, I mean, he best Lena performance, I've seen this tournament, you
heard the character, the character say, well, he literally carried us.
So, you know, they also recognized, he said, I think he said he wanted to give him a loan
or something, which, yeah, one of the nine, yes, obviously he didn't, but in a sense he
did, like he just did so much for that game.
It was crazy.
He created so many issues.
They couldn't focus only on the enigma because they had a lina problem, the laning phase was perfect, like everything was...
And he died once combined in these two games together?
Yes, which is pretty insane to think about this, like lina performance, plus the invoker performance itemization coming out in the second game,
picking up road of apos, making sure to completely ruin storm spirit.
It's a setup until somebody comes close with either Vayne or one of the other supports as well,
Making sure that he is smooth sailing through this game and they kind of ruined Tylong in the mid lane completely so many times, catching him off guard.
And it's a GpK in Bofa. We talked about the setup that they did have in the side lanes, also for the first blood and the many others you see him just hitting that Sunstrike without even having the setup.
There's so many moves where he just Sunstrikes first, makes them run and then they get to hit stuns because of that. It's like, wait, is the other way around usually? You have to wait for the stun to hit the Sunstrike?
It's the zoning soundtrack that also lands.
But it doesn't matter.
Like, he makes it, it almost feels like it's a targeted spell at this point when he plays it.
So, props to him, honestly, exceptional performance.
He's gonna need to bring the same level tomorrow, if they want to destroy Enigma.
But if that's how he plays, well, it's definitely a possibility.
It was solid from DBK.
It was solid from the team.
Big win for DBK team here.
We can take a look at what we did today as we had basically every single mini-boss on this stage
was victorious in the end.
Yeah, I mean, these teams have topped their groups for a reason.
So far, the order makes sense. Everything is in order.
But upsets do happen when we're still far from closing in.
Yes, next stage is like next round is essentially quarterfinals, in a sense, because there's
no bracket, so quarterfinals, semi-finals, finals, so big games, big games ahead of them.
You just need to win three games.
Just need to win three games.
That's all it is.
And against the NIGMAs and the P-Visions and the 1W of these words, like, or actually.
I don't know, but that one, I don't know if it's still finished.
I don't know, I don't know, you guys.
the microphone caught it. But I mean, I've been talking about what's happening on my
right. That's the other stage right there. And there was a lot of cheers and a throne
falling. Fiji Gaming won that one.
Wow. That's an upset.
Big upset.
Minibus down.
Minibus down.
Yeah, we saw like on the other stream two relatively massive upsets because Rune Eaters, they
did manage to take up furnace pro earlier yesterday and today Aurora Gaming. Everybody
talked about Aurora being potentially D-teamed to beat and potential contender to take the
whole thing.
Two mini bosses down.
Yes, so pretty even, you know, actually full of surprises.
I think the 2-0, very impressive by Rune-eaters and Vici Gaming taking 1W down, that is pretty
wild honestly, like very, pretty big upset.
Yeah, that's awesome.
I'm gonna watch this game play.
Because that is, I feel like when we look at Vici Gaming, I mean the Rune-eaters of Aurora
is also a massive upside, especially if it was a 2-1, but I at the same time also know
that a Rourke and some are tilt as well, so I know Runea's play well.
The 1WBG gaming is more, almost more unique.
Yeah, and it looked like a very hard fought series, 2-1, I can only assume the games were...
I have something to tell you, Seb, I caught a glimpse of it.
Can you try to figure out which hero they had in game number 3?
1-1 W. One really bad hero.
Oh, I know!
Murana.
No!
Murana?
Okay, which role?
Position 4.
No.
No.
Higher priority.
No.
It's Mid-Murana.
It's Mid-Murana.
She lost.
Wow.
It's Mid-Murana.
I've been there.
I've been in these games.
We lost a lot of...
I think we lost ESL Birmingham against Falcons like we got knocked out with ESL.
We got knocked out of a bunch of tournaments with Mid-Murana, but I'll do him justice.
His Mid-Murana is...
It's good. Very good. Yes.
So, yeah, again, the hero. What can you do?
What can you do? Bait it into that one.
Let's take a look at our tournament bracket at top 8.
That's what we got completed, and we'll be working our way through those 8 teams
to have only one team survive at the end of it all.
And these are our matchups.
And to be honest, all of them are looking quite cool.
Yes. I mean, at this point, you can only have, you know,
You know, the best Dota in the world, essentially, is what we're getting, the top 8 in the world,
so all these games are going to be crazy.
And the one that I'm looking the most to is probably going to be Team Yandex versus Team Spirit.
I think this is going to be, like, unfortunately, we're going to have to say goodbye to one of these teams,
but Team Yandex, I think everybody kind of plays them in this, like, great final position
that they're going to probably reach it, but also Team Spirit, we saw them powering up.
They look almost unstoppable today.
Yatra on his sillies, like bringing in some old classic
Chirocopter as well, completely dominating this matchup.
Anything can happen.
It's like if I were to tell you, you know,
Team Yandex are the favorites.
Pick a team to try to defeat them,
to try to stop them from winning at all.
It's that team.
You're probably picking spirits.
You know, you're probably like, you know what?
This is my Joker.
I'm, you know, this is like my Joker card.
I'm going to put the spirit against them.
So it's actually happening for strong.
At the same time, I'm kind of feeling like
What we saw today upsets anything as possible.
Yes.
Every team can bleed.
I mean, literally nothing is earned.
Nothing is granted that everything is earned.
Like this is the case of that.
Like at this point, forget about the group stage,
forget about your shape, whatever.
Like you're going to have to earn it.
Well, I do want to reflect back on today and yesterday,
because the survival stage has come to an end
before we go to the playoffs tomorrow.
So final thoughts on this survival stage, Sam?
Banger, I really like the format.
I think, I mean, if I were a player, I would not have liked it in a sense because, you know, you kind of want a second chance.
But at the same time, you know, this is, this is EWC. This is overcome.
You know, you don't get a second chance. You have to deliver every single game.
So as a viewing experience, it's, it's super cool.
Yeah, I also love the fact that you have like one last chance, potentially, like you have to be the best at the, like this time right now.
Didn't have too much time to prepare, like either your, your ideas are working or you're not.
And we're gonna find out because we only have four days left and we've seen some
bigger of the series and that it's just gonna get better from this point.
Yeah, the top eight teams are known. The playoffs will start tomorrow same time as today.
But that was it for today and for the survival stage. So thank you so much for tuning in.
If you missed any of today's action, don't worry. We'll of course see you tomorrow for
more action and relive some of today's. But right now also you get to relive some
of today's action with the SCC recap of the day.
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