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You're coming your way and to talk all about the quarter finals today. I'm yesterday
I'm joined by said and what cost said how you doing this morning?
I'm good, but you know it kind of hit me when you say only three more days like yeah, I said only
It's like can we extend it or something like daughter in pairs doesn't happen often like it it really went by really fast
Like I would just do like another week or something is that a possibility? Can you can you got my vote?
Yeah, I got you. Okay. You do anything about it. I don't think I
Yeah, we said it's democracy always when we choose things, yeah, I'm down, I'm definitely down, so 3 to 0, 3 to 0, this is 0, that's a new one, 0 and 0 combined.
Now, very excited to see, you know, what's gonna happen today because we've seen some of the teams also getting eliminated, teams that potentially could have taken the whole thing, but, you know, this is Singular Limb now, it has been Singular Limb in the survival stage as well, so it's gonna be very interesting and looking forward to it, Shiver.
Yeah, and single elimination doesn't really happen very frequently in Dota 2 and that just means the pressure is so much more than any other tournament.
It means that you don't get that second chance where a lot of people, oftentimes they rely on that second chance.
We could take a look at the SDC Rewind. Yesterday some teams here said who would really like to have that second chance.
Yeah, yesterday there was probably one of the biggest upsets in a sense.
Like we've seen the title defender.
I think it's never easy to let go of the title defender.
Team Spirit, they felt to Yandex, which looks to be one of the best teams of the tournament,
even the best team.
It was a true test for them.
We were like, yes, they've shown so much, but it only happens once in a season
where you have to take down a team of the caliber of Team Spirit
in the biggest event of the year, like, you know, EWC,
you're going to have TI later, but basically this is the money time.
These are the games that are the most important of the season,
maybe even of your career, because you never know where you're going to be next year.
You never know what happens with your team.
And they really showed up. It was super impressive.
I think it was a highly contested series.
Like, Spirit also played really well.
But at the end of the day, they really showed that they are the best team,
one of the best teams here, and definitely one step ahead of Team Spirit.
Yeah, for a good reason. Everybody's talking about Team Yandex as potentially a team that's going to be taking the whole thing as well.
They had very interesting things happening. Of course, DM Centaur is going to be the big one that people are going to be talking about.
Maladich, he also stepped it up on this position 5 and dying twice.
Also building the Blade Mail, building Heart, going for a bit of a on-mortar docks build in a sense where not many other position 5s are going to go for it.
And of course CJ Invoker, he was the one that has been carrying the team like ever since we see this guy play on the hero.
It feels very good.
Yeah, we have Yandex as one of the teams coming out there on top and now looking like one of the clear favorites for the finals.
But the other quarter finals we had yesterday with P-Vision coming up on top, you could say the exact same thing about them.
Yeah, I mean, they've been cruising so far this tournament.
I don't think they did it very dominant and it's kind of like these two teams are
Rushing at each other like full speed from one side to the you know like to the other side of the bracket and even in different groups
And stuff obviously there's like a lot of other contenders which we'll be talking about but these two I think
You know, no, but they didn't go unnoticed by anyone here like because you guys are waiting at the right time of the year
is I hope you know
Have a little bit of that perjury
He's around, he's around.
Yeah, and the next two series that we're gonna have, I think,
because again, you know, you get really excited with Yandex and T-Rusion
and only one of these teams is going to go through.
So, another finals before the grand finals,
this was crazy about this format, is you get so many of these games
where you're like, it can only happen once and it's happening now.
Yeah, and the keys were crossed yesterday, you know, just here,
that this is an extra special key, the defending champions,
they do get that special key for them and this was a very convincing crushing coming out from Yandex
Yandex versus Prevision in the semi-finals. I'm already getting ahead of myself seeing that
bracket but I think that will be I mean if we can if we can start a poll how many signatures do you
think we need to make that a best of five? However you need you get you know it's like
everyone would sign off on this you can have millions if you want to turn it off. I think
I think you have only got maybe 10 people that would not return the 10 on this day.
Yes, of course.
I would say, please no.
Please no, no, we've had an interesting day yesterday and a title defending team getting
eliminated is always a little bit extra rough for some final words of those title defenders.
We're going to listen to Yatoro.
Hello, I'm here with Yatoro of Team Spirit after a tough elimination there. How are you feeling?
Hard games, I would say. It was a good series against good opponents. I think if we would win them, we would win the tournament, but this life.
What do you think went wrong? Game 1, you're playing Kes, you had to play against a nature's profit, you got sprouted a little bit, felt kind of hard.
The first game was kind of free. We played well at mid-game, we took the rush, took two towers, but after that they were just moving a bit better, a bit faster.
And after they did kills at the top, took site and the game goes hard, like, Emerges
goes and Killer won.
So we just need to be a bit better about teamfight, but we didn't, so that's why we lost.
That's tough.
And in game number two, you guys were pretty close for Wally, you had that great Roche fight,
you chrono'd Invoker before he BKB'd, you killed him, took Roche.
I have a problem about we had good chances to catch them at Wards, but we did kind of
misplace.
We didn't catch the Wokker two times when we were good.
And they just split us up.
We can't take even tier one with the ages.
They just split everywhere and they need to be everywhere for outpush and they take pick
off still with Centaur and Wokker.
So it was just a hard macro game about they have just better pick about moving around
the map.
And we had a bit lucky control, I would say, only like pango and snap, Void can't like
reach the setup because I need to show myself as it was kind of a hard macro game.
I see.
I was curious about Collapsus here, where he played Tide first game, Psych game, Pango.
Do you feel like he needed something that also could jump so it didn't have to be you?
I think it's good heroes for jump. We just couldn't reach them
I would say like
two three times was
Pretty close, but we didn't I see and then they just got more gold than you basically
Yeah, they just have like four cores. We have only like one and a half
I would say they like scale it and dying some tower clings and walker
We need to kill everyone, but we have just not enough damage, I would say.
that whoever wins from them, and Yandex, Speed Vision, and Yandex, they will win the whole tournament as well.
And that are some big words thinking that the winner will definitely come from that side of the bracket,
because let's take a look at the other side of the bracket that's coming your way today.
One of these four teams will have something to say about that set.
I mean, I don't know. There's Falcons, there's Nigma, there's PvT, these are big names,
and they're kind of being disrespected in a sense by the other.
There's like beef between both sides of the bracket.
It's like, well, if we beat them, we're just like, these guys are just transparent.
I personally like it.
I think these players are the kind of players to really thrive under being, you know, kind of offended.
So it's like, yes, you're male who like I've never heard of him.
I'm a how do you say it?
I'm Mark, and you spell it for me.
I've never heard about this guy either.
ATF, I think.
Yeah, ATF.
I've never heard about him.
Not impressed.
Not gonna win.
So, you know, I'm looking forward to see what these guys can bring to the table and kind of show the second half of the bracket, how it's done.
Yeah, because it definitely feels like the bracket did open up in this top part.
Like, if you look at who talked to who topped the groups, these are the players, these are the teams that actually topped it.
So it's going to be interesting to see if Falcons, if NygmaGalaxy are going to be the one as well, seeing that all the seats in the groups were correct,
because both the Endex and P-Vision,
it was kind of like a smooth sailing for them as well.
Yeah, we'll see if there's an upset, basically,
that is going to happen today,
as Vici Gaming has upset already,
because they are the ones that took down 1W
just a day or two ago.
Speaking of a day or two ago,
I think it is interesting to note
that Falcons, they came from Group A,
which meant that they finished their group last week Saturday,
which means that they have not played for six days.
No officials, obviously they've played, but no officials.
Curious if that will have an impact, Lacoste.
Yeah, for Hawkins, I think it actually benefits them.
This is the team that, you know, I'd say they this is the team
that almost never gets out drafted in a sense.
So maybe there should be some small adjustments,
but they always have pretty strong drafts.
And with all this time to prepare to watch other teams
what they are doing, I feel like that's gonna benefit them a lot.
Having AOI, having like so much experience on multiple stages,
like winning so many tournaments together,
it just feels like it definitely benefits them more
compared to Vici Gaming, who has been like needing to show
their strength, needing to show their hand
because we are in a single lane.
We've been for a while now,
which means that you are pulling out your best strategies.
Yeah, Vici Gaming as well, their team that indeed just keeps
growing keeps getting better. We saw them adjust in the series of course as well.
They have what it takes to make sure that a best of three goes their way while learning
on the fly. Let's learn a little bit more about Vici Gaming from Bach.
Later on, they had some changes in the players, and they needed a number three.
Because I played with them last year, they found me again.
Last year, we were teammates, including my team and XQ.
So we did a good job.
Sometimes, I feel very tired after losing a game.
Because of my experience,
I'm very happy when I win.
So, I'm very proud of winning.
I'm very proud of winning the game and winning the game.
I think we need to improve our individual skills the most.
Because of the current situation, we need to have more and more excellent operations.
Each person's operations will have a huge impact on the situation.
There are many reasons. Because their individual operations and their individual actions are very good.
We are also working on the internet.
We are also trying to make it clear that we are still playing.
Because the game has been changing since the beginning.
The heroes of the game, and every game, are changing.
In fact, we still need to find some ways to play games.
Before this game, we have trained in China for about two weeks.
I hope we can continue to grow in the small games and play better.
We can enter the tournament to have more control.
And he does say it is like focusing first on the group stage doing well there and then
continue to improve in this revival stage and they definitely did that.
They did.
I think they did more than that.
Like, I don't think anyone expected them to, you know, knock one W out because a lot
of the teams that are remaining in the tournament would name one W as being one of the favorites.
So in that sense, I think which gaming is not on everyone's radar and people are like,
Yeah, I mean, true. We also have to worry about these guys because these guys are not unknown to anyone here like, you know,
you think of Barq, Firmly known as Faith Yan, you know, ZinQ, TI finalists several times actually, ZinQ was in last TI finals on their extremes banner.
You know, I think all of these names are big names of Dota, they've been there forever, so there's like a really cool mix of like experience, wisdom and, you know,
know how to approach these big events and this could also have been a factor in their deciding series yesterday against
1w, so we'll have to see today
It's it's another Titan they have to take down in Falcons
They are the title like the TI you know winning team like from from from the season
So yeah, we'll have to see but ZQ he's coming for revenge, you know
Oh, absolutely like this is the guy that has been missing like he's been streaming and I think a lot of people missed him being
in the scene because his playstyle is
is very unique. Like if we talk about the position 4 players that kind of change Dota
meta forever, he's going to definitely be in the talks like the way that he approached the game
and he's bringing in some classics as well but also bringing in new stuff. Like if you
watch the iQualifiers as well, he really nailed it. There was such a clutch game against the
Alcató Bros where he single handed that 90 plus minute game. He had one play,
that 4 men stunned with Lyon that basically changed everything, it changed the outcome.
And this is a team that didn't really have the best season.
They were really struggling.
They only played four tier one tournaments.
They managed to get like top six only once.
That was their best result.
But it seems like they are peaking at the right time.
Yeah, a team that has said kind of that they're struggling a little bit,
even though the results are still very good.
Is it their opponents for today?
I'm talking about team Falcons.
Very important for them also to do well here,
not just to prove to themselves that they can do it,
but also because their organization has been at the top every single time for the club championship.
And to be at the top, you need to get at least one first-place finish,
and it will be really nice for them to get that out of the way with this Dota 1,
but of course a road to climb still here, as we're going to listen to some more about that climb from Malrin.
I wouldn't say we're performing that well in recently times,
and Malamarch said it's kind of true.
First of all, we're still bad.
We just operate.
It's nothing.
It's not an achievement.
We struggle, because we've been playing
for a long time together.
And it's just some problems popping out.
And sometimes it's hard to feel to deal with them.
Here it just turns around.
Boys, you're up now.
The BKB is fated to win.
They hit him with a beard and he's dead.
Just an easy kill.
I wouldn't say in the best shape,
but at least we solved the issue that we had before.
And now we have something to learn for future.
Once in my time, I was watching Simpsons and there was a Westline bag of homers.
They said, I'm not looking in the future more than 5 seconds.
They have to see how we're gonna perform, who's people gonna take the rest, who don't want to take the rest.
And it's just not on the line after me.
Wait, no, the silence came in! The silence came in time!
You can't get off the ripper site!
Ghost might just be able to make a check out phone with the Magnetize! Finish them off!
First to this, I was not performing the best of the first games.
I don't know actually why, I was kinda like...
I wouldn't say struggling, but I actually was confused as I was like...
bringing up, playing early pops and getting ready for the official.
Then I think as a team we were performing good.
We're just playing more effort to the every official than every clan war nowadays.
So it's just getting easier for us to play officials.
Five of the Doom will knock and they're farming these heroes in the fountains and win for this is cool.
It's very important for the team to have a rest day.
You kind of like, I would say like Ernie deserved it, that you got the first place and now have your word yourself.
Another box save, trying to wield to snob it.
What? You're playing the dice, can't you? Three! That is beautiful!
I mean, I think the hardest opponent is most likely going to be CS, seems like an index.
Other than that, like, you do seem just playing such a weird style, I would say,
and usually it can change. They have, like, their own hero list, and it's just worse for them,
which is going to be very good to see in the official match against them.
Now, Lee on the chase against Juppi Wilde in an 8-7, better two-man call.
Naive until the end, both just deleted.
I would say I'm hoping that we're going to get better placement, but this time,
I would say we're much more confident in ourselves.
I mean, there's no more words to say.
It's just like we have to see how it's going to go.
Some Homer Simpson words in there.
Didn't expect that this morning.
But not looking into the future too much,
taking it one step at a time,
I think that is a very healthy way to approach it.
Yeah, it is.
And I mean, we've seen, you know,
getting ahead of yourself kind of,
I guess fire back at some players this tournament and you know we heard players talk about
Series your future series and and yeah, maybe yeah going too quick and and and all next thing
You know, they're just not there. They know that they don't make it there
So I think it's a good approach generally to just take it one game at a time even one map at a time
You know don't even think about the result of the series. I mean let alone the next one
So hopefully he'll think about the future when he plays the game. I think that's quite important
but I'm convinced that he will, because thinking ahead is a very big part of how to play Dota.
But good work from Arina, I think I always like hearing teams being humble and kind of
knowing where they stand and being also okay to just take it one step at a time and improve.
It's all about picking anyway.
Like, you need to be at your best level when the big games are coming, and I mean, they're
coming now, and they seem to be there, I think.
Yeah, when he said Homer, I thought he was talking about the Greek poet and philosopher,
seems like they're finding like even more poetry in some of the TV shows and
smarter characters as well but especially now with Odyssey being popular
nowadays and yeah we'll have to see but one step at a time I think that's the
correct one like one series a day one game a day because you've been playing
only one series a day which means that you have quite a lot of time to prepare
only one obstacle that you need to get through and then you still have a good
amount of time to prepare for the next day as well because of the schedule so it
It does feel like it's going to be benefiting them, I would say, slightly more, again, because
Falcons, they are the team that always comes in prepared, and especially these players
that are trying to dissect all of the smallest things, try to break the game as well, compared
to Vichy Gaming, who might have been struggling, but should definitely be an interesting matchup
because these type of players, these caliber of players, you should never underestimate
them.
No, you should not.
I think also going on the big stage is something for Falcons.
So they may be, I feel like they have a little bit of extra pressure on them because it is
EWC and they are held to a high standard by themselves as we carry here as well as also
by the Falcons organization.
They already are on the board in terms of points, but they would like to continue being
on top.
Even then on the other side, Vici Gaming, I think they're already, you know, they're
also taking it one serious time.
They're already very happy with what they have achieved.
Yeah, and it's always dangerous to face that kind of team, I think.
You know, a team that has no expectations, everything is just bonus at this point.
They have nothing to lose in a sense.
Like, they talked about how they just, they're just hoping to make it through the groups
and all of a sudden they're top six, top eight, I mean, and looking to get even higher, top
four potentially.
So if you're Falcons, you got to be worried.
Yeah, you might have to be worried, but at the right side, there was preparation done,
I can only imagine, for both teams.
And we're of course going to talk about that and what they could have been discussing
regarding that, but to get this match started properly we're first heading over to the stage.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a beautiful, fashionable day of Dota 2. In fact, today we'll be
doing the Paris Dota fashion show! Open those doors!
Rawr! I'm sorry, it's just us.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mila...
Oh, the Gauche, Gauche, Ice Frog collection!
Vintage brick! My God!
Brick color from the brickiest of dumb punch players here for you today.
Excellent fit, sir. Excellent.
Talking about myself, look at you, we got the Storm Spirit
fit right here.
What the hell?
Arcane boots, he's all in, they're talking about
blue suede shoes, my man is top to bottom,
ready to go, that is,
oh man, so give us a little twirl slacks,
come on, come on, let's get him a little twirl.
Hell yeah, all right, watch it up man.
Walking up, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
All right, ladies and gentlemen,
how are you doing here right for some Dota?
All right, all right, we have got some great Dota here
for you today, yesterday was a pretty crazy one though, Milosh.
It absolutely was.
We had our first day of quarter finals,
eliminations, plenty of course,
two best of threes that went the way,
and I guess team two was a bit of a stomp,
but otherwise, we got a day,
and we have two teams that have qualified in the semis,
and now we're waiting to see,
because honestly, yesterday it seemed like
Yandex are gonna have a tough time at a semi-final,
just looking satanic, looking right in the camera
and saying, I'm gonna destroy you, and that was cool.
That was cool. Biggest surprise for me, definitely Team Spirit's departure.
I mean, that team was absolutely goaded, and then we saw them walk away.
So, super surprising, the defending title holders taken out.
But, there is one other team that is defending a title here.
That is very true, and that is our first team on the walk-ups for this quarter finals for today.
Let's bring it up for us up is Team Falcans!
Woo!
No matter where they go, they're always crowd favorites
and for more than one reason,
the EWC 2025, the club champions of last year
and of course in 2024 as well,
they're back on the main stage
and you haven't seen them in a few days.
You know why?
Cause they went nine and one at a group.
A singular game had rocked on the way to this main stage,
but today is where the real challenge is,
how do you play on the stage?
How do you play in front of the crowd
And can you go deeper than just quarterfinals?
Absolutely, a team that is no stranger to a crowd,
and I'm a little worried about them.
I mean, they've just been hanging out,
sitting in their hotel room, maybe taking a nap.
You awake?
You good?
He's fine.
He's awake.
He moved very quickly.
Thank you so much, Abar.
Let's see if Zero reacts to the guys, a stone cold killer.
Let's go ahead and see their opponent's laser gun,
but put your hands together for Bitchy Gaming!
Yay!
Virtue Gaming has not had a single rest since this tournament started.
They've been fighting for their lives over and over again.
The final hope of Chinese Dota here today.
They have beat their biggest rivals of Extreme Gaming.
Even LGD, who tried to come and take their spot, ain't no way.
These boys are here to slay in a rivalry we have seen before,
But not this year on this big of a stage gentlemen got the thumbs up. You're ready
Go ahead. I'm his keys to your positions. We're gonna need to see that handshake Milosh anything weird
Respect going out there. All right, we've got a hell of a game coming up your way
Don't go anywhere. We will get right into that action right after this video
The quarterfinals between Team Falcons and Vici Gaming will soon begin.
It's time for us to get into it and talk about what is going to be important to look at for
this best of three elimination series.
Seb, where are you going to keep your eyes?
Right before that.
Did you guys notice something about the handshakes every time?
I went for the headbutt almost.
This one, I did notice the headbutt.
It's never the people that are going to have to lane against each other, they go handshake.
That's what I want to see.
I want to see a bit laners shaking hands before they actually try to outplay each other, or
like an off laner with a safe laner, because you know there's going to be a lot of beef.
You get really heated in the laning phase, it's all about kind of lasted, denying, high-fiving
each other, spraying on the ground.
I want to see more of that.
Kind of bring the heat before the game even starts.
How about we ask all lanes to handshake each other before the game?
5v5 handshake!
I mean that's spicy, I would not see it.
But what I'm going to be looking at is obviously Falcons are their coming as favorites.
I think that's not a surprise to anyone and they probably expect to come on top of this
series.
But again, Vitci Gaming, some of them were on Xtreme last TI, they had an incredible
season.
season was a little rocky this time around, but it really doesn't mean anything, like
there's been many, many iterations of like teams or rosters that had, you know, not
the best season, an average season, and they pick at the right time and then just take
it all when it comes to, you know, AWC and TI time. So at this point, you have to take
them very seriously. Like they're showing off this tournament, they're showing that
they can take down some of the best teams in the world, you know, they took down 1W,
and these players are no stranger to the biggest events and performing in them. So yeah, and
And it seems like they also managed to find some good place for themselves in this current meta,
like playing this carry Lena. We've seen Lena from the mid lane, but we're also seeing it from the safe lane.
As well, Shiro did have amazing performance yesterday on that Lena, like 20 plus kills, one death only,
then a single-handed leave.
There it is for a good reason, because I feel like I started to be a big believer in this hero.
And what makes this hero super strong is, like, having the flexibility between position one and position two,
Plus, also the Agatom Scepter built even from the Carrier Role, because you go for the Maelstrom,
you pick up boots of travel, you go back to Agatom Scepter, which is...
This item has pretty insane numbers when you think about it. It's 35% magic resistance,
it's 35% spell lamp, unobstructed vision for 7 seconds on 25 second cooldown.
So it lets you position really well in teamfights, plus also gives you ability to be super tanky,
one of the reasons plus the level 15 talent as well.
And you know I was looking at the also the coach names and they really brings me back as like yeah
I was like one of the Chinese living legends is like people kind of forget about him, but he's really
The equivalent of Joe in the sense like he did as much for like the daughter scene and the Chinese daughter scene in particular
And you know you have a you on one side which you know people are maybe a little bit more familiar with because you know
They want so many titles and he's been highlighted a lot
There's like the same amount of experience and door and on the other side
and I just love to see these two great door to minds you know with five
exceptional players at their service in a sense battling it out you love to see
it. Yeah I feel like sometimes we don't mention some of the coaches because
players outshine them like like people talked about you know Yandex their
coaches will go putting in quite a lot of work considering the results that they
been having and yeah, Clockwerk on the other side, this hero has always been good against
Lena, maybe not so much nowadays with that agatemceptor as well, with the unobstructed
movement that you don't care too much about the Clockwerk, but Clockwerk has looked very
stable in every single game, very annoying hero that can block off certain areas, very
annoying to lane against, we were trying to get rid of like Manaburn as a concept, you
you know, some of the spells like that mana, like Snake from Medusa for example, Mana Burn
initially on the Nyx Assassin, but having Clockwork, like burning your mana, especially
some of these early engagements, can be very devastating, and I'm a big fan of this combo.
The Snapfire plus Clockwork you have killed throughout the whole game, like with these
two hero pairings, like you can make two moves on the map pretty much because these two heroes
are gonna kill any hero.
Yeah, it's a great combo. They've run it a lot like a few things to say that I think are worth noting is well
Falklands first of all is one of the one of the linear teams actually
We haven't seen them play it but my marine is a level 30 linear player like one of his best heroes actually
So he would know what he wants against it
So I'm sure that you know they talk they talked about this linear
They saw it coming and they're gonna propose something against it. You mentioned the clockwork
I think true that the cog interaction is not as good
But at least he has the jetpack it which is like it can be very useful against Lena
especially if they build aganims, it becomes really hard to catch right? They're flying over trees, you do this.
Yeah, both of them are flying.
Yeah, right.
No, they're both flying, but Trunks don't have vision of me now.
They're gonna play their own game, but at least, you know, he's gonna be able to track her down.
So that's like a good tool to have.
I want to mention the inline ban also. I think it's, it's, it seems to be, you know, one of the top, you know,
POST 5 and POST 3 actually, he was on the tournament.
We've seen Yandex dominate with it yesterday and snaking is maybe the second player to be using it as much, you know,
Like Falcons they've played a lot of online and it's their go-to so pretty pretty good off
Vici to not let them get their hands on it. Yeah, and dying like we've seen some good performances yesterday
Malady as well
He kind of owned like even the outro gave him credit saying that he's gonna be the scaling like for pretty much
Scaling cores in that game and he did with the heart with the blade mail build
So many different ways to build that hero and on the other side Marana
plus Tusk, so having an extra bit of a save, Marana, like we've seen the hero do really well from position 5, even some position 4 performances.
Sure, he says a consider to 4 without what's in Q, Marana.
I mean, it could be. I think that technically it's still open. If the Lina goes safe lane, most likely the Tusk is going to lane with her, which would send the Marana position 4.
But if they decide to send the Lina mid, then you could have both options open.
I just wonder, I mean, I want to say that Lina is very fine laning against Nap, I would even give Lina an edge, maybe that 60-40, so they should be happy with Lina mids, but again, it's going to come down to, you know, what they get to see, and for like both scenarios of Lina mid and Lina plus one might be fine.
That's also the strength of the Lena picks, like you pick it that early, this is not a hero that can really get countered in lane, it's so strong on the lane that you can just pick it and...
Yeah, she does well, it doesn't matter whether she goes to safe lane or she goes to mid lane, the hero is gonna do fine.
And I also think the value that they're gonna be getting from Cookie in this game is gonna be insane, like LSA jumping over the shards, whoever gets initiated on, maybe dodging the snowball,
all great against the Aero combo that they have.
And also, Wyvern, being able to split the fight
plus the Wind Ranger, we are not seeing too much
of a team fight so far inside of Vici Gaming.
I would love to see some kind of a team fight
because you're gonna be fighting into Snapfire, Wyvern.
This is very single target oriented build so far,
like the whole lineup.
This Wyvern pick really feels like a checkmate to me
because as you mentioned, they have mostly single target.
Wyvern excels at fixing that.
They also have mostly physical damage.
Of course there's Lina, but you know, one gamer cape, let's say, and one columbraze, and all of a sudden
These three heroes can't even fix what a position five wyvern is going to bring to the table
I also really like the synergy between wyvern and snap. I think the curse is a great setup for cookie
So it's clockwork, of course, but there's just a lot of team fights synergy with the fucking heroes
They have very solid lanes. These are dominant laners
So their dirt draft is just very well rounded like they have team fight, you know, they have very strong lanes
they have saved which is particularly efficient versus the witchy gaming heroes.
So I think a lot of weight on the last two picks for witchy gaming.
They obviously have secured themselves like solid heroes and a good draft but
they're in a bit of a tricky situation right now.
Yeah I would love to see some kind of a team fight. Doom is also a good pick.
It's very good against Windranger, good against Wyvern Centaur.
I've seen a good amount of Centaur's on 18 just to be able to maybe like even build into
pipe in this game, the interaction between Centaur and Windranger, a lot of times it's
not going to happen because he's way too tanky.
What about, okay, they go for the Spectre.
This is a, I really like this hero.
I think it's just, I personally think it's just too strong, honestly, like, regardless
of the game, I think the hero is just in such a good state that it's always a pick.
So I like it.
They're taking a very skirmishy, played-a-map approach, which honestly, I think I quite
like it because you know sometimes in Dora you end up in a situation which I was describing earlier
it's like they can't really fight and how are they gonna fix it the wyvern is gonna say wherever
they jump on and don't try to fix the unfixable you don't fix what you can't it's like just double
down on what your heroes are designed to do in the game which is push lanes you know ghost push
lanes with Mirana aghanim lina you know killing three players from and like split falcons apart
on the map and pick them off with Tusk, Moonlight Shadow, Lina Travel, Spectre, and force them to
play your game and this might actually make heroes like Wyvern look completely helpless.
Yeah, this is something that Yattaro talked about in his exit interview that they like split them
real well in that game even though they were the ones holding the Aegis, they just played the map
extremely well and I like the bands coming out especially the Viper band, it would be very good
potentially with Clockwork, super strong lane break against Spectre would always be good and again
they have a lot of single target Viper loves to play against these type of heroes a lot of magic damage early on and it would
Kind of decimate spectre in the lane because if it's going to be spectre plus marana
This is not a strong lane by any means so I feel like
Whatever they decide to pick on side of falcons there are going to be having an easy time
This is like there's a stronger laner that you would expect but
Not so much against that potentially clockwork plus
maybe some like Timbersaw that could come out for them like even Dawnbreaker.
I feel like they have multiple ways of dealing what's gonna come and they
they're gonna see the full draft so they're gonna decide. I like the Dawn
idea actually mentioned I think it could help them fix a little bit of the map
because right now this is really what Vici Gaming is looking to abuse it's
like they yeah just force them to split and pick them up because if Falcons is
allowed to just group up and go for objectives without really paying the
price when it comes to like losing towers perhaps or losing too much resources because
Vici is shoving all the waves into them, then the game is pretty straightforward.
So they end up going for the Darkseer, I really like that combo inspector, I think it's one
of the best in the game.
You have to think of the teamfights, it's like Snapfire, Wyvern, these heroes hate chaos,
like they want to understand where the fight is being fixated if that makes sense, they
want to know, hey this is where the fight happens, this is where I'm going to stand,
This is how the angle I'm going to clip my spells from.
And versus Spectre Darkshire, it never happens.
It's just full chaos.
Everybody's just getting chased by Spectre Lusion,
vacuumed into the wall.
And it's just very effective versus the vacuum heroes.
It's a really good combo, I think.
They're maybe not investing enough resources
in the laning phase, but hopefully they have a plan.
And there's always a jungle backup plan,
especially when they play Darkshire.
But besides that, I think it's pretty cool
how they were able to turn to turn the dratharone.
Yeah, the illusion that you make out of Windrangers,
not the strongest, this is not TV,
Shadowfiend illusion type of heroes
that we're talking about,
but still you're gonna be getting the value out of it.
It also gives them a little bit of a team fight
that we said that they needed an extra bit of a damage
like the Iron Shell Spectre with the Radiance Burn.
There's gonna be quite a lot of damage over time,
especially cause you know, Falcons,
they also wanna be, this is probably the best team
in the world when we're talking about
taking the longer fights and how they managed to reset.
What's amazing about the Spectre and Darsier combo is that Spectre enjoys a lot for us.
Dispersion, the series is really tanky, hard to take down, and obviously you kind of lose by trying to kill Spectre,
so it just amplifies when Spectre with a pipe, with the greaves and all the Darsier items that are bought naturally.
You also have the combo with the Surge and the Shot of Darsier which is slowing you and makes it impossible to disengage,
and if you don't run away from Spectre you die essentially and the team fight presence is like you can't, they're running away and
Darsir gets like great jumps.
So this is off to Granger?
Yes, this is something that we usually don't see. It's a hero that like doesn't get harassed by Marana, doesn't get harassed by Spectre.
It's a really good name for it.
It's a good, like this hero definitely has something to it.
Like it has been played from when Granger back in my days as well. Like it definitely has some merit to it.
But I've actually been yeah, I think
They opted to go for tiny because this is the hero that doesn't care too much about the darks here in the lane
He's way too. Thank you to be killed. It also this is the hero that builds into silver edge
He's also kind of like a global hero in a sense once he starts down to hunt people with the blink dagger with the silver edge
Cut into back lines and these heroes don't really have that much HP like Lena
Yes, she can be tanky
But one thing that Lena hates to play against is any repositioning tools.
Like I think one of the best match-ups against Lena is Tiny and it's also gonna be Magnus, which we really haven't seen.
Yeah, and it's one of the tiny ones that heroes that at some point will just stand his ground, right?
So you're just like he's just there and he has like, you know, the Sivirage, whatever, Satanic, Daedalus,
Tiny25, he's just standing in the front and
you know, Dorsher Spectre are gonna kick their spells and Tiny's just not gonna finish.
Like he's just gonna stand there and
He's just too tanky and I think it gives them also like a scaling like
Angle where I don't think win ranger would have been able to take this game to the late game on the carry position
But with tiny it's completely different. You kind of have to think you know
Is this synergy going to be good enough?
But you know it brings me back to a mark playing Ursa in I think it was in TI finals
Yes, where you're like, oh and then it just makes it work
So I would just trust them to at the end of the day the guys just
Ursa off lane, you know do radians Nick mark off lane whatever carry also problem
at this point just slug yes this is like I guess another day in the office for
a moment he's just pretending to be off link he's never been off in there it
sounds like that Falcons has found themselves a very strong overall last
pick how do we think Vici is gonna fair against us because I do think that the
way you guys were leaning was if I were to ask you who won the draft it would be
Falcons how speak you gonna deal with it I mean honestly when I saw the first
three picks I would have told you that Vici gaming is getting completely
all drafted and it was very weird for them but the last two Spectre and Darsher I'm super
hopeful I think if they if they play this game well and let alone get an advantage they could
definitely take it. Yeah I can agree I feel like they fixed some of the issues that they did have
but the safe lane is not gonna be easy for Spectre. Well we're gonna find out game one of this quarter
finals. Falcons VT Gaming coming your way with Sunspot and Kezu. Welcome game number one of
One of the best of three in the playoffs here for EWC Falcons vs. DiCi Gaming.
We are in deep pause.
We know the reason already.
Crit is writing in chat sound bug.
We know that's not true.
We all know it's fake.
It's fake news.
That's right.
How are you doing?
I'm doing.
You feeling healthy today?
I am feeling healthy.
How about yourself?
How's your throat?
Everything's going well.
Everything's actually okay so far.
See how it progresses here.
I'm glad you're doing well.
20 seconds into the game.
Yeah.
That's the job we have here.
That's a good sign.
these two drafts that we're seeing. You can, you know, it's when you have these type of teams go up against each other, especially in an elimination series and in the playoffs.
There's a lot of things like going back and forth, you show this in your draft and you have to answer the other way because I'm a huge fan of Spectre and also the Lina that Vici Gaming have on their side.
And I do feel that they found a nice way to corner Falcons like drafting wise towards the end. We heard them talk about the Tiny.
I think it was one of their best picks because Windranger carry would not cut it
But it does mean you have an offline windranger now it is a mar
We know this guy defies any type of logic when it comes to offline picks
So I trust him to make it work, but still do feel like they were heavily pressured in the drafting stage
Yeah, I'm fascinated what's gonna be happening here in a Mars land because I have you seen him play this hero before no
It I don't know how many times he's picked it in pubs. It's his Dota plus love
He's a bronze boy, which means with his own logic he shouldn't have been allowed, because
he doesn't pass the Amartas.
Yeah, that's interesting, okay.
Well, maybe he has been holding onto something.
He's got another account that he's, whatever the app rating is for, I don't even know the
names of the Dota Plus thing.
That's pretty embarrassing.
They're playing this game for so long, either way.
Vici, do you think that they are the underdogs in this series or do you think it's pretty
evenly matched?
They should be slightly outmatched, maybe like underdog I guess is maybe a bit of a
strong word, but I would definitely give the favor overall to Falcons, right?
But looking at the drafts, I think that we're in for like, it's a very like gameplay heavy
game where it's like about the small things whether you get to outplay, because you know,
tiny eventually you are quite strong in this game, but there's still this threat of the
mid game.
There's a Lino that's going to run around with an aggro interceptor, there's Moonlight
Shadow, a lot of waves are pushed in from Iron Shale, and obviously you have Spectre
in your draft as well.
Yeah, we haven't gotten cast of Spectre in quite a while.
I love this hero.
Yeah, tell me why.
So I like a lot of the changes that they've done to some heroes, Morphling and Spectre
in particular, where you have just more spells to work with.
You know, Morph has better base stat, which means you can go Adaptive Strike and Wave Form.
Spectre has Desolate as an innate, which is insanely strong, which means you have a bonus
spell in Shadow Step.
They also buff Spectres like base damage, I think, by like 304 on base adjuice.
So huge fan of this hero, I think it's very much forgotten and you see these range carries
in so many games and against these heroes he's playing against, should have a pretty
good game on this record.
Nice balling coming out from Crit here, as Jin Q on the other side pulling some creeps
as the tusks just for this Darkseer as your, what, I was going to say your idol Faith Beyond
but you did a video content recently where we asked who your idol was and you didn't
mention him.
No, this...
You don't forget your idol.
That's weird.
Okay, you know, there's Xay, there's Universe, I there mentioned that third guy that I'm now forgetting, I think Ice or something.
No, but Fei's behind, he is of course one of the goats, you know, he's won TI before and now he's back playing.
He's playing the Darkseer here, which, the Tiny is a bit of an annoying matchup for you,
because Tiny has insanely high damage, which means he has 3 CS, gets some good denies, and he's not that easy to collapse on later.
So I did like the Falcons last pick quite a lot in this draft.
And if you're talking about late game, how does a Tiny match up against a Spectre?
Ah, it should.
I see you throw Silver Edge on this here.
I feel like I do.
Yes, yes.
You absolutely need Silver Edge.
I think you also need Blink Dagger.
Like, overall, when I look at the heroes
that you're dealing with on the Vici side,
you need to jump them.
You need to find a way that you start the fight.
If you always wait for Vici to get the perfect initiation
with some Pusk, Vacuum Wall, Mulan Shadow, and Haunt,
you're kind of getting cooked.
But a one-to-one matchup, Spectre eats most of them.
I do think that Tiny has a good shot.
But then the strength of Spectre is also,
you can choose your target.
You don't have to end up in a one-way one
you don't want to.
Let's look at the mid lane here, Malrin, sitting on 13 and 2 CS versus the 13 and 1 of XM's
Lena, so overall very even so far.
And this bot lane skater should just have a free time, I would think.
The questions can be pressure, Bach, enough to force him out of lane for a little bit,
or you think this is just going to be a washable lane overall.
There is definitely a lot of pressure going away.
You can see it in the CS.
I mean, Ginkyu has more CS than Bach.
Of course it is a lot of neutrals, but you know, classic POS4 behavior, at least some
of the greedy players, like shout out to my boy Yavzor, hasn't played in forever, but
you know, this type of mantra is still in this game.
Yeah, for sure.
And I'm glad to see Lina again, this hero is picking up steam it feels like.
You feel like it's been underrated until this most recent stretch?
For sure, like we've seen it mid, we've seen the carry, we've seen different builds, and
we've seen it pick quite early also in this game, it was the overall first pick and like
mentioned before. I like that they went for the spectra round later in the game. So we'll
see, you know, if the XM mid laner can put in some work here, I'm quite faithful in it.
I'm curious to see what Malrin purchases itemizes this game, because he can be kind of off the
cuff at times, similar to Malrin, or similar to ATF rather.
I'm also a little bit interested because generally speaking, you want to go the magic build on
Sapphire. It's the one that allows you to play the fastest. You're dealing very good damage,
but also maybe relying on your ult again starts your vacuum and Shadow Step could be a little
bit difficult.
So we'll see what Rounty decides because of course you can deal with the travels into
Blink, Shard, Play, Magic, but we've also seen a few physical Sapphires.
Yeah, I mean when you have a carry like Tiny that's kind of a mix of damages, I guess you
don't really have to go a specific route.
I mean the question is again, what is a Maar building?
He's definitely going carry.
No, like you Offlane Windranger, if he buys Guardian Gryff or some shit, I'm leaving.
We're gonna solo-sat. No way, A no way.
First of all, it's not good. Second of all, it's Amar.
I'm pretty sure those items, he removed them from his shop.
Right. Yeah, it makes sense.
So I'm just expecting most likely just some Maelstrom hike,
I think eventually on the Windranger.
You could even consider like a Silver Edge even later
if you want the BKB in the mid-game.
Amar gonna get slowed down.
A baby arrow comes out from Y.
Nice tackle from Amar though.
Will buy himself enough space.
still no first blood in this game. It's a nice power shot on the white who's actually slowed quite a bit.
Or is he just that slow in general? Looks like that's the case.
Crit coming in from the other side, gets both inside the cogs as Y taking the brunt of the damage
and the power shot from the morrow will give him first blood on the off lane Windrunner.
Yep, nicely played by them because the fact is that they understood that Y didn't have a single level in League, right?
He took too much damage on Windranger to level Sonosaur, so one level on the arrow.
So Crypt just comes on over from the side with the boots of speed easy cogs into the first blood
Which you do kind of need like
This type of the way that she lanes in the off lane
You don't have much sustained much region you want some gold coming your way and I like this more too
Like you just see a straight Laguna blade as a mr. Crypt
Yeah, back team is coming in from getting any further. So Jin Q gets some sort of revenge in that top lane
Yeah, Laguna blade was used in the mid lane is that just a
Pressure him a bit so that they have the advantage for the rune
It's it's first of all so much damage and also you don't need it for like last hitting like now the guy is half HP
You're kind of chilling you've got to pressure in the wave and like you said six minute rune is coming up
Which is also I like ginkgoo's rotation like this minute five it turns night time
Combining your two supports in a safe lane then they can both walk to the mid lane together. It's a very natural
But also very strong moves
It's gonna be that top rune for XM. So he does pick up the damage rune
Let me see if that little duna blaze is going to be a little bit more difficult without some support to get a kill.
And that's Amara, pressured a bit out of this tier one area.
Now let's see how this goes, because Amara low HP potentially will have to see if Mal'Reen is able to help him on the Wisdom Shrine.
Of course he has ult, which means Snapfire is the king of the map right now.
If there's any fight breaking out, you're getting at least one or two trade kills here from Falcons.
The only thing is, okay, so Mal'Reen did get himself another TP to be available.
That's going to go for the blink first, it seems, on the snap fire.
And it's a seven minute wisdom about the pop.
And Shira looking pretty healthy right now, gets the shadow step out.
His block heads towards his shrine, snaking, and Skeeter look to be maybe trying to contest
inside they go, but XM there with a damage rune.
If you're thinking about it, you had a kiss coming from a far block.
He does get burned out, and XM inside gets him to blade onto snaking, so it's a trade
of sorts, and that's a 1v1 battle between Skeeter and XM, XM winning it, and we'll get the shrine as a result.
As Malorim though, getting doubled up on by these supports from Vici Gaming, he slowed very much,
only with the brown boots right now, so Jinkyu should be able, I mean the cooldowns are quite a while,
he's going to dodge the arrow, surely they can catch up, he gets to the high ground,
he's got a cookie in his head, cookie to the low ground, might be enough.
Indeed Malorim somehow gets away, I thought he was dead for sure here.
It's a nice escape, as Genki wants to continue chasing him, but not quite.
They were very close to the haunt, they did just unlock it now on Shiro, so...
If there's any less denying in this top lane...
Go into the fountain.
Yeah, just do it.
Come on now.
Come on, man, the hell up, Shiro.
How has Shadowstep changed how this hero is played?
Or is it more the fact that he innate this shit?
No, it's both, because the thing like...
You just have another way to help fight on the side.
Like usually the reason why Spectre sucked so much in lane is that you were a dagger and that's it
Like now with Shadowsep you don't even have to commit
You can just let your illusion poke fight alongside the pulse life and then you can also go to the illusion which is incredibly strong
So I probably one of my favorite changes that came out of some of the last patches that we've had
Yeah, and we're finally seeing the results with Spectre actually be picked occasionally
Usually it does take a while and we can see a Marsquake by here with them y'all near currently
Yeah, that's right. No big surprise anything that does damage. He will go for in this game shiro
Not pressure too much crit level five so no hookshot quite yet
We're seeing a lot of level three clockworks at this stage. Yeah, so that's I guess good news for Falcons
Crit knows what's up. He is thank you many of you have even said at the other day
He's been the most impressive clockwork out of all the clocks we've seen things positioning is superb
His bowling skills are supreme. Yeah, I
I don't think I said that but I'll take you said that you like to squawk them also pretty sure
I don't think it was him. I was referring to well you should have yeah, it's very good player an easy layup here
You know me. I can't lie. I don't know about that one
As you can see on the other side gink you finally I just hit level five
So the supports for beachy a little bit under leveled in comparison snaking level four on the other side
as Malrin, he did scan out ginkyu so he knows that he's on the side.
Yeah, I want to see if Malrin actually goes for the first item, Blintegg or like just to speed up this game as opposed to the travels.
Biro getting gone and Skeeter through the gate gets the Avalanche and they collapse completely onto Shiro.
Nice pick off for Falcons, first death for the Spectre thus far.
And honestly, this is one of the classic Falcons plays like even Malrin TP to the tier one just in case a fight did break out that you can take this play.
So the Skeeter, winning his lane, going through the gate to also now help Amar in the offlane.
Crit has gotten two out of the three power runes so far in this game.
Malorraine is going to be spotted by Jin Q, Snowball.
Shards of the Mark.
Alright, alright.
That's a haste of Crit.
Ornn now, as the Mortarmer is coming out right on top of Exyn who's stuck inside the cogs,
taking a ton of damage as a result, burning away.
He's still going to land the snake, he's going to try to finish the drop,
You will do so it's gonna cost him his life along with crit so both supports back to dust for falcons
But if you're trading XM, you'll take that but I thought over yet as Malrin under the tier one tower
Can he got on by three members of beachy has a triple kill for why on this Marana nice shot coming out
Yeah, you're not gonna be able to do any more damage so that'll break the fight up completely
Okay, so at the start of the fight I was like, okay, this is still decent for Falcons
they took the top tier one, but with everything that ended up happening, like you want these small fights and skirmishes on Spectre,
even if you only get DSS, also like a triple kill for Y.
Like, maybe during this, I believe that Skeeter has a TP ready later on, perhaps with an Avalanche when they were diving,
they could have helped out, but you can just see all this damage, like, Snapfire ult this early on is so deadly.
Axel was actually super close to living there too, because the last glob wasn't quite enough to get the kill.
XM has boots of travel as his first item and his counterpart in Malrin still
eyeing up the blink we'll see if he changes his mind for boots I assume he
wants boots of travel as well yeah so the travels would feel nicer but blink
is a bit more of it's slightly more committal but it also gives you more
place on the map right you can unlock things that you didn't have before you
could potentially smoke up with yeah with Mr. Malrin and smoke maybe into the
bottom side or fight place that you otherwise cannot. They also TP'd Skeeter into the mid lane to go for a smoke, so an active rune timing on the 12th minute mark here.
Jhin Q going to get Avalanche into the cookie and into his desk, although a snowball will delay it just a tad, and the Invis rune was grabbed by Jhin Q before that point.
Still a 2k lead though for Falcons and yeah we can see Malrangers Q of the kind of normal items
boosts his travel into the shard. Skeeter also no surprise on the tiny, you go to Echo Saber
you're gonna go for the Shadow Blade
Arrow, see ya later Rangcreep
Now to the range and tier 1 tower taking some damage but you can see the TP's on the way
they do spot it, nice cogs, more bowling
He's in Q. He's going to be rewarded for his TP.
That's mean during all of this though, that Bak is recovering very, very nicely on the darks here, right?
You've got your Dominator, which means even if you leave the lane, you can keep cutting some creeps, you can keep stacking.
And when my Shadow being put to good use on top of Amar here, sets up the LSA into the Laguna and into the Arrow.
It's not quite enough yet. The last right click was needed. XM takes his second kill of the game on Alina.
There's a lot of like very nice micro plays. So when you play offland windranger, you don't want to end up in this position where our Marja's died and usually you want to pull the hard camp in the top lane after you kill the tier 1 tower.
But if you look at what Vici did, they sentreat the hard camp so there's no way for you to bring the lane back.
They also have a lane ward to always see where is this guy after all. So now you kind of indirectly force yourself to overplay, kill him and they're farming stats at the same time. So very nice stuff you're from Vici.
That's Valoran using that Blink Dagger to full effect.
The wall comes out early from Bop to try to delay this from the Falcon's side,
and that's in a way it does work, is Snake King now running away.
Not a lot of ancients taken there.
They aren't quite low though.
Yeah, you'll just keep farming this on the darks here, so...
They are happy with a very static map.
If any overplays, of course, happen,
you will look at it with Dahon, Chirro, who is currently just happily farming his blade mail.
Once he has this, it's quite nice for him to reach into the game.
The team said Malawi has passed on the script into the next series.
That's right.
Execute Wustam Shrine Steel.
Well done.
Yeah, it's a great late-mail game.
Like especially Windranger and Snapfire Old.
But who about late-mail?
Spectre.
Oh, that's awesome.
I love that.
First of all, it's super good for the fighting.
We've seen this before.
You steal the Wustam Shrine, you kill some camps, but you do pay the price.
Well, why we'll take a tumble?
A la Malady without the Malad, just a Y.
Yep, just very good. La Cosa will be proud of this one, might be chuckling.
XM has the Kaia now. As he's off me for Agam Scepter, it seems we'll talk about that in just a moment, but I think we're going to have a connection here onto Skeeter.
Not able to lock him in though as Jin Q.
Is he stinking on the high ground?
Just keeping his eyes peeled.
Have to be careful how you play here.
They are smoking over already.
I'd love to get Ging Q.
He's going to dodge the avalanche though, but there's a hook shot onto the back line
onto Lena with the Mortimer's Kisses right on top as well, and that's the death of XM.
And the Mortimer's still being lied.
Look at this damage.
As Shearer joined the party, I think he regrets his decision.
The wall comes out a little bit too late.
A skater.
Can he outrun his illusion?
Looks like Amar will clean it up for him, so 3 for 2 in favor of Falcons.
And why would we need the perfect execution here?
Goes for the leap, into the star storm, not enough. Definitely needed the arrow on top.
I was thinking maybe he would try to arrow from the high ground, but either way Falcons with a very timely response there earlier with the smoke.
As Maureen got off a full duration on the kisses, Amar also kind of bailing out his team.
And what do you think of the aggro interceptor that Xen wants to opt for?
It's just so strong.
We're gonna see this again because this looked good initially, right?
You killed the Winter Wyvern first, but this hookshot into the kisses and I think Valk is kind of low on mana,
so there's not too many shells going on, no real vacuum available either.
He also just got his wall available at this moment.
If we have a fight in the live, we can see the first person in the game, I do believe,
holding them in place is Fox.
Power shot.
A lot of damage over time.
The power shot a little bit early, but I think they're still going to find the two kills
they came for.
Nicely done from Falcons, as Lai will be able to escape.
As this 2K lead is very firm now for Falcons.
They're definitely pacing up, and it's also the right thing to do.
You asked about the agg and the scepter, which is very good on Lina.
But you're now building two items on Vici.
You kind of have to, right?
and the Ags, they're kind of, it's dead gold
until you fully complete those items.
Like they build up to Agdoms, no one really cares.
Get a little bit of HP, so if you're Falcons,
definitely want to continue to keep up the pressure.
But yeah, Lena Ags, unobstructed movement,
you get insane spell lamp and magic resistance,
which is great against the radiant draft.
Yeah, they are almost all magic damage.
Tiny ends up getting a lot of physical
the way that the game goes, and obviously the win runner.
Especially with Amar, playing the way he is,
he's four and one actually.
He's only squeezing that one little play on him earlier, possessed mask is also something
you feel quite happy with on the Windranger because you have no sustain.
Yeah, he's got Mjolnir now and Shadowblade up and running for Skeeter.
That's the king of Skeeter, he is found, LSA, ready for him along with the Laguna Blade
and they're going to be cleaning him up easily.
So a very big kill for Vici, showing some semblance of life here.
No, definitely those quite deep. I would even say because skater having a very very good game
But once wanted to keep up the pressure here
I'm a bit surprised that I'm not seeing back queue up any auras early on
You know a potential pipe or griefs against the tiny the snap fire this like abundance of magic damage
But instead he is opting for he bought the shard early on which is very good in this game
But it's also quite aggressive into the she was obviously the minus attack speed against tiny is incredible
Probably debuts hero to build it against very low attack speed incredibly high damage hero
This is like trying to think if there's any other hero that I consistently see the
casual chasm stone on
Other than darks here. I've definitely seen this a few times. The arrow is actually gonna cancel out
The alt coming out from that
When did that happen? I don't I never saw that. I don't think I thought that either
I was about to say that's a dirty pause like just killing the kite straight up after
We never got to see that one. That must have happened off-camera while the fight was continuing elsewhere.
And that's the second time I've done that in my career.
Yep, keep it up.
Knock it up to old age.
As a skater, dies again.
When you think of the chasm stone,
sometimes you see it on Underlord, that's pretty good.
Seeing people buy it on Snapfire.
Darkseer, of course, also very nice with the good old vacuum.
Me like.
Seen it on some support earth shakers which is of course played very very little
You can see crit is actually opting for a blink dagger next which is
Something missing more and more on these clockworks. Mm-hmm. Why is that?
It just seems to be more and more kind of what you want to do
It's about you know getting a hook shot and then
repositioning or just blinking behind him and playing on the cogs because
The hero is a lot more about having proper positioning and then landing your hook and
cogs and it really is anything else.
You're not expected to be on top of someone with a battery assault.
It's a very, very big bonus that you're putting for.
True.
What level is his battery assault right now?
Level one, classic.
I'm even surprised he has a level in it.
Usually you'll see like 0-4-4.
Mr. Snaking.
They find him and boots to travel with Shiro coming in as well.
Well, we'll eat him up. Very easily. He's blocked actually. He has a ton of damage from Amar, so he actually gets a bigger kill isolated from the group.
Hookshot's gonna miss. This probably will end the fight, although why? No more leaps to work with, so he'll find a second form of a kill.
Amar is cooking. I wonder if he's being slightly disrespected by some of this itemization.
Sam, oh my god, they actually give him one of his kisses.
Shag was not gonna fully commit his LSA, fully played rather, not enough as Amar will right-click him down in addition.
He's 6-1 on Windrunner Offlane.
What are we watching? What are we witnessing?
He's holding, he's gonna have a very good time on the BKB as well, and having like Mjolnir BKB in this draft is incredibly good against the Dire side.
Because while Bak is buying the Shivas, which is insanely good against the Tiny, Windranger doesn't care.
You have, like, maximum attack speed anyway.
You're not using just the only or the high attack speed into a crimson, into greaves, into a pipe.
So the only thing he kind of has to worry about is maybe the blade mail on Shiro,
but even then you're gonna have to BKB against it.
So classic Amar doing Amar things.
If this is what a bronze Amar win runner looks like, what is Master Tier, exactly?
At this point, I don't know if it makes that much of a difference.
This guy is just so good.
If you give him the right hero in like the right place and you kind of set him up for it,
like, even throughout his couple years that he's now played competitive,
I think this guy's like individual skill and understanding is just so high that he can make any hero work.
Yeah.
I mean, this guy played Offlane Ursa at TI finals in Game 5.
Alright, I'll believe it when he picks Ricky.
I mean, that's just a score, bitch.
Exactly.
Or, actually, mid Ricky is playable, but Offlane Ricky, I don't even know if he could make that work.
that's the true test we'll see it in game two of course I hear challenge let
them know a y if you're watching please is it like you think he's not watching if
you're listening he usually tunes me out you're about to get ganked by three
members of Falcons although his spidey senses are tingling that they could go
for scan and the arrow also hitting here for why it's been a little bit of a
Quiet couple minutes for Vici, right? We talked about the items earlier, Agni, Scepter and Radiance too.
Items that you have to farm towards for a long time, but no Moonlight Shadow pick-offs, no Haunt pick-offs.
Bottom tier one still available as well. Kind of shows a bit of the strength of this last pick, Tiny as well.
Being able to just sit in this area for a long time.
And Faith beyond, just about finished with just the recipe away for the Shiva's Guard as he's gonna eventually get this tower with the rally skeletons.
Another reason why Dominator is just so good. It's bonus farm, but also the reason mid tower died is the helm of Dominator
The reason the bottom tier one died helm of Dominator
Looking for a play on the mark here. No BKB yet
They're gonna get the bunch up into the LSA to bring everyone basically and they assassinate
Basically what I would consider to be the carry of this game. So oh he is he definitely is also like with this top
network currently because Skeeter is not going to enjoy teamfighting once there's a sheeva's.
XM found out they get the avalanche set up for the mortemers as well so Skeeter nothing comes for
free for falcons they lose somebody they usually get a better trade at least that's been the
the case so far in this game because Vigic they have a couple of centuries on the map actually
quite a few but not that kind of deep in the mid river it's very much on their own side so Skeeter
finding a very very you know nice move there with the shadow blade to get this pick off onto XM
Now, Rean with an invisibility rune as he is 6-2 to match Amar.
Great start to the game for their off-lane and mid skater.
We're hounding Bok a little bit.
He has his shard, it's pretty early pick.
You typically get it this early on Darkseer.
It can be quite good, like when you just walk.
I think the slows is quite nice against a tiny, like it's overall about the trail.
And we do see it generally when you can play very aggressive, like you have an Ursa in your line-up, or maybe a Weaver that just continuously running around, so potentially slightly earlier than usual.
They're not going to quite oblige to the Tormentor, I guess they just don't see anything on the map, so I have to be a little bit careful.
Yeah, interesting. Definitely could have gotten it.
But I guess maybe you're worried about, I mean he just picked up Radiance. If you haunt right afterwards and you're super low, he could give up a triple or an ultra kill pretty fast as Jinkyu spotted, but the Sentry will see.
He's going to get a hook shot and push back into the fray, Skeeter claims him. 3K lead for Falcons.
And in terms of Roche play, which team would you say has the advantage?
For now, honestly, Nidia team is like that good. Maybe you have Focus Fire, which is the best tool for Radiance, so you definitely can take it.
Tire is fine because you have Iron Shells and Tag Team, so I would maybe give it to Vici slightly.
Once you unlock Mantis style on Vici, it's absolutely in their favor.
So you could definitely see a world where Farkas will want to control that area and then turn it into a teamfight because their role...
Because they're ro- like both teams have INSANE like pit fight abilities, right?
You have darks your vacuum wall, you have winter scurries, you have snapfire kisses.
So might see a lot of team fighting around the roach.
It's like if falcons have to use focus fire to kill roach, if it gets contested then that-
Yeah, it's-
Real bad, right?
That's why it's horrible. And falcons are very good at those type of things.
They do not overcommit. They wait, they play patient, they wait for the moment.
So I wouldn't really see that situation happening.
Smoked from Vici, scans coming out, and looks like they will not connect onto anyone.
A skater already exited the area.
I think I find so fascinating about Falcons as we're going to get a pause here.
A bit of Kali.
I find them to be one of the most fascinating teams in history because of the dynamic that
they have in the team.
They have, not to mention AYU's coach, but Malrin, Amar, and Skeeter for a very large
portion of time especially when the meta really aligns with them they can all play similar hero
pools yeah and be able to flex like that in the draft just gives you such a leg up overall
and then you have I mean just in a traditional sense from how they're playing now Skeeter it
it just never feels like he's actually the carry player he's like the backup like a stable guy
that will always give enough space for the likes of Amar and Malrin and the thing I have to mention
is that you know Amar and Malrin I love them and they're incredibly good players but I think
This type of carrier player, they always, they don't get the credit they deserve.
Think of like, Matamba man back in the day, you know?
It's like the type of Shadow carry. If you need them to hard carry, Skeeter can.
Matamba man always could.
But they're the reason why some of these teams work with the greedy players that they do have.
Yep, now Rihanna's gonna get pushed in the air.
Arrow's gonna come in and connect as well,
XM there to finish him off.
Beautiful kill from BG Gaming.
Now Falcons on the run, Snake King able to traverse terrain here.
Looks like you'll get out just fine.
Ricci with the one and done.
Very, very necessary curse, because otherwise snaking was for sure dead.
But you can see a little bit of the power coming in, you know, moonlight shadow into the punch, you have a quick follow-up.
And Ricci gaming, they got through some of the hardest timing off the map.
Fuck, though, they're not so lucky.
Never for free, it seems.
Max-M's gonna find another kill, though, in the form of Crit, to the very least.
Still, overall, I do think Vici have a lot of power spikes coming their way, right?
They got to the Agon.
I'm sure you lost a couple of heroes here or there, but Yachakaya, Axe completed on
Lina, XM is closing in on the blinkdagger.
And honestly, the radiance for Spectre, it's a small timing, like your illusions are slightly
better, but once you have Manta, that's when you're really looking to get more involved.
If there's any stun, a support will insta-die if you haunt in and drop the Manta.
I'm looking for a way by the skin.
on this side of the map. I don't think we've seen it. It's kind of crazy that it has this
mechanic in the game that we rarely get to see actually until like much later in the
game. We're going to see the rocket pack come out for crit. It's just quite nice. Now him
and Lina can both play jetpack simulator in this game. We need to see them flying next
to each other. Snake gang, ooh, in the cover. Oh, just breakage in queue. In the tree line
Amar didn't want to go for him apparently he's gonna get the blink off but they
still have the vision and there's the harpoon and now the CC. Basically an
instigate once they actually catch up to Jin Q. When I'm looking at some of these
next fights it's honestly more important that the supports for Falcons stay alive
usually within the hunt of course if you can clutch out a core that's amazing
for you but then there's winter's curse can come through cold embrace can come
through, but if you get to kill Wyvern or Clockwork within the within Haunt, you
will generally win those fights. So I like the itemization from snaking, got a
glimmer, got some drums to go around, but I also hope that all the cores you need
to pay attention to your supports. You need to get your greedy neutrals, it's true.
Another kill here, onto Y, wrong place, wrong time, 4k lead for Falcons, and at
what point are they gonna feel comfortable to go for Roche? If they have a slightly
Better map I think as okay that answered your question. Yep. They have mid control at least somewhat
He though they will definitely fight this one and they have haunt no morana though for 30 so this is a four versus five crit
Likely to be the sacrifice does have the blink dagger though
In Roche they're finding a good angle, but it's late find it first. Yeah, they should get it in time
Now we'll beat you want to fight
regardless
Someone is going to spot the Snake King, Livern as the hookshot coming in right on top of Jyn Q, another death for him.
And a haunt on the back line, haunt on Mal-Reen, with a big back wall onto several heroes that's Bokk with a triple kill now.
Shira is getting gone on by Amar. He will get that kill as Bokk continues his reign of terror onto Amar.
There you go!
I didn't know the accent picked that up, but hell yeah.
That's always the funnest way to realize there's a Dageman, some douche just gets his ass slapped at the end of a team fight.
Okay, kind of a crazy fight.
They get Aegis, but Falcons pay a heavy price.
Well, they absolutely do. It was quite good of them to get it.
Like, to get the Aegis. You can just see the power of Spectre, look at him.
Like, he reality rips in on the left side, onto Malmene.
That's even without the Manta, and this vacuum wall just kind of seals the deal.
And Marsa has crazy damage.
Yeah, I was a little bit surprised that Shiro popped his blade mail so early, actually.
I figured you'd just wait for the windrunner ult, but...
I definitely think you can wait, because, right, it was overall against the snapfire,
but at the same time...
Yeah, if you get your stun lock, then you feel bad not using it, so...
And Amar has the... Amar has BKB anyway, who's working...
Ah.
...quindly on a satanic, which will help him.
Yeah, blade mail not nearly as good as it used to be, I suppose.
But I remember back in the day with Spectre...
Oh, it used to be...
It would be part of this, even in like super late game scenarios, you would keep the Blade
Mail a lot of the time.
I like this, I like the Daegon on the Lena.
First of all the item was buffed so you get Task Range, which is quite nice.
Sure it's not that much, it's only 6C level 1, but your spellamp on this hero is crazy
with the Kaiyacha.
Oh yeah, so that's the other thing we missed earlier.
Yeah, they got the Aegis.
They got Aegis and PKB, yeah that's fully flew over me.
So did Lena. She has axe. That's true. And so we'll talk with her. That's why we can't find her. She's got the rocket pack.
And as BKB now picked up from Boxer, they completely nullify this Roche kill.
Like, absolutely nothing to show for this Falcons. And even now, like when you're tiny,
Skidder is having a good game, of course, on the carry tiny, but into a Shiva's Guard that's lowering your attack speed by a lot.
Like for tiny, it's actually massive.
So it is definitely still on a mark until I kind of get a lot of things going, but the way Windranger works,
She's kind of locked on one target, correct? Good hook.
Yeah, pushes the Marana down into the avalanche into the bowling, but does have the leap and the greaves.
Needs a couple more Fogel stuns there. You know, the push didn't allow the toss for Skeeter.
What do you think of this build from why? So he goes for a greaves, obviously just good.
It's very good.
A lot of Maranhas we're seeing are very greedy, they just go axe first, they play for the late game.
Does this fall off?
I like it for the fact that you want to like you farmed so long you actually got to this stage pretty nicely
You didn't need more greed to like actually, you know just allow falcons to run you over now
Your heroes are ready to fight and I think building items that amplify this is great
Maybe in like 10 15 minutes you can go back to the greed and back to the scaling
Yes, now rain. Munched in the air. They have all the burst damage daggin coming out from XM again
JinQ looks like he might survive. He gets off the ules as Amar in the area to try to finish the job.
He's going to keep them pretty safe. See the back wall onto 2. The curse only onto a single hero.
As Y will be able to shrug it up easily. Now Mark's starting to precarious.
Mark pops the BKB trying to finish the job onto JinQ.
This is not good for problems.
They do not have the vision. And Skeeter with the BKB going to get pushed to the other side.
Looks like he will walk away, but Falcons, the LSA finding...
See you later.
as he burns to the ground from XM and they're going to get a tier two on top of this as
Vici Gaming showing up big time in the last few minutes.
It is so much easier for them to maneuver around the map at the moment, like all the
macros they have, right?
You have so much girls pushed, you have the Moonlight Shader, you keep getting the very
nice jumps just all around the map.
That's three kills, a couple of BKBs going your way as well.
As Melrini, once you get punched up, you're gone, it doesn't matter.
The beauty of this is, Lena, I mean they were all smoked but she showed her spells in the
bot side of the map and immediately falcon's king came in and within 10 seconds they're
already here ganking the top lane.
Yeah, he's got travels, the very mobile approach of all the heroes that they have and just
very nice spell usage too, right?
Like GenQ getting out initially under the Moonlight Shadow and Guardian Greaves, you
keep the fight going on.
And I love watching XM, this guy is one of my favorite mid laners, I think it's been
a long time since we've had like an ultra-explosive mid player from the Chinese scene.
Actually upgrading Dagger.
Yeah, I love it. I think it's great.
More spell damage, more cast range going your way.
It's got an arcane rune.
Like, come on guys.
This guy is a monster on the Lina now.
Okay, I don't want to backseat.
Is it actually worth upgrading?
Yes.
Like, immediately.
I mean, look at this boss.
No, it's great. I think it's amazing because
all you want to do on Lina is not get caught.
Immediately kill a guy, then wait 10 seconds and go for round 2.
Right.
And I think with the changes to Dagon where it gives you cast range,
I do think they're putting the item in like a very, very nice spot.
It doesn't look like it lowers cooldown anymore, right?
So, 21 seconds flat, it seems, as Malrin and Skeeter team up to take out one.
That's a big one with the gem.
All they need to do is jump in at the last moment, gets the stun locked,
the hookshot's gonna completely miss.
What's happening?
On a standstill target, Gen Q.
Next level move, standstill does not get hit.
Meanwhile, Skeeter gets the double kill, though.
That was after.
Things are down snaking in turn, so 2 for 1 just supports dead at the moment.
I just watched two guys like sit on a gem for like six seconds.
Who actually ended up getting it? Was it Marine?
Yeah.
Marine ended up dropping one item faster.
If collapse was in the game.
He would have had it instantly.
And Skeeter still showing off some of his strength here on the tiny, being able to kill both the supports.
It is good.
But it's been a while since Falcons got some more meaningful kills, I would say.
Of course, they did get the Roche earlier, but it's so funny.
Dagon 4.
And he's auto-buying the recipe again, so.
Most expensive item in the game, is it still?
I believe so.
Level 5 it is.
Yeah.
It's still very, very good.
That is the layer, I love it.
We don't see this at all anymore, especially now that it doesn't kill creeps.
I think it was Tai Long.
I mean, if you have level 5 big and you're one sapping somebody, that's for sure.
The only other guy I saw it built in this tour I think was Taillung on the pub
Which of course is also quite quite good. Was it this early now?
That was maybe like 10 minutes or not. I think you had like conjurious catalysts so like tier 4 item territory 40 minute plus
Very cool. I want to see though like the Falcons even though they're only down 2k gold
I think when you're trying to have a read on like the actual strengths of their draft
They are struggling at the moment because some of their next items that are coming out. It's a lot of survivability, right?
It's the it's a satanic for a mar. It's a BKB for Marine after his a on this. This is cool
I have to mention the agonist sector out for sure. I don't know if you go for this normally. Can you tell me?
It's very cool you pop hot and when you reality reality onto the first illusion
Yeah, fear's enemies around that's super cool
It is not something you see that often because honestly it I don't think it's that amazing
But it's really good here against the snapfire that they did scan them out. That's true great great positioning
Yeah, Skeeter. He will be able to take out Jim Q in turn here. The wall comes out instantly. The curse again only under the single target
But the Ludens are nearby. Skeeter trying to run this off with the BKV
He will get out, crit right click down in the meantime as Bok killed off by Amar gets back to base. So one for two favor Falcons
Skeeter's still looking for a potential target despite being low HP, except
Gets the shrine on his way out.
They look quite disjointed, at least for the starters for Vici, but Falkas had insane positioning, right?
The pre-scanned on the flight, then Chris placing an observable and jetpacking off the map to kind of show everybody
to his team, was a very, very good start to this flight.
And also just cleaning out JinQ, he's been incredibly annoying.
I guess here they just got very split, like the curse, and you can see Shiro on the right side trying to like also run down Skeeter.
I was wondering why the curse was lasting so long, but it was a shackle after I guess, yeah.
Yeah, he was just on Love 4 forever on Bach.
If I saw properly, he's actually got a hex there. He's incredibly strong, so even if you have Lena going on anyone into a haunt,
or just Bach jumping them with a hex vacuum and the haunt comes in, you are starting to get cooked real quick.
We got ourselves a game here.
Oh, we do.
All we need was to not have a pregame segment where we say it's a doozy.
We are bad luck indeed.
Mal'Rain this time with the damaged rune, it's been XM every single time it feels like
with these power runes.
79%.
I don't disagree and also we all know that Dota Plus and Gabe, they love Spectre.
They do.
But I will probably go more with like a 70 to 30.
I think 80-20 is a quite strong.
There's always a lot of gameplay to be had.
So, Mal'Rain does have BKB. We'll see if he wants to pop it while using his ult or not, because you're right.
He's just going to get in weird in all likelihood from Shiro.
Another good scan. They know they're behind this tower.
And the initiation is a little bit awkward thanks to the snowball.
That's Xen coming in from the south.
We have Boldon as Jyn-Q is staying alive.
There's the hot coming out.
And a big back wall onto four heroes as Crit and the rest of Falcons attempting to run away.
They clean up one support, feels like every fight is just Falcons trying to run away as the Illusion is catching up to them LSA not going to hit thanks to the BKB so Skeeter gets to the high ground successfully.
He might actually get out, interesting. So that's somehow, after all of that just one kill, just want to play it safe. Also, second Rosh is about to respawn very shortly.
Kind of looks like JinQ could have just been instant dead there, but with the use again making a lot of time
Guardian greets and everything to make sure that he does stay alive
You see it here again because it looked like a good go right like JinQ snowballing aggressively on the map there
It looks like she or didn't quite get to linger on to people, but it may be played a little more aggressive towards the start there
Because yeah, only crit getting out very nice disengage from Falcons
I mean, getting out to the grave.
Yeah.
It's crazy when you get a backwilder that is that disgusting, you get a singular kill
on a support.
Shivas from Faith Beyond is spot a little bit of action going on.
Laduna already out to Skeeter.
Arrow is coming.
It's gonna fully hit onto Malrin.
He's in a lot of trouble now.
Back him onto three.
Where's the follow-up?
LSA into the daggers.
The Colton Briggs is keeping Malrin alive.
He'll shot on the other side.
They get the stun connection onto Jyn Q.
There's now a curse coming out.
On the second, the spectre eating their shit out of his teammate as the power shopper Marz
is going to be enough to take out Y.
XN, now getting done, he gets pushed back.
Beautiful cut from Krithy.
Isolate the lead, a double kill for Marz.
Three kills overall in favor of Falcons.
Falcons will happily oblige to that play.
If you reach, you look at their cooldowns.
Wall only came up now after the fight.
Haunt is still on cooldown.
Definitely overplaying their hand there, but that's the Falcons special.
They kind of toy around with you, they bait you to overstep ever so slightly,
baiting you into the old observer one and that should just be a free rose for them.
Absolutely.
Falcons, we're looking on the back foot a bit until that moment.
Unless you're a once too horn, pull an inner collapse, fear them and steal the Aegis.
Yeah, that would be a dream.
Not quite.
Collapse not in the building.
I mean that's a big reason that thousands won the fight, they did not have haunt.
Yeah, or wall for that matter, look at it, this is an overplay, but nice curse you also
from snaking in a moment and you make it a little bit more time here.
And XM, that is a maniac Lincoln if I may say so.
Now when you're confident, you're confident.
Oh yeah.
Beautiful curse as well from snaking.
This excellent execution of Falcons and Vici, it just felt like a cooldown related issue.
Which, I guess, maybe that's the game plan from Falcons. You get into an initial fight,
you make them use these big long cooldowns, you back away, you reset, you go in before
they're up again. That is definitely one thing you can do, right? You're playing against
Wall and the Haunt, that's why finding yourself a very nice spot here in the trees. We'll
now spot them on his own ward in the jungle.
Snaking spotted out, instantly killed, try to turn this around onto Skeeter as well as
the hunt comes out.
Fashiva's nice vacuum onto Skeeter in the treeline, gets the spectra baggerified as well as the
Mortimer's Kits.
He's not going to be doing that much this time around.
Kind of isolate the tusk though as he's completely stun locked here.
We're back! We're back!
As Amar with the BKB got focused, fired the Shiro Spectre, gets to the little ground though and should exit the fight gracefully.
The Jinkyu dies, it's just simply a one for one support for support, but it's not over yet, they find the kill onto Amar!
The wall was still available.
That's 90 seconds without the win runner.
Park is coming in kinda clutch right now with his hexes as there's so many split fights going on
Like we see Omar on all the way on the right side like fighting off the Shiro specter with his DKB with the satanic
But then he kind of finds himself out of position because his bros were chasing JinQ
Taking up all the attention
All right, what items are we getting close to here, I mean the ages what we have two and a half minutes left
So for skater, data list, I mean he has enough, he has 6k, questions does he want to keep for buyback?
Nah, he will, I mean at this point because you have Aegis, there's one of two ways you could either upgrade your blink into a Swiss blink
because you have Aegis with a kind of, you know, not fill up that slot, it will be a data list later.
Maybe the in-ears are hurting a lot, I'm not gonna lie, wearing those with the headset on top, it destroys your ears.
Yeah.
Or it could be the lights up to you.
to you. It's actually the lights of course. Now Rain, he's working on a refresher and speaking
of Amar, he has satanic, didn't realize that to go along with Mjolnir BKB hurricane bike
and Daedalus is on the menu. And on the other side, the Spectre, talked about the Ags already,
has Basher now and 2k into an eventual Abyssal Blade. We'll just be another way right to get
immediately on to those heroes and while the axe theoretically has sounded good
I don't know if it's done that much yet and also like the bash into the abyssal is doing something
I'll say very similar right like if the snaphold is coming out you can just haunt them him bash him
or abyssal blade him. It's so chaotic yeah I don't initially see the fear coming out. It is hard to
pay like attention to it does lower the cooldown by 20 seconds as well which of course is quite nice.
400 AoE is pretty small though I will for an agonist that's 4200 gold you're spending.
Maybe we should just let them cook, you know, vacuum, into the fear, could be cool.
That's true.
It's got to be perfectly executed though.
There's a couple of good items that did come out and still are coming out for Falcons.
Like Maureen with his refresher and 25 talent.
Maybe he can then play a little slower in the fight, so maybe wait out for the haunt.
Because kind of at this stage, you know the spell casters, you're getting through this 25, 30, 35, 40 minute mark.
BKBs are going lower, you're getting your later talents.
XM build is so cool though. He's going E-blade now. Another item we're gonna have to see all too often.
So, we'll just be able to burst heroes down for free.
It's a full-on damage build and he's got perfect itemization.
It's funny, he's had this Lincoln's Q'd up for so long, he just keeps changing his mind.
He's like damage, damage, damage.
Hookshot on the block, pops the BKB though.
If I turn this around to get the maximum onto two, instagit crit.
They're not going to go on top of Skeeter, a little bit too thick to chew on.
Some big respect on that name, even with the 5-second arrow. No honk, of course, available.
But yeah, talked about XM. He's got the 25-tonnen, more slow burn.
He also has the catalyst, it's definitely what you want, and even more cast range.
This guy was hard to catch, and now he's even harder to catch, and then an E-blade to boot.
And there is the Daedalus or Skeeter.
This next item definitely has to be like Swift Blink or Damage, like maybe an AC later could
be good.
You want some type of attack speed.
Yeah.
Especially against the Sheeva that we have talked about.
Or you could go for the old Tree Volley.
Yeah.
I promise he's in the thick of things, so not exactly either.
It's so difficult to use, and they have multiple cancels,
like against a basher, a potential vacuum, the punch as well.
Can you see a smoke up from Vici?
Wanna go aggressive? Your bottom lane is pushed in.
Crit might be the sacrifice, gonna show himself just briefly.
Obviously Vici would love a different kill, but don't take what they can get.
We'll be an easy one, Dagon claims it, so it's a full minute actually without Crit.
They did pop the Haunt though, so there's still like a about 50 second window where Crit respawns
where Haunt is not available. I definitely think you want to take this opportunity
and Falcons at this point, they don't even want to wait for Crit to respawn. They're like,
okay, we know where they are, there's no Haunt available, let's go for a smoke.
All right, we're gonna go for the Tormentor, so they're gonna be a bit damaged in this pursuit.
They will get the shark for Jin Q and yeah, if the Alkans can catch up, this would be beautiful for them.
TP's look to be relatively successful, but then they might shadow-covering them as well.
It's a...
I think they're not to find anything.
It's a good read. Like, look at the map from Vici's perspective.
There's been waves at the bottom tier 3 for like a minute without anyone showing their body.
So just a full retreat into their base and now kind of, you know, mirroring the movement into their own top jungle.
It's a nice defensive macro here by Vici Gaming.
Drinking buddy is quite nice, a little bit of another save, and he abyssal completed on
the Spectre.
Oh, wow.
And no flight.
Wait, what?
Yeah, he took apart his radians.
Ah, yeah.
These have some great timings.
Now like there's A on this on the radian side, doesn't work anymore for Marine.
The glimmer and the force as well for the Spectre.
These are, this is a problematic item timing for Hawkins to fight into.
Are you going to miss any parts of the radians?
Ah, nah, it's fine. Like at this point, Manta, like whatever, you're gonna clear out Waze quite fast anyway.
And you've got all the gold that you need, like Radiance has done its job.
And there's so much magic damage that pd evasion. I mean evasion's not particularly bad in this game, but...
It's quite good, right? Like he's looking to potentially still, you can replace...
I'm still going butterfly. Yeah, you can replace your blade mail or eat the axe and then go butterfly after.
Yeah, definitely looking at Maureen. I think here to go big. You need to stop the ult with the 25 Talons.
It's quite nice. Keep in mind, Shiro has bought out, so he does not have buyback even close at this point.
This is one of the best buyback heroes in the game with haunt. At the same time, he's the difficult hero to kill.
So you need to see if Hawkins can kind of execute it. All that matters for Vici is that they have a good jump and
and instagib. Most likely, snaking is the best kill for them. The positioning for now
gets the blink off.
A good read from Falcons is Vici just hunting for something. It's Roche. A minute and a
half away from knowing when he will spawn. Both sides relatively aware of where each
other are. Arcane rune from Malrin into a shield rune, a double whammy.
It's not normal you see an active rune picked up at 45.59
Because no one really has mid control, neither team has an observer ward that is spotting out the runes.
Like this is a pretty good opportunity to fight for Falcons. You get essentially double HP on Skeeter.
Maybe just showing this rune will dissuade Vici from even trying to defend.
They'll pop the portification, which is a free B since it's the first tier 2.
Looks like it will fall though.
It's going to be on the menu for both teams is that you're going to talk about the next
road fight, potentially some buybacks that need to be kept from either side to kind of
fight into this Vichy draft.
We're definitely ahead in this game, right?
We're talking about a 7K network, also the heroes are quite strong, especially at this
stage of the game.
So, if you can maybe trade the hunt and the wall for one or two buybacks, if you're Falcons,
you'd be quite happy with this.
Let's see if I now have to split up a bit.
So Amara has the focus fire, kills advanced cooldown, 25 talent, Mal'Rain has the extra
of Mortarmer's Kisses, which who were we casting yesterday that could not get to 25
with Laurel I think.
It's just stuck on a level 24 for Soulline's Box.
And a fine crit gets the Hex into the Laguna, into the vacuum, into two, only up to two
supports though with the illusions.
The Skeeter is going to focus on Shinkyu, the Fuppa, you know, this crit already dead.
And he's going to reset to get the LSA connection, that's a double kill for Shiro, so both supports
dead for Falcons.
It's and this is one of the problems right now that Falcons are dealing with how easy is it realistically for them to start the fight
And honestly, I think the answer is it's not easy at all
They're gonna find another kill here
I'm gonna go for rush but Russia's not quite up yet
He's gonna have to pop the BKB in retreats, but they still want to fight here
I think he was here
I'm gonna fire up live now
But still the BKB about to wear up into the stun perfect timing into the walrus punches
as well, the right click from the XM and the Dagon are enough to claim Tony as Malrain attempting to get out will TP successfully.
But all the major kills going away of Ichigami and guess what, Roche just spawned.
Nice buyback yourself from ChainQ comes in all the way at the end of the fight to make sure the Tiny dies.
And yeah, like you said, that should give them the Roche kill, which is very, very big for them.
You can just see that even though you're saving each other so nice, you get a beautiful vacuum from bot to bring them all back in.
And then Shirro's harmed.
And Jinkyu's playing kind of like a madman, but he's always like separating the team during the haunt, also jumping on the backline.
I feel like with these, we're kinda seeing that the illusions that come out from Falcons are not particularly strong.
I have to hold that thought, Rosh is being under way, Kripp looking for a potential steal.
Oh, he's in!
Statches the Aegis!
Olaf collapse, get a nice shackle from his teammate, but Amar gonna try to cover him for this second life.
And Kripp likely to sacrifice himself, as you can see the specter just going on top of Amar.
Gonna get stunned for the time being, but Amar trying to get away, getting really low.
Gonna apply some pressure now to Mal'Reen instead, the Shadow Step not gonna fully connect.
Somehow Amar still alive, gets hexed though, as Bok trying to fit...
Are you kidding me?
He's gonna get out on the Windrunner, forced out to the North with a Blink Dagger.
They can TP after the fact, we'll go for it as XM, not gonna find him in time.
But not quite snipped him out, they're getting away with murder here.
They stole the Aegis and then Shiro also used a Refresher Shot to try and kill the Law.
Even that didn't happen.
So Falcon's very nice as you're kind of holding onto the game in a very good manner.
You can tell that they need some crazy executions to deal with these heroes.
They have multiple ways to deal with Marine in this late game, even though he does have
a refresher.
He's got AoE Surge now on Bak as well, mobility and surging people off in the late game is
incredibly nice.
So Falcons have two Roche banners right now.
That was the third Roche.
Where's the refresher shop?
Was that used?
It was used by a hero in the fight.
There's idle going on, or you're not listening very well.
Okay, keep that up.
OctoRing core from XM now.
The full caster build almost complete.
We go arcane blank, is the question.
The one we never get to see.
Yeah, that's like nearly a tinker only item.
We've got a cheese in the backpack on Chiro.
Maybe you want to give that to someone.
I would say give it to my boy JinQ.
Because he's going ham in these fights.
Ham and Cheese go quite well together.
So they're nice.
Yeah.
That's gonna be a nice late game.
Overall for both sides.
Oh yeah, also a bot.
You know, he's holding on to the greedy enchantment,
but soon you should kind of skip it.
I think Refretcher is the item here.
For the Doxier.
He's already been owning, and then you get double vacuum, double wall.
He's top net worth in the game.
That's insane.
Blinks in immediately BKBs, he regresses decision, it seems that Ahan comes out.
Ahan hacks into the call.
Hacks into the Laguna, that is a good fight crit.
They get the dagger now onto Ahan as well.
Getting slow to a crawl, attempting to get out, gets abyssal fladed into the LSA.
Windrun buys him a little bit of time, but the magic damage is too much.
Too dead per thought, because I'm not sure what the play was there, but they get punished hard.
Yeah, I don't know either.
Aham, that was the strat. You have a block of cheese on Shiro.
So he's going to be quite happy about that.
about that but it's just for Falcons it is very difficult for them first of all
their goals push and their map push on the map is worse they don't have a real
jump get the break into the Adelaide that's a lot of cheese he's gonna be alive
for now getting really low gets propped back in by the touch the arrow is gonna
connect on the white from the meantime the backing to follow malrin picking
some damage he gets the cookie now to get the connection up because of the
BKB from Bach Skeeter on the run gets stuck inside the shards there's a double
buyback from Falcons they need to get something out of this get the shackle
now to get the kill on a top network in the game and bop.
100 seconds done, tap buyback.
Looks like they could nearly even take down Shiro, but with the block of cheese, he barely
got bailed out there, but very expensive.
Double support buyback and Amar as well.
Ensure the one on Amar matters, but being able to just, because the supports die very easily.
And here, block of cheese, very nice.
only one of the only times I've ever seen this item have any useful impact.
Yes sir.
It's just so much garbage for them to deal with, right?
Like XM, he's just blowing out spells left, right, and center because there's a Darkseer
vacuum ball going on, there's a Haunted Lusion instead of flying around snowball, random
arrows.
Yeah, if you're a Vici, you're still pretty happy with this.
You do lose Bok, but you force out two buybacks, you can take a fight in the next six, seven
minutes.
6-7.
That's right.
Same as Y2, like he's closing in on a 25 talent on Murana and we've seen many Laker
and Ramanos have crazy impact.
We've got the adds, 20 talent for the Star Storm, 25 talent for the Multishot.
So close.
Yeah, that's gotta be one of the best 25 talents in the game.
I feel like it is so annoying to deal with.
Also, I didn't talk about it, but I was surprised that Y took 100 lead pack speed over Moonlight
Shadow gives Evasion.
Usually you take that because first of all it's very annoying to itemize for like 20% but it's only during moonlight
You don't really want to buy an MKB. I guess maybe with the quivering or getting out a little more
How many times do you think analysts go over decisions like this and it just ends up being this way?
It happens when it's rare. I don't think it's that getting one and two. I've done that several times
Yeah, but you're also not a pro player. I understand that
But they play a lot more than me so they make more mistakes technically. I don't know
Technically true, my former co-caster would agree with that.
Oh, yep.
Magnet there's a reason he's not here.
Hahaha.
Shout out to Senoran.
14k lead for Vici.
And they're going to try to pounce here.
Still a ways away for Roche.
Which means this is likely to become a 60-minute barn burner,
a real doozy, as they say, for those neutrals.
You could play on some Vibex like we talked about earlier
four Falcons of course that would help you. We did see a lot of their damage right onto the
Spectre but the only way to make that happen is that he has to be broken out of a Silver Edge
which means you have to it's kind of all unskied. I think you have to blink in Avalanche then
Silver Edge hit the Spectre and pray to God that all these full-on spells are coming through
the Hookshot, the Chisels.
It feels like all the stars need to align to be able to do just that.
And that's one scene early.
True.
At the toss, they find the toss, for the end, this is going to proc.
You get the heck now onto the tiny, there's a mark with a BKB, gets the focus fired,
trying to kill off Shiro, he's taking a ton of damage here, trying to walk it off,
gets the Abyssal Blood, trying to help him out from afar.
Able to jump though, they get the connection now onto a mark, blow him out two minutes on the deck.
You can see Skeeter's just getting played around with, with Bob.
forcing out the BKB eventually,
and he's going to get gone on.
Shadowstep applied, the Dagonon took crit,
LSA not going to hurt him.
As the Mortimer's Kiss is trying to help out Skeeter a little bit,
but Vox is going to run away.
Surge is too powerful for this,
and now they're going to turn this around onto the Wyvern instead.
It's the full HP, but the damage coming out from XM is way too much.
As Skeeter no more BKB to work with,
and they have stung for days.
Skeeter dead, three dead overall for Falcons,
and this is going to be buildings.
That is just, it's two diebacks and a tiny who doesn't even have it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they are dealing with a lot of trouble here.
Like, also, Amar, he can't really kill Shiro.
First of all, he still has the block of cheese barrier that's constantly just on him, helping him.
You don't have an NKB against the butterfly either.
And without Shiro being broken, you can tell that this is a game where you are pressured.
You don't usually see it play like that from Amar.
Very true.
Shiro gonna finish off that first set of barracks as XM heads to the south to get a second.
And they had so much time to deal with I mean in theory this should be mega creeps
Marine doesn't even have any ults to play with this is absolutely mega's or even tier 4 pressure
So played nice for now
She'll completely slotted now can eat the axe we'll see what he gets after the fact they probably played discipline
I don't see how fast they can actually take this because I think quite fast and take the tier 4s as well
We're gonna play it onto Malrin, able to get out.
Damage done though. We'll have to wait this out as his Variks evaporates.
So mega creeps for Vici, and now the pressure for the tier 4s.
They don't know that Tiny doesn't have buyback, it's money related.
They don't push slowly. They've got the wolf as well from bot to, you know, give them all the damage aura.
And the final tier 4 about to push back.
With the last vacuum on the game and all likely if they burst down Malrin with the daggin,
And he buys back Mortimer's Kisses, Ancient already exposed as they try to wait out these Mortimer's Kisses.
With a tiny leap back in five seconds, but that Ancient is about to explode as XM finishes the job and Vici take game number one.
Honestly, I think just even starting from the back, I think they had their number here.
You know, against Hawkins, like the first pick, Lina, it looked like quite annoying for them to deal with.
Then they kind of do the reverse Uno, it's like, haha, it's going mid, we still get the Spectre.
Bob also with a crazy game on the dark seer.
And I think, like all things considered,
I do feel that Falcons held on quite well to the game,
but then you end up with like this off-lane wind ranger.
It's not an easy mid-snap for a game at all.
So honestly, I think this time around Falcons, we're just out-strategized.
And Vici played so well this game.
Great to see them coming into form now, so late in this tournament.
XM finishes the game 19-5 on the Lina,
an absolutely beastial performance from him.
And like I said, Darkseer, I mean, I would pick him as MVP this game, even though his
scoreline is 4-6, it's not a great thing.
His spell usage was crazy.
He had a lot of assists, 25 assists to his name, and early on, though, Falcons did have
a little bit of a lead as we see here in these early engagements.
That's probably a word, like if Falcons talk about this game now, that they still feel
like they were moves on the map that they didn't execute or they didn't like find
opportunities to then take because while the game like the game is supposed
to be difficult specter math or radians illusions Lena is flying around
dark-seared shells there's a moonlight shadow I do think it is difficult but
they're generally the team they find some of those moves because this time
around it was honestly kind of all beachy from like minute 25 and onward so I
want to see how Hawkins kind of you know swing it around for a game to the
crowd is quite pumped up here as Vichy take game number one thank you very
much gentlemen we're gonna be trying to break down one down what a cool a game
one we got treated to with these two teams we got Lacoste and Seb here on
standby to tell us exactly why it happened the way it did because we kind
of thought the tiny over last week was cool but then the specter in the dark
side said you already mentioned it during the draft that these two were
We're going to be very scary for VGGaming.
I mean, there's a reason for why I'm a big fan of this combo.
I think it's just amazingly good together.
It's incredibly hard to fight against it.
I mean, not only did they play an amazing game,
I think the draft made a lot of sense.
The hero combinations together, there's just a lot of synergy.
It's so much chaos.
It's so much chaos.
I don't know. I respect the darts here to me.
I see both these heroes.
I'm like...
I mean, it's like unless you're just getting completely stomped
I would feel like you're just on your way to winning the game
But but I'm community biased or just this this calm and we saw some great itemization coming up from them
This is not what we have usually seen especially from this mid Lena been very impressed by the item what it does
When you think about it, it does have quite a lot of synergy
What would Lena wants to do like keep the distance not get too close to the fights could this is the spell casting Lena
So Dagon once you max it out, it's 200 extra cast range works with all of your items pretty much and also extra 35%
Spell damage that works on Dagon once you're using your unobstructed movement as well on relatively short cooldown 25 seconds
She also becomes super tanky 35% extra magic resistance with the 15 talent
So she's just a real menace to deal with like you can see in some of these earlier engagements every single time
she was the focus of the fight and
And also, like that extra bit of a spell damage and everything,
and also to point out the great atomization coming out from Shiro with this Aghanim Scepter on Spectre.
Two second fear once you jump in with the reality for the first time.
It does feel very good if you want to be bursting down this Winterbite.
And you see where he is with the haunt and immediately jump in every single time.
And it also showed even later once he disassembled the Radiance, once he picked up that Malphire,
like there's no real defense.
No, there isn't. And then you have to also give props to XM, not only how well he played the game but also the items as mentioned.
He understands that Spectre Darshtere are going to make them run away.
You know, so he went full, because this is a crazy build, like it's full aggression.
Don't try this at home, you're just going to be feeding, I'm telling you.
There's no BKB, no A on this.
like he eventually bought a link in at the end just just you know just for the final picture just so
that he can't be you know like on the end screen exactly exactly because like he just went like
dig on kaya kaya sure like aghanem's octane he went full aggression because he understands like
they're running away anyway like i'm gonna get the right angles like i'm protected you know offense
is the best defense that's like a saying in traditional sports well it's often like the case
in the order, where it's like, this Dina is safe because his like, Cali heroes are being so aggressive in the team fight
that he's free to do whatever he wants and and he hurt them so much with this item build and this spell casting.
Yeah, we got another treat to Murana on opposition 5 that worked out.
Looks good, like we've been impressed by Murana 5. I think Y had some like insane arrows that he was landing.
Like I think it comes down to the combo that you were mentioning with the TASC because it gives you
more than enough time to arrow pretty much anybody and also Darkseer with the blink with his hex ability.
Like a lot of the times you would see them initiate with the Daegon and Laguna blade onto a target
and then use hex into Walsh's combo and that's hero like even if you talk about Amar, ATF of
course that's the same guy that we're talking about Skeeter. Like they drop down to 50% HP,
they are forced to use a BKB and the fight already feels kind of over because there's a
Spectre haunt on top of that as well and everybody's like spreading they are not really taking those fights
But let's be real this game was not easy for Vici gaming. It was a lot of battling
It's not they're also playing versus Falcons like they're playing versus arguably the best team in the world or you know very close to that
And this is Falcons, you know, they're here to win this tournament for many reasons. We've explained why and
Honestly, like Vici gaming they it's just so surprising when you think about it
Think about the group stage, now they knocked out 1W,
they're one game ahead against Falcons.
You kind of wonder, like, what is happening?
We just quickly, the VG Gaming only played four tier one tournaments this year.
9-11's on the first showing.
They were hiding stress.
They weren't even supposed to be there, they were standing for this tournament.
7-8, you know, now it's pretty decent.
12-14's.
And then 6th place.
9-12.
9-12, okay.
Yeah, things are not working out for them, but, again, peaking at the right time, like, does really benefit, like, we are in EWC, we are in TI era at the moment, like, this is where the big money is coming from, you know, like, he talked about in an interview that they have been bootcamping two weeks prior to this, like, they even look good in TI qualifiers as well.
And they are ready. They seem to be having very good ideas how to approach the game.
Like you would probably see other teams kind of fall off or just like lose in 20-30 minutes against Falkens with a draft like this.
But it seems like there has been a lot of thought put into these type of drafts and they knew exactly what they were going for.
Yeah, and we do have a couple of fights that we saw that were going to be broken down here by Sev.
Yeah, I mean, it's like just trying to dissect and understand the pain of team fighting versus Spectre doors here.
Essentially, like, you know, there's a fight prepared like Falcons actually is looking to take the fight
They actually cast Zing Q out of position. They start him
He gets a clutch ULT and all of a sudden, you know
Lina's position, Mirona's position is good. Hunt happens and I'm just gonna put this a little bit more in slow-mo
You see how Falcons they have to reposition themselves
They're running away and it gives but all the freedom in the world to get a perfect vacuum all and essentially all like all the Falcons
You know, they're just repositioning themselves running from hunt
That's all they're doing and they have to because if they just stand in the same in the same in the same
They're just gonna die to spectre. So this is why spectre allows darks here to have such a shiny and flash the
Teamfight impact and this is also why Lina's item build in this game
Makes perfect sense because he doesn't need a BKV
Nobody's jumping him all he needs is to make sure that his spells do as much damage as possible and to have as Lord
I like as Lord cooldown as possible second clip
I want to show you is precisely the opposite is falcon's understanding. Hey haunt is off is on cooldown
This is our time to shine so they go rose
I think this is like a mistake by Vichy because they end up taking the fight anyway, and you can just look at the difference
Nobody's running away falcon's is standing at their ground because haunt is on cooldown and now they get to fight properly
There's no more chaos involved. Wyvern is in position clock is in position, and it just looks weird
We see the winsters cross happen. It looks weird for Richie. I mean like
You know where's the oomph? We just won 5-6 fights in a row.
Well, it was because of Hound and the repositioning that it forces from Thotmings.
And the last teamfight that we're going to look at, which is the most impactful one,
this is where the game has been decided.
Late game situation, Vici is smoked, Skitter gets a nice start, but it's on an end this target.
Hound happens, everybody's running away.
Absolute classic, Elizo, Elizo lates the Tiny, also on the other side.
And I want you to look at Amar. Did you catch that? He actually caught a random arrow. It went really fast
But that's just what Dota happens where he's running away. He got four staff
I believe one of his teammates on the way of the arrow five seconds stunned
Dives a buyback on Rain Ranger and this was really the turning point
They try to turn the fight with the staff but great kiting from Vici gaming and
Eventually, they run them down because like the beauty also of this vector duster combos that not only it is amazing at breaking
the fight and breaking the enemy formation, you just get chased down all over the map.
They have an infinite amount of chasing potential, which means that the first hero dies, everybody's
going to follow.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is what Windranger is supposed to do.
Most of the drafts you want to be killing the hero off and then playing 4v5, but this
time around they kind of experienced what their draft wanted to do as well, and maybe
they experimented a little too hard with this offline Windranger where you had to see, because
it did look very good.
It was on top of the network like he was having a really good time for the good first 15 minutes
And then you could feel some of the issues as well once they pick up the yule scepter
And the kiting was definitely there, you know with the punch
Pass punch and all of these things added plus the nullifier
It didn't feel like he could have that much of an impact in the better stages of the game
No, also honorable mention do want to give credit to Chris. He did steal in ages
He did that was really good. He played a win
It delayed the game by 10 minutes, but just think about the the game from a range like snaps reflected
like this is like a nightmare snap game because
All you see is your teammates kind of running away running past you because you're also very slow you like guys
I'm going to line like somebody needs to hold the line for the lines so I can shoot
You know one of our kisses because like everybody's in this moonlight shadow specter illusions any everywhere your teammates are running past you
Back to their base getting chased by Darcy illusions. It's just something wolf is not fire like he
It's impossible to have a clear understanding of where the fight is going to be fixated
so that you can cast your spells properly.
So, again, that's just the beauty of Dota, its strategy at the end of the day.
It's like you pick the strongest heroes out there, you know, Snap, Clock,
and you get all strategized by a very clutch draft by Vici,
and obviously amazing plays, but...
I would compare this to maybe back in the history, like Roman Fallings,
you know, they need to keep the formation.
And if they don't, it's like they start falling apart, the Cavalry and Cavalry in this one,
it was Vici Gaming who kind of tore them apart.
Exactly.
We have a little bit of a trip down memory lane of this game right now.
The Roche steal, we're going to see that again because we do like these clutch moments.
They are what teams do when they're playing to win.
There's not that many generally unless, well, especially now with Team Spirit getting eliminated,
I would imagine.
It was super clutch.
It was, it was.
I mean, at this point.
It was not.
If he doesn't steal the Aegis, at this point the game is just over.
They would literally go for every tower, start sieging high ground.
This was really giving his team another opportunity to maybe clutch it and win the game,
but essentially even that was not enough.
I think Vigil Gaming taking this first game really cool.
They did it with an opening overall first pick of Alina for XM
and that just shouts confidence from this squad for this series.
Let's see if we can see some of that confidence in XM in his pre-game interview
We were there for every click every clutch
every respawn we were there for the years of blind 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 XM of Vici Gaming. You had an amazing upset against 1W, one of the favorites for the tournament, knocking them out. I was curious how it felt winning that series.
How did you feel when you won the 1WB team?
I felt great, because we were able to make it to the top 8.
That's awesome. What kind of improvements have you guys made as a team since you started this tournament?
Also one of the major areas of improvement would be our laning phase.
laning phase. I think we learned a lot of the laning details from Team Yandex.
We've been watching some of the replays, so we're adapting like them.
That's cool. You haven't gotten to play any of your signature heroes so far this tournament,
like your Sniper and your Viper. Of the heroes you have been playing,
I was wondering which of them do you feel most proud of? Which ones do you think you're best at?
In this match, we didn't have the chance to see some of your missing heroes, like your gun and your dragon.
But you also got some new heroes.
Which of the new mid-to-mid heroes do you think is the best?
I think it's the bald guy. Because I feel that the bald guy is too good.
joining me good luck in the series bro I'm not turning on screen shake but why
not you can put this in a bit shake screen and then when you're in a team
fight and you're playing shaker you will go slam them and then
The quarterfinals between Team Falcons and Vichy Gaming continues here on stage with Vichy Gaming, one game up.
Let's see if Falcons can strike back and force out that third game to the series to keep their tournament dreams alive.
Last year, they were the runners up and they would at least be able, want to be able to top that or be the same as last year.
We'll see though this seemed like a tough game and tough strategy also that Vici gaming posed upon them
And I want to oppose that to my panel as well overall first pick Lena
Surin priority quite a bit Lacoste. Yeah, this is insane like who you've seen Lena being picked 17 times sitting at
77% when we're at the moment. Yeah, this these numbers just don't seem to be okay
Like we talked about some of the most picked heroes of the tournament
after the group stage like highlighting Hoodlink who was sitting at I believe 56% win rate at the time and we're like
Yeah, these are some big numbers
But yeah ever ever after seeing Lena it seems like this hero just does everything like we've seen two different builds that you
Can go for pretty much the spell casting build like probably the most spell casting oriented build with the day gone upgrade extra
200 cast range and
Insta-bell like I can't really blame them like the the amount of work that he did in that previous game
It was just insane and also to point out like we haven't talked about Jinq
I think he was also like he had a master class performance in the previous game making sure that he's getting the blinks
He's getting the saves once they initiate on and also the Yul Scepter at the later save himself later into Wind Waker
A on this making sure that he doesn't die
Like Jinq hates been known to be like relatively greedy as a per where he wants to scale
But definitely tell me down in the previous series and I have to tell you like there are the ban order
It means something it's like because you could ban Lena third like second or third like first
The first ban is usually the yeah, okay. I don't want to see this again. Yeah, good job guys
You're not getting it again. You know no more Lena
This is a let's play an honest story game without Lena in it
This sapphire also gets banned out
So we'll not see Mel ring on that one this time round
It does mean that a couple of heroes are left in the pool most notable is probably the tree and protector
Sloan's Rude gets ignored so far as well. We did see that ignored in the previous game as well, so...
And interestingly enough, they actually don't go for a Trim Protector that you mentioned, which is...
I believe, like, earlier in the tournament, I'm pretty certain Falcons had
first pick 3 and overclocked and got the clock later in the draft.
So now they're switching it up. It could be Vici specific, or it could just be because they're,
like, heroes' priority have changed. Like, I don't know if you, if you found all of these drafts,
Yeah, against Gamer Legion, they all actually had the both, but against Boomboys as well, they managed to pick it up even though Clockwork was available, so giving the priority to Clockwork, can I say, can't really blame them, considering the Clockwork performances that we have seen from Kripp, where he was just completely dominating the play that he did in the previous one, stealing the ages on top of that, but also the vision.
Division this here is just very annoying. It has the toolkit to complete to dismantle your vision game
Like we've seen teams utilizing the rocket
Like this is a you know, these are professional e-gamers
So there's gonna be a lot of different ways that they're utilizing the hero where they are
Scouting the triangle with the rocket making sure that if they see the cams are formed
They immediately know where the carry is and this is where they're gonna be making the smoke move
Maybe moonlight shadow move, but just making sure that they have the information
getting from that clock.
I have to answer yes to that request that I was just reading the sign.
My answer is yes, it's my pleasure.
But back to the draft.
I'm trying to understand why would Falcons switch priority.
Because I feel like Triant is just a better hero.
It's hard to compare Triant and clock, but I think the stats would speak in that favor too.
For some reason, I'm just not sure this is the best trade,
the best trade but my explanation could be that they're trying to keep the
snaking hero open because obviously we've seen played the clockwork
snaking can also play it and a lot of teams are running in clock position 5 also.
So perhaps you know an Undying because Undying is like being completely
forgotten in this draft compared to the previous one and it's
been one of the most successful hero of the playoffs again we go back to the
index this is the team that is setting the meta at this point and they value
this hero super high so very pickable for Falcons and not really pickable
I think Ringmaster is also going to be highly contested because it was banned in the previous
series and when I was doing research for this one, I think this is D-Hero.
I feel like this hero is, a lot of teams realize that it's super good, but I would also give
it extra like 5, maybe even 10% to be picked up because the hero just feels very, it has
every single tool, it scales so well, super strong laner, percentage base damage, like
AoE control and the team fight, plus the save.
this is a lane that you literally cannot win. Like if this is going to be the lane like you need
to start thinking about how you're going to be approaching this but the pooling are potentially
getting something that can you know maybe sacrifice itself a little bit more in the
laning stage because this is just a nasty lane. Listen I think this is probably the worst lane
in the order like literally if I had to choose like the two best I was going to say stupidest
the two most stupid I mean it's like the two OP broken yeah OP broken anything
imba whatever you want like laners it's laundry entry and then you add both of
them I mean I'm more has decided to pick the dawn breaker against the thing I have
to say that I'm a little bit surprised I hope that he has like a plan and this is
something that Dave I mean obviously you know he he's played versus Trent and
laundry the billion times over the last few weeks because everybody's picking
heroes and I'm sure that they've practiced so we'll see what kind of plan they come up with.
The reason why I'm in it the word is because there's no there's not really the jungle fallback
plan which is what a lot of offlaners in this tournament have mentioned it's like yeah sure
I'm laning versus Triant, I'm laning versus Asset versus Laundry. I don't even have the mindset
of going to that lane I'm not even showing up I'm getting a couple levels here and there and then
I'm jungling so but you know I think they're taking another approach here because I don't think
I don't think Dawnbreaker jungles efficiently, he does, but only when he gets maybe level
3, 4, 5, he does have to enter the lane for at least 5, 6 waves, which honestly might
be hard against both these heroes, so we'll have to see.
Lundruh is sitting at a 56% win rate though, even though it has been so highly contested.
Is it just because the only people that have nothing true are the teams that think they
can beat it and then have a plan specifically catered towards beating that?
Yes, exactly that and I don't know. I'm just looking at which is draft. I'm worried if I'm falcon's like these are
Nasty combos. Yeah, these are very strong play
This is the like one-two combo that is very easily played
Even though we've seen like downbreaker being very efficient against the Beastmaster in a sense where you have the counter initiation
Their damage with the supports and laundry it it really isn't that much in a sense where these two supports can like easily move
so I want to see something for
XM, even though this Beastmaster could still go to the mid lane, I feel like there's also
a possibility because you're still building for the same item build, you are still getting
the helm of the Dominer slash Overlord.
This is such a cool draft by Vici, like I think it's amazing like the amount of synergy
between these heroes, like also at some point when they're going to start grouping up, like
with the Cuddle, Locket, the Heals, you know, the helm of Dom 2, the Loundroid, I think
I'd like to see like a little bit of a different build on Loundroid.
I don't know if we're going to see it, because obviously the classic is like Mjolnir into
Ag's shore.
But I think when you play versus heroes like Kallor and Beast, that lane, if you execute
a property, we've seen it by BB, it doesn't go wrong.
The Beast will get his timings, because if he gets so accelerated by Kallor, both in
the lane and in the early game with the stacks and whatnot, there's a player, Ghost, he's
probably one of the best launchers in the world.
He has a different build.
He always goes for diffusional early and he plays actually very active, he just abuses.
He plays the hero from minute zero basically.
He doesn't wait minute 20 when he can only play with the bear.
And I think this would be the game for it because Falken's approach to their lineup
is they're going to up the pace, up to them.
Absolutely.
Like this lineup, I kind of agree.
I would love to maybe see something different, but this is the lineup that can just like
speed things up, play for the objectives and I would love to see XM on a hero that can
play tempo, I would be okay with something like a storm spirit, they don't have that
depth, it's banned okay, never mind just ban it up, because it would also, the reason
why I like storm spirit is not because of the matchup, because they don't have that
much control, I would love to see in this particular matchup, he could also be picking
up Guardian Greaves, which would give them quite a lot of tempo as well.
It would be amazing, like Renault Falcons angle to not losing to the Vichycraft, because
I think it comes down to that, this draft is so powerful, is through Malrin, like Ember
needs to pop off, he needs to play with the supports, he's gonna have downbreakers ulti
to help him out, so you have to think of this Ember spirit running around the map with
ringmaster and clock, tokens they excel at do it like they move at the right places
at the right time, they do it properly, they place the right ups, they de-ward the areas,
so they will bring a lot of pressure, they have Amar's help also, so that combo is very
deadly, like these three heroes, wherever they go they will be able to assert dominance
in the early game anyway, so if XM can slow down Malarine's game by just shutting him
down on the lane, making him maybe starve a little bit in XP and gold.
This is how they will see their lineup come together, because I do believe that once Vichy's
gaming lineup come together and they hit their timings, they're unstoppable.
How are XM signatures looking with the Viper and the Sniper?
I think it's decent.
They're not the best for their lineup in a sense, but I think shutting down this Ember
to the point where he has no game in this game in particular, I think it's worth it.
I think it might pay off, even though your 5-man equilibrium is suboptimal.
It is overall last pick of course for BG Gaming, so if they wanted to put that Beastmaster
still mid, they can, depending on what's coming with the last pick coming out from Falcons,
where we are looking for a hero for Esquite.
I wonder how the lane goes, because honestly Beast is such a good combo, do you really want
to break that combo?
only if Beast really beats Ember mid big time, but I'm not sure it's the case anymore.
Can they put Coddle mid if they really wanted it?
They could, but it's not great against Ember in my opinion. I feel like
mid players will select Ember when they see Coddle mid often.
A Gyrocopter comes out.
They want to have some melee. They know that there's going to be quite a lot of extra units
with the Beastmaster, with that Laundred bear, maybe Agatham Scepter later on for Keeper of the
light so I think this is a very good pickup we saw Spirit having quite a lot of
success even though Hero hasn't been picked that many times I believe four
or five times so far. It could be maybe a reason to switch the lanes but again I
feel like they shouldn't something like I have a feeling that they should just
commit to this beast caught a lane like and and just believe that that lane if
executed properly will do fine against anything and in any way this is more
about once Beast gets enough levels and they have stacked like typically you're
You're not going to be using your boar on the gyro lane because it just dies to flak.
You're going to be using the stack.
This is when you accelerate.
Again, it's going to come down to the XM hero.
Like, is Malrin able to go to the Beast Triangle contestant stacks or is he just too shut down
that he can't?
The XM is protecting that in the first row.
I do think it's very cool that we heard XM talk and there is a Slark coming out.
I think it's a mid-slark.
It's a mid-slark.
It is.
It's not going to be Falcon's off-lane Slark.
It's probably going to be him. Yeah, he did pick it up.
I mean, if it destroys Ember mid, which I hope it does, like this is exactly what they need.
They need to shut down the Ember, make sure that the laundry comes online, the beast comes online, play off these timings.
It's going to give them map also, like Slark's going to...
Because if they get ahead, like being playing from behind against Slark is miserable.
Yes, and this is a lot of things that they can buff up the Slark with.
This is Living Orbir. A lot of the times this hero like really wants to push the limits.
You have keeper of the light like one one heel could make the whole fight in his favor
Hold the lock at give him HP give him mana. I don't know. I'm kind of digging this Clark pick
I don't know if they were gonna focus on the lanes
I don't know if it works to be honest because I haven't seen it
But if it does it's genius. So I kind of hope it does in theory
It should work it should have a good laning stage like we've seen some of these ember spirits because this is kind of the hero
of the tournament. We've seen so many great performances from Embersprint, from the mid lane.
People try to shut it down, especially with my purse, where he's really not getting much,
like he's buying boots of speed. And you are playing against one of the best guys,
not the best guy in the world, when it comes down to adaptation, like what he wants to do
from the lane, how Malrin's going to approach it. This is the guy that was playing Primal Beast
and like these unfavorable matchups, kind of the master of dragging the creep waves and finding
any spot on the map where he can farm. So I want to see what his approach is going to be.
I would imagine also that if
his lane is that important to the success of this game for them,
he might get some help coming out from the ringmaster and the clockwork rotating from ScytheKing.
Yeah, definitely. At some point they should be helping him.
But again, against Slark at night time, after five minutes, it's incredibly hard
because he has just full control and full vision of what's happening.
He can D-Ward by himself and whatnot.
I also just want to mention quickly, like Slark Coddle, amazing combo.
Like the Chakra on the bounces, especially when you have the aganems.
You basically have bounce off, hold on, non-stop.
It's a nasty company. We don't get to see it often, but it's very cool
Well a very cool game coming your way with game number two of the sport of finals can Falcons force out game three
We're fighting out with Suns fun and Kesson
Thank you, Shiva. We have a game number two about to begin and I do have to ask London has looked quite
Stinky the last few days. That's true. How many times has beach even picked it in this tournament, you know
I will find that out for you because mr. Shannon Larkin. We've got the Lenovo Legion
So, go to Bob, Mr. Vici Gaming. They haven't played longer yet, a single time in his tournament.
Okay, well, that's a better record than multiple 100s in the tournament so far.
They played it two months ago, he went 7-0 and 10, and they still lost.
So that's not good news.
Alright, let's get into the game as we have another hero that we definitely want to talk about.
Oh yeah.
So if you can get me, take me off camera immediately and let's get into the part at this point.
Certainly not paused.
Definitely not.
And we're in the game! Congratulations everybody, we made it!
Game 2, Vici up 1-0 in this best of 3 of the playoffs here at EWC.
Slark has been picked as a mid laner.
I'm having flashbacks, PTSD, TI6 finals, where we have picked it.
He refuses to acknowledge that he in fact picked Slark mid against Wayne's gaming,
who had which player?
Faith Bion, and they destroyed us because why?
They picked us Slark.
We picked Slark mid.
How did you allow this to happen?
I think they just lost hope at that point.
It was like, it's Joe Wallace, RNG the last week,
but the thing is, first of all, XM, I love this.
I've been saying this like eight billion times
this tournament.
He is the anti-mid laner.
He's the SU mid player.
You give me a matchup, he puts up both his middle fingers,
he's like, screw you.
I go mid stark against Ember.
This is not the first time he's done this.
They did this two months ago against Aurora,
Mikoto played Ember, same matchup.
Last pick, Sark into the Ember, he destroyed that game.
Had like a 12 minute diffusel.
You do pretty well in the lane.
You can skill the saltwater shiv to steal regen, you can kind of deal well with the early spam.
You have better damage, you have higher armor, you know, it's kind of chilling.
It is very strange, the tricorps of laundry beef slug.
It's going to be a lot of map play later on.
So XM, while he's going to have a good lane, I think he's got a lot of weight on the shoulders.
Let's see how much regen he's going to get.
Since level 1 currently has 7 regen, 4 of it from the saltwater shiv, very strong.
I mean, I did see a clip early on when this was first made, where this was absurd.
Yeah, where Thompson was killing you.
They nerfed it out of it since then, of course, and then we just don't see Slark anymore.
So I'm curious to see how this works in the game, because when I would think of this ability,
isn't it just better against high HP, high regen targets, like a Centaur type?
It doesn't really have a dawn breaker, I guess.
No, it doesn't really matter.
It's more for like your own regen and your own sustainability, which is usually something
that like Slark struggles with, but you can see here that he's already putting up a lot
of pressure and not just that, like also Leech is incredibly good against Ember and we all
start to talk about it, as of course they are the studio experts, you have Slark and
Caudal together lowering the cooldown, you can pounce them multiple times, very hard
to play against.
Alright, we'll see, I am thinking we're gonna see a game 3, if I'm honest, I am not a believer
in Slark.
The thing is, you feel confident or are you just waiting to see?
I am fake hyping, but I'm also halfway believing because it is XM for this guy
He played in the last year finals and then broke up cake. What the why did you do that?
This guy is so good same with JinQ like they're not showing why they're here
So when it comes to weird materials to play like this I trust XM if this was a different player
There's only tops in an XM that I would have some or any faith in that they could win this game
Okay, fair enough. That's high praise. I praise we'll see how it goes look at the board look at the bimbo here
Yeah, that's right. It's a nice micro coming out from Mr. Faith beyond
We'll be able to get the deny of the water rune, but now ring will still grab the other
Let's get back to this loan drew it we can talk about it for about 30 seconds
And then we won't mention him again
Okay, so it's water green. Yeah, because he won't be doing anything. That's true. Why has this been so
Unsuccessful in the tournament so far because coming in is like oh, there's a first-back first-back
One of the biggest reasons to me is that the hero will just first pick a lot of the times and then he ended up playing
Especially into like underlord or heroes that just really catch you out on the map all the time or slardars where the game
Was just very difficult for you to play
But overall I think beachy created a good draft with laundry it like the hero eventually he doesn't really want to team fight
He wants an annoying map state where this wave is pushed in that way if it's pushing you can roar
someone get a kill and Sark as well. Sark definitely abuses a good map state especially in nighttime.
You're going to have like way better vision around the map. The only thing I'm looking for is that I
think Falcon's skirmish is way better. Dawnbreaker Gyro in early mid game like if fights break out
and also Dawn is incredibly good against Beastmaster when he overplays in an area.
So it's more of like this smaller finesse type of things that Vici need to do when it comes to
map play. They do have a good response for roar which is the box out of
snaking so one save for falcons and but you're right it's more skirmishy you
don't really have this insane burst damage coming from falcons it's more
sustained. Yeah and they have a very good top lane right against the beast
coddle both of these are counter picks ringmaster very good against beast not
just for the roar that you mentioned you also have the daggers against the boar
The gyro goes without saying one of the best counters against the Beastmaster can just spam them out. You can kill his force
He always has high movement speed with you innate
Also looking at the other side solar guardian against the beast roar also quite good as a pseudo counter so
She's an interesting game overall curious to see how it plays out and of course I
Mean from beachy side their support you talked about the coddle the benefit you're gonna get in the lane with the axes with
Slark later on I mean to some degree the bear I guess like there is like a meta morpheus's type of
It's basically his main spell. Yeah, it's lower cooldown
And I think also like when I look at reaching straps overall like there's a lot of cool things about the slark
But it also has it is a volatile hero
It has to be said and they don't have the highest damage right when we talk about how the three cores play together
They don't really play together
They abuse each other's maps state of like the beast alone and the slark and cauldron tree
they're like enabling heroes they amplify if you are strong but they don't give you all the damage
so if xm doesn't have an explosive early game and like entry into the mid game
i really think they could struggle i'm gonna give you a trivia question okay it's not objective
it's subjective i'm not gonna pretend that it is objective let's keep that up what's the worst
ultimate in the game in dota of course okay hold that about that the mag is gonna stab
Bop in the back as Skeeter, by some more pressure with that rocket barrage and that thing is crazy
good early on and Skeeter gets first blood on the Gyrocopter. That is a pretty good one and
especially like we said you know we focus one to play from ahead they have good skirmish they have
very good collapsing ability early on so it's a good move from Chris they talk a lot about the
five minute move where you can potentially go to the save lane then link up with your support it
It also means that our mar is getting a little bit of solo XP and to answer your question of what's the worst old
I I actually gonna give you to the 10 minute mark you have some time well you're gonna say it's ringmaster wheel of wonders
I said yesterday. I'm not okay. Thank God. I said it's a little I know I know which one knuckle project it
No, that's a great one. What that is not good. Okay. It's not the best, but there's the worst ultimate for sure
Okay, you please just a moment snaking trying to keep that read. This is fake. I please talk about this
It's in this game. We'll give you that clue
There's a word what true form. No, it's wrong with you. What is wrong with you? Come on? You're better than this
There are no bad holes in this game better than this
Let's have a conversation with the cost and he definitely agreed with me to have another analyst on my side
Yeah, I don't know you're talking or talking about I'll let you think I'm a little
You're gonna tease this up until the the end game of course
Okay, we've got a pause. What is wrong with you?
Uh, there's some lag apparently.
Okay, can you tell me about the worst ult?
It's Gyrocopter.
Excuse me?
It's terrible.
Okay.
It's truly bad.
Alright, we're gonna have this game unpaused.
Skeeter in the first 15 minutes is gonna use three call downs that will kill multiple heroes.
Oh please.
And you're gonna hit your stupid words.
First of all, Flak Cannon is really ultimate.
Let's be true.
No.
What are you- God!
Are you- are you an analyst?
Doesn't make any sense.
Flak Cannon is a good spell, but it's not as ult.
He's not if it was his old you would max it no
Yeah, checkmate
That's no checkmate here. You're going for the rocket brush early. Yes, cuz it's good. Of course rocket brushes insanely
Yeah, black cannons what carries you into the game. Oh man, if he didn't have his old you would still pick gyro occasionally
The mark you get the start breaker, but gonna be completely nullified
Thanks for the fear is a mar now on the run outside
But the Cogs will place inside of Shiro and he is gonna get killed off instead
So a nice turnaround coming out from Falcons. Looks like it might have been a beautiful kill for Shiro
No, that's very big especially this early on like Lord Brut needs
He always wins his lane like nearly always and killing him before level six is kind of what you want to end up doing
Maureen will put his body here into the Vici side
This is the other great thing about Gyro and him having called down you win your lane against beast
He can't really go for boards, which means he has to max access then they stack and you can easily contest sacks
Now we're getting pressured a bit but
Well remnant away
As it shows up in the mid lane with XM who has the level advantage right now in the Slark mid. Yeah, they did make sure everybody's aware of this
Once he gets diffuser, he's incredibly strong even already now. He's a little bit oppressive
Of course he can it's also quite difficult to ward against this guy early on so very much a fitting hero
for XM and the type of player that he is.
They've been powering about to pop.
And now Rain will bot in the bot side as XM getting chased by the homing missile.
Which is not his ultimate, of course. Very important to point out.
It's also a bit of an underwhelming spell as well.
A homing missile, I do agree, is not the best spell.
He has really two spells on him.
They're just really strong now, Rain.
Already using the damage rune, actually.
Easy lasted.
XM.
Obviously a very survivable hero in the Slark, anytime he's in the shadows, we get a ton of regen and I know we don't see Slark mid, do you see Slark in any position?
Very, no, no. What itemization do you look at? Very rare.
It's still a refusal first-hand. It's still very much the same that we used to see, it's like some Falcon Blade, Diffusal.
Then some people play around, there's some Shadow Blades, there's some Aghanim Scepters that are like, I mean Agh does nearly always core, but you also don't really want to build a second item.
So when he played it last time a while ago, it was a diffusal axe into then Scotty, but he had a way better of an early game.
Because for now, like even though you picked the Slark into the Ember, the matchup is quite, I mean it's kind of, obviously you're winning,
but Maureen is still getting everything that he wants, which is levels, time and a little bit of network.
Also insanely good neutral item on the Gyro, of course, the dagger of Mr. Wristool, 25 bonus damage.
that on gyro you're an incredibly low damage hero
even with the ultimate incredibly low damage hero it's crazy all kids
let's keep that up solo right now up for Amar
and we talk about these I mean off lane
dawn breaker there's several builds you can go for it but it is Amar so
we just assume it's going to be right quick which looks like the deco saver is going to come in from the south
and try to get another kill out of this hero
The frog of that ultimate from Gyrocopter matters without being casted for being honest.
Two kills for the way of Valken's unbelievable usage of the greatest ultimate in Dota.
Call down. Great!
The hero died. That's all that matters. It's a good spell.
This guy's a hit. Incredible.
Man, imagine being a caster and using your voice to shit-talk a good spell.
Keep up the energy though. I like that energy. That's the most energetic you've been.
Let's re-watch the damage.
Let's look at this, and one of them hits him. Incredible.
I think he went down about 50 HP there as we're going to see some more action this time on top of Bach with a full Starbreaker from Ammar.
Illuminated trying to help out as Bach gets to kill Malrin first, so looking really bad for Beachy at the beginning of that they'll very least get a kill.
And Skeeter on the bot side kills off Shiro and even bigger, this is three deaths for the lone druid already.
It's feeling like every other lone druid game we've seen this time.
They're falling flat and it all started with the call-down rotation of course from Skeeter
Don't want to make me spit up my drink there.
Go ahead.
Stop drinking.
And 5 seconds of course, biggest timing of gyrocopter and early game will be unlocked
again as the call-down will be back up.
It's a good spell, you're just a hater.
They buffed it.
Missile slow from 50 to 60%.
They could make it global.
That would make it better ultimate.
I'd be okay with that.
Shout out to Bomberdeer from Heroes of Newark.
That's right.
Nearly had the same spell, without the slow.
It's even slower in projectiles.
See a little bit of group up here on the top side.
They did get a good counter play up earlier, right?
When Ginkyu and Bak were fighting there,
because you have the early heals from Ginkyu
and also the Ash Legion shield,
which allowed Bak to stand his ground, counter play it,
and they're soon unlocking the overgrowth on Y,
who's one of the best triads.
Like, first of all, I think it's not that easy to see
when people like pop off on Trian Protector,
but when I think of Trian Protector,
I think of Y and Mipocho.
Like, these guys are and were so good at the overall positioning,
knowing where you need to be and counterplaying the right place, right time.
We should soon see XM start to be aggressive.
Your first timing is usually the refusal.
That first overgrowth of the game from Y onto several members of Falcons
are gonna get the full start, Rikakavo onto Jinkyu with the whip in addition.
Probably not the best TP here from Jinkyu.
And likely the tier one now will go the way of Falcons.
And it seems like maybe Malrin is feeling himself a little bit again, you know, getting through this early game, tipping XM.
But yeah, this is the first timing, you get the fusel, and then the second timing is the night time with the fusel blade, so that will be at the 15 minute mark.
See if they end up using this successfully, skater.
That's initially gone on as the homie missile will find its mark in XM eventually, so he'll just dark-packs it off or not.
Scared of the call-down, can't really commit on him, of course.
Really, really, probably around that really slow ultimate.
He's just 2v1'd them.
Yeah, he just killed Snake King and now we have a Solar Guardian, so they will get the trade, but...
Here comes XM.
...Versus 3 essentially, XM comes in with the Pounce, no more mana for Amar, but he is pretty quick.
Garth back gets him out of the C-Hine chains, but not fast enough.
Okay, still hasn't been able to do that much yet, of course some pressure.
Forcing Amar out of the lane doesn't have to ult yet.
Need to see when the 15-minute mark comes around.
I don't mind if he does end up going for the Shadowblade here. I think sometimes, you know, going this early aggs, it's still not that easy to catch people.
You know, it's not really the same it used to be. I think the Shadowblade will help you apply a little bit more pressure and also allow you to scale and have a bit more attack speed.
And if he does get off to a good start, which has yet to be seen, he's 0-0-0 on XFM.
He has a goal scepter first item. Alright, this is the anti-slark item.
He's really respecting that mid-slug and hey if you're forcing to get a ghost step
I think you take that any day of the week it is always upgrade to disperse or eventually just to
Completely nullify that you can be happy about that as the slug
but at the same time it is quite good against the other two cores and
It will allow Marine to play quite aggressive and I think for the draft
It's actually very important when you're a dawnbreaker
You're not looking to like make moves first
You rely on your team to go in be aggressive and if this is what allows Marine to kind of play over this matchup anyway
I love it. It also gives you some stats, which is nice
Trine's being taken now
Only from Jin Q so far as we have a smoke from Falcons obviously would love to kill XM in that mid lane
Still a difficult one even at this stage of the game
It's ultra difficult to kill like how do you even do it hookshot constant?
Might have spotted, they're gonna get the dust on them as well.
Into the bowling, into Skeeter's Rocket Barrage.
See ya later.
Easy cleanup for Falcons.
The Ekko Saber now complete for Amar.
Now some pressure to this Tier 1 mid.
Alrain.
Use the Searing Chain to start things out.
And it's the rest of Falcons on the way.
Vici, not sure if they're gonna try to stay here,
it's not only taking a ton of damage,
the whip's gonna keep Vici at bay.
Talor is gonna get denied from Alrain.
Very even game to start things out in box when having very good games right like first the dogs again sure the early game wasn't
Incredible, but he was up against a hard lane. He's top metrop on the beast getting some solo kills top tier one taken mid tier one taken
Very good timing on the overlord. Of course a lot of this is because of gym Q with the coddles the stags the shuffer magic injection
The fact that it's 9 to 2 Falcons and still even, is that good news for Vici?
I would say that they are pretty happy with what's going on, especially now this is one
of the stronger timings for XM, 9-10 plus the defusal for you and Jiro has been having
a very quiet early game, probably too quiet at least when we look at his net worth, 5.8k.
Oh, why go for a massive overgrowth here if you had some vision
That's Falcons and a group up maybe for this tier one Y gets hit by a knife or two
Snaking spots him with the sentry but now outside of it
Trant always such an annoying hero to play against
Now we're gonna pop the ghost after the XM gets initiated on by a crit the backpack keeps him safe meanwhile
The Trant does get off the overgrowth trying to walk away
He's actually going to find the distance here because it does hit, and that'll be the end of the tree for now.
And this is what I mean with why. Like, we watched him walk around for like 50 seconds
when he's giving full vision, defending his tower.
Pounce on to Marine.
XM taking the run through the damage here. They get off the roar, but there's the box to counter.
We talked about that 3-game.
XM's ult keeps him safe for the time being, and Skeeter going to try a little bit of turn around here,
especially with that solar guarding and the Wheel of Wanderer at the top of this block.
Stop some axes. Caring Chain's not gonna hit. Illuminate though, that is the death of Amar.
Big kill from Bici. Very long drawn out fight. Ends up in the death of the Offlaner, Snake King.
He's beating from the axes. Assassinate him from the fog. Nicely done from Bok.
Just good kiting in this fight. Like there's a little bit of an overplay from Falcons.
You TP in, you get off a good roar. And they're just constantly playing with Exem in the frontlines.
There's Illuminate Heals coming around, he's getting Living Armored in the middle of the fight, holy lock it as well.
And they do need to play fights like that, you need to be semi-drawn out because they don't have the craziest damage when it all starts.
But look, just a full heal onto XM from GenQ there.
I felt like a lot connected there for Falcons, so they just didn't have the damage to finish the job.
Nice ratio from Faith Piont.
Yeah, this is big because remember that all of these fights, like Zero, he doesn't really have to do anything.
He's just playing his little Lone Druid mini-game.
Get your items, get your agonist scepter, keep helping your team with how the map is played overall.
Wow, the fact that they can potentially get Roche without the Lone Druid involved at all.
Can they really?
Okay, so here's an early map that Blinkrush also from Crit already has it.
Are they actually going to commit for this? Why in the area?
the area ready to lock his choke, snaking and crit, trying to contest snaking, or he
pops and he gets in again with the hookshot, but not even the steal of this time around.
Good attempt from crit, but it's going to cost him his life and now snaking on the high ground
gets overgrown, will box himself, but that provides a little bit of extra time for snaking
to get chased down by the likes of the Slark, double kill for XN, weird ass pick, but it's
working out so far.
It seems like that was a skill issue many years ago in DC, where you got the Dark.
No, they're owning. Define Shadows as well. Very good on Dark, of course. You get some return hits.
Get another Essence Shift stack yourself. Now he's got Shadowblade with the Knight, I'm still a little bit available.
And the Aegis is... yeah. On your hands. You're 4k Gold without having needed your carry at all.
How much damage can they get done with this Aegis?
Keep in mind, this is not the carry.
The lone druid is supposed to be the carry, and now all the space created, even just obtaining
the Aegis in general, just buys extra time for lone druid to farm.
And he is 300.
Okay, never mind.
That's bad math, 1,300, 1,500 away from the Aegis.
He's mentioning numbers, very good.
MA Maths.
Well, it's weird that the point booster is in this position.
Usually it's first out of the ags coming out.
He's just bought the other two parts ready.
He's going for a bit of a different build.
Fuck, what if you're not a solo player?
A solo Guardian.
Onto the Black Dragon.
Amar.
He's gonna live, fuck, actually.
If he had the vision we had, he would've just stuck around and killed him.
XM.
Now we're in a company, now only he has his Aegis, of course.
XM just gonna get healed up.
have to be wary of this call down very powerful ultimate according to one of the best analysts
in Dota quote unquote yeah one of the worst ultimates according to one of the best casters
quote unquote that's right crit gets the hook spot off but the dark pack is always there
for xm and he is looking really good okay this mid-slark being buffed up by ginkus
cauldron with the holy look at force and the max living armor is he's a big problem and
this is without again longer it hasn't been in the game yet bark is having an exceptional
game on the beast like usually dawn is a counter to be when you meet up when we
want you know you can kind of stand your ground if these folks for any place
you kind of play it but he is the one that's taking over areas like look at
where falcons are playing gyros farming very defensively up top dawn is
farming super defensively down bottom and they're taking back barely any
space in their own jungle be chicken to take this extra space to take out the
the first tormentor of the game.
They'll get themselves quite a good gold lead.
And these are some good shards.
You get out of the 3-1 for people to map play.
Not quite in time, GQ.
We'll get the double solar bind.
And even more heal from the Illuminates.
So this matters quite a lot.
It was already difficult to kill these radiant heroes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I want to talk about it.
Usually we don't see them melt from into Aghanim.
It's always like a Mjolnir.
that goes into it, so a little bit different for Shiro here.
Crit spotted, but blinks out, so showing off that blink dagger, snaking.
Gonna be able to steal the Wisdom Shrine, and jink you to a little
lawsuit on the other side.
Let's see if Falcons can find a way to either fight back or
Slow down this network fleet here.
But VG, they've been very impressive, right? Like, first of all, getting to the stage,
beating 1W, taking them out of the entire tournament.
Yeah, that was surprising.
And of course, need to cannot be understated that most of these players have played or won a TI final outside of Shiro.
Or a hookshot to come in and try to save on the snake. He's already dead.
We're gonna get the clockwork as well. So double kill for Faith beyond. He is owning in addition to the Slark.
and remember this is with Lone Druid not existing currently and he eventually will if given enough time 8k lead for Vici
They are pretty much for refiving and I think marines built. She's had a vessel for a while
I don't know if he's had a single charge on at this entire game
They're not really just done just not finding any moves on marvin early. She was guard
Not an item you ever see second. Wow
On dawn sure gives you a bit of a we thank you get a lot of armor most importantly perhaps the attack speed
and the a we damage plus so for echo saber she was something what's wrong
about it because this has never been done before that's why in the history of
Dota I believe so I think if we're looking at the stats people can correct
me but echo sheva is that's not a build potentially it is a building it just
speaks for this type of game where your cornered yeah I could go sector first
item of embers also not really a build I'm sure a herald has done it before
Who cares about those guys?
They don't matter.
That's a lot of people.
That is a lot of people, but generally, that's...
Why do you care about the top 1%?
What's wrong with you?
That's what we're looking at.
What about casting a Herald again?
What about the rest of us?
Get Jenkins up here, he'll tell you about the Heralds.
BKB now up for XN.
As his game continues to progress pretty damn nicely,
and of course, isn't it here that scale's crazy in the late game?
Oh yeah.
They've got a pretty good ward in the triangle,
You know that Amar walked over to the mid lane.
Yeah, drums of slum online as well. This is a big power spike for Vici.
She's already been waiting.
Uh-oh, hello.
He R-spotted, tries to get off the hammer, but the roar finds him, and that's going to be another death for Amar.
Malorraine has to try to run him away.
Put in a bit of a weird spot here.
Gonna get feared up today. Actually, the connection!
That's not good.
The damage is gonna be close! Yes!
Wrong place again for Malrin and off the back of it, Bici get a tier 2 tower and why not keep pushing?
These guys are good, they're just going straight for the high ground minute 23.
This is the-
Reformation pot.
This is one of the best plays I've seen from a Chinese team since maybe last TI of extreme gaming.
They are very convincing here in this entire series.
Not gonna force the issue.
Not gonna get too greedy.
They forced out the fortification, 11k lead for Vici.
Back to be aligned with these three big items.
Now we're going to see the dispercer next for XM, so that ghost scepter is not going to be shit.
Absolutely, they're not.
I mean, already now, it's kind of just delaying one of the things that are happening.
Okay, let's look at Skeeter.
So he wants to go satanic next, which yet helps you stay alive, but they've got damage problems.
This caudal, treant, like dual support combo with like three beefy cores.
It's really not that easy to, like, punch it.
You know, I think the big power-spectrum falcon is when they get level 3 on the call-down.
I knew you would say that.
I knew you would say that.
Alright, no coming back from that, as Mallory.
If Gyro had an Agnus that made call-down twice as good, they could win with that one.
Yeah, maybe.
But sadly for them, it's a side gunner.
Yeah, that's again.
Side gunner slash flak can is the real spell for Gyro.
Mm-hmm.
It's not a lot this game.
XN.
If you put a pounce target.
Night time, baby.
Indeed, opens it up on the snaking to get the box off.
Wouldn't be surprised if it goes from nullifier at some point as well.
The box is the only annoyance for Vici.
I really like, at least strategically, what Vici have created in game 1 and game 2.
Like, game 1 you had a lot of like this overall map play, you're kind of owning them with like Moonlight Shadow Spectre.
I think even here, it's a bit similar, right? You have a lot of summons, ghost push, but also this one guy who's stopping the trip.
All on the bar again might get caught out another roar to his name do they have the box nearby staking trying for it
Finally gets it off the last moment. You know on the other side why taking the brunt of the damages shiro is actually going
I have a gyrocopter is Skeeter about to fall just to the bear
Eventually box does fall to Malarane so a two for two exchange to start this outfit
XN is still up and running crit on the click
Dead shortly after a double kill for Shiro, who has finally entered the game and again we talked about it all game long.
They've been winning this game with two cores and now the third has entered to play.
Yeah, right plays right time. Definitely needed him in this fight, because Salsa set a pretty good angle to counter play.
They're equipped with an incredibly quick hook. Now this is a 15KB. They're knocking on your high for a minute 26.
Yeah, there's no fortification either. So I'm going to look at the replay.
It's just so difficult, it's nighttime, they see everything, their summons around, they're just great positioning and also great patience.
If you look at why, look at the back, double overgrowth with Shearer just getting hit into everybody.
And that was the blink dagger reveal for the tree.
So Block does die, but it's at a heavy cost yet again for Falcons.
I thought this series would maybe go the distance, but at this point Vici are, they're really putting into work in this game.
game. We're the 2-0 masters. We're somehow we are. I mean if I was gonna pick a 2-0 to start the
series I would have been fouled actually. Yeah. Because I feel like Vici have been pretty, I mean
at this tournament they've been good but generally speaking they've been quite inconsistent. But
powering up at the right time of the tournament is uh nothing to scoff at. This is how you win.
Yeah but this is also. Take notes Kazoo. Oh yeah this is very useful for me. I'll go play again
next month of course and once you realize this gyro of his garbage yeah that
will be the the return of my career that's right so it's been holding back
this one yeah thinking that gyro is good well I never liked that girl he's good
when you can like play off his tempo and there's a world where Falcons could have
still done that I feel like now you're not liking the hair after all this talk
huh we only talked about fall down stop mixing my words you should go to politics
I don't think I'm racist enough for that as we get into the pet Thor Vici gaming somehow you found the way to use that word in a cab
And
Hopkins gonna have to try to do something you can see Vici are aware of this and they're gonna wrap around instead
XM gonna lead the way still nighttime
Snaking now they're gonna mod it boxes himself, which means he won't have it for a potential core
There's the roar onto the gyrocopter.
Solar Guard need to follow the wheel of under right on top of them, though.
Do they have the damage to take out?
Block is gonna be close to the Illuminae, he'll be in front of it.
Finally, coming to BKB and out XMK.
They get the bounce onto the gyrocopter, and Skeeter falls.
First core down for Falcons.
And Ember Spear and Mal'Reen trying to take out Jin Q,
but it's just the support at the end of the day.
The arm charge that leaving Ardor, keeping him alive,
gets off the blinding light as well as Mal'Reen.
Slow to a crawl now.
That bounce from XMN matters, not as Amar barely gets out.
But shiro mean watch is hitting buildings on the other side. Yeah, and they're losing rats at the same time. Oh
Fuck instances
They're in such big trouble for this game
Because that fight wasn't even that bad for them to begin with you went very deep but you can just seal all the backup that they have
Multiple years two sets minimum
I think XM is also getting the shard on start like he already has the aggons for the double foul
So Shard is coming with just another added save.
Okay, minimum one set of racks is what I said, of course.
Yeah.
And I like this play, though, VG playing a very safe.
We've seen so many times before, especially honestly,
Chinese teams are very notorious for this in the last couple of years,
but they'll stick around a little bit too long and get punished extremely hard,
especially when an objective like Roche is available.
They'll get this for free.
It makes closing the game out that much easier.
And even Amar, like if you look at some of them, like the item builds,
They're really cornered trying to look for crit of course and not giving an opportunity to steal the ages
Yeah, that's I'm gonna show up and that's when the damage arrives
Gonna be dead right outside his own car says all a good attempt. Yeah, do you take anything now reen?
Was close when yeah open slot
That would have been sick, but Bob gets the ages instead the only comeback
I see for Falcons is a completed Daedalus on Skeeter and maybe maybe if you get the time you go for a divine
I think you have to play for an all-in play at this point
You're down a lane of racks you're playing against lone druid agonist and three top network hordes
It's the only way I see for them back in this game
And even that I don't think that's gonna be enough well if that isn't enough then I've got bad news
It's very double divine.
Now let's see if they can make any type of space.
Farm that up.
So Aegis, we'll see if Vici are waiting for any items coming out that would make a difference here.
Disperser is still a ways away, I'm not sure if they want to wait that long. AC also a bit of a wait.
Yeah, I don't think they have to really wait for anything. They could just continue to play on the map.
in, we find a pick off, we find a poke. They also have a potential to place a banner on,
you know, one of the ways was to double siege waves if they want to. Because if you do have
Aegis, I think you're very far ahead. If you want to play super safe, you could wait for a
nighttime. I don't really see why you would have to do that, because even in daytime, you're incredibly
strong. Now the bear shows himself. Skeeter has to skitter away. Very good.
Maybe they are waiting for this next item round. Now that they've waited this long, Bok is 500 away from AC.
At this point, you can definitely align with the Disperser close enough.
Yeah, you can definitely wait for the AC at this point. Why? It's scouting Alpheldrin here.
We don't have anything to throw back into the fair, gonna get the Roof off as well, but
the Box is there to save him as a remnant in addition, but to get out the Box and he
gets killed off, another Death Formelry, admitted on the deck that the Wheel of Wonder coming
down to Skeeter has to run away as XM is just gonna focus on a Mar instead with that BKB
Seed Press.
The Overgrowth on the 3 heroes with the Illuminate, they're gonna be killed with Giant Copter
right in their own base, snaking, trying to get out, but it's not happening for the
the rest of his cores. And the Maher, I believe this is a buyback, so now a
dieback for him. Is this gonna GG? GG's for Vici as they continue on to EWC and
Falcons eliminated. That's a beyond-godlike for XM. And honestly, I beg the question,
how did any team ever kick out XM and Jyn-Q from their roster? Like, XM alone in
this game with both supporters taking over the entire early game, same with
Falk was an incredibly hard lane, getting solo kills here, being top on the network.
And again, this is single-limbed. This is Falken's out at EWC.
This was a sick profile. I was not a believer.
I have reasons to not be a believer. Many years of pain and suffering.
First in the L.A., Weehaw, Slarknid, but Faith Beyond was on the other team and maybe he leveled
a little something from that, Fizzle? No, took like 10 years to take care of him.
Make it worth me that the right change is on the start
But I have to say this is a very memorable performance for accent
I'm gonna remember this one specifically 10 and 0 on a slark mid
I don't ever see that again. That's insane
It's and this is what I love about not just the best teams, but the best players
They will find ways to make the game different, you know
You find a specific take on a specific build and it is just not normal to see a big slark
And this is what the best players do you don't just get to play on autopilot
You're playing a different game, something you're playing XM Slarkin with Luchin,
Kukala backing him up, the Trian protector as well as Parkins.
And remember this call down, that is something to remember as well.
Just the massive damage coming out was enough to kill off Sherwin without it.
That was a double kill.
Incredible display.
Still hating at this point.
It's just, yeah, Vici, this is one of the better performances that I have seen rightfully so.
I think all of them just kind of owning from start to finish.
You know why?
Super positioning, good overgrowth.
Yeah, this one, this one's got a same focus at a big break.
Maybe that also worked against them, right?
With the format, nothing for what was it?
Five days, six days.
You see, they just looked hot and informed.
Yes, single elimination.
I love single elimination.
As a viewer, definitely.
It is incredible for the viewer experience
and we're seeing now why.
We've had already a couple of upsets the other day
and another one here.
I mean, in theory, an upset, Falcons,
a very storied franchise in their brief history.
This team has been around.
Just the players alone have been around
a very long time together, more so than any team in recent history, but Vici getting the
better of them and it's off of a slark mid, just incredible, just a ridiculous display.
But it is just like one of, this is a corrective risk signal of accident, they're so good on
Vici.
And that's sort of the interview on the main stage.
Thank you so much everybody, you know who I had to grab, ladies and gentlemen, XM!
Damn!
An absolutely incredible performance here with Jin as well for the translation.
Thank you, Jin.
Falcons had 5 days to prep for this.
They've been watching all your games.
They've been just sitting in their little hotel room, relaxing.
And you guys that come out and 2-0 their asses!
Were you expecting it to be that easy?
They were resting for 5 days.
They were watching your replays in their hotel.
They were doing their homework.
And when they were on the stage,
you guys were 2-0.
Did you think of this result?
Yes, because I thought they were resting too long.
We were so touched.
Selena in Game 1, incredible performance.
I gotta ask about the daegon though, was that more for damage, was that more for cast range, what was the thinking, and have you done it before?
This was super exciting to watch, Slark mid, incredible.
Who's making these calls?
Was it you saying, give me that, Slark, or was it the coach?
At that time, you chose this mid-range fish, which was also very well-developed.
Can you tell us about the last hero you chose?
Did you mention this fish or your coach or something like that?
My fish was used to play firecrackers.
At that time, I was in a hurry and I was in a good mood.
I thought this fish was very useful.
And I believed that it was the right fish.
Slak has always been my weapon against Ember Spirit.
And I kind of wanted a hero, but it was still a bit of a discussion within the team.
Then Jinqiu was like, you know what, I'm called old.
I can feed monitor Slug, and Slug, I think Slug would be a pretty good pick here.
So we trusted Jinqiu's decision, and we went for the Slug.
Fantastic, right? Last question then.
After destroying such a strong team like Falcons,
can we finally say that Chinese Dota is back?
How much time has it been since you came back?
Yes, it's been a long time.
Who wants to have the honor of crushing Falcons?
Come on boys, talk about it while we're walking. Let's go, let's go!
Bro.
Oh, you're going for it?
Yeah, yeah, cause I'm 4-3 and you know, I shake hand with Amat, so I have to do it.
All right, that's an honorable thing friends with Amar if he's gonna go down
And might as well go down from a friend, please take your position gentlemen gather around watch your Falcons go down
The club champions are about to get crushed
Here we go
Stone cold
Yeah, baby
He's going deep. Oh, that's too deep. I love it fantastic. Let's bring it out. It is time for you
He took the whole thing!
He destroyed Falcon so much there in the tournament!
By God almighty, he killed him!
Bring it out!
Goodness gracious!
Fuck you gotta take it easy bro, take it easy!
Go ahead and sell the camera. Do you approve?
Is it destroyed enough?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alright, well let's throw it back to our panel
and let them talk about that incredible series.
Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.
Vici Gaming guaranteed top four here at EWC for Tota 2.
They have eliminated team Falcons here on the main stage
and in quite the fashion.
Indeed, I'm here with Lacoste and Seb.
Lacoste's game was very cool as well.
Yeah, absolutely. What a way to eliminate a team that has been
in the Grand Finals in the previous EWC as well.
So, I love the energy from the whole squad, you know, telling that China is definitely back.
And I feel like they needed it, because the TI being in China as well, and also showing
that some of these strategies that they do have, like, they're definitely working.
We saw it in game number one, we're seeing it in game two.
It just feels like a lot of the stuff for them is clicking.
And he said, you know, their hands were red.
They got caught red-handed in this one because they stole that victory from Falcons.
Honestly, to me, this is one of the highlights of the season.
In a way, I'm sad for Falcons because crowd-favorite, tournament-favorite too,
and it's going to be a very tough loss for them,
but I'm sure they'll have time to build themselves back up for TI.
But if you focus on Vici, I think this is incredible.
What they were able to do here, because they didn't just grab a win or something.
They actually dominated Falcons, and they made a statement that they were the better team,
the smarter team, you know, they, they had better strategies, they executed their strategies
better, they, they outplayed them too. I think, you know, I, I think everybody kind of gets
bored with stalemates in Dota 1. It's only the same teams that are dominating. And, and
it's been too much of Europe, Europe, Europe, and I'm European myself, but I have to say,
even as a European fan, like, you know, European or European team fans, I'm bored of European
teams dominating. So whenever teams from other regions are going to like contest the highest,
the highest placements in these tournaments.
I think it's just incredibly more exciting.
And we got to see it today.
I think the crowd also has been roaring more than
for any other series.
And I think it really tells the story of like
what we want in Dota, like how absolutely we want region
competitiveness, we want contests, you know,
between these, these, these, these players.
And it's just amazing to see.
It's been exactly 10 years since China was on top
with then FaithBianna and Innocence now called Bach and Why,
at the top with Wings Gaming and Vici Gaming here,
starting their TI season, their money season,
as you call it, they're starting it off so strong
and it is so promising and everybody,
you can feel, everybody wants to believe,
everybody wants to hope that they can go all the way
and that would be a massive underdog success story here,
Lacoste, that would be very cool.
Yeah, absolutely.
This has, like we've seen, like in the group stage,
We haven't seen any underdog stories yet.
Once we got to the survival stage,
we saw quite a lot of those,
but this is the biggest one.
This has to be the biggest one.
Them also eliminating one dub right before this series,
and now eliminating, but this is too old.
This like wasn't really that competitive,
especially in the second game.
I got a game credit like to their drafter,
like the way they just played the draft as well,
like the total execution of it,
bringing in two very, very similar like heroes that had.
When you think about Lina, like this is the hero that has quite a lot of win rate.
So bringing in Lina, which people kind of expected to come, but bringing in Slark from TikTok.
This is not what many people expected, right?
That was such a funny answer, but I actually think it's real.
Like a lot of people are looking at these shorts.
Like I've seen so many people refer to TikTok builds and whatnot.
And at first I was like, I'm not paying attention to this.
This can't be serious.
But if AXEM is going to pull this out on the stage, then I'm going to start watching it too.
Like this is how you catch up, but honestly, I feel like after watching today, if you're like BVT, Nigma, Yandex, or Heavizion, which are the remaining teams,
Vici is coming for you at this point, you know, you better look at that team because they're coming full speed.
They have their own understanding of how Dota has played, they have their own strategies.
And you know, think about who's on that team.
Like these are two of the wings, you know, players, so like smartest minds in the history of Dota.
You have ZinQ, like the guy has been carrying everything he's on, like somehow he's always top 3 at every event, no matter who he plays with.
And then XM, we saw the prodigy that he can be, and Shiro, that team is wonderful.
Very, very solid foundation for success, that is for sure. And in this game too that we witnessed in particular, we're going to take a look at some of the mid-lane fights that kind of already made a statement in the game.
Yeah, at that point the game was very even, but you could kind of feel it brewing at that point of the game seeing that, you know, it could be pretty much anyone's fight, but also showing the strength of Reichi Gaming's lineup, what they want to do, because Falcons, they take a kill, and they're like, you know what, we can actually take this fight, but the XM with the Diffusal Blade, he's going to be the front line.
He wants to soak up the damage and JinQ, his positioning is top tier.
He's keeping the distance, getting one blast off, making sure that it's going to connect, giving Chaka magic to himself.
Getting another blast, which is going to heal them to almost full HP, gets another blast right off of that.
And we are seeing Keeper of the Life and this draft coming in together, what it's supposed to do.
Which means that we are going to be unkillable.
Like, we want to have this lane dominated, like, pretty much all three lanes did go into their favor.
maybe top lane not as much because Falcon did outmaneuver them for the first like seven or eight minutes making sure that they're
Rotating through the twin gates getting some of the kills and then second time
This is the second Roche where extreme gaming they decide they don't want to be taking that the
Roche on fight straight away
So it's gonna be again XM the first point of contact they drop the century
They see immediately and then one of the supports that needs to be kind of in the back lines
You can already see one blast coming in and then it's gonna be buck very well orchestrated
Game coming up from him in terms of like him being the point of the contact again being in the middle of the fight
Popping is VKD XM also uses his VKD knowing that they don't really have many abilities that go through debuff immunity
Making sure that they can hold the line
They can hold the formation and then Malray
He goes in deep and then again Jean Q with another blast completely out playing him plus another blast just you know
the tip of the just the cherry on the top shiver making sure that all of these heels they're connecting and his positioning in these fights
Have been immaculate. Yeah, that may he makes keeper of the lights seem absolutely
Broken and you can also tell how much he backed up XM on his slark and for our MVP for this series
We had to go for XM from first pick overall first big Lena to overall last big slark
He did it all in this series
said it's so refreshing to see is like I mean I'm maybe biased but you know I miss my top
sense you know I miss these players that are just gonna come to a game and be like you know
what I'm playing like and I'm going in with it and I'm gonna crush him and I'm tipping my opponent
while doing so and you tip Marine and you tip like the Falcon player which obviously it feels a
little bit different because we know how that team has dominated the scene through plays but also
through the mental advantage that they get on other teams usually, but XM, I mean he was exceptionally
good on his Lina. But again, one of his trademarks, I don't want to don't talk it, but as less
surprising than the second game. But what was surprising in that game was his item build, the
TikTok Dagon, I guess we'll have to call it now, the TikTok build on Lina. Just great read of
understanding of the strategy basically, like how the teamfights are going to develop and how to
adapt to it. And then, yeah, I mean, this is like, I think it was the pick was mind-blowing.
We saw, we could not obviously think about it. As soon as we saw it, we're like,
it actually makes so much sense. It makes so much sense playing with the keeper of the light.
And just to go a little bit back about his TikTok build, which probably got to become another meme.
I feel like, you know, he's joking about it, but there is something to it, because like,
a lot of pro players as well, they are like playing overthrow, they're playing turbo mode and
trying to push the limits on some of these builds, seeing what feels the best.
Because a lot of the times, even in scrims, you don't get to practice these 60 plus minute scenarios.
And also feeling what synergizes nicely. Even back in the days, people were hiring
brood mother. You had some brood mother specialists that you were coached by,
and making sure that you understand what this hero can actually do, getting the tips from him.
So a lot of these things, like a lot of these ideas are getting molded in the pubs,
which pro players force take and they just make them better.
So I feel like this has been a thing in Dota for a really long time and really have.
That's where we're seeing it again, especially with the TikTok.
You gotta know when to pull it out, I guess.
XM was absolutely on point with that one and they take victory here over Team Falcons,
who's definitely been one of the favorites here for the whole tournament.
For some final words of Team Falcons, we're heading over to Perch, you're standing by with ATF.
Hey, I'm here with Amar. I just got knocked out of the tournament and want you to hear.
I want to hear how you're feeling right now.
I mean, always feeling like shit, you know, you get knocked. You know, it is what it is.
If shit happens, you win, you lose, right?
What's the process like? I mean, you've had a lot of highs, you've lost tournaments as well.
What's it like to go through this? Like, you work super hard to get here, I'm sure.
or you guys did tons of scrims, tons of practice,
and then to have an upset like that, what's it like?
Yeah, I mean, it's just such a shit format, right?
Like you win groups, you get top one seed,
you just play one game, you get eliminated most of it.
And then you wait for like multiple days, right?
Yeah, you wait for like six days, like for eternity.
So like, it's much actually better for them
because they get to actually play and practice,
but for you it's like you practice,
like you don't even know what to practice.
Yeah, it's a common problem that happens
when you do so on groups.
What was game one like? Game one was quite close, you guys had a lot of back and forth.
They had a spectre that you had to deal with, they had tons of jump. You started the game really well.
Your win ranger turned out excellent, you had good KDA, what happened after that?
Just think they have like R press buttons and they just hold them in the game.
As long as if we don't snowball with our heroes, I don't think it's easy.
I think we need to have like 10K lead by minute 20 and their heroes will do nothing.
but the problem is that I don't think we have so big lead, so it's just hard.
Dark Sea and the Rana inspector.
A lot of teamfight, right?
What about game number two? They got that surprise Slark pick at the end.
Did you, your big Slark player, obviously, did you feel and know what pressure you guys were going to experience in the game?
No, I thought it was because he used this. I'm not sure how he had an impact.
I don't think it was a big problem. I think the base and the quarter were the main problem.
I think they did so much that he's picked like he just picked the hero who cannot die this game
And that's like he could have had buck or somis will do the same thing
Did you say you thought the beast was the bigger issue? I mean, I think so
I mean what was like the pressure that you put on the map was it just like
Gank potential was a light pushing like a 2k HP. He has farmed into dead land
He just takes all talk like it's so hot
He's like this fat
Well, thank you for coming. I appreciate it. We all did appreciate you guys playing in the tournament. It was a lot of good games.
But I'm sorry that you guys lost. Thank you for joining me.
Yeah, that must have been a disappointing loss for Team Falcons as they get eliminated and end Top 8.
I do want to give a big shout out to all these players doing exit interviews because I feel like they're actually sharing a lot on what they think happened in these games.
in these games it's not easy emotions are high so big shout out to all the players really doing
these interviews and accepting to share their wisdom and their hot takes like recent takes I guess
like fresh takes on what happened in these games so I'm very very cool to be able to hear that.
Yep very insightful for us as well and it's nice to have a little bit of a look into the mind
of a pro regardless of whether they just won or just lost both are part of the competition. Vici
G-Gaming is looking for an opponent in the semi-finals tomorrow, so we have one more
game coming our way here for the quarter-finals.
The cost?
Oh, this is going to be a spicy one.
Like we saw NigmaGalaxy overperforming in the group stage, and they're also a team.
They topped their group that has been waiting, playing against BB Team that has looked more
stable than them most definitely, but we did say multiple times, this is the best iteration
of NigmaGalaxy that we've seen in recent years.
does feel like this team is going to go far in the tournament and if they manage to win
here against BB team, I feel like it might give them another momentum because they like
we saw Falcons losing some momentum because they didn't play for five or six days and
the same thing happened with Think of the Galaxy.
So we'll see if Think of the Galaxy is going to be able to pull it off because strategies
that they brought so far in at TWC, I think they have been the most innovative.
Honestly, like I'm looking at this bracket. I'm looking at the results and I'm feeling it
I feel like I haven't been as excited for a Dota tournament in a really long time
Like if you're not watching this tournament
I don't know what you're doing if you're complaining about the stalemate of flow Dota and how we see the same teams dominate
Well, it is changing right now. So you better watch because think about it
We have Nigma full force like they they seem like a serious contender
You have a puppy as a coach that's now looking to he's already top four like you have witchy gaming
You know, the Chinese superstores are back in Form 2, then you have Yandex.
You know, I don't have to go back on Yandex.
The BB team is like, this is getting super, super spicy.
And at this point, I don't know who's the favorite anymore,
because every day a different story is being told.
This is, you know, this tournament is delivering.
Anything can happen.
We've seen the favorites win.
We've seen the underdogs win.
Who knows what is coming next?
But we do know what is coming next, because Nick Magalek see next.
We'll face the BB team on the stage.
Before we get to talk about that series, in depth, we're first going to see how they felt on Media Day as SVT found them.
Hybrid workers, obvious. Back in your every move.
You play pool I want to do some some interviews you got a little time if you were a pool shark
How much money do you think you'd win on an average Sunday night?
I would lose a lot of money you want to test it out. I'll put up the wage your $1,000 you
Miss the next shot. Yeah, I'm nothing that bad. Okay. What about you wage your $1,000
I can make the next shot. I don't know how good you are and you're a signed Nigma player
Now you're making big bank you're probably gonna win this event. That's a big payday to probably gonna win
Ti probably win like the next of like eight events after that
That's like an estimated like three million going in your but you can afford a thousand on a cool shot
I don't know, but I don't know if I put one in you, you know, I really have no ink
You wouldn't bet on me. I mean, I just don't know you don't believe in me
Yes, okay, if you were to pick one player out of this entire tournament who could make one pool shot
Who would it be?
I can't be from your team because that's like everyone's gonna say gh or some bullshit
But like come on give me a reliance. I guess the game region called my goose. Oh, he's yeah
I mean I haven't seen that many players pool but he pulls pretty good. I think yeah, but how do you know that?
I saw him pool you know you just said you don't play pool though. I don't but he looks like
He looks super sweaty and like professional when he does it so so this sweat is an indicator of good pool capability
Like sweaty isn't like he tries like he's very trier
You know he like tries to like look like the froze even though he's you give us an impression of him making pools
I don't know. He like I can hold that if you want I can hold it
like rub this in and get a little push in it, you know?
It's like this real cool, real cool, real cool,
real cool player.
That's amazing.
Okay, now let's do it for real.
Try and sink this in the corner pocket.
I'll give you $10,000 if you make it.
All right, I'll hold you to that.
Here we go.
Ladies and gentlemen, Divai Pool Shark.
If he makes this shot,
I'm absolutely leaving this room.
You'll never see me again
because I do not have $10,000,
but he doesn't know that.
And there's no way he's gonna make it.
Thank God.
Was the pressure too much with the wager on the line?
No, I didn't trust you anyway,
but the cameras and everything, you know, it's stressful, you know.
I probably wouldn't make it anyway.
Is this a sign of things to come, potentially?
I doubt it. I think I would just, I just would make the shot one out of ten times, two out of ten times.
I'm really bad at pool, so.
That's not bad, though, two out of ten.
Like, if I said you're gonna win TI two out of ten times, you'd probably take that, right?
Yeah.
Well, I don't like, you know, I'd rather win it, you know, my own skills, you know.
Oh, I see. You want to earn it. I respect that, actually.
Let's say you could win any TI in the history of TI's. Which one would you have chosen?
it could be curves like you could you take it away from the dude you know
you could like take curves ring away from well the big bucks for nti nine or
ten and of course like you can say it's all about it's like what's more about
the
prestige and then and the victory than the money but i mean at some point like
that was like obscene them on the money so i would take nine or ten
okay ignoring the money let's ignore the money
ignore the money uh...
then this one this one
why i'm playing it
and uh... i feel like you know that the bylaw ladies and gentlemen where did the
long ago by the way
oh no it didn't make the pool shot well maybe with some tea i'm gonna combine
with a llama
would you buy a llama if you want to? maybe i'd like to adopt one at the zoo you know
like pay for its feeding because i don't have a backyard even i rent a house without a
garden so i don't know where to put the llama but
there's a big price pool at EWC though let's say you win EWC are you gonna buy a
bunch of llamas and put them in your backyard?
I think even when the EWC is not enough to buy a house with a garden but at least
the belgium but uh... I'll like adopt the llama you know like uh... that lifts
somewhere else
is belgium in real estate that expensive? it's not as absurd as you know in like
big American cities or some other European countries houses in Western Europe are expensive.
I'm sorry to hear that man. I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe a couple EWC's then.
A couple here. All right. This is Ben Debye for Nygma
EOxie ladies and gentlemen. A true pool shark. Thank you.
Hello guys back with another basics video. We're going to be talking about chain stunning
and layering disables. This is a huge tense part of watching Dota 2 games because pro players are
so good at stretching their disables as long as possible and pros are so good against playing
against that, that they know what their limits are typically, but sometimes you can catch your
opponents in places that give you kills that they don't think they're gonna get. Kind of confusing,
but let me show you some examples here in-game. I'm gonna have to unfortunately use both hands
for this so my audio be a little quieter. So Queen of Pain here is very good at escaping. Her
second skill, Blink, allows her to teleport a short distance. It's on a six second cooldown though,
so that means that eventually she can get away again. But if you layer your disables really
effectively, what ends up happening is you can end up killing her. So what I want to do is I want
to stun her repeatedly with different heroes to make sure she doesn't get the opportunity
to end up blinking away. And if you layer your disables very effectively between all of your heroes,
she basically gets no opportunities to escape at any moment at all. So that's very, very important.
What a Quedain player would say is that if I see Lion and Lena, I know that I'm likely going to get
disabled. So she's going to buy an item like Black King Bar. And when you buy Black King Bar,
that's going to protect you from most disables, not all, but most, and as a result, she gets to do
whatever she wants and actually play the game. So these items are extremely important to play around.
The downside is they have cooldowns. Black King Bar has a 95-second cooldown, so she has a window
that she can abuse this, but it's not going to guarantee that it's going to cover the entire
teamfight. So a lot of the game is going to be around dodging these kinds of disables.
Some disables are weak, like Frostbite. You can use BKB through this if it's actually off
cool down, which it isn't. And there's also blink daggers, which can be used similar to blink,
the blink ability, but this one is disabled by damage. So if players are damaging you,
it stops you from using the blink dagger normally. I have some cheat commands on,
so it doesn't look quite right. So making sure that you can avoid getting chainsund is hugely
important in Dota 2. A lot of heroes have very small windows where they can abuse
this magic immunity, and it's important or spelling me, I can't remember what the names are now.
and this is a crucial crucial part of team fights in Dota 2 so try to keep an eye out for the
golden black king bar, blink daggers, chain stuns, all that stuff makes huge difference in these high
level team fights.
Finally some good fucking food.
You are watching Dota 2 at the eSports World Cup and we're live from Paris with our final
quarterfinals of the day and of all the quarterfinals.
We'll see which one of the two teams that will be on stage next will make it to the
semi-finals tomorrow for the series.
We have our Sony series of the day.
It is Nigma Galaxy versus BB Team,
and Will Starr is the line,
Brian Orwell, Big Bang.
In other words, Shiver, is Nigma finally back, baby?
I mean, we've been saying this, like,
throughout the last, what, two or three years,
every single time Nigma has a shred of hope
that they provided their fans with,
but this might genuinely be the first time
that I myself have had faith,
and I'd say in the last, like, three iterations
of this line, that they truly look like
they've found their form throughout this tournament mirror.
BB, but Brian, I shall raise you this.
So we just saw the effects of a long break
on a Dota team just now in Falken's and Nigma had
about the same time too, in their downtime.
That is true.
I think the five days is like historically
a disadvantage for any team because we've seen the meadows
always gradually develop over the course of a tournament
and even just getting those extra two or three series in
that teams like Vici have had that provide you with
a little bit more inside in the particular matchups
and you also get to like test things.
I think it plays a big role in this.
And for Nigma, they did have a very clear identity
throughout the course of the group stage.
You know, talking about like GH's Wisp, GH's Caudal,
you know, we're seeing Sumail have a very cool flair
as a carry player with a lot of these tempo tinies
and alchemists, but teams have had times
to scout this out, adjust to it.
And the question is, do they have their own adjustments
that they haven't really had to make,
but otherwise just theory-crafting.
And that's a big question that they'll have to answer today.
Goodness, is Katalmy okay?
Yeah, he's been in the wheelchair the whole event so far.
I believe he has a, I'm gonna maybe misquote this,
but I believe it's a fractured knee.
So I was pretty serious and pretty painful, I would imagine.
But it is also the reason why when the team is standing on stage,
he is not standing with the team
because he's wheeling himself in and out.
Well, he's been doing great.
He's been playing really well on his trains and on his veins and I think he's been a key piece in how well BB have been doing this tournament and I think they should actually look towards securing some of his heroes early on, moving to this series.
Yeah, we're going to focus our attention first on Nick Macalaxy. This is a team that went 9 and 1 in their group stages only dropping one game the entire road through and a lot of people are very hopeful that they are indeed back.
Let's find out how NekbaGalaxy was doing on the media day.
Hello, current roster is doing pretty good.
We have a lot of natural synergy with each other.
The players have a good understanding of each other.
This iteration of the roster does feel like it has maybe the most potential
because things have just clicked for us more naturally.
NekbaGalaxy 2 dominant on the victory here.
The team has been performing pretty well and very satisfied.
really happy with the guys, above my expectations, to be honest.
We always work hard, I mean, it's competition, so there's always a layer of perfectionism.
There's always something to improve, something to do better, and the guys are really into it.
I think we made the switch like two weeks prior to the TI quals, and everything was kind of rushed.
It was like just taking the risk, let's say. Didn't truly know what to expect,
but now we have some, in my opinion, some good fundamental ideas about the game that we're pushing
and breaking the meta a little bit, but I feel there's a lot of potential to do more of that.
The playoffs, they're always the real deal, obviously.
I think the group stage is a good indicator of how strong teams are overall,
or since this playoffs is a little bit more special because it's single-Lm, which I like,
so there's a lot on the stake, there's like one chance only.
I'm pretty confident in my team because they're all veterans at this point.
It's not the first time for them to play on a bigger stage.
I think we'll thrive on it.
The synergy that Kuro is talking about, we can feel that, Brian, in the games that they're playing.
Yeah, there's something about, you wouldn't imagine that this team has been as recently assembled as they have.
We've talked about all year, the Lornoff mercenary buff.
For whatever reason, whenever this guy pops into a team for a short period of time,
like, not only does it look like he's having high individual impact,
but it also looks like he meshes himself really well into whatever the identity of the team is,
and I think that says a lot about him as a player, and I think the biggest surprise about him is that
he hasn't landed on a team consistently up until this point, based on his performances.
Yeah, I think with Voronov, he's just extremely high-skilled and very versatile, and even with
Enigma, we've seen him play multiple types of mid laner. Like, he's played the tempo embers and
the pucks and whatnot, but then also, like, he plays Macrophos mid, he'll play Sniper mid,
and his ability to kind of fit into any vision that a team has is what I think gives him a lot of that mercenary buff that you were talking about.
Yeah, and on the other side, we do have BB team. This is a team that's been stable throughout the year.
The question is, can they finally reach the top? Because that has been alluding them for quite some time, actually.
Actually, they were able to take a title, but of course they want the big title and that would be this EWC
Let's find out how Katyaomi feels before this very match
Well, I'm here with Katyaomi of BB team you guys looked so clean in your last series
How many dreams are you guys gonna crush this tournament?
I will hope not our ourselves, you know everyone else though. Yes. Yes
Did you expect to win that series so one-sided?
I think, yeah.
It's not the hardest opening, I feel like.
We just have a very good preparation for the series,
and not no problem.
How's your preparation for this upcoming series?
Do you feel as confident?
Yeah, with our guys prepared, all the heroes,
Not like, rates of heroes, yeah, very confident.
They haven't played in a long time though, it's been like five days or something since they've played any matches.
Are you worried about any surprises or are you guys ready to pivot depending on what you need to do?
This guy should be worried because it's hard to not play
official games for six days on the tournament.
We've been in this situation last year and it was really frustrating to sit at the hotel for one week.
waiting for a playoff.
That's what I hear from most players.
You guys played a lot of Slardar combos in your drafts.
I feel like other teams are playing it as much as you guys are.
What are some of the things that you like about it?
Just being able to take Roche quickly and Synergy with other heroes or what?
Yeah, it's about flex, mostly, on mid and top lane.
And it's about good combination with carry heroes, minus armor,
I'm like, in some case, you know, like, you can just destroy one hero in like 0.5 seconds.
Yeah.
All right. Well, thank you for sharing that with me, and good luck in your upcoming match.
Thank you so much.
We'll see if BB Team can indeed beat Nigma Galaxy, and if that break that Nigma Galaxy had
is going to be that detrimental for them.
Now, I'll tell you a little story, Effie.
Baby team, I said, has been named the team to be the quiz.
Is the tier one Dota quiz?
If you can't beat them, you're not tier one.
What do you think?
I can fully get behind that because as a team,
they used to be the lane check team, right?
They were famous for having incredibly dominant lanes
and winning off of that.
And in the past, if you couldn't stick it to them
in the laning stage, you would just kind of lose.
And they've kind of evolved over the years
with the addition of Nero, became more of an all-rounder type of team.
And while I would say they have some of the best players in the world,
they do kind of give that energy of like Jack of all trades, master of none,
and some capacities right now.
Yeah, when we talk about like a team like Team Spirit and they changed their roster,
I feel like they maintained pretty much the same play style and identity throughout that.
I think BB Team's not like that at all.
They went from pure at last TI as their carry player to Kiritich.
And personality wise, I don't think you can get much more opposite than these guys are.
Pure is much more like, I'm going to show you who's better and he talks about it that way in interviews,
comes off in his gameplay, he sometimes has very good performance or sometimes poor performances.
Kyrotich on the other hand, like when you ask him interviews like earlier on the season, he's like,
I'm just happy to be here. I just, I'm such a privilege to play with players that are this good.
It was clearly almost like a culture shock to him to be on like a tier one squad.
And I think at the beginning of the year, he was more prone to playing too
unsoulfully as a carry.
And I know that it's been really important for carry players to play like enabling carries.
We've talked about like the Doracio style of play that kind of got pioneered, but
I think over the course this year, he's really learned that balance and fit much
better in with the team.
And it's really awesome to see because Miro is a very positive influence on the team
vibes wise and I think Kira just has really sealed it off yeah and the
question is if they're gonna peak at the right time because historically BB
team has been good throughout the year and then during this time that's
actually when they don't perform as well but maybe this time around they have
what it takes Effie you know what maybe they do because we always talk about
them and I remember last year there's this running theme of every time BB
team would make it to like top six like is this the tournament is this the one
where they're finally going to get that first place finish and it feels like their issue in
the past has always been psychological. So maybe the things that Brian were talking about,
the addition of players that are pure Vibe's players, joy to the team, balance out that
inclination to tilt that BB team and historically GPK have had in the past.
Yeah, I mean, you're talking about Vibe players, I got to bring up Nick Magan, I see they're real
quick as well, because there's a player we haven't talked that much about just yet,
just to quickly touch upon the Vibe, he has been known as being a Vibe player, Brian?
Yeah, a very mixed bag of vibes, I would say,
sometimes on social media as well as all chatting within the game itself.
I think he's quite a character.
I think he's good for the scene in general,
the personality and play that he brings in the interviews and and the banter
very much into when he's winning and you can really feel it when he's losing sometimes.
But I think this is a good metaphor for him.
I think this team fits well with him as well.
I think they're doing a good job of enabling him.
I've seen them more lean towards his picks later on in the draft
because he does, I think, heavily rely on having a good matchup.
Not rely, but he thrives when he's given that good matchup.
And, yeah, I think he's a pivotal part of the steam mirror.
Well, we're gonna see him on stage,
and we're gonna see Nick Magali see Mbibion on the stage
as we start game number one.
Yes, Givry, yes, panel, we are in for the game
that everybody's been waiting for here in the quarter-final.
Is this the battle of the heavens here happening in front of us?
But before that, let's check in.
Last game, we gotta say it's last.
China back China is back there that was a game of the underdog coming through
never enough a billion years what I imagine Vici gaming is going to two O
Falcons absolutely incredible that is what we have waited it to see all season
these teams coming up and finally getting in some good shape towards the end of
the year love having the variety in different positions here in our brackets
I'm very excited to see how things go down but that's for later once we get to
semis but now we have to introduce our squats for a final quarter final of EWC
26 at Dota 2. Please join me in welcoming NIGMA GALAXY!
You know what? You love them and even if you don't love them, you'll have to watch them no matter what it is.
They're here and they're ready to prove their might. It's been a long long trek
for NIGMA Galaxy to get to this stage here. B88 EWC all in the many years past since their inception.
They've faced their toughest challenge yet, but with the greatest opportunity for a return
And I'm sure that we're all excited to see where their story goes on next
My god, I'm seeing stars all over
That's beautiful. Thank you so much. Yes, I have been waiting for this team to be good for eight years
And it feels like it is finally
happening. However, I'm a man who has sucked on that copium a lot before. This is the moment.
If they can beat this team, this is Nygma's moment to be the champion. It's because there
is hardly any better team here than let's break them out! B-B team!
Here is a team that has been clawing their way through this tournament. Throughout this
This year they have gotten their highest highs they've ever achieved and they have been on
fire.
So many names that have been so incredible for so many years here to finally take one
of their biggest prizes ever.
Before them lay a team that has been chilling out for five days.
We saw how that went last series.
But both these teams I gotta say they got the dog in them.
Ain't nobody taking a break this one.
This is going to be a bloodbath.
I cannot wait for it.
This is the one we're all been waiting for.
So please, gentlemen, you're going to place your keys, go on ahead, make sure to shake
your hands, and we'll see if this gets heated up or not.
But still, regardless, our players are going to get it set up for this one, Slacks.
I cannot wait for it.
Hey!
All right, my friends, it is going to be quite a game, settle in, get ready, and we'll go
to the desk to see what they have to say.
Thank you very much, I very much hope that this series will live up to the hype.
Nigma, Galaxy and VB going head to head here to decide which one of these two teams will
be in the semi-finals of EWC here for Dota 2 a lot on the line.
It is not just about the Dota, I think the honour of this game will be a clutch factor
as well potentially and we have an extra voice to the upcoming draft, hey Gork how you doing?
I'm doing good, I'm sitting here alone, behind the crowd, having a good time.
You're looking the wrong way, I could see a brilliant view behind you.
Yeah.
You're looking the wrong way, so...
You know, I gotta entertain the crowd, too, my crowd.
Fair enough, fair enough.
Happy to have you join me for the draft of course, Effie and PSJ are still with us as well.
I wanna hear your take, what's your expectations for this series?
Listen, I think I've watched more Nigma than anybody this season.
I've watched them lose against tier 3 teams, I've watched them throw unthrowable games
and honestly I'm just honoured to see them on a big stage like this, top 8 against BB team
and I think they're ready to make another upset happen today.
So you believe?
I believe, I've always believed.
Alright, what's going to be instrumental here? What are you going to look forward to in the upcoming draft?
You say you watch them so much, is there any hero in particular you'd really like to see out of this one?
I mean, they've switched up a lot, like Kroki talked about, two weeks before TIQ was, they changed a lot of players, so they've changed a lot,
and their discipline is a lot better, and they've gone for more of a semi-cheesy healing line-ups, I'm expecting caudals if they light it through,
necrophosies, viper's, but they have more to them than just that, but I'm expecting those heroes to be targeted a lot.
I've got to admit a question for you, Gork, so throughout the beginning of the group stage, all the teams were kind of like trading weaker midlaners,
like Ember Spirit for Urspirit, Urspirit for Puck, and I feel like teams are more
gravitating towards like the Necros, the Vipers, and Nigma was one of the first
teams to do this. What's your take on like, I know you're a carry player, but
what's your take on like the mid meta right now, how it affects you when you're
playing in terms of the momentum of the game and all that? I think the mid meta is
very important that you don't get cheesed a lot right now. I think people realize
that if you just completely shut down the mid, that doesn't matter with these
steroids that Embers and Storms used to play with, with like caudals and
and Largo's, those often get banned out.
So as long as you shut them down,
this Ember like we saw in the Falcon series
just does nothing for the game.
So I think that's why people are playing around that
a lot more now.
Okay, I mean, give it to me straight for
Lorno versus GPK, who do you got?
Okay, listen, it depends on the heroes.
I think GPK is like maybe the best laner we've had in Dota
the past three years in terms of consistency,
but Lorno's is also the cheesiest and most adaptable.
So I'm hoping if he gets the right hero,
I'll put the money on Lorna for that one.
Ooh, it's feisty.
I was kind of thinking playstyle-wise, like,
GPK absolutely is a beast in terms of skill, like you said,
but you can't outskill a Viper, BSJ.
That's what I'm saying.
It's like, we've seen, it's been a little sus sometimes
when we see the GPK Huskar.
He's not the guy to cheese you.
He's the guy that wants to play the Heads Up Battle.
I think Lornaff's kind of a bad matchup for him,
wouldn't you agree?
Yeah, I agree.
He would love to play Ember versus Earth Spirit
or Puck versus Storm,
but we're not gonna see that today, hopefully.
Well, with that in mind,
We did just see a series where that Lina was incredibly dominant and GPK plays a very mean Lina.
It was overall first base.
Has he been watching TikTok, Sheba, that's the one.
I mean...
Now, Lina is amazing. I'm glad to see this hero suddenly re-search.
It can also be flexed to carry as a really powerful laner as well.
I would almost categorize her as a bit cheesy as well, towards the Viper direction.
How do you feel about Samil's carry hero pool versus...
The off laner is that BD Tentapick. The lane dominator is the enigma, the beastmasters, how do you think he fares up against that?
I think he plays a very survivable hero pool. He doesn't really play those hardcore carries like DB and stuff. I don't expect him to get punished too much.
I'm expecting him to get to play kind of strong laners. They love the SF, they love the Necro. They can even run a sniper safe lane.
They will survive that lane as my expectation today.
Well, we are moments away from getting the draft on our screens. We got NICMA
Galaxy on the Radiant side, BB Team on the Dire side. And it is BB that has
overall first pick. We already have the IO and the Necro band out, the keeper of
the light. They can't hear me, can they? Yeah, we can. Yes, we can. No, I meant like the
players. Oh, no, the players can't. They banned my Sumail heroes, oh no. I thought you meant us, my bad, but yes. We can hear you, the players cannot, but you'll be on the same wavelengths with them.
Yeah, I think so. I mean they had they had some prep time. Obviously, Nigma had more prep time
Six days is a lot of time you can get into your own head. Hopefully
What happened to Falcons doesn't happen to them. They steal the they take the bane here. Wow
Bane's been a great hero for Ekhtami this tournament
I mentioned it a little bit earlier in the pregame, but when they picked this for him
He's just able to always set up plays on the sidelines like make these smokes happen
And it does feel like the team that can make the first couple of smokes happen tends to snowball in the mid game
Yeah, I think the Bane is there may be the best Bane team in the world, but obviously make my prep for this
They have the light can on
9 pick here what you got to watch out for is this Bane may be transitioning into a post 4 and you could run into other lane
Caloners we've seen
Gyrocopters answer the like and we have seen enchantresses maybe even a Chen could come out
We'll see how they'll try to punish this like and pick
I feel like we're at like phase 2 or 3 of the meta where earlier on in the tournament
we were seeing lichens and beastmasters more later on in the draft as the late game count
or late draft counters to the range carries because summons are generally very good against
all of them except for gyro specifically I believe and maybe Medusa but that hero doesn't
seem to exist right now.
But now all of a sudden we're like seeing a bane and lichens apparently good enough
to just first round.
I do think these summons heroes can run in this some pretty bad matchups and I would
I'd like to see what you said, Gork, like potentially flexing the bane or prioritizing hard countering this Lycan,
because giving these heroes a good start, like the map just evaporates very quickly.
Yeah, I mean, we actually, in Team Bald, when we played the T-AC qualifiers, we loved playing Lycan,
but we never really did it into bane for that reason, because there are a few answers, you don't really have enough fans usually.
But, oh, Woodwind, that's a strong post-4 that they kind of steal out from BB as well.
They're not really expecting them to switch it to post-4 then, maybe as well.
It's these bands, at least for the group stage games that I got to see, it makes sense for
Nigma Galaxy specifically, but Necro Sniper, these are just not heroes that we saw Harley
at Alts on the other groups, and I really like these type of group formats because you
get basically four mini-metas, and Lena started in one of the groups, and I think it was Jandex
that ran it first, and suddenly she's a signature hero in the meta right now, and we're seeing
again you mentioned the flex potential of it but I think against I would not
want to play Lena carry into like an off lane would you agree Gorky I even think
it's pretty good against Lena mid as well you can you blow out of the best
likens to use this wolf to scout you could set up a lot of kills on her I
actually think it's one of the best punishing heroes into a hero like Lena
I have a question because I heard someone say that save is a very good Lena
position for and we haven't seen it as a pause for but I'd love to hear opinions
on it. Yeah, he used to be a big bully in the lanes many years ago. That was the,
that was considered one of the biggest lane bullies to Pulse 4 Lina, but I
highly doubt they're gonna play that here. Yeah, they just go for the Marana
inside which has been saves go to if Ringmaster doesn't look like a good
option, which probably it doesn't versus Lycan who can get an olive wire. With this
Marana, she gives you an easy combination with the Bane, with the Arrow, and to the
Nightmare, and I've talked about how VB are always looking for these 15 to
20 smokes. These two hero combinations just simplify that idea.
So we saw Nigma Galaxy without H and Apparition against Necrophos, like they're not afraid
to just hard counter hero conceptually. We saw Vici Gaming pick position 4, in this case
it might have to be position 5 Zeus to deal with Marana. I unironically think it might
be good here just because the Zeus ulti buff that makes it so it does damage to Enbiz units
on top of revealing them. I was just wondering if we're considering this.
That's not a bad suggestion. I feel like so far all these three heroes kind of get countered
by the same archetype that Liking kind of eats all these three heroes alive and Zeus
is also something people used to pick against the ranged carries before as a bit of a counter
like Drowranger seeing her with Nimbus getting vision, closing the gap. I think these teams
have a lot of problems with that on BB now. They're going to have to solve that in the
draft.
Yeah, the next pick will go the way of Nickmar Galaxy taking their time at this point to
think about what they want as they have to pick two heroes for themselves so
most likely gonna be something that can deal with the Lena and maybe even
follow the Lena about it needed but I guess Lena if she she doesn't want to
go safe lane against the like it right she doesn't love it but she could
probably survive that lane I think Lena Bane can be a nasty combo with sleep
into stun I'm curious what G is gonna pick up here a lot of his heroes get
banned very early so he could go for a healing angle okay Viper's still in the
pool. If Viper's not, how does that mid matchup go? Maybe that's maybe they're
saying that we want you to run Lena mid? We saw that earlier in the tournament
I think they tried to pick Lena to counter the Viper mid because it used to
be many years ago but then the Viper just ended up dominating the lane anyway so
I'm interested. Yeah well we'll see it's a bit of a finicky matchup can go both
ways but I feel like it's my favorite right now. You were talking about how
Nigma favor healing heroes and one of the special heroes they've been running is
Dazzle. Yeah. Do you think I could fit into this draft with the Viper? And I go for the undying instead.
Undying. I like undying a little bit better. It's also a bit of a healing hero.
Wow that was a quick naga. Oh my god that's dirty. That's really dirty.
Why is it dirty? It's because it's honestly the biggest lane counter to
Lycan and they accidentally fell into the trap of picking three heroes that also
also don't deal with illusions. So now Nygmar stuck with one hero to deal with Naga illusions
in this game. And that, oh, yes, they fell into a trap, honestly, I think. They were
ready for this Viper. I think they planned for this.
We've seen a couple of Naga games this tournament, where it's looked like a great pick, and it
just doesn't go the way that it should. I mean, on paper, Naga is great here, Brian,
right? With the song to disengage from the Tombstone, and also disengage from the Shape
Shift 2, outside of being a good lane versus Lycan. But what's been going wrong with the
the Naga's we've lost.
Okay, so I know we all have our biases.
Every single Dota player has these heroes
that they have like a love-hate relationship with.
Naga is one of my favorite carries to play.
And before this tournament,
I picked Naga in like a perfect game
and I just felt useless.
And then I was like,
oh, I'm gonna learn something watching the Naga sirens
that we've seen two of them thus far.
And they were in picture perfect games,
one of which was against the Lycan for a nightfall.
And he had a good laning phase.
Like Gork said, it is an absolutely hard
lane counter to Lycan.
But then the Naga just didn't carry the game.
It just feels like the hero, it's like a terror blade, that's melee, that's what it feels like later on.
There was sadly a big difference between this and that game, I mean I'm sad for Nigma and listen, I'm a little biased here maybe.
Of course.
The sad part is that that lane Naga had to deal with both Ember and Lifestealer, which makes a huge difference, right?
Usually against heroes like this you want two counters to be able to deal with them, so because one can kind of be shut down with a grip and or sleep or control, so she gets free reign.
In this game, I really don't know what their pick is going to be to deal with Naga alone, that can't be handled by Vayne.
That's what I'm a little bit worried about.
And they take out the Alchemist, which would have been one of the potential solutions.
Yeah.
Yeah, Alchemist is great against Naga because he buys the Radiance, he usually outpaces her,
and then allows his team to group up around him because Naga does want to split you up.
I think if NIGMA Galaxy is ever allowed to walk down a lane between like 15 to 25 minutes,
Naga isn't great at dealing with five man and they, like Gork said, the other three
heroes are very susceptible to getting ran at.
So I agree entirely that this is much more of a free Naga game than the other one we
watched, but at the same time, I haven't seen this like dodge game work very well for a
lot of teams.
And I do think that they're kind of like one big mistake from losing at any point, but
I do think BB team is capable of running like that crisp execution where they just never allowed nigma to do that
I can see your points Brian. I definitely think BB team might be the team that's very scary into this because their leaning is so strong
They might be able to get away with it
But yeah, often more often than not like split pushing hasn't been working out as well in this tournament
And yeah, if nigma managed to get an early lead and push that this naga could not matter potentially
You're both carry players is spun pickable against Spain because right now nigma have to take some boxes, right?
They need a way to clear illusions, but they also need a hero that can blink stun for them
That's where the Tiny and the Alchemist both get banned because Viper isn't going to be the hero starting these teamfights for you
He just kind of stands there like a magnet
Like can you play Sven or is it too bad of a hero?
The only thing I can think of is the Sumerian Lash right here. That's what I want to say
I was kind of thinking this too. I didn't want to say it though
Yeah, it's it's a very hard answer to the hero
I like Necro is in a similar idea the problem with Sven is it's just honestly just pretty shit hero
Either you go 20-0 or you don't do anything.
And I think the Lush could fit pretty well for them here.
Could solve their issues. We'll see what they want to run though.
I wouldn't mind a Monkey King either.
Like just something that makes it hard for the Naga Siren to walk into you
and also has some AoE.
It wouldn't be a hard counter to Naga and you might have lane issues, but...
Yeah, you're laning with an Undying, so preferably you pick a Range Hero here.
You don't have to, but it would be nice.
Yeah, it's weird, right?
Because most of the Range Heroes don't really deal with Axe Naga very well.
Well, so if you got think you got to kind of pick your poison
I think both routes like you can't choose a hero that synergizes well with undying and as good against PB teens lineup
I think oh
They go for the carry viper. I I was not expecting them to do this
I was specific. Oh, yeah, okay. No, it's what is going on is a carry invoker. Are they
No, that's new
Is it good new what your experience with a carry invoker gork?
Usually it feels like some wind trading stuff going on, but obviously Simeol is a very experienced mid player
and I feel like with an undying support he's going to be able to play his game from safely in the same way.
I don't know if it's enough to deal with Naga, it's a good answer, you have a ton of spells.
His lane shouldn't be too hard, I think they can maybe get away with it, but I'm worried for Nigma and the Strap to be perfectly honest.
Does it take a long time for an Invoker carry to come online?
Like how much of a leeway do they get?
I'll be quite frank with you here.
I have absolutely zero concept of Invoker carry's timings.
It's difficult, honestly.
I don't remember the last time I saw it.
Is there any potential they lane swap?
Like is there any potential that Blornoff is playing the Viper
and Sumail's playing the Invoker mid?
I mean, it could be, Ash.
I think it would make more sense.
It would.
I feel like Viper is one of the best match-ups in the Axe online.
We ran a lot of Viper safely into Axe.
They could do it, but so far we haven't seen that swap yet, right?
Between the players?
No.
But they're capable.
But, you know, anything is possible, as we've seen with some of the series.
And when I see this Invoker carry, I just think about BV very early building on,
like a Bane plus Marana roaming duo.
And Invoker, if he's played from the carry, I feel falls victim to that very easily.
Yeah, I honestly, now that we've lodged it out as much as we can in this short time,
I hope it's a Vyper Carry and Book of Mid. I think otherwise it's gonna feel very awkward for them.
Cool draft though. I like what both teams are doing.
Very unique, very unique. Six days of cooking involved in this one.
True, and very different from our previous series that we've seen as well.
Thank you so much, Gork, for joining us on the draft.
I know you're still here for the rest of the series.
People can check you out on the co-stream and that you're running at the same time.
from the venue with the coolest view for sure we are heading over to our
commentary duo with Nigma Galaxy and BB on stage.
Thank you Shiver, that's right BB team versus Nigma Galaxy a matchup that
well you would initially look at and be like of course BB team yeah doesn't
surprise me they got first in their group they've been very consistent well
they're actually the ones who had to battle through the survival stage and
it's Nigma Galaxy who have been waiting to play these matches for quite some
But Avery, that weight can really test a team, can it?
I always saw it earlier today as Maher in the exit interview talked about it.
It's very tough to regain that momentum after you take a pause.
I feel like you get out of the middle of the tournament.
Other people are advancing, they're figuring out more counters,
feeling what works, and you're just kind of sitting there watching.
So you really have to do your due diligence,
make sure the homework is completed on time,
and then you show up to class, because otherwise you get schooled.
Well, we're certainly going to be seeing some off-medic stuff here for sure, and Sumail
is still going to be rocking the safe lane here on a carry in Boker.
They didn't go for the lane swap, which I honestly was all in for.
Maybe Lornoff is uncomfortable playing carry from that position, but I don't know, I feel
like match-up-wise, it's got to be pretty good.
Viper vs. Axe is a dream.
Forget the leap out of save here.
I kind of agree, but I don't want to see them do that at the same time.
Oh, the Sun Strike! It's gonna land on Save with the Blood Grenade!
He's dead, Omar!
There to collect the first blood, and he'll give chase through the gate after Katomi.
This little pickup does cause double Blood Grenade Sun Strike, but well worth it here.
Katomi was actually... He turned around on the other side. Omar might die.
And it's Katomi with the Brain Zap. Obviously, that's not a 1v1 that Omar actually wins.
And if he had a carry that was willing to come over, they might have gotten that kill, but no such luck.
Oh, good equilibrium for the like and top.
Will be good equilibrium for the axe bottom as well, both the offlaners half way to where these waves are going to meet.
Big question will be how well Lornoff can do mid against this Lena.
I think Lena fares a lot better than most heroes against the Viper, but I do think it is Viper favorite.
If you can end up in a position where you get the high HP and you can zone him off a wave or two,
You gain that level advantage, it can become problematic for Lina, even with the super long attack range.
It really comes down to execution between like that level 2 and 3.
And GPK, he is a master of this hero. I really like how he played it.
We saw him play it the other day, he went the physical build.
Yep.
Mm. Took the physical talent, that's what I like to see.
I think the serial scale is like a truck.
You should be really confident in almost any lake and you have it here.
But does he need to do the scaling here?
Kerry Naga Siren has not been particularly successful. It is supposedly a harder Kerry in the game, but we haven't really seen it come to fruition.
This is a very good Naga Siren.
I almost feel like this draft is split between two ideas. You have the drafts without the Naga, and then you have Naga Siren in here.
Sure.
And how much it's going to change the game, because if I take Naga against the first four picks Nigma had, I'm going to bet on the Naga every single time.
an alien at one core to address it.
Invoker does kind of address it from the lagging,
but he's not that good at pushing the illusions off of the map at all,
so it's a double-edged sword in that regard.
This to me seems like Nigma Galaxy 1
had just hit an all-in timing around that 30-minute mark
where they just take over the map with Forge Spirit,
Wolves, Sunstrike Pressure,
any bushwhack that lands, it's just a kill,
she's gonna go back to base and return with full HP here,
and just kind of ignore the noggin in a sense of like,
we're gonna debilitate your other four heroes in the map so much
that it doesn't matter what your carriers are going to lose this game.
And I can see them hit a stick mid-game timey with this lineup.
It's going to require some speed and some swift execution.
Oh, you died the four spirits to remove the battle hunger. That's pretty nice.
That is nice, but all around the lane is not going very well.
It's part of the reason why GH almost needed to die there,
because Sumail and GH are suffering in this lane.
The constant harassment from this, you know,
this bonus damage that Marana has now off the Celestial Quiver,
combined that with battle hunger, which I've always felt is like a very nice,
hard counter to five position on dying. It's good. Sets your four position up to
actually be able to take that man fight. So that's not the only lane that is
going well. Every single lane is currently being won by BB team. Back to
their lane winning ways it seems. Very tough team. More or not going for the all in on
GPK right now. Who's gonna win it? He is! More or not he is going to win it man. He
knows the fight break. He knows the limits of this hero and he played it
Perfectly it did miss uphill and that always helps
And GBK was wagering a little on that's had a blood grenade as well. They never got to use in this exchange
Another tombstone that's gonna die though this one does get denied by GH, but we're not seeing the tombstone early amount to much here
So another one of those lineups where we see them. Well, we're gonna see a replay of this
Did get up the hill for the last attack. I think barely it's actually pretty close there
That's a Viper who just wins this lane, I just don't think Lena wins a lot of lanes, that convincingly anymore to be honest, the heroes just change too much.
If you're willing to invest in early LSAs and hit a lot of stuns, you can sometimes swing a lot harder, but honestly you're just playing for farm.
You know, if what Lena wants to max out LSA anymore, right, they all want to max out Dragon Slave and just farm up neutral.
For sure.
Don't think this mid lane is that important for VV though, to be honest.
To be honest, I think in a lot of their games they want you to get a snowball and again like this
You want the dog at a free farm for sure
You want him getting soloxp and you want this lane to go better if it can.
If the Sun Trek Atlantic can make all the difference and it does help Sumail get the kill on Miro
And he won't be run down where otherwise he might have actually there's a lead.
He's still thinking about it. Maybe he goes to the leap and he caught him.
Underneath the tower there's no verify or nothing left.
Say, will actually TP out of the nation.
die to just the tower with nobody there to collect the experience but decides
otherwise. Nice pickups on this Axling putting his pressure to this invoker
that's very slow to come online once you get there you're the fastest farmer in
the game but it's gonna take a while for Sumail to get there and meanwhile
Naga's gonna accelerate at a very nice rate you can do some serious damage in
this game with the illusions because there's just not that much illusion
clear and he has great core matchups this is one of the hardest counters to
like in the game one of the best counters against the Viper in the game
there's not really a way to itemize your way out of this hole so you have to
make all these other at matchups count that much more right if you are digging
my galaxy here start trying to land some extra sun strikes on the map this is a
tough yearly game. Got to tell me he came in with the sleep but immediately Omar was
right there behind him, woke him up and they get the kill in the bane.
Lornaf doesn't take too much harassment for it and he is gonna get
But Tango's delivered and also given a Tango.
It's a double bracer Viper you're trying to gank.
If the arrow connected on the sleep, maybe you can all in that kill, but you do have
Laguna.
And that feels like a big missing component.
Tombstone dropped here for 6 minute power room.
It's an amp damage, which Lornaf obviously Viper mid-tilted to go bottom, so there's
no saving this one.
DDT more likely to just dodge him.
I would say one very big component of Lornaf being able to win this matchup and winning
that one-on-one fight was the fact that he was fairing out salads constantly this lane, right?
Because that's part of the way Lina wins the matchup is Dragon Slave harassing you.
Dick cost him some network. Yes, most certainly. So he's not really winning the economy here,
but he won the XP and this can turn into an advantage. You can find a couple more
kills on GPK here in the early game where start the pressures of towers,
which this lineup definitely pressures towers. Like an undying Viper where the Voker
meteor hammer flush forward spirits there's gonna be some tier ones melting across the map here
Another reason why bb winning lanes could relieve some early game objective pressure for them by more
Space and time for naga to get the levels come online and start pushing the waves back into nigma galaxy
Wasting trends get split
So this seems like a nice marauder game
He's got a lot of setup to play with and god tell me he's about to provide that setup
Sneaking around getting a nice ward around that lotus and now goes to the pounce
It's the nightmare pulls him back. They kill the four spirit as well
So no way to wake up some mail here
We guarantee landing the arrow the fall up call they drop the tombstone
But if anything this is just gonna be more bounty for BB team to get two kills and now trying to deal with the tombstone
Omar hoping to get the kill on the axe at least but can't do enough damage
It doesn't want to give up another kill, but it might be too late for that with the leap coming in a star storm
Omar gets low push whack up at a second arrow lands and he got the double off the brain set finishing blow from Katomi
That is a massive turn for BB team
He maxed Arrow. So when you land these arrows they hurt. Yes sir. Not the conventional build,
maybe not something Nick McAllister expected to be skirmishing into, but again you're so
much Arrow setup in this game. This sleep is a little unreliable with how many summons are in
this game, but all your other stuns are amazing here and Naga is one of the best. You always
have that sleep-Arrow combination that is undodgeable. Something to think about as we go into these
later fights. Yeah, I think that's what was so cool about the way BBT played that, right? They
They made sure the other two just playing the lane killed the Forge Spirit as the Bane came in from behind.
We'll watch your gold on top too if you can clear out some of the summons in this game.
Sure, they get the Forge Spirit, the Tombstone, and all stacks up.
They're gonna make their way back down here again looking for the sleep setup in the arrow.
And Omar's not here this time around, so this is likely another free pick off though.
Nightmare does get taken off a bit early.
Arrow misses.
Not that time.
So, an earned charge on save here.
Good invest, a point in the moonlight shadow.
As Kirtich getting forced out of top lane.
It's about the best you're gonna do if you're a divide.
How do you play this lane?
Is there anything that you change about playing light game
when you're matched up against Naga-San?
Not really. I think you're just playing to do first pick light and things,
which is go after the supports, go after the lina,
try and find these nice pushy targets and ignore the Naga in the process.
So he's not playing against Naga, he's playing against Lita.
Yeah, for sure. That's gonna be the number one hero he saw in the game long.
If you have a choice of connection here, you're gonna take that every single time.
You see, GBK, he does not go boots to travel here, he goes power trades.
That is a big sacrifice.
That's signaling that they need to fight earlier and defend these towers and joint fights.
Be a little tankier with this, Lena, rather than I'm gonna invest in playing the map more.
Of course, Naga helps pick up that side too, so you don't need to have as much map movement, but
This hero, it definitely feels worse without the boots of travel, so if you feel pressure to go this route, it does signify that BBR,
they're expecting the fight to come sooner rather than later, and it's just all about buying time for this Naga Siren to come online.
One lane since still had stacks, ooh that's gonna feel real good for BBT. Look at the stacks they have!
And apparently, Nigma Galaxy have done nothing, and they're still losing out on lane kills around the massive, a nightmare arrow into a bean script.
You sure you can throw some damage on GPK and he might even die for it here, take down from the lifer strike
thanks to Smael hitting that sun strike. So they do get a turnaround here, but again, like,
BB Team are making more moves with their support, setting up more kills while also stacking more at the same time.
I mean, they're hitting it both ways.
Nice early game for them. Naga on top, it's kind of all you want here.
As long as you're finding a couple cheeky kills slowing this game down,
The big moves are going to have to come from Devon.
The light game can really speed this game up with some tower back stabs.
Once the helm of the overlords on the battlefield is a difficult creep for BV to deal with,
they don't really have any casual spells that they're only doing or control it
that they don't want for the teamfight.
You're going to get swarmed in this game.
You need to be prepping for it. You need to defend these towers as long as possible.
That light mean bringing Kiritich in before he's ready to have a large impact in this game.
Yeah, I'd be able to sleep you out of a fire, stall up one of these lichen oldies
But the fire is gonna be strong on this map. All eyes on where this lichen goes and what you can make happen with his timings
It's gonna drive
Drive the victory here for the McAlps. He is they're down 3k gold
But a lot of that is again on the Naga siren in the supports. Your cores are all looking
Completely fine here. Hammer is up for Sumail as well. So some of that global tower pressure is gonna start to come online
You can only defend so many spots here
with these Naga illusions.
So we've had two different games here at EWC
featuring the Naga Siren.
It did not work for Rora.
It did not work for Team Spirit.
We did have a different build.
I think Nightfall's build was kind of interesting.
Second item, Heart, rather than what I think
is much more conventional, which is Manta, Orchid, Bloodthorn.
Do you have a preference here?
Is this...
What kind of game dictates a Heart build early on Naga?
I feel you only go really hard if you're confident your other two cores carrying some of the damage and scale load
Considerably, okay, you're a look when I go out with black shooter, and yeah, that is quite the long-distance poke
They're able to employ GP K
Now what are you looking at like was that like a helmet on creep and like and scouting about the ace or a barna
Put some pressure on him, but the moonlight shadow will allow the lean into disengage
Well, it's the fastest Viper's gonna be this game, unless he gets Wolt-Bitten later on.
That's true, that's a scary thought.
Yeah, they do not have Wolt-Bite heroes.
No, that's for sure.
But they will have a very good Humb to the Overlord tithing device, the most-quarantir-o on Niggla Galaxy,
besides what maybe I just jinxed him.
Because that is the bean script that will not be stopped.
So, easy kill for Kierdnitch.
Hey, walks up, grips him, no counter play.
He's big to take that lichen off the map.
While he had ult available, while he's pushing towards the hem of the overlord,
there will always be some tower pressure in return.
No doubt, no doubt.
That's what this Migma line-up guarantees.
Just keep running at these buildings, putting the pressure on BB
to invest in some early items and then win those teamfights.
Aerolands? Decent damage.
Saves doing work in this game. He's really pulling a lot of creep wave soft towers, airing a lot of forge creeps, killing some tombstones.
Some of the sick old moronic utility could be nice in a game like this.
Even Moonlight Shadow. Moonlight Shadow is a decent spell.
Like Gen Summons lineups. If it allows you to disengage. It can be really frustrating to play against.
Saves!
Like even this kind of stuff.
One paperweight has no more leaps left, so with the damage amplification...
Yeah, he's dead.
He's very dead. He's not getting out of here.
of here and there goes that up playing tower so they can also take this big
tower in the galaxy can start funneling some more heroes into the
triangle area maybe start taking back some of this network lead there's also
the 14-minute wisdom trying to play for right now they may not have tombstone
but some mail is kind of spooky to walk into you're gonna try for it anyway
Naga sirens gonna go for it on the other side at the same time let's go I'm still
up some years gonna take a lot of damage off this one but some mail seeing some
heroes seeping in, does not want to stick around.
Miro, oh, nice, four-staffed for GPK,
but the zombies will still do their work.
They get that kill.
Defy secures his own wisdom shrine,
so the wisdom shrines are split,
but costing the axe is life.
It's got to feel good for Nigma Galaxy,
and yet, as I say that, I just noticed
the net worth went from 3k to 4k,
so even when they're losing, DDT is still winning.
And look at who it's on.
This Naga Siren is completely out of control.
When I say completely out of control,
that might be an understatement.
He has 200 CS.
Yeah, how the hell did he get this far up?
This is a godly efficiency performance.
He's been farming back camps plus jungle, plus the wave,
plus some summons, plus that like and kill.
Took the tower.
Killed some howl of Dom creeps as well,
saw that a couple times.
I mean, he is gigafarm.
This is bad news for Nigma Galaxy
if they can't speed this game up right now
because his timings are out of control.
So you really have to make this mid-collapse work
with the like and oldie, with his helm of the overlord.
Find the Lena, find the Bane, swarm these towers,
drag BV into bad engagement before they're ready to set up.
They're not really gonna find any of them here.
Maybe they get the supports at best.
It's Katelmy, and save is already able to get the leap away.
Sunstrike lands to Mal, gets the extra bonus here,
and the mid tower is going to fall.
This pressure has to keep up, though.
I mean, this almost feels like a game.
NIGMA Galaxy, do they have to close this out
like 25 minutes considering now that Naga Siren is up by so much you're not
really ever gonna stop her she's gonna keep funneling the game I think the
ideal game for thing but is it ends at that 30 minute you just go high ground
drop a tombstone the summons go in you could throw a lacquerty on the viper
you have some long range disabled from this invoker if the Lena steps up you
can make that high ground work annoying against the Naga she can always saw him
your tombstone and stuff like this but you're gonna have to hit a tiny
He's not chasing in.
Here it is.
He's cut across the map trying to get in here.
They have the fiend's grip on it.
Sumail, nobody here to stop it.
That best GH tries to give him some heals.
Sumail's now on the run.
Safe.
Does have a leap.
He's going to chase after him.
He is.
Leaps after him.
Drops, wards, and spots.
That's Sumail's too far out.
V-Vol-Valina is just going to get the easy kill on the undying.
Very important that Sumail gets out of there.
He actually died to that fiend's grip.
It would have been terrible.
I think he hit Miro with some strike.
Maybe at the end of that, too, as he was running away.
Oh, yeah, got really low.
He had that ward on the high ground.
Those are the kind of fights Nigma wanted to take,
but with Naga showing up no like at all,
a little hard to make the long fight work.
And now we're seeing the Naga already get involved,
just because he's so farmed here to judge the confidence
to join these early engagements.
Yeah, it doesn't even have York had finished
and is like playing to team fights.
That's pretty cool that he's been.
He does have it finished now.
This might be one of the fastest
working man to time as I've seen and the pick offs continue. Every time it's
like an ult is on cooldown or enigma galaxy back up and it's with the farm
maybe you're gonna look for pick offs because they don't have to sit there
farm lanes. Like, how long it can deal with the map?
It's set up in a way just as easy for enigma galaxy because of the
sun strike so any kind of bush, wax, sharp shooter, a combination of burst
damage can get pretty easy kills on the supports for sure. Yeah, supports are
really scary in this game. You see the squirrel peek out? You're like, Dear God, no, get me
out of here. You see this bane coming around the tree line? No, please don't sleep me.
There's a lot of threat behind these little setups in this game, which is pretty cool.
It forces you to play the right on the edge of that threat, you know, to get the next wave
out or to get that deep ward out without going too far and just getting stunned once
and you're 100 to zeroed. There's very little room.
I mean, Dubai can't even play lane. In fact, he's getting behind here.
Look at the setup, it's so casual.
Yeah, now it's not even a support setting up.
It's heritage himself.
You get in range, he's going to ensnare you,
and then maybe there's a bane behind him.
Maybe there's a Murana that's ready to air you.
All teams are trying to abuse this.
But it's so much easier for BB team to do it, right?
Because the Naga siren is just pushing all the lanes faster
than Nigma Galaxy can keep up.
Generally, Naga prevails in this dialogue.
Unless you can find him and kill him a couple of times.
There's another grid.
Not the highest damage on the fall of the year, but it's enough.
Just with the Naga himself.
Now you're gonna kill the creep.
So he's...
I mean, what is this network chart?
What has happened?
He has almost 300 CS on top of all the extra kills and gold from the creeps.
Of course.
He's almost had 700 GPM.
And he was a good Naga game and then go back for the Bloodthorne.
Alright, so you know, the game state clearly favoring BB Team.
You're saying, you know, generally Naga Siren's gonna prevail in this kind of game, so how
do you shake it up if you're Nigma Galaxy?
Cause what if the one right now is certainly not working as G.H.
Well, he's gonna die again.
This time it's a call into an arrow.
They just can't get the lanes out, they can't control the map right now.
If he could die here though, that would be a massive turnaround, but he's gotta get this kill fast, otherwise Mero's gonna run all the way.
Meteor? Meteor? It does all the damage, not quite enough now that they've got the call on him.
Now all of BB Team is here for the big punish.
Money and bones, GPK walks away with both here.
Those are those kills you need to get with the invoker, with this last pick invoker.
GPK, he just went early, treads Hurricane Pike, it saves him extra HP, he's just playing
T. Polina.
I'm just gonna go in, tank a bunch of spells, be obnoxious, I'm not the real carry in this
game, my Naga's gonna carry me.
It'd be interesting to see if he continues this trend with his itemization, like maybe
he actually just plays more of a, you know, frontline obnoxious role than the traditional
carry Lina here.
Yeah.
I almost feel like they can't play with Sunstrike's energy.
I kind of feel like Simeo needs to join his team.
Now that's hard to say because he's trying to deal with lanes and stuff like that,
but it feels like Viper could wink on dying.
Like, it's only three heroes.
Vayne is easily able to, you know, set up Nightmare's fiend scripts into arrows constantly,
or it's a call into an arrow.
Like, there's too much.
You need this overwhelming power that another core can bring you.
It has to be Viper getting involved.
It's just really hard when you don't have a mobility item.
You have no mobility spell. You're very slow.
And every time you make a move like this, the lane's going.
So you really have to find something if you're committing lore off into these plays,
because then he just falls behind on farm.
He's gonna be the poorest core in the game.
We all know what the poorest core viper looks like. It's not fun to play.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there's a moonlight shadow, right?
It's like, these plays are just so hard to land because of what's happening around the map.
Your best bet in this game is to force flights through objectives that BV Field pressure to
contest.
Either Tormentors, Roshan's, Tier 2's, High Ground, things like this, right?
These smoke plays that are just going across the map into open areas, they're almost never
going to land and if they do land it's going to be on some target that BV are okay conceding
for what they're getting on the map.
Right now Naga's just taking a Tier 2.
So again, you have to make some quick calls here if you're a Nigma Galaxy or you have
fart done. Every time I look at him he's like another 2k ahead of the next highest hero.
Somal has been setting up this for quite some time and they will finally pound. So the promise
the ancient stack already got taken and all this attention is away from Kiritich who's in the
top lane successfully taking a tier 2 tower. So now if you go for Roshan, go for Tormentor,
now Kiritich, he might be threatened in your base. Right, at least you get the light and solo Tormentor.
Yeah, that's a nice shard off at 2 with the boomerang. But you're going to lose outpost control
Instantly gobbled up here by save people under right how much map control this early outpost gives you makes it way harder to contest
Roshan way harder to control your ancient area
If the pain dies you can just instant TP back here right five seconds. He'll be on your side of the map
It counts for a lot now fast this roaches going down big the galaxy not in a position to contest it
You can't contest you can always just knock us on board here. Yeah
See what they give this to I think the nog is bad enough
You actually might just give it to Kiritich, but normally you're giving this to your playmaker here.
Yeah, is it even possible for Kiritich to die with this early? Probably not, I don't think so.
I'll give it to G.K. Why not?
So now you've got two untouchable cores on the side of BB Team.
Make my galaxy! Well, it sounds like we know. There's just no way this is an ending game in 30 minutes time, so...
Nope.
Now I feel like you're on the other side of the equation.
And now it's like, all right boys, let's see if we can make it to 70 minutes and the game starts getting real weird.
You have to make this game weird. You have to scale really hard, get to the ultra late game in Boker,
get some hexes up, get some saves up, like Tombstone Shark will be big in this game.
You do have some counter plays against the like sleep arrow, song arrow combinations where you can kind of bail that guy out with the undying.
Maybe you can look for some more stuff like that, but this game is going to get real hard in the next 10 minutes.
This is the period you're going to have to survive against the pressure that Kiritage is going to be able to create here.
You can go butterfly into Bloodthorn. He's just going to be an absolute menace.
And you have a lot of threat with these other heroes. These other heroes can just hunt. They can permanently hunt the map.
Oh, broken on the low ground, but it is Sumail. They still got the call on a banner. Sentry laid on the right-hand side.
They do a v-tombstone save. Fiend's grip placed onto the Lycan. Sumail's going to plop out and hit the good tornado.
But he's got to keep his distance away from the lead-on now.
Goodbye, let loose. From this fiends grip is going to try and chase down GPK, but it's hard to be able to keep on top of these heroes. Meanwhile, Kiritich is right in the middle of everybody, and he's kind of untouched. The call is long enough, they're going to focus him down, the rest of the fake McAllency have been kicked away by Kiritich, and they're going to make sure they get more kills off of this one Kiritich with the aggressive song to get two more heroes. It's the like and first, and the zombie second.
Such a tough fight. The second the Naga comes in, it looks like that fight's over.
Should be able to clean up GH here. Yeah, until you'll get that in the air.
Painting Omar's. I feel like he's got to be careful hanging around this area at all.
And honestly, I think that fight was kind of awkward for BB.
There were a lot of things that just weren't... It did look like it was super convincing for them.
The Tombstone was on one hit and no one killed it and just got to exist for another 10 seconds.
Like the save on the Invoker was pretty big at the start.
Just no one's dying. Like you're not able to put any damage into the turnaround here.
You know, this grip on the lightning is good, but it got canceled and the bane dies.
All of this looks pretty okay for Nigma. You're pretty high HP on everybody here in Vulture.
He's low, but he can play the outskirts of the fight here.
Your zoning heals off with the tombstone that no one wants to kill.
To fight coming back and like stops chasing Lena, Lena has the agency comes back.
Like you're not challenging the dog as such.
Heritage way too strong right now. You still had an Aegis on that, Lena, if you do chase it.
I think there's just no easy targets for Devine to fight like that.
Who are you going after? Two lives on Lena, a Naga Siren that you can't fight or an axe that is just going to call you?
Yeah.
And his network continues to explode. 21,000.
Chasing that thousand GPM marker.
Yeah, 850 GPM now.
And Lena's there at second.
So, GPK is still going to scale.
That's the scary part.
It's a solid Lina game too.
If you can get that, I think the Lycan is your biggest counter, but the Lycan is debilitated
in this type of game.
You can't rely on the Vibe to just chase this Lina out of the fight every time.
And he went Silver Edge Second, they threw the gem all into him already level 18, so
he's kind of cooking in terms of a pick off threat right now.
You also get that nice break against the Viper.
Yeah, very strong.
a viper who's trying to go back for Maelstrom.
Maelstrom pick up in like, what, 29, 30 minutes?
Something, but honestly, it's not going to change anything.
No, it's not.
And it's actually settling into a game that you hope is long,
because it's your only chance.
Or maybe you hope you can get out of this one.
Yeah, go next, you know.
I use one of those games where it's just going to be an uphill battle.
You can slog it out somehow.
I think it's pretty clear from this that they got out drafted, but would you agree that
I think NICMA Galaxy looks a little uncomfortable with the fact that Samail is playing a carry
that isn't actively setting up kills with them?
You know?
Like, sure, he's providing a Sun Strike.
He's still sort of forced, but he's not actually moving around the map making calls about where
they want to go and stuff.
I think it's hard for me to judge that when this game is just so decided by the Naga pick.
Yeah, that's fair.
I could see this in Boker maybe doing that.
It's definitely going to be a little slower than something like The Alchemist,
and I agree that hasn't been what has worked for them the best,
but I can see it work out. He's a master of the hero.
This game is just so skewed in terms of what should have been.
It looked like when you can do this, you just run your carry in and set everything up.
Yeah, that initiation was walk into tower.
That's what they have to do.
And it worked.
And Nikla Galaxy, they have, like, they killed an untying underneath this tier two.
Okay, maybe they have a chance here. No, no, there goes.
One little four step and that chance is gone.
A glimmer of hope on that stun.
Yeah.
I mean, have you seen Keratich B below half HP this entire game?
No.
And I'm not.
You need him.
Maybe he shouldn't have gone hard.
He's not doing anything for him.
That is a funny way to put that, yeah.
Butterfly, he wants a sight next.
You could build whatever you want.
What a performance from him, honestly, in this game, one.
He's really good on these micro heroes. We saw what he could do with the Arc Warden as well.
Like, you forget about it, but he has some of these pocket cheese picks. He's very comfortable on.
Gonna run to the Ghost Walk. Maybe he's right outside the base.
You have to kill people to kill me.
No one is here to protect him.
Saves is going to double leap in for Staff trying to break the pushwack, and he's still
got off the song, and he's making a run for it.
And I think he's gotten out.
The heart is already healed him up.
He's going to turn around, maybe kill the GHI dying off of the illusions.
See, Will.
I would be tempted to GG out right there.
I mean, that was your absolute best shot.
They're not going to get a better opportunity than that to kill PB Team Scaring.
Now the sleep starts coming through, he's regened back up, you can start to look for the teamfight.
Turning to arm to guy used and he doesn't stop the Team Script of Bane so nothing will stop it.
Delilah actually somehow got out, Mantis makes a run.
What a call. Nice call from Miro.
That's going to set up a fight for death and maybe some mail as well to get both of them.
From bad to worse. Too many opportunities for these BB stunners to just find openings
where you can park your digital in the front line and everybody's attention is focused
on the Naga siren.
I loved it pointed out here to his success. We talked about him earlier today. Conversation
about, you know, BB team have had some like very high reputation carries, right, night
fall pure, guys who are how Harold is some of the best carries in the world, perhaps
at some point in time, the best carry in the world, and Keratid just come in and it feels
like this BD team is showcasing more than maybe any of the previous rosters.
They're stronger, they're more united, the vision is there, just comes down to the execution
and they are absolutely executing this game.
He's still hitting all the buttons just right, little manticombs there in the bush whack,
continue to hit the tier 3s, he's level 20, so his illusions are already a problem for
or Nygma Galaxy add one more illusion to the table and it begins to become overwhelming.
I'm just following his GPM. He's about to hit 1k here, which is just disgusting.
Almost there.
This is one of the most efficient Naga games I think I've ever seen. That's not an overstatement.
It's genuinely incredible.
Then I got gifted to him. I mean, you pick like a biker, you give him the Naga, that's...
You're already down two cores that don't do anything in terms of interacting with this
hero.
Sides of make my galaxy having such a stylized draft many times right away
I didn't know what they're gonna be rocking you know what Lorna. Oh, they were ready to jam that nogga there
Yeah, like they were thinking about it
Because the thing is you're watching that draft and they are getting out drafted like I liked what Nigma had
I don't think this pain Marana
Lena opener was really threatening a game plan, but then you just got this one here throwing in and all of a sudden it comes together, right?
Yeah, what's funny is that?
We talk about how drafting is a little less reactionary than it used to be right older style
Dota was a lot more about counterpicking and they've got what it's the absolute OGs of
Counterpicking and drafting on the side of Nigma Galaxy and their coaching girl
They still kind of got got great everybody. It's got nowadays. That's true
Maybe it's then it's back a little bit. It's all what that sort counterpicked it earlier. Yeah
Still not out of it yet, they are doing a better job at pushing out some of the map
right now and not giving up the pick offs.
Game slowed down for BB after they took that mid lane.
You can get some invoker rat action going without getting caught.
Definitely slow this game down a little bit.
Tormenter on spawn.
And, uh, a Roche on to take not long after.
Goes to the Fiend.
Nasty piece.
To the other side of the map to get to the Roche faster.
Charity by himself is keeping two planes pushed in at all times, and they still hold control of the outpost.
You can just sit here and pump illusions into the top two lanes.
And there's almost no way to do anything about this unless you can smoke your whole team
Right into him on a camp before song goes off
Very difficult to do when he has so much information to play off of and straighten the roach pit
Here's which is done waiting for his team. He's been started without a
Shard for a cheapy cake. Oh, we got fast that goes down
And another Aegis for Chippie Kay. So, Kiritich is truly feeling himself. He didn't die before,
and that a little excursion almost inside of the Radiant Base. He says, I'm never gonna die.
Okay, he's just boldly walking up straight into the entirety of the team, and he's gonna
song! They did not want that Naga Siren at all. Maybe they even thought it was an illusion,
But as it stands, it is a perfect initiative.
Straight to the back line.
It's going to be Omar.
Two supports down.
And he's already dead at the start of it.
You've got Devai blocked in by illusions.
He can hardly handle this.
You have to get the stun on Kirit.
Here comes the meteor.
But of course, Dev gets him out of Bucks of Damage.
And the call comes in.
Nero hits the male.
Here comes Michael down.
Kirit actually does die.
They get him.
There's an opening.
Your chance in this game to make something happen.
Unfortunately, the rest of the PV team
seems to be too strong.
Divy Lama uses Tire Eat the Shape Ship to try and get that kill on Kiritage.
They use the Vibeck on Amar just to be a part of it.
Now they have nothing left for four other members of the BBT.
By the time you take Noggedown, you're already dead off pretty much everybody.
As the items are just flowing in here.
You get an ax on the Marana just to add some extra DPS.
You're gonna have an ax on Pain at this point.
And the song setup, it works really well with this lineup.
You have two stuns that you can throw out instantly and a net, just lock these heroes down, not enough BKVs or A on this early in the game.
That'll be Mega's here.
Denaga will sacrifice herself once to push this game over the edge.
There will be another hole.
Mega's, okay.
Make my galaxy are gonna be up before the Barracks down this flinger.
Yeah, BB Team just, you know, no reason to take a awkward fight without their carry.
For sure.
But yeah, what a setup.
Yeah, you're gonna stun the Undying here, you're gonna instare the middle lane, he gets arrowed.
So both supports can take out without casting a single spell.
And also here, you could just back off of your BB.
Like, I think you can end up in a world where you get Kiritich out of there.
It's not just take it anyway.
Big Big Galaxy trying to play into their Triangle, arrowed his land of the Sharp, shooting up Woodwick.
Oh, what a call from Miro!
Elan's another two-man catching both the cores that were trying to run over him in ancient GTE from Nigma Galaxy.
This game, they've been beat in this one for a while, I believe.
It was just the preamble of rolling out the red carpet for DDT into the radiant base.
What a sick Naga performance. It's one thing to play Naga in a free game and make it look good.
It's another to do everything perfectly to where there is no escape in that game for Niga Galaxy.
If timings are too good, if he's 3,004 or if he dies once or twice, doesn't farm the jungles
efficiently, give a lot more window to maybe snowball that game.
You know, you get a Roshan, you're pushing a tier 2 or tier 3, you can threaten something.
He's just so fat, so fast, there is almost no hope.
He's joining fights at the 15 minute mark.
I mean, what are you supposed to do?
You're forced to interact with that hero so quickly, you don't have time to really make
anything happen against the rest of the squad, so sick pick here from BB and the boys as they're
They're gonna be a game-off in this series, man.
That felt a little free.
It did.
Power of a very strong draft,
Nigma Galaxy, you know,
they've already coming into this,
maybe a little bit slower,
because they haven't played in a couple days,
having to play game one against that kind of
cheese pick in the first place.
That's a rough place to be, but,
this is now the true test of a team, right?
Whether or not you can,
especially under pressure of single elimination,
you know, wipe that game one out of your mind,
learn from it, okay?
Just drafting. Dressed your openers a little bit, so your draft is in so open to that kind of pick up.
And, uh, coming to game two, try to be as strong as you can.
It goes both ways. If you're BB, you're very happy about this win. It was very convincing.
Almost didn't have to work for it, but at the same time, Nigma can look at that and go like, hey, we got cheese pits.
It's a write-off.
It's a, it's a drafting. They didn't outplay us. It's not like we got out team fought in this game.
It's just, all these situations are near impossible to play.
We go game 2, we can reset. We're not going to get cheesed again, hopefully.
Hopefully.
And we get to play some Dota, and we know how good we've been playing this event.
So I expect to see them bounce back. I think game 2 will be close.
You know, at least be a game where they get to teamfight and show us what has made them so good this event.
And so that's just what you have to go into that game in terms of mindset with.
You know, this is...
It's not fair, but she's not fair.
It's not fair.
It's not, despite the death the Heritage did have, he entered the game on a 1,068 gp.
Hell yeah, that's a Naga performance right there though.
That's what I was saying, like, you can still play this hero at lossmothergames' event,
you know how good is Naga, you know, free Naga game on a Naga player?
With a lineup that can abuse the Net in the sleeps, it's good.
Drafting is everything at Build Down, we see that in Game 1.
Not a fair fight, they say, and I think Brian as a Naga Siren enthusiast, and having been
let down by all the Nagas this tournament, I think this is probably a breath of fresh
air for you.
Yeah, I feel like I'm getting about the inverse of the Nigma fans right now, Sheaver, for
Naga Siren.
I mean, yeah, the hero had been picked in theoretically good games so far, we'd seen
it twice and it did not win in those games, but it did feel like, you know, what I said
What happened in the draft was, I think BB team is the team that is capable of executing
a hero like this because Naga, she either controls the map or she doesn't.
There's no trading of the map.
It's always very 100% one team or the other and the execution from them was flawless.
Save on the Marana was everywhere.
They had multiple setups for them and we were a bit skeptical of opening up three ranged
heroes with the Bane, Marana and the Lena, but they tied that draft together very nicely
with their last two picks, Mira.
really did and I think I knew coming into the series today that baby team would be a big
challenge for nigma because they had been on a break but also they're the only team
remaining from their group. You can make a case for their group maybe not giving them
the best practice in the first place and half of Dota is the draft. Like saying oh we gotta
draft it we'll get him next time. Well you're gonna have to win the draft next time too.
What have you prepared for their heroes because I do think this GPK Lina creates issues within
the draft that have to be talked about and solved and if I were to elaborate on that
the issues are, it forces heroes like Viper and Sniper from the mid lane, and then if
you take out this tiny alchemist that allow you to kind of cooperate with Viper and Sniper,
so Mel doesn't have the carry hero pool, let's say a Toro.
Yeah, and then we end up with a very unique invoker on the carry roll now.
I know this Naga ended up dominating all.
Objectively speaking, invoker from the carry roll, Ryan, is there a future for it?
I don't think there's a future for it.
I also like I hate to look at that draft and say like to criticize the pick
We were talking behind the scenes that like we do think a hero like Sven might have been better
But when you know, there's a problem in the draft that's unsolved
That's most of time when teams on first pick win the draft is on the pick where Naga came out
You have to kind of pull out of your bag somewhere deep down where you're like
I haven't reached this far in a while
But we're gonna like pull out of here that's off meta and a lot of like whatever your specialty is whatever you've played throughout your career
That's what you're gonna pick the bag from and a normal care like a stored carry player would just pick a spin
You know, but Sumail he's played most of his career as a mid laner
So it doesn't surprise me that when game gets weird when the drafts a bit off that you that you do this on Sumail
But I also think like Nira said they were kind of exposed with like the limits of their draft the limits of their hero pool and
Something that when you're swapping roles when you've only been a team for a couple months
that can definitely be a tiebreaker against a team like BB who's been together for the entire year.
I mean, I do think just watching how that draft unfolded in that game won,
I think you can't be put in a position where you're last picking your carry hero
because BB are going to create problems for you to solve.
And if you're working with maybe ranged heroes plus Tiny Elk as your tempo carries,
then you're just going to have to get it early and maybe tank a badmatch up or two.
What role normally is the biggest like problem solver?
Is there a specific role for that?
I would actually argue it's based on the hero that's being picked.
Oddly enough, most of Naga's, like I looked at her carry matchup, or looked at her matchups
on DotaBug just statistically, and her worst carry matchup is Finn, but he's actually her
15th worst carry matchup, like, or matchups in the game.
Like there's 14 heroes that do better against her and they're all like mid laners and some
off laners, so I think every carry or every hero in the game has different roles that
counter them.
heroes like Naga and PL, it's most of the mid laners like Ember, the Lush Rack, the
off laners like Darkseer, Sand King, Underlord, you know, the AOE, can't really fight into
them, reveals the illusion, or reveals the real one amongst the illusions very easily.
And yeah, as a carry player, if I'm looking at a Naga pick like that, there's not too
many options that say yes is going to be getting all the ones that are good are bad
against the Bane, they will die to that their single target.
So it's a really tough spot to be in.
Yeah, and that Bane was overall first pick and we saw that Bane shine together with the Marana who on position four
We've not seen shine that often, but save definitely makes it work
I believe that you've got some examples with that
Yeah, we talked about the draft
But I want to look at specific examples where BV really made this draft shine and I talked about Katami in his vein
But he really is so good on this hero here
We'll see this nightmare plus arrow set up the first rotation
he makes, he goes to the gate around minute 7, gets the nightmare, and save is ready with
the arrow.
And you see this combination early on the draft, you have to be ready for it, there's
not that much counterplay.
And again, if I were to look back at the draft, that Undying could have been a rainmaster
or something, something with a more reliable save.
And in the mid lane, we see another setup here, a nice staff was happening on the side
too, but we get to see the nightmare into arrow and just how easily it gives BB that
fighting chance in that early game, they just used it very effectively.
And the cool thing that BB Team did with their draft is it wasn't just the Bane-Marana combination.
If we look at the next clip now, it's going to be that their Nagasauron also enables their Marana.
And Marana's a hero that's been criticized a lot this EWC, but if you can enable her within the draft,
like, look at the power she can do in this midgame.
Everyone that gets stunned just gets caught out.
Yeah, there's a reason most Maranas, I think, were going Max Starfall first.
It's because she's kind of like a pseudo utility, wants to get her own items.
Some people were going for like some damage build with the aggs. We saw
Greed's in our previous series, but say if he just straight up maxed the arrow
That's like how good their setup was in this game. He had a 1-4-1 build. So
It's I think it's really important
I think it's difficult, but it's really important even as panelists like and everyone watching that we're all gonna have our biases
Naga didn't look good for me for the first two games are watching where Rana has not been very successful throughout this tournament
But it really does matter whose hands it's in and I don't think it's just save
if it's also like conceptually the whole team of BB team
and how they approach this hero.
Yeah, and we know that Naga wasn't really properly answered
in the game we just witnessed,
but Naga was one of the later picks in the draft.
So when you see an opening of a Bane
and you don't address that, that's a problem.
That's where you want to see,
Nigma Galaxy got addressed, right Effie?
Absolutely, she was.
I mean, Bane plus Marana, just a single target save.
And while Undying can give you that later in the game,
that's with the assumption that you're gonna get a shard
early on and be able to save with your teamstone.
There are heroes that give that to you more clearly,
with the number one being Ringmaster.
And maybe there's a lot to think about in their draft here.
And I'm sure Nigma are looking at this
and just cringing all around.
Maybe it's just a warm-up game.
A lot of teams sometimes need a game one
to get back into it.
And we did say they had a six-day break.
Yeah, it's like we have to acknowledge
the reality of the break, but you also have to do all you can
to not use it as an excuse for a team like Nigma.
I think Gork made the, I don't know if it was a joke
or coping mechanism of the copium
that he's been huffing all year with,
or the last couple of years being a Nigma fan.
And going into game two, this doesn't bode well for them.
I think we've kind of yet to see in a team
like really strategically pulled back in a series,
but I think there is a lot to learn from this draft
and the matter is like, we mentioned the Naga pick,
you mentioned opening with the Bane, there's clear,
like I found that these types of stuff
It tends to be Domino's, like it starts with the Bane and then you don't have an answer for the Marana
and then now you don't have an answer for Naga, you can't answer it all at once.
So I would like to just see the more direct answers. I think sometimes it is as simple as that, like Mira said.
It's not like Bane, Marana surprising, it's not like Naga surprising into Lycan.
These are historically just bad matchups or good synergies.
And you know, Kerl, he's been around for so long, he knows this stuff.
I do want to praise BV Team as well.
They played really well. We saw how effectively they used their combinations, but they made very minimal mistakes this game too.
Because, again, Dota is not just drafts. There were moments where they could have overextended, but they didn't.
There were moments where Kirito took the Zaga Siren and was catching three heroes with a song on the side and setting up for an epic team fight.
And I really like that this GPK Lina has entered the picture, because it changes a lot of ways that you have to think about approaching BB team.
And it allows for a hero like Naga to be picked because you have scaling from that mid lane.
lane and he's the one guy I've seen who when snapfire was popularized everyone else was going boots of travel
but he would go treads on snap and he would be walking at tier one towers playing a more of a
Active almost like menacing range tier on the map
And then he has that extra 200 day or 200 HP from the treads and the casters were talking about it during the game
But that played a huge role in some of the times where he was more of the point of contact because you have an axe that wants to farm up
You have a Naga that's just gonna be playing the map and cleaning up the waves for you
That's usually Lena's job.
So I have hats off more.
So already on top of what Mira said, hats off to BB team, because when you
pick a hero like Naga, you also need the rest of the team to adjust around it.
And I doubt they have too much experience playing it.
Like we haven't seen it yet from them.
So conceptually, just making it all come together.
There is a there is a reason, not just the draft, but also the execution
and idea of it coming from BB team, that why that game was so one sided.
Yeah. And I think also we we talked about this before the series.
This BB Team, this iteration of BB Team is a lot more stable than a lot of past iterations of BB Team that we've seen.
And we see that come to fruition in a game like this where, you know, it's a little bit unusual what they go for,
but they execute it perfectly without seemingly any issues whatsoever.
We'll see if that continues though, because of course it's a best of three.
3.
Nick Mcgalaxy has a chance to force out a third game to this series.
We'll see if that one ends up happening.
So far, every single series on the stage for quarterfinals has been a 2-0.
A little bit unusual, especially with some of the results that we have been seeing in
the group stages, but that just means the pressure is just on and some teams cannot deal with
it.
Yesterday, a lot of action and a couple of teams that are considered to be the favorite
of the whole event.
We're going to find out with this audio radio comes what that communication was on stage
in those quarterfinals.
20 seconds, guys, smile, I'll tell you.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm a bit smart.
I don't know.
20, you have 40 seconds.
I mean, they're saying go and I'm just like, we just get on it.
Okay.
10 seconds smile, I'll tell you.
I mean, it's got to be quick, guys.
5 seconds smile, oh nice.
Nice.
I'm running, I'm running, I'm running.
I'm going on linear as well, maybe flash.
Yeah.
Hey!
What is that once?
Yeah, I will go on snap guys.
I'm going, I'll stop snap.
I'm maybe...
It's gonna take some damage.
Yeah.
I'm dead.
Not big keeping on chrono.
I'll snap, I'll be keeping.
Look on me guys.
I'm going, I'm going.
What's that?
They're buying frag.
They're buying frag.
Killing chrono guys, I'm killing chrono.
I'll put back on him.
I lost chrono.
Give me lotus, give me lotus.
Chance.
I'll try to give you chance.
Kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him.
Good job.
Nice.
I know that's right. Still surprising to be that Nigma Galaxy managed to top up their group.
They're doing very well for themselves, but can they show it in playoff savory?
Yes, they can also. They are the real deal. They are not just back. They are actually back.
I talked to them yesterday. They're in great spirits. High morale. They're ready to win this whole thing.
But this is not a fluke. They're vibing.
This is not a drill. Nigma Galaxy fans.
Wake up. It's not a dream.
dream. But BB team are going to be tough opponents. I mean, this is a team that has been extremely
consistent year over year. The one thing that, okay, maybe they, they choke and play us
or they choke in finals sometimes, but this isn't the finals.
There's a lot to be proven still if they can get that first spot, right? The great runner
up team, they're always in the top three or four, but can they win the whole thing? That
is the big question. I think they're capable. I think they're looking a lot better than
average I think GPK is cooking yes they can have a GPK prime like they did when
he was a TI this team's capable thing and also I'm very interested in that
mid-lane matchup GPK vs. Lornoff who's gonna come out on top might decide the
series
Nick Magaleksy versus BB team coming your way with game number two here on the stage for the quarter finals
One of these two teams will be advancing to the semi-finals tomorrow and the other will be left top eight here at this year's
iteration of EWC Dota 2
first game went the way of BB team and
We heard SPG talk about it just now that he thought a large portion of this matchup will be
decided in the mid lane and I do want to focus a tiny bit on the mid lane as the draft is
starting we saw Viper versus Lina in mid lane and we of course saw GPK pop off on that Lina.
How much more emphasis do we want to see on that mid lane from Nigma Galaxy this time
around Effie?
Yeah, the thing is Lorinoff and his Viper did great.
He actually solo killed GPK's Lina one time and he was doing well on the lane but the
The second that roaming duo of Bane and Marana came to the mid lane, that just takes his
lead away because there was no way to punch back for Enigma.
And honestly, I would just ban Lina, okay, they did that, because the issue with Lina,
I mentioned it before, but I'll just touch up on it again, is that it forces Lornoff
to change his hero pool to play like these ranged archetype of heroes from the mid lane,
which then limits the mails' hero picks, so you just get it out of the way.
Not a big deal.
Player to player, Lornoff matches up very well against GPK.
We have got a couple of different bands coming out.
We, of course, have BB Team Radiant this time round,
NICMA Galaxy on the dire side.
First big go-in-the-way of NICMA Galaxy.
You also, first-phase band, Dream Protector,
which is not very usual, as a lot of teams still like
to pick it for themselves, but they gave priority to the bank
to make sure they have it for themselves.
Yeah, just looking through NICMA's draft in the group stage,
because obviously, when BB Team looks like they had the
strategical upper hands in Game 1, they did their studying,
they came prepared, and their last two bands of the last game
were Alchemist Tiny, and every time, I believe, I was counting
five times, yes, five times that Sue Mail was given overall
last pick for his team, and they were all Tiny or Alch.
So for me, that is my concern. In this game, as Mir was talking
about banning out the Lena in order to enable Lornav's Seropool
I do think Devai is very dependent on the momentum and having a good lane matchup.
And then you also have Sumel operating on a relatively limited hero pool, and that's not based on skill.
That is just because of the fact that he has not invested all that many games as a carry
compared to the amount of overall games of Dota that he's played, so...
There's just a lot of pieces you have to fit into the puzzle on the side of Nigma,
Well, on the other hand, I feel like DB is, yeah, I feel like they're playing like Scrabble
and DB's got a bunch of different letters to choose from and Ningma's like, I only got
these three.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, but maybe we'll see something different with the problematic Paske-Methlioner being
taken out.
I mean, if I were a DB team and I wanted to recreate that situation, I would have to
pick another ranged lane Dominator, like Viper, that would force Lornoff to then change to
Zero Pool.
Like, if I were getting into their heads and trying to recreate that.
Is there any equivalent of that in the game?
So last draft, I know they banned the snap, because I think that's kind of GPK's hero
that operates similarly.
Actually, they did not ban the snap.
They left it in.
I thought they did, but yeah, that's the hero that he's been playing in the tournament
leading up to this one that I think plays very similarly to Molina and whatever it represents
in the game.
So is that a particular, is that what you're thinking or is, is, because snap plays more
on her and Nate with point blank, is that not quite like the Lena archetype that you
had in mind?
Yeah, I mean, I could see that for sure. I could also just see them taking a different approach in this game too, because they're quite versatile, because they do have first pick on Nicme Galaxy, which makes their mid lane more fluid, they're probably gonna get an 18 pick counter pick for Lorina.
So maybe you don't want to... You can just take a different route this time around. But...
Yeah, go for it.
I'm sorry, she's eco.
No, I just want to point out that they banned the Morana themselves on Nicme Galaxy with the ringmaster as well.
That is quite strange. I think maybe they assumed that BB Team would snap you right here.
right here.
Centaur Morana, quite a strong lane.
You already have the natural setup.
And this is a hero that we haven't seen too much
of this tournament.
He had had a few patches this year
where he was very broken.
What is it about Shadow Shaman that,
like they saw Bane,
obviously it pairs decently with Centaur,
but as like a four position player mirror,
like is there something about this matchup against Bane
or is it more of this synergy with Centaur?
That's a really good question.
I think for me, the way that I look at this
As I mentioned before, Nygma have first pick, so they're going to get that 18 pick in the draft,
and that's where Puck comes out. That's where Storm Spirit comes out.
So if you pick the Shalman with a lane where he can actually get kills with Chain Disables,
you've also addressed the issue of the Puck on 18.
Yeah, because we've seen many drafts lost in that 18 overall pick, so that makes sense that it's a
lane synergy that also preemptively prevents that quote unquote cheese coming out. I like that theory.
Yeah, but this this centaur is such a problematic hero this tournament because he gets first
fight he still gets free lanes anyway
I think the only time I've seen him look kind of bad was if there was like a life stealer with a really strong range
Support, but even then centaur always found a way to have a game
Agreed I I personally think centaur is like the single highest impact hero of the meta based on just the average
Performance that I've seen I think a lot of times there's like some heroes that
that they are first picked because they represent a really dangerous game plan or like a specific
idea that their team can play around. For Centaur, yes, he has like things he offers
global stampede and the save from the aggs later on, but this hero just is so flexible
in terms of his laning stage and he's so reliable at what he does that he can kind of, he goes
the heart, but then from there he can be anything that his team needs from him and that's just,
Yeah, one of the reasons that a hero can be broken and it's super overwhelming to play against, I would say.
I do like what Nigma's doing better this game than before. Like, I think that this is more in line with, you know,
PixuMail's hero relatively early, PixtronLane's, generically good heroes in the support role.
You are dealing with Undying, and like, if you look at...
A lot of times the carry is the responsible one for killing the Tombstone.
a lot of times the illusions are the best carries for killing it because the
illusions even though they're like reduced damage
here like naga will kill it very quickly peel as well
tiny not at all they have real no really no uh... tombstone killer and that can
we've seen like players like malady
like one v five of early to mid game because he just has a long duration
tombstone go off and like the wisdom shrine and tier one towers so
what do you think about this timbersaw
Really intriguing that they gave this pick to DeVy over Lorna, but you see this issue
with the Quezzan and you just think to yourself, okay, I have to pick a hero that can stand
online against Quezzan.
Tembura, this reactive armor is one of the better heroes to play against Quezzan, not
going to blow him up.
This is an example of pulling out into the bag because DeVy, I think this is the hero
he kind of came onto the map with, like I know maybe he's been a little overshadowed
by like ATFs, Timbersaw, but I would easily put DeVy in the top three Timbersaw players
in the world. This is one of his absolute go-tos, and I agree with you for why they
picked it. But once again, they don't have a Tombstone hitter, so I think, I don't know,
I don't know how they're going to play fights here.
Stop. Easy snap fire.
There you go.
Well, enough.
Okay. That's true.
Yeah, and it's not a easy hero to counter-pick from that mid lane on 24 for BB team. I'd
be very surprised if they don't go for a snap fire. But I mean, let's say they don't go
for a snap fire, they could go sniper even.
true
Two more bands of course coming out in both teams need a mid lane, so we're gonna have a lot of
Thinking ahead wait, then why is nigma galaxy ban and carry heros shiver? Oh, this is
Overall last pick for a baby team it's usually like oh here comes gpk in the boat carrier here comes gpk storm spirit
I do think they have nice solutions for storm because they have so much lockdown in the first three picks of magma
And for that reason they're not really afraid of the puck either
Something like Invoker though would have been better for them. Yeah, I'm just looking through their picks
You can always go something like
Slardar if it's if they pick a melee hero for Lornoff here
All the spirits look good. Is Earth spirits still in the book? Okay, they just kind of that just got rid of that
Yeah, and
Another one that I would say might be on our radar is a pangol. I mean you got a man sapphire if you're baby
They have a minute and a half left in their bonus time, so they can think about this all
they want.
Is there a hero in particular that comes to mind when you're running out in Voker and
Air Spirit or is there another mid hero that those two would do extra well against?
I think this would have just been the best picks for a BB team here.
It will give them team fight and magical damage, which you need against Timber Sun.
And the Voker Kaz has always been pretty gross with the Lackardy.
They actually banned Storm Spirit themselves, so GPK clearly has something else in mind.
I think it could still go Puck, like on GPK, if it's given a decent lane matchup.
They don't have all that...
The thing about Puck is, yeah, maybe in the early to mid game she'll be a bit vulnerable,
but it's like, you just get an E on disc at some point, and heroes like Bane feel pretty
lackluster.
That is true.
Pucks have also been going early Octurine just to get a little bit tankier in that mid
game. I do think Tiny is a very good solution, especially if you have a player like Simella
who's going to play active for a puck.
They're definitely going to have to pick something a bit different than what they normally have
gone for this tournament on BBT. Obviously, GPK puck is a classic, but other than Slardar,
all of his heroes that he's picked thus far are banned.
It is the puck.
They just steal the puck.
Brian, can I get you refresh us on the puck win rate?
I would have to pull that up in a second here, she was brought.
It's still like 25, maybe got 27% or so.
It is answered by a Slardar.
Are we happy with that, Effie?
Yeah, that's the counter pick to the puck.
I guess Nigma thought it was more important
to not give this puck away and play it themselves.
But now there is the issue of this tombstone.
Like Brian mentioned it, but they don't have those tombstone hitters.
Unless Tiny gets a BQB and some attacks be later.
It's not the easiest fights to take for Nigma.
So Puck's at 31% when I'm in 32 games I
Just going off of what we were saying earlier
Slaughter is the literal only hero GPK has played in this tournament that was left in the pool
And Slaughter has also been traditionally used as one of the counters to puck like historically and in this tournament thus far
So I I feel like you kind of walked into it with this last two picks
I think the puck is maybe they were just so scared of the puck coming out for GPK himself
and they felt the need to deny pick it, but in that case I would have banned the Slyrdar instead of the Earth Spirit.
I think that's what happened and the reason why they picked Shaman in this draft is they were already thinking about the puck for
Nygma, so they already created their solutions and I think it was a mistake to not get a snapfire or a sniper or something
that could hit that tombstone for you. Like I do think this
Undying is gonna win this mid game pretty easily.
I think that there is there's no individual hero on BB team like Naga siren equivalent from last game
That's gonna cause this game to look as ugly as the first one
But I think if both teams played equally skilled
I would lean towards BB teams draft just because of these natural answers that they've picked for them
I do want to say though that it's still a very good timber game
And we did get that timber pick for divide in this slot if there's a hero that can carry this game for his team
It would be that timber so all eyes on divide here
All eyes on the off-lane player, the Vi on his timber. Let's see if they can force out game 3 against BB team
It's cappin SPG with game 2
Well, there's good news and bad news. Sabry the good news is is that
Big Mcgalaxy seemingly have a better chance based off of drafts and they did in game 1
The bad news is the panel seems still seems to favor BB team. Do you agree with them?
more mixed bag. I'm not, I'm not leaning one way or the other here. Honestly, I think
this drops very even. I feel like that's a compound. No, no, no, we're going to be
able to see Nigma play Dota. Okay, I don't think they really got a chance last game.
So we'll see what kind of formula they're in today. See if there could come something.
I agree. The last point, I like the timber pick. I think timber can do some work in this
game and this is a hero that's kind of gone under the radar. He got forgotten about a
a little bit, but in the games we see him where he's set up well, he can just run away with him.
What is this early start off? This could be first blood,
Carrotage is going to get a bit of distance with the Falcon rush, but a dive under the tower
with the blood grenade, they'll secure it. It's Omar, the one to take the last hit.
Unfortunately for Nick McAllister, he doesn't go to Lorna, which is I think what they ultimately
wanted, but still. It's a good start, and they still have plenty of time to maybe go for a second
kill, secure bounty runes, we'll see.
Nighttime Bane, always a massive threat and they took that hero first, recognizing the
power of it in the game, one kind of daring BB to try and deal with it in the same way
they did and like BB ignored it a little bit more but also just got a very well rounded
draft with a lot of physical scale between the slaughter and the kez here.
That's the big concern, if you're in nickname galaxy is how are you going to deal with the
overall physical damage, how are you going to deal with the presence from the shaman
rewards plus the tombstone, I think anchoring the fighter on both of those spells and a
Roshan or something like this, it's pretty nasty to fighting too for a lot of Digmas
heroes. You don't have a hero that wants to run in and really tank that until the timber
gets big. So that's why I also think this timber saw is really important, because I think
Debye has to kind of heat himself in here this game and not only do some serious damage
but absorb some serious contact, that's going to require him to be quite fat. So all eyes
on him from me in terms of hero popping off, I would like it to be the timber saw. And for
or BB, your GPK, this order gets fast,
you can win the mid lane matchup,
he will bring the Kaz into the game,
the Centaur can be there for utility
and your two sports can help you,
you know, corner the Roshan, aim the Tormenter
into your favor.
A Shadow Shaman, wait a minute, since hell yeah,
seeing that here, what made BB team go back for this?
Here at all, Instance is done in your lineup,
another hero that can force objectives
quickly give you high ground potential is a save classic. Maybe you just want to bust it out for
some comfortability. Can be an annoying hero for Bane because of your foul play proc. Yeah,
okay. A little bit there. You know, he's like, I don't want to be, the guy who just gets all in.
Didn't turn out all right in this game with the later pickpock. But I don't think it's a crazy
shawarma game by any means. Hero can suffer against Tiny. It's okay against Timber if you can kind
kind of sit there and shackle him but that's not guaranteeing a game like this
where they have four stunners so I think save will have to prove himself on this
hero on this one. It's always good against those heroes that dive in very deep
formation-wise in this fight with full Timbersaw and Puddo but it gets worse
if there are a lot of heroes that do that kind of deep dive. I could see him getting
run over and anything like this. Do you have some solid frontliners? Two cores that
want to frontline hand and undyne. That's usually a pretty good setup.
Uh, come down here and get a presser.
What are being chased after?
Ooh, nice play.
Bushwack TPL.
Pretty smart.
And he's very likely would have died there.
Nice space for the Timbersaw here who's doing quite well on the early stages of the slaying phase against a very strong lane.
You know, dying, because you get the K'd down, you get chased down.
It's not gonna end well for you.
Ultralight, oh?
GPK.
Went in mid lane.
He's coming away with the best of it.
Nice little star for him.
He's cruising here.
I don't like we see GPK lose lanes, to be honest.
Yeah, if he's in a favored matchup especially.
Last game he technically lost out leaning against the Viper, but even while he was losing it, he was ahead of Network.
Yeah.
So, was it really that bad of a loss for him?
Yeah, the experience didn't really seem to make the difference there.
He just plays his game very stable nowadays.
Something BB are going to rely on here because he can bring this whole lineup into the midgame very nicely.
Big change of pace, too, in terms of game one, a huge amount of summons and ghost shove
on the map.
This game, almost none of it.
Like your biggest threat on lanes is the shadowy tiny running around.
Yeah, it feels like we're going to be playing a very honest game.
Exactly.
Exactly.
All the dirtiness went out the window in the game.
We got it out of our system, and now you just get the brawl with some heavy teamfight,
heavy nukers.
A lot of Roshan can test.
I mean the 30th hero in this game is probably fun.
I guess Kez.
If you, uh...
Yeah, if you're one of those people that, uh, hates Kez.
Which, uh, you know, I am.
That's fair.
This hero is, uh, definitely not the same kind of terror it was earlier in the year.
And I feel like you rather play against Kez than a lot of the cheese picks in Dota 2, you know.
Yeah.
Compare him to Las-Pick, Naga, Las-Pick, Phantom Lancer, Tinker, Jungle Zeus.
I think the Kez.
And Miss Bushlack kind of offered BB Team...
...actually had a small opportunity there.
They've both got a lot of resources to work with.
Katouli's got 10 stick charges, though that goes out of the way.
But when he gets hit by Whirling Death with two or three trees...
...large wand on Dubai right now, I don't want to get over baited for this bottom skirmish.
And as GH steps forward, but that avalanche can always bail you out.
At that time, he's just really annoying for the shawarma playing too.
Very tough hero to interact with.
Not a bad start for the lanes here on Nigma Galaxy's side.
I mean, BB are doing fine too, but Timmer saw at the top into an undying.
That's probably the real breadwinner here.
It seems like everybody's pretty close.
The only hero that's really getting ahead and yet worth is Devine, because he hasn't
really expended anything yet on Reach End, and maybe he should have, getting low, then
we'll actually die.
He did buy a salve, you know, it was flying out, but I think he was waiting to try and
You'd boot some of the same courier, and that's elated, and it gave you an opportunity to get this all in with the Tombstone Notepoint and the Timber Chain just yet.
He was 200 gold up on anybody else in this game, you know.
Now, GPK almost dies, but a magic wand does fail him out, he's got his bottle, he will start reaching back up, and...
...Lornos' chances of getting another kill opportunity like that are probably pretty slim.
Omar is rotating him behind.
Yeah, maybe he can actually, two-man Adolin.
Turn around.
Ah, that's top lane, just a big jubate up here.
Just two big beefy boys battling against each other all the time.
Either one getting low enough to get the kill.
Supports have too much sustain between brain sap and shackles to ever get low enough for the kill, either.
Well, Mark does get the Dior here off his own deeply placed off, so that's pretty nice for the hoodwink.
It's gonna secure a lot of this jungle rotation area for him.
If he wants to continue backstabbing, maybe they get a sweet Dior to call us back to male.
Stops the shackles over the avalanche and gets the kill.
Not a kill I expected, but a nice one to snag.
He's going to boost that tiny up considerably here as the squirrel and the zombie continue fighting.
The fact that you get that kill as Lotuses are about to spawn too, which means they should have the numbers advantage.
Meanwhile, battle in the river, Lornoff is going to chase down Katomi here.
Tell me he's feeling like he just doesn't really have much to do anymore at some point in time
They get that one kill on divide within divide comes back full resources and dying doesn't really interact with the hero anymore
No, the other thing with kez is if you're not getting kills with kez, you don't want to just sit there and leeches XP
It's not gonna feel good. It's like weaver either need to killing them for the bonus experience or give this guy the soul
You just sitting around is not gonna help it kind of makes us on dying kez and awkward duo if you can't get aggressive
Because the entire cast is online for like first seven or eight minutes.
He doesn't have another plan on the map.
Could contest Wisdom Shrine I guess, but now with Tombstone on cooldown that option goes out the window.
They're kind of lingering around here with GPK maybe, with this region rune.
He feels confident enough to swing by.
I don't know, man.
It looks scary though.
Yeah, you're fighting into a Timbersaw on this with the TP rotations.
Like, you know something's gonna come through and it's gonna be both the bait and the clock,
but maybe they can still get the Wisdom Shrine.
These are a little late here.
Yeah.
GPK still has Sprint.
Quads going to lock down these heroes.
Here's his fight against Javai.
Javai has so many resources, though.
He's going to get a lot of damage done.
And not quite ticked out.
It's close.
But the Kazurak Katana will not be the death of him.
Katomi drops the Tombstone, hoping they can still battle it
through.
Omar's going to TP back into play, though.
This opportunity for a two-man pushback.
And he lands it.
Lowering up with your block.
He went a triple off with Javai.
Jumping back in.
He says I won it all!
Jim, the Tombstone kill on top that is a massive gold injection.
On the one hero you did not want to gain that gold injection if you were a BBT.
Because he was going to make these front-liners like, hell, a lot of damage coming out from him too.
If he was down in that initial trade, how different will that sequence look?
If you have Tombstone for that fight, how different will it look?
But those little things, I thought Nigma were going to be a little late to the party.
They were there to get the bigger prize.
They lose wisdom shrine, but they get a lot of gold out of the exchange.
And, I mean, they probably got just as much experience, right?
Not for the supports, but overall, I think you're pretty close.
Hex in the river, this feels a little forced.
Yeah, Bushwack and Acornshot that's gonna do a lot of damage to Vi is coming over.
Devi says off that all that farm, I gotta help out my team here.
They're just gonna run down the Slardar, GPK.
You got two males showing up.
Yeah, that is quite the call from Nick McGalaxy, making sure they are not going to be outnumbered by the Eden team.
This is the new one we saw in some of the earlier games in this tournament.
Bass connections, a lot of early skirmish power.
Not afraid to get their carry involved.
Oh yeah.
They're by signature.
Talking to Dubai, I asked him about playstyle-wise, you know, changes for him since joining Nick McGalaxy,
Mcalaxy because obviously he's a very well he's very divide play animated go-go-go
yeah yeah and it seems like he's he's calm down a bit he seems like he
doesn't take as many risks but I'd love to see that he's still popping off just
like he used to and some mail almost leads into a kill on mirror but now here
comes she be gave with two men crush that are still dies to GH but if it costs
them some mail make Mcalaxy might not be happy with them so when Lord Office
T being in can he get here in time to get a punish off GP K looks for the
Supports G H and it's gonna be close call here, but he doesn't manage to get off the nightmare for another round of crush
Oh sounds goes off right as the nightmare was traded away a loss of damage there that will results in the spidey being a 2v3
Here they make my galaxy feels like they don't have the damage
Keep it going kind of the tiny order timber in these engagements
The puck is not enough right now these heroes just have too much early HP even get more and also courier with the treads completed on
It's a nice little pick up there. Not a bad exchange, especially getting GBK involved in this game.
He has a big target. Bring this line up together. There's still a kind of
discretion in this river where the Slardar's strong, but I don't know if you're gonna find
too much here. You do have wards available and Tombstone, so that big presence TeamfightWise
is online. If you can get a fight going around one of these tier ones, you will be able to convert
on it. Very nicely, and they get an arcane room for GBK bottom, so nice room to take away from
But there's the Wardstraw, just straight up.
Yeah, especially with Kato means zoning out these heroes,
the Wardstraw are going to do a lot of damage before they even get here.
But there's Dubai, once again, it seems like he's making it his MO
to try and challenge GPK in dominance for these fights.
If GPK is going to be there, then it almost requires Timbersaw
to keep him from getting out of control.
I like that he's joining early fights.
I don't like he has to sit bottom entirely this game,
and it gives you a lot of extra damage to bring these big boys down.
So, lift the whole team up together. Doesn't have to be so isolated, so greedy.
Still top net worth in this game.
Just mean he's giving plenty of room to the Kez though.
For sure.
Which, he's got a concern for you, Coyle.
Fiends grip, a lot of being used here, can't tell me.
Well, he's got so ripped to try and keep GPK alive.
Went for the kill on Omar, bushwhack lands, almost finished him off, that final hit.
It's not gonna be enough. Now the Stampede's gonna run down Omar.
Oh, this is a disaster. His caretich makes his first move of the game
and helps join in three heroes dead,
Nikma Galaxy, just giving right back to BBT.
So much presence from the Undying
in that sort of engagement where you're not focusing him,
he gets everything off multiple decays,
so we're going through and so are...
he's a tanky boy.
That's why I like the timber joining the early engagements
because you need the whirling depth,
you need the chakram in these kind of plays.
Puck is not going to give you early fighting power
against these two strength boys on the front line.
It's just not a good match up for him.
You lost your tower earlier too, so it's a lot harder to bring in any sort of reinforcements.
A forced move that backfires pretty hard.
Really forced because he was still in the river as well, right?
Yes, it doesn't help.
That's an extra 4 HP, reach in, an extra 3 armor. He went down to like 60 health.
It makes a difference. Yeah, it makes a difference.
And you really have to be careful in these fights with the amp stacking up.
If you end up in a situation where he gets 3 or 4 amps out, and then the kez joins,
I like good luck, right? You're going to need dispels in this game, load disorders, whatever it is to help deal with and mitigate that physical presence.
So he gets an asterisk, gets woken up, and begins to chase down.
How far he wants to go with this? Okay, he's going real far.
All the way. Trying to free G.H. It won't happen fast enough.
Oh, maybe it does, actually.
Oh, what's up? You're going to eat? Should be enough.
And down he goes. G.H. made it a bit of a contest there between him and Omar sharing their neutral items.
The extra movement speed, the extra physical armor.
I will say this is about the time you want to kick this guy out of here.
I don't think you want to, like, here, get your linger down here too much longer.
He does have an age layer, but Timber has more than enough damage to power through this.
Just him plus a link or him plus a coil.
Shouldn't be able to kick this carry out and start pressuring the tower.
I'm surprised those supports aren't playing more to their Timber now.
Like Timber played to them earlier, but now I feel like it's gonna swap over.
Well, the thing is it's gonna become more difficult because now if you force this play, you're gonna be forcing it into it.
A tier one tower that has a lot of HP and potential turn around with the Shaman and the Undying.
Yeah, it's true. It's kind of hard to dive into Tombstone Max Decay here with the Stampede they can bail the hero out.
Then you keep being the Shaman, someone's getting shackled, someone has a ward dropped on their head.
these dives are not easy so I don't blame Nigma not forcing that play bottom but
I think that there was a window to kick this guys out and it has slipped by
teams gotta keep the farm up back to the stacks back to pumping some extra gold
into this timber saw so we can get to that tanky status as fast as possible
well what if you bring in the tiny because Sumail is gonna get a blink dagger very
soon and that is where like the Sardar got his blink dagger feels like the four
on four teamfights, maybe favored DB team, but you know, Tiny's gonna have much
more impact than Kez, most likely in some of these early engagements once he gets
play. He's a way bigger threat. You can just demolish the fight very quickly if he
finds the shaman on a toss, like you jump the shaman toss him onto someone else
and avalanche those two. That fight is likely just over. Very hard to stamp heat
out of that situation, so I agree. So we all can have a huge presence here with
this blink dagger reveal. They can bring him into a nice fight, particularly around
one of these tier 1s because these tier 1s are all effectively full HP right now.
You got a little chip damage mid, but it's negligible.
You have to start opening up these towers soon.
Like, you don't not want to give BB this much room to play around with a lineup that can
instantly do torment during this game, instantly do Roshan.
Go start taking some of the map, boy.
GH, good positioning. Little two-man smoke gets ruined by the Bane.
They're gonna set up for the kill. The sharpshooter makes it a lot easier.
They actually dropped the beam script as well.
Well, it's quite the commitment, it doesn't mean they have the numbers advantage if there
is to be a fight in top lane.
It looks like BBT want to go for it all in on the Timbersaw.
It's all water damage.
It's easy work of him and he died fast.
Amp goes out, you have an amp damage on GBK as well.
Oh yeah.
He just got melt.
It didn't have a chance to build up any reactive armor.
Yeah, he's only got level two of it and I don't know how many charges he had at the start
of that fight.
But you also get hit by flesh gold.
There's a lot of amplification in this lineup.
That's a good point.
It does require you getting four melee heroes onto a target, which is punishable here.
You know, you're going to get avalanche or pushwacker coiled on that kind of play.
It can go real bad real quickly, but it's true.
It happens fast.
I think the Galaxy were there just a couple seconds sooner.
Could have been a big difference.
Oh, he's going to turn around in time.
He does land this sharpshooter.
All right.
Tiny starting to make his presence felt in this game.
this game. They need to be able to do it in such a dominant fashion though that
they started taking towers, which is something that BB team have acquired.
That's what I want to see. Tier 1's going down here. I think it's gonna make this
game a lot easier for me to play. It's just hard to maneuver around the map
right now. Like, gee, she's gonna get casual sleep off here. Yeah, it's annoying, but
you're not getting any deep vision out. You're not maintaining a presence on
Radiant side of the map
And meanwhile you lose another 2-1 to the shaman
Getting the job done here pushing towards a fast aether lens
A lot of extra team gold
Seeing this minus armor damage and physical damage combination of eb team a
does look very scary to play against but
Does that also mean it's very easy for
for Nigma Galaxy to itemize out of?
Oh yeah, this is a Lotus Orb game for sure.
AC Shiva's, if you can fit it in.
Any armor goes a huge way.
Any dispel goes a huge way.
Spell block against the Shaman.
Nice toss.
You toss back into the bush,
whack and then the sharpshooter.
Another nice kill for Sumail.
Very easy, but looking to buy, to buy.
He just picked up a plate now.
So maybe that's looking,
can help him live a bit longer,
But his team is so far away, they can't get here in time.
There's no chance. The Deceal's already done for Kiritich, so...
Yeah.
You're dealing with an insane armor meld.
That wasn't even level 2 on the Corrosive Haze.
So there's another 6 coming for GBK here in a short time.
They're holding onto the safe lane tower, giving BB team...
Yep.
I mean, another 2.5 minutes, we got a torment to respond to.
That's the thing, back kill doesn't likely happen if there isn't that tier 1 there.
Very efficient, because these tier 1s have stood up for so long
I mean, they're gonna make a quick sweep across the map.
Should be K with the warp plant. Doesn't see anything.
Nice dodge from the Big Mega Galaxy here.
Those Shaman wards are coming up.
Again, you have to be a little worried
conceiving this much map control
when this lineup can go in that roach pit
and do it so damn quickly.
Ah, okay.
And even if you go to contest that,
that fight is tough.
Yeah, it's a fight in the river against Mid-Slarna, right?
Oh, Miss Bushwack!
An opportunity miss there to Tombstone save!
An early shard purchased by Kato-mi!
This is going to be a great shard game!
One of their best tools against the Bane, the Coil.
There's a lot that this Tombstone can cut it out in this style again.
Especially when the Stampede isn't guaranteed to get you out of those spells.
It's kind of nice to have a backup here.
If someone gets Coiled or Grypt, you don't want to Stampede them.
So you can Tombstone them, bypass that, and then Stampede away.
You're enabling yourselves here.
It feels pretty damn good.
It's gotta be some move going into one of these towers soon, right?
Again, you get another play on this Timber Bottom because this tier 1's still here.
It's just too easy.
It really is too easy.
Considerate how much damage he can do to BB Team if he's just Spreed, but...
Where is he supposed to farm? Where is he supposed to go?
They're playing to him at all.
And they even planted a deep lane ward plant. I say deep, but it's just a normal lane ward down here.
So every time someone runs this bottom lane, they just TP tier 1, set the play up.
If Nigma go there with multiple heroes, you can bring in reinforcements yourself.
Otherwise, the Kez is just gonna keep farming.
If there's a game to point to, that's to the importance of getting at least one tier 1 tower down early, this is it.
Because we're seeing BB abuse their extra map control really well right now.
That's a great observer up here.
They've been setting up for a while. The initiation though goes a little bit awkward.
Here it is. He's gonna come in and a big swing. Good force staff to get some mail out of there
because with the corrosive Haze, this gets a lot of damage to him.
All of his armor is gone right now.
The coil is going to hold him back,
but it does not give Nick McAllister the way to get aggressive,
especially with Dubai Lama.
Accidentally clipping himself a little bit there.
Faster action from save.
They get the D-word on that spot as well,
so that OBS almost pays off, but instead it just gets killed.
That was kind of the last vision on the map here for Nick McAllister.
Really getting stifled in terms of where these moves can go
and what they can land on.
Maybe you get a 20% of power rune.
Okay, getting an illusion rune.
Not a bad extra dispel in this game.
But now Tormentor's on the map.
Roshan's going top.
Both of these objectives are heavily favored for BB here.
You cannot afford to give it all away for free.
Let's see what Nigma Galaxy can do
in the next five minutes here in terms of either
defending those objectives
or getting some move of their own going.
And can you send this Timbersaw in yet?
He's rushing Shiva's guard.
It's a ways away.
It's still a thousand all yeah, he's been rushing it for a while, but unfortunately he's back to back to back deaths
For him have kind of ruined things
There's not gonna have another frontline armor source in this game
It's not gonna come from puck the tiny gets a little naturally, but honestly, it's not enough
He's only sitting on 12 that already on nerf. There's a couple patches ago. Sure. Yeah, that's true
I think we both agree they look best when they're very active and aggressive.
for sure. You want to see Devine Sumail getting aggressive kills on the map, looking for opportunities
and not have this much map control taken away from them so early. You know, when you talk
to a team and you talk to Devine, it's like, I have this perception that Devine is an extremely
aggressive AWP laner. And then when you talk to him, he's like, yeah, playing with Sumail,
he's really aggressive. That's from his perspective, you know, so if he's saying he's really aggressive
and he's already a very aggressive player, there's a lot of aggression in the squad that
Honestly, BB have just shut down so far in this series.
The first game was the Naga Pick, which is an anti-aggression hero, an archetype.
Here, it's just been really solid defensive gameplay, defending the towers, devouring a
lot of obbs, killing a lot of potential for moves.
Even situations like this, right, this doesn't look like anything's happening, but right
now BB are happy with it, because they are controlling the objective, and they're about
to force the objective, and the smoke move from Nigma Galaxy failed.
So even though this trade-off in theory doesn't harm either team,
you're not getting that potentially one right now if you're in the Nigma Galaxy,
and that's allowing BB to commit to their gameplay.
I mean, if they let BB team take this Roshan, they don't even get a tower somewhere on the map, I mean...
They're not even getting the tier one bottom, and when it is one up thing, you're not getting that trade-off.
You're not opening up anything for yourself right now, you're just getting... you're just getting caged.
This feels too... too passive, too tentative.
This is not the Nigma Galaxy we saw winning all those games in the group stage, right?
No, not at all.
And maybe some of that is okay, I'm not sure where to make the move or how to make it.
You know, we lost this Timber twice, bottom fine, but at some point
you're gonna have to be decisive making aggressive move in this game because
BBR is getting more off the map right now.
And it's not as if they just auto-enlightened it or something.
No, of course.
But you could feel the momentum right now.
Yes.
And they're getting the BKBs, the BKBs are going to be a nice timing here.
This Kaz can continue to scale for a long time in this game.
Smael walks into a BKB, looks like BKB's for Timbersaw and Tiny.
Gonna wind up.
See where Lornoff goes from here.
Kess is very staffed and he is gonna go and agonize Scepter for the item.
See that switch around, TPK's, deletes his BKB, and Miro's gonna fall suit with the BKB of his own.
No early heart.
No, just smaller items that ensure that they don't get run over by Big Mac Galaxy, the early Lotus,
Paladon, that gives them a lot of armor to work with.
Very strong build as we go into the mid game won't scale as fast as the heart build up,
but you can always go back for it here, and he did get the extra gold ejection from the shard off the tormentor, so
you know, team items pay off by giving you a little extra freebie here.
Trying to set up for Palarune, BB Team spawns top, where they were already
already congregated. This is a big move for NygmaGalaxy. They don't have the tiny VKB,
but they have that sheaestimmer on the front line. This ward did give them some ideas of
one hero on BD Team who might be a bit out of sorts here. Atlantian Coil instantly, toss
a lot expended there from NygmaGalaxy. They get the kill rather easily. Now maybe we can
finally get, what, the Safelink Tower bottom? Yes, please get some tier 1 tier 1. You know,
This kill is super valuable if you can open up the map off it into this Aegis as well.
Well, if the person hit it would be some ale, he's not going for it.
Oh look at C, he's setting up here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's got an 8-terlens.
Look at the power of the tier 1's, this game has been insane.
TP back in?
I got so frustrated.
We'll get you to your tiny BKB.
This will at least equalize the carry diff a little bit here, and you waste some of that
Aegis period.
This is not BB getting aggressive with the Aegis, I'm just kind of chilling right now.
Came through the gate, pushed out the lane, now back through the gate, where they do have
this really nice ward placed up on this top part of the map.
Alright, all your cores are farming.
It's not as if you're bleeding a big cores on this map in this game.
No more spotted and got him on the stun, so.
I will say, Pucks win rate, terrible, and I'll talk about it, but I think Pucks win
rate in the games that go ultra late is significant higher.
Like this hero can still shine when it gets to six odds.
So what, like 30% to like 45% or what are we talking about here?
Well, I'd say it goes up to at least 50.
Okay, alright.
In my heart.
In my heart.
Don't actually have the numbers to back that up, but look stats don't lie. Yeah, I don't know
But they don't lie. Whatever they are. They don't lie. I believe
Here it is
Gonna use this a just knocked out a tier two atop late big big galaxy
Unless they have some sort of sign some sort of vision that tells them that they should take this fight
Which we know they should but of course it's just because there are two cores on the side of BB team
They did get a tier one bottom though. They did get the tier one bottom. That's a big deal.
Oh yeah, we're going to go to the 25 minute tier one.
Better to come later than never. That's what I always say.
And they immediately vacate the entire area.
Smoke up from BB Team. They're only up 6k though.
This is one last effort here to make use of the Aegis in a more significant way than just taking a tower.
And they're gonna have an opportunity here, that's for sure. G is gonna run right into
Karrot, hits, goes after Pops, but he's gonna be held by the shackles. GPK pops BKB and
goes in, didn't really get the catch on Lorna if they were hoping for, it's just a main
kill.
Pops BKB pops and damage, you think he's gonna do a lot instead, you just kinda run to this
Timbersaw, which you don't have to do anything towards.
Yeah, I kinda feel like that was pretty good for him, making the galaxy, they lost the
hero.
sad about that that's gonna finish off this ages period you still have your
BKB up on the tiny you're gonna get to your timber saws here and the puck is
continuing to scale pushing out waves not dying on the map that's all you want
right now
I wonder if Lornapp will go for any sort of A on this build up against some of
these instant stuns or if he's just gonna try and go for the conventional, you know,
octurine Shiva's tank build where you have so much HP, you can survive through a couple
of stuns because they have so many stun interrupts for the shaman. I think that is a viable path.
Uh, yeah, but it's good. Well, they have offensive stun interrupts and then they also have nightmare,
right, which can't be enough of a save for a hero like Puck, right? It's okay in this game. Yeah.
You also have two frontliners. So I would like to see in my device, whatever he feels can be the
Harder scaling build and the more aggressive build when he's at the five or six thoughts rather than I just want to survive
It's not a game where you want your puck thinking I just want to survive. Do you want to think I'm gonna carry this game?
I'm gonna put it on my back. I also think that's how
Nygma galaxy want to play around more and often general like you want him to be the secret sauce as the game goes later and later
And just let these two side liners roll it out
Traded away from a
BB Team Ward, they drop a ward at their own.
Nygma Galaxy is looking for the setup, but BB Team are baiting out GPK.
They also show, okay, we saw the ward, Nygma Galaxy.
You know, the play on this side of the map is kind of ruined for now.
Game is slowing down for me.
Fake retreat though, then kind of back up and then go in.
Look at this really good ward down here, they want to use.
Yeah, but both sides have a very good ward that they're getting a lot of information
on each other, so they both think there is an opportunity here.
GpK pushing out to that lane ward, playing to its lotus, and there's Omar.
So might be able to get the pick off on him, Omar's gonna shoot himself down the cliff,
go for TP out, Katoami jumps in, they demand to hit the hex there as saved.
Four staff, Aether Lex.
He's pretty farmed.
A lot of extra net worth on this support duo, that's making up the bulk of the difference
here.
I mean he's gonna be a game where shaman gets to be give you or something and she becomes a menace
Can't underrate how much work this year can do in light game scenarios
You have another tormentor coming up soon as well. You have a minute for the tormentor
30 seconds for a potential row spawn we see GH setting up down here. It's very cool play
I don't think I've ever have you ever seen anybody make this this
Burrow through the trees to get to this high ground spot. I haven't seen it. It's a nice little spot
I'm always gonna do with it, but
Got a nice heal.
And this late board is doing some wonders here. Meanwhile, BB Team, they've been playing with a gem.
And so they have been working with a bit more information.
They'll be setting up for another tormentor soon. MiGmaGalaxy likely to contest this.
I think if Nigma can get to the triple armor item, they're in a decent spot.
If they're going Sheevis on the buck, they're going AC on the tiny Yadz double Sheevis, but in this game, you need as much played male build as you can get.
I think at that point, you're negating a lot of the slaughter's impact, and if you can find the Kez, the fight's just over.
There's a lot of pressure here to not to get exposed early on to the engagement.
Centaur's not going to pick up the damage slack yet. The slaughter isn't going to do it.
gonna do it. That was a fake TP. Divine Lama, I think TP'd in range of the creep wave as
like the vision was lost. The unfortunate part for them is that there was still a late
ward, so he canceled his TP, went to the smoke. It was a very cool idea, just unfortunately
it doesn't deceive BB Team at all. They're very grouped, very ready. Big, big Galaxy
may own this part of the map, but BB Team are now playing to maybe an early Roshan spawn
instead of that Tormentor. It still has to be through the Kez. The Sardar is not punching
above its weight right now into all the Platinum Buildup. There's a Povis as well, there's
a Ghost Scepter, there's a lot of physical mitigation on the field compared to some
of the earlier engagements, so it has to be the Kez getting in there and dealing the big
damage. If he gets gripped, if he gets bush-wacked into the avatar or something, these fights
can easily go to Nygma Galaxy's way right now. And you'd love to get in here and get
this next Roshan. Another minute for the spawn. Torrentor is available, but no one's eyeing
that up right now. If you love the armor timing from Nygma Galaxy, are you willing to give
up this Roshan? For it, right? Because you're not... you're gonna have to take this fight
without the AC, which is close from Sumail,
but not close enough.
I think you are willing to.
OK.
But that is a bird's eye perspective, right?
Yeah, yeah.
The feel in the game is likely a little different.
They could feel that this A just counts a lot for what
BB want to do in terms of when they want to try and end the game.
However, I think from our perspective,
getting this AC on Sumail is going to be a huge deal here.
You just completed the Sheevas on the puck.
You're almost there, right?
You're almost at that point where all of your cores
going to be able to displace a lot of this physical damage and you're gonna have a lot
more room to work with in the fight.
That's just what you want.
Room and time against Kess.
If he can't go in and burst targets down as BKB runs out, he pops an early raptor to
answer Avensville, whatever it is, and then you can kind of take the second half of that
fight.
You can control.
You can beat him down here.
You can outmaneuver him with some of the mobility.
Let's roach.
It's spotting so late into the game that with a little bit more delay, some males actually
could have to get this AC.
I really thought there was going to be some sort of clash over this Rose Sooner,
especially since very often as the Rose Sean is about to spawn,
we see teams smoke up, trying to wrap on our meet on each other,
trying to get some sort of initiation.
But dare I say, the star is aligning right now.
Maybe they are. Maybe they are.
The perfect item timing to combat this objective.
How does this change the fights for BBT?
Then look for supports a lot more.
Okay.
You want to take the control out of the engagement
so that you have more time to play with this Kez, more time to run around with your Stampede and your Saurdor.
Do you think that means the win condition for Nick McGalaxy in this fights is easier?
Because going on supports would be good, but also going on the Kez and killing him first would also be good, right?
Assuming there's no save, and that's a big... like she can get Tombstone.
Right.
You can get Stampede. There's some saves in this lineup.
They're going to jump Sumail, he gets a 4 staff away, Harpoon away rather than they got the Bushwack on it, they can't, so they're going to turn for him.
Not quite so much, Lornoff and Divide already hit the back line a little bit, these heroes are getting low, he sees an opportunity here.
Here it is, he has to use BKB to fight, respond to the BKB of his own.
A fair trade up to him, don't go for Nero, what a hit, and that's going to follow up with the crush as well.
Very nice, but a BKB from Sumail stops some of this aggression from BB team, especially with a buyback of GH.
A little bit of reset now from Nick McGatlycksy.
It's BB Team to control the river and the pit,
but Roshan's about to swap over in just 25 seconds.
They used the save buyback against the GH buyback.
Very even exchange overall.
Both teams popped all of their BKBs there as well.
That shows you how tanky a lot of the heroes are in this game.
That Timbersaw is doing a lot of damage when he goes in.
That Chakra was perfectly placed right on that little...
stairway.
You're trying to get back to it. Look at these two cores trying to run through it. It's miserable
So I eat chunks here sits down and the second the kez is out of the plate
It's not what to do back for me. Well, but some big stuns laying for BB
And what wasn't for me? I was seeing this opening. It would have been kind of a clear enigma victory
Not a large one but a small one, but it said we kind of have been up on this even space and well pretty even
Net worth as well. It was a very early 6,000 net worth lead from BB team
But it is stagnated ever since we're still sitting at that marker and now
Nigma Galaxy have Rochon on their side of the pit more buybacks to play off of with this outpost
I get a free pick off here, too
God tell me they run a damn off the smoke kill like that
But so does have the extra life with the ceaseless courage
I don't think you can get in here and fight this though and this could be a
Really bad loss for a slaughter on the keselina that needs these ages to kind of power through old HB here
Assuming you lose it, Nygma has taken me a little bit here.
And check it for, uh, just give them that extra edge. Meanwhile, GPK...
He pushes it to top lane, so they gotta get here fast!
They jump up to the centaur, not the easiest jump, that's for sure, Sumail.
He gets nullified, Fiendscript does go out on a GPK, but there's the jumpstone.
Same beautiful stuff, and Miro jumps to the backline as well. GH, that's a diveback on him.
And 20k BTP away from Zemail, Kyle!
Oh, he died inside the fountain!
It's the damage over time for the Kazarai Katana!
Finish him off, and now divide desperate DP away!
It works because of a nice push whack from Omar.
He bailed some out.
Still a lost fight for Nigma Galaxy, though,
as BB Team pulled firm control over the pit.
You can't throw shot.
You can't commit on center.
They didn't even really commit.
They kind of just poked him and backed out,
but even that was enough to create an opening for BB.
You get some deep jumps with the Saga in there, tombstone save on the Grip.
You can't reform around that kill, and all of a sudden the fight becomes too chaotic
the time you have to bail.
This is a 4000 HP heart centaur with armor, with pendulum.
You're just not ever bursting him down.
I don't know.
Almost bailed the situation out.
It's too male lives.
This isn't the worst teamfight I've ever seen, and you do get out because the bash was picking
up for GPK, did not have it in.
That little small stun from the Bushwack stops that final hit which would have been the bash
But now he has an axe on some of the centaurs top-numbered like you got a respect
From Miro bringing to the table here. Now he has an axe saved for somebody else in the fight
This is where the line becomes really toxic to play against because who do you go on?
You can't go on this guy if you go with someone else they can potentially get carted
They can potentially get tombstones saved from the grid, right?
There's just not an easy target to jump in this line up and then you're kind of
dancing around in a fight where at some point save can just go in and walk
somebody down with hex. There's a reason hex is a staple in the history of this
game. There is still the advantage of repositioning with Tiny Tosca, right?
Maybe you look for that more. Saves less affected against that.
Divide Llamas can certainly still play a bit of frontline. That is nice damage.
Getting burned out of a lot of his health here.
Some Alec actually jumps in and sees the opportunity.
Did get a chop.
Kotomi down, the heals come through.
And the Tiverson needs some help.
They went for a nightmare save.
Really nicely done by GH.
And DeVy even wants to go back in and take away
this Aegis, land the Chakram.
But there's the tombstone saved.
So it saves from both supports.
Big part of this last fight, the results in no kills.
There's a big question.
Can BB scale the damage farther here?
Because I don't want to say they have damage issues,
but they have the start-up damage issues is what it feels like and you're kind of peeking here in terms of what your DPS looks like
that's one of the issues with the Midsawdars
It's hard for him to up his own damage considerably like you can kind of get some of these later items
It gets you get tankier you get a little more annoying in the fight
You can get the lower crush cool down and all that and it starts to pick up a little bit as we go later and later here
Well, isn't the crows to pays undispellable? That's also that's all the lot of them
That all for sure, but then I think you're still playing a lot around this case
I'm just I'm just worried if this case ever somehow dies
What is your team play look like?
Heritage only had one death in game one. He has two in this second game
the
Team Stark mounting a response to this pressure on the bottom right part of the map save doesn't get jumped
They have some vision to work around
Make my galaxy forming a similar
set up here.
Divy Lama on the front lines, hits him with the Sheebas.
Nice, Bushwag, that's beautiful,
and he can only save one of them here
as long as Divy does his time.
Once again, the nightmare save.
Oh, they got the bash on him, though,
and he's not able to get the timber chain away.
Still have agents here for two minutes,
so this is not a fight you want to overcommit to
if you're in League of Legends,
so you just cut your losses and get the hell out.
Overwhelming damage when you can put every core
on top of one target.
It worked out the first time in the mid lane,
but it does seem like Divy Lama...
Two isolated there.
underestimating the damage there from BB Team, especially the way to be able to. But the save
isn't guaranteed, right? It's just, you nightmare, it creates a pause, long enough for you to get the
timber chain out, but there's these bashes, Tez can stalk you. There's a lot of disable,
a lot of chain stump potential if you can isolate a target. The old fish cart does it again.
An early banner drop. Aaron not going to waste any time, 40 seconds on the timbersaw.
They say that's good enough to hit this tier 3.
They have triple pendulum on the side of the EDT.
All three cores going pendulum, just delaying it for a second.
It's not gonna smell, smell! He needs some help here!
Can they get him out? He turns around to BKB and he needs to kill the Kaz and he can go
and get the heals where the Kazurai Katana ticks away at him.
That's gonna be the loss of the Aegis, but a tier 3 down and maybe still a barracks go.
12 seconds left till the Timbersaw is back up.
Here's a tombstone save available.
Yeah, with no foil it makes quite a big difference.
BB Team, a lot easier for them to get out when the time is right to leave the wards
to finish off that melee ferric.
The first building down of game two.
Very nice siege from them.
Giving up very few openings to get that toss back that you're looking for.
It's so scary in this high ground push.
It's your best tool against this lineup.
I think we might have to start looking for some of those tosses
More than you want to have to this early on
Just too much too much chain save too much survivability right now
Will be some pretty big damage upgrades make my galaxy trying to finish up a datalus octurine almost done
For the puck he's getting there those two cores will get something
But of course BB team now with a 15,000 network lead
They are similarly getting big items datalus for the kez that's gonna amp things up quite a lot
Oh, yeah, and Vero is gonna be untouchable if he gets more armor
Which he's trying to complete a sheva's on top of the lotus
As Kez is stacked almost all of 25 got the shard off the tormentor
fully six-slotted outside of exchanging that mage slayer for something else even higher DPS here
And this with the Scotty build up you a lot of HP to work with
Which is nice for your saves getting in there before you get bursted on top of the pendulum
giving you a little more time. This is a tough target to bring down. I like how
BB invited my Steering, kind of played around this idea of you know, yeah if they
can toss burst this kez at the start of the fight it's gonna be rough, but we're
making that as difficult as possible to do. It might get to a point where you
can kind of just run these other cores in a little loosely like we're just gonna
throw the Centaur in the slaughter and see what's happening and if Kyrgyz
likes that fight then he gets a guaranteed ability to join that without
getting initiated on. If he doesn't like it maybe you can either cut your losses or
I'm trying to take the outposts. It's not by safe.
Surrounded by the wards, Atlanche on two, that's a really good setup.
If they have some follow-up damage would be really nice, but Miro still got off the cart,
put the Keds inside of it, and drives them away. The BKB was used by GPK,
Nygma Galaxy, a fishing expedition.
They got something out of BB Team, but they can't really chase.
Still looking for the Daedalus. Lost by back off Sumail, he's trying to save for both here.
We'll be a big damage upgrade on that front line.
It's a shame for Nick Mcgalaxy that they don't have better things to follow up that avalanche.
Right? It's like the only AoE disabled that they really have that works with that is going to be the Bushwack.
But they also, at the same time, Timbersaw, when he goes in, he's going to be cutting down on these trees.
It's not.
So it's kind of awkward.
Ideally, you lead a fight with a multi-hero Bushwack. I mean, that kind of goes without saying.
It would be, but then at least the combo chain is a lot easier to execute here.
Let's see if Omar can find the opening.
Still BB and control the network and control this game.
Level 25 Kez gets the plus one Echo Slash attack so you're going to need some repositioning
tools for these heroes.
They can't afford to get hit by all three of those.
Just incredibly debilitating.
This mid tower is still up and Sumail doesn't want to let it stay up any longer.
As he put himself too far forward here, try to hit the bush whack,
and it tends inside the cart, actually tossed together away from Sumail,
because Sumail, he needs the distance right now.
All he's got is a hard poon to work with, trying to get away from these heroes.
Oh, he's getting jumped, no fire placed onto him, he can't get away.
He has to turn and fight, it's his only option, but these heroes are just too damn tanky.
Sumail's eventually going to go down, it's up to the other,
so Nick McAllister, Devai has already cut down the Shadow Shum,
and now looking back to Katsumi, two supports down.
down, divide, getting a little stuck right now though, that's no good, now he's got two
of course on top of me, burst him down nice and easy, it doesn't matter how much reactive
armor you have against so much physical damage.
The second the kez gets loaded in that cart, it looks rough because you're tiny committed
on that front line.
There's no way you can bail him out, there's no way you can kite that flight in the long
run.
It's real kind of just walked into it, I don't know if he was thinking he was just going
to take that tier one and flink out or they weren't there but he gets caught in a moment
that you probably regret giving him that opening.
And it's so close to some levels
that I think do change things.
Right, level 25 on Puck.
That helps with this Octurine.
You're being able to spam out these bells even faster.
Maybe some really long team fights.
You can get double coils out.
Alture there, of course, 25s are nice.
They add up in these long fights.
There's other nice coils of decent damage,
but it's not doing a lot on its own.
No ags, no divine.
We're not in that territory yet.
There's gotta be two lanes to bear.
It's easy for a BB team.
Nick McAllister.
On their last hope here.
They are just continuing to build the tank.
The carts lured our flads and dying.
Everybody's such a difficult target in this game.
See, you're gonna run out of damage.
Yeah, that's how it goes.
Great pushback here.
You just joint this a little bit
and you toss that lawn mower onto your timber saw.
You deal with that thing,
I don't want any business with it.
But you still don't have the Daedalus on the tiny here.
He was holding on to 4,000 gold.
So like you're holding gold for buyback,
but you're taking a flight to a place where,
even if you buy back,
I don't think you can get here faster to make a difference.
Also, it seems like they have damage issues right now.
So can you really afford not to buy out this Daedalus?
That's a big question mark on this fight.
Like you do get to clean up some of the backline here
with the mobility.
That part looks good, but again, it takes so damn long.
Still sitting on 4700 gold.
Didn't die on courier, right?
You just he's just trying to get the buyback plus the data was here.
Refuses to buy out.
I think it has to so very close to it.
But if you get that damage item, and in the process, Kens picks up another extra life.
Roshan Roar is going to stall things a bit here, and the BB team are not going to be
caught inside this pit.
This is the Roshan where you don't really just want to force it anymore, if you're
looking for the fight.
Yeah, off of the objective force.
You're trying to get Newt McAllister to bite the bait and come in a little bit so you can
get some nice angle.
They're gonna smoke and look exactly for that with a big flank.
There is a high ground defensive ward from Big Mud. They have two, in fact, on this area.
So it is a good place for them to fight if they can break the smoke on a ramp.
Try and get a quick stun off.
You have buybacks into the outpost. Could work out well for you if BB do not execute well.
I love that they're getting away from this secret shop high ground cliff area, going all the way around.
And now, the Shivas pops. They spot the bait. That's just who they wanted.
with a null fire already out on him. G.H. is dead.
Jump in from Lord. I'm trying to clear out some of these heroes.
BKB activated from safe. Managed to get the hold on Smale.
Look at the focus. BKB! And there's that focus.
Insta-fire.
You've got to buy back, and now you're going to have to use it and win this fight.
It's your only option.
A jump on the, uh, Omar. Good win.
He's dead next.
So, Mael comes in with his BKB and starts laying it to Bulkier.
Did you hear him? He's dying again.
Despite, he can't win it anymore.
He doesn't have the damage. And BBT, they're just too big, too bad,
too tanky, too much to handle.
for Nekma Galaxy and they will win out this fight and win out the game to buy us their last help and he
will smash down for a two-touch rampage. The damage from this Kaz is out of control. The second he gets
loaded in the cart, this is like nothing you could do. You just run him out of the coil. There's no
control that can go on to the Kaz. The Bane died very early on. He is just swinging this Katana over
for everybody at almost 12,000 damage.
One of the melee heroes that looks really good
with the cart because they can get the save
and it gets off the raptor dance,
it's a full heal for him,
and they can trap that raptor dance right over
Nick McAllistery and claim the two-row.
This is a team I think has been a little underestimated
in this event.
They are looking better and better every series we see them.
They understand the meta,
their traps are very strong,
they can cheese you with some good last picks.
You know, they always have that Huskar mid,
They have the Arc Warden, some random stuff that can come out.
Miro plays a lot of these summoning heroes in the offlane.
It's not easy to keep all the threats in mind and get a good draft.
And then even when you do, we haven't seen this team really lose lanes.
They're a very difficult team to beat online, so you can't really run them over.
Okay, well then we have to out-team fight.
Yeah, but then, it's like we saw here, it's not an easy team to out-team fight.
They're very mechanically skilled.
They have good angles on those smokes.
They understand how to play around the objectives,
not force it too much, kind of fade enemies in, then take the fight.
If that's a fight into outpost, into enemy vision, into the Bi-Vax and they don't drop a single hero?
Great, that's disgusting execution, so they are in form right now.
They're gonna be a tough team to beat here as we go deeper in the event.
And they're looking to win it all.
They're looking very, very good and with a very definitive win over Big Mac Galaxy.
This is really the only misstep I feel like BB Team had over this whole series.
I feel like it was very disciplined play, that was just the one go.
This was one of the the worst looks for a nigma galaxy trying to go on this lord are and just coming very close to getting the kill
But not good enough and even if you did you end up losing three four to have to go back to you know
You had this timber saw who was so strong divide llama secured an advantage, but it didn't didn't feel like
The team utilized the timber saw that well in this early to meet you
I felt like you couldn't stand on the front line like either the fight is being split
They're both assassinating the back lines of the fight, or it's not just human pain carrying it.
I also think a lot of this game was decided. Let's be real.
The first Tier 1 for Ding McAlcy went down at 25 minutes.
Yeah.
How many of the deaths were preventable if you had some earlier Tier 1's?
How many of this map would have opened up for a hero like Tuck, for a hero like a blinked Tiny who's trying to get pick offs?
You couldn't get the lanes in team. You're dying trying to get this Tier 1.
You just don't have the space to work with.
Absolutely. It, uh, well, it has been a clean 2-0 from BB Team.
We've got stage now for our winners interview.
Thank you so much, Cap and SVG.
I am here with GPK!
Here we go, a little noise, please!
Congratulations, sir.
Heck of a match.
You got to be feeling pretty good right now, am I right?
I speak Russian.
Yeah, sure, fine, please.
Everything's fine.
I feel good.
I hope that we will go well in the end.
No, we didn't buy it. I've been playing on the lane for a long time. I think that this hero has a good, high power, but I play other builds and it seems to me that it's stronger in some way, even in competitive Dota.
But this is my opinion.
there but yes indeed it was a mesmerizing experience to do that today absolutely all
right let's talk a little bit about slardar would you recommend people do
this at home because I don't see anybody play this hero like you
I hate this hero, but our team is good, and we can win, so it's my note.
You sure?
Dang!
Sometimes you gotta do what you hate for victory!
Fair enough, alright.
Well, we saw BG earlier today.
We saw their 2-0.
Now we saw your 2-0.
You're up against them next.
Very similar series.
What do you think is gonna happen in the next one?
Is it gonna be another 2-0 or will they present a challenge?
I'm gonna destroy them.
You will destroy them!
I don't need a translation for that!
All right, ladies and gentlemen, give it up.
Best mids in the world, GPK.
Thank you so much.
And let's get your team up here, gentlemen.
It is time.
And as I don't leave, I need you.
You must stay.
We got a key to crush my friend.
Come on up, come on up.
Now, one of you has to be the key crusher.
Who would it be?
Oh, yeah, let's go, baby.
Who's crushing this key?
Who's it going to be?
We can even give it to our boy over here.
No.
GPK, you crushing?
Yeah.
Let's go! It's time for the crushing! Open the doors!
Nigma Galaxy's time has come to an end. The copium flows upon the floor as it dissolves as quickly as it came.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr.GPK, please to our Keymaster,
we'll gather around as best you can, boys!
We're about to see NIGVA go down!
Hit it, my friend!
Here comes the crush, hopes, dreams, the world wins!
And they say, yeah, they all the way!
Oh, hell yeah!
There we are, let it go!
Wait, you got it!
Let it go, you're killing them!
Thank you. Oh, fantastic. Okay, like a fine wine. We shall present the key to you. You must say yes.
It is crushed enough for your expectations. Crushed them in real life, just like in the game.
Well, please inspect the key. Is it crushed enough? Good?
Nice! All right, fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, goodbye to Nigma Galaxy. Hello to BBT Moving On!
Let's give it one more time for the boys!
There we go!
And we'll shoot it back to the panel.
A dominance 2-0 here on the main stage.
BBT move forward guaranteed top four here at EWC for Dota 2.
They will have Vici Gaming to go up against next,
but let's break down this game we just witnessed
because it was a more even draft,
which is what we wanted from NIGMA Galaxy.
and still is DB Team that dominated this game?
Yeah, I think we just saw two different calibre of teams today.
Obviously, Nigma lost the series, and I don't feel like we saw them at their best,
but I also think DB Team did show their absolute best that they've been working towards this entire year,
and it's nice to see a team that has historically done well during the regular season
that's now ramping up at the right time.
It seems like they've fixed some classic issues for the mirror.
I like that they came in today with very clear ideas and things that we didn't maybe see them do before like the Naga Siren and
With their vision they were able to execute it very well and very easily
In fact, it looked almost too easy in that game too because the draft was a bit more even
But it did feel like they always had that one step in that mid game over team midline
You wouldn't expect it to be that way potentially
Especially if there's a timbersaw in the game versus that kind of heroes, but wasn't even close
It was not and you know the kill score at some point it looked kind of even but at the end of the day
I think the majority of the skirmishes that we saw all took place either in the middle of the map or on the side of
Nick my galaxy I felt like PB's side of the map was never a Brian in contention
Yeah, it feels like there's so many ways to lose the game right now
there's so many ways to lose the drafts and you talk about like what the game looks like and
and the mirror said earlier, the draft is half of it
and executing is the other half.
But for me, it's like, we saw the Shadow Shaman come out
and we're wondering why Shadow Shaman?
We've hardly seen this hero at all.
And mirror said, oh, it might be a preemptive counter
to the puck.
And it's like, when you have the answers already picked
in your draft and you also have a very run-it-you lineup,
you're gonna have decent lane matchups.
You have Centaur, Slardar, Kaz.
If this is not the like signature low cooldown,
we're gonna be up in your face
for the entirety of the game.
I don't know what it is.
I just looking at the heroes on paper,
I think they tried to pick Timbersaw
as like a hero that can sustain through that
or be durable enough,
but I don't think there's such thing.
And yeah, BB team, they just brought the,
they brought the heat constantly.
They made some really great plays too
off the back of GPK Florida.
And he said in the interview,
he doesn't like playing the hero so much,
but he'll do it for his team.
And it was super valuable in this game
because this Timbersaw that we talked about
is like the one strong hero in Nygma's draft.
At some point he was just getting blink stung by the starter, killed by that Kez, or blink stung by the center
and just getting that damage amped so much by starter's ulti that we couldn't really feel his presence in that early game.
And then that cascaded into them just feeling really weak in the mid game on Nygma.
Yeah, a tough game for them for sure.
Potentially the break that they had was killer as well because we definitely did not see them at their best.
That's the reality of it. You have to be able to perform at any time on any stage, especially with single elimination.
You've got to do everything you can to be as prepared as you can be.
I also think it's a bit of that extra flair of creativity.
It's a combination of, it's like, yeah, GBK said they didn't steal it, but they weren't picking Lena earlier on in this event.
And that means you have to be able to kind of take inspiration from what other teams are doing.
And also, it's like, GBK has always played Lena historically.
It's not like he learned the hero for the sake of the the game that he won today
It's it's this extra layer on top of the meta that we always talk about you have a long group stage
you're already on like the fourth day of the playoffs and
The teams that I've been seeing winning especially a beachy gaming with the upset earlier and baby team as well is
They just seem to have that extra spark of creativity the one little curveball that the other team didn't really factor in it
Is played a huge role in the draft. Yeah, you said Brian during the draft
You know when the centaur came out this is for you the hero that is very much shaping the tournament
But there's another hero on the rise that is very much shaping this tournament
We saw yesterday Malabi crush on it and talking about the undying
I believe there's a couple of dying clips that you want to highlight specifically because of this
Yeah, I want to talk about the fact that teams like BB team
They always have answers to what the other team is doing and this game we felt like nigma galaxy did not have answers
So in this first clip you're just gonna see that their fiends gripping the slaughter here
and there's a tombstone at the bottom of our screen.
And this is meant to be a three-man game from Nigma Galaxy.
But meantime, instead of being able to focus the slaughter,
they feel like they have to back off and instead retreat
at the center, obviously, to stampede and kick him to safety,
get safe in position to lock down Lornoff on the puck.
But this was kind of the story of every single play
that Nigma tried to make when the game was still even.
So if we take the next clip, you're
going to see that kind of only in order to take the tower,
just lays a tombstone down.
And I'm just gonna fast forward a little bit through this as like Nigma Galaxy, they just avoid
the Tombstone entirely. They're lingering, they're lingering, they're lingering.
They're gonna wait for that Tombstone to finally end and they're like, okay,
I guess we're now allowed to go and they do manage to get the kill on Miro, but this is,
this is kind of the fight scenario that they're in and this is a problem being posed
by a five position hero, not a core. And this is an example of, okay, we're gonna get a kill on
save, maybe a little bit of a miss pushback by Omar, but there's also a GH Bane coming in and the
Tombstone saved and the puck. And I guess we're just going to walk away now is the option and save
who's a low HP support gets saved by the Tombstone. And the reason why it's so important, I think,
to highlight this is because Ningma Galaxy had the Undying in Game 1, they had the Shard saved,
but the answers that BB Team drafted towards it, the Naga illusions to quickly kill it, the song
going to take it out. It's just such a difference on paper when you naturally have those answers
within the abilities of the heroes. You don't have to itemize around it or anything like
that. And he did all of that while also setting up his safe laneer for success. Of course.
We did also choose an MVP and it is that safe laneer. You've got to give it to Kiritich
in this series. Great Kes, great Naga Siren performance, FB well deserved. Yeah, he played
fantastically on that Kes. At some point the game looked kind of stable in terms of how
the lanes one, but the second KiraTitch joined on his kez when he TP'd mid and got the fire,
we're like, okay, he entered the game. And after that, it felt like any play that they
made with their double blink setups in the center, in the starter, KiraTitch was there
to dish out the damage. And this is a hero that I would say is in his like top three carry heroes
period. So you have to think about this kez coming in, it's scary. And now you have to think
about the Naga after your team that likes to run summons and likes to run lichens and beastmasters.
Yeah, I like Kiritouch a lot. He kind of reminds me of
Kristallus in the sense that he has these like signature heroes. Like he even picked Blutzy
during the group stage. He'll just whip them out when it feels like a good game for them
and he thinks it enables the team in some way. And then he also has,
but he also has like his meta stables that he's just going to go to
when it's just a good hero in the game. And he needs to be the one blind picking
and setting up GPK. And this is Sumail like, as well as the Vy'Lama, like all these meat
shields that are supposed to be tanky, strength heroes, they just don't look like it.
But I just watched Bane get one tapped.
Like, that's...
That's the light, that's the light.
That's the light.
Yeah, that's the light.
That is what happens.
But this game, like, as it progressed,
it did feel like which team had the tankier heroes
could take fights more easily.
There was a double heart.
There was one on the slaughter
and there was one on the centaur.
And they were able to get gone on by the timing
and then disengaged pretty comfortably.
Shout out to the cart as well from the centaur.
But they disengaged and they were able to go back in
whereas every time Ningmo were gone on,
the disengaged was just the end of it.
but there was not really a comfortable way for them
to kite around and take that fight.
Yeah, and just like that, we are losing one more team.
Nigma Galaxy, get eliminated here
for some final words on the team.
We're heading over to GH.
Hello, I'm here with GH of Nigma Gaming.
Gus had a tough 2-0 right now.
How are you feeling?
Feeling good, excited to be here.
Oh, okay, no bad feelings.
you didn't expect to go farther just?
Of course we would have wished to go further,
but you know, it is what it is.
How do you feel like the break affected you guys?
I've been talking about it with other players.
Amar felt that he was upset that he didn't get to play
for five days, it felt like it made them rusty,
or maybe do you feel like that affected you guys at all?
I wouldn't be able to say whether it affected us or not.
It's a bit too random to quantify exactly
what's the consequences of the break.
Gotcha.
Well, let's talk about the games a little bit. Game 1, you guys got that Naga Siren
that you had to play against. What was that like? Because it felt like, at least
the analysts were thinking, it felt like the perfect pick in that position.
Yeah, it was a really good pick and it struggled us a bit, but I thought we had some good chances.
Okay, game number two, Slardar lineup, tons of minus armor, physical damage.
That game was definitely a lot closer. What do you think was like the crucial parts in the game
that led to your loss?
I think some teamfights we didn't really execute them correctly and then maybe a bit of gameplay around the map was not ideal, so it cost us the game.
Gotcha. Well, I know you're captain positive, you're always generally happy. What's your outlook for the next couple weeks as you prepare for TI?
I think you're going to take a small break for the moment and then maybe in a week or so get back to the grind and then prepare harder for TI.
Okay, well that sounds great any words for the fans out there. I know they're very happy to see you here excited
You guys have more tournaments coming up. Well, of course, thank you for the support as always
And I wish we can deliver more in the future. All right. Well, thank you for joining me, GH and good luck in your coming upcoming tournament. Thank you
I think coming top eight here for Nigma Galaxy is also a great promise for going forward this
This iteration of the roster hasn't been around for that long, so maybe they get eliminated
here, but top 8 is still a very strong result, Ryan.
Yeah, I might be projecting a bit, but that was a less joyful looking GH than I'm used
to seeing.
I know he was still remaining very positive, but I feel like I can tell in GH's way that
that loss did suck quite frankly, that they wish to have gone further, and I'm sure they're
happy to have been here and they're happy with their group stage performance, but I just feel like
there is more for this team to give than what we saw in this best of two. And I think anybody
in his position and also as a spectator that we were rooting for them, not because we don't like
BB team, but because Nigma finally might have been back. But yeah, it was just hard to watch
that interview because it's I think GH such a positive influence on the scene. And you tell
it took a little bit out of them here. Yeah, but he mentioned they were gonna take a break,
which I think will be very good for them, like they qualified for TI and that was quite a slugfest
and it taught them a lot too. Here they went 9-1 in their group and you know losing to BB team
that's not anything to be ashamed of. They're such a strong team and could potentially make it all
the way to the grand finals and I think taking a break resetting, you know getting your reps in,
maybe expanding your carry hero pool is going to help you a lot moving to TI.
very, very true. It does leave us with four teams here in Paris. The top four is known
Yandex, P-Vision, Vici Gaming, and now also BB Team joining that top four, meaning
we can already kind of gauge what potentially might happen because we know guaranteed either
BB Team or Vici from the grand final. Same thing goes for Yandex and P-Vision, and I
just want to quickly look ahead a little bit. Of course, tomorrow is when the semi-finals will
happened Brian your thoughts on them my thoughts are that during the group stage
I thought team the index and pVision were just a far above all like with the
way that they were just absolutely destroying their groups it wasn't just
wins they were absolutely manhandling everybody so we talked about team the
index versus team spirit being like the potential quarter grand finals I also
think this is grand quarter finals was what it was I think this is basically the
grand semi-finals and that's not trying to take away anything from BB versus Vici
but I do believe the winner of that series will inevitably be the underdog
going into the finals. Well we got a touch upon BB versus Vici as well because I
think Vici Gaming already here top 4 FE it's a success story. It is a success story
I'm so excited I mean XM mid-slurred today enough said like they're feeling
themselves at some point watching Vici during this EWC at the start of it I
felt like they didn't have that much confidence in themselves. They weren't willing to really
go outside of the box with their hero picks. They were kind of picking, you know, cookie-cutter
heroes for Jean-Cue for XM, but as they collected a couple of wins and made it through that survival
stage, all of a sudden there is the position for Zeus farming two rapiers. There is the mid-flare
for XM. I think they're going to take that confidence of going into the series versus BV tomorrow.
Yeah, BV also looked very scary today. So curious to see what VTGamer is going to come up with
tomorrow but of course all those semi-finals will take place tomorrow and that was it for it here
for today thank you so much for tuning in if you missed any of today's action we got you covered
because this is it for today but we'll of course leave you with the sdc recap of today and we'll
and we'll see you tomorrow.
I