The International is now in its major phase, where drama, action and emotions are running high.
With the beginning of Main Stage a few days ago, Dota 2’s biggest event is slowly concluding. The fourth day has brought forward some surprising yet entertaining results. We had defending champions OG against Team Spirit, T1 against Vici Gaming and finally Team Spirit taking on Virtus.pro to close off the day. Let’s look at some highlights from Day 4 of The International 10.
Team Spirit Outshine OG
The two time Aegis holders failed to defend the title and had to make way for an outstanding bunch of dreamers. Team Spirit won 2-0 against the TI Champions, performing well and surviving in the elimination rounds. However, what went wrong with OG?
Game 1 had some usual meta picks from OG with Void Spirit and Tiny on the main cores. Team Spirit picked an ultimate-ability based draft, relying on Winter Wyvern, Magnus and Faceless Void’s Ultimates. Considering OG had a low cooldown and fighting lineup, they were supposed to dictate the game in the early minutes. However, that was not the case. Team Spirit were playing brilliantly to fight around their cooldowns and had the kill advantage. Even after lagging in fights, OG were still ahead in net worth, but it was not enough to win the game.
Team Spirit was having a tough time killing Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan’s Tiny, but they were good at closing down OG with Lion and Magnus’s Reverse Polarity. OG also had a hard time against Winter’s Curse.
After a loss in the first match, OG perhaps paid little attention to the problems they faced against Lion and Magnus. They let Team Spirit pick both heroes, which looked like a mistake in the drafting phase. The Russian team had a great start in the game, but OG were responding to it. However, once the laning stage was over, it looked like hell for OG. Lifestealer was a great pick by Team Spirit, as the enemy had very few counter abilities to stop him. After winning most fights, Team Spirit took the Aegis on Lifestealer and kept rampaging around the map to take objectives. There wasn’t much OG could do with Tiny getting hard countered by Lifestealer and most of their team at the mercy of Alexander “TORONTOTOKYO” Khertek’s Void Spirit.
Team Spirit took the Ancient, took the chance from OG and walked with confidence to face Virtus.pro.
Southeast Asia’s Last Hope Gets Eliminated
After a rough start in the groups, T1 did a fantastic job competing so far in the tournament. Even after their exit, the team has made its region proud and will look to improve. They faced tough opponents with a match against Vici Gaming in the third round of Lower Brackets.
The first game saw T1 enjoying an early lead, which they kept and converted into a win after a 41-minute long game. The second match was a very close battle between the two teams. It looked like T1’s win with their great start and an early game draft. However, Vici slowly came back in the game with their strategic fights and a Roshan kill at 33 minutes. T1’s Dragon Knight, Monkey King and Dawnbreaker picks did not scale well enough to contain a right-click build Lina and Faceless Void. VG took the second game.
The last match saw a strange draft from T1 with the Enchantress and Wraith King picks. Vici, on the other hand, picked some usual meta heroes including Tiny and Monkey King. Net-worth wise the game was not unbalanced, but Vici had better control. With Roshan at 22-minutes in the game, VG looked quite dangerous. T1 failed to deal with the massive damage which Tiny had in abundance and buffed physical damage coming from Shadow Fiend with the help of Vengeful Spirit. T1 lost 2-1 to Vici Gaming who were phenomenal in the series.
Virtus.pro vs Team Spirit
The first game saw Spirit on the front foot with aggressive plays around the map. VP were quite comfortable even with the scores being in the opponent’s favor. Mid game was even with both teams fighting each other for an advantage. After the 35-minute mark, Spirit looked more dominating with the Aegis on Monkey King. With constant pressure and forced buybacks, Virtus.pro fell apart eventually calling “GG” at around 46 minutes.
The second game was a chance for VP to strike back, which they did with a great draft including Ursa, Viper, Elder Titan, Pangolier and Bane. Ursa dominated Spirit with little space to spare for Spirit’s Leshrac who was having a rough game. Especially with Pango and Elder Titan it was difficult to take straightforward team fights for Team Spirit. VP were 9k ahead in net worth at around 34 minutes in the game. With team fights being extremely difficult for Spirit because of their hero choices and an excellent draft from VP, the team collapsed and lost 15-34.
The deciding match was a rollercoaster with VP having the upper hand in the post laning period. However, as the match went deep into the mid-game, Spirit could pick off heroes, creating space and paving their way to a stable spot in the game. The continuous fights near the Roshan pit gave Spirit a better standing in the game. VP struggled to hold their own during the team fights, giving away crucial net worth. With Tiny and Lina in Spirit’s lineup, the pushing strength of their team was incredible.
VP fought well to keep their foot on the battlefield with a decent fight around the 45-minute mark. However, on their retreat after taking the Mid-Barracks, VP were caught by Spirit and lost their main carry, Luna. The fight cost VP a huge deal as Spirit looked to push high ground and was successful in doing so after a couple of favourable fights.
Team Spirit eliminated Virtus.pro 2-1 in an incredible series of action-packed games.
The International continues today, beginning with Invictus Gaming vs Vici Gaming. Be sure to catch all the action live on Twitch.
