Let’s admit it. During and after the great Chinese shuffle, some teams ended up better off than others. Two of these teams were Invictus Gaming (iG) and Team DK. Both teams have showed great improvement and dominance during their matches against other teams. In fact, iG took the Sina Cup championship after winning 3-0 against TongFu. DK, on the other hand, suffered losses in the National ESports Tournament, but silenced all doubts with their performance in the WPC-ACE Dota 2 League. The undefeated status of both teams brewed excitement and anticipation when these two teams faced off in the WPC-ACE Dota 2 league. The question of which team is currently superior was settled for the time being when Team DK emerged victorious with a 2-0 win over iG.
So what did happen in that game? Did iG underperform? Or was DK just that good?
Game 1: DK defines what it means to outplay
In this game, iG had the first pick and ban. Because of the combination of Dark Seer’s Vacuum and Wall of Refraction with Gyrocopter’s Calldown, I was expecting a hero like Puck to be iG’s last pick for 430. Puck’s skill set would go well with the combo, plus it is also one of 430’s signature heroes. I assume they picked Night Stalker to serve as their ganker and to deal with the Weaver. Night Stalker has greater vision during night time and could silence Weaver for a longer duration than Puck would. Plus it also doesn’t hurt that Night Stalker is one of 430’s signature heroes, although it hasn’t been used often lately. Ganking is something 430 usually does a great job of, granting Mushi doesn’t shut him down with Shadow Fiend in the mid lane.
There isn’t much to say about game 1 aside from the fact that DK totally outplayed iG. iG decided to go for an offensive trilane top with Visage, Gyrocopter and Rubick that went against DK’s own trilane of Naga, Lion, and Weaver. This left the Dark Seer to go against Clockwerk at the bottom lane as Shadow Fiend and Night Stalker faced off mid.
In this game, DK pretty much won all of the lanes in the early game and continued to snowball towards the late game. IG’s supports tried to deny farm from DK’s supports by blocking the creep camps. The battle of warding and de-warding, however, caught iG’s supports out of position in the early game, giving the enemy team hero kills, gold and experience. While DK’s Clockwerk was finding pickoffs when he could, iG’s Night Stalker was shut down. He was unable to execute successful ganks and was instead getting killed even during nighttime.
Another thing worth noting is LaNm’s Naga Siren who used the Song of the Siren during important and critical moments such as saving his teammates, making a way into or out of team fights, and securing kills by isolating Hao’s Gyrocopter with an active Black King Bar (BKB) from his non-BKB teammates.
The game ended in 30:40 with the score 7-32 in favor of DK.
Game 1 MVP
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