Day 4 of the WePlay! Pushka League saw some amazing DOTA 2 action, with two games around the 60-minute mark as teams adjusted to conditions on the fly.
Check out our day 3 of the WePlay! Pushka League here.
Old Liquid vs New Liquid in Game One: a loss here against Nigma would Liquid in a 0-3 and a struggle to qualify for the playoffs in a strong European group. Liquid began the BO3 with an up-tempo draft that dominated a Nigma team that saw w33 out of position multiple times, giving Liquid multiple kills and avenues to exploit – a 41-10 score in 35 mins felt ominous.
Nigma made key adjustments in the draft in Game Two, deciding an up-tempo model is a way to go. Strong team combinations of Ember/Pugna/Lich/Necrophos/Clockwork generated 49 assists on 15 kills, with towers falling regularly across the map and high ground pushed within the first 20 minutes making it a matter of time, and Nigma took the win in 26 mins.
The third game saw Nigma bank on the Ember Spirit first pick for Miracle with a w33 Templar Assassin going up against a Keeper of the Light/ Mars/Lone Druid/Shadow Fiend/Monkey King line up from Liquid. This became a 60+ minute arm wrestle, with both teams constantly at each other, however, Liquid managed to find the ascendancy for their first win of the tournament.
Next up was Virtus. Pro (VP) taking on the FlyToMoon (FTM) team who only made the tournament due to the withdrawal of Gambit just days before. Not much was expected with VP, who dominated the recent ELS ONE Los Angeles tourney, widely expected to take a 2-0 cakewalk, but FTM had other plans. After VP comfortably took the first game, FTM hit back with a 39-minute Slark game. The deciding game was great to watch – a 56-minute bar brawl, where FTM managed to come back from multiple team wipes to gain the advantage at the 45-minute mark. It took two more team wipes for VP to finally put the nail in the coffin for a 2-1 win, but FTM definitely sent a message to the rest of the pool they won’t be an easy target.
The final round of the day between the world number one Team Secret taking on OG.Seed. Secret took the lead behind a Matumbaman Terrorblade that dropped 10k of damage on dire buildings in the 33-minute win. The second game was much the same, with a 12k gold lead after 19 minutes for Secret, high ground push at 22 minutes, and OG.Seed called GG at 24 minutes.
The first Dota 2 game showed that while OG.Seed knows what they’re doing, they need to start moving forward with next level plays like cutting creeps and better positional play. They now hold the bottom spot in Group A.
