Mousesports moves on the grand final after almost breaking the map whilst playing the longest game of competitive Dota 2 ever.
First match of the day is done where both teams delivered some high class Dota. iCCup surprised and took first game with an aggressive push-heavy strat. As if that was not enough, they ran an even heavier push strat next game and the game looked decent but mouz had a better line-up to fall back on. With the two early Midas' they transitioned better into late and took the victory. The third game was won very early by mouz with the laning of iCCup mostly falling apart and they could not recover.
Mousesports was also the successful team in the second match-up, which finished off with the longest game in competitive Dota 2 history. It lasted a full 1h 36min 26sec. Even the Dota 2 map started rifting and breaking and mysterious flames and tweaks appeared, refered to by the players as "armageddon". Scroll down to the bottom of this article to find pictures of the world's end. Mousesports will be going up against Virtus.pro in the grand final tomorrow at 19.00 CEST / 1pm EST.
Check out the new highlight videos for Group A and Group B. More of those to come, stay tuned. Meanwhile check out all VODs here and the hardware giveaway here, where you stand a chance in winning a fully loaded gaming PC or other gear from Corsair.
Match report - iCCup vs mouz
?Game 1
iCCup forfeited the bottom lane completely despite having a decent match-up (Dark Seer vs Lifestealer, Rubick, Visage). Instead they let Black free farm while grabbing a fair share of farm in the jungle for their own Dark Seer. The supports (Wejustzik, Alwayswannafly) moved with supreme swiftness and positioning in the early game, playing with perfect synergy, finding multiple kills both top and mid. The early game was a struggle for mouz and a great run for iCCup, Jackal farmed like a president. However, Black's Midas was online since minute four and he was farming uncontested as well. iCCup set the pace for the game, keeping up pressure and aggression. Some poor positioning and lacking teleportation from Luna caused them to lose three heroes and two towers within one minute though.
The graphs displayed about 0 after that sequence but some good fights and a Roshan put iCCup back in the lead. Mouz were playing the split push game, but a Shadow Bladed Dragon Knight stunned up Black and with Leshrac there to follow-up stun, there was no way he could get out. A few screens away, Qoqjva thought he was safe to damage the tier 3 tower a bit longer, but Dagger + Hex on MAg's Dark Seer gave his team the time necessary to catch up and kill Qoqjva's Prophet. They moved out to claim Roshan and his Aegis. Things were going just right for iCCup, their core heroes were very farmed and supports were doing well. They avoided all big Reverse Polarities, kept Qojqva from becoming a force and pressuring the enemy carry. After killing of the two supports, it was base push time.
Mouz quickly decided to go barracks trading but iCCup did not settle for barracks. They wanted to finish right there and proceeded to take down both tier 4 towers. A hectic fight broke out and mouz eventually defended their throne with 1000 hp left. Mouz tried to apply pressure and walk in the front door with a great Reverse Polarity. iCCup however managed to bring the fight back due to huge area damage from Luna, Leshrac and DK. All remaining to do was to finish the 1000 hp throne. iCCup won game 1.
Game 2
Mousesports decided to get a core they're comfortable with, picking up Lone Druid and Puck as their first two. However, iCCup was not done pushing, they picked a very potent pushing line-up in game two. Obviously this is a team who loves pushing. Both MAg and Resolut1on were massively annoying in their lanes while the bot lane was going poorly for iCCup, despite grabbing the first blood. After the first blood they lost five heroes in a row in the same lane, Weaver getting decent farm while Lycan not quite so. The top lane went great though, MAg killing the Spirit Bear, the courier and finally the Druid and the tower at minute 8. Qojqva was clearly not used to this line-up. Black picked up Midas at this point, as the long lane 3vs3 farmer whereas iCCup abandoned their trilane completely. That allowed mouz to demolish the tier one tower. It seemed as if iCCup would go for the push Necrobook strategy, mouz responded by picking up another Midas - this one on qojqva. Mouz rotated up three heroes to the top lane to finally slow down Brood which they managed to do. But the Necro-move speed auro + howl buffed broodlings slaughtered syndereN in a heartbeat from full hp.
The momentum was starting to shift to mouz due to double Midas and going for a more late game oriented style. However, while MAg was baiting and picking a fight and then run away with Brood on top, the rest of iCCup went into the Rosh pit to fish an Aegis. The Radiance of the Spirit Bear and Weaver's huge solo kill potential kept iCCup from pushing properly though. iCCup would have to rely on finding either Black or Qoqjva, take him down and then transition into a push. An extremely well timed Song of the Siren stopped mouz from killing off Roshan and allowed Resolu1on to just walk into the pit, take the last hit and steal the Aegis. Mouz were forced back but Resolut1on wasted the Aegis right away when walking into the gem-carrying mouz team. A new Naga sleep got him out safely. After a longer period of split push and counter-push from both teams, paS and syndereN stalled iCCup in the Rosh Pit while the other cores of mouz were pushing one lane each. Black was huge at this point and successfully managed to destroy both bot barracks. And it was eventually base race time again, but this time mouz took it without too much excitement. The Lone Druid and Weaver were just too devastating.
?Game 3
The third game started in a horrible fashion for iCCup, the questionable aggressive trilane failed to seize first blood due to Black's early magic stick saving him and turning the fight around. The kills were basically pouring in for mouz at this lane, especially for Black. iCCup got initated on and killed time after time, sadly for them while struggling in the other two lanes. They desperately tried to gank bottom with Alchemist coming in from mid but FATA responded accordingly, teleported in and threw down his arsenal, resulting in a few kills going his way. The game was looking awkward at this point for iCCup, they had a trilane without too much potential and kept sending it bottom even after losing it over and over, all the time while Qojqva had the time of his life on top. iCCup realized the game was quite impossible to win and called it quits. Mousesports move on to the lower bracket final.
Match report - Fnatic vs mouz
Game 1
A huge blunder by Fly gave Qoqjva the first blood with the solo offlane Lifestealer, after which he abandoned the lane to go jungle. Shortly after, FATA got a solo kill on the slightly overaggressive H4nn1 mid. Qoqjva returned top after jungling up his Phase Boots and FATA, after getting ganked once, kept pressuring H4nn1 mid. Together with syndereN he killed off the QoP two more times. Great rotations from syndereN also turned a dire situation into three kills for mouz. At minute 16, mouz had the three most farmed heroes on the map. The small fights kept taking unlucky turns for Fnatic, mouz were pretty much steam rolling them at this point and it became oh so appearant for Fnatic as well as mouz were pushing their bot lane. They forfeited and set aim for next game.
Game 2
The second game had Fnatic off to a better start, first they took out the Spirit Bear followed by the main Druid AFTER he resummoned it. He teleported out and got killed again, which ensured a slow start for mouz' offlane player. It was a farm battle between Era and Black, Black went Midas to deal with the late game Lancer. Black dodged the first Bat Dagger gank by teleporting out just before Trixi went in, he teleported bot to deny the tower followed by finding a solo kill on Era. Mouz had recovered the early shaky bot lane start due to these moves. Mouz forced Fnatic to start five-manning with the Lancer, and they did not even find success in doing so, putting them in a bad position. After managing a well executed double kill for Era, they lost two heroes due to sloppy positioning by Roshan followed by mouz taking getting an Aegis. Fnatic then used Fiends Grip twice to kill off the Sprit Bear, kind of amusing. However, those were only small victories for Fnatic, as their other gank attempts failed.
The strategy trtransitioned into split push for them, but they had to forfeit another Roshan to avoid fights. H4nn1 farmed up a Scythe of Vyse as his first his big item, a great item for pick-offs and control. They used it to grip up and kill FATA in the river. Suddenly, Fnatic were having a good run after capitalizing on a wasted Naga Sleep, taking down FATA once again and killing Black one second after the Aegis timed out, forcing him to buy back. Fnatic was now in the driving seat all of a sudden, and Qoqjva and FATA kept getting caught off-guard. However, the team couldn't do anything without Era present. They built the team around him, noticeable with the Hex + Skadi from Weaver, nerfing his own damage but buffing his utility potential. In the end, mouz couldn't stop Lancer despite great individual play by paS and a huge amount of farm on Black. The Enbeefle from Bane certainly did not help Black's situation either. Fnatic evened the score: 1 - 1.
?Game 3
Fnatic were tricked into an awkward laning phase where they picked the Razor to up against OD mid. Mouz opted for a trilane farming OD though and picked Puck for mid lane, Fnatic were now "stuck" with Razor without no clear lane for him. They did not send him mid which might have been a better solution instead of last picking the mid Alchemist. When diving the bottom tier 2 tower after taking out the first one, Fnatic got the first blood. However, as always the ever-so-quick to rotate FATA, teleported in for a double kill on Era and Trixi. Alchemist farmed up a Dagger as his first item while Naga Sleep into Black Hole scored Fnatic a double kill on top lane. Also there was the now roaming(?) Razor, appearant that Fnatic did not really know what to do with this hero after the draft finished. Overall, FATA's rotations were better and more successful than H4nn1's, making better use of the laning phase (also winning the lane). Fnatic managed to land a few successful Concoction Blink initiates, granting his team a few kills. However he also attempted to blink in and steal the Aegis, failed miserable and gave up a free kill.
The game slowed down quite a bit, Fnatic tried to avoid fights to farm up BKBs while mouz avoided fights to farm up Hexes. There hadn't been any Sleep into Blackhole for quite some time. Shotgun finished on Morph, used to kill Black together with H4nn1. H4nn1 did however suicide during the gank. A while later and an Aegis later, mousesports pushed top lane but got caught in the sleep whereas Fly black holed Qojqva and Synderen, both dying and mouz were forced to retreat. They did also lose Black while flying though. 40minute Fnatic.BKB vs mouz.Hex status : 4 BKBs vs 3 Hexes. Mouz learned from their mistakes though, they avoided getting caught in the monster black holes and tried to always keep one of Fnatic's heroes dead. Pushing base proved to be difficult though. Notail found Black and Qoqjva, used Song and Fly caught them in a Black Hole. With those dead, Fnatic sieged the top lane, took the melee barracks even though Black bought back. Fnatic now had 2x Skadi while Mouz had 2x Shivas. Puck finished a Skadi, OD finished a Skadi. Suddenly everyone was getting the massive late game stat buff that is Skadi.
The game was beyond all descriptions at this point, both teams were just stacking more and more items. Refresher on OD and on Dark Seer. After 74 minutes came the double OD ultimate, cutting through Fnatic but it was at the end of the fight, and his team mate were already dead. After it, Morphling brought down Black too. Mouz won the next battle (about 15 minutes later) near Roshan, where the Double Wall illus of Morphling killed of Morphling in the matter of seconds. Fnatic could not fight against the double wall, next time they tried to was where mouz claimed a huge fight, taking down barracks top and melee rax mid, forcing about fifty buybacks. Eventually it became appearant that Fnatic could not stand against the force of Mousesports massive damage output and were eventually overthrown as mousesports sieged the base. Game 3 went down as the longest game of competitive Dota 2 so far, even the map started to break after 90 minutes. Mousesports proceeds into the grand final!
Further evidence of the end of the world --
Hardware giveaway
Corsair was also generous enough to run a hardware giveaway throughout the competition where the first prize is a fully loaded gaming PC. In addition, there are lots of other products up for grabs, such as M95 mice, K95 keyboards, V2000 headsets and MM800 mousepads. To sign up, all you need to do is follow this link, like Corsair on Facebook and enter your email address. In addition to the hardware prizes, two people are selected every day to win DotaTV tickets.
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