Dota 2 Asia Championships grand finals are set. It’s going to be an OG vs IG rematch of the upper bracket finals as B-God’s team took down Newbee in the lower bracket finals to claim their rights of challenging the Europeans once more.
It’s been a while since Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei fans have seen him fighting in a tournament grand finals, but today the long wait is over. Invictus Gaming have had an astonishing performance so far at DAC 2017 and they are now ready to challenge the triple Major Champions in the tournament Grand Finals. IG are heading to the bo5 series after yet another impressive display of force and coordination against their fellow countrymen from Newbee.
With both Newbee and IG looking extremely strong right now, the lower bracket final were expected to be nothing else but a beautiful China Dota 2 showdown and it delivered. The first game of the series was an one hour long battle in which IG’s late game plan overcame Newbee’s early aggression.
Game One:
For the first game of the series IG prepared a lineup suited for Aghanim’s Scepters with a support Weaver twist that would save his Alchemist times and times again, making Newbee’s team fight efforts futile. Giving maximum priority to Ye 'BoBoKa' Zhibiao, four position Weaver, IG let him stay mid lane while the Alchemist switched to jungle farming mode for the first 15 minutes of the game. While losing almost the entire laning stage, IG were left with no tier one towers shortly after the 10 minute mark, and were also fighting into an Aegis Ursa by the time they needed to defend their tier two towers.
However, Ou 'Op' Peng was undeterred in his farming mission and in the first big team fight his Armlet-Radiance melted Newbee down. The first Aghanim’s offering went to the Weaver and from there on the game turned into a nightmare for Newbee who were unable to secure a kill on the big fat menace. Despite perfectly landed RP’s from Damien 'kpii' Chok time and time again, the Alchemist would survive courtesy of the Time Lapse coupled with amazing Rubick steals from Fu 'Q' Bin. Newbee didn’t give up too easily and dragged the game to a late stage where a Rapier Luna could have been the solution but IG’s team fight discipline kept them safe even when Xun 'uuu9' Han's Moon Galves became a real threat. Losing the Rapier was the final nail in the coffin for Newbee and they had to admit defeat when IG went on demolishing their base.
Game Two:
The fate of the second game was decided much faster, IG opting for a push strategy with a core Lina and a support Warlock. To secure the lane dominance, IG sent the Warlock in a dual bottom lane with Axe, and in doing so they managed to mess the entire Newbee’s trilane, took down the tower very early and began hunting for Newbee’s cores. After a couple of pickoffs with a Shadow Blade Lina, IG grouped up and pushed the high ground to seal the deal in a little over 30 minutes with an overall kill score of 26 to 5 in their favor.
The DAC 2017 grand finals are set to commence at 08:00 CEST/14:00 local time, with IG fighting OG for the tournament title in front of their home fans.
