Dream Time shocked Invictus Gaming, convincingly beating them in their best-of-one matchup of the lower bracket of Sina Cup. They will face the winner of the LGD-CIS match-up on the next round.
Invictus Gaming planed to dominate the early to middle game on this match-up, skipping an agility carry and instead opting for a Brewmaster carry. DT on the other hand, invested in their stronger late game with Morpling farming and with supporting heroes such as Batrider to help him buy time.
IG failed to push their early game strength, as Batrider was able to efficiently farm in the jungle and Morphling was getting free farm. Despite a minor victory by iG as they took first blood by putting four heroes against the offline Batrider, DT soon took the advantage by getting the top tier-1 tower and then the recently-dead Batrider purchased his Blink Dagger just nine minutes into the game.
iG knew that they needed to push the early-game advantage of their hero composition, and that's what they did. With Enchantress' army of creeps and Brewmaster's Primal Split, they jumped into the bottom lane on the 10-minute mark. iG won a 4-1 hero trade and a tower after that engagement, and raced up to a 1,500 lead in gold and experience.
DT was able to bounce back, however, as iG committed a major mistake. Brewmaster enganged on three heroes under a tower with his blink initiation, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the quick response of DT. They also took a lot of damage from the tower, having no creeps to help them tank it.
iG went back to what worked out for them initially - a team push on the bottom lane. They ended up on a similar 4-1 hero trade a tower on that go, but DT was able to minimize their loss as they cleared Roshan after the enemy retreated. The next team push was DT's wherein they traded two of their heroes for three enemy heroes and a tower.
It started to go downhill for iG from that point, as Morphling, armed with a Linken's Sphere and an Ethereal blade was already starting to assert his dominance. It was evident in the 41st minute that DT was already very much ahead, winning a 5-0 team fight in the Radiant's jungle and then taking the middle lane. iG called GG on the 46th minute after losing four heroes to the already very fat Morphling.
DT advances into the third round of the lower bracket, wherein they will face the winner of the LGD-CIS game on another best-of-one elimination match.
