The first match of the International is over and LGD continue their dominance as they beat Team Empire 2-1 and advance to the next round.
LGD took care of buisness as they beat Team Empire and will advance to the next stage to face the winner of CDEC and Cloud9. Team Empire defnitely looked better than they did during the group stage but it was not enough to beat the Chinese heavyweights. It is not the end of the road for them yet, they'll be facing the winner of MVP.P/NewBee.
Game One:
LGD had a very versatile draft with KOTL, Dazzle and Tuskar for the early game and Storm Spirit coupled with Phantom Lancer for the late game. Empire on the other had to end the game around 30 minutes since they had no answer for the PL in the late game. Both the teams pressured the safe lanes with aggressive offlanes. Empire drew first blood with the help of Witch Doctor and Axe.
Maybe and Resolution had pretty much the same number of last hits untill 5 minutes when Storm got a lucky regeneration rune and rotated to the bottom lane, to get an easy double kill. LGD got complacent and attempted the same again but DK was ready to counter initiate this time; Empire went ham on them and got a 4-2 kill trade off and forced a buyback. Empire were in control of the game after this engagement.
Even though they were ahead, Empire lost one or two heroes due to their over aggressive play and kept LGD in the game. Empire had a 5k gold lead at 20 minutes and surprised LGD with a high ground push. Silent on his QWOP played aggressively blinked in and died, leading to a successful base defence for LGD and a quick double for Maybe's Storm who was starting to get out of control. The CIS team failed the base push twice until finally getting Roshan and it felt like they had it in the bag this time but LGD were ready for them, yet again.
Empire diving T4 towers, first failed push
Even with Aegis, LGD fended off the push and get four kills in the process. At this point the Phantom Lancer was already out of control and Maybe had 14 bloodstone charges. LGD got roshan and pressured all three lanes and caught Resolut1on's DK off guard and went high ground. Even though Yoky did work on his Axe and they landed 3 man calls with QWOP ultimates and Witch Doctor Death Wards, Empire were not able to deal with the PL and got manhandled. LGD took three lanes of racks in a matter of seconds and forced out the GG call.
Game Two:
Team Empire had a very greedy draft with Anti Mage, Queen of Pain and Magnus as their three cores, they had a great late game lineup and were favored in the late game. LGD on the other hand had to finish around the 30 minute mark since they had Sylar's Lycan and Storm Spirit. Anti Mage and Disruptor are great counters to Storm so it was really hard for Maybe to carry this game.
The game started out very well for Empire, which was a huge surprise considering they had bad early game supports. QWOP and Anti Mage also had a good start and had 40 last hits by 6 minutes. The first blood was spilled at 9 minutes by Lina and Tuskar on the Bounty Hunter. Bounty Hunter had very low impact in the early game, he got a few creep kills here and there but that is all he did. But just to counter the BH, xiao8 spent a ton of fortune and was set back for the entire game.
Even though Empire had better farm, LGD were able to push towers really quickly because of Sylar's pushing potential. At 22 minutes into the game, only two tier two towers were standing for Empire. While all of this was going on, Anti Mage was farming away in the woods and was at the top of the net worth. Silent continued with his agro play style and is went ham on every one and this game it worked considering he was 30k net worth. There wasn't much of a contest from LGD post 25 minutes since they had no answer for the Anti Mage.
Lycan and Storm did their best to kite AM and did get kills but at the end of the team fight Silent wiped the floor with them. QWOP took Roshan and AM switched his Vlads for an Abyssal Blade. They pushed down mid and Silent played the team fight of his life. With a perfect blink in, he managed to kill the dazzle in two hits and then chased away all the heroes of LGD. AM not only killed the other heroes he managed to protect all of his team and they eventually got double barracks and the game was pretty much over.
LGD still tried but called GG after Silent pushed again, he even dove the fountain and killed Sylar. Even though Empire won, Silent made big mistakes like pushing the barracks alone and dying, the QWOP also missed a lot of sonic waves; they were defintely feeling the pressure.
Game Three:
LGD managed to get two great counters to Phantom Lancer and both the heroes had great starts. Maybe has been playing out of his mind this TI and this game was no different. He and xiao8 combined to get four kills by 6 minutes. They shut down both the bottom and mid lane.
Lina and PL get completely shut down and they have no farm. But LGD don't go pushing high ground, they control all lanes and the jungle for eternity. LGD play like any xiao8 led team has, no mistakes as if they are a team of surgeons. They had a score 15-3 at 13 minutes, then 19-3 at 23 minutes, then 21-3 at 33 minutes. LGD got all the Roshans and poked into Empire's base everytime.
Just look at the score, the dream is real
They did push at minute 36 but were content after getting the tier tower but backed as soon as Empire bought back. However, the final push was as perfect as one can hope for, no deaths, almost no damage taken, perfect initiations from Clockwork and Ember Spirit, Supports standing behind healing constantly and so on. LGD showed how disciplined they are with this 48 minute long game.
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