Mental strength and perfect execution of their game plan were the key factors that allowed CDEC Gaming to dominate Cloud 9 in The International 5 second quarter finals match.
Game One:
Cloud 9 chose to ignore CDEC in the drafting stage focusing more on their own strategy which was to get a full push lineup, but the Chinese youngsters read their intentions perfectly and surprised Envy’s team with the way they laned their heroes.
The game started with a classical unorthodox Cloud 9 move, with b0ne7 (Nature’s Prophet) teleporting to the enemy base and getting the courier killed right after the game starting horn. That crippled CDEC’s Bounty Hunter as he ran out of regen and he was left with no dewarding options which forced him to play defensively.
Even so, Agressif on Gyrocopter had a perfect start, winning his lane with early kills on both Envy and b0ne7 which gave him huge advantage and forced Cloud 9 to an early five man DotA. With their core heroes way behind in farm and the supports too underleveled to make the difference in teamfights, Cloud 9 lost teamfight after teamfight, and tower after tower, 15 minutes in to the game the score being 2-13 in CDEC’s favor.
At the 20 minute mark Cloud 9 with a fresh Mekansm on Razor finally managed to win their first teamfight and secure a Roshan Aegis for Envy but CDEC were not to impressed with the bold move and managed to kill C9’s carry twice before any important damage was dealt to their towers. Ten minutes later they overwhelmed C9, breached the Radiant base and took the first game of the series.
Game Two:
Second game of the series started much better for Cloud 9 who countered both Phantom Lancer and Bounty Hunter CDEC’s heroes with a last pick Zeus for Fata and also the early laning phase went in their favor. But only eight minutes into the game an internet problem occurred in KeyArena and a lengthy pause interrupted the game.
Once the game resumed CDEC smoked as four and managed to win a game changing teamfight as Cloud 9 lost four of their heroes allowing the Chinese to take a free Roshan kill as well.
From there on CDEC continued to somehow take Cloud 9 by surprise with every smoke gank ending in their favor. Outplaying and out maneuvering Cloud 9, the wild card contenders secured the top six place at their first International experience.
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