Out of four Chinese teams participating at MarsTV Dota 2 Winter League, EHOME has secured their first LAN victory, taking a clear 3-0 victory in front of the tournament favorites, Evil Geniuses.
For most of the EHOME players this is their first Victory and a very strong signal given to the western teams that Chinese Dota is not stagnant as everyone would have thought.
After a very dominant performance in the lower bracket final versus OG, Evil Geniuses were looking like finally found their stride in Wuxi, China and it was hard to foresee what was about to happen in the MDL grand finals.
Game One:
The innovative drafts of EHOME have reached the next level with the opening series of the best-of-five grand finals where an Ursa last pick, despite playing on radiant side, took EG totally by surprise.
Although they tried to outmaneuver EHOME with an aggressive trilane, EG served the first blood to the claws of Chen "Cty" Tianyu and rapidly lost the control on him. Not afraid to go with an unconventional item build for professional games, Cty rushed Mask of Madness followed by Diffusal Blade and an Aghanim’s Scepter and unleashed the beast on EG.
Very good awareness from EHOME made Peter "ppd" Dager’s jungle scouting efforts futile, losing his life every time he would dare to cross the river which made the pickoffs impossible to get for the boys in blue.
Cty was without a doubt the hero of the match and the most important factor of EHOME’s 33 minutes victory in game one.
Game Two:
In the second game EHOME managed again to toy with the master drafter ppd and tricked him for a last pick Puck for Syed Sumail "Suma1L" Hassan in response of a last pick Weaver for Cty.
But EHOME’s strategy wasn’t relying on the Weaver and in fact they displayed a five protect Lone Druid’s bear tactic. It’s not the first time at MDL when we witnessed an Alacrity Bear taking objectives but this time around all EHOME’s heroes made sure the bear stays alive in any circumstances and has all the buffs necessary to ensure easy high ground pushes.
Despite losing a huge team fight at the 15 minute mark, allowing EG to secure a Roshan kill with aegis placed on Arteezy’s Morphling, EHOME were still able to outplay the North American team and they were the first to breach high ground.
42minutes was all EHOME needed to build all the big items and to advance one game away from their first Dota 2 title in the new formula.
Game Three:
For the last game of the grand finals it was Hu "Kaka" Liangzhi’s turn to shine on his support Earth Spirit coupled in the offlane with eleven’s Enchantress.
Very early aggressive plays that involved tier one dives with almost every wave of creeps from the rolling man slowed down Arteezy’s progress quite heavily but at the same time Suma1L’s Lina was dominating her mid lane which delayed the Viper Mekansm for a while.
Even so, the Enchantress pick for EHOME started to prove its efficiency with trivial early Roshan kills for Cty’s Morphling which also boosted her Aghanim’s purchase.
This time EG was not ready to fall without a fight and managed to drag the game long enough for Clinkz and Lina to get big items online.
Good discipline in high ground defense team fights repelled EHOME’s push and the comeback hope was real for EG at the 40 minute mark when they finally found a Chronosphere opening near Roshan pit to take down two EHOME cores. For the first time in the game EG were able to push EHOME’s high ground but only to take a tier three tower mid lane.
Kaka’s Aghanim’s Scepter was almost never used in EHOME’s high ground defense but only the fear factor that the item brought into the game made EG to be extremely cautious with their actions and as a matter of fact they were never able to take down the racks mid lane.
Although Cty’s Morphling was not exactly super farmed he was once again the man making the difference in a last Roshan team fight where EG lost four of their heroes, Universe being the only one capable to escape while EHOME had Their Morph and Enchantress surviving. Left without buybacks EG tried to hold the base with Universe but Cty crushed their hopes and EHOME took the third game and the $124,000 first place prize money.
