One more regional qualifier for The International 6 has ended, with Europe deciding its second team attending the main event and the Wild Card participating squad.
In a story both twisted and beautiful at once, Alliance and their coach for Manila Major, Troels 'syndereN' Nielsen have both reached the qualifiers playoffs stage. The only problem is that syndereN also made it with his own team, Escape Gaming. The two faced each other for the first time in a best-of-three scenario yesterday, in the opening series of the playoffs where Alliance came out on top and sent their coach to the lower bracket.
However, Escape managed to defeat two of these qualifiers, Fantastic Five and Ad Finem, in the lower bracket to claim their tickets to Seattle and a rematch against the Swedes. Although everyone would think they've figured out Alliance by now, it’s clear that from all the teams that got to play Alliance in the last couple of days that Escape Gaming should actually be the ones with the most intel on the reunited TI3 Champions due to syndereN’s time spent with them during the Manila Major training and actual event. That alone came as a real challenge for Gustav 's4' Magnusson drafting against his coach and brought a breath of fresh air in Alliance’s options despite a few signature picks that were almost inevitably going to happen.
Game One
The first game of the series started with an early push strategy from Alliance, who got their hands on Broodmother and Terrorblade, with Escape drafting a strong team fight line-up built around Faceless Void and Winter Wyvern with a small hero distribution surprise. The Void was actually played off lane by Maurice 'KheZu' Gutmann, while Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu went with Timbersaw in the safe lane where he forced Broodmother to abandon the lane. While Henrik 'Admiral' Bulldog Ahnberg had to find his farm in the enemy jungle, Timber got free farm and took down fairly fast the tier one tower bottom lane freeing his supports who started to roam and helped the other two lanes to be pushed fast.
Alliance found themselves cornered and forced to defend the tier two towers, crucial objectives that needed to stay up for better Roshan control as they were playing on the Dire side of the map. However, they lost the battle and Escape got full map control, as well as an Aegis secured for Faceless Void at the 39 minute mark, and looked ready to siege Alliance’s base. But just as they felt confident enough to go to the high ground, Jonathan 'Loda' Berg completed his BkB 44 minutes into the game and was finally able, along with the Broodmother, to make the difference in the base defense.
The game went into its very late stages, packed with adrenaline, as Escape outmaneuvered the Swedish legends and bit by bit took down two lane of barracks. However, when they were close to securing the mega creeps Loda almost single handedly mustered the last defense and wiped them out. He immediately after swapped his Manta Style for a Divine Rapier and went with the entire team for the GG push. With Max 'qojqva' Broecker’s Invoker down for more than 60 seconds and no buyback available, Alliance marched to mid lane as five, took down the tier three tower, and before the Invoker respawn timer they went straight for the Throne and claimed the victory without touching any of the Radiant barracks.
Game Two
For the second game of the night syndereN prepared a very odd draft with no synergy. He chose to go again with Faceless Void but had no real burst damage to secure the Chronosphere kills, and even more, he also drafted a mid lane Lone Druid who is almost incapable of doing any sort of damage with his Bear while Chrono is up. Nevertheless, Alliance had a four melee hero line-up which served Escaped Gaming’s draft perfectly.
A lost team fight by Alliance in the Escape jungle boosted the carry Necrophos farm who went with the deadly Veil of Discord - Dagon combo and became a killing machine with every engagement. With at least one hero on the lines for more than one minute, courtesy of Necro’s ultimate, Alliance couldn’t properly defend high ground, lost two lane of barracks before the 30 minute and Escape reset the grand finals to a best of three.
Game Three
Determined to seal the deal fast, Alliance drafted a full five man push line up with Nature’s Prophet, Brewmaster and Shadow Shaman, all sustained by Dazzle’s heals and Juggernaut’s Healing Ward. A draft designed also to counter Escape’s Tinker split push potential and to annihilate the ganking threat from the Night Stalker.
However, Escape tricked Alliance with the lanes distribution and ran a safe Tinker tri lane, sending Medusa mid to face s4’s Brewmaster. Only five minutes into the game Escape was sitting on a 3-0 kill advantage and heavily pushing the bottom lane. Recognizing the momentum syndereN’s team was building up, Alliance gathered as five at the seven minutes into the game and took down the mid lane tier one tower with Shaman’s Serpent Wards, while continuing to force team fights in which they came on top. Instead of a very possible early Blink Dagger to help in the initiatation department, Shadow Shaman went with a luxury Aghanim’s Scepter first item followed by a Refresher Orb. The two sets of Serpents and a high ground push with the Aegis on Juggernaut allowed Alliance to regain the game series advantage.
Game Four
In the potential last game of the series both teams built heavy team fight oriented line ups, Escape bringing in the carry Necro once more but this time paired with a support Kunka while Alliance secured the Frost Chain into Chronosphere combo.
With such great team fight drafts on both sides the game was a continuous back and forth affair where the map control and the gold advantage was settled around Roshan spawns. Escape made a priority on having a Gem of True Sight to catch Bulldog’s Weaver, but Slardar didn’t manage to survive in almost any of the fights and a total of four gems were lost in the 52 minute game. Alliance had an overall better map awareness and displayed great coordination in their engagements as well as sustainability provided by early Mekansm and the Frost Armor from Lich. They went with a good balance between defensive and damage items on all the heroes. Echo Sabre- Linken’s Sphere on Void, Pipe- Octarine Core on Tibersaw and a full damage build on Weaver is what put them ahead and brought them the TI6 qualifier spot after a big absence at the last year’s International.
Escape Gaming will have another chance to claim a TI6 main event spot as they are one of the four teams advancing into the Wild Card qualifier.
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