image source: @Arteezy
Team Secret put away compLexity in the last series of day one to advance in the second round of the upper bracket at Starladder StarSeries i-League Season 2.
Game One
In the drafting phase, Team Secret opted to go for recent popular push strategy heroes, banning out the early game heroes and the common duo Riki and Dark Seer, taking Drow Ranger as their first pick. They followed up the Drow pick with a Shadow Demon and core Mirana, two fairly conventional meta picks, and rounded out their draft with solid initiation and team fight in Tidehunter compLexity answered with a lot of control and teamfight in their draft picks, selecting Beastmaster, Earth Spirit, Slark and a midTiny for Linus 'Limmp' Blomdin to deal with Secret’s push oriented line-up.
Secret began the game with an aggressive smoke into the Radiant jungle, but other than placing a few wards, nothing came of it. They drew first blood two minutes later however, after landing a Shadow Demon Disruption into Mirana arrow combination on Kyle 'swindlemelonzz' Freedman's Beastmaster. Limmp's Tiny managed to hold on his own against Jackie 'EternaLEnvy' Mao's Drow Ranger in the mid lane, but Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev continued to excel on his Mirana, securing another kill in lane and roaming into the jungle to kill compLexity's Beastmaster yet again with the help of his supports.
Team Secret attempted to secure an early Roshan with the help of the Drow Ranger’s damage aura, but compLexity was on to them, and cut their attempt short with a smoke into the river outside the pit, initiating the first 5v5 teamfight of the game. The teams traded two heroes, and Secret had to temporarily retreat. The retreat was short lived as all of Team Secret respawned and returned to the pit to secure the Aegis for EternaLEnvy, which then turned into an early tier two tower push down the midlane.
compLexity wasn’t ready to give up yet , and as Secret prepared to siege their tier three towers, Slark found a pickoff on Johan 'pieliedie' Astrom's Shadow Demon, and Limmp's Tiny was able to track down Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov’s Enchantress, as well as Sam 'Bulba' Sosale’s Tidehunter stalling out the game which provided compLexity a brief moment of respite.
Secret backed out but continued to pull farther ahead in net worth, by taking advantage of their map control. 25 minutes in, they pushed again and took down the last tier two tower of coL and continued their siege, catching their opponents off guard with a Blink-Ravage by Bulba, and killing off the Tiny twice and the Slark once, allowing them to easily take both of the top barracks. As compLexity quickly fell to the magic nukes of Arteezy and the right click attacks of Puppey, the “GG” was called at 29 minutes.
Game Two
The drafting phase of game two kicked off with Team Secret selecting the same first bans, and compLexity deciding to target the dangerous Faceless Void and Drow Ranger. Secret then selected a mid Arteezy - Ursa and safelane EternalEnvy - Morphling to lead them to victory, while coL set themselves up nicely by taking a defensive support combo of Io and Dazzle to lead into a carry Huskar pick later in the draft.
Puppey did an excellent job controlling the early game on his roaming Elder Titan, allowing Envy to practically free farm the top lane on his Morphling, and grab the first tower and first blood of the game five minutes in. Arteezy had less luck on his mid Ursa however, and was forced out of lane into his jungle by Limmp’s Huskar quite early in the game. compLexity drew even a few minutes later on the kill score, as Rasmus 'Chessie' Blomdin's Weaver rotated to secure a kill on Morphling, and the Huskar found a pickoff on the Shadow Demon outside the Roshan pit.
After a lot of early rotation, the game settled down, with both teams taking turns farming and split pushing, occasionally trading support kills, but avoiding major team fights. compLexity found another pick off on lEnvy at the 20 minutes mark, and pushed the top lane of Secret all the way to the top tier three tower, but Puppey’s organization of the high ground defense was excellent, and Elder Titan and company were easily able to hold off the high ground push until Morphling respawned.
Due to the nature of their hero picks, Roshan was incredibly important to both teams and prioritized as the midgame dragged on. After some posturing around the pit area by both teams, CompLexity was able to snag a quick Aegis despite Bulba's Tidehunter’s best attempt at a blink steal. On the back of a Huskar with Aegis, the NA team looked to siege Secret’s highground yet again. However the split push of the Morphling was not to be overestimated, as with no one back to defend, EternalEnvy finished of compLexity’s top barracks as they were caught out around Secret’s base. compLexity’s siege turned into a disaster, as Elder Titan’s echo stomp stalled out their push, and left unaccounted for, Team Secret’s Morphling and Ursa yet again split pushed down the entire bottom barracks as well.
After this, compLexity looked shaky, but held off a 5 man push from Secret on their mid racks, killing Arteezy's Ursa, and forcing the Morphling to temporarily retreat. The Secret rat push would not stop however, so compLexity decided to commit to a base race. At the same time EternalEnvy finished off the mid barracks to secure mega creeps for his team, compLexity powered down the mid lane on Secret's side of the map, taking both the tier four towers and bringing the ancient down to half health. The miracle was not to be however, as the return of the Morphling in the nick of time helped to kill off coL's last ditch effort as the ancient ticked down, and as Secret pushed down the middle lane to end once and for all, compLexity, out of buybacks and preasured by mega creeps on all sides, conceded.
complexity now drops to the lower bracket of the Starladder StarSeries Season 2 tournament to face F.R.I.E.N.D.S, while Team Secret will face off against Digital Chaos in round two of the upper bracket.
