dota2-banner
All News
article-headline
Dota 27 years agoIsaac "RedCrayon" Celis

MDL Autumn: OG 2-0s IG Vitality for upper bracket start in playoffs tomorrow


headline and title image: eslgaming

Despite the absence of Miracle, OG's cerebral drafting and overall solid play proved too much for the young iGV squad, as the Chinese team moves into a lower bracket start in tomorrow's playoffs while OG goes straight to the upper bracket.

Game One

From the get go, it seemed that game one was fated to go OG's way. They went with a first phase Drow and Oracle pick, looking to capitalize on both the aura and Fly's skill with the support hero. IG Vitality (IG V) decided to go with something safer, denying Jerax's Earth Spirit in the first phase. Along with the ES, iGV decided on a very heavy melee lineup, which Tal 'Fly-Simba' Azik countered with a late phase Axe. The Axe proved to be disastrous for iGV's lineup and along with an Io for Jesse 'JerAx' Vainikka, the OG draft looked very scary going into the game.

Looking to start off strong, iGV started the game with a five man smoke up the top lane, invading into OG's Dire jungle, looking for an early advantage that they so needed. This ended up in disaster however, as OG picked up an early four kills trading only one. Going off the momentum, Anathan 'ana-' Pham picked off Xu 'Sakata' Zichen's Jugg mid with a rotation by JerAx. IG V answered back shortly after, with a two man rotation from Su 'super' Peng and Gao 'Dogf1ghts' Tian Peng to counter-kill ana-. With all the action on the middle, Zhang 'Yuno-Paparazi' Zheng's Terrorblade got relatively free farm along with Gustav 's4' Magnusson's Axe, who got just as much in the jungle via the stacks left for him by Jerax. Meanwhile, Johan 'N0tail-BigDaddy' Sundsteign's Drow got some great farm as well, the Tidehunter doing little to deter him in the safelane.

While the early game looked erratic, the advantage was clear for OG as they took the first Rosh at around 12:30 and the last of IG V's T1 towers a minute after. With their T1's gone, IG V itched for a big teamfight to swing the match back in their favour and almost found it at around 17 minutes with a Blink-Ravage from Yang 'InJuly' Xiaodong. It was S4 on his Axe, who countered with a huge four man Call that sealed the fight for OG, as they took the four along with a barracks. Off that, OG systematically took down the last of iGV's outer towers. IG V in a last ditch effort, smoked up to counter OG's second Roshan at around 25 minutes, but it was in vain as OG's lead was too strong. iGV called GG shortly after, looking to rethink their strategy for game two. 

Game Two

Looking to shore up their weaknesses in game one, iGV picked up the Slark early along with banning out the pesky Drow. The Chinese squad supplemented this with a Night Stalker, looking to deny OG's vision throughout the game. OG went with a Batrider first pick for some solid initiation, along with a peculiar Bloodseeker pick to counter the Slark. Along with ana-'s signature OD and an N0tail Void, OG's lineup looked to have some great teamfight and initiation.

The early game went much better fo iGV this time around. Two early kills in the first four minutes for the Chinese squad seemed to signal their resolve from game one. Jerax's Bloodseeker however, remained relatively uncontested and was level five by this fourth minute mark. Similar to game one, action was on the top and midlanes, with eyes on JerAx's Bloodseeker to get something done given his extremely fast jungle levels. A three man smoke from OG at ten minutes signaled the start of OG's momentum as they caught out Papparazi and took iGV's top tier one off that: the Bloodseeker counter to Slark truly showing its power.

As the game transitioned into the middle and later stages, OG found great fight after great fight off the back of their smokes along with N0Tail's Chronospheres, which caught out three to four of iGV each time. Despite this, IG V looked in a much better position compared to game one, with their Slark and Invoker starting to come online. With OG running out of their crucial smokes, the game went relatively passive for a period at around 25 minutes, but went right back to action at around 37, as the two teams smoked up and found each other in the midlane. This fight spelled the end for the Chinese squad as again, N0tail came in with a huge Chronosphere, taking a four for one trade along with iGV's middle barracks. IG V answered back, taking two from OG, but it was the BigDaddy again who proved too much for iGV as he grabbed an Ultra Kill and a few more shortly after, prompting a GG call for iGV at around 41 minutes.

OG move on to the upper bracket of the MDL playoffs tomorrow, where they join EG, Secret, and Newbee. IG V join MVP.Phx along with Vici Gaming and LGD.FY in the lower bracket. 

Author
redcrayon-avatar
Isaac "RedCrayon" CelisLoL refugee. DOTA lover. EE fanboy. Hit me up about anime, dota and anything else you can think of

All Esports

Entertainment

GosuBattles

Account