picture courtesy of PGL
After two days of gruelling group stages, the teams were set for the round of sixteen.
With no life lines available and elimination on the cards for four teams today, the Kiev Major main event got under way with Invictus Gaming going up against Mousesports. iG were definitely considered the favourites but could the Greek boys pulled out the same performance that they did at the Boston Major and make their way to the grand finals?
Game One
Mousesports grabbed a quick first blood with a really aggressive start, pushing three heroes into the Radiant jungle to claim the kill. Mouz continued to play on this in the first two minutes, claiming another two quick kills in succession. By ten minutes iG were starting to make their way back into the game, finding kills – but their opponents were taking control of their jungle – starving them from a lot of precious farming opportunities.
iG’s opening seemed to come at around twenty minutes just after Mouz had claimed an aegis. Lin "Xxs" Jing on the Magnus managed to net a great Reverse Polarity and secured two kills for his team. A few minutes later, iG found a massive team fight going in their favour, which opened the door for them to push down the tier one and two towers in the bottom lane and claimed a lot of map pressure.
Thirty minutes had passed before iG moved high ground mid and claimed the tier three tower, but the pressure from Harris "SkyLark" Zafeiriou on the Beastmaster in the bottom lane forced them back to defend the base. They began to take their foot off the pedal for a while until forty minutes, where they took down four from the Dire line up. However, buy backs from Mouz quelled the pressure and ensured that they would claim an aegis for themselves.
But it was too little too late for the Greek boys as, iG pushed into their base and with fifty one minutes passed - and a Rampage for Xu "BurNing" Zhilei's Juggernaut, claimed victory in game one of the series.
BurNing's Rampage
Game Two
Another quick start from iG saw them claim first blood as they took three heroes mid to get a kill on Zhang "Q" Yi. They managed to keep the pressure up in the mid lane, continuously killing Ou "Op" Peng on the Lina in the opening five minutes. With ten minutes passed, Mouz had a solid lead in the game with 5-2 on the scoreboard. iG uncharacteristically attempted to then contest a Roshan and were completely team wiped by the Radiant who proceeded to claim the aegis.
Mousesports had taken complete control of the map, with all tier 2’s taken in their favour, they started contemplating the high ground take. With another aegis in hand Mouz dropped the mid lane tier three tower, but iG managed to make a defense of their barracks and pushed down mid to claim a small tier teo tower objective. The game began to stagnate as Mouz backed off and waited for Roshan to respawn but with a new aegis in hand, they would look to finish off the game.
The high ground defense from iG stood firm as they kept their barracks alive and continued to farm as much as possible. But Mouz managed to push in and claimed the melee barracks before backing of with a few deaths. A few moments later Mouz split the map, sending Omar "Madara" Dabachach on the Lycan to drop the barracks in the bottom lane while the rest of them distracted iG in the top lane.
After forty-five minutes and iG holding their base for as long as possible, Mousesports to break their defences and force out the GG, giving them victory in game 2 and taking the series into a third and final deciding match-up.
Game Three
The first series of the Kiev Major’s main event had already seen some amazing plays and with it being tied at 1-1, neither team would want to be eliminated at this early point in the tournament.
The game started a lot slower than the previous two with first blood only falling at seven minutes as it went the way of iG this time round. But the game opened up a lot after this point and by ten minutes the score line was 3-3. iG were definitely looking to take control of the map as they dropped all three tier one towers in quick succession. After twenty minutes, with aegis in hand, iG made a high ground push attempt which was met with a stern defense from Mouz – which gave Madara, on the Phantom Lancer, more time to farm.
Thirty two minutes in saw Mouz going for a quick pick off to help them claim some map control, but iG managed to turn the fight around completely in their favour and proceeded to push down the mid lane barracks. Not to be outdone by this, Madara split up and pushed down the bottom lane tier three tower for his team. But iG were not going to sit back and moved in to destroy the Dire’s bottom lane barracks too a few minutes later and looked ready to close out the game.
With iG moving to the high ground to claim the final barracks left standing they managed to rip through the Dire line-up and forced out four buybacks. But this was not enough to stop the Chinese team and after forty five minutes passed, iG ended the game.
After a splendid display of Dota 2 from both teams, iG claimed a 2-1 victory over their opponents, sending them into the next round at the Kiev Major. Unfortunately for Mousesports, their run would not end the same way as it did in Boston as they exit the Major on the first day.
With the first game producing so much action, the rest are sure to be just as amazing – there are still three more series to be played today, so make sure you keep up with everything here.
