Photo courtesy of Starladder
Invictus Gaming swept through LFY 2:0 in the lower bracket TI8 Chinese qualifiers to clinch their spot at the most important Dota event of the year.
iG was the only team invited to the TI8 Chinese closed qualifiers, having successfully retained their roster which was locked in February.
They barely were able to squeak through the group stage, being thrust into a three-way tie with LFY and Keen Gaming for the final two spots in the playoffs and just one game ahead of Young Dumb.
In the playoffs, iG looked to be in much better form. They dominated over FTD 2:0 and took one match off the new sensations of China —Team Serenity. Having been dropped in the lower brackets, they then faced off against LFY for the final remaining spot for the region at TI8.
The first match was a complete crushing victory for iG. Perfect games by Lin 'Xxs' Jing and Fu 'Q' Bin gave them the upper hand and most likely destroyed LFY's confidence to some degree. The second match started off a bit more even between the two teams until about 21 minutes in. Two back to back bad team fights for LFY was all iG needed to secure the advantage and run away with the lead. In just over 40 minutes iG had claimed their victory.
The sister teams of Invictus Gaming both qualified and played at The International 2017 main event, however, only IG, carried by Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei made it to top six, while IG.V finished in the bottom four. With BurNIng deciding to step out of the competitive scene following TI7, Invictus Gaming welcomed Yang 'END' Pu to the team. With disappointing results in the first half of the season he and Ou 'Op' Peng left the team, making room for Sun 'Agressif' Zheng and Sun ' Srf ' Runfa.
Since the addition of the two players, Invictus Gaming showed improvements in their DPC qualifier placements, appeared at DAC and China Super Major (albeit with lower results than they had hoped for) and took first place at WCA 2017.
Invictus Gaming’s roster:
Sun 'Srf' Runfa
Sun 'Agressif' Zheng
Lin 'Xxs' Jing
Ye 'BoBoKa' Zhibiao
Fu 'Q' Bin
