With a dominant 3-1 victory, the Swedish Alliance continue their winning streak against Virtus.Pro to qualify for the next round of the Dota2CL playoffs. This is the conclusion of Virtus.Pro's run in the tournament.
Alliance and Virtus.Pro faced off during the first Round of Dota 2 Champions' League Season Two playoffs. The best-of-five match would determine the opponent of Natus Vincere in Round Two, while Fnatic and Cloud9 competed for the match against Team Empire. Virtus.Pro came in this match with a historic burden, as they had lost 15 consecutive matches against Alliance (their last victory was in June, before The International 3). Nonetheless, they were unable to lift the "curse", as Alliance took them down once again, but not without dropping the second game. The Russians continue their streak of mediocre results in Europe, with less than five months until the next International.
Game One [Winner : Alliance]
The first game had Virtus.Pro playing with a double-core hero roster with Ember Spirit and Drow Ranger being the main damage dealers of their team. This line-up was based on Ember Spirit's performance, in order to survive the early power coming out of Alliance's heavy push oriented line-up. The laning phase was pretty calm for the Russians, but they were unable to control s4's Dragon Knight and Loda's Luna when Alliance decided to go 5-man mode. With the help of AdmiralBulldog's Blink Dagger, they were able to be extremely agressive, and eventually overwhelmed Virtus.Pro, forcing a 34 minute GG.
Game Two [Winner : Virtus.Pro]
It was time for Virtus.Pro to shine, as they were able to pick a heavy control line-up, able to create some important barriers for Loda's Weaver, the sole late game carry for the Swedes. An impressive performance by Ars-Art on Clockwerk helped Virtus.Pro dominate the early game, but several sloppy teamfights helped Alliance get back on their feet and drag the game late. During the 40th minute, Virtus.Pro were able to pick-off Loda and take down two lanes of barracks, but Alliance fought back and won a 4-0 fight using s4's spot-on initiation. From that point, Alliance attempted to turn the tides and even managed to breach the Radiant base themselves. Nonetheless, the late-game decision making was much better by Virtus.Pro, with the Russians forcing buybacks right when they needed to. In the end, it was a pick-off on Loda that forced the GG by the Swedes, making the game score even.
Game Three [Winner : Alliance]
The Alliance were able to snatch some of the strongest heroes in the current meta, including Invoker and Slark for the third part of the series. Despite the presence of two very powerful early supports on the Russian side, the International 3 champions managed to control the flow of the first minutes of the game, even winning a 4-0 fight with 16 minutes on the clock. Lacking a reliable late-game carry and with Illidan's Naix having little impact in the teamfights, it was a matter of time until Virtus.Pro fell apart. The GG came out during minute 28, as Alliance were finishing off the remaining structures of Virtus.Pro.
Game Four [Winner : Alliance]
The final game was the most dominant for Alliance, who showed no mercy for Virtus.Pro. With AdmiralBulldog controlling his favorite Lone Druid, Akke on his famous Chen, EGM and Loda on Windrunner and Naix, things were looking very grim for the Russians when the draft was done. Their unusual carry Vengeful Spirit strategy did not work out as planned, as Alliance's rotations crippled the item dependent hero. It took 25 minutes for the Swedes to seal the deal, with the score being 14-4 and Virtus.Pro having almost no chance of getting back into the game.
