DreamHack Winter found it's Dota 2 champion in Wild Honey Badgers, who went up against FnaticMSI in a thrilling grand final, that went over three games. The title is worth converted €5.430.
The Scandinavian mix-team, who attended the tournament despite having not been invited, fought their way through the BYOC qualifier and dominated in group stage and semi finals. WHB then found their toughest challenge in the grand final, which their opponent FnaticMSI almost won after two games. SyndereN and co turned the series around in a thriller however and followed up strongly in the third set.
Would one have to guess a winner after observing the performances from both sides in the first of the three games, nobody would have considered WHB to lift the biggest check in the end. Wether it has been nervousness because of the big stage or an excellent performance by Fnatic can be argued about, as the Serbians steamrolled over their opponent from the first minute onwards.
The success was based on Mitch's Potm who made Seabadger's life at top lane a living hell, after having gone up four kills to zero against him. His team mates had in the meantime worked out a decisive lead on the other lanes as well, securing a situation, in which a comeback was impossible. The call of resignation eventually came after approximately thirty minutes.
All hope seemed gone for WHB going into the second game, as the first big fight was already lost before the creeps even started to march down their lanes. Fnatic had outnumbered the Scandinavians on top lane with g0g1's Spectre drawing first blood and a second kill to top it all off.
Since then however, WHB managed to rehabilitate and returned to performing as seen in the earlier rounds and better. Team captain syndereN can easily be called man of the match, as his Prophet was found whereever his team needed him to either turn seemingly lost fights around, or seal off kills, that would not have been possible otherwise. During the entire mid-game WHB attempted several times to turn in their performace for desired barracks, which only worked out partly. Fnatic defended dedicatedly and slayed three pushes down, before their Spectre reached a level of strength, that would usually leave no opponent a chance in the minutes to come. The barracks on mid lane fell to WHB's pleasure however.
Holding the carry-advantage in hand nontheless, Fnatic now tried to win the game themselves, after having pulled back an unreachable-seeming gold-difference in the Scandinavians favour. Upon entering the Radiant's base however, the Serbians overextended heavily, losing a Spectre equipped with Heart of Tarrasque, Radiance and Aegis. As immidiate response to the first won team fight of the entire late-game, WHB gathered all heroes on top to destroy the lane's barracks and following up with the bottom ones. The move worked out, as Fnatic got picked off one by one, after desperately trying to make the misfortune go away.
WHB had by then tied an almost lost match, which should give them a psychological advantage in the third encounter to come up. The game to determine a Dota 2 champion, started out evenly matched with Fnatic securing the feared Anti-Mage as carry, while the Scandinavians first-picked Night Stalker instantly. Needless to say after having watched the second game is, that Prophet was first-banned by Fnatic, so they would not have to fear surprising appearances again.
After big advantages getting turned around by both teams before, the third game did for a long time not see a clear leader. Fnatic's carry was not able to farm as well as the Night Stalker of WHB however and as time progressed, even fights started to lean further and further towards the Scandinavians. Despite fighting well, Fnatic could not overcome the power of the opponent's heroes who did not pull ahead in kills, but destroyed towers. A five-tower-difference was aquired at some points and with Fnatic not taking further initiative, the game steadily came closer to finding it's winner.
We sat in the middle of the action for the last ten minutes, which the following video proves:
With the Corsair Vengeance tournament at DreamHack coming to a close, the final standings are:
1st Place -
Wild Honey Badgers - €5.4302nd Place -
FnaticMSI - €2.7103rd Place -
SK Gaming - €1.6304th Place -
TeamShakira - €1.085The next upcoming tourmanent of Dota 2 will be the $20,000 Star Championship in Kiev, Ukraine (8th until 11th of December).
