Written by: ReiNNNN
Rattlesnake took down Dreamz and First Departure in the lower bracket of Group A to qualify for TI3 East playoffs. Group B will begin tomorrow with four fresh teams ready to rumble before we shift our attention to G-1 League offline final.
RattleSnake played four games today and won all four to join LGD.cn in the playoffs of The International 3 Eastern qualifier. Both teams have not met in the groupstage.
Rattlesnake's draft was very surprising and exciting today as they had a change of strat in all four games. Rattlesnake started the day facing Dreamz but did not need much effort to take down the Filipino team in straight games.
The real highlight of the day was when First Departure once again drafted Io for Galvin 'Meracle-' Kang. Despite Meracle's brilliant performance yesterday with the hero, Rattlesnake seemed fearless to go against the Io - Chaos Knight duo today, picking up the Drow Ranger and grouping early in the game.
In the second grudge game against First Departure, Rattlesnake picked up a greedy four core strat but it somehow worked out well. Although they couldn't push into First Departure's base with a 20,000 gold lead due to March spam, the Chinese team grinded out and eventually took the game.
Unfortunately for Dreamz and First Departure, they have been eliminated from the tournament.
LGD and Rattlesnake will play in the playoffs of TI3 East after the G-1 League offline finals on the 24th of May. Group B will begin tomorrow with four more teams ready to compete for the two playoffs spot.
Bracket
Today's matches
[Match 1] Dreamz vs Rattlesnake
Game one
Another exciting game to kick off day two as Rattlesnake picked up the Doom and Alchemist as a measure to counter Dreamz's Queen of Pain and Weaver. Besides that, Rattlesnake also ran an unorthodox Clockwerk and Dark Seer offlane which was rather inefficient in stopping the Alchemist from farming. Things looked even better for the Pinoys after Queen of Pain picked up a solo kill on the Doom
The first rotation of the game came on the first night. After reviving from his death, he teleported to the bottom lane in hopes of catching one of Dreamz's two supports off position. However, great map awareness and positioning by the Alchemist, Lina and Shadow Demon maded Doom waste his ultimate without any intentions of diving the tower in the first place. Dreamz up by 1,000 gold at 10 minutes.
Despite the early advantage they had, Dreamz did not capitalize on the lead and farmed at a much slower pace compared to the Chinese. Dreamz's heroes continued to get picked off and Rattlesnake quickly built up a 3,000 gold lead off a 5-0 kill run. Dreamz continued to take bad fights all throughout mid-game making Alchemist's choice to go for the Battlefury as first item questionable.
Soon enough, Dreamz lost all map control apart and Rattlesnake was able to roam freely on the Radiant side of the jungle. 21 minutes into the game, a 5v5 skirmish broke out on the bottom lane and although Dreamz got the initiation they wanted, the Filipinos were unable to kill any of Rattlesnake's players.
29 minutes into the game, Rattlesnake had enough of Dreamz and assembled to push into mid lane. Their attempt was quick and easy as they focused the Alchemist down in a matter of seconds. It did not take long for Rattlesnake to go for a second push on the bottom lane. Dreamz fought without their Queen of Pain - picked off outside their base - and got annihilated. The game ended at 4-25 in deficit of Dreamz - 2 of the 4 kills coming before the 3 minutes game time.
Editor's note: Dreamz draft did not have a proper initiator apart from Alchemist's stun. Considering that the Alchemist is the initiator AND the ONLY carry for Dreamz, the loss was inevitable for the Pinoys.
Game two
Dreamz gave Rattlesnake a lot of credits in game two, banning three of the heroes the Chinese used in game one. Due to that, they gave Rattlesnake the Lifestealer first pick and they coupled it with Queen of Pain to perform the Infest bomb initiation. The game was relatively quiet all throughout the laning phase as both teams were reluctant to go on each other. Soon enough, the Chen and the Sand King smoked towards mid and although their kill on the Dragon Knight was successful, Juggernaut spilled the First Blood due to himself being over-aggressive.
As the game headed into 10 minutes, Rattlesnake was already 4 kills up and has built up a 5,000 gold lead, mostly attributed to farming. Things were looking even more dire for Dreamz as they were unable to even kill one squishy support hero in teamfights.
Capitalizing on their whopping 15,000 gold lead at 20 minutes, Rattlesnake got the Roshan and went in for the final push. With that said, Dreamz has been eliminated from The International 3 qualifiers.
Editor's note: Dreamz's respect ban for Kabu's Clockwerk probably lost them the game. Lifestealer and Queen of Pain are horrible to face against, not to mention the Dragon Knight.
[Match 2] First Departure vs Rattlesnake
Game one
First Departure picked up the Io and Chaos Knight combo for the second time against Rattlesnake and the latter responded by drafting two snowball heroes, Shadow Fiend and Drow Ranger. Even more bizarre, instead of the safe lane, First Departure ran the duo combo on the mid lane which was not very effective against Magnus and the Shadow Demon who rotated mid.
Another rotation to the top lane by the Shadow Demon secured the First Blood on the Dark Seer. Off a great body block by the Shadow Demon, Dark Seer fell for the second time as soon as he returned to the lane to the hands of the Shadow Fiend. First Departure had enough and moved Dark Seer mid.
From a pure farming perspective, Rattlesnake is doing slightly better overall although it is questionable as to why the Visage is competing creeps with Drow Ranger on the off-lane. Despite the two deaths earlier in the laning phase, Dark Seer had the highest farm in First Departure while Luo's Shadow Fiend had almost twice his farm. Besides that, things were even more grim on the stats sheet as the Shadow Demon was only 1,000 net worth lower than First Departure's Lone Druid at 12 minutes.
Similar to their plans yesterday, Rattlesnake quickly grouped up as five going into mid-game to avoid getting picked off by the Chaos Knight - Io combo. As five, they mauled through First Departure's outer towers before going into the Rosh pit.
Although Rattlesnake was leading in gold by 10,000, they were reluctant to push and this created chance for First Departure to stage a comeback. In a weird turn of events, the Singaporeans somehow managed to walk up Rattlesnake's high ground through the bottom entrance and took down the barracks before dying.
Rattlesnake was not gonna allow what happened to them yesterday to recur. A big fight on the top lane showcased the Chinese's superior farm and Rattlesnake was able to mow down the Chaos Knight. Shortly after, Rattlesnake pushed mid and took down the first barracks. Rattlesnake's second push sealed game one.
Editor's note: AMAZING play by Lanm at 21:36, using his illusion to stop the creep waves from advancing to prevent Io from using his Tether on them to escape.
Game two
Rattlesnake, known for their drafts, made creative picks in game one with five heroes that could potentially solo lanes while First Departure opted for a standard mid-game dominance strat. For the second time today, Rattlesnake ran the Dark Seer and Clockwerk on the off-lane to go up against the Singaporeans' trilane. The annoying lane forced First Departure to ward their own jungle to stop them from pulling.
After a quiet laning phase, First Departure once again found themselves on the backfoot, trailing Rattlesnake by 5,000 gold although the jungling Tinker was farming up quite a storm. The first big engagement of the game happened in the Dire jungle in which Rattlesnake was able to kill off four of First Departure off a well-positioned Vacuum and Wall of Replica from Dark Seer.
Both teams fell back to farm after the engagement although Rattlesnake was the aggressor, farming across the river. Their aggressiveness cost them 4 deaths when their heroes were caught out of position. Just as First Departure was about to catch up on score and experience, Rattlesnake mounted for a push on the top lane. Although they were unable to push initially due to March spam from the Tinker, the slow siege worked with Juggernaut taking a big chunk of March damage. Rattlesnake retreated shortly after.
After Kabu managed to pick off the Tinker with an invisibility rune. the Chinese team moved into the Rosh pit but was met with high resistance and a Tinker buyback. Despite landing the four man Reverse Polarity, First Departure lacked the damage to burst down these heroes nor do they have the AOE skills to apply damage to the masses. Rattlesnake used Meka and Pipe to turn the fight around. They secured the Aegis after that.
Despite the 20,000 lead in gold, Rattlesnake could not take on First Departure in their own base head on due to March spam. 20 minutes of farm later, Rattlesnake applied split push and finally took down the unrelentless young Singaporean team. Rattlesnake will be joining LGD in TI3 East playoffs.
Editor's note: "Four core legit strat", says Rattlesnake.
