Written by: ReiNNNN
Group B of The International 3 Eastern qualifier will begin today with Rising Stars first going up against MiTH.Trust and ViCi Gaming versus Mineski to follow. The day will end with one team making it to the playoffs before the tournament go on a break for G-1 League offline final. We will be providing you with live report of the games.
Bracket
Today's matches
[Match 1] Rising Stars vs MiTH-Trust
Game one
Both teams started game one with relatively unorthodox lanes, MiTH.Trust ran Kunkka and Shadow Demon mid against Rising Stars' Keeper of the Light and Weaver. The mid lane proved effective for the Thais as they took First Blood on the Weaver through the Disruption - Torrent combo. However, MiTH left RS' Alchemist to free farm and xiaotuji opted to max Greevil's Greed.
5 minutes into the game, MiTH rotated the Dark Seer to the off-lane in order to stop Alchemist from getting a 10 minutes Shadow Blade. Besides that, the mid lane combo was able to kill the Weaver for the second time and also Visage. As a result, Weaver still had no boots by 10 minutes.
After a quiet laning phase period, a big 4v4 fight erupted on the bottom lane as Anti-Mage, Shadow Demon and Lina went on the Clockwerk. Rising Stars' rotation was quick but not quick enough to save the Clockwerk resulting in a 2-1 trade in favour of the Thais. Even with the Greevil's Greed maxed out, the Alchemist only had 200 more gold in net worth than the Anti-Mage.
In a quick turn of events, Rising Stars was able to take a team fight off the Thais through an extremely long range hook from the Clockwerk. After killing off the Kunkka, Rising Stars proceeded to bang on MiTH's tier-one tower which resulted in the death of the Alchemist after the Kunkka bought back. Anti-Mage did not join any of these skirmishes and continued farming away on the bottom lane.
The Chinese team managed to even MiTH in kill score after winning two small team fights on the middle lane. Making his debut to the fight, Anti-Mage was able to scare Rising Stars half hp heroes away and MiTH hastily sneaked a Rosh. Anti-Mage carelessly gave away the Aegis when he was hitting the tower under the eyes of three RS heroes. MiTH eventually took down the tower without much of a contest.
After 30 minutes of passive play, both teams were finally ready to go against each other in a full fledged war. Unfortunately for MiTH, these wars always ended up in favour of Rising Stars due to great plays by mofi on the Clockwerk, hooking 2-3 supports most of the time. Unable to continue fight 5v5, MiTH went for the split push but it was no good either with the Clockwerk and Nyx Assassin on the side of the Chinese.
With the momentum from the two teamfights won, Rising Stars was finally on the move, walking past the river and initiating on the Thais. It was not long until the Chinese overtook the Thais in economy. A team fight in the Radiant jungle at 40 minutes pretty much sealed the game for Rising Stars as they slowly rolled into MiTH's base for the win. Attempts were made to counter-attack but Alchemist was just too big at that point for MiTH to continue battling.
Game two
After a disappointing performance against the Alchemist last game, MiTH allowed Rising Stars to once again pick it up but this time, they have devised a plan to face it. MiTH ran their offensive trilane of Sand King, Rubick and Mirana, three very strong point stunners, and it was effective in stopping the Alchemist from farming freely. At 5 minutes, Alchemist had 9 creeps while Mirana had triple of that.
The First Blood of the game came 4 minutes into the game as Jakiro was walking towards the bottom rune to scout it out. The twin-headed dragon met Sand King along the way and he was chain stunned - off a 5 seconds arrow from the Mirana - to death. From that point onwards, the trilane was lost and the Chinese found themselves dying over and over again trying to farm the lane.
15 minutes into the game, MiTH capitalized on their heavy advantage and assembled as five walking up and down the map. After taking down all the tier-one towers, MiTH moved into the Rosh pit but was met with heavy resistance from Rising Stars. However, the arrival of the Chinese was just mere seconds late and despite getting off a three-man Reverse Polarity, MiTH was able to clean up four in exchange for one and an Aegis.
By 22 minutes, Rising stars has lost all their outer towers and the barracks on the top lane. The gg quickly came as MiTH pushed into RS' base through the bottom lane.
Editor's note: MiTH's draft and lanes really won them game two. Putting three point stunners on the off-lane really stopped Alchemist from farming and that propelled themselves into mid-game. Nice arrow by Lakelz at 4 minutes.
Game three
For the third time in the series, Rising Stars have opted for the carry Alchemist and MiTH responded to that with picks highly similar to the one in game two. Rising Stars placed Alchemist on the top lane against MiTH’s trilane and once again, could not get much farm before the rotation from Dark Seer came.
Despite having a stronger trilane, MiTH's overconfident was their downfall as they were constantly baited into chasing Visage or Alchemist during the laning phase of the game. Soon enough, MiTH found themselves in a great deficit, trailing Rising Stars by 7 kills and 6,000 in gold, 10 minutes into the game.
The kill score was increased to 16-7 in favour of the Chinese after a few skirmishes which went terribly sour for MiTH. On the contrary to the terrible start MiTH was having, they were still able to pick off the Alchemist a number of times without utilizing the Smoke of Deceit.
However, MiTH's last beacon of hope was lost when Rising Stars went into the Rosh pit and MiTH, in an attempt to defend the Aegis, gave away an Ultra kill to Queen of Pain. It was all downhill for MiTH from there on as Rising stars continued to build their lead through one-sided teamfights. A few wars later, Rising stars took down all of MiTH's outer towers, a Roshan and shortly after, the game.
Editor's note: Rising Stars' lack of stuns was shocking but what even more shocking is how many bad fights MiTH was willing to take in this game.
[Match 2] Vici Gaming vs Mineski
Game one
The offensive trilane of ViCi manages to get the first blood on Drow at the bot lane after the second attempt shortly followed by another kill on Rubick. Mineski's Drow is having a hard time but otherwise Mineski are rotating very well, and retaking some of the advantage lost by finding a few kills all over the map. They even manage to bait out a Wisp + CK tp and turns it around. However, ViCi regains their ground at the next engagement, killing everyone in Mineski except Drow who is farming at another lane. Mineski with Drow plus another four ranged heroes are set to do some really heavy right click damage late game. They catch Cty and picks him off quickly before his team can react properly. Cty even buys back but have no means to get back into the fight so he can only watch his team mates die from afar.
Batrider initiates on the Gyro and pulls him out but a great Disruption from Cty saves him for the time being and puts ViCi in a position to take the fight. The teams trade evenly but that includes buy backs from Mineski, ViCi is now in a decent position. Mineski keep putting up high pressure fights though. ViCi eventually takes down Roshan uncontested at minute 31. Gyro is getting big with more than double the amounts of last hits Drow has. After a longer stalemate period, ViCi finds a few kills just outside Mineski's base and takes down the melee barracks. However, Mineski buys back with Templar Assassin and takes down everyone except Visage and then proceeds to take Roshan. Drow's build of picking Stats over Frost Arrows as well as getting MoM seems to finally be paying off. But more than that, the Templar Assassin is really a force with the damage buffs from Drow.
An amusing moment before minute 50 occurs when Wisp relocates forwards into the enemy heroes but fail to tether Gyro along with him, so he essentially starts the fight alone without Gyro and dies. They manage to save their other heroes though. ViCi continues to have the most presence during the fights with a huge Gyro aswell as always spot-on Disruptions by Cty. The case of both TA and Drow being very single target focused is causing to be a problem with the Phantasm and Disruption illusions. ViCi Gaming, after another Aegis + Cheese pickup, takes down the bottom set of barracks and the game is over after one final engagement.
Game two
The offensive Life-stealer based trilane of ViCi gets the first blood, similiar as last game. With the trilanes going up against each other, the game features lots of early kills, most of them going towards ViCi with ZSMJ being off to a very good start. Most of Mineski are struggling but the Puck from Jay is doing well. With a stable Puck, Mineski can always turn around a few mid game fights. Despite the shaky start, Mineski are trading decently, finding kills due to big plays and synergy. ViCi is keeping the advantage up and growing though, despite Mineski's attempt to turn it around, they simply lack the farm. There are a total of 30 kills at minute 20. After that the game gets static though, not much collision on the map. ViCi takes down Roshan and eventually moves out to the top lane where they capitalize on a small mistake by Puck, taking him down followed by trading the Lina for the Gyro. ViCi proceeds to take down the last tier 2 tower of Mineski.
A really extensive dives goes down when ViCi runs through the tier 3 tower in an attempt to kill of KotL, but he gets forced staffed times. ViCi still commits though, and Puck manage to mess up Magnus blink + ulti combo by hitting him with an orb followed by Rubick stealing the wifted Reverse Polarity. The fight gets messy and ViCi loses it but Mineski can't manage to kill off ZSMJ twice (he had Aegis) and are forced to fall back. A similiar engagement happens mid later on when Batrider pulls Lifestealer back. Eventually they take down another Rosh and finally takes down the mid barracks pretty straight forward. When attempting the bottom barracks though, it's the same kind of fight all over again. ViCi gets forced to take a fight far into the base and loses it flat out. The game feels decided though, it's always ViCi doing the pressuring and they are so far ahead at this point of the game. Eventually they land two Reversed Polarities on top of Mineski and can breach highground and destroy the bottom barracks. After some smaller pick-offs here and there, ViCi finishes the game and moves on to the winner's match.
[Match 3] Rising Stars vs Vici Gaming
Game one
In this crucial make or break game, Vici Gaming opted for a hard carry Sven on the offensive trilane completed with Leshrac and Visage as his support. Their lane opponent was Weaver who did not had the best time farming against a well Sentry'd trilane, especially not when a well placed stun by Sven claimed First Blood on the slippery hero. Matter became even worse for Rising Stars as they continued feeding the Sven in an attempt to help out the struggling Weaver. Kill score at 10 minutes was 4-1 in favour of VG.
Rising Stars, on a deficit of 5,000 gold, roamed around the map in order to break VG's formation in which their heroes have not even left the lane they began with. Despite killing off three of VG's heroes on the top lane, a quick teleport from Queen of Pain ensured a team wipe for VG as the Sven and Lone Druid kept farming away.
Soon enough, Vici Gaming grouped up as five and roamed up and down the map trying to finish off the Rising Stars outer towers. After taking down two towers, VG moved into the Rosh pit and also secured the Aegis without much of a contest. VG continued pushing down the middle lane but it was met with a strong force. A long back and forth later, VG came up on top due to their superior gold advantage and experience.
Game two
Rising Stars came into game two banging as they attempted to score the First Blood on the top lane although the plan was thwarted due to quick reactions from the Rubick and Visage. Rising Stars fell became more passive after the failed gank and went into plan B, to let their core heroes farm before taking on anymore fights. This left room for Vici Gaming to be more aggressive and eventually it was ZSMJ's Gyrocopter who was able to pick up the First Blood on the Lone Druid.
In a battle for rune gone wrong, Magnus somehow Skewered himself on top of a cliff in an attempt to dodge Puck but the Faerie Dragon was brave and Orb'ed himself up on top. Reverse Polarity was used to survive but this ended up pulling the neutrals Centaur on the cliff, in which it nearly killed the Puck. However, due to quick reaction speed and clutch play, the Puck was able to survive the Magnus and Nyx onslaught and picked up two kills along the way.
The questionable Io pick Rising Stars line-up did not work out well as Relocate after Relocate failed due to their heroes not able to compliment it well enough. With that said, Rising Stars draft failed and Vici Gaming was able to build up a significant gold advantage over the next 20 minutes before pushing for the win. Rising stars was unable to defend with their underfarmed core heroes.
Vici will be joining LGD.cn and Rattlesnake in the playoffs of The International 3 East qualifier.
