After convincing victories over xiao8 and Dendi, Mushi secured the first spot in the Grand Final, which will be played next week on August 8th.
The first round of the solo championship got underway today as eight of the best solo-mids in the DotA 2 world compete against one another. While Mushi stormed through his bracket and booked a spot in the grand final, the lower half of the bracket saw iceiceice defeating s4 while Mu and Ferrari had to wait till Monday to play their tie-breaking Shadow Fiend matchup due to some technical issues.
Quarter-finals
Dendi vs FATA-
| Dendi vs FATA- | ||
|---|---|---|
  Dendi | 2-1 |   FATA- |
Game 1: Lina
Game 2: Gyrocopter
Game 3: Shadow Fiend
The 1v1 solo championship kicked off with an exciting matchup between Dendi and FATA-. In the first game featuring two Linas, with better creep-blocking at lvl 1, FATA was able to use the high ground advantage to harass and eventually claim first blood on Dendi with just one minute into the game. The German quickly capitalized on the level superiority, killing Dendi again two minutes later with the help of an Illusion rune.
The second game was a lot closer as both players' Gyrocopters went for identical skill builds (maxing Homing Missile) and traded farm/harass with one another. In the end, Dendi's superior last-hitting and rune-control proved to be the deciding factor as the Ukrainian took game 2.
The tie-breaking Shadow Fiend game was anti-climatic, though, as Dendi made FATA- to tap out just six minutes in despite not getting any kills or towers. The big gap in CS (33/18 for Dendi and 15/7 for FATA-) was enough to forceout the GG.
Mushi vs xiao8
| Mushi vs Xiao8 | ||
|---|---|---|
  Mushi | 2-1 |   Xiao8 |
Game 1: Outworld Devourer
Game 2: Windrunner
Game 3: Shadow Fiend
As one probably would've expected the Outworld Devourer mirror match was a drawn-out one. Mushi had the early lead with some lucky rune pick-ups and nearly killed Xiao8 when he skilled the Arcane Orb. Xiao8 on the other hand, maxed Astral Imprisonment and that paid off for him heading into mid-game because Mushi would often run out of mana to Astral xiao8 back. As a result, xiao8 had the upperhand the whole game (pushed down the tier-one tower) until Mushi picked up the Rod of Atos. There, he nearly killed xiao8 again but failed in doing so. In the end, Mushi forfeited after dying to Xiao8 in a head- to-head clash.
In contrary to the first game, the second game ended in mere three minutes. Both players traded blows for a fair bit before Mushi picked up an Illusion rune. While xiao8 thought that Mushi wouldn't be able to stop him from walking away at level three, Mushi actually skilled Shackleshot and strapped xiao8 together with a tree. A powershot secured the First Blood. Xiao8 responded by teleporting back to the lane and chased Mushi past Mushi's tier-one tower. He did manage to kill Mushi but died to the tower as a result. A short pause later, the gg was confirmed.
In game 3, Mushi was able to take control right from the get-go with superior last-hitting. The Malaysian had his hand on all the runes with observer wards, tripling the CS of Xiao8 at one point and keeping his commanding lead throughout. 11 minutes in, Mushi successfuly landed all 3 razes to secure First Blood and forced an automatic GG from Xiao8.
s4 vs iceiceice
| s4 vs iceiceice | ||
|---|---|---|
  S4 | 1-2 |   iceiceice |
Game 1: Magnus
Game 2: Axe
Game 3: Shadow Fiend
The son of Magnus himself met his maker in game one, as iceiceice's aggressive playstyle allowed him to take control of this mirror matchup with s4 going for a more lasthitting-oriented build with one point in Empower. With the help of a lane ward, iceiceice was able to land a perfect Skewer into a Reverse Polarity and got First Blood. The gap was too much for s4 to recover and he was taken down one more time shortly after and forced to call GG.
s4 was able to come back in the RNG-driven Axe mirror matchup in game two. A few timely runes and spins were all it took for s4 to land two Culling Blades and took the match to a game three.
iceiceice's aggressiveness again proved to be the deciding factor in the SF mirror. He was able to out-lasthit s4 from the get-go and even drew first blood at level 2 just by right-click harassment. The gap proved to be too much for s4 to overcome and just a minute later, a dive from iceiceice gave him a second kill and a spot in the semifinal round of the solo championship.
Ferrari vs Mu
| Ferrari vs Mu | ||
|---|---|---|
 Ferrari | 1-1 |  Mu |
Game 1: Templar Assassin
Game 2: Shadow Demon
Game 3: Shadow Fiend
In the battle of the Refractions, Ferrari decided to go for a Blade Mail while Mu chose Helm of the Dominator as their first core item. Both players went back and forth until Ferrari took the first tower 25 minutes in. At the 32-minute mark, Mu was able to draw first blood following a chase from his tier-2 tower all the way to the river. Ferrari immediately bought back and chased Mu again all the way to his base and scored a courier kill with Mu's bottle on it. Ferrari capitilized on Mu's lack of regen, forcing him to run back to base, and ensuring he is free to take the tier-2 tower and the win after 40 minutes.
In the second game, first blood went to Ferrari as he spammed Shadow Poison as well as using the CS advantage he already obtained with an early illusion rune. However, an overconfident dive by Ferrari later on caused him to take too much tower damage and Mu was able to use his poison stacks to finish him off. With the advantage, Mu proceeded to overpower Ferrari with poison stacks again and took his second kill, and the game at the 9-minute mark.
It has been announced that due to a problem with Ferrari's computer, game 3 of this matchup will be postponed to a later date.
Semi-finals
Dendi vs Mushi
| Dendi vs Mushi | ||
|---|---|---|
| Dendi | 0-2 | Mushi |
Game 1: Puck
Game 2: Windrunner
Game 3: Shadow Fiend
The Puck mirror went exactly as predicted as both players traded Orb/Phase Shift. However, Mushi managed to maintain superior last-hitting throughout the early minutes. The turning point came at the 9-minute mark when Mushi successfully chained his combo and drew first blood. Dendi tried to go for a revenge kill a few minutes later but backfired as Mushi turned around and scored his second kill.
The Windrunner mirror had a similar start to the previous game. This time neither player managed to get a last-hitting advantage as the CS remained even throughout the game. It was the item choice, however, that decided the outcome. Probably over-confident after scoring first blood, Dendi decided to go for a Dagon and inexplicably spent another 1300 to upgrade it later on. Mushi had a much smarter approach, however, as he opted for a Necronomicon 3. Having destroyed the tier-1 tower early on, the Necronomicon proved to be too much for Dendi to handle as he saw his tier-2 tower slowly dwindling down to low health. After getting killed at the 31-minute mark and tier-2 tower at 300 health, Dendi had no choice but to call GG.
