DK, the sole Asian team to compete in MLG Columbus is doing Asia proud as they mow down tournament favourite Natus Vincere in the second semi-finals of MLG Columbus. Na`Vi will finish in the 3rd-4th position alongside Sigma International who was eliminated from the tournament by Speed Gaming International earlier today. DK will now face Speed in the grand final of MLG Columbus for the title.
Both DK and Speed met one another yesterday and Speed upset the Chinese giants to qualify for the playoffs. Many suspect that DK may have thrown the game just to eliminate Alliance but judging from the fact that they have to go against Na`Vi in the semis, it seems unlikely that they did it on purpose.
In case you are wondering how many viewers were watching DK versus Na`Vi, here is a tweet from Adam Apicella, Executive Vice President of MLG.
@FuZZyDOTA considering the French, Chinese, twitch, MLG, and Dota tv #s we are near 400k I think
— Adam Apicella (@MrAdamAp) November 24, 2013
Match report
Game 1
Na`Vi put a lot of effort in shutting down Kunkka (Mushi) early on, rotating the Crystal Maiden in and had Alchemist (Puppey) camping the middle lane. While the supports were too busy trying to kill Kunkka, Clockwerk took down the safe lane Medusa because his supports weren't nearby. Medusa went down for a second time shortly after due to himself overextending and also his supports not being nearby to secure Clockwerk his second solo kill and level six. Immediately after, Clockwerk rotated mid and helped Kunkka kill Windranger. Clockwerk's dominating streak did eventually end with four Na`Vi heroes surrounding him in the Radiant jungle.
With the space created by the Clockwerk during the laning phase, Gyrocopter was able to farm safely and Relocate to gank Na`Vi's heroes, especially Medusa and Windrunner, all over the map. By 14 minutes, Medusa has already died 6 times and could hardly go out to the lane to farm. Na`Vi did get some revenge kills but it was nothing compared to the little amount of time and effort DK took to find pick offs.
The huge decider of the game came from DK's smoke gank at 18 minutes. Although they were detected as they walked into the Radiant jungle, Na`Vi still could not muster enough firepower to take down a single DK hero and the battle ended with a 4-0 trade in favour of DK. It was more or less over from that point onwards as Na`Vi had to clump up to farm while DK controlled the rest of the map. DK waited patiently for the Roshan to spawn and secured the Aegis before assembling up as five on the bottom lane in an attempt to end Na`Vi. However, due to a missed hook from Clockwerk, DK backed off and decide to wait for the third Roshan. Meanwhile, Medusa has farmed up a storm and was at 34 minutes, second in net worth.
DK rushed into the Rosh pit as soon as it spawned and left the Cheese for Kunkka and Aegis for Gyrocopter. DK opted to split push Na`Vi, placing Kunkka, Doom and Clockwerk on the top lane and Gyrocopter and Io on the bottom lane. It did not work out too well and all five of DK moved towards the middle lane instead. They did manage to pick off Medusa and forced out the buy back and with their BKB all cooled down, DK went uphill with relative ease and took game one.
Game 2
Na`Vi ran Storm Spirit and Lich on the middle lane but it was not as effective in shutting down Dragon Knight who was bottle crowing from level two onwards. It was the Clockwerk who drew the First Blood against the Venomancer who overstepped his boundaries and got Cogged. At the same time, DK killed Bane on the bottom lane and narrowly missed the kill on Gyrocopter who escaped on single digit hp.
The first 5v5 engagement of game two occurred at 8 minutes on the bottom rune spot. Clockwerk got caught off-position by Dragon Knight, which led to a full 5v5 engagement and DK was able to outlive Na`Vi and trade two for nothing. After the short engagement, the game went dormant as DK constantly avoid fights and pick offs while Na`Vi continuously try to find kills. As a result, DK was slowly but surely pulling away from Na`Vi in terms of gold. Too eager to fight, Na`Vi started buckling under the pressure and made mistakes which led to the death of Storm Spirit, Bane and eventually two towers.
Na`Vi was constantly grouped up on the middle lane in case a fight breaks out but Dragon Knight and Weaver are constantly farming the top and bottom lane while Na`Vi continued wasting their time. Due to the split push, Gyrocopter was forced to head top to defend their tower and DK seized this opportunity to take down Roshan. Clockwerk tried to go for the steal but his hook was just a tad bit short from hitting three heroes. The Aegis was given to Weaver and DK took the opportunity and pushed the middle tier two. The tower got denied and a fantastic hook by Clockwerk separated Windrunner, Venomancer and Timbersaw from Weaver and Dragon Knight, leading to DK carries' death.
Weaver and Dragon Knight's death brought Na`Vi new found confidence as they skipped from one tower to another, taking it down without a contest from DK. 43 minutes in, a big fight finally broke out and while everything seems to be going Na`Vi's way, a suicide by Timbersaw gave new breathing room for the Weaver and DK ended up winning that fight. The game once again went into dormant mode and Na`Vi simply had enough. XBOCT opted for the Rapier and with that purchase, DK could no longer engage Na`Vi, especially after a wrap around DK tried to do. XBOCT bought his second Rapier and Na`Vi took their time, waiting for the Roshan, slow sieging until 64 minutes when DK jumped in. Game was over quickly with Gyrocopter going to town with his two Rapiers.
Game 3
Either team was at this state one game away from the final. Or on game away from elimination. Natus Vincere picked up Lone Druid as their fifth and put his leash into the hands of Dendi, to go up against Mushi's Outworld Devourer mid. Furthermore, Na`Vi picked Dark Seer, a hero who have fallen off a lot lately, from being a top pick to underperforming and not living up to his true potential in a lot of games, eventually almost vanishing from the scene. Another forgotten hero is Leshrac, picked up by DK and played by LaNm. A quick rotation from the supports granted the first blood to DK, killing off Dendi just parts of a second before iceiceice dropped in the bot lane. Iceiceice managed to juke around in the trees long enough for his team to claim first blood before his inevitable death.
The supports of DK kept pressuring mid while Na`Vi's supports did not keep as mobile. Both offlaners were left to farm and level somewhat freely after the first minutes of the game. Similar to the second game, both teams played passively while trying to farm up their core items. Also similar to last game, DK managed to secure a few kills and shut down a few kill attempts. The push oriented pick from DK also granted them a couple of towers, Na`Vi had to give up without a proper shot at defending. The tower standings were four lost for Na`Vi at minute 19 while DK still had all of theirs up. However, XBOCT had his Linkens and Dendi was approaching his Relic. In fact, all three cores of Na`Vi had a Hand of Midas whereas Devourer, Luna and Leshrac had one of their own on DK's side. Let the greed begin.
DK's greed game was heavily quickened by the fact that they mashed down all outer towers within 24 minutes, causing their support heroes to get more equipped than the counter-parts on Na`Vi's side. BurNIng opted for a Butterfly right after his BKB, something that reduced the effiency of the Spirit Bear as well as the Weaver in the middle stages of the game. XBOCT was forced to farm towards an MKB after his Linken. After Dendi was caught with his hand in the cookie jar in a sloppy attempt to take down the top tier one of DK's towers, DK went on to take Roshan.
Utilizing the Aegis, DK attempted to push into the base of Na`Vi, going in through the top lane. Showing off great ability control and positioning, DK elegantly won a fight at the base entrance, managing to stay alive with almost all of their heroes, however on very low hit points. The multiple saves from Astral Imprisonment and Force Staff kept DK alive while Na`Vi lost their folks. However, buybacks from the Radiant heroes threatened the Dire heroes and LaNm's Leshrac suicided to ensure his Bloodstone would heal his team mates long enough for them to take out the melee barracks and make it out to safety. Na`Vi were already massively on the backhand of the game, DK had been controlling the tempo from minute one and showed no plans stopping to do so. Satisfied with what went down with the top barracks, they repeated the process. This time through the bot lane, this time an even cleaner fight for them, managing to catch XBOCT and Dendi both in a Leshrac stun while BurNIng glaived them like no tomorrow. Just prior to that, Na`Vi managed to get BurNIng low but a friendly Force Staff combined with Satanic quickly put him right back into the fight. This was the demise of more Radiant barracks.
Na`Vi kept going even with two lanes of barracks down, but after losing a fight near their ancients they tapped out the "GG" and DK moved on to the finals, where they will rematch against Speed Gaming.
