Photo of Vici Gaming by ESL.
Vici Gaming came back from an one game deficit to defeat Alliance for the winner bracket final spot in D2L finals. Alliance's cheese strat worked in game one but failed to win the all-important game three.
Starting the day with a cheesy Tusk pick up, Alliance took game one by storm and sent echoes around the world that they are ready to fight the Chinese. After the loss, Vici Gaming went back to the drawing board and came up with an all-push line-up for game two and that resulted in the destruction of all of Alliance's outer towers in mere 12 minutes. It took Vici Gaming a while to break high ground but they were able to equalize the series at 1-1 and forced game three.
In the deciding game of the series, Alliance tried a cheesy survival strategy and that failed horribly considering they have no real lockdown nor any firepower to counter Vici Gaming's high damage assault. Wiping Alliance for the third time, Vici Gaming did not have to scratch the tier-three to secure their spot in the winner bracket final of the tournament.
The next game on the D2L schedule will be LGD.cn versus Fnatic. Prior to the tournament, Fnatic announced that their player Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu could not attend the tournament due to health issues. A few hours after that, Fnatic had another unfortunate news in which their solo mid player Kai 'h4nn1' Hansbueckers was reported to be stuck in Germany, unable to make it to Vegas. Jimmy 'DeMoN' Ho and Kurtis 'Aui_2000' Ling have been brought in as stand-ins for the team. LGD.cn is currently the 86% favourite to win the match in our Gosubet.
Alliance vs Vici Gaming: A Loda vs rOtk tale
Game 1
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To kick-off the first game of D2L, Alliance switched it up and ran Tusk as part of their offensive trilane and allowed Admiralbulldog's Viper to farm on the safe lane. The early phase of the game was all about the top lane where a nicely placed Ice Shard by Loda resulted in the death of the Luna. Not realizing how offensive Alliance could get, Luna returned to the top lane only to watch his teammate, Venomancer, and subsequently himself killed over and over. 7 minutes into the game, the game had spiralled out of control for Vici Gaming as both the Venomancer and Luna have both died thrice just merely trying to stay in lane.
Alliance applied even more pressure on the top lane when they rotated Dragon Knight in. Vici Gaming responded with rotation from Outworld Devourer as well but that did not help the situation because the Chinese team found themselves unable to kill anybody due to Living Armor.
At 11 minutes, Viper finally decided to join his teammates on the middle lane and the Swedes continued with the rampage, picking off Vici Gaming left and right. Vici Gaming did the only thing they could, that is to split push but Outworld Devourer quickly met his demise with Tusk and Io relocating in. By 16 minutes, Sylar is bottom three in net worth and the game was one fight away from Vici Gaming surrendering. That fight came after Vici Gaming spotted Alliance taking Roshan and with Super's OD charging into five, he was brought down almost immediately and the fight as expected, went to Alliance. rOtk was the first to call the "gg".
Game 2
Apart from Loda going to the offlane, it is business as usual in game two. Bounty Hunter, played by rOtk, went for the Boots of Speed build and had massive problems staying on par with the Lone Druid who constantly harrassed him. Not feeling productive in the lane, he walked towards middle under the cover of Shadow Walk but he was revealed with a coincidentally placed Sentry Ward as Shadow Demon and Chen was moving in to kill Dragon Knight.
On the other side of the map, Weaver was taking a far bit of harrass from Vici Gaming's triple range combo. At 5 minutes, the Pugna was able to get the last hit on their first tower while a quick teleport in from the Puck resulted in the death of the Rubick and the Venomancer. Vici Gaming quickly regrouped and pushed the bottom tier-two and subsequently the towers on the other lanes. 12 minutes in, Alliance found themselves naked as Vici Gaming took down their final outer tower.
With Mekansm on the Pugna, Drum of Endurance on the Bounty Hunter and a fresh Black King Bar on the Dragon Knight, Vici Gaming launched an assault on Alliance's tier-three and after two minutes of unrelenting attack, they finally destroyed the tower. Vici Gaming waited for a minute before they went high ground. Once the attack started landing on Alliance's barracks, the Swedes struck back with a couple of buybacks and repelled the push from the Chinese, keeping their barracks alive at 400 hit points.
Vici Gaming's second push took down Alliance's middle barracks and they quickly moved towards the top lane. This time, Vici Gaming killed the Puck before the battle started and took down the top tier-three before retreating. Minutes later, Vici Gaming launched another attack on the top lane and Alliance was unable to keep their barracks alive despite killing four heroes. At 30 minutes, Alliance's attempt to stop Vici Gaming from taking Roshan number two ended in the death of four of their heroes and the bottom tier-three. It did not take too long for Vici Gaming to finish off Alliance.
Game 3
Survival is the name of the game for Alliance in game three as they picked Abaddon and Dazzle early in the draft. Vici Gaming responded to Alliance's picks by going for a mid-game dominance line-up with Sylar's Lone Druid soloing mid to counter the Outworld Devourer. The early phase of the game was relatively quiet as Alliance had no real
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firepower to initiate a gank while Vici Gaming was happy with the farm the Lone Druid is getting. However, the first real aggression of the game came from Vici Gaming as fy's Enchantress, together with a Troll neutral initiated on Abaddon. A timely used Death Coil by EGM assured Vici Gaming did not get the First Blood although the Chinese did get their first kill two minutes later, a double kill at that.
Vici Gaming's second smoke gank was aimed towards the top lane once again and both Bristleback and Abaddon fell together for the second time in a row. Vici Gaming quickly transitioned the kills into a push but retreated when Alliance counter-attacked with Slardar spearheading the charge. rOtk's Clockwerk was Vici Gaming's first casualty.
Things started looking more and more bleak for the Swedes when a risky push on the bottom lane lost themselves two towers from split push. Desperate to get something going, Alliance smoked towards the Roshan pit in hopes that they could pick some heroes off but an overcommitment to kill the Venomancer resulted in the death of four heroes. After the fight, the small lead Vici Gaming had suddenly turned into a big one and they threatened high ground for the first time at 19 minutes. They retreated to kill Roshan as Slardar respawned.
Vici Gaming wasted no time in destroying Alliance's final outer tower and despite killing yet another four of Alliance inside the Swedes' base, Vici Gaming did not damage barracks nor the tier-three. Vici Gaming knew they did not need to take any barracks for Alliance to surrender. Wiping the Swedes for the third time, Alliance surrendered at 23 minutes.
